II.
Julian took one hand off the steering wheel and pointed to the left. “See that hill over there?”
I craned my neck and saw a noticeably tall hill off in the distance. “Yeah.”
“That’s the hill I told you about earlier. The one your mom and I used to climb when we were younger. It overlooks the tarmac of Oak Falls’s local airport. Hardly any flights come in and out of there, only personal planes. We used to pretend that someday we’d have a private plane that would take us far away from Oak Falls.”
He turned the car and the hill faded into the distance. “A while ago, I actually did land in a private plane here. When the plane hit the tarmac, I looked up at that hill and almost lost my shit.”
“Why?”
“Because Lena wasn’t next to me.”
An itchy feeling crept up my throat and I swallowed. I stared out the window in silence for the rest of the drive.
Julian parked the car on a curved, tree-lined street populated with small cafés and independent shops. He hopped out of the car and I followed him into a store called Willowy Records.
“Willowy Records,” I said as we walked into the small, cramped space filled with rows and rows of vinyl records. A small fan was doing overtime in the back corner, but it did little to remove the musky scent or make the place less unbearably hot.
“Best record shop in Oak Falls.” Julian reached for his sunglasses, but it was too late. The scrawny boy behind the counter leapt over it and marched toward him.
“Holy shit!” the kid exclaimed. He had dyed black hair that was shaved on the sides and mussed up in the front. His gray T-shirt, which featured an octopus playing the drums, had several sweat patches, but that was forgivable considering the tropical climate of Willowy Records. “You’re Julian Oliver.”
“Guilty as charged,” Julian said calmly.
“I’d heard you were in town, man,” the boy said, clasping his hands together. “But I didn’t quite believe it.”
Julian nodded.
The boy bowed his head a little. “So sorry about your dad.”
“Me too,” Julian said. “So listen …”
“Mark,” the kid said, extending his hand. “I’m Mark.”
Julian shook his hand. “Nice to meet you, Mark.”
“Such an honor, man. Your music. Dude. Dude.” Mark made the universal gesture for “mind blown,” miming explosions. “It totally changed my life. Such a huge fan of every album. But especially Blind Windows.” Mark’s eyes lit up. “Would you be willing to sign a few of your records while you’re here, man? That would be huge for the store.”
Julian nodded. “Sure, man. But let me tell you what. I’m here right now with my daughter.” Julian unexpectedly slung his arm around my shoulder and tugged me close to him. “And I’d like to have some private time browsing some records with her. So do you think you could hold off on posting anything on—”
“Yeah, yeah,” the kid said, enthusiastically nodding his head, which seemed too big for his thin neck. “Def won’t post anything yet, man. You enjoy your time. And when you’re done—”
“I’ll sign those records,” Julian said without missing a beat.
“Yeah,” the boy said, still nodding. “Awesome.”
Julian kept his arm around me and steered me away from the front of the store. “Sooo, where do they keep the jazz records?”
I groaned. “I don’t only listen to jazz, you know.”
“I know,” he said agreeably. “So are all the songs you write jazz-inspired?”
An uncomfortable nervousness stirred inside of me. “I thought you said you liked my song. And that one wasn’t even that jazzy. It actually had more of an indie rock sensibility, I think.”
“I know. I did love it. It actually reminded me of—”
I cut him off. “Can we not talk about it? I’m really not ready to talk about my music with you.”
“Fine, fine.” He raised his hands innocently in the air. “Can I at least ask you about other music you like?”
“Besides Nina Simone?” I gave him a teasing smile.
“Yeah. I mean, if you like anything else.”
“So bands that I like that you might’ve heard of …” I slid out from under his arm and walked down the aisles of records. I stopped and thumbed through a stack. I held up the National’s High Violet.
“Ah.” Julian nodded in recognition.
“Have you heard of EL VY?”
Julian drew his eyebrows together and wrinkled his nose. “I think so …” He rhythmically tapped his fingers against his leg. “That’s Berninger’s side project, right?”
“Yeah. It’s him and Brent Knopf, the guy from Menomena,” I said, fishing through the bin to see if I could find a copy of Return to the Moon.
“Didn’t Pitchfork recently eviscerate that album?”
I laughed. “Yeah. But I love it. But I was destined to love it. He’s singing about southern Ohio.” I found the record and held it up. “Plus, what does Pitchfork know? Didn’t they tear apart You’ll Never See Me Again?”
Julian let out a bark of a laugh. “Yeah, kid. They did. But let’s not talk about that.”
I fingered the EL VY record and then put it back in the bin. “I thought you didn’t read the reviews?”
He smiled wryly. “That was my last one.”
“It was also your last record. So when’s the next one coming out?”
He laughed again. “Why do you care? I thought you weren’t a fan.”
I shrugged. “I dunno. It’s been a long gap between albums, and lots of people on the internet have been speculating about when the next one will drop. Besides, I’m kind of interested in the band because I know the lead singer.”
His smile turned from wry to bright. “Yeah. I guess you do. So besides the genius of S.I.T.A., who else are you into?”
I gave him my usual litany of indie darlings—Joanna Newsom and her amazing stylings on the harp and Kurt Vile and his hyper-self-aware songwriting. I nervously rattled off Deerhunter and Beach House and Father John Misty. Julian said that as much as he appreciated modern indie rock music, his favorites would still always be classic punk bands and David Bowie. But as far as indie rock music was concerned, he agreed with me that Stephin Merritt of the Magnetic Fields was a genius at tragicomedy, but he said that he thought Sufjan Stevens was overrated, which was basically a declaration of war as far as I was concerned.
“You’re just jealous that he not only is a world-class songwriter, but also has a perfect face.”
“Maybe,” Julian admitted sheepishly.
“Harlow and Quinn are really into this goofy band called the Front Bottoms. You might like them. I bet you’d get the humor.” I moved down another aisle in search of Talon of the Hawk. Once I found it, I turned around and held it up for Julian to see.
He took the record from me and ran his thumb over the cover. He was quiet for a moment, studying the record with such intensity that I wondered if maybe I’d overhyped the band.
“They’re pretty fun,” I offered. I was starting to feel a little insecure about my suggestion, so I added, “Like I said, Harlow loves them.”
He looked up at me. There was a new intensity in his eyes. “You love music, right, Taliah?”
I bit the inside of my lip. “Of course. But isn’t saying that like saying I enjoy breathing oxygen? I’ve never met someone who didn’t like music.”
“But you love it, right? Like really love it?” he pressed, his eyes still intense. I broke away from his gaze and pretended to be interested in browsing through the records.
“Sure,” I said.
“What do you love about it?”
“What do you love about it?” I flipped the question back around on him.
“Everything,” he said.
“That’s a cop-out.”
“Okay. Well, for starters, I love the way music holds and enhances our memories. Certain songs can always transport me right back to particular moments in my life. It’s like magic.”
I pulled out a Sun Kil Moon record from the bin. “Your own songs?”
He shook his head. “No. Not really. Sure, I’ve cataloged my life by my own songs, but I’m talking about other people’s music.”
“Give me an example.”
He ran a hand through his messy hair. “Whenever I hear Neutral Milk Hotel’s ‘Where You’ll Find Me Now,’ I’m twenty-two again, sitting heartbroken in my room, trying to figure out how to convince your mother to give me just a little more time to get my shit together. Trying to figure out how to write a song with one–eight hundredth of the emotional rawness.”
I set the record I was holding back in the bin. I brought my hand to my mouth and nibbled at my fingernails. His face looked impossibly sad and I felt this sudden urge to make it better, but I didn’t know how. “I don’t know what to say.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Except …”
“What?”
“Why don’t you try again?”
“Try again?”
“To tell me why you love music.”
I stared at the tops of my red Chucks. “Dude. I don’t know.”
“Try.”
I glanced up at him. There was an uncomfortable pause. “I don’t—” I started.
“Just try,” he repeated.
“Okay,” I said slowly. “This may sound weird, but there are certain songs, like really great songs—you don’t just listen to them, you know? They make you feel like they’re listening back. Like the person who wrote the song heard you. Music makes you feel less alone in that way. It’s proof that someone out there has felt the exact same way you do and they’ve managed to capture it in this perfect blend of words and sound.”
Julian was staring at me intensely.
“What?”
He looked away for a moment and shook his shoulders, like he was trying to shed himself of an emotion. Escape it and pack it away. I recognized the gesture because I sometimes did the same thing. As I watched him, I remembered what Debra had told me about him feeling things too intensely.
“Julian?” I said.
When he turned back to me, he gave me a playful smile. The seriousness was gone. He lightly punched my shoulder. “That’s my girl” was all he said, but it felt like so much more.
I shrugged him off, a heat creeping up my cheeks. But deep inside, something like pride, like recognition, uncoiled inside of me. As weird as it is to say, I was maybe, sort of, starting to fall in love with my dad. And he was maybe, sort of, starting to fall in love with me.
Most people don’t remember falling in love with their parents. It’s something that happens in between bites of pureed carrots and late nights in rocking chairs. But with Julian, it was different. It felt like a choice that I got to make. A choice we were making together.
“This is a moment I’m going to want to remember forever,” he said.
“Okay. That’s enough, cheeseball. Hallmark called. They want their lines back.”
He laughed and leaned in to nudge me with his shoulder. “No. Seriously, Tal. This is a monumental occasion. Our first trip together to a record store.”
“Right.”
“The first of many, I hope.”
“Sure,” I said, which sounded cagier than I meant it to.
But that didn’t seem to bother him. “And since I want to always remember it, we should pick out a song to attach to the memory.”
“Okay,” I said slowly. “What did you have in mind?”
“Haven’t decided. Let’s hunt for something. What do you think?”
I hunched over another bin of records and started flipping through them. When I turned around to see if Julian had come up with anything good, I saw that Willowy Records was suddenly brimming with people.
“So I think someone blew up our spot,” I whispered, taking in the clusters of people who were all excitedly hovering in proximity to Julian.
Julian sighed and pulled his sunglasses from their resting place in the V of his T-shirt. He grabbed my hand and we pushed through the crowd. People held up their phones to take photos. He politely waved in the general direction of the crowd but kept walking.
“I thought you told the kid at the register that you were gonna sign records.”
Julian didn’t answer that. We were quickly walking down the main drag. There were people staring at us, but Julian was ignoring them, so I followed suit. All of a sudden, he stopped walking. He pointed at a building across the street.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The diner I told you about. Where I met your mother.”
“The first one?”
“Yes,” he said with a sad smile. “The first one.”
“So are you ever going to tell me the rest of the story?”
He sighed and kept staring at the building. “I don’t know, Tal.”
“You don’t know what?”
He shook his head as if shaking himself out of a memory. He put his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward the diner on the corner of the street. “Let’s go in here and have a milk shake. And I’ll tell you the rest of what I know.”
New York, 2000
As Lena stared at the marquee lit up with his name, her breath caught in her throat. It had been almost three full years since she’d last seen Julian Oliver.
Her roommate Marcy wrinkled her pert nose. “I still can’t believe you know Julian Oliver. You’ve been holding out on me, Lena Abdallat.”
Lena brushed off Marcy’s comment and kept staring at the marquee. Just seeing his name felt like seeing a phantom—one she thought she’d previously exorcised—and she wasn’t sure she would be able to handle being in his physical presence. It would be like seeing a zombie. She shivered and pulled her jean jacket closer.
“Seriously. How could you keep a secret like that?” Marcy flipped her platinum-blond hair, cut in a series of choppy layers designed to make her already prominent cheekbones even more prominent.
Lena shrugged. She thought of all the projects she’d completed over the last two years—sculptures filled with longing and collages of regret. Ones that she’d shown repeatedly in workshop. Ones that Marcy had critiqued. I did tell you, Lena thought. Over and over again.
“Lennie?” Marcy prompted. Lena had moved to New York and had become Lennie thanks to Marcy.
Lena owed many thanks to the universe for connecting her with Marcy Barrows of Long Island. Marcy was an acrylic painter who was the youngest daughter of one of Manhattan’s most sought-after divorce lawyers. She’d grown up in the city and was as New York as Lena was not.
There was a long line in front of the venue. Young people dressed from head to toe in faded denim, plaid shirts, and clunky boots. Wild animal prints and flowing skirts. Lena and Marcy breezed past the line as Julian had told her to do. The two of them looked mildly out of place, Marcy in her designer wrap dress and chandelier earrings, Lena in her black tunic and black leggings, the uniform she had adopted since moving to the city. She was wearing the charm bracelet Julian had found at a thrift store in Oak Falls and given to her on New Year’s. It was supposed to have been a promise of their future together, the future that came crashing down a few months later.
As Marcy and Lena shoved through the line, some people shouted at them. Lena ignored the shouts; Marcy fearlessly flashed them the finger. “Oh, fuck off,” Marcy said to one guy with a nose piercing. When they reached the front of the line, a large man stood with his arms crossed.
“There’s a line, you know.”
“Yes,” Lena said hesitantly. She no longer struggled with English, but when someone was confrontational she went back to feeling like the nervous girl struggling to communicate with the customs officer when she’d first landed in America five years ago.
“So why aren’t you in it?”
“Because we’re on the list, dummy,” Marcy said, peering over Lena’s shoulder. “Julian Oliver put us on the list.”
The man looked skeptical. “What’s your name?”
“Marcy Barrows.”
“Lena Abdallat,” Lena interjected. “It should be there. My name.” She knew she sounded confused, but that’s because she was confused. Not necessarily about what was happening—but about how she was supposed to feel.
What would she say to him? Was it a mistake to have come? What would it be like to see him onstage singing those songs—those songs that she thought of as so personal—those songs that were almost certainly all about her—for the whole world to hear? Her posture stiffened as she watched the security guard check his list.
“Well, hell. Surprise, surprise. Here you are. Lena Abdallat and guest.”
Marcy raised her hand playfully. “That would be me. Guest.”
The security guard handed Lena and Marcy necklaces adorned with plastic badges that read in big block letters: BACKSTAGE PASS. As Lena slipped hers over her thin neck, the security guard eyed her warily. “Have fun,” he said, but it sounded more like “good luck” to her ears.
Marcy grabbed Lena’s hand and pulled her inside the venue. It was an old ballroom. It reeked of marijuana and sweat. The lights were turned down low and it was mostly empty since they hadn’t started to let the general public in yet.
Marcy leaned into Lena. “Are you nervous? You seem nervous.”
“No,” Lena lied. “I’m only worried it’ll be strange since I haven’t seen him in a long time.” Lena hadn’t been particularly forthcoming to Marcy about her relationship with Julian Oliver. Even when a poster of Julian’s face landed in Times Square, Lena had kept her past secret from Marcy. She certainly hadn’t explained that she’d heard seven of the nine tracks on Julian’s now-famous album, Winter in Indiana, before the album was released. That he’d played her those songs on his acoustic guitar while they snuggled in his tiny apartment as gray snow had slowly blanketed the frozen ground outside. That each and every one of those songs was about her.
Or at least she’d thought those songs had been about her. Were about her. She felt dizzy, standing in the foyer of the cavernous decaying ballroom. The sheer size of it shocked her. He was going to fill this room? And the current emptiness of it made her feel sick with nerves.
Outside it was only a slightly chilly spring day, but she was suddenly unbearably cold. She was about to turn on her heel, head back to her apartment, crawl under the sheets, and read a book (she’d recently been making her way through the Western canon and had developed a particular penchant for Jane Austen’s novels—she was presently reading Mansfield Park), when she saw him.
He was standing on the stage looking out at her. He moved toward her and Marcy. In the shadows of the hollowed-out room, it was hard to read his face. He hopped off the stage and continued to walk toward her. His pace became quicker the closer he got to her. She held her breath, almost convinced he was going to run past her.
But then, before she could really process what was happening, he’d lifted her off the floor. He twirled her and then set her back on her feet. “You came!” he said, the joy in his voice palpable. “You really came!”
She swallowed and simply nodded because she didn’t trust her own voice.
“And look at you,” he said, his eyes hungrily taking in her all-black ensemble. “You look so New York.”
“That’s taken a bit of work,” Marcy said, stepping out in front of Lena and extending her hand in Julian’s direction. “I’m Marcy Barrows. I believe we have a mutual friend.”
That was so like Marcy. Lena loved her dearly and was grateful to her for all her help, but sometimes, Lena felt like Marcy viewed her as a project—her “immigrant friend.” Sometimes their relationship was a little too White Man’s Burden for Lena’s liking, but she knew Marcy meant well.
“It seems we do,” Julian said jovially. He shook Marcy’s hand, but never took his eyes off Lena. His cool blue eyes searched hers. They had more gray in them than she remembered. And they were asking her thousands of questions. Like, How have you been? And did you miss me? And do you regret smashing everything we had together and leaving it behind?
Lena knew she should say something. Anything. But her mind was buzzing, and it was difficult enough to think, let alone in English. Millions of Arabic phrases fired through her brain, and when she was able to distill her emotions down to one isolated kernel, she realized it was: longing.
She’d missed him.
Desperately.
And when she let her heart acknowledge that, it ached under the weight of everything else she was missing. Namely, home. Namely, her mother. God, she wanted her mother. She wanted to be home. She wanted to be home so, so badly.
She blinked back the tears that she felt forming in her eyes, and Julian reached out and grasped her hands. Even though she’d always taken such pains to hide her homesickness from him, he had a sixth sense for when a bout was coming on. And even though it had been months and months since he’d had the chance to comfort her, he was still able to steady her with his reassuring touch.
He watched her eyes soften as she regained composure. “So how have you been, Lena Abdallat?” he asked. “It’s been a New York minute.”
She swallowed again. “Isn’t the better question how have you been?” She gestured toward the stage. “It’s all coming true for you.”
He bowed his head a little bit. “I told you it would. Patience.”
She tensed and pulled her hands away from him. Such a simple word: patience. But it felt like an indictment. A reminder that she hadn’t been patient. That she hadn’t waited on him to get his shit together.
Truly, though, when she’d left Oak Falls, she’d had absolutely zero faith that Julian would get his shit together. It was her turn to give him a searching look. She wondered when he’d told his father he was dedicating everything toward becoming a musician. That his plan was to leave Oak Falls, to live a life that was radically different from Mr. Oliver’s.
Julian had once told her he couldn’t abandon his family business because his father had threatened that if Julian didn’t take over the store, he would simply shutter it. She’d known Julian was terrified of creating more emotional distance between himself and his father.
Maybe it had gone down like how he’d crooned on “Finally, Always,” the closing track on Winter in Indiana. She’d taken that track to be a personal admonition to her. But in the song, he’d sung, “Told you to be patient/But you said you had to go/You were right about your reasons/But now I’ve owned my own/So will you come back and be patient now?” and her heart had shattered when she first heard the song.
She’d thought: Yes. Finally, always.
And then when he’d called she could hardly believe it.
“I’m coming to New York,” he’d said.
“Julian,” she’d said.
“Please, Lena. I don’t want to have this conversation over the phone. That’s why I’m calling.”
She’d smiled and twisted her hand around the phone’s cord. “You’re calling me on the phone to tell me that you don’t want to talk on the phone?”
“You’re still you,” he’d said, and she’d heard relief in his voice. It was almost as though he’d been genuinely afraid that in the past two years she’d morphed into an entirely different person. But that was one of the main differences between her and him—the difference that had proved to be too insurmountable to overcome when push came to shove. She didn’t believe that people could really change. And he did. He believed in anything if it was given time.
“More or less,” she’d said.
“I want to see you.”
“When you’re in New York?”
“I was thinking that was my best shot. I didn’t think you’d agree to my offer to fly you out to come meet me right now in San Francisco.”
She’d held her breath like she was considering this even though she really wasn’t. “New York would be better.”
“I thought so.”
“Will you go to dinner with me?”
She held her breath again. “I want to hear you play.”
“You’ve already heard me play.”
“I want to hear you play these songs.”
“You’ve already heard me play these songs.” There was an edge to his voice.
“Not all of them. Not ‘Finally, Always.’ I love that song.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone.
“You like that one, huh?” he finally said.
She wound the cord tighter around her fingers. “Yeah.”
She wanted to say: Did you write it for me? Do you forgive me for being impatient? For leaving you behind in Indiana? I’m so proud of you, Julian.
And even though she didn’t say any of those things, he still said, “You know that song was for you, right?”
“I thought so.” Her voice had turned tiny and timid. Julian used to refer to it as her mouse voice.
“So will you see me?”
She didn’t want to agree to dinner just yet. She didn’t even know if she could handle it, if her heart could handle it. She didn’t trust herself to sit calmly across the table from him. How could she be expected to share a bread basket with him, smile, and pretend like they hadn’t smashed each other to smithereens?
“Julian” was all she said.
“That doesn’t sound good.”
“We destroyed each other. Do you really want to visit the wreckage?” She remembered the long fights in Oak Falls where she’d accused him of being a lazy coward and he’d accused her of being impatient and impractical and of having standards that were too damn high.
Of course I do, she’d thought when he’d accused her of that. I want more of you. I want more for you. I want more of everything. No one puts an ocean between themselves and their home who isn’t wildly, madly in search of more.
There was a long pause on the phone. She wondered where he was calling from. Maybe San Francisco. He’d mentioned San Francisco. She imagined him at a pay phone on a hilly street, but then quickly corrected that mental image. Did successful musicians use pay phones? He was probably calling her from some fancy hotel room with a fluffy bed adorned with five-hundred-thread-count sheets. There was probably some model next to him right now, her silky blond hair spilling over the neighboring pillow. The thought made Lena’s stomach coil, though she knew she had no right to be jealous. She’d given up that right when she left him standing heartbroken on the back porch of his family’s home, his whole face begging her not to go, his blue eyes ringed with red.
When Julian hadn’t said anything for a whole minute, she pressed the phone’s receiver closer to her ear. She heard his shallow breathing and was filled with relief that he hadn’t hung up, but then chastised herself for caring.
“Yes,” he said. “I do. I do want to visit the wreckage, Lena. I want to rebuild everything. With you.”
The relief she’d felt moments before was amplified. And a fluttery feeling of hope bubbled in her stomach and got stronger as she replayed in her head what he’d just said.
Despite knowing better, despite knowing so much better, she said, “Fine. I’ll come to your show. Are tickets still available?”
He laughed, and the sound of his laugh amplified her hopeful excitement. “Don’t be silly. I’ll put you on the list. When you get to the venue, just walk past the line to the guy at the front. Tell him your name and he’ll let you in.”
“Okay.” Her head was reeling. She couldn’t believe this was his world now. Lists. Nondescript security guards. Doling out free tickets like candy.
“And Lena?”
“Yeah?”
“Try to get there early so I can see you before the show.”
“Okay,” she said again.
“Okay then. I’ll see you in April.”
She heard the phone click, him hanging up, but she didn’t put the receiver back in its place. She held on to it, handling it with care as though it were a fragile object, as though it were a bomb.
“Lena?” Julian said, bringing her back to the present. “I was only teasing about the patience because …” He hung his head and slid his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I know,” she said, her eyes greedily taking him in. He was dressed in a green flannel shirt and tight black jeans. A variation of the outfit she’d seen him wearing in the various profiles of him that had been printed in various newspapers. “The Grunge God,” the newspapers had declared him. One publication had gone so far as to deem him “The Prince of Melancholy.” She’d rolled her eyes at this and imagined—hoped—he found those monikers laughable too. Though she’d, of course, clipped out all of the articles and saved them in an unassuming manila folder.
For posterity, she’d told herself. Only to remember.
After all, she was an immigrant. She was practiced in the art of remembering—in false memories and nostalgia. In the magic of keeping the past alive.
“Of course you do,” he said, and his lips spread into an easy grin. His eyes shot around the ballroom, and she found herself wishing he’d focus on her. In the entirety of their relationship, she’d never struggled to get his attention, let alone hold it. “So what do you think of this place?”
An unexpected feeling of discomfort and disorientation overcame her. “It’s fine, I guess.”
“Fine? Man, I know you’re hard to impress, but Jesus.” He ran his hand through his hair. It was blonder than she remembered. Maybe they had him dye it. Something about that thought made her irritated.
She shrugged and stared down at her shoes. They were the nicest pair she owned, but in the dusty light of the ballroom she could see all of their scratches and discoloring. They felt insufficient. She felt insufficient.
“I shouldn’t have come. I’m sorry, Julian. I thought I could do this, but I can’t.” She turned on her heel and darted toward the exit.
He followed behind her. He touched her arm gently. “Lena. Wait.”
“Um.” Marcy cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to be awkward, but … do you guys have some kind of history that I don’t know about?”
Julian and Lena stared at each other for a moment. They’d both forgotten Marcy was even there. That she’d been standing beside them the whole time. They started to laugh, high-pitched and uneasy.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Marcy said. She whistled and tossed her hair back. “Is there a bar in here?”
Julian laughed some more, the nerves giving way to a more easygoing and joyful sound. “Yeah. I don’t know if they’re open yet, but Mikey can take care of you.” As if he’d simply been hiding in the shadows, waiting to be summoned—which, sadly, he probably had—Mikey appeared beside Julian.
“Yeah, boss?”
“Boss?” Lena said, her mouth gaping slightly. She clasped her hands together with excitement. Mikey gave her a blank stare. “Mikey! It’s me.”
Mikey looked confused for a moment and then the wave of recognition hit him. “Lena! Of course! Julian said we’d be seeing you in New York.”
She briefly felt wounded by that statement. She knew she shouldn’t have been, but it made her feel like just one of the various women Julian had arranged to see on this tour. Melissa in New Orleans, Tabitha in Denver, and Lena in New York.
Mikey opened his arms and pulled her into a big bear hug. Though she knew it was just her nostalgic mind playing tricks on her, she swore she could still smell the cheeseburger grease on him, the faint sweetness of a vanilla milk shake. When she pulled away from the hug and studied him, she found him to be untouched by time. He still wore his brown hair shaggy, his skin was still lightly pockmarked, and he still had the hunched-forward posture of someone who was always reaching for something.
“It’s good to see you, Lena,” Mikey said, and he sounded like he really meant it.
“Boss?” she said, repeating the phrase she’d heard Mikey use earlier.
Mikey’s face flushed red. He seemed both pleased and embarrassed. “A joke,” Mikey said. “You know, since I was his boss back in the day at the diner and now he’s, well you know, he’s Julian Oliver.”
Lena turned her attention to Julian. “He’s always been Julian Oliver.”
Julian took her hand and gave it an unexpected squeeze. Her whole body hummed with the satisfaction of recognition. I’m doomed, she thought, and returned the squeeze.
“As heartwarming as this reunion is, could I get that drink?” Marcy declared with another one of her signature whistles.
“Sure thing, baby doll,” Mikey said. “Believe me, I know, these two are insufferable as hell.” He winked at Lena, and she felt like she’d jumped back in time, as though she were sitting at one of the metal tables at Mickey’s, waiting for Julian to bring her out a sloppily made vanilla milk shake that was thoroughly mediocre but somehow still managed to taste like the best thing in the world.
Mikey led Marcy away from the main hollowed-out room, presumably to fix her a drink. Lena felt the absence of their presence, the weight of finally, after all this time, being alone with Julian.
“Mikey is going to like your friend.”
“Her name is Marcy,” Lena said sharply.
Julian smiled good-naturedly. “Of course. Marcy.”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s very pretty.” She hated how jealous she sounded.
Julian’s smile stayed on his face. He didn’t say anything.
The thing was, Marcy was pretty. And rich. And interesting. And now that Julian was, well, Julian Oliver, it seemed like, on paper, he should, would, be a much better fit with Marcy Barrows.
“Lena,” Julian said.
“Yes?”
He grabbed for her hand again. She didn’t pull away from his touch. “Since you walked into this room, the only person I saw was you.” He dropped her hand, but she could still feel his skin lingering on hers.
He ran his hand through his hair. It had gotten longer since she’d seen him last. Musician hair, she thought. Rock star hair. “Hell, I think since the moment I met you, you’ve been the only person I’ve been able to see. At the very least, you’re certainly the only person I’ve wanted to see.” He let out a loud exhale. It was the sound of someone who had been holding his breath for a very long time. “I wrote this whole album for you.” Then he added, “I’m doing all of this for you.”
She surprised herself when she said, “I know.”
His smile was back and it’d crept into his eyes. “Of course you do.”
She heard the click of Marcy’s heels. She and Mikey were heading back toward them.
“We don’t have much time before they start letting everyone in,” Julian said.
“Everyone?” Lena wiggled her eyebrows in a way that she hoped was flirtatious. She’d never been talented at flirting. She’d come to learn that America was a very flirtatious culture, a land of innuendo and winks. Before, she’d never had to flirt with Julian. There had been no reason to. She’d had his attention and his love. She could be true with him, no pretense. No acting.
Mikey and Marcy stood off to the side. Marcy was swaying back and forth slightly, triumphantly clutching what appeared to be a gin and tonic. She took a refined sip. “Can we join you guys, or do you need more time to hash out this history I had no idea you had?”
Lena tried to swallow her annoyance at Marcy. She wished she would get a clue and just give her and Julian some space.
Marcy turned her shoulders to face Julian. “Can you believe what a hold-out Lena is? She only told me that she knew you.”
Julian didn’t take his eyes off Lena. She felt like a brat, but satisfaction bubbled in her stomach. “She does know me.”
“Yeah. But.” Marcy took another sip of her gin and tonic. “You know what I mean.”
“Julian,” Mikey interjected. “The show’s starting.”
Julian still didn’t take his eyes off Lena. Lena kept looking from him to Marcy to Mikey to the vacant stage and then back to him, and she always found his eyes locked on her. She held her breath.
“It’ll be different this time,” he said.
Her nerve was slipping a bit because of the presence of Marcy and Mikey, but she straightened her spine and demurred, “How do you know there will even be a this time?”
“Because I’m patient. And persistent.” He walked toward her, brushed her hair away from her face, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Enjoy the show. I’ll see you after, okay?”
Once he and Mikey were gone, Lena found herself alone with Marcy, staring at the vacant stage.
“What the fuck, Len?” Marcy said. “You used to date Julian Oliver? You didn’t think to mention that?”
Lena looked down at her shoes, which had seemed so ratty moments ago. They didn’t seem so bad anymore. “I told you that I knew him.”
Marcy nudged her shoulder against Lena. “I always knew you were a badass chick, but damn.”
Lena wanted to smile, but she felt unworthy of the compliment. That’s another thing she’d decided about Americans. The only thing they loved more than being praised themselves was praising others. Oftentimes when it was inappropriate to do so. Nothing was cheaper in America than compliments. “He wasn’t a rock star then.”
She turned her head at the sound of the doors swinging open. Suddenly and without warning, the room began to fill with eager bodies. All of them buzzing with anticipation, all of them desperate to catch a glimpse of Julian Oliver.
The show started, and Lena tuned out for most of the opening act. It wasn’t that they weren’t good, but her mind wasn’t in a place where it was able to focus. The only thing she managed to note about the band was that they had a female bassist, and she was very pretty, and Lena pettily wondered if Julian had a) noticed how pretty the bassist was and b) if they’d ever had a thing. She found herself comparing her own looks to the bassist’s.
She looked back down at her shoes. They seemed scratched and worn again.
By the time Julian came on, she was knotted with worry and jealousy. Her head was foggy with confusion. But this show was so different from the one in Oak Falls. The music was on pace. The band composed. And when Julian started to play his songs, she felt the music drape over her like a blanket. Those songs were like lullabies.
So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, especially herself, that three hours later she found herself in a chic candlelit restaurant, sitting across from Julian, nervously sipping her second glass of champagne.
“So how’d this all happen?” she asked.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You went from zero to sixty.”
“You leaving was the kick in the ass I needed,” Julian said.
And this declaration made Lena both unbearably happy and unbearably sad. She took another gulp of champagne.
Julian explained to her that once she’d left, he, Marty St. Clair, and Chris had kicked the band into overdrive. They’d fired their previous drummer and found a new, much more talented guy. Every moment that Julian wasn’t working in his father’s store, he was writing new songs and practicing with the band. About a year after Lena left, they all drove out to a band showcase in Chicago.
Marty was pushy and charismatic enough to get them some face time with a record label rep. The rep clearly wasn’t expecting much and gave them the chance to play one song. Julian convinced the group to go with “Finally, Always,” and the rep ended up flipping for it. He signed them to the label with a small advance.
No one predicted the record would take off in the way that it did. But then two amazing things happened: 1) a much bigger, more established band had issues in the recording studio, which freed up some marketing money and b) a music critic at Rolling Stone fell head over heels for S.I.T.A.’s album when he was sent an advance copy to listen to. Before Julian knew it, the band was playing sold-out shows, and each venue seemed bigger than the last.
“What do your parents think?” Lena asked. “They must be so excited.”
Julian stared down at the table. “You know how they are. Mom is thrilled. Dad is …”
Lena reached across the table for his hand. “I’m sure he’s proud of you.”
Julian sighed and looked up. “I think he just thought I’d finally grown up, you know? I was working at the store. I was doing well. And then one day, I just didn’t show up.” He shook his head. “I took the cowardly way out. I told them over the phone.”
“I’m sure they understand.”
“Dad’s store is in trouble. It isn’t turning a profit anymore. I sent them a check in the mail, but Dad refused to accept it.” He continued to shake his head. “It’s like he blames me for the store closing. But it’s not my fault, is it?”
Lena reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “It’s definitely not your fault. He’ll come around.”
“We don’t really talk anymore. It’s even worse than it was before,” Julian said. “I’m worried there’s a distance growing between us that’s soon going to be insurmountable. He just makes it so difficult to talk.”
“It’ll be okay,” Lena assured him, even though she wasn’t quite sure that it would be.
That dinner easily gave way to her spending the night in his hotel room. The next morning, Julian held her tightly on the busy sidewalk outside the hotel.
“Don’t go,” he pleaded.
“I have to graduate,” Lena insisted. “But then I promise I’ll come join you on tour.”
He kissed her forehead. “Maybe I should just stay here.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I don’t want to let you go again.”
“It’s different this time,” she said.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“You promise?” he repeated.
And she laughed as he smothered her with kisses.
Lena finished up school and, as promised, joined Julian for the summer leg of his tour. She was working on finishing a collection of human-sized clay figurines and was thrilled when she discovered a gallery—not the most elite, but a prominent one nonetheless—was interested in displaying them. She was sure that Julian, or someone he knew now, had been responsible for the gallery’s interest, but she tried not to think about that too much.
Be proud, she implored herself. Your dreams are coming true.
She was so focused on making her own dreams come true that it was beginning to cause friction between her and Julian. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but slowly their relationship began to erode. Julian was always inviting her to go out with him after the show to various parties where he was expected to make an appearance.
Lena hated those parties.
Sure, one reason was that she didn’t like being treated like she was only interesting because she was Julian Oliver’s girlfriend. She was a person with thoughts and dreams and interests completely separate from him. Also, she simply preferred to stay at home so she could work on her own art.
Julian’s newfound fame hadn’t made her lazy. In fact it was the opposite—it had made her even wilder with ambition. She was determined to catch up with him. The way she saw it, they had stood on the same starting line, and he had somehow managed to get many strides ahead, and so now it was her job to close the gap.
Julian did not see it this way.
“Why are you so worried, babe?” he would ask, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. He would shower her neck with kisses and beg her to come relax with him instead of repainting the face on one of the clay figurines for the umpteenth time. “You shouldn’t worry so much. Everything’s going to fall into place for us. Hell, it’s fallen into place for us.”
“You mean,” Lena corrected, “it’s fallen into place for you.”
Julian did not understand this distinction that Lena drew between the Us—their relationship—and their singular artistic pursuits. He saw them as one unit. As a team. He couldn’t process why Lena wanted to untangle herself from that unit.
But Lena deeply believed that something wasn’t yours unless you, and only you, earned it. Only you owned it. Sharing Julian’s success did not interest her. She wanted her own success. Something that had her own name on it. She was unapologetic in this desire, and it began to drive Julian crazy.
He stayed out later and later at the parties she refused to attend with him. She knew those parties were full of girls. Girls that fawned all over him, girls that she desperately wanted to believe he wasn’t sleeping with. He came home smelling of smoke and alcohol. His words blurred and his hands clumsy. When she would question him, he would fire back at her.
“Why isn’t this enough for you?” he asked her one night, his voice hoarse, his eyes far away. “I wrote the album, I left home, I did all of this for you.”
“Because it’s not mine,” she said quietly. She wished there was some way she could explain to him that she hadn’t put a whole ocean between herself and her home to be a rock star’s sidekick. It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t ever be enough.
“But I’m yours,” he said sadly.
“I know,” she whispered. “But that’s not enough.”
“I wish it was,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t only thinking of her. He was thinking of his father.
Things continued to deteriorate between them. More fights. More late nights where Julian didn’t show up until three a.m., and when he did show up he was drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke.
It was on one of those nights when she was holed up in another random hotel room, sitting on the floor with her sketch pad, doodling ideas for her next project, when the phone rang. She picked it up, bracing herself for Mikey’s voice covering for Julian, who had inevitably gotten too wasted at one of the after-show parties.
It was her cousin.
“Lena?” her cousin said, her voice shaky.
“Yes?” Lena said brusquely, irritated to have been interrupted from her work.
“It’s your mother.”
Lena’s heart stalled. She squeezed the phone and let out a tiny whimper of a prayer.
“She’s gone,” her cousin said softly.
Lena fell to her knees.
Her cousin continued to talk. Whispering words of comfort. Filling in the details. Explaining that she and her husband didn’t know if they would be able to go home for the funeral. But Lena surely would, wouldn’t she? And then the cousin asked whether Julian would go with Lena.
A shivering dread snaked its way into her cloud of grief. Would Julian come with her? Did she even want him to? Would she even be able to go herself? Her student visa was about to expire. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get back into the country. Plus, the money. She couldn’t afford a ticket home without Julian’s help.
She hung up the phone and sat for what seemed like hours paralyzed on the bed. She stared out at the nondescript room that could’ve been anywhere in the world and whispered to herself, “My mother is dead.
“My mother is dead,” she repeated over and over again.
But no matter how many times she said it, it never clicked. It never seemed fully true. She kept waiting for the enormity of it to hit her, but it didn’t. She kept feeling sharp pieces of sadness, but she was waiting for the final stab to come down.
She didn’t understand how something so momentous could happen so quickly. She had always childishly believed that you would be prepared for the death of your parent. At least it had been that way with her father. He had been sick. They had all waited and watched him die. It hadn’t made it easier, but she had known it was coming.
The shock of this grief was what she couldn’t process. Her mother’s heart had simply given out. Lena placed her hand over her own heart. She wondered how many more beats it had in store for her.
It wasn’t that night that she left for good. She stayed on tour with the band for at least another month. At first, Julian even harbored some hope that the death of Lena’s mother was going to bring them closer together. Lena started coming out to more of the after-parties. Her desire to not be alone seemed to be the strongest effect of her grief.
But then one afternoon, completely unexpectedly, Lena marched into their hotel room and said, “I’m leaving.” And then added, “For good.”
“What?” Julian had said. He was waking up from an afternoon nap in the hotel bed. His eyes were still groggy with sleep.
She sat on the love seat in the corner. When he sat up in bed and really looked at her, he saw that she was different. He didn’t know how. But she was. She felt so far away even though he could’ve reached out and touched her. Later, he would think it had been like looking at a hologram version of a person.
“I’m going back to school to become a doctor. I know I won’t be earning a degree as a medical doctor, but it will still be a doctorate. It will still be something instead of nothing,” she said flatly. “My mother is dead and I betrayed her while she was alive by lying to her about my new life in the States. But now, I’m going to make things right. I’m going to make things right for her memory.”
Julian shook his head. “Lena, isn’t this what you always lectured me about? You have to live your life for you. You can’t apologize or feel guilty for having your own dreams. Your mother would be so proud of you. I know she would.”
Lena tilted her head down to stare at the hotel carpet. It was cream-colored and plush. “That’s a luxury only afforded to you, Oliver,” she said, and stood up from the love seat. “I’ve already told Mikey I’m leaving. He’s booked my flight for this afternoon.”
“Lena,” he said, jumping out of the bed. “Wait. Please.”
But she didn’t wait. She left.
And she never came back.