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

Miriam laughed. “I learned long ago the best way to deal with Jo is curl up in a ball and let her bulldoze through. Eventually, she’ll run out of steam.”

“I have a better idea.”

“What’s that?”

“Ignore her calls.”

Miriam made a noise of opposition. “You don’t know Jo. There’s a reason she climbed the corporate ladder as quickly as she has. She doesn’t roll over when she wants something. You ignore her, she escalates.”

Dicey made a face but didn’t argue. She pulled out her pink spangled phone and held it up to photograph the state line sign as the Hyundai glided smoothly onto the bridge across the Missouri River. “Nebraska … the good life!” it proclaimed.

Miriam’s phone dinged again. Dicey sighed as she exchanged one phone for the other. “Boy, she’s a real piece of work. Making deals and texting at the same—oh.”

“Oh what?”

“It’s not her. It’s your friend, Captain von Trapp, or whatever.”

Miriam winced. “He’s not my friend. What’s it say?”

“Just put the program in the mail. Well, I’m so glad he shared that enlightening and useful piece of information.”

Miriam chuckled.

Dicey tapped Miriam’s phone on her palm. “Does it seem weird that he’s texting you so much?”

Miriam raised her shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“It just seems like kind of … I don’t know, entitled behavior, if you aren’t actually friends.”

Miriam snorted. “Entitled sounds about right.”

“So, you want to reply or not?”

Not really. But courtesy dictated otherwise. “Just say, ‘Thanks.’”

Dicey complied, coughing into her elbow as she did, and dropped the phone back in the well. But in a moment, it dinged again. Dicey sucked an annoyed breath through her teeth, but she picked it up and read it:

So this is going to sound crazy, but I’ve been looking at your social media, and you look familiar to me. Have we met before? Or is it just because Blaise looks like you?

Dicey looked at Miriam. “Whoa. If you want to tell him, I’d say that’s an opening.”

“You want me to tell him by text message?”

Dicey held up her hands. A mile or two of industrial Omaha passed by the windows before Gus’s next text dinged. Dicey lifted the phone.

I hope I’m not offending you. It’s the last thing I intend.

“He must be wondering why you haven’t replied,” Dicey said.

“Well, he’s going to have to keep wondering.”

“Uh, okay …” Dicey sounded doubtful.

Another ding: If it’s the e-mail thing, I just want you to know, I had no idea you didn’t know Blaise and I were e-mailing.

Dicey looked over at Miriam. “I think you’re gonna have to—”

Ding.

Dicey’s sigh signaled her growing impatience with her role in this one-sided communication.

If I’d ever had a son, I think he would have been just like Blaise. My wife pointed out how he pulled in his lower lip when he played. I used to do that.

Shit. “Turn it off,” Miriam said. “Turn it all the way off.”

“Gladly.” Dicey complied and threw the phone in the well. “Something’s wrong with that guy. You really think he doesn’t know who you are?”

“If he knew, surely he’d just say so.”

“He said everything else, that’s for sure.” Dicey pulled her backpack onto her lap and curled forward over it. “But he’s so emotionally involved in all this. It’s almost creepy. That lower lip thing.”

Of all the things Miriam found troubling about Gus inserting himself into her life, this was the most disturbing. “He’s right,” she said softly.

“About the lip?”

“Yes. It was one of the first things about Blaise that reminded me of Gus.”

Dicey sat up, rubbing her stomach, but she didn’t reply, and Miriam didn’t prompt her. Traffic was heavier in Omaha than it had been since St. Louis, and the SUV flashing its lights in her rearview alerted her that she’d been in the left lane too long. She gunned the gas to clear the vehicle beside her and merged over. The SUV roared by, followed by a semi that sucked the car to the left and then released it again.

Dicey groaned.

Miriam jumped. “Are you okay?”

“I can’t tell if it’s Baby Girl kicking or indigestion.” She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “There. It’s better now. Sort of.”

Miriam heard her mother’s warning again. “Let’s find you a quick care clinic,” she said. “Just to get you looked over.”

Dicey shook her head. “No, I need to get back to California. My doctor there is expecting me.”

“Well then, maybe we need to forget this whole flip-a-coin thing and go straight there.”

“No. I’m all right. Come on, let’s turn on some music.” Dicey flipped the radio on and hit “Seek,” pausing just long enough on each station to classify it. R&B, hip-hop, country, Christian radio, classical.

Which was playing Gus’s movie score.

Not funny, Miriam addressed the heavens.

She reached for the dial, but Dicey knocked her hand away. “No, no, I love this one!”

Of course she did.

“You know this won an Academy Award, right?”

Miriam gripped the steering wheel. “Yup.”

“Did you see the movie?”

“I haven’t seen too many movies in the last year.”

“Of course. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

The music filled the car. For months, it had been used to promote everything from burgers to Band-Aids. Who would have ever thought Gus, the quintessential ivory tower boy, would explore such plebian territory as a save-the-world-from-certain-destruction blockbuster? People were comparing him to John Williams.

The music ended with a soul-stirring swell that faded into the quiet hiss of the radio signal. Then the announcer came on. “That was August von Rickenbach’s Oscar-winning score to Terminus.”

“Huh.” Dicey rubbed her stomach absently. “von Rickenbach.” A pause. “Hang on,” she said slowly. “Is this him?”

Miriam groaned.

“You’re shitting me. The father of your kids is an Academy Award winner? For writing music? Why aren’t you beating down his door for help with Blaise’s sonata?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Because …?”

“Because I don’t trust him. That’s why.”

Dicey rubbed her hands over the swell of her belly for a long moment, thinking. Then she said, “I kinda think you gotta tell him, Miriam.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t take anything away from Teo. But all those texts—it’s obviously bugging