Open Road Summer(83)

He doesn’t deserve me; that became clear last week. But Matt Finch deserves his place on this stage. In his simple blue jeans with a simple guitar line behind him, he’s exposing every scar across his soul. He just told the most painful story of his life to a bunch of sound technicians and lighting professionals. Tonight, he’ll tell it again to hundreds of strangers.

It’s more than I could ever do, for him or for anyone else. Somehow, this makes it easier for me to slip out the door, wiping the wet streaks from my face.

I collect myself as I walk to my car and then inspect my makeup situation in my rearview mirror. When my phone buzzes, I half expect it to be Matt, but it’s Dee: Can you come back????

I text back as fast as my fingers will move: I’m still here, in my car.

She doesn’t text me back right away, and worry gets the best of me. I hurry toward the back entrance again. Before I can reach it, Dee bursts out the side door.

“Hey,” she says, breathing hard. “I have got to get out of here.”

It takes me a moment. “But . . . the press conference. Lissa’s gonna kill you.”

Dee shrugs. “So they wait an extra half hour. Can I drive?”

Unable to form words, I toss her the keys. There’s an easy confidence in the way she catches them and then spins them around her finger. We hurry back to the car, both spurred on by the present threat of Lissa chasing after Dee.

“Okay.” She turns on the engine. “I need you to text Jimmy and find out where he is.”

My head pivots toward her. “Okay . . . what, exactly, are we doing?”

She smiles as she presses the gas pedal—hard—and the tires squeal on our way out of the parking lot. “I need to see him or I won’t be able to think straight. Because you’re so right. Jimmy and I don’t have to scrap all our years of friendship over a breakup. We can still be a part of each other’s lives. And I just . . . I need to see him.”

A small smile creeps onto my face. “Well, then, let’s find him.”

Hey, I type, hands jittery. Where are you right now?

Dee’s passing the cars beside us so quickly that I don’t have to look at the speedometer to know we could get pulled over. I’m not sure when she last drove a car, but it seems like she’s making up for lost time in this one trip. She drums her hands against the steering wheel, anxious for his reply. It comes quickly.

Running some errands. Why, what’s up?

“He’s running errands.”

She groans. “Like, where specifically?”

My phone vibrates, but it’s Lissa’s number, so I click Ignore. Then I type Dee’s exact words to Jimmy. Like where specifically?

The BP on 8th. Why?

“He’s at a gas station by Belmont. Get on the outer belt right here,” I say, pointing. “We’re still a few exits away.”

“Okay, tell him not to leave,” she says, speeding toward the on-ramp.

I return to my phone. Stay where you are, OK?

Then the inevitable reply: OK, but what’s going on? Are you involving me in some kind of police chase?

Ha. Ha. Jimmy’s allowed to give me grief because he actually knows me. And besides, it is a kind of getaway—from Dee’s gilded cage. Meanwhile, my phone is beeping with text messages from Lissa, the cage master herself. Where are you? Get her back here. Reagan, I know you’re reading these. Tell her to call me.

“Lissa’s freaking out.” I say this out of amusement, not as a warning.

Dee rolls her eyes. “Yeah, I figured she would be. But my career isn’t going to end over one delayed press meeting, is it?”

She rolls down her window a bit. The wind rips past the windows, and it tousles her hair.

“Dee, you know there will probably be people at this gas station. . . .”

She maneuvers around a car that’s not going fast enough for her taste. “Oh well. I don’t really care today. I mean, I can’t live like that—not doing things I want to do for fear of being photographed.”

“Okay, I feel compelled to ask you this: are you drunk?”

“Shut up.” She laughs, glancing over at me. “No. I’m just . . . ready.”

This hell-if-I-care attitude suits her like one of my too-tight skirts: it may not be her normal style, but disobedience looks good on her. When I glance over, she’s breathing in deeply, inhaling the fresh air like she’s been trapped indoors for weeks on end. Outside, we’re heading away from the skyline, but the edges of Nashville are still nothing like our hometown. The sky is as blue and the grass as green, but the rest is all asphalt and car exhaust and billboards.

“What are you going to say?” I shouldn’t be so nosy, but I can’t help it.

“I don’t know,” she admits, but a smile creeps onto her face. She uses one hand to try to tame her hair, but it still flies around wildly.

I stay quiet, leaving her to her thoughts until I see our exit. “Take this one. Then turn right.”

She obeys, and we zip through the only stoplight standing between us and the gas station. Dee turns the wheel harder than she needs to. The tires veer sharply into the gas station, and my eyes find a spot toward the back edge of the parking lot, out of the way of other people.

I see him before she does—a tall figure leaning against the tailgate of a black truck. I haven’t seen him all summer, but, even from a distance, he looks like the same old Jimmy. That’s part of his charm—he’s steady. He’s always had the same haircut, and he always wears the same kind of Levi’s with the same simple shirts. But it’s not boring, not on him.