“I’ll make you some soup. It’ll make you feel better,” she said, pulling away from Aaron and prancing back towards the kitchen.
“I feel great. Really,” Aaron called out before groaning again and letting his shoulders slump down. There was a warmth inside of him, a fullness; a happiness that he couldn’t hold back. He smiled.
“You know who might be able to help speed things along with your concussion?” Lily called from the kitchen.
“Who?”
“Danny. He probably knows a lot about them, from playing professional football for so many years. You know they actually have doctors on the teams now, who specialize in concussions and stuff?”
Aaron suddenly remembered seeing Lily get into a cab with Danny, outside of the pub. His smile faded and he remained silent in the hallway. “Are you and Danny close?” Aaron walked back into the kitchen and lingered in the doorway.
Lily shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so. He’s a nice guy.”
“You talk to him a lot?” Aaron watched Lily closely, gauging her reactions to his questions, trying hard to read her body language.
“Not a lot. He’s apparently really close with my dad. Why do you ask?” Lily looked at Aaron and noticed the smile was missing from his face. She laughed. “What? You don’t think… Me and Danny?”
“Huh? No—no, I never said that. I was just curious,” Aaron said, his face suddenly turning red.
“Danny’s nice, but he’s not… he’s not really my type.” She smiled and then continued preparing the soup.
Aaron wandered into the room, causally digging his hands into his pockets. “So what’s your type?”
Lily thought about it. “I like someone real. Someone who isn’t afraid to be themselves around other people.”
Aaron rolled his eyes and scoffed.
“What? What did I say?” Lily asked.
“Huh? Nothing. Just, Days of our Lives called and they want their corny line back.”
“Hey! It might sound corny, but it’s true. You shouldn’t be walking around right now. Go get some rest and I’ll wake you up when the soup’s ready.” Lily shooed Aaron away and went back to work.
Before Aaron disappeared around the corner, he said, “You know, if you need a place to crash while you look for another place to live, you’re welcome to stay here. There are bedrooms here I haven’t even been inside of yet. It’s up to you. Or not, whatever you want. No pressure.”
Lily smiled. It was a heavy load off of her shoulders, knowing that she wouldn’t have to be homeless while she looked for new work and a new home.
She hadn’t had a coffee yet that morning, but she was energized, still high from the kiss, still elated from Aaron’s warm embrace. She enjoyed cooking. She enjoyed taking care of Aaron, and couldn’t help but fantasize about taking care of him for the rest of her life. It didn’t matter to her if that wasn’t ‘politically correct,’ or if ‘women these days can do so much more.’ She didn’t care if other girls wanted to go out and start businesses and get degrees and live strong, independent lives—they could go ahead. No one was asking Lily to cook that pot of soup. No one was telling her to fetch Aaron’s prescriptions from the store. She wasn’t doing it because she felt obligated. It made her feel wanted, needed, complete, and happy. And she liked seeing Aaron happy.
It was only six in the evening when Aaron went off to bed, exhausted from a combination of the concussion, the pills treating his concussion, and the lack of proper sleep the night before. Lily made sure to check on him periodically. But she wasn’t tired. The idea of ever sleeping again seemed outrageous. Even into the evening, she was still buzzing from their earlier moment of passion.
The house was spotless. Upstairs, every little nook and cranny had been scrubbed clean. The phone-lines were still down, along with the cable and the internet, so there wasn’t much for Lily to do. So she figured she would make an attempt to tidy up the basement.
She started by standing the amplifiers back up. They were heavy, and she nearly dropped one of them, but managed to catch it before it slammed against the floor. Then she was faced with the mess of disconnected cables. She didn’t know which cables plugged into which machines, so she simply unhooked all of the cables and neatly wrapped them up. At least that way they weren’t a nightmare of a tripping hazard.
The basement was eerily quiet with the thick layers of sound proofing insulation, and the deep snow—a natural insulator itself—that covered the windows. Too quiet. So she went to Aaron’s computer and pressed play on her newest favourite song, Siren of the Bog. She continued to clean. She could already sing along to the chorus of the catchy tune. “Addicted to your glow as it guides me through the fog. You were lost in the snow, the Siren of the Bog.” When the song ended, she played it again.
The computer made a ding noise. Upon closer investigation, Lily realized it was a new e-mail. Burns Bog’s internet was back up. Knowing there was a chance it wouldn’t be up for long, she decided to check her own e-mail. There was an e-mail from her father.
Hi Lily,
I hope everything is okay with your friend. I’m not sure if you’ll get this, with the lines being down and everything. I just wanted to let you know that I just pulled into Denver. I made it here in under twelve hours, which I think must be some kind of world record. Everyone here is still wearing their Broncos jerseys. I haven’t seen any #16s yet. Lots of #22s and #48s.
I’ll probably stop in Las Vegas tomorrow, and then I’ll be in Los Angeles by Friday afternoon. Let me know when you’re flying in, and I can pick you up from the airport.
Anyway, I just thought I’d check in. I’m heading off to sleep now.
I’ll see you soon,
Kilgore H. Parker
AKA Your Dad
Lily sent her father a quick update, letting him know everything was okay. “I’ll see if I can find a flight out this weekend. Love you,” she concluded, and sent the e-mail.
The basement was clean, save for the smashed guitar on the ground. She stared down at it and thought of her own late-mother. She couldn’t throw the broken instrument away. Even destroyed, it was too personal. Lily picked up the pieces and placed them carefully into an empty moving box. She quickly checked on Aaron, who was still asleep and alive, and then she took off for Willy Upnik’s lake house.
Willy was just getting ready for bed when Lily knocked on his door. “Hi there, Lily. What brings you ‘round here?”
“I was wondering if you could fix a guitar.”
“Maybe I can take a look in the morning, after the radio show. What do you got?” Lily opened the box of broken guitar bits. “Oh my. What was that, a mandolin?”
“I think it’s an acoustic guitar.”
Willy picked up a piece of the guitar’s neck, which was still connected to the headstock, but only by a single string. “I don’t know that I can do anything with this.”
“Please. There’s got to be something you can do. It’s a very important guitar.”
“Looks like someone dragged it behind their truck, goin’ down the I-88. Well, I’ll take a closer look in the morning and see what I can’t do. Don’t get your hopes up or anything, though. Might only be good for firewood, by the looks of it.”
“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. Thanks, Willy.” She left Willy with the ruined guitar and headed back to Aaron’s house.
Once back, it was late and the day had finally caught up with her. Eyes heavy, Lily slipped into bed, next to the sleeping Aaron. The Siren of the Bog played in her mind as she drifted asleep.
She was nearly asleep when Aaron rustled and a thick, heavy arm wrapped around her. In his sleep, he pulled her in tight towards his warm body. She could feel his chest expanding and contracting as he breathed. And she could feel every ridge of every rigid muscles nestled against her.
If she’d wanted to escape, it would have been difficult to lift his heavy arm. Her small body was practically pinned to the mattress, but she didn’t mind. It was a strangely comforti
ng, safe feeling. She dozed off with a big smile on her face.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Kilgore stood at the bottom of the airport escalator with his hands clasped anxiously together at his waist as he watched the passengers of Delta Flight 212 from Chicago make their way towards the baggage claim. He took a breath and tried to compose himself. Lily was going to meet his new fiancée, Ming, for the first time. Would they get along? Would Lily resent Ming? If she did, would she say anything, or just keep the resentment to herself?
Kilgore only met Ming face-to-face for the first time just a couple of days before, after his long drive in from Burns Bog. He ended up skipping Las Vegas and made a straight shot for Los Angeles. The first thing Ming said after they finished hugging was, “What does it feel like to be starting the next chapter of your life?” But it didn’t feel like a new chapter. It felt like a whole new book—a new town, new people, new apartment, new everything. He’d left most of the last chapter of his life behind, save for a few pieces of furniture, some old books, and a shaving kit. It was a surreal experience, waking up on Friday morning, surrounded by nothing familiar. Even the warm weather was shockingly foreign—like waking up from a 68-year long dream.
What would Lily think of his new life, his new apartment, his new love, his new city? The cloud of uncertainty weighed down on his shoulders as he waited for Lily to step out from those sliding doors, onto that busy escalator.
Finally, Lily stepped out from the terminal and a large weight suddenly lifted from Kilgore’s shoulders, like a confirmation that his entire life up until this point was not just some fading memory, that he hadn’t just woken up one morning as a new person.
Lily hugged her father. “I’m so glad you could make it,” Kilgore said.
“Me too, Dad.”
Kilgore hugged tight. He was happy. Lily could see it in his eyes, his smile, the way he stood, unable to stand still for more than a full second. He was beaming. During the entire plane ride, she was afraid he might be like this, loving his new life in Los Angeles. A small piece of Lily had wished her father would hate LA, hate the people, hate Ming Wong, hate the new apartment, that he would spend a few days here, get it out of his system, and then come home. Kilgore’s excited smile was precisely what she was afraid of, but as soon as she saw him so happy, she wasn’t upset. She smiled and said, “Well, let’s go! I want to see your new apartment.”
The Los Angeles traffic was unlike anything Lily had ever imagined. It was five minutes of stand-still followed by five seconds creeping forward, and then it repeated, over and over, trapped in the middle of twelve packed lanes that were doing the same exact thing. Kilgore didn’t seem to mind. He was too busy pointing out all the landmarks he was excited to explore. “Down that way is Hollywood. And up there, that’s Bel Air. You know, like the TV show? And just behind Bel Air is Calabasas, that’s where all the rich and famous people live. Oh, and there’s Dodger Stadium. That’s where the Dodgers play, and where Ming works. She knows all of the players on the team. She’s one of their PR people.”
It took almost an hour to get to Kilgore’s apartment, though they hadn’t travelled very far. Lily could still see the planes taking off and landing at LAX from Kilgore’s street.
“This is it,” Kilgore said. His face was a shade of red as he pulled Lily’s bag out from his trunk. “Ming’s inside. She’s really looking forward to meeting you.”
Lily smiled. She felt sick from the long drive from the airport—or maybe it was nausea from the loud city noise, the bright city lights, the crowds of unfamiliar people, foreign even to one another. In Burns Bog, you had to drive five blocks just to see another face. In LA, you could hardly close your eyes without seeing a face.
“What do you think of the view?” Kilgore asked as he led Lily up the driveway.
All Lily could think was, What view? Rolling hills, covered in a thriving metropolis, fading into a dense smog. No vast forests, no fields of snow, no shimmering lakes. She smiled. “It’s definitely different than Burns Bog,” she said.
Kilgore pointed up to a hill in the distance. “That’s Beverly Hills. Pretty cool, right? That big house right there is Taylor Swift’s house. At least, that’s what Ming tells me. I still haven’t seen anyone walking around up there, but I guess all of those celebrities have houses all over the place. Or maybe she’s on tour, I don’t know.”
Lily had to squint to see the massive house, miles away through the smog. Speckled around the supposed Taylor Swift mansion were similar mega-homes. Aaron had said that he used to live in Beverly Hills. One of those houses had probably belonged to him at one point. Maybe it was even the Taylor Swift house.
Kilgore’s building was a small, a fourplex with two front doorways with gates instead of doors, each guarding a staircase going up and a staircase going down. Kilgore used a key to unlock the right gate and led Lily up the stairs, to a door labelled 2A. They entered the apartment.
The house was quiet, as if empty, but the lights were on. A strong smell brought Lily right back to her childhood, eating dinner at the Wok n’ Roll Chinese Restaurant in Chicago with her mother, before Aaron’s concert. The Chinese people at the table next to them asked for “special menus” when they sat down, and then they ordered dishes that looked as though they were pulled straight from a horror film’s special effects department. Standing in the doorway of Kilgore and Ming’s apartment, Lily did her best not to cover her nose or gag.
“Ming?” Kilgore called out. There was no answer. “Make yourself comfortable. I’ll be right back. “Ming, are you here?”
Lily could hear food sizzling in the kitchen. She could see a large wok sitting atop an open flame on a gas stovetop, unattended. In it was what looked like large prawns and strips of what was either octopus or some other sea creature Lily had no intention of eating in her lifetime.
“Hey, what are you doing in here?” Lily heard her father ask before disappearing into a nearby bedroom, closing the door behind him. The walls were thin enough that Lily could hear her father’s voice and a faint hint of the yet to be seen Ming’s voice. “What’s wrong? What are you doing in here?” Lily could hear that Ming was speaking, but was unable to make out what was being said. “She’s my daughter, Sweetie. You have to meet her at some point… Of course she won’t think that.” Kilgore lowered his voice. “She won’t think that, Sweetie. She’s an adult. She knows you aren’t trying to replace anyone.”
Hearing Kilgore call Ming ‘Sweetie’ was heartbreaking. Kilgore called Lily’s mother Sweetie.
Lily took a seat on a chair, away from the bedroom, so she couldn’t hear the conversation, which was doing nothing except making her feel more uncomfortable than she already was. Strangely, there was no couch in the apartment, nor a loveseat, nor a sofa chair. Just a set of hard-backed chairs that look like they belonged to some lost kitchen table.
The apartment had clearly belonged to Ming long before Kilgore moved in. The walls were painted red and decorated with classic Chinese artwork. There were Chinese phrases written above doorways, and traditional Chinese furniture placed throughout. None of the furniture that Kilgore brought with him was anywhere to be seen and Lily had a feeling that it wasn’t because it hadn’t been unloaded. There was nowhere for it to go. Even the shelves had no vacancy for Kilgore’s trinkets, books, or pictures. There were no photos of Lily or her mother in the room, but there were plenty of photos of Ming and a young Chinese man, who looked no older than Lily, who was probably Ming’s son.
The bedroom door finally opened and Kilgore walked out. Lingering behind him was Ming, a tall, thin, pale-skinned woman. She appeared to be a few years younger than Kilgore, yet she stood behind Kilgore the way a shy toddler would stand behind her mother, with her eyes down at her feet. Had she been short enough, she would have wrapped her arms around Kilgore’s leg.
Kilgore’s face was a dark red colour but he forced a smile. “Lily, this is Ming. Ming, this is my daughter Lily.”
“Nice to meet
you,” Lily said, awkwardly making a small bow and then instantly regretting it, realizing it might have been a racially ignorant gesture.
Ming didn’t reply. Instead, she simply smiled and nodded and kept her eyes glued to the ground.
“Ming’s made a beautiful dinner for the four of us tonight. We’ll eat soon.”
Ming nodded, whispered something into Kilgore’s ear, and then scurried away, into the kitchen.
“Speaking of which, she still has some work to do.” Kilgore’s face was painfully red now. He walked over to Lily. “She’s shy, but she’ll warm up. She’s just not very used to having house guests.”
“Is her son living here with you?” Lily asked.
“Her son? Oh, no—he’s living and working in Hong Kong. He’s the manager of some big business over there, but I can’t remember what it is that he does.” Kilgore turned to the kitchen. “Hey Sweetie. What is it that your son does again?” There was no reply, though unless Ming was deaf, she most certainly heard the question, seeing as Lily could hear Ming’s footsteps moving around the kitchen. “She probably didn’t hear me,” Kilgore said, face still a shade of crimson.
Lily smiled and nodded. It was all she could think to do. Just keep smiling. Put on a happy face for your father and give him the benefit of the doubt. Just think about the positives, she thought. Lily’s mom didn’t own the title Sweetie; everyone calls their significant other Sweetie. And it was good that Ming was nervous to meet Lily. It meant that she understood the sensitivity of the matter, that it was too easy to be labelled ‘replacement.’
“So who’s is the fourth person joining us for dinner?”
Kilgore stared at Lily for a moment with narrowed eyes. “What do you mean?”
Maybe Lily had misheard. It wouldn’t have been the first time that day that her overloaded mind had wandered away from the conversation at hand. “Sorry, I thought you said she was making dinner of the four of us.”
“Yes, that’s right.” That look of confusion remained on Kilgore’s face. “The four of us. Me, you, Ming, and Danny,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone of voice, as if the question was ridiculously redundant.
LIMELIGHT LOVE: A Small Town Rock Star Romance Page 12
