Hearts, Strings, and Other Breakable Things

by Jacqueline Firkins

  “Awesome,” Edie said. “I’ll see if he’ll work on a sliding scale.”

  “Whatever.” Maria held up a chipped I ❤ MANATEES mug, sneered, and clunked it back down. “For what it’s worth, I’m totally over him.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Edie said, only half listening and less than half convinced.

  “I realized last night how perfect Rupert and I are together. He forgives me when I flirt with another guy. I forgive him for letting me flirt.”

  Edie and Julia swapped a look. Maria ignored them both. With nothing left to disapprove of on Edie’s nightstand, she wandered over to the standing mirror to assess her reflection. While she finger-­combed her bedhead and Edie slowly sipped her coffee, Julia cleared her throat.

  “I have news,” she said.

  “You bought your first tampon?” Maria taunted.

  Julia sat up a little straighter, ignoring her sister’s derision.

  “W.B.’s going to prom with me,” she announced.

  Edie and Maria both gaped at her, shocked, curious, and a little impressed.

  “Does that mean you played his washboard last night?” Maria asked.

  “No.” Julia pursed her lips, facing off with her sister. When Maria failed to needle her further, Julia let her story spill out in a rush. “We were joking about how we were both triangles and we both liked a band named the Triangles and he was being really nice, so I asked if he had a girlfriend and he laughed and said no and then I blurted out the question about prom and he said, ‘Sure, why not?’” She paused and took a breath. “So, yeah, I have a prom date,” she finished, more resigned than excited.

  “Congratulations!” Maria said, more excited than resigned.

  “That’s great,” Edie said, unsure how to feel, except a little sad that Julia sounded so disappointed to have a prom date after weeks of sighing for a storybook romance.

  “Make sure W.B. wears a turtleneck when he picks you up on prom night, or Dear Mama’s going to choke on her pearls,” Maria said.

  “I think his tattoos are beautiful.” Julia laid a hand against her neck.

  “Of course you do.” Maria rolled her eyes. “It’s such a cliché: the princess and the punk. Does he drive a motorcycle?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “So you finally hooked yourself a bad boy!” Maria pinched her thigh and frowned at her reflection. “You guys’ll make the cutest little skull-tatted babies. And they’ll be so short you can use them as footstools till they head to college.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Just don’t take the family to Disneyland. No one will let you on the rides.”

  “At least we’d fit under the safety bar!”

  “Not if they don’t let you past the height restriction.”

  Edie set down her coffee, buried her head in the pillows, and let the sounds of squabbling muffle. She had bigger things to worry about. Once she removed all signs of last night’s egregious pork product consumption, inadequate skin care, and illegal binge drinking, she needed to talk to Bert and Norah. Bringing up work again wasn’t going to be easy. Her only hope was that Norah had long since finished torturing the organic greens and put away the kitchen knives.

  * * *

  The following afternoon Edie sat outside the tutoring center, elated that her interview had gone well and she’d finally be starting a job, taking her one step closer to college, independence, and the beginning of everything. In the meantime she had to wait for Maria to return from the mall to drive her home. Maria had been appalled at the idea of waiting during Edie’s interview, but she had no problem making anyone else wait for her. Good thing Edie would have alternate transportation once she started her job. Bert had offered to dust up one of the bicycles from the garage. More importantly, he’d helped convince Norah that becoming a tutor would demonstrate their niece’s diligence, intelligence, and compassion for others, all things he admired in Norah. Edie’d always assumed Norah had the upper hand in her aunt and uncle’s marriage, but yesterday afternoon she realized the sides were surprisingly well matched. Bert just picked his battles carefully, taking Norah’s kale and condescension in stride and saving his energy for when it mattered most.

  Uncertain how much time she had to kill, Edie took out her phone and opened up Facebook. She skimmed through her feed, flashing past Julia’s beauty blog links and an annoyingly happy selfie of Claire and Sebastian together at the pool party. Then she typed Henry’s name into the search bar and opened up the text box, intending to send him a thank-you message. Composing it proved challenging. Everything she typed sounded like an opening for flirtation. Two days ago that wouldn’t have mattered. Edie would’ve shut him down with a barbed retort or by simply ignoring him, like usual, but now there was another problem. She was no longer certain she wanted to ignore him.

  As Edie’s brain chewed on that unnerving thought, she typed Thank you and hit enter. Simple. Effective. Utterly free of innuendo.

  Her phone pinged almost instantly with a response.

  Henry: How was the hangover?

  Edie: Not as bad as it could’ve been

  Henry: You could say the same about me

  Edie laughed. Sure didn’t take him long.

  Edie: Anyway. I owe you one

  Henry: One what?

  Edie: Don’t know. Favor?

  Henry: I think they call that an offer you can’t refuse

  Edie: I don’t mean sexual favor

  Henry: Neither do I. What’re you up to?

  Edie lowered her phone, considering her response. Telling Henry she was waiting for a ride after a job interview sounded so boring, which was why it was precisely the right thing to say, but Edie was tired of being boring. Her ability to turn an introductory conversation into a stilted interview had destroyed her chances of landing a date on Saturday. Henry was the only guy there besides Sebastian she could just be herself with.

  Hmm . . .

  Maybe he could help Edie get over her crush, not as a date but as a distraction. Granted, he was a self-proclaimed seduction artist who mass-distributed roses, spoke only in Foreplay, scavenged Shakespeare plays for pickup lines, spent more money on hair gel than Norah spent on carpet cleaner, and turned a pizza delivery slogan into an invite for sexual deviance. But he was interesting.

  Edie: Thinking about testing those strings

  Henry: Need help?

  Edie: I know what I’m doing

  Henry: So do I

  Edie: So I hear

  Henry: Glad I come highly recommended

  Edie: Not touching that one

  Henry: I’m still hoping to change your mind on that philosophy

  Edie laughed again. Damn, he was relentless. If he dared to send her a dick pic she was deleting it immediately and blocking him forever.

  Edie: You’re unbearable

  Henry: Bear me anyway?

  Edie: I think they call that an offer you CAN refuse

  Henry: I’m just asking for a conversation

  Edie: I’ve seen you converse. It didn’t involve much talking

  Henry: Depends who I’m conversing with

  Edie: Bullshit

  Henry: One hour. Six strings. A few tunes. That’s all

  Edie stared at her screen. Behind the little message box, Henry’s profile page displayed a panoramic photo of him staring out from a white stone balcony with a hand shielding his eyes and a peach sunset highlighting his features. It looked like a shot from a magazine. Everything was elegant, exotic, and beautiful. Her own banner image showed her and Shonda, laughing hysterically, covered in icing and cake batter after turning Shonda’s eighteenth birthday party prep into a massive food fight. What was that girl doing messaging this guy? And why was he messaging back? It made no sense.

  Edie: I’ll be home in an hour. You know where I live

  Chapter Nineteen

  * * *

  As soon as Edie got home from her interview, she changed out of her school uniform into her favorite pair of
jeans, a thrift-shopped T-shirt from the Koslovski family’s 1986 reunion, and the ratty but beloved vintage cardigan Maria kept threatening to throw away when no one was looking. Edie assessed her reflection, wondering if she should make a little effort. She could at least attempt to sort out the bedraggled Rapunzel look she seemed to be sporting, or she could cover up the worst of her freckles. She waved off the thought as quickly as it’d come on. She was about to see Henry. Getting his attention was hardly a problem, which felt kinda good, actually.

  Edie twisted her hair into a loose knot so it wouldn’t get in her way. Then she poked around in the dressing table drawer until she found her little brass locket buried in an assortment of knickknacks. It was a simple heart with a bird etched on the lid. She smiled, quietly humming the love song she’d written last month. I’m not myself to myself, let alone to you. Let alone, yet alone, I am missing a part of my incomplete secondhand heart. It was sappy and sentimental, but then so was Edie. She cut down her mom’s photo, carefully nestled it into the locket, and slipped it over her head. If Edie was finally going to start playing guitar again, her mom didn’t need to watch from the bedside. She should have the best seat in the house.

  Twenty minutes and one painfully awkward cousin convo later, Edie and Henry were sitting on one of the benches that faced the fountain in Norah’s garden. Edie’d selected the location due to the four-foot-high hedges that sheltered it from the house, though she wouldn’t have been surprised to find Maria and Julia crouched nearby with pith helmets and binoculars. She’d assured them both that this wasn’t a date (paid for or otherwise) but she knew she was in for a full interrogation the moment Henry left.

  As Edie tuned her guitar and practiced her fingering, she and Henry settled into a surprisingly easy conversation. She related a few Burger Barn misadventures with Shonda and described the love song she’d played for Chad Whipple in the fifth grade talent show, after which he’d priggishly informed her that her freckles were early-onset acne. In between her stories, Henry talked about a trip he’d taken to Kathmandu as a kid, his stage debut as Hamlet during his sophomore year of high school, and the day he got kicked out of a cooking class for accidentally setting the teacher’s apron on fire.

  “But she forgave you?” Edie asked.

  “Yeah.” His smile crept upward. “She forgave me.”

  “Good god,” Edie choked out through a laugh. “Do you ever shut off?”

  “Want to find out?” He inched closer.

  “No!” Edie shoved him away with the end of her guitar, still laughing. She found Henry exasperating, but he was also growing on her, like fungus, maybe, but growing. Beneath the endless innuendoes, he was kind of nice, funny, and down to earth. He didn’t take himself too seriously. He went after what he wanted, and he always seemed to get it. Which led to a question . . .

  “Henry? What’s your endgame here?”

  “My endgame?”

  “Why did you want to come over?” Edie lowered her guitar and waited, unsure what she wanted to hear.

  He kicked out his feet and draped an arm over the back of the bench, at ease in any setting, from palace to poolside.

  “Because I like you,” he said simply.

  Edie frowned. She’d waited so long to hear those words from a guy, but she’d always expected them to mean something. They meant something whenever she said them, even if the boys she said them to got all shifty, abruptly changed the subject, and/or ran away. When Henry said them, they sounded so ordinary, like he was explaining why he bought french fries or watched some stupid sitcom.

  “You like all girls,” she pointed out.

  “But you’re different.”

  “Because I don’t drop my pants when you toss me a bit of Shakespeare?”

  He laughed, making his dark eyes dance in a way that almost incited a blush.

  “Maybe,” he said. “I don’t know. I do enjoy the challenge.”

  Edie shifted backwards, disgusted.

  “Of trying to make me drop my pants?”

  “Of trying to make you smile,” he assured her. “I don’t usually have to work this hard.”

  “I’m well aware.” Edie glanced toward the house, checking the upper-story windows for cousins with spy gear. Despite Maria’s repeated assertions that she was over Henry, and despite Julia’s prom plans with W.B., neither cousin had effectively feigned indifference to Edie’s announcement about her impending company. When Henry made his mark on a girl’s heart, he used some seriously indelible ink.

  While Edie tried to figure what mark he intended to make on her own heart, and what mark she wanted him to make, she finished reintroducing herself to her mom’s guitar, testing the way the strings responded so willingly to every flicker and flutter, as if they were aching to sing, shout, and cry the music they held inside. After three years of leaving her mom’s guitar stringless, she’d expected this moment to feel sad, reminding her of her mom’s death. Instead, it reminded her of her mom’s life. Suddenly Frances was a little less gone and Edie was a little less alone.

  “Ready for a song?” she asked once she was certain her tears were at bay.

  Henry settled in to listen while Edie strummed a few chords. She fumbled from lack of practice but she soon found her way into a familiar series of notes. Realizing she’d inadvertently begun one of her many love songs, she shifted gears and played Henry a quirky, upbeat little tune called “Thirteen Women Named Frances” about all the nametags her mom had collected from part-time jobs. She’d pushed brooms, run registers, waited tables, done anything that would pay the bills until she could afford to try another tour. Then she’d return home and start again, dauntless. Edie’s voice quavered when she neared the final chorus, quoting her mom’s words, Be brave and be kind. Everything else is just a job, but she held herself together through the final notes, eliciting a warm round of praise from Henry.

  As the song settled around them, the newly whetted memories gradually softened, leaving room for the ones that were being made in the moment. Edie was about to start another tune when Henry gestured for her to hand him the guitar.

  “My turn,” he said.

  Edie stiffened as Claire’s words echoed through her brain. Henry only learned to play so he could serenade easily infatuated girls. Despite how much Edie was enjoying his company, and how glad she was to not hate him anymore, she wasn’t about to become the next girl on his hit list.

  “Please?” Henry nodded at the guitar.

  Edie eyed him dubiously but she went ahead and handed him the guitar, curious what he’d choose to play her. Henry strummed a few frenetic chords as if he was about to break into a hard rock song. Then, to Edie’s surprise, he picked out a lyrical, old-fashioned folk ballad. His hands slid quickly across the strings, producing an intricate pattern of notes. His voice was low and gravelly. His words were almost spoken.

  “Farewell! You are too dear for my possessing,

  And I suspect you know your beauty’s worth.

  The smile behind your eyes leaves me but guessing;

  One look lends to my lover’s hope rebirth.

  But I hold you not till parted lips say ‘ yes,’

  And greatest riches can’t make me deserve

  One fluttering kiss upon those lips to press,

  One solace for my fragile fettered nerve.

  But if for one moment you did acquiesce,

  And kiss for kiss did deep desire beget,

  And sourest ‘no’ turned sweetest simple ‘yes,’

  When morning comes, she’d bring with her regret.

  Thus have I had you, as a dream demands:

  In sleep a king, but waking with a pauper’s hands.”

  As the song faded out, Edie closed her eyes and became one with the bench. Her arms lay limp at her sides. Her face turned upward to the sky. Her heart was full. Her mom’s guitar was singing again, something sweet, sad, and sincere. Edie didn’t want the song to stop. She wanted to stay in that magical place where things like absen
t parents, ruined friendships, and persistent crushes didn’t exist; that place where nothing died; that limitless, wordless place where music distilled the entire world into a series of notes and a surge of indefinable emotion.

  Silence gradually took over and then rescinded its hold to the noises the song had kept at bay: birds in the branches, cars out on the road, a kid calling for his dog.

  “Thank you,” Edie said softly, as though she was afraid to break the spell she was under. She turned toward Henry and gave him the smile he’d been seeking. Once given it felt like a pretty cheap payment for the joy in her heart.

  “Edie, I . . .” Henry took her hand. She flinched but she left her hand where it lay, wrapped in his too-warm fingers, pressed against his too-soft skin. It wasn’t The Age of Innocence, but it was the age of something. “Say you’ll go out with me.”

  She shook her head, unbalanced by his unexpected earnestness.

  “Give me a chance,” he begged. “Please?” He leaned down to meet her eyes the way he had back on that horrendous Mansfield tour day, the day that—if Edie was totally honest with herself—had been a little less lonely thanks to his company.

  She searched his dark eyes for something deeper than vanity, teasing, or playing games. She recalled his thoughtful gift, his timely hand against her back, and the way he’d said good night over a threshold she wouldn’t have reached without him. Despite Henry’s smugness, he had a heart and a pretty good one at that. And yet . . .

  Edie withdrew her hand and tucked it close beside her.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” While she liked the thought of spending more time with Henry, she didn’t want to date him. He was obviously trying to make her fall for him. She was determined not to fall for him. She lived with two people who already had fallen for him. They couldn’t just pass him to the next girl in line. They were a camera away from becoming a reality TV show.

  Henry glanced over his shoulder toward the Summerses’ house.