That was one of the differences between the two sisters. Ari always planned for the worst, always had an umbrella in the car and canned food in the kitchen cabinet. Emily, through whatever quirk of personality, always planned for the best. But that meant things hit her even harder when they didn’t go as she hoped they would.
Emily slid over on the couch to hug her sister. “You can go back to teaching,” she said. “And plan a trip to Egypt. If Jack doesn’t want to go, I’ll go with you. No matter when you got married, you found a great guy who loves you and who you love, and same with your kids. They’re awesome. But no matter whether you’ve got thirteen years left or sixty-five, you should make sure you’re living your life the way you want to live it. And that can change, too. If you decide that you’re done staying home, you can work. The boys are older now anyway. Their lives changed, and yours can, too, if you want it to.”
Ari bit her lip. “Do you think someone would hire me?” she asked. “I’ve been out of the classroom for so long.”
“You won’t find out unless you try,” Emily replied.
Ari leaned her head against her sister’s. “Does it feel nice,” she asked, “to be someone’s muse? To be the subject of his song?”
The corner of Emily’s mouth lifted. “A little,” she admitted.
The sisters kept talking until midnight, when Ezra came home and was surprised to find them on the couch together under an afghan, the cold remnants of a plate of monkey bread still on the coffee table.
“I should go,” Ari said, when she realized what time it was.
“But come back, soon,” Emily responded, realizing how rare it had become for the two of them to get time alone to talk, uninterrupted, for hours.
“Yes,” Ari said. “Soon. Because we still have to clean out the second bedroom.”
Emily laughed. “I’d forgotten we were supposed to do that.”
“Next time,” Ari said. “Next time.”
ix
After our night at Webster Hall, for the next two weeks all your dad wanted to do was play. It was nearing the end of the fall semester, and he half-assed his papers and exams, spending more and more time writing songs, recording, trying to parlay our evening performance into something bigger, something more. I paid attention to my schoolwork, but I was with him whenever I could be. Harmonizing, tweaking his song lyrics, adding depth to the musical arrangements. He kept encouraging me to write my own, but I preferred to tinker with his. And it was working! People were booking us. In New York City, in New Jersey, in Texas, where we planned to go for Christmas to visit his family. We had professional photos taken, my hair in its half crown, your dad with the five o’clock shadow that made me shiver when he kissed me.
“We’re gonna be stars, Queenie,” he’d say, when he fell, exhausted, into bed at night.
I kept dreaming about it—the two of us, on the road together. Cuddling up at night in a tour bus. Wowing sold-out crowds in all fifty states. And Europe, too. Maybe Asia. And Africa. And Australia. Latin America. Feeling that adrenaline rush. High on him, on me, on us. Webster Hall really changed us—changed me. Made me think that music was a real possibility—for both of us. Maybe I didn’t have to finish college. We didn’t talk about that part—the exact logistics. But we talked about the future all the time.
“We could be huge,” he kept saying. “We could be the Sonny and Cher of our generation. The Johnny and June Carter Cash.” It seemed crazy but not out of the question. I thought about that crowd. The response we got. The applause. The bookings in our calendar.
* * *
—
We woke up the morning after we had our photo shoot wrapped around each other, my breast cupped in his hand, our legs twined together.
When I shifted my position, he did, too.
“We’re gonna be so big, Queenie,” he said, his beautiful voice hoarse from sleep. “I was just dreaming about it. You and me, we’re gonna make history.”
“I’d love that,” I whispered back. “Rob and Emily, reaching the top of the charts.”
“Maybe I should change my name,” he mused.
I knew he didn’t like his name: Rob Barnes—he thought it sounded like a sentence with a verb you could conjugate: I rob barns. We rob barns. They rob barns. Go, rob barns!
“Tanner Barnes?” I asked, using his middle name instead.
“Bluer barns,” he countered. “Redder barns. My first name’s a verb, my middle name’s an adjective, and my last name’s a noun. What were my parents thinking?”