Page 51 of Drive
“This is the part that makes me sound crazy and presumptuous and ridiculous. We aren’t even in a relationship. We’ve gone out on a couple of dates. I really like you, and I’d like to keep seeing you, and I wish I could be the kind of person who could just enjoy us for however long there is an us….” She paused and Jacques could hear her voice change again, dip lower, sounding somber. “…but I’m not that kind ofperson.”
“What kind of person?” She was the kind of person he wanted to keep seeing. She wastheperson. If the nine songs she’d inspired him to write didn’t testify to that, he didn’t know whatcould.
“My life is small, Jacques. It’s so small. If I let you in…” Her voice sounded haunted. “I’m just not that strong. Not anymore. Best not to go down that road atall.”
“You’re not strong enough to let me in?” Jacques asked, refusing to let the disappointment penetrate him like astain.
“No, I’m not strong enough to let you go, and you’d go, Jacques. You’d haveto.”
And as she said it, Jacques saw what she saw. He’d be going soon. Or he hoped he would. The music would open doors he needed and wanted to walk through. It would give him the world, and he’d want to take it. She was right about that, but she was wrong about somethingelse.
“I might go, but if you let me in, I wouldn’t forget aboutyou.”
Grim laughter was her reply. “Trust me, Jacques, I have a lifetime of experience with this. Forgetting is abreeze.”
Jacques didn’t need to be told that she was thinking of her father. His eyes narrowed. The burning in his gut warned him if he ever met the man, he’d have to squash the urge to shove him into awall.
“I know you haven’t known me long,” he hedged, hoping he could reason with her. “But other than the music, what else do your father and I have incommon?”
She was quiet for a moment. “The music’s a pretty bigthing.”
“Yeah, but put that aside for just a minute. Are our personalitiessimilar?”
Rainey choked on a laugh. “God,no.”
“Why?” Jacques asked. “What’s helike?”
“Pfft.He’s acheeseball.”
“Wh-what?” Hesitant laughter shook out of him. Rainey giggled in response. It sounded exactly likebliss.
“He talks like he has a microphone in his handall the time.He’s not real. I don’t think he even knows how to be real.” The mirth faded from her voice. “I didn’t realize it until I needed him to be real, and then I couldn’t stop seeing it. The phoniness is sort ofsickening.”
Jacques thought about his own father who was so real and raw it had cost him his freedom. The man couldn’t disguise or control what he felt for anything. Jacques could keep his emotions close to his vest, but he’d never learned pretense. Not with the kind of mother and father he’d had. And not later with Grandma Lucille and Pal. Two more genuine people neverlived.
“Okay, so you should know with me what you see is what you get,” hevowed.
“I know, Jacques. Even on stage, you’re more real than he can ever be,” she said, her voice strident. “And you’re funny. My dad’s handsome, and he’s charming, and he laughs at everything, but it’s a fake laugh. He neversaysanythingfunny.”
“You make me laugh all the time,” Jacques admitted. “I hope you know it’sreal.”
“You have agreatlaugh,” she said, her voice going soft with appreciation. “Everything about it is real. You are nothing like mydad.”
Jacques’s hope grew. “Okay, so why would you think that if I become a successful musician like your dad that I would make the same choices he made? Scratch that,” he said, shaking his head. “The samemistakes.”
Silence stretched between them. He heard her let go of her breath. “It’s not that I don’t trustyou, Jacques,” she said on whisper. “It’s that I don’t trust.Period.”
“That still means you don’t trustme,”heargued.
“Yeah, but I don’t want you to take itpersonally.”
Jacques felt like each of her arguments was a wall he had to scale, and yet he wasn’t about to giveup.
“If it means I don’t get to see you, I will take itpersonally.”
She made a little noise that had him listening closer, but she saidnothing.
“Let me see you, Rainey.” He used his voice, the strongest weapon in his arsenal. “I’ll come by tonight. I’ll bring dinner. We can justtalk.”
