CHAPTER FIVE
Before he left he told me he loved me and
would come back for me. And I knew he would.
—MAEVE MAHONEY TELLING HER STORY TO KARA LARSON
By the end of May, when the tides were higher than normal and the summer crowd was beginning to arrive and clog the streets of Palmetto Pointe, the phone call came in for Jimmy. The Call. It was Milton Bartholomew, calling to ask if Jimmy would please consider being part of Rusk and Hope Corbins’ Christmas tour.
Jimmy, not quite used to getting good news, was confused at first. “Huh?” he asked into the phone.
“It’s Milton. Can’t you hear me?”
“I can hear you fine, but I’m on the tour bus, and it’s loud. Now, what? You want us to do that Holiday Jam thing again?”
“No, Jimmy. This is bigger. Much, much bigger. This is the world’s biggest country duo. They do a Christmas-concert tour every year, and this year they’d like you to open the concert with your perfect Christmas song. That one.”
“Um, Milton, man, I think you got me mixed up with someone else. I don’t have a Christmas song.”
“Yes, you do.”
Silence echoed back and forth between the phone lines as Jimmy searched his mind for some type of Christmas song. “Jingle Bells.” “Silent Night.” “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree.” What was Milton talking about? Jimmy didn’t want to seem the idiot, but by God, he had no idea what to say at this point. Jimmy waited in silence.
Milton coughed. “‘Undeserved.’”
Jimmy’s mind reeled backward five months to the New Year’s Eve concert, to the single comment about the perfect Christmas song.
“Oh, oh, that song. Yes.”
“Yes, we are going to rename the song. Rusk heard the recording and wants to call it ‘Christmas Love.’”
Jimmy’s reaction was gut level—the kind that comes when we know we’re right and we aren’t going to bend. “No,” Jimmy said. “It’s called ‘Undeserved.’”
Milton laughed. “I don’t think you get it. This married duo—Rusk and Hope—is the most well-known country-powerhouse married couple in the business, and they’re asking you to go on one of the most popular Christmas tours in the country with the Nashville Symphony. You’re being asked to join to sing this song. They want to open the concert with this love song to Christmas.”
“I get it. I think. But we don’t change the name of the song to make it something . . . else. It is what it is. A song about undeserved love.”
Milton made a noise that sounded somewhere between a snort and a laugh. “I’ll tell them you’re in. Then we can negotiate the name.”
“What exactly does ‘in’ mean.”
“Fame. Adoration. Money.”
“Milton, that’s not what I meant. Dates. Concerts. My band?”
“It’s not your band. It’s just you.”
“Dude,” Jimmy said and stopped, glancing around the bus, “me and my band—we’re one and the same.”
“Not for this, you aren’t. What it means is this: Fifteen concerts across the country. You travel in the band bus—not with the stars. Starts November 27 and ends December 23 in Orlando.” Milton rattled off the names of some cities from Atlanta to Nashville to Sarasota. Then he told Jimmy the amount of money he would make for singing this one opening song.
Jimmy drew in a quick breath and looked at his brother, who was sleeping in the bus seat next to him, his head back and his face peaceful. This money could buy them a new bus, new instruments, and a few other luxuries they’d been forgoing.
“I have to be in Ireland by the twenty-fourth,” he told Milton.
“No problem. There’s a meeting in Nashville in two weeks. I’ll e-mail you the information.”
“Okay,” Jimmy said, but he spoke to an empty line because Milton had hung up; when Milton was done, he was done.
Jimmy spent an hour staring at the highway landscape streaming out the window like a river of his private world. He was accustomed to this view—highway stripes, rest-stops signs, smaller cars buzzing by, thin, tall pine trees lining the eight-lane like sentinels of the southern highway life. He could be anywhere, but the view around the bus never changed. And he loved this—that no matter where he was or how far they traveled, the view inside the bus never changed: Jack. Isabelle. Luke. Harry. There hadn’t been a lot in Jimmy’s life that was familiar or stable, and when he found solid grounding—a home of sorts, in that bus with those people—it was enough.
How, he thought, could he possibly leave this band, his family, for a solo gig? But he’d said yes, hadn’t he?
He needed to talk to Charlotte. There were moments when Jimmy was overcome with something miraculous in beauty or devastating in sadness, and both of these, as disparate as they seem, caused him to turn to Charlotte. This might be one of my favorite descriptions of love—this need to turn toward the one person who matters the most. Bobby, the guitar player, once asked Jimmy how he really knew he was in love with Charlotte, really knew. Jimmy thought for a long while and said this: “She’s the one I reach for first.” He’d finally found his definition of love.
Jimmy took out his cell phone and, taking a quick, guilty look at his brother, moved to the back of the bus to call Charlotte.
She answered immediately. She hates when he’s on the road. Always worrying about him, always wondering and missing him in that deep-ache way. “Hey, you,” she said.
“Hey, baby,” he whispered. “Can you hear me?”
“Yep,” she said. “Is everyone else asleep?” She’d learned the bus routine—grab sleep when and if you can.
“I just got the strangest phone call,” he said, staring out the window to see Exit 14; they were now four hours from Palmetto Pointe. He knew almost every landmark that led from anywhere to Palmetto Pointe and how many miles stretched between that landmark and Charlotte.
“From who?” she asked.
“Remember that concert organizer, the one from last New Year’s Eve?”
“Of course.”
Jimmy recited his entire conversation with Milton about the holiday tour. Silence filled the line, and he though maybe he’d lost connection. “You there?” he asked Charlotte.
“I am. I am. I don’t know what to say—this is so amazing. Really amazing. Your song will be known everywhere.”
“Correction. Your song.”
“You know what I mean, Jimmy. You wrote it. You sing it. It’s yours.”
“But see, that’s the thing. It’s not really mine. It’s all yours. Everything about it is yours. And I don’t know if I want them to make it into something else entirely.”
“They can make it what they want,” she said. “We’ll know what it really is.”
“Yes,” he said. “Yes, we will.”
“How far away now? Please say you’re almost home.”
Home.
Jimmy let the word echo through his body and heart. Home. He never, ever thought he’d again call Palmetto Pointe by that name.
That’s the thing of love: Things we never thought would or could happen, do.
“Four hours,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.”
“I love you,” she said.
“And I love you.”
Jimmy hung up the phone and dropped his head against the window, closing his eyes while the bus rolled toward Palmetto Pointe. Toward the love he now believed he’d never lose.
But here’s the thing of it—we can all lose the most precious things in our lives if or when we forget their very value.
The whisper of summer heat filtered through the cool May breeze. Jack, Kara, Jimmy, and Charlotte spread a picnic across the sand of the deserted barrier island, sitting on blankets and towels. Now, at a time like this on a beach, the sun warming the hearts and minds, the dolphins nosing around, the holidays seem to not exist at all, so far away they are. But we move—in every moment—toward the future, whether we think about it or not.
Jimmy had all but fallen asleep on the blanket, that half-sleep that allows one to listen but not participate. Charlotte’s voice drifted over him.
“Has Jack told you about the holiday tour?” She was talking to Kara.
Jimmy’s sleep burst open to consciousness. He sat bolt upright. “Charlotte,” he said. She sat next to him, her leg entwined with his like roots of a tree, their feet touching.
“What?” She turned away from Kara, who leaned back on her elbows.
“I haven’t . . . yet . . . ”
“Oh.” She covered her mouth with her pretty little hand, which is something she does when she feels that she’s talked too much or told too much or said something stupid.
“You haven’t what?” Jack stood and then walked across the sand to the cooler.
“I wanted to talk to y’all about something,” Jimmy said.
“Oh?” Jack asked, lifting the top to the cooler. “What is it?”
“Well, it just happened yesterday, and I haven’t yet figured out what to do or how to say it. But here goes.” Jimmy recited, again, the entire conversation with Milton.
Silence filled the afternoon. Well, not a real silence, but the quiet of nature: a splash, a seagull cry, a thick cricket-and-frog song, waves washing across the shattered shells in a sound that Jimmy had once written a song about titled “The Sea’s Song of Broken Dreams.”
Kara spoke first. “You’ll be done in time to get to Ireland for the wedding, right?”
Charlotte laughed, but quietly as if in reverence for the question. “I knew that would be the first thing you asked.”
Jack walked to the shoreline.
Jimmy turned to Charlotte, shrugged. “I’ll be there, but maybe I shouldn’t . . . ”
Then Jack turned and faced the group, his face unreadable. “Jimmy, bro, I am so proud of you. I want to say the right thing right now, and I can’t. I’m so proud.”
Jimmy stood and walked to his brother’s side. “You okay with this? I won’t go if . . . ”
Jack held his hand up. “You’ve got to be kidding me. Not go? I wouldn’t allow it. You must go. This is . . . so right and good.”
“But the band. They’re gonna be pissed off. This will really mess up our holiday schedule. I mean—if I’m gone from end of November to end of December, we can’t do a single holiday party or concert. That’s lost money. But I’ve thought a lot about it, and I’ll make enough money to give back the band double what they would’ve made with holiday gigs.”
Jack reached into the cooler and pulled out the chilled bottle of wine that Kara had packed. He wasn’t much of a wine drinker, but this moment deserved a toast. As much as the thought of not spending the holiday season with his brother almost broke Jack’s heart, he was filled with proud pleasure.
Ah, the love when you care more for the other person’s joy than you do your own. The real joy, not the kind that is meant to bring approval or love in return, but simple delight at another’s happiness.
“It’s done then,” Jack said. “There is no more discussing it. You’ll do it.”
Kara stood now and walked to Jack’s side. “This means you’ll be home the entire holiday season. This means . . . ,” she bit her lip, “you’ll be here while we get ready for the wedding. You’ll be . . . home.” She exhaled the last word as if were the most beautiful word she’d ever spoken, and maybe it was.
Jack looked at her and pulled her close. “Yep. Right here. Sometimes things work out, don’t they?”
Kara cringed when she realized that what meant a good thing for her meant loneliness for Charlotte. She looked to her best friend and smiled a sad smile.
Jimmy took Charlotte’s hand. “You can come to every concert. I’ll meet you in Ireland. It’ll be okay. I promise.”
“Of course I can’t come to every concert, silly,” Charlotte said. “But I’ll come to whatever ones I can. And really, it’s months away. Let’s just have fun today.” She kissed his palm. “I’m so proud of you. This is such a great opportunity. And yes, Ireland. We’ll have that.”
Kara clapped her hands together. “Speaking of—can we talk about it for one minute? I promise I won’t be a Bridezilla and talk only about this wedding for the next six months, but I just want to ask y’all a couple quick questions. I desperately need your opinion.”
“You so don’t need my help,” Charlotte said. “This is your expertise. Planning. It’s what you were born to do.”
Kara bent over and picked up a small gray-and-white-striped shell and threw it at Charlotte. “Thanks, pal.”
“Hey!” Charlotte ducked, and then caught the shell in the air. “That was a compliment.”
“Well, Jack and I really want to somehow honor Maeve Mahoney at the wedding. If it weren’t for her, for her myth and her story, we wouldn’t all be here today. There must be something we can do to honor her.”
Jimmy dug his feet farther into the sand. “I think getting married in her hometown and using Claddagh rings for your wedding bands are more than enough. I mean . . . ”
“Yeah,” Kara sat down on the blanket and took a sip of wine from her plastic cup, “but those are more about me than they are about her. I mean, I want to go to Ireland. I want a Claddagh ring. I’m trying to think of something that is all about her, about her family and her story.”
“Well,” Charlotte said, “what meant the most to her?”
Kara stared out across the sea, trying to remember some of Maeve’s words and advice. “I think she cared most about how story affects and opens our hearts. She cared about love and going all the way through a story. She believed in angels. She believed in love returning. Always this: love returning. She thought we all lived the same stories over and over at different edges of the sea. She didn’t believe we should hold tightly to life, but keep our hands open.”
“Yes, we honor all those things by the way we live, I think,” Charlotte said.
Kara’s eyes returned to the group. “I got it: her words. Last year I wrote down all the things she’d said and taught me. I can find something in there to put into the vows.”
“Perfectly perfect,” Charlotte said. “See, you didn’t need me at all.”
“Ahya,” Kara said, imitating Maeve Mahoney, “I just needed you to listen.”
And yes, sometimes that is all we need.
Charlotte rubbed her thumb across the concave dip of the shell that Kara had thrown, and then she slipped it into her beach bag. She never wanted to forget this day, this feeling of overwhelming love that was as profound as any love letter written.
We all hold onto things for memory; Charlotte would need this shell. Yes, she would—a reminder of love, both friendship and romantic.
