The Pages We Forget (19 page)

“Alex,” Kathryn said. “I brought you a jacket and an umbrella.”
He didn't respond so Kathryn wrapped the jacket around his shoulders and held her umbrella over his head. “Are you sure you don't want me to stay?”

“I'll be fine,” he answered. “Anyway, Junie might need you in Florida.”

Kathryn remembered that Sunday morning seven years ago when Keith came home for his father's funeral. “I'm scared, Alex,” she said. “What if he won't talk to her? And what if he runs away again? What's going to happen to my baby?”

Alex turned to Kathryn. “Mrs. Thomas, promise me you won't follow her and try to stop her. She needs to do this and I need you to let her.”

“Something is wrong with my baby,” Kathryn said. “A mother knows when something is wrong with her child. So, I'm not going to promise you I won't be going behind her. If I don't hear from her by tomorrow morning, I'm going to Micanopy. If you don't want me to do that, then the next time she calls, you better tell her to call me.”

“That wasn't Junie on the phone.”

“Then it was Trevor,” Kathryn said. “Alex, I'm not blind. I saw the expression on your face when you answered the phone. I didn't say anything then because I didn't want to upset Lucy.”

“If she calls, I'll tell her to call you,” he said.

“All right,” she replied. “I have to go now or I'll miss my flight. But, you make sure she calls me.”

“I will.”

The look in his eyes showed he needed reassurance that he had done the right thing by letting her go. Kathryn felt bad because all she had done was threaten him. “She'll be back,” Kathryn said. “Soon. Real soon.”

“Will she?”

“Junie loves you.”

“Yeah, I know. She loves me, but right now, she's on her way to see the man she loves more.”

•  •  •

June was minutes away from Keith's place. She had gotten off the interstate and driven through the towns of Starke, Waldo and Gainesville. Now, she was turning off Highway 441 onto Cholokka Boulevard in Micanopy. On another day, she would have spent the entire trip pointing out familiar sites as she dispensed interesting, and sometimes irrelevant tidbits about each of the towns they passed through. But today's trip had been quiet and somber, especially after she told Trevor about Keith.

As June drove through downtown, she was stunned by the similarities between Micanopy and Hampton Springs. Both towns had managed to retain the nostalgic atmosphere of an early 19th century small town. Large, moss-covered oaks lined the street and provided shade over the wooden sidewalks in front of the antique and curio shops. She slowed down to watch two mockingbirds chase a squirrel as it darted across the green park benches along the street's median. She looked down at the directions Alex had given her.

“Take Cholokka Boulevard west to Philco Road,” she read aloud. She turned and looked at Trevor, who was also amazed at how much this town looked like Hampton Springs. “Are you okay?”

He didn't answer.

“I really am sorry.”

Trevor, pretending not to hear her, let the window down and stared at a young couple browsing through a shelf of used books in front of O. Brisky Books.

“I thought you needed to know,” June said.

Trevor was trying hard to forget everything his mother had said. She may have thought he needed to know that the man he called Dad wasn't his father, but it was actually a truth he could have lived without.

“We're just about there,” June said. “According to your dad's directions, Philco Road should be about a mile up the road.”

Trevor couldn't believe what he had just heard. He thought,
Dad knows about this? He knows that he's not my dad?
He was worried now. How could he face Alex? He wasn't sure what he would say to him or how to look at him now that he knew. He wished that he could pretend not to know this horrible truth like he pretended not to hear his mother.

“There's his house,” she said and leaned forward to get a better look at the gray house at the end of the dirt road. She pulled up slowly beside the uneven picket fence surrounding the old, but well-kept, cracker farmhouse. She turned the car off. “We're here.”

Trevor eyed the house suspiciously. He turned away quickly when he saw a man's figure walk out of the house and onto the screened-in porch. When June saw the man, she hurried out of the car.

After seven long years, there he was. All she could see was the silhouette of a man, but there was no mistaking it in her mind's eye. It was Keith. She felt him. She opened the gate and walked into the yard.

At first, he didn't recognize her as she walked up the pine straw covered walkway leading to the house. But once he did, he slammed the screen door shut and hurried back in the house.

June stopped walking. Once again, he'd run away. Shut her out. And, like that morning seven years ago, the tears started and wouldn't stop.

She cried out against the façade of the house, the memories flooding her conscious mind. “Why won't you talk to me?”

She had waited forever to hear his voice and to see his smile, and she'd prayed too many prayers to let it end this way. She wasn't going to let him keep running away, especially not after she had told her son the truth. She decided at that moment not to leave without knowing why he trashed all their dreams and vanished from her life. Ten years had not lessened her need to know the truth.

“What did I do to make you hate me so much?” June tried to pull the screen door open, but the lock wouldn't give. She banged on the door. “What are you so afraid of?” She kicked the door, despair giving way to anger. “Open the door and talk to me!”

Trevor was watching from the car. He had never seen his mother so desperate, never so helpless.

“Please, Keith,” she begged. “I just want to talk to you. Please don't do this to me again.”

Although Trevor was angry with his mother, he knew he had to help her. He opened the car door, got out and walked to the gate. Before opening the gate, he told himself that what he was about to do didn't mean he believed anything she had said about his dad. He was only trying to help her. He stepped up to the door next to his mother and knocked.

There was no reply.

June reached for Trevor's other hand, but he put his hand in his pocket. He wasn't letting her off the hook just like that.

He knocked again.

I'm doing this for Ma,
Trevor reminded himself before he called out to Keith, “Dad!”

June couldn't believe her ears. Trevor hadn't run away like she thought. He really was listening. And now he was going against everything he believed in, including his loyalty to Alex.

“Dad,” Trevor called again and then knocked on the door.

The inside door opened slowly and Keith stepped out on the porch. He stared at the little boy standing on the other side of the screen door and saw his reflection staring back at him.

“Did you call me Dad?” Keith asked.

(lyrics and arrangement by June)

We started out as friends,

and we found a love we thought would never end.

With the rest of the world, we fell out of touch.

Until your heart told you, that you loved me too much.

Now you're running away.

You have your pride and it won't let you stay.

You didn't mean to fall so deep in love with me.

And you think that time, that time is gonna set you free.

CHORUS:

But you'll never love another girl like this.

You need my warm embrace and my tender kiss.

We had a special love that you're gonna miss.

You'll never love another girl like this.

Now you're trying to tell me that time will heal the pain.

And you're leaving me, all alone to face the falling rain.

I don't know what it is, just what you're hoping to find.

But no matter where it takes you, you will still be mine.

CHORUS

(Followed by BRIDGE)

You'll never love another girl.

You'll never love another girl like this.

You'll never love another girl.

I'll always be your only girl.

So go on and listen to what your heart says.

You have your pride and it won't let you stay.

But one day, you're going to change your mind,

when you start to miss the love you left behind.

CHORUS

(followed by fading bridge)

Keith had seen this boy's face before.

It was on a Saturday morning a few years ago as he was waiting for Mrs. Carmichael, Micanopy's librarian, to copy some newspaper articles. He knew it was a Saturday morning because Saturday was the only day he went to the library, which shared the same two-story building as Towne Hall. Whenever he went to the library during the week, most of his time was spent dodging idle chit-chat with folks he hardly knew. He began making his weekly trips into town on Saturdays when he realized there were fewer people to contend with.

It was June's eyes that he saw first staring at him from beneath three other periodicals. He saw her eyes and her name glaring from the cover of the partially exposed magazine. He looked away quickly. It had been too many years, six to be exact, since he welcomed the warmth of her big brown eyes.

Here in this town, believed to be the second oldest settlement in Florida, he avoided the spellbinding light June's star cast. Before
The Pages We Forget
was released with his picture on the cover, he had heard very little about her in the secluded world he'd built for himself. He didn't have a television or radio in the house, so it was a rare occurrence for him to even hear one of her songs. Once, in an effort to escape the deafening silence of the farmhouse, he
found the courage to turn on the radio in his car, serving as his initial introduction into her world. It was the title song from her second album,
Feel My Love
, and he knew it was June as soon as he heard the first few words of the song. “Baby, are you ready,” she purred, “to feel my love?” That was all he heard, but it was already more than he could stand to hear of the haunting voice. Then he saw her on the television down at Vera's Coffee Shop a few weeks after he came back from his father's funeral.

“Chaos broke out last night after a gunman fired two shots at singer June Thomas during a sold-out concert in St. Louis,” the TV anchor announced.

“Can you believe that?” the waitress asked Keith. “Some crazy ass guy tried to kill her.”

“Kill who?”

“June Thomas.”

“Junie!”

“He shot at her, but luckily he missed,” Angeline said. “Two other people were shot, though.”

Keith stood and moved closer to the television. He watched as June held onto Alex as a security team led them out the arena. With all the commotion going on around her, she should have been trembling in fear, he thought. But she wasn't. He could see that she felt safe in Alex's arms by looking in her eyes.

Those same eyes were begging him to look into them again. He reluctantly reached for the magazine. He pulled the magazine out from under the others and saw the young boy in the photo with June. The boy's strikingly familiar face scared him. He recognized the boy's eyes, his hair, and his smile, but he couldn't recall where he had seen the boy's face. Perhaps it was one of the faces he created in his short stories and in his unfinished novel, which he wrote
under the pen name, Clyde Goodman. Or maybe, he reminded him of the seven-year-old boy, whose picture was framed in the small wooden letter “L” on the shelf above his desk.

He glanced down at the picture again, the bold caption scripted under it telling the rest of the story:
Having It All, Motherhood and Stardom.

“Her son?” he mused.

“Here you are, Keith,” Mrs. Carmichael said and handed him the copies. “I did the best I could on that old copier.”

“I'm sure they're okay.” He glanced through the small stack of pages. “They're fine.”

“Good.”

“Well, I better be going,” Keith said and started toward the door. “Thanks for all your help.”

“You're welcome,” Mrs. Carmichael replied.

As he hurried across the parking lot, he could not escape the indelible image of the boy's face. “I know that face,” he told himself as he opened the door of his faded blue Cutlass. “I've seen him somewhere before.” He put the key in the ignition and started the car. “But where?” He checked for traffic in the rearview mirror. The boy's eyes stared at him from the mirror.

Four years later, that same boy was knocking at his door and calling him dad. Keith unlatched the screen door and held the door open for June and Trevor to come inside. He couldn't take his eyes off of Trevor, who stood steadfast on the steps, even after June nudged him forward. “Would you like to come inside?” Keith asked him.

“I'm all right,” Trevor answered without bothering to look back at Keith.

“Are you sure?”

“I said I was all right,” Trevor snapped.

“I think he's waiting for Alex,” June said nervously.

“Alex?” Keith asked.

“Alex is my real dad,” Trevor said, frowning at Keith.

“I know I'm not wanted here,” June said. “But I had to come and introduce you to our son, Trevor.”

“I'm not his son,” Trevor retorted.

“Trevor?” Keith's mind flipped a switch. He remembered years ago, before he ran away from Hampton Springs, they had chosen the names Trevor or Camille for their first child.