Page 107 of Charm City Rocks
“Okay,” he says.
“Because maybeyou’remy dream.”
“Really? Me?”
She looks around the bar, which is ordinary and stuffy. A few people have figured out who she is, and those people know her life story, and that’s fine. Others are oblivious, or simply don’t care, and that’s fine, too. Either way, it’s nice to be out in the world again. The man she’s talking to on the phone right now loves her for who she was, but he loves her for who she is now, too. “Yeah,” she says. “You’re my dream guy, Billy Perkins.”
“You don’t think my cardigans are too much?”
“What? I love your cardigans.”
“Okay, good,” he says.
TVs hang everywhere; one is playing the baseball game. “The Orioles are getting their asses kicked, huh?” she says.
Billy laughs. “I saw that earlier. But I’m not watching it anymore.”
“Yeah?” she asks. “Where are you?”
“You won’t believe it if I tell you.”
“Try me.”
“I’m in the Champagne Supernova,” he says.
“Where are you going?”
“Well, right now I’m just sitting here in front of my house,” he says. “I have a duffel bag. I was gonna come see you.”
Margot smiles and touches the weightless foam at the rim of her crappy beer.
“I wanted to surprise you,” he says. “The way you surprised me.”
“That would’ve been nice.”
“You think?”
“I do,” she says.
“But then I realized I have no idea where the hell you actually live.”
Margot laughs.
“I pulled up ‘New York City’ on Google Maps, but that seems vague.”
“Just start driving north,” she says. “And drive fast. I’ll text you my address in a minute.”
She imagines Billy in her apartment. She can see him running his hands over the cymbals of her drum kit, taking her guitar off the wall and frowning at how out of tune it is. It’s a little presumptuous, because yeah, okay, she hasn’t known him long, but she can picture the photograph of them framed and hung up on the wall. Billy about to give her a high five, and Margot smiling as big as she’s ever smiled.
“Margot?” he says.
“Hmm.”
“The day you left,” he says. “I don’t know why I told you I was happy. I’m sorry about that.”
“Yeah?”
“I wasn’t,” he says. “And I’m not. I used to be. At least I thought I was. Then I met you. And then you went away. Twice, actually. And that made me realize that I don’t think it’s possible for me to be happy again without you.”
