“Fine.”
She clapped and clicked the track pad, completing some purchase. “Yay. And to your point, that’s a total cop-out. You’re afraid is all, afraid to fight for the person you love.”
He flinched as Tilly skated near a tough truth, but fortunately she was so absorbed in online shopping she didn’t catch the reaction on his face. “I’m not afraid. I’m wary.”
She shrugged. “Same thing.”
“It is not. Acting with caution is smart, self-protective. Acting out of fear, on the other hand, is a way of mitigating risks by shrinking one’s world.”
“And you don’t see how the thought processes you described reflect the exact same sort of cowardice?”
He slid his juice glass back and forth.
“Look, all I’m saying is that we humans have two baseline motivations that drive our choices.” She flipped open a palm. “One, fear. Fear is shrinking, as you said. Small, contracted, all about limits and boundaries and avoidance. Avoiding harm, risk, feeling.”
Tilly presented her opposite, upturned hand. Two fans of long fingers hung in the air like balanced scales. “The other driving force is love. In stark contrast to fear, love is expansive. Opening, welcoming of possibilities. Heart, a big tent, accepting.”
His daughter never ceased to surprise or amaze him. “Where did you learn all of this parlance?”
“We live in Los Angeles, Daddy, otherwise known as woo-woo central. So I dunno, I think a psychic on the Santa Monica boardwalk said it to me once. But it’s insight, you know? It stuck with me. And speaking of woo-woo insights, I would have thought that Moonbeam Starchild, the crystal witch, would have imparted all of this hippie yoga wisdom to you already.”
She had, in her own way, imparted spiritual wisdom to him. By showing him that he had the courage to love again.
“It’s complicated.” It wasn’t. He was still in hiding, secreted away in self-created emotional witness protection. But it was time to leave.
Helen tried to tell him her feelings. Albeit in a terribly inopportune moment when he’d been hurting too badly to allow himself to absorb the message. But that didn’t make his conduct right.
She’d been ready to open up, and he’d lacked the capacity to see past his own pain and meet her in a place of emotional honesty. If he could take back that moment, backtrack and allow himself to feel the entire array of things that surged through him before she’d left, their goodbye would have happened differently. She might have still left, but they would have parted with hearts unburdened.
“Tell her how you feel,” Tilly said.
Brian never once faced a task so herculean. Especially now, since, thanks to his reactive behavior, he’d gone and broken what they’d shared. “I doubt she’s still speaking to me.”
“You’re making this harder on yourself than it has to be. Get her to come to your show, and do something awesome onstage that sends a poignant message. Do you know how many of your fangirls would kill for attention like that? And since it will be authentic, we’re talking high-impact wow factor. It’s your area of expertise, and I’m certain you’ll think of a better gesture than I will. But don’t give up. I haven’t seen you as happy as you were with your weird new girlfriend in a long, long time.”
“She isn’t weird. She’s quirky and interesting and intelligent and—”
“My point, proven.”
“You win.” Brian hugged his daughter. The boniness of her bothered him, but he’d keep working on her health. At least she was home and safe, consumed by excitement about her senior trip.
She still smelled a bit like her baby blanket, and always would carry that residual aroma of scalp and powder, but he wasn’t about to bring up her infancy like some sentimental slob. “You’ve gotten to be quite the sharp young woman.”
Wiggling out of his embrace, she shrugged. “School is going better. I like my tutor.”
Zero mention of modeling, a blessing he didn’t dare jinx. “Wonderful news.”
She slid him a sidelong glance. “I’m not going anywhere rural, ever, but maybe I’ll reconsider college. Tour some places around the country. New York, Colorado, Minnesota.”
Mention of the last location, though she spoke the state name casually, sent a jumpy sensation skittering over his torso.
Time to connect with Helen and grovel before he lost her for good. Screw this stupid curse. So what if she’d cursed him with witchcraft, so what if some demon she conjured was sharpening fangs at this very moment, eager to drag him to hell.
They’d manage. As a team, they’d not only manage. They’d prevail.
Brian kissed his daughter on the cheek and returned to his bedroom. He grabbed his mobile and was preparing his mea culpa when the sight of a staggering number of missed calls stunned him.
The number eighty-seven sat in the upper-right hand corner of the green phone icon.
He staggered backward, reeling from despair. Something awful had happened to someone, his mum or dad or brother Alan, or to Grandmother or one of the boys in the band.
Upon clicking on the square, cooling relief and a vortex of concern competed. Most of the calls were from Jonnie, with a smattering of others showing Thom’s and Jonas’s phone numbers.
Okay. An industry matter. He could cope. Mini-crises exploded in his professional world on a semi-regular basis. Such was expected in a field stocked with massive egos, bigger money, and hot-blooded artists with megawatt dreams.
He sat on his bed and rang his best mate.
Jonnie answered after one ring. “Are you sitting down?”
“Yes, why?”
“Joe Clyde died last night. They’re listing the official cause of death as suicide, but I’m not buying it.”
Vertigo contracted and expanded Brian’s perception. Had the termination driven Fyre’s former manager to suicide? “Why not?”
“The circumstances had ritualistic overtones.”
Twenty-One
Helen’s teenage years thundered in, bathed in hormones and wearing nihilism like cheap stilettos.
Her wardrobe of facile insights on life and love resulted from the embarrassingly immature error of mistaking depression for depth of intellect. During
