Sam grabbed the bottle her mother had left her and plopped onto the sofa with Gracie in her arms. She reached over to grab the TV remote and startled Gracie into a smile. Gracie looked up at Sam with the bottle between her gums and a big grin on her face, and Sam felt the hardness in her soften a bit. She leaned back and let herself feel the weight of Gracie in her arms, a whole human being with a whole future ahead of her. She wondered who was going to break Gracie’s heart.
Sam started jumping in to help with Gracie whenever she could. She liked to wear the baby carrier on her chest while she walked around the city. She wore her dad’s parka because it was big enough to close around the two of them, and she warmed her lips on the rim of Gracie’s tiny pink hat. The weight of her and the smell of her made Sam feel like she was connected to something permanent.
When Gracie was three months old, Sam offered to take the bassinet into her room for a few nights. “You look exhausted, Mom. And I’m up anyway.”
Laurel placed her hands on Sam’s cheeks. “I’m so worried about you. You need to start sleeping. You’re going to fall apart.”
“Ha. Too late. Just let me have her for a few nights. Leave me the three a.m. bottle.”
The first night they shared a room, Gracie woke up at two. Sam had been lying awake listening to her breathe. There was a rhythm to Gracie’s breathing that went well with the hum of the First Avenue traffic. Another thing she would have liked to have told Wyatt. Sam changed Gracie’s diaper and settled back into her bed to give her a bottle. Gracie gave Sam a sleepy smile in thanks. Apparently, they both fell asleep, because the next thing Sam knew, it was seven and time to get up for school. It was the best night’s sleep Sam had had in months.
Gracie became a permanent resident of Sam’s room and they were both sleeping eight hours at a stretch. Sam and Dr. Judy started talking about things that were not necessarily Wyatt related—her college plans, her career plans, her mixed feelings about not going to the prom.
On a regular Tuesday session, Sam walked in with a large envelope. “I got into USC.” The first thing she’d thought when she opened the mailbox was that she couldn’t wait to tell Wyatt. She winced at the fresh pain.
“Oh,” said Dr. Judy. “What does that bring up for you?”
Sam tried not to roll her eyes, but it wasn’t easy. She assumed Dr. Judy endured a lot of eye rolling with comments like that. “On one hand it makes me excited. Like I could go to where he is and maybe run into him. Or he’d hear I was there and want to start over?” Sam ran her hand over the envelope like it was a pet.
“On the other hand?”
Sam looked over Dr. Judy’s shoulder at the framed beach scene that was supposed to relax her but never did. “On the other hand, I know that’s a fantasy and that if he wanted to see me he would have called me by now.”
“Exactly.”
Sam really did hate Dr. Judy just a little bit. “And when I think about it, going out there and not being with Wyatt would be a lot more painful than staying here. And being with Gracie.”
Sam decided to give it up to the universe. If she got into NYU, she’d stay. If she didn’t, she’d go to Los Angeles. As the end of March approached and the NYU decision was getting nearer, she started to realize that she’d gone from longing to see Wyatt to being terrified to see him. She was finally sleeping and spring was coming.
38
Wyatt
After ten months in Los Angeles, Wyatt’s anger became more manageable. He knew he’d been harsh with Sam, and he knew he needed to apologize. He woke up in the mornings and imagined what it would feel like to have her there with him. He’d just written his first good song, and he wanted to play it for her. It should have been easy to reach out to her and tell her he loved her, but when he tried it out in his head, the way he felt about her still got all mixed up with how he felt about what happened. He didn’t want to hear about how well her family was doing. He didn’t want to tell her that he was still just surfing and pumping gas.
It was at this time that Wyatt saw a flyer at a music store for an open mic night at a bar in the Valley. He’d seen lots of ads like this before, but they were in Hollywood, in big venues that seemed impossibly daunting. The Valley felt anonymous, with a low risk of failure. Who cared if they didn’t like him in the Valley? What did they know? It occurred to Wyatt, as he drove over the hill, that he’d been afraid this whole time. Working on cars while he waited to be a rock star was one thing, but actually trying and getting rejected was another. He wasn’t sure he was prepared to find out that he was just a guy who works on cars. He knew that if Sam were here she would have forced him to try months ago. Sam was brave like that and unafraid to jump into anything. Of course, he didn’t have Sam with him, but she was in his songs, and he hoped that would give him the courage he needed.
He arrived at El Roca at eight p.m., guitar in hand and sweating through his T-shirt. There were only about ten people seated at the tables in front of a small stage, half of them with guitars waiting to play.
“It’s like this on Mondays,” said the bartender. “That’s why we do the open mic, to get musicians in here, hopefully thirsty.”
“So much for my big break,” he said. “I’ll have a beer.” He sat at the bar and listened to the other musicians and wondered what he was doing in LA.
He was working on his second beer and had mostly forgotten his guitar when the bartender said, “Holy shit.” Wyatt looked up to see Carlyle Trickett, in dark glasses, find himself a table. At six foot five he was impossible not to notice, and with his perfectly cut silver hair he was impossible not to recognize.
“What the hell is he doing here?” Wyatt asked.
“He sometimes comes on his way home. He lives on Mulholland, I think. It’s time you man up and take your turn there, buddy. This isn’t going to happen to you twice.”
Wyatt drained the rest of his beer and walked over to the side of the stage, where a woman with a perfect country voice was finishing her song. The musicians and a few of her friends clapped. Carlyle stared at the stage, disinterested.
Wyatt took the stage and sat on the stool behind the mic and started to play the new song he’d written on the water. It was about Sam and the way he felt like he’d taken her into his being. At the sound of the first few notes, he relaxed. He avoided the audience as he sang, singing for himself and seeing the notes as they came from his guitar. He could feel Sam everywhere around him, as if the song had taken him back to the happiest time of his life. You catch your breath, and I catch your breath. We’re locked in together. Sam, I am.
As he played the last note, he felt certain that that song was going to change his life. He looked up at the applauding audience and risked a glance at Carlyle, who was waving him over. This is it. This was the moment where he was seen for what he was supposed to be, and the rest would be history.
Wyatt made his way over to Carlyle. “I’m Wyatt Pope,” he said, extending his hand. He waited to be invited to sit.
Carlyle removed his glasses and did not invite him to sit. “The music sounds good, but you’re not going to make it.” It was now clear that Carlyle had been served someplace else before he made his way here. “The music is good—hell, the song is great—but your voice. It’s just not enough to carry a band, not enough for a solo career. It’s just not strong enough.”
“My voice?” Wyatt was a little stunned.
“Yeah, I feel bad for a guy like you. Probably came out to LA to make it. I’ve been doing this for thirty years, I know a voice that will record. Yours isn’t it. I thought you should know.”
Wyatt had the odd sensation of being able to feel his heart. He stood there, nodding. “Well, if anyone would know, it’s you. Thanks for telling me.”
39
Sam
Sam was accepted at NYU on a day when she was the one to collect the mail from the lobby. She ran up the two flights of stairs to find no one was home. She opened the envelope and laid all of the pages out on the kitchen counter. WELCOME TO NYU! She felt something like relief with a chaser of excitement; something was bubbling up in her and it felt like it might be the future. Welcome to NYU!
She couldn’t wait to tell her parents. They’d be happy she was staying local and thrilled to take advantage of the tuition break that her dad got as a professor. She should call them. Her phone rang in her backpack, as if to answer her question.
It was Wyatt.
God’s messing with me. That was the first thought she had when she saw Wyatt’s name next to a years-old heart emoji pop up on her phone. She hadn’t gotten the green at Fourteenth Street on her way home. She hadn’t done an extra lap in the pool. Of course he would call the exact second she felt like it was possible to move on. It rang three times before she accepted the call.
“Wyatt?”
“Hey.”
She was silent for a second, just letting the sound of his voice land and fill her head.
“Sam?”
“I’m here. Have you been stuck in traffic or something?”
Wyatt let out a little laugh, but it wasn’t the happy laugh she remembered. There was pain to it. “Yeah, it’s been a long time.”
“It’s been twelve months, if you haven’t been keeping track.”