Love Songs for the Road
Page 20
But amidst this surprising breakthrough, Marcus never stopped thinking about Ryan, especially as he couldn’t imagine it having happened without her. She was the one who helped transform “I Lock the Door” from a so-so song to a great one, and she was the one who had gotten him thinking about ways to avoid the grind of the touring life.
Memories of their time together came back to him in a flurry: the absurd underwear incident on the day they met; the run-in at Pike Place Market; Ryan’s twisted ankle, and the foot massage; all the ill-advised onstage antics he’d engaged in to try to woo her; the fleeting moments of passion they’d shared in his room. Marcus had tried for weeks to shake the hold these recollections had on him, but he couldn’t do it. As much as he tried to reason his way through losing her, the feelings he’d developed wouldn’t just go away.
One day, when the kids were out at school, and he and Smitty were trading ideas for chord changes on yet another new song, his old buddy finally broke his silence.
“Come on, man,” he said, handing Marcus a fresh cup of coffee. “We need to talk this out. Put that guitar down. Your ideas aren’t worth a damn today, anyway.”
But Marcus didn’t know where to start. He’d been left behind again, and the cause was obvious—his fame had eaten another woman alive. He said as much to his friend.
“Well, that’s a pretty dramatic way of putting it,” Smitty said. “But you see her point, right? Ryan’s a good ol’ girl, not some gold-digger like, well… You know I never liked Bianca.”
“Yep. You called that one from the start.”
“And boy, you couldn’t stand the sight of me for, how long was it?”
“We didn’t talk for eight months.”
Smitty laughed. “You didn’t talk to me for eight months. Man, are you stubborn. And dumb. Then again, so am I. Look at me here, thirty-six years old, and still on my own.”
“That ain’t dumb, brother. That’s genius.”
“No, it’s not. There’s nothing smart about growing old alone, or letting go of the best woman you’ve ever had.”
“You really think Ryan was the best woman I ever had?”
“Are you kidding? By a mile.”
Marcus’s old friend helped remind him that Ryan’s reasons for leaving weren’t insubstantial: an innocent woman, unused to the perils of celebrity culture, had been dragged through the mud, her reputation ruined for no other reason than her proximity to Marcus and his music.
“I do realize that,” Marcus said. “But what can I do about it?”
“Do you love her?” Smitty asked. The question took Marcus by surprise, but before he could answer, his friend added, “If you don’t, you’re even stupider than I realize.”
Marcus laughed ruefully. “Yeah, man. I’m totally in love with her.”
Smitty leaned over and slapped Marcus’s chest with the back of his hand, and Marcus’s coffee spilled on his flannel shirt. “Well then, why the hell didn’t you fight for her? Give the girl a call, or get on a plane to Michigan. Do something, you damn mule!”
Later that week, Marcus did call, several times, though Ryan never picked up the phone. He e-mailed, texted, and even tried to friend her on Facebook (this required, of course, opening a Facebook account, which was surprisingly complicated for a thirty-four year-old who needed to conceal his identity), but he couldn’t find her profile.
By the third week of October, he’d had enough. He left the kids with Smitty for the weekend, put two changes of clothes in a duffel bag, gunned the El Dorado, and headed east. Four months earlier, he’d sped down these same roads, in this same beautiful example of classic Detroit craftsmanship, and convinced Ryan to take a journey with him.
Now he would ask her to take a different kind of trip.
One that lasted a lifetime.
…
Just as she’d done after learning about Nick and Natalie, Ryan had plunged right back into her obsession with running before she had even familiarized herself with the Michigan campus. She used her runs as a way to orient herself to the new surroundings, letting herself get lost in the Leslie Woods Nature Area that abutted her apartment building for three miles, then five, then seven, then ten. She ran to get that addictive brain buzz, that sweet rush of endorphins that had been so elusive since she’d walked off the Bus of Awesome. She ran to forget the tour. She ran to forget herself. And, of course, she ran to forget Marcus and the kids.
Admiring the gently rolling hills and fall foliage that had appeared only a few days earlier, she told herself that she had begun to appreciate the natural beauty of Michigan, so different from the vast open fields, legendary vistas, and towering mountain ranges of her home state. But in truth she found herself in the midst of a bout of homesickness almost as debilitating as her heartbreak. At the end of September, she’d seriously considered buying a plane ticket home for a long weekend. But then she realized that she could easily run into the Troys there. And if she saw Marcus, God knew what she would have done—probably run straight into his arms, straight into his life again. No, better to stay put. She’d get used to Ann Arbor eventually.
She tried not to let her mind drift toward Marcus, but sometimes she couldn’t help it. There were specific, individual memories, of course—Marcus’s equally impressive skills as a paramedic and a foot masseuse, his consulting her on unfinished song lyrics, his “accidental” drop-ins on the bus—but more than that, she recalled moods and emotions. She’d never felt so alive as she did around him, so relaxed, so much herself. She’d never been tended to as gently and kindly. Sometimes she wondered if she’d ever meet a man who even came close to Marcus Troy.
May as well admit it, Ryan thought. You loved him. You still love him.
Ryan didn’t feel lonely, exactly. She was glad to have some time to reflect on what had happened––she almost relished the opportunity to punish herself by going over the events of the summer again and again and again––and spent much of September trying to parse out whether, had she done things differently, her relationship with Marcus might have survived. She knew, of course, that the media would have jumped on any hint of a relationship between Marcus and his nanny—the trope was just too good for them to pass up. But she had added fuel to the fire in some ways, hadn’t she? Marcus was no master of self-control, but Ryan had always thought she was. Why had she allowed the Troys—two generations of them—to drag her up onstage like that, not once, but twice? And why had she stooped to Jacey Richards’ level, not to mention Benjamin Little’s? Ryan had never been a confrontational person, and the fact that she had allowed those two to provoke her was still shocking.
In the third week of October, Ryan went running a couple hours before dusk. She had finished her third loop around the Leslie golf course, on a brisk pace of eight minutes and seconds per mile, and was about to enter the woods. The trees transformed on a daily basis, and she loved to track the changes. Today, the last of the green leaves had disappeared, replaced with resplendent yellows, oranges, and rusts, and as she found herself gazing up at the psychedelic canopy above, she had to remind herself to watch out for stray rocks and tree roots in the path. If she sprained her ankle here in Ann Arbor, she wouldn’t have a rock star on hand to nurse her back to health.
Checking her progress on her running app, Ryan exited the woods and built speed toward Lake Lila. She had actually improved her time since leaving the golf course, and was on track to beat her personal best. By the time she finished her second lap around the lake, she was gaining speed with every step. She didn’t feel like stopping, not when she had such momentum, but she also knew that if she kept going, she probably wouldn’t be able to stop herself—she’d run by that damn house again.
The first time she’d run down Avon Street, it had been a complete accident. Ryan had only seen Crane House once, on Marcus’s tablet. She’d forgotten the address, and hadn’t ever thought to Google it. She wasn’t the type to torture herself like that—or so she thought.
But in late September,
she ran right by the house, tucked into a very normal suburban neighborhood, and as if seeing a vision from a dream, she’d stopped in her tracks. At first, she thought it might not be Crane House, but there was a For Sale sign in front. Unable to help herself, she walked across the lawn, nearly turning around when a motion-sensor floodlight turned on and lit the stone path to the front door. She kept going, though, shielding her eyes from the glare and looking through one of the windows to the right of the door.
It was seven p.m., and the light was dim inside, but it was most definitely Crane House. No one seemed to be living there at the moment, but the sparse furnishings, the light fixtures, the island kitchen—everything was exactly the same as on the website. She even saw the doorway to the room that would have been her study. Knowing it was pure masochism, she imagined herself working at the little vintage desk she’d seen in the picture, while the sound of Marcus’s voice and acoustic guitar filled the house.
Aching with longing, Ryan turned around to find herself facing a middle-aged brunette in a pantsuit, jiggling a set of keys with a University of Michigan key chain.
“Interested?” the woman asked.
Ryan, in a lightweight running outfit more appropriate for exercising in the Indian Summer than for going on vintage-architecture tours, realized how silly she must have looked to the real estate agent. “Oh, no. It’s just…I read about this house once, and recognized it as I ran by.”
“You must be an architecture student? At U of M?”
“No, no. Well, yes, I’m a student, but that’s not my subject.”
“You have an eye for a beautiful home, then. This is a real gem. Designed by Dean Robert Metcalf, in 1953. It was his first commission in Ann Arbor, and it’s always been one of my favorite homes in the area. Only been on the market for a month or so. Would you like to see it?”
“Oh no. Maybe another time.” Ryan was so uncomfortable, and couldn’t wait to sprint off. But she had to ask. “Any bites on it yet?”
The agent looked to her left, then to her right, and whispered, “Are you a music fan?”
“Kind of,” she said. The subject was way too complicated to get into.
“Marcus Troy made an inquiry.” Ryan smiled agreeably, but wished he hadn’t asked. “The Marcus Troy.”
“Wow.”
The agent shrugged. “But he was just testing the waters, I guess. After that first call, I never heard from him again, and he stopped responding to my e-mails.”
“Too bad,” Ryan said. “That’s tough luck.”
“You’re telling me,” said the agent.
As she bore down Willowtree Lane, Ryan told herself to call it quits, to go home and get some studying done. You’re done for the day. Time for a well-deserved breather. But Avon was so close, and she couldn’t help herself. She kept going—she just had to.
Marcus had called a couple of times—more than a couple—but she hadn’t called him back. What could he say over the phone that would change anything for either of them? He’d made it clear the last time she saw him that there was no way he was going to stop doing what he loved just so he could be with her. And she’d never dream of asking him to stop making music—that was who he was. But she wasn’t going to give up on her own dreams, either. She wasn’t going to be a housewife or a glorified groupie—that wasn’t who she was.
Since bumping into the real estate agent that first time, Ryan had always made sure to run on the opposite side of the street when passing Crane House. And she certainly hadn’t peered through the windows again—she didn’t want anyone to think she was some kind of stalker (although anyone who would stalk an empty house was a whole other brand of crazy, surely). Her habit was simply to run down Avon, see the familiar For Sale sign in the yard, and keep going.
Today, everything was as it always was, and as she saw the sign from a hundred yards away, Ryan felt that same mixture of craving and relief, and wondered for the umpteenth time how it was that this had become an addictive ritual for her. But as she got closer, she saw that the sign had been altered. Someone had taped over “For Sale” with a much more definitive notice: “Sold.”
Ryan turned around before passing the house, scolding herself, and hoping that, finally, she might be able to start putting Marcus behind her. She willed herself to think about anything but him—the huge workload that awaited her tonight, the meal she would make herself, the run she’d go on tomorrow. She ran faster, hoping that anyone who passed her on the street would mistake her tears for beads of perspiration.
Less than two hundred yards away from her place, she spotted a big, garish car parked in the lot outside the apartment complex. It was the Friday evening of Columbus Day Weekend, and only a few cars remained, but even if the lot had been full, this enormous, dated-looking vehicle would have stood out. A loud gold, faded to a tacky shade of mustard that had last been in fashion a couple of decades before Ryan was born, its convertible canvas top faded to a mottled cream, this dated beast looked more like a boat than a car. Wondering where she’d seen it before, she saw a man emerge from the driver’s seat. He wore jeans, cowboy boots, and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned halfway down his chest.
Ryan slowed to a halt forty feet shy of the 1973 Cadillac El Dorado, pulled her phone out of her armband and checked her stats: 10.2 miles in eighty-one minutes. She’d shattered her record.
She shoved the phone in the pocket of her shorts, wiped her brow on her wrist-band, and walked as calmly as she could toward the car and its handsome driver, who stood, cocky as ever, legs crossed at the ankle, aviator glasses shimmering in the waning light. He wore the crooked smile of a cartoon cowboy, and the sight of him held just as much power over her as it ever had.
For a moment, as she closed in on him at fifty feet, she tried to think of something cutting to say, some witty one-liner that would set the tone for whatever was about to occur. But nothing suitably sarcastic presented itself. Instead, she heard only the voice of her father, whose words of wisdom during times of crisis may not have been wholly original, but were always appropriate: Listen to your heart.
So walked to him at a measured pace. Here he was, after six weeks. He had come for her because he couldn’t stop thinking about her any more than she could about him. She listened to her heart, pounding as hard as if she were still at a full sprint, and it gave her no definitive answers. Yes, it was amazing for him to have, seemingly, driven all the way out here from Montana, but that didn’t mean that any of the issues between them had been resolved. She wouldn’t let him whisk her off her feet. But she would hear what he had to say.
Marcus pulled his glasses off and set them atop his head. He smiled with deep satisfaction, as if, after a long, arduous journey in strange, unfamiliar lands, he’d arrived home and found everything he loved intact. As his eyes met hers, though she tried to suppress it, that familiar thrill shot right through her spine.
“It’s so good to see you again,” he said.
“Marcus, I’m not sure this is a good idea.” For the second time today, she wished she weren’t having a conversation in her sweaty running clothes, though of course this wasn’t the first time it had happened with Marcus.
“Please,” he said. “I’ve got so much I need to tell you.”
Her father’s words again. Just hear him out, Ryan. He’s come all this way. Hear the man out.
Marcus gave her her time to shower and change—she wasn’t going to have a heart-to-heart with him while sweat poured down her forehead and her hair looked like a wet rat’s nest—and after a few minutes, she emerged from the apartment in a rust-orange top and her favorite jeans.
“God, you look gorgeous,” he said as he held the car door for her.
“Marcus, please.” But her heart fluttered. Marcus was so close she could smell him. But all she said was, “You came to talk? Let’s talk.”
He drove up and down Geddes Avenue, the terrain unfamiliar to him, of course. But they didn’t need a destination, not today. “I’ve been going over
and over things in my mind,” he said. “And you were right.”
“About what?”
“About everything.” He took a deep breath. “Firstly, it was a terrible idea to have you come up on stage that night.”
“You can say that again.”
“I was on such a high from the custody hearing, and I lost perspective. I wanted to share you with the world, tell everyone how much I—” He paused.
“What?
“You do realize how much I care about you, don’t you?” He looked in her direction, his eyes pleading.
“Keep your eyes on the road.” Her tone was casual, but her heart was pounding faster. He looked straight ahead again, and Ryan saw his hands flexing and unflexing on the steering wheel.
“Back in New Orleans, I told you that I wouldn’t give up my career to be with you.”
“And I wouldn’t want you to. That wouldn’t be fair. Just like it wouldn’t be fair for me to give up mine.”
“But the thing is, I don’t think either one of us has to. I want you to realize all your dreams. I want you to get your degree, and then teach, or consult, or whatever it is that childhood literacy specialists do”—Ryan couldn’t help but chuckle at this—“and I want to support you as you do that.”
“But what about your music? What about touring?”