A sick feeling rolls through my gut. “You just sang?”
“Yup.” Jolene checks her fingernails. “That’s what I do.”
“If you didn’t write the songs, who did?” I ask.
“Does it matter?” she counters.
“Maybe,” I say. “Aren’t there laws? You can’t just take someone else’s music, can you? I mean, when I heard that guy doing your song at the pub—wait. Is this his music?”
“Probably. Was it a guy with a ponytail? And attitude?”
I nod.
“Frank. My ex. He’s an idiot.”
Frank. The initial F in the geocache log and on the cd. I shake my head and ask, “He wrote the music? And he played the guitar?”
“Yeah,” she says. “So? Let me tell you something, Mr. Righteous. Before you go judging me, you should know the whole story. Frank wrote those songs for me. He was inspired by me. And he wanted me to sing them.”
“But…”
“Frank doesn’t care about fame. He has zero ambition. Zero. He’s all about his art. Whatever that’s supposed to mean. What difference does it make if I record his songs?”
“So,” I say slowly, “what if one of his songs became a hit? Would he get paid?”
“How should I know?” she says.
“Would you give him credit for being the composer?” I ask.
“Why should I? If I go out there and bust my butt, why should I worry about him?” Her voice rises shrilly. “He doesn’t want to be famous. So I’d cause him a problem if his name got known…” She pauses. “Right?”
I don’t know what to say, but it doesn’t matter. Jolene keeps talking. “I’ve got the recording now. It’ll be my word against his. Pull over here. This is it.”
I brake, hard, and pull off the road. It’s a gravel road in the middle of nowhere. All I can see in the dark is one driveway curving through the trees. I turn and look at her. I take in the sulky set of her mouth. It’s not a cute pout, not anymore. The flyaway blond hair? Peroxide. The violet blue eyes? I’m betting contact lenses.
“I shouldn’t have burned those cds,” I say.
She clutches the bag, throws open the car door and jumps out. “Why not? I did the singing. The songs are mine. Who cares if I don’t compose or play?”
I meet her angry stare straight on. “You do play…people.”
She doesn’t answer. She hauls her backpack out of the backseat, slams the door and stalks away.
I look at the dashboard. According to the clock, I’m a dead man. I’ll never make it home in time. The smell of Jolene’s perfume makes me feel sick, so I roll down my window. In the distance, I hear the sound of laughter. Her laughter. And then there’s silence.
Lines from Jolene’s song—Frank’s song—play in my head: You’ve made solitude feel eternal / What do I owe you for giving me that?
It takes a while for me to find my way back through the maze of side roads. My phone starts ringing before I reach the highway. I don’t stop to answer it.
The drive home seems to take longer than the drive out. I try not to think. But when I hit Penticton, I wonder if Mom contacted her pals at work to be on the lookout for me. Would she do that? She would.
I don’t want to get caught by a cop. I don’t want to go home and face Mom. But I’m going to have to do it sooner or later. It’s better to get it over with. To avoid getting stopped, I think only about driving perfectly the rest of the way home.