FAME and GLORY

by K. T. Hastings

  Diane stayed largely out of the conversation that was swirling around her. She was keeping an eye on Jake. She wondered what Janelle's presence, harmless as it may have been designed to be, was doing to his psyche. On the one hand, it did keep Brandee occupied. She was enjoying the attention of the starry-eyed youngster. On the other hand, Diane wondered if the distraction wasn't just letting Jake stew in his own juices a little too much. Diane had grown very fond of Jake Evans during their time together. She felt like a mother figure to the much younger man, and didn't want to see him hurt. She hoped that the net effect of Janelle's presence would turn out to be a positive, but she had her doubts.

  For his part, Jake was inwardly miserable. He remembered the conversation that he had shared with Bruce that afternoon in the park. He was trying to process the grief alone, but it wasn't easy. Brandee's breezy little toast just provided that much more evidence to him that she was, at best, unaware, and at worst, uncaring of the turmoil that was weighing him down. He felt alone, even if he was surrounded by a roomful of people and a table full of friends.

  Janelle's mind was racing. The trance that she had been in earlier had given way to senses that were almost unnaturally sharp. She sensed that the 3 musicians were ambivalent about her presence.

  The old lady doesn't much like me, she thought to herself. Bruce and Suzi seem to be okay, though.

  It was Jake that had her most intrigued, though. Her studies of mysticism had tapped into the deeper perception that all people have but most don't exploit.

  Janelle could tell that things were not at all well between Jake and Brandee. She could almost smell Jake's anxiety. Rather than being compassionate about it, though, Janelle wondered if there was a way that she could exploit it to get closer to Brandee. She casually asked Brandee where the rest of the tour was going to take the group.

  “We're going to Jackpot, Nevada tomorrow to play at that casino with the funny name.”

  She turned to Jake and asked, “Do you remember what that place is called, Jake?”

  “Sneaky Pete's,” Jake answered.

  “That's right, Sneaky Pete's Casino. I love that name," Brandee giggled.

  “Then we go to the Winnemucca Events Center and on to Cache Creek Casino in the wine country in California. After that, it's up the Pacific Coast to Oregon and finally Tacoma, Washington. That's the last stop.

  Diane spoke up. “Jake's sister Rebecca lives in Tacoma. We're all anxious to meet her.”

  Janelle didn't even acknowledge that Diane had spoken. She had heard what she needed to hear.

  “Did you say up the Oregon Coast?” she said casually. This was something that needed to be handled very delicately.

  “Not exactly," Brandee answered. “When we get to the top of California, we go inland and up the Willamette Valley in Oregon before we get to Washington. We won't see the ocean again after we leave Crescent City.”

  “But you go through all of Oregon, right?”

  Bruce answered. “We will never be more than a couple of hours from the coast, but we won't be right on it.”

  Janelle, actress to her core, summoned up a lonely tear.

  “I miss my Mom and Dad so much. I wish I was going along. I could afford a bus ticket from somewhere close so I could see my folks and my baby sister. I miss her too.”

  Brandee took the hook that Janelle had dangled in the water.

  “It's summer time. You don't have to be in school. Why don't you come with us?”

  A stunned silence struck the table. Jake and the musicians could scarcely believe their ears. It was one thing to extend a friendly hand and an Ale House Bacon Burger to this girl, but to offer to take her along, make her an ipso facto member of the group, was more than any of them had bargained for. Suzi was the first to find her tongue.

  “I don't know about this, Brandee. Shouldn't we at least t--" she started.

  “Relax, Sooze," Brandee interrupted. “You're pregnant. You're really going to be sleeping a lot. Jake can ride along with you guys and help Diane with the driving, as well as keeping the rest of them company. It will just be for a few days. We'll drop Janelle in Crescent City. She can catch a bus to see her parents and her little sis. It will be perfect.”

  Bruce was the next to share his thoughts. “There's room in the Nissan, and I'm sure we would all be glad to have Jake with us, but first I would like to hear his thoughts on this. It's a change to the plan and I want to know what he thinks.”

  Brandee answered for her husband. “Jake is a sweetie. He'd like to see Janelle get to see her parents.”

  “All the same, I would like to hear what Jake himself has to say about this change.

  Jake replied evenly. “I think it deserves some more thought.”

  Janelle ventured an attempt to set the hook that Brandee had swallowed. Seizing on information that she had just learned from Brandee, she spoke, “I can pay my way by helping out. Suzi shouldn't be lifting equipment and stuff.”

  Brandee nodded enthusiastically at Janelle's offer to help with some of the lifting and carrying.

  “It's all settled then," she said.

  Jake's face turned three shades of red. He leaned over to his wife and asked if he could have a private word with her. They left the table to go outside.

  “I don't like it, Brandee!” Jake said, with no preamble on his part. “We don't even know this girl. What were you thinking?”

  Brandee looked back at him with a steady gaze. She was rarely one to back down and this was no exception.

  “Stop being such a drama queen, Jake," she said. “What do you think Janelle is going to do? Make off with our shit in the middle of Nevada? For God's sake, Jake. Sometimes I don't understand you at all!”

  With that, she turned as if to go back into the restaurant. Jake was far from finished with this conversation, though. He stepped forward and grabbed Brandee by the shoulder, spinning her around so she had no choice but to look at him.

  “Goddammit, Brandee!” he shouted. “What the hell is wrong with you? Where in the hell do you get off saying 'there it's settled' about something like this? Is it because of the fight we had about having a baby? Is that why you want to avoid being in the same car with me? Because if it is, I can sure as shit ride in the Nissan without you bringing some teenybopper shave tail along with us!”

  Brandee shook her shoulders free from his touch. He had never put his hands on her like that before, and she certainly didn't like the sensation. Inside, she was a little bit intimidated by the anger that he was displaying. She wasn't going to let him see that, though. What she said next, she said in a tone that started out low and menacing, but increased in volume as it went along.

  “You fucking asshole. Don't you ever touch me like that again! If you do, I'll cut your fucking nuts off when you sleep! Count on that!”

  Jake took a step back. “Hey, I'm sor--”

  “Sorry isn't enough, you cocksucking sonofabitch!”, Brandee shouted. “As far as I'm concerned, you don't have to ride in the Nissan! You can just catch a bus and GO HOME RIGHT NOW, JAKE EVANS!”

  Brandee finished this part of her conversation with Jake in a full-out scream. Jake was stunned into silence. He and Brandee had exchanged angry words before, lots of times. This was on a different level, though. He felt like a boulder had been dropped on him. He tried to come back around to her, taking a different tack.

  “I shouldn't have done that. I am sorry. I just didn't want you to turn your back on me. I don't feel listened to by you when you do that.”

  Brandee may not have been mollified by this, but at least she was quieter when she answered him.

  “I'm going to go back inside now," she said. “I'm going to tell everybody that we decided that it's okay to take Janelle along with us as far as where she can catch a bus. That might be Crescent City, or it might be sooner. You can put on a smile and tell them that you agree or you can act like a spoiled brat and pout about it. I don't care.”

  Jake took a step toward her a
nd reached for her hand. She pulled it away and put it in her pocket.

  “I love you, Jake," she said, “But I don't like you very much right now. It's not just about Janelle either. This wasn't even about her, I don't think. It's about you telling me what I can and can't do, even with my own body. You want to hold me back, and that's not okay with me.”

  With that, she turned around abruptly and walked back toward the restaurant. Jake followed her inside and tried to put on a face of reconciliation to show the other people seated at the table.

  “It looks like you have a ride," he said to Janelle.

  Janelle squealed with delight and jumped out of her chair to hug him. Then she turned to Brandee and said, “You've made me happier than I've ever been. I don't know how to say thank you, Brandee.”

  “You'll thank me when you're lugging equipment on and off the stage tomorrow. We're going to make you sweat, missy”

  Janelle gave the blonde singer a snappy salute and said, “Aye, Aye Madame Captain. I'll report for duty whenever you say.”

  The members of the newly-increased traveling party left The Ale House at about 12:30. Brandee dropped Janelle off at The Prospector Motel where she had made hasty reservations before the performance, with the admonition that she needed to be ready to go at 7:30. They had over 500 miles to go the next day and an 8:00 show to be ready for. She told Janelle that the first thing that she could do that would get her put on an early bus was to be late. 7:30 meant 7:30 sharp.

  ***

  The Nissan purred its way back to The Rodeway Inn. The musicians kept to themselves, sensing that Jake wasn't in any mood for light conversation. Before Jake got out of the blue van, Bruce reminded him quietly that their van would be leaving town earlier than he was used to leaving. Jake nodded and assured them that he would be ready and waiting in the lobby at 5:45 AM

  By the time Brandee was back in the room that she and Jake shared, the light was off and Jake had his face turned to the wall. He was either asleep or faking being asleep. Either way, it didn't concern Brandee. She suddenly realized that she was very tired. She fell asleep almost immediately and slept dreamlessly until morning.

  ***

  Jake turned the alarm off quickly when it buzzed in the morning. He reset it for 6:30 and got up to take his shower. He had only been in bed for about 4 hours, and he hadn't slept much of that. He hoped to be able to catch some shut-eye in the Nissan.

  One nice thing about being banished by your wife, he thought. “At least it gets you out of driving.”

  He went downstairs and, after a stop at the front desk, met the other members of his new traveling party. They went out the door that led to the parking structure, and walked up the ramp to their van. Diane turned the nose of the Nissan out of the parking garage and headed west.

  Ancient Echoes

  Jake looked out the window at the windswept terrain and saw the sign that said, “The Beehive State Welcomes You to Utah”. His mind did a fast rewind and he remembered how different things had been just 46 hours earlier when he and Brandee had left Salt Lake City. It was incredible to him just how many things had occurred in those two short days.

  At that time, no one except Suzi had known that she was going to have Bruce's baby. Jake remembered how everyone had seemed to come together when they had found out about that. Bruce, who until a short time before he met Suzi had been a confirmed bachelor, was now doting on her like a hen over brooding chicks. It had been quite a transformation. When Jake and Brandee had left Salt Lake City, he was still under the impression that she would be open to having a family with him. That whole discussion hadn't yet taken place.

  He and Brandee had gone at one another in a way that they never had before. Hurt and anger had played out in harsher words than they had ever exchanged. Jake knew the time would come when he would need to ask Brandee's forgiveness for the way he had spoken to her outside The Ale House.

  Then there was Janelle. Jake was sure that Janelle was just a distraction that Brandee was using to get back at him. Janelle herself was the least of his worries. Three or four days from now, she would be out of his life forever. He would use the time until then to get his head back on straight. Maybe Brandee would have mellowed by that time, but even if she didn't, he needed to get his emotions under control. He didn't want to lose Brandee over this. They had built a foundation too strong to allow this to break them up. Jake leaned his head against the window of the Nissan and drifted off to sleep.

  ***

  Brandee was momentarily disoriented when her alarm went off. Jake always pressed the “off” button and made that horrible buzzing noise stop. Why was it droning on today? After about a half minute, though, Brandee remembered all that had transpired. She missed Jake's presence in the first moments of being awake, and hoped that he was learning his lesson. She quickly got ready to go and went downstairs to check out. When she got to the front desk, she found that Jake had already taken care of the exit procedure. He had told the man at the desk to have housekeeping not bother Room 211 until Brandee had turned in the key. Glad that she didn't have any paperwork to do that would slow her down, Brandee fired up the Sprinter and headed for The Prospector to pick up Janelle.

  Actually, she didn't have to get all the way to The Prospector. She came upon Janelle walking up the sidewalk toward The Rodeway Inn. Brandee did a quick U-Turn and stopped beside the wide clean sidewalk that lined North 1st Street.

  “Get in, Janelle," she said, opening the front door of the Sprinter.

  Janelle clambered into the van's front seat and buckled her seat belt. She looked at Brandee and spoke her words in a rush.

  “I got excited to go. I looked at the map in the phone book and knew that you were just a couple of blocks away. I wanted to surprise you and meet you there so you wouldn't have to come and get me.”

  Brandee smiled at the younger woman. Janelle's face was flushed and her eyes were bright. Her hair was only partially combed, and her collar was turned under on one side. She looked to Brandee like a little girl with her first glimpse of what was under the tree on Christmas morning.

  “I'm just glad you got up on time. You didn't have enough hours to get very much sleep.”

  “I hardly slept at all, Brandee. I'm way too excited to sleep. This is just the best thing that's ever happened to me.”

  Brandee nodded as she steered the Sprinter on to the on-ramp that would take them out of Grand Junction. She could tell that staying awake while she was driving wasn't going to be a problem with this live wire along.

  “You're pretty excited to see your folks, aren't you?” she said.

  For just a moment, Janelle couldn't figure out what Brandee was talking about. If Brandee hadn't been occupied with merging onto the freeway, she would have seen a completely blank look come over her passenger's face. Before Brandee could become aware of this, though, Janelle had regained her composure.

  “I sure am. My sister and my mom will be really excited. My dad will be too, but he won't say as much. Men are like that.”

  Brandee snorted at that. “Sometimes men say more than they should. When you want them to talk, they don't say a damn word. When you want them to listen, they won't shut the hell up!”

  Janelle listened to Brandee, then reached over to touch her right arm. She knew that she needed to handle the next thing that she intended to say with some delicacy.

  “I don't want you and Jake to fight because of me. I feel like he should be sitting here right now and I should be with the others if I'm going to be here at all. I can't believe how nice you are, but I don't want anything to be hard on you because I'm here.”

  Brandee shook her head. When she did, Janelle lost concentration, seeing her blonde hair shimmering in the morning light. She snapped her mind back to what Brandee was saying.

  “Jake needs to have some time without me so he can know how much he needs me,” the singer said. “That's how a man has to learn now and then.”

  Janelle then fell silent, and the tw
o young ladies rode in companionable silence as Brandee steered the Sprinter through the desolation that is eastern Utah.

  ***

  Jake slept most of the way to Spanish Fork. Bruce shook him roughly when it was time to wake up.

  “Hey! Pretty boy! Wake up! I'm hungry!” Bruce said into Jake's ear.

  “All right, all right, I'm up! Holy God! Stop yelling at me! What a sight to wake up to!” Jake said when he saw Bruce within inches of him.

  Bruce grinned. “I may not be pretty as a picture like you, but I don't snore like a damn freight train either. I don't know how your wife stands the racket! God, you sound like the Amtrak coming into Chicago!”

  “I don't snore. Those are just healthy exhales. Where are we anyway?”