Page 45 of A Love Song for Ricki Wilde

A confirmed stoic, Ezra wasn’t built for self-examination. When faced with his own Big Feelings, Ezra froze up. He didn’t cry (it was unsatisfying and aggravated his sinuses). He staved off anxiety by cooking for hours (don’t let the brawny build and big hands fool you; he julienned with the precision of a Bocuse d’Or chef). And, as a rule, he allowed despair to linger for only one business day (after that, he’d bury the pain so deep, he’d forget where to find it).

Ezra didn’t need Dr. Arroyo-Abril to tell him that emotional blockage had everything to do with where and how he was raised, in a town stuck in quicksand, sinking backward into time. His dad, his granddad, and so on—all the musically gifted Ezra Walkers before him—their philosophy was, if you’re gonna fall apart, you better just stay in pieces, because whatever happens tomorrow might be a thousand times worse. Don’t weep—make songs! So he’d retreat to the keys and bang out what was coursing through his veins, shaping his rage, sadness, and grief into something beautiful.

But that gift had stopped giving long ago. Ezra hadn’t finished an original composition in years. Instead, he’d play snippets of the same half-written song floating around in his head. And recently, this almost-complete melody had been positively haunting him. Keeping him up at night. He just couldn’t connect the dots, couldn’t make the song work. He was still embarrassed he’d played some of it in front of Ricki at Bar Exquise. Ezra had never played anything unfinished for an audience.

How dare Ricki Wilde make him feel so settled, so at peace, that he forgot himself?

Ezra couldn’t create his own music anymore, so these days he worked as an anonymous journeyman, playing backup for other artists. And since composing had been his coping mechanism, he now had no tools to process his swirling confusion over Ricki. Ezra needed Dr. Arroyo-Abril’s help, desperately.

Right now, she was peering at him through her flame-red bifocals, all gleefully judgmental smiles and dimpled enthusiasm.

“I repeat,” she said. “When are you going to tell that adorable florist the truth? Because if you do not, I will! Which will be strange for her, as I am sure by now she has forgotten me. How long has it been since I spoke to her?”

“Almost two weeks,” he answered glumly.

“So right now I am just a foggy memory to her. Soon, I will have vanished from her mind completely!”

I know the rules, he thought, trying to remain calm.Can we please get to the part where you help me?

Ezra leaned forward, manspreading with his elbows on his knees. “What I’m supposed to tell Ricki, exactly? This is all your fault, by the way. I gave you cash to buy the painting for me. Not to give her my number.”

Dr. Arroyo-Abril gasped, mock offended. “I was just speeding up the inevitable. My thinking was the sooner you two spoke, the faster you could find a solution to your… conundrum.”

“She showed up to my house,” he said indignantly. “She knows where Ilive. Do you understand how wrong that is? The less she knows about me, the better.”

“Too late,” she said with a cheerful shrug.

He shook his head, frustrated. “I can’t keep pushing her away, and my whole ‘I’m private’ excuse feels so stupid. I think she can tell how I… the way I… She knows…”

“Yes, Ezra, I am sure she can sense how you feel about her.” She sighed. “Tell her the truth.”

“I can’t do that.” With miserable finality, he flipped up the hood of his Kenzo tiger sweatshirt and then slowly pulled the laces until it closed over his face, shutting out the world.

“Well, you cannot dothat.” She waved her hands toward the lump of indulgent sadness sitting on her couch. “Listen, I know how hard Februaries are for you. Especially this one, it being a leap year and all.”

Ezra nodded, sliding off his hood. He opened his mouth to speak, and then shut it again.

“Talk to me,” she ordered, tapping a glitter-sneakered foot. “Come on, how do you feel?”

“I feel like another tragedy’s fixing to happen,” he pronounced with grave finality. “I know it will. And I can’t hurt Ricki. I couldn’t live with it.”

Dr. Arroyo-Abril pursed her lips and nodded. They were finally getting somewhere.

“I am proud of you, Ezra. You have done a lot of work to get over your ex’s tragic death.”

He flinched. After all this time, it still stung.

“I just want a day where I don’t think about it,” he said quietly.

“I want that for you, too,” she assured him. “Did you do your homework? The hug experiment? Finding one person to hug, as often as possible?”

“Absolutely not,” he said petulantly. Ezra didn’t hug. He didn’t understand it. How long was he supposed to stay in the embrace? Was there a standard time that was acceptable? Why wasn’t a handshake sufficient?

Hugging suggested safety and comfort, which, in his experience, had always been a lie. A cruel hoax.

“Hugs are a simple, easy, safe way to get endorphins and serotonin.” She rolled her chair closer to the couch, wagging her index finger in his face. “Stop being so change resistant, Ezra!”

“I am what I am. You shave a tiger, and its skin has the same stripes as its fur.”

---