A Song for the Road by Kathleen Basi (classic literature books txt) 📕

“Yes.”

“Was he better than you?”

Miriam’s fingers hurt. She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel. “Not always. Not at the end.”

“Hmm. And he doesn’t remember you?”

“Apparently not.”

“Ouch.”

Understatement of the year. How could Gus not know who she was? He’d managed to find out she was trying to finish the sonata, so he must have done some research. But if he’d connected Miriam Tedesco with the Mira Lewis he’d slept with at Curtis, surely he would have led with it!

She hated this slimy feeling. Hated how it had glommed onto her now, when she’d been truly focused on Teo. For one moment, back there in line at Walgreen’s, she’d been on the verge of something profound.

And Gus just barged in. How typical.

Dicey twirled the string of beads on her backpack. “So he’s a big deal, and you were as good as he was. So that means you were, like, a real musician.”

Dicey had a way of sparking her sense of humor at the most unexpected times. Miriam felt the corner of her mouth twitch. “As opposed to a church musician, you mean?”

“Woman, don’t you go putting words in my mouth. I’m trying to say, if you’re freaked out because your ex-boyfriend doesn’t realize who you are, then tell him already. He’ll be so embarrassed, you’ll have the upper hand.”

Miriam chuckled mirthlessly. Tell him already, Dicey said, as if she hadn’t been wrestling with exactly that question for seventeen years.

“I’m just saying, if that’s what’s bothering you—”

“That’s not what’s bothering me.” Not exactly. For twenty years, she’d known everything about him that could be gleaned from a web search. When he canceled a performance or won an award, she knew. When his parents got sick, she knew. What if she’d been so insignificant on his playboy radar that he didn’t remember her at all?

Dicey tapped her phone on her palm. “Y’know,” she said, “I don’t want to be pushy, but you’re being dumb.”

“Don’t pull your punches now. Tell me what you really think.”

“I’m serious. What if he can help you get your son’s music out there? You don’t want to squander the opportunity.”

Having said her piece, Dicey disappeared into her phone. Rain hissed beneath the tires. All at once, weariness descended like a veil, burying Miriam’s ability to think. In the past twelve hours, she’d picked up a hitchhiker, found out her son was gay—maybe—and was bullied—definitely—and fielded a phone call from the person she’d been simultaneously stalking and trying to avoid for twenty years.

No wonder she was exhausted.

Maybe Dicey was right. Maybe she should talk to him. Just get it over with, so she could finally move on.

But she couldn’t be sure right now. And she’d already wasted so much emotional bandwidth on Gus von Rickenbach. All of it at the expense of a man who’d loved her with a devotion she’d never returned.

“No,” she said now. “I’m not getting distracted this time. I’m not out here to obsess about Gus. This time is for my family.”

Dicey looked up, raised her eyebrows, and shrugged. “Okay.”

Miriam focused her attention ahead, relieved for the reprieve. Gus wasn’t going anywhere. In a day or two, she could try to sort out that rat’s nest. Tonight and tomorrow, she had one purpose: to honor her family.

 14

THEY’D MISSED THE LAST Greyhound of the day, so the women decided to split a hotel room in Cincinnati. As soon as they got inside, Dicey lugged her suitcase and backpack into the bathroom. The shower turned on, soon followed by loud music. Very loud. What in the world? Did she think Miriam was likely to abscond with all her earthly possessions?

It was not the first time Miriam had found herself befuddled by the younger generation.

She threw her keys and wallet on the nightstand and, drawn by a need stronger than reason, pulled out Talia’s laptop.

She’d never posted photos from Green Bank. The visit to the giant radio telescope already seemed like the distant past, but she’d spent the money, so she might as well upload them. Then she turned her attention to tomorrow’s itinerary. Miriam went down half a dozen rabbit holes while investigating the possibilities. Teo had often done this at the dinner table, clicking one interesting and semi-related link after another while she scolded him to put the phone away. She never won because the truth was they all enjoyed it.

Miriam clicked a new post.

Fun facts about Cincinnati: The Reds always open the season at home, because they were the first pro baseball team. The suspension bridge that crosses the river here was the model for the Brooklyn Bridge. (Take that, New York!) And—are you ready for this? There is a house here shaped like a mushroom.

She attached a link to prove it, smiling as she posted. But the words looked frivolous on the blue-and-white screen. The real reason the computer had called her was farther down the page.

Reluctantly, she opened the photo of Blaise and the unknown boy.

She could see why people interpreted it as romantic. They were wholly focused on each other, oblivious to whoever had snapped the picture. But the expression on the other boy’s face could have been despair as easily as romantic longing. What if the photographer simply interrupted Blaise trying to comfort a friend in distress?

There was no way to know the real story, short of the other boy surfacing—and why would he?

Had Blaise really been gay, or had he and the other boy been victims of some teenage tribal power play?

The photo had racked up dozens of replies, with moving dots at the bottom promising more to come. A small part of her took comfort in seeing the number of exclamation points; it meant plenty of other people were surprised. Maybe that meant it was bullshit. Surely if Blaise were gay, someone would have suspected?

The foulness of the caption set the hot, hard spot inside her boiling. The bigotry. The cruelty of publicly assaulting the human dignity of someone who was dead. The fact that her child had