Dreamland(32)

“I think you’ll be fine,” I assured her. “Do you have everything?”

When she nodded, I swept my arm toward the door, and a minute later we were rolling down the long, ramped drive.

“How did rehearsal go?”

“Same as always. Just when I think we’re almost there, Maria notices something else we still need to work on.”

“Where do you rehearse? I haven’t seen you on the beach in the mornings when I’m out for my run.”

“We use one of the conference rooms on the main floor. We’re probably not supposed to, but no one at the hotel has complained yet.”

“So, you’re saying you’re a rule breaker?”

“Sometimes,” she offered. “Isn’t everyone?”

“I wouldn’t have guessed that about you.”

“There’s still a lot about me that you don’t know.”

“Care to share?”

“Only if you ask the right questions.”

“All right.” I pretended to ponder the possibilities. “Tell me about your previous boyfriend.”

“I never told you that I had a boyfriend.”

“Then consider me a good guesser.”

“What do you want to know?”

“Anything. What was he like? How long did you go out?”

She sighed. “He was pre-law, two years older than me, and we met during my freshman year. But I was very involved with music and dance and my classes, and I wanted to hang with my friends, too. He had trouble understanding that. He’d get upset when I wasn’t able to spend as much time with him as he wanted, or he’d suggest that I blow off piano practice or whatever, and it began to irritate me. So after a couple of months I ended it, and that was that. How about you? Tell me about your ex-girlfriend. Or maybe it’s just…girlfriend?” She gave me a sidelong look.

“Definitely an ex,” I assured her, before giving her the brief rundown on Michelle, our incompatible schedules, and her eventual move out of town. While listening, Morgan absently polished the lenses of her sunglasses with her halter, her expression serious.

“Do you regret that it didn’t work out?”

“Maybe a little, at first. Not so much anymore.”

“I never regretted breaking it off,” she said.

“It’s good to know you can dump someone without a care in the world.”

“He deserved it.”

“It was his loss.”

She smiled. “By the way, my friends approve of you. They think you’re nice, even if they’re still not a hundred percent sure it was a good idea for me to join you today.”

“They could have tagged along.”

“It’s not that they’re afraid you’re going to do anything,” she explained. “It’s just that I’m the youngest, and sometimes I think they feel they have to watch out for me.”

“Like your parents?”

“Exactly. According to them, I’ve led a sheltered life, which makes me a bit na?ve.”

“Are they right?”

“Probably a little,” she admitted with a laugh. “But I think most people in college are na?ve. It sort of goes with the territory, especially if you grew up in a nice neighborhood and had a good family. What do any of us really know about the real world, right? Of course, if I said that to my friends, they would add that I’m also being defensive.”

I glanced over at her. “For what it’s worth, you don’t strike me as na?ve,” I said. “You carry Mace, after all.”

“I think they’re talking about my emotions.”

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, so instead, I steered the conversation to easier topics. We talked about movies and songs we liked, and after I explained how my uncle had taught me to play the guitar, she told me that she knew the words to practically every song in half a dozen Disney movies even before she started school. She talked to me about her years in dance and the concerts she’d performed and raved about her private vocal coach in Chicago. Even in college, she’d traveled to see him every other week, despite the other time-consuming requirements of her major. When she finally mentioned the names of the managers she would meet in Nashville and the singers they represented—as well as their strengths and weaknesses—along with the vagaries of the music business in general, I thought again that Morgan was a lot more than a pretty face. There was a sophistication to her that I’d never seen in someone so young, and I was struck by the realization that my own attempts at chasing my dream had paled in comparison. While she’d been thoughtfully building her skills one step at a time and laying the groundwork for later success, I’d just been having fun.

Strangely, I wasn’t jealous about that, nor was I jealous that she’d had advantages and opportunities that I didn’t. Instead, I was happy for her, mainly because I remembered how much the dream had once meant to me. I also simply liked listening to her talk, and I realized the more I learned about her, the more I wanted to know.

When we reached Fort De Soto Park, I followed the signs and parked in a gravel lot near a wooden shack that offered kayaks for rent. Both of us got out of the truck and headed toward the attendant, who took the cash and handed each of us a paddle and a life preserver.