“I’m serious. I’m sorry. Do you want to get some dinner?” Dean asks me suddenly.
“You’re asking me to dinner?” I’m caught off guard. I can’t believe he’d want to eat another meal with me today.
“Nottodinner. For dinner.” He clarifies. “Not like?—”
“Yeah,” I agree with his thought. “Not like anything.”
“Just food,” He reiterates.
“Just food,” I agree again, but something tells me this is not just food. This is a truce.
I nod, and we walk side by side, nearly shoulder to shoulder, towards the resort inn. The path is snowy, and both pairs of my socks are getting soaking wet. I try not to let it bother me, but I know my toes will surely be frozen the rest of the night.
By the time we reach the mansion, the restaurant is bustling with people. The restaurant is as coordinated as the rest of the inn, complete with velvet booths, marble table tops and daisies in vases that face a main stage. We’re seated in a back corner by a foggy window, where snow has built up on the windowsill. Despite being in a corner, we can see a sliver of the stage.
Instead of stuffing it into a ball like I usually do, I lay my coat nicely on the booth bench where we’re nestled. I sit on the left; Dean sits on the right. Janine the waitress makes her rounds, where Dean orders us two glasses of red wine. When she returns, we both order modest meals. I organize my silverware, wiping off water stains from my knife.
“Can I ask you something?” Dean sips his red wine, his brown hair backlit by the stage lights. A golden aura floats across his face.
“What?” I’m reluctant because I know that tone of voice—it’s about to be a question I don’t want to answer.
“It’s about Andy.”
Of course, it’s about Andy.
It’s always about Andy.
“What about Andy?” I lean my face on my hand, wondering what he could possibly want to know. I swirl the wine in my glass before taking a small sip.
“What was it like being his muse?” Dean swallows. “You know, with his album and everything.”
I almost choke on my wine, my breath catching in my throat.
The album, of course. There’s only one album. The one Andy named after me, and the one that got him famous. The one that has the song about how much he loves me. The album I have several copies of because I couldn’t bear to sell or get rid of them. The album that won the GRAMMY.
“It wasn’t like being a muse at all. I was only myself,” I answer. “I didn’t know I was hismuseuntil the album was named.”
“I listened to it for the first time a few hours ago,” Dean confesses. “Before I went on the walk.”
“So?” I don’t want to have this conversation with Dean because I know where it’s going.
“He really loved you,” Dean decides. “You were his true love.”
“I don’t need you to tell me that.”
We stare at each other and I’m turning cold. I don’t need anyone to tell me how much Andy loved me, because for fuck’s sake, I was married to him. I already knew about the whole album dedicated to me.
“I think I prefer Jeff Buckley,” Dean remarks, sipping his wine. “He made the wholedying at a young agething way more tragic.”
I blurt out a laugh. It’s a genuine one.
“Thank fucking god. I couldn’t deal with another Andy McKinney megafan.”
Andy’s album generated a cult following that followed him well into the dark, past his death, into the afterlife. While I was grateful his music impacted so many, sometimes I just wanted to visit his grave in peace without it cluttered with memorabilia or not having questions about my personal life plastered over the media.
“No, not me, sorry,” Dean apologizes.
“Careful, he might hear you,” I laugh, miming searching for an imaginary ghost.
