Broken Wings (9 page)

A part of me was disappointed in myself. When I had learned the facts of life, I used to fantasize my first lovemaking. It was always on some glamorous island during a wonderful honeymoon with music in the background and stars blazing above. Instead, here I was in some thrown-together, makeshift, dingy one-room apartment on a sofa that could have been rescued from a junkyard, both Keefer and I tasting the beer on our lips.

There were no shooting stars, no tinkling bells, no angels with magic wands around us. I was uncomfortable with my excitement, sensitive and nervous, moaning under his pleading to relax. Instead of being as soft and downy as a cloud, I was a tightening guitar string, stretched to the point of breaking, every nerve in my body cracking and snapping like a shorted electric wire.

“It gets better,” Keefer assured me when we were finished. He lay there, catching his breath, his head against my naked breast, listening to the thumping of my heart. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” I managed.

He lifted his head and kissed each of my nipples before pushing himself away.

“Be right back,” he said, and went to the bathroom.

I sat up and began to dress. When he came out, we heard the phone ringing in the shop.

“Who the hell is that?” he wondered aloud. “Be right back,” he said, and went to the door that opened on the shop.

I continued to dress.

“Got a message for you,” he said, returning. “That was Kathy Ann. She says your ‘sister’ called and said she was calling back in fifteen minutes and if you weren’t there to answer, she was going to call the police herself and report you.”

“She would, too, I bet,” I moaned.

“C’mon,” he said. “I can get you back there in fifteen minutes.”

He pulled on his jeans, slipped into his shoes, and grabbed his shirt as we started out.

“Hold on,” he told me after starting the engine. I had barely closed the door.

The rear wheels spun and kicked up gravel, and then he turned sharply into the street and accelerated. He wove in and out of traffic, cutting someone off at one point. The driver leaned on his horn. Keefer laughed and just accelerated again, turning abruptly down a side street.

“I know a little shortcut,” he said, gunning the engine.

He went through a stop sign and then made some sharp turns again, throwing me from one side of the seat to another. I screamed and he laughed. I couldn’t remember feeling more excited and afraid at the same time. Then, when he made a final turn into the street I knew brought us to my apartment complex, he side-swiped a small sedan we passed.

“Damn,” he yelled. “I ain’t stoppin‘. I’m not supposed to be drivin’ this truck. Izzy will throw me out.”

The driver of the car laid on his horn and followed us as best he could, but Keefer outran him and then bounced into the parking lot of my complex. I caught my breath, not knowing whether to cry or laugh.

“Get movin‘,” he ordered.

I jumped out of the truck and ran up the stairs. Just as I reached the apartment door, I heard the phone ringing inside. I threw it open and charged in. Kathy Ann had just picked up the phone.

“Here she is,” she said, a look of shock and surprise on her face.

I swallowed down a throat lump that would choke a horse, and as calmly as I could manage, said, “Hello.”

“What’s wrong with you now?” Mother darling asked.

“I think the Chinese food was bad.”

“It didn’t bother Cory or me.”

“Maybe I just had a nervous stomach.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re listenin‘ to me for once at least. We’re doin’ real well here. The owner knows people who he says he’s goin‘ to invite to hear us now that he has heard us more, especially me. I really think I’m goin’ to make it, Robin.”

“Good for you, Mother darling.”

She was quiet.

“I was hopin‘ you’d change your tone and your ways.”

“I am,” I said. “That’s a promise.”

“Okay, Robin. I’ll see you later.”

“I’ll be asleep, I’m sure,” I said, and hung up.

Keefer was standing in the doorway. I nodded, and then I laughed and he laughed.

“How’d you get here so fast?” Kathy Ann asked.

“We took the bus,” he said.

“The bus?” She looked at me and then at him. “You liars.”

We laughed again, and then Keefer heard something and turned to look down at the parking lot.

“Oh, no,” he said.

I stepped forward and looked down with him. There was a Nashville police car, its bubble light going, parked right behind Keefer’s boss’s truck. The two policemen got out, and one directed a large flashlight at the right front area of the truck. The other turned and looked up, so we backed into the apartment and closed the door quickly.

“What’s happening?” Kathy Ann asked.

“Shut up,” Keefer said. “Put out the lights, quick.”

“Why?”

“Just do it,” he said, and she and I went to every lamp and switch and turned off the lights.

We stood waiting, no one speaking, but the sound of my breathing and Keefer’s loud enough for us all to hear. Moments later, we heard footsteps on the second-story landing. We held our breath.

“Who is it?” Kathy Ann asked.

“Shut up,” Keefer snapped.

We waited.

There was a very loud rap on the door, a rap made with a police stick for sure, I thought.

“Open up, it’s the police,” we heard.

“Oh, my God,” Kathy Ann whined.

“Jesus,” Keefer said.

“We’re going to have that truck towed and impounded if you don’t open this door,” the policeman threatened.

“Damn it,” Keefer said. “Okay, put on the lights,” he told Kathy Ann. She was too terrified to move, so I did it. Then he opened the door.

“That your truck below?” the policeman asked him immediately.

“No. It belongs to my boss,” Keefer replied.

“Step outside, please,” he said. He looked in at us. “You, too, ladies,” he added.

“Why?” Kathy Ann whined.

The policeman just stepped aside for us to come out and we did. The three of us stood on the landing with both of the police officers.

“You were driving that truck a few minutes ago, then?”

“Yes,” Keefer said.

“Which one of you was in the truck? C’mon,” he said, “the man lodging the complaint saw two people.”

Kathy Ann was actually trembling.

“I was,” I confessed.

“You know it is a serious offense to leave the scene of an accident?” he asked Keefer.

“What accident?”

He smiled.

“You’re not going to stand there and tell us you don’t remember hitting another vehicle, are you? The other vehicle’s paint is on the truck.”

Keefer looked at me.

“I told you I thought I might have hit something,” he said.

“I didn’t think you had,” I said.

The two policemen stared at us a moment.

“Let me see your license,” the first policeman asked Keefer. He took out his wallet and produced it.

“This your apartment?” he asked Keefer.

“No.”

“Whose is it then?”

“My sister’s music partner,” I said. “We’re living here temporarily.”

“Where are your parents?”

“They’re dead,” I said, glancing at Keefer, who tried to hide his eyes.

“And where is your sister now?”

“She’s performing at a dance club.”

“What’s the occupant’s name?” the second policeman asked.

“Cory Lewis,” I said. I could feel cold tears coming into my eyes.

“And your name, miss?”

“Robin Taylor.”

“All right. For now, we’ll take Mr. Dawson here and you, Miss Taylor, to the police station.”

“Can I bring the truck back?” Keefer asked.

“Not until the matter is settled,” the policeman said.

“Well, why do you have to take her, too? I’m the one who was driving,” he said.

“Procedure,” the policeman replied. “She was a witness to the events. Maybe next time you’ll think about all the ramifications that occur when you break the law. Let’s go,” he said. Then he paused. “How old are you, miss?”

“I’m sixteen,” I said.

The second policeman took his cell phone off his belt.

“Where is your sister performing?”

I started to speak and then realized I didn’t know. I really didn’t know. They never had told me.

“I don’t know,” I said. “She forgot to tell me.”

“I would think,” the first policeman said, “that you would have realized by now how serious this situation is.”

“I’m telling you the truth.” I turned to Kathy Ann. “Did she tell you where she was working when she called earlier?”

She shook her head like someone who was incapable of speech.

“All right, come along,” the policeman said.

Kathy Ann remained in the doorway.

“What should I do?” she called after us.

“Go home,” the policeman told her.

She nodded and quickly closed the door behind her. She remained far behind us as we walked down to the parking lot.

“I won’t go anywhere,” Keefer told the first policeman. “At least let me take the truck back.”

“You can do that later if you’re not incarcerated,” he said.

They put us into the patrol car. This was the second time within a twenty-four-hour period that I had been in a Nashville police car. The fact didn’t escape me, nor would it escape Mother darling when she found out.

At the police station, Keefer confronted the owner of the vehicle he had hit. He was a short, plump man, a chef in one of the local restaurants. Keefer apologized and told him he was an auto body repairman and he would fix whatever damage he had done.

“I’ll get on it immediately,” he promised. He explained we were in a big rush, and he apologized again.

In the end he decided not to press charges against Keefer. We were there almost two and a half hours. I saw the policeman who had been talking to Mother darling and Cory. He looked at me for a long moment, went to the desk sergeant to find out what it was all about, and then shook his head and left.

The police brought us back to the apartment complex so Keefer could get his boss’s truck. It was nearly two-thirty in the morning.

“You’d better keep your nose clean,” the policeman told him when we got out.

We watched the patrol car leave.

“Sorry about all this,” Keefer said. “Trouble just seems to enjoy my company.”

“It was my fault. If you didn’t have to rush me home, you wouldn’t have hit that car.”

He shrugged.

“I guess we’re both good and screwed up,” he said. “You were right. We’re a pair.”

We looked at each other and laughed. It was more a laugh of relief than anything else, but it felt good, and then we embraced and I started up to the apartment. I glanced at Kathy Ann’s apartment and saw the lights were all out. At least she wasn’t hovering at the front window this time, I thought.

As quickly as I could, I undressed and got into bed. Despite all the excitement, I was so exhausted, I fell into a deep sleep, almost a coma, moments after my head hit the pillow. I’ll worry about everything tomorrow, I told myself. I’ll be Scarlett O’Hara in
Gone with the Wind
.

But I wasn’t that lucky. My life was a totally different movie.

A little after four in the morning, Mother darling threw open my bedroom door and screamed my name so loud, she surely woke everyone in the entire apartment complex.

I groaned and reluctantly forced my eyes to open. She was at the foot of the bed.

“Tell me it’s a lie. Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me they made a mistake and thought you were someone else.”

“It’s a lie. It isn’t true. They made a mistake,” I said, and dropped my head back to the pillow.

“You ain’t gonna be able to do this, Kay,” Cory said from behind. “You can’t concentrate on making music, writing new songs, getting better and better if you have that lead weight around your neck.”

“I know,” she said sadly. I heard her sniff back some tears, but I kept my eyes closed and pretended I had fallen asleep again. “Let me think on it,” she told him. “You’re impossible, Robin Lyn,” she threw back at me, and then she left and closed the door.

I slept into the next day almost as long as they did. I had just made some coffee and was sitting and sipping it in the kitchen when Mother darling shuffled in, her hair wild, her eyes bloodshot.

“I didn’t sleep much last night, Robin.” She poured herself a cup of coffee and looked at me. I was staring down at my own coffee cup. “Talk,” she said. “Cory’s policeman friend told us you were brought to the station, that you were involved in a hit-and-run accident. How could you be? I spoke to you here, didn’t I? Well?”

“I went for a ride earlier,” I said, “and we hit a car and didn’t realize it was serious.”

“Who’s we? Who was drivin‘?”

“A friend of mine,” I said.

“How can you have so many friends so fast?” she asked.

I looked up.

“I guess I’m a naturally sociable person. Look, nothing happened. My friend is taking care of it all. No one was arrested. It was all settled.”

“But didn’t I tell you not to leave the apartment?”

“I can’t stay cooped up in here. It’s too small. The television set hardly gets anything. I hate it here!” I screamed.

“I really don’t know what to do with you,” she said.

“Trade me in for a new guitar,” I shot back.

“Sometimes, I wish I could,” she said.

“I always wish you could.”

I got up and went back to the bedroom. I heard her bring Cory a cup of coffee.

“She’s just a spoiled brat,” I heard him tell her.

Yes, I’m a spoiled brat, I thought. I’m spoiled because I don’t have any real parents or a real home or a real family. I’m spoiled because my mother sees me as a burden, and always did. I’m spoiled because my grandpa thought I had inherited sin. I’m so spoiled the angels close their eyes when they fly near me.

Later that afternoon, Keefer called.

“How are things?” he asked.

“Status quo. I’m as unwanted as ever, maybe a little more than ever.”

“You won’t believe it, but this guy I hit is my new best friend. I told him I would take out all of his dents and nicks and make his car look new. Izzy wasn’t happy, but I can fix that too, and since it didn’t cost him anything, he’s just a little upset. He knows he’s getting a day and a half and sometimes two days’ work out of me a day, and for what he pays me, he’s not about to throw me out. I’ll be leaving under my own steam,” Keefer vowed.