Paradise (26 page)

Uncle L. V. didn’t believe in bottled water. He handed me a jug with ice cubes swishing around the inside. I turned it up and gulped down a swig.

I set out, turning the crank and spinning seed across the tilled field. Uncle L. V. trailed behind me—half of a seed sack in one hand, the water jug in the other. Walking over the turned-up soil took balance and it took a rhythm. A step-sink, step-sink. A little like walking on a boat. I stepped in time, up and down, back around until L. V. stopped me. I’d sown half the section.

The sun beat down on us. He pitched me the jug.

“I am sorry about your pasture.”

Uncle L. V. took off his sombrero and fanned us up a breeze. “Clover’s not coming back, Paisley.”

I started to cry. I didn’t want to. I just couldn’t stop. I didn’t know when the crying would ever stop.

“But this pasture is still here. It’s strong. It’s healthy. I can have Bermuda in June. Oats for the deer in fall.” He dumped the rest of the seed in the spreader.

I turned the crank and started walking. Step, sink. Step, sink. Paradise was gone. I tried to remember the smell of his shirt, the way his hair curled with just a mist of sweat, the pillowy softness of his lips. Remembering was like trying to catch leaves in the fall. The moment I reached for it, to hold, the instant it drifted.

I scattered the seed over the ground. We’d made round after round on into the afternoon when Waylon’s Camaro bounced over the cattle guard. Levi in his truck and Cal riding shotgun followed behind Waylon. The pipes from Levi’s truck rumbled as he switched gears on his way up the hill to the hangar.

L. V. didn’t look surprised. He knew they were coming. He probably called them.

“I can’t go,” I told L. V. “It doesn’t seem right. It hurts too much.”

L. V. lifted the spreader off my shoulders and laid it on the ground. “You’ve still got dreams and a future. You’re the same drummer you’ve always been.” He shaded us with his sombrero. “That all-girl band from Austin even called your momma. They want a new drummer.”

I took the gloves off and wiped my cheek. “I bet it took her all of three seconds to hang up on them.”

“Actually, Jack said she stayed on the line for a good minute. Then she said
no.
”

Any other time and I’d have milked goats to get to drum for a band like that. I would’ve been furious with Mother.

When the boys rolled the hangar doors open, the grating
dit-dit-dit-dit-dit
echoed across the pasture.

I had no desire to be part of another band.

L. V. kicked some dirt over the seed. “I’ll drag this over and finish for you. When you get to the hangar, you’ll find something on your snare.” He scratched his belly. “Your boy’s grandfather brought it by. Said he wanted you to have it.”

41

FINDING THE GROOVE

From outside the hangar, I could hear Waylon trying new chords on his Strat. He knew how to bend a string until a tear fell out.

My boots clapped across the concrete as I moved toward the drums.

Waylon stopped playing.

Levi twirled his hat on the end of one of my drumsticks. “How are your legs?”

“Better,” I said, walking slowly toward my drum kit.

Resting across the snare was a stick a few inches longer than my drumstick. It looked like a trimmed pole of pure Louisiana sugar cane. The
guacharaca.
Beside it was a forklike thing with metal tines and a wooden handle. If I hadn’t known better, I would’ve thought it was one of Lacey’s hair picks.

But I knew better.

And I knew the reason it belonged to me was because I could play it with a broken heart.
Congratulations to me.
The
guacharaca
felt more like a cruel punishment than a present.

I picked it up anyway. It was the first instrument I had held in my hands in days.

The boys watched me and I wondered if they knew what it was, what it meant.

I traced the wood with my finger first. It was smooth except for the notched ridges scarred into the sides. I dragged the wire fork down the stick and back.
Scritch-scratch. Scritch-scratch.

“Paisley.” Waylon stood beside me with one of his band notebooks. “We’ve been working on some new material,” he explained. “We called you, but Lacey kept telling us…”

I held my palm up and closed my eyes. I did not want to hear his rundown of why I hadn’t taken their calls. I lived it.

Levi stretched his arm out. “I’m gonna play with y’all until you find another bass player or I head off to summer workouts.”

That wasn’t new information. “What you really mean is that you’re giving us a sympathy pass and not walking out right now because Paradise is gone and that would be two holes to fill.” I scraped the stick some more.

“We all hurt, Paisley.” Levi put his hat on his head and handed me my drumstick. “You don’t have the lockdown on that.”

I put the drumstick down and rolled the
guacharaca
over the tops of my legs. I ran my finger along the ridges. “I don’t have it in me to play right now.”

“Play when you heal.” Waylon sat on a stool and thumbed a string. “Or play to heal.” He picked a chorus of chords out of the Strat.

Cal’s Gibson was still in its case. Cal sat in a chair with his head tossed back and stared at the rafters. He thumped his spiral with his pencil. I’d heard his songs after he and Waylon added the melodies. I’d even seen them writing together.

Levi and Waylon tinkered on their guitars. With the
guacharaca
in my hand, I knelt beside Cal. His spiral open to a page with just the words
Until Then
.

I borrowed his pencil and his spiral. He leaned down to help me.

CAL’S LYRIC JOURNAL

(with Paisley)

Now you’re gone

I’m done

I’m long gone, ripped apart, a wildflower in the wind.

Someday there’s hope

I know

It’ll find me one day soon and I’ll stand strong once again.

I’ll be able to stand the wind.

Until then

42

DON’T STOP

Lacey layered herself in perfume that smelled remarkably like Mother’s pound cake. She showered with the gel, buttered herself up with a creamy lotion in the same scent, powdered any of her parts that might sweat, then finished it all off with a spritzing of eau de vanilla.

She’d never had an official date before.

From the smell of things, Lacey apparently thought the way to Levi’s heart was through his stomach.

“You smell good enough to eat.” I sat on her bed feeling hungry. “I hope you don’t draw flies.”

“That would be plain awful.” Lacey tied her halter dress at the neck and turned around. “Am I even?” She looked down at her cleavage.

“No wonky boobs.” I watched her smooth her dress and step into her heels.

“Remember those matching halter dresses we wore at Easter?” Lacey giggled. “They were those Easter egg colors and Gabri…” Her voice trailed off. “Sorry.”

I shook my head and picked at the embroidery on her pillow. “It happens.” And it did. Weeks had gone by but the mention of his name was like pulling a scab off a wound and the bleeding starting all over again.

“I could stay home with you tonight.” Lacey sat beside me.

I laughed out loud. Couldn’t keep from it. “OK, you do that.”

“All right, I’m not about to stay here.” Lacey grabbed her phone and put it in a small beaded handbag that she’d lifted from Mother’s closet. “But you can call me and I’ll talk to you.”

“That’s comforting.” I held on to the pillow, my fingers tapped out a one-two-three, one-two-three beat against the soft back.

The doorbell rang.

“Levi,” Lacey squeaked. “You gotta beat Mother to the door!” She shoved me out of her room.

Lacey didn’t have to worry about me beating Mother to the door. Mother sat in the living room BeDazzling the pocket on a pair of her jeans. Dad answered the door.

“Paisley.” Levi nodded and spoke to me as if we had no history. I could’ve tap-danced on his starched shirt, and he had on nice boots. But I’d bet a hundred bucks his baseball cap was on his truck dash and would be on his head before he and Lacey made it down the drive.

Levi presented Mother with a bottle of wine. The label on it read,
TUCKER VINEYARDS.
“That’s our best stock.”

Mother held the bottle by the neck. “I’m sure it is.”

Levi tried to make conversation. “My mom thought you’d like the red more than the white. She said she remembered when y’all were younger that you liked drinks with color more.”

Dad faked a cough.

I remembered the Purple Jesus punch that Paradise warned me about at the Tucker Barn. And I remembered how he touched my face in the rain.

“That’s very considerate.” Mother smiled with her lips together like the Grinch’s. “I’m glad to know her memory survived her youth.”

The sweet smell of vanilla drifted into the living room and Lacey followed behind it. Not a hair out of place. She was perfect. Like a porcelain doll.

Levi took her hand, kissed her cheek. “You”—he caught his breath—“you look beautiful.”

Lacey rose up on her tiptoes as if she’d burst into flight. Mother held the wine bottle like Dad would hold a hammer. He pulled Mother to him, nuzzled her neck, and took the bottle away from her.

And all I wanted to do was go to Moon Lake and dance one more time.

When they left, Mother uncorked the Tucker wine. “God, if this kills me, don’t let L. V. convince y’all to bury me in the peach orchard. And I don’t want the Slider Brothers playing at my funeral.” Mother winced like she’d stepped on a rusty nail. “I’m sorry, Paisley.”

“Please don’t apologize every time you talk about death.” I wondered when the sorrys would stop. If they ever would. I wanted to be able to remember Paradise without the memory always being punctuated by a sad-faced oopsie.

Mother mumbled to herself about Levi and Lacey and dating.

“If you hate Lacey going out with Levi so much, why’d you let her go?”

She looked at Dad. “Because regret is a hard thing to live with. That’s why.” She poured the wine in a glass and sniffed it. “I regret a lot of my choices, but not the big ones. I absolutely do not regret loving your dad or you girls.” Mother sipped the wine as if it were vinegar and pushed it away.

“She regrets not following through with her dream,” Dad spoke up. “She wanted to be a chef. And she could’ve done it too, but she put it all on the back burner for us.”

“Jack, stop.” Mother fidgeted.

“And your Texapalooza stunt got me to thinking.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his wallet. “Lacey and I figured up the cost of her beauty school plus her community college tuition. Those folks at the Bible college appreciated the fancy food we catered.” Dad handed the paper to Mother. “They said they’d pay for you to cater their monthly concert.” He pointed. “The figure at the top is Lacey’s school. The figure in the middle is what Lacey told them you’d charge.”

“My gosh.” Mother’s eyes widened. “That’s high.”

I peeked. “Wow. That’s a Lacey number all right.”

“You’re worth that and more,” Dad said.

Mother moved her rhinestones and BeDazzler to the floor. “What’s this number at the bottom?”

“That’s the estimate on a kitchen renovation that I’m paying for, and you’ll need in order to get your catering company off the ground.”

Mother shook her head. “I can’t. The girls.”

“They’re growing up. You’ve always wanted to do this and the money can help pay for their school. I know you can be great.” Dad wound his arm around himself, rubbed his shoulder. “No excuses about Prosper County being too small or Dripping Springs being in the middle of nowhere. This is your time.”

Mother clutched the paper to her chest. Her face lit up with possibilities that she’d pushed down for years and years.

I had my drumsticks in my back pocket. Even though I hadn’t played in weeks, I kept them close because I was too afraid to put them down. Scared I’d never pick them back up.

I pulled them out. Gripped them.

Outside, the days were longer, and it was still plenty light in the west.

I called Waylon and Cal to meet me at the hangar. Cal answered the phone like I hadn’t talked to him in a year. “Hey, girl. It’s been a long time,” he said.

I set out. For the hangar. For the drums. For whatever the future held. Texapalooza wasn’t the dream come true; it was the dream taking off.