Jane of Austin

by Hillary Manton Lodge

  A little clever folding, and I fashioned tea bags. I dropped one into each pitcher.

  The staff member was visibly nervous by the time I filled the pitchers. “They have a reservation for this space in twenty minutes,” he said, clearly regretting having helped me in the first place.

  “I just need five,” I told him, hurrying but taking care not to spill water. Once the pitchers were full and loaded onto yet another cart, I pushed them down the hallway and back to the elevator.

  When Celia saw me, her shoulders sank in relief. “I just poured the last of the black tea.”

  “I’m glad that’s what I made. If everyone had decided to switch favorites, this would have all been for nothing.”

  “Is it done steeping?”

  “I sure hope so,” I answered.

  We didn’t have to wait long to find out. Celia put a smile on her face for the next patron. I poured the hot tea over a cup full of ice just as Ruby Lou started her next song.

  Which, ironically, was about living life in a hurry.

  But the tea looked like it had brewed nicely, and I handed it to Celia with pride.

  Afterward we were tired and discreetly sweaty, with a full tip jar and far fewer business cards.

  “It was wonderful!” Vicki told us as we cleaned up. “Amazing turnout, and y’all didn’t bat an eye. I appreciate that kind of preparation.”

  We thanked her and sent her off with a box of leftover pastries.

  “Hey,” I said to Celia, wrapping an arm around her waist. “You were awesome. This was fun.”

  “If I was awesome, you were a rock star,” she said, hugging me back.

  “I love you, Cee,” I said, and wished in my heart we could stay in that moment forever.

  The day of Sean’s concert, I woke up with butterflies but without a return text. I was going to go; Celia hadn’t even tried to talk me out of it. With everything that had happened, I needed to see him—even if it was with him on stage and me camouflaged in the middle of a crowd.

  Later that night, we stepped into the Cedar Street Courtyard together, Celia and I. Nina promised to join us shortly; the booker at Cedar Street was an old friend of hers, and she waved us on before lagging behind to catch up with him.

  My heart pounded as I looked around, trying to spot Sean. The band’s equipment was on stage, but I couldn’t see any of the band members.

  “Look at this place!” Celia said, tilting her head back to take it in. The courtyard really was that—hemmed in on both sides with buildings, one of them covered in a thick layer of ivy. There were balconies on either side as well and two trees in between.

  I searched the crowd for any familiar faces, for Sean but also for his band mates.

  After several long minutes, the music over the speakers stopped and those very faces took the stage, instruments in hand. Sean walked out last, and the crowd’s screams grew louder.

  He looked completely the same and yet different at the same time. I recognized his T-shirt, his favorite faded CBGB shirt that happened to cling to his arms just right. But in the weeks since I’d last seen him, his hair had grown longer, and there was a shadow of a soul patch on his chin.

  My heart ached to look at him.

  Sean winked at the girls in the front, his attitude somehow both flirtatious and bashful. He gripped the microphone in a practiced gesture, adjusting it just so. “We’re the Bandwagon Rebels,” he said, with a nod toward the band behind him. “We’re originally from Austin, and it’s good to be home!”

  Another cheer from the crowd.

  “You guys are lucky: we’ve got a surprise,” he said, leaning his body far enough away from the mic to strum his guitar as he spoke. “We’ve got a guest tonight, someone you might be familiar with. And if you’re not? You will be. Ladies and gentlemen, Sofi Grey!”

  Amid another ear-splitting cheer, a young woman took the stage with them. Sean caught her hand and tugged her close, adding, “My fiancée!”

  The din that followed must have finally succeeded in producing deafness, because while I could see everyone clapping and hollering, I couldn’t hear any of it. I heard Sean’s words, I heard my own heartbeat in my ears, and that was all.

  Celia pulled me close. “We can leave,” she said. “We can go back to the hotel. We can do whatever you want.”

  I couldn’t respond. The drummer kicked off the beat, the backup guitarist strummed the opening chord, and the bassist plucked a low, resonant pair of notes. Sean joined in, adding the picking he was known for; Sofi played with him. They faced each other, playing together as if it were a duet, like they were the only ones in the room.

  It was like watching Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix sing to each other in Walk the Line.

  I stood there through their set, motionless as if my arms and legs had lost functionality. Celia stood behind me, and I could feel her gaze. Everyone swayed and jumped and danced to the music, people bumping into each other and us—hands, elbows, torsos, feet.

  After four songs, they launched into the song I knew was their concert-ender, a barn burner meant to get everyone hyped for the next act, but still sharp and catchy enough to linger through the next band’s performance.

  The band rushed forward to take their bows before exiting to make room for the next act; and that’s when my limbs seemed to fill again.

  With slow but steady steps, I made my way forward, weaving through the crowd. The scents of sweat, cheap cologne, and body odor filled my nose, and any jostling I’d received earlier was now multiplied.

  The guys reemerged from a side door minutes later, their faces grinning and triumphant. They spilled out, accepting high fives and catcalls from the restless crowd. Sean led the pack, soaking it in. His stride was loose and his head high, and he nodded at people as he moved past.

  Until he saw me, that is.

  When our eyes met, he stilled. Froze, really.

  I became stronger. I walked up to him and tipped my head until I could meet his gaze.

  I knew those eyes; I knew everything about his face. How could a face so familiar look at me as if I were some random woman? A woman he hadn’t met on the side of the road, a woman he hadn’t spent hours with, a woman he hadn’t asked to go with him on tour?

  Only weeks ago, he’d woven his hands into my hair and told me he loved me. And now he was engaged?

  Did he have a brain tumor?

  My eyebrows tipped in confusion. “I texted you,” I said. “I wasn’t coming to the festival here for you. Nina brought us, we catered a…thing. But I texted. I thought we could…we could talk.”

  He said nothing; I wasn’t sure if he was breathing.

  “Won’t you say something, Sean?”

  The question came out as a breathy plea, and I heard the desperation behind it. I knew everyone else had too, the way people either averted their gaze or stared unabashed.

  “I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice stiff. “I got a new phone.”

  “You got a new phone?” I heard the pitch of my voice raise an octave, felt Celia’s hand on my arm.

  In my peripheral vision, I could see the guys behind him—each one looking like they wished they could dissolve into the floor.

  “I’ve got a new life now,” Sean said. “I’m getting married.”

  His voice was wooden. If there was any joy to be found in his new circumstances, I couldn’t hear it in his words.

  “I didn’t come here to harass you,” I said, suddenly tired. “I thought…thought you might want to see me.”

  “Sorry, Jane,” Sean said, glancing over his shoulder at his new fiancée. “I’ve moved on.”

  “Right.”

  My eyes filled with tears then, and Sean’s face grew distorted. I couldn’t seem to get a deep breath; the air was too hot and too heavy to breathe.

  Sean moved past, and even over the noise I could hear him murmuring to Sofi. “Ex-girlfriend, sorry,” he told her. She accepted it with a shrug and only the briefest of glances. His b
and mates followed after, ducking their heads, faces flushed with embarrassment.

  When the arm—Celia’s—reached for me again, I didn’t resist. I let it pull me, lead me back to the street where the air was only a little cooler.

  I swayed on my feet. Celia led me to a bench, and Nina found us moments later.

  “I just heard!” she exclaimed with a gasp. “Our Sean, engaged to Sofi Grey! After such a short time, I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t heard it from my good friend Terese Taylor. There was a bidding war among the labels to sign Sofi, you know. Not Mike’s label, they’re too sensible for that. But Whippoorwill Records made her a wealthy woman, and they’re in talks with Sean’s band too, and it sounds like they’ll all be leaving on tour soon.” Nina gave a wistful sigh. “I do miss the touring life. Waking up in new cities, meeting new people…”

  “We need to get her home,” Celia said firmly, wrapping one arm around my waist, her opposite hand on my shoulder. “Home, the hotel, whatever is fastest.”

  “The hotel then,” Nina answered. “Let’s be quick before the gossip gets worse. You know how people are.”

  I could barely breathe by the time we got back to the hotel. Nina and Celia helped me to the bedroom, where Nina squinted at my face. “I don’t like her color, not at all.”

  “You’re white as a sheet, Jane,” Celia said.

  It took everything I had to try to form a sentence. “I…can’t…breathe.” The weight on my chest squeezed at my heart and my lungs, and spots danced before my eyes.

  Nina reached for my wrist; at first I thought she was holding my hand in a gesture of comfort, but when she pronounced my heart rate to be concerningly high, I realized she’d been feeling for my pulse.

  “You’re having a panic attack,” she said calmly. “My daughter Charlie used to get them, poor love. Best you can do right now is wait it out.”

  Celia sat next to me and squeezed my hand.

  My thoughts raced. Sean was gone. For good. He’d be spending his life with Sofi Grey, a successful musician whose father probably wasn’t an international laughingstock, who probably had a perfect relationship with her sister, and—I imagined—was also aces at folding a bottom sheet to look like a top sheet.

  Was she smarter than me? A better kisser? More fun? Had he asked if they could tour together, and she enthusiastically agreed, without reservations?

  Probably all of the above.

  I didn’t buy Sean’s line about a new phone number, not for a second. And it wasn’t as if somehow I’d become unreachable, gone off grid.

  No, the choice to shut me out had been deliberate.

  I’d thought Sean and I meant something to each other. Up until tonight, a part of me had believed that he’d travel, he’d think, he’d come back to me. I’d believed that maybe I mattered to him, that our relationship had mattered to him.

  Tonight had just proved exactly how irrelevant I’d been all along.

  I woke with Dash snuggled next to me—a feat he could achieve here, since the room featured a king-sized bed. I wrapped an arm around him and held him close, leaning forward to get a whiff of him. He smelled of dog, of shampoo, of comfort.

  Callum was seriously lucky. Or unlucky, considering that I wasn’t sure I’d be able to give Dash back.

  When I could talk myself into it, I rose and showered, changed into fresh clothes, and twisted my hair up before stepping out of the bedroom.

  Celia stood in the kitchen, kneading dough. “Hey! There you are.” She gave the dough two more turns before setting it aside and dusting off her hands. “How are you feeling?”

  My eyes filled with tears again, and a fresh sob escaped from my throat.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Celia wrapped her arms around my torso and held me tight.

  Dash padded out of the bedroom to join us, ambling closer until he could sit and lean against the two of us.

  I hung on to Celia’s hug, enjoying the moment. It had been so long since we’d felt so close.

  “Breakups are awful,” she continued. “I get it. Everything will be okay.”

  And then…her words watered the seed of resentment, and I felt an ugly blossom bloom deep inside my chest. I pulled away. “How can you say that?”

  Celia’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “How can you say that you get it? That everything will be okay? Sean—he was the only good thing about being here in this awful city. He wasn’t just my boyfriend, he was my friend, and he listened to me and talked to me and…trusted me.” An awkward hiccup.

  “When Teddy and I broke up—it was awful. I understand.”

  The ugly bloom unfurled its petals even farther. “You can’t understand, Celia! I saw you when you and Teddy broke up. This is nowhere near the same.”

  Celia stared at me.

  “Look,” I said, trying to calm down. “I get it. We’ve both had breakups. This one—this was more than a breakup.” I ran a hand through my hair. “I followed you, Celia. I followed you to Austin because I thought it’s what you needed. And then we got here, and you shut me out. You talk—you talk to Lyndsay.” I all but spat the name out. “The Celia I knew would have agreed very politely that she’s completely asinine. But now you talk to her and you don’t talk to me, and the only person who does talk to me is this guy, this wonderful, kind, sweet guy who shows up exactly at the right time, and he shared thoughts and his dreams and gave me a place where I felt like I almost belonged.”

  “Jane—”

  “And then he left! Like he woke up that morning, and everything we had didn’t matter and never had, and then weeks later I find out he’s engaged? That’s not a garden variety breakup. It’s, like, a breakup wrapped in a betrayal, served with a dash of”—my voice caught—“indifference. I didn’t matter to him.”

  Celia’s eyes filled with tears. “I…I don’t know what to say.”

  I wanted to tell her to be my sister again. To be the person who trusted me back.

  The words sat on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn’t force them out. What was left of my pride had already been shredded by Sean; I didn’t have it in me to beg my sister to be my friend again. My real friend, not a person standing with me in a hotel kitchen offering platitudes.

  So rather than be the one to beg again, I disappeared back into my room.

  25

  I done drew the line. Just like the Alamo. You’re either on one side of the line or the other. I don’t want to ever leave Texas again.

  —BUM PHILLIPS

  Callum

  Lila very nearly kissed the tarmac, but two things stopped her. First, the fact that we disembarked onto a jet bridge that took us straight to the terminal. Secondly, it occurred to her that placing her lips to the floor was a sure way to catch a strange disease and pass it on to her child.

  But Lila, ever creative, struck a compromise. She retrieved four paper towels from the women’s restroom, placed them on the floor, and kissed those while I snapped a picture.

  “This doesn’t feel crazy at all,” I told her.

  “I’m glad you agree with me,” she retorted.

  The drive home was quiet; we’d spent enough time together in the last weeks that I could tell when she was growing tired and needed to rest again. When we reached my house, I carried her suitcase inside and took her straight to the guest suite.

  “You don’t mind if I take a nap right now?” she asked, eying the bed greedily.

  “I’d be offended if you didn’t.” I pulled my house key off the ring. “I’m going to go see my friend Ian. Here’s a key to the house if you decide to go explore the neighborhood later.”

  “Won’t you need it?”

  “I have the spare downstairs. Call me if you need anything, please. The house phone is in the kitchen.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “There are a few dry goods in the pantry, but I’ll leave cash downstairs if you want to call for delivery.”

  “I’m fine,” Lila insisted, sitting on the bed a
nd pulling her legs up. “I’m going to nap now. Go away.”

  “If you—”

  “Go away, Callum!”

  I ducked as a slip-on shoe sailed past my ear. “I forgot you played softball. You can still pitch.”

  Descending the stairs, I realized my ears were listening for Dash’s soft taps. He’d barely been with me more than a couple of days—and I’d been gone far longer than that—but I missed him in the house. Was it the silence of the house that made it worse?

  I thought about it as I drove to Ian’s.

  Quiet, for me, was a new phenomenon. In the military, there’s little solitude and less quiet. Same in the hospital. And Ian’s house, though sprawling, usually hummed with some activity or other—the children playing, Pilar’s housekeeping, Ian’s pack of dogs, even Mariah herself as she attended to the household.

  Never mind the guesthouse with the Woodward sisters, though that was a different matter entirely.

  But my house? It didn’t yet feel like my house. It looked like a spiffed-up version of my childhood memories, as if a storybook good fairy had waved a wand and cleaned it up.

  Having Dash had taken the edge off the quiet, and without him I felt myself rattle more than usual.

  Pilar answered the door, then ushered me in while chiding me for not letting myself in. “You’re family,” she said. “I had to leave my kitchen to come get you.”

  “I missed you too,” I told her.

  She harrumphed, but patted my arm.

  “You’re back!” Ian rose from his desk when he saw me.

  “I should have called,” I told him, but Ian shook his head.

  “Of course not; glad to see you.” He sat back in his chair and threaded his fingers together. “So? What can you tell me?”

  I took the chair opposite his desk, along with a deep breath, and gave him the condensed version I’d worked out during the flight. I left out the identity of the man who’d left Lila in such straits, focusing instead on Lila’s return and the aid I’d received from Clint.

  “That,” Ian said, “was more of an adventure than any of us anticipated. Lila’s well, then?”