Chapter Eight
There’s a line you read in cheap paperback novels sometimes: silence descended. I always hated that line growing up. It always struck me as lazy writing, as if something as formless as silence as silence could spread itself over a room like a blanket, smothering everyone underneath. That wasn’t a thing that could happen, I thought. A silence was a light, wispy little thing, broken as easily as making a slight cough or dropping a teaspoon into a cup.
Well, once the tinkling of the bell eased up and the door closed behind the woman, silence didn’t descend as much as it crashed to earth with all the grace of an airliner running out of fuel.
The four of us watch the woman as she tap-tap-taps her way along the linoleum towards us, past Jerry and Al, before settling onto the stool next to Hale.
‘Just a coffee, please,’ she says before I have time to ask her what she’ll have. ‘Americano.’ She doesn’t even look at me as she orders; apparently, as the help, I’m below her interest level. As long as a drink appears in front of her, I can’t imagine she cares how it gets there.
I pour her out a cup of black coffee, and she roundly ignores me as she takes a sip. At least she has enough class not to complain, but I can tell it’s she’s struggling: her perfect face cracks into an almost-imperceptible grimace as the hot liquid hits her tongue.
I know how she feels.
She couldn’t have looked more like a woman from Away if she tried, but she moves as if she owns the place. It’s as though the Red Rose Diner is her own private playground – no, not just that. I don’t think there’s anything special about my little diner in her eyes. I’m pretty sure she acts like that no matter where she is, from Park Avenue to… well, I’d say the most blue-collar place I could think of, but I couldn’t imagine her willingly setting foot anywhere that didn’t have a doorman, a Maître d’ or a concierge service.
She’s slumming it right now, at least in her mind, and we both know it – but she’s here for one reason and one reason only.
‘Aren’t you going to say hello?’ she asks Hale.
‘Meredith –’ he says, but she cuts him off with a single raised finger.
‘Oh, don’t you even start,’ she says. ‘Meredith indeed. Is that really how you plan on greeting me? After I’ve spent two bastard days trying to find you? I mean, really, Hale. No phone call, no note, no nothing. That’s just rude. I’m finding it very hard not to take it personally.’
Oh, God, I think. She’s his girlfriend. Hale has a girlfriend.
Or maybe she’s his wife.
All of this, and Hale is married.
Fuck.
‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.
‘I’m looking for you,’ she says. ‘The question is, what are you doing here?’
‘I had to get away, that’s all.’
‘Oh, you had to get away. Well, that’s fine then. Just bloody peachy.’ The angrier she gets, the more her accent comes through; by now, she sounds like she’s auditioning to be the next Queen of England. I don’t know what the hell Hale sees in her – except the physical, of course. Tall, slim, blonde – who knew Hale liked blondes all these years, eh? – and with cheekbones sharper than any knife in Pete’s kitchen.
Sure as hell see why he ran away, though, I think. Could you imagine coming home to that every night? As beautiful as the woman is, there’s no warmth to her, no tenderness. Even her anger is cold and clinical and passive-aggressive – completely at odds with Hale. Everything about him is passion and heat, too much so at times.
Perhaps opposites really do attract.
You don’t know they’re together, I think. I mean, it’s possible that she’s just… hell, I don’t know. There has to be some other explanation. There has to be.
Hale can’t be seeing someone.
Hale can’t be married.
He just… can’t.
‘It might have escaped your notice, Hale,’ she says, ‘but you’re about to start a concert tour in a little over two weeks. That’s a month and a half on the road. Thirty-five cities. People are relying on you. Disappearing without a trace is not considered good form.’
‘I didn’t disappear.’
‘Oh really? Because it sure as hell looks like you disappeared to me. I’ve been calling you nonstop for the past two days.’
‘I left my phone in my apartment.’
‘By accident, I’m sure.’
Hale says nothing. Neither does anyone else. You could hear a pin drop in the diner as the woman – Meredith, apparently – gets her point across. I’m pretty sure that Pete has even turned down the radio in the kitchen so he can get a better listen. Eden isn’t a tourist town, and the sight – or the sound – of a beautiful British woman having a meltdown is something that we’re not really equipped to deal with. Hale seems to have a better idea of what’s going on, but he’s in no position to explain it to anyone. The onslaught of Hurricane Meredith would have stopped anyone in their tracks.
‘Well, good news: the higher-ups at the agency haven’t found out about your little road trip yet, so the only person pissed off at you is me. For now. But I can promise you, I’m pissed enough for all of them.’
‘Merry, could we not do this now? Here?’
She smiles. ‘You’re right. We’ll have plenty of time on the flight back home.’
‘How did you even find me?’
The woman sighs. ‘This isn’t my first rodeo, cowboy. You’re not the first up-and-comer who decided to run off at the last minute for whatever reason. Usually it’s for some girl or other.’
Is it my imagination, or does she turn her eyes to me for the first time when she says that?
‘I’m assuming that’s not the case this time.’
Bitch.
‘Besides,’ she continues, pointing a perfect finger at her phone screen, ‘you decided to stop off in a bar in Austin and take a few snaps with your fans, and nothing stays off the internet for long. When I found out you were in Texas, I took a chance, asked around. And here you are.’
‘You’re a real Sherlock Holmes, Merry.’
‘Well, solving problems is what I do,’ she says. ‘And you, buddy, are proving to be a real pain in my ass. Just once I’d like to work with someone capable of doing as they’re bloody well told. Just once, Hale.’
And on and on she goes: when she’ll stop, nobody knows. Unless, of course, someone speaks up. I’m a little surprised to find that it’s me, and even more shocked when I hear how clear and precise my voice is; on the inside, I’m shaking like a leaf.
‘Hale, what the hell is going on here?’
Meredith looks across at me as though it’s absurd to think that the poor little diner girl might have something to say on the topic – completely disregarding, of course, the fact that she just spent a solid five minutes berating one of my customers right here at the counter.
‘It’s alright, Carrie,’ he says. ‘Merry is… kind of right.’
‘Who is she?’
She smirks. My instant dislike of her has a chance to harden in place; I can feel it becoming a stain that will never come out. ‘Yes, Hale,’ she says. ‘I think some introductions are in order, don’t you?’
Based on the look on his face, Hale couldn’t be less thrilled at the idea. After all, it’s always a rough sort of situation when you have two worlds colliding. Perhaps Meredith is like some gum he stepped in, carried across the country on the bottom of his shoe, proving to be an embarrassment; Jerry and Al certainly seem to be enjoying the show, that’s for sure. Or maybe we’re the embarrassment, and Hale is trying to fight his way out of the fact that one of his New York, big city friends – friend? Colleague? Lover? – might be seeing him as he once was, all those years ago. The dirt in which he first set out his roots.
‘Merry, this is my –’ He pauses momentarily ‘– friend. Carrie Walker. Carrie, this is –’
‘Meredith Blakely, RJP Records,’ she says as she gives my hand the kind of firm handshake that would be more at home in a boardroom than a diner – less of a greeting, and more of a power play. It’s hard to tell for whose benefit it’s supposed to be: mine, Hale’s, or her own. ‘Hale’s babysitter.’
‘Babysitter?’
He sighs. ‘Publicist. She’s my publicist.’
‘You have a publicist?’
Meredith smiles at me, rows on rows of teeth like a Great White in a skirt. ‘You didn’t tell her? Oh, Hale. Tut-tut.’ She lifts her phone, swipes a finger to the left, and points the screen at me. She holds it just far enough away from me to make it clear that I’m not supposed to touch it, as though she thinks I’ll either make it dirty by my mere presence or the very concept of a smartphone in 2016 will be enough to blow my primitive, ape-like, small-town yokel brain.
The picture on the screen is crystal clear, but it still takes me a second to register exactly what I’m looking at. A man in his late twenties is sitting on a stool in the middle of the stage, a microphone on a stand in front of his face. His fingers are playing lightly over a guitar’s strings, tuning them one by one, before he gives a thumbs-up to someone offstage. ‘So how’s everyone doing tonight?’ he asks.
And the crowd goes wild.
‘That good, eh?’
It’s a smallish, dingy looking bar, but it’s packed. As the camera sweeps around I can see that there’s barely room for anyone to breathe, let alone move, but no one seems to mind. Their eyes are all focused on the man on stage as he starts up his first song of the evening.
Their eyes are on Hale.
He couldn’t look more in his element if he was a bird in flight. I watch him play to the audience, smiling and laughing and waving to the crowd, but as soon as he plucks away at the first few chords it’s as though the rest of the world disappears. The audience fades away into silence, and the look of focus on his face is clear: for now, the only thing that matters is the performance. It takes me a moment to recognise it for what it is: a moody acoustic cover of When I Fall in Love by Nat King Cole, soft and sad and heartfelt. His voice weaves playfully in and out of the chords, and as the camera pulls back I see a dozen or more people holding their phones aloft, recording him as he plays. Some people are recording it for posterity. Others are just following the music and making their own memories, but I guarantee that no one wants to forget even a second.
Just as he launches into the second verse, Meredith snaps the phone away and slips it back into her purse. ‘Local boy makes good, eh?’ she says. ‘Quite the following, your friend has. Album sales were a little muted, of course, but very big on the indie scene. Real word-of-mouth buzz. And the tour… well, I mean, thirty-five shows and thirty-one of them are already sold out. That’s not nothing. It would probably be thirty-two, but… well, you know. Denver.’
I know of Denver, sure. On the other hand, quite why I’m supposed to know why that would stop a tour selling out is beyond me, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped Meredith.
‘So?’ she says. ‘What do you make of your newest local celebrity? Pretty great, no?’
I shrug. ‘I don’t listen to much music.’ That much is true, at least – certainly not modern music, anyway. My tastes lean towards the classics: I can’t think why.
‘Hmm,’ she says, unimpressed. ‘Well, thankfully, a lot of people do. A lot of people who’ve paid good money to see you perform, starting in two weeks.’ She turns back to Hale. ‘We’re booked onto a plane back to New York. Two tickets, leaving tonight, so we need to get moving to the airport ASAP. And if it’s anything like the plane I came down on, you’re in for a real fun ride. I swear, it was like a cattle truck with wings.’
‘I’m not going.’
‘You are going. We need you back in the city.’ In civilisation, her tone seems to be implying. Back from your time among the savages.
‘Not going to happen.’
‘If this is about the bike, we can have it shipped back to New York, no problem. It’ll be there in three days, tops.’
‘It’s not about the bike. I’m just not going, that’s all.’
‘Oh no? Do you want to be the one explain to Feldman why his headline act isn’t rehearsing? Or why he’s halfway across the country with no notice whatsoever? Because I sure as hell don’t.’
‘It’s personal.’
Meredith raises one perfectly-coiffed eyebrow. ‘Try again,’ she says.
‘My old man died. I have to sort out his stuff.’
Meredith’s hard gaze softens. It’s a weird expression on her; her face seems to be pulling in all directions at once, as though she’s not used to anything other than harsh disapproval. ‘Oh, Hale,’ she says at last. ‘Why didn’t you tell me that’s what it was? We could have worked something out.’
Because the funeral was last year? I think. Because you didn’t bother to make it back then? And because your dad was a raging asshole who you wouldn’t have spit on if he was on fire? I can’t say I exactly approve of Hale playing the Dead Dad card, but… well, I can kind of understand it. If it’s enough to keep Meredith off his back, it seems like a small lapse in good taste might be for the greater good.
‘Because you would have tried to use it to sell tickets.’
‘I would never…’ she begins, then stops. ‘Although, you know, it would probably drive some news stories. Not that that would make up for your loss, of course. But I’m just saying…’
‘No, Merry. No mentions of it, anywhere. I mean it.’
She sighs, as though she’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. ‘Fine,’ she says. ‘I suppose I can spin it as a promotional tour. You know, returning to your hometown, going back to where it all started…’ In an instant, all her anger with Hale seems to have disappeared. ‘Actually, that’s good. Really good. I can work with that. Hale, underneath that rough exterior, you might just be a genius.’ She smirks. ‘Don’t tell anyone, or I’ll be out of a job.’
Before Hale can comment further, Meredith has snapped a quick picture of him. She takes a look at it, deems it appropriate for whatever purpose she has in mind, and sets about releasing that to the world.
‘Where are you posting that?’ he asks.
‘Honey, where aren’t I posting that? Instagram, your Facebook Fan Page, your personal website. You name it, it’s going up there. I want everyone to see that you’re just a good, old-fashioned country boy who hasn’t forgotten his roots. You know they’ll eat that shit up. It’s very in right now.’
‘And if I agree to that, you’ll give me a couple of days? No questions asked?’
Meredith nods absently, but her fingers are going a mile a minute, tapping away at her phone. ‘Sure,’ she says. ‘You do your thing.’
‘So you’re going back to New York?’
‘Not a chance,’ she says without looking up from the screen.
‘Merry…’
‘Oh no. I’m not going anywhere, bucko. If you want to have your spiritual retreat or homecoming or moment of grief, whatever the hell this is, that’s fine – I can’t stop you. But if you think that I’m letting you out of my sight for even a second, you’re out of your bloody mind. I’m going to be watching you like a hawk until I get you on a plane to the first stop on the tour. After that, you’re the road crew’s problem, not mine.’ She holds up the screen to Hale; it pings and buzzes at him. ‘See? Social media presence, darling. A couple of days of blitzing it, and we’ll see if we can’t get the rest of those tickets sold. I’ll just snap a few quick photos. You won’t even know I’m here.’
‘You know I hate all that crap.’
‘Which is precisely why the agency pays me. So you don’t have to deal with it.’ She turns to me, as if to mark the end of her discussion with Hale; suddenly, I’m the one she needs. ‘I suppose it’s too much to suppose that there’s a decent hotel in this town?’ she asks. ‘I’m not asking for a Hilton, but… a Marriott, maybe?’
I shake my head. ‘There’s a guest house on Chambers Street. Other than that, you’re back over in Hogarth.’ Or, you know, you could just head right on up to Austin. I’m sure that might be more to your taste.
‘Ah well. Needs must, I suppose.’ She stands up, smooths down her skirt, and heads for the door before he can respond. ‘Oh, and Hale?’ she says.
‘Hmm?’
‘Pay for my coffee, there’s a dear. That’s the least you can do, given everything you’ve put me through, don’t you think?’
And with that, Hurricane Meredith heads off across the street to see how Polly Kimble’s hospitality shapes up when compared to the Ritz-Carlton. It’s a little while before anyone says anything. Eventually, it’s Jerry’s voice that pipes up – twice in one day. A new record.
‘What the hell was that?’ he asks. He’s not the only one wondering, that’s for sure.
I wish I knew, buddy, I think. Honest to God, I wish I knew.