by Josie Kerr
Tobias raised his eyebrows. He rarely heard stories of his grandfather. In the early days of his career, when he was still playing with Chet, a few old-timers would drop by after a performance and talk about Chester Harper Sr., but even then, those stories and visit were few and far between and had stopped by the time Tobias liberated himself from his father.
Ace shrugged. “I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but I’m just saying, it’s no wonder Chet turned out the way he did.”
“But interestingly enough, none of his sons inherited that behavior,” Bunny mused. “Even though your mama was sick a lot of the time, she was one of the kindest souls I’d ever met. And she loved you boys so much. She was your saving grace, I think.”
Tobias exhaled, suddenly exhausted. “She was. I wish I could have done right by her earlier.”
“Speaking of doing right . . .” Ace set down his glass. “Back to Liddie.”
A knot formed in Tobias’s stomach as he waited for the man to continue.
“If you will, if you can, wait for her, Tobias. She’s seeing someone again.” At Tobias’s look of alarm, Ace quickly added, “A therapist. She’s doing better—not good, but better. If you can find it in your heart to wait for just a little while longer . . .”
Tobias nodded. Hell yeah, he’d wait. He’d wait as long as she needed him to.
“Anything you want us to tell her? She’s coming over for supper tonight.”
“Yeah. Tell her I said, ‘Hey.’ ” Tobias allowed himself a small grin at the tiny glimmer of hope he saw.
Ace, on the other hand, beamed at Tobias. “Will do.”
Liddie blew out a breath. So far today, she’d dealt with chair-slinging ninth graders, a tearful shrink appointment, and an overly perky checkout clerk at the Piggly Wiggly. She’d had quite enough public interaction, thank you very much. And to top it off, her uncles had invited her over for dinner, so she was going to have to do even more peopling later. Thank goodness Wednesdays were generally slow at The Backward Glance, because she was looking forward to spending three uninterrupted hours sorting through vintage glass.
She had just sat down with a large auction lot when the door chimed, alerting her to someone coming into the shop. She groaned and then immediately plastered her “friendly and knowledgeable vintage shop attendant” smile on her face and went to greet the customer.
“Hello, and welcome to The Backward Glan—oh my word, Em!”
Em, the kind woman she met at Tobias’s Cabbagetown gig had been standing in front of the high-end carnival glass display, clapping her hands with glee.
“Hey, Liddie! Oh, I’m so glad you’re working today!” She gave Liddie a hug and then stepped back. “This is such a cute shop! I can barely stand it.”
“Thank you. My uncles have worked so hard to build it up.” She looked around conspiratorially. “You know, we just got a box of carnival glass from an auction. A lot of it is Helios Green,” she sing-songed.
“Oh my Lord. I said I wasn’t going to buy any more glass, but . . .”
Liddie laughed. “Come on back.”
The next two hours were spent investigating the boxes of glass and chatting about glass and other vintage goods. Liddie had forgotten what it was like to have a girlfriend, or even someone to talk to who wasn’t related to her. Of course, those thoughts led her to thoughts of Tobias, and she sucked in a shaky breath.
Em smiled sympathetically. “Mick said Tobias has been having some issues.”
“Um, yeah, I guess—” Liddie smoothed a price tag down with her finger.
“You wanna talk about it?”
Liddie shook her head. “All I do is talk about it. With the shrink, and a group, and in forums on the internet.”
“Oh, okay. So this is a Big Bad, not just regular stuff.”
“That’s exactly what this is.” Liddie heaved a sigh of relief, thankful that Em didn’t push for further details, though for some reason, she felt compelled to make Em understand that while Tobias was directly involved, he was not the cause. “Tobias is involved, but really, he’s a victim, too. The whole situation has more to do with who our parents were than anything Tobias and I had or hadn’t done.”
“Hmm.”
“What was that sound and look for?” Liddie asked with a laugh.
“Mick and I—it took us forever to get together. He . . . didn’t have an easy time growing up, and then once he seemed to have it all, it was ripped away in the blink of an eye. I had to wait a long time before he was in a healthy enough mindset to have a functional relationship. I’m not going to lie—it was awful for a while. We weren’t communicating the way we should have been, and of course, there was baggage, so much baggage. But we finally got our heads out of our asses, and we’ve been together ever since.”
“I think we still have a lot of work to do individually.”
“I get it. I do.” Em’s lip curled up in a small grin. “But don’t be afraid to help each other with your individual work, because sometimes working together is the only way you can achieve that goal.” Em’s eyes popped wide in shock. “Oh Lordy, when did I become the sort of person who spews unsolicited relationship advice?”
Liddie didn’t know, but she sure was glad that Em was that sort of person.
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Liddie suspected the uncles were up to something. She cut her eyes first to Ace and then to Bunny. They hadn’t nudged her about getting enough sleep, or eating, or getting out, or any of the things they’d been riding her butt to do the last couple of weeks. In fact, they were behaving completely normal, suspiciously normal.
“Liddiebug, how was your day?” Ace hadn’t called her Liddiebug since she was a little girl. The nickname, combined with a dinner of recently forbidden fried chicken—her favorite—and their sudden disinterest in being bossy, convinced her that they were definitely up to something.
She decided the best course of action was to play dumb, so she snapped a baby carrot between her teeth and tried to think of something outrageous to say. Unfortunately, “outrageous” wasn’t exactly in her wheelhouse.
“I broke up a girl fight today. It was ugly—girls fighting over a boy.” Liddie plucked a drumstick off the platter and then helped herself to an extra-large serving of fried okra. “Oh, this looks so yummy. I haven’t had my fill of a table full of fried goodness in a long, long time.”
“Bunny decided we can have a full-on Southern meal once a month.” Ace got his own double serving of okra. “Isn’t that right, Bunny?”
“Say what now?” Bunny froze with a forkful of greens halfway between the serving bowl and his plate.
Ace’s smile grew strained. “You know what we talked about earlier—about us having a blowout supper one night a month.” Ace bugged his eyes out at his partner and rolled his head toward Liddie.
Smooth, Uncle Ace. Really, really smooth.
“What? I never—oh. Oh! Uh, yeah.” Bunny was glaring at Ace when he carefully added, “Of course, we’ll just have to play it by ear, depending on how everyone is feeling.”
Oh, this was going to be good. The uncles were going to hoist themselves with their own petard. Liddie, waiting for whatever ruse they were trying to pull off to implode, casually snacked on some of the okra on her plate.
“And by the way, Tobias says, ‘Hey.’ ”
Liddie aspirated a whole piece of okra, and it took Bunny’s pounding her on the back for her to begin breathing normally again.
“You saw Tobias?”
“Mm-hmm.” Bunny took a bite of a chicken leg.
“Where?”
“Well, at his home.”
“You went and saw him?” Liddie squeaked. The uncles nodded. “Why on earth did you do that?”
“To see if he was as torn up as you are,” Bunny blurted.
Liddie groaned and covered her face with her hands. “And?” She peeked through her fingers to witness her uncles silently conversing with eye rolls and head bobs an
d nods. “AND?” she repeated a little more forcefully.
“He is, with an extra helping of guilt and self-flagellation that you don’t have because you’re going to the headshrinker.” Ace took a deep breath. “He is completely torn up, but I’ll tell you what: he is hanging on. And he’s willing to work and to wait, because that man loves you.”
Liddie thought of what Em had said earlier that day, about her own husband being worth the wait and about how important it was for him to be mentally healthy enough for a relationship. And then she thought about all the things she’d been talking about with her psychiatrist. And in the back of her mind, the place where it was dark and warm and safe, she thought she saw a little light, a little glimmer there. That glimmer managed to sneak across her face, and both her uncles grinned back at her.
Ace leaned his elbows on the table. “I see that expression, Liddie Hopewell. Now the most important question: What are you going to do about it?”
“I . . . think I have to go, Uncles.” Liddie stood up from the table, gave her uncles each a kiss on the forehead, and practically ran out the front door, down the steps, and to her car.
After Liddie’s uncles left, Tobias took the girls for a walk on the riverbank while he pondered what to do about their current situation. He’d replayed Ace’s words over and over in his mind, and the more he did, the more he became convinced that waiting for Liddie was not something he needed to do. Not that he was going to bully her into something—after all, the last thing he wanted to do was spook her by being overly demanding, and Lord knew that giving someone a relationship ultimatum never turned out well. No, he needed to cool his jets and maybe touch base with the uncles to see how she reacted to them telling her that Tobias said “Hey.”
He was actually tempted to hop in the car and go stake out her house like a creeper. But he wouldn’t. That would be the polar opposite of cooling his jets, which might have adverse effects on his relationship with Liddie.
This dating stuff sucked serious ass, and not even in a fun way. Not that he and Liddie were dating. How could they be dating when they hadn’t seen each other in a month, which really was a pretty big feat considering how small Owltown and Hemlock Creek were? For heaven’s sake, there was only one grocery store unless you drove almost an hour down the mountain.
Frankie and Winnie came running back to him, soaking wet and covered in mud, each carrying the opposite end of a tree branch. Tobias groaned. They were going to need a serious hosing off before they went back into the house. He whistled and started back to the house, the dogs trotting behind him, still carrying the branch.
By the time he got them—and subsequently himself—cleaned up, the sun had almost set and there was a distinct nip in the air. Still, it was a beautiful night, so Tobias retrieved his resonator guitar from the basement studio, flipped on the patio heaters, and settled in to see if his muse might come out to play. He suspected she might, as when he was walking beside Fightingtown Creek, tiny shoots of a melody appeared. He needed to foster these beginnings, to charm his muse into hanging around again. The last month marked the longest time he’d been without music of some sort since he was fifteen years old, and he didn’t like the feeling at all. As a matter of fact, the comparative silence in his head scared the crap out of him, especially considering he’d had his most prolific songwriting and recording sessions of the past ten years during the short time between seeing Liddie at the Hemlock Creek Tavern’s opening and the morning after he’d returned from Nashville, when Candy had dropped her little bomb.
He pulled the guitar into his lap, put on his finger picks, and palmed the tone bar. Frankie and Winnie, who had assumed their usual places in the wicker peacock chair, pricked up their ears when he plucked a few notes.
“Y’all like that?” Tobias asked. Winnie answered affirmatively with her goofy, lispy yowl, while Frankie yipped in agreement.
He played a few more notes, the melody sprouting from his fingertips, growing as he nurtured the notes even as he bent and sustained them with the tone bar. Soon, he had the foundation of a new song, and he wished he’d brought either a recorder or some blank staff paper upstairs when he’d retrieved the guitar. He played a few more licks, trying out some variations, and then returned to the base melody. He drew out the last note, closed his eyes, and made a wish. He breathed in deeply and then went downstairs to get a portable recorder and blank paper.
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It wasn’t all that late, but the sun had gone down, and because the area was so remote, the darkness seemed to swallow up the illumination from the headlights of Liddie’s car. She pulled onto the dirt road that led to the dock. Their dock. Tobias’s house sat off to the left, up the embankment, and to her surprise, the basement and screened-in porch were lit up bright.
Then she saw him, walking up the stairs that led to the porch. He was carrying something in his hands, and curiously enough, he was only wearing underwear. Huh. His head disappeared from view as he sat down, or bent down, and then she heard the music. Her breath caught in her throat. This was new, something she’d never heard before. Something . . . bright, hopeful, not like Tobias’s usual pieces, which were often moody, if not outright dark, even for a bluesy type of song. This was closer to the bluegrass he’d grown up playing and abandoned when he broke with Chet.
She stood there and listened until she was sure he was finished, and then she made her way across his backyard.
She heard a surprised “What the hell?” escape him as she came into view, and then suddenly, Winnie and Frankie were down the stairs and barking excitedly at her. Liddie bent down to pet the dogs, giving each one some individual attention before patting them on their heads and standing up.
“Liddie?” She heard him huff a laugh as he stood with his guitar in front of him, hiding his near nakedness behind it.
“I, uh, decided I wanted to come say ‘hey’ back, in person.” She smiled at him, but he was still looking at her as if she had two heads. “So, hey, Toby.”
“Hey.”
Okay. Not going exactly how she’d planned, but then again, she really didn’t have a plan. It was more like a general feeling of what she wanted to achieve.
He scratched at a thatch of hair on his chest and seemed to remember that he didn’t have much on.
“The girls got snout to tail in the mud, and I had to hose them off. In the process, they transferred all the mud to me, so I just stripped down so I wouldn’t track it into the house. I turned on the heat lamps, and then I started to play and just . . .” His voice trailed off and he shrugged.
“I know. I mean, I didn’t know about the mud, but I heard you playing.”
“I missed you, Liddie.”
“I missed you, too, Toby.”
He blinked hard and then snorted. “Yeah, so since I’m standing here in my underwear, looking like some sort of deviant, why don’t you come up and I’ll put some pants on, and we can talk.”
Liddie laughed and headed up the stairs.
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They sat perpendicular to each other, Tobias in a club chair, Liddie on the sofa. They each had a drink—two fingers of whiskey—that neither of them touched.
“So, I saw Em Brennan today,” Liddie began. “We talked. She said you’d been having some issues.”
“Yeah, I basically got fired, but it’s okay. I was playing for shit. He’d have to re-record everything.”
“I heard you playing tonight, and, Toby, that was far from shit.” Liddie swallowed hard. “It was beautiful. I haven’t heard you play like that in a long time.” She finally took a sip from her glass. “Em said something important today. She told me that I needed to not be afraid to accept help while I was working on my own stuff. I mean, I’m not going to lie to you—I’m still a mess. I’ll probably always be, at some level.”
He chuckled quietly. “Same. Hell, you know that.”
“Yeah, I do. But I would like to try this again.”
“I would love that.” Liddie saw his Adam’s apple bob in his throat as he swallowed hard. “I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through, but I know we wouldn’t be the same people we are now if we both hadn’t gone through what we have. I happen to think you’re pretty wonderful, hot mess and all.”
“Tobias Harper, I did not say I was a hot mess. I just said I was a mess.” Her comment got a laugh out of him.
“Okay, excuse me. But I’m serious, and I mean it. I . . . I never stopped loving you, Liddie. And I know that when you’re fifteen or eighteen and hormones are raging, what you think is love might just be lust, but lust doesn’t last thirty years unless there’s something else with it.”
“I agree.”
“So what do you say, Liddie Hopewell? You wanna try this again?”
Liddie smiled shyly at the man sitting across from her. “Yeah, Toby Harper, I do.”
“Can I come over there and kiss you?”
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
Tobias was next to her in a flash. He curled one hand around the curve of her neck and stroked her cheek with his thumb. Bending his head to hers, he pressed his lips to her mouth, and then he did it again. His lips curled into a smile as he kissed her, and he felt her return the smile. And he knew then, without a doubt, that everything would be okay.
Liddie acted like she was smoothing the lapels of Tobias’s jacket, but really, she just wanted to touch him, and she thought maybe he needed a physical connection to her, if just for a few moments. They were in a hotel suite in Nashville, waiting for the car to take them to the Ryman, and Tobias was twitchy, nervous, and a little bit snippy.
“I think you need something to take the edge off,” she murmured.
Tobias grinned then. “Yeah, I do, but you look awfully pretty for me to get you all rumpled.” He leaned over and pressed a kiss to her cheek.
“What if I told you I don’t mind you getting me rumpled?” Liddie stretched up onto her toes and gave him a kiss back. “Unzip me.”
“Liddie . . .” His voice was unsure, but the twinkle in Tobias’s eyes told her he was interested.
