The Song

by Chris Fabry

  “What’s that he’s working on?” Jed said as they walked.

  “That’s a horizontal winepress,” she said. “Dad likes to show people how he does things, and when they don’t work, he gets frustrated.”

  “Come on, old piece of junk,” Shep muttered as metal clanged against metal.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Jed King is here.”

  The man didn’t look up. “Who?”

  “The singer?” she said.

  Shep put down the tool and stood, squinting into the sunlight, and shook Jed’s hand firmly. He had calloused hands, rough and farm-weary. Jed’s were not as rough, but the construction he had loved and done since he was a boy had taken some of the softness away.

  “I’m sorry to interrupt. I’m Jed.”

  “Shepherd Jordan,” the man said. He was a few inches shorter than Jed. Rose looked at her father with pride, like she was glad she could show him off.

  “It’s great to meet you. I was just telling Rose this is a beautiful place you have.”

  “You’re David King’s kid,” Shep said. It felt more like an accusation than a question or observation. But he got that a lot.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Shep looked at Rose, then back at Jed, formulating something, doing some kind of equation in his head. Then, just as quickly, their meeting was over.

  “Go ahead, hon, show him to the stage. I got a lot of work to do. Son, nice to meet you.”

  “All right,” Rose said.

  “Good to meet you,” Jed said.

  And the man was back to work without another word. Just a grunt and a groan and more clanging of metal.

  “Dad’s really sweet, he’s just a little stressed.”

  “No, it’s fine,” Jed said.

  “Who did he say your father was?”

  “David King.”

  She looked slightly bewildered. “So he’s a singer too?”

  Jed stopped, bewildered himself. He wanted to ask what rock she had grown up under, but he simply said, “You don’t know who he is?”

  She smiled again, embarrassed now. “Oh, I’m sorry. I don’t know anything about music.”

  Most of the time that was all anyone wanted to talk about. They knew him because of his father. They wanted some tidbit of information, some story about dear old Dad’s last days. But here was a person who had no idea about his father’s fame.

  “No, please don’t apologize. It’s a good thing. Believe me.”

  They headed to the stage area, past the snow cone booth, and Jed wondered if there could ever be a more perfect Saturday afternoon in October than this one.

  Someone spoke over the loudspeaker, or maybe it was the radio they were piping through the grounds. And then, beside him, a man a little younger than Jed nudged a blonde girl and looked at Rose as if to say, “Watch this.”

  “Hey, Rosie,” the guy said.

  Her voice changed. “Eddie.” There was something painful in the name as it left her lips. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tasting wine. It’s free wine tasting, right? That’s what the paper said.”

  Eddie wore an open-collared shirt and seemed a little warmer than everyone else at the party. His hair was combed back, and the blonde girl seemed as enamored with him as she did with the wineglass she was holding.

  Rose was clearly uncomfortable and Jed wished he could do something to smooth the road here.

  “This is Kristen,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, I remember,” Rose said. Then her voice turned sad. “How are you?”

  Kristen’s eyes widened as if she’d just seen oncoming headlights. “The wine is really good.” She smiled unnaturally like the grapes had gone to her head.

  “Thank you. I’m glad you like it.”

  “Who’d have thunk?” Kristen said. “I mean, Kentucky, right?”

  An awkward silence followed and Kristen kept smiling. Her sweater seemed a little tight and her hair was an unnatural blonde. Not that she wasn’t pretty—she was. But there was a clear difference in the two women in front of Jed in both style and substance.

  “So are you two . . . ?” Eddie said, pointing his wineglass at them.

  “No, we . . . just met,” Rose said. She seemed nervous.

  Jed seized the opportunity and spoke over her. “Yes.” He glanced at Rose. “Don’t be shy.” Then he looked at Eddie, reaching out a hand to shake. “Jed King.”

  Eddie had a limp-wristed handshake and hands that felt doughy-soft. Jed guessed he worked some job where he wore a phone headset all day.

  “Jed King. As in David King?”

  Jed gave Rose a look. “See?” Then he turned back to Eddie. “Yes.”

  “You’re hotter than your dad,” Kristen said breathlessly, giving him a once-over. Eddie gave her a shocked look and uncomfortable silence fell over them again.

  “Thank you,” Jed said, glancing at Rose, who was also smiling.

  “Well, there you go,” Eddie said, clearly peeved. “You’re better than your dad at something.”

  Jed wanted to hit him with a snappy comeback, but nothing came to mind.

  “How’s your dad?” Eddie said to Rose. Something more passed between them, a daggerlike stare from Rose.

  “I don’t know,” Rose said. “Why don’t you go ask him?”

  Jed looked back at Shep, who was now kicking at the machine he was working on.

  “He looks busy,” Eddie said.

  “No, no, I’m sure he’d love to talk to you.” Her words were fraught with sarcasm and Jed knew, like a walk in a pasture can bring a misstep, that’s exactly what had happened on their way to the stage.

  “Maybe later,” Eddie said. “Excuse me.”

  “It was nice meeting you again,” Kristen said over her shoulder as they walked away. Eddie was nearly dragging her by the arm. Maybe back to the wine tasting.

  “Sorry,” Rose said, clearly flustered. “It’s this way.”

  “He’s a winner,” Jed said.

  When they reached the stage area behind the barn, she seemed uncomfortable with how simple everything was. “Here you are. Just make yourself at home.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And sorry about Eddie. He’s a jerk.”

  “You deserve better.”

  Her face became tight and she looked away. “I know I deserve better than a guy who’ll dump me for not sleeping with him. I just don’t know if better exists anymore.”

  When she looked at him, he was smiling, admiring her spunk and the spark in her.

  “Wow, I just said that, didn’t I?” she laughed nervously.

  “No, it’s okay,” Jed said. “When I get done playing and you get done with whatever you have to do, you want to hang out?”

  Rose took a breath and studied his face. “Look, you seem like a really nice guy.”

  “Nice . . . ow, that hurts.”

  “It’s only that I just met you.”

  “Right,” he said dismissively, to ease the conversation.

  “I don’t even like him. But it still kind of kills to see him with her.”

  She had a far-off look like there was a lot of prelude to the song she was singing. The last thing he wanted to do was chase her away by coming on too strong, too fast, but he wanted to say something comforting, something that would make her like him. So he resorted to what had always worked. The charm and the humor.

  “Well, I’d hate to see you die.”

  She smiled and nodded, then gestured toward the stage. “Good luck, Jed.”

  He watched her walk away, then replayed the end of the conversation in his head. “I’d hate to see you die.” How cornball was that? How embarrassing. He had made a good connection with her and that was the end? He’d probably never see her again, he thought.

  Then again, maybe she would listen to his music. Maybe she would listen to what was deep inside rather than on the surface. And from that thought a song began to form on his lips—something that spra
ng to his mind without effort or thought or planning.

  Let me cut right to the chase, Rose.

  When I see your beautiful face,

  I can’t help but ask myself, Why?

  He couldn’t sing a song he’d made up on the spot, after meeting her. He couldn’t risk the embarrassment if it fell through. But as he carried his banjo and guitar to the stage, every footstep brought another line, brought another thought, another lyric. This was how he processed events, how he cleaned them up and brought them to life. All the mess and dirt and grit and glorious truth of the human condition could be expressed in a few lines boiled down to a catchy melody that stuck with somebody long after it was sung. It was the magic of music, the magic of words and a tune together.

  But would it work with Rose?

  Jed sat on the wooden stage, pulled out a notepad he kept in his guitar case and a dull pencil he had brought from a miniature golf place, and wrote down the words as fast as they came to him.

  CHAPTER 11

  THOUGH HER FATHER was in charge of the three-day festival, Rose bore the brunt of all the small questions of the day. Where to get first aid help for a little girl with a scratch on her leg. How to get the power back on to the cotton candy machine. (It had worked loose from the plug.) Where the restrooms were. She worried that there were some people who were doing more than just tasting the wine this year and that they’d have to be asked to leave. That was Eddie and his friend Kristen. Rose’s guess was they had been imbibing long before they came to the festival.

  As the sun set, a soft, orange glow enveloped the farm. The only thing left today was the concert by Jed, and all she had to do was introduce him before she could relax and enjoy it. She hated being up front but there was something about Jed . . .

  It was his smile, of course. And the stubbly, rugged beard that grew as a shadow on his face. The way he looked at her when they first met made her heart melt, and when he suggested they spend some time together after the concert . . . she hadn’t known what to say. After the Eddie debacle, her distrust of men in general made her knee-jerk react to his invitation.

  The moon was up now and people moved chairs toward the stage. Parents with smaller children sat at the back or bundled them in strollers and let them sleep. A little rest for the weary on both sides of the stroller. The lights overhead gave a Tuscan feeling, transforming the barn and hay bales into a more exotic venue.

  Rose’s stomach churned as she walked to the stage. Even standing in front of class and doing math problems at the board had given her anxiety as a child, and she was good at numbers. Other kids didn’t seem to mind at all. She guessed some were just made to stand up in front and others were made to watch.

  “You ready?” she said to Jed.

  He was studying a piece of paper before he shoved it into his back pocket. “Let’s go.”

  She turned and looked at the audience gathered, surprised by how many people had arrived in the past hour. Rose swallowed hard and smiled, just as she caught sight of Eddie and Kristen. The girl was taking another swig of wine.

  When she stepped to the microphone, the audience applauded.

  “Thank you, everyone. You’re in for a real treat tonight. Give a warm round of applause for Louisville’s Jed King.”

  Short and sweet and to the point. Rose hurried off the stage as Jed adjusted the microphone. The applause faded and the speakers squealed a bit.

  Over the noise came Eddie’s mocking voice. “Nice banjo, Jed.”

  Kristen said something Rose didn’t hear, but she could tell from the girl’s laugh that she had crossed over the line of inebriation. Humiliated and feeling sorry for Jed, Rose looked up and found him staring straight at her. His voice filled the speakers.

  “‘Let me cut right to the chase, Rose,’” Jed sang. “‘When I see your beautiful face, I can’t help but ask myself . . . Why?’” He extended a hand in Eddie’s direction.

  Rose stood frozen to the spot. There was silence now, all but the hum of the speakers and some crickets. Then someone giggled.

  “And if I didn’t need this gig,

  I swear I’d flip my lid

  And already Eddie would be nursing a black eye.”

  The audience had expected something else, and Rose sort of wanted to sink into the ground and disappear. But at the same time, she was delighted. Jed was using his music to defend her honor, to stick up for himself, too. And there was power in it—though he was just picking a few strings on his banjo and singing, there was electricity in the vineyard.

  “It seems like such a waste

  to let him in the way

  of what you and I might have one day.

  I don’t want to quit you, baby.

  I ain’t gonna split you, baby.

  I’d rather give you up than watch you die.

  I know loss hurts more than a little,

  but he splits you down the middle.

  It’s time to give good love a try.”

  People began to stand as the tempo took over, their clapping and hooting and hollering and laughter filling the spaces between. Rose looked at Eddie, who was frozen in his tracks. But Jed wasn’t done yet.

  “It would be such a pity

  just to split you fifty-fifty . . .”

  He took a breath and let go with a long, winding, stringing-together-whatever-came-to-mind kind of lyric.

  “Especially with some guy who makes fun of my banjo and shows up at a thing with another girl and he knows you’re going to be here, he’s scared of your dad and breaks up with the most beautiful girl in the world for the dumbest reason in the world kind of guy.

  Rose, you and I would bloom in no time.”

  The crowd was on their feet. When Rose finally pulled her eyes away from Jed, she noticed Eddie and Kristen had slunk away. She also saw her father looking at Jed with his hands in his jacket pockets.

  And from there, Jed was off and running, and it seemed to Rose that he had power over the crowd. They rose and fell with his ballads. They clapped with the fast songs and cried with the sad ones. There was something free to his voice, the way he played. The songs weren’t just things he performed; they were snapshots of his tour of life for everyone to experience.

  When it was over, everyone who came up to her said, “How did you ever get him to come to Sharon?”

  Rose waited for the line around Jed to disperse, and when it did, she approached and handed him a box of her father’s best wine.

  He pulled out a bottle and studied it. “Wow. That’s really nice, actually.” He set the bottle down. “Here, I have something for you.”

  She took the CD and glanced at it. “Oh, this is great, thanks.”

  “Really?”

  “I think so, but like I said, I don’t know anything about music.”

  “Everybody knows something about music.”

  “Very little in my case.”

  “What’s your favorite Beatles song? Everybody has a favorite Beatles song. ‘Strawberry Fields Forever.’ ‘Hey Jude.’”

  “Well, I’ve always liked ‘Turn! Turn! Turn!’”

  He had a blank look on his face, like something she’d just said didn’t register. Rose started singing the song and he smiled, his eyes twinkling.

  “What? I love that song.”

  “I love that song too. It’s just not the Beatles.”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “No, it’s the Byrds. You’re thinking of the Byrds.”

  “Nah. Agree to disagree.”

  “No, you’d still be wrong.”

  Rose hesitated, weighing her next question. “The lyrics are in the Bible. Can we agree that God wrote them?”

  “Absolutely.”

  She could see his breath in the chill of the evening, and his nose was a little red from the cold. She should let him go, let him take the box of wine and leave. But she couldn’t resist one more thought. She held up the CD. “Too bad my song isn’t on here. Never had my own song before.” She rocked onto her tiptoes
, unsure, then let the words come. “Probably going to ask me out again then, huh?”

  Jed demurred. “You know what? I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t have asked you out like that.”

  “No, that’s all right . . .”

  “Not without talking to your dad first.”

  She studied his face. “What?”

  “He seems like the kind of guy who would appreciate being asked.”

  “For my hand in marriage, maybe, but one date?”

  “We’re going to have more than one date,” Jed said.

  It wasn’t that he said this that took her breath away. It was the confidence with which he said it. “How do you know?”

  “I know,” he said.

  “He’s busy with cleanup.” She thought a moment. “Monday?”

  “Monday,” Jed said without a hint of disappointment.

  “Good,” Rose said and then, with a knowing smile, added, “You’re going to need a day to prepare.”

  Rose couldn’t sleep that night. She woke Denise from a dead sleep at 1 a.m. to talk. Her friend groggily asked her about the festival and apologized for not being there, yawning and slurring her words.

  “I think I met him,” Rose said breathlessly.

  “Met who?” A little more clarity in Denise’s voice.

  “The guy I’m going to marry.”

  Now wide-awake, Denise said, “You mean Jed?”

  They talked for two hours and Denise seemed even more excited than Rose about the future.

  “How are you going to tell your dad?” Denise said finally.

  “Jed’s going to do that. Monday. He’s going to ask for a date.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “He suggested it.”

  “You need to take all your dad’s guns away. Start hiding them now.”

  “He’ll be fine,” Rose said, though she wasn’t sure that was true.

  She was still awake when she heard her dad come downstairs the next morning, and she joined him in the kitchen.

  “Thought you’d sleep in today,” he said. “It’s been a long weekend.”

  “Nope. Not skipping church.”

  He nodded and poured a cup of coffee. Her dad wouldn’t let the festival interfere with church services and she wouldn’t either. They talked about the festival—the things that worked or didn’t yesterday and what it would be like this afternoon. But he didn’t bring up Jed at all and that troubled her.