Page 33 of Over the Edge

“For one, you need a mimosa or three to act like you actually want to be here,” I joke.

“And?”

“This is the perfect spot for people watching.”

It was a habit before it was a hobby. In school I always thought that people were more interesting than homework or textbooks. Casual conversations and gossip taught me more about the world than my teachers did. There’s something special about getting lost in what other people care about. It could be mundane, but that doesn’t make it unimportant. To one person a street corner could mean nothing, and to others it’s where they learned they got a promotion or stumbled into the love of their life.

I look around. “We’re going to play a game to see if we can spark a seed of inspiration. We take turns picking a couple or a person and come up with their story. Think about what song you’d write about them.”

“And that accomplishes what exactly?” he asks, sounding unimpressed.Lovely.

“Think Larson, use that stupidly big brain of yours. The reason people like music is it makes them feel something. Like they’re part of something bigger, but also have their own experiences. It manages to ride the line between universal and personal.”

“That explains why there’s so many songs about doing coke in bathrooms, I've always wondered. It’s a deeply poignant and personal experience?” His voice remains dry and disinterested, but there’s an edge of a joke in there that he’s carefully containing.

“See, you get it! I was starting to think I lost you,” I say with an extra dose of enthusiasm.

“If your next idea is doing coke in the bathroom, the answer is no.”

“No, but those songs make people feel something,” I explain. “Like they’re young and maybe, just maybe, they can live wild and free and not give a shit about what comes in the morning. It’s freedom.”

“Then show me how it’s done,” he says with a note of challenge in his voice.

“Pick a couple for me.”

The mimosa pitcher and two champagne flutes arrive while Garrett surveys the other patrons and the meandering couples doing laps through the town.

He takes his time before his eyes fix on a table. “The people who look like they just came back from a run four tables over.”

I stretch so I can take an assessing look at them. I let my mind drift back, taking a time machine to who they were before coming to this town. For me, a song, or at least the ones I used to love to write the most were only give or take seventy percent about what was happening in the moment. Break up songs are a prime example of this. There can’t be a breakup if there wasn’t a relationship before it. That relationship—the good, the bad, theugly of it—gives the context for the breakup to matter. The pain has to come from somewhere.

I nod as the idea starts to form. “They met through a mutual friend. She started running because of him. She’s more than happy to mold to the interests of the people she cares about. It makes her feel closer to them,” I say, feeling the momentum of it build. “Still, she’s never felt like she’s known herself well enough to have any strong special interest of her own, so she’s rarely single. He’s not the type she usually goes for but he’s stable and a bit of a health nut and she’d been wanting to work out for a while, so why not?

“The problem is that she never knows if she’s happy or if she’s just faking it so well that she even believes it because they never fight and everyone else also says they work so well together. Secretly, she wants to fight and know if he’ll fight for her.” I close my eyes and feel the wisp of song floating by, but as usual it’s like I’m hearing it through a dream. “The song would be about staying even if you’re not sure it’s the best option because you’d rather be with someone than be alone.”

His eyebrows arch. “That’s a love song?”

“Love isn’t always about making the right choices,” I say, but it feels like a futile justification for my own choices. I need the words to be true if there’s any hope for me to find anything like what the couples around us appear to be experiencing.

“From the sound of it, you don’t need me at all. You could write a whole anthology.”

“You’re not getting off that easily.” I laugh. “Yes, I can come up with these fully fleshed out ideas. I can find a beginning and an end, but I just make it too big. It’s like shoving a month-long trip into a carry-on after you took the trip, and for the life of you, you can’t figure out how you did it the first time. I have the ideas, I just can’t pull it apart and stuff it neatly into three minutes.” That, and the few times I’ve tried I hate every word I write. Ican’t even be good at the one thing I’m supposed to do; the thing I gave up so much to do.

“So, you’re expecting me to do what exactly? Put your proverbial shoes in my bag?” he asks.

“I knew you’d catch on. Afterall, I’m an excellent teacher,” I say. “Your turn.”

I fill my glass from the sweating pitcher. The cool morning is starting to break into a wave of heat. I’ve always liked this time of year the most when you can taste summer and fall all at once. My gaze wanders as I raise my glass to my mouth. From my first sip, the fizz of the drink bursts against my tongue.

I want to see Garrett try, but there’s a challenge brewing in the back of my mind. I want him to have to admit that there’s something worth appreciating about Hartsfall and what it does for people.

“There,” I say, tipping my already half drained glass to guide his attention. “The guy in the green hoodie holding open the door while still carrying both coffees.”

“If I go with my intuition you won’t get mad?” His eyes cut to the couple in question. The woman is wearing an oversized sweatshirt and shorts reminiscent of Princess Diana. A smile brightens her soft features as she talks, like there’s no place she’d rather be and no person she’d rather be with. The man is holding open the door as he balances a drink carrier, all the while his eyes never leave her.

“I won’t, as long as you play along,” I say.

He steals another glance at the couple. “He’s cheating on her.”

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