glanced at the clock after a bit, sorry that I had to interrupt their little reunion. “You brought your guitar,” I said, nodding at the case he gripped loosely in his left hand.
“My brother’s. Are you my instructor?”
“Just a sub.” I reached out to shake his hand and introduced myself. Juliet followed us with her eyes as I showed him to a lesson room. I glanced back at her.
“Wow,” she mouthed.
I stifled a laugh.
“Gary’s your regular instructor,” I said, turning back to Danial, “but he’s running a little late today, so you got me.” I closed the door and sat opposite him in the closetlike space. There was just enough room for the two chairs and a small table with a CD player. On the door, Gary had hung a poster with guitar chords. On the wall behind Danial was my contribution—a poster of Bob Marley in concert. Danial sat down and flipped open the well-worn case, then pulled out a beautiful Taylor guitar.
“Can I see that?” I asked.
He handed it over. The back and sides were a rich, finely grained dark brown. “What kind of wood is this?”
“African mahogany, I think.”
“Pretty.”
The fretboard had a beautiful pearl inlay that looked like calla lilies. I strummed the strings, then adjusted the tuning and strummed again, enjoying the rich sound. “Does he still play it?”
“My brother? No. Not anymore.”
“So,” I said, handing it back, “show me what you got.”
Danial knew his way around the guitar and could play some chords. After encouraging him to mess around a bit, I taught him a riff that required only three power chords he was already familiar with and a few single notes. I played along, improvising once he got the hang of it. He stopped periodically to massage his fingertips with his thumb. Before we finished, I wrote out the notes of the riff on a musical staff so he could practice at home. I thought for a moment that it would be nice to have him as a regular student.
“Where are you from?” I asked as he laid his guitar carefully in the case.
“Chicago.”
“I meant, where did your family come from?”
He laughed. “I know what you meant. My parents were both born in Pakistan. They moved to the States after my brother was born. First Chicago, then Clear Lake, then here.” He snapped the latches closed and stood up. “Nice shirt.”
I bristled but ignored the comment. I picked up the Takamine and opened the door.
Danial blew on his fingertips as he stepped out.
“Sore?”
“You could say that.”
“Keep your practices to about ten minutes at a time until your fingers toughen up a bit more.”
He nodded, then dropped his eyes once again to my shirt and smirked.
“Is there a problem?” I asked, an edge in my voice.
He grinned a little and scratched at the back of his head. “No problem.”
I left him at the counter with Mr. Ratliff so he could pay, thinking maybe I didn’t want him as a regular after all. I replaced the Takamine and found Juliet restocking band lesson books in a wire floor rack. With summer band camps starting in a couple of weeks, there’d been a run on them. Mr. Ratliff had had to restock twice. I picked up the scissors from the floor and sliced the paper tape on a box of books and ripped it open.
“How did it go?” she asked.
“Okay.”
“Okay? That’s it?” She looked past me to get a glimpse of Danial at the counter. “He’s really grown.”
“Yeah, I know. You already said that.”
“Shut up.” She gave me a little shove that threw me off balance, and I dropped onto my butt. “I’m telling you, when we were in seventh grade, he was like this little boy computer geek. I mean, he’s a freaking genius on the computer. He was posting articles on Wikipedia before a lot of kids even knew what Wikipedia was. He was always getting into some kind of trouble for it.”
“Oh yeah? What did he do?”
“I don’t know. A little creative editing on some religious articles or something. I think he put some school stuff on there that they made him take off.” She grabbed a stack of books from the box and slid them into their respective slots on the wire rack. “You should get him to help you with that blog you want to write.”
“Maybe.” Maybe not.
Shortly after Danial left, Mr. Ratliff caught me yawning and checking the time on my phone. “Nate, go home. And do me a favor and take this one with you,” he said, giving Juliet’s hair a playful yank. “Gary will be in shortly; we can handle the store the rest of the day.”
I was not about to argue, not today, because (1.) I was an emotional wreck, and (2.) Adam had spoken the truth—we hadn’t slept that much.
Juliet poured us sodas and popped popcorn in the microwave. And then we just stared at each other over the bar. I needed sleep. I needed to go home. She reached over and tapped a kernel of corn in my mouth and watched me chew. I made a pouty face and she made one back, then came around the bar and hugged me from behind.
“What’s that for?”
“Just for being you.”
I smiled and turned to hug her full on. “I don’t think Mike would like this.”
She tilted her chin down and looked at me, a mischievous grin on her face. “He knows I’ll always love you best.” Which made me laugh because not only was Mike Rutgers crazy about Juliet, but I was no threat to him, and he knew it.
My eyes flicked up to the wall clock next to the kitchen sink.
“What time does our boy arrive?” she asked.
“Another hour and a half.”
In Juliet’s room we pulled up the airline’s flight info on her computer. The flight animation showed a little black plane hovering over a map of the United States. According to FlightView, Adam was flying over southern Illinois at 530 miles per hour at the moment. We watched the flight tracker for a while, updating the results every few seconds, but it was like watching the seasons change.
“What do you think he’s doing right now?” I asked her.
“Sleeping. Listening to music. Staring off into space. Thinking about you.”
I stared at the black plane and tried to envision Adam kicked back with his earbuds in and bopping his head slightly like he always did. And then I envisioned an explosion ripping a hole in the fuselage and the plane nose-diving toward the ground and people screaming and shit flying everywhere and—
