“You have an uncle Rex?” She glanced between Finch and me.
Finch shook his head. “It’s the name he goes by—the club owner. Everyone calls him Uncle Rex.” His eyes cut to me, squinting like a far-sighted man trying to read small type. “But if you want to play here, I’m the guy you speak with. Not Uncle Rex.”
The hurt on his face was plain as day. “This isn’t about playing. We need a favor.”
His squinting intensified. “And you thought you’d walk in here, ask a favor of me, when we’ve barely spoken in years?”
“I don’t know, Finch. You’re the king of asking for favors and welching on your end of the agreement.”
He looked down sharply, pursed his lips. Frustrated with himself? Shutting me out? We’d yelled at each other plenty since college, me calling him a selfish bastard, him telling me to grow up and forgive him already. More recently, we’d simply turned distant, flat.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, but that wasn’t exactly true. I still spoke with our sister. Not weekly, or even monthly, but we kept in touch, and I’d do anything for her. Fighting with Melody would gut me. But resentment between twins was different. A part of my heart had hardened over the years. Like we’d been conjoined twins, hearts linked, arteries connected, our estrangement deadening the tissue.
His eyes flicked up, a hint of pleading lifting his brow. “It matters.”
That hard place in me cracked.
Gwen stayed mute, letting us do our estranged brother thing, her purse tucked under her arms like it would shield her from our strained reunion.
I hadn’t planned to unleash my anger on Finch, like I hadn’t planned to lash out at Gwen at her mother’s house. Our shared history brought out the worst in me, which meant it needed to be dealt with. No more pretending and running and writing my angst into songs. That journal had led us both here for a reason. It was time to find out why.
Relinquishing my possessive hold on Gwen, I dashed my hand through my hair. “Can Gwen get in touch with Uncle Rex tonight? For her, not for me. She has some questions about a man who came here in the late eighties, possibly her father. And if you have a moment, I’d like to talk.”
Finch was in black slacks and a gray button-down, shiny shoes to match. The consummate professional, who’d done a kickass job bringing this club back to life.
To me, he’d always be the kid who’d shared a tent with me in our back yard, his ghostly flashlight shining on the flimsy blue material as he’d terrorize me with horror stories. He would eat the broccoli off my plate and I’d eat his lamb, his suggestions to avoid staring at food we’d rather burn than touch. Finch would make our younger sister laugh when she’d cry about the braces she’d hated or skinning her knee. He’d made us lightsabers and had rolled me my first joint. Even helped me ride a skateboard when I’d given up.
I was older by five minutes, but he’d been the wiser of us, until he’d slid downhill at the end of high school. Until he’d asked me to do a brutal favor I still regretted.
Until he’d slept with Gwen.
But like with her, during this wild day, the earlier years seemed to outweigh the later mistakes. Gwen was unpacking her mother’s lost luggage, one clue at a time. Facing her demons. I was ready to deal with mine.
Finch scrubbed a hand over his beard and nodded at a round table. “Uncle Rex is here tonight, has his niece and nephew with him. I’ll ask if he can spare a minute.”
After another long glance at me, he moved through the room, stopping to shake hands with people, laugh with some, flirt with others. He worked the stretch between us and Uncle Rex’s table like a bona-fide celebrity. I might be the one with albums and fans, but here, in this jazzy room I’d always wanted to play, he was the more successful brother.
Pride snuck up on me in a fierce jab. Solid. Good. Nice to think of Finch without curling my hands into fists.
Gwen smoothed her hand down my back. “I’m glad you’ll talk with Finch. I hate seeing you guys at odds.”
I hated it, too. It was time to set things right. But the last thing I wanted to discuss with Gwen was Finch. “You told him we weren’t together.”
She snatched her hand from my back. “Why’d you tell him we are?”
She had to be kidding me. I leaned my forearm on the bar, dipped so our faces were level. “I’m sorry, Possum…was I the only one on the floor in your apartment earlier? Did you not feel me inside you? Did I not make you come? Did we not discuss how often I planned to do more of the same later?”
Her lips parted. If the music were quieter, I’d bet I’d hear her whimper. But she said, “Having sex isn’t a relationship.”
“That wasn’t sex. We made love, and you know it.”
“We said seconds—that we’d focus on our time now, not the future. Today’s the first I’ve seen you in nine years. No one in their right mind would call you my boyfriend. That goes against every relationship rule.”
“Then I must be certifiable, because when it comes to you and me, Gwen, there are no rules. We aren’t other people. The second I had my mouth on you, my cock in you, you became mine, and I became yours.”
“You leave in two days.” Her chin wobbled. I didn’t want her chin to wobble. Every minute together was valuable.
I kissed her forehead, pressed a soft one to her lips. “I’ll fly you out to visit me. I’ll come home when I can. We’ll look at a calendar and map it all out.”
“It’s not that simple. I’ve been treading water all night, trying to savor our seconds like we agreed. Not let all these emotions drown me. I want this time with you. I want….” She shook her head as though having an internal conversation. “Honestly? I have no clue what I want. And you haven’t even asked me. But you’re going on like we’re engaged.”
A notion I could sink into. Gwen was it for me. Come hell or high water, or a swarm of locusts, she would be mine. Having her once wasn’t enough. Having her for the rest of my life wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t see it. Because of our history, maybe. Our different lives now. None of it meant a damn thing.
I opened my mouth to say as much, put my heart in her hands, but Finch returned.
“Uncle Rex will chat with you.” His gaze lingered on Gwen’s taut body, every compact inch displayed in her slim jeans and tank top. The urge to punch him returned. To me, he said, “We can talk in my office.”
Gwen was up before I could reply, her purse clutched to her side as she maneuvered toward Uncle Rex, not a glance at me. I wanted to pummel Finch and yell at Gwen until she saw reason. None of it would do me a lick of good.
Gwen
I couldn’t get away from August fast enough. He didn’t understand how hard this was for me, how low I’d sunk after I’d thought I’d lost him for good. If I let him in fully, opened myself to the possibility that we were more than this blip of time and we didn’t work out, the fall wouldn’t be pretty. It would be a free-climbing disaster, a bungee jump without a cord.
You’d have to scrape me off the ground.
I kept my focus on the boisterous round table Finch had visited. Finch. I still hadn’t recovered from seeing him again, those two boys—no, men—side by side. I had never apologized to Finch after our night together, either. He’d gone backpacking. I’d disappeared inside myself. Our coffee hours and library studying had vanished the next year. We’d make eye contact across a room, and one of us would turn the other way. My avoidance skills had been top notch.
Here, all these years later, I wanted to say the things I’d never said. Explain to him how dejected I’d been, apologize for using him. But not with August around. That was a conversation for Finch and me alone.
All that concerned me now was finding my father. Funny how that had become the less stressful aspect of this night. The not-easy/easier problem.
Wigged out on zany adrenaline, I zeroed in on my target.
If a walrus took human form, it would be Uncle Rex. He was a round man with a bulbous nose, his gray eyebrows an entit
y of their own. His handlebar moustache was overgrown, his sparse hair pulled into a frizzy ponytail. He whispered in the man’s ear at his left. The tall man vacated his seat, smiling as he passed me.
Uncle Rex patted the chair. “Finch tells me you’re looking for someone.” His voice was gruff and rumbly, as though he’d smoked a pack of cigarettes and had shouted for an hour.
I accepted his invitation, grateful to sit. My limbs felt heavy. My heart felt heavier after bickering with August. The urge to turn and search him out was powerful, but I gripped my purse tighter, felt the journal tucked inside. “I’m sorry to interrupt your night, but yeah—I’m looking for a man who would have frequented this place in the late eighties. I don’t know his name or what he looked like.”
“Sounds like quite the puzzle.”
I huffed out a humorless laugh. “One I’ve been trying to solve for twenty years.”
“Okay.” He twisted one of the rings on his stubby fingers. “Lay it on me. What do ya know?”
“He came here with a woman, Mary Hamilton.”
He frowned. “The name don’t ring a bell, but most wouldn’t.”
I sifted through what else I’d learned, a clue that could trigger his memory. “She danced at the TASC center, was part of a group called the Sunshine Girls.”
He slapped the table, his eyes disappearing in a happy squint. “Yeah, sure. That babe lit up a room.”
Now my mother had been a babe. Would wonders never cease? “You knew her?”
“I wished I’d known her better, if you get my drift.” He winked.
Attempting to incinerate that visual, I debated what to ask next. How best to figure out who my father was. But the question that escaped surprised the heck out of me. “What was she like?”
“Sweet as pie. Funny. Always making the servers laugh. Said if she didn’t become a dancer, she wanted to be a comedian. Make the world smile. But, man, when she danced?” He whistled. “The whole room watched. Bet she wound up on Broadway, like she planned.”
A comedian. A Broadway star. A girl who’d dreamed of greatness. She’d had high hopes for an exciting future. Heat pricked my eyes.
I’d never forget the day I came home to find my CD collection gone. My mother had trashed them, claimed my music was the reason my grades were poor. She’d hidden my guitar, too. My gift from August. All because my eighth-grade teacher had shown up at our house to explain I had a learning disorder. That I needed visual cues and support at home and school.
My mother’s supportive reply: “She just needs to work harder.”
She’d excelled in demoralizing me back then, but surprisingly, amazingly, for the first time in my twenty-eight years, I wanted to know Mary Hamilton. Something bigger than giving birth to me must have destroyed her spirit. Something to do with my father.
The man I was determined to find.
Doubts silenced my further questions. Turning that stone could unearth a whole whack of spiders. The scary, jumping, hairy kind. I could leave that rock alone, forget this ridiculous quest, but that choice led to more unanswered questions, more wondering, more years feeling untethered. “Did you know the man?” I asked Uncle Rex. “The one she came here with?”
He motioned to a waitress and tapped his empty tumbler. “His name was Ted, I think. Or Tom? She never gave me the time of day, but with her fella?” He hummed a rough, gravely tune. “Those two were hot for each other, but I didn’t know him well.”
Another image I’d prefer to torch. “Is there anything else? Anything you can tell me about him? Where he lived? What kind of car he drove? Was he ever here with other women, or just her?”
“Sorry, doll. The Sunshine Girl drank Long Island Iced Tea. They were always together. You’re lucky I remember that much. Those days tend to blur and I’m—” He stopped abruptly. His attention drifted up, toward the ceiling. “Actually, there was one thing. Forgot about it until now. Another girl looking for him once, asking around. Only remember ’cause she seemed pissed. On a mission to find him.”
“What did she look like? How old was she?”
He clucked his tongue. “Got me there. Sorry I can’t be more help.”
Disappointment set in, but I fought it off. I’d learned a name, at least. Ted or Tom. That another woman in his life had gone looking for him. An illicit lover, maybe? That would explain how a couple falling in love had fallen apart, but it didn’t shed light onto why a suitcase from 1990 had gone missing in 2001, only to turn up in 2018. Still, it was more than I had before.
I sensed someone behind me and turned, hopeful to spot August, eager to share what little I’d learned. It was the tall man whose seat I’d usurped.
Taking my cue, I thanked Uncle Rex and returned to the bar. Finch and August weren’t around. They were likely having their talk privately, a heart-to-heart that hopefully didn’t involve comparing their sexual encounters with yours truly. Sleeping with twin brothers was something portrayed in pornos. It was the worst kind of reality show.
It was also my life, as were these meager clues, and the upsetting conversation I’d had with August. He wouldn’t let the argument go. He was stubborn like that. He’d push and push until I admitted how far gone I was for him. As though that would solve everything.
If he’d seen me after my WTF, he’d know how fragile he made me. I’d built my body since then, reveling in ripping my muscle tissue, letting it repair, grow. Feeling strong made me feel sexy. It also made me feel in control. August made me feel weak. The second I admitted as much to him, the second I claimed him as mine, there would be no repairing that torn tissue.
No protecting my heart when he left.
Ignoring that prospect, I waved down the bartender and ordered a Long Island Iced Tea. Because my mother had loved them. Because she’d sat here and enjoyed this strong drink, underage, dancing and making strangers laugh. I only managed two sips.
I wedged my nose in her journal, had to carefully separate pages that had a tendency to stick together. She wrote about a lookout spot where she and this boy would watch the stars. She’d doodled in a few corners, a simple sun wearing sunglasses, a cigarette dangling from its sunny mouth. It was childish and silly, and kind of cute.
The next page had me pressing my hand over my racing heart:
He gave me my first drink. My first cigarette. My first taste of freedom. He couldn’t believe I had never tried a hotdog and dragged me to the stand outside the club. If my mother saw me bite into that processed meat, she would have lost her mind.
Well, FUCK YOU MOM.
I got ketchup on the corner of my mouth, and he wiped it off. So gently. We stared at each other forever. He must have known I had lain awake wishing for a kiss. Then he did it. He just leaned down…and wow. He kissed me! I didn’t know what to do. If I should open my mouth or drop the hotdog or let him slip his tongue against mine. He was so sweet. So, so, so amazing. I never knew kissing could be everything. That it could fill you up. Make you float. It was better than dancing. And nothing is better than dancing. I didn’t want it to end. I never want us to end.
It mirrored my feelings for August, that deep, searing need to reach for permanence. To make each kiss last. If he made me float the way this mystery man had sparked life into Mary Hamilton, it meant I could wind up broken and bitter like her, too.
11 p.m., 25 Hours…
August
Finch led me up a set of narrow stairs, into his office. He pulled a bottle of Talisker from his desk drawer, set out two tumblers, and poured us each two fingers of the ten-year-old Scotch. “I’m guessing this conversation will go down better with a little lubrication.”
I accepted my glass gratefully and took a healthy sip. The burn streaked through my chest, loosened my neck. “You guessed right.”
We stared at each other. We glanced at our drinks. There were no answers in the amber liquid, no easy way to broach this conversation we’d danced around for nine years.
Finch chose avoidance. “So—you and Gwen,
huh?”
“If I have anything to say about it, yes.” I winced at the edge to my voice. Always challenging with him. Always waiting for him to snark back.
He kept his tone even. “She being her usual cagey self?”
“She is.” Finch understood Gwen’s history, how hard it was for her to trust and let go. It was nice not having to explain it, but it wasn’t the reason we were standing here, making eye contact and glancing away, drinking instead of saying what mattered. I swallowed a measure of Scotch, let the heat of it mellow in my chest, and finally found my voice. “I’m tired of being pissed off at you.”
His shoulders lowered as a heavy breath pushed through his nose. “I’m tired of being pissed at myself, too. I’ve spent a lot of time hating myself, looking for relief here.” He swirled his glass. A sad, defeated movement. “But I can’t change what I did. Can’t give you those years back with Gwen. All I can do is apologize and hope it’s enough. But it never has been, has it? Which I get, in a way. Then I see you with Gwen tonight, that you’ve forgiven her, and…” The pain on his face cut me down at my knees. “Why can’t you forgive me?”
“But that’s the thing. You and me”—I gestured aggressively between us, my voice still biting, always biting—“what you did wasn’t simple. It was calculated. I was desperate back then, worried about Gwen. You saw my weakness and pounced. You used me to get into college, something I still regret to this day. You used me to get close to Gwen, knowing how I felt about her. So I guess I need to know why. If I’m going to move on, I need to understand.”
Hip resting on his messy desk, he stared into his tumbler again. Dark paneled walls accentuated our tension, the expanse broken up by pictures of Finch with famous musicians. The one of him arm-and-arm with Eric Clapton caught my eye. Warmth pressed against my ribs. There was that pride again, hovering below my frustration. Subtle, but still there.
Finch swigged the rest of his Scotch and grimaced. “I’d like to tell you I had some kind of altruistic motivation. I thought I liked Gwen. I actually thought I loved her. In reality, I wanted something you couldn’t have, to come first in something for once.”
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