THAT NIGHT, CURLED inside Reno’s sleeping bag, Becca dreamed about the Old Moon. She and Ben had been together a month, and he’d driven down from Fort Campbell to take her to the bar. It was to be her introduction to his coterie of fellow musicians. “These are my people,” he’d told her. “They’re going to love you.”
“Even though I don’t play an instrument?” she’d asked, and Ben frowned at her, like she should know better.
The bar was beery and dark and their shoes squelched against the sticky floors. As they looked for a free table, they passed a trio of musicians who attacked their instruments, oblivious to the fact that another band played on the stage just yards away. Meanwhile, people kept stopping Ben, giving him exaggerated salutes and making inside jokes. Becca trailed behind, a smile gelled on her face. It was too loud to catch people’s names and nobody seemed particularly interested in her anyway.
As soon as they sat down, Ben stood up again. “Forgot the fiddle! Don’t move!” He kissed Becca atop her head and then he was hurrying back through the bar. The band finished its set and music swelled from the floor, instruments appearing around bar tables as though from thin air. With nothing to hold but her beer, she felt strangely exposed.
“Hey there!” said a voice. “You must be Becca.”
Becca looked up. The band’s lead singer stood over her, holding a mandolin under her arm. She had Nashville hair and wore a mix of cotton, silk, and studs. Becca felt the plainness of her own T-shirt. “I’m Katie Jacobson,” the singer said. “I’m with the Sexy Fiddles.” She nodded at the others onstage. “We’ve all been eager to meet you. Where’s Ben?” Katie sat down as though the table belonged to her.
“Getting his fiddle.”
Katie nodded, though she didn’t really seem to be listening. “Heeey!” she called loud and twangy to someone across the room.
Becca knew she should feel proud that Ben was talking her up to his friends, but she didn’t like this woman in her showy outfit.
“There’s my boy!” Katie exclaimed suddenly, bounding over to kiss Ben on the cheek.
“So you’ve made each other’s acquaintance.” Ben put his hand on Becca’s shoulder. This made her feel moderately better, but the next moment, his hand was gone and unlatching the fiddle case.
“You’re up in five, Benny.” Katie winked and returned to the stage, her hair lashing whiplike against her back.
“An old friend?” Becca asked.
“A friend,” Ben said.
“A girlfriend.”
“Not exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
“Are you jealous, Chicken?” He grinned. Becca didn’t smile back. There was so much they still didn’t know about each other, wide gulfs of information. All she wanted, she realized then, was to reach a point when they’d lived more of their lives together than apart.
Becca made to say something about this, but Ben was distracted, wiping down the fiddle’s exterior with a white cloth, fastening on the shoulder rest, rosining the bow, and turning the pegs. The instrument seemed like a toy in his large hands.
Up on the stage, Katie Jacobson laughed with her banjo player, their voices like bright major chords and too loud. If only Ben would stay put through a round of drinks. He was supposed to be a Southern gentleman, and gentlemen should not hop up onstage with other women. But the other woman was calling.
“Here goes nothin’,” Ben said and then Becca was alone again.
Hard-driving bluegrass burst out from the band. These weren’t the quiet murder ballads and fiddle tunes that Ben had played on the college green. This was music that demanded to be the center of attention. His eyes were closed and he seemed far away. Where was he, Becca wondered, and how could she get there? Could she even get there? Katie had her eyes fixed on Ben as she stomped her foot in time. Did everyone see that stomp for what it was? A beat that shouted, Mine, mine, mine! Becca folded her arms across her chest in protest.
Then Ben took a solo. A few measures in, his fiddle began to pull at her, like it could physically pry her arms apart. And soon, her feeling toward the music shifted. The sounds seemed to lift the roof clear off the bar, laying out the world plainly before her, possibilities multiplying infinitely, like reflecting mirrors. If you played, you could have all of this, the music said. But you don’t, so you can’t.
Ben opened his eyes and looked directly at her; his expression caused a physical jolt. Becca felt herself lifted upward toward the gigantic hole where the roof of the Old Moon bar had been before the music blasted it away. She gazed at the Kentucky fields and far beyond them, the million lives she and Ben were going to live. She saw that she could take her time living those lives. She need not rush, because the slower she walked toward the future, the more time she and Ben would have together. This whole time, she realized, he’d been playing for her.
Dawn brought a terrible hangover. Becca unzipped the tent and turned her face to the air, letting its dampness soothe her aching head. She spotted Reno sitting on a nearby log, his head hunched over his knees. A thin line of smoke curled from his cigar into the air. Becca climbed out of the tent and sat down beside him.
“You’ve been here all night?” she said. “Keeping watch or something?”
It was a moment before Reno responded. “Keeping watch, sure.” She opened her mouth to speak, but Reno preempted her. “I hope you’re not upset with me.” He turned his head to glance at her, briefly, then looked back at the ground.
“Not at all.” It occurred to her that she should feel horribly embarrassed for mistaking the nature of Reno’s affection. And for the fact that she’d been open to it, maybe even wanted it.
“You’re . . .” He looked at her steadily and she saw that his eyes were ringed red. “Oh, Becca.” He sighed her name in a long breath, almost like he was invoking the name of somebody years dead.
“Reno,” she said. “The letter?” She hadn’t intended to ask him about it just now, but the request barreled out of her.
“Quit bothering me about that,” he snapped and stubbed out the cigar on his boot. Then he walked to his tent, climbed inside, and zipped the flap shut.
Becca dug her heels in the dirt. How stupid could she be? Thinking that she and Reno had come to a kind of understanding. Over and over, she was wrong about people. She had misread her father on so many levels. And Ben! The most colossal misreading of all. She turned her wrist over and unwrapped the bandages. She should have stopped after the letter n. She was her only kin.