Page 22 of Tracking Wolfe

“Probably doing what many of us are. Trying to figure out what the fuck’s going on with my life,” I said with a self-deprecating laugh.

Several heads bobbed in agreement as someone muttered, “No shit.”

One guy held up his beer bottle. “To what the fuck,” he said like a cheer. Everyone repeated it, holding up various cups, mugs, and bottles to air-clink together.

It was nice. The kind of nice I hadn’t had in a while. Peaceful coexistence with strangers who didn’t know me or my family, and therefore didn’t need anything or demand anything of me.

I felt a little like I had when I’d created my Fletcher Coe persona, before I’d attracted my first followers. Like I could say anything I wanted, be whoever I wanted, love anyone I wanted… without worrying that I was hurting or disappointing anyone.

I felt free.

After a while, the woman next to me tilted a chin at my guitar. “I’ve always wanted to play guitar.”

I nodded. “Ever taken lessons?”

She shook her head while her friend on the other side of her chuckled and responded. “Lena tried learning ukulele during her Sara Bareilles era. It didn’t take.”

Lena leaned back and groaned. “Ugh, she’s so fucking pretty. I just wanted to be like her.”

The woman’s friend, whose bright eyes and dark skin shone in the golden light from the fire, met my eyes. “She wanted to fuck her.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, the sound rusty from disuse. “I don’t blame you. She’s gorgeous and talented, a heady mix.”

Everyone around us joined in the laughter, talking about various singer-songwriters they liked. Someone finally asked me to play something.

“What do you like?” I asked, pulling my guitar out of its case. It had been the first thing I’d purchased on my trip, but the shape and feel of it were already familiar after the previous couple of weeks of heavy use. “What kind of music?”

When no one could agree, I began to pick at the opening chords of a Sara Bareilles song called “Tightrope.” I’d fiddled with it a few years ago to get an acoustic arrangement I liked, then I’d played the hell out of it until the chords moved through my fingers from muscle memory alone.

From there, I went straight into a few more of the artists who’d been mentioned. The sound of the guitar grounded me as it always did, calming my nerves and reminding me that no matter what happened in my life, I had music. The transformative power of it was with me always, no matter what instruments were at hand.

And I’d decided I would not give up my love of music for fear of being discovered. The chances anyone would expect the Fletcher Coe to be some random-ass guy in a vanlife van in Joshua Tree were slim anyway.

“You don’t sing?” Lena eventually asked as the final note of Noah Kahan’s “Strawberry Wine” faded into the dark night. She’d done a good job of recognizing many of the songs and singing along, often being accompanied by a few others around the fire.

I shook my head. “I mean, I do. But not in company,” I said with a laugh. “Nobody wants to hear me sing.”

Thierry caught my eye from a few chairs over and winked. There was no doubt he and his husband had been close enough at the Palm Springs campground to hear me singing through my open windows while working on my songs, but I appreciated him not calling me out about it in front of a group of strangers. I sang enough during the day when working on my songs; I had no need to sing in the evenings around the campfire.

Besides, it was true that I no longer sang in public. Wolfe Marian didn’t, anyway. I’d stopped when I’d dropped out of Thornton. When music had become uncomfortable because it carried such weight of comparison with my famous father that I hadn’t been able to sing around him anymore.

“That’s a shame,” she said. “I love to sing.”

Imani said something to her too low to hear, and then Lena turned to me. “Maybe when we move on, you can come with us, Will.”

I shrugged. “Depends where you’re going, I guess.” I looked around at the star-filled sky. A sky huge and vast, with only the soft bumps of the Pinto Mountains breaking up the edge of the distant horizon.

I could be happy here for a while.

“We’re not in a hurry,” she said. “We usually stay until we need to dump our tanks and load up on groceries.”

As the night wore on and the temperature lowered outside the small ring of warmth from the fire, Lena kept up the chatter, sometimes with me, sometimes with others. I didn’t think much of it until she asked if I wanted company in my van.

I blinked at her. Maybe some of the secondhand weed smoke from Imani and the guys on the other side of her had made my reaction time too slow.

“Oh,” I said. “Um, no, thank you. But… thanks?”

Her forehead crinkled. “Er. Yeah, no. Like… cool.”