Blended Notes

by Lilah Suzanne

  “I extended an olive branch, because that’s just the sort of kind and generous person that I am,” Gwen says, swirling her beer bottle and burping. “I feel like Oprah.”

  “Oh, well. You look good, Spence. I’m glad you’re back.” He really is, and Spencer does look good in new glasses and with his hair in a less severely parted, trendier style. He’s filled out some, seems more comfortable in his skin.

  “Yeah I wanted to start over, I guess. Humble myself and try again.” He gestures at his apron, black and covered with food stains with The Pump Station embroidered on it. “Doesn’t get much lower than dishwasher.”

  “Doesn’t it though?” Gwen cuts in.

  Spencer takes a step back. “Right. Well, better get back to it.” He holds up his dish bin and starts to turn away. “Good to see you, Gwen. And, Grady, I—” Whatever he was planning to say is drowned out by the sudden flurry of an electric fiddle solo, then he’s gone, weaving through the tables back to the kitchen.

  “That was weird,” Grady says. “What’s he all skittish about?”

  Gwen takes a sip of beer and says, “Mm, well. Nico hates him, and you’re with Nico so mathematically speaking, by the transitive property, that means you hate him. He thinks you’re just going to write him off.”

  Grady cranes to see the kitchen; he can’t see anything but steam and rubber floor mats. “I wouldn’t do that. I wouldn’t write anyone off.”

  Gwen, blunt as always, replies, “Wouldn’t you, though?”

  Grady’s stomach roils with another wave of nausea. Gwen pats his hand and implores him to eat something, a milkshake at least.

  He wonders if his mother knows yet.

  6

  He’s never needed much sleep; drove his Memaw crazy when he’d be up at five in the morning rarin’ to go and bouncing off the walls. It’s not much different now. In the mornings, he gets restless, excited by the sun rising on a new day, too much on his mind to stay asleep, too much energy coursing through his body to stay in bed. Nico, meanwhile, hoards sleep like an angry dragon, and is just as mean if it gets interrupted.

  Grady kisses the spikes of black hair sticking out from under the blanket, pulls on underwear and running shorts, a tank top and baseball cap, and sneakers. He cues up Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream” on his running playlist, tucks his iPod into an armband, and hits the dirt trail that snakes up behind their house while the morning still shivers with dew. The trail connects with a bigger trail that connects to a paved greenway that routes through the woods all over Nashville. It’s not quite acres and acres of his own forested land, but it’s a close enough compromise. As long as he can get to the woods, where the creek runs companionably along as he goes at a steady pace, out here where he can gulp lungfuls of fresh air and think about nothing but the pounding of his feet on the ground and Pink Floyd’s “Run Like Hell” wailing in his ears, he doesn’t mind the compromise.

  Back at home, Nico sleeps on, while Grady struggles through eating one of those chalky protein bars Nico likes to pretend are real food, then uses their home gym to lift. The laundry is just off the steps leading from the workout room, so, after his workout, Grady peels his sweaty clothes off there. His overheated skin cools quickly in the air conditioning on his way to the third floor. When he was growing up, the shower in the trailer was an old dribbling thing. It had two temperatures: tepid and freezing. Grady blasts hot water through both shower heads and all of the jets, just because he can.

  “Morning, gorgeous,” Grady says, when Nico finally shuffles into the kitchen. Grady loves Nico when he’s all done up: hair intentionally, painstakingly disheveled; his cheeks soft and fragrant from shaving; wearing an outfit so trendy even the fashion magazines can’t keep up. But he loves Nico like this just as much: bleary-eyed and grunting and hair unintentionally messy. Nico sits at the breakfast bar and stares blankly into space. Creases from the pillow still mark one cheek, and his hair seems to be struggling to stay alert, too, as it flops into his face. Grady slides him a steaming cup of coffee.

  “I was thinking we could head into town? And eat at this restaurant me and Gwen found before we go to the florist? If we leave soon we should have time. It’s in an old gas station. I know that sounds weird; it’s not. And there’s a vintage vinyl store that opened recently across the street. How does that sound? Nice, right?”

  Nico squeezes his eyes closed and takes sip after sip of coffee. “Too many words,” he whispers, pained.

  “Sorry,” Grady whispers back. They don’t often get a lot of Sundays with one only lonely item on their respective to-do lists. “Lunch. Record Store. Florist. Yes?”

  Nico’s eyes open again; they’re a little less vacant. “Yes.”

  The lunch rush is in full swing by the time they get to The Pump Station; it’s later than Grady hoped. The band is a Sunday-morning-appropriate, mellow acoustic ensemble: snare drum and hi-hat, guitar, upright bass, no singer. Once again, Grady forgets about the food and watches them play. He’s also keeping an eye out for a certain someone who may be washing dishes.

  “We have to decide on napkins for the reception,” Nico says.

  Grady turns away from the stage. “We do?”

  “Well, yes,” Nico cuts a bite off of the end of the veggie pizza. “People will need napkins, and they aren’t going to magically a—”

  “Oh, my gosh! You’re Grady Dawson! Can we get a picture?” The table is suddenly swarmed by a group of teenage girls. “We love you! I saw you at Bridgestone; you were so good!” one of them says.

  “Will you sign my shirt?” asks another. A third holds her phone out, ready to take a picture. The people at the tables around them abandon their own conversations to stare at their table and all of the excited activity surrounding them. Nico’s entire body has gone rigid and closed off.

  “I’d love to chat with you ladies and take some pictures after I eat. Hang tight, and I’ll meet you outside in fifteen minutes, all right?” Grady conjures up his most beguiling grin. They scurry outside in a giggling, breathless huddle to wait for him.

  He leans over the table to take Nico’s hand. “You were saying?”

  “I was talking about napkins.” He shakes his head and adds, “which seems sort of silly now.”

  “It’s not. No.” Nothing about their wedding is silly, nothing. “What do we need to decide on? Colors? Size?”

  Nico squeezes his hand, visibly trying to shake himself out of the fan-induced funk. He tries so hard for Grady, puts up with so much; it squeezes at Grady’s chest and throat.

  “Well, paper or fabric first of all. If we do paper, we can have something printed on them. Nico and Grady: Happily Ever After. Or something not terrible.” Nico rolls his eyes at himself. Grady grins, he loves that, happily ever after. “Or with cloth, we can have them monogrammed with our initials, that’s an option. Then we need to decide on size: cocktail, luncheon, dinner. A combination of all three? So maybe cloth for dinner, paper cocktail napkins for drinks; printing on both is too much, obviously…”

  The people at the table directly behind Nico finish their meals and leave, and, as Nico keeps talking about napkins, Spencer arrives as Grady hoped he would, with his dishpan and dirty apron, to clear the table.

  “Okay, so. Cloth for dinner,” Grady says. “Paper for drinks. Sounds good to me.” He’s trying to focus on Nico and only Nico, but his gaze keeps slipping over Nico’s head to Spencer.

  “Great, okay. Making progress, look at us. So, now color. Have we decided on a color scheme or not?” Nico’s head tilts. “What are you looking at?” Grady had a plan to reunite Nico and Spencer by having them run into each other very briefly. He wants Nico to see that Spencer is trying, that he’s turned over a new leaf. Maybe they can trust him with a wedding invitation. Maybe Grady wasn’t wrong about him.

  Nico twists around in his chair before Grady gets a chance to put his plan into p
hase one. “Oh.” He says, flatly, turning back around. “Him.”

  “Why, look who’s here!” Grady says, complete with a flourish of both hands. “Spencer!”

  At the sound of his name, Spencer’s head whips up. “Oh, hey, guys.”

  Nico doesn’t look at Spencer, only at Grady, his eyes narrow severely, and his jaw ticks left to right.

  “So, Spencer works here now,” Grady tries. Spencer comes closer.

  “I gathered,” Nico snaps. The air around the table is chilly; the band’s easy-listening vibe sounds ironically sinister. Nico says nothing, Spencer shifts from one foot to the other. Grady shoves half a slice of pizza into his mouth.

  “I’ll go over… anywhere. Now.” Spencer says, after several false starts where he mostly stutters. He goes back to clearing the table.

  Nico goes back to talking about napkins, as if they hadn’t been sidelined by seeing Spencer. “We can always just do white or black, that's easy enough, but there’s still a matter of material: linen, cotton, polyester, a poly-cotton blend, a linen-cotton blend, a poly-linen blend.” He lists all of the possible cloth napkin materials with unwavering eye contact, daring Grady to look away or lose focus. He doesn’t. “Linen. Black. Or, oh. Dark green.”

  “Are you guys planning an event?” Spencer asks, loading the last of the dirty silverware. “I’ve been trying to get into event planning. I did my mom’s second and third weddings to rave reviews. I’d love to help.”

  Nico says “No” at the exact moment that Grady says “Yes.”

  Grady leans over to plead his case, to gently nudge Nico into giving Spencer a chance; surely he can be trusted to order napkins? Nico stops him with tap on his wrist, an invisible watch. “It’s been fifteen minutes.”

  The girls are still outside, patiently standing by a car with someone’s mom. Grady thanks her first—she’s really just caught in the crosshairs—then turns his attention to the group. They’re all very sweet, and one apologizes for interrupting his lunch.

  “No worries, darlin’. I’m always happy to meet a fan. I appreciate your patience.” He wouldn’t be anywhere or anyone without them. Forget the record company and publicity agents and booking agents and his manager. These girls right here, they make it happen. He’s more than happy to hug them and take pictures and sign their shirts and record a video for their friend Sadie who is going to “flip out,” so they say. Grady waves as they drive off and walks back to the entrance, where he’s accosted by Spencer.

  “He hates me.”

  Grady rubs the back of his neck. “Well…”

  “I messed up; I admit that. That’s the first step, right?” Spencer rushes on, making chopping motions with his hands while he talks. “I wanted to be successful and in-demand and I thought I could just skip the hard work part and go right to the glamorous parts, and it’s too late to fix it. I burned every bridge and now I’ll be forced to wash dishes for the rest of my pathetic life.” Spencer drops against the painted brick wall and groans.

  Grady is sympathetic, that sort of regret and guilt is an all-too-familiar burden. It’s also getting hot out, and he’d really like to finish his pizza. “I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. Nico can come across as harsh and judgmental.” Spencer laughs a no-shit sort of laugh. Grady pushes on. “What most people don’t know though, is that he’s actually incredibly kind and understanding. Besides, if there’s anyone who believes in a fresh start, it’s Nico. He just needs to be sure that you really mean it.”

  Spencer looks skeptical, though he does push himself off the wall to stand. “You think he might forgive me? Do you? Give me another chance. I swear, I’ll prove it you.”

  Grady nods and gives Spencer a squeeze on the shoulder as they go back and he heads to the kitchen. Grady is risking a lot. If their wedding goes public before it happens, Nico will be devastated. Can Grady take the chance of ruining this one day that will be theirs only—one day without fans and reporters and paparazzi and gossip, that’s all Nico is asking of him? And Grady is putting that on the line for what? To help Spencer or to ignore his own problems?

  The rest of lunch is quiet and interruption free, no fans or Spencer, and the music has gone quiet between sets. A final decision is made on the napkins: hunter green for the cloth and paper napkins, the cloth will be monogrammed in white.

  “We should get going if you want time to browse at the record store,” Nico says, checking the time on his phone. He missed a message. “My mom wants regular updates at the florist.”

  “Well, of course,” Grady agrees.

  And then, Spencer runs up, skidding to halt with his glasses falling off. “Wait! I got. Something.” He pants and presses his side. “Ran home to get this. Probably fired now.” He thunks a clear glass bottle full of pale brown liquid on the table. “I remember you buying these in L.A. once and bringing them back because you can’t find it here. And when I saw it while I was there, I bought some because you were so excited about it. I admit I thought it was annoying and pretentious at first, and the taste takes some getting used to, but I’m hooked on it now. Anyway. Here. My last one.” He puts his glasses on straight.

  Nico turns the bottle to read the simple white label: Los Angeles Booch. “Kombucha. Can’t get this brand here, and mango passion fruit flavor even, that’s hard to find.” He smiles at the bottle. Under the table, Grady gives Spencer a thumbs up.

  “If you’re busy today, I can help,” Spencer says. “I heard something about a florist.”

  7

  “I know what you’re doing.” Nico trails him down the row of pop country records and around the low, wooden shelf to a bluegrass display. That band at the restaurant has put Grady in a mood. Grady picks up a record, examines the front, flips it over, and reads the back.

  “I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.” Grady puts the record back and picks up the one behind it.

  The record store is small and seems to skew to the obscure; there’s an entire section of Norwegian Psytrance albums. Still, the bluegrass section is interesting, with authentic Appalachian mountain music, and the store has that comforting record store smell: musty and dusty with subtle notes of plastic wrap and patchouli oil. He picks up and puts down another record, stalling.

  “Let’s say we give him a chance, and he blabs to some tabloid that we’re—” Nico glances around, there’s barely anyone in the store. Still he bends close to whisper, “getting married,” as if the place is filled with tabloid spies.

  “He never, ever broke my trust, Nico. Not once,” Grady says as he pulls another record from the shelf. He’d even go so far as to say Spencer was loyal to a fault, putting his own job and reputation on the line to defend Grady. He was a little overbearing and inappropriate at times, yes, but the guy always meant well. “Come on,” Grady says, dropping his voice low and running one finger along Nico’s arm, up and down and up, while leaning into his space. “For me?” And to really bring it home, he drops his chin and blinks up at Nico through his eyelashes.

  Goosebumps rise on Nico’s skin when Grady draws his finger up his bicep again. “Oh for—Fine. If it means that much to you, fine.” Grady does a celebratory fist pump, and Nico jabs a finger in Grady’s chest. “If this turns into a media storm and we have to get married in an underground bunker in Mexico, that is entirely on you, agreed?”

  “Yes, sir.” Grady says, serious.

  Nico glances up to the ceiling, then relents with a sigh, “Well, go get him.”

  Outside, Nico clicks the key fob in his pocket that makes his Miata come to life with an excited bleep-bloop and flash of lights. Grady rushes back to the restaurant just in time to catch Spencer being chewed out by his manager for taking an unscheduled break.

  “Bad time?” Grady says after the manager storms away.

  Spencer punches his timecard and yanks off his apron. “My entire life is a bad time.”


  Maybe this little task will cheer him right up. Grady fills him in on the details and isn’t sure if Spencer’s dropped open mouth and bugged out eyes are from shock and horror or shock and excitement.

  “Same phone number?” Nico asks as they approach; his hip is propped on the closed car door. Spencer nods, and Nico pulls out his phone. “I’ve talked to the florist on the phone. Today she’s pulled samples,” Never sparing Spencer even a moment of eye contact, Nico taps away at his phone. “You will consult with my mother as this is very important to her—I’m sending her number to you now: Amy, that’s her—and all final decisions will be run past me and Grady.”

  “Got it.” Spencer glances at his phone when it chimes with Nico’s texts, then he clutches it under his chin.

  Nico taps on his phone a little more, pockets it, and pushes off the car. “Let me be very clear.” His spine lengthens, his shoulders square, his wide-legged stance is confident and intimidating. “If you so much as get a single hair out of line and speak to anyone about this, you will long for the days of being elbow deep in disgusting lukewarm dishwater. That is a promise. Do you understand me? Do not breathe a word.”

  Spencer nods like a wind-up toy. As Spencer rushes off to the florist, Nico calls after him, “Don’t make me regret this!”

  Grady adds, “Bye, Spence! Thanks for the help!”

  After they get into the car and buckle up, Nico asks, “Didn’t you want to buy something in the record store?”

  Grady rubs his palms up and down his own thighs. “Yeah, but I need you to take me home now.” His voice sounds strained to his own ears; he shifts in his seat.

  Nico narrows his eyes, glances down. Then he looks away and starts the car. “I should probably be concerned by how much me yelling at people turns you on.”

  “We’ll worry about that later,” Grady says, shifting again. “Just drive fast.”

  Nico slides on his sunglasses, checks his mirror, and scoffs, “Please,” before peeling out onto the street and gunning it. Telling Nico to drive fast is like telling him to look fantastic; he’s way ahead of everyone. By some miracle, they make it home and up the stairs, shedding clothes on the way, tripping onto their bed with mouths fused and Grady doing his level best to get them both all the way naked as quickly as possible.