“Juice Newton?” Charlotte asks. “Seriously?”
Marty’s iPod is hardwired to the three little speakers he’s mounted on the deck rail. Besides being a few generations out of date, the poor thing looks like it’s been through a ground war between rival paint manufacturers. But it’s working, and that’s all that matters, as Marty pointed out when she tried, in vain, to scrape some of the paint off the display with her fingernails.
“Hey. Don’t make fun. Some of us enjoyed it when songs had actual lyrics.”
“Not judging. Just surprised, is all.”
It’s a cool, breezy night, more so up here in the hills, but Marty’s stripped down to shorts, tank top, and an apron and put his hair in a ponytail, all so he can withstand the heat of his grill, which looks considerably newer than his iPod.
Maybe it’s the half a beer that’s done it, but she feels truly relaxed for the first time in days. It doesn’t hurt that Luke’s there, doing his level best to make small talk with Marty’s crew. The sight of him down in the driveway with the other guys, out of uniform and in what looks like one of his best dress shirts, has removed the constant replay of their last cruel words from the tape deck in her mind. Now she’s calm enough to notice Marty’s interesting taste in music.
She’s surprised nobody else has said anything. Stevie Nicks, ABBA, even a track or two from the Go-Go’s. And, of course, the song playing now. She hates to stereotype, but the last time she checked, “Angel of the Morning” wasn’t exactly a fan favorite among guys who threw up drywall for a living.
“Take it you’d’ve said something if he’d heard from his brother,” Marty says.
“That’s correct.”
“And I take it you’d’ve said something if he got shitty with you out on PCH earlier.”
“Like I said, he apologized.”
The closing chords of “Angel of the Morning” are replaced by gentle piano and eventually the soft, familiar voice of John Denver. It takes her a second to recognize the specific song, “Sweet Surrender.”
“All right,” Charlotte says. “Where did this music come from, Marty?”
Marty sets his tongs down, wipes his hands on his apron. “Well, if you must know, this was one of your grandmother’s playlists.”
“Gram never had an iPod.”
“That’s right. She had all these on a mixtape, and I made a playlist of ’em after she died.”
“Wow. How come she didn’t play them for me when she was alive?”
“’Cause she didn’t want to make you sad.”
“Sad? Why would they make me sad?
“They were your momma’s favorites. That’s why she made the tape. Back when she was getting sober, she’d listen to it every night before bed. Said it calmed her heart some, especially when she was still jittery from the withdrawals.”
“I see.”
“Dammit. Now I made you sad. Want me to put something else on?”
“No, I’m not sad. It’s nice. Leave it. I just . . .”
“Just what?”
“Do you think we didn’t talk about her as much as we wanted to because we thought we’d have to talk about everything that came after?”
“Your mom, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“I take it your dad didn’t talk about her much?” He flips a steak, his lack of a direct answer an answer in itself.
“Why would he? Weren’t they getting divorced?”
“Meh. It wasn’t the first time she’d walked out on him. They might have patched things up again. For your sake.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Why didn’t you marry my grandmother?”
“Luanne didn’t want to get married.”
“Did you?”
“Nope. It was kinda perfect. When we weren’t rocking each other’s world in the bedroom, we went off and did our own thing. We were married on the weekends, she liked to say. Any more than that and I would’ve gotten in the way of her reading.”
She laughs.
He smiles at the grill. “Has there been anyone, Charley?”
“Anyone what?”
“You know, anyone intimate. Any relationships.” He casts a glance at the driveway. At Luke, she realizes. Maybe he’s trying to assess her vulnerabilities in the area of romance so he can keep Luke from exploiting them.
“I’m not a virgin, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I wasn’t, but OK.”
“No relationships.”
From those two answers, he can probably put two and two together and figure out she lost her virginity to a man she didn’t know all that well.
She can’t even remember the guy’s name; he’d used friendly chitchat and long, inviting stares to pick her up at a rest stop during her grave-site tour. He was handsome enough, but also nervous, a little distracted, and disheveled, like he wasn’t used to picking up strange women in a Denny’s, or he had a life he was obligated to get back to soon, and what he was about to do with her didn’t quite fit. He knew what he was doing, and he’d been patient with her, mixing plenty of casual, relaxing conversation with his slow, studied exploration of her body. More important, there’d been no ring on his finger and no tan line where he might have removed one. Of course, she’d only been able to confirm the second detail after he’d fallen asleep next to her in bed.
Only later did she realize the crazy, reckless irony of going home with a man she’d met in a Denny’s, given her past and the nature of her road trip. That might have been part of why she did it; the combination of being on the road, with her new name and her new wad of cash, made her temporarily fearless. Or maybe her past was exactly why she’d felt safe enough to do it; how often does lightning strike twice in the same place?
“Where’d you go?” Marty asks.
“Sorry.”
“Memories?”
“Something like that.”
“Is it the music? You sure you don’t want me to change it?”
“No. No, not at all.”
“I guess I just thought it would be appropriate.”
“How’s that?”
Marty transfers three of the steaks to an empty plate. Turns to face her again. “Well, she’s why you’re doing it, right? Your mother, I mean. This plan of yours, it’s for her, isn’t it?”
“I guess you could say that.”
“Don’t let me put words in your mouth.”
“No, I just . . . I didn’t think about it that way; that’s all. Is that why you’re gonna help? For my mom?”
Marty eyes the guests chatting in the driveway, making sure they’re out of earshot, she assumes. “Truth be told, I’m helping you because I loved your grandmother more than I loved anyone in the world. I’ve picked people up out of the gutter. But I’ve never seen someone put herself back together the way she did after she lost you two. Now I see more of her in you every day since you came back. So my plan, if you’d like to know, is to do whatever it takes to keep you from going away again. Even if it means hanging out while you make choices that have me messing my shorts like a baby who ate chili.”
Her vision had been starting to get tear blurred right up until Marty got to that last line. Now she’s laughing so hard she’s coughing. She drowns it with a swallow of beer. It empties the bottle.
“Another soda?” she asks.
“Sure thing.”
Inside, she’s got both hands full and is headed for the door when she sees her notebook sitting on Marty’s desk. Foolish of her to leave it out in the open like that, with all the company outside.
During two marathon sessions, she’d managed to pump out about sixty handwritten pages. Some of the memories came out fragmented, more like parts of an outline, and some, like the most recent ones, are crystal clear.
She sets the beer and the soda down next to the love seat, picks up the notebook, and starts scanning the trailer for a secure place to stash it.
Just then the door opens, and there’s Luke.
In the trailer’s harsh overhead light, his jeans look freshly ironed, and she can see she was right: it really is one of his best dress shirts. Navy blue with a red polo pony and white buttons. There’s a spot, right where the top two buttons are undone, that she shouldn’t focus on for too long, a spot that lets her know he keeps his chest hair trimmed to a manicured stubble.
“Howdy,” he says.
“Howdy?”