Page 104 of Sounds Like Love

They gave a start. It was not the answer they imagined.

I tried to reason their shock away. “It’s a hurricane and I didn’t want him to get stuck here, and if he could get out, heshouldget out and I had to comehere—”

Gigi interrupted, “So, you like him. And it frightened you.”

“Oh.” My voice was tiny. It was no use protesting. “Is it that obvious?”

“Considering you’re wearing his shirt,” Mitch said, “yes.”

I frowned, fiddling with the buttons on the front. “How do you trust someone wants you for who you are? It’s so scary.”

“Good,” Mitch replied.

“That I’m scared?”

“Absolutely. Right, babe?”

“Hell yeah. My grams used to tell me that love is rare. The real kind.” Gigi pulled her arm through Mitch’s, her face thoughtful and adoring. “It’s not given, it’s not stolen—love is borrowed, she always said. It’s borrowed, and how lucky we are to be afraid of losing it.”

Mitch pecked her on the cheek. “Then I’m the luckiest man alive.”

“And the most handsome.”

I fiddled again with the buttons on Sasha’s shirt.Lucky?

I hadn’t thought of myself as lucky. But I supposed that I was. Lucky to have met him on that balcony at the Fonda Theatre. Lucky to get to know him. Lucky enough that he wanted to get to know me. I’d been in my own head for so long, writing songs and seeing the world through them, that I’d forgotten what it had felt like to beinthe world. A part of it. I was successful, and I was talented,and I was on the precipice of something extraordinary, but Gigi had seen right through me. She was right. I wasn’t satisfied. I couldn’t write because of the emptiness inside of me—and I’d thought it was my grief, my fears about my mom, but it turned out that my career had made that hole. I couldn’t write because deep down I knew I didn’t want this. It wasn’t my dream. Not this version of it, anyway. This was Mom’s version. This was Dad’s, too. Gigi’s. Mitch’s. This was the version of my life that everyone else wanted for me, but I was the one who had to live it.

Outside, the rain turned into torrential gray sheets, the wind carrying them sideways.

I said worriedly, “I think I messed up.”

“Then we’ll worry about fixing it after the storm. No going around it, there’s only through. C’mon, let’s help pass out those candles,” Gigi said, motioning to the box by the office door, so we did. There was little else I could do, anyway, with the cell towers down.

The candles were all different sizes, some long waxy ones saved for Halloween séances, others donations of seasonal Yankee Candles, all half-burnt with crispy wicks. Dad had pulled out a small AM/FM radio that murmured the weather alerts, but most people only half listened while they all picked out their candles. The Revelry was cozy, and with Mom cueing up more songs on the jukebox, and Dad carrying on with another one of his stories about his eternal fight with the seagulls that kept roosting in the eaves, and the two kids chasing the dogs, and Uncle Rick sneaking in splashes of top-shelf liquor as he bartended, and Mitch helping Gigi sort the soundproofing blankets, it almost felt like there wasn’t a hurricane outside at all.

I hoped Sasha had gotten inland. I hoped he wasn’t caught in this storm.

Just as I thought it, a sharp crack of thunder rattled the building. The lights flared. Then plunged the entire building into darkness.

Hurricane Darcy was here.

Chapter38Wherever (You Go, There You Are)

THE WIND BATTEREDthe side of the building. Dad, Uncle Rick, and my brother each grabbed a flashlight and headed for the generator. The kids shrieked and ran to Todd and his wife, inconsolable. The dogs hunkered down behind the bar as Gigi soothed them with scoops of peanut butter. I went about lighting the candles.

Mitch came back a few minutes later with bad news. “Gonna be a few for the generator. Dad forgot to replace the blown gasket from last year.”

Todd said, “We should be fine,” even as his youngest burrowed her head into the side of his torso.

Another clap of thunder rumbled the building.

Mom cracked her knuckles. “Well, I for one don’t want to listen tothatall night.”

“We could turn on the radio,” Gigi suggested.

“We need it to listen to weather reports,” I said. “Our phones? Mom, where are you going?”

She crossed the venue and dipped through the door beside the stage. She pulled open the curtains to reveal the Steinway and sat down at the bench. She played the two notes to theJawstheme, and then asked, “Any suggestions?”

---