A Million Miles Away(22)

“You don’t want to see this,” she told them, gesturing to the circle.

“Is this the group you were telling us about?” Gillian asked. Her mouth turned down, and she shrugged. “I guess they gotta do what they gotta do.”

“It’s nice they have snacks, too,” Ingrid offered.

This month’s mantra, as they heard thrumming from the living room, was WE MUST EMBRACE PAIN AND USE IT AS FUEL FOR OUR JOURNEY. This month’s group leader was a woman named Patti who had lost her son to cancer. This month’s refreshments were ginger ale and banana bread.

The way Patti passed out cups of sodas to the support group reminded Kelsey of a Catholic mass she once saw. All the talk of the soul and the spirit, each person bowing their head in thanks as they received their bread, including her parents.

Finally, as the group started their personal testimonies, her friends left.

She headed upstairs and moved Michelle’s laptop to her room.

Now Kelsey was doing a handstand against her bedroom door. She could see herself in the reflection of the deck doors, belly exposed under black leggings, hair touching the floor. She hadn’t straightened her hair that day, or put on mascara. Her door was painted a light pink, her walls turquoise, the lamps on either side of her bed funneling light into orange-tinted triangles. It was supposed to be tropical, her room, but from that angle, it looked like a retro vision of a spacecraft.

When the beeping rang out from Michelle’s computer, Kelsey went upright, letting the blood rush from her face back down to her body. Peter. Kelsey moved with the laptop to a less conspicuous location, ran her fingers through her wavy hair, and pressed ANSWER. Her hands were shaking.

Peter’s cheeks were tinted bronze and his hair was lighter. The dark circles were still visible under his big blue eyes.

“I got your letter,” Kelsey said before he could speak.

His eyes opened wider, hopeful. “Did you write me back?”

She nodded in response.

He was smiling, and he looked natural, sitting in his uniform. Well, maybe not natural. As his smile faded, his eyes darted to either side of him, tense.

Kelsey took a closer look at the scene behind his shoulder, trying to determine if he was in the same place. “So, are you still in the—” she began.

“Guess what? My parents sent me a gift,” he continued.

“What?”

Kelsey watched him reach down to pull out an acoustic guitar with a black body and a blue patterned strap.

“Nice,” she said quietly. She knew nothing about guitars, but anyone could see it was a beautiful instrument. When Peter knocked on it, the sound was full of layers.

“I’ve been working on some Cicadas covers.”

“Oh, yeah?” Kelsey tried to lift her voice with recognition.

He strummed a few chords, looking at her. “‘The Sworn Secret,’” he said. “The English version, not the Portuguese.”

Kelsey nodded in encouragement.

And then he sang slowly, tripping over the syllables as he found the chords. “Things I never told you / Listen and believe / They said it was never gonna work out / As long as we don’t tell them, just you and me.”

His voice was shaky but clear, and in tune with the guitar. He wasn’t afraid to hold the notes.

When he was done, Kelsey gave an awkward thumbs-up. She found her mouth had gotten stuck in a dumb smile, so she tried to reel it in a little, putting her face in her sleeve.

“Thank you. I’ve had plenty of time to practice,” Peter said. “So, any requests?”

“Uh—” Kelsey’s mouth went dry. She was hitting nothing but blanks. Something old. Something classic. “Uh. Elvis?”

Peter looked puzzled, but pleased. “Elvis? Really?”

Kelsey shrugged. “Sure!” Maybe Michelle would have asked for something more sweet and serious, something with a hard-to-pronounce name from a high shelf in the bowels of the record store. There were always people with guitars outside that record shop, at the corner of 9th and Massachusetts. Michelle would make the Maxfields stop on the sidewalk to hear them play, running through songs like a catalog until she found one that the musicians knew, listening to them until the song was all the way through. Then she’d clap no matter how bad it was, like she was at a concert, and ask their parents for a dollar to toss in the case. Kelsey could have listened, too, but she always moved as far away down the sidewalk as she could, never appreciating the effort.

Kelsey tried to tell Michelle that the kids would just go back to their dorm and use the cash for beer money, but she never cared.

Kelsey always thought she just liked the attention. But as Peter played, she was starting to get how electric it was to hear someone play an instrument right in front of you.

Peter played snippets of “Hound Dog” and “Jailhouse Rock.” He lowered his voice and drawled from the back of his throat in his best Elvis impression. He had to stop when they were both laughing.

Kelsey thought of Michelle, and remembered to clap.

Once they were quiet, Kelsey heard the rumble of a truck, then yelling. It sounded as if two men were getting into a heated argument.

“How are things over there?” she asked, tentative.

Peter scrunched up his face. “I don’t want to take your time with all that. Okay?”

“Of course,” Kelsey said.