EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE
The morning comes and the Knights of Vice are all up at eight thirty. Well, everyone except for Addy. She’s still out. Like the older sister she is, she tucked all us porch kids in and then went up to her room. She’s never been one for roughing it when it comes to sleep. If there’s a bed nearby, she will occupy it.
Trey, Elliot, and I are trying to figure out how to cook over-easy eggs without breaking the damn yolks while Dez plots our day in the Hamana. I look at her and study the little crease between her eyes while she thinks.
Trey throws another failure-easy egg onto the pile. “I’m not touching another egg.”
“Understandable,” I say. “Over-easy eggs are impossible.”
Elliot points at the plate. “Just grab those and the toast and let’s eat. Who gives a shit about the state of a yolk? It will be fine.”
“That doesn’t make being defeated by unborn chickens any easier to handle,” I say.
Trey snickers, grabs a pitcher of orange juice, and walks onto the back porch.
“So, what’s the plan for today?” I ask Dez while Trey makes her a plate of food.
“Should we wait for Addy?” Dez asks. “She’ll probably want breakfast anyway.”
Trey stands up. “I’ll go get her.”
“You touch her, you die,” I say.
He gives me a toothy grin. “You couldn’t kill me, man. I’m too scrappy.”
“I was thinking we could go out tonight,” Dez says.
“For what?” Elliot asks. “To find the album or just hang out?”
Dez looks at Elliot, confusion scrunching her eyebrows. “Oh, Elliot, sorry. I was talking to Adam.”
Elliot curses.
I stop chewing.
Did she just …
Did she?
“Did you just ask me on a date?” I ask.
Her cheeks flush. “You don’t have make it a big deal, I just thought—”
“I’d love to take you on a date. Please, for the love of Harvey’s glass, let me take you on a date.”
“Okay,” she says with a bashful smile. “You get to pick where we go.”
Finally, I get to take Dez on a date. Finally. Does this mean we’re dating? Does that mean she’s accepted it? Does this mean we can forget about this whole kick-our-addictions-first thing?
Addy and Trey come down the stairs. Addy’s laughing at something, but I’m not sure what. Trey looks like he was just slapped in the face. I watch her, still feeling overwhelmed and undeserving that she’d quit her job just for me. They grab their breakfasts and take their respective spots on the porch. I stare at her in disbelief until Dez begins her briefing.
“I think we should research today.”
“Research?” Elliot asks. “I thought you’d researched everything.”
She looks at him with a cold stare. “When Edison decided he wanted to invent the light bulb, do you think his assistant said, ‘I thought you researched everything already’?”
“Okay. Edison actually invented stuff. We’re just trying to find an old album,” he snaps.
Dez waves her fork at him and some egg flies off the tines. “All I’m saying is that we should be as precise as possible. If all five of us are researching, making calls, and finding people who knew Mr. Cratcher, would it hurt?”
Addy shrugs. “Doesn’t matter to me. I’m just along for the ride, to make sure things stay kosher, and to make Trey squirm.”
Trey shakes his head and then looks at Dez. “I think it’s a great idea. I’m willing to be the guy making calls.”
“Trey,” Dez says, now pointing her fork at him. “You’re a true journalist, explorer, and overall conqueror. Adam and Elliot will look through all the news articles on the murder and Abbey Road US. Addy and I will look at news from before the murder and see if we can figure out who he worked with/who would know him.”
“Alright,” I say. “I’m okay with that as long as I’m next to someone while I’m looking. I don’t want porn to be a part of my research.”
“Adam, just use your computer,” Addy says. “I’ll get notification if you start having problems.”
“I can just see us debriefing at the end of the day.” Dez raises her finger. “I, Adam Hawthorne, have discovered that boobs look like boobs, and that our culture thinks women are disposable sex toys.”
“I, Adam Hawthorne,” Elliot says, “have discovered that men are supposed to last longer than one minute.”
Trey opens his mouth, but I cut him off. “I, Adam Hawthorne, have discovered that all of my friends are dicks.”
—
I tip a cup of coffee toward my lips. The last of it drops onto my tongue as Trey walks out of the house. “I just called Marcus Richmond, the director of Abbey Road US.”
“Is that the guy who didn’t make any statements about the murder?” I ask.
“Yeah, he said he knew nothing about the album except it was named Hounds of Eden. When I asked what his opinion was on who killed Elias, he said ‘I don’t know,’ and hung up.”
“So maybe Marcus Richmond is the killer,” Dez says, writing something down on her clipboard.
I put my empty mug on an end table. “I think what’s more important is that we’ve found out the title of the album: Hounds of Eden.”
“I think you guys thinking the murder isn’t worth solving is straight up white of you. This is a crime of injustice. Does that mean nothing to you?”
“It does,” I say. “But we aren’t the ones—”
“Then what are we?” she asks. “What can we do? We can’t beat our addictions, so why shouldn’t we try to conquer this?”
I stare at her for a few seconds. “Why would you say that? We just talked about this as a group last night. It was half your pitch for this trip. Now you’re saying we can’t?”
“Does it matter?” she asks. “What’s the harm in trying to solve a murder case?”
“You two bicker like you’ve been married for years,” Addy says, looking up from her computer. “It’s almost cute.”
I shrug, but here’s the thing: humans need attainable goals, especially humans like us. Like she said a while back, we’ve got to be able to catch the ball every once in a while. Does she really think that solving a murder case that’s been cold for almost fifty years is more attainable than beating our addictions? Heck, getting Beyoncé to be my girlfriend might be more attainable.
She wants to conquer something. I get that. But what happens when she, a seventeen-year-old girl, can’t solve a murder case? Isn’t that asking for more pain, and in consequence, more addiction? Finding an album is attainable. We can do that.
Solving a murder = bring on the vices.
I want to love and be loved by Dez Coulter. I want us to focus beating our addictions and being dateable past our first date, not fighting crime. I thought she wanted that, too.
“What made you change your mind?” I ask.
“I didn’t change my mind.”
“Dez—”
“Adam, I don’t feel like talking about it.”
I sigh. “Just, be careful. Greater than, remember?”
She looks at me as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking, but there’s something in her eyes that tells me she’s still unconvinced, which makes me unsure why she asked to go on a date or why she said she loved me.
She mouths, “I love you,” but her posture is tight with something I’m afraid to ask about.
—
I roll up my button-down sleeves and then shake my head out so my hair returns to its craziness. I take a deep breath and then head downstairs to grab Dez.
It may be a ruse, but there’s no stopping it now.
It’s first date time.
I smile like an idiot when I see Dez standing by the door, holding out the keys to her SUV.
“Are you ready?” she asks.
“I’m so ready. I’ve been ready for this since I met you.”
“Hey, you two,” Addy yells, poking her head through the back door. “Be back by eleven, capiche?”
Both Dez and I groan, and then whine, “But Mom!”
“Shut it, capeesh?”
“Got it,” I say.
Addy beams. “Have a good first date.”
We get in the SUV, and I start driving to our first destination, a little restaurant on the fringes of downtown Nashville.
We pull up to a quiet neighborhood. It doesn’t seem like there’d be a restaurant here, so I grab my phone, which Addy allowed me to take out of the house, to check if we’re in the right place.
“Are we like, visiting someone for dinner?” Dez asks.
I shake my head. “No, there’s supposed to be—ah, there it is. Huh, well that’s cool.”
A bunch of the little houses have been turned into businesses, and in the first row, there’s a teal one with a ramp leading to the front door. A sign on the wall proclaims the name of our destination: THE LOVING PIE COMPANY.
“Oh. My. God,” Dez says, turning down the Christmas music on the radio. “You’re bringing me to a pie place?” She screams. “You are perfect, Adam Hawthorne! Pie is literally my favorite thing outside of witty conversation.”
I park the SUV behind the building and then turn to her before I turn it off.
“Before we get out, you need to tell me something.”
She bounces in her seat. “But, Adam … pie.”
“What is this?” I ask. “What are we?”
She keeps bouncing, unfazed by the question. “You sound like Mr. Cratcher.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“A prospective couple going on a prospective date.”
“Why can’t this just be a date?”
“Adam, pie!”
“Answer me,” I say.
“You know why. Please don’t ruin our first date by arguing.”
I sigh. “So this is our first date?”
She laughs. “Yes, yes. Okay, this is our first date. Now, good lord, pie, Adam!”
I smile. I mean, she did say it.
I’ll take it.
We walk into the place. It’s a quaint little house. A “specials” board sits against the wall and I lose Dez to it.
“Holy pie!” She says, pointing at the board, smiling. “Strawberry cranberry orange pie, Adam. Adam! Strawberry cranberry orange pie!”
A hostess looks at me. “Two of you?”
“Hostess!” Dez says. “Tiramisu waffle pie.”
I nod. “Yes. Two.”
The hostess holds her hand out. “Right this way.”
She brings us into a small room with a few tables and chairs, but we’re the only ones in it. The windows are decorated with red bows and garland. While Dez continues to freak out over the menu, I continue to watch her, loving her more and more for the amount of joy she has simply because of pie. She orders the Frito Chili pie and, I admit, even I freak out when I see, and order, Mac and Cheese pie.
We try to picture the restaurant as the house it once was and figure out we’re eating in a bedroom attached to the living room. After that, we recap all of the random facts we’ve learned about Mr. Cratcher and his life in Nashville.
“The dude was a rock star,” I say. “He definitely gave up a lot to move.”
“Didn’t you say he chose to leave?” she says. “I think, more than anything else, he wanted to love Gabby better. I mean, she chose to support his release in the trial. If that kind of love doesn’t deserve the sacrificing of an empire, nothing will.”
“Yeah. Give up an empire to gain a kingdom.”
“What’s the difference between the two?” she asks.
“I don’t know. I’d just rather be a king than an emperor. It might just be because I watched Star Wars a lot when I was little and hated Emperor Palpatine. I still think he’s a dick.”
“I think that’s accurate,” she says. “Both in personality and in looks.”
I laugh and grab her hand. She flashes me a smile that makes December feel like July.
“I still want to know what the difference between an empire and a kingdom is,” she says.
I look at the sun setting in a marbled orange and pink sky. I don’t know if I’m just in a hallelujah moment, but I feel like I’m home. “I guess an empire is a place to fight for, but a kingdom is … a home worth fighting for? I don’t know.”
“I like that,” she says.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah, way to BS intelligence.”
“We should totally have babies and save the world from the impending stupid apocalypse.”
“Of course.” She brushes the hair out of her eyes. “That definitely sounds like a purely strategic proposal, not recreational. Sometimes, if you really want to make an impact on the world, you have to pick high-quality mates to keep from creating inept babies.”
I nod. “I’ve never considered myself a high-quality anything.”
“Adam, I’d personally trade eighty bear skins for your DNA.”
“Only eighty?”
“Did I mention they’re polar bear skins?”
We both chuckle and fall into a few seconds of comfortable silence as the waitress brings our savory pies.
“So, how’s addiction going?” I ask.
“What do you mean?”
“I just haven’t heard much about where you’re at right now.”
She sighs. “That’s because I don’t want to talk about it.”
“So, what does that mean?’
“That means I don’t want to talk about it. Do we have to talk about addiction on a first date? Gosh, Adam, you aren’t very good at this.”
“Dez, every time you go to Addiction Fighters, you talk about everything you’re addicted to in front of a giant crowd. Why can’t you tell just me?”
She doesn’t say anything.
“Dez, tell me what’s going on.”
“Nothing new.”
“Dez.”
“Percocet,” she whispers. “I’m addicted to pain pills. There, happy?”
Okay, though unexpected, I’m not really surprised by this. It makes sense. It’s subtle but effective enough to keep a buzz.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push.”
She sighs again, this one deeper than the last. “No, I’ve been meaning to say something about it.”
“Where do you get them from?”
“My mom has chronic back pain. I just take them from her.”
“Sounds easy enough.”
“Yeah. It is. Can I—can I tell you a secret?”
I push my chair next to hers and pull her into me. “Anything.”
She runs a hand through her hair and swallows. “I—I haven’t been telling the total truth. About my addictions, I mean. I’m just … really afraid someone knowing the truth will rub me raw.”
“Remember that time I didn’t want to tell you about trying to give girls money to have sex with me?”
“Yeah, I know. That’s what made me consider telling you. The fact you trusted me enough to tell me, yet I haven’t told you this, has been eating at me.” She takes a deep breath. “I know I’ve said I’m addicted to everything and that I cycle through things. I know that you think I’m addicted to the addiction, but I’m only addicted to everything else because I’m trying to avoid Percocets. I’m afraid of them. It started when I was twelve, when I first started noticing that I didn’t want to be like my family, which in turn turned their wrath on me. I was addicted to them, pretty intensely. By the time I was fourteen, I’d gotten bored with them, and a friend said I should move onto something harder. I did and I almost died.
“I got scared for a while and didn’t do any drugs. I tried changing, but my parents didn’t. I was still always a disappointment. Still never enough. So I went back, and when I got bored with Percocets, I didn’t have the guts to go harder, so I’m trying everything else. Looking for something that will keep me from ending up like Mark. Percocets are a gateway drug, and Mark is evidence of what happens when you stand in the gate for too long. They’re always available. No one notices. Everything else—smoking, drinking, and such—is so obvious. No matter how hard I try to stay away, I eventually come back to them because I love having a vice that can fit in my pocket.”
I kiss her on the forehead, just like she did to me when I told her about getting suspended, about taking advantage of someone who needed me to protect them. “Which pocket?”
Her jaw tightens. “Right.”
I slide my hand into her pocket and find two pills sitting in the deepest corner. I take them out, wrap them in a napkin, and put it on the table for the waitress to take next time she comes around.
“You equal greater than that.”
“I know.”
“I don’t think you do.”
“Yeah, probably not.”
“Dez, you’re so much greater than that. You’re enough.”
“Adam—”
“You’re enough.”
I say it for myself as much as I say it for her. A tear rolls down her cheek. She closes her eyes and starts to stand.
Not this time.
I won’t let her run away. I won’t run away. We will face ourselves.
I grab her wrist and pull her into my arms. She breaks down. Right there in the bedroom of The Loving Pie Company.
“I don’t want this to be my life,” she says.
“We can change,” I say.
She shakes her head, but she doesn’t say anything. She just cries into my chest. I look at her, and for the first time I don’t see her as sexy, confident, stubborn, different, and untamable Dez. I see her for what she really is: an innocent girl who’s lost in the chaos and trying to find her way back home.
Just like me.
—
To make up for making her cry on our first date, I let her choose where we go next. She picks the giant atriums and indoor gardens of the Gaylord Opryland Resort. Because we’re so close to Christmas, everything is decorated accordingly. Garland has been wrapped around posts and handrails. Shimmering lights coat both fake and real trees. We wander around the indoor manmade rivers and pathways for hours, talking and laughing like normal people do.
As it gets dark outside, the atriums fills with people, all here to see the massive display of Christmas lights hanging from the metal trusses and walkways supporting the expanse of glass ceiling. Globes, presents, and stars all hang in the air like they were placed without any struggle. However, I’d imagine that setting up the massive light displays are the one event the hotel workers try to avoid at all costs. Putting up lights with my dad is hard enough, and we only have one strand of lights that we hang off the gutters. Christmas cheer comes at a cost, but there’s nothing else in the world like Christmas cheer, which makes it priceless.
The hugeness, mystery, and winter wonderland–ness all combine and make us feel oddly adventurous, and we begin to take random little turns, looking for something new to explore. After I buy her eggnog ice cream, she disappears to find the bathroom and, while I wait for her, I end up wandering up a set of stairs to stand next to a waterfall. All of it. The cheer. The Christmas. The girl. The Addy. The friends. The place I get to go back to.
I feel in love.
Calm. Peaceful. Like I’m nothing but a boy. Like The Woman never left. Like I’ve never been addicted to porn. Like the Puget Sound dreams have never happened. Like I’m not a volcano. I’m watching drops of water slam into the river below when someone taps me on the shoulder. I turn around and see Dez.
She wraps her arms around my shoulder and, with no ceremony, she pulls me into her and kisses me. Her lips could be as rough as sandpaper, but right now, they feel like the softest thing in the world. I hold onto her waist, pulling her as close as physically possible without being Siamese twins. In this moment, I think I feel everything, but I feel her so specifically I can’t define how. I don’t know how that works, but that’s how everything works with her.
She pulls away, but just barely. Her forehead still rests against mine, and I can feel her breath on my lips.
“I’m surprised you were okay with kissing me in such a cliché place. Especially one surrounded by such an American display of Christmas deco,” I say, breaking the silence. “I figured you’d try it in a gas station bathroom or something.”
She laughs, and then gives me that smoldering, definition-scattering smirk. “I thought about it.”
“I’m sure you did.”
“I want to believe in change,” she says. “I know it’s not fair that I expect you to do all the believing in us. I just don’t know if I can believe anything other than addiction. But, if I don’t try, I won’t know, right?”
“Nope, you won’t.”
She looks around and then nods. “Alright, well, if we’re going to have our first kiss in the middle of a cliché, we might as well make the best of it.”
“Certainly, Mademoiselle.”
I slide my fingers up her neck and into her hair. She presses her palms into my back. We make out—no, we have a hallelujah moment beside an indoor waterfall. A place almost as beautiful as the natural world, but without the volcanoes.
I guess everything is possible.