Pucker Up (22 page)

“Trevor,
come here, sit down.”   Faith pulled him over to a corner of the waiting room
and forced him into a chair.

“A
fish,” he said.  “I could probably take care of a fish.  They’re very self-contained,
and if you forget to feed them one day, eh, they’ll survive.”

“Listen—”
Faith began.

“A
heart attack.  I’m having a heart attack,” he said, clutching at his chest.

“You’re
not having a heart attack,” Faith admonished.  “You’re having a panic attack. 
You need to calm down.  Just breathe.  It’s all going to be okay.”

Faith
pushed his head between his knees and tried hard not to laugh as Trevor started
breathing in the same staccato rhythm Madison had as she’d been wheeled away. 
“There, that’s it.”  She rubbed a hand against his back, trying to offer some
comfort.  “Isn’t that better?”

“Yes,
that’s better.”  After a few minutes he sat up and leaned back in his chair. 
“God, I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he said with a small laugh.  “You’d
think I’d be ready for this.  I’m supposed to be the unflappable one.”

“I
guess babies do that to you.”

“Yeah,
I guess they can.”  Trevor turned sheepish eyes to Faith.  “You won’t tell Mady
about this, will you?  She has enough to think about without worrying that I’m
going to freak out again.”

“It’ll
be our little secret,” she assured him.

“Thanks. 
I can’t even imagine how she’d react if she heard me say that a fish was
preferable to our child.  I would never live that down.”  He shook his head in
disbelief.  “The crazy things these hospital walls must hear.  No wonder
medical shows are so popular.”

“Mr.
Clark?” a nurse asked.  Trevor jumped up and squeezed Faith’s hand, mouthing
her a silent thank you as he followed after the nurse down the hall.  Faith
watched him walk towards a new chapter in his life, and wondered about the
other things said in hospitals.  If any of the things said there should be
fueling a ten-year heartache. 

The
truck was silent, not even the radio punctuating the tense atmosphere.  Peter
glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed both of the girls were staring at
their laps, no phones in sight.

“You,
Sidekick.  How many classes did you miss today?” 

Melody
leaned forward to look at the clock on the dash before responding.  “One.”

“But
no tests?”

“No
tests.”

Peter
fell silent again, navigating the traffic back to the campus.  “You, Felon. 
How many classes did you miss today?”

“All
of them,” Harmony murmured.

“All
of yours or all of mine?”  She didn’t even dignify that with an answer, just
crossed her arms and turned to stare blankly out the window.  The ride home was
going to be a barrel of laughs.

When
they pulled into the parking lot, Melody couldn’t get out of the car fast
enough.  Peter rolled down his window and beckoned her over, never even turning
off the car.  “This was not a good idea,” he said.

“I
know.”  She sighed.

“I
expect more out of you.  Not just going along with everything she says.  You’re
supposed to be the responsible one.”

“You’re
disappointed in me, and I get it.”  Melody looked up then, and her lips curved
ever so slightly.  “But I think, in the end, we’ll be getting rewards not
reprimands.”

“Do
you now?” Peter asked, astonished.  He could not believe these girls sometimes.

“We
haven’t reached the end of the story yet, Dad.  It always looks darkest for our
heroes right before the dawn.”  She winked, kissed him on the cheek, and walked
away.

“I
should never have let you tell them bedtime stories,” Peter muttered, glancing
at his brother in the passenger seat.  But before he could put the truck into
gear, Dustin jumped out.  “Shit.”

“Language,”
Harmony said with a sparkle in her eye.

Peter
just threw her an unimpressed look before turning off the engine and following
his twin.  Dustin was next to the truck, pacing a tight line the length of the
parking spot.  “I’m staying,” he said.

“You’re
what?” Peter asked.

“I’m
staying.  I can’t be in that car for the next four hours.  I can’t waste four
more hours.  I can’t waste four more minutes.”

“Dusty
– ”

“No,”
he said, raising a hand at Peter to stop.  “You don’t understand.  I can’t wait. 
I have to fix this.  Right now.   Here.  Now.”

“I
get that.  Believe me, I get that.  It’s only what I’ve been telling you for
the last, oh, ten years.  But bro, this is not the way to do it.”

“Yes,
it is.”

“Oh
really?” Peter said, mocking in his voice.  “Then tell me what’s your master
plan?  You don’t know where Faith lives.  You don’t know anyone that will talk
to you.  You don’t have a place to stay.  You definitely don’t have any wheels
because I’m driving that truck right back home in the next ten minutes.”

“What
about my car?”

The
men turned to see Harmony standing on the running board, listening to them as
she leaned against the open door. 

“I’m
sorry,” Peter said with a laugh as he stared at her. “You think you still
have
a car?”  She floundered around for words before shrugging in defeat and
climbing back into the truck.

“I
can use her car,” Dustin said.

“Her
car probably doesn’t even start – we’re going to have to pay the school to haul
it away.  But that is so not even the point.”

“You’re
all talk, Peter.  You’ve been all talk for ten damn years.  I don’t need talk. 
Action.  I need action.”

Peter
watched Dustin pace, his movements that of a caged animal getting ready to
escape.  But he knew his brother hadn’t thought it all through, getting ready
to chase after the girl into a rainstorm again.  “Action didn’t work last
time.”

“What
the hell is
that
supposed to mean?”

“Dustin,
stop,” Peter said, grabbing his brother around the shoulders and pulling him to
a stop.  “Last time you ran without thinking you got sucker punched by a
foreign car.  Flattened so badly I thought they were going to have to peel you
off the fucking road.”

“Thanks
for the reminder.”

“You’re
welcome,” Peter said, taking a step back so Dustin would meet his gaze.  “And
you need one.  You need to be in your right mind.  Faith ties you up in knots
and drives you crazy on a good day, and today, this is not a good day.”

Dustin’s
shoulders fell, as if the weight of the world was bearing down on him the
moment he stopped moving.  “You never go to a job without a building plan; you
need to treat this the same way.  You need to do this right.”

“I
don’t even know what that is anymore,” Dustin mumbled.

“Well,”
Peter said, slowing guiding him back to the truck, “figuring that out would be
a great use of four hours.”

Faith
sat in the waiting room of the maternity ward, surrounded by smiling faces
waiting to meet new bundles of joy.  She felt woefully out of place, and her
mind kept wandering to one person.  One person she was finally ready to reach
out to.

She
pulled out her phone, hoping the cell number was still the same, and typed out
a message. 
Maybe I was a little too harsh.

Maya’s
reply was almost instantaneous. 
Nope, I’m gonna need more than that.

What
do you want me to do?  Grovel?

The
phone pinged. 
Some groveling would be nice.  Some understanding would be a
whole lot better.

Faith
sighed and ran frustrated fingers through her hair. 
I’m sorry but I don’t
understand.  You’re going to have to explain it to me.

Well,
being open to an explanation would be a good place to start.

I
am,
Faith texted.  And finally, after six years, she was.  Maybe it wasn’t just
hospitals that inspired misunderstandings.

Do
you ever write songs FOR people?
  Faith looked at her phone with
confusion. What kind of reply was that?

What?

I’m
serious – answer the question.  Do you ever write songs for people?

Here
it was, first test of her no longer secret life.  Could she share it, any of
it, with someone else?  Even one of her oldest friends?

Before
she could decide, another message popped up. 
Here, I’ll help.  We both know
Switchblade is about me.

Fine,
yes, you got me.  I write songs about people I know.  It’s how I process
things.

What
songs?

Faith
rolled her eyes, and her thumbs started flying over the keys.  If she found
this in an interview later, Maya would be dead. 
You called Switchblade.  I
wrote Magpie for my lawyer.  Lollipop is about Tara and her suicide attempt.

And
what did you do with those songs?

I
don’t understand the question
, Faith replied.

Did
they sit in a drawer, gathering dust where no one would ever see them?  Did you
give them to the people who inspired them to try and start a conversation? 
No.  No, you released them, into the world, for everyone to hear.

Faith
thought she knew where this was going, and the next message from Maya confirmed
it. 
How is what I did any different?

She
looked up from her phone, out at the happy smiling faces around her, and tried
to come up with an argument.  She didn’t really have one.

I
don’t use my own name.
  She knew it was a feeble excuse.

Do
you think anyone really connects me with that movie?  Or that I didn’t know
that song was about me, Andy Peters?  Nice try.  Next.

This
is stupid.  Yeah, okay, I wrote a three minute song about how mad I was at
you.  You took my story – MY story, mine – and wrote a screenplay.  They made a
movie of my life.  You didn’t share my story, you ripped it away from me.  And
I felt betrayed.  I still FEEL betrayed.

Faith
wiped a tear from her check.  No one noticed, all of those around her too eager
with anticipation to recognize her pain.  Alone even in a crowded room – a
sentiment she knew very well. 

I’m
not saying I was 100% right, but I wasn’t 100% wrong either.  You wrote songs,
and you didn’t tell any of us about it.  We weren’t stupid.  We knew exactly
when you started, when you began compartmentalizing your life.  Just because we
weren’t a girl group anymore didn’t mean we weren’t a group of girls that
cared.

Faith
wanted to escape from the truth of that, but Maya’s words wouldn’t let her.  The
texts just kept coming. 
I thought maybe I could write some words to help
because speaking them sure as hell wasn’t working.  So you could see it from a
different perspective.  So you wouldn’t leave it like that.  So you could be
whole again.

But
you didn’t see any of that, Faith.  All you saw was betrayal, and you cut me
out.  And you missed the whole freaking point.  Which was, without
embellishment, you had a love story worth writing about, worth living, worth
fucking fighting for
.

Faith
ran from that, distanced herself from it the only way she could. 
You don’t
know the whole story.

Faith,
you’re forgetting who you’re talking to.  This is Maya – probably the only
other person that does.

That’s
right, Faith realized, she was. 
Then you know why I left
.

I
know Dustin would never hurt you on purpose.  And that, in ten years, he’s
never moved on.

He
hadn’t seemed like he’d moved on.  And she couldn’t reconcile his anger at her
at all, not with the man that had pushed her away in the midst of a nightmarish
night.  But he still hadn’t fought for her.

You
were at the ranch.  You went to see him too, didn’t you?

Yeah

Was
it still there?

More
tears fell silently from Faith’s eyes.  She nodded before remembering Maya wasn’t
sitting next to her talking; it was only the voice in her head. 
It was

The
lemon tree had been there, and Dustin had been incensed when he thought there
was a stranger anywhere near it.

Faith
couldn’t handle this. 
But it wasn’t there for me.  It was there for her,
always for her. 

Faith,
come on.  You know that’s not true.
  She could hear Maya’s voice, her
incredulous tone, as she read it.  But that was the perk of texting – she
didn’t have to hear it if she didn’t want to.

No
, she texted,
unable to handle anything else. 
I know no such thing.  All I know is that I
gave him everything I had, twice.  And he let me walk away, twice.  I can’t do
it again.  Maybe we had a love story worth fighting for, but all stories have
ends.
 

Faith
turned off her phone and dropped it in her purse.  She was done with the past,
done with all the people that insisted on reminding her of it.  There was a new
life coming into the world right down the hall, dozens of them, all shining
beacons that the only way to move was forward.