Souvenir (19 page)

Well, no point in second-guessing everything now—it took too much energy, and nothing could be changed by it. As Manisha was always saying, your fate finds you no matter where you put yourself.

The house lights dimmed, and with them the cacophony of eager voices. Just as the waiter reappeared with their drinks, a spotlight lit up center stage, directed there from narrow balconies high up on the walls. In a moment, the empty disc of light was filled by a large, silver-haired man with a full mustache.

“Greetings!” he said into the microphone.

The crowd cheered and whistled.

“I’m Johnny Simmons”—more whistles—“and you all are in for one
hell
of a treat!”

The crowd erupted, Savannah included. Meg, to her confusion and chagrin, found herself fighting back sudden tears.

“Now, some of you know we
had
planned to bring a new band out tonight, a great little indie group called Frito Bandito—and they are
hot
, let me tell you! Mr. Bandito, though, has been waylaid by some ugly thing—and I don’t mean a woman
or
a gator, I mean a bad head cold. So, by my God-given powers of persuasion, or maybe the dumb luck of his being in town to plan his
wedding
”—boos filled the hall—“to world-class surfer Valerie Haas, who…”—Johnny shaded his eyes and looked down at a table in the front row, hardly fifteen feet away from Savannah and Meg—“who is right here to watch her man do his thing”—a spotlight from the right side swung down and illuminated Val, who squinted and waved—“I am proud and pleased to bring onstage, here at Johnny Simmons’s Orlando music hot spot, Mr. Carson McKay!”

The spotlights swung to the left and Carson jogged onstage, made a brief bow, then went to the piano. Behind him, the stage lit up in brilliant blue, illuminating the other musicians.

He adjusted the microphone. “Thanks, Johnny, and thank you all for bothering to come see us on such short notice.”

Whistles and applause rang out again. How fascinating, Meg thought, to see him onstage. He wore black jeans and a white dress shirt—cuffs rolled to expose some sort of vining tattoo on his left forearm, the shirt open at the neck, long tab collar reminding her of the shirt he’d worn to homecoming her freshman year. There he was, suddenly larger than life. Was this how Val always saw him? Meg looked at Val, whose back was to her, and wondered what it was like to know
this
Carson.

He tickled the keys a little, and the cheers died down again. “Thanks. Thanks
so
much. Now, before we get the show started, let me also say thanks and introduce you to the band. These fine musicians have had to put up with me all day, rehearsing songs they don’t have lots of experience with, wondering why the hell they said they’d fill in for the madmen I usually tour with—who are, I should add, a bunch of slackers compared to these guys.”

Carson introduced them, praising each musician and letting each one tell a bit about himself—or herself, in the case of the guitar player, a lanky woman in knee-high boots. Savannah nudged Meg and pointed. “That could be me!”

Meg studied Carson: his easy onstage persona, the generosity of spirit that led him to share the limelight. Val Haas was a lucky woman.

“Okay, we’re going to open tonight with a song I wrote, oh, five or so years ago when I was coming back from Bangkok, jet-lagged and a little…worn out, let’s say. You may have heard it; it’s called ‘Altitude.’”

He cued the band, and the song began. Instantly Meg felt locked into the energy of the crowd and the drowsy, seductive sound of the music, enough to be able to ignore, for a few sweet moments, the perceptible weakness in her hand when she grasped her glass of gin and brought it to her mouth. For a few sweet moments, she was just one of Carson’s many fans.

Twenty-nine

V
INCE, THE OLDEST OF
J
OHNNY’S THREE SONS, FOUND
C
ARSON BACKSTAGE
a few minutes after the second encore ended. Carson was chatting with Alex, the drummer, his arm draped over Val’s shoulders.

“Mr. McKay? Sorry to interrupt, but someone who says she’s an old friend is out there hoping she can talk to you a minute.”

Not another groupie,
Carson thought. They always tried this, as if he hadn’t heard the “old friend” bit ten thousand times before.

“What’s her cup size?” Alex asked. “Maybe she’s an ‘old friend’ of mine, too!”

Vince grinned and shook his head. “Nah, it’s not like that. Here, she wrote down her name.” He handed Carson a gum wrapper. “Guess it’s all she had.”

Meg and Savannah Hamilton
, Carson read with surprise. Val read it too. She obviously didn’t remember the name of the woman she’d seen so briefly the day before, because she said, “So, is it legit?”

He considered how he might say, “Nope, never heard of them,” and just go on with the night. He’d hoped to get out of Florida without seeing Meg again. What was she doing here? Why had she brought her daughter? It hadn’t ever occurred to him before that she—or they—could be fans. He could blow them off and, in another day, be on his plane to New Orleans unscathed. Sure, and then he’d feel awful about it ad infinitum—for disappointing the kid, if nothing else.

“Bring ’em on back,” he told Vince. “They’re legit.” To Val he said, “You remember, you met Meg yesterday, at Penguin Pete’s.”

“Oh! God, what a bright light I am. I totally didn’t pay attention to her name.”

No
, he thought,
why would you?

Alex left to look for “a livelier scene,” he said, and then Vince was back, leading a very eager-looking, very appealing teen, followed by a not-as-eager-looking woman. Still, after how miserable Meg had looked yesterday, this was an improvement.

When they reached him, Savannah hung back—suddenly shy? Meg moved ahead of her just a little and extended her hand. “Carson, it’s good to see you again—God, it’s been
years.
The show was great!”

Years? Quick as the question came, so did the answer: she didn’t want Savannah to know about yesterday’s meeting. He shook Meg’s hand. Light grip, clammy; she was nervous. He looked at Val and said, “Yeah,
years.
And thanks. Hey, this is my fiancée.” The title, once very nearly Meg’s, stuck a little in his throat.

Val, it seemed from her silence, had understood the cues and was playing along. Carson said, “Val Haas, Meg Hamilton and her daughter—Savannah, right?”

Savannah nodded, then moved forward a little, to stand shoulder to shoulder with Meg.

“You two could be sisters,” he said, not to flatter them but because it was true. Savannah looked older than the sixteen she must be, or nearly, and Meg, in jeans and a slim-fitting tee, showed little evidence of her own age save for the dark circles under her eyes, translucent half-moons of stress.

Val shook hands with both of them and said, “Like sisters. Definitely.”

“You’re too kind,” Meg said. “I hope you’ll forgive our imposition, but Savannah was hoping—”

“I would be so honored if you’d sign these T-shirts—” She pulled two from where they were draped over the crook of her arm and held them out. He took them. “And these, too,” she added, digging into a canvas bag—Val had a yellow one—and pulling out a mess of CDs, which she also handed over. “And, I have this,” she said, brandishing a permanent marker like an exclamation point.

“Well, when you put it like that,” he laughed, glancing at Meg. She was smiling that crooked, embarrassed smile so familiar to his heart. The smile that debuted, if memory served, after the first time he kissed her bare nipples. She would’ve been…around Savannah’s age, Jesus.

He piled everything on top of an amplifier and took the marker. “Tell me how to spell your name.”

Savannah did. “Just on the red shirt, okay? The pink one is for my best friend Rachel, so, could you put
her
name on that one?”

“Is she here?”

“Oh, huh-uh, she couldn’t come. Her mom is this totally evil person and wouldn’t let her skip her etiquette class.”

“Etiquette class?” He looked over at Meg.

She shrugged defensively and said, “They learn how to waltz, which utensils to use at formal dinners, how to write thank-you notes—”

“It’s
so
lame, holy crap,” Savannah said. “I did it last year.”

He smiled at Meg as he started on the CDs. “Amazing we made it so far without the right training.”

Val said, “I would never put my kid through that. No offense, Meg, but, it’s so, like, archaic.”

“It didn’t hurt her any,” Meg said.

Carson signed the last of the CDs and handed the stack to Savannah, but he was watching Meg. “Bet it made the in-laws happy too,” he said, unable to resist the small dig. The Hamiltons, by his recollection, were all about proper social etiquette, making sure their best feet were always forward, so to speak. Their sons went to private schools, played golf at an exclusive club—it was a wonder they let Brian marry someone like Meg. But then, if his reputation was accurate, Brian always got whatever he wanted. He and his brother Jeffrey both. Meg wasn’t a
bad
choice; she was no skanky cocktail waitress or overtanned aerobics instructor looking for a sugar daddy. She was a intelligent, hardworking young woman who just happened to be from a family of lower social standing. He was sure it had been easy for her to win over Brian’s folks. And seeing how Jeffrey had married Deirdre Smith-Harvey, a woman whose father had just won a seat as a state superior court judge, the Hamiltons were probably plenty content with how things had gone. And how things were going.

Meg looked at him closely as he signed the T-shirts and gave those back, too. She said, “Yes, well, thanks so much for letting us backstage. This is a real treat.”

Such good manners. She might as well have done the etiquette thing herself, as Hamilton-like as she’d obviously become. Not, of course, that she would ever address any of their old business in front of Val or Savannah…. How pissy of him; he shouldn’t have challenged her that way in the first place.

Val’s cell phone rang. She checked the display. “My mom. I’ll be back—nice seeing you, if I don’t see you later,” she said, waving at Meg and Savannah as she left to take the call in private.

“She’s…vibrant,” Meg said, watching Val go.

He nodded. “Keeps me young. And she’s incredible on a surfboard.”

“Oh, I can imagine,” Meg said—with innuendo? Or was that just his imagination?

Savannah finished repacking the CDs in her bag. “What a cool sport, surfing. Is she on TV?”

“Sometimes. Her next thing’s in Bali, starting Monday. Check the listings.”

“Rachel is going to be so jealous that I met you
and
Val!”

“I’m really pleased to meet
you
,” he said, and meant it. “And it was great to see your mom again.” He meant this too, sort of. “Such a surprise! I had no idea she’d let you waste your money on my CDs.”

“Oh my god, it’s not a waste!” Savannah said. “The first real song I ever played on guitar was one of yours—and anyway, they’re hers.”

“What’s hers?”

“The CDs. All the CDs are hers, and I just upload—”

“Well, we
share
—” Meg said.

“So you play guitar?” he interrupted, startled by the revelation that Meg bought all his music—but, like Meg, wanting to steer away from the topic.

Savannah nodded. “Mm. But I suck pretty bad.”

“Savannah.”

“Sorry—Ah am not terribly accomplished,” she drawled.

He laughed. “I started on guitar, too. What song was it?” She was a charming kid. Like mother, like daughter; except for her hair, she could just about be Meg at sixteen.

“What? The first one I played, you mean?”

He nodded.

“‘Tunnel Vision.’ I like the opening melody—it’s not as hard as some of the others.”

Another of the Meg songs. He made himself not look at her. If she owned the CDs, if she knew the songs, then surely she had been able to see herself in them, had seen him with his soul cracked open. Well, that was the danger of it, wasn’t it? He’d known every time he sat in the recording studio that she might one day hear the songs. But he felt sure she wouldn’t ever
own
them—wouldn’t want pieces of him around, wouldn’t hear a song enough times to catch the lyrics, would change the station if one of them came on. He was sure she had no further interest in anything Carson McKay–related—wasn’t that what her marriage to Brian said, unequivocally and with emphasis?

Maybe not.
Obviously
not.

What other mistakes of judgment had he made?

Possibilities whispered to him, but he couldn’t pay attention while Meg was making a show of checking her watch and saying, “Wow, it’s getting so late—we really have to go.”

“Oh wait,” Savannah said, digging in her bag and pulling out a camera. “Can we do a picture?”

Meg took the camera. “Fine—stand over there.” When they were posed, she stood looking into the camera’s display screen for a long moment, then took the picture.

“Now one of us,” Carson said, surprising himself and Meg both. “Savannah, would you do the honors?” Before Meg could speak the refusal he saw in her eyes, he’d moved beside her and Savannah had the camera in hand.

“Smile,” Savannah said.

When she was through, Carson told her, “Send me copies, okay?”

“We will,” Savannah said, extending her hand toward him. “Thank you
so
much for your autograph—er, auto
graphs.
Everyone’s gonna freak when I wear that T-shirt to school on Monday!”

Carson took her hand, then impulsively pulled her in for a quick hug. “Anything else you want me to sign, you just send it to the address on my website, okay? Have you been on the site?”

“’Course,” she said, grinning.

“There’s a fan club address—that’s the surest thing. Never know where I’ll be!”

Meg held her purse in both hands. No parting hug or even a handshake from her. He met her eyes, deep and secret. Things were not exactly how they seemed, he was sure of it. “Take care, all right?”

She bit her lip and nodded, then looked away quickly. “You, too.”

And then she was gone.