The People We Keep

by Allison Larkin

  “Our students study acting, stage management, set design, or dramaturgy,” Ethan says in an announcer voice like he’s narrating an infomercial, “with the goal of working in professional theatre.” He kicks at a rope coiled on the floor. “I teach technical theatre and design.”

  “That’s a thing people go to school for?” I set my guitar case on the floor and run my hand along the banister of the stairs. It looks like brass but feels like wood.

  “Yup,” Ethan says.

  “And you did this?”

  “Well, my students did this,” he says, climbing into the crescent. He reaches for my hand to help me step into it too. There’s scaffolding and a seat hidden just behind the glitter. “I have a student who wants to do rig work, so we’re going all out for Man in the Moon, lowering Vera from the heavens.” He points to the metal walkways above us.

  “You get paid to help students build things like this?” I shake my head, amazed.

  “April,” Ethan says, “you get paid to travel around and sing songs to people.”

  “It’s a way to get by.”

  “Your way of getting by is a lot of people’s dream.”

  “People dream of being rock stars. They don’t dream about living in their car.”

  Ethan gives me his worried look again. “Maybe not, but they do dream of flying.” He points to the seat. “Sit.”

  I do. I think I know where this is going and maybe you’re not supposed to climb in a moon with a guy you met on the street, but I survived the darkness just fine.

  “Okay, legs over the front of the moon,” he says. “Can you reach the footholds?” He guides my feet to small metal platforms, then straps a harness around my waist. He smells like woodsy cologne. He is calm and patient and sure of himself as he works the buckles. From some angles he looks a little like Elvis, if Elvis had gotten older without getting fat: sleepy eyes, pillowy lips, a slight cleft in his chin.

  “It’s safe?” I ask.

  “Completely. I let my students use me as the crash test dummy.” Ethan jumps from the moon, opens my case, and takes my guitar out like he’s carrying a newborn. He gathers my hair to one shoulder, looping the strap over the other, adjusting it just so.

  It reminds me of Carly. Of getting ready to go see Cat Skin. The way she took care of me. I don’t let myself think that Asheville could be the Ithaca where I get to stay. Or that Ethan could be my friend like Carly, and Robert could be someone too. The best way to keep your heart from getting broken is not to get your hopes up in the first place.

  Ethan ties down the tail of the waist strap. “Voilà! Fanfare,” he says. “You can sing from the moon.” He runs off stage.

  The lights dim. I brace myself, clutching my guitar like it will somehow keep me safe.

  The ride up is so smooth it feels like the floor is falling away from me. I glance past my feet and watch the distance grow. My stomach wobbles.

  “Locked in!” Ethan yells. And then the curtain opens to a sea of empty red velvet seats. “Wait! Wait.” He runs to the shadows at the back of the theater.

  A loud click and I’m in the spotlight, glitter shining.

  “Sing, bellissima! Sing!” Ethan calls from the audience.

  “Okay,” I say softly, and I’m stunned by the way my voice travels.

  It feels silly, playing just for Ethan, but I desperately want to know what it’s like to sing in a theater like this and hear my voice echo back to me.

  I start with the song I never play at gigs. I love it the most, so it feels like too much to share. But Ethan doesn’t have to know how much it means to me.

  I’ve been north, I’ve been south

  Traveled here and there.

  I shed the lives I’ve left

  Without a single care

  I’ve been up, I’ve been down

  I’m forever free to roam

  But never in my life,

  Have I ever made it home

  I sing the whole thing with my eyes closed so I can hear the way the sound surrounds me. When I strum, the moon swings and I really do feel like I’m flying. I imagine looking out over a packed house. I imagine what the applause would feel like in my chest.

  After I’ve finished, Ethan stands and claps for me. He shouts, “Woo-Whoo!” and his voice fills the room.

  * * *

  “You have the cutest little waist,” Ethan says, unbuckling the straps once I’m safely on the ground. He shouted encore until I had no songs left. “What’s your secret?”

  “Corn nuts and Diet Coke?” I say, not sure if I’m supposed to have a secret. My body is the way it is, and I haven’t thought about it much one way or another. I feel exposed in a way I don’t when I play shows to more than one person. There’s no reason to run away and I kind of want to anyway. Flee to the wings, wrap myself in those thick velvet curtains, and hide from the world.

  “Corn nuts and Diet Coke!” Ethan says, laughing. “You must have good genes. There are girls here who would kill to have your figure.” He unbuckles the last strap. “I mean that literally.”

  “I’d kill to go here,” I say, handing him my guitar so I can jump down. I’m surprised by the fact that it’s true. School was crappy math quizzes and notes scribbled on folded loose-leaf, passed to every girl except me. But this kind of school, where kids get up on stage and sing and it counts, where maybe I wouldn’t be so different—if I had known college could be like this, I might have finished high school to get here. Of course, it’s not like my dad saved money for me to go to college, or there are Rotary scholarships to send that weird kid from the motorless motorhome to drama school.

  “You are amazing, Angel,” Ethan says, handing my guitar back to me.

  “April,” I say, feeling awkward that he doesn’t remember my name.

  “I know.” Ethan smiles. “It was a term of endearment.”

  “You barely know me.”

  “Then it’s a testament to how endearing you are.” Ethan studies my face. I feel like he knows a lot about me, even though I’ve hardly told him anything.

  * * *

  The university is on spring break, so Ethan doesn’t have class. He buys us corned beef sandwiches from a deli and we take them back to his house. I eat all of mine and half of his and he seems strangely satisfied by watching me eat.

  After lunch, he says he’s going out to the sun porch to paint and I’m welcome to read anything on his bookshelves if I want. I know I should go downtown to busk, but I choose a book called The Bean Trees and sit in the sun on the squeaky porch swing while Ethan paints blue streaks on a fresh white canvas. He hums to himself, a song my dad used to sing: The water is wide, I cannot cross o’er. I don’t even know exactly when I start to hum along with him, but I catch my voice twisting around his notes, and it makes me smile. His back is to me, but I hope maybe he’s smiling too.

  * * *

  Later, we walk to Robert’s restaurant for my gig. This time, when Ethan offers, I let him carry my guitar case. When we pass a streetlight I see the shine from a stray piece of moon glitter on my cheek.

  — Chapter 44 —

  The restaurant is warm and humid and smells like garlic and fresh bread. It’s been at least two years since I’ve gotten nervous about a gig, but I feel butterflies. I know better than to want things, and then here I am all wound up because I liked spending the afternoon with Ethan, and let myself think what it might be like to be warm, fed, clean, and rested as a matter of habit.

  The tables are pushed away from the far corner of the restaurant to make a stage. There’s a wooden stool and two mics. Next to the stool is a side table with a fresh white towel and a glass of water garnished with a sprig of mint and slice of lime.

  “Look at you, Angel, with your performance space waiting,” Ethan says, carrying my guitar case across the room for me.

  Robert walks out from the kitchen. Greets me with a kiss on the cheek and says, “Thanks for saving my ass. I’m hoping we’ll get a good crowd.”

  “I�
��m sure we will,” Ethan says. “You should have seen the mass of people who stopped to watch her play in the park yesterday.”

  Ethan is so certain, but I know these things don’t translate. I caught those people at the right time on a nice day. They didn’t know my name, so it’s not like any of them could see it on the board outside and know they should come in to hear more of me.

  I do my sound check. I always make sure I blow in the mic so I can hear if it will crackle. I hate when I hit a note so it’s light and airy and it sounds like a wind tunnel coming through the PA. I tune up and get the guitar mic positioned in the right place.

  This is nothing, I tell myself. I’ve played in bigger places. I’ve played on the street and gotten crowds to gather. This is just a little restaurant in a little city and the stakes aren’t high. I’m not really going to stay. Even if Robert wants me to, even if Ethan does, I’ll probably still go back to Florida. I’m singing for my supper. I’m leaving in the morning. That’s all.

  But when the clock over the door says it’s six fifty-seven and I’m supposed to start playing at seven and there are only two tables of people, and one of them has just paid their bill and is getting up to leave, I have to breathe really deep a few times to get my hands to stop shaking.

  I start with a cover of Wild World. Because as much as I’d prefer to play my own stuff all the time, people like covers. They like to know the songs you’re singing. I always change something—sing it at a different tempo or do a new arrangement—but hold on to the heart of the song so it’s just familiar enough. The audience listens harder then, like it’s a quiz. Can they figure out the song before I sing the chorus? And then they’re invested, so I can slip in a few of my own songs too. I can only get away with playing a solid set of originals at places like Arnie’s where the crowd knows me. Even then, I’ll throw in a couple of covers, just to fuck with them. Something silly we can all sing together, like Girls Just Want to Have Fun or the theme song to Mannequin, because we’re all drunk and in it together at that point.

  Here, I’ll stick to classics. The couple who stay are boomers: the man wears a really big shiny watch, and his wife has her hair cut into a sleek silvery bob. So I play the stuff they would have heard on the radio when they were in college. When they wore daisies in their hair and made vees with their fingers.

  They don’t applaud after Wild World, but when I play the opening chords of Like a Rolling Stone, the man nods his balding head in approval. And by the time I play You’re So Vain, they’re singing along. They don’t leave, even after they finish eating. They order more coffee and turn their chairs to watch me play. But no one else is coming in, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

  Ethan sits at a table in the corner by himself and orders a bowl of soup and a glass of wine. The waitress and the busboy stop to watch me. There’s not much else for them to do. At the end of my songs they clap almost as loudly as Ethan does and it keeps the applause from sounding painfully thin.

  Finally, another couple comes in. Mid-twenties. Awkward with each other, like it’s a first date. He keeps watching me instead of paying attention to what she’s saying. I want to stop and tell him that the poor girl got all dressed up to impress him and he better damn well pay attention to her.

  I play I Can’t Make You Love Me by Bonnie Raitt and then Alone by Heart. The girl even turns around to clap when I’m done. Ethan stands and whistles.

  Robert comes over to see me. “That was fantastic! Want to take a break and eat dinner?” His face is shiny. It must be hot in the kitchen. His t-shirt sticks to his back.

  “I’m okay,” I say. “I’m not big on eating between sets.”

  “Alright,” he says. “But let me get you some tea or something.”

  Before I can say anything else, he goes into the kitchen and comes back with a tall glass of iced tea and a plate of toasted bread with some kind of tomatoey stuff on top. “Just in case you’re a little hungry,” he says as he hands it to me.

  Robert goes back to the kitchen, and Ethan comes over to sit with me at the table closest to the makeshift stage.

  “You’re amazing,” he says, putting his hand over mine and giving it a squeeze. “I’m so proud of you.”

  It’s a weird thing to say. Pride for someone else always seemed to me like it had to come from seeing the journey. You knew how hard it was for them to get there and you felt invested in their success. But Ethan says it with assurance. Maybe it’s enough to understand that there’s been a journey. Maybe he’s tricked himself into actually believing we’re already in the middle of our friendship. I don’t think I mind. It’s nice to have someone rooting for me.

  I eat two of the toast things. The tomato bits explode in my mouth, kind of like that gum that has a liquid center. Only this is a pure, clean taste that makes me remember the little tomato plants Margo always tried to grow on her fire escape in the summer. I could eat forever. But I stop so I don’t get that dull, thick feeling in my stomach when I try to play my next set.

  Ethan eats the rest. He stays at the table nearest to me, clapping loud when I pick up my guitar again.

  The sounds of getting started—the click of the strap buckle against the guitar, pop of the mic as I switch it on, the way the strings of the guitar vibrate ever so slightly when I rest it on my leg—those are my favorite sounds. I used to notice them every single time I played, but this is the first time in a long time that I’ve even heard them.

  The couple who was already done with dinner is about to leave, but they sit down again and order another bottle of wine when I start to play. The date couple orders dessert. He gives her a bite of his lemon meringue pie, holding the fork across the table, hand under it, ready to catch pieces of the crumbling crust. I do a little cheer for her in my mind and play Something in the Way She Moves. James Taylor. Not Beatles. Because it’s the sweetest song I know. Because maybe it will help. Because I still want to believe that people can fall in love and stay there, the way I desperately wished the unicorn Margo took me to see at the Renaissance Fair wasn’t just a white goat with one horn sawed off.

  I hope for a bigger crowd, but it never happens. A guy comes in and sits by himself in the corner. He orders coffee and pie and reads a book the whole time like I’m not even there. No one runs in from the street, moved by the music leaking out to the sidewalk. Robert won’t ask me back. This wasn’t enough.

  While I pack up my guitar, I make a mental note of the things I need to gather from Ethan’s so I can head for Florida first thing in the morning before he wakes up. So there’s no need for awkward breakfast talk. It’s easier to leave when you aren’t burdened with goodbyes and loose promises about keeping in touch. Just go if you’re going to go.

  Robert comes out of the kitchen and says, “Thank you, April.” He’s formal when he says it, looks at an order pad in his hand, and I feel like it’s the way you would dismiss someone if you were of the high and mighty variety. Thank you, April. That’s enough of you.

  But he flips the page on his pad and says, “Can you play at the bar tomorrow, and then back here on Saturday?”

  “Yeah,” I say slowly. “I can do that, possibly.” You have to adjust quickly. You can’t be too eager. Eager people get screwed. But I want to cry from the relief of it.

  Robert says, “Oh, that’s great!” and claps his hand to the side of my arm excitedly. “That couple”—he points to their now empty table—“ordered two very expensive bottles of wine. One more than they would have if you hadn’t been here. And them”—he points to the table where the daters had been—“they never would have ordered dessert if it weren’t for you. Thursdays are always a little slow over here, but you turned it into a good one for us.”

  “It’s what I do,” I say, smiling as he pulls a small wad of bills from his back pocket and hands it to me. When you have happy accidents, it’s best to own them. They don’t happen often enough.

  — Chapter 45 —

  The bar the next night is fine. Nothing
to write home about. But on Saturday night at the restaurant, the wine couple is back. They’ve brought friends and the bottles of wine come and go more often than I can keep track.

  The following week when I play at the restaurant, there’s a huge crowd. People stand and listen while they wait for tables. Robert rushes around. Every time he catches my eye he smiles. Ethan sits at a double by himself, holding a cup of coffee in both hands, mouthing all the words along with me. He’s been listening to me practice.

  * * *

  Monday morning, I wake up and there’s light streaming in through the lacy curtains in my room at Ethan’s house and I know I’ve slept in way longer than I ever let myself.

  “Hey, sunshine,” Ethan says when I stumble into the kitchen. He has a mess of papers and pamphlets all over the table.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Filling out applications,” he says, handing me one of the pamphlets. “Help me!”

  It’s for Emerson College in Boston.

  “Are you going back to school?”

  “Looking for a new job.” Ethan points to the coffeepot. I pour a cup for myself and give him a warm-up.

  I sit at the table and spread out his pamphlets so I can see them.

  “Looks like I’ll be moving to cold weather,” he says. “All the good theatre schools seem to be up north.”

  “It’s not so bad,” I tell him, holding up a Middlebury brochure. “I did a gig at a bar near Middlebury last year. It’s nice.”

  “You like it?”

  “Yeah. Gorgeous hills. Snowed like a motherfucker and I didn’t have snow tires, so I got stuck there for a whole week longer than I meant to, but you know… if you don’t need to get anywhere because you live there to begin with, it’s probably nice. Stay in. Eat waffles. The maple syrup’s real.”

  Ethan buries his head in his hands.