Open Road Summer(84)

When Dee spots him, she brakes hard, stopping dead in a vacant area beside the gas station. She slams the car into park and fumbles for the handle and bounds out. She shuts the door hard, almost tripping over her shoes as they collide with the asphalt. Blond hair bouncing around her, Dee heads straight toward Jimmy.

When he spots her, he steps forward, looking concerned. Dee slows to a determined walk, and I see his mouth moving. It’s clearly “What are you doing here” and “Is everything okay,” arms held out as if ready for action. He’s still asking questions when Dee gets close enough to throw her arms around his neck. He holds her there, with her feet suspended off the ground and pointed like a ballerina’s. They hang on to each other for dear life, the girl on the magazine covers and the small-town cowboy—my best friend and her other best friend. After a few moments, Jimmy moves his feet from side to side, and Dee’s feet swing like a clock’s pendulum. It’s a strange kind of slow dance, a hold-tight at the edge of common ground.

My view of them is framed by the car windshield, and the picture also includes a sidewalk littered with cigarette butts and old gum, a rusted Dumpster, and a gas station employee yelling into his cell phone outside the convenience store. Beyond them all, Dee is planting her flag—claiming the territory she’s willing to fight for.

My therapist once told me: you are the only person who can build emotional barriers, but you’re also the only person who can topple them. Other people can’t knock down the walls you’ve built, no matter how much they love you. You have to tear them down yourself because there’s something worth seeing on the other side.

I thought it was stupid then, staring back at my therapist across her coffee table, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe I just saw it with my own eyes.

A loud honk makes me jump in my seat. Glancing back, I see a pissed-off woman gesturing that my car is blocking her path. I slide over to the driver’s seat and move the car to a real parking spot a few yards to the right. Before I can even shift into park, Dee’s back in my line of vision, headed toward me. Over her shoulder, Jimmy’s smiling and shaking his head. She jumps into the car and says, “Back to the Ryman!”

I pull around to the exit, giving Jimmy a wave as I do. “What did you say to him?”

“Nothing. Not a word. Oh, wait! Stop!” She’s tearing through her purse, and she pulls out one of the black Sharpies she always carries for signing autographs. She scrawls something across the palm of her hand. Then she climbs into the backseat and presses her hand to the window. I don’t have to see her hand or even see Jimmy nodding from behind us, looking overcome. I know what she wrote across her skin: IWLYF.

Dee can create whole songs out of her feelings. She can turn those songs into concerts, into music tours. But sometimes all you need is one true thing that you’re brave enough to write in ink. She doesn’t even know what this one sentence will mean for them—will they get back together now or later or never?—but that doesn’t matter right now.

She crawls back to the front seat as I steer us onto the highway. Wind gushes through the windows, and Dee flings her arms open wide.

“Woo-hoo!” she screams at the open road before us, vowels pushing against the summer air. “Wooooooo!”

The rest of the world will never know why Lilah Montgomery showed up late to the Middle of Nowhere Tour press conference in Nashville or why she didn’t look as polished—breathing fast, with wind-tossed hair and an extra glow about her. But I’ll know. I know these secrets of Dee’s life like I know the constellations, like I know the road home. I’ll know why she gave a new answer to the standard press conference question about what advice she has for her young fans, as quoted in the Arts section of the Tennessean:

“I don’t know! I’m seventeen!” Ms. Montgomery replied with a laugh. “This past year has been a lesson in letting go and holding on, and I still don’t know what to make of it. I guess I do know this: find a best friend, and hang on tight.”





Chapter Twenty-Two

Nashville


I awake to a soft knock on my bedroom door. Through sleep-blurred vision, I see my dad peeking in. “Hey Dad.”

“Hey darlin’—sorry to wake you, but I was starting to worry you’d stopped breathin’.”

Not quite. Just exhausted from yesterday. It was too much for one day, especially for someone as emotionally stunted as me. “How was the concert?”

“Well, Dee was marvelous. Shined like a star. I couldn’t believe how big that crowd was—all those screamin’ kids—just crazy. Brenda enjoyed it very much.”

“Good.” I sit up, propping myself on my elbows. There’s music coming from somewhere, and I reach for what sounds like my phone alarm going off. I punch a few buttons, but the faint sound continues. “Do you hear that?”

When I glance up, my dad has disappeared from my door. I put my bare feet on the carpet, looking around. For a moment, I think I’ve left my iPod on somewhere, but the sound is clearer than that. Straining to hear, I can make out something acoustic. Coming from . . . the backyard?

I glance down from my bedroom window and feel my jaw fall open. Matt Finch is standing below my window, guitar strapped across his chest. I pull my window up, and I expect the song from that old movie—the one about a guy with a trench coat and the big radio and his heart on his sleeve. But it’s not that. It’s not anything I recognize, and I strain to make out the lyrics: Stop being ridiculous, stop being ridiculous, Reagan.