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“Then sing,” Josef responds, catching me off guard.
“The last time I was here, I sang the latest song I wrote until I was rudely interrupted.”
“I won't interrupt you. What is the last song you wrote?” he asks.
“Around and Anadromous. The name comes from fish, like salmon, that return to where they were born to spawn,”I explain the title of my fishing village song.
“I’d love to hear it right now,” Josef says with a soft smile. I close my eyes and sing. When I finish, I open my eyes and see a serene, peaceful look on his face.
“Well?” I ask him.
“I want to go home.”
“What?”
“The song. It’s beautiful. It reminds me of home. Sometimes I feel like something is back there waiting for me. In my first home, in Russia, before my parents brought me here. Believe it or not, we lived in a fishing village.”
“No way!”
“Yes, it’s true. I was very little when we left. I’ve occasionally thought of going back. There’s solace in that song. It’s been making me think about how people are still living and growing up there,” he says.
“It’sbeenmaking you think about it. Have you heard it before?” I ask.
“Yes, but it’s even more beautiful hearing you sing it in person. I listened to your demo in my apartment just before we met for the first time in Sonomi’s office. Well, before weofficiallymet,” he explains. I get butterflies at the thought of him liking my song and his life relating to it. “Speaking of Sonomi, I hate to interrupt the time we’re having here, but I think it would be wise for us to get back to the world and deal with what’s going on there.”
“Yes, we should go,” I agree. “But I want to come back here again when we can.”
I hate the idea of leaving here right now, but he’s right. I regretfully watch him put clothes back over that beautiful body of his. I’m sure he feels the same by the way he’s watching me get dressed.
“I promise. We will come back here again,” Josef says and takes my hand. We start walking back toward his house.
“So, what’s the plan? What do we do now?” I ask him.
“We have to get you back to your car. After that, you go back to your apartment. If anyone asks you about Connie, you say you saw a girl running away from the men chasing her, and you gave her a ride to the freeway where she said she was going to hitch a ride. If they say, it was Sonomi’s men, which they most likely will not, play dumb and ask why they were chasing her. Is she dangerous? Stuff like that, understand?”
“Yeah, I get it. Ok, let’s go get my car.”
During the ride, I flip through radio stations while he’s driving, but mostly commercials are playing, so I start to sing some of my other songs.
“I wish I did get ahold of your contract,” he says.
“Oh, so you do want to own me then, huh?”
“Yes, as much as I want you to own me. An equal partnership.”
“I would sing to you forever if I could. But we’re at my car now, so I should get going.”
“Okay, head to your apartment. You remember what to say if you need to, right?”
“Yeah, I say I know Sonomi is crooked as a barrel of fishhooks, and I got that girl away from her, so she doesn’t want to mess with me. How’s that?”
16
JOSEF
“Very funny. I just want to make sure you're safe while I go and get rid of this car at my associate Katana’s place. I’ll get another car once there while you go back to your apartment.”
“I got it,” she says. “I’m not dumb, just going to play dumb. And I’m going to visit my dad and see my uncle to ask him if he knows anything about who might have bought my contract.”
