In fact, Bruce found out later in the hotel, it tasted better. Bruce was finding that being straight, sober, and happy was doing wonders for his appetite, if not for his waistline. When he had first joined Brandee (and subsequently met Suzi), he had weighed 166 pounds. He had stepped on a set of scales at Walgreens Drug Store earlier that afternoon and saw the number 193 appear on the digital readout. He vowed to do something about his weight, just as soon as he finished this piece of pie. Or maybe after the next one.
The mercurial Brandee Evans was riding a high at the beginning of the group gathering at Shari's Pie House, having reveled in the touch of the crowd at Arena Auditorium. Brimming again with the confidence that had been shaken earlier in the trip, she was the life of the party at Shari's.
“Did you hear them tonight?” she asked the group at large, referring to the crowd. “What a place. I love Wyoming!”
Jake laughed. “I never thought I would hear that come out of your mouth, Vegas," he said, using a nickname that he had tagged Brandee with when they had first gotten together. It was an apt moniker since Brandee had always fancied herself a city girl at heart. When she was living with Charlene and attending Humboldt State, she had felt seriously out of her element. Now, with the roar of the crowd still ringing in her ears, she was ready to pledge her allegiance to a state that was more prairie than people.
“Quiet, boy," she said, looking with mock sternness at her husband. “I would look dead sexy in a ten gallon hat.
Jake allowed silently that this was probably true. If Brandee was happy, she could wear anything, or nothing at all. Jake shifted in the booth as that thought crossed his mind. He squeezed her knee under the table.
Brandee didn't notice the squeeze. She was trying to talk about the show that evening and order food at the same time. She decided on a New York Strip Steak, medium rare, and a Caesar Salad. She let the male server know that she had just been on stage and was really hungry so could he “step on it, darlin'”. The server turned red as he left the table.
Bruce's mind wasn't on Brandee and her appetite. He had something more important on his mind. He turned to the singer and said, “You just said you love Wyoming. That's interesting. Did you know that's what we're going to call the baby?”
“WHAAAT?” came the outcry from everyone else at the table, not least of all Suzi. She had been, at best, humoring Bruce that morning. She had no intention of hanging the name Wyoming on her child.
“Bruce, you've got to get a grip!” Suzi said. “There are a lot of names that aren't already states that we could name the baby. How about Justin? Or Jason?
“Or Jamaica?” Diane said, with a straight face.
“NOOOOOO!” Suzi yelled. “You're no help at all!” she said to the laughing Diane.
“I don't want Justin or Jason," Bruce said, “Everybody and their left uncle names their kid Justin or Jason or Jeremy or something like that. This is going to be the most special kid in the whole world. He's going to be President if he's a boy, or she's going to be First Lady if she's a girl.”
Bruce paused and came up with the coup de grâce, “Or the first lady President!” he finished triumphantly.
“President Wyoming Jacob Jackson,” Jake mused. “I think it's a winner.
“Ouch!” Jake howled.
Suzi had kicked him none too lightly under the table. “Men!” she said with the same inflection as if she had said “cockroaches”. She looked to Diane and Brandee for support.
“Come on, you guys. A little help? Please?”
Brandee smiled, but waved her request off. “I'm not good with kids' names. Wyoming's okay. So is Jason.”
Suzi wasn't finished looking for backup. She leaned in towards Brandee, who was watching for the arrival of “darlin'” with her much anticipated steak.
“Come on Brandee," Suzi pleaded. “If it were your child, what would you name it?”
Brandee shrugged her shoulders. “I don't know. We're not gonna have any.”
The table fell silent. Jake's face fell, but he tried to put a positive spin on it.
“We're still thinking about it, that's all. It's a lot of work to have children and a singing career.”
“Too much work," Brandee said through a mouthful of Caesar salad. “I'll just love your kid every once in a while and send him home.”
Just then, the rest of the food arrived. The members of the group were silent for a bit while plates were passed around and condiments were shared back and forth. Brandee was oblivious to the tense silence that had fallen over her friends and husband. Jake, Diane, and Bruce felt it, and decided to leave the subject alone, at least for the time being. Suzi felt it, but decided to plow ahead anyway.
“Well, I think you should have a family if you can. Jake would be a great dad and the two of you could offer a child so much.”
Brandee noticed that she had been left off of the category of great. She turned to Suzi, who was seated across from her and to her left and said with a cold smile, “Yeah. I'm sure Jake would be a great dad. We both would be great parents. We both need to want to be parents though. I don't. That's it. End of story.”
Jake's face turned red. It wasn't so much what Brandee was saying that was getting under his skin right now. What Brandee was saying wasn't all that much different from what she had said in the Holiday Inn that afternoon. It also wasn't that she was saying it in front of the others. He felt close enough to them that he didn't mind them hearing about all of this. It was something deeper that was bothering him.
Brandee had lied to him. She had said that she wouldn't close the door on the idea of having a child and she had obviously done that very thing. Jake had never before felt so much like the chauffeur for the Brandee Evans Show as he did right now. He had sacrificed a lot for this tour which, he hoped, would be the start of a great career for all of the members of Brandee. That was about Brandee and the others professionally, though. As far as their marriage was concerned, she didn't have the right to simply dismiss his ideas.
Jake would never have tried to force Brandee to have a baby if she didn't want one. In Jake's mind, the issue was suddenly so much greater than whether to have a child or not. That subject was certainly great enough. What had started out as being just about that, though, had suddenly exploded into so much more. Jake felt marginalized and dismissed in his own marriage, and he showed that anger that Brandee had rarely seen, and the group had never seen.
Jake stabbed his pork chop with a fork before putting it down carefully. His face had an apparent calm that belied the tempest rpiling inside of him.
“Why don't you decide what I'm having for dessert too, Brandee?” he said, louder than he intended. “I'll just sit here and let you wipe my ass later as well. Would that suit you?”
Brandee was stunned but just for a second. She came back at him, louder even than he had been.
“You knew who I was when you married me, Jake Evans! You knew what I wanted from my life and you knew what I wanted from this tour! You knew it wasn't some snot nosed little brat puking all over me! That's fine for them,” she said, waving the back of her hand at Suzi and Bruce, “But I want more out of life than that.”
“You little b--" Suzi started before Bruce covered her mouth with his hand. In spite of what Brandee had just said, Bruce knew that this was between Jake and Brandee, and it should stay that way. Besides, Jake didn't appear to need anyone interrupting the roll that he was on.
“Screw you, you selfish little brat!” Jake said, leaning toward Brandee. “This is a marriage and I don't deserve to have you dismiss my ideas as if they don't count!”
“Fuck you!” Brandee yelled. “I'm the one with the talent. I'm the one with the looks. I'm the one that's going to go places. Get on the ride, Jake, or get the hell out of my way!”
“That's what it been for you all along, hasn't it. It's been all about Brandee! If you don't get your way you throw a tantrum like a baby and bitch like a shrew to anyone who will listen to you. 'Jake, I need my
oranges”. “Jake, I need water.” “The dressing room is too cold.” “Jake, would you find the manager?” Now I see what I should have seen all along. You're not just young! You're a child! You couldn't raise a baby with me. You need somebody to raise you, you mealy- mouthed little bitch!”
Jake and Brandee had both risen to their feet during the course of the argument. By this time, they were standing nose to nose in the middle of the restaurant, giving the other patrons a show quite different from the show many of them had seen earlier at Arena Auditorium. The manager of the restaurant appeared at Jake's side.
“I'm going to have to ask you to be quieter or leave," he said to Jake.
Jake looked around at the room. It was about two-thirds filled, but not one person in the place was eating. Everyone was staring at the group at the table in the middle of the dining room. Jake was panting from emotion and the exertion of the argument. There were tears of frustration in his eyes.
He turned to the restaurant manager. “We're through here, I think," Jake said, steadying his voice as best he could. “Could we get the check?”
The manager was ready with the check. He handed it to Jake and said that he would be glad to be the cashier for the group. Rather than leaving the check with the group at that time, he stayed at the table, obviously wanting to be paid right then and there.
Jake slid his credit card out of his wallet and said, “I'm very sorry about this.”
The manager quickly came back to the table with the credit card slip for Jake to sign. Bruce asked the server if he could get a slice of the peanut butter pie to go. She quickly brought it to him and he paid for it with cash he had in his pocket. The group left Shari's and went their own way without a word between them. Diane gave Jake's hand a quick squeeze and Brandee a quick one-armed hug before heading to her own room.
Jake and Brandee undressed silently back in their room. They each used the restroom, giving each other an exaggerated amount of space for the other to walk by. They got into separate sides of the bed, each laying silently without touching the other.
Finally, after more than 30 minutes of silence, they drifted to sleep, still separated by the wide gulf of king-sized bed and by the hurt they were each feeling inside. They slept the night without touching, a first for them since their wedding day.
***
The next day dawned bright and cloudless. The weather alone should have heralded a great day for the members of Brandee, to say nothing about the fact that they were fresh off of the triumph at Arena Auditorium the night before. Jake, usually up first, ready to greet the new day, saw nothing to be cheerful about on this day.
Jake had learned a long time ago that it was best to be the one to apologize first. Brandee was the better of the two at holding a grudge. There were times that Jake wanted to stay mad, but the sight of her sleepy eyes and messed-up hair in the morning usually drove all of that planned venom away. It was an advantage that she held over him, and they both knew it. If she out-waited him, he would say that he was sorry first. She liked that.
Today was different. Jake couldn't remember that she had ever hurt him as much as she had last night. His love for her wasn't wavering, but his belief in his ability to be as carefree with her as he had been before certainly seemed to be on the wane.
Jake hadn't fallen in love with Brandee because she was beautiful. He hadn't fallen in love with her because she was talented, sexy, or young, either. He had fallen in love with her because they could talk about anything together, and because he had an abiding belief that she wanted him to be happy as much as he wanted the same for her. Usually, he felt respected and admired by her, and had responded to that with tons of respect and admiration sent her way. He loved to talk to her. He loved to talk about her to others. He loved how she made him feel as a man, a friend, and a companion.
Or at least he had felt all of those things. He had, until today, been in love with life and all of creation since Brandee had agreed to be his. However, this morning found Jake unmoved by the beauty of creation. It found him dispirited and a little bit sick to his stomach.
Brandee was quieter even than was usual today. Never much of a morning conversationalist, she was perceptive enough to know that all was not already forgiven by her husband. She was a little surprised by this given Jake's usual quick capitulation to her. She figured that he would come crawling back soon enough, though. She would just let him stew in his own juices.
***
The other three members of the band had already been up for a while and were very talkative today. They had gotten together for breakfast at 6:00 in the morning, but they hadn't invited Jake and Brandee to join them, believing that the Evanses would need time to themselves.
The fact that the members of the band were so circumspect about the privacy needs of Jake and Brandee didn't stop them from speculating at length about the argument the night before. None of them had ever seen the newlywed couple have more than a sharp word or two with each other before. Opinions were split a bit about who was in the right.
Bruce hesitated between forkfuls of Potatoes O'Brien. He looked around the table and said, “Is there anyone here who doesn't think that Jake has a pretty rough go being with her?”
The others nodded their agreement. All of them, both individually and collectively, had at one time or another been on the receiving end of one of Brandee's legendary blasts. It was easy to be on Jake's side right now. Diane offered a tempering word.
“Having a baby is a big commitment, though. It's not something that she should have forced on her. Her career is important to her.”
“Her career is important to all of us," Suzi added, chewing contemplatively on a slice of wheat toast. That was all that her weak stomach could handle today.
“Yes it is,” Bruce said, “But whether they have a baby or not isn't any of my business.”
“Jake called her a bitch!” Suzi said, her eyes opening wide. “Jake doesn't talk like that. The worst thing I ever heard him say is when he called the Nissan a bastard when it had a cracked radiator cap that night in Ukiah.”
Diane laughed. “That he did," she said. “He has a temper; He just doesn't use it much, especially on the Princess.”
“The Princess Bee,” Bruce said, using the nickname that they had hung on Brandee after her tirade about the quiet crowd in Salt Lake City. “She is... high maintenance.”
“You think?” Diane said, turning toward Bruce. “Hell, a Jaguar is easier to keep in tune than Brandee is to keep happy.”
They paused the conversation just long enough to accept the offer of coffee refills from the server. Suzi brought the subject of Brandee back up.
“She would be hella tough to live with when she's pregnant. She's hard enough to be around now. I do understand her not wanting to be forced to have a baby though. I love the thought of bringing new life into the world. Not everybody has to feel like I do, though.”
Diane nodded, “I think Jake understands that. I just don't think that he liked being run over by her, or at least feeling that he was being run over. She's a powerful personality.”
Bruce finished his Denver Omelet before rejoining the conversation. His appetite was always going to be a pretty high priority for him and he had fully enjoyed the pepper-and onion-filled egg dish.
“I like Brandee, but let's face it,” he said. “She can be a bitch. Jake was right about that. I just hope they get it ironed out before we go on in Grand Junction tonight. After all, we're playing the..." he paused for effect and put his prominent nose in the air in his best imitation of a patrician landed gentleman, “...opera house, you know.”
The rest of the group laughed. Bruce, in his down-home way, always seemed to be able to draw the other members of the band under his wing. He was a valuable guy to have around. Suzi playfully poked him in the ribs.
“Come on Biff,” she said, “Let's get that van loaded. I feel a nap coming on. I'm napping for two, you know.”
Bruce looked at her in mock indign
ation, then looked to Diane for support. “A nap? She just got up and now she wants a nap?
Diane nodded. “Better a nap than the performance she put on beside the road yesterday.”
“Yecchh!” Bruce said, and looked at his lady. “You just sleep all you want, girly.”
The members of the band left the coffee shop together, looking forward to whatever was to come. The crisp morning air and the now light sky were putting the punctuation to the Wyoming sunrise.
The Long Road West
The “Opera House” that Bruce had mentioned in the coffee shop was the name of the venue where Brandee was going to play that night. It was a small setting (about 650 capacity), situated in Grand Junction, CO. When Jake and Brandee had planned this tour, they knew that they would get into sparsely populated territory when they climbed into the Rocky Mountain region. They had scheduled the Laramie stop and then were left needing places to play as they worked their way back west. They had a performance planned in Jackpot, Nevada the next day but that was almost 700 miles away. That was much too long to ask the group to travel and then perform the same night. However, as Jake pointed out, playing only one night in three wasn't going to pay the freight. They needed something between Laramie and Jackpot.
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