“Night.”
Just before he falls asleep, Grady has a panicked moment of realization that he could very well lose Nico, too. His strangely sluggish mind just now comes to grips with the possibility. Even worse is the realization that maybe that would be best. Every time his world has gone to hell, Grady has been alone with no one to drag down with him. Is that that the way it has to be? His mind starts to tie itself in knots again, and, despite being exhausted all day, Grady tosses and turns for hours.
The next day Grady does manage to get to the deck, ready for his run. He sits to tighten his laces, and then gets lost watching the leaves sway in musical patterns. He lies back on the wooden bench to watch them. Just for a bit. Just a little longer now.
“There you are. Jesus, shit, this house has entirely too many stairs.” It’s Gwen. He doesn’t turn away from the dancing leaves or sit up.
“Nico send you to check on me?”
Her heavy combat boot footsteps approach the bench; her shadow falls across his body. “I’ll have you know I came here to harass you of my accord.” Gwen moves until she’s blocking his view of the trees. Grady squints up at her. She sets her hands on her sharp little hips and gives him a worried look an awful lot like the one Nico keeps directing at him. “So things suck, huh?”
“Yup.”
“Well, they’ve sucked before. And they’ll suck again.” She drops her hands to her sides and rocks up and down on her toes. “That’s life. It sucks.”
Grady flings his arm over his eyes. The sun is too bright; looking at Gwen is too much effort. “This is a terrible pep talk.” There’s a dull thump on the foot that he has draped over the side of the bench. “Why are you kicking me?”
“I kick you when you need to be kicked. Now, come on. I’m missing time with my kid for this. Up.” At that, Grady does sit up. And he is happy to see her, even with her kicking him and her pissed off expression and all, as if some life has been returned to him just because of her company. “Okay, I’m up.”
“Super,” Gwen replies sarcastically. “Now go put a damn shirt on. And different shorts. My god, man, those are obscene. Do you go out in public with those? Did Nico buy them for you? I bet he did, horndog—” She continues harassing him into the house, until he jogs upstairs to shower and change, smiling a little as he goes.
When he comes down, she hands him a ukulele and a guitar zipped into their soft cases, and then a hat and sunglasses. “We’re leaving?” Grady puts on the dark glasses and ball cap and hauls the instruments over both shoulders.
“Oh, yeah. I know I’d be climbing the walls by now if I were you, so I’m busting you out for the afternoon.” She twirls car keys on her finger and walks backward to the door.
“What about the paparazzi?”
“Don’t even worry about it.” She makes the sort of face that will immediately set Nico on edge but Grady loves. Gwen may have settled down some, matured into life with a wife and a kid, but you can never entirely take the rebel out the girl. Grady grins, and follows her. At the end of the driveway, Gwen rolls down both the driver’s and Grady’s passenger side window and says, “Take the wheel.”
Grady sinks down, pulling the bill of the hat low over his face. “What?”
“Take. The wheel.” She lets go of the steering wheel entirely, leaving Grady no choice but to steer the car lest they crash into the tall pine trees lining the edge of their property.
“What are you doing?” Grady asks, though he can see for himself: She has both arms outstretched, leaning all the way out of her window, then leaning over to the passenger side, crushing Grady against the seat and almost completely blocking his view of the road as she flips off the paparazzi and their flashing cameras when they come thundering out onto the road.
She bounces back into her seat, takes control of the steering wheel, and cackles. “I read somewhere they can’t print the pictures with that. I’ve wanted to try it for a while now, honestly.”
They’ve made it out of sight of the cameras, so Grady sits up, laughing and shaking his head. “That’s true for print, but anything goes on the Internet, you know.”
Gwen pouts. “Oh. Bummer. Well, it was still fun.” She turns to him, a little guilty. “Will you get in trouble?”
He’s staying home under advisement and good sense and maybe a little bit because of his own unwillingness to deal with his life right now, but he is not actually a prisoner in his own home. Still, his career may be over, his reputation is once again sunk in the mud, his marriage may be put off indefinitely, and his family of origin remains in shambles, only more so. “How much more trouble could I possibly get into?”
Gwen smirks. “That sounds like a challenge.”
20
Gwen drives them to a quiet family suburb where she parks in a complex with a green park, busy outdoor pool, large public library, and community center; all of them look new and upscale. The air is cooled slightly by a breeze—though it’s still plenty hot outside—and the soft rustling of the wind is punctuated by the sounds of kids laughing and playing.
“What’s happening here?” Grady asks, as Gwen leads him to the community center on the back side of the municipal complex.
“This is where we take Cayo for music classes,” Gwen says, opening the door to a wide air-conditioned hallway where the same happy sounds of children fill the space. “Or where I pay one hundred fifty bucks a month for Cayo to watch some hippie lady sing ‘The Itsy Bitsy Spider’ and shake a maraca.” She stops in front of a door painted with a colorful sign that reads: Play On. “Anyway, they also do music therapy and low-cost lessons for special needs and low income kids. And I thought it seemed like your kind of deal.” She nods at the instruments on Grady’s shoulders.
Grady hesitates when she goes to open the door; getting out of the house and spending time with Gwen is one thing, but he doesn’t know if he’s quite up to entertaining a group of kids. What if he ends up just sitting there staring off into space as he’s been doing so much lately? What if he’s not allowed to do this? Gwen must sense his hesitation, because she moves away from the door and motions for Grady to do the same.
“Listen. I know our situations are different. Your parents were no-shows your whole life, and mine are just kind of generally awful.” She shrugs as she says it, as if she doesn’t really care, but she looks at her boots and bites hard on her bottom lip before continuing. “I get it, though. Being conflicted. I’ve thought about how I would feel if my mom kicked it—” She cringes. “Sorry, passed away. I just— Whatever you’re feeling, or not feeling, it’s okay. Shit’s complicated, right?” Gwen looks up, and it’s hard to deny those big blue eyes of hers, the impish nose and mouth, though it’s so much more complex than his absentee father passing away. “And remember, you’re not alone,” she says, “so don’t jump off of any buildings or try to join a convent again.”
Grady chuckles. “I was never gonna join a convent in the first place, Short Stuff.”
“So you say.” She reaches up to punch his arm. “Just promise me that if you do decide to do anything crazy, you’ll call me first, so I can do it with you.”
“Deal,” Grady says and slings his arm over her little shoulders as they walk into the music center. Grady has barely taken in the bright walls decorated with music notes, the rainbow-striped carpet, and instruments on shelves and in baskets, before he’s rushed by two little boys who attach themselves to his legs.
“Can I play your guitar?” The one in the dinosaur T-shirt grabs for the case.
The one with a bandage on his chin says, “No, I wanna play first; can I play first?”
Gwen offers no help, just laughs, and Grady can’t exactly move with two kids hanging on his legs like barnacles. “Now hold on a minute,” he says with a smile. They’re sweet—grabby, but sweet. Soon most of the kids in the center are gathering close, curious and excited about having a visitor. He�
�s played for kids before, but Grady is used to playing in children’s hospitals and wards, which are subdued by necessity.
An exaggerated sing-song voice announces, “Okay, my friends. Everyone sit on a color so we can get started, please!” The kids scatter, and a woman with her hair twisted up in a purple scarf approaches Grady. “Hello, I’m Bethany.” She shakes his hand, and the silver bracelets covering half of her forearms jingle melodically.
“Grady.” And if there’s a flash of recognition, she covers it quickly, welcoming him to the center as “Cayo’s Mommy’s friend.” Behind her shoulder, Gwen mouths, “hippie lady,” and points to Bethany.
“Thank you so much for having me. This is really great, what you’re doing here.” Grady tips his head toward her and grins, and Bethany blushes before showing him to a short chair in front of the rainbow carpet.
“My friends, we have new friend today! Can everyone say ‘hi, Grady!’”
“Hi, Grady!” The group shouts.
Bethany continues in the same emphatic sing-song voice, “Grady is going to sing us some songs, so everyone may stand and pick one instrument and one ribbon. If all my friends sitting on orange can walk to the baskets, please.”
Row by colorful row the kids come up to claim a ribbon on a stick and a percussion instrument, choosing from tambourines, rhythm sticks, hand drums, bells, castanets, xylophones, and maracas. Grady marvels at Bethany’s continued patience and enthusiasm. Not a one of these kids can be over the age of five, and they’re all incredibly eager and excited, and, with every new instrument snatched from the basket, loud. Bethany gets them to quiet down, then she and Gwen join the kids on a yellow and a purple stripe, respectively, and Grady—
Grady has a moment of stage fright. He’s played stadiums; he’s played for politicians and celebrities and on live television, yet none of those were as intimidating as two dozen preschoolers with their eyes agog and tambourines at the ready. Kids are brutally honest. If they hate it they’ll say so; if they’re bored they’ll leave. They have no biases, no expectations, and no cynicism. Grady unzips his ukulele and sets it timidly on his chest.
“So. I um. I like playin’ the ukulele,” he starts, plinking a few strings to tune them. “Because to me, it sounds happy.” The kids stare at him. One little girl hits her maraca on the carpet like a hammer until Bethany stops her. “Um,” Grady says.
A little boy with red hair says, “Violins sound sad.”
Grady considers this. “They do sound sad, don’t they?” A little girl with braids and plastic barrettes in her hair raises her hand.
“The one like this—” She places both hands to the side of her head and wiggles her fingers. “Toot-toot-toot. That’s happy, too.”
“A flute?” Grady guesses, and she wiggles happily. “That sounds… joyful. You’re right.” Then every single kid wants to share what instruments sound happy. They loudly offer bells, xylophone, tambourine, piano, banjo, cymbals as examples. One kid shouts “farts,” and, after the uproarious laughter dies down, Grady suggests tuba as an alternative. The sad instruments are named: piano too, sometimes, guitar, saxophone, harp, and, at the red-haired boy’s insistence, maracas, because they “sound like snakes.”
“How about we sing a song about being happy, then,” Grady says and launches into “Happy and You Know It.” All of his anxiousness is now gone and his doldrums, too. The best part of a kid’s honestly is that it’s pure. They want nothing from Grady but music and to enjoy themselves. They don’t have expectations about who he is or should be, they don’t care one whit about his personal life or his legal troubles, they aren’t gonna take a video of him and broadcast it as far and wide as they can for bragging rights. These kids just sing and bang away on their hand drums and wave their ribbons. And just as after a quiet session with kids stuck in hospital beds fighting for their lives, when Grady leaves, his problems seem so much smaller, and the world seems filled with joy and hope.
“Thank you,” Grady tells Gwen on their way back.
Gwen wriggles her shoulders. “I’m awesome; you can say it.”
Grady looks over seriously. “You’re awesome. And I really needed that.”
“Aw, Grady.” She pats his hand. “Be gentle with yourself, okay.”
He watches the leaves zoom by as Gwen drives him back to the house for another bout of detainment. “I’m tryin’.”
21
Nico has been working long hours and longer weeks, and tonight is no different. He has an event that keeps him out long past when Grady gives up and goes to sleep, then he’s gone by the time Grady wakes up. The only lingering reminders of him are wrinkled sheets on Nico’s side of their bed and the heap of designer clothes on top of the hamper. Grady slips the clothes into the hamper. He stops to pass his thumb over the fabric of a black summer-weight button-down. Nico looks good in it; the sleeves sit snugly on his biceps, and it highlights the agile lines of his shoulders. Grady drops the shirt into the hamper. This morning he’s able to shake off the gloom long enough to manage a run. His feet pad on the dirt path, as the heat grows thicker and more oppressive; he’s drenched with sweat by the time he’s finally satisfied with the distance he’s run and the ache in his muscles.
He starts off lighter today, happier, but the gray moves back in like a dark cloud as he faces another lonely, restless, unproductive day in the house. Grady is on the couch air drying from his shower and aimlessly switching TV channels when the doorbell rings. For a second, as he’s grabbing clothes from upstairs and dashing back down, he’s sure that one of the paparazzi from the permanent camp outside has gotten ballsy enough to come right to the door. And then, as he’s cracking the door open, he worries that he’s being served with yet another lawsuit.
“Clay. Hey, good morning.”
“Mornin’.” Clay scratches his ear and glances around the front porch; in his other hand is a tool box. “I was repairing some roof shingles nearby. Thought I’d stop in.”
Grady had asked him to come by and fix some stuff around the house; that’s right. “Oh, sure,” Grady says, as though he hadn’t completely forgotten. “Come right in. Slip your shoes off, if you don’t terribly mind.” Clay does, then limps in slowly but with determination, and Grady mentally scans the house for something Clay could work on. Move-in-ready was very high on Nico’s list when they were house hunting. “You know, the ice maker is finicky,” Grady says, pointing the way to the kitchen. “It either makes way too much or barely anything at all. I dunno if it’s a sensor, or it just can’t pace itself.”
Clay doesn’t acknowledge Grady’s joke. “Is the motor running when it’s not making any ice?” He sets his toolbox down on the counter next to the fridge.
“I’m not sure,” Grady says, opening the freezer. Inside there’s ice cream and frozen fruit and ice cubes scattered across the bottom.
“Could be the water valve. Or the central circuit’s gone bad.”
And here Grady thought the ice maker maybe had a tendency to get overexcited. He leans back on the counter while Clay tinkers inside the freezer. Grady doesn’t know much about him, Uncle Clay. He’s Vaughn’s father’s brother. He’s a handyman. Never married, as far as Grady knows. That whole Dawson family is a mystery to him, despite his last name. He’s been stubborn about getting to know them; after all, they didn’t make any effort to know him. This part of his history is a blank space.
“You always worked for yourself?”
“No. For a building company for a while. Contractor. Till I was too old and slow to keep up.” He adjusts something with pliers. “Been workin’ for myself for a while now.”
It can’t be easy trying to keep his head above water working as a handyman with two knees barely keeping him upright. Grady can’t believe he was up on a roof today; that took some serious stubborn determination. “Vaughn ever help you out?”
The ice maker whirrs, and Clay shuts the freeze
r door. “All set.” He drops the tools back into the bulky metal box. “Vaughn did his own thing. Never could pin down what that boy was up to.” Nothing good, Grady thinks, but he leaves it unsaid. Clay’s memories of Vaughn are his own; Grady doesn’t want to soil them. He’s glad his father had someone who cared if he had a roof over his head from time to time. There’s a wobbly handrail on the top step upstairs, but Grady doesn’t want Clay climbing those stairs with his bad knees. If they go around outside, it shouldn’t be too difficult for him to get to the garage. “Say, you know anything about cars?”
Clay says he knows a little, enough to keep things running, and the look of consternation on his face when Grady shows him the Superbird indicates that the old hunk of rust may be worse off than Grady thought. “Hopeless?” Grady frowns at the busted engine.
Clay just says, “Well.”
The car isn’t even good for the parts that have been left in; everything is rusted or corroded. The poor old broad was left out to fend for herself and rot away all alone. But Grady just can’t give up on her. He morosely pulls at a loose bolt and screw.
“Body’s solid,” Clay says. “She ain’t pretty but—could still work.” Clay closes the hood as if he’s embarrassed on the car’s behalf, having exposed all its problems to the world like that.
“You think?”
“Oh, sure. May have to gut the rest of it and start all over. But the frame is good.”
Blended Notes Page 12
