The Heart That Breaks

by Inglath Cooper

  The sad thing is Sarah has a voice like an angel. I don’t think she has any idea how good she really is. Maybe because it’s not important to her in that way. Her voice is part of who she is, like the color of her hair, her height, or that she’s a good runner. It doesn’t define her.

  As much as I love her, I know this is always going to be the fence between us.

  “Did you play the Bluebird tonight?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “How did it go?”

  “It went great. Thomas sang the house down.” I don’t mention CeCe. It feels like I’ve left a big gaping hole in the truth of our day. Bringing up the fact that we picked up a girl on I-40 whose car caught on fire and then let her sing with us at the Bluebird when the person singing with us should have been Sarah, isn’t a direction I want to take our conversation in.

  “We had some interest from some record company guy,” I say.

  “Cool,” she says, but I can hear the reserve in her voice. I really think what she wants to hear is that we don’t have a shot in hell of making it so we’ll come back to Atlanta with our tails tucked between our legs.

  And suddenly, I’m feeling the same irritation I’d felt that morning when I left her in bed, warm from the quick urgent way in which we’d just made love. She’d begged me not to go, and I’d begged her to come with me.

  The stalemate made us both angry and torn and frustrated.

  “I’ve got to get up for a work in a bit,” she says. “I should try to go back to sleep.”

  “You should,” I say.

  “Call me later?”

  “Yeah. I will.”

  “Holden?”

  “Yeah?”

  “We’ll work it out.”

  “We will.”

  “I miss you like crazy.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  She clicks off without saying goodbye. We made the agreement when we first met that we wouldn’t use that word with each other. Sarah liked the idea that our time together never really ended if we didn’t say goodbye. We just picked up where we left off.

  I picture her in the bed we’d shared in her apartment, her long legs bare beneath the expensive sheets she’d insisted were worth splurging on. I wonder if she’s staying on her side of the bed or if her arm is slung over my side, if she imagines I’m there with her as she tries to go to sleep.

  I push off the deck railing and slip inside the apartment. I need to sleep. I walk down the hallway to the room where I can hear Thomas snoring. The door to CeCe’s room is shut, but I stop outside it, touching my fingertips to the wood surface.

  “Is someone there?” she calls out.

  “It’s just me,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “That’s all right,” she answers.

  I stand for a moment while neither of us says anything else. And then I go to my own room and close the door behind me.

  ♪

  CeCe

  The sun has found its way to every corner of the room when I wake up. Hank Junior is nowhere to be seen, and I scramble to my feet on a bolt of panic.

  “Hanky?” I call out, opening the bedroom door and flying down the hall.

  Thomas is standing in the small kitchen, pouring a bowl of cereal. “He’s out walking with Holden.”

  The surprise of that brings me to a stop. “Oh. What time is it?”

  “Ten.”

  “Ten?!? I can’t believe I slept that long.”

  “Musta needed it.” He offers me a red plastic cup and spoon. “Cereal?”

  My stomach is growling loud enough for him to hear, so there’s no use denying I’m hungry. “Thanks.”

  “I bought Hank Junior a couple cans of food while I was out. He’s had his breakfast.”

  Gratitude washes over me in a wave. “How will I ever pay y’all back?”

  “We’re not lookin’ for a payback.”

  “I didn’t mean–”

  “I know you didn’t. Got us a newspaper, too,” he says. “Job search central.”

  We take our cups and the paper and sit on the bare living room floor, spreading the sections out between us.

  The door opens, and Holden and Hank Junior appear. Hank Junior trots over and gives me a slurpy kiss on the cheek, his tail wagging like he hasn’t seen me in a year.

  Holden is wearing running shorts. Hank Junior flops down beside me, panting big.

  “We went for a jog,” Holden says.

  “Thanks for taking him,” I say, and I cannot meet his gaze this morning.

  He can’t look at me either. The awkwardness between us is thick, nearly tangible in the room. I can’t imagine what it would have felt like if we had continued what we started. I am overwhelmingly grateful that we didn’t.

  I feel Thomas looking at me, and then Holden before he says, “Did you two–” He stops, lasers Holden with a look. “Shiiiit, man. The only hound dog in this room is you.”

  “Quit talkin’ crap, Thomas.” Holden makes a show of pouring himself some cereal.

  Thomas looks at me, raises an eyebrow. “Is it crap?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say.

  “I must look like I just fell off the turnip truck,” Thomas throws out.

  “As a matter of fact,” Holden says, joining us on the floor with his cereal.

  Even though my cheeks feel hot, I put my focus on scanning through the Help Wanted section of the Classifieds, heartened by the number of places currently looking for waitstaff. “I have to get a job today,” I say.

  “We got you covered until you do,” Thomas says.

  “Thanks,” I say. “Really. I don’t know what I would have done without you.”

  “Good Samaritans R US,” Thomas adds.

  “What are you looking for?” Holden asks, not quite meeting my gaze.

  “Waitressing.”

  “Go for the high end places,” he says. “Big tips, and you never know who you’ll meet.”

  “Are y’all looking for jobs?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Thomas says. “Waitin’ tables ain’t my thing. Got an interview over at the Mill and Feed. Throwin’ bags of grain on a truck bed – that’s me.”

  I smile and think he’s right. I can’t picture Thomas balancing a tray over a table full of picky people. “What about you, Holden?” I ask.

  “Bartending,” he answers. “That way I can write during the day. And if we get a gig, hopefully I can switch with someone else.”

  He pulls out his phone, taps an app and holds the screen up for me to see. “I’ve already made a list of the better places in town. If I’m going there, you might as well apply, too. To waitress, I mean.”

  “Oh, well, that would be–”

  “I’ll drive you both,” Thomas says.

  First thing I need to do is call Mama and ask for money. Thomas lets me borrow his phone again, and I slip into the bedroom and close the door. I know she won’t recognize the number. I’m hoping she’ll answer anyway.

  She does, with a tentative hello.

  “It’s me, Mama,” I say.

  “CeCe. I’ve been calling your phone since last night. I was worried sick. Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, I am. I had a little mishap.”

  “What happened?”

  I picture her standing in our small kitchen, her hand worrying the long cord of the wall telephone. I know she’s got a cigarette somewhere nearby because I can hear the smoke of it in her voice. I tell her the whole story then, hardly drawing in a breath until it’s all out.

  “Oh, CeCe,” she says when I explain how I left the burned up car on the side of the Interstate for Triple A to have towed. “Where are you now?”

  “I made a couple of friends. They’re letting me crash at their place. They’re really nice.”

  She doesn’t ask, so I let her assume they are girls.

  “Do you need me to come and get you?” she asks. “I can leave right–”

  “No, Mama,” I say, stopping her before the
hope in her voice gets too much traction. “It’s gonna be okay. I just wondered if you could wire me some cash. Until I get my credit card replaced and all that.”

  “Did you lose your purse, too?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, CeCe. Are you sure you’re with nice people?”

  “I am, Mama.” And that really is one thing I can say for sure.

  “Where should I send the money?”

  I tap Thomas’s Google app and do a local search for Western Union. I give Mama the number. “I’ll call you later today. I’m going job hunting. And I’ll pay you back, okay?”

  “I’m not worried about that, honey. You just be careful.”

  I know she’s lonely. That she misses me. Guilt slips a noose around my neck, and I feel so selfish I can hardly stand myself. “Are you all right, Mama?”

  “Why, sure I am,” she says, her voice too bright, too cheery for me to believe her. “I’ve got choir practice tonight. We’re having a coffee and dessert get together afterwards.”

  “That’s good,” I say. “What are you taking?”

  We go on like this for a couple minutes until we both feel like some sort of normalcy has been reestablished between us, Mama not so worried, me not so guilty.

  I miss her to the very deepest parts of me. In high school, I’d had so many friends who couldn’t stand their mothers, who saw them as the one stumbling block between them and everything they wanted in life. I’ve never seen Mama as anything other than my biggest supporter and best friend. It’s hard to leave that behind. Even to chase a dream.

  Especially since I know how hard it was for her to let me go. She’s never said it out loud, but I know she’s terrified that I’ll end up in the same place as my Uncle Dobie. That the love I have for music will be eclipsed by disillusion and defeat in the end, the two things that fueled his drinking. I’ve tried to reassure her many times. I’ve promised her I won’t end up like that. But then she says that’s what he said, too.

  Tears well up in my eyes as I end the call. When I make it, the first thing I’ll do is move Mama here and buy her a house that has everything she could ever want in it. She’s so much a part of why I want to make it. I want to give her the things she’s never been able to afford, provide her with a life that doesn’t involve hoping there will be enough money in the checking account to pay off the month’s bills.

  I take a quick shower, without soap or shampoo. I stand in the tub until the water has dripped free of my skin, then squeeze out my hair, fluff it up with my fingers and pull it into a ponytail. At least I’m clean.

  I feel fresh and rejuvenated. That seems like as good a place to start as any.

  ♪

  THOMAS AND HOLDEN drive me to the Western Union, and I don’t even have to wait to get my money. Mama must have left the house as soon as we hung up. Another wave of homesickness for her washes over me. Before we start hitting the restaurants for applications, I ask if we can make one more stop at a Goodwill store so I can buy some clothes.

  Holden uses his local search to find one nearby, and Thomas drives there.

  “You sure that’s where you want to go?” he asks, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “You’d be surprised what you can find,” I say.

  They both go in with me, wandering the aisles and discussing their finds.

  I’m after clothes, and I flip through the racks, not finding much at first. Then I spot a cute orange sundress in size 4 that looks like it will fit me. I grab it, along with a pair of black pants and a white shirt. A floral skirt and a light green t-shirt make up the rest of my stuff.

  I head for the register and pay for my things. All of it comes to under $15.

  Thomas and Holden are waiting in the truck. Thomas is flipping through an old book he’d found on how to make a guitar. Holden is writing something on one of the blank pages of his notebook.

  He opens the door and slips out so I can slide in beside Hank Junior. “Find anything good?” he asks.

  “I did,” I say, feeling pleased with myself.

  “I didn’t know people actually shopped at Goodwill,” Holden says.

  I start to take this as an insult, except there’s nothing judgmental in the assertion. It is simply that, a statement of fact.

  “That’s because you grew up with a silver spoon up your butt,” Thomas throws out.

  I expect Holden to snipe something back, but he just shakes his head. “At least I didn’t grow up with cow manure between my toes.”

  “Neither one of them would make walking too easy,” I say.

  They both look at me then, and laugh, abruptly, as if I’ve surprised them. I rub Hank Junior’s head and look down, a smile on my mouth. Something warm unfurls within me, soft and fluttery as a butterfly. I like the feeling and realize it’s something I haven’t felt since high school, and even then, never like this.

  Friendship.

  ♪

  Holden

  Based on my research, there are five restaurants in Nashville where I’d like to bartend. I came up with those by looking at potential nightly take, whether they’re known for attracting the music business crowd, and their proximity to other clubs and bars in the city.

  The first two are a total bust. The managers are tight-asses who start laying down the do’s, the don’ts, and the musts like they’re the last stop on Planet Great Job. I don’t even let CeCe finish filling out the application. In both places, we leave them on the bar and head for the truck.

  Thomas looks up from the nap he’d been trying to take and gives me a look I’ve seen before. “I assume they didn’t pass your personality test?”

  “Whatever hours I have to give away to support this gig, I’m not giving to either of them.”

  “They seemed nice enough,” CeCe says, and I can tell she thinks I might be a little nuts.

  We’re on 40, heading for downtown when I look at her and say, “How many jobs have you had?”

  She’s quiet for a few moments. “If you count the three day stint at McDonald’s, two.”

  My eyes go wide. I can’t help it. “Where was the other one?”

  “Beckner’s Veterinary Clinic.”

  I consider this and then say, “Seriously? So you have no actual waitressing experience?”

  “No,” she admits. “But I’ve watched a lot of them during shows.”

  “How are you planning to write that up on the app? Conducted observations of working waitresses in real-life settings? Or served breakfast, lunch, and dinner to canine and feline guests at Chez Beckner?”

  Thomas lets loose a bark of a laugh, as if it surprises him. He apologizes for it, looking at CeCe and saying, “Sorry. He’s an ass. But a sometimes funny ass.”

  CeCe doesn’t seem to think so. “I’ll be a great waitress,” she says, folding her arms across her chest.

  “Places like these usually don’t want to just take your word for it.”

  Thomas wheels the truck into the third place on my list, backing into a shady spot at one end of the parking lot. “Can you two finish your argument on the way in so I can catch some shut-eye, please?”

  I get out, pissed enough at CeCe that I start across the pavement without waiting up for her until I get to the front door.

  “I don’t have to apply at the same places as you,” she says, stopping in front of me, an expression of stubborn pride on her face.

  “I don’t care if you apply here or anywhere else,” I say. “I was just pointing out that you usually need some experience for places like this.”

  “I get that.”

  “Okay then,” I say while we glare at each other.

  I look away first, start to open the restaurant door, and then on impulse, turn back to her. “About last night–”

  “Wasn’t that a movie?” she quips.

  “Look,” I begin again awkwardly.

  She holds up a hand to stop me. “You really don’t need to go there. You have a girlfriend. Moment of weakness. No explana
tion needed.”

  Her straightforwardness surprises me. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “So we’re past it,” she says. “Moving on?”

  I’m not sure what I was expecting. It wasn’t this. The girls I’ve known are way more persistent. Or maybe it’s just my ego that’s feeling the air leak.

  I open the door and leave her to walk in behind me, just on principle.

  The restaurant’s foyer is low lit, and I blink a couple of times to adjust to the dimness. The dining room is big and circular, the walls a deep red, the tablecloths on each of the tables a rich gold. The bar is at the back. It’s enormous, carved walnut, I think, and it looks like the kind of place where major movers and shakers would want to hang out.

  “Wow,” CeCe says in a low, breathy voice.

  “Yeah. Wow,” I agree. There’s no one in sight, and so I call out a, “Hello?”

  When there’s no answer, CeCe says, “It doesn’t look like anyone is here.”

  Still ticked at her, I ignore her and walk toward the bar. I call hello again, but still no one comes.

  I look around the corner of the bar. There’s a long hallway that looks like it has two or three offices on either side.

  “Maybe we should come back,” CeCe says behind me, sounding worried.

  I’m anxious to get a job nailed down, and this looks like the place I was hoping for. I head down the hall, raising my voice again, “Hello?”

  I hear something and stick my head inside the next office doorway. CeCe bumps into me, jostling me forward just as I realize what I am staring at.

  A man on top of a woman on top of a desk, naked as Adam and Eve before the apple thing.

  I catch myself just before my forehead hits the opposite end of the doorjamb, CeCe grabbing my shirt to keep from falling.

  “Oh, my gosh!” she says, spotting what I’ve just spotted.

  Both the man and the woman look at us then, and amazingly enough, neither of them jumps up in alarm or embarrassment or anything resembling either one.

  My gaze snags first on her, fortyish, blonde, gorgeous, and then on the man, whose face is instantly recognizable. Case Phillips. Case-frigging-Phillips!