Shy (14 page)

“You want me to go ahead and open it?” I ask Granville.

“Sure. It's to make up for tonight.” He glances at Jake and says, “I guess she told you what happened.”

“Yeah.” He's in his Man of Few Words Mode.

Granville nods and returns his gaze to me. “I hope you like it.”

My hands feel shaky, but I hope the trembles don't show as I pull the bow off the gift and tear away the wrapping paper. On the box is a picture of a tall, smoky steel-gray rectangular object. It's a Semi Pro System for Karaoke. I stare at the box, then I goggle at Granville. I'm here on scholarship and save money during the summers when I work temporary jobs, but this isn't anything I'd have bought for myself. It had to have been very expensive. “Oh, wow,” I say, honestly blown away. “You didn't have to do this.”

“I wanted to,” he says with a grin. “I think it'll be a lot of fun. We can play with it together. As in sing duets. It comes with two mics, see. And we can make CDs full of songs. Solos, duets, whichever. It'll help you feel more comfortable with karaoke, and you can practice over time. Then maybe try it again in public when you feel good and ready. I don't want to see you give up singing.”

“So,” Jake says. “Who was that girl who showed up at karaoke and pushed her way in?”

I'd been wondering that, too.

Granville gives Jake a calm, level look. “If you don't mind, I'd like to talk to Frannie about that, just between the two of us. If she wants to share that information with you after we've talked, then that's her decision.”

Jake gives Granville a look meant, no doubt, to wither him on the spot. Granville remains unwithered, though, and continues to regard Jake calmly and reasonably. Jake scowls, then heads for the door. When he reaches it, he turns and looks at me. “Well, I'll go on.” He doesn't offer a goodbye or anything else. Just walks out.

I feel as though I've been kicked in the gut.

Earlier this evening, he told me he loves me. We would have made love if Ty hadn't unexpectedly come home. And now, there he goes, headed out the door, and who knows when I'll hear from him again or when he'll respond to my calls or texts.

Talk about mixed signals.

Honestly, I don't think Jake knows what the hell he wants.

I do know one thing. I love him. I probably will always love him.

But I'm damned if I'll be his rubber band girl. His yo-yo. Pull me in when he wants me, fling me away when something's bothering him.

That won't work.

Not at all.

I'm more confused than ever. Okay, I didn't think too much of it when I got that text from Frannie saying she was with Jake. Since he's her best friend, it's not surprising she'd call him to commiserate over what happened at the Old Grind.

But when they showed up together here, I'm damned if I didn't get couple vibes from them, and a hell of a lot of hostility from him. I didn't want to antagonize him because, number one, I don't think much of getting into fist fights. There are more civilized ways for people to solve problems. Plus, he's a big son of a bitch and probably has about six inches on me. I'm not short; I'm five feet, ten inches. But that guy would kick my ass into next year. Not just because he's big, but because he strikes me as tough. He communicated oh-so-directly, yet without words,
Hands off, she's mine
.

If that's so, I sure didn't know it.

I hate to judge on the basis of little information; it's how prejudices and biases are constructed. Yet I can't help but think, based on what she told me about how she and Jake dated over a year ago but he broke up with her, that he's one of those guys who likes to keep a girl off balance. Why? Who knows. It's a shitty way to treat a girl, but sometimes you have really insecure guys who don't know how to be close to a woman but who also don't know how to leave her alone, and you wind up with a situation like Jake and Frannie.

I don't know that for a fact, but it's how the situation looks to me.

This beautiful girl needs a friend more than anybody I know.

If I'm lucky enough to win her heart away from that big lug, I don't care how big and tough he is. I'll protect her from his emotional games.

“I appreciate you getting this for me, Granville, but honestly, I don't have room for it in my dorm room, and I...” She flushes a bit and looks ashamed. “Anyway, I can't sing in my dorm room where I think people will hear me.”

“It's okay.” I'd expected this. “We'll keep it at my apartment. If you like, we can go over there tomorrow and have some fun actually using it. I'd love to show you what it can do. I already have some CDs made up of songs we both like. And guess what. I have a little recording studio at my apartment. A terrific digital piano. A stage Kawai. And we can record piano parts of your songs and then burn them on CD and then use the Karaoke Studio to sing them. We can do all kinds of fun things like that, just you and me. We'll work together to continue to relax your performance muscles, and next time you sing in public, you'll knock the audience's socks off.”

She starts to cry.

My stomach knots in dismay. “Uh oh. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to make you–”

“Please don't apologize,” she says softly, in between her sobs. “You're being so incredibly kind to me. I don't know what I've done to deserve it. I'm such a loser, but I–”

Gently, I put a finger to her lips. I can't stand to hear her talk about herself like that. She is just so off-base about herself. She truly can't see how remarkable she is. “You're not a loser, and whoever has made you feel like that is a nut and an idiot. Is it Jake who tells you that you're a loser? Is it him?”

“Oh, God, no,” she says. “Not Jake. It's my...” She murmurs something.

“What?” Surely I didn't hear her right.

She murmurs again. It sounds like
Mother
.

“Your mother?” As I observe her emotional devastation in revealing this little detail, tears sting my eyes. Much more of this, and I'll be crying, too. “She calls you a loser?”

“Well, not in as many words,” Frannie says. “She means well, and she loves me and tries her best. She's just... well, very different than me. And she hates my shyness. Dad's shy, too, and they don't get along well because of how different they are in temperament. Maybe her dislike of Dad's personality bleeds over into her reaction to mine. All my life, she's pushed me to change, to be more outgoing, and she always says I'll never get anywhere in life unless I become more of a people person.”

“Well, now that is a huge pile of horseshit,” I say, angry now. I'm wondering, still, how much this Jake Harper person contributes to her low self-esteem by how he seems to jerk her around emotionally, but I'll leave him out of it for now, since she really seems to like him, despite it all. And maybe there's something I don't get about their relationship. One never knows. Hell, I don't know even Jake, and Frannie's pretty new to me, too.

Keep an open mind
, I tell myself.

Clearly, Frannie's mom made a huge mistake in how she raised this one-of-a-kind, gentle-natured girl. She's like Hetty in that way. Hetty is shy, but neither Mom nor Dad ever made her feel it meant something was fundamentally wrong with her. While Hetty has problems of her own, she sure doesn't have issues based on Mom or Dad making her feel bad about her basic nature. That's a hell of a rough start to get in life, even when the parents mean well.

“Jake knows about my problem, and he's always tried to help, but...” She stops talking.

Obviously he hasn't helped her much. She probably doesn't want to say that if she feels loyal to him. But I hope, over time and with patience, she'll come to feel that kind of loyalty to me instead.

I'm better for her than he is. I would never jack her around.

I see what jacking a person around does, only it's Mom who jacks Dad around. It hurts like hell, and I'd never do that to another human being. When I fall in love, it's a commitment. I'm loyal unless I get pushed beyond my limit of pain and endurance. In that way, I'm not like my dad. Mom has pushed him beyond the limits of what any mortal should endure, and still he hangs on. I couldn't do that. I refused to do it with Rowan.

My endurance is pretty good for an ordinary mortal, though, and I want to be this lovely young woman's prince—both friend and lover—who is able to help turn her life around, to help her express the potential I see brimming over in her.

“So who was that girl who came to the Old Grind?” she asks.

Time to level with her. “My ex-girlfriend. Rowan McKenna.”

“Ex?” she asks.

“Very much an ex. She's very talented, as I guess you saw, but she isn't stable. Honestly, she's a lot like my mom. Even more unstable than Mom, really. She's got mental illness issues, and she also is addicted to drugs and alcohol. She's very narcissistic and self-centered, and she thrives on causing drama and trauma. She was a member of my band for a while, but we all decided to kick her out when she kept causing so much trouble for us. And I broke up with her. She was trying to pull me into a black hole, and I just couldn't let her.” I smile at Frannie ruefully. “I didn't want to wind up like my dad. He puts up with way too much crazy stuff from my mom. I need someone who's grounded.”

“But she's so talented,” Frannie says, a little sadly.

“Not as talented as you.” I'm telling her nothing less and nothing more than the simple truth. Rowan can sing, but Frannie has every bit as much singing talent as Rowan, a sweeter, more luminous voice, as well, when she lets herself go, plus she's a virtuoso pianist and a crackerjack songwriter. Rowan can't touch that with a ten-foot pole, and I guess that's what got her riled: jealousy.

I'll get Rowan off my tail. Especially for Frannie's sake, I'll get her off.

“Thank you for saying that,” she says.

“What?”

“About me being more talented than... her.”

“No brag, just fact.” I grin at her and she grins back.

We sit together on the couch in the little room off the lobby, smiling at each other and enjoying a mutually warm, goofy feeling. It's nice, after all the upheaval of this evening.

“So what do you say?” I finally ask.

She looks at me, befuddled. She's lost track of what we were talking about, and honestly, I'm addle-brained, myself. I'm tired. And she looks exhausted. I hope she gets a good night's sleep tonight. She deserves a rest from this crazy day that's no doubt flipped her for way too many loops.

“What say I pick you up from here tomorrow, around noon or so, and we spend the afternoon and maybe the evening at my place, recording music on my Kawai and messing around with that Karaoke unit?” I say. “And hey, if you like, you can meet the rest of the Neutron Stars. My band. You'll like them, I promise. And we only have to be with them a short while if you get tired.”

She studies me. She smiles. Not a lot, but a little. In her expression, I see relief. And pleasure. “Thanks for being so thoughtful. I would like to come over tomorrow. Where do you live, anyway?”

“I live in Grand Commons Square.”

Her open expression becomes more guarded again, and I can guess why. Grand Commons Square is a ritzy apartment complex near campus. Maybe it makes her uncomfortable that I live in such fancy digs. I hope not. “I moved there once I started doing well working with Dad out at the lab.” By
lab
, I mean Oak Ridge National Laboratory. My dad is head of the Physics division there, and I've become his assistant as I work on my graduate degree. It was a concession to him in lieu of me not attending the college of his choice. I couldn't stomach all the blue-blood stuff they wanted me to do. Dad and Mom might be old money Knoxville, but by God, they weren't going to succeed in turning me into a snob.

Working at the lab is pleasant, though, and it gives me a nice income. Plus, the Neutron Stars and I pull in money, too, gigging around at some of the funky, well-heeled clubs around Knoxville. Dad isn't crazy about that, but he knows I'll do whatever I want to do. Mom approves of my musical ventures, though. And Hetty thinks it's cool I play with a band.

“You work at Oak Ridge National Lab?” Frannie asks.

“Yep. Sure do.”

To my surprise, she giggles. “Well, that's just cool.”

“Why's that?” I ask.

“Because my dad works there, too. He's head of one of the computer divisions. And he thinks I'm fine just the way I am.”

Her giggles are contagious, and I start chuckling, too. “Sounds like your dad and I have a lot in common.”

It figures. Just a few minutes before Granville is supposed to pick me up, Mom calls. Dang it. I've felt too raw to want to be around her much, and whenever she's called, I've told her I'm busy. That's true, of course, but my busyness has been convenient.

“Frannie? You've been hard to get hold of. Is anything wrong?”

Yeah, there is, Mom
, I want to say. If only I could talk to her from my heart, without constant fear of being judged and found desperately wanting. I could tell her about yesterday, my humiliation at the Old Grind. I could tell her about how hurt and confused I feel over what happened with Jake. I have told her a bit about Granville, but not a lot, despite her frequent, hammering questions. But I guess I need to tell her a little something more, despite feeling frustrated by her continual disapproval of just about everything I do. It gets old, and it hurts.

“There's nothing wrong, Mom. I'm just getting ready to go spend time with a friend.”

“Who?” she asks, as though the fate of the universe hangs on my answer.

“Granville Watts. You know, the new friend I told you about. The guy who plays piano and is a science major.”

“Oh. What are you going to do?”

“He's going to show me his digital piano, which will record what you play and save it as as digital file. And we're going to use it to record some music.”

That goes right over her head. Though she's into computers and social media, at least to a point, like just about everybody else in the Western world, she doesn't know much about the capabilities of electronic musical instruments. “A digital piano?” she asks. “Sounds fancy.”