Lena turned her attention to Julian. “He’s always been Julian Oliver.”
Julian took her hand and gave it an unexpected squeeze. Her whole body hummed with the satisfaction of recognition. I’m doomed, she thought, and returned the squeeze.
“As heartwarming as this reunion is, could I get that drink?” Marcy declared with another one of her signature whistles.
“Sure thing, baby doll,” Mikey said. “Believe me, I know, these two are insufferable as hell.” He winked at Lena, and she felt like she’d jumped back in time, as though she were sitting at one of the metal tables at Mickey’s, waiting for Julian to bring her out a sloppily made vanilla milk shake that was thoroughly mediocre but somehow still managed to taste like the best thing in the world.
Mikey led Marcy away from the main hollowed-out room, presumably to fix her a drink. Lena felt the absence of their presence, the weight of finally, after all this time, being alone with Julian.
“Mikey is going to like your friend.”
“Her name is Marcy,” Lena said sharply.
Julian smiled good-naturedly. “Of course. Marcy.”
“I’m sure you’ve noticed she’s very pretty.” She hated how jealous she sounded.
Julian’s smile stayed on his face. He didn’t say anything.
The thing was, Marcy was pretty. And rich. And interesting. And now that Julian was, well, Julian Oliver, it seemed like, on paper, he should, would, be a much better fit with Marcy Barrows.
“Lena,” Julian said.
“Yes?”
He grabbed for her hand again. She didn’t pull away from his touch. “Since you walked into this room, the only person I saw was you.” He dropped her hand, but she could still feel his skin lingering on hers.
He ran his hand through his hair. It had gotten longer since she’d seen him last. Musician hair, she thought. Rock star hair. “Hell, I think since the moment I met you, you’ve been the only person I’ve been able to see. At the very least, you’re certainly the only person I’ve wanted to see.” He let out a loud exhale. It was the sound of someone who had been holding his breath for a very long time. “I wrote this whole album for you.” Then he added, “I’m doing all of this for you.”
She surprised herself when she said, “I know.”
His smile was back and it’d crept into his eyes. “Of course you do.”
She heard the click of Marcy’s heels. She and Mikey were heading back toward them.
“We don’t have much time before they start letting everyone in,” Julian said.
“Everyone?” Lena wiggled her eyebrows in a way that she hoped was flirtatious. She’d never been talented at flirting. She’d come to learn that America was a very flirtatious culture, a land of innuendo and winks. Before, she’d never had to flirt with Julian. There had been no reason to. She’d had his attention and his love. She could be true with him, no pretense. No acting.
Mikey and Marcy stood off to the side. Marcy was swaying back and forth slightly, triumphantly clutching what appeared to be a gin and tonic. She took a refined sip. “Can we join you guys, or do you need more time to hash out this history I had no idea you had?”
Lena tried to swallow her annoyance at Marcy. She wished she would get a clue and just give her and Julian some space.
Marcy turned her shoulders to face Julian. “Can you believe what a hold-out Lena is? She only told me that she knew you.”
Julian didn’t take his eyes off Lena. She felt like a brat, but satisfaction bubbled in her stomach. “She does know me.”
“Yeah. But.” Marcy took another sip of her gin and tonic. “You know what I mean.”
“Julian,” Mikey interjected. “The show’s starting.”
Julian still didn’t take his eyes off Lena. Lena kept looking from him to Marcy to Mikey to the vacant stage and then back to him, and she always found his eyes locked on her. She held her breath.
“It’ll be different this time,” he said.
Her nerve was slipping a bit because of the presence of Marcy and Mikey, but she straightened her spine and demurred, “How do you know there will even be a this time?”
“Because I’m patient. And persistent.” He walked toward her, brushed her hair away from her face, and kissed her gently on the cheek. “Enjoy the show. I’ll see you after, okay?”
Once he and Mikey were gone, Lena found herself alone with Marcy, staring at the vacant stage.
“What the fuck, Len?” Marcy said. “You used to date Julian Oliver? You didn’t think to mention that?”
Lena looked down at her shoes, which had seemed so ratty moments ago. They didn’t seem so bad anymore. “I told you that I knew him.”
Marcy nudged her shoulder against Lena. “I always knew you were a badass chick, but damn.”
Lena wanted to smile, but she felt unworthy of the compliment. That’s another thing she’d decided about Americans. The only thing they loved more than being praised themselves was praising others. Oftentimes when it was inappropriate to do so. Nothing was cheaper in America than compliments. “He wasn’t a rock star then.”
She turned her head at the sound of the doors swinging open. Suddenly and without warning, the room began to fill with eager bodies. All of them buzzing with anticipation, all of them desperate to catch a glimpse of Julian Oliver.
The show started, and Lena tuned out for most of the opening act. It wasn’t that they weren’t good, but her mind wasn’t in a place where it was able to focus. The only thing she managed to note about the band was that they had a female bassist, and she was very pretty, and Lena pettily wondered if Julian had a) noticed how pretty the bassist was and b) if they’d ever had a thing. She found herself comparing her own looks to the bassist’s.
She looked back down at her shoes. They seemed scratched and worn again.
By the time Julian came on, she was knotted with worry and jealousy. Her head was foggy with confusion. But this show was so different from the one in Oak Falls. The music was on pace. The band composed. And when Julian started to play his songs, she felt the music drape over her like a blanket. Those songs were like lullabies.
So it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone, especially herself, that three hours later she found herself in a chic candlelit restaurant, sitting across from Julian, nervously sipping her second glass of champagne.
“So how’d this all happen?” she asked.
“What?”
“You know what I mean. You went from zero to sixty.”
“You leaving was the kick in the ass I needed,” Julian said.
And this declaration made Lena both unbearably happy and unbearably sad. She took another gulp of champagne.
Julian explained to her that once she’d left, he, Marty St. Clair, and Chris had kicked the band into overdrive. They’d fired their previous drummer and found a new, much more talented guy. Every moment that Julian wasn’t working in his father’s store, he was writing new songs and practicing with the band. About a year after Lena left, they all drove out to a band showcase in Chicago.
Marty was pushy and charismatic enough to get them some face time with a record label rep. The rep clearly wasn’t expecting much and gave them the chance to play one song. Julian convinced the group to go with “Finally, Always,” and the rep ended up flipping for it. He signed them to the label with a small advance.
No one predicted the record would take off in the way that it did. But then two amazing things happened: 1) a much bigger, more established band had issues in the recording studio, which freed up some marketing money and b) a music critic at Rolling Stone fell head over heels for S.I.T.A.’s album when he was sent an advance copy to listen to. Before Julian knew it, the band was playing sold-out shows, and each venue seemed bigger than the last.
“What do your parents think?” Lena asked. “They must be so excited.”
Julian stared down at the table. “You know how they are. Mom is thrilled. Dad is . . .”
Lena reached across
the table for his hand. “I’m sure he’s proud of you.”
Julian sighed and looked up. “I think he just thought I’d finally grown up, you know? I was working at the store. I was doing well. And then one day, I just didn’t show up.” He shook his head. “I took the cowardly way out. I told them over the phone.”
“I’m sure they understand.”
“Dad’s store is in trouble. It isn’t turning a profit anymore. I sent them a check in the mail, but Dad refused to accept it.” He continued to shake his head. “It’s like he blames me for the store closing. But it’s not my fault, is it?”
Lena reached across the table and squeezed his hand. “It’s definitely not your fault. He’ll come around.”
“We don’t really talk anymore. It’s even worse than it was before,” Julian said. “I’m worried there’s a distance growing between us that’s soon going to be insurmountable. He just makes it so difficult to talk.”
“It’ll be okay,” Lena assured him, even though she wasn’t quite sure that it would be.
That dinner easily gave way to her spending the night in his hotel room. The next morning, Julian held her tightly on the busy sidewalk outside the hotel.
“Don’t go,” he pleaded.
“I have to graduate,” Lena insisted. “But then I promise I’ll come join you on tour.”
He kissed her forehead. “Maybe I should just stay here.”
“Don’t be silly.”
“I don’t want to let you go again.”
“It’s different this time,” she said.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“You promise?” he repeated.
And she laughed as he smothered her with kisses.
Lena finished up school and, as promised, joined Julian for the summer leg of his tour. She was working on finishing a collection of human-sized clay figurines and was thrilled when she discovered a gallery—not the most elite, but a prominent one nonetheless—was interested in displaying them. She was sure that Julian, or someone he knew now, had been responsible for the gallery’s interest, but she tried not to think about that too much.
Be proud, she implored herself. Your dreams are coming true.
She was so focused on making her own dreams come true that it was beginning to cause friction between her and Julian. It wasn’t something that happened overnight, but slowly their relationship began to erode. Julian was always inviting her to go out with him after the show to various parties where he was expected to make an appearance.
Lena hated those parties.
Sure, one reason was that she didn’t like being treated like she was only interesting because she was Julian Oliver’s girlfriend. She was a person with thoughts and dreams and interests completely separate from him. Also, she simply preferred to stay at home so she could work on her own art.
Julian’s newfound fame hadn’t made her lazy. In fact it was the opposite—it had made her even wilder with ambition. She was determined to catch up with him. The way she saw it, they had stood on the same starting line, and he had somehow managed to get many strides ahead, and so now it was her job to close the gap.
Julian did not see it this way.
“Why are you so worried, babe?” he would ask, wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her close. He would shower her neck with kisses and beg her to come relax with him instead of repainting the face on one of the clay figurines for the umpteenth time. “You shouldn’t worry so much. Everything’s going to fall into place for us. Hell, it’s fallen into place for us.”
“You mean,” Lena corrected, “it’s fallen into place for you.”
Julian did not understand this distinction that Lena drew between the Us—their relationship—and their singular artistic pursuits. He saw them as one unit. As a team. He couldn’t process why Lena wanted to untangle herself from that unit.
But Lena deeply believed that something wasn’t yours unless you, and only you, earned it. Only you owned it. Sharing Julian’s success did not interest her. She wanted her own success. Something that had her own name on it. She was unapologetic in this desire, and it began to drive Julian crazy.
He stayed out later and later at the parties she refused to attend with him. She knew those parties were full of girls. Girls that fawned all over him, girls that she desperately wanted to believe he wasn’t sleeping with. He came home smelling of smoke and alcohol. His words blurred and his hands clumsy. When she would question him, he would fire back at her.
“Why isn’t this enough for you?” he asked her one night, his voice hoarse, his eyes far away. “I wrote the album, I left home, I did all of this for you.”
“Because it’s not mine,” she said quietly. She wished there was some way she could explain to him that she hadn’t put a whole ocean between herself and her home to be a rock star’s sidekick. It wasn’t enough. It wouldn’t ever be enough.
“But I’m yours,” he said sadly.
“I know,” she whispered. “But that’s not enough.”
“I wish it was,” he said, and she knew he wasn’t only thinking of her. He was thinking of his father.
Things continued to deteriorate between them. More fights. More late nights where Julian didn’t show up until three a.m., and when he did show up he was drunk and reeking of cigarette smoke.
It was on one of those nights when she was holed up in another random hotel room, sitting on the floor with her sketch pad, doodling ideas for her next project, when the phone rang. She picked it up, bracing herself for Mikey’s voice covering for Julian, who had inevitably gotten too wasted at one of the after-show parties.
It was her cousin.
“Lena?” her cousin said, her voice shaky.
“Yes?” Lena said brusquely, irritated to have been interrupted from her work.
“It’s your mother.”
Lena’s heart stalled. She squeezed the phone and let out a tiny whimper of a prayer.
“She’s gone,” her cousin said softly.
Lena fell to her knees.
Her cousin continued to talk. Whispering words of comfort. Filling in the details. Explaining that she and her husband didn’t know if they would be able to go home for the funeral. But Lena surely would, wouldn’t she? And then the cousin asked whether Julian would go with Lena.
A shivering dread snaked its way into her cloud of grief. Would Julian come with her? Did she even want him to? Would she even be able to go herself? Her student visa was about to expire. She didn’t know if she’d be able to get back into the country. Plus, the money. She couldn’t afford a ticket home without Julian’s help.
She hung up the phone and sat for what seemed like hours paralyzed on the bed. She stared out at the nondescript room that could’ve been anywhere in the world and whispered to herself, “My mother is dead.
“My mother is dead,” she repeated over and over again.
But no matter how many times she said it, it never clicked. It never seemed fully true. She kept waiting for the enormity of it to hit her, but it didn’t. She kept feeling sharp pieces of sadness, but she was waiting for the final stab to come down.
She didn’t understand how something so momentous could happen so quickly. She had always childishly believed that you would be prepared for the death of your parent. At least it had been that way with her father. He had been sick. They had all waited and watched him die. It hadn’t made it easier, but she had known it was coming.
The shock of this grief was what she couldn’t process. Her mother’s heart had simply given out. Lena placed her hand over her own heart. She wondered how many more beats it had in store for her.
It wasn’t that night that she left for good. She stayed on tour with the band for at least another month. At first, Julian even harbored some hope that the death of Lena’s mother was going to bring them closer together. Lena started coming out to more of the after-parties. Her desire to not be alone seemed to be the strongest effect of her grief.
Bu
t then one afternoon, completely unexpectedly, Lena marched into their hotel room and said, “I’m leaving.” And then added, “For good.”
“What?” Julian had said. He was waking up from an afternoon nap in the hotel bed. His eyes were still groggy with sleep.
She sat on the love seat in the corner. When he sat up in bed and really looked at her, he saw that she was different. He didn’t know how. But she was. She felt so far away even though he could’ve reached out and touched her. Later, he would think it had been like looking at a hologram version of a person.
“I’m going back to school to become a doctor. I know I won’t be earning a degree as a medical doctor, but it will still be a doctorate. It will still be something instead of nothing,” she said flatly. “My mother is dead and I betrayed her while she was alive by lying to her about my new life in the States. But now, I’m going to make things right. I’m going to make things right for her memory.”
Julian shook his head. “Lena, isn’t this what you always lectured me about? You have to live your life for you. You can’t apologize or feel guilty for having your own dreams. Your mother would be so proud of you. I know she would.”
Lena tilted her head down to stare at the hotel carpet. It was cream-colored and plush. “That’s a luxury only afforded to you, Oliver,” she said, and stood up from the love seat. “I’ve already told Mikey I’m leaving. He’s booked my flight for this afternoon.”
“Lena,” he said, jumping out of the bed. “Wait. Please.”
But she didn’t wait. She left.
And she never came back.
III.
I gaped at Julian. We were sitting in the very back booth of the small diner he’d steered me into.
When we’d come in, he’d introduced me to the man who’d greeted us at the door.
“This is Joe, my manager Mikey’s little brother,” he said. And then once we’d taken a seat at the booth he’d added, “Good people. The whole family.”
An untouched plate of French fries sat in front of us. And two similarly untouched vanilla milk shakes. The whipped cream had begun to melt, and the maraschino cherry was dangerously close to nose-diving into the ice cream.
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