June, Reimagined (22)

“Not as much as I used to.”

“Why not?” She walked up to one and strummed the strings, more noise than music.

“Just leave them,” Lennox said. “They’re horribly out of tune.”

But June picked up the acoustic. “Then tune it.” She held it out to Lennox. When he hesitated, June strummed it dissonantly again.

“You’re maddening, you know that, right?” Lennox groaned, but he took the guitar from June and began to tune it. When he was done, he gestured to the couch. “Sit.”

She did as instructed. Lennox knelt down in front of her, placing the instrument in her hands. Then he arranged her left hand along the neck of the guitar. “Now press down.”

He took June’s right hand. “Relax, Peanut. It’s just a guitar, not a person. It won’t dump you if you don’t touch it right the first time.”

But it wasn’t the instrument making June tense. She hadn’t been this close to Lennox before, hadn’t noticed the smattering of freckles on his nose, the small crinkles around his eyes, the scar just below his right eyebrow.

“How’d you get that?” June resisted touching his face.

Lennox ran a finger over the scar. “I was young, arrogant, and stupid.”

“You?” June jested. “Arrogant and stupid?”

A whisper of a smile pulled on Lennox’s face. “I’m sorry I called you an idiot, Peanut. I’m the last person who should be throwing stones.”

June didn’t want to rehash the past week. “What do I do now?”

Lennox took her right hand and gently made her strum the strings. A beautiful G chord rang out, vibrant and clean. June squealed at the accomplishment. Lennox moved her fingers, made her strum a C chord, and then shifted her fingers to an E chord.

“Now, try it on your own.” He sat back as June fumbled from choppy chord to choppy chord. She messed up more than she did it correctly, and Lennox chuckled at her clumsiness.

June stopped. “I know. I’m horrible.”

“It’s not that.” A spark lit Lennox’s eyes, making their hazel color glow greener. “You stick your tongue out of the side of your mouth when you play.”

June covered her face. Ever since she was little, it had been a tick of hers, any time she was heavily concentrating. She handed the guitar to Lennox. “Your turn.”

“No.”

“Come on. You can’t be worse than me.”

“My four-year-old cousin is better than you, Peanut.”

June shoved him playfully. “Just one song.”

“I can’t,” Lennox said.

“I don’t believe that.”

“Believe it,” he said seriously.

“No,” she said stubbornly.

“You’re not going to stop until I play, are you?”

“I promise, I won’t judge you, Lennox,” June said. “You can trust me.”

With a groan that June was starting to find endearing, Lennox took a seat next to her on the couch and positioned himself with the guitar on his lap. He was a natural, and when he began to play, it was as if the guitar became an extension of his being. His fingers moved deftly along the neck, manipulating notes and chords with ease, plucking strings swiftly, effortlessly. But more than his skill, June was mesmerized by the way Lennox became the music. He didn’t just play the song; he lived it, too. June couldn’t take her eyes off him. She found herself leaning in, aching to touch him.

She sat speechless when he was done.

“I told you. I haven’t played—”

June put her hand on his. “You’re wrong about yourself. You’re the opposite of bad.” They sat in awkward silence yet again, until June forced herself from the couch.

Lennox put the guitar back on its stand. “Can you give this box to Amelia for me, Peanut?” He handed it to June. “It’s just some things I should have let go of a long time ago.”

Inside were Christmas ornaments, a wool sweater, a pair of slippers, a pipe, and a camera. But not just any camera—a 35mm Nikon.

June set the box down. “You’re giving this away?” She retrieved the camera, pulled off the lens cap, and put the camera to her eye, fiddling with the features. Nothing was broken. The lens was even clean.

“Do you want it?” Lennox asked.

“Are you serious?” Photography had been June’s favorite class in high school. All her other subjects had been a rush of material, a crunch to get in as much information as possible in the time allotted, but June’s photography teacher, Ms. Flores, spent days with her students, just sitting.

“Don’t rush,” she would say. “Just wait to be inspired.”

The class took frequent slow walks around the school, cameras dangling from the students’ necks, just observing.

“I can give you a fancy camera,” Ms. Flores once said to June. “But no matter how good the equipment, it still only takes pictures. It can’t see. Only you can do that. That’s the job of an artist.”

For a time during her senior year, June had considered art school. She knew she wasn’t good enough for highly competitive programs like the Rhode Island School of Design or the California Institute of the Arts, and the Merriweathers could never have afforded such schools. But she had quietly requested college brochures from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and the University of Dayton, in-state colleges with less flair but good programs.