I wasn’t sure if I hoped to see Griffin again, to finally say all the things I’d held back when he left. In private, of course, because I wouldn’t air his dirty laundry where we might be overheard. Or perhaps it was best if that moment, our eyes meeting across a shabby nursing home lobby, was the last time I saw him…
Mind on the job.I gave myself a light slap on the cheek for redirection and bent back over my keyboard.
I was trying to decipher the sixty-four-page history of a new resident when Kashira, our entertainment director, stuck her head around my door. “Lee, dude, did I score or did I score!”
“Huh?” I pretended not to know what she meant. “D’you find a better coffee shop nearby?”
“Quit lying. I saw your ugly face down in the common room. Griffin fuckin’ Marsh giving us a free concert.” She grinned. “A pity we can’t charge at the door. We could buy a shit-ton of good stuff. But maybe we’ll get more family residents visiting, once word gets out.”
“Once word gets out?” I frowned at her. “You mean, he’s coming back?”
“Three hours every frickin’ day. Mostly just reading to residents and such, but he offered to sing occasionally, maybe play the piano some. We have him for months. Conditions of his parole.”
“Parole? What the fuck? Griffin?” I mean, yeah, the Griffin I knew smoked some weed, tried ’shrooms a couple of times, and was fond of the fast lane on the freeway. Nothing that should’ve earned him more than a slap on the wrist, though.Months of parole? What did you do, Griff?
“Didn’t you hear? It was all over the local news months back.”Kashira dropped into the chair across from me. “He crashed his car, slammed some woman over an embankment and she died.”
Oh, Griffin!
He’d hit a bird once while we were driving, some small fast-flying thing that’d burst out of the weeds at the side of the road too close to be avoided. He’d insisted on pulling over, going back, and finding it in case it was suffering. When he was sure the bird was dead, he moved the little body off the pavement, laid it under a nearby tree, and spent several minutes just staring down at the creature he’d killed before we could drive on.How must he feel if a human being died?
“He pleaded guilty,” Kashira went on with apparent relish. “Probably was drunk or high, but he got a slap on the wrist. Famous folks always get off light. Anyhow, he has a ton of community service to do and we get a piece of him.”
I wanted to say I bet Griffin hadn’t been drunk. I’d never seen him drive impaired. But then, I hadn’t seen him except on a screen in twenty years. The music biz was notorious. For all I knew, she was right.
I told myself this news was a necessary reminder that Griffin wasn’t the same man who broke my heart twenty years ago. We were strangers, really, despite a tiny sliver of time when our lives intersected. This wasn’t my lost man with the wonderful hands and golden voice showing up back in my life. A felon on parole, or whatever he was, working off his sentence, was a whole different thing.
Although, if he was going to be around daily for weeks, we did need to talk. I wasn’t going to hide in my office for fear of running into him in the hallways. “What are his hours?”
“Nine to twelve every weekday. He said he’d keep concert days random, not announce in advance, so we don’t get crowds or whatever. The residents got a kick out of this morning. ’Course he’s close to their age, so they like his music.”
“He’s fifty-six,” I protested.
“Yeah, like I said.” Kashira tossed her braids over her shoulders with the disdain of a twenty-three-year-old. “Still not bad looking but, like, old. Which will go over good around here.”
I gave protest up as a lost cause. At forty, I was closer to Griffin in age than to her, but I wasn’t about to remind her of that. “What will you have him do tomorrow?”
“Reading and board games, I figure. Maybe he can keep Nancy from wandering the halls during the laundry run, keep her busy. I can always use more help.”
Isn’t that the truth?The nursing home was always short-staffed, one reason I still worked here, years after my sister had passed. I couldn’t abandon my coworkers or the residents.I’ll probably be too busy to see much of Griff anyhow.But my mouth went ahead and asked, “Do you have his contact info?”
“The director has his file. I just have his phone number in case we need to get hold of him.”
“Right. Sure. Um.”
“Do you need it?”
“Huh? No, not really.”
“Are you a fan?” A teasing smile curved her lips. “Is he the hot silver fox of your dreams?”
I kicked her foot under the desk. “His music’s okay. I have no real interest.” Memories of a day spent lounging on a blanket reading, blue skies overhead, while Griffin played his guitar like a woodland god mocked me… hours of joy when the melodies wound in and out of my head, until he set the guitar aside and reached for me.He was always special.
But then, he’d made plenty of money out of those songs later, without a backward glance.
She pushed to her feet. “As long as we don’t get paparazzi types making trouble, it’s a win. No rest for the weary. I need to go collect the audiobooks before lunch.”
I waved to her as she left my office and turned to my screen, but the words danced in front of my eyes. Was that hyperthyroidor hypothyroid, and what medical office still had handwritten notes? With a muttered curse, I saved and closed the screen, clicked into my timesheet to take my lunch break, and opened a browser.
