Leaving Amarillo(95)
“I’m glad you were in the neighborhood. And thanks again for having your guys get Dallas’s truck. That was really sweet of you.”
Her grins over at me as we back out of my driveway. “Anything for you, gorgeous.”
“My hero,” I say with an eye roll. “So tell me about this RV.”
Jaggerd rakes his hair out of his eyes with one grease-stained hand. “Oh, you know. Standard American Coach. Kitchenette, bedroom, small bathroom. It was nice back when they first bought it, but it’s aged a bit. I checked around online. Might be able to get more like seventy-five for it these days.”
“I can’t believe they never sold it.”
Jaggerd gives me a strange look. I suspect he wants to ask what’s going on with the band—the one that I so easily chose over him. But thankfully he doesn’t.
“They put their life savings into that thing. Touring the world in it was their dream. Dreams aren’t exactly easy to give up on or let go of. You of all people should know this.”
The sentiment reminds me why I was so eager to see the RV. My dream no longer seems possible. Soon what once was my band will be touring without me and I’ll be . . . on my own, I suppose.
I’ve submitted the life insurance policies and caught the house payment up to date. Papa had prepaid for everything from the funeral to his burial site beside Nana and his headstone. Soon after Gavin and my brother left I realized there wasn’t as much to handle as I’d thought. But I still didn’t know if I was ready to go back on the road, and I definitely couldn’t go where the people making the decisions affecting the band’s future didn’t want me.
Dallas called to say the audition went well and that they should know something soon about whether or not they’d be joining the tour. I’m happy for them. I am. But a part of me is still that girl, still sitting on the side of the riverbank wishing she’d jumped. Still sitting in the audience wishing she hadn’t sat out the encore. I can’t change the past. But I don’t have to put my future on hold.
After making meat loaf and eating leftovers for the third night in a row and crying all over Nana’s piano, I decide it is time to get out of the house.
Out of town maybe.
“And tell me again why I can’t tell anyone about this?” Jaggerd looks nervous when we pull behind his father’s auto garage in the center of town.
“Because,” I say climbing out of the car and grabbing my bag from the backseat, “Dallas has enough to worry about right now without adding me to it.”
I follow Jag over to the oversized bay where the RV is parked. He unlocks the door and rolls it upward. The RV sits there in its massive glory. I don’t know what I expected but I didn’t think it would be in such pristine condition. I vaguely remember Jag saying he took it out and cleaned it up from time to time.
“Thank you. For taking such good care of it.”
“Your granddad was a good guy. And I’d like to think that you and I are still friends.”
“Of course we are,” I say absently, running my hand along the side of the vehicle.
“Dixie, this isn’t just something you can drive off in. You should really have a Class A or B for—”
“Relax. I just want to look at it, Jag.” For now, that is. He opens the door and I follow him in. “Besides, I have my Class B. I got it when we were thinking about getting a larger van to tour in.”
Jag steps aside and allows me to tour the home on wheels my grandparents considered the key to fulfilling their dreams.
When I move to the driver’s seat, I see it. The map.
Unfolding it, a sense of holding something close to them clogs my throat with emotion. Various states and cities are circled across it with a few names of antique malls and monuments scrawled here and there.
When Dallas and Gavin left, I felt lost, with no direction and no idea what was next. I’ve felt that way ever since. Sitting in the leather captain’s seat of the RV, the knowledge that I might never get to live my dream almost overwhelms me. But it doesn’t.
Because even though I might not to get to live my dream, I can still fulfill theirs.
The lights of the nearly empty interstate guide me like a jet down the runway. As big as this RV is, I feel like a 747 about to take off. Turning down the radio, I glance at my map one more time.
Eleven states, almost two dozen cities, and several little-known landmarks, here I come. I grab the hand of the girl on the riverbank, pull the young woman from the audience, and bring them both along with me. We aren’t sitting out anymore. We aren’t standing still any longer.
As I approach the NOW LEAVING AMARILLO sign, my heart flutters in my chest and I begin to hum a song that used to signal the close of every show.
Nana used to say that every ending is really a new beginning—we just don’t know it yet.
She was right.
Epilogue
Gavin
“WHO HAS YOUR BACK, GAVIN? WHO’S LOOKING OUT FOR YOU? Tell me. Tell me who holds you up when you start to fall? Who is there for you when you need them?”
You. I answer Dixie’s questions in my mind for what feels like the thousandth time. They’ve played on repeat in my head since I walked away from her on that damned porch. The answer is the same. Every time.
But I didn’t tell her. I should have. I wish to f*ck I had.