Linda starts to laugh. “She’s lying, Manny. I can tell.”

He drops a kiss on my nose and those black eyes are shimmering with affection. “I can tell, too.”

He sinks down beside me and I ease up, reaching with my fork to grab a bite of my pancake. He turns my book to see what I’m reading.

“Have you read that?” I ask. “I hate it. I would be willing to wash dishes for a week if you could give me a synopsis.”

“Chrissie, what’s wrong with you? This is great literature. Don’t they teach you to appreciate literature in California?”

I toss the book on the table. “Sorry, Alan, that I don’t match your highbrow standard. I wasn’t raised to appreciate Lady Chatterley’s Lover. I was raised to appreciate Rule for Radicals. I think Jack gave it to me for Christmas the same year he gave me my Tiffany bracelet. Never philosophically consistent, not even over the holidays.”

Alan studies my face. “Do you want to go to the village to call Jack?”

I tense, since I don’t know what’s in my expression that he would ask me that. “Nope, I want to eat pancakes.”

He leaves it alone and goes back to the kitchen.

After we’re done cleaning up the dishes, Alan takes me to the barn with him. It is my first time in the rehearsal space. It is empty. The guys aren’t here, and I sit on the floor as Alan methodically positions the effect pedals, and I stare at the rafters, the old wood, the spider webs, and the musty, dark world that is the barn.

It is a place before time. A place without time. Alan is playing, adjusting, working through something that is only in his head.

I wander over to look at some kind of rusty, half broken piece of farm equipment. There is the most extraordinary spider web in the wheel spokes. Thick and intricate and swirling. Definitely a mercilessly constructed trap. But no spider. I stare at the floor, wondering if it’s near me.

I hear a sound close to me and I look up to find Alan has unplugged and is standing above me.

“This is the most incredible spider web I’ve ever seen,” I exclaim, pointing. “I wonder how longs it’s been there.”

“I had a little girl,” he begins in a soft voice, and every nerve in my body feels a prick. “Molly. She was five. She died fifteen months ago.”

Quiet. Alan steps away from me and sits on an old crate. I straighten up and I don’t know whether to move toward him or stay where I am. I don’t even know why he’s telling me this today.

He gives me a rough laugh that has nothing to do with humor. “Don’t look so apprehensive, Chrissie. This is just a story.”

My heart twists. Bullshit, Alan. This isn’t just “a story” to you.

“I never wanted her. I didn’t want to be bothered having to care about someone and I didn’t know her mother. Not at all. I did all the correct things financially, but I didn’t want to be bothered, and I made sure everyone knew it.”

He stares up at the rafters and runs a hand through his hair. “But Molly was a cute little thing and she wasn’t the least bit put off by me. She did what she wanted, smiled and laughed, and eventually she had me, she owned me. I adored her in every way.”

I feel a sad smile I can’t hold back. Yes, that’s the Alan I know.

“What happened to her?” I ask.

He rises from the crate and goes back to plug in the guitar. “She got sick. A week later she was dead. Her mother never bothered to call me. She was dead before I found out she was sick.”

Oh my. How awful, how absolutely awful. Knowing Alan, I can’t imagine any girl doing that to him.

He hesitates at my reaction. “I’m not responsible for her dying. And I am not responsible for not being there. But I regret them both. There is a difference.”

The hairs on my body stand up. “Did Linda tell you what we talked about?” I ask nervously.

Alan shakes his head. “No, she wouldn’t do that. She’s a true friend. You can trust her with anything. Linda is one of the few people on earth I trust completely.”

He turns until his back is facing me, starts adjusting things and begins to play. I realize this conversation isn’t intended to start or finish anything. It’s an Alan truth card. He takes a step forward and will wait until I follow. He’s letting it alone until I’m ready.

I sit on the old crate, watching him play, as the barn fills up with the rest of the band. I don’t know why I could tell Linda all my messed up shit. I don’t know why I can’t tell Alan.

Maybe I just can’t tell him that worst part of me because I love him.

* * *

Tonight there is something frantic in me. After the guys finished rehearsal for the day, Alan and I went back to the bedroom, made love, and I slept curled into him. When I opened my eyes, Alan was beside me watching me sleep. The world looked the same, but internally I woke different.

I pull on Linda’s awful loaner mini dress and I fluff out my hair, brushing the underside, spraying it, in that way that Rene calls the “just been fucked” look of hair. My body is anxious, I feel it my flesh, frantic sensations running loose inside me.

We are on our way to the village, to some sort of bar, where the guys might or might not play before an audience to get a little of the edge back before they go back on the road.

I study my face as I put the finishing touches of makeup on and find something strange about me that I can’t identify.

Everyone is already gathered downstairs waiting, by the time I leave the bedroom. The air is filled with cigarette and other smoke, and I can tell by the loudness that quite a bit of drinking and other stuff has gone on while Alan and I slept.

I can feel Alan watching, but he doesn’t come to me. God, he is beautiful. Black hair, intense dark eyes, ordinary casual dress, but all Alan. It is still a little mind blowing that he is with me.

Len smiles. “Is that all right with you, little kitty?”

All right? What is Len’s talking about? I’ve not followed any of the conversation since I entered the room.

“The cars,” he says with heavier meaning. “We’ve got to pair off. You’re driving with us.”

Everyone is moving, getting ready to leave, and I roll forward onto my feet. Len puts his hand on the bare skin of the small of my back.

“You OK?” Len whispers.

“Sure I’m great,” I say with an overly bright smile.

He gives me a half smile. “You know, Linda has a dress just like that. I always want to jump her when she’s wearing that dress.”

I shrug. “Maybe I should take it off.”

Len laughs a little too loudly.

Once we are out in front of the farmhouse, everything suddenly feels very weird to me. But then, it’s been a weird day.

I can barely see Alan’s face in the darkness around the gravel driveway, but I can feel he is studying me closely. The air is chilly, it touches my flesh, and I shiver. I am beginning to feel a dull, persistent sadness mixing with the frantic. Something is off. Is it me or is it him?

“You OK, Chrissie? Cold?”

I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

Yes, this definitely feels strange.

The Rowans stop bickering and pile into the car. Alan leans a hand on my door, not opening it.

“Why don’t we stay behind tonight,” he says quietly. His eyes touch my face softly, gauging my reaction. There is something in his voice I can’t quite make out.

Alan turns us until I’m in his arms and his back is against the car. His mouth joins mine and I feel an almost hungry desperation in his need for me. Then it occurs to me in the way he kisses me, in the way he touches me, that he needs to know that we’re OK, that I’m OK. I suddenly know he can feel the weirdness, too, and that the weirdness is in me.

He doesn’t break the kiss; he intensifies it. His hands move up beneath my dress, to the bare flesh of my thighs and I am lifted and molded into him. He is doing what he does so well, pulling me into him.