I woke with a start, sweating. My mind was blank for a moment as I came out of the dream world. I realized with a jolt that I had been dreaming of John. Try as I might, I couldn’t recall the details of the dream. But John’s face was fresh in my mind, his voice lingering in my ear, and I felt guilty as Nick snored lightly with both arms stretched above his head.
The early-morning sunlight flooded Nick’s tiny room from the row of windows above his guitars, illuminating all the dinginess and mess I hadn’t seen the night before. I closed my eyes and, nestled under the covers, itched to cast out the ice floe for John. But I wouldn’t break my own rules again. I couldn’t dare expose myself to Magda again. Besides, what would I even see if I looked in on John? He’d be awake and moving ahead of the world on the farm, and he would be as betrayed as Mary when I called home. I had forfeited the right to gaze upon his life when I boarded that Greyhound.
I closed my eyes tight. I chose this. I wanted this. I snuggled into Nick’s side but couldn’t fall asleep again. My body thrummed with energy—excitement and that persistent underpinning of guilt for John, for Solstice, for Harry’s and Mr. Raymond, for the look on my mother’s face when she turned away from me and the anger and disappointment in Mary’s voice when I called. I thought once again, Did they see that Magda started it? But it didn’t matter. I was still guilty for trying to embarrass Magda, for letting it get out of control.
Still, I felt undeniably alive as I listened to the steady rise and fall of Nick’s breath. I was sure I had done something no woman in my family had done before me. This was all mine. It was difficult to imagine my mother or Magda as young, wild women, or as anything like me at all. They were supposed to be my people, but I had felt invisible among them, or worse, like an outsider. The Watry name was supposed to mean something, but I couldn’t imagine any other Watry woman burning the supper club to ashes, running away from home, or spending the night with a strange man, let alone doing all three.
I sighed and pressed my cheek into Nick’s chest. I willed him silently to wake up and hold me, or better yet, to kiss me again—so different from the fumbling in John’s truck—but I was content to lie there against Nick’s hot, smooth skin, brushing his scar absently with my thumb, further delaying whatever flack I’d catch from the sisters.
Nick awoke with a yawn and a stretch that pulled his whole body taut beneath my cheek. It was well after ten AM. I couldn’t think of a time when I had stayed in bed that late on a weekday when I wasn’t sick.
I felt Nick watching me, checking to see if I was awake, and turned to look up at him, digging my chin into his chest.
“There you are,” he said.
“Here I am,” I said, uncertain.
“What are we gonna do today?” Nick asked sleepily, surprising me yet again.
“Oh,” I wondered out loud, “I wasn’t sure if last night was … if this was … a one-night thing?”
His laugh came out a sudden, belly-shaking bark.
“Oh, geez.” His golden eyes creased in amusement as he ran a hand through his hair. “Last night was nice,” he said. “But I’d like to see you in daylight too. I have practice with the guys at three, then back to the soul-sucking pit at five for the evening shift. I’m yours until then.”
I was relieved that Nick didn’t ask where I was staying or what I was doing in the Cities. I didn’t know what I would’ve said, and I didn’t want to lie to him, but I also didn’t want to tell him the whole ugly truth. Even as he slid over and made room for me in his life and his bed, I wasn’t sure if he wanted me around to fend off his own dark thoughts or if he really liked me.
Dorothy? I asked tentatively, lest she have any opinions. But no, it seemed I was on my own. I briefly wondered how much trouble I would be in when I finally went back to St. Kate’s, but I figured in for a penny, in for a pound.
“Let’s start with breakfast,” I suggested.
We sat on the same side of a red-plastic booth in a family restaurant near Nick’s house, away from the roaring river and busy downtown. We drank scalding black coffee out of stained porcelain mugs and talked of nothing in particular.
When I hesitated to order, acutely aware of the last bills stuffed in my pocket, Nick said, “My treat.”
I asked for pancakes. Nicked ordered an obscene amount of food for two people. We were quiet waiting for the food, two grinning, sleep-deprived idiots in the corner booth.
“I can’t believe you’re still here,” Nick said, bashful in the light of day.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked in mock offense.
“Most girls leave before breakfast,” he said, pinching my thigh under the table. “But you were crazy enough to suggest it. Bold.”
My heart dropped into my stomach at the mention of other girls, but I tried to ignore it. What did I know of Nick’s life anyway?
“I have never been so hungry in my life,” I said, raising my eyebrows at him.
It was true. There was an appetite awakened in me like I had never known.
“And I … I thought I may have scared you off,” Nick said, dropping his gaze.
“No,” I said. “And I am sorry about your dad.”
“Thanks,” he said quietly.
A waitress arrived bearing hot plates heaped with golden-brown pancakes and pats of melting butter, blueberry syrup for me and maple syrup for Nick, eggs over-easy with crispy edges, fluffy scrambled eggs, and a mound of thick-cut bacon. We barely had enough room to navigate between all the plates and sauces and jelly packets, my elbow knocking Nick in the ribs as I cut my pancakes.
I watched as Nick doused his eggs with ketchup—reminding me of Mary, who did the same thing—and my heart ached again beneath the easy, flirty mood of the morning.
After Nick paid the tab, we wandered through the neighborhood hand in hand. Nick would pause to point out buildings or landmarks or local curiosities of varying importance.
“That’s the WCCO station that broadcasts all of the Twins games.”
“That’s where my buddy Greg fell asleep in the bushes when he was drunk.”
“That’s the new record store where I’ve been jamming with the guys sometimes,” he said with a proud smile, stopping in front of a large storefront plastered with album covers and promo posters.
A neon sign declared the head-scratching name that was yet to become a Minneapolis institution: Electric Fetus.
“Let’s go in,” I said. Scandalized as I was, I was intrigued.
My eyes could barely take in all the artist and band names announced in the window, a treasure trove of music new to me. I could imagine nothing better than wandering the aisles and discovering new music with the handsome musician on my arm.
Nick flashed that heart-stopping smile at me. “You’re the boss. Lead the way.”
A long-haired man behind the counter was deep in conversation with a young man with a magnificent Afro. Neither of them looked up when we came in, despite the peal of bells over our heads. The long-haired man—Is he the owner? Could a man with hair like that own a store like this?—smashed his index finger down adamantly on the glass display for emphasis. A few other young people browsed the aisles or flipped leisurely through the wooden bins of records. A few people listened to records on competing stereo sets in the back of the store, a guitar solo floating over a woman’s folksy alto.
As the young Black man threw up his hands and admitted defeat in whatever greatest-musician-of-our-time argument he and the other man had been engaged in and stepped back, I saw the peace flag draped across the glass display. I had seen the flag printed in the papers or Time magazine before but couldn’t remember seeing one in person, certainly not in any of the antiquated establishments in Friedrich. It struck me as an instant declaration of what kind of place this was and the free-spirited, opinionated young people who frequented it. I wondered if I could be one of them. I wondered if Nick already thought I was.
We spent over an hour lazily browsing through the bins. Nick smiled politely as I pulled out my favorites, the Righteous Brothers and that ubiquitous Minnesotan native son Dylan, but his eyes lit up when I held up Aftermath.
“This,” I said. “I heard this on the radio a few weeks ago.”
“You like the Stones?” Nick said with an eyebrow raised in scrutiny. “You continue to impress me.”
We sank into mismatched chairs in the back of the store and listened to the first side straight through. Nick reached for my hand, and I let him take it. We weren’t sitting close enough for a good grip, but I liked the gesture, holding hands by our outstretched fingertips.
I was struck by this strange microcosm of Minneapolis and how it felt worlds away from anything I had known in my small town. I had never before imagined the possibility of spending an entire day in a record store, doing essentially nothing all day. It made me feel itchy, like there was something I was forgetting. I tried to push the feeling away and lose myself in the music, but the magic of the moment was gone.
“Don’t you have somewhere you need to be?” I asked Nick, attempting a casual tone to cover my rising anxiety.
He glanced at the scratched watch on his wrist. “Are you trying to get rid of me?” he said. “I have all the time in the world for you … well, another half hour at least.” I recalled with a shudder John making an almost identical declaration in absolute earnest.
Nick made a face as a couple of teenagers—younger than me, anyway—started blasting Yellow Submarine through the second hi-fi. “On second thought,” he said, “let’s get out of here.”
A few stores down, something in the window caught my eye. A mannequin modeled a slip dress with a scandalously low back that looked like something Jane Birkin would wear.
“Ooh,” I marveled, then felt childish.
I had never been one for fashion. That was Annie’s department. But images of my new runaway bohemian lifestyle flashed through my head, and that dress, everything in that window, appealed more than the conservative dresses and sweater sets of the St. Kate’s girls.
Nick watched me, amused. “Let’s check it out,” he suggested.
Among the neat rows of clean linens and loose, flowing cottons, I felt more embarrassed than ever by the same dirty jeans that were all Nick had seen me in. I couldn’t borrow clothes from the girls forever. The dwindling cash from Grandpa Ridder called to me.
“Do you mind if I get a few things?” I said to Nick in as casual a tone as I could muster.
He shrugged and leaned against the wall by the door.
“Take your time,” he said.
I grabbed a few shirts, and when I was sure Nick wasn’t watching, I stuffed a handful of underwear underneath the clothing slung over my arm, not stopping to confirm colors or sizes. I hesitated in front of the Jane Birkin dress, deliberating about the cost, which was nearly everything I had earned babysitting.
“I’ll get it for you,” Nick said, suddenly at my side. “It will look nice on you.”
“Thank you,” I practically whispered, too dumbfounded to protest, humbled by the man at my side, who was as kind as he was quick. I was sure he didn’t have the money to spare either, which made the gift mean that much more.
With a large shopping bag secured over my shoulder, I was one step closer to my daydream of swirling in loose fabric with bared legs and shoulders in the front row at Nick’s gigs, one step closer to a new life.
We wandered the neighborhood for a while longer before giving in to the subtle downhill slope toward the river, across the famous Stone Arch Bridge, to watch the water pour down the falls. Nick was quiet beside me as I took it all in—the river, the falls, Gold Medal Flour standing proudly over the riverbanks. The sound of the water was painful to me as it crashed over stone. The water wasn’t clear enough to see fish or vegetation, but I could feel the energy of living things in the mist. My hands itched to cast, and the longing in my chest for magic took my breath away.
My body was telling me it had been four days since I’d swum in Clear Lake, four days without cleansing myself of the fire. Four interminably long days with only stagnant, captive water in showers and city pipes. Four days since Harry’s had burned to the ground. Four days since that fire within me had become uncontrollable. Four days without the ice floe magic that flooded my veins.
Nick watched me, a curious look on his face. I reached over and squeezed his hand, breaking from my reverie.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked quietly.
Fire and water and magic, I wanted to say. I’m a witch and need to balance the elements within me or I feel off-kilter and itchy, and I need badly to bathe in living water. I need to atone.
“This place is beautiful,” I said instead—true, but certainly not the whole truth.
He nodded, accepting that I wasn’t going to tell him more.
“St. Anthony Falls,” Nick said, pointing to the lock and dam. “I like coming here to watch the boats pass through. Like, who was standing here a hundred years ago and thought, I’ve got an idea, and made this happen? It boggles my mind sometimes.”
“It’s amazing what men can do when they’re not busy fighting wars,” I said, before I could talk myself out of saying the first thing that came to mind. I smiled and waited for him to think I was weird.
But Nick smiled back. “Right on,” he said. “Some very determined guy built this, and now the Mighty Mississipp’ can take you anywhere. Where would you want to go?”
I smiled again as Nick drew me from my reflection. “I needed to get out of my middle-of-nowhere town,” I admitted. “I never thought about where I’d end up.” That was the truth. I vowed to myself that I would always speak my mind to Nick, no more of the people-pleasing facade that I put up for Magda and John and Friedrich.
Nick drew me close to him, resting his chin on top of my head comfortably. We stood like that for a few quiet minutes before he squeezed me firmly with both arms and tilted my chin toward him with one hand.
“Now I’ve actually gotta get to practice,” he said, and I was scared that was the end of it, that I would never see him again. But Nick surprised me, saying, “Meet me at the bar later?”
“Of course.”
“Good.”
Nick kissed me once, hard, and sauntered away—actually whistling—leaving me to contemplate the river.
You can lose yourself in a man like that. Dorothy’s voice sounded in my ear. So she had been watching, at least for a while.
What do you mean? I asked. I don’t even have a heart to give away anyway.
Be careful, mein Liebling.
I just met him. It’s not like I’m thinking about a life together, I protested. Dorothy didn’t answer, though, leaving me wondering, once again, what exactly it would feel like to be a girl with a whole heart.