The Duet

by D'Angelo, Jennifer

  Jay watched her leave with a look of such awe and tenderness, that I nearly let myself believe everything would be okay. But then he turned to me, and his face morphed into such utter disdain, I flinched.

  “There you are! Can you believe there’s not a single place in this town to buy a decent pair of sneakers?” My head snapped toward the door and I stared, my mouth hanging open. “Izzy! Oh my God! Do you work here?”

  “Trisha?”

  She ran around the counter and hugged me. We had never been close enough for a hug, and I hadn’t seen or spoken to Trisha in seven years. Between seeing her, and Jay’s angry eyes still on me, I was starting to feel like I’d crossed over into another dimension. My head was light and my limbs felt heavy.

  “When Jay told me you lived out here, I was just so excited! It’s been, like, forever.”

  I politely extracted myself from Trisha’s eager embrace, and backed up another step for good measure. “Yes. Yes, it has been a while.”

  I tried not to look at Jay, but my eyes had a mind all their own. God, I wished I knew what was going through his head right now. I mean, I sort of knew; he was pissed – really, really pissed. And he was hurt, and he felt betrayed. On second thought, I decided, maybe I didn’t want to read his mind right this minute.

  Trisha chatted on, but she didn’t miss the tension between Jay and I. Since the Trisha I remembered was nosy and rude, I was surprised she didn’t call attention to it. Instead she pretended like this was a planned, happy reunion between three old friends.

  “Listen, Izzy. I wish we could stay right now, but Jay and I haven’t even checked in to the hotel, and I have got to get out of these shoes! Let’s catch up later, right Jay?” I didn’t miss how she touched his arm with familiarity. I felt myself wince as it occurred to me for the first time that the two of them were here… together.

  Jay gave a quick nod in my general direction, then put his hand on Trisha’s back. Without another word, he turned and steered her out, leaving his half-empty cup mocking me on the counter.

  I was still standing in the same spot when I heard Miranda and Sydney come back. “And he said his name was Jay, and that he was Mama’s friend, and then Mama walked in and she looked all weird, and Jay looked like he was really mad, maybe at me, I don’t know, and then Mama told me to come get you, so that’s what I did.”

  “Okay, sweetheart. You did great.” Miranda took one look at me and crouched down to speak to Sydney eye to eye. “Listen. I’m gonna call Uncle Fred to come and take you out for a nice cheeseburger over at Al’s, okay?”

  “But Miranda! You promised to show me the grinding!”

  “I know I did sweetheart, and I will. Just not tonight. Hey, listen. Maybe if you ask Uncle Fred real nice, he’ll take you for an ice cream after dinner. How does that sound?”

  “I’m not allowed to have ice cream on a school night.”

  “Oh, posh. I think we can make an exception once in a while, don’t you?”

  Sydney thought it over for a minute. “Can I have sprinkles?”

  “Of course!”

  Sydney skipped back to the break room while Miranda called Uncle Fred. I busied myself with meaningless tasks behind the counter while I waited. There were no customers at the moment, but any time now, the bell over the door would begin chiming as an endless stream of regulars who preferred caffeine over alcohol for their happy hour fix, would pile in. I wished they’d hurry up, because I was pretty sure I’d prefer the late afternoon rush over what awaited me from Miranda if we remained alone.

  Sure enough, immediately after Uncle Fred left with a very excited Sydney, Miranda appeared in the doorway, hands on her hips.

  “You should have told him, Izzy.”

  “I know.” I began wiping the counter with fierce determination.

  “I told you to call him right away. Years ago. You took the choice away from him.”

  “I know.”

  “He may never forgive you for this, and for him to find out…”

  I spun around. “I said I know, Miranda! Please, just shut up okay? Please!”

  Miranda didn’t even flinch. Instead, she leaned in close until we were practically nose to nose. “I will forgive you for being ugly to me, because I know that you’re upset. But, Izzy, this was a huge mistake you made, and now you have to figure out how to make things right.”

  I threw the rag under the counter, and rubbed my temples. “But how? How can I fix this?”

  Miranda put her hands on my shoulders and gave me a tender look. “I wish I could tell you, honey, but you’re gonna have to do this one all on your own.”

  I gave her a watery smile and swallowed back the threatening tears, then I got to work. Miranda suggested several times that I go home and take advantage of the quiet house to think, but I didn’t really want to be alone. Besides, I could think better with all the noise around me.

  Unfortunately, by the end of the night, as I locked up and headed home, I was no closer to figuring out how to even start a conversation with Jay. I would sleep on it and hope to be inspired by morning.

  35

  I made it through the morning and lunchtime rush the next day, but by mid-afternoon, Miranda insisted I take a break. I spent some time with Sydney after school, listening to her go on about one of the boys in school who got in trouble for writing the s-word on his paper in spelling class. He had insisted he was trying to spell ‘spit’; he had just mixed up the letters. But the teacher was having none of it. She made him apologize and then had him write “I will not write bad words” on the whiteboard about a million times.

  I tried to listen. I wanted to give all of my attention to my daughter. But my mind wandered, and I kept having to bite my lip to keep the tears from spilling over.

  “Sydney,” Miranda said from behind the counter. “Bring your crayons and stuff over here and sit with me while I work. Your mama needs to lie down for a bit.” Her eyes shot to me and she indicated with her head that I should go upstairs. I sighed deeply, then kissed Sydney on the head and took my leave.

  The space above the shop was seldom used. It had long ago been three separate apartments – tiny and uninspired. Uncle Fred had lived in one and rented out the other two for years to supplement the income from the tackle shop. When I converted the shop, I had big plans for the upstairs. I was going to rip out walls and make it into one spacious studio apartment with all modern amenities. But Whole Latte Love – and Sydney – took up all my time and energy, and I hadn’t made any progress on my vision in a very long time. Plus, I would miss living in that sprawling old Victorian with Miranda and Uncle Fred. I was in no hurry to move out – even if it was only across the street.

  I tromped up the stairs, sighing as I reached the top. It was musty and stale and there were boxes of crap all over the place that really needed to be sorted. I walked over to the single twin bed in the corner and lay on my back staring up at the ceiling. Now would be a good time for those tears to start falling. I was alone; no one would witness my caterwauling. But my eyes were dry and my head was pulsing with unwanted thoughts.

  Today was a bad day. Maybe the worst I’d had in a long time. I covered up by working in the café and trying to immerse myself in my beloved customers and my sweet baby’s entertaining stories. But the truth was, I felt like I was drowning. I missed Cooper, I longed for Jay, and I grieved for the second family I had abandoned in California.

  I clutched my middle as memories of Sunday dinners with the O’Donnell’s flooded my mind. I thought of Cooper’s crooked grin, his goofy jokes and the hundreds of talks we shared. I remembered one time just before I moved to New Jersey when I was a kid. It was the middle of summer, and I thought my life was over. We were down by this little creek where we always hung out, and I had spent the better part of an hour chucking rocks and cursing my mother for whisking me away from my home and my life and my friends. Cooper sat quietly through my tantrum, and when I was calm, he draped his arm around me and we sat like that until lon
g after dark. Sometimes we’d sit staring at the water, lost in our own thoughts. And sometimes we’d talk about everything except the source of my despair. He even got me to laugh a time or two.

  Then there was the time in high school when my date to the junior prom ditched me – right at the entrance to the dance – in front of everyone. I waited in the girls’ bathroom for hours then took a long, meandering walk home so my mother wouldn’t ask me a million questions. I thought it was the worst night of my life. But then I called Cooper on the west coast, and the sound of my friend’s voice was enough to make me realize how silly the whole situation had been. I didn’t even like the jackass who’d ditched me.

  Cooper blew off a party that night, and risked hell and damnation from his mother when he went way over his phone minutes, just so he could stay on the line with me.

  God, I missed him.

  I shoved back the inevitable guilt I felt whenever I let myself start down this road. There were questions I had that I knew could never be answered, and I had lived with them long enough now to understand that there was no point wondering. Could I have done more to try to save Cooper? If the duet had never been recorded, would the fire have happened; and if the fire never happened, would Cooper still be alive? The thoughts spiraled round and round, all leading to nowhere.

  I rolled off the bed and sat beside one of the larger boxes on the floor. This stuff had been up here for so long, I had no idea what was what. I should have remembered, though, that there was a good reason all this stuff was tucked away where I wouldn’t be reminded of it. I folded back the flaps on the box and quickly shut them again. Photos. I couldn’t deal with the photos. Not today. I pushed the box aside and crawled over to another, much smaller one. My breath caught when I saw the contents. Maybe worse than the photos, this one had all the reminders of my brief time with Jay. A stack of the letters he wrote me from rehab, along with the pile of return letters I had never been able to send. There was an assortment of news clippings from the days when the duet had been big news, and for some morbid reason, the article about the fire at Darden’s was also in there.

  I rifled through the rest of the box until my hands clasped a notebook. It was battered and scribbled on, but I had never gotten past the top page. The first entry was dated a few days before I recorded my part of the duet in the studio with Jay, and the remaining entries went well past the date of the fire. I had grabbed it before I left California - I guess it was out of spite - but I could never bring myself to actually read it. I held it to my chest now, tempted but afraid of what I might find in there. I had always hoped that reading Jay’s most private thoughts might help me to understand everything that had happened, but I knew deep down that I would only be disappointed.

  I closed my eyes tight, trying to bring back all the angry, bitter feelings I had in the days before I left him. Maybe it was an attempt to alleviate some of the guilt I felt for keeping Sydney from him. Only it didn’t work. I couldn’t conjure those feelings. All I felt was shame. No matter how much Jay hurt me, I had no right to do what I did.

  I tossed the notebook back into the box and went back downstairs. I hadn’t earned this time to wallow in self-pity. It was time to get back to work.

  36

  Jay sat on the balcony of his hotel room with his notebook on his lap, staring out at the waves of the Atlantic. With the storm that was approaching, the ocean could almost pass for its rival coast, rough and angry and just waiting for someone to defy it with a surfboard.

  Forty-eight hours had passed since his whole life had been turned upside down with the revelation that he was a father. He was still no closer to defining his feelings about that.

  Izzy hadn’t called, and he hadn’t been back to see her. They were both being stubborn now. He had come all the way here with the sole purpose of apologizing and attempting to explain his unacceptable behavior after Cooper’s death. Whether or not she had some apologizing to do herself shouldn’t have made any difference. But it did.

  He was so twisted up inside. Finding out about Sydney had been like a punch in the gut, but seeing Izzy after all this time knocked him to his knees. She looked so different, but so familiar at the same time. Her hair was a natural shade of blonde, with sun-kissed highlights that he assumed was her real color, and she wore it long and loose, the wavy locks falling below her shoulders. Her face looked radiant, kissed by the sun, and scrubbed clean; no longer did she outline her lavender eyes with dark kohl and dramatic color. She wore frayed jeans under that apron, and her feet were clad in dollar store flip-flops. He wasn’t sure he remembered her ever looking more appealing.

  But he was angry at her. Really, bone-deep angry. And that was what muddled up his head right now. For almost seven years she had raised his daughter, and he had missed a whole huge section of her life. That hurt. No matter how much she apologized, he could never get that time back. How was he supposed to forgive her for that?

  Then again, how could he really blame her? Was what she’d done any worse than him? He’d completely checked out on her after they both suffered the loss of their best friend. She needed him, and he abandoned her with no explanation.

  He stood up to stretch and leaned on the railing, feeling the wind whipping against his face. The storm was getting close now. The news had warned it would be a bad one. He almost welcomed its violence. It perfectly matched his mood; dark and stormy and completely senseless.

  His phone vibrated on the table and he hesitated before picking up. If it was Izzy, he wasn’t sure he was calm enough to talk yet. Maybe he should wait another day, so he didn’t say anything he couldn’t take back. The number wasn’t one he recognized, but he knew it was her. He rolled his eyes up to the sky and took a deep breath.

  “Hello?”

  “Jay, it’s Izzy. Are you still here? In New Jersey, I mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you?”

  “I’m at the Breakers, a few blocks from you, but Izzy, I don’t think tonight…”

  “Later. We need to talk, but later. They’re evacuating the shorefront area because of the storm. We’re heading out now, if you want us to pick you and Trisha up.”

  He walked over and unmuted the television. The radar was lit up like a Christmas tree and there were scrolling warnings at both the top and bottom of the screen. It was worse than he’d thought. A bit of panic shot through him as he thought of Izzy and little Sydney trying to brave the storm in that house that just didn’t appear stable enough to withstand – what he now saw on the screen – up to one hundred and twenty mile-an-hour gusts of wind.

  “No, go on and get to safety. I’ll leave soon.”

  There was a brief pause before Izzy spoke again. “Fine, but I’ll give you the address of the shelter we’ll be at, and you can meet us there. You won’t get another hotel room anywhere within a hundred miles of here.”

  Jay took down the address, but even though he said he’d see her there in a while, he wasn’t completely sure he would go. He gathered up the few things he’d unpacked and checked out at the front desk. The place was empty, save for him and one desk clerk who was planning on locking up and leaving as well, now that all the guests were out.

  It took him over an hour to get out of Avalon, but then the traffic thinned out, and he kept driving. It was starting to rain, the wind a constant howl, making the car jerk under his hands. The eye of the storm wasn’t even expected to make landfall until mid-morning the next day, but it was gearing up. He planned on driving right by the address Izzy had given him, and finding the next town that could put him up in a room. He needed the night to continue getting his head on straight. Until he did that, it wasn’t a good idea to spend any kind of time with Izzy.

  But as he neared the exit, he finally admitted to himself that his head would never just magically be able to wrap itself around this. Yes, he and Izzy needed to talk – if for nothing else than to work out logistically what happened next – but he wasn’t going to be hit on the head with
some epiphany before then, telling him how he should be feeling.

  The shelter was the auditorium of one of those mega churches that seated, on any given Sunday, thousands of people. The chairs had been cleared and the floor was covered with a rainbow of sleeping bags and a variety of camping equipment. It seemed very organized. He had expected to arrive and find chaos, people screaming, others getting angry and taking it out on whoever was in their way. But it was calm, almost quiet save the low hum of voices echoing in the vast space.

  He saw Izzy waving at him from about halfway across the place. He had no idea how she spotted him so quickly. He weaved in and out of bodies until he reached their little oasis. There were blankets spread out, beach chairs set up in a line, and a few knapsacks strewn about.

  “Hi, Jay,” Sydney jumped up from where she was lying on her stomach reading a book, and looked up at him with big green eyes. He swallowed back the lump that formed in his throat and nodded, forcing his lips into what he hoped was a friendly looking smile.

  “Hello, Sydney. It’s nice to see you again,” he said politely, his hand itching to muss up her hair in a playful gesture of familiarity.

  “This is my grandma Miranda,” she said, pointing to a petite woman who had little to no resemblance to Izzy except for her frame. “And that’s Uncle Fred. Miranda says we just keep him around to help with the heavy lifting. Otherwise he’s useless.”

  Jay held back a laugh as he reached out to shake Uncle Fred’s hand. He didn’t seem the least bit perturbed or even surprised by Sydney’s assessment of him. But Jay didn’t miss the knowing look that passed over his face as he squinted his eyes at Jay. Apparently all the adults in this part of the room were up to speed on Sydney’s paternity.

  He turned to Miranda. “It’s nice meeting you, Mrs. Delaney.” She gave him a kind smile and took his outstretched hand in both of his.

  “It’s Miranda, please. And welcome. We’re glad you came. Where’s your friend?”