The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

  They’re like a magnet. Everyone else who uses the trail to get to the beach stops, for at least a moment, to see what’s going on. I don’t know that many kids’ songs, so I mix in ones that their parents will know. Even Maggie’s Farm sounds like a children’s song if you brighten up the chords and sing it too fast for the kids to understand the words.

  * * *

  Ten songs in, Justin comes back, red-shouldered, dripping, sand stuck to his ankles like sugar on a cider donut. There are at least a dozen kids seated in a semicircle around me, parents lingering to watch them. Justin stands back with the adults and gives me a wink when I make eye contact, like maybe he’s impressed.

  I play for two more hours, to a revolving group of little ones. Cycling through the same songs when the crowd changes over. My fingers are blistered and my throat is dry, but there’s a growing mound of bills in my case.

  Justin takes off for a while and comes back with a paper liquor store sack and three Chinese food cartons. It’s dinnertime and the crowd has thinned to two kids and a frazzled nanny, who takes the hint and ushers the kids away when she sees Justin.

  “Hungry?” he asks, and puts the food down next to me.

  “Very,” I say. He pulls two sets of chopsticks from his pocket. Opens cartons of egg rolls, chicken fried rice, and vanilla ice cream.

  “It was a special,” he tells me. “The woman insisted.”

  “I’m not complaining,” I say.

  We eat the ice cream first, since it’s melting, scooping at it with our chopsticks held together tightly.

  The wine has a screw top and tastes like old vinegar, but it was a sweet touch. He only had ten dollars left. I’m not going to be mad that he spent it on nonessentials. It’s nice that he wanted to help, that I’m not eating dinner alone, and I have someone to talk to about my day.

  We eat slowly, watching the sun creep to the horizon. I dig my toes into the sand.

  A little kid runs over, his mom chasing behind. I saw him in the crowd of kids earlier. He’s five or six, big ears and a bucket hat like Gilligan.

  “Do you know that song about the dragon?” he asks me, the S in song revealing his lisp. He holds his hands up, fingers curled like dragon claws.

  “Cory!” his mother yells, catching up. “Don’t bother the nice lady.” She bends to grab his arm. He pulls it away.

  “But…” They exchange a look. He cups his hand to her ear and whisper-shouts, “I was asking nicely.”

  Justin nods in the kid’s direction, grinning at me. It’s all adorable.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say to Cory’s mom. “I do know that song.”

  I pick up my guitar and play Puff the Magic Dragon. His mom sits in the sand. He sits in her lap. Justin doesn’t even look awkward about it. I think I catch him mouthing the words to the chorus. I play two more songs for Cory, and his mom gives him ten dollars to put in my guitar case before they leave.

  “Thanks, buddy,” I say to Cory. “It was fun to sing for you.”

  “Yeah, dragons are good,” he says, his S failing him again. I smile and wrinkle my nose. He wrinkles his nose back at me. He’s so damn cute.

  Justin and I watch Cory and his mom trudge across the sand to collect their beach chairs. The sun disappears, leaving a line of fading orange light just above the waves.

  I drive us home with one hand on the wheel and the other holding Justin’s.

  * * *

  The mattress springs squeak so loudly. Justin tries hard to keep his game face on. Serious sex. Very serious. But then the single squeak turns to double. Flex, release. The bed sounds like an old hoarse donkey, and I laugh out loud. Justin breaks into a smile and falls on me, giggling. We shake together. And kiss and laugh more. I roll over, so I’m on top, and make the bed squeak again. His smile is beautiful. I could love this if I tried. Unlatch the door and let him in. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.

  — Chapter 40 —

  Justin is dead to the world when I wake up, making that funny click in his throat that happens when he sleeps on his back. He doesn’t even move when I get out of bed to pee. But I worry if I try to climb back into bed, I’ll wake him. I stand in the doorway of the bedroom and watch him for signs of stirring. There are none. One of his hands is resting on his chest. He’ll wake up with pins and needles in his fingers. I think about trying to move his hand, but I’m sure it would startle him. I leave to avoid the temptation.

  I decide to shower so we can clear out faster once he does wake up. It takes forever for the water to get warm, which seems so strange to me, since it doesn’t start from cold pipes like it does up north. Once the water is warm, I’m lazy about it, humming to myself, taking the time to shave my legs with soap and everything, instead of a few swipes of dry razor on wet skin. In for a penny, in for a pound, as Margo would say. Justin’s been using water and electricity like nobody’s business, so it doesn’t even make sense for me to scrimp. I use the Paul Mitchell stuff on the side of the tub to shampoo twice and I let the conditioner sit in my hair for two minutes like the bottle says, counting a hundred and twenty Mississippis to time it.

  When I get out of the shower, Justin is awake, sitting on the bed. He hangs up the phone.

  “You used the phone?” I say.

  “Yeah.” His voice is gruff. He’s not making eye contact.

  “Who did you call?” I’m hoping it was just to get the surf report or find out movie times. Nondescript. Local.

  “My dad,” he says.

  “Oh.” I try to play it cool while my heart flops like a fresh-caught fish. It’ll show up on the phone bill. It’ll raise suspicion and give them a place to start looking.

  “This isn’t your uncle’s house,” he says. It’s not a question. He’s sure.

  He points to a picture on the dresser. I hadn’t noticed it before. We hadn’t noticed it before. A family on the beach. Mother, father, daughter, son, like a perfect dollhouse set. Their brown skin is warm and beautiful against the sand. They look nothing like me.

  I could invent family connections to make it right. There’s no saying I couldn’t be their cousin. But I feel so suddenly tired. I am out of story to spin. “No,” I say, “it isn’t.”

  “How did you know the code to get in?” he says. Dull eyes; he’s done.

  I shake my head. If I talk, I’ll cry.

  “My dad is buying me a ticket,” he says. He clenches his jaw. I can see the muscles move.

  I don’t try to convince him to stay. I don’t want to hear all his reasons for leaving. I see them on his face. It’s more than just the house.

  “I have to get to the airport,” he says.

  I don’t point out how his kind of broke is not the same as mine. How he can get off this ride with a phone call. Our words don’t mean the same things. He doesn’t care anyway. I’ve fallen apart for him. The same way he’s fallen apart for me. But it hurts worse because I tried so hard to keep him together.

  He goes to the bathroom to brush his teeth. I want to leave. Let him find his own way to the airport, see at least a little bit of struggle. But I don’t. I sit on the bed next to his bag. It smells like him. That mix of boy and college. The zipper isn’t closed all the way. I take one of his shirts. A long-sleeve blue one with NOFX written on the front the right way and backward on the back, like you can see through the person wearing it all the way to the underside of the letters. I take it out just to smell it, but then I hear him flush the toilet, wash his hands. Instead of putting it back in his bag, I shove it in mine. I don’t even know why I want it. He’s expensive and loud and he listens to awful music and can’t make do with what we have. It’s stupid to want him around anyway.

  — Chapter 41 —

  The airport is all the way in Tampa. About sixty miles. I measure on the map with a strand of my hair before we leave. He gets in the car while I put the key back in the lockbox. He doesn’t look at me when I get in the driver’s seat. He doesn’t play his mixtapes. Road noise, breathing. He pretends to
read the owner’s manual for my car, flipping pages faster than the words could register. Then he just looks out the window, and that’s worse. Head turned away from me like he’s trying to pretend I don’t exist.

  Finally, finally, he says, “It’s this exit coming up. Thirty-nine.”

  I nod and change lanes. “What time is your flight?” I ask.

  “Five fifteen.”

  It’s a quarter to noon.

  “Do you want to stop? Get something to eat?”

  “No,” he says. And nothing more.

  “It’s a long time to wait,” I say when the silence starts to get to me.

  “I just want to go.” He heaves a disgusted sigh.

  I feel wrong. Dirty. Less than. Angry. “How is staying at that house so different from stealing your dad’s credit card?”

  “I didn’t steal it!” he yells. “He gave it to me. He’s my dad. You broke into someone’s house. You made me a thief and I didn’t even know it.”

  “We didn’t take anything,” I say. “We just used—”

  “Whatever you have to tell yourself to sleep at night.”

  I follow the signs to the airport. The things I want to explain are thin and wispy. Too delicate for words. His life is so simple and mine is full of knots. He’ll fly home and forget me. Pretend this didn’t happen. Maybe pull it out as a drinking story when he wants someone to think he has a wild side. One time he took a trip without a plan. One time he broke into a house with a crazy girl. But I don’t think he’ll let himself believe it was the time he followed his heart. He won’t let me matter that much.

  I stop at the curb for departing flights.

  “Bye,” he mumbles, getting out of the car without looking at me.

  The door slams. I drive. I cry. There’s no end in sight. No gigs to get to in time. No one waiting for me. Nobody missing me. Nothing. I could disappear completely and no one would even notice.

  * * *

  It gets harder and harder to follow the road. My ribs ache from fighting sobs. My eyes can’t stand the sun.

  I stop at a pay phone and dump all the change from the bottom of my bag into the slot. It’s been way too long since I called. A year. Maybe more. I probably have no business calling at all.

  Four rings, and I’m about to hang up when I hear: “Margo’s Diner! The special today is beef goulash,” but it’s some girl. A voice I don’t recognize. I choke tears away and ask for Margo. When the girl puts down the phone to get her, I can hear the faint chatter and clink clank of dishes, The Weather Channel too loud on the TV above the receiver. I can hear my old life going on without me and it’s horrible. By the time Margo comes to the phone and says, “This is Margo,” the recorded voice is already telling me I need to add money. I only have pennies. I sob harder.

  “Why don’t I matter to anyone?” I’m not even sure my words sound like words, but she knows it’s me. I hear her say, “Oh, girlie,” before the phone goes dead, and I imagine she says, You matter to me. Because I have to. I have to matter to someone.

  * * *

  I don’t go back to the house. It’s far and there’s no point. I’m done with wanting what can’t be mine. I drive until I can’t stay awake and sleep in my car at a truck stop, parked next to one of the parking lot lights to feel just a little bit safer.

  — Chapter 42 —

  I wake up when the truck engines start, hours before sunrise. Before I leave, I buy a postcard and a stamp at the rest stop store. It’s a picture of two beach chairs at the edge of a lake, sharing the shade from one big umbrella.

  This one I send. I don’t write anything but her address. I drop it in the blue mailbox outside and pretend Carly is right where I left her and will understand everything when she gets the card. I pretend that I meant as much to her as she did to me. That when she looks at those two chairs, she’ll picture us sitting together, me with my guitar, her with a blue pack of American Spirits balanced on the arm of her chair. She’ll blow smoke out to the water while she tells me all the things I’ve missed.

  I pump five bucks’ worth of gas into my car and hit the road.

  Right before sunrise, when the sky changes to brighter blue, I see a sign for Asheville, North Carolina, and decide to go, because everyone says Asheville is like Ithaca but bigger. Because of all the places I’ve been, Ithaca is my favorite and I can’t go back.

  * * *

  I get to Asheville on fumes and busk in a tiny park in the middle of the city. It’s sunny and breezy and the people who stop are friendly. I keep my guitar case open and start it off with the ten from Cory’s mom. I decide it will bring me luck, and it does. There’s a steady stream of foot traffic. Children step up to my case with quarters from their parents, staring cautiously as they chuck them in, like I might stop playing to reach out and grab their arm. College kids throw pennies and pocket lint. Older people, professors and the like, hover with folded ones in their fingers, waiting for me to make eye contact before they drop them in. I play for three hours and make thirty-three bucks and a bunch of change I don’t bother to count.

  As I’m packing it in, a man comes up and introduces himself. His name is Ethan. He’s wearing a rumpled white shirt and loose, faded khakis. Bright blue eyes, small nests of lines that frame them when he smiles. My best guess is he’s pushing forty, because I think he’s one of those people who look younger than they are.

  “I’ve been listening all afternoon,” he says, pointing to a bench a few feet away. He’s soft spoken, but his voice has a melody that makes me think of the low bars on a xylophone.

  “Thanks,” I say, wishing I’d left my guitar case open a little bit longer. If he listened all afternoon, he should pay me something, but I hate taking money from a stranger’s hand. I hadn’t noticed him or the bench, which makes me feel a little sideways. I’m usually good at keeping track of what’s around me, but my mind keeps drifting away, trying to avoid thoughts about Justin.

  “Hey, can I buy you dinner?” he asks, and he’s not nervous or awkward about it, but he seems intently hopeful that I will say yes and we will eat food and it will bring something to his life he didn’t have before. It doesn’t feel like he’s hitting on me. His eyes are sad in a way I recognize.

  “I know a place that makes great gazpacho,” he says. “I think this is the first batch of the season.”

  I probably look kind of rank. The offers to feed me come more frequently then. Although it’s usually a bagged lunch left in my case, not the commitment to sit across from me in public eating cold soup.

  “Thanks,” I say, “but I need to hit the road.” My stomach is hollow and aching, but I have to be done falling for people just because they seem fine. I pick up my guitar case.

  “It’s a short walk,” he says. “You have to eat anyway, right?” He does this little shrug of his shoulders.

  I study his face, lines in places that tell me he’s smiled a bunch, but worried more. I try to picture him grabbing my wrist, slamming me against a wall. I can’t. It’s a ridiculous thought. He cares too much. Wears it on his sleeve. He put his feelings into asking me to dinner, trusting I’d be careful not to hurt them. I wonder if my eyes look familiar to him too, if that’s why he liked my music so much. Takes one to know.

  “I could eat,” I say. Stupid, but hungry. Stupid, but lonely.

  “Can I carry that for you?” Ethan points to my guitar. “It looks heavy.” His teeth are big and straight. He’s thin, but he has chipmunk cheeks.

  “It’s okay. You have to hold it just so or the handle comes off.” I’m lying, but we lose something if he thinks I don’t trust him.

  He’s my height and there’s a coziness to it, like we’re old chums. His eyes are right there when I turn my head.

  He’s a painter at heart, he tells me, but he’s not poor because he teaches at the university, does freelance design work on the side.

  “I’m too into creature comforts to starve for my art,” he says, flashing teeth.

  I wonder if he’
s trying to convert me.

  The restaurant he takes me to wants to be bohemian, but it’s too clean and calculated. Each wall is alternately mustard and rust colored. Light fixtures wrapped in copper mesh. Everything on the menu has goat cheese or pine nuts.

  Ethan orders two bowls of gazpacho as soon as we sit down, nodding for my approval after the fact. I nod back, smile sweetly. When the waiter comes with our soups, I order the same entrée Ethan does.

  “I told you it was good,” he says, a chunk of green stuck in his teeth. He doesn’t notice that I haven’t tasted my soup yet.

  “Mmmm,” I say. “Thank you. This was a good idea.”

  He’s beaming. I understand now. I’ve seen this before. He’s clinging to that part of himself that would like to be me and have the guts or the stupidity to just go for it. Live in your car. Eatsleepbreathe for your art. As long as we’re together, he’s a painter who has the courage to let go of all the creature comforts, to feel like he’s living the dream without the bruises.

  “I like your lyrics,” Ethan says. “You have an interesting way of saying big things with simple words.”

  I wonder if he’s giving me credit for Dylan songs. I only played a handful of my own. “Thanks,” I say.

  “How did you learn to play?”

  “Taught myself.”

  “That’s how I started painting. Funny what we’re drawn to, isn’t it? What it fixes. I knew as soon as I started to paint it was mine. Did you feel like that with the guitar?”

  I smile, because I did, but no one else has ever described that feeling to me. I think I knew even before I started—watching my dad play—that this music was something I needed. “Yeah. I did.”

  “It’s so uncomfortable until you find the right way to get that part of yourself out, isn’t it?”