The Pages We Forget (6 page)

Outside, the rain drizzles and plays pitter-patter on the window. It is music to her ears. Each drop that falls becomes a note in an all too familiar melody, even though ten years and two months have passed since she last heard his song. Ten long years and two months. Time has not healed the hurt.

“Yesterday's songs, some live forever,”
she sings softly.
“Their rhythm and their rhyme, still playing melodies in our minds. A story behind each, of a love we both promised to keep.”

She tries to find solace in the green comforter draped over her bare shoulders by pulling it tighter around her. She hopes that it will hold her together. Keep her from falling apart. But it can't stop her heart from breaking.

“So many, many years of lonely nights filled with tears.”

She remembers kissing his trembling lips. Taking him inside of her. Surrendering.

“Our eyes tell stories,”
her voice wobbles,
“of how we used to be.”

She reaches for him, but his touch, like his tears, stings. Contuses.

“Memories locked inside, never to be free.”

She stares through her tears at the door as it closes behind him.

“And now after all this time, we pass like we've never met. Neither wanting to remember—”

She tries to forget him, to remember this is just a song. The camera zooms in for a close-up as the woebegone look in her eyes betrays her. The dam breaks.

“Neither.”

She's drowning.

“…wanting to remember…”

Not again. Not again. Not again.

“Cut! Cut!” Alex yelled to the thirty crew members working on the music video for the first single and title track of June's new CD,
The Pages We Forget.
One by one, the interchangeable parts that worked together to make the video come to life ceased.

The rain stopped falling outside the inn's window.

Bright incandescent lights replaced the moonless, starless night.

The music faded.

A lingering silence permeated the soundstage at Jam Sessions Studios in downtown Detroit as eyes moved to Alex, the director, wondering what the cause of the shortened take was about.

Alex stared dispassionately at June, who stood frozen on the studio set of the recreated Mildred's Bed and Breakfast. She gazed out the makeshift inn window, hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who walked out of her life ten years ago. Ten years and two months, to be exact. Alex wasn't angry with June, just a little brokenhearted and embarrassed. He was more than aware that the crew had heard and read about their troubled relationship while June was writing and recording the new CD. One tabloid announced
they were getting divorced, even though they were never married. Another, more resourceful publication, reported she was leaving him for another man—her high school sweetheart who was the inspiration for her new CD. While this wasn't true, it wasn't entirely false, either.

The first song came to her in a dream. She had been sleeping soundly that night. In fact, she had gone through the entire day acting like nothing had changed, like Dr. Wylie's verdict had been the one she had graciously anticipated. The staff meeting was ending by the time she and Leatrice made it to White Flowers Entertainment's downtown production offices. However, she did attend the luncheon at the Renaissance Center with Alex, Leatrice, Bernard, in addition to John Madison and Lester Cogdell, both with Dreamland Studios. As she nibbled on a garden salad, she listened attentively to Alex and Bernard outline the revised production schedule for her new film,
For His Love.

“Principal photography will begin in two weeks,” Alex explained, “on location in Southfield. We're going to start shooting the exteriors at Simmie's house and then the Institution and downtown office exteriors. That will give us four full weeks of shooting before Easter.”

“Are you still planning to take a four-day break for Easter?” asked Lester Cogdell, Dreamland Studios' CEO.

“We have to,” Alex answered. “We promised our son we'd spend Easter in Florida at his grandmother's. It's been a while since we all went down together, and I think he'll be glad to get to Florida with all the snow we had here this winter.”

“Junie,” Leatrice whispered so as not to disturb the others' conversation.

June turned to Leatrice.

“Are you okay?”

June nodded and smiled, assuring her friend that everything was fine.

The rest of the day was uneventful, unsullied by the diagnosis. She told Alex that Trevor's teacher had only good things to say about his work. She went ice fishing with Alex and Trevor later that evening, and while hanging out on the frozen lake, she apologized to Alex for her earlier behavior. She was asleep and cuddled in Alex's arms when she finally reacted to the diagnosis. It started when Keith's voice jarred her awake.

“Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie,” she heard him say. He'd whispered those words in her ear one morning as they watched the sun rise through the canopy of oak leaves and limbs that crisscrossed over Bacon Street. Now she was hearing them again. “Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie.”

“What did you mean?” June thought aloud. She rolled over and tried to gather her senses. “Some pages are best left forgotten,” she repeated.

Alex stirred and half-sleepily asked, “Huh?”

June remained motionless, knowing he would fall back to sleep if she stayed quiet. As she waited for Alex to drift off to sleep, she heard Keith say again, “Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie.” June nestled in the sanctuary of Alex's arms, hoping to silence the haunting voice. But the voice would not be stilled. “Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie.”

She had to get up and move before the voice woke Alex. She slowly lifted his arm from across her breast, easing toward the edge of the bed. Alex flung his arm over June's pillow and pulled it close to him. Three deep breaths later, he was sound asleep. June put on her slippers and tiptoed out the room.

The parlor was her special place in the tri-level, five-bedroom, six-bath house she helped design six years ago after her sophomore CD,
Feel My Love,
debuted at number one on the charts. The CD eventually sold more than four million copies. The 6,500-square-foot house, built on a steep grade that dipped downward to the lake, included a state-of-the-art digital recording studio, a giant family room with ten-foot-high pocketing glass doors that opened the room to a wraparound lanai with a pool and spa. There was even a guest cottage. But the parlor, with its high, coffered ceilings, stone arches and columns, was her personal retreat on the ten-acre estate. The dramatic touches, a rich marble fireplace and a flowing furniture arrangement that encircled the modest piano, created a relaxed, inviting ambiance.

Joy was waiting there for her. She closed the parlor door behind her and flipped on the light switch. She turned the dimmer until the artificial light of the crystal chandelier blended harmoniously with the moonlight shining through the half-hexagon of huge bay windows. “Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie,” the voice whispered in her ear as she walked to the center of the spacious room. She pulled the piano stool out and sat down.

“Why do we have to forget?” June asked out loud to the voice in her ear. From where she sat, she could see the tip of the pear-shaped lake, but the dock was slightly out of view. The quarter-moon languished on the lake's round belly. A million twinkling stars, at least, were scattered across the sky. Out of the blue, the brightest star began to dance across the sky. “A shooting star!” June closed her eyes and wished, “Keith.”

She gasped as the line was crossed. She was cheating on Alex. Wishing for Keith wasn't like thinking about him. Rarely a day passed when she didn't find herself thinking about him, or seeing
his eyes in a crowd of admiring strangers, or feeling his presence when there was no one there but her and the memory of a night ten years ago. But since starting this new life with Alex she had not longed for Keith.

“Some pages are best left forgotten,” she said again.

She had forgotten about the morning Keith told her that until a few minutes ago when the words stirred her awake. Now, she remembered that morning vividly.

The dirt was cool and moist from the morning dew. It clung to her bare feet and got stuck between her toes. A sulfur-tinged breeze drifted downward from the hotel grounds at the end of Bacon Street. She heard the Adams' front door close. There he was, trotting down the steps, across the yard, and out to the road. She turned around and pretended not to hear him coming. Without saying a word, Keith walked up behind her, put his arms around her, and joined her silent vigil.

June's fingers found Joy's keys and began playing the melody she heard the redbirds sing that morning.

She was back there, in his arms watching the first ray of sunlight flit across the sky. And the next and the next until shafts of light and darkness entwined like a crocheted tapestry. The light started to play with him. He playfully tried to escape from the light, but it bended and followed him. Flirted with him. Caressed the despondent frown from his face. He tried not to, but he couldn't hold it in. He giggled. He laughed out loud. She laughed, too.

“I wish you could see your face,” she told him.

“Why? What's wrong with it?”

“Nothing,” she answered, walking up to him. “Except, you're smiling and laughing. You know, the way you used to.”

He coerced another smile. “I guess I'm smiling because we'll be
leaving here in exactly two months. Can you believe it? In two months, we'll be leaving for college.”

“And I can't wait,” she said. “But I already know that I'm going to be homesick the day after we leave.”

“Not me,” he disagreed.

“You think that now, but wait until you leave.”

“Believe me, Junie, I won't miss this place. As soon as I leave, Hampton Springs is history. Forgotten.”

“How are you going to do that when our folks live here?”

“We'll come back from time to time to visit Mom, Dad, Mrs. Thomas and some of the others, but that's it. We'll never come back to live.”

“Have you forgotten that you're next in line to be pastor of Mt. Nebo?”

“They'll find someone else when the time comes.”

“I hear you talking.” She touched his face and stared into his melancholy orbs as the sun rose. “We're about to start a new chapter of our life, but there's no way I'm ever going to forget this place or our lives here. You won't forget either. Why would you even want to forget?” She closed her eyes and waited to hear the voice in the silence.

That's when he whispered, “Some pages are best left forgotten, Junie.”

June repeated the words Keith whispered in her ear as she recreated the melody of the redbirds. “Some pages are best left forgotten,” she repeated. Then she sang the words. “Some page. Some pages are best left forgotten.” There was something lyrical in his words. “Some pages are best forgotten.” She improvised the words, replaying them like a broken record in the recesses of her mind. “Some pages we forget.”

June stared out of the window as she continued playing the piano. “The pages we forget,” she improvised. “The pages we forget.” She stopped singing and listened attentively to the tune she was playing on Joy.
There's a song here,
she thought.
It's an old, familiar song that, upon hearing years later, you can sing every word and articulate each note like you heard it the day before.

“Yesterday's songs, some live forever,” she sang in a falsetto voice that flowed deliberately like molasses. “Their rhythm and their rhyme, still playing melodies in our minds.” The lyrics seemed to come out of nowhere. “A story behind each, of a life.” She paused. “Of a love we both promised to keep.”

June had no idea Alex was standing outside the door listening. He'd woken up and realized his arms and bed were empty. Since it was too early for her to be out at the dock, he knew where to find her. But he didn't expect to come down to the parlor and hear her composing this yearning ode.

“So many, many years, of lonely nights filled with tears,” she sang.

Alex reached for the doorknob but suddenly pulled back. He needed to hear more. Maybe, he figured, it was only a song that popped up in her head and nothing more.

She toyed with a line of lyrics that would become part of the song's chorus. “In our eyes, there's a story,” she sang, pausing for a moment as she shook her head. “They tell stories of what?” she asked herself. “They tell stories about our love. No. That doesn't sound right. They tell stories of how we used to be.”

June played the notes of the chorus and sang, “Our eyes tell stories of how we used to be.” She paused again. “There are memories locked inside. Memories locked inside. Memories locked inside never to be free.” She started at the beginning of the chorus. “Our eyes tell stories,” she sang, “of how we used to be. Memories locked inside, never to be free.”

June wasn't a songwriter, he was. As Alex listened, he slowly came to the realization that what he was listening to wasn't simply a song. It was too passionate. Too heartfelt. Too true. The lyrics and the music were coming from somewhere deeply personal and private.

“And now, after all we've shared,” June continued singing. “We, we, we pass like we've never met. Neither wanting to remember, the pages we forget.”

Alex couldn't stand to hear anymore, so he turned and walked upstairs, climbed back into bed, and tried to force himself to sleep. Two hours later, as soon as he'd dozed off, he heard June come into the room. He pretended to be asleep but lay watching as she walked into the closet and got dressed. She turned off the closet light and tiptoed out the room. When Alex heard the bedroom door close, he rolled over and looked at the alarm clock, which signaled morning was approaching. He turned the clock off and pulled the covers over his head.