“So after this year, you’ll be able to teach?” Charlie asked.
“No, I have another year to get my credential. Then I’ll be able to teach.” She was actually looking forward to teaching. After three years of college, she was beginning to think she’d be pretty good at it. “Are you looking for anything special today?” she asked him.
“No, but my granddaughter is.” He looked over his shoulder toward the door. “She’s visiting from Portland, Oregon. She stopped in the bakery next door, but she’ll be here in a minute. I’ll look at the jazz till she gets here.”
“All right,” she said. He’d mentioned a granddaughter from time to time and Jade was glad she was visiting him. Somehow, she felt responsible for Charlie. She worried about him living alone and she missed him those weeks he didn’t stop in. She wasn’t sure of his age and he didn’t seem the least bit frail, but he was an old man and she knew he’d adored the wife he’d lost. She knew, too, that he loved coming into Grady’s and feeling like family here. She was hypersensitive to loneliness.
She was busy adding new CDs to the classical section when Charlie tapped her elbow. She looked up. “Jade,” he said, “I’d like you to meet my granddaughter, Celia.”
Next to Charlie stood a young woman a little taller than him and a little older than Jade. Her dark brown hair was cropped very short on one side, a little longer on the other, and a lock of it fell across her temple. She wore black shorts and a gray Indigo Girls T-shirt with short capped sleeves. One of her slender arms was draped around her grandfather’s shoulders, and she smiled at Jade, who felt hypnotized by the young woman’s silver-gray eyes. It was impossible to look away from those eyes, and Jade didn’t want to. She spoke as though everything was perfectly normal—Hello, Celia. Nice to meet you. How long are you here for? Your grandfather said you’re looking for something in particular—but she couldn’t pull her gaze away from Celia’s, and Celia didn’t seem to mind one bit. It was like a Vulcan mind meld. The strangest thing. Jade could see her future and Celia was part of it.
“Grandpop said you know every record that’s ever been recorded,” Celia said.
“Well…” She blushed, and she wasn’t usually a blusher. “Now you’ve made me nervous,” she said.
“I’m looking for an old album by Robin Flower. I can’t find it anywhere.”
“1st Dibs?” Jade asked, though it wasn’t really a question. Somehow she knew which one Celia wanted. Celia didn’t have to tell her.
“That’s it,” she said. They were still staring at one another.
“We have it on vinyl. No CD, though.”
“Perfect,” Celia said.
“I told you,” Charlie said to her. “Told you she was good.”
She managed to tear her gaze from Celia’s to look at him and saw the mild amusement on his face, as though he’d known all along there’d be a quick and intense connection between Jade and his granddaughter.
Charlie stepped away from Celia’s arm and gently pushed her in Jade’s direction. “You two find the Robin Flower record,” he said. “I’ll be in the jazz section.”
* * *
“I love your grandfather,” Jade said as she and Celia started riffling through the albums. She knew exactly where the Flower record was, but she didn’t want to get to it too quickly. Celia’s shoulder was pressed against hers, and Jade watched the muscles and tendons in Celia’s forearm as she moved the albums. She felt heat rising up her chest and into her cheeks and her knees shivered. It was at once the most disorienting and delicious feeling she’d ever experienced, even though she was afraid she might need to sit down right there on the floor to keep from keeling over.
“He loves you back,” Celia said. “He said he always comes in on the days you work.” Her hands were beautiful. They were a warm honey color, like the rest of her, the fingers long and slender with short rounded nails. “He said you’re a music major. Violin, right? No wonder you knew the Robin Flower record.”
It took her a moment to find her voice. “Right,” she said.
“And he said you want to teach. I teach, too.”
“Really? What grade?”
“I teach math at a community college in Portland.”
“Wow!” She suddenly felt very young. “Here it is.” She pulled out the album and handed it to Celia.
“Cool!” Celia lifted the album into her honey-colored hands, then looked at her. “Grandpop said to ask you over to dinner tonight.”
Jade had the feeling he’d said If you like her, ask her over. And Celia liked her.
“I’d love that,” Jade said.
They stepped back from the records and Jade was almost afraid to look at her again and feel that otherworldly pull of her eyes. But she did it.
“How old are you?” Celia asked.
“Twenty-two. I sort of got a late start with college because I needed to work for a while first. So I’m only going into my senior year now.” She blathered on when what she really wanted to say was, You are so amazingly beautiful! “How old are you?” she asked.
“Twenty-five. You’ll come over tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Sevenish? You know where he lives?”
She nodded. “I’ll bring wine?”
“No, don’t. We’ll have everything. Just bring yourself.” She rested her perfect hand on Jade’s forearm, tightening her fingers ever so slightly, and for the rest of the day Jade kept touching her arm where Celia had touched, and each time, she felt the heat rise up her chest to her face as she ticked down the hours until seven.
* * *
Although she knew which bungalow was Charlie’s, Jade had never been inside it before. His walls were covered with paintings, large and small. She didn’t know much about art, but she had the feeling the work in his living room was original and possibly valuable. She’d known he wasn’t a poverty-stricken old man, given the amount of money he spent in Grady’s, but besides the art on the walls and the shelves filled with records—so much like her father’s collection—there was nothing in his modest, cozy house to make her think he was wealthy.
There were, however, two guitars and a mandolin resting in cases against one of the living room walls.
“Who plays?” she asked, standing in the middle of the room.
“Both of us,” Celia said. “The mandolin’s mine. I brought it down with me from Portland. I’m not that great on the guitar, but Grandpop is. How about you?”
“I can play a little mandolin,” she said. “Though it’s been forever.”
“We should have told you to bring your violin over,” Charlie said.
It was just as well they hadn’t. She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to resist.
* * *
They ate pasta primavera on Franciscan Ware Apple–patterned plates that were exactly like the ones Jade had grown up with, but she said nothing about that because the girl who grew up using those plates had to be dead to her. Still it was eerie, eating off them.
They told her all about Celia’s family while they ate. She’d grown up in San Diego until she was fourteen, when her father was transferred to Portland, and she finished high school there. She had a brother, Shane, who lived a few hours away in Seattle and they were a close-knit, music-loving family.
“They were kind of shocked when I came out,” Celia said easily, as though she knew it would be no surprise to Jade, and it wasn’t. The Indigo Girls T-shirt. The Robin Flower record. And yet, the way Jade had felt standing next to her in Grady’s—that had been a surprise, and she wasn’t sure what to make of her feelings. She found it hard to look at Celia across the table without feeling that telltale heat rising up her throat to her cheeks again.
“Were they okay with it?” Jade asked. “With you … coming out?”
“Not right away. They thought it was a phase.” She laughed.
“I knew it wasn’t a phase,” Charlie said to her. “I told them they’d better just accept it or lose you.”
?
??Grandpop likes to think he saved the day, but they would have come around.”
“I saved the day,” Charlie said with certainty, as though he had some insider knowledge about what had gone on.
“They came around pretty quickly, whether it was anything Grandpop said or not,” Celia said. “I think they were just worried they’d never get any grandkids from me.”
They asked Jade about her family, and she ached as she lied. She ached because she loved Charlie and she had the feeling she could easily love Celia and every member of her family just from hearing about them, and everything she was telling them was total fiction. She told them how she’d needed to escape from her terrible parents, and the lie felt simply awful. She wished she could tell them about Riley. About Danny. But the truth was, she no longer knew much about her family. She didn’t even know where they lived. Charlie and Celia looked at her with so much sympathy. How could they even relate to the lack of support she’d described? Did they think it was her fault for not working it out? She didn’t like her false self any better than she did her real self, and that made her very sad. She wanted to tell them how her parents had loved her in spite of her mistakes. How good they were. Instead she turned them into an evil couple bent on ruining her life.
“I’d love to hear you two play,” she said, nodding toward the living room and the instruments as she tried to get the focus off herself.
“Good idea,” Celia said, pushing back from the table. “Let’s clean up and make some music.”
Jade helped Celia in the tiny kitchen while Charlie put the Robin Flower record on his stereo. He had top-of-the-line equipment, which didn’t surprise her, given his love of music. Working in the kitchen, she felt Celia’s arm brush against hers more than was absolutely necessary. Yes, it was a tiny space, but they still seemed to find themselves next to each other more than was needed to wash and dry. And Jade loved it, the touching. She loved it so much that she was disappointed when the dishes were done and the counter clean.
When they joined Charlie in the living room, he was sitting on his futon, taking one of the guitars out of its case. Celia turned off the stereo and looked at Jade. “Why don’t you play my mandolin,” she said, “and I’ll just mess around on the other guitar?”
Jade shook her head. “No, that’s okay,” she said. “I’d love to hear you two play together.”
Celia sat on the other end of the futon from her grandfather as they lit into “Roll in My Sweet Baby’s Arms” on the guitar and mandolin. Jade sat on a nearby chair, grinning. They were brilliant together! They played a bunch of traditional tunes Jade didn’t know, and then a few familiar old Beatles songs.
She listened to them play awhile longer and she clapped and even sang along for a bit … and then she reached the point where she couldn’t take it anymore. She suddenly got to her feet and they looked up in surprise.
“I have to get my violin,” she announced.
“All right!” Celia said.
“Go with her,” Charlie said to Celia. “Too dark to be out there alone.”
It wasn’t really too dark to be alone. Oh, there were parts of Ocean Beach Jade wouldn’t want to be in alone at night, but the three blocks between Charlie’s bungalow and her cottage were perfectly safe. Still, she wouldn’t turn down more time with Celia.
They walked quietly for a while before Celia spoke. “It took real courage to leave your family like that when you were only eighteen,” she said after they’d walked a block. “Do you ever hear from them?”
Jade shook her head. “No,” she said. “They don’t even know where I am and I want to keep it that way.”
Celia was quiet a moment. “Was it because you’re gay?” she asked without looking at her, and Jade was stunned by the question. Did she look gay? Her hair was still down to her shoulders and she thought she looked pretty feminine. Maybe, though, looks had nothing to do with it.
She hesitated. “I don’t think I am,” she said, then added, “Although right now, I’m a little confused.”
They were passing beneath a streetlight, and she could see the slight smile on Celia’s lips. Jade had the feeling Celia knew more about her than she knew about herself.
Celia touched her arm. “It’s okay,” she said.
She thought about the way she felt every time she looked at the Nastassja Kinski poster in Grady’s, and she remembered the day she’d bought her violin from Cara and the electric jolt she’d felt watching Cara play. Matty’d told her once that he wondered if she was gay and just didn’t know it yet. She’d thought he was joking, his feelings hurt because she said she didn’t care if they ever kissed or not. She looked at Celia’s profile. That was not the way she felt right now. She wished Celia would try to kiss her. She wouldn’t resist.
Neither of them spoke for half a block.
“That’s my place.” She pointed toward Ingrid’s bungalow. “I live in a little cottage behind the house.” She pushed open the gate to the walkway. “Down here,” she said, and Celia followed her down the narrow path.
“This is really cute,” Celia said when Jade flicked on the living room light. She was embarrassed by all the papers and music scattered all over the place. She’d never had anyone other than Ingrid inside the cottage. “How do you afford it, working at Grady’s?” Celia asked, then she blushed. “Sorry,” she said. “That’s so personal.”
“Ingrid takes pity on me,” Jade said. Ingrid had never once raised her rent. “Plus the in-state tuition is great. I’ll need to find a teaching job as soon as I’m out, though.” She was worried about that. How many schools were hiring music teachers these days?
She picked up her violin case. “I bought this from a student who was trading up,” she said. “I had a better one before I left home, but had to leave it behind.”
“I’m sorry.” Celia touched her shoulder, a look of sympathy on her face. “Whatever it was you went through with your family,” she said, “you didn’t deserve it.”
Jade couldn’t look at her, she felt so choked up. She was glad when she turned out the light and they walked outside into the darkness again.
* * *
Sitting once more in Charlie’s living room, Jade felt her hands shake as she tuned the violin. She knew what she was going to do, and she knew there was danger in it. “Want us to start and you join in?” Charlie said kindly. He and Celia sat on the futon, waiting for her to finish her painstaking tuning. “What’s your favorite song?” he asked.
“I’ll play it for you,” she said, and she lifted the violin to her chin and began to play Bazzini’s “Dance of the Goblins,” her eyes shut so she could lose herself in the music. Forget where she was. Forget she was taking a risk, playing one of the most technically challenging pieces of music she knew. Forget she was pushing the bushel aside and letting her light explode from beneath it like fireworks.
When she’d finished, she opened her eyes to the silence in the room. Celia’s hands were prayerlike, pressed to her mouth, and above them her gray eyes were wide.
“Holy shit,” Charlie said into the still air of the cottage.
Jade’s arms trembled as she lowered the violin to her lap. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s my favorite song.” Please don’t tell, she thought.
“Where did you learn to play like that?” Charlie asked.
“I studied a lot as a kid.” She shrugged her shoulders. She hadn’t played well out of a need to show off. Not at all. It had been a need to let out a little of who she really was to people she cared about. People who cared about her.
“Why aren’t you making this your life’s work?” Celia finally found her voice. “Why San Diego State? Why not a conservatory?”
“Juilliard,” Charlie said, making Jade jump. It was as though he knew.
“Because I had to leave home,” she said. “I had to give it up.”
“No!” Celia said. “You can’t. You have to get back to it.”
“It’s a gift,” Charlie said. “You have a re
sponsibility to use it.”
“I want to teach,” she said. “That’s all I want right now.” She nodded toward his guitar. “Let’s play together.”
It took them another minute to recover from what she’d done. They could tell she was hurting, she thought. That she needed the relief they could offer. So, in their kindness, they began playing. The three of them played until two in the morning, and this time when Celia walked Jade home to her cottage, it surprised neither of them when she took the violin case from Jade’s hands and set it next to the couch, then drew Jade toward her, her hands warm against her rib cage, her lips pressing gently against hers.
“Stay,” Jade said when they’d pulled apart, and Celia nodded.
“I don’t have a phone for you to let Charlie know you won’t be coming home, though, and you—”
Celia pressed her fingertip to Jade’s lips. “I told him not to worry if I didn’t come home tonight.”
“Oh.” In spite of how open the three of them had been with each other all evening, Jade felt a little shock. “What did he say?”
“He said to be good to you. He said you’re very, very precious.” Celia smiled. “But I’d already figured that out.”
32.
Riley
“What are you two doing here?” Tom Kyle said when Verniece let us into the stifling hot RV. Verniece had that jittery look that I’d seen in her a couple of times. I imagined life wasn’t pleasant for her when her husband was upset and I hated being part of the cause. They didn’t ask us to sit down, and the four of us stood awkwardly in the small kitchen. I was next to the door, one hand on the doorknob, nervous about my brother and his unpredictable anger. Already, I couldn’t wait for this to be over.
“We have a few questions,” Danny said. “You laid some news on my sister and you owe us an explanation.”