I take the letter. For a second, I consider throwing it in the trash. It’s thin and obviously not the heavy stack of divorce papers I’ve been waiting on. But curiosity gets the better of me. I tear it open and dump the contents into my shaking hand. A slip of paper with a scratchy scrawl and a playing card land in my palm.
Holding it close, I decipher Wes’s messy writing.
Here’s my answer: Sign my contract, and I’ll sign yours. We deserve a farewell tour, don’t you think?
-Your Husband (Fuck the other guy)
Setting the note down, I reach for the card and snort a laugh. I can’t help it.
A red Uno reverse card with soft worn edges.
Sentimentality won’t change my mind. Those good times are long gone.
“Tell them I say no.”
It wouldn’t be the first time I declined an invitation from Wes.
Track Three
Garrett:How did I start playing music? My old neighbor was an Opera singer, and she taught me piano before I picked up bass. She wanted someone to accompany her when she sang, and I had free time.
Jared:I was a teenage boy. Guitar was the only answer.
Evelyn:I think, for Luca, the drums were a way to express himself without words. To let his emotions tear out of him and not apologize for having them. He was a different person when he played.
Avery:When I was younger, I thought of the musicians on my CDs as some of my best friends, the only people who would travel with me from place to place. My first guitar was from this secondhand shop in Malibu. I didn’t just want to listen to the songs. I wanted to feel them. Get as close as I possibly could to the source.
Wesley:If I never met Avery, I probably never would have touched a guitar. When we first met, she was determined to have as little to do with me as possible. I, on the other hand, was on a mission to prove to her that her efforts were pointless.
Wesley:We spent a lot of time together, our parents always running errands and leaving us at one of our houses together. Avery would plug in these headphones or sometimes pick up her guitar and pick through a song, and it was like she was in this other, better world. I wanted to know what it was like to be in that world with her.
Wesley:Eventually, she let me in when I needed it the most.
Wesley
Fall 2004 to Spring 2005
“Let’s do something,” I said from the kitchen table to Avery. Like most days, she was seated on the floor in my living room working through a song on her guitar.
I was supposed to be doing homework, but I couldn’t stop watching her. She would alternate between playing and re-listening to the song playing in her ear. Her focus never wavered. It had been two months since they moved to Caper, and I’d noticed how she’d easily sit there for two or three hours working on the same song.
“I’m already doing something.” She didn’t bother to look my way.
“You could teach me.” I tried a new angle. Maybe if I showed interest in what she was doing then we could find common ground?
I had been trying. Just last week I had Mom dig out her CDs to listen to, and I fell asleep listening to something new each night. ABBA. Pearl Jam. Patsy Cline. If Avery just let me have a conversation with her, I’d prove I could speak her language—or at least attempt to.
“No thanks.”
Abandoning my homework, I moved to the couch, picking up one of Hudson’s books from Mom’s shelf. I could have sworn she owned every version of everything he’d ever published. I liked Hudson and I liked how he treated Mom even more. He never made her cry and always showed up when she called. She’d been working hard and seemed more tired than usual, so it was a relief to have him around.
Like him or not, I wasn’t planning on reading. I sat and listened, swishing my foot to the music as I lazily flipped pages.
After fifteen minutes, Avery huffed and glared at me over my shoulder. “Could you stop that?”
“What? I’m reading in my house.” I asked, feigning innocence. “Do you have a problem with that?”
“I can feel you listening. It makes me itchy.” She pointed at my hands. “And if you were reading, the book wouldn’t be upside down. Go somewhere else.”
