Blended Notes

by Lilah Suzanne

  “Okay, then it’s a nonstarter. We’ll come up with something else. Whatever you want.”

  Grady drums his fingers on the steering wheel and guides the car down the isolated winding road that leads to their isolated winding driveway. Nico is opinionated; he’s pushy and honest and decisive, and Grady loves that about him, even when it irritates him. This “whatever you want, dear” approach isn’t right; it’s as if Nico finally reached his breaking point and— broke.

  “Right, but what do you—” Grady slows the car just before it reaches their driveway.

  “Oh, hell,” Nico fills in.

  There are cars and people and cameras outside their house, and once they spot Nico’s car, the mayhem begins: lights flash in a constant barrage, they can hear muffled yelling through the windows, and Grady has to creep the car through the crowd to avoid plowing the lot of them down. Some of the photographers approach the vehicle, bang on the hood and the roof, and snap picture after picture through the windows. Grady makes it past the property line, then guns it up the driveway. After one look at Nico’s shaken, shocked face he decides: “I’ll talk to her.”

  16

  Southwest of Nashville’s county line, the city development drops off quicker than elsewhere. It might be the geography: the undulating hills, dense forest, and meandering river, or maybe folks out here have had the same way of life so long they just don’t take kindly to things changing too quickly. Grady grew up with Nashville looming large and just out of reach. If you ask him where he’s from he’ll say, “outside Nashville,” but this is something else entirely: gently sloping hills and farmland and the low, slow river delta. Way on out here, they could be a million miles from home.

  “Would it help if I got out and pushed? Does that car have a lawnmower engine? Come on!” Nico reaches over to honk the horn, even though Grady is driving; Grady catches his hand and folds their fingers together. “Settle down.”

  “Twenty miles under the speed limit, Grady!”

  He looks downright mutinous, gesturing angrily with his free hand, pitched forward in his seat. Grady kisses his knuckles and smiles with his lips still pressed there. “The pace of life is a little slower out here, sweetheart.” Nico flops against his seat and humphs.

  Out here is the sort of place where people give directions like, “turn right just past the big cross, not the little one before that, the big one over near the Winn Dixie, then left at that rusty tractor there; if you go through the traffic light, you’ve gone on too far.” Grady knows Clay’s house by address only; he’s sent money, through Vince, and never did bother to pay a visit.

  “I’ve never seen this many trailer homes in a ten-mile stretch,” Nico comments, checking the map on his phone. “What do people do out here? Oh, last turn up ahead.” Grady has some idea, but he leaves it unsaid, just squeezes Nico’s hand, takes the turn onto a gravel road, and Nico says, “I’m more anxious than you are. How are you so calm right now?”

  Grady tips his head and grins in Nico’s direction. “Practice,” he says.

  They pass a farmhouse, then pastures and rows of soybeans starting to wilt in the lingering summer sun. A clutch of houses and a couple of outbuildings appear, then an old gray plank-frame home that’s half collapsed, long ago abandoned. After that, a few more little houses dot the gravel road. They stop at a small brick house that has a work shed out back nearly the same size as the house itself. Grady knocks, and there is no response or sign of life from inside. The place is small and old, but tidily kept with a trimmed yard and bushes, and everything on the house seems to be in good repair. A scraggly black cat perches on a workbench where power tools are tucked away.

  “So this is your dad’s brother or uncle?” Nico asks while they wait on the porch. He tugs at his tie and yanks loose the top button on his collar. It’s a scorcher today. The calendar may be close to flipping over to fall, but the weather stubbornly refuses to follow along.

  “His uncle,” Grady says. He thinks he hears some shuffling inside the house. “If Vaughn had a brother, I don’t know about him.” Grady knows about Uncle Clay because he was the only person left in Vaughn’s life who wasn’t completely fed up with bailing him out of jail or paying off his debts or letting him sleep on their couch knowing he was bound to make off with something valuable. Grady sent him money and never came out here because—because they never came for him, did they?

  The door opens to an older man with thin white hair and blue eyes much like Grady’s own. He’s tall and thin but for a round potbelly. His skin is the leathery brown achieved from years of days spent in the sun, and his hands are big and liver-spotted and rough-hewn. He looks at Grady, looks at Nico, and says, “All right,” and turns back into the house, leaving the door open for them.

  Nico sits ramrod straight on the edge of the couch with his hands pressed flat between his knees. Grady drops down next to him. Clay is in a diagonal corner, sitting in a well-used armchair. They sit for several minutes that seem longer, barely speaking beyond brief niceties. The inside is much the same as the outside of the house: aged, worn, but neat and well-maintained. It’s cooler, though. Somewhere along the line, someone got fed up enough to install central air in this old house—thank the lord for small mercies.

  “So… Did Lillian say when she’d be back? When I called she gave the impression that she was planning on being here?” Nico blurts after too much silence.

  “Said she was goin’ to the store. S’all I know.” Clay’s accent is so thick—Western Tennessee thick—that even Grady struggles to catch every word. Nico’s face seems to indicate that he’s caught very few. “Thought you’d bring your wife.”

  Nico’s eyebrows shoot up in alarm; he caught that. Grady hesitates; they always do outside of the relatively safe bubble of progressive, artsy Nashville. He has no shame about coming from a poor rural area not all that different from this one, but that doesn’t mean he’s unaware of its problems. Grady thinks of the conversation with Duke at the record company, how his love song about a man is “controversial,” that speaking honestly about his own self is “too political.” Sometimes even the bubble isn’t safe.

  “No. Nico is my fiancé.” Grady isn’t ashamed of that either; he doesn’t care what Duke or Clay or any small-minded so-called “fans” might have to say about it.

  Clay stares at the two of them, clearly processing this information, and Nico sits up, somehow even more uncomfortably rigid. “All right,” Clay says, then, “I have his stuff for you.” He stands with difficulty, using the chair to push himself up and grimacing in pain, and then he lumbers to a room down the short hallway. He walks as if he has bum knees or a bad hip. When Clay returns, he deposits a large shoebox on Grady’s lap. The picture of tan work boots on the front exactly matches the pair Clay is wearing.

  “I don’t want it,” Grady says. “Thank you.”

  Clay grunts as he sits. “I’ma throw it away otherwise. May as well take it.”

  Grady looks at the box with his hands held over it as if he’s afraid to touch it. He doesn’t know what to do with it, or how to feel about it, but he doesn’t want to burden Clay with it either. “All right,” Grady says. Clay nods, and they go back to sitting in the small living room saying nothing, until Nico’s phone vibrates in his pocket. He reads the message. His face twitches before he forces it to something more neutral. He shows it to Grady.

  Lillian: Something came up. So sorry, can’t make it.

  It’s exactly like her: unreliable, untrustworthy, full of shit. “I tried to tell you,” he says, not wanting to be right. “She always does this.” Nico just frowns.

  They stand and thank Clay for his time and hospitality, and Clay congratulates them on the marriage that has yet to take place. When Nico asks to use the restroom before they make the drive back and disappears down the small hallway, Grady has to ask. “Is it your knees or hips?”

  Clay’s age- and work
-worn hands drift to his legs. “Knees. Need ‘em replaced. I work for myself, you know. Handyman stuff. Harder with bad knees. I manage all right.”

  “I’m sure.” Grady laughs at himself. He tucks the shoebox under one arm; the contents shift and clatter. “You know I never did get the hang of that kinda thing. Could use a little work around the house if you’re available.”

  “All right.”

  Grady shifts the box. “And why don’t you schedule that replacement in the meantime and let me look at the bills.”

  Clay looks up at him, and it must be all Nico’s talk of family and joining together that Grady does feel a kinship to Clay without really knowing him at all. What other blood relation does he have? “Don’t have to do that,” Clay answers.

  “I know I don’t. You took Vaughn in, though, so consider it a debt still owed.”

  Clay nods, then stares at him, scanning Grady’s face as if he sees something he can’t understand there. “You look like him, you know.”

  Nico returns from the bathroom and announces he’s ready to go. “So I’ve heard,” Grady replies.

  He’s relieved, more than anything, after they drive away. She did exactly what Grady expected her to, and now he doesn’t have to have any guilt over not giving her a chance to say whatever she wanted to say: She had it, and she flaked out on him once again. Nico seems upset about it, though, picking at the cardboard lid of the box and flexing his jaw too hard.

  Grady turns the radio up and starts singing along, and Nico smiles at him. He taps at the box and asks, “Can I?”

  Grady shrugs. “Knock yourself out.” It’s the pointless flotsam and jetsam of a man he never knew; it’s not as though he has any attachment to it. Still, he can’t seem to bring himself to look while Nico gently picks through the items.

  “Huh,” Nico says, pulling something out. “There’s a car key. And… an impound notice.”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s in this town; can’t be far.” Nico dangles the key in the air. “Maybe we should take care of it while we’re here?”

  Grady would rather let the thing rust away to nothing, but if he doesn’t pay the impound fees and get rid of it, then certainly they’re going to come looking for Clay. “Yeah, okay,” Grady says, and U-turns back toward town.

  Forty-five minutes and an impound fee, towing fee, and six months of storage fees later, Grady is the proud owner of a gold-colored sedan with a broken transmission and cracked windshield that Vaughn, to Grady’s entire lack of surprise, left abandoned on the side of the road. He pays yet another fee to have it towed to a mechanic near their house.

  “You don’t want to fix that one up?” Nico asks when they step back outside.

  “There’s hardly room for the cars that work in our garage,” Grady says, walking back down the little downtown block to where they parked after they couldn’t find a space near the impound lot. It’s so hot and muggy out his shirt is sticking to his skin and Nico’s hair is wilted and flat, not that Grady would be dumb enough to tell him that.

  They were parked in front of a building partly covered with thick kudzu—looks as if it’s been empty for a while now. This whole town seems to be filled with things that have been forgotten and left behind. Grady starts the engine to blast the air and give it a chance to cool before they get in, while Nico wanders to a large window that hasn’t been overtaken by vines. “What do you guess this place was?”

  Grady looks around. It’s freestanding, just around the corner from the main street’s antique shops and second-hand stores and mom-and-pop restaurants. This building is not huge, but it’s bigger than the other stores here. A For Sale sign, faded and tipping to the side, is stuck on the window. “Pawn shop?”

  Nico cups his hands on the window and peers between them. “Oh, maybe. No, I think it was a music store. Look.”

  The air coming from the truck’s vents is cool now, and Grady would really like to get home and take his sweaty clothes off. He ducks over to see whatever it is Nico is seeing anyway. When his eyes adjust to the dark inside, he can make out a laminate-topped counter and industrial carpeting, what looks like a soundproof booth in a corner—the kind music stores have for testing out drum kits without giving all the other patrons pounding headaches—some hooks on the walls like the kind used for displaying guitars or fiddles or banjos. “Yeah, looks like it. Too bad, kids in this town could use a music store.” Lord knows music saved his sorry ass in a place like this. “Come on, let’s get the hell out of here.”

  17

  The shoebox of Vaughn’s things stays in the garage until Grady can decide what to do with it, and, in the meantime, the paparazzi become a permanent fixture lying in wait at the end of their property line to shout and take pictures and video every time Nico and Grady, separately or together, appear. Nico becomes resigned, choosing his outfit in the morning knowing full well it will appear on the tabloid sites, in magazines, and be smeared across social media. “If I’m going to be stalked and harassed,” he says, “I’ll look damn good while it’s happening.” Nico’s determined resignation breaks Grady’s heart.

  The paparazzi are fewer early in the mornings, Grady has learned. They show less interest when it’s just him and not him and Nico, but a scattered few hang around this bright weekday morning when Grady’s Southern politeness reflex takes over: He smiles and waves and wishes them a pleasant day. He has a meeting with Vince, his publicist, and his media coordinator to plan interviews and potential tour stops and promo ideas. And now, how to best handle the media storm over his engagement. Later on, he’s meeting with Duke to discuss the changes he’s making to the single and what to release instead while Grady continues to put off actually making any changes to the single. Vince is supposed to go along to Stomp Records with him, but he looks so harassed after they discuss how to put out the fires from the wedding leak that Grady gives him the rest of the day off. The meeting with Duke is just a quick check-in anyhow.

  Grady picks up an afternoon snack at the custard place he loves; there’s a long line and it’s crowded, though everyone seems to be more concerned with their custard than with him. A small mercy, but he’ll take it. While he waits, he sends Clementine a video of cats with balloons stuck to their fur. Come see me, she texts back, along with an address.

  “I’ll take a pralines and cream, please. Oh, Valencia! Haven’t seen you here in a while.”

  “Grady! Well, you hardly come in these days!” Valencia has been managing the custard place for as long as Grady’s been stopping in. She’s not always in the front, but, when she is, she’ll chat with Grady as if he’s just any other regular customer.

  Grady slumps over the counter on his elbow and says dramatically, “Tell me about it. My fiancé has me on a worse diet than my trainer ever did.” She beams at him, then turns to get his custard ready. It trips on his tongue a bit, fiancé, but it is such a relief to talk about it. That everyone knows doesn’t seem like a complete disaster to him. It’s always been harder for Nico, not just sharing their lives, but the lack of control over what gets shared when. Valencia brings the cup back and puts a lid on it, then rings him up.

  “How’s the little one?” Grady asks as he pulls out his wallet.

  “Starting Pre-K in the fall.” She takes the cash, and Grady puts his change in the tip jar. “Can you believe that?”

  “I certainly cannot, not when I swear you were just showing me the pictures of her first steps!” As he’s putting his wallet back, Grady’s phone beeps with another text.

  Clem: If you’re getting food bring me some.

  He orders a butterscotch custard to go, and adds more money to the tip jar to make up for all the trouble he’s causing. “Thanks, Valencia, have a good one. You tell that girl to stop growin’ up so fast!”

  “I will! Don’t be a stranger, okay? And congrats!”

  The address he goes to is in the same downtown
area, so the custard is only a little soupy by the time he finds it. The small brick building turns out to be another recording studio, this one even more cramped, with Clem at the controls again and a musician he doesn’t recognize in the booth. Grady sets the custard and plastic spoon down in front of her. “Again? Who’d you sweet-talk for studio space for your new protégé this time?”

  She waves him off with the spoon and pulls the lid free. “An associate.”

  She is so unnecessarily mysterious sometimes. “And this is…”

  “This is Joaquin.” She flips a switch so Grady can hear the music they just recorded. The kid in the booth is wearing a cowboy hat over his headphones and the kind of fancy shirt Nico would own: high-quality detailing and an unusual bright print with a bowtie to top it off. He has a low-country honky-tonk sound that Grady digs right away, and he’s young and cute to boot. “He’s great. No one will sign him?” That voice has a ton of potential for a broad range of listeners.

  Clem pushes a button. “Joaquin, sugar. Why won’t anyone sign you?”

  He talks into the screen covering the mic. “Too weird, too brown, too gay. Take your pick.” Then he gasps and yanks off both the headphones and his hat and rushes from the booth. “What? Grady Dawson, no, you are not here right now!”

  Clem winks and leans back in her chair to eat her custard. “He wanted to meet you.”

  Grady holds out his hand. “Well, it’s entirely my pleasure, Joaquin. You were really incredible in there—” Joaquin grasps his hand and shakes it while bouncing up and down.

  “You are such an inspiration for me! I’m dying right now, literally dead. You and Nico are amazing, like bae goals, seriously.” He looks over to Clem with his eyes popped wide and makes a high-pitched squealing noise.