Wishful Thinking (24 page)

“Leather?” he cried. She was going to alert him to the fact that it wasn’t real leather but was too pleased by his reaction to interrupt. “I have to concentrate, you know. I’m playing the Dobro tonight.” She laughed.
What’s a Dobro?
she wondered. Whatever it was, she wanted to hear him play it. “Come on inside,” he said. “You were supposed to be on the list. I’m so sorry. Dummies.”

Dummies
was one of the words where she could hear his
Texas accent most clearly, the sound of his
u
softer than a New Yorker’s, coming from farther back in his mouth.

He grabbed her hand. Nervous, she squeezed it. He squeezed back. In an instant, Jennifer went from cursing Dr. Sexton to thanking her instead.

Owen was in a hurry, though he refused to listen to any of Jennifer’s apologies for making him come to collect her. He whisked her inside, deposited her on a choice barstool with a view of the stage, and told the bartender to take care of her. Then, before she could register it, he had given her a quick kiss on the cheek and his hand had brushed against one of her thighs, all wrapped up in that buttery russet-brown leather. “I wish I could stay for a drink,” he said. She shrugged—
no worries
—and wished him luck. Watching him as he dashed off to join his band for the show, however, she wished it were over already so she could have him back again. Suddenly she wanted to know everything about him, about his first marriage, about his parents, about where he’d grown up and where he’d gone to school. The idea of a long, adult conversation, especially when they’d never been able to exchange more than a few sentences out of Julien’s earshot, was as alluring as his blue jeans. But she would have to wait.

The last band was wrapping up its set, the singer skinny and bald and tattooed, with a kinetic delivery that made Jennifer think of a less corporate version of Adam Levine, though you could already see visions of sponsorship sugar-plums dancing over his head. Looking around the room as she waited for her drink, she immediately felt antsy, with an overpowering urge to reach for her phone, to consult it and fiddle with it and scroll through it and find something to
do
, someone to talk to. But she willed herself to leave it in her pocket, instead taking an extrabig gulp of the wine the bartender placed before her. The music was deafeningly loud.
Jennifer’s heart sank slightly. How had she thought she could possibly get to know Owen better in a place like this? she wondered, doubt seizing her. Not only that, but Owen probably handed those flyers to every single person he knew, which meant there were probably throngs of his friends out on the dance floor, showing up just like her to listen to him play and count down to midnight, people without nine-to-fives or kids, ready to hang till the wee hours when the set was done. What had she been thinking, getting all gussied up like this was a date?
Who cares?
she told herself. Even if she was going to go home alone once the clock struck midnight—her stint as Cinderella concluding as soon as she returned to her apartment and resumed her life as a mother–scullery maid— Owen liked her. She was sure of it, and for that alone, showing up (and even dressing up) had already been worth it.

Finally the jittery punk band wound down and it was time for Owen’s band to take the stage. She spotted him in the semidarkness, nimbly hopping over and around foot pedals, amps, and cords, accompanied by another guy of a similar age, who darted around beside him with an acoustic guitar slung around his neck and bushy black eyebrows that lent an intense seriousness to him as he plugged and unplugged and began to tune. They were yin and yang, she thought, Owen’s lightness in marked contrast with his bandmate’s slash of dark. Jennifer was beginning to suspect they were the whole band, when two other musicians took the stage. One of them was a stout, balding, ex-hippie type with a jovial
hey, man
vibe, and the other was a woman (Jennifer would have said
girl
, though she knew she shouldn’t) who couldn’t have been more than twenty-two. She had thick, black, flowing hair that seemed the very reason for the word
tresses
. Loose strands of it fell provocatively upon her pale white cleavage, which was bound up and boosted by a satiny red top with a deep V-neck. She
was wearing cat-eye liner painted on so thick Jennifer could see it from the bar.

“They play with Sarah Fair?” the bartender asked her. From the tone of his voice, Jennifer could tell he was impressed.
Who the hell is Sarah Fair?
“She’s the lead singer for the Dixons,” he said, seeing she was clueless. “She’s awesome.” Jennifer didn’t really want to hear how awesome Sarah Fair was. She turned toward the stage. Sarah Fair, about to take her seat behind the drums, raised her arms in a little half salute and was met with whoops and hollers from the crowd. “Be my Lady Fair!” somebody yelled. Owen’s bandmate, the lead singer, grinned, then gave Sarah a nod. Stepping up to center stage, he gave Owen a nod too. And in that loud, cavernous space, the small, dark guy at the mic tuned his guitar one last time and, just like that, began to play.

What came from that guy, and that guitar, was an utter surprise. He looked like a brooder, but he sounded like a troubadour, his voice clear and without irony, singing sweet, simple notes that rose and fell unhurriedly, quiet and calm. It was lyrical, lilting, easy. And as the lead singer began the lyric, his voice quieted the crowd just as his guitar had quieted her. “It felt like winter / everywhere except for Summer Street. / There the flames were all anybody anywhere could see. / And from the top of Beacon Hill / we watched the fire spill / over Water Street.” Just then, Owen and the other two leaned in to their mics with a dipping, arcing “ah ah” that filled the room with a rich, four-part harmony that ran over Jennifer like honey. It was just measures in, and Jennifer was hooked. This was music that was the opposite of a sneer: an airy, folky sound, a sound of soulful joy. Even Sarah Fair, a world away from music-video theatrics, treated her drums lightly, smiling and keeping time, using brushes on the snare.

It was the first time she’d heard their music, despite the
fact that the Dimes were on iTunes. Jennifer loved music so much she’d been afraid that if she downloaded the Dimes album before the show, she might be downloading a cold shower, so she’d held off. But this was good. Really good. A flush rose in her cheeks and stayed there. For the first time in months, Jennifer didn’t think about her phone, her kids, her calendar, her job, or her to-do list. Listening to that music, Jennifer didn’t even think about Owen. She just floated in the sound, happy.

All spells, however, must come to an end. Owen’s applause-inducing riff on the slide guitar brought the song to a close, and Jennifer cheered.
I’m with the band!

“Hey,” the lead singer said. “Thanks. Good to see you guys tonight. We’re so happy to be here. That was ‘Damrell’s Fire,’ from our Boston album,
The King Can Drink the Harbor Dry
. And we’re the Dimes.” Then, with disarming charm, Mr. Dark broke out into a grin. “And goddamn it, it’s New Year’s Eve! Anybody wanna dance?” The next song was rollicking good fun, exuberant and punchy on the drums, with a beat that sent Owen and the hippie bass player bouncing on their tiptoes. It was called “Celia’s Garden,” and Jennifer couldn’t help thinking of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Cecilia” as Sarah Fair let it rip. She loved that she didn’t have to figure out how to feel about it, that it so effortlessly carried her away. Perhaps most of all, she loved that it didn’t sound like it was made by a bunch of guys who were still in high school.

They played three more. It wasn’t until the final song that Owen played the Dobro. The Dobro, it turned out, was a guitar that the musician laid across his lap and played with a pick and a slide. As Owen set up, Sarah Fair strode to the front of the stage. “Owen and I wrote this one together,” she said. “Hope y’all don’t mind if we end on a quiet note, even on a night like tonight.” The crowd cheered, then hushed. Jennifer,
less thrilled by this news, clenched her jaw. “She’s going to sing,” she could hear a guy next to her say excitedly. Everybody loved this girl.
Y’all?
Jennifer thought. Was she from Texas too? She tried not to think about Owen and Sarah Fair writing songs together. She tried to let her mind float away as the song began, to ignore the beauty of their combined voices, the minor key, the effortlessly entwined harmonies. She tried to concentrate on him, on those long, strong legs, on the shiny metal glare that occasionally flashed off the Dobro on his lap, on his fingers, working the pick and slide. She tried to tell herself Owen was not one of those guys who looked for girls eighteen to thirty-five on Match.com. But at the end, Sarah Fair kissed Owen’s cheek, and he grinned and pulled away from her, fixing her with a look of such affection it was like she had just baked him his favorite chocolate cake. Or like she
was
his favorite chocolate cake.

With that kiss and that grin, Jennifer’s confidence, already riven with hairline fractures after listening to the two of them sing together, cracked completely.

“Good set,” the bartender said loudly. “Not what I expected!”

“Me neither,” Jennifer said. “One more for the road?” she asked, tapping her glass. For a moment she thought about leaving, but Owen had told her to stay put, and stay put she did. It seemed like an eternity, however, and as she waited and sipped her wine, her brain began to fuzz around the edges, her head suddenly aching in a way that made even the inside of her skull feel dry. “Water?” she said to the bartender, realizing it was high time to hydrate. The next band was covered in facial hair, and every one of them was wearing duck boots and sunglasses, carrying a can of Pabst. If there was anything Jennifer loathed, it was ironic beer drinking. These guys had already launched into their set, straining every indie-music cliché in the book (including trotting out a cellist and a girl
with a banjo), when Owen, all smiles, appeared at last, heading toward her. Which would have been great if Sarah Fair, also smiling, had not had her arm tucked in his.

The bartender brightened up immediately. Jennifer wanted to slug him.

“Hey,” Owen said as he approached. “Sorry it took so long to get over here. We had to get all the gear packed up and into the van.”

“It’s, like, impossible trying to fit everything in there!” Sarah laughed, extending her hand. “Sarah,” she said.

“Jennifer,” Jennifer replied, wondering how she must look to this girl, an old, divorced mom with a crush on her son’s guitar teacher, alone on New Year’s Eve, wearing 1990s pleather.

Sarah ordered a shot of Maker’s Mark.

“You guys were so great,” Jennifer said, turning to Owen. “I loved it. Julien will love it too.”

“Thank you,” Owen said sincerely. “Thank you so much.” It was so nice, she thought, that he didn’t glower, or avert his eyes and pretend not to care, the way Norman always used to do after a play. His reaction was as unaffected and genuine as his music. But then there was this creamy-breasted siren with the whiskey.

“She liked it!” Owen said, turning to Sarah.

“Of course she liked it, you dork!”
Dork?
Even as Sarah said this, her eyes had begun to scan the room distractedly.

“Who are you looking for?” Owen said, a little sharply.

“None of your business,” Sarah said. Then, with a quick good-bye to Jennifer and one more kiss on the cheek for Owen, she excused herself and walked away.

Well,
Jennifer thought.
If he likes being condescended to by a girl born during the Clinton administration …

“I have to go,” she said, standing abruptly, stumbling a little on her heels.

“Really?” Owen said. He did look disappointed. But then he said, “Okay.”

Okay?
she thought. All these months of looks, and hinting, and “I’d love it if you came” and “Leather!” and just …
Okay?

The bartender brought the check. Suddenly Jennifer didn’t want Owen to pay it. She stood up and, with a little slap, palmed the black vinyl holder. Owen stood, too, and covered her hand with his.

“Let me get it, please,” he said. “Not that I’m being such a gentleman,” he added, smiling at her. “I think we get free drinks.”

Jennifer looked down at his hand, covering hers. She couldn’t bring herself to look up. But she couldn’t bring herself to just walk out of there, either.

“Is this a date?” she blurted, still looking at his hand.

“What?” Owen asked.

“Because I thought maybe … but I didn’t realize … I mean, you and Sarah …” She trailed off, having succeeded at completely embarrassing herself one incomplete sentence at a time.

What a disaster
, she thought.
I am going to have to find Julien a new guitar teacher.

When she finally did manage to look up, though, she saw that Owen was smiling. Very sweetly. At her. “Sarah?” he repeated.

“Yes,” she said, smiling back. “You know! Drummer, singer, the one who kissed you on the cheek? Sarah!”

Owen sat back down on the barstool and motioned for her to sit next to him. She did, but her stool was a few feet away from his. He reached out and pulled her and the stool to him, a hand on either side of her butt, the stool’s legs skittering and stuttering across the uneven concrete floor, until they were so close their knees were touching.

“Sarah,” he said, leaning in still farther, and not taking his hands off her stool, “who is twenty years younger than I am, and a much more successful musician than I am, and who is my
little sister
?”

“Your sister?” Jennifer exclaimed. “Well, how was I supposed to know
that
?”

“We don’t look much alike, I know,” Owen said. “My dad had her with wife number two, and she definitely got better genes in the looks department.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jennifer said quietly. The wine was making her loose and bold. She put a hand on one of his thighs. Pressing her palm against the fine-ribbed grain of the denim on his knee, she fit the ball of his kneecap into her palm and gave it a gentle squeeze. Not daring to look up, she just stared at her fingers, wrapped around his leg. Owen was quiet too. Then he said something she couldn’t hear.