On the sixth day, something changed. Amanda wasn’t angry anymore, with herself or anyone else. Beating the Chase drum no longer held the same savage appeal. She had finally realized that Chase Walker wasn’t some superhero or demigod, but a flesh-and-blood human being, complete with imperfections and subject to making mistakes. Just like her. And when she finally allowed him to be a mere mortal, she began to hear the sounds of the other drums. She started to find beats and rhythms, something that seemed to have escaped her previously. When the circle was done, she wasn’t sweating and heaving, but as placid as the other drum-circle participants. It was a significant change and it felt great.
“There’s something I need to tell you,” Amanda said to Gertie as they drove home.
“I know.” Gertie smiled.
“How do you know?” Amanda asked, surprised by the older woman’s response.
Gertie paused before explaining. “When you are in a drum circle, the objective is to find balance, to share the rhythm and get in tune with yourself and each drummer. To form a group consciousness by feeding off the energy generated by the other members. It becomes a collective voice that emerges from the individual members as they drum together. Today you became part of a beautiful voice. Before then it was all about working out whatever issues you were dealing with on that poor drum.”
Amanda laughed. “Yeah, that thing didn’t stand a chance.”
“I knew you would get there. We all did. We have faith in you. What did you want to tell me?”
“I didn’t really break up with my boyfriend. In fact, he’s not even my boyfriend, but my fiancé. I ran away from him when he needed me most. He doesn’t have a clue where I am and in all probability is terribly worried.” Amanda felt an intangible weight lifting off her shoulders with finally coming clean.
“I see,” Gertie replied.
“I know it sounds awful. You probably don’t think very much of me now.”
“It’s not my job to judge. I’m sure you had your reasons for what you did,” Gertie told her.
“He’s rich,” Amanda blurted; it was time to lay it all out there. “And he’s famous. We sort of got caught up in a scandal.”
“That’s one way to put it,” Gertie mused.
It didn’t take Amanda more than a few seconds for her newfound friend’s words to sink in.
“You know who I am?” Amanda asked, torn between betrayal and the all-encompassing relief that she had just been saved from telling the story out loud.
“I said I didn’t watch much television; I didn’t say I lived under a rock.” Gertie gave a half laugh.
“How long have you known?”
“A while,” Gertie said noncommittally as she pulled into her stone driveway. “I found out quite by accident. Want to come in and talk a bit? Have some chamomile tea? If I drink coffee now, I’ll be up all night.”
Amanda wanted to be cross with the woman, but it was impossible. Gertie had spent the better part of a week helping Amanda sort through her feelings from the sidelines. She had helped her see her way through the dark and back into the light without trying to sway her in any direction. Gertie had been an answer to a prayer. And prayers are not always answered in the way you expect or even want.
Amanda followed Gertie into the house and took her regular seat at the kitchen table while Gertie put on the teakettle and let Bingo out into her small fenced-in yard.
“Do you think I’m sick?” Amanda finally asked.
It was the first time since they had met that Gertie conveyed a sentiment that was other than completely tranquil. “That’s the problem with young people. You all think that every time you stumble across something, it’s a new discovery. People have been tying and beating each other up for centuries. Haven’t you ever heard of the Marquis de Sade?”
“Didn’t they stick him in prison?”
“You do have a point there.” Gertie’s cheerful disposition returned as quickly as it had departed. “And sometimes I think a jail cell is a better alternative than having to answer to the court of public opinion. Thanks to modern technology, folks who aren’t qualified to make a decision about what’s for dinner now have the ability to make snap judgments at a moment’s notice, and what’s worse, the ability to voice them without having to stand behind what they say. It gives whole new meaning to the words witch hunt.”
The teakettle began to whistle and Gertie got up to pour their tea as Amanda silently watched. Gertie was not only wise, she was savvy.
“You know what else I find interesting? Your generation really seems to enjoy their pain. They seek it out. Back in the day, you got one tattoo of something that was really meaningful, telling everyone how excruciating it was to have it put there. Now kids cover every square inch of their bodies with intricate designs and elaborate detail. They get all these piercings, some with holes in their ears big enough to drive a car through. They don’t try to escape pain; they move toward it. The marquis would’ve been proud. At the very least, he was onto something.”
Gertie wasn’t only sharp, she was thought-provoking. It was clear that Gertie had given a lot of thought to Amanda while still keeping her own counsel.
“I never really looked at it like that,” Amanda said.
Gertie brought the mugs over, and after placing one in front of Amanda, sat back down across from her. Both of them began the unconscious ritual of lifting their tea bags in and out of the hot water while Gertie finished up what Amanda surmised was as close to a tangent as she got. “And I always take television with a grain of salt. I watch a lot of BBC. I don’t know what the fascination is with all these programs on regular TV. Game shows I get, but the reality-show nonsense? What’s so dang interesting about watching someone else living their life?”
They sipped their tea while Gertie regained her center after ranting.
“How did you find out?” Amanda asked, trying out her first real post-scandal conversation.
“You want to see?” Gertie broke into a grin that could only be defined as girlish. She didn’t wait for Amanda to respond before standing up. “Come on, follow me.”
They went into the living room and sat down. Gertie picked up the remote and turned on her television, going to her DVR lineup. She chose an episode of Derrick Baxter. Baxter was a popular political commentator with an hour-long show on one of the news cable networks.
“You record Derrick Baxter?” Amanda asked, puzzled.
“Never miss him,” Gertie replied with a big grin. “He’s so distinguished, very sexy.”
It was funny to think of Gertie getting all giddy while watching the bow-tie-wearing, salt-and-pepper-haired conservative. But as Gertie rewound to the spot she wanted Amanda to see, the video began showing a blurry image that was instantly recognizable and Amanda felt the blood start to heat up right in her veins. Gertie stopped at the beginning of a segment and Amanda started squirming in her seat.
The piece started about a country that put too much emphasis on its perceived heroes, and although she would’ve liked nothing more than to turn away, she couldn’t. She was busy looking at the picture of Chase that was in the upper right-hand corner of the screen as Baxter spoke, his words barely registering. There was a scene of him that she had seen before when the story first broke, surrounded by security as they quickly escorted him to or from his apartment. All the warmth she felt when she saw him immediately started simmering. Then the shot cut to video footage, a clip of Chase standing at his locker in the Kings locker room, surrounded by bright lights and a sea of reporters. Amanda’s breath hitched. He was live, and this was the first time she had seen him in weeks. She wanted to rush to Gertie’s twenty-inch television and touch the screen to try to get closer to him, but didn’t want to miss a second of what she was seeing. Him.