I thought that you were someone else /

I thought that I was too / but maybe if you were with me /

we’d both be someone new

 

“Hi. Jacqueline, right?”

“Uh . . . yeah?”

“So good to see you again!” I say.

“Uh-huh.”

“Austin.”

“Uh-huh.”

She’s standing in the doorway, looking at me with the same amused contempt as before. I smile warmly back at her. She has makeup on and she’s fiddling with her hair, doing those occult things girls do. A date tonight, I imagine.

“Might I add that you look particularly ravishing this evening?” I say.

“What do you want?”

“Is your sister available?”

She snorts. “Hold on.” She leaves.

Fidget. Pace. Turn a full circle. Phone buzzes. Another frowny-face emoji from Alison, who has sent me, like, five of them after I texted her and said I had to cancel because of a Mom thing.

“Hey.”

I jump, quickly putting the phone away. It’s Josephine, standing in the doorway, her expression cautious, confused.

“Hi! How are you? Are you okay?” I say.

“Yyyes . . . ?”

“Great. Great.”

“Is there​—”

“Do you want to go see some music?”

“What?”

“Music. Music. Want to come?”

“Now?”

“Yes. I mean, it’s more like a party, but people are going to sing and all. Me and Shane are going. Shane and I.” I gesture to the Range Rover waiting at the curb behind me.

“Oh. Thanks. I don’t think so. Thanks. No.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, thanks. It’s sort of late.”

“Back by midnight. Maybe one.”

“Thanks, no.”

“Is there some rule? Against fraternizing with your former tutees?”

“No, I just can’t. Curfew. I’d get in trouble. I’m already kind of in trouble from the other night.”

“Right.”

Shane taps the horn.

“Okay,” I say. “You sure?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“Okay.” My gaze flicks past her. Her sister is standing at the far end of the hall that leads to the door, arms crossed, watching us, not even trying to hide it. Smirking.

Josephine turns to see what I’m looking at, then turns back to me.

Our eyes meet.

“Let me get my phone,” she says.

∗  ∗  ∗

This is a disaster.

We’re in Shane’s car, me in back, Josephine in the front seat, and we’re all nearly dead, suffocated by the toxic awkwardness that has displaced all the oxygen in the vehicle.

Things began going downhill the instant we started walking down the path from her house. Josephine took three steps and got a text and immediately started texting furiously back. I was trying to figure out if I was supposed to be walking next to her or not and ended up sort of splitting the difference, walking just ahead of her, twisting once to say, “Should be a fun party.”

She didn’t say anything, just glanced up from her phone to give a brief, grimacey smile, and right then it was plain: all she had wanted to do was stick it to her family, prove to them and herself that she was independent. Not actually be independent. But she was trapped with her choice now, heading off to some weird party with me, and like we’d both said, we’re not actually friends. It’s okay, you beat them, you can go back to them now, I was thinking of telling her, but by then we had reached Shane’s car and he was opening the passenger door for her, expansive and welcoming.

“Hi there. I’m Shane,” he said, hand extended.

“Hi,” she said, polite, but nervous and watchful. When she climbed in, Shane glanced at me questioningly and I gave a little shrug. Shane put the car in gear and did his best to engage her: You like the show? You see a lot of music? You in school with Austin? Josephine answered in nervous monosyllables and then fell silent, still fielding texts on her phone.

Shane glanced at me in the mirror. Again I shrugged.

Now I’m rifling through every drawer in my brain, trashing the place, hoping to find something to say. Shane drums on the steering wheel. I jiggle my foot. I’m watching the anxiety reflected in Josephine’s left hand, which is resting on her left thigh but is squeezed into a slowly churning fist, clenching and unclenching like she’s kneading a small ball.

“Mind if I . . . ?” says Shane, indicating the radio.

“No, please, great, sure, great,” Josephine and I rush to say, and Shane switches on the radio, a merciful bolt gun to the temple of this wretched moment, putting it out of its misery.

Amy welcomes us at the door of the house, a two-story near Uptown, and she hugs Shane, hugs me, ignores Josephine’s proffered hand to pull her in for a squeeze too. “You’re friends with them, you get one of these!”

“Why don’t you give them a tour of the house?” suggests Shane. He seems somehow amused, enjoying the awkwardness.

“Sure,” says Amy.

“Here, first you have to touch the horseshoe,” she says without any explanation, indicating a beat-up horseshoe nailed to the front door, so we touch the horseshoe before stepping inside.

Then she shows us the upstairs, the downstairs, keeping a cheerful patter running the whole time, and takes us out back to the unused granny apartment over the detached garage, leading us up the ladder-like stairs to the mini-home with its tiny fridge and one-burner stove and Isn’t it adorable? she says, and we agree, and frankly I’m grateful to her for giving us an excuse not to talk.

When we come back into the house it seems that everyone is arriving all at once, Shane giving embraces, backslapping, laughing, that same intoxicating aura that he had in the bar, the all-is-splendid-with-life-and-the-universe glow. People touch the horseshoe as they step in, one guy with neck tats saying, “Aw, you brought it!”

“Always,” says Shane.

I recognize many of them from the show, some of them recognizing me back, saying, Hey, great job the other night. I even see the bassist from the first time I went to Shane’s studio, Rob, the one who had stormed out, and he gets the same treatment from Shane, like the screaming argument never happened.

“Isn’t that . . . ?” I say to Amy.

“Yeah,” she says. “Everyone loves Shane. Just not in the studio.”

Shane makes sure to introduce us around: Alex, this is my son, Austin, and his friend Josephine; Becky, this is my son. . . . I don’t think I’ve said three words to Josephine since we got in the truck, and I feel like I can see us from above having parallel party experiences, attending the same event but not with each other.

“Okay, everyone, we should head out back,” announces Shane, so we all head through the kitchen to the backyard. Josephine is texting as she follows the herd. Shane puts his arm around me.

“Doing okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, all good.”

There are Christmas-style lights draped along the wooden fence and in the overhanging branches of the trees, stars visible beyond. People crowd onto three old picnic benches and an assortment of lawn furniture and indoor chairs that had long ago become outdoor chairs, everything arranged in a rough semicircle, Amy tuning up her guitar in the middle of it.

There is an old sofa out there too, and Shane says, “Why don’t you guys sit?”

“No, you sit,” says Josephine, and then we do the whole back-and-forth negotiation, going through every possible permutation of who sits and who stands, and finally Shane practically shoves me and Josephine into the sofa’s marshmallow embrace just as Amy is saying, “Hey, everyone!”

It’s small​—​a love seat, really​—​and the instant our butts hit the cushions we both casually lean away in opposite directions like magnets repelling each other. But it’s almost impossible to sit without some part of our bodies touching, the sagging U-shape of the frame and the soft cushions colluding to bring us toward the center and each other.

“Thanks for coming!” Amy says, and everyone cheers and claps, and I swear the next is directed right at me and Josephine: “So glad you’re here.”

I’m so glad one of us is glad.

“I’m gonna get started in juuust a few seconds,” Amy is saying, doing some last-minute tuning tweaks. Low murmurs of conversation from the others, the rhythmic pulse of crickets. I can feel the heat radiating from Josephine, feel it along my left flank and especially along my leg, our thighs half an inch apart. She shifts slightly and our hips bump and we both try to readjust without making it obvious that that’s what we’re doing. We’ve both got our outside arms draped over the armrests, squeezing ourselves to them like we’re clinging to life rafts. This is not going to work. I could say I need to use the bathroom or that I’m going to get a drink. “I think I might​—”

Then Amy starts to sing, and I forget all that.

Her voice . . . a voice that glows, a voice filled with heartache and longing and all the sad and happy things that life has to offer. Everyone goes hushed quiet, church quiet, no one wanting to move and mar the loveliness.

I feel transported. Enthralled. I’m embarrassed that Josephine is going to catch me all starry-eyed and weepy, and I feel a surge of resentment toward her for being here, even though her being there is my fault. I fight against and then give in to the urge to look at her, knowing my glance will be met by an arched brow and an eye roll.

But no. When I look at her, I get a jolt of recognition because I see she’s captivated too. And I want to touch her on the shoulder and say, I know you now, I know you. We understand each other.

At that moment she must sense my gaze, because she glances at me and our eyes meet and we both quickly look away, like we’ve walked in on each other naked.

I don’t know how many songs go by with us sitting like that, each fighting the sofa’s gentle encouragement to lean against each other. When we applaud, our arms touch. We don’t look at each other except a few times, and when we do we trade quick shy smiles and both look away.

Amy sings songs about falling in love and about falling out of love and about wishing someone loved you and wishing they didn’t. She switches between a guitar and a mandolin and a baritone ukulele, which you would think would sound silly but in her hands sounds spare and solemn and powerful.

I’m aware that Josephine smells nice. I hope I don’t smell bad. I try to surreptitiously smell my own breath, jutting my lower lip out to direct my exhalation toward my nostrils, but does that even work?

Amy says, “C’mon, Shane Tyler, come on up here and sing a song with me.” Shane says, “Oh, I’m coming, Amy Adler,” and rests a hand on my shoulder as he passes by, turning to wink at me and Josephine. Now I look at Josephine, and she smiles at me, still shy, but this time with something approaching delight.

They play one of Amy’s songs together, and halfway through I realize that Josephine and I have both given up our battle with the sofa, that we’re leaning against each other. When they finish the song, Amy says, “Can we sing one of yours now, Shane Tyler?”

“Well, certainly, Amy Adler,” he says, “but can we bring a third up here?”

She laughs, like a shimmer of bells. “Why, sure. The more the merrier. Who you got?”

Everyone in the crowd is twisting again, looking around curiously. Josephine whispers, “He means you.”

“Austin, you want to come join us for a song?”

I’m suddenly embarrassed, aware of everyone looking at me. I shake my head at him. Please, let me be.

“Go on!” says Josephine. “Go!” and she nudges me forward. I look at her, and she nods at me encouragingly​—​go!—​so I get to my feet and make my way to the front.

“Austin Methune, everyone,” says Shane. “You know ‘Seeing by Starlight’?” he says.

“Sure, yeah.”

“You could play it on the mandolin?”

I do some quick chord conversions in my mind.

“Sure.”

The three of us crowd together, Amy in the middle, the two of them on guitar and me on mandolin. I sing the middle harmony on the song and add some mandolin fills that suggest themselves to me, no effort on my part. Josephine is watching me, her eyes shining wide and luminous, her lips parted, and I feel a tiny explosion inside and have to hide from that gaze.

We finish the song, everyone applauding, Amy hugging me, and when I go back to the sofa there’s the shy smile again from Josephine, and I sheepishly return it before sitting.

“All right, who’s next?” says Amy, and everyone here seems to be a musician, and so she sings with another person, and then that person with Shane, and Shane with someone else, everyone joining in on the sing-alongs or listening respectfully to the quiet, sad ones.

I’m once again aware how close Josephine and I are sitting, our sides touching, and it’s okay, but then she adjusts her position and pulls away a bit, so I do the same so as not to give her the impression that I’m trying to touch her, and she maybe pulls away a bit more, and we get stuck in that loop of What is the other person thinking/doing? Or maybe I’m stuck. I don’t know. I think this is how wars start.

Shane is leading us in “Let It Be” when I realize that Josephine is singing along. And has a nice voice. Not beautiful and polished like Amy’s, but simple and on-key and pleasant. Unadorned, I think. Then she notices me looking at her and blushes and clamps her mouth shut.

“Come sing another with me,” says Amy, so she and I sing Dylan’s “You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go.”

When we finish, I see something in Shane’s expression, the same inner entertainment I saw earlier in the evening, and just as I’m thinking, Wait, what is he up to? he points to Josephine and says, “Your turn!”

Her eyes widen. “No no no no no,” she says, waving her hands.

“Yes yes yes. I heard you singing.”

“No no no, I don’t know any songs.”

“Everyone knows a song. Austin, I bet you can figure out at least one song for the two of you to sing.”

“How about ‘Time After Time,’” I suggest, and I know she knows it, because they sang it in choir.

“I’m too embarrassed.”

“You have a beautiful voice,” says Shane.

“I can’t.”

“You can!”

And so on back and forth, but it’s Shane, see, irresistible and wholehearted and sincere, and the night is magic, it’s magic, and it’s inevitable that she’ll say yes, and all the guests are saying, C’mon, you can do it! and Amy closes the deal by linking arms with Josephine and saying I’ll sing with you too.

So it happens. Amy and Josephine and I sing “Time After Time,” Shane on guitar, Josephine restrained and hesitant at first but gaining strength, and I’m aware of Amy smiling at me as she gradually eases back until by the second half of the song it’s just Josephine and me singing. I can feel everyone focused on us, everyone listening. It feels like the whole universe is listening. We’re singing, harmonizing, but Josephine won’t even look at me, keeps her eyes downcast like the lyrics are on the ground before her. Then just when we get to the part about finding the other person if they’re lost and catching them if they fall, she looks up and our eyes lock and it’s searing and so intense that my voice falters for a moment and we both have to search for the words somewhere on the lawn.

When we finish, we end up back on the sofa and can hardly look at each other. A few more people sing songs, a big rousing finish with “All You Need Is Love.” I can barely hear any of it. Everyone is standing and hugging and shaking hands, and I feel a light touch on my shoulder and it’s Josephine, pulling her hand back hurriedly.

“I should go,” she says.

“Right Yes. Of course. Uh, let me figure out what we should do,” I stammer.

“Why don’t you take the truck,” says Shane. “Bring it back to me whenever.”

Amy does a quick field-sobriety test, consisting of her grabbing both my ears and saying, “Breathe on me.”

I breathe on her.

“Have you been drinking?”

“No! Not a drop!”

She lets go of one ear but starts twisting the other.

“Austin, I will beat your ass if you’re lying to me.”

“Not a drop! Ow! Let go!”

“Okay, then.” She leans in close and whispers, “I like her a lot. Go.”

On the ride to Josephine’s it’s a whole new variety of wordless awkward. Like by singing that song together we’d somehow gone way too far, experienced something far too intimate. More intimate somehow than, well, being intimate.

Two frozen centuries into the ride, she finally says, “So . . . tell me about Shane,” and I’m grateful to have a way to fill up a few miles and minutes. I tell her everything that has happened since he first showed up on the doorstep, everything I know about him, about my mom lying to me all this time since I was a kid.

“Austin, that’s incredible.”

“Yeah. Of course, it’s possible that he’s not really my dad.”

She’s quiet.

“No,” she says, “he’s your dad.”

More silence.

We get to her house and I park.

“Well . . .”

“Yeah, well . . .”

“That was really fun.”

“Yeah.”

“Thanks for inviting me.”

“Yeah, sure, of course. Thanks for coming.”

The radio is on, so at least the silence isn’t silent.

“You want to hang out again sometime?” I say.

“Sure, yeah.”

“What are you doing tomorrow?”

She laughs softly. “Can’t tomorrow. Phone calls. Raising funds.”

“Right.”

Well.

Well.

It’s time for her to go.

The song on the radio is ending.

She has to go.

She’s not moving.

The song ends. The song “Heirloom” by Sufjan Stevens starts, and I’m about to say, I never liked this song, but suddenly it’s the most beautiful thing ever, and it’s like the song is showing me the way, the song is saying, Now, the moment is now, don’t wait, and it’s like Josephine and I both know and we turn to each other and we’re kissing.

We’re kissing and her lips are soft and my hands are on her face and I can feel her warm hands on me and I’m thunderstruck, I’m trembling, and we kiss more and kiss more, my eyes closed, the heat of her body, her breath, the smell of her hair, the feeling of floating in a sea of stars.

Then suddenly she stops. She stops and pulls back, a hand on my chest. She pulls back and pushes away and looks at me, then wait she’s turning to open the car door and wait she’s climbing out and closing the door and wait she’s walking up the path toward her house​—​“Wait,” I say​—​and her walk goes faster and turns into a run and then she’s at the front door​—​“Wait!”​—​and the door opens​—​“Josephine, wait!”​—​and she’s inside and the door closes and she’s gone.