Finding West by June Gray Page B

then she said, “You are so handsome!”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    “Call me Lorna.” She looked across the room and called out, “Janice, come here and see this handsome young thing.”
    “I’ll be right there!” came a voice from the other side of the room, and fairly soon, I was engrossed in a conversation.
     
    I talked to several people during the visit, but Lorna monopolized most of my time , asking to wheel her around. I kept glancing over at Kat, who was playing backgammon with an elderly gentleman, looking very comfortable and sure of herself.
    As if sensing my gaze, she looked away from her game and looked at me across the room. I felt it again, that attraction that arched between us. I remembered last night, how hard it had been to leave her alone after having kissed her.
    “Are you and that young lady dating?” Lorna asked me, breaking through my thoughts.
    I blinked at the older woman. “Kat? No. She’s a little bit hard to tame.”
    Lorna cackled. “Well she’s is looking at you as if she’d want to knock your boots, if you know what I mean.”
    I laughed. “ Yes, I know what you mean. Unfortunately, she’s not impressed with me.”
    “But look at you.”
    I glanced across the room again, but Kat was diligently keeping her attention on the game board. “She’s not that easily impressed, I’m afraid.”
    “In my day, when you wanted to impress a girl, you did something big. What’s that called?” she asked, snapping her thin fingers together.
    “A grand gesture?”
    “That’s it,” Lorna said. “Can you play the guitar?”
    “I don’t know.”
    She motioned to the guitar leaning against the mantle of the large white fireplace. “There’s one right there if you’d like to try. Even if Kat is not impressed, I know the ladies of the place would be.”
    A little intrigued, I retrieved the guitar and came back. I sat on the edge of the chair and looped the strap over my shoulder, instantly filled with a sense of familiarity. I set the body down against my leg, positioned my left hand on the neck, and strummed.
    A gentleman with a bald head came ambling over in his walker. “You going to play us a song, son?”
    “Give him a second, Mort,” Lorna said.
    While I kept strumming, muscle memory kicked in and my fingers flew across the strings as if leading the way. All too soon, the chords coming out of the guitar began to form a song. I hummed along, and soon words and phrases popped into my head and I found myself singing, surprising even myself when I realized I actually sounded decent.
    “I don’t think I recognize that song,” Mort said.
    “I think I wrote it,” I said, continuing to play. I let out an exhilarated gust of breath and sang again, feeling a sense of rightness when the chorus kicked in and my vocal chords rose up an octave. Yes, this was my song.
    I looked up, completely in my own bubble of self-discovery, and saw Kat standing at the edge of the crowd that had gathered, her arm s folded across her chest and an anxious expression on her face.
    Even though her reaction bothered me, I kept playing, feeling like pieces of me were returning with each strum of the guitar. When I finished , I locked eyes with Kat and felt my entire face erupt in a smile.
    “Encore!” someone yelled out.
    I gave Kat a wink and played another song.
     
    The drive back to Ayashe was more or less silent. Kat sulked as she drove, which gave me ample time to sit back and ruminate on what I’d remembered. But even though I’d remembered how to play the guitar, it was only a tiny piece of the puzzle. I still didn’t know who I was, still didn’t know what the hell I was doing in Alaska.
    “Kat…” I said as we pulled into the icy driveway.
    “Look, ” she said, keeping her eyes trained on the steering wheel. “I know I have a shitty way of showing it, but I’m happy for you that you’re finally remembering some things.”
    “Then why are you so angry?”
    “I’m not angry!”