“Clara?”
“No, your other daughter.”
Tom smiles, though there’s an edge of sadness to it. “Clara has a great voice.”
“She does. I used to beg her to sing with Jesse. Maybe we can get her to do it for you.”
“I’d like that.” Tom looks past me as though deep in thought. Finally, he releases a long breath and meets my eyes. “My dad drank. My mother bore the brunt of it. He never hit her, but he was a hardass. An asshole, really. You did what he wanted, or you were shit in his eyes. And we did it.”
It explains a lot about Tom. Old Tom. I feel sorry that no one told him he was good enough as he was. Or maybe they did, and he didn’t believe it. “Did it work? Was he ever proud of you?”
“More or less. Usually less than more.”
“I’m sorry.”
Tom shrugs. “He spun you around. Confused you. It took the heat off him, and it made us feel like, if only we could do it right, he’d stop. Sometimes I thought I was going crazy. What’s the term, when someone—”
“Gaslighting,” I say. Tom watches me, nothing but empathy in his expression, but humiliation still heats my cheeks. “You can see it afterward, but when it’s happening…”
“I know.”
There’s no judgment, only concern. And something else in his eyes. A glimmer I recognize as fondness, maybe even desire. My heart goes into overdrive. Imagining is one thing, reality is another, and I am not ready for reality. I look away while my mind reaches for something, anything, to say. My brain is a barren wasteland.
Another song passes, then another, until Tom asks, “What else do you have on that phone?”
“Some of everything.” I hand it over and watch him inspect my music, feeling as though I’ve handed over my soul. “The phone won’t last forever. We might need a Victrola and a record store one day.”
“Vinyl’s the best way to listen,” Tom says, still intent on my phone. It’s making me antsy.
I recall the records I saw in his garage. “Are you one of those vinyl purists?”
“No, but I’d like to be. You have a playlist named Fuck You?”
“That’s for when you’re fed up with someone’s shit.”
Tom raises an amused eyebrow. He knows whose shit I’m most fed up with. “Let’s see, you’ve got ‘80’s, Crybaby, Disco Inferno, High School, New Wave, Oldies, AM Gold—I don’t even want to know what’s on there, but I’m guessing some Air Supply and John Denver.” I crack up but don’t deny it, and he snickers. “Road Trip, Cheesy Love Songs, New Wave, Radiohead Rules—which I agree with—and the list goes on. Cruisin’ in the IROC? What’s that?”
“That’s freestyle. It was big in Brooklyn back in the day. The guidos would blast it while they cruised up and down Eighty-Sixth Street in their IROCs, picking up ladies with big hair.”
“I know freestyle. I dropped out of high school and moved to L.A. when I was seventeen. It was everywhere.”
That Tom Jensen dropped out of high school is possibly the most surprising thing I’ve ever heard. “You dropped out of high school? You?”
“Don’t sound so shocked. Maybe I’ll tell you the story later.” His enigmatic smile says he’s proud to have thrown me for a loop. “You have a lot of playlists.”
“I like them. They’re the mix tapes of the twenty-first century. Remember mix tapes?”
“Of course. Mine were legendary.”
“As is your modesty.”
“It’s not bragging if it’s the truth.” He winks, which makes my heart skip, and then scrolls some more. “What don’t you have on here?”
“Let’s see…absolutely no jazz after 1960.”
Tom drops his head back with a groan. “Come on. You’re one of those people?”
“Yes, I’m an unenlightened being who doesn’t like modern jazz. Go commiserate with my dad about that. Give me some Duke Ellington or Count Basie, and I’ll listen all night. Otherwise, nope.”
“You have disco but not jazz?”
I kick his boot with mine. “Disco is amazing. Stop looking and put something on already.” He hands over the phone, and I threateningly hold my finger above the screen. “You sure you want me to choose? I’ll play ‘It’s Raining Men.’ ”
Tom snatches it away and chooses the ‘80’s playlist. “Enola Gay” begins. We listen for a minute before I say, “You know how this song is about the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima? I used to think it was odd our kids wouldn’t know what it was like to grow up believing they’d be bombed into nuclear oblivion at any second, but then they got terrorists and mass shootings, and now…”
“Zombies,” he says. “A little Cold War sounds pretty good.”
“Exactly.”
I smile, and Tom returns it with one so warm I can barely recall how he once waged a Cold War of his own. I like him, and, as of tonight, I think he might like me back. It’s a startling turn of events, and I have no clue how to navigate the situation. Or the guilt.
It’s not as though I can help my feelings, as long as I don’t act on them. Of course, there’s that whole emotional affair thing, but I have emotions for Ethan, too. It’s not my fault they’re annoyance, frustration, and aversion. He expects me to be lying in bed, waiting for him to grace me with his presence, and he can suck it.
“Your Love” is next out of the phone’s tinny speakers, and Tom nods approvingly. “Nice job on the playlist.”
“Thanks. Does this mean you’ve forgiven me my love of disco?”
“Not sure it’s a forgivable offense.”
“You know what’s worse than people who don’t like jazz? Vinyl-purist music snobs who don’t like disco.”
Tom’s laugh shakes the car, and he pushes my foot with his. There’s a lot of foot nudging going on, which I don’t mind at all. “I might die if I don’t hear the story about the Tom who ditched high school for L.A.,” I say, and he grins. “You grew up in Eugene, right?”
“Born and raised.” He goes on to say he tired of the small city, grew sick of his father’s abuse, and left for California, meaning to never return except to visit his mom. “I spent a couple years playing guitar, working random jobs, and partying. My band started to do pretty well. Then I found out my parents were broke. My dad gambled away most of their money—what he didn’t drink away. I got my GED and went to college. Community college for a year, then UCLA, where I met Sheila. Graduated and got a good job at a big printing company, so I could send money home.” He shrugs, though I know it wasn’t easy to shrug what he wanted aside. “As long as my mom held the cash, they were okay.”
He and Sheila lived in California until his dad’s drinking became too much for his mom to handle, then they moved young Clara and baby Jeremy back home. Clara thinks her grandpa died of Alzheimer’s, but it was alcoholic dementia and complications from drinking that did him in.
“I didn’t mean to stay,” Tom says. “But then my mom got cancer not much later. She fought it, but it came back again and again. She barely had any time before she got sick. She said she didn’t regret it, but I know she wished she’d left him earlier, lived for herself.”
Whether or not Tom notices the parallel to my situation, I do. Maybe I’m not sick, but the world is. I’m wasting time. Precious time.
“She told me to go live my life instead of caring for her,” he says. “But I couldn’t do that. It was too late by then, anyway. Two kids, a mortgage, a business.”
“You were a good son. But it’s never too late. You can always start over in some way, even a small way, especially if it makes you happy.”
I haven’t forgotten his talk of guitars. While I’m curious to hear him play, now that I know his story, I want him to do something he once loved. Tom searches my face, maybe for proof I believe my own words, and then smiles at whatever he sees. “I guess you can. You and your dad seem close.”
“After my mom passed away, all we had was each other. She died when I was sixteen. Pancreatic cancer.”
&n
bsp; Tom makes a sympathetic oof. “That’s a rough one.”
“It was,” I say, which is putting it mildly. “It’s strange to think I’ve been alive without her longer than with her. I always thought that I just had to get Holly and Jesse to adulthood, and then I’d worry less if I had to go.”
“Did it happen?”
“I think you know the answer to that one,” I say. “I must be programmed to worry.”
“And like disco.”
“How can you not like disco?”
“Because I have good taste.”
I lift a fist his way, and the mood lightens. We drink water from the cooler in a back room and eat found potato chips from a desk drawer, speaking of music and childhood and random things. It feels like magic. Like the conversations I had when I was young, where I never grew tired of speaking or listening. Where I knew I’d found someone I wanted to be around. Tom’s story of his broken collarbone at thirteen is as interesting as his stories of the punk scene in L.A., and he listens just as intently to my stories of growing up in Brooklyn and living out west.
It isn’t until the music cuts off that I think to check the time. I press my phone’s power button to no avail. “We killed it. My next charge isn’t for two days.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m not.” I see how that pleases him and wonder how to make it less something, then decide to leave it be, if only because it’s true. “I have no clue what time it is.”
Tom checks his watch. “Shit. One a.m. I have to be up early.”
I’ve dragged the night out long enough, though I wish it didn’t have to end. Wish we could continue talking until the sun rises, the way I used to. We collect our new books and leave for the side lot. The doors to the Events Center are dark, and the only sound is old rain dripping from the tall cedar just ahead. We circle around the building and cross between the tents in the parking lot. A dim light glows where the fence parallels Thirteenth Avenue and people stand guard. There’s a lot of fence to cover, a fact that always causes my blood pressure to spike.
The real world seemed so far removed, but now it all comes to the forefront, and I feel stupid for believing in whatever magic I felt in the museum. Stupid for forgetting about my life and its complications. Tom plods along beside me, head bent to the ground. After hours of non-stop talk, neither of us speaks, as though we’re strangers again.
At the Expo Hall, Tom stops, hand gripping the door handle. I come to a halt when he faces me, lips twisted in a half-smile. “That was fun.”
His voice is soft, almost shy, and electricity zips through me as quickly as exhaustion did. The magic wasn’t my imagination.
“Me, too,” I say. It takes a moment to realize my response makes absolutely no sense, and I still don’t care.
He has nice lips. Just the right thickness for a man and surrounded by the right amount of dark scruff. My stomach flip-flops at the utter like in his eyes, the way the lines around them smile with the rest of him. His gaze flicks to my mouth, a second at most, and then up again.
I step back, breathless at the thought of those just-right lips on mine. Can he see how much I want him to kiss me? I hope so. I hope not. It can’t happen, if only because I made a promise to Ethan long ago. If I break it, I’m no better than him. With the desire I feel, it might be easy to talk myself into it, convince myself I owe Ethan nothing. It might even be the truth.
Tom nods slightly, as if I’ve said as much aloud. “Good night, Red.”
I release my pent-up breath, relieved and disappointed in equal measure. “Good night.”
He holds the door and closes it with a soft click once we’re through. Nightlights plugged into the walls light the way to the curtained rooms of our hall. I can’t make out Tom’s face, but he waits until I raise my hand and pass through my curtain before I hear him enter his own.
Without a light, I can’t find my toothbrush and toiletries. I can’t find a light without a light, and my dead phone is of no help. I set down the books, peel off my jeans and coat, and drop them to the floor. On the other side of the curtain, I hear Tom’s soft rustling as he does the same. I sigh and lower myself to the mattress, sliding under the blankets and then stiffening when I detect Ethan’s presence.
I lie stock-still on my side. Maybe he’s asleep. A few moments later, his hand lands on my hip. The rest of him follows, warm against my back. “Where were you?” he asks, his voice slurred with sleep. I hope it’s sleep. Actually, I don’t give a shit, which may be worse.
“The museum,” I say, and I like the steel in my voice. “I thought you were sleeping elsewhere tonight.”
“Sorry.” He threads one arm under me, the other over. Locking me in his embrace so that I want to scream. “I’m sorry, Rosie. I shouldn’t have said that. I know you’re trying. It’s hard for me, that’s all.”
“For me, too.” Is that bitterness in my voice now?
“I know. I just love you so much. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
When did that stop being a good thing and become a tool used to control me? Ethan doesn’t mean it that way, perhaps, but it is nonetheless. I cover his hands with mine, hoping he’ll overlook how I haven’t said it in return. “Sleep. You need rest before tomorrow.”
He squeezes me tighter, until his arms loosen and his breaths even out. I stare into the dark and imagine lying in someone’s arms without edginess and resentment. Only when I think Tom must be asleep do I finally drift off with him.
58
Tom
I’ve always said jealousy is a waste of time, and I hate wasting time. You work harder, you keep your eyes on your own prize, and it pays off. But I’m jealous of Ethan, and it’s driving me crazy. I should stay away from Rose. That’s what anybody with a sense of honor would do, but I can’t bring myself to do it. Maybe she isn’t a prize, but she’s my friend.
I didn’t have many, but I had none to whom I told my deepest thoughts. Things I never said to Sheila for fear she’d think I was unhappy with our life. I wasn’t, but there was an undercurrent of How did I end up here? playing on repeat in my mind. I figured that’s how life usually happens, no matter how you plan, and you shut up and get on with it.
But I told Rose my past ambitions, and she thought them worthwhile. I told her about my parents, my regrets, and she acted as though I could run out and start living the fabled life of happiness I once envisioned. Two months ago, I would’ve chalked it up to Rose being Rose—flighty, silly, foolish Rose. Now, God help me, I believe her. I’m not about to land a gig as the sound guy for Radiohead in a world full of zombies, but she makes me believe there could be something more. She makes me want to joke around and think the best of people and listen to music in antique cars.
I finish brushing my teeth and tap off my toothbrush on the bathroom sink. Ethan enters yawning. “Hey, Tom.”
“Morning.”
He visits a urinal and sighs, then comes to the sink beside mine a minute later. “You ready to go out?”
I rinse my mouth and cap my water bottle. Rose also has me believing that drinking the water is certain death. Not really, but the fact that she cares, checks my water bottle to be sure I have enough, makes me feel good. And I don’t want to hear I told you so anytime soon, especially when I’m shitting my brains out.
“I’m ready,” I say. “Jesse will be with us?”
Ethan nods and gets to work with his toothbrush. I eye him surreptitiously while I pack my things neatly in my shaving kit, trying to catch a glimpse of the other Ethan. The one who isn’t personable. After a minute, I give up. “See you out there.”
Ethan waves. I leave the bathroom feeling worse than I did when I woke and remembered how close I came to kissing Rose last night. How badly I wanted to. I’m not sure what bothers me more: how Rose stepped away in alarm, or what Sheila would think of my desire.
Rose exits the women’s bathroom. Pink seeps up her neck when she spots me. I made her uncomfortable last night, and I didn’t mean to. It
was the last thing I wanted, but there’s no way to explain without making it worse. I would try, if I could think of one, and that’s about as far from the old me as you can get.
Rose clutches her toiletries bag to her chest. “Hi. Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I walk alongside her toward our curtained spaces. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“Don’t ask me that. I’ll jinx you.” Her voice is light before her face scrunches with worry. “Will you watch out for Jess today? I know Ethan will, but…”
I come to a stop. “Of course. Jesse will be home with me this afternoon.” Maybe I shouldn’t say it, but if Jesse doesn’t come home, then I probably won’t either. I wouldn’t leave the kid out there; I’ve grown to like him, and I know all too well how it feels to lose a son.
Tears come to my eyes unbidden. Unwelcome. Most of the time, I can pretend Jeremy is elsewhere: at a friend’s, at school, anywhere but on a lawn slowly decaying into the soil. He haunts me in dreams I barely remember when I wake, though they leave me choked with horror, saddled with regret, and vowing I’ll do things right from here on out.
“Thank you.” Rose’s smile is tinged with sympathy, like she can hear my thoughts. Hell, maybe she can. She seems to know how I work without having to explain. If nothing ever happens between us, I’m glad to have her as a friend. More than glad. Lucky. The world is in the shitter, and I feel lucky. That alone is mind-blowing.
“How’s your water situation?” she asks.
“I’ve decided to start drinking from the tap. What’s the worst that could happen?”
Rose pushes my arm. Her hand stays there for a second before she drops it to her side. “Just give me your bottle, jerk.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She follows me into the space I share with Sam, who sits on the edge of his cot looking decidedly bleary-eyed. Rose tsks. “And you wanted to go out. Slacker.”
Sam runs a hand through his hair. “You’re never too old for a spanking, baby doll.”
The Cascadia Series (Book 1): World Departed Page 57