Poughkeepsie (19 page)

Stay where u r

Finally all the clandestine mid-mass texting paid off.

“She came to find me. She came to find
me
,” Blake said. His voice was a mixture of revelation and revulsion. “Do you think, Cole, that I could love her? Could I have a life with her?”

Cole had not been expecting that question. He’d expected Blake going off the deep end. He weighed his options.

“Blake, I think you two would have a beautiful romance. But long term? I don’t know. I’m scared. What if she wants a family? Or a man to sit at the dining room table or run the grill for dinner? Every night, for years? Do you think that’s possible for you?”

Blake allowed Cole to cover his wound.

“And what about you?” Cole continued. “What if she was yours and she walked away?” Cole saw Kyle’s face as he spoke to Blake.

Blake looked solemnly at Cole. “I would try very hard to be the man she needed. I would try harder at that than anything.”

Cole felt a stab in his own chest and wondered if he spoke from his own pain. Was he helping his brother at all?

“I think love would end you, Blake. I think you wouldn’t be with us anymore. It requires more common sense than you have.”

Cole’s words were bitter, and Blake looked quickly away, almost as if he’d been slapped.

Cole turned and went down the stairs to wait for the inevitable. Soon Blake would descend the stairs and into madness.

But Blake had only taken his favorite parts from Cole’s little speech. Livia had tried to find him. Livia needed him to keep her safe. Blake turned to face the organ. The keys had danced mockingly like disjointed puzzle pieces before, but now…Now they waited obediently. His hands knew them. His hands could sweep them together and create.

So he did.

He leapt right over the
Ave Maria
as if Livia held his hand to help him jump.

No more Ave Maria
.

His hands flew over the organ, composing, painting, revealing all that was within him. Blake would show Livia all he had inside for her. If she was looking for him, she didn’t hate him. If she was looking for him, he was allowed to love her.

Even if Cole was right and Blake didn’t have the common sense to be with her, he could watch her, like a knight and his queen. He could protect her so she never faced anyone like Dentist again.

Blake was allowed to love Livia. And he did.

Blake loves Livia.

You can play. You can play. You can play!
Livia leaned against the wall, her aches and pains and shivering chill melting away now that Blake’s playing had become something beautiful. She tilted her head back and opened her mouth, as if to drink the music. She couldn’t imagine how he created it—it sounded as if three people must be playing. She heard bells, then the notes sounded like voices. So clearly the music sang to her:
Blake loves Livia. Blake loves Livia.
She stretched her arms out and dug her fingers into the rough, scratchy brick, trying to hug him from the outside of the church. She wiped tears from her cheeks. She wanted to run inside and see him creating. She wanted to see his strong arms and intuitive fingers crafting the notes. Blake’s sounds enchanted her.

Livia, just a gut feeling, but let him come to you.
Dr. Lavender’s words forced themselves through the music to the forefront of her mind.

Blake had to find Livia. And he knew where to find her. He could come to her any day at the Poughkeepsie train station. But it had to be his choice to come back. Suddenly leaving him here to play his exquisite music didn’t feel like giving up. It gave Livia hope.

Livia stole quietly away from the scene of the beauty. She left Blake, but she never stopped hearing his music that night.

As the orderly, elegant notes drifted down, Cole returned to his pew and kneeled. Blake’s music was back. It was airborne poetry—diving and looping and loudly victorious. Telling Blake about Livia had not broken him. It had given him wings. Cole prayed for forgiveness for the jealousy he felt. He pulled out his phone and texted Beckett:

He’s playing! Like an angel. No Ave Maria.

Beckett’s reply came from ecstatic fingers:

MdamttohAwebome!!!

A few minutes later Beckett pulled up onto the lawn of the church and hopped out. Cole met him at the door and they locked arms. “Cole, that right there is
not
the
Ave
butt-fucking
Maria
.” Beckett raised a fist in the air and pumped it.

“Beckett, could you not?”

“Sorry. No butt-fucking in church. At least that’s the party line, right, hot stuff?” Beckett raised his eyebrows.

Cole ignored him. “Do you have to park on the lawn
every
time?”

“I’m telling you, Cole, that’s how it all gets started,” Beckett began, retreading a familiar argument. “The government’s beating us down, and it all begins with those goddamn lines in the parking lot. Set yourself free, my brother. If you see a line, ignore it.”

Beckett ran past Cole and up the spiral stairs. No one else would dare interrupt Blake’s playing, but Beckett scooped him into a bear hug and pounded him on the back. “Look at fucking you! Playing this fucking multi-tiered nightmare!” Beckett waved his hands over the complicated organ.

Blake laughed as Beckett set him back on the seat and pointed a thick finger at the organ. “You ass-fuck this bitch. Ass-fuck it.” Beckett peeked over the balcony at Cole below. “Sorry, baby. I have too much dirty in me.”

Cole shook his head and smiled. Blake resumed playing, and Cole and Beckett migrated to different places in the sanctuary. Cole straightened the hymnals in the backs of the pews while he listened, and Beckett slunk to the very center of the magnificent room after daggers from Cole’s eyes shooed him away from the altar. He always found very blasphemous places to rest his feet.

When Blake took a break to stretch his back and fingers, his brothers clapped and hollered like they were at a championship baseball game. And Blake smiled, clearly thrilled to be reunited with an instrument. When the sun began to light the window by the organ, Blake came down to the spiral stairs.

“What time is it?” he asked. He stood shirtless, looking from brother to brother.

Beckett glanced at his cell phone. “Seven sixteen a.m. So do you have to be half-naked to play, Liberace? ’Cause you play for the old biddies in this place like that and Cole better pack a defibrillator.”

“I missed the train.” Blake looked like he’d missed catching a baby bird falling from its nest.

“Blake, why don’t you go get cleaned up? Livia always comes home too,” Cole said pointedly as he began readying the church for eight o’clock mass.

“Bro, you want me to hang out? I’ll drive you to the station.” Beckett was laid out in a pew like it was a lawn hammock.

“No, that’s fine. Thanks.” Blake looked down at the sunlight pooling on the floor in front of the windows. “I need to get going,” he said, though he didn’t move.

Beckett yawned, stretched, and stood, insisting on their formal goodbye. The three stood with their tattooed arms braided together.

As they stepped away, Beckett nodded toward Blake’s bandaged arm. “What’d ya get?”

“It says ‘Sorry,’” Blake said as he went out the door to Cole’s private quarters, leaving his brothers alone.

Beckett dialed his cell phone and spoke to Cole while it rang. “What time’s good for you?”

Cole sighed. “Around one-thirty today would work.”

“Chaos!” Beckett yelled into the phone. “Fit me and my brother into your busy fucking schedule of dusting lawn gnomes and staring out that dirty shed window. We’ll be there at one-thirty.”

15

500

A V
ERY
B
OUNCY
K
YLE
woke Liva at some ridiculous o’clock on Friday morning.

“Wakey-wakey, you sloppy, old whore. It’s time to do you up. You’re going out tonight, so you don’t get to dress in nursing home casual.” Kyle ripped off Livia’s covers.

“Kyle, I have school.” Livia reached for her blanket again. “We’ll do this craziness later.” Livia wanted to get back to Blake’s music. It had filled her dreams.

Kyle karate-chopped Livia’s sleepy hand. “Listen, Liv, you want to come party with me? I get to create your look. And now is the time. Go shower and use
my
conditioner.”

Livia wondered if she
was
still dreaming.
The expensive conditioner? This must be big.
So it was a forty-five dollar hair product that shut Livia’s complaining mouth after her shower as Kyle hovered and plucked and curled. The outfit Kyle had selected and titled “Check to see if I’m wearing panties, boys” made Livia cringe: a plunging halter-top and a miniskirt with safety pins down the side.

“Just change into this before you get on the train.” Kyle handed Livia a black-and-white polka dot bag with a big, red satin bow. She clipped a red umbrella to it and stuck in a pair of ridiculous red heels. “And practice this: ‘
Yo no soy una puta
.’” Kyle said the words in an angry, accented voice.

Livia raised a sensitive, red, now-thin eyebrow at her sister.

“It means ‘I am not a hooker’ in Spanish. And you already know it in English, so you should be good.” Kyle gathered her torture implements and headed off to the shower herself. “I’ll pick you up at the train station. What time do you get in?”

Livia mentally ran through her Friday schedule. “Around seven o’clock tonight.”

Kyle dumped all her stuff back into her room and returned to Livia at a full run. Livia caught her launched sister like she was a baby monkey.

“Thanks, Liv,” said Kyle, squeezing her. “You have no idea how happy this makes me. I really need this tonight.”

Livia set her sister down. She didn’t like how determined Kyle sounded.
Sadly determined—like she’s planning to punish herself
.

Livia slipped into some jeans and a button-down shirt so she wouldn’t mess up Kyle’s masterpiece on her face. She made Blake’s breakfast with extra care and added a thick slice of crumb cake. When she got to the train station and saw the empty spot again, she had to dig deep to find her faith.
It’s sunny. Maybe he can’t get here.