Chapter 17
Late August brought simmering heat and the return of the students for fall semester. Joy could have cried with relief as her friends and teachers filled the campus with noise and activity. (Then again, she cried these days at the drop of a Hallmark card, so that wasn’t saying much. Pregnancy hormones were making her into a total wuss.) Surely Melisande and Tanner would return soon, and her waiting would be at an end.
Maddie and Joy were rooming together again, and Joy welcomed her friend back with a combination of gladness and apprehension. She wasn’t sure how she could keep her pregnancy a secret from someone she shared such close quarters with. With any luck, Maddie would be too distracted by the start of the school year and a new boyfriend (because she was bound to have one).
True to her word, Maddie had come up a few times over vacation to visit. Her father had given her a slightly used car, and Maddie was chafing now that she had to leave it behind. “Seniors really ought to have car privileges,” she griped. “Wouldn’t it be fantastic to be able to just hop down to Atlanta on the weekends?”
“Yeah, it would,” said Joy, thinking of the airport there, of catching a plane to see her father. She was still angry with him, but at the same time she wanted to see him. Maybe in person she’d be able to talk him out of this infuriating scheme of his to forcibly make her independent from him. Not only that, but in person maybe she would be able to tell if he was strong enough to take the news about the baby—about Rose.
Joy wasn’t a big believer in signs or fate, but she knew after having seen glimpses of her future daughter that she was going to keep her. Something powerful seemed to be trying to steer her in a certain direction, and she figured she ought to follow.
Still, she kept it to herself that she’d learned the identity of the girl in the time slips. Until she could tell her dad and—especially—Tanner in person, she didn’t want anyone else to know. She just wanted so much to see Tanner again, to know for certain that he’d be by her side.
She wrenched her thoughts away from him. No point letting Maddie guess she was pining for him. Maddie bristled at the very mention of his name. One of the best things about Maddie was that she would hold a grudge forever for a friend; her loyalty was as fierce as Joy’s, and considerably more ruthless. But the bad side was that once Maddie took against someone, it was almost impossible to budge her.
With the start of the academic year, her days resumed their familiar schedule for the most part. She quit her job at the dining hall because the standing and food smells didn’t agree with her now, but she was continuing her piano lessons with Mo. She went to her first session with him in some apprehension. The coming spring she would be presenting her senior project, so she had very little time to prepare in another area if Mo felt that her piano technique wasn’t strong enough. And she was determined to get by on her own efforts, not because of her father.
She performed two pieces for him, a Chopin nocturne and a Gershwin medley. Then, surreptitiously wiping her damp palms on her jeans, she waited for his verdict.
“You’ve improved,” he said, with too much surprise not to be sincere. “I actually did not want to run screaming from the room. What happened?”
“I don’t know,” she said, pleased. “I mean, I’ve been practicing, but my mind hasn’t really been on it. I’ve had a lot going on. Well, you know.” She lowered her voice, even though his office door was closed. “Time slips and stuff.”
“Yes, of course. Interesting.” He sat back in his office chair in his favorite position, hands clasped across his belly. “Maybe that’s what did it: you’re not overthinking it and getting self-conscious.”
“Are you sure it’s not something else? I’ve been thinking.” She left the piano bench and moved to the chair in front of his desk so they could speak more quietly. “If all of us at Ash Grove are channeling this supernatural power, does that mean it changes us?”
He shook his head reassuringly. “It doesn’t seem to work quite that way. We haven’t been able to tell that students take on abilities they didn’t have before.”
“So I’m not suddenly better because I’m juiced up with magic?”
He chuckled. “No, I wouldn’t say so. You actually don’t seem to be as strong a conduit as some students—your friend Tanner Lindsey, for example.” That surprised her, but he went on before she could ask him to elaborate. “That’s one of the things we look for in entrance auditions: not only what abilities are there naturally, but also to what extent the student seems receptive to the added influence.”
“You can tell that from an audition?”
“Sometimes. But it’s not foolproof; the most important criterion is always the student’s innate ability. Ash Grove just seems to enhance what’s already there, like MSG in Chinese food. Take your mother, for instance: she was already showing her brilliance before she was admitted here. Her talents were her own, not magical powers conferred on her by the other side.”
She was glad to hear that. It would have lessened her mother’s achievements to think that they were enabled by some outside force. “Speaking of my mother,” she said, “do you think she would have been disappointed if I don’t follow music as a career?”
“Ah. Are you thinking about what we talked about last spring? Because you’ve improved a great deal since then. Certainly you shouldn’t have any trouble creating a passable senior project, and you’re getting good enough that you may be able to play professionally.”
“It’s not just that.” Knowing she was going to have a child had put a whole new perspective on her future: she needed a job that would bring in a steady, livable income. “Being a pianist probably isn’t a really stable job, is it? I mean, unless I was lucky enough to get an ongoing gig with a cruise ship or restaurant or something, and I’m sure there’s a lot of competition for jobs like that.”
“Being a musician often means struggling for a while, but you knew that already.” Mo’s prominent blue eyes regarded her so steadily that she shifted uneasily in her chair. He couldn’t read her thoughts, she told herself, but she felt as if he could tell she was hiding something. “What college you attend will make a difference, of course.”
“Well. That’s another thing—I don’t know if I’ll be going to college right away.” Or ever. With a daughter to raise, who knew when she’d be able to continue her education? She seized on a plausible story. “I may have to work for a few years to save up the money first. I can’t just expect Dad to cover it all. You know, what with all his medical expenses…”
He raised his eyebrows. “I didn’t realize you were having money problems.”
“Oh, we’re not! Just, you know, having to budget and stuff.” This was getting away from her. She shouldn’t have said anything. “I’m just trying to be realistic.”
“Nothing wrong with that.” He heaved himself out of his chair, the sign that the session was over, and she gathered up her music and stood. “Whatever you decide to do after Ash Grove, though, I hope music will always be part of your life—and not out of a sense of duty, either, but because it gives you joy. That would be the best way to honor your mother.”
“I’ll try,” she said. Actually, she would probably enjoy playing a lot more once she didn’t have a grade riding on it. The thought of playing for pleasure was a new one.
“And you know,” he added, opening the door for her, “I shouldn’t have said what I did about you becoming another Anna Merridew. You’re your own person, and that’s as it should be. You should be following your own path, not retracing hers.”
She smiled her thanks at Mo and left the building, thinking of her mother’s piano at home. It had been neglected for so many years; it would probably appreciate being played again. And her father would enjoy hearing her play… at least, until her belly got too big for her to reach the keys.
One Saturday in early September she and Maddie drove into old Hayesville with Tasha, who wanted to buy a birthday present for her mother at one of the qua
int little shops there. At a shop full of garden-themed knickknacks they helped Tasha pick out some garden stakes topped with different birds and an elaborate birdcage adapted as a plant hanger. The shop was full of the cheeping of real birds and the whirr of their wings, as some of the decorative birdcages contained the store owner’s pet finches. Joy stopped to watch them flutter around in their airy houses. If pets hadn’t been forbidden in the dorms, it might have been nice to keep a bird for company. She hadn’t had a pet since her childhood cat, and she missed having a little creature to love.
But then she remembered with a surge of happiness mixed with apprehension: she soon would have a little creature to look after, and it—she—would take a lot more care than a bird.
The three of them were walking back to Tasha’s car when a small group emerged from a café up the street: two slender, long-haired young women in short sundresses, and an athletic-looking young man in board shorts. The man was Tanner.
It took her a half second to recognize him. He seemed thinner than he had last spring. He had a deep suntan, and there were sunstreaks in his hair. The girls with him were two of the beauties Joy remembered from Melisande’s open house, so long ago. He was talking to them in a voice too low for her to understand the words, but the tone was flirtatious.
She had frozen in the middle of the sidewalk, and Maddie and Tasha didn’t realize at first that she had fallen behind. Tanner and his companions had taken a few lazy strides in her direction before he saw her. His step slowed for a fraction of a second as their eyes locked. She saw his eyes flicker in recognition. Then his gaze moved away as if he was going to ignore her.
She was so shocked that it took her a moment to find her voice. They were about to walk right by her.
“Tan!”
His pace didn’t alter.
“Tanner! Wait a second.”
The brunette on his left tugged at his arm. “I think she’s talking to you, Tristan.”
He came to a stop. “Oh, sorry,” he said to Joy. “I didn’t see you there. It’s Joyce, right?”
His tone was polite, but impersonal. She was at a loss what to say.
Maddie, on the other hand, wasn’t. “Excuse me?” she demanded. “You did not just try to cut her.”
Tanner just looked at her as if puzzled, and Joy groped for words. “I didn’t know you were back in town” was what she finally came up with.
“I guess the tabloids must not be doing their job.” He seemed perfectly relaxed, a courteous professional mixing with the public.
“Did you just get here?”
“No, we’ve been back a couple of weeks, I think.”
The shock jolted her. Back that long, and he hadn’t made contact with her? Maddie must have had the same thought, because she exclaimed, “You couldn’t pick up a phone?”
“Maddie, please!” At Joy’s look, Tasha drew Maddie back a little way.
Tanner’s polite expression hadn’t changed. “Did you want an autograph?” he asked. “I’m afraid I don’t have a pen on me, but...”
She recovered enough to say, “I need to talk to you. Alone.”
“I’m afraid all my personal appearances have to be scheduled through my agent,” he said. “My schedule is so hectic, it’s the only way to be safe.”
“Your agent?”
“Yeah. Otherwise there’s the danger that I’ll double-book myself.” He gave her a quick smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Nice seeing you, Joyce.” With his arms around the waists of his two companions, he walked past her without another glance. She could hear one of the girls say something in a low voice, and the other girl giggled in response.
Joy felt as if she had fallen from a height and hit the ground hard. There was no breath in her body.
“That bastard,” said Maddie, from behind her. “I hate to say I told you so, Joy, but—”
“So don’t say it.” That was Tasha. “She’s got to feel bad enough as it is. Come on, Joy, let’s get you out of here.”
Unresisting, Joy let the two of them steer her to the car. She sat silently as Maddie and Tasha dissected Tanner’s character on the drive back to campus.
Gradually her brain began to recover from the shock and she was able to think again. He had been putting on a show, that was clear—for the benefit of the girls in the entourage, most likely, or anyone else in earshot who might keep Melisande informed. Calling her by the wrong name was too ridiculous to be for real. She started to breathe again as she realized she’d panicked too soon.
Now she thought about other things he’d said, his choice of words. Safe. Danger. He was sending her a message: they couldn’t afford to be seen as anything more than acquaintances now. She would have to be more circumspect. No more approaching him in public, obviously. There had to be a way of getting him alone, if she could just figure it out.
She would never be able to come up with a plan, though, if Maddie didn’t shut up. Even after Tasha had dropped them back at the dorm, she continued her running commentary on all of Tanner’s character flaws and the reasons that Joy deserved better.
She finally cut her off. “Maddie, you can stop now. You’re not going to change my mind.”
Maddie gave her a look of disbelief. “Are you kidding me? When he just went and showed in front of god and everybody—”
“No, listen. Sit down a minute.”
Reluctantly, Maddie sat down on her bed, one leg tucked under her, and Joy sat across from her. “You know I’m not someone who’s going to be fooled by a smooth-talking jerk. So trust me when I say that what we saw today wasn’t the real Tanner. He was trying to send me a message.”
“Yeah, a message that he’s a douchebag.”
“Stop it! He is not. He’s got reasons for acting this way.”
Maddie glowered at her. “I don’t get why you’re so determined to defend him.”
“You’ve never seen him when he lets himself be vulnerable.” Her voice softened at the recollection. On Beltane night, in their hideaway in the rose arbor, that was the real Tan, the one that only she knew. “He puts on an act to protect himself sometimes. But he’s not really shallow or stuck-up. He... he needs me.”
But that wasn’t enough to sway Maddie. “Just because you have this idea that he needs rescuing doesn’t make it true. If he wanted to leave the celebrity life, he would have already. He’s a lost cause, Joy.”
“He’s not a cause, and he’s not lost,” retorted Joy. “Not if I can help it.”
“Joy, I’m telling you, he’s like an addict. I don’t want you getting your heart broken because of his issues. Don’t you ever watch Celebrity Rehab? Tanner may have good intentions, he may really mean to quit Melisande, but in the end he’ll always go back to her.”
The scary thing was, that sounded a lot like what Tan himself had said, that day at Lake Chatuge. But that was before things had gotten so real—before Beltane.
“He’s not going to break my heart,” she said. “I don’t know why you can’t accept that I know better than you in this one area.”
Maddie put her head on one side and narrowed her eyes. “Gee, I have no idea. Maybe because he knocked you up and now he’s treating you like a stranger?”
Joy’s mouth dropped open. “Goddammit,” she said blankly. “How did you find out?”
“Oh, come on, Joy. We share a room, I see you in your pajamas. I’ve seen the look on your face when the baby kicks. Don’t worry,” she added, as a question formed on Joy’s lips. “I won’t tell anyone. I know I have a big mouth, but I can keep secrets.” She gave Joy a quick hug. “So, let’s talk about something safer. Did I tell you that Eric and I are getting back together? He deleted all that trash talk about me from his Facebook wall, and he’s even thinking about going into therapy to work on his hostility issues.”
Joy stared at her in something like awe. “Jeez, Maddie, you really know how to pick ’em. Don’t you ever get tired of damaged guys?”
Maddie gave her a meaningful look. “Hi, Pot,?
?? she said wryly. “Meet Kettle.”