Being Henry David - By Cal Armistead Page 0,43
since I was about nine, but I don’t like to talk about it. Just don’t want to be different, you know? So everybody kind of freaked out, and some people still seem scared to be around me, in case it happens again.”
She wipes at her eyes and tries to smile at me. “Needless to say, I haven’t sung in public since then.”
I shake my head. “That’s so wrong, Hailey. You should do the show this year. Seriously. You have to.”
“I don’t know, Hank. Maybe—”
The doorbell rings.
“Hang on, I gotta get that,” she says. “My parents are still at work.”
She leaves the white room and heads to the front door, so I play around some more with the guitar. It feels so natural, fingers on my left hand flying across the frets, fingers on my right strumming and picking. Like I was born to do this. Like when I’m with Hailey and making music, nothing else matters. The ultimate escape, the best drug ever.
I stop playing when I hear voices arguing.
“I don’t want to, Cam. Can’t you get somebody else?”
I pause with my fingers hovering over the strings and listen. It’s Cameron.
“You said you’d do it, Hailey. What else am I supposed to do? Plus, not to be mean or anything, but you owe me.”
“God, Cam. How long am I going to owe you?”
I set the guitar down, lean it against the sofa.
“C’mon, Hailey, you know the deal.”
I walk to the front door and stand behind Hailey like a bodyguard, arms crossed over my chest, hoping it will make my biceps look more substantial than they actually are. “You okay, Hailey?”
He looks surprised, then pissed to see me there with Hailey, at her house. And in spite of my macho stance, I’m praying this isn’t the time he chooses to pick a fight, when I’m still really weak.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” Hailey says over her shoulder.
Cameron looks like he wants to take me down, and I’m glad he doesn’t know he could knock me over with one finger if he really tried. But then he starts looking me over from head to toe, shrewd eyes sweeping.
“So, Hank, where did you get that shirt?” he demands.
I look down. Long-sleeved black T-shirt, white words. From the high school lost and found. “I dunno,” I say.
“Why are you so fascinated by my wardrobe, Cam?”
“Because my dad got me a shirt just like it from the Nashville Music Hall of Fame. That’s what it says on the front. I lost that shirt about a week ago. The same time you just happened to appear out of nowhere. Not a shirt you see every day in Concord, Massachusetts, don’t you think?”
Uh-oh.
Hailey rolls her eyes. “So what are you saying, Cam? That Hank stole your shirt?”
“I’m just saying it’s a really weird coincidence.”
“The world is full of really weird coincidences,” I say.
“Look, Cam, I think you should go,” Hailey says. “We’ll talk about that other thing later.”
Cameron glares at both of us, and I almost laugh out loud. He’s trying to look all tough and badass with his scuffed-up black boots and sideways cap. I fight the urge to smack the hat right off his head.
“Yeah, we’ll talk about a lot of things later,” he says. He jabs a finger in the air as he turns and heads back down the front brick steps. “And I want my shirt back, douchebag,” he says.
Hailey closes the door and leans back against it, biting her lip. “Sorry about that,” she says. “Things with Cam and me. They’re kinda complicated.”
“Yeah, I get that.”
She looks like she wants to tell me more, but she shakes her head, pastes on a smile for me. “Forget Cam. Let’s make music, Hank.”
The magic words. And so we do. We play “Blackbird,” and then I mess around with a few more songs my fingers seem to know by heart, and she joins in where she knows the words. Music creates a bond between us, an intimacy. Like touching her with music instead of fingers.
Her red hair and that purple shirt against the white sofa are like a painting or a photograph, like the white room was created just so she could stand out in contrast, in beautiful, amazing color. We finish another song. Taking a break from the music is like coming out of a trance and we can’t seem to break free from the way our eyes are locked together.
If ever there was a time for kissing a girl, this is it. But I hesitate.