A Girl by Any Other Name (48 page)

and her father with reserved caution. I knew he disagreed with my momma’s opinion of her, but he

wasn’t the kind of dad who would prohibit my friendship with her unless he saw a reason to.

We sat at the table. My father said grace. I opened one eye to stare at Sylvie. She had her eyes

closed tightly and was squinting her face like she was praying extra hard.

“Sugar, this is really good,” my father complimented after he took his first forkful of food.

“Sylvie helped me. She’s a very good cook.”

“I helped too!” Mandy interjected.

“Yes, you did. You did a very good job with shucking that corn for me, princess.”

“You ladies all did a great job,” my father responded.

“How was work?”

“We caught some speeders on the south end of town. Nothing too exciting, but guess what

happened after work?”

“What?” my mother asked.

“I headed over to Walmart to buy some batteries and I ran into Mona Simms. Boy, let me tell you

she sure had an earful for me about our rude son.”

I had almost forgotten. I cringed at the punishment that would surely follow my disobedience. I

caught a glimpse of Sylvie. She looked more frightened than me, and I was the one who was going to

get my ass beat in a few minutes.

“What did Cal do?” my mother asked, narrowing her eyes at me.

Before my father could answer, Sylvie interrupted. “Mr Tanner, please don’t be mad at Cal. He

was defending me, sir. It was my fault. Miss Simms made fun of my outfit, and he was just taking up

for me.”

My father stared at Sylvie for a moment. I winced, hoping he wouldn’t ban her from our house.

Instead, the corners of his mouth quirked like he was trying to keep from grinning.

“Is that a fact?”

“It is,” she said, staring down at her lap.

He turned to me. “Cal, although I appreciate your sentiment, it was still inappropriate. You don’t

have to defend one lady by insulting another. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.” Although I wouldn’t exactly call Mona Simms a lady, but I knew better than to voice

that opinion.

“I want you to write her an apology note and hand-deliver it.”

“But—”

“Or should I give you another punishment? Either write the note or you can’t go to Friday night

football for the rest of the season.”

“He didn’t even go yesterday, John,” my mother replied.

My dad put his elbows on the table, leaning forward. “What? You didn’t go?”

“No, I had other stuff to do,” I replied contritely.

My father placed his hand on my forehead. “You feeling okay, son?”

“I’m fine,” I replied, matching his wide grin. The tension was broken and I started relaxing. I

even heard Sylvie exhale a deep breath.

The rest of the dinner was mostly Mandy hijacking the conversation as she always did, talking

about her favorite television shows, dresses she wanted to buy and all the other boring random stuff

my sister talked about that I’d learned to tune out. My parents and Sylvie listened with rapt attention

as if she was reciting the formula for turning garbage into gold. I did my best not to yawn.

My father leaned back in his chair, patting his stomach, staring down at his empty plate.

“Woman, I knew I was destined to marry you when I first tasted your meatloaf.”

“Is that the reason you married me?” Momma asked, smirking.

“One of many, sweetheart. One of many.” He took her hand and kissed it. “Like, for instance,

how you always help me when I’m struggling to remember something.” He started humming then. I

tried not to roll my eyes, knowing what was in store for us.

“Oh no, not again,” my mother said. “You have a song stuck in your head, don’t you?”

“Yeah, sugar. Can you please help me out? I know you’ve heard it.”

My mother sighed. “Okay, what is it?”

“Something like ‘walk away’ and a girl’s name. It’s like ‘walk away, Sarah’. You know what

I’m talking about?”

“No, I have no idea.”

My father loved music, especially old music. He’d actually been in a rock band when he was

younger. They’d tried to make it to California. They’d got as far as Dallas. He played the piano and

the guitar. He’d tried to teach me, but I wasn’t so musically inclined. I’d snapped off his guitar strings

and my piano playing had induced a series of headaches for Momma. It was decided his instruction

would be better saved for Mandy.

“C’mon, honey, you know it. It’s like a one-hit wonder from the Sixties. I think we danced to it

before. Hell, I might even have the record.”

“No swearing, John. Children are present,” my mother chided, although I didn’t think hell was a

swear word. It was in the Bible after all.

“Sorry,” my father grumbled, walking over to the piano. He strummed a few notes, trying to find

the right combination for the elusive song that had grasped hold of his mind and wouldn’t let go until

he figured out the name.

“Come on, family. Surely you have to have some idea here?”

“No idea, John.”

“Don’t look at me,” I said, holding my hands up.

My father sat down at the piano bench and hit a few more keys. Sylvie wiped her mouth, stood

up and walked over to him. “May I?” she asked, gesturing to our old Suzuki mini-grand. My father

regarded her with surprise, but moved over on the bench.

“Be my guest.”

She sat next to him and started playing. His shocked expression was gradually replaced with

awe as Sylvie expertly hit the right keys, but I’m not sure if I ever recovered. When she started

singing, I thought my daddy was going to fall right off the bench. Sylvie was a damn good singer. Who

knew? The sounds of
Walk Away, Renee
began filling up the room.

“That’s right,” my father said, slapping his knee. When she got to the chorus, he joined her. My

mother walked over too and added her voice. This was weird. My father sometimes sang and played,

but we didn’t sing together as a family unless it was Christmas carols. Mandy ran over and jumped on

my daddy’s lap. The four of them looked so happy. I guess music had a way of bringing people

together like that. I walked over and stood next to my mom. I sure as hell wasn’t singing, but I didn’t

mind standing with them.

When Sylvie finished, she turned to my father nervously. “It’s by The Left Banke and it is a one-

hit wonder, although the Four Tops and Linda Ronstadt have covered it.”

“Where did you learn that song, Sylvie? And where did you learn to play like that? You’re really

good.”

She looked down at the piano. “Thank you. My mother taught me on both counts. My father used

to sing it to her. Her name was Renee.”

My momma leaned down, patting Sylvie’s shoulders. “It’s a beautiful song, and all the lyrics

came right back to me. You have an angelic voice, young lady.”

“Thank you, ma’am. It’s better than my piano playing. I haven’t played for a while.”

“You could use some practice, but you definitely have a strong basic framework. You should

take lessons,” my father suggested.

Sylvie beamed at the compliments so much that I wondered if anyone had ever said a nice word

to her. “Is there anyone in Prairie Marsh that gives lessons?”

My father and mother both grimaced at the same time, chiming out in unison, “Mona Simms.” We

all laughed. “Look, why don’t I give you lessons? I usually give Mandy lessons after dinner. You’re

much more advanced, but I’m sure you girls could learn from each other.”

Sylvie widened her eyes, regarding my father with some kind of crazy gratitude so that even he

blushed—and this man never blushed. I didn’t see what the big deal was. “I would really like that,

sir.”

“Great. We’ll start tomorrow night.”

I think that’s how Sylvie won her way into my daddy’s heart. She knew as much about obscure

rock songs as he did and they both loved the piano. She won my mother’s by being so well-mannered

and sweet.

The girl didn’t have to win my heart. She owned it outright.

Chapter Six

Present day

I arrived to class early on the pretense of grading the last few papers, but I was really hoping to

get a better look. I swallowed hard as I watched her come into the classroom. She still wore the

baseball hat, but I could see the deep cinnamon-colored hair sticking out in a silky ponytail. It curled

at the ends. She wasn’t wearing her sunglasses and for that brief moment our eyes met before she

tilted her face downward. They were large brown eyes—solid as fresh earth, sexy as melted

chocolate and soulful as the majestic oak trees in the forest. They took my breath away.

She wore simple jeans and a loose V-neck T-shirt the color of mud, but even this outfit didn’t

hide her voluptuous assets. My gaze followed her perfectly round ass and shapely legs all the way up

the steps of the lecture hall to that very back seat. This girl had so many similarities to Sylvie, but she

was different too. Sophie Becker was jaw-droppingly gorgeous, but then again, I’d always known

Sylvie had a natural beauty and even she couldn’t hide that forever. Sylvie Cranston

was…
perfection
.

I was determined to get more information this time. I wasn’t letting Sophie get away so easily,

but first I wanted to talk to her openly. Talk to her without talking to her. Luckily, I was in a position

to do that.

“Today, we are going to talk about the unsent letter, which is your next assignment. Just like the

term implies, it is a letter you write to someone which you have no intention of sending. You will all

be writing unsent letters to someone. They can be sonnets or a simple letter. The idea behind the

assignment is a chance to showcase some emotional writing, as exhibited in the works we have been

reading. We won’t read them out loud, so they will be completely anonymous except to Jessica and

me.”

Roy Adkins’ hand shot up. I waved it away. “Mr Adkins, there is no need to point out that this

assignment is not in the syllabus. This is a place of higher learning and, as your instructor, I have the

right to add additional assignments.” A few of the guys groaned, but I ignored them. “Do not look at

this as additional work, but rather an extra opportunity to impress me. I hope some of you will, as it is

a rare experience for me. Now, it won’t take much time. It only needs to be a paragraph or two in

fact. I just want a clear indication of your writing skills through an informal outlet.”

A girl in the front row raised her hand. I nodded toward her. “Can it be to anybody we want?”

“Yes, anyone.” I paused for a moment, trying to coax the next words to come out evenly. “Dead

or alive. It’s your choice. I have an example of an unsent letter, which I wrote when I was eighteen.

It’s to give you a perspective on the assignment.” I took the folded paper out of my pocket,

questioning why the hell I’d thought this was a good idea in the first place. “I wrote this to someone I

cared about very much and in some ways, writing it brought me some peace.”

I cleared my throat and stared at the shaky words mocking me on the paper, flavored with

yellowing tinges of time.

“Dear Sylvie, I keep forgetting that you’re not with me anymore. I keep going to the lake, looking

for your pretty face, but you’re not there anymore. I keep walking in the woods, staring at the fallen

leaves, wishing for your sweet embrace, but you’re not there anymore. I tap on your bedroom

window, hoping you’ll greet me, but you’re not there anymore. The only place I find you now is in my

heart and troubled soul. There you live as if you’d never left. You will be there forevermore.”

A sob escaped in the first row. Melanie Adams had a tissue out. Shit.

“That was so poignant,” she said. Some of the other girls looked teary-eyed too.

“Thank you,” I replied, a bit surprised by the emotional reaction I was getting from the females.

I’d only read the first paragraph, but decided that was enough.

“You loved her,” Melanie Adams said.

I didn’t reply. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to cry. I had never cried for Sylvie. Somehow, it felt like

if I did, I would accept her death, and I never wanted to do that. “Your letter can be a poem like mine

or in letter form. It can be anything you want as long as it’s spoken from the heart. Also, don’t forget

we have an exam next class and it’s worth a quarter of your grade.”

She filed out fast with her head down as soon as class was over, but I yelled out her name.

“Miss Becker, can I please have a moment of your time?”

She halted in her tracks and turned to me. She stood there like a frozen statue as the other

students fled past her.

“Do I know you?” I asked her.

“I don’t think so,” she replied.

I walked over to her. She winced, staring at my feet. The limp was very slight and very few

people noticed it, but Sophie Becker did. “Are you sure? You look like a girl I used to know.”

She smiled politely, but shook her head, “I get that a lot. I have one of those faces.”

“I highly doubt that,” I muttered, letting my eyes graze over her lovely body. I was in trouble. I

had to stop this madness.