"Not yet. We're trying though."
"Really? That's cool. Good luck with that." I set the cable on the cart next to the light he squared away on it seconds before. A guy named Tommy came and rolled the cart off, the last to go on the truck. "Thanks, man," I said to Tommy absentmindedly. "Yeah." I sighed, continuing my conversation with Clay. "I've got a fifteen-year-old that's going on twenty. She wants to date, but I don't think she's ready for that. And I know I'm not ready for that."
Clay grimaced. "Yeah, good luck with that," he quipped, repeating my words.
I laughed.
"Well." He took a deep breath. He looked as exhausted as I felt. "I'm going out for a beer and then home to try to make myself that baby."
I slapped him on the back. "Lucky dog."
Wouldn't I love to be curling up next to someone tonight? And, strangely enough, I had my ideas about whom I would like that to be. I couldn't stop thinking about the raven-haired beauty I met on the steps. Beautiful girls were always backstage; it had gotten so I didn't even notice them anymore. But this one... she had these eyes that danced right out of her face, fire-bolt blue. Huge, supple lips that drew back into a shy smile making my heart beat louder and faster than even the band's drums. Good Lord, my body hadn't reacted to a woman in that way in a long time, if ever. I shook my head, chuckling quietly.
I checked my watch. It was eleven-thirty, nine-thirty on the coast where my son, Scott, was. I pulled my cell phone out and hit the right numbers.
"Hey, Pops."
"Hey, Scooter. How did you know it was me?"
"Just a hunch," he replied easily. Wow, did his voice sound great. "How was Chase tonight?"
"Awesome, as usual," I replied with a smile. Chase was Scottie's hero. And even though he was a mega-rock star, he was a good guy. So I was okay with my son's idol-worship. "How's Grandpa holding up?"
Scottie lowered his voice. "He's snoring right now. I think the day at the zoo wore him out."
"How was the zoo?"
"Not nearly as lame as I thought it would be. Did you know they had pandas?"
I smiled, picturing my son's freckled face, still at that age where he could allow himself to quit acting cool long enough to be a kid for a while. I could hear him tossing his baseball up and down as he talked to me, something he did almost constantly. It actually seemed to help him think, somehow. Too bad the teachers at school wouldn't allow him to do it while he took his tests. I started ambling through the tunnel toward the parking lot.
"Pandas, huh? That's cool. How've you been sleeping?"
"Not bad. I've sort of gotten used to Grandpa's snoring. And anyway, it's not nearly as bad as yours."
"What?" I countered with faux disbelief. "I don't snore."
"Sure, Dad. You don't snore. And Zoe doesn't dream about Orlando Bloom every night. Did she tell you Grandpa got her a purse that says 'Mrs. Bloom' on it?"
"Yeah. She mentioned that about three or four times today when I talked to her."
"Are you going out with Chase and Hope tonight?"
"Nah. They're long gone." Chase's probably already snuggled up to his beautiful wife's side, I thought enviously.
"So... what are you going to do?"
"Well, Scooter," I said, rubbing my sore back as I exited the building. "I'm beat. I'm going back to my hotel room and taking a long, hot shower, and then I'm hitting the sack." I knew Scottie worried about my being lonely when I was on the road. And, to tell the truth, it was way too quiet without Zoe and Scott bickering with each other non-stop, which was sometimes an oddly pleasant sound. It meant all was right with the world. "I'll be home the day after tomorrow, son. And we'll go fishin'."
"Really?"
He sounded way too excited about a little fishing trip. A wave of guilt hit me as I turned the key over in the ignition. Scottie must be bored at Grandpa's. "Really. And we'll drag Zoe along with us, too." Zoe always loved going fishing with me, up until a couple of years ago when she discovered fishing wasn't all that fashionable. "I miss you, buddy."
"Miss you, too, Dad."
"You be good for Grandpa, now."
"I will, Dad."
"I know you will, Scoots. I'll call you tomorrow."
After he said goodbye and hung up, the car was too quiet again. I flipped on the radio for a second, then turned it off again. That kind of noise wasn't what I was searching for. Maybe I should have gone out with the guys. But I didn't hang around the bar scene much anymore. That's where I'd met Zoe and Scott's mom. Though, as it turned out, she wasn't much of a mom.
I was eighteen, away from my home in Nebraska for the first time, attending UNLV on a basketball scholarship. She was a bartender, an older woman of the ripe-old age of twenty-four. She served me shots all evening, and then offered to help take me up to my dorm room at the end of the night. When my friends left, she stayed. She was beautiful, but the next night when I returned to the bar where we'd met, I found her hanging all over some other guy. I simply turned around and walked out, feeling like a fool. I don't know what I was thinking. She didn't pretend she'd wanted a relationship; I was the sorry sap who made that leap. So that was the end of our torrid love affair. Or so I thought.
She showed up on my doorstep my second semester—finals week, actually—round, and madder than a kid nearing the close of summer break. I was amazed she'd even been able to locate me, but I found out later she ran into a friend who was at the bar the night we met, and he gave her my address.
"Look what you did to me, you stupid prick," she fired off immediately. "Who doesn't carry a fucking condom on them when they go out to the bars at night?"
I stared at her. What did one say to that? "You want to come in?" I asked with a hint of sarcasm, sweeping my hand toward the interior of the room.
She stormed past me with a huff. I had closed the door and moved over to the sofa, scrambling to clear a spot for her, brushing papers and textbooks onto the floor without care. My heart beat loud, but slow, like a big bass drum. I think it was as stunned as my brain. She'd sat and crossed her arms, incapable at that point of crossing her legs. I closed the Trigonometry book on the coffee table slowly, gathering my thoughts. She glared at me without saying anything.
"I'm sorry." I shook my head and tried to wrap my mind around her unexpected presence at my front door, let alone her announcement. I strived for normalcy. "I forgot my manners. Can I get you anything?"
"Yeah. Ya got a shot?" she snapped.
"Look..." I started to become slightly irritated with her open hostility toward me, and my skull seemed suddenly too small for my brain, like a giant squeezed my head. I took a deep breath. "I meant a glass of water or a soda or something. Unless you're not supposed to have caffeine..."
"No." She frowned, sitting up a little. "I was serious. Do you have any tequila?"
I scowled at her, still not sure if she was joking or not. After all, our brief encounter didn't reveal much to me about her personality—other than she was a wild thing in bed—so that made her hard to read.
She sat back again and recrossed her arms, trying to settle them on her protruding stomach. "Listen, I'm not gonna change who I am because I got knocked up, so if you think—"
I held up my hands in defense. "I'm not thinking anything. I can't think anything. I was just doing friggin' trigonometry, so give me a minute to switch gears here." I jumped up from the couch, uncomfortable with her burning hatred for me. Up until that point, everyone pretty much considered me a good guy. And here this girl was basically accusing me of messing up her whole life. "It's a big leap from figuring out what the cosine is to 'You're a daddy.'"
"Well, what did you expect to happen when you brought me home?"
I so wanted to tell her it was she who brought me home. I wanted to shout, "I wasn't alone in that bed." But, the way she had been staring daggers into me, I didn't figure that would help any. And besides, she hadn't exactly held a gun to my head. "Okay," I said, trying to diffuse the situation some. "So things didn't quite t
urn out as we expected. That doesn't mean we can't make things work out."
"Coming from the guy who's been able to eat a meal without the threat of spewing it constantly hanging over his head. The guy who can still fit into those same jeans he peeled off the night he screwed me. The guy who can still bag anyone he wants. Do you know how hard it is to get picked up when your dress makes you look like a sausage stuffed into its casing?"
"No," I said slowly, "I can't say that I do. But... I'm so sorry I have to ask this, but... what's your name again?"
Her gaze burned holes into me. She pushed herself to a standing position, turning her back on me and stalked to the door. "What does it matter at this point?"
A wave of panic hit me so strong it made my stomach lurch. She couldn't leave with... my baby... in her stomach. "Wait. Wait!" She had opened the door a few inches, but I slammed it shut. And that's when her shoulders started shaking.
I held her. "Hey. Hey, hey. It's okay. It's going to be okay. I'll take care of you. Both of you."
I don't know what I was thinking. I could barely take care of myself.
So, my days of scrounging between couch cushions for beer money soon became days of scrounging through the couch cushions for formula money. We got married quietly. And before we even figured out whose side of the bed was whose, Zoe made her grand appearance and changed my life. She was the most beautiful thing I ever laid eyes on. Tiny, and vulnerable. So much in need of her daddy.
When she was only two months old, her mother, Gina, came home from the bar drunk with another guy. Boy, were he and I surprised to see each other. I came padding along the hall with only pajama pants on, burping Zoe, my eyes half-open, and Gina stumbled in with her tongue down this guy's throat.
And the guy was further surprised when she said, "Oh, yeah. That's my husband. I guess," while she was still trying to unbuckle his pants. He left, quickly, which pissed her off. "Damn. You ruined that for me." When I stood there with my mouth agape, she added, "You didn't think just because we got married I would quit seeing other guys, did you?"
"Well, yeah, Gina. I kind of did." I rubbed a hand over my face. "I didn't take those vows lightly."
"Come on, Tucker, we both know we didn't get married because we were head-over-heels in love with each other. I'm not a one man gal is all."
I'd like to say it hurt like hell, but the thing was, I was mad all right, but I also knew it was the truth. I didn't really feel anything for her more than deep gratitude for giving me Zoe. I slept on the couch that night—mostly to keep Gina from sneaking out again—with Zoe cradled in my arms, wondering what the hell I was going to do. I slept on my side, having thrown the couch cushions on the floor to make room, and cushion Zoe should she fall, but I had no intention of letting that happen. I watched her sleep in the streetlight coming through the slits in the curtains I could never get closed completely, breathing in her sweet, little-girl scent. Her face was haloed in the light, so peaceful. Her warmth seeped into me, and I knew I had to do anything I could to make this right for her. To make the world right for my baby girl. I couldn't afford to be selfish anymore. I had Zoe to think of, and she needed me.
I'd lost my heart to her, so it quickly became apparent it was my relationship with Gina that needed the work. In the morning, I convinced her to stay and help me make our marriage work, and I think she really tried at first. I sent her flowers, asked my parents to watch Zoe so I could take her out to dinner, even arranged for a weekend getaway to the Poconos, all of which Gina seemed to appreciate. But, in the end, I wasn't any closer to her. We made love a lot on our trip, but it always left me hollow. It was like the first time when she came back to my dorm room, totally physical and completely devoid of emotion. After nearly a year, my wife was still a stranger to me. I took her on walks in the forest with my hand slung over her shoulder, asked her to share herself with me, open up. But that glass wall never dropped. Not for a minute.
Eventually, I had to admit there was simply no magic between us. And, if I'd learned one thing through the whole experience, it was you couldn't create that magic. That special, unexplainable, magnetic something that brought people together and kept them there, could not be manufactured by even the most well-intentioned parents.
But, one day, I did get a partial explanation for her strangely distant behavior. We were at the mall with Zoe, and an older man came up and threw his arms around Gina, seeming glad to see her. I watched with curiosity, wondering who the man could be. When she introduced me as her husband, he shook my hand with interest. "And this is our daughter, Zoe."
"Your daughter, huh?" he replied, arching his eyebrows. "She's cute. Well, I've got to be going. Nice meeting you, Tucker." He took off and Gina bent to pick up the sippy-cup Zoe dropped.
"Who was that?" I expected her to say it was some regular customer at the bar or something.
"Oh. My dad," she replied matter-of-factly, and began to eye a T-shirt. I lifted my head to search for him, but he was gone. I stared at Gina. He didn't even know about Zoe. She hadn't told her father about me or her daughter, and neither seemed to think this odd in any way. I was trying and trying to find out what was beneath Gina, what motivated her, what her fears were, her thoughts were, how to make her happy, and, in the end, I discovered there simply wasn't much below the surface. She was nice enough, but flat, emotionless. I was never going to be able to make this work on my own.
The day Zoe took her first steps, I was so overwhelmed I had tears in my eyes. When I peered up into Gina's face, she had a satisfied smile, then she picked up a dirty plate and headed off toward the kitchen, totally unaffected by our little miracle. Thinking back on it, I don't believe I ever saw her kissing Zo. Not once.
The first day Zoe went to preschool, Gina left a note telling me she couldn't do it anymore. She didn't want to be married to me. She didn't want to be a mother to Zoe. She'd done her best, but she needed something else. Something we couldn't give her. She had cleaned out the bank account and even got paperwork started to turn over her rights to our daughter. It came as a complete shock, as we made love the night before after months of no sex. I guess it was her way of saying goodbye.
Six months later, I got a bad case of déjà vu. Gina showed up one day, muy pregnant, at my door.
"You never shoot blanks, do you, Tucker?" She blew past me while I stood, unmoving, in the doorway, my mouth hanging open.
I talked Gina into staying again, telling her we could work things out between us if we both tried hard enough. But one night she came home from the bar again, this time with three guys in tow. But these guys weren't out for a roll in the hay, they were out to roll Gina. As it turned out, my wife had a gambling habit. But, being the softies they were, they didn't have the heart to beat a pregnant woman, so they chose me instead. To prove how serious they were about getting their money back, they beat the shit out of me, so badly I could hardly lift Zoe out of her crib for weeks. We decided it would be best for all involved if Gina moved in with her sister in Toledo. I wasn't even there when Scottie was born, four weeks premature.
When I brought Zoe to the hospital to meet her little brother, Gina already had the papers ready, relinquishing her rights to Scott. I remember walking in, so excited, holding Zoe's hand. I bent over and kissed Gina on the cheek, asking how she was doing, and she coldly handed me the papers. I read them and lifted my gaze to search her face for an explanation.
"I don't ever want to see any of you again, Tucker, any of you. I'm starting over here. I've got a good job at a bar, the doctors took out my uterus. That part of my life is over."
For the kids' sake I tried to talk her out of abandoning us completely, reassuring her she could visit as often as she wanted, whenever she wanted. She told me point-blank she would never see me again, and she didn't.
Four years later, I started receiving credit card bills from companies I didn't even have an account with. I had a degree in business, and a decent-paying job, but not enough to support Gina's gambling habit and r
aise two kids on my own. I went back to night school to get my law degree and find a way to get my creditors off my back, my parents volunteering to help with the kids. Eventually, I was able to break free from most of the debt. But with school loans of my own, and Zoe staring at—gulp—college in fewer years than I cared to imagine, I tried to pick up extra money whenever I could, while still trying not to shortchange my kids out of time with me. While I made a lot of money as a lawyer, I was still starting out in the business later than most and was behind the curve a little.
That was why, when Chase threw some legal work my way, I hopped on it right away. Then one night, after one of the concerts he'd given me tickets to, I helped a roadie move some stuff, and got put to work right away. Now, whenever I have the time to make a little extra cash, I come help Chase out and leave the kids with my folks for a night or two.
But on nights like tonight, when I missed them, I wondered if it was all worth it, simply to put a few more bucks aside for college. I pulled up outside my hotel room, staring at the metal number on the door, dead-dog tired, but knowing I'd have a hard time falling asleep all on my own. I had no one to return home to and discuss my day with, only me and way too many pillows in a room guaranteed to be ice-cold and low on towels.
Chapter 5
Danielle
I counted my concert trip with Sam as a partial step. I dipped my foot in the dating pool again, and struggled, but didn't drown. I needed to get myself back out there while I still remembered the strokes. And I needed my best bud by my side. But how to approach it...
We were at work. It was pizza day. A day that strikes fear into the heart of all lunch ladies. Sam stood on the other end of the heavy metal gate separating us from the grade school hoards and helped me lift it. The cold steel felt good in my hands, comforting, familiar. As well it should. Hoisting the monstrosity was part of my daily routine during the work week. I tightened my core muscles, preparing for the weight, and looked down the line to synch my movements with Sam's. The ancient gate elevated with its usual loud clicks before banging loudly at the top. Like a stage curtain rising, it revealed our audience.
To Hell in a Coach Bag Page 6