Patricia Kay - The Girl He Left Behind

So she stood there.

And she smiled.

And she pretended to be enjoying herself.

And all the while, inside, she was quaking.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, but was—in reality—only about thirty more minutes, Adam said he would be happy to take a few questions, and let people take more pictures if they wanted to, but then he needed to go.

Hands immediately flew up. Adam chuckled and called on a skinny young man sitting near the front of the room.

“Did you always know you wanted to be in the music business?” the young man asked.

Adam nodded. “Yep. From the moment I held my first guitar when I was twelve years old.”

Eve remembered how he’d once told her that guitar had changed his life. How he’d found a crumpled-up, dirty twenty-dollar bill near the sewer at the end of his street and how he’d hidden it and added to it doing every odd job he could find until he had enough money to buy the guitar from a local pawnshop. How he’d even taken it to bed with him because he was afraid one of his brothers would mess with it, maybe even break it, if he didn’t.

“Did you always write your own music?” the young man continued.

“Yeah, I did. Of course, the early attempts weren’t very good. I thought everything needed to rhyme and you can’t imagine the goofy stuff I came up with. I remember one song where I used dastard and bastard and mustard!”

The entire room burst into laughter. Even Eve had to laugh, although her insides were still trembling with nerves.

“I’d love to hear that one,” the young man said when the room quieted down.

“Oh, no,” Adam said. “I wouldn’t do that to anybody. That song was pretty awful.”

A middle-aged woman that Eve didn’t recognize called out, “We’re all proud of you, Adam. One of our own making it big.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said. “I’ve been lucky.”

“It ain’t luck, son,” an older man Eve knew by the name of Joshua said. “It’s pure grit and determination.”

“And talent!” said Marcy Winters, the choir director of St. Nicholas Catholic Church, where Eve was a member.

Adam answered a few more questions, allowed a couple dozen more pictures to be taken, then began to pack up his guitar while people milled around him. Finally he managed to extricate himself, and he headed in Eve’s direction. Eve knew all eyes in the room were on them as he reached her side and smiled down at her.

“Would you like to go have coffee with me or something?” he asked quietly.

What I want is to run out of here as fast as my legs can carry me and go home and hide. “Sure,” she said, hoping she looked calmer than she felt. “Sounds good.”

A few minutes later, outside in the balmy night air, she suggested they walk over to Dinah’s Diner on the town square.

“Dinah’s Diner is a new one on me,” Adam said.

“It only opened about three years ago. Dinah Campbell—you may have known her as Dinah Bloom—took over the old Burger Shack space.”

“I remember that place.”

Eve nodded. She knew he would. Burger Shack had been the hangout of choice for teenagers when they were in school. Not that Adam and Eve had ever gone there. No way they could have kept their relationship secret if they had.

Of course, Adam hadn’t been the one who’d wanted to keep it secret. That was all her doing. She hadn’t wanted to tell him, but she’d been forced to, that her parents would never permit her to see him.

“Do you always do everything your parents tell you to do?” he’d asked.

It had embarrassed her to admit it, but she’d been honest and said, “Yes, I do.”

“Yet you’re lying to them now,” had been his rejoinder, “so you don’t always do what they say, do you?”

She still remembered the way he’d looked at her when he’d said it. Even then, as inexperienced and naive as she was, she’d known it was going to be very hard to ever say no to him.

Dinah’s was only about half-full when they got there, but the low buzz when they entered the place told Eve every single person there knew exactly who Adam was and, before long, they’d know who she was, too, if they didn’t already.

One of the booths that lined the windows facing the street was empty and Adam suggested they take it. As the waitress—a cute teenager named Liz whom Eve knew from church—approached, he said, “I’m starving, so I’m gonna order food. How ’bout you?”

Eve had only picked at the chicken salad she’d had for dinner. “I could eat a cheeseburger. They’re really good here.”

“Let’s go for it,” he said, smiling.

That dimple of his would be her undoing. Or maybe she was already undone. After all, she was here with him, wasn’t she?

They both ordered the cheeseburgers and a basket of rosemary fries to share. “Rosemary fries?” he said in mock disbelief.

“Just because we’re a small town doesn’t mean we’re hicks,” Eve said, grinning.

“They’re really good,” the waitress, who was obviously starstruck, said.

Once she was gone, he leaned back and smiled at Eve. “You’ve grown into a beautiful woman, Eve,” he said softly.

Eve knew she was blushing. She could feel the heat warming her cheeks. “Thank you.” She ducked her head. “You’re not so bad yourself.”

He made a face. “Yeah, sexiest man alive. Did you hear?”

“I did.”

He shook his head. “What bull.”

“I don’t think it is.”

“Really? You think I’m sexy?” He struck a pose. “I could do that old Rod Stewart song.”

But she didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, she said quietly, “I always did.”

The words seemed to float between them in air that was suddenly charged with emotions struggling to surface. For a long moment, neither of them spoke, then both spoke at the same time.

“Eve, why didn’t you—?”

“Adam, I’m sorry I—”

They stopped, and he said, “You go first.”

Eve took a deep breath. “I just wanted you to know I’m sorry I never got to say goodbye.”

His eyes locked with hers. They were a shade of gray that always made her think of rainy streets. “I wasn’t surprised you didn’t show up that night.”

Because she didn’t know what to say to that statement, she said nothing. Out of the corner of her eye, she spied their waitress coming with their food anyway, so it was better to stay quiet, at least for now.

As if he knew they’d neared territory better left alone, he began to eat, and for a while, they didn’t talk at all. Then someone fed the jukebox and “Love Me Tender” began to play.

“One of my all-time favorite songs,” Adam said between bites.

“Mine, too,” Eve said. Their eyes once again met. The expression in his made her heart trip. She couldn’t believe he still had the power to make her feel this way. It was almost as if twelve years had gone up in smoke. Or had never been.

Just as Adam opened his mouth to say something, Eve sensed someone standing nearby. She looked up and saw Joe Ferguson, the mayor of Crandall Lake.

“Just thought I’d stop by and say hello,” Ferguson said. “I’ve been hoping I’d have the chance to welcome one of our most famous sons back to town.” He stuck out his hand. “Joe Ferguson, mayor of our fair city.”

Adam wiped his hand on his napkin and shook Ferguson’s. “Nice to meet you.”

“I hear you were over at the shelter tonight, entertaining the troops,” Ferguson said. His florid face looked even redder under the bright lights of the diner.

“Yes, I stopped by.”

“I was hopin’ maybe I could persuade you to come to the Rotary Club meetin’ on Tuesday, give us a little concert there.”

“Um, I’m not sure I can. I’ll have to see how my mother’s doing,” Adam hedged.