Page 12 of Sounds Like Love
“Bigger bed, obviously,” I replied immediately. “But really, that’s it?”
“I told you it was stupid.” And she propped her head up on her hand, elbow on the edge of the window. Her thumb tapped endlessly on the steering wheel. She fidgeted when she was thinking.
There was something else besides where Buckley would sleep, but I wasn’t going to push it.
Instead, Gigi began to update me on all the goings-on around town that I’d missed. The new art bar. A Michelin-starred chef opening a restaurant where the old Presbyterian church used to be—
“I think we went to school with his sister, Lily.”
I racked my brain. “Lily Ashton? Wait.Iwan? ThatIwan?”
“Right? Went out and chased his dreams, like you.” There was an unfamiliar edge to her voice, but before I could ask about it, she told me about the Starbucks that opened up where the old butcher shop used to be, and the new ice cream shop with weird flavors and—
“Van is back.”
That felt like whiplash. “He is?”
“Oh yeah,” she confirmed. “Mitch ran into him the other night at the pool hall. Says he’s back in town dealing with some family stuff.”
“Ah.” I tried to act unmoved as I went to grab another hush puppy, but I wasn’t hungry anymore, so I set the almost-empty take-out bag on the floorboard instead. Rubbed my greasy fingers on my joggers. Tried to act cool.Van.I hadn’t seen him in … well, not in nine years, at least. Not since putting theexinex-girlfriend. “I hope everything’s okay with his parents.”
“Mitch didn’t say.” She eyed me. “But hedidsay Van asked about you.”
“Probably being nice. What’d Mitch tell him?”
She shrugged. “Get lost, basically.”
“Ah.” I fidgeted with my fingers, picking at my cuticles, trying to think of something, anything, to change the subject. A song hummed on the radio. It sounded familiar—but I couldn’t place from where. Hadn’t I heard it last night in the Uber? This morning on the way to the airport? Both, if it was popular, I guessed. I frowned, reaching for the dial.
“Oh, don’t bother. The radio doesn’t work,” Gigi said with a shrug.
I paused. It didn’t? “Then where’s that music coming from?”
“What music?”
“It’s—” I paused. Listened. The song was gone. “I … nothing. It must’ve been another car. What do you listen to if the radio’s broken?”
“I listen to Spotify mostly—oh!” She motioned to the glove compartment on the passenger side. “You’re gonna get a kick out of this. I was cleaning out my old junk drawer the other day and found something cool. Check it out?”
“Knowing you? It’s probably a Renegade album. Or NSYNC,” I joked, digging into the glove compartment—and finding an actual treasure. One of our burned CDs from our high school days. We used to make playlists for every occasion, every holiday, every mood. It was an art form that I took a little too seriously, so seriously that I even made terrible album covers in a bootlegged Photoshop. Then again, I was just trying to be like Mom, who for the last thirty years has made a mixtape every week. On the cover was a bad photobash of Chad Kroeger from Nickelback singing seductively to Roman Fell. “No way, you kept this?”
She looked offended. “It’s our best playlist!”
“Yeah, and it’s like fifteen years old!”
She shrugged. “When something’s a keeper, you just know.”
“Mm-hmm, like my brother?”
“Nah, like you,” she replied sappily.
I made a face. “Ugh, gross again.” I opened the case and popped the CD into the player. “Tell me that when we’re both retired and sharing a goat farm in thirty years.”
“I’ve already got the names picked out for those goats. You know, I’ve forgotten what song is first on that thing.”
“You’ll know in a sec.” The player whined as it ate the CD, and then the first track came to life. The sweet, sweet notes of “Iris” by Goo Goo Dolls flooded the car. Gigi cackled, and cranked up the volume, and for three minutes it felt like we were teenagers again, shout-singing on the way home from school.
Gigi’s voice was bright and warm as she sang the chorus, and I harmonized with her. She had the kind of tone that made you stop and want to listen, her pitch near perfect. I tried to imagine how she would have sounded after four years at Berklee, but I couldn’t. Maybe her breathing would be better, maybe her enunciations crisper, but maybe she’d also forget the lessons her grams taught her, maybe she wouldn’t sound so warm.
