The Most Wonderful Time

by Fern Michaels

  “Very helpful,” Liam added.

  “Let’s let them check in, settle down, and maybe meet for dinner.”

  “But what about the cooking?”

  “We can do it tomorrow.”

  “But tomorrow’s all booked up.”

  “We’ll work it out, I promise,” Daniel said, then leaned in to whisper something in Kevin’s ear that made Kevin blush and made the rest of them look away jealously.

  “Okay, fine. Go, check in, be comfortable,” said Kevin. “We’ll meet up for dinner.”

  “And welcome to West Virginia,” said Daniel, with a huge, victorious grin on his face.

  Chapter Three

  Abe smiled as he swiped his room key and stepped into what Kevin referred to as his monastic cell. Kevin was obviously used to living on more than a struggling musician’s salary. (Ha, salary.) The room was bigger than his living room back home, but at least this one, Abe didn’t have to share.

  His roommate in Nashville was okay—a singer-songwriter whose primary goal in life was to sell a song to Taylor Swift. Never mind that Taylor Swift wrote her own songs. And that, even if she didn’t, she probably wasn’t going to suddenly start singing about beer and pickup trucks. Goddamn red Solo cups.

  Drake joked that he was craft beer, Abe was moonshine. That suited Abe just fine. He wasn’t interested in making big money, in being part of the Big Country Music Machine. But he did want to make a living making music, and he had a better shot in Nashville than he did in Podunkville, West Virginia.

  Or so he thought. It turned out, throw a rock in Nashville and you’d hit a skinny mountain kid wanting to make it in the roots music movement. Never mind that most of the kids weren’t from the mountains, and knew more about Mumford & Sons than they did about Hazel Dickens.

  He shouldn’t be bitter. He was too young to be bitter, as Granny Sue liked to remind him. Maybe Nashville was just too big for him. Maybe he needed Bristol or, God help him, Gatlinburg. Nashville was a place for people with dreams of stardom, selling out arenas and making music videos and owning more than one suit jacket for red carpet stuff and more than one for business meetings. That wasn’t him. Abe just wanted to earn enough money making music that he didn’t have to deliver pizza or sell insurance or write songs about beer and pickups. He didn’t need Graceland, although not having a roommate would be nice. He just wanted to make the music he wanted to make, and to pay his bills. Was that too much to ask? It’d been five years, and so far, that wasn’t happening in Nashville.

  Dammit, he was bitter. Not just because he was a failure, but because he’d fallen for the trick. Like every other dumb kid comin’ out of the holler, he thought he was special. He thought because old-time music spoke to him, that he had something to share. Not hardly, said Nashville. You just keep doin’ odd jobs and playin’ on other people’s records, and we’ll save the fame and fortune for a guy willing to wear rhinestones.

  Damn, he was bitter.

  “Abe!” The shout made the knock on the door kind of redundant, but it did the trick. Abe woke up out of his stupor and opened the door.

  “How’re the digs?”

  Daniel stood in the doorway, his plaid shirt untucked and his hair a little mussed.

  Abe raised his eyebrows at his usually fastidious cousin’s disheveled appearance. Then he decided he didn’t need to know. Or rather, that he did know, but he would let it go. It was the guy’s wedding weekend, after all.

  “Luxurious. Come on in.”

  Daniel followed him into the room.

  “Something from the mini-fridge?” If Daniel was paying, the least Abe could do was be a good host.

  Daniel shook his head and sat on the corner of the bed. “I think I ate something bad.”

  “Or you got cold feet.”

  “If I have cold feet, how come my stomach hurts?”

  Abe shrugged. “I ain’t no doctor, son. I jes’ came for the big hoedown.”

  He was being a jerk, playing up his own accent to tease Daniel about how his was gone. Still, Abe loved how easily he could slip into his real accent when he came home. It was like pouring molasses over his words, everything was slower and sweeter. Nashville might be the South, but it had nothing on West Virginia for accents.

  Daniel looked suddenly serious. He took an intense interest in watching his hands wring together.

  “It means a lot to me, your bein’ here.”

  “Of course, man, where else would I be?”

  “Like always. You’re my brother, man.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you know how much that means to me? That you’ve been by my side, no matter what?”

  “Same here.”

  “Remember when I stole those DuckTales comic books from Henry’s?”

  “I thought Henry was gonna skin you alive.”

  “I wasn’t worried about Henry. I was worried about Granny Sue.”

  “I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed,” they said together.

  “Sometimes I wish’d she’d just get angry,” Abe said. “Daniel, what’s goin’ on? Are you drunk?”

  “No! I’m just feelin’ sentimental. This is my last day as a free man.”

  “You’ve been with Kevin for seven years.”

  “I know. I just, I never thought this day would come.”

  Somehow Abe knew that Daniel wasn’t talkin’ about waitin’ on the Supreme Court. “Oh my God, you do have cold feet. I swear, Daniel, if you leave that man—”

  “No! That’s not it! It’s just . . . it’s a lot, is all. You’re here and Granny Sue will be here, and that’s all I ever wanted. But now Mom’s comin’, and your mama and daddy, and a bunch of neighbors . . .”

  “You invited ’em.”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t expect them all to come!”

  “It’s as if they like you or something.”

  “That’s the thing. At first I thought I would just invite people, and then it would be on them to decide if they’d come or not, you know.”

  “Cuz you’re marryin’ another feller?” Abe did a little hillbilly dance.

  “Shut up. I know it’s stupid. Nobody’s said ‘boo’ about it since high school, except sometimes Carlene asks me to help with her hair. When have I ever done a woman’s hair?”

  “Never?”

  “I guess I was testing people, and didn’t expect them to pass.”

  “And now you’re . . . disappointed?”

  “No! I’m happy, okay! God!” He threw himself off the bed and tore his hand through his hair.

  “Daniel,” Abe said, putting a rough hand on his shoulder. “You’re kin, and they love you, Lord knows why. And Kevin loves you. And they love Kevin. And soon Kevin will be kin, officially, and so even if they don’t love him, they’ll love him, you know what I mean?”

  Daniel nodded to the carpet.

  Abe squeezed his shoulder. “No more of this, okay? We’re gonna practice for the big party tomorrow, and then we’re gonna have that big party day after tomorrow, and then you and Kevin will go back to the big city, and nothing will be different but a little piece of paper.”

  Daniel sighed. He started for the door, but turned on his heel and tackled Abe into a bear hug. “Thanks, brother.”

  “It’s okay. Saves me gettin’ out my shotgun later, that’s all.”

  Daniel laughed, and Abe knew it was all okay.

  Chapter Four

  Emma groaned and stretched and flexed her toes. It took her a second to remember where she was—West Virginia, wedding, gigantic bed in a picturesque mountain lodge-y thing. She reached her arms out. Yup. Still couldn’t reach the edges.

  She smiled. So much better than her cramped one-bedroom in Bloomington. More room, better view—she might just stick around. Then her stomach growled.

  Looking at the bedside clock, she realized why. It was after midnight, which meant she had slept through dinner and whatever post-dinner activities Kevin had planned for them. She felt a little bad.

&n
bsp; Also, not that bad.

  The idea of sitting through meeting all of those people and making small talk—it made her want to get back under the covers. She’d always been like that, ever since she was old enough to make small talk. The only place she felt comfortable talking to strangers was over the Reference Desk.

  The joys of being an introvert.

  She reached for her phone to see if Becky and Co. had tried to rouse her, but she saw that she still had no reception. Nobody did, except for Bernie, who refused to be beholden to one corporation and so had one of those pay-as-you-go phones. She thought it protected her from Big Brother’s Big Data. Liam pointed out that she paid with a credit card, so at least one of the big brothers knew what she was spending her money on. Which led to an uncomfortable yelling fight, with Becky intervening. And now Bernie was the only one with a signal on her phone, and so she considered the argument won.

  Emma stood up and stretched some more, and noticed a piece of paper shoved under the door.

  We knocked. A lot. So either you’ve been abducted by aliens or you’re taking an introvert’s nap. I won’t point out that you will eventually have to socialize. Instead, like a good friend, I will let you off the hook. This time.

  Unless you’ve been abducted by aliens, in which case, please take notes so I can be prepared for our new overlords.

  —Liam (and Becky and Bernie, who was insistent that we not save you any leftovers)

  Ha-ha, she thought. Friends.

  Fortunately, Kevin’s hospitality included a small welcome basket, including homemade muffins, apparently made by Daniel’s granny. She should probably save one for breakfast tomorrow, she thought as she devoured the first and was eyeballing the second. But by tomorrow it would probably be stale. And the trail mix was probably meant for tomorrow’s walk in the woods, but surely someone would share. As she popped a nut in her mouth, she made a mental inventory of the guests she knew who she might hit up for a handout: Liam (no), Bernie (doubtful), Becky (probably). Kevin would be mad she’d eaten ahead of schedule. Maybe that cute guy with the beard she saw checking in behind them. She liked beards. She liked his beat-up boots. She liked the way his jeans hugged his—

  And the bag of trail mix was empty. And she was fully awake.

  Totally awake enough to be productive.

  Totally.

  Totally productive.

  Especially after turning on her tablet and discovering that the Wi-Fi password didn’t work so no social media distractions. She could call down to the front desk for it. She should check her e-mail. For productivity. Except the university was closed for winter break and all of her best friends were here in the lodge with her, so unless she wanted to slog through the junk mail that multiplied like little digital rabbits, there was no academic need to check her e-mail.

  She opened the first article on her desktop folder, labeled “RBJOYNFYD,” which, of course, stood for Review Before January Or You’ll Never Finish Your Dissertation. All 126 pages opened in an instant. There were now no obstacles to her reading about “Metadata and the Structure of Information: Subject Headings vs. Folksonomy: A Tale of Two Public Library OPACs.”

  She put her feet up on the edge of the bed and started to read.

  * * *

  Abe was full. He sure missed home-cooked meals. Not that he couldn’t cook. It was just that beans on toast didn’t have the same appeal as slow-cooked greens and squash casserole.

  Kevin and his librarian friends had ducked out early, but he, Daniel, their cousin Pete, and a bunch of Pete’s brothers—the ones who used to run around together causing trouble at the old home place—had closed down the lodge bar. (Abe still couldn’t believe the lodge had a bar, let alone a restaurant that appeared to serve more than sloppy joes and bug juice. This place really had changed since he was last here as a young Boy Scout.) Pete, though, was relishing a night off from being a suburban dad and he wasn’t ready for the night to end. Once he and Daniel started telling stories—well, it was a good thing there weren’t many others staying at the lodge that weekend, because the Tates were taking over.

  Abe was just starting to get itchy fingers when Pete told him to go get his fiddle. Pete wasn’t even his brother, but he sure bossed him around like he was. Never mind that Abe actually wanted to play. All that reminiscing could definitely use musical accompaniment, especially when their memories had been lubricated by the finest local beer. (That was another thing—there were local breweries in town! When Abe was a kid, there was only a shack where you could buy cheap ice-cream sandwiches, and that wasn’t even open in the winter.)

  Once Abe got away from the fireplace in the lobby, the rest of the hotel was quiet. Some clever architect had designed the place so the ruckus in the lobby couldn’t be heard where sensible people were trying to get their beauty rest. If it didn’t look so much like The Shining, it would have been actually peaceful. Dang, Abe was definitely getting citified. He used to crave the quiet, the way it would envelop him and clear his mind. Now he was so used to the noise of an urban apartment complex full of starving musicians, well, a man got used to the constant rehearsing and musical pissing contests.

  He opened the sliding glass door and stepped out onto the little balcony. Dang, it was cold. He took deep breaths of sharp mountain air, blew out to watch it crystallize. It was quiet out here, too. It smelled like trees and snow and firewood. He looked up and above the trees, he could see the daggun stars. When was the last time he saw actual stars? This many stars? The only stars the people he knew in Nashville wanted to see wore rhinestone cowboy boots. (Actually, he’d love to see a country star wearing rhinestone cowboy boots instead of the expensive, beat-up-looking motorcycle boots everybody wore now.) (Not that he would ever wear rhinestone cowboy boots himself.) (Well, he might. Depended on the scenario.) (This fresh air was doing something funny to his brain.)

  He went back inside, took his fiddle out of its case, and thought about going downstairs. Pete was on a roll, and when that guy got going, he could make walking down a quiet hallway sound like a slapstick epic. Abe had missed that, even though he’d heard most of the stories a hundred times. Heck, he was in most of the stories, whether he liked it or not. He took one more look at the balcony. It was so quiet. It might just be quiet enough for him to write something. He hadn’t felt like writing music in a while. And there was a chair out there. And his emotions were high. Confused, but high. He was missing his home, but he’d moved to Nashville for a reason, right? The reason was to make music.

  Trouble was, he wasn’t making music. Sure, he was playing. Open mics like every other idiot, playing parties and weddings, picking up gigs as a set musician at little indie studios. But playing on a bunch of other hopeful musicians’ records was not fulfilling his dreams. Sometimes he thought he’d be better off moving home and working at Walmart. At least all of his musical juices wouldn’t be sucked out of him by the end of the day.

  Ah, screw it, he thought, and grabbed his coat and scarf and the fingerless gloves his mom had made him last year. He set up on the balcony, leaned back in the little chair, put his feet up on the railing, and started to play.

  Based on the results, end-users relying on

  folksonomy fiddled—

  Emma shook her head. That wasn’t right.

  End-users relying on folksonomy achieved similar results to those using subject heading guidance. The efficiency of achieving those results depended on the wail of the high lonesome fiddler—

  Emma tossed her tablet on the bed in frustration. Focus, she told herself. Pay attention to the folksonomies, dammit.

  It was quiet again, so she reached for the tablet and sat down heavily in the easy chair. She propped her feet up on the table and started again.

  The efficiency of achieving those results varied based on the subject’s training. More experienced researchers navigated the subject headings quickly, while freshmen, who we can assume have little experience listening to fiddles cry out over the dark winter trees—<
br />
  “That’s it,” she said, and she stood. Maybe she would be able to focus if she stood.

  It was two A.M. and she sure wasn’t tired—her power nap and protein snack had taken care of that. But she still didn’t have enough brain power to focus. Every errant sound was a potentially more interesting distraction. Like the fiddle. Her door was closed. Where was that damn fiddle music coming from? Was someone standing in the woods?

  She tried one more time.

  Respondents reported a greater comfort level with long, low notes carried off by the wind.

  She shook her head. That was definitely not in the study.

  If it was, it would make the thing a lot more interesting.

  Maybe she should start creating soundtracks to academic research papers. She could make millions! If only it helped actually absorb information.

  Or maybe she really was tired, and her exhaustion was just disguising itself as manic late-night genius.

  It was late. Who the hell was playing a violin at two in the morning?

  Whoever it was, they were entirely responsible for her losing another day of potential productivity.

  The more she thought about it, the more she blamed the nocturnal musician for her problems. She would have this study done and another one halfway read if someone wasn’t so inconsiderate.

  She should call down to the front desk and complain. On second thought, she wanted the satisfaction of seeing whoever it was come face-to-face with the consequences of their actions.

  If only she could find out where they were playing.

  She listened. Of course, it was silent. Now he was quiet. Because she had decided that this errant fiddler was obviously a man. Or a ghost. But a man-ghost.

  She picked up her tablet.

  The music started again.

  She put her tablet down.

  It stopped.

  Are you kidding me? She picked up her tablet again.