by Ginger Scott
“I’ll pick you up outside the student commons. What time?” I ask.
“Four,” he says, backing away a pace or two before swinging forward again and leaning down to look at me through the window. “It’s harder than you think it’s going to be. Just…I know you and your dad aren’t close. And you’re angry at him. And I’m on your side with that. Don’t think I’m not. But I just…I don’t know. As your friend, I need to tell you what you don’t know, and even if you think you hate him, it’s still going to be hard; harder than you think.”
Houston looks up at me with his last word, and our eyes meet for a second—long enough that I get it. I’m just not sure I believe it—at least, not for me. Houston had a dad he worshipped, a man who didn’t miss a single game, who came to birthday parties and who hoisted him up on his shoulders. I had a set of instructions—a life plan to follow, that he checked in on periodically. I don’t think he attended a single birthday party. My mom planned them, but even when she held them on Sundays, my dad was missing. Work always came first.
Whatever. I’m sure there’s a mother load of emotional problems brewing in the background—shit I’ll probably come full tilt against when I’m thirty or when I have kids of my own—if that ever happens. But right now, all I care about is this Murphy girl.
“Good talk,” I say, lifting a brow. I reach to the back seat and pull my sunglasses from the pocket of my hoodie and slide them in place, looking at Houston one last time as I drive away. He gives me that older, wiser, big brother stare, and I do my best to ignore it. I have it mostly out of my mind by the time I make my way back to the house on the corner with the environmentally-friendly car. I turn into the driveway and kill the engine, then lower the seat a few notches for comfort so I can begin my wait.
After twenty minutes, I begin to see some activity inside, a head moving past the open window that overlooks the front of the house. It looks like it must be the kitchen window. A few minutes later, a couple walks through the front door, locking it behind them. They’re dressed for work; he’s in a suit, and she’s in a long skirt and red shirt. They’re young, too. Way too young to be the parents of someone my age, which means…
“Can I help you?” the man asks, opening his passenger door and dumping a briefcase in the back behind the seat.
“I think I might have the wrong house. I was looking for the Sullivan family? They used to live here?” I ask, hoping I’ll get some clue, or maybe I’m just one house off the mark.
“They moved four or five years ago,” he says.
Awesome.
“I see. Thank you. I’m sorry for being all creepy in your driveway,” I wince and chuckle uncomfortably. The man doesn’t laugh in return, which makes me feel like a total douche.
I turn the engine over and push the seat back into a good driving position before reaching for my belt. I’m about to leave when the woman speaks up, shoving her hand in front of me with a card pinched between her long, red fingernails.
“We rent from them, though. Here’s their business card,” she says.
A card. With a phone number.
“Thanks,” I grin, taking the card from her and rolling it in my fingers once or twice before sliding it into the cup holder.
I wave in acknowledgement and back out of their driveway. I pull over on the side of the road before the turnpike and wave once more when they pass me on their way to work. The sun is up now and practically blinding me; I head to Sally’s near campus to grab a breakfast burrito and some much-needed coffee before stopping at my apartment to take a shower and figure out my next move.
There’s no address on the card, and the only hint at the website is some clever email address about rental gods. I give up and finally dial the number, and am just about to end the call, and scrap this plan completely, when a woman answers.
“Hi, this is Jeanie,” she says in the most cheerful voice I think I’ve ever encountered. I smile at her first word, and I don’t even realize I’m doing it until I pass by the mirror in my bathroom. I try to scowl quickly, but it’s no use. She injected pep right through the phone, and I’m full on it now.
“Hi, Jeanie. My name’s…Eli,” I barely recover. “A friend gave me your card and said you might be able to help me find a new place. I’m…moving. For work.”
I’m the shittiest liar ever. I throw my hat from my head and run my fingers through my still damp hair. I’m sweating from this conversation.
“Oh, wonderful. Who recommended us?” she asks, same fairy godmother voice.
Shit.
“Uh…” I pause for a breath. I’ve got one shot at this. “Tom.”
In the millisecond it took to think of a name, about a dozen, completely typical names flew through my head. I almost went with Michael, but I had a feeling in my gut. Everyone knows a Tom. She has to know a Tom.
“How nice,” she practically sings. I collapse on the bed. Thank you, sweet baby Jesus.
“Yeah, so I’m in a bit of a pinch. My lease is up here, and I need to find something ASAP, so…”
“I’ve got time this afternoon. I have three properties that are all near downtown. I’m not sure what area you need, but they’re great deals. How about we meet near the State campus?” Her business side is kicking in, which is good. But campus won’t get me close to Murphy.
“I’m getting dropped off, and my friend has to work early. Is there a restaurant or something near you I can meet you at and then just ride with you?” I bluff, pinching the bridge of my nose while I silently whisper please.
“That sounds fine. How about the bagel shop on Ninth and Wood on the north side? I’m in Archfield,” she says.
Archfield.
“Perfect. I’ll be waiting there,” I say, grabbing my keys and heading to the car before she has a chance to hang up.
I pass my roommate on my way out down the main walkway and wink at him, doing my best to embody his personality for the next hour. He looks at me like I’ve been taken over by an alien. Maybe I have. Or perhaps it’s the jolliness in Jeanie Sullivan’s voice infecting me. I hope her daughter’s just as nice as she seems to be on the phone.
It takes me almost an hour to get to Archfield. I spot the bagel shop on my first pass, pulling around the corner and parking in a far spot, then walking around the building once more to make it look like I was dropped off. When I enter the restaurant, I scan for anyone watching people walk through the front door. My eyes meet a woman’s with bright yellow-blond hair that falls down to her waist in loose curls, and she quickly offers me a short wave.
I approach her table and smile with the same enthusiasm I had on the phone an hour ago. I’m not sure what her deal is, but I’m starting to think she might be a witch.
“Jeanie?” I ask.
She stretches out her hand and about a dozen metal bracelets slide forward on her wrist as our fingers meet for a firm grip and shake.
“Eli, glad you made it,” she says. “Hope it wasn’t hard to find.”
“Not at all,” I say, silently repeating Eli in my head to remind myself to answer to it for the rest of the day.
“So, what exactly are you looking for?” she asks, folding up the few notepads she had out on the table and tucking them into the bright orange canvas bag slung over the back of her chair.
“Nothing much. An apartment or studio or something simple like that. I could do a house, but I would need to find a roommate…” I trail off as I realize how far I’m taking this lie.
“That’s not what I meant, dear,” she says, sliding a pair of black-rimmed glasses down from her head to the tip of her nose.
“Oh, I guess…you need my price range? Or…” I begin to answer, but stop when the right side of her lip curls.
“Honey, you’re too young to need a realtor. And I saw you drive by the first time. You weren’t dropped off, and you can’t keep this lie going, so how about you tell me what this is really about?”
Witch. That’s it. She’s a witch.
I su
ck in my bottom lip and nod with a small laugh.
“Okay, my name’s Casey Coffield…”
I don’t need to say anything more, because Jeanie is full-on belly laughing at me now. She lets her laughter go for several seconds, stopping only for a drink of her coffee with her other palm flat on the table, finally regaining her composure after nearly a minute.
“And there he is,” she says, leaning back in her seat, her tongue pressed in the side of her cheek. Her eyes twinkle like a gypsy, and taking her in now completely—her long skirt and silky shirt with sleeves that flow around her arms like she’s a fortuneteller—I’m starting to think my witch theory might hold up. “You know, she said she made you up,” she interrupts my thoughts. “But I knew better. I looked in her old yearbook.”
Her eyes linger on me in a way different from before. I think this expression might just be suspicion.
“Not made up,” I say, eyebrows rising as I adjust myself in my chair. I miss the Jeanie from the phone. This Jeanie, she makes me nervous.
“Not made up indeed,” she chuckles, the sound deep. She stops laughing only to sip her drink again, pulling the lid off when she’s done to add another packet of sugar. I notice all of the empty packets on the table. That must be the sweetest drink on earth.
“I was hoping I could maybe talk…with Murphy?” Even saying her name feels weird. Foreign. I don’t know her. But it seems I’m a very popular topic in the Sullivan house.
“Wouldn’t that be a hoot,” Jeanie laughs, her voice raspy.
“I…guess?” I respond, my hand coming to the back of my neck. I feel like there’s a joke happening, and I’m the victim. I really wish the cameras would come out or someone would yell surprise.
“You know, she won’t tell anyone the truth about that song, but damn if that’s not the one that’s a hit,” she says, reaching forward, her fingers grazing my chest with a gentle punch. “I think it pisses her off, that that’s the song people like? What’s your story, Casey? Are you really just nobody like she says?”
Fuck…nobody? I mean, yeah…I’m nobody. But the way she says it sounds less like Murphy and I are strangers and more like I’m an asshole.
“I guess that’s something Murphy would have to answer,” I say.
My response makes her hesitate, and she leans forward, letting her glasses slide halfway down her nose, her eyes taking me in above the rims again with a quirk in her brow. Her lip ticks up with a single short laugh.
“You’re just as cagey as she is,” she winks, taking one final swig of her coffee. “So what brings you here then, if it isn’t to solve the mystery of why you’re starring in my moonbeam’s lyrics?”
Moonbeam?
Witch. That’s it. Witch.
“I’m working with a record label,” I start, regretting that beginning and wishing I had a redo. It’s too late, though, because Jeanie has already seized the key words and is standing, her eyes lit up with hopes and dreams for her daughter.
“Oh my god; you’re kidding me? You want to…what? Like…sign her?”
Jeanie’s hands are fumbling in her giant orange bag, searching for her phone, which finally lands in her grasp, one swipe away from a phone call that would probably only make this misunderstanding even more impossible to explain away.
“No,” I say, holding my hand out toward hers. She stops. My heart drops from the shot of adrenaline. Talking to this woman is going to kill me. “I just want to talk with her. Maybe work with her. I do mixing, and sound. Recording and whatnot, and I thought maybe I could help.”
I thought maybe your moonbeam could be my big ticket, actually.
Jeanie nods, then looks at her phone in her palm, I presume to check the time.
“She’s at the school, where she teaches. It’s summer session,” she says.
I nod in response, as if I know all of this information. Thankfully, she keeps talking.
“She’ll be home a little after one. I’m sure she’d love to see you,” she says, that sly grin showing again for a brief second. I’m not sure what it means. I’m afraid of what it means. It makes me swallow and second-guess this half-hatched plan I’m on.
Jeanie leans toward the table, propping her bag up on the seat she just vacated, and pulling a pen from deep inside. She tugs a napkin loose from the holder on our table and scribbles down an address, folding it in half and handing it to me when she’s done.
“Get there around one thirty, just to make sure she’s there,” she says, closing her hands around mine and the napkin. Our eyes meet and a gentleness paints her face. “So glad to meet you, Casey.”
I thank her and follow her out to the parking lot where she waves me off as she steps into an old pickup truck, the metal bracelets on her arm jangling with her motion. I wave back, and as she pulls from the lot, I realize she’s done it—I’m smiling again, ear-to-ear, and I have no idea why I’m so happy.
Witch.
Murphy
“Miss Sullivan? I have to pee!”
Sasha, the very loud and very hyper seven-year-old, is bouncing in front of me with her fist stuffed between her legs. She’s gone to the bathroom twice already, but lord help me if I think I can call her bluff. The last time I tried, they had to close down my classroom for two days to disinfect.
“Sasha, there are three minutes left in class. Do you think you can make it?” I ask.
As predicted, she shakes her head no emphatically. I hand over the pink pass and she darts out the door. She’ll be back just in time to grab her bag and run to the curb to go home. It doesn’t matter, though, because Sasha will never go anywhere in music. I know I shouldn’t label my students, or limit their dreams, but that girl—she’s completely tone deaf. I thought once that if I could just hold her head still for long enough that maybe she’d be able to pick up on something in the class, but even at her calmest, the sounds she makes are just…well…they’re awful.
“Can I try one more time, Miss S?”
Now Bronwyn, on the other hand, is a musical genius. She is always here when I open early in the morning, and she’s asked to borrow so many instruments over the weekends. She always brings them back, and so far, the only one she hasn’t been able to sort of figure out is the trombone. I think that’s only because her arms are short and her lips are small. In a few more years, I predict she’ll be mastering that one as well.
I nod yes to her and let her play the selection from our Mozart for Beginners book on her small keyboard, which she glides through easily, her fingers effortless on the electric keys. I praise her and consider giving the next bar as an assignment to the dozen or so other kids in the summer class before the bell rings; I’m left holding the music book in the air with nobody in the room to talk to. Sasha breezes in quickly, grabbing her bag, and the door slams closed behind her.
I chuckle to myself as I clean up the aftermath of today’s set of classes. The summer school music program doesn’t pay as well as the regular classes taught during the school year. I quickly realized that my role over the summer was more about babysitting and filling in between activities until parents could come pick up their kids. But if working the summer classes keeps my foot in the door for the regular ones in the fall, I’ll manage to endure them.
Teaching isn’t my passion. I love the kids, well…at least the ones who love music, like I do. I get a kick out of seeing them succeed, and even the ones who aren’t dedicated to practicing make strides. It’s inspiring. But it’s not writing my own music and performing on stage. That’s where my heart is. Unfortunately, my confidence has yet to catch up to my heart.
My parents didn’t want me to teach over the summer. They wanted me to head to Nashville instead, to spend the summer with my cousin Corrine, maybe get a taste of what a real music town is like. I thought about it for almost a week, and worked myself into having panic attacks. As soon as I signed the contract to teach over the summer, I could breathe again.
Nope. Not ready.
It seems in the race to
personal success, the order goes: heart, parents’ required belief in me, and then my own nerve.
The entire episode did open up my creative side, though. That’s how the song happened. Actually, the song is really only one of maybe a dozen that I wrote over two weeks. It was a very Taylor Swift time in my life, minus any real actual breakup. That one song, though, just happened to hit a certain nerve with people. I know it’s the one that gets me added to the list at Paul’s every week. It’s the one people have started shouting when I don’t play it, and, except for last night when I ran into Houston, it’s the one I usually give in and play.
I love that song. I wrote it as a way to clean out a lot of crap left over in my head, old feelings and frustrations from high school. It’s been four years, and really—I’m over most of it. But there are still those days where a thought penetrates my daily routine, and I think about how I never quite fit in. It’s partly my fault; I didn’t want to fit in. That was my thing, being…different. But then I realized I’d put up this strange caution tape around me by being that way, and breaking out of it was impossible.
Or maybe, just maybe, I’ve stepped through some weird time-travel portal because what the fuck is Casey Coffield doing standing next to my car? And why is he kneeling next to it, running a finger along the driver’s side door? And motherfucking hell…
“Did you…seriously just hit my car?” I ask, stopped at the front driver’s tire, my hand slung forward, my fingers pointing at the deep gash that runs about four feet along my car. My guitar strap slides from my other shoulder, and I manage to catch it before my guitar case gets cracked too.
“Ah…uh, no. No, I didn’t,” he says, standing and folding his arms around his body, his feet shuffling as he tucks his chin into his chest. He’s either nervous with guilt, or he’s a tweaker. I glance to the side, to the matching scrape tinted with the red paint of my car on the front passenger side of his. I point to it.
