Driving Music

By Cami Cacciatore and Jim Latham

Take a trip with Josie through the Arizona desert as she ditches her never-was blues-singer boyfriend to make her own road on her journey back to herself. Along the way, she'll find refuge and an unexpected friend under the faded neon of a half-forgotten roadside diner. Ride along in her '66 Comet as she discovers that sometimes running away leads you to where you've always belonged.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jim Latham
• Release date: Mar 26, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215555781

Book preview

1

LIQUID GOLD

Low clouds turned to liquid gold as the sun began to set, saturating the rusty red desert that stretched out on all sides of me. Only the dark, winding ribbon of the road ahead reminded me I wasn’t lost as I headed into the night.

The last radio station had died somewhere miles behind me just as the Eagles started singing Hotel California and I’d been so tangled in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed the dull static over the sound of wheels on worn pavement. Tired of being in my head, I leaned over the bench seat of the old convertible to feel around for my CD case. My one-handed search came up empty. I debated whether to pull over and look for it or keep driving into the darkness without it.

I eased the car over the gravel at the side of the road and pulled off where it turned into coarse sand and scraggly brush. I breathed in the cool desert air, letting it fill my lungs and empty my thoughts, wishing it could do the same for my battered heart.

I looked into the big back seat at my two suitcases and my grandmother’s quilt, tucked safely between them. The trunk was full of books and a few boxes that held all of my life that was left without you taking up space in it. Not that I cared, I reminded myself, since all you’d had room for of mine in your place were my books and my clothes and few small souvenirs from my travels and my life before you.

Had it really been two years? Two years since I met you in that desert bar, since I saw you up on that stage, singing about nothing I could remember except that it was lonesome and sad. Two years since I let you buy me that drink and flirt with me and kiss me outside my car before I drove back to the dusty old hotel I’d stopped in for the night, on my way to somewhere else?

I went back to see you again the next night but you were tending bar instead, which, you said, is what they really paid you to do. They only let you sing when no one else showed up to play. I stayed anyway and you had to drive me back that night after too many Jack and Cokes.

Since I hadn’t really been headed anywhere important, I stayed a little longer. Next thing I knew, I was waiting tables and hoping no one else would show up so I could hear you sing again. Somewhere a few weeks later you told me to stop wasting my money on the motel and move in with you. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Another year went by.

I remember waking up one late afternoon in your room—why was it never ours?—and rolling over to look at you. Your sun-bronzed skin was still as smooth and warm to the touch, your hair still soft and thick as it fell across your forehead. Your mouth was the same one I’d kissed that first night, and your hands could still play your guitar, and me, as well as always.

But I didn’t see you the same. And it wasn’t just me. Your eyes didn’t light up when they landed on me, or maybe I just couldn’t see it anymore because I didn’t want to. Your laughter didn’t make me want to kiss you, your arms didn’t seem like they were made for me anymore.

I looked around the room and it looked just like it did when I moved in. Same curtains, same faded blanket on the bed, same clothes strewn across the floor. I knew if I got up and went into the bathroom, or the kitchen, or the living room, they would be the same too. No different now that I was here. No different if I wasn’t.

After that, I wasn’t the same as I used to be either. Funny thing, you didn’t seem to notice. You still poured the whiskey and served the beers and sang the same lonesome, sad songs. I couldn’t remember why I’d wanted to be here so bad. Couldn’t remember why I wanted you to want me so bad.

When I told you all these things, asked you why I was here, you didn’t know either. You just smiled and shrugged and said I smelled good and felt warm in your bed and you liked my stuff in your place.

I guess it wasn’t enough.

It could have been, if you’d actually done something with your dreams, tried to make something of your music. You promised me we’d leave to chase those dreams, said you could do anything if I was with you. I believed in you. But you didn’t