Days Like This (39 page)

“And now, of course, we’re
ancient.”

“Sometimes I feel like it.  Danny
thought we were nuts.”

“We weren’t nuts.  Running the
kitchen light late at night was the only way, short of a whip and a chair, that
I could keep the roaches at bay.  And you could never resist the siren call of
fudge ripple.”

“I still can’t.  I’ll never
forget you screaming bloody murder the first time you turned on the kitchen
light and those damn roaches ran for cover.”

“I’d never seen anything like
them before.  They were arrogant little monsters.  Fearless.  While I, on the
other hand, was quaking in my shoes.”

“But after a while, you learned
to peacefully coexist.  You’d just swat ‘em out of the way and keep on with
whatever you were doing.  So I’d say you were equally fearless.  Those were the
glory days, weren’t they?”

“Bite your tongue, MacKenzie. 
Those were the nightmare days.”

“I guess conditions were a
little, ah…primitive…for a while there.”

“That’s a very generous
depiction.”

They both focused on the ice
cream for a while.  Eventually, she said, “For such a long time, you were the
only good thing in my life.”

He reached across the table and
took her hand in his.  They threaded fingers together and, ignoring the ice
cream, studied each other while two decades of history hovered in the air between
them.  Eventually, he said, “That was a whole other lifetime.  We’re not the
same people we were then.”

“But it’s still there.  And so
are those two ridiculously young people.  In here.”  She touched her head. 
Then her chest, just above her heart.  “And here.”  Studying his face, she
said, “Don’t you believe that everything you go through, the good and the bad,
shapes the person you become?”

“Of course.  But I’m not a
fatalist.  Our history doesn’t have to become our destiny.”

“Neither am I.  I believe in free
will.  But it’s all still there.  Everything we’ve done and been and felt.  The
loves, the losses, the regrets.  The victories, the achievements, the moments
that we knew were significant just by the way they felt.  The people we built
connections with.  It’s all still inside somewhere.”

“Are we feeling particularly
maudlin tonight?”

“Not maudlin.  Maybe just a
little nostalgic, hearing you talking about old age and infirmity.”

“Hey, watch it there, missy.  I
didn’t say a thing about infirmity.”

“Can I say something you’ll
probably think is silly and totally unnecessary?”

“What?”

“Thank you.”

He lifted their joined hands to
his mouth and kissed her knuckles, tangled with his.  “For what?”

“For being my friend.  For
keeping me upright and breathing during the times when things got so awful.  If
I live to be a thousand years old, there’s no way I’ll ever be able to repay
you for everything you did for me.”

His eyebrows drew together in a
thunderous expression.  “Do I look like I’m expecting payment?  That road runs
both ways.  What’s this about?”

“I don’t really know.  Maybe you’re
right.  Maybe I am feeling maudlin tonight.  It’s just that every so often, it
hits me.  Everything we went through.  Sometimes it’s hard to believe that was
really me, living that life, when I look around me and see the amazingly normal
life we live now.  And I realize how much I took you for granted.  You were
just there, a part of my life, someone I loved so much, and I never stopped to
think about it.  I simply forged ahead, on fast-forward, without taking time to
examine our relationship.  But I realize now that if you hadn’t been there, I
never would have survived.  You were my lifeline, for so many years that I’ve
lost count.  I want to thank you for that.  And say how sorry I am that it took
me so many years to realize how important you were to me.”

“Would you do it all over again,”
he said, “knowing what you know now?”

“In a heartbeat.  What does that
say about me?”

“The same thing it says about me,
because I’d do it over again, too, just as long as you were there.  You may not
realize it, but you kept me going, too.  When I was nineteen, I hitched my
wagon to a star.  His name was Danny Fiore, and I stuck with him until he
burned out.  I’m not sure I would’ve hung around so long if you hadn’t been
there.  You made it all worthwhile.”

“We really built something big,
didn’t we?  The three of us?”

“We did.  Sometimes when I’m up
on stage, playing, I automatically look to my left, expecting to see him
standing in the spotlight.  My front man, strutting and singing and making all
the women cry.  And then I realize he’s not there, and he’ll never be there
again, and I’m the guy up front now.  It’s humbling, and terrifying, and
sometimes it breaks my heart.”

She touched his cheek tenderly.  “This
has nothing to do with how I feel about you.  But sometimes now, my life feels
a little like a table with only three legs.  Lopsided and wobbly.  There were
three of us, for years and years and years, and now there are just two of us,
and it feels so strange.  He was larger than life, and it’s impossible to fill
the gaping hole he left behind.”

He toyed with her fingers, kissed
them, and said with grave solemnity, “We are two seriously fucked-up
individuals.”

And she laughed.  “If I’d met you
only yesterday, I’d love you anyway, just because you make me laugh, and it
feels so good to laugh.  For a long time, I didn’t have much to laugh about.”

“I live to make you laugh.  I
thought you knew that.”

“I do know that.  Thank you. 
From the bottom of my heart.”

“You’re welcome.  From the bottom
of mine.”  He squeezed her hand, then glanced down at the ceramic bowl that sat
on the table between them. “Looks like the fudge ripple is a lost cause.”

She studied the shapeless, soupy
mess and said, “I could always find a couple of straws and we could drink it.”

“Forget the straws.  Let’s find a
couple of pillows instead, pop in a movie, and we can cuddle on the couch and
watch it while we wait for our kid to get home.”

“Your singing,” Mikey said. 
“It’s just amazing.  You do realize you have to do something with it?”

Flattered, she said, “I guess.”

“No,” he said.  “I’m serious. 
Singing is what you’re meant to do.  You have to promise me that you’ll do
something with it.”

Something about his words made
her uneasy.  “Okay.”

They drove for a while in
silence.  Until she realized they were going the wrong way.  “This isn’t the
road to Farmington,” she said.

“No.”

She studied his profile, that
beautiful profile, that face that could make her palms sweat and her stomach
clench into a hard ball.  “What’s wrong?” she said.

He didn’t answer.  Instead, he
clicked on his blinker and took a left onto a dirt road.  It ended in a small
gravel parking lot beside a pristine lake that shimmered in the moonlight. 
Mikey crammed the shifter into Park.  Turned off the engine.  And said, “We
have to talk.”

Her insides crumpled like a piece
of discarded aluminum foil.  “Oh, shit,” she said.  “You’re getting ready to
break my heart, aren’t you?”

Mikey glanced at her, then looked
quickly away, out over the lake.  “I shouldn’t have let this go as far as it
did.  I didn’t intend to.  It just sort of…happened.”

“I don’t understand.”

“This can’t happen,” he said. 
“You and me.  It can’t happen.”

“But I thought—”  She broke off,
puzzled, bewildered.  Hurt.

“It’s the timing.  It’s all
wrong.  I’m graduating in June.  I did high school in three years, Paige.  And
I’m not going to Farmington.”

She tried to breathe, but wasn’t
sure her lungs would allow it.  “Where are you going?”

“I applied to Stanford.  I’ve
been accepted.”

“Stanford,” she said blankly. 
“Where’s Stanford?”

“Northern California.  Near San
Francisco.  Dad doesn’t know yet.  Remember when I said I wanted to load a
suitcase in my truck and just head west?  That’s what I’m doing.  Right after
graduation.  I’m spending the summer on the road before I start school in the
fall.”

“What does that have to do with
us?”

He was silent for a long time. 
“I think about you,” he said quietly, gripping the steering wheel.  “Did you
know that?  I think about you all the time.  And a lot of those thoughts—let’s
just say they’re not exactly G-rated.  But you’re fifteen.  Your father would
kill me if I laid a finger on you.  He’d kill me if he knew what I was
thinking.  And I wouldn’t blame him.  He’s a good dad.  A good man.  I respect
him a lot.”  He finally looked at her, a glimmer in his eyes that might or
might not be tears.  “But I don’t think I can be with his daughter,” he said,
“I don’t think I can be with you, without touching you.”

“I’m not like other girls,” she
said. 

“No kidding.”

“I don’t play games.  I don’t
lie.  I tell it like it is.  If I want to be with a guy, I’ll be with him, and
I won’t worry about the consequences.”

“I know.  You’re so brave, the
bravest girl I’ve ever known.  But the consequences are still real.  You can
ignore them all you want, but that won’t make them go away.”

She tried to make sense of his
words, tried to find a way to spin them that wouldn’t feel like he’d just
driven a knife into her gut.  But no matter how she spun it, that knife was
still there, buried to the hilt.

“Look,” he said, “if you were
older, I’d take you with me when I leave.  But you’re not.  You’ll still have
two years of high school ahead of you.  I wish things could be different.  I
really, really wish they could be different.  But they can’t.”

“So that’s it?” she said.

“If it’ll help, I’ll stay away
from the family get-togethers from now on.  I can find somewhere else to be on
Saturday nights.”

“It’s your family,” she said. 
“Far be it from me to tear you away from their collective bosom.  You can have
custody of Saturday nights.  I’ll just stay home with Leroy and watch Channel
6.”

“It’s your family, too.”

“Right.  You can take me home
now.  You’ve said what you had to say.”

“Don’t be mad at me.  Please,
Paige.  I’m so sorry.”

She took a last long look at that
face.  Imprinted it on her brain so she’d never forget.  Allowed herself to
feel the pain of his betrayal.  Took a deep, shuddering breath. 

And said, “Fuck you.”

***

When she came into the kitchen,
her father was sitting at the table, cup of tea in hand, reading by the light
of a single lamp.  “Why are you still up?” she said.

He closed his book, shoved it
aside.  “I was waiting for you.”

“How come?”

“Funny you should ask.  I hear
it’s what parents do when their kids go out at night.  Cup of tea?”

“Sure.  Why not?  Where’s Casey?”

“She pooped out on me and I sent
her up to bed.”  He got up and turned on the burner under the tea kettle.  Took
a cup from the cupboard and arranged a tea bag in it.  “How was the movie?”

“We never got there.”

He turned, fixed her with a
steady gaze.

“Don’t worry,” she said, “I
didn’t hand over my virtue or anything.”

“Good to know.  So where did you
go?”

“Do we really have to talk about
it?”

He studied her face, apparently
saw something there that deterred him from the standard parental inquisition. 
Said, “Not unless you want to.”  He poured hot water into the cup and carried
it to the table.

Paige swished the tea bag around
in her cup.  “What would your adoring fans think if they saw you drinking tea
like a little old lady?”

“Danny was the one with the
adoring fans.  And you can blame it on Casey.  She’s the one who turned me on
to it.  I introduced her to wine, and she introduced me to tea.”

“You guys are such geeks.  That
sex, drugs, and rock & roll thing?  You skew the stats all to hell.”  She
pulled out the tea bag, set it beside her cup, and took a drink. 

“No flying high on ecstasy and
trashing hotel rooms, you mean?”

“Yeah.  Something like that.” 
She paused to stare into her cup.  Sighed and said, “You two make it look so
easy.”

“Being geeks?”

“Love.”

He took a sip of tea.  “Oh.”

“You’re solid.  A little silly,
but solid.”

Her father shrugged.  “You don’t
understand the hell we went through before we finally found our way to each
other.  What you call silly, we call second chances.”  He picked up his
teaspoon and squeezed his tea bag against the side of his cup.  “But we’re not
bulletproof.  You know that.  Nobody is.”

“Love sucks.”

Her father nodded.  “Sometimes it
does.  And sometimes it’s amazing and wonderful and it takes you to a place you
never knew existed.  When it’s right.”

“So what if you think it’s right,
but the other party doesn’t?”

He seriously considered her
question.  “Then I’d say it’s not right.  Because when it is, you both know
it.  You both feel it.  You both want it.  And just because it’s not right at
this point in time doesn’t mean that couldn’t change in the future.  Look at
Casey and me.  Look at how long it took us to become
us
.  All those
years, it wasn’t right, until one day it was.”

She nodded slowly.  “I suppose it
makes sense, if you look at it that way.”

“If it’s meant to be, that second
chance will come around when you least expect it.  And if it isn’t meant to
be…”  He reached out and chucked her under the chin.  “Then it’ll be right with
somebody else.”

She took a breath and said, “I
didn’t expect it to hurt this much.”

He took her hand in his. 
Squeezed it.  His hand, long-fingered and bony like hers, was warm and
surprisingly comforting.  A tear teased the corner of her eyelid.  She said, “I
don’t want you to feel sorry for me.”