Page 46 of Lost Love on 6th Street

I lean into him, pressing my face into his side, and sigh in relief as the music continues to waft through the air. I’m content. And safe. And, if only for a few moments, I’m not going to question whether where I am is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Here. Next to Luke. Being whatever I am to him.

The song rolls to a close with a repeating finish, suggesting that the desire for the love she sings of will be a Sisyphean task, an endless suffering.

I let out a big sigh.

“We found her,” I say.

And all the uneasiness is gone.

16

LUKE

“We found her.”

Eleanor’s words echo in my ears.

I feel like the worst person alive.

Scratch that, I am the worst person alive.

I could have nipped this in the bud the first time I met her. The second I saw that photo I could have told her the truth.

See, I’ve known. From the beginning, I’ve known exactly who the woman in the picture was.

Diane Bloom isn’t a stranger to me the way she is to Eleanor. Not at all.

At the time, I was caught off-guard to see her in the photo. To see the year on the photo. I needed time to process. And by the time I sat down with Eleanor at the Fried Polyester show, I decided to let the picture be a mystery to me, too.

It was selfish. I know. The actions of a guy who was thinking with his dick. Although, that’s unfair to me. My feelings for Eleanor were never purely physical. It might sound a little naïve, but there was something about her, from the moment our eyes connected. Something I needed. So, when she offered up the photo, I saw the possibility of an adventure with a woman that my heart was calling for.

The truth . . . the truth is that Diane Bloom was Aunt Diane to me. A friend of my parents that us kids called “Aunt” simply because she came around a lot. I remember her long dark hair and her effervescent smile. She’d bring her guitar with her whenever she visited and we’d sit up late into the night listening to her play, laughing and singing along. We spent many beautiful summer nights out under a big Texas sky listening to Aunt Diane playing anything from Chicago blues to Greenwich Village folk. She had a particular love for Willie Nelson (who doesn’t?), and she had a couple of Linda Ronstadt songs she would play on repeat.

Those nights are like pillars of my childhood. Something I thought would last forever until suddenly summer nights were quiet and Aunt Diane didn’t come around anymore. I don’t remember how old I was.

But I know by 1993, I’d seen Aunt Diane for the last time.

I’ve needed to know just as Eleanor has. More than, probably.

It’s wrong of me to have led Eleanor along on this wild goose chase for so long. But once I stepped into the lie, I couldn’t step out of it. Each day I was just digging myself deeper. I let her follow the trail, doing my best to support her at every turn, just as I am now with her tucked under my arm.

How would she have reacted if suddenly I just said, “I’ve known from the beginning who that woman was”? She wouldn’t have let me keep coming around, I can tell you that much.

And now . . .

Now there’s no way she can ever know. Because by admitting I lied, I’d lose her.

I can’t lose her. I just can’t.

She’s become so special to me in the short time I’ve known her. Her pensive, thoughtful expressions, the way she speaks about and sees the world. Her softness. Her stillness. My little shutterbug.

I want to be a part of her world.

I’ve never been so scared to cross a line with a woman as I am with Eleanor. Because even as she leans into me, a part of me doesn’t quite believe she’ll take me seriously.

“Can we hear it again?” Eleanor asks once the recording fades out.

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