Lowering my head to the earth, I swore under my breath at the injustice of it all. Why had I even met this man if it meant having to hear him die?
“Talk to me, son,” Albert said, his voice already sounding as if it were fading. “Take my mind off this.”
I could’ve stayed silent for my own self-preservation, but Albert needed me to step up and be the man I hadn’t been in five long months. “What do you want me to say?”
“Anything. Just talk.”
“Uh… I’m a singer.”
“A shower singer?”
“No.” I smiled. “A professional one.”
“What kind of music?”
“I sing current stuff, like pop and rock.”
“Oh.”
In that one word, I could tell Albert was not impressed. Maybe a little more elaboration might turn him around.
“I’m in a famous band—or I was. We broke up last year. Ever heard of AnyDayNow?”
“Can’t say I have, but then I listen to old-timer music,” Albert replied, stopping to catch his breath. “My great-granddaughter might know you, though.”
“How old is she?”
“Becca is sixteen.”
“Then she knows us.”
“So, you’re in one of those bands with all the screaming girls?”
“Lots of screaming. Yes.”
“What’s it like, being on stage, worshipped?”
Had he asked me that question this morning, I might have responded with a cynical answer, but this morning seemed so long ago. My perspective had already shifted in the time I’d been entombed. Now I’d give anything to be up on stage performing again. Why had I walked away?
“I’m not performing anymore, but it was incredible while it lasted.”
“Why aren’t you performing?”
I sighed. “Because, Albert, I’m a narcissistic fool.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Yeah, but I’m their king. I got tangled up in my own hype and let my ego get the best of me. I lost the joy of singing and performing. That’s why I was here in apartment 426, hiding out like a goddamn coward.”
“At least you figured it out while you’re still young. Some of us take a lifetime.”
“Yeah, well, twenty-five might be the end my lifetime.”
“I surely hope not, son. You’re just getting started. Me, I’ve lived my life… and it was a damn good one. If you remember one thing about me, let it be that I was a lucky bastard. Married my best friend. Had forty-seven years with her. We had two kids. Five grandchildren. Four great-grandchildren. I worked as a school bus driver almost my whole life. Not a glamorous job like yours, but I loved it. My name’s Albert Arthur Aldrich, and them kids called me Triple A—like the insurance. The nickname stuck, and my family and friends all call me that now.” Albert chuckled weakly and I just knew there was a nostalgic smile on his face as he remembered. “Yep, I’m going to die a happy man.”
“I wish I could say the same. I’m alone. An outsider. Always have been.”
“I believe we make our own happiness. Everything is a choice. Do you want to be bitter and only look to the past, or do you want to find joy in the things right before your eyes?”
“And if I don’t get out of here?”
“Then spend the time you have left remembering the good times. Surely you had some of those.”
I fell silent as I tried to gather those good times into one tidy pile in my head. That way, when I needed them most, they’d be there, like Albert’s had so readily been.
“Don’t you give up hope, RJ. I believe you will get out of here. You’ll go on with your life and probably forget all about the old guy in apartment 140.”
“You? Never.”
“That’s the spirit. I tell you what. I’m gonna put in a good word for you with the man upstairs. Tell him you deserve a second chance.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“But you gotta promise me you won’t waste it. Get back on that stage. Stop living like an outsider. Make every day you’re alive mean something. Like me, RJ. I got no regrets. I lived a damn good life.”
I knew all this. What Albert was proposing wasn’t rocket science. But saying you will do something and actually doing it are two very different things. The truth was, if I died today, I’d do so as a man who’d squandered the best years of his life because he couldn’t let go of the anger and the past hurts. My career. My friends. My fans. Dani. All this time with her right next door! Why hadn’t I opened my eyes and made those days with her mean something? Maybe then I would have seen her for who she truly was. Despite only knowing me as some down-on-his-luck asshole, when everything was on the line, she’d chosen kindness and compassion over her own wellness and safety. I didn’t deserve her devotion, I knew that, but somehow, I sensed her act of selflessness was the stepping-stone I’d needed to become a better man. A more patient man. A more loving one.
A man who would die happy.
“I hear ya, Triple A.”
He didn’t respond.
10
Dani: For a Good Cause
I looked at Jeremy. He looked at me. We both looked back at the store.
Then I briefly closed my eyes, resigned to what needed to be done despite being adamantly opposed to doing it.
Thou shall not steal.
Those weren’t just words to me. My first—and last—foray into theft had been as a five-year-old girl swiping a pack of gum. Mom made me take it back to the store and explain to the manager what I’d done. The mortification alone was enough to cure my thieving ways.
Until today.
Trust me, the last thing I wanted to do was to break the law and steal what wasn’t mine. I was a teacher, who taught good values to her students, and this was not modeling good behavior. Under normal circumstances, I would’ve jumped at the chance to be a paying customer. But if the opportunists streaming out of the front entrance with big screen TVs in tow were any indication, the store was not operating under normal circumstances. The earthquake had jolted awake the looters, who had then come out in force to take what was not theirs. And sadly, if I wanted to get RJ through the night, I was going to have to join their uncouth ranks.
Jeremy turned his attention back to me, his eyes widening as he grasped the full extent of the plan formulating in my head.
“Oh, no. No way, Dani.”
Shame colored my cheeks, the residual side effect of the good girl I used to be.
“I’ll come back with money in a few days,” I hastily explained. “And I’ll repay them for everything I take.”
“No, you won’t because you’re not going in there,” he ordered.
I jerked my head back, surprised that he thought he had any authority over me at all. His comment only made me dig in further. “I’ll do what needs to be done.”
Jeremy’s eyes narrowed. “Then you’ll do it in the grocery store down the street. I’ll drive you there now.”
If I hadn’t already determined Jeremy wasn’t for me, that decided it. “You will not do that. This is the store I want to go to. Besides, it’s doubtful there’s a store in a ten-mile radius of the epicenter that’s going to look any different than this.”