I shrug. “A single favorite song of all time? I don’t even know. I’m not sure I could pick one.”
“Sure you can. Just close your eyes, clear your mind, and think of music, think of your favorite song. What’s the first song to come to mind?”
I try it. The answer comes immediately, but it takes me a few beats to get the words out. “‘Let Her Go’ by Passenger.”
She looks up at me, wobbly gaze speculative. “Ooh. I hear a story there.”
I shrug. “An old story, and a long one.”
“How ’bout you just say it’s a story you don’t want to tell?” She leans toward me and bumps me with her shoulder. “We’ve all got stories like that.”
I laugh despite myself. “All right, then. It’s a story I can’t tell. Not now, anyway. Maybe another time.” I glance at her. “You? Favorite song?”
Her answer is immediate. “‘Better Dig Two’, The Band Perry.”
“Why?”
This time her answer is longer in coming. “You ever hear the song?” she finally asks.
I lift a shoulder. “A couple times, maybe, but not recently.”
She reaches to the stool beside her, unzips her purse, and withdraws her phone. Taps at it, and then sets it on the bar between us. A familiar melody emerges from the phone, a banjo picking out a simple count. The bartender glances at us, and then mutes the TV. We listen to the song, and I pay attention to the lyrics. When it’s over, I glance at Echo, who has a faraway expression on her face.
“So. Now you get it?”
“I guess.”
She puts a forefinger on the screen of her phone and spins it in circles. “I guess it’s like a vow, for me. A promise to myself. With what Mom went through and how that affected me, I just…it’s like the song says, ‘this is the first and last time I’ll wear white.’ You know?”
“I hear a story there,” I say.
She shoots a grin and a sideways glance at me. “A story I don’t feel like telling right now. Besides, not much new about it, but it’s my story.”
“Heard that,” I say, sliding off my stool and grabbing my cane. “My turn for the bathroom.”
She tosses back the shot she’d asked for and forgotten about, and then carefully lowers herself to her feet. “Me, too.” And this time she grabs my elbow, her hand slipping around my arm easily. She leans into me for balance, and still manages to trip a few times. We both go into the men’s room, and I make sure she’s in a stall before heading for a urinal.
I’m washing my hands when I hear the stall door bang open. I turn to see Echo stumbling out, fumbling with the hem of her dress, which is caught in the waistband of her underwear. I laugh and try to keep my eyes in appropriate places, but it’s a lost cause. She’s got killer legs, long and strong and curvy. I tug the hem of her dress free and let it float down around her ankles once more, and look up to see that she’s staring at me.
The tensions and the questions and the sorrow and the doubt and the desire and the heat and the intoxication all mix, hers and mine and both and neither, and I can’t look away from her, those eyes, so many shades and colors all mixed together.
“Think I’m…think I’m done,” Echo says, ripping her gaze from mine and lurching past me.
I follow her, and when she stumbles again, I grab her arm with my free hand and keep her upright. She snags her shoes and purse, withdraws a wallet and peers into it, sorting through what seems to be mostly fives and tens and a couple twenties.
“What’s the damage, boss?” she asks the bartender. Without a word, the bartender prints out a ticket and sets it on the bar in front of Echo. I reach for it, but she slaps my hand. “No. I got it. You just get us a cab.” She hands him a debit card, gets it back and signs the slip.
“To where?” I ask, glancing at the bartender, who is already on the phone, mumbling into it and hanging up.
“I dunno. Anywhere.”
“What’s your grandparents’ address?” I ask.
Echo ignores me, weaving an unsteady line toward the door, and then she walks outside, blinking in the sunlight. It’s late evening, the sunlight a golden-orange, the heat fading to something less oppressive. She leans against the wall beside the door, heels dangling from two fingers, purse tucked under her arm. She’s staring at the street, watching cars pass but not seeing them, I don’t think. I glance down. Her feet are bare, and the ground outside the bar is dirty, bits of glass and old cigarette butts and oil stains.
“Not going back there,” she mumbles. “Can’t. I can’t—I can’t handle Grandma and Grandpa right now. I just can’t.”
“Then where?”
“I don’t care!” she yells. “I don’t care. I don’t fucking care.”
Are these drunk emotions, or she-just-buried-her-mother emotions? Both, probably, and I don’t know what to do, what to say. I don’t know her. I barely knew her mother. So I don’t say anything. We wait in silence until a white older model Dodge Caravan with the name of a taxi service printed across the side pulls up. I hobble past Echo and slide open the door, then extend my hand to her. She fits her palm in mine but doesn’t look at me as she climbs in, slides to the seat on the far side. I hop in after her and close the door. The driver pulls out of the parking lot.
When he’s waiting at a red light, he glances at me in the rear-view mirror. “Where to?”
I glance at Echo, but she’s staring out the window, head against the glass. Her breath comes slowly, deeply, as if she’s fighting for each breath. Holding back vomit, maybe, or holding back sobs. Can’t tell which.
“Just drive for now,” I tell him.
He nods, and turns up the radio. “Give Me Back My Hometown” by Eric Church comes on.
And, of course, it’s followed by “What Hurts the Most” by Rascal Flatts.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Echo says when Rascal Flatts comes on. “Mom loved this song.” The driver moves to change it, but she shakes her head. “Leave it on. Just…leave it.” Her voice sounds faint, distant.
I look over, and I see her eyes flutter, close once or twice, and then she’s asleep. “Shit,” I mumble. I glance at the reflection of the driver’s eyes in the mirror. “Now what do I do?” I rub my forehead with the back of a knuckle, and then give him my address.