Lonesome Lies Before Us
Page 26
“Don’t give me co-writing credit,” Mallory said. “If you do, my lawyers will be all over you. It’s your album. There’s no need to add my baggage to something so good.”
As Siobhan had predicted, the city council meeting at the Pereira Community Center was largely a formality. Many people gave heartfelt statements: the mayor, the city clerk, the head of the chamber of commerce, the police chief, the president of the police officers’ association, various citizens supporting local law enforcement. But the decision had already been made. The San Vicente County sheriff was there to answer questions about the transition. It was a long, sad evening. At last, it was moved and seconded to have the city manager enter into negotiations with the sheriff to assume Rosarita Bay’s police services, and the motion was carried by a unanimous vote.
The other item on the agenda, the possible privatization of the library, passed without incident. Caroline presented her argument with her poster boards of charts and graphs, after which Gerry Lowry, reversing his position on LMS, recommended that the city maintain the library’s present organizational structure. This, too, was approved unanimously.
Yadin got back to town just as the meeting was ending. Joe came out of the community center first.
“I still have a job?” Yadin asked him in the parking lot.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe if you stop being such a fuckwit.”
Joe filled him in on what had happened at the meeting. Wall to Wall would be losing its contract to recarpet the police station this summer, but he said he wouldn’t lay off Rodrigo just yet; he’d try to find a way to keep him. Then Joe went home. The Giants were playing the Rockies.
Jeanette walked out of the center with Siobhan. The two women hugged briefly before separating, and as Jeanette crossed the parking lot, fishing in her purse for her keys, she spotted Yadin leaning against the trunk of her Honda Civic.
“What happened in L.A.?” she asked him. “Did the meeting go the way you wanted?”
“Not exactly.”
“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry. What will you do now? Can you still release the album somehow?”
Throughout the drive from L.A., Yadin had asked himself why—all his life—he had been so afraid, why he had been unwilling to take any risks. Had he just made a terrible mistake, saying no to Mallory—another misguided decision that he would forever regret? She had said they could be happy together. Yet Yadin had never been happy, and didn’t know if he ever could be. The best he had ever managed was not to be miserable.
“I didn’t give you an answer last night,” Yadin said to Jeanette. “I think we should get married.”
“You do?” she said, looking up at Yadin’s face. He was so pale and tired.
“Yes.”
She saw Franklin, Caroline, and their children exiting the community center, their daughter skipping ahead, giggling heh-heh-heh. As Jeanette watched them, the clouds overhead shifted with the breeze, revealing a waxing crescent moon, an arched sliver in the sky that illuminated the parking lot with a rolling wave of light for a moment before it was ebbed by another clump of clouds.
All afternoon after leaving the Holiday Breeze, Jeanette had been contemplating what she would do with herself in the coming years. There was nothing holding her in Rosarita Bay. She could eventually transfer to another Centurion. They had hotels in Moscow, Bangalore, Santiago, Vienna, Barcelona, London, Beijing, and Tokyo. Mary Wilkerson had risen from room attendant to director and had worked in various cities and countries. Why not Jeanette? In the meantime, she could sell the Nikon D3100 that Mallory had given to her, buy a cheaper brand, and put the extra money toward a little vacation somewhere, maybe in Europe.
“I don’t think we should get married anymore,” she told Yadin.
“No?” he asked.
They would be together out of convenience, not choice, certainly not out of desire. If she married Yadin, they’d be companions, nothing more. She wished that could be enough for her, but it wasn’t. “Not wanting to be alone isn’t enough of a reason,” she said to him.
Somehow, Yadin had known this would be what she would tell him. She was right, but still, it made him so sad, hearing her say it. “I guess it’s not,” he said.
“See you Sunday at choir practice,” Jeanette said. She got in her car, and as she clicked in her seat belt, she was shuddering. Turning down Yadin, she knew, was the bravest thing she had ever done.
He returned to his house. He took a shower, then switched on the game. As he made dinner, he wondered if he and Jeanette would still go to Costco together after church, as friends, or if they would travel separately from here on out.
He ate and washed the dishes and sat in his armchair in front of the TV, not bothering with the radio simulcast. He would have to figure out where to live. He supposed he shouldn’t regret having to walk away from this house so much. It really was a crappy little place, save for the den.
It was so quiet tonight. He stared at the closed captioning on the bottom of the screen, the words appearing in a staccato rhythm. He shut off the TV and, in his studio, lifted the Martin D-21 Special off its wall pegs. He tuned the guitar and played some chords: C, F, C, F, then C, E7, Am, then Dm and G.
On his worktable was a spiral-bound notebook, the pages blank—the journal he had intended to keep as he tried to follow the movements of his soul, enter the mystery of silence, and instead had talked to Davey and imagined them as grown men, imagined Davey telling him, “I know if you could’ve, you would have saved me, Yadin.”
He played a little more. The D-21 Special sounded different tonight. Was it the guitar, or his hearing? Getting better, or worse. The mid-tones were cleaner, crisper, while at the same time sweeter, with a warmer sustain. On the low end was a throaty resonance, on the high end a shimmer. He could hear the rosewood and spruce vibrating, the filaments of the bronze strings reverberating.
As he strummed the guitar, a new song revealed itself to Yadin—not just a melody or a riff, but the entirety. Humming, he scribbled in the notebook, transcribing lines in a flurry until he was able to get the whole thing down, then inserted a fresh cassette into his TASCAM and began singing the first verse.
Author’s Note
I am deeply indebted to the musician Will Johnson, who took partial lyrics for the three original songs in this novel and gave them life.
For their editorial insights and support, I would like to thank Alane Salierno Mason, Jane Delury, Jennifer Egan, Rebecca Curtis, Don Rifkin, Daniel Torday, Jessi Phillips, and Maria Massie.
For background on the alt-country scene in Raleigh, North Carolina, I relied heavily on Ryan Adams: Losering, a Story of Whiskeytown by David Menconi. Two other important sources were the films Heartworn Highways on Townes Van Zandt and Fallen Angel on Gram Parsons.
I am also grateful to Ross Cashiola, Kurt Wildermuth, Betsy Martin, Rob Arnold, and Marsha Weldon for their assistance.
Many thanks, too, to Ashley Patrick, Will Scarlett, Dave Cole, and Marie Pantojan at W. W. Norton.
also by Don Lee
The Collective
Wrack and Ruin
Country of Origin
Yellow
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by Don Lee
All rights reserved
First Edition
Permission to quote from the song “Picture Cards” by Blaze Foley was kindly granted by Texas Ghost Writers Music.
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows:
Names: Lee, Don, 1959– author.
Title: Lonesome lies before us : a novel / Don Lee.
Description: First edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2017]
Identifiers: LCCN 2017009442 | ISBN 9780393608816 (hardcover)
Subjects: | GSAFD: Love stories.
Classification: LCC PS3562.E339 L66 2017 | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017009442
ISBN 978-0-393-60882-3 (e-book)
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