Brian danced with Ya-Ya through the rapper E-Z’s set, too. But it wasn’t the same dance. People stood close together, listening and foot-tapping. During E-Z’s show, Brian managed to talk to Ya-Ya a bit. She ran a little boutique in Biltmore Village. “Clara Jane’s” (which Angelina owned, Brian found out later) sold women’s clothes and accessories. Ya-Ya knew Hailey’s brothers, Leon and Marvin. That’s why she was out on Tuesday night. That and she wanted to hear E-Z.
Brian told her he had a girlfriend. Either an appropriate pause bid him to declare as much. Or else Ya-Ya had asked him. He couldn’t remember because it happened effortlessly. When E-Z finished and the audience dispersed, Ya-Ya pulled a tiny phone from a tiny purse. What was his number?
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Before she left, she kissed him full on the mouth. Brian opened his eyes, Ya-Ya was gone, and Carla’s eyes were flashing: “So?”
“So…Carla, did you have fun?”
“I’ll tell you later, Brian. You need to help pack the band’s equipment into the back of the van. And find out who wants to go back to the lodge with us.”
Everyone helped with the equipment. Hailey asked to ride with them. Trevor had phoned; he and Angelina were already home. “Everytin’ cookin’ curry,” she laughed.
Jacob and Lloyd climbed into the van. The other Jamaicans had sailed off with a ready girl and would see them tomorrow.
Polly took the seat next to Brian—her usual place in Angelina’s van and nobody should ask her to move. Polly never accommodated anyone.
So Carla sat in the back with Hailey. As the van turned onto I-40, Jacob asked Lloyd, “You a salt?”
“No salt, mon. Full bashment.”
They had both met girls. More than one each, it seemed. They chatted silently with bashy girls, text messaging from their new iPhones.
Brian played a CD Lloyd had given him, a “rockas” mix. Hailey asked Carla if she liked her friend Jazmine’s singing. “Did you listen to the last number? ‘Don’t Let Me Down.’”
“She was great,” Carla said. “I’ll tell Trevor to let her sing more.”
Brian was glad Hailey was prompting Carla to think about something besides him. Or, in truth, the long, uncomfortable, they would soon have about “them,” Brian and Carla. Anytime Carla felt slighted, she put him through a shaming Q-and-A. In fact, even if she was just feeling needy, she would insist he swear to mysterious passions for her and soulful bonds he didn’t think possible.
Tonight, however, she was angry with a reason. He had neglected her. Their little talk would be pointed—and sharp. Carla, when provoked, would turn the Q-and-A into a full-fledged inquisition, where she twisted his answers, no matter how tactful they might be.
Pulling into the lodge, Brian resolved to keep Carla’s complaints to a minimum. He hoped they could stay happy enough, long enough, so that when the students arrived no eighteen- to twenty-two year old would tempt him. Trevor was certain to make the rounds, but somehow he never hurt anyone. Brian trusted him to do what he always did. Ten young women and five men that he didn’t foresee presenting a danger.
This college was, he realized more definitely all the time, the dream he had never defined, believing all such dreams lay unfathomably beyond him.
He parked next to his Honda. Trevor was sitting cross-legged on its hood and flew over, Brian thought, to unload the band equipment. But instead, he joined Jacob and Lloyd just long enough to exchange greetings and hand Brian a coil of cable and an amplifier. Then he whispered to Hailey and led Carla onto Angelina’s porch.
Carla and Trevor sat and smoked a spliff in rocking chairs, talking about who knows what, while Brian, Jacob, and Lloyd criss-crossed the open yard in the moonlight.
“The band sounded so strong tonight,” Brian told Hailey. “So how much does it really need Trevor?”
She laughed. “You worry about Trevor the way he worries about you. Trevor’s the guitar player.”
After they’d stored all the equipment inside the cabin where Trevor and Hailey stayed, Brian dropped the van’s keys inside Angelina’s mailbox. Half-way to his cabin, he gazed at the stars and followed a falling streak of light, and another, brighter one, right after it. Aware of almost total silence, he opened his cabin door to find Carla. Right away, Brian said he was sorry.
“I’ll let it go this time.” Carla pulled him inside and closed the door. “But don’t let it happen again.”
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