Page 13 of First Moon

“I’m dyslexic and have ADD. Which probably explains a lot. I’m always late. Can’t find my keys half the time.”

“And you didn’t want a chart this morning when we recorded.”

“That’s right. Numbers just dance around on the page. Music sheets are the same. I mostly use my ear. If I hear something once, it usually sticks.”

“That’s not such a bad secret, is it?”

“It makes me feel ashamed. I can fill a stadium, but I still feel like the dumb girl in class. The one who had to be sent to a special room for slow kids. I didn’t graduate high school.” I took a breath, because I don’t tell this to hardly anybody. “I can’t read worth a darn. Never could. The letters won’t sit still—they flip and slide and trade places the second I look away. Music on a page does the same thing, which is just about the cruelest joke the good Lord ever played, seeing as it’s the thing I love most in this world. So school wasn’t for me. Got my GED and then headed to Nashville, knowing I had to make music work because it’s the only thing I’ve ever been able to do.”

“I thought the same thing about myself.”

“And here we are, living the dream,” I said, leaning in for a quick kiss from his salty lips.

“Do you have any dreams left?”

“Just one,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“I want to get married and have a family. A real home, married to a man who’s my best friend. Like my mama and daddy have. What about you?” I asked before he could delve further into my confession. “Any dreams left?”

“Same as you. But, after Lisa, I started thinking it wasn’t possible to have music and love. And music’s always won.”

“For me too,” I said. “But maybe it’s because we haven’t met the right person. Someone who understands our lifestyle.”

“And what music means to us.”

“That’s right.”

“Madeleine’s been telling me for years that I ought to meet you,” I said. “Not just a handshake at an awards show, but an actual sit down and talk kind of thing.”

“She’s never said a word to me about it,” Jack said.

“That woman’s always up to something. Total know-it-all. The problem is, she’s usually right.”

“What did you think when she mentioned me?”

“That you’re smoking hot and totally intimidating,” I said. “But only the first thing’s true. You’re easy to talk to.”

“Feels like we’ve known each other a long time, right?”

“Exactly.”

We locked gazes for a moment, until he suddenly twitched. “The dumplings. They’ve been on the stove all this time.”

We hauled ourselves out of the pool and wrapped up in terrycloth robes he’d left on one of the chaises. By then, the sun had disappeared, leaving the still quiet of twilight in its wake. However, it remained hot and sticky. I started to question the wisdom of such a hot dish. Maybe I should have thought of that earlier.

His kitchen was all creamy white cabinetry that went clear up to the ceiling, with glass-fronted cupboards lit from the inside and brass knobs that caught the light. The island was enormous, a waterfall slab of white marble streaked with gray, big enough for a whole family to gather around. Above it hung a wide brass pendant, warm and golden, the inside glowing like a little sun. The stove was one of those professional ranges with more burners than any normal person needed, tucked beneath a paneled hood and a marble backsplash that climbed the wall.

Jack lifted the lid off his pot on the stovetop and he grimaced. “Oh, this isn’t good.”

I peered in to the pot. Where I gathered there had once been tender, flat little dumplings swimming in golden broth, there was now a thick, gluey, grayish paste that had welded itself into one solid mass. It looked like wallpaper paste.

“The recipes warned me not to let them sit too long. But they didn’t say what to do when a pretty girl asks you to take a swim and there’s no way in the world you’re going to say no to that.”

I felt terrible. I also could not hold in my laughter. “I’m so sorry. But maybe glue tastes good?”

He chuckled, but I could tell he was disappointed. “I spent hours on this.”