Perfect Tunes - Emily Gould Page 0,80

with her headphones on, Marie barely noticed.

Figuring out where Daisy lived had been easy. The town was mentioned in Dylan’s Wikipedia entry, and from there she’d just googled Daisy’s full name and the name of the town and gotten both her workplace and home address. She also found an obit for Dylan’s dad, who’d died of a fast-moving random cancer just a few years earlier. Her grandfather. It would have been nice to have met him, she supposed. She tried to feel angry at her mother for a moment, but instead just felt guilty. If Laura knew where Marie was, and where she was going, she would be so upset, even more upset than she’d been last night. Marie wasn’t sure exactly what she’d said to hurt Laura so badly, but she sensed that something had fractured between them, maybe irreparably. If only she hadn’t been so wasted, and if only she could just communicate effortlessly with her mother and make her understand how she felt—just to be able to share it with her, without alarming her or upsetting her. But that had always been impossible, and maybe always would be. She would text later to say that she was spending the night at a friend’s house.

The car ride from the bus station to Daisy’s house was longer and more expensive than she’d counted on; she hadn’t factored in rush-hour surge pricing, but she still figured she would be able to afford the return trip and her bus ticket home. The driver didn’t ask why she was taking a $100 ride to a random suburb, or try to talk to her at all. Somehow getting into a stranger’s car seemed more fraught with peril in Boston than it did in New York. She had a moment on the highway when she’d realized that if the driver decided to kidnap and rape or murder her, there wasn’t anything she would be able to do about it. But then she looked at the blue dot on Google Maps and saw that it was headed in the exact right direction. There was a small photo of a baby stuck on the guy’s dashboard; he wasn’t a murderer. And soon they were pulling into the driveway.

The house itself was beautiful, red like a barn-house toy she’d had as a child. She got out of the car and breathed crisp, piney fall air, a huge relief after the sanitized stuffiness of the vehicles she’d spent all day trapped in. The driver gave her a dispassionate wave and was gone before she had even made her way halfway up the stone path toward the front door.

Now she was stuck here. There was nothing to do but knock.

The sun was beginning to dip behind the tree line of the pine forest that surrounded the house, and there didn’t seem to be many lights on inside. Briefly, Marie freaked herself out by imagining that maybe no one was home, and no one was coming home, but she did it in the same way that you purposely scare yourself when you’re fumbling for keys that you know are definitely somewhere in your bag. Someone was in the house, she was almost certain, but that someone might be hoping she would go away. After a few minutes, this theory was proved correct: as Marie moved to knock again, a muffled voice came from the other side of the door.

“I’m not interested in discussing Dylan with his young fans, and since this is private property, you could be arrested for trespassing,” the voice said calmly.

“Okay, that’s fine. I’ll leave. I’d just like to come in for a second and charge my phone,” Marie said.

There was a long pause, and the sound of a dog scratching to be let out. Finally Daisy heaved a sigh and opened the door. The dog, a yellow Lab, bounded joyfully past Marie and into the yard, where she turned in circles a few times before relieving herself.

Marie couldn’t help but compare Daisy to her other grandmother, who wore a lot of makeup and sweaters with ribbons and bells on them. Daisy was much more austere. She had white hair, cut in a bob, and was wearing loose jeans and leather L.L.Bean slippers. Marie tried to make out any family resemblance between her own face and Daisy’s; if there was any, it was in her large eyes and furrowed forehead. Daisy didn’t look like a happy person.

She was looking past Marie at the dog, whom she beckoned