by Josie Kerr
While his mind roamed, he caught himself playing the “What If” game, and that never, ever ended well. However optimistic the scenario started, he couldn’t help but play devil’s advocate and imagine the flip side, when things went wrong and the bloom faded from the rose. What if that happened now? What if they’d changed too much, if the events in the thirty years that had passed made them such different people that they had nothing in common anymore except that night in the moonlight? He didn’t think he could bear that. Would it be better for them not to even start, for them just to let the past remain a vivid memory?
He really didn’t think so, which is why he invited Liddie to the show in Cabbagetown. The Cabbagetown show would be a chance for them to physically distance themselves from the past, and maybe, just maybe, allow them to leave the emotional past behind as well by making some new memories.
New memories.
The phrase sparked a blaze of melody in his head, which led him to leap off the couch and head down to the basement studio. He grabbed his cherished Dobro off the stand, clicked record on the computer program, and then sat down to play. He laid down the track in one take, not even bothering to try to transcribe the music this time. There would be time enough for transcription, and anyway, the melodies always transformed a bit.
Then he played back the earlier piece, the one he recorded before he was inexplicably drawn outside to find Liddie sitting on the dock. The piece was darker than what he’d recorded this evening; it had a yearning, a depth of emotion he hadn’t heard in his own music in a long time. He’d been churning out chart-toppers for other people for so long that he didn’t know if he could even create music for himself. These two recordings proved that he could.
He’d teased Mick with his talk of a solo record. But maybe it was time.
“You’re going through with it, huh?” Tally was lying on her stomach on Liddie’s bed, propped up on her elbows. “You’re not going to chicken out this time?”
Liddie fussed with the already perfectly packed outfit, avoiding her daughter’s careful gaze. “What do you mean?”
Tally rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Mom. You know exactly what I mean. The trip to the award ceremony?”
Liddie did know exactly what Tally was referring to. Eight years prior, as a fortieth birthday present, Tally and Rich had bought Liddie two VIP tickets to a prestigious music awards show, knowing that Liddie loved the music and she’d probably be thrilled to get to meet, and maybe fangirl over, a few of the musicians. And she had been, until she found out that Chet Harper was going to be honored with a lifetime achievement award and that he and Tobias would be front and center at the meet and greet. At the time, she wasn’t sure whom she was more nervous about seeing—Chet or Tobias.
In the end, she didn’t go, having made herself literally sick from stress. She’d played it off, saying it was a late case of the flu, and although her husband hadn’t said anything, Liddie knew that Tally had known something was up even though she hadn’t pressed her mother for details.
Now, her daughter was looking at her with that expression that asked, “Are you going to make me ask you? Or are you going to pull up your big girl panties and fess up?” Liddie inwardly groaned but knew she had to give the girl some sort of explanation. It didn’t necessarily have to be the entire sordid truth.
“Tobias and his father didn’t need any drama on Chet’s big day, and if they found out I was there—”
“Which they would have because you’d have been in the VIPs,” Tally interjected.
“Yes, that’s right. There was just too much . . . stuff for me to go.”
“What the hell happened, Mom? I mean, it had been more than twenty years at that point. What in the world could possibly be that earth-shattering?” Liddie arched an eyebrow at her daughter. “On the other hand, I remember the look on his face when he saw you at the Tavern.”
“Now imagine that compounded with him having to smile his way through hours of a ceremony that was praising a man who made his life hell. That is why I didn’t go.”
Tally made a rude noise in her throat and rolled off the bed. “I get it, I think. Okay, wish me luck. I have to call Greg.”
Liddie lasered her full attention on her daughter. “What?”
Tally scooted over to the door, eyes averted from her mother’s glare. “We’ve been talking . . .”
“Oh, honey—”
“I think we’re going to give it another chance, Mom.”
“But he—”
“Don’t say it. You don’t have any room to talk, Mother.”
Liddie winced at Tally’s formal address, but she was right. Liddie and Rich hadn’t exactly provided a good model for how to have a healthy marriage.
“Chloe’s miserable here. She hates it. All her friends are back in California.” Tally hung on the doorjamb. “I can do anything for four years, and then she’ll be off to school, and then . . . who knows?”
“Just because you move back to California doesn’t you mean you have to move back in with him.”
Tally nodded and gave her mother a little smile. “I know that. But I want to try again.”
“Even after—”
“Yes,” Tally was quick to say. She leaned over and gave her mother a kiss on the cheek. “I’m going to call Greg and leave you in peace to pack your sexy lingerie that you don’t want your daughter to know you have. I’ll pop back in after I get off the phone.”
Tally disappeared from view. Liddie chuckled and pulled the barely there nightie from the dresser drawer. Yep, Tally had her number. She threw a pair of her usual pajama pants and a T-shirt into her suitcase, just in case she chickened out or if Tobias, for some reason, wasn’t up for some sexy shenanigans. Now that she was packed, she just had to wait another hour or so for him to arrive, and they’d head to downtown Atlanta. And then, who knew what would happen?
´*•.¸(*•.¸ *¸.•*´)¸.•*´
Tobias endured thirty minutes of Liddie’s tense silence before he pulled over on the side of the highway and turned off the engine.
“Liddie, if you don’t want to come, just say so. I’m not going to lie and say it’s fine with me, because it sure as hell isn’t, but our making a ninety-minute trek into the city only to have you be miserable isn’t doing anyone any favors. We have plenty of time for me to turn around and take you home.” He turned to her after he made his speech, after speaking while staring straight ahead because he didn’t trust himself to look her in the eyes while he talked, and found her looking at him with her forehead knotted in confusion.
“I want to go. I’ve been looking forward to this all week. If you don’t want me there, well, then that’s—”
Tobias sealed his mouth over hers in a passionate kiss.
“Wow. Okay.” Liddie licked her lips. “I take it you want me at the show.”
“Yes. If you want to be at the show.”
“Yes, I want to be at the show,” Liddie said with a sigh. “I do. Sorry, Tobias. I am a little distracted by something going on with Tally that I can’t do anything about. Let’s get back on the road, okay?”
“Will you tell me about your worries about your daughter if I drive?” He cocked an eyebrow at her.
“Yes, I will, and you can tell me if I’m being unreasonable.”
“Sure thing.” Tobias started up the car and eased back into the traffic. “Okay, spill it, sweetheart.”
Liddie gave Tobias a brief rundown of Tally’s situation, about her tumultuous relationship with Chloe’s father and the fact that the man had hit her at least once and acted out violently several times.
“What the hell is she thinking?” Tobias spat. “Putting herself and her daughter in that situation.” He shook his head. “I know it’s not easy to leave. Hell, I’ve seen that firsthand with my old man and Mama, but I know, I know, we would all have been better off living in a shack and eating government cheese than staying with Chet. Shit, we lived on welfare for a long time until I started playing wi
th him. It wouldn’t have been any different, except we wouldn’t have been terrified to breathe.”
“I know, Toby. I know. But Chloe is miserable out here, and Tally wants to take her back to California until she graduates. She thinks she can do anything for four years.”
“And that is what you’re worried about.”
Liddie nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly it. Four years can be a long time.” Liddie stared out the window for a while, and Tobias took her hand in his and brought it to his lips.
She didn’t look at him when she began talking again. “Rich wasn’t faithful. Ever. He always came home to me, but he made sure I knew that I wasn’t the only woman he was with.”
“Did Tally know this?”
“Yes.” Tobias darted his eyes over to her and saw her swallow hard. “She saw Rich and one of his girlfriends out one night. This was right after she’d had Chloe, and things were already really tense between her and her father. She confronted him. Then she came home and confronted me. It was a whole thing.”
“Why’d you put up with it?”
“Because he did always come home to me. And then when he got sick, I wasn’t going to be that woman who abandoned her terminally ill husband.”
“Like Candy.”
“She did that?”
“Hell yeah. She hightailed it back to her mama as soon as Chet had one bad day. The home healthcare worker found him after she’d been gone all night.” Tobias snorted. “And as shitty as Chet was, I think he actually loved her—I mean, as much as he loved anyone.”
“Ugh. She’s so awful.”
“Not going to disagree with you there.” Tobias gave Liddie’s hand a squeeze and was relieved when she squeezed his hand back.
“Why’d you marry her, Toby?”
“I ask myself that all the time,” he replied with a humorless laugh. “Seriously, I do. After you went away, or rather, were sent away, I contacted Candy to see if she knew how to get in touch with you. She said she didn’t—”
“She wasn’t lying about that. After a few days in California, I called her to give her my phone number, and her mother told me to never try to contact her again. I tried twice more but never reached her.”
“Well, that was one thing she was truthful about, then. I’m actually glad to know that.” He chewed on his lip. “After you left, I came and got Nolan and Cal and brought them back to Nashville. Mama wouldn’t go, and Chet put her in a home. I’d come down and visit her whenever I could, and every once in a while, I’d run into Candy. She put on a big show about how much she missed you, and at the beginning, I deluded myself into thinking we were helping each other through a loss. Things just . . . progressed from there.”
“And what happened? I mean, I know about her ongoing affair, but was there anything else?” Liddie snorted. “Not that there needed to be anything else, mind you.”
“She figured out pretty quick that I was never going to be one to parade around the red carpet or even do the bigger tours. Toward the end of our marriage, I’d gotten to where I hated performing, hated it so much that I’d get physically ill before going onstage.”
“But you’re performing again.”
“Yes, because I want to. And I’m performing what I want, when I want. It’s a little bit selfish, but it’s making me happy and it’s not hurting anyone, so.” Tobias pulled into the parking lot behind a two-story brick building. “And we’re here.”
“Oh, this place looks fun,” Liddie remarked, pointing to the screened-in porch and the large Irish flag mounted to the front. She placed her hand on the door release, preparing to get out of the car, when Tobias caught her hand. When she turned to him, he was leaning into her space, a shy grin on his face.
“Gimme a little bit of sugar before we go in, baby.”
Liddie couldn’t help but giggle, and then she gave him a peck on the lips. “How’s that?”
Tobias winked at her and sat up. “That’s just about perfect.”
Liddie sat at a long table next to Em Brennan, the wife of Tobias’s producer, Mick. The two women were close in age, and when Em found out that Liddie’s uncles owned a vintage shop, she squealed and said, “I think you’ve just found a new best friend.” They’d spent the next half hour talking about vintage glassware and antique paper before the conversation turned more personal.
“How long have you known Tobias?” Em asked.
“Since we were about eleven or so. We were high school sweethearts, kind of.” At Em’s interested look, Liddie explained the complicated logistics of a long-distance relationship when one couldn’t drive and wasn’t supposed to be dating, period, much less dating an “undesirable” boy.
“Wow, so a sort of Romeo and Juliet situation, but not.” Em snapped a carrot stick with her teeth. “That must have been hard.”
“Yeah, it was.” Liddie sucked in a deep breath. “So how long have you and Mick been together?”
“A little over six years. I moved in upstairs from him, and things just kind of went from there.”
“Kind of like a Hallmark movie.”
Em laughed. “Fat-chick data analyst moves in upstairs from a lonely widower. Yeah, that sounds just like a Hallmark movie, actually.”
“Oh my gosh—he lost his wife when he was young, then.”
“Two years after they were married. It was tragic.” Em sighed. “I’m a big believer in signs and things happening when they’re supposed to. See, we actually met almost twenty years ago at a terrible dive bar. I was with my best friend, Ashley, and Mick was with his buddy, Rory. It was just a random encounter—we didn’t even catch each other’s names. Every once in a while, I’d think about it, but then I’d move on to something else, you know? And then one night we were talking about that bar, and we figured out that we’d met there once before. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d actually tried to find out his name and number all those years ago.”
Liddie nodded. “I get it.”
Em’s husband slid into the chair next to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “You ladies finished planning your world domination?”
“Oh, maybe. I think it might entail a visit to Hemlock Creek, though. Liddie’s uncles own a shop that sounds as though it’s right up my alley.”
“Oh Lardy,” the big producer replied with a grin. “Just tell me when, girlie. So, Liddie, you ready to see your b’y tear it up?”
“Um, yeah?” Liddie wasn’t quite sure what a “b’y” was, but she assumed Mick was talking about Tobias, so she went with it.
“Good. He said he had some surprises for us tonight.”
“Hello, y’all, and thanks for coming out to Foley’s Public House tonight. I’m Tobias Harper, and y’all get to put up with me for the next few hours. I’m not much for the patter, so let’s get to it. I’ll start off with a classic.”
Tobias played almost nonstop for the next two and a half hours, mostly instrumental country standards. When he did play something with vocals, the song was usually his own composition, but he never claimed credit. He just let people assume he was covering a popular song.
He took a short break halfway through the evening, coming over to the table where Liddie sat. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and then leaned over to shake Mick’s hand before snagging a glass of water.
“Darlin’, you enjoying the music?” Tobias asked after he’d drained the glass of water.
“Yes, I am. I haven’t heard a lot of these songs in a long time.”
“Yeah, they don’t get much radio airplay anymore, but they’re on playlists all over the place, so people obviously still like them.” He smooched her cheek again. “Okay, I’m headed back up.” He winked at her and ambled back to the stage.
Boy, those jeans fit him just right.
Liddie was concentrating so hard on Tobias’s butt that she barely perceived another couple joining them at the table. In fact, it wasn’t until Tobias called out from the stage that she noticed.
“This next song goes out
to my baby brother, who is actually the biggest of us Harpers. He’s also the fellow who creates these great Friday-night tasting menus for Foley’s Public House. So this one’s for you, Nolan.”
Liddie’s breath caught in her throat when she looked over at Nolan and heard the first strains of the song emanate from the Dobro in Tobias’s lap. Nolan grinned at her and gave her a wave. Before the second stanza, Liddie was up out of her chair and wrapping him in a hard hug. He held on to her as well, giving her a squeeze before letting her go. Nolan nodded to the woman sitting next to him, and the three exchanged silent greetings before Liddie slid back into her seat. She kept sneaking looks at Nolan, whom she last saw when he was eight. He’d been a pudgy kid with a big smile and pretty eyes. Now he was a big bear of a man, inked and bearded like his two brothers, but the eyes and the smile hadn’t changed.
Between the music and the appearance of Nolan, Liddie barely kept a rein on her emotions. She was glad the crowd seemed to discourage talking during Tobias’s sets. It gave her time to think, and to not think—to just feel. True to his earlier statement, Tobias didn’t talk much at all, merely thanked the crowd for its appreciative applause or to direct attention to Meghan and Sully, the daughter-father team who ran Foley’s Public House.
It was getting late, and Liddie saw Meghan circle a finger overhead, signaling Tobias to wrap up the set. He nodded and began plucking out a familiar tune.
“I started writing this song when I was sixteen, lonely, and missing the girl whom I called my best friend.” Tobias closed his eyes as he played. This must be what he looks like when he comes.
He began to talk again. “I recorded the song because I was eighteen, pissed off, and the girl I called my best friend had been sent away and I had no idea where she was. But now, thirty years later—fuck yeah, we’re old, y’all—that girl is back, and I’m thankful for the chance to get to know her again. This one is for you, Liddie; it’s always been for you.”
The first time she’d heard the song over the closing credits of a fairly mediocre movie, she’d recognized the core melody as something Tobias had let her preview years before. She’d stayed in the theater until the last strains went silent and the lights had come on, and then she’d gone into the restroom and thrown up. She’d been pregnant with Tally and used the excuse of morning sickness and overactive pregnancy hormones to cover her distress. Now, silent tears ran down Liddie’s face as the dam that held her emotions finally broke, and she wept for all the years they’d lost. But at the same time, she wept for the second chance that fate had given her. And as the last bits of melody faded into the night air and the crowd erupted in applause, Liddie met Tobias’s steady gaze and knew that he felt the exact same way.
