The Trouble Is

Chapter 33: The Playlist

We leave the carnival and I download an iPhone app to order a pepperoni pizza to go while we drive. We swing through Sonic on the way just to get a drink with that ice in it. It's totally worth the extra loop through a parking lot.

I give East the first bite of pizza as he drives. The cheese is perfectly gooey and doesn't even break when I pull the slice away to take my own bite. I can't help but think of that Disney movie with the dogs eating pasta. I have no idea where we are going, and East won't tell. He's admitted that it's not the park (too public), not his uncle's place (Skip would freak if he found out), not the high school parking lot (a cliché), and not the movies or an arcade (too "been there, done that").

We are halfway through the pizza when we finally get there, although I'm not sure where "there" is or what we are doing here.

"Trust me," East says as we get out of the truck. "You are going to love this place."

"Oh, so do you bring all your girls here?" I tease a bit. East doesn't answer, just laughs as he digs around behind his seat and pulls out a backpack, blanket, and flashlight. My man, the safety patrol officer.

There's nothing here at all. It's just brushy plants and dirt as far as I can see. There's a little hill ahead, and I can see where people have hiked. But hiked to where? I have no clue. There's some kind of unusual sound coming from pretty far away, I think. I can't quite tell what it is. I can almost hear it, but not quite.

"What's that sound?" I ask.

"I don't hear anything," East says. "Is it crickets or water?"

"No," I say. "I know it. I just can't place it."

"I think you're hearing things, babe," he says. "I seriously don't hear anything."

"Maybe you have old-people ears," I suggest. "You know how there are those sounds that we can hear but our parents can't hear anymore? I think it's like an under-twenty-five thing. We learned it in biology class last year."

"Yeah, I remember that," East says. "But I'm not middle aged, so I think the problem is you. You must be hearing things."

"Quit messing with me," I say. "You have to tell me you hear this. It sounds like wind or something."

"Come on; let me show you something," East says, giving me the softest of pepperoni-pizza kisses.

We follow the trail, and East carries the backpack and flashlight while I carry the remaining pizza and Route 44 Dr Pepper that we're sharing. The brush scratches a little against my legs as we walk, and it's a bit of an uphill climb. I still hear that weird little sound, and I think to myself that it's some kind of new white noise. Maybe some farmer is pumping it out through massive speakers to get the cows to go to sleep.

We finally get to a dirt road, where the walking becomes easier. East turns off the flashlight and suggests we follow the road from here. He still hasn't told me what the big deal is. We go over yet another little hill, and then I start to see something in the moonlight. There are steel beams and some kind of thick cables around them. East shines his light on them, and I see that it's a bridge that is literally hanging by these massive threads over a river. The bottom or road or whatever it's called is wooden and has what must be scuff marks from tire tracks down it. I can't imagine taking a vehicle over this thing. It feels risky at best.

"It's a suspension bridge," East explains. "There are very few left in the world, so some of them are designated as state landmarks now. It's safe. I've been here lots."

We walk out to the middle of the bridge. The entire area looks abandoned. East spreads out the blanket, and we sit there together finishing the pizza.

"Tell me about this place, E," I say.

He gives that little deep-throated laugh thing he does and says, "Oh, I'm 'E' now, huh? I guess I'm part of the A and K club, yeah?"

"Yeah," I say. "I guess you are now, E."

He picks up my hands and holds them together, turning them palms up. He leans his head so far down that all I see is the top of his head. He kisses the wrist with the string bracelet first and then the other. I flash back to the Ferris Wheel briefly. I close my eyes and try to freeze the moment in my head, in my heart. I think about which words to use to describe this feeling. It's more than a moment, more than an idea. I need a feeling kind of word. And it just flashes into my mind just like that—a word that I've probably only heard a handful of times and it's a guarantee that I never thought about it. But it feels right. It fits. In this moment, his kisses feel like a benediction.

East reaches into his backpack and pulls out an ancient iPod. We stretch out on the blanket and watch the stars. The bridge is surprisingly solid beneath us. We talk about everything and nothing for a while. Then East cranks up what must be the world's oldest Apple device and puts one earpiece in my ear and one in his.

"This is the playlist of Annie and East," he says. "There's a song for every day that I've known you."

We listen to the voices of our days, heads together, and watch the stars. The Goo Goo Dolls sing about better days and some place simple where we could live. Rhianna says to stay. Dwight Yoakum has a missing heart. And Michael Jackson continues to insist that Billie Jean is not his lover.

The battery dies somewhere around the time that the Imagine Dragons get cranked up. I take the earpiece out of my ear, and that nagging sound returns.

"I hear it now," East says.

"The noise?" I ask.

"Yeah," he says. "And I know what it is. I had totally forgotten until just now. It's so dark outside that you can't really see it."

"So I'm not crazy?"

"No, baby," he says. I can hear his smile. "You are definitely not crazy."

He rolls on his side and looks at me as if he's never seen me before. His eyes are moving, moving, moving as he looks at me. He puts his hand on my stomach, fingers spread flat. My heart skips a beat or two and I lie there flat on my back, letting myself feel the heat from his hand warm me.

"It's a wind turbine," he explains. "There's a wind farm over that hill."

I had heard of wind farms of course; everyone has. The whole idea of wind farms is one of those things that people talk about a lot because it's so new. There are tons of wind farms out there already, and that means there are tons of environmentalists making sure they're safe. I've heard that some people have said the turbines are too noisy, while others have said they're not. Maybe it's like that noise that older people can't hear anymore. So everyone is right, and everyone is wrong.

I think about the sound and really try to concentrate on it now that it has a name. It's hard to classify. It seems that the sound itself needs a name. Yeah, I know that they are turbines or whatever, but that's the name of the machine itself. The sound I hear is something separate from the machine.

East kisses me firmly on the lips. Our lips stay like that, still touching as he speaks.

"I'll tell you what the wind farm sounds like to me," he says, as if reading my mind. "They sound like a memory."