“Probably Sam,” he added unnecessarily.
I gripped my fiddle tightly to keep from flinging it away as I jumped up from my chair, leaving it rocking wildly. I ran through the showroom, dashed up the stairs, and shoved my hand into my purse. But the number on my phone wasn’t labeled.
Not Sam.
“Hello?” I snarled.
“Hey!” a girl said brightly. “It’s Charlotte.”
I felt my nostrils flair in distaste.
“Cunningham,” she added when I didn’t say anything. “The drummer.”
“Uh-huh.” Whatever message she’d called to deliver, I was going to make it as difficult as possible for her. “How did you get my number?”
“Sam asked me to convince you to come back to the band.”
“I was never in your band,” I said.
“Whatever. Sam is mad at me. He thinks you dropped out because of what I did last night. I just wanted to apologize. I shouldn’t have dragged Ace back to Sam’s truck and opened the door. I knew what was happening, but you’re a big girl, and I should have just let it happen. And I didn’t mean what I said.” Her tone was super-friendly and, therefore, ironic, just like last night.
I started to rub my eye, then quickly pulled my hand away. Charlotte wasn’t worth rubbing my eyes over. “Yes, you did mean it,” I told her. “Girls don’t say ‘This guy is making out with you like he just made out with me’ without meaning it. That’s pretty specific.”
“Well.” Stumped, she took a deep breath. “Look, I wasn’t trying to be rude. I just felt like you should know what was going on. Sam has had a different girlfriend every week this year. He has literally had, like, fifty-two girlfriends. He wears his heart on his sleeve. He will make you feel like the world was made for the two of you while he’s with you. He’ll convince you to do anything he wants, and he’ll make you think it was your idea. With Sam, two and two doesn’t always equal four. Depending on what he’s trying to convince you of that day, two and two might equal five. He’s so convincing that sometimes he seems like he doesn’t know himself that he’s manipulating you.
“And then, when he’s gotten what he wants out of you, it’ll be over. You’ll be having the week of your life, and out of the blue he’ll say”—she switched into a lower voice that was supposed to be Sam’s—“‘I’m messed up right now, and I can’t give you what you deserve.’ And then he’s on to girl fifty-three. Wait, this isn’t convincing you to come back to the band, is it?”
I let the silence fall between us, like a security gate rolling shut over a storefront at the mall. Surely she could hear how passive-aggressive she sounded. But as the seconds dragged on, I decided she might be so socially inept that she didn’t understand her own passive-aggression, or the meaning behind my silence. I said, “I don’t know what your plans are for higher education, but you should probably rule out law school.” I hung up.
The triumphant feeling lasted about two seconds, and then I was alone in the quiet room that wasn’t really mine, listening to the breeze in the oak trees outside, staring at the phone in my hands and feeling numb.
I was determined to stay strong and put an end to my relationship, such as it was, with Sam. From the very beginning, I’d suspected him of something like what Charlotte had described. It was hard to turn my back on him. Better now than later, when his claws had sunk further into me.
But I couldn’t help a little flight of fancy, the memory of his hands on me. I put one hand up to cup my breast and thought of the way he’d touched me. The most endearing thing about him had been the way he seemed bowled over by me, like he’d never met a girl so sexy and beautiful. Was it good to treasure the memory of a few perfect hours together? Or would I have been better off never meeting him?
I wasn’t getting married, but I was as bad off as that girl Sheila at the bar last night, marrying David and thinking of Sam while she stared at the ceiling.
There was definitely a country song about this.
I pried my hand away from the phone and galloped back downstairs to my granddad. We had just launched “Wildwood Flower” when he said, “Phone’s ringing. Y’all can’t bear to stay away from each other?”
“Nope.” It was probably Charlotte again. It definitely wasn’t Sam. Even if it was Sam, I wasn’t excited about talking to him. Yet strangely, I made it up the stairs in record time. The number wasn’t labeled. Not Sam. “Fuck,” I said, then clicked the phone on. “Hello?”
“Hello, Bailey. It’s Ace.”
I sighed heavily, directly into the phone so he would hear it, and didn’t say anything.
After the silence stretched on, he added, “Hightower. The bass player. From last night?”
“Hello, Ace,” I said, letting him know from my tone that I understood why he was calling, and it wasn’t going to work. But even as I unleashed that sarcastic barb, my voice faltered. I thought I heard Sam singing, like he was serenading me. I walked over to my windows. Nothing was beneath them but grass dappled with sun and shade.
“Listen,” Ace said. “Sam asked me to convince you to play with us again tonight. We’re all so sorry about what Charlotte said to you. She and Sam dated before, but it was nothing serious. Just a week. She’s not quite over him, I think—”
“You think?” I interjected.
Ace went on as if I hadn’t interrupted. “—and she wanted me to drive back to the parking deck last night and find you with him. I knew I shouldn’t have done it, but I did it, and I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t concentrate on a snappy comeback. I still thought I heard Sam, and he was drowning out Ace’s apology. It was like talking to Julie every night for the past year, asking her to repeat herself again and again over the din of the entourage surrounding her. “Where are you?”
He paused between it’s-none-of-your-business and what-would-it-hurt-to-tell-her. “Broadway.”
“Sam’s singing on Broadway?” I exclaimed. He’d finally gotten the gig he wanted! And he hadn’t needed me after all. My heart raced with elation and pain together.
“Oh,” Ace said. He realized that I could hear Sam, and he should have walked to Georgia to make this call. “Well, he’s busking.”
“What?” I exclaimed. Lots of musicians hung out between the clubs on Broadway, playing whatever instrument they had with their cases open for passersby to throw bills into. Usually these people looked only marginally better groomed than the man who had almost grabbed me last night. “Why is Sam busking?”