“You’re overthinking this,” Jake says.
I glare. “Maybe if you’d stop stepping all over my feet like a—”
“Does it always have to be the push and pull with you?”
“Yes. When it comes to you, yes, it does.”
“Look. Stop. Breathe.” His hand on my waist slides to the small of my back, pushing me in closer to him. It’s all I can do not to shiver. “Don’t look at the floor. Don’t think about it. Just move with me.”
Jake steps back, and I hesitate for just a moment before sliding with him. His grip on our interlaced fingers tightens as he begins to lead me around. On the fourth step, he twirls me in a fluid movement, pulls me back to him expertly. My breath catches a little in my chest at the look in his hooded eyes.
“You seem surprised,” he says, amused.
“You’re not half-bad at this.” My hand relaxes on his shoulder. “I’m almost impressed.”
He takes a sudden swinging step to the right, guiding us closer to the band. I glance over at the sax player in time to see him cock his head and wink, smiling around his mouthpiece. When I look back to Jake, his mouth curves in a playful grin.
“Careful, Harper. Someone might think you’re actually enjoying yourself.”
I can’t suppress a smile. “Huh.”
“‘Huh’?” He quirks an eyebrow. “What was the ‘huh’ for?”
“This just doesn’t seem like your type of music.”
“That’s because you’ve caught me in the middle of a nostalgic British Invasion phase. The first—not the second. You know, the Stones, Cream, Pink Floyd. But I don’t restrict myself to certain genres. Labels are substantially irrelevant.”
“Wow,” I say. “You are truly obsessed.”
“Yeah, I kinda am,” he agrees, grinning. “Without music, life would be a mistake.”
“Did you coin that one yourself?”
“Nietzsche did, actually. But it’s a common mix-up.”
“And you believe that?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
He spins me once more, draws me in close and dips me dramatically. When he rights me on my feet again, I’m grinning back, matching him step for step.
“I’m starting to realize that nothing about you is as obvious as I thought,” I say. “The penchant for ABBA. The no-drinking policy. The generous tipping habits.”
“What can I tell you?” He shrugs. “I’m a complicated guy.”
I know he’s joking, but the truth is, he is a complicated guy, more complicated than I ever would have guessed. I wonder if June realized the same thing during all of their study sessions. Maybe she saw what I’m just starting to see—that there is a lot more to Jake than meets the eye. She must’ve seen something, since they were friends and all. Or at the very least, friendly.
The quartet’s jam comes to an end, the last sax note sounding out in a long, high trill. It’s met with scattered applause from the peanut gallery, including Laney’s. She puts two fingers in her mouth and blows an earsplitting whistle. Jake tips his hat at me, then leans forward, his mouth brushing my ear.
“Has she been drinking?” he asks jokingly.
“Nah,” I say. “I think she was just born like that.”
I’m feeling…kind of good, actually. This is the most I’ve smiled since June died. I don’t know whether I should feel guilty about that or not, so I decide not to. As we walk back to the table, I bump my shoulder into Jake’s.
“So, you still think I have no sense of adventure?” I ask him.
He smiles. “You know, Scott, you’re starting to change my mind.”
Oklahoma is almost as boring as Indiana. The good news is that after wasting the entire day in St. Louis, Jake seems anxious to hit the road and put some serious mileage behind him, so I don’t have to endure too much of it. He drives all through the night, and when he thinks I’m asleep, he slips in some ABBA.
Laney stays asleep—I guess her stomach is still bugging her—and I drift in and out until around four in the morning, when I open my eyes to Jake singing “Take a Chance on Me” under his breath, his fingers drumming on the steering wheel. I watch him for a while, amused, then look out the window. We’re on some side road, off the highway. It’s still pretty dark outside.
When he notices I’m awake, Jake stops singing and turns down the stereo. “I need to gas up,” he says.
“Okay.” My voice comes out all thick and scratchy from sleep. I clear my throat, sitting up straighter. “Are we still in Oklahoma?”
“Yeah. Got a pretty long time before we hit Texas.”
Texas. Holy shit. I rub my forehead and calculate how many states we have left to pass through. Half of Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and then we’re there. California. It feels so close and so far away at the same time.
Jake swings into a gas station, climbs out and fills up Joplin’s tank. A minute later he yanks the pump nozzle out and heads inside to pay. I glance over my shoulder at Laney sleeping behind me. She looks younger when she’s asleep, snuggled deep into her sweatshirt, legs drawn toward her chest, her whole body curled in like she’s making herself as small as possible. It’s like nothing has touched her and nothing ever will.
I unbuckle my seat belt and climb over the seats, all the way into the open back, careful to avoid Laney’s sleeping form. The lights from the gas station’s parking lot illuminate everything with a dim yellow glow, and I squint under them until I see it. The trunk with June’s ashes. Its battered top feels smooth under my hands, old leather and brass. I unsnap the latches as quietly as I can manage and lift the heavy lid.
The urn is swaddled in Jake’s blanket. I pull it out and into my lap, brushing my fingers across the cool marble. All this time I’ve been avoiding the urn, afraid of—I don’t know. Afraid, I guess, that looking at it will make this real. Will drive home the fact that June is gone. She’s gone and that’s permanent. I can’t pretend otherwise when I’m looking at her remains.
“Hey.” I turn when I hear Laney’s sleep-heavy voice. She climbs over the backseat and slides down next to me. “Everything okay?” she asks.
I nod without taking my eyes off the urn. “Yeah. I just…”
Miss her.
“Me too,” Laney says softly, resting her cheek against my shoulder.
“I called her a bitch.”
She looks up at me. “What?”
“The night before…I yelled at her.” My throat is like sandpaper when I swallow. “She barged into my room, and I was—I was mad. And I said all these things—”
“Everyone says stupid shit,” Laney cuts in. “It doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t. June knew you didn’t mean it. I know you two didn’t always get along, but she loved you. And she knew you loved her. I know she did.”
Before I can respond to that, the back doors pop open and Jake sticks his head inside.
“Sorry to interrupt the powwow,” he says. He raises his eyebrows curiously at the urn.
I quickly place it back in the trunk and close the top. “What do you want?”
He tosses something into my lap. I look down; it’s a pack of cigarettes. Camel Lights.
“Now you can stop stealing mine,” he tells me.
Laney gives me a look, but she knows better than to say anything. The same way I never say anything about her drinking. We let each other have these things, even though we shouldn’t. We have our reasons.
The sky gradually lightens as we drive on, deep midnight-blue giving way to flaring orange and dusky pink. Outside the landscape is flat, and everything looks dead: the barren trees, the brown grass. It’d be easy to be lulled back into sleep by the monotony—Laney doesn’t seem to have any trouble drifting off again—but I’m too keyed up at the moment for that. My head buzzes with thoughts that twist around each other like vines.
Maybe Laney’s right. Maybe June did love me. But I’m far less certain that she knew I loved her. Did she realize how much I needed her around? It’s not like I
ever told her. I was too wrapped up in my world to notice what was going on in hers. Even if she did know, it wasn’t enough to count. It wasn’t enough to make her stay. So really, what did it matter, in the end?
The bottom line is, it’s my fault. I didn’t love her enough. I didn’t do enough. I wasn’t enough. There’s no excuse. There is nothing that will ever make that okay.
I press the heels of my hands into my eyes while Jake replaces ABBA with something else—it doesn’t even sound like music. It’s weird and warped and grating. Chaotic noise. I make it about three and a half tracks in before I can’t stand it any longer. I take my hands off my eyes and press the eject button, yanking the disc out with my fingers.
“What the hell is this?” I demand.
“Uh, it’s Captain Beefheart,” Jake explains, nonplussed.
“It’s crap.”
“It’s avant-garde.”
“No. It’s crap.”
“Okay,” he relents, “it’s not the most listenable album ever. You have to experience it a few times in its entirety before it grows on you.”
I seriously doubt that. I almost throw the damn thing out onto the side of the highway, except Jake snatches the disc out of my hand before I can roll the window halfway down.
“All right, all right! I’ll play something else.” He glances away from the road and at the stack of CDs on top of the dashboard. “How about…Pink Floyd?”
“Blah. No.”
“Bob Dylan?”
“We’ve listened to him a ton already.”
“Okay,” he says slowly, and I can tell he’s working to not let his impatience creep into his tone, “so what music do you like?”
“I dunno.” I shrug. “Usually I listen to whatever Laney listens to.”
“I didn’t ask what music you listen to. I asked what music you like.”
I stop and think about it for a minute. “Well…I like some of the more indie stuff. You know—Arcade Fire, Regina Spektor, Magnetic Fields, Tegan and Sara, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. Rilo Kiley’s first album was awesome. Laney listens to this Sri Lankan female rapper, I forget her name, but I enjoy her.” I pause. “And the Beatles. I can’t lie. I love the Beatles.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” he says with the hint of a smile. He squints at me appraisingly. “Let me guess. You’re a Paul girl?”
“Please! I happen to think Ringo is severely underrated,” I say. “But let me guess—you’re a Lennon fan?”
He’s totally that type. Probably thinks he’s bigger than Jesus, too.
I know I’ve pegged him right when he shrugs and says, “Guilty as charged.”
So predictable.
He roots through the stack of CDs and slides one out, pops it into the stereo. I realize what it is when I hear the first song—the Let It Be album. “The last Beatles record ever,” I say.
“Well, to be released,” Jake amends. “Technically it was recorded before Abbey Road.”
Whatever.
We drive for another ten minutes or so before the title track comes on. Paul sings the words with a quiet, strong conviction, accompanied by striking, solemn piano notes. As the song goes on, I think about June. Surprise, surprise. All of a sudden anger bubbles up in my chest so hot and furious I can barely breathe.
I want what Paul had. I want the faith that there will be some kind of an answer, something more than these endless questions taking up so much space in my head, this feeling that nothing matters and nothing has a point. It isn’t fair. It isn’t fair that I have no answers. It isn’t fair that June isn’t here to give them. Most of all it isn’t fair that she did this to me, that she left me to deal with this mess on my own. That’s how I feel: completely and utterly alone. Even with Laney here. Even with my mother. I’m still alone.
Hot tears prick behind my eyes like tiny searing needles. The feel of them there surprises me as much as it does Jake.
He glances over at me, confused. “Hey. What’s—”
“Shut up,” I retort reflexively.
I turn to the window and watch the ground slip by through my unfocused vision, trying to keep myself under control. I can’t get June out of my head. The worst part is not knowing if I want her out of there or not. But I don’t have a choice when I’m listening to this song, to these lyrics all about guidance and comfort, so sad and hopeful at the same time.
A minute later the headlights wash over a sign indicating an upcoming rest stop. I try to blink the wetness out of my eyes, but it doesn’t work.
“I need to pee,” I say, my voice wavering.
Without a word, Jake pulls off at the next exit and drives down the sloping road. The tears form thick in my throat until I can’t hold it in anymore.
I grab the door handle. “Stop the car.”
“Harper—”
“Stop the goddamn car!”
I unfasten my belt and tumble out the door as he skids to a stop. The lot is mostly empty; thankfully no one is there to witness my mad bolt toward the bathrooms. But I don’t even get that far before I stumble and drop to my knees on the grass.
A song. A stupid song is making me cry like a baby, when I couldn’t even muster up a single tear for my own sister’s funeral. What does that say about me? The sobs that have been building in my chest burst out, ragged and painful. I rock on my heels, crying and crying, ripping out chunks of grass by the fistfuls. I hate this. I hate feeling too much and not enough at the same time. I go on ripping at the grass and crying and hating myself some more.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been doing that before I sense Jake behind me. I don’t turn around.
“Paul is wrong, you know,” I say as I wipe my grass-stained palms on my knees. I’m still crying so hard I’m barely coherent. “There’s not going to be an answer.”
There will never be answers. Just more and more questions. And maybe I’d be okay with that if I didn’t have to hear someone sing those lies so beautifully that it makes me want more than anything to believe that I’m wrong. That one day this all might make sense. That my life is shattered now, but one day I’ll be able to glue the pieces back together and make it whole again.
Jake hovers a step closer. “Hey—” he starts.
“Don’t,” I say. I put my head in my hands and try to get a grip, get myself under control. Stop acting like an idiot. I hate that it’s Jake who always sees me when I’m acting like an idiot.
“Don’t…what?”
“Don’t say something nice. It’ll make me feel so pathetic I’ll want to die.”
Jake kneels down and sets one of his hands lightly on the middle of my back. It’s like his touch cracks open my insides, and I start crying freely again, even harder than before.
“Good news,” he hisses in a stage whisper. “I was just going to tell you how puffy and red your eyes are. You look like you tested out Seth’s gas mask.”
I laugh a little through my tears, brushing them away with the back of my hand, and the sound surprises me as much as the crying. I can’t remember the last time I laughed.
I blow out a shaky breath. “Jerk.”
Everything’s starting to feel a little more normal now; my breathing coming a little easier, my voice a little steadier. The hysterical feeling fades and leaves me with the all-too-sharp awareness of my stupid meltdown.
“This is so ridiculous,” I say, embarrassed. I want to dig a hole in the ground right here and crawl inside it. “Crying over a song—“
“It’s not dumb,” he tells me. He hasn’t moved his hand from the center of my back. I kind of like it, though, its weight and warmth. Holding me together. “It makes sense.”
What is he talking about? It totally does not make sense. It is the opposite of sense making.
I roll my eyes. “Whatever.”
“I mean it,” he stresses. He pauses, the silence between us lengthening until I finally meet his serious gaze. “You want to know why I love music?”
“Enlighten me.” I sniffle. My face
must be such a mess right now.
“Eric Clapton had a four-year-old son who fell forty-nine stories through an open window of their apartment and died,” he says.
I stare at him in return, waiting to see how this could possibly be relevant to his point.
“Clapton wrote this song about it, after, and it just—It rips your heart out,” he continues. “It is the best kind of devastating there is. He took his pain and he turned it into something beautiful. Into something that people connect to. And that’s what good music does. It speaks to you. It changes you.” Jake leans in toward me a little closer, voice softening. “What I’m trying to say is, it’s just nice, I guess, knowing that someone else can put into words what I feel. That there are people who have been through things worse than I have, and they came out on the other side okay. Not only that, but they made some kind of twisted, fucked-up sense of the completely senseless. They made it mean something. These songs tell me I’m not alone. If you look at it that way, music…music can see you through anything.”
I close my eyes as his hand rubs a small circle on my back. It’s the first time in so long that I’ve been touched by someone—anyone—without my every instinct screaming at me to run away. The first time when I feel like someone is reaching out without expecting anything from me in return.
“Everything is so screwed up.” My voice trembles, tears flowing again. “I’m doing this all wrong.”
Jake looks unsure of how to respond. “You seriously need to give yourself a break here, kid,” he says after a minute. “There’s no right way to do this.” He stands, moving his hand from my back to the top of my head. “Look, it’s not ever going to stop hurting. That’s the reality. But after a while, it’ll get…easier. You’ll get used to living with it.”
I don’t want to get used to living with it. I want things to go back to the way they used to be.
Jake gives me a hand up, and I notice the way he doesn’t let go right away when I’m on my feet. But then, I don’t really want to let go, either. I like having something to hold on to.