When Cicadas Cry

by Laura Miller

  I could be crazy, but I feel as if she keeps stealin’ glances at me, like she’s memorizin’ every part of me or somethin’.

  “So, where does a creative soul like yourself hail from?” I ask.

  She bows her head. It looks as if she’s turned a little shy all of a sudden. “Omaha.”

  “Aah, I think I’ve heard of it.”

  A soft laugh falls from her lips.

  “Now, are we talkin’ city-limits Omaha or rural Omaha?” I ask.

  She raises her eyebrows. “We’re talkin’ the half-million-people-in-one-place Omaha.”

  “Oh,” I say, scratchin’ my stubble. “So, you mean the Starbucks Omaha then?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she confirms.

  “And the rush-hour Omaha?” I ask.

  She nods again. “That’s right.”

  “And the you-graduated-with-more-than-twenty-five-people-in-your-class Omaha.”

  “That’s the one,” she says.

  “Well, this must be a far cry from what you’re used to then.”

  She only smiles.

  “So what brings you here?” I ask.

  I watch her chest slowly rise with an intake of breath before she gradually pushes it out. “Well, I heard so much about this place that I wanted to see it for myself, I guess.”

  I don’t know if I mean to, but I narrow my eyes at her. “This place?” I ask. “Are we talkin’ about the same place?”

  “Oh, come on, it’s beautiful,” she says, sittin’ back and crossin’ one leg over the other. “It’s exactly how I pictured it—small town, America; apple festivals; hot air balloon races; maple trees lining the streets; everybody knows everybody.”

  “Wait,” I say, reachin’ for my phone in my pants pocket.

  “What?” she asks, suddenly eyeing me a little closer. “What are you doing?” She gives me only half a grin.

  “I’m gonna record this,” I say, “for five years down the road when you’ve outgrown this place and you wanna get the hell out of here.”

  She laughs, and at the same time, swipes at my phone. Her skin brushes my skin, sending a hot sensation up my spine. “Really,” she says, like she’s tryin’ to convince me. “I love it here.”

  “Okay,” I reluctantly concede, putting my phone back into my pocket, but really, I’m just prayin’ that she falls in love with me before she falls out of love with this place.

  “So, you said you grew up here,” she says. “I’m guessing this is where you call home then.”

  “Yeah,” I confirm. “That would be a pretty damn good guess.”

  She keeps her stare on me, and if eyes could smile, I’d have to say hers were smilin’ right now.

  “Ashley Westcott,” a voice calls from the bottom of the porch steps. “I’m glad you found the place.”

  I look up and find Jack suddenly hoverin’ over us. He winks at me and then slaps me on the back. Jack’s always been a back-slapper. “My buddy here has been talkin’ about ya nonstop since ya got into town.”

  She cocks her pretty blond head in my direction. “Has he?”

  Before I can say anything...or knee Jack in the groin, he opens his big mouth again. “Yeah, he sure has. I had to invite everyone in Conoco just so it wouldn’t seem like a stranger was askin’ you to some backwoods party or somethin’. Hell, now I’ve got Old Crazy Kip runnin’ around here lookin’ for his whiskey and his cane just because he was buyin’ an egg sandwich this mornin’.”

  She laughs. I try not to, especially since now I’m wonderin’ where I’m gonna find Crazy Kip passed out in the mornin’.

  “Anyway, Ashley, this here’s a good guy. You should give him a chance.” He pats me on the back again and then leans over and whispers into her ear, loud enough that I can hear it. “No pressure, but if ya don’t, I might wind up a dead man tomorrow. I think somebody pissed on his garage door.”

  “What?” I interject.

  Jack flaps his arms at me. “I’m just jokin’. It’s just a joke.” He starts backin’ away with his hands up in the air, but before he takes off, he whispers near her ear again. “Don’t take him by the garage door.”

  “Jack!” I say, shaking my head.

  “Hey, at least you can watch the game on Saturday,” he shouts back at me. “You know, instead of pushin’ a grocery cart.” He makes the motion of pushin’ a cart, then disappears. And then it’s just me and my reluctant smile and her questioning stare.

  “Sorry about that,” I say. “He’s harmless.” And before I can say anything else, I hear her soft voice.

  “Your friends seem pretty cool.”

  I just keep one eye on her, while I pull out my phone again and look for the record button. “Can you repeat that, just one more time?”

  She swipes at my hand, but this time, her touch lingers. And for a moment, I get lost in her light eyes.

  “There’s something about you, Remington Jude,” she says in a low, velvety voice.

  I don’t say anything. I don’t know if it’s her touch or the way she says my name so soft and so sweet, but somethin’s got me tongue-tied.

  “Just like this town, there’s something about you,” she continues, barely over a whisper.

  I don’t know exactly what she’s talkin’ about, but I don’t think I have to know either. All I hear is that she’s stayin’ here and that she likes me. At least, that’s what I’m hopin’ I’m hearin’. And that’s all I need to know.

  “Ashley Westcott, what are you doin’ tomorrow night?”

  She smiles, but it looks as if she tries to hide it by bowin’ her head before lookin’ back up at me. “I suppose you have an idea.”

  “Well, I might.”

  “Shoot,” she says.

  “Well, I was just wonderin’ if I could borrow a little of your time.”

  Another beautiful smile breaks across her face.

  “I mean,” I go on, “just an afternoon...and maybe an evening.” And hopefully, the rest her life too, but I’ll keep that one to myself...for now.

  She stares back at me—those pink lips holdin’ everything that keeps me breathin’ right now.

  “If a little time is all you’re asking for,” she says, “I suppose I can give that to you.”

  And with that, I sit back and smile because Jack and the garage door and Crazy Kip and the hell of a mess I know I’ll have to clean up tomorrow mornin’ all just became a part of what I know I’ll remember as the best day of my crazy life...and also the day of no return.

  I can’t go back now. I’ve fallen for Ashley Westcott. And as of today, no matter what comes after this, I know I’ll never be able to forget her. I know I’ll never be able to forget the natural way her name hangs on my lips or the manner in which her beautiful green eyes can burrow a hole as deep as a silo into my soul. Not to mention, she gives a whole new meaning to a holey pair of jeans, an old, Cardinals tee shirt and cherry, red Chap Stick. And I’ll be damned if this girl isn’t the reason men don’t move on from their first loves. In fact, I have no doubt that she broke a heart to get here. But hell, I’m just happy she’s here, and better yet, that’s she’s givin’ me a chance.

  Chapter Six

  Past

  Rem

  For the first ten times or so I came here, I hated it. My palms would get sweaty; my heart would damn near beat out of my chest; and my lungs would shrink to the size of marbles. But eventually, it got easier. It got better than easier, I guess. Somewhere along the line, it became... Oh, what’s that damn word my mom always uses. Therapeutic. It became therapeutic-like, like I was just goin’ to visit him, like it was just another day. And now, I guess, it’s just like it’s the two of us hangin’ out and talkin’ about the crazy shit in our lives—just like old times.

  I get to his spot. It’s the one next to Mr. Katz. His is the stone stickin’ out of the ground with the rounded edges. Most of the stones here are square and lie flat, including Mr. Katz’s. But not Owen’s. His is different than all the rest. It’s even got a di
fferent color. Where all the others resemble limestone, his is more like sandstone—not quite gray, but not quite gold either. If I close my eyes, I can see it on the back of my eyelids, just like that. And even sometimes, right before I drift off to sleep, that gravestone is what I see. Owen Katz. Nov. 3, 1989 – Nov. 6, 2011. And underneath that, I even see the football with his number—12—carved into it. So, whether I like it or not, this stone has become just as much a part of me as my own hand.

  I sit down on one of my grandpa’s old milkin’ stools I brought here about a year ago. I figured if I was gonna be spendin’ some time here, I might as well pull up a chair.

  “Hi, Mr. Katz.” I tip my cap’s bill in the direction of the stone that lies next to Owen’s. It’s a little older and a little more weathered around its square edges.

  Mr. Katz—or Sam Katz—was Owen’s dad. I never met him. He died of a heart attack right after Owen was born. I guess that should have been a red flag with Owen playin’ football and all, but he seemed healthy. Nobody guessed there was anything wrong with Owen’s heart—not until he went down in that last game, and he never got back up.

  “Hey, buddy.” I turn my attention back to the gray-gold stone.

  I’m about to say somethin’ else when my eye catches on somethin’ other than the unopened can of beer Jack always leaves behind; that’s how I always know he’s been here. I reach for the other thing beside it. It’s a postcard. On the front is a photo of a sunset over a beach. It reads Rio de Janeiro in cursive letters at the bottom. I flip it over. The back is empty. It’s always empty. I flip it back around and set it back where it was, against the stone. Every month or so, there’s a new postcard. They started comin’ not too long after he got here, about a couple years ago. The photos are always taken from exotic places like some South American beach or some jungle or desert somewhere; things like that. Owen never talked about places like that to any of us—not to me, not to Jack, not to Mike. I didn’t even know he knew about places like that. So, I figure whoever is leavin’ these cards has got to be someone who talked to him more than we did. My guess is it’s a girlfriend. He was always mysterious when it came to girls. Hell, he was always mysterious when it came to about everything. I just figured that since he lived most of his life in a small town where everybody always knew your business that the moment he got the chance, he disappeared. When he got that scholarship to play football up north, he moved up there, and I think he figured out real quick that if he never told anyone anything about his life up there that no one down here would ever have anything to say about him. He liked that. He liked when people kept to themselves and didn’t bother with the rumor mill. And that’s why, I suspect, that for those three and a half years he was away at school, we never heard a thing about a girlfriend.

  My eyes travel from the stone to the postcard. I know that postcard is from someone who loved him, someone who knew more about him than his own friends and family. And there’s a part of me that wished I knew who she was. I don’t know what I’d say to her exactly. Maybe I’d just like to know from her what he was like up there. I’d guess he was a lot like he was here in Missouri. But then again, Missouri-Owen wouldn’t understand a blank postcard of some sandy beach in Rio de Janeiro either.

  I pick up the card again and look at it one more time. I just want to make sure I’m not missin’ anything.

  I flip it over. Nope. No name. No postmark. Nothin’.

  “Owen, you ever gonna tell me who your girlfriend is?”

  I laugh to myself and set the card back down.

  “It’s all right, buddy, you ain’t gotta tell me. She seems like a nice girl, though. Looks like ya did pretty good.”

  I take a breath and then force it right back out, as I stare at that sandy beach on that card. “I guess you wanted to see the world, huh?”

  I wait for him to answer, but all I hear is a squirrel rustlin’ some leaves in the tree next to us. I feel as if I wouldn’t be startled if Owen actually did answer me, though. It would be just like him to scare the crap out of me—even from the grave.

  “I’m sorry you never got to see your places,” I say, lookin’ at his name carved in that hard stone. “But then, I guess you got to see paradise before all the rest of us. And I suppose that’s even better.”

  Chapter Seven

  Past

  Rem

  “I found another one of those postcards today,” I say.

  Jack looks up at me with a puzzled face. In the meantime, Kristen stops at our table and slides me and Jack each a beer.

  “Oh, at Owen’s?” Jack asks, tippin’ back the bill of his cap.

  Kristen instantly freezes up, and Jack and I both cringe.

  “Sorry, Kristen,” Jack says, averting his eyes from her.

  If I would have known she was comin’, I wouldn’t have said anything. Even just the mention of his name triggers tears for Kristen. It always does. But I understand. We all grew up together, and we all handle it differently, I guess.

  Kristen swipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and then quickly disappears without sayin’ a word.

  When I know she’s out of earshot, I finally answer him. “Yeah,” I say, takin’ a swig from my bottle.

  “You know,” he says, “maybe it’s Kristen.” I notice his stare find her slender frame across the room. “She always kept one eye on him when we were kids.”

  Kristen’s been waitressing here at Hall’s through college. I’ve known her since we were in diapers. Jack’s always had a thing for Kristen. Kristen’s always had a thing for anyone but Jack, even though you’d never know it by watchin’ ‘em. And I don’t think she had a thing for Owen, but then I didn’t know Owen had a thing for anyone, either.

  “And it would explain all those mysterious trips she used to take,” he adds.

  “She was visiting her grandma in Florida,” I say.

  “Well,” he says, still lookin’ over at her. “That’s what she says anyway.” His eyes eventually wander back over to me, and he points the neck of his bottle in my direction. “And that would also explain why she doesn’t even bat an eye at you, like every other girl in this damn town. She’s still in love with him.”

  Jack looks disgusted, but I know he’s okay. Girls like him all right, too. And he knows it.

  I smile, but I let out a sigh at the same time and glance over at Kristen. “We would have known, right? If they had a thing or somethin’?”

  He shrugs one shoulder. “I don’t know. You know how he got all secretive—more than he already was—when he went off to college. Who the hell knows?”

  I breathe in a weighted breath and then push it right back out again, feelin’ that constant sense of loss that Owen left behind.

  “Hey, buddy,” he says, focusin’ all his attention on me now. “We all miss him.”

  I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “I know.”

  “Only the good die young.” He raises his bottle in the air.

  Without another thought, I raise mine too. “That’s for damn sure,” I add.

  Chapter Eight

  Present

  Rem

  The airport is crowded for a Tuesday. I wonder for a second where in the hell all these people are goin’.

  I find my gate and take a seat in between an old man who’s mastered the art of sleeping sittin’ up in a chair and a younger girl, maybe in junior high, cradlin’ her phone in both hands. I stare at her hands for a second longer than I normally would have. I’ve just never seen anyone move their thumbs so fast. They’re like Riverdance thumbs or somethin’.

  Just then, her thumbs stop movin’, and I look away. Luckily, I don’t think she noticed me starin’. It’s either that or she doesn’t care because she never takes her eyes off the phone.

  The electric board above the little ticket counter distracts me by changing to a different set of numbers. I glance down at my boarding pass. The flight number on the board matches the one on my pass. Right on time. I like to cut things close. I hate sitti
n’ and waitin’. I’d rather miss the damn flight than sit here hours waitin’ for it.

  A moment later, a woman’s voice comes over the speakers. She tells us they’re startin’ to board. So, like my grandpa’s cattle ready to feed, myself included, we all get up and shuffle to the line that’s already formin’ behind that ticket counter. I’m there for all of two seconds before somethin’ hits my leg. And without even so much as a thought, I turn around and catch a young blonde bendin’ down. She’s grabbin’ at the handle of the bag that just fell and hit me. And in an attempt to help her, I bend down and reach for the bag as well.

  “I’m so sorry,” she says, in a rushed voice.

  At her words, my heart starts to panic, and I lose all my thoughts. And I just stand there, waiting—waiting to see her face—even though, I already know who I’m about to see.

  One Mississippi.

  My heart’s about ready to beat out of my chest.

  Two Mississippi.

  The seconds feel like years. And meanwhile, I can’t get a breath.

  Three Mississippi.

  Our eyes meet, and she gasps.

  “Rem.”

  I can’t tell if it’s a statement or a question. And I’m so dumbstruck, I can’t even command my lips to move.

  She steadies the bag upright again and crosses her arms in front of her chest. “Um...uh... Hi.”

  It takes me a second, but I eventually get the word out. “Hi.”

  One Mississippi.

  Two Mississippi.

  “Uh, how have you been?” She asks it sincerely, as if she really means it. I think that hurts more than anything.

  I breathe in first. I don’t think I had done that in a few seconds. And then, thankfully, I breathe out a smile. “I’m good.” I nod. “You?”

  She nods too. “Good,” she says.

  There’s this breathless silence and a look between us that lasts a little too long. And if that’s not enough, my heart tries to climb up my throat, but I do my best to swallow it down.