“As I’ll ever be,” I said.
I allowed a smile, a real smile, and he looked shocked. The expression fell into a smile of his own.
“You’re smiling,” he whispered.
I bit my bottom lip, trying not to cry. “I know,” I whispered back.
“You’re thinking you don’t deserve to smile. You’re thinking you have no right?”
I bit my bottom lip harder to stave the tears and nodded.
“Don’t.”
A few tears slipped despite my effort. “I can’t help it.”
“Lily,” he said. He put his hand on my shoulder briefly and squeezed, “if you can’t help it, then we’ll just navigate it until you can.”
I nodded and wiped away the tears.
“Let’s hit the road,” he said, throwing his Jeep in reverse. He brought his arm around the back of my seat to check behind us.
The clean smell of his shampoo and his soap assailed me, made my eyes roll back a little. It brought me back to the present and I felt a little blindsided. My hands dug into my seat’s armrests.
“You hungry?” he asked.
“No,” I told him truthfully, “not used to eating this early, I guess.”
“Neither am I. Not really, anyway,” he agreed. “Let’s see how far we can get then.”
We headed down the highway. It took us fifteen minutes to leave Bottle County, I’d counted, and Salinger pointed at the sign as we left it behind us. I leaned out of my window, letting the warm, crisp air drift across my skin and hair. The early morning sky was still blanketed with stars, and they shone so bright, so clear above us.
I giggled a little, took off my belt, and stood through his moonroof. The wind was loud. Its song whipped around me, promising me a future unknown.
“I’m alive!” I shouted into that wind and let it carry my words behind me, informing my past what it didn’t seem to remember anymore.
After a moment, I sat back in my seat, my hair a tangled mess around my face and shoulders. I buckled back in and attempted to tame it down.
Salinger looked at me, his mouth wide with a smile. “Let it be!” he yelled over the wind still enveloping his car from the open windows and roof. “Let it live.”
I laughed then remembered myself and my smile fell abruptly, a new tear slipped past without my permission.
“No!” he said, glancing at the road then back at me. He brought his hand up and brushed it away with his thumb.
I sucked them back and took a deep breath. “Take me to the ends of the earth,” I shouted at him.
“I promise,” he called back.
He signaled for me to roll up my window so I did. He did the same then shut the moonroof. The entire car fell insanely quiet.
“I realized I don’t know what music you listen to,” he said, breaking up the calm.
“I have eclectic tastes,” I told him. “What about you?”
“Same,” he said, handing me his phone. “Just not a fan of country.”
“Same,” I agreed.
We had old cars and hardware was a necessity, so I plugged his phone in for him and scrolled through his music.
“Which playlist?”
“There should be one in there called Lily.”
I melted in my seat for a moment. “Y-you have a playlist named after me?”
He smiled at me and I melted further. “Yeah, it’s music I just wanted you to know I liked. It felt important that you knew.”
I felt my skin grow hot but couldn’t say anything.
“Hit play,” he prodded, so I did. He let it go for a minute. “What do you think?”
“I love it,” I told him.
“Is that the truth?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said and meant it.
We spent the whole time trading music back and forth, peppering the conversation with tactics and endgame strategies for good measure. By the time we’d met city limits, I was disappointed we hadn’t had more time to talk. We were always so busy with work or fixing up my house or his schoolwork that we never got to dig much deeper than survival. I really liked him, liked what he was into.
We’d arrived in the sleepy French Quarter in New Orleans in a little more than four hours. It was quiet but the state of the streets indicated it hadn’t been that way for long. It looked like it’d barely survived but it liked it that way.
“It’s so pretty,” I whispered, leaning out the window, admiring the architecture.
We pulled in front of a period home with mint siding and cream, elaborate trim. It was one story but truly ornate with a green stoop and mustard-yellow door. Salinger pulled around into the back alley and sidled into its very narrow driveway in front of a closed garage door. He put the car in park.
“You ready?” he asked.
A belly full of nerves, I nodded my answer.
“Listen, so Bernard is, um, he’s a character, a pistol, if you will.”
“Is this, like, an eggshell situation?” I asked.
He smiled. “Yes, but as long as we play it cool, catch him in a good mood, he’ll be fine.”
“This isn’t helping me.”
“You’ll be fine. You need this. You need to play someone stronger than me. Play the best so you can follow their footsteps.”
He got out of the car before I could respond to him. He grabbed both our bags, not wanting to leave them in the car, I guessed. I followed him through a pretty wooden gate into the most gorgeous garden I had ever seen in my life. Small paths wound throughout the entire yard around small pockets of reaching flowers and led to the garden center where a small table and set of chairs sat on top of flat stone underneath an iron canopy full of vine.
We climbed the small set of concrete steps. I stood on a step behind Salinger as there was only room for one at a time. He knocked and I pressed a hand to my throat from nerves. We heard shuffling behind the door. It opened and there stood a small man, thin in most areas but his middle, hair sticking up at strange angles. He wore brown leather slippers, a plain white T-shirt, a pair of navy Bermuda shorts, and a navy-blue-and-maroon-striped robe draped over his shoulders that met him mid-calf.
“You’re early!” he grumbled, turned away and started walking, but left the door open.
We scrambled in behind him, down a very narrow hall, past a tiny laundry room with ancient-looking machines, a small half bath covered in what appeared to be marble original to the home, and through a pair of dark wood French doors into a cozy sitting room, complete with plaster ceilings.
Bernard Calvin had stacks and stacks of newspapers lining the walls that rose to the chair railing. He didn’t own a proper sofa, just several old single chairs scattered throughout the room but all facing a small television tucked into a corner of a wall. In the center laid a chessboard on a marble table, with a game already set up. There was pipe smoke everywhere from a burning pipe nearby on an ashtray that sat on a little table next to a comfortable-looking chair pulled up to the chess table.
“I wasn’t expecting you this early,” he complained, lifting up random bits of paper on tables and searching underneath each one.
“What do you need, Bernie?” Salinger asked him.
“My damn glasses!” he fussed.
Salinger leaned forward and picked up a chain dangling around Bernard’s neck. On it was a pair of thick reading glasses. He looked at Salinger like he blamed him for not realizing they were there. Salinger hid a laugh with a poorly constructed cough.
“Come with me,” Bernard rumbled and made for the front door that sat at the end of the hall connected to the back door we’d entered from.
“Bernie, aren’t you going to put on some shoes? Take off your robe?”
“Why would I do that?” he squawked.
“Never mind then,” Salinger replied. “Where are we going?”
Bernard stopped so suddenly I didn’t react fast enough and ran into Salinger’s back. He reached his hands back to steady me.
“To get something to eat. What else?” Bernard explained with impatience in his tone. He leaned around Salinger’s shoulder. “You must be the girl. Are you hungry?”
“Yes, sir,” I whispered, unable to find my voice.