“Because his mom walked in on them.”
“No. Way.”
Sean cracks his knuckles. “Yep, it was pretty bad. Aunt Aneeta grew up in a superconservative Indian immigrant family. She was mortified not only that Kush brought a girl back to the house drunk, but that he did it with the daughter of an Indian friend of hers.”
Mrs. Whitson reminds me a little of Mama, but I bet she’s a real tiger when she’s pissed.
“But how could he blame you that he got caught?”
“He blames me for us living here.”
Sammy sticks his head out of the door of the Lodge and yells out to us. “Are y’all coming or what?”
I hold up a finger. “One minute, Sammy.”
He slams the door.
I turn back to Sean. “I still don’t understand.”
“Uncle Eric and Aunt Aneeta made the decision to move us here not too long after it happened. They said it was because I needed a stable home environment, not in a big city. But I think it’s because Aunt Aneeta can’t face her friends in Atlanta. But it doesn’t matter. Kush has found a way to connect it all in his head and now I’m the spawn of Satan to him. It doesn’t help that I’m working in the pottery studio and really love it. It all boils down to jealousy.”
“What a prick,” I say.
Sean shrugs. “Nah. He’s a good guy deep down. He’d been an only child forever. He went from being the only one to being the one in trouble.”
“Is it okay if I don’t like him? He said some crazy shit about me.”
Sean rubs his wayward hair. “Yeah, sorry about that.”
“It’s not your fault,” I say, and smile. “And I’ll try and see him through your eyes.”
Sean smiles and grabs his guitar from behind the seat.
After we’re finished, the Lodge owner calls Sean to the bar.
“What are they talking about?” Sammy’s wrapping up cords and watching the two of them talk. Sean’s nodding in his shy way and the owner claps him on the back every so often.
My hunch is the Lodge owner is trying to book Sean in for a night, on his own.
“I don’t know.” I slide onto the table. “He’s probably asking him where he’s from or something. Small town and all.”
“Is that Whit’s old shirt?”
I look down. “What, I don’t meet your approval in this either?”
“You look nice. I was only going to say I don’t remember that shirt looking so good on Whitney.” He sets the extension cord on the table and brushes his arm against mine. It’s almost like he did it on purpose.
When it’s time to go, he insists on driving me home.
“You sure?” Sean asks, looking between us.
“Yeah, we’re going to the same place, it’s fine. Besides . . .” I look at my phone. “A certain blonde friend of ours has been texting me wanting to know if you are finished with practice.”
Sean grins at the floor.
“Uh-huh. So maybe Daya is fading into memory?”
Sean looks at me. “Do you think C.A. would go out with me? I mean, she’s a junior and I’m only a sophomore.”
I throw my hands up and slide off the table onto my good leg. “You two are ridiculous. And perfect for each other.”
As I follow Sammy out the door, I notice Sean’s typing into his phone.
On the way home, I’m about to tell Sammy my decision. But then I stop. Sure, I can confess the party to Mama, but I can’t confess my theft. It’s a spiral of lies. I know Sammy. He’ll trade one blackmail for a worse one.
We drive on the back roads, cutting across hollers and down gravel roads. Sammy’s like a watchdog, or the neighborhood patrol of drug dealers, always wanting to know who’s up to what. As he drives, commenting on who’s hanging out where and what their particular brand of poison is, I fret. There’s got to be a way to get out of singing with him. If I’d only told Mama the truth about the party before this mess, then I’d be in the clear. But then Sean wouldn’t have his Gibson.
Ideas swarm in my brain like gum balls. It’s like I’m cranking the silver dial, waiting for the right one to drop into the hole and spiral down the curved shaft into my hands.
Sammy hits the pothole in front of the house and my shoulder knocks against the glass.
“Damn.” I rub the sting as we pull up to Sammy and Whitney’s trailer. But no great scheme knocks loose from the others.
When we park, I get out of the car. Lights shine out from the house. Sammy opens the trunk and starts pulling out gear to take inside.
“Do you need my help?” I lean against the open trunk.
Sammy puts the amp down on the ground. “I was thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“What would you say to sharing the front of the stage with me, and I let Sean go.”
I look up at the night sky. “God, Sammy. Are you serious? He’s an amazing guitar player. He might actually get you some gigs.”
Sammy’s mouth jumps at the corners. He reaches into the trunk for his guitar case and pauses. “Yeah, he’s good enough, but I’m just thinking one lead guitar is plenty. And with you co-fronting the band, it’d be as good as two guitar players.”
“I don’t know, Sammy. Playing with you makes Sean happy.” For some reason I can’t fathom.
Sammy lets go of the guitar and stands, grabbing my hand. “C’mon, Amber. Tell him he’s out. Be my lead singer.” He plays with my fingertips and I pull my hand away. He puts his hand on my hip and steps closer, his eyes intense.
“What the hell, Sammy?” I push against his chest, but he doesn’t let go.
He puts his hand on my cheek and strokes me with his thumb. “God, you are so beautiful, and you don’t even know it. Don’t you want to front the band with me? Think of the places we could go.”
I pause for a second when Sammy steps in and mashes his lips against mine. I try and wriggle free, but he wraps his arms tighter around my waist.
His mouth is all over me, one hand holds me to him, and the other climbs to the back of my head, locking me into his kiss.
I hear the screen door slam and try to push him off of me. “Sammy, stop. Whitney,” I mumble.
Whitney rounds the corner of the raised trunk. “Sammy? Do you need help carrying . . .” My eyes are wide as I stare at her, staring at us.
Sammy jumps away from me. I stagger backward, wiping his spit off my mouth as I regain my balance.
“What the hell!” Whitney yells.
Sammy turns and holds out his hand to her but Whitney charges past him, knocking his hand sideways as she passes it. When she gets to me she takes her palms and smacks me backward toward Mama and Daddy’s.
“I knew it. I knew it.” Her voice is shrill and loud. She keeps coming at me, like she’s going to push me to the ground and stomp me into oblivion, before she suddenly turns and goes after Sammy. “Both of you, you kept saying you were talking about the band.”
Her voice cracks as her anger caves into a high-pitched grief, and then she wheels on me again. “The Sunday school room. The texts. I thought he was pulling you into the drug thing, but this . . .” She buckles and drops her face into her hands, then starts rocking and keening like a wild animal.
“Whitney.” I look at Sammy. “Tell her, Sammy.”
He only flicks his eyes in my direction before returning them to Whitney, who’s still rocking and hiding her face in her hands. “What? I don’t have to tell her anything. She already knows, Amber. She’s known you’ve had a crush on me since you were thirteen.”
I scream. “That’s not true! Whitney, it’s not true!”
“Just fucking go.” Her words fall like ashes. When she moves her hands and looks at me, I take a step back. Her eyes burn with anger.
As I limp across the yard, Giant following on my heels, I hear Whitney laying into Sammy again before Sammy’s car starts up and he guns out of the driveway. When the car bangs in the hole out front, I hope it sent Sammy sailing through his own windshield.
The pleasure doesn’t last long, though. My sister accused me of going after her husband. How can she really think I would do something like that to her? Can’t she see it’s Sammy she should blame?
That night I dream about flying. I’m soaring above the trees and the horizons are spread in every direction. Endless. Possible. I’m a bird of happiness. But nearby, the timpani beat of heavy wings grows louder. The scream of a hawk cuts across the sky. Panic beats in my bird breast. The hawk dives and cuts into my flight. I roll, beating frantic soft wings, and turn. The hawk stares back at me. Its eyes are filled with rage.
I sit bolt upright in bed.
Outside the clouds have gone and pinpricks of starlight shine through the window. I clutch Giant to me and let him lick my cheek.
What has Sammy done?
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
When I walk through the door of her chorus room on Monday afternoon, Mrs. Early gives me a big hug. “Are you getting excited, hon?”
My audition is this Saturday, and there’s still so much I have to do to get ready. I’ve got to type up my paperwork and clean my shoes. Will and I need to practice more and I need to figure out a way to keep my nervous stomach calm.
“I’m more of a wreck,” I say honestly.
Will walks in behind me and stands by my side. He looks at me with a big, wide smile. “You’re going to be great. I know it.”
Mrs. Early beams at him. Then she turns away from us and to the rest of the chorus. “Okay, places, everyone!”
After a couple of run-throughs of the songs we’re preparing for the end of the year recital, Mrs. Early holds up the glass bowl for Show-off Solos. The first name she calls is Will McKinney’s.
I hear him clear his throat. “Mrs. Early, may we sing a duet?”
My eyes skip to his seat and he’s waiting with a wink. Inside I feel the flutter of that butterfly.
Mrs. Early looks up at Will. “What do you have in mind?”
“I’d like to play my banjo and sing one of Amber’s audition songs with her. So she can practice.”
Mrs. Early nods her approval and smiles a little.
Will looks at me from across the room and holds out his hand. Ladies first.
I clomp down the stands. My ankle doesn’t hurt at all anymore, but the doctor says three more weeks in my cast.
We sit in the chairs Will’s set up, slightly turned toward each other. There are only a few inches between my knee and his, but I don’t scoot my chair back. Will doesn’t look at me as he pulls the banjo into his lap and plucks the opening chords for “I Wish My Love Was a Red, Red Rose.” We’ve never sung it together before. It’s only me who’s sung it, and he’s played to accompany me.
Will starts picking the tune on his banjo and sings first.
“I wish my love was a red,
red rose growing in yon garden fair.
And I to be the gardener, of her
I would take care.
There’s not a month throughout
the year, that my love I’d renew
I’d garnish her with flowers fine,
sweet William, Thyme, and Rue.”
He doesn’t look at me as he sings, but the energy between us is palpable, and draws me toward him. It’s a wire, a cord, a ribbon binding us. It’s more than song.
Will stops then, and it’s my turn to sing.
“I wish I was a butterfly,
I’d light on my love’s breast,
And if I was a blue cuckoo,
I’d sing my love to rest,
And if I was a nightingale,
I’d sing the daylight clear,
I’d sit and sing for you, my Will,
for once I loved you dear.”
The song is really for someone named Molly, but just then, singing Will’s name instead felt right. Out of the corner of my eye I glance at him, to see if he’s noticed. I see him smile to himself, but he keeps his eyes focused on his banjo as he sings the last stanza.
“I wish I was up on the mountain
and seated on the grass.
In my right hand, a jug of punch,
and on my knee, a lass.
I’d call for liquor freely and I’d pay before I go,
I’d roll my Amber in my arms, let
the wind blow high or low.”
There’s a loud murmur coming from the chorus in front of us, but I am frozen to my chair. He’s swapped “mountain” for Dublin Town, and my name for Molly’s. Will and I are both looking at our feet but that doesn’t stop me from feeling the way I’m feeling. Like we’re in each other arms. Like we’re connected. Like we just had song sex in front of the entire chorus.
Somebody whistles and yells. “Turn on the AC, Mrs. Early. It’s hot in here.”
She clears her throat. “Okay. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Amber.” She hustles us back to our chairs.
When chorus is over, I walk as fast as I can, even in my cast, to get out of the door first. My face is red, and my heart is doing flip-flops. I won’t be able to say one intelligent word if Will talks to me.
“Amber,” he calls behind me.
I close my eyes for a second and slow down so he can catch up to me.
When he does, Will touches my arm. “That was good,” he says, smiling.
I want to sling my arms around Will’s neck and push him up against the brick wall and press the length of me against the length of him. But instead I manage to meet his gaze and whisper, “Thank you.”
Mama honks the horn.
“I gotta go.”
“Hey.”
“Yeah?” I wait.
“Um. I was wondering . . .” He looks down, shifts his banjo case to his other hand. “Would you want me to come with you to your audition on Saturday? To be your accompanist?”
“You’d do that?”
“I want to,” he says, and opens the car door for me.
I nod and climb into the passenger seat of the minivan.
He slides the door shut and grins before turning away.
It takes a second before I look over at my mother, but when I do, I gasp, “Mama! What’d you do?”
She holds up a hand to her hair, newly colored a rich auburn and styled in long, soft layers. “Do you like it?”
“It looks amazing!”
Her smile is girlish. “Aneeta did it for me.” Since last Tuesday, Mama and Mrs. Whitson have traded recipes, cooked in each other’s kitchens, talked on the phone, and Mrs. Whitson even came to church with us on Sunday. Being around Mrs. Whitson makes me a little nervous, still, but Mama’s the happiest I’ve seen her in years.
“Daddy’s going to be floored.” I can’t stop staring at her. “Hey, let’s go shopping this afternoon. There’s a new consignment shop in town. You need something pretty to match your new ’do.”
“Oh, I couldn’t do that.” Mama shakes her head.
“For me?” I put the tips of my fingers together and bat my eyelids at her.
She pulls the rearview mirror toward her and checks her reflection. When she sees herself, she smiles. “No,” she says, readjusting the mirror. She places her hands firm on the wheel. “I’m going to do it for me.”
We find a parking spot in the town lot and walk the cracked sidewalk to the new shop, “A-Z Me to You Consignments. Quality Clothes at Reasonable Prices.” A couple of ladies we pass on the sidewalk comment on Mama’s hair.
“You sure do like nice, Donna.”
“That color suits you.”
Mama grins and I can tell she’s working hard not to seem too proud, but I like seeing her carry some pride.
A bell chimes when we push through the door. From the back a muffled voice calls out, “Be right there. Y’all look around.”
Sure enough, they have a whole section of larger lady clothes. Lots and lots of nice brands like Lane Bryant and Doncaster, not double-knit stretch-waist pants that Mama tends to wear.
I help look and soon we have an armful of things for Mama to try on. She disapp
ears behind the yellow-curtained dressing room door.
I’m picking through a rack of blouses when a young saleswoman appears. “Y’all finding everything you need?”
“Yes, thank you,” I say.
Mama steps through the curtain, her eyes shining. “Amber, would you look at this?” She’s wearing a cowl-necked blue top and a full print skirt. They look great on her.
“You look gorgeous.”
Mama does a side-to-side twirl. “You think so?”
“Absolutely.” I want to tell her Daddy will think she looks beautiful, too. But I don’t.
Mama tries on a few more outfits and she actually seems to enjoy it. By the time she’s finished, she’s piled up a purse, a couple of pairs of shoes, and four or five outfits. I’m not sure where she’s going to wear all these new clothes, but there’s no way I’m stopping her.
As the young woman rings up Mama’s purchases, she pulls a handful of small white bottles out from behind the counter. “Do you like lotions? Try some of these samplers. My mother sells Body Soft products, if you’re interested.”
Mama slowly flips the cap on a bottle. She raises it to her nose, but the lilac smell hits us both quick. The bottle drops from Mama’s fingers.
It’s the scent.
Daddy’s other woman.
Lilac with a hint of vanilla and spice.
Mama shoves a handful of bills at the saleslady and grabs the bags. “Come on, sugar. Let’s go.”
The saleslady calls after us. “But your change. There’s over three dollars here.”
“You can keep it.” Mama’s mouth is set in a tight line, her expression a combination of resolve, anger, and sadness.
Mama knows. She knows about Daddy’s girlfriend.
I stomp after her, the stupid cast slowing me down. “Mama?”
Mama turns. Her eyes meet mine and in them, pain flashes like the bright scales of a rainbow trout.
My heart breaks in two. “I love you, Mama.”
She nods and takes a deep breath. “I love you, too, sugar.” Her fists clench around her shopping bags before she whispers, “This family. You, your sister, Coby, your daddy. You are my world. You understand? And it is my fight, my job to keep us together.”
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