by Holly Hall
Behind the door is a shadowy staircase that leads to the storage area above Tripp’s. Ascending the stairs, we reach the first landing and continue up a narrower flight. Unlocking the next door and pushing it open reveals a graveled rooftop.
Lindsey steps out, eyes curious, but it doesn’t take her long to notice the view. She spins around in awe. Tripp’s is a rare gem, and its rooftop is even rarer. It’s nothing special—Tripp could do something with the place, at least put some party lights up for God’s sake—but it offers nearly three-sixty-degree views of the city. At night, with the buildings dressed in lights, bright against the sable sky, it’s jaw-dropping.
“What the hell?” Lindsey breathes, striding across the roof and bracing her hands on the brick edge. “Tripp could definitely be capitalizing on this.”
I duck out of the shoulder strap of her bag, leaning it beside the door. No wonder she looked uncomfortable the whole time she was carrying it, damn thing feels like it’s stuffed with everything but the kitchen sink. “I don’t think he’s interested in that. Something about laws and restrictions. Anyway, he’s content with the bar as it is.” I go to join her, looking past the thirty-foot drop to the street. The sidewalk at the entrance seems to have gotten livelier since we’ve been here, but everyone on the street either doesn’t know we’re up here or can’t see our faces clear enough to recognize us.
“Must be nice not to have to worry about keeping up with the Joneses,” she says.
I look over at her, her wistfulness surprising me. She is always so sure of herself, everything I wasn’t at her age, ten years ago. “I didn’t think you worried about that, either.”
“Of course I worry. I’m only human. If I didn’t, how would I ever improve?”
I think back to that day in the park, her desire to further her career. “Anything pick up since you’ve started posting more music photos?”
She leans her elbows on the short brick wall, tucking hair behind her ear. “Traffic, somewhat. Not much in the way of business, though. My name isn’t noteworthy yet.”
“It’s not a bad idea to have a mentor. I could give the photogs I’ve worked with a call. Get face to face with them, tell them your story. One of them might be willing to take you under their wing and give you some pointers.”
As predicted, Lindsey’s brows draw together and her jaw sets stubbornly. “I appreciate it. I do. But I want my work to speak louder than your name.”
I understand, partly, but it’s frustrating. Being as passionate as she is, I don’t know why she wouldn’t take advantage of every outlet available to her. “I get that. Every great artist wants their work to speak for itself, but sometimes it takes just one foot in the door to stand out in the crowd. I can get you that.”
“I’m fully aware of your capabilities, Jenson. I’m sure you could snap your fingers and have people knocking at your door, lining up for country music’s fallen golden boy. But that’s not how I want to do things.”
Not only is the subject clearly not up for debate, but Lindsey’s now on her guard, her shoulders rigid and eyes cold as she glares out over the street. This isn’t how I imagined this going. The contentment from earlier, the exhilaration of running through the streets, diminishes into nothing. She can flip the switch from summer to winter faster than anyone I’ve seen.
I pull my phone from my pocket, selecting the music app and tapping a random country station. Hopefully the moment isn’t ruined by one of my old songs. You know—one of the ones written about my ex-wife. Talk about a buzz kill. Lindsey glances at me, but I just tuck the phone in my pocket and reach out to her.
“Dance with me.”
There’s still a hard edge to her eyes, but she rolls them. At least there’s that. “Be more of a cliché.” We stare at each other for a few moments before she laces her fingers in mine and spins into me. “If you’re going to dance with me on a rooftop at twilight, do it some justice and make it as cheesy as possible.”
She squeals when I dip her low, the end of her ponytail grazing the gravel, then I sweep her into a two-step. “Twilight?” I crack.
“You know—whatever it’s called between sunset and midnight. Don’t blame me for our generational gap, old man.”
I press her tighter against me, the body that’s most definitely not old. Generational gap, my ass. “You’re wounding my decrepit heart.”
Lindsey giggles, but a stiff, cold wind brings her snuggling closer to me. She’s still got my jacket, but I don’t ask for it back. Not when she’s warm and soft in my arms.
“Jenson?” she asks, her voice uncharacteristically small and serious.
I look down at her, but her temple’s against my chest and she’s looking off toward the city. “Yeah?”
“What’s going on with you? You don’t ever talk about the things you’ve been through, and I saw the look on your face after rehearsal. And then you just disappeared.”
I force myself to shrug, though she’s not looking at me, and this conversation is anything but casual. “It’s nothing. Just the usual anxiety. I’ve been out of the game for a while.” When will I be done with this—reducing my issues to “nothing” in order the spare the people I care for most from my fucked-up reality? I’m a mess when I write. Destructive and self-deprecating. But it’s the way I’ve always done things. It’s how I produce my best stuff. I didn’t expect anyone to notice.
I feel her sigh through my shirt. “Is that why your mother was so worried about you? Why Carter was acting so distant at the studio? You don’t owe me an explanation, but you should know by now you can trust me. Talk to me, if you need to.”
This time it’s me who’s gone rigid, barely swaying back and forth to music that’s too fast for our steps. Excuses dance on the tip of my tongue, denial ready to guard the truth that lingers behind the steel trap of my resolve. But how far has compartmentalizing my problems gotten me? I’m finishing a handle of whiskey in a handful of days, and my throat will still ache for more afterward. I switch between the usual options of hating myself and feeling determined to change something almost hourly. I have the tools I need to cope without liquor, I just refuse to use them—to revert to where I was when I crawled into rehab with nothing left but money and a fragile reputation.
After almost a minute of silence, Lindsey looks up at me, eyes soft and curious and forgiving, and my shoulders cave. “I have a problem,” I admit, the words like sandpaper on my tongue. I haven’t had to fess up to anyone since Raven. Even then, I didn’t really fess up. I just burnt our house down when I was blacked out. After that, there was no hiding my skeletons.
And what have I even been doing with Lindsey? Hanging in a blissful state of denial while I pretend the black parts of my life don’t exist. She deserves honesty. She may be guarded, but she’s never omitted as much as I have. That I’m almost sure of.
Remembering my mom’s vulnerable words, I continue. “I’ve always lived for music, breathed for music. I need it as much as I need air. But the fame part has never been easy. I think it’s common among artists to have two separate parts of themselves—one they show the world and one they keep for family and friends. I could never do that. The two halves of my life were battling it out while I tried to play mediator. And the business side? Forget about it. All the pressure to sell records and please fans and set fashion trends was just. . . I couldn’t cope. Drinking made everything easier. I’d get hammered before shows and hardly remember the performance we put on, but based on the stories I was told, people were eating it up. Everything became easier. I had no inhibitions to throw my music out there and pretend I didn’t care whether people loved it or hated it.
“Then the show would end and I would go back to living with my wife and doing chores around the house, discussing sales with the record label, writing songs when I had the chance. I was feeling more and more distanced from the one thing that brought me everything good in my life. Naturally, I didn’t tell Raven any of this. We’d started dating before I was anyone; sh
e didn’t care about the money or the stardom, she just cared about the boy she’d met at a greasy little bar in Knoxville. But I outgrew him. I wasn’t the same kid with no worries. I just assumed she couldn’t handle it either.”
At some point, we’ve stopped dancing, but my fingers are still laced in Lindsey’s. She squeezes them, encouraging me to go on. Sympathy swims in her eyes. I silence my phone, because not much could make this moment any worse, but a lively song at the wrong moment would piss me the hell off. If she thought what I’ve said so far was painful, she has no idea. The wounds in my heart throb at the thought.
“Anyway, I was already halfway to losing her and I didn’t even know it, but then we got pregnant.” At that, she raises her eyebrows. Her surprise is understandable, who would assume this story could turn into such a nightmare? “I should’ve changed before that, but suddenly I had this big reason. She lost the baby at twenty weeks. Emberly. Nothing we’d accomplished, nothing we had, could save her. An innocent life snubbed out before she could even realize her potential. Everything felt meaningless after that. If I was out of control before, at that point I was spiraling. Raven was mourning the loss of the baby she grew in her belly for months, and I was drowning my sorrow in whiskey and writing the darkest fucking songs I’d ever written. I abandoned her at the absolute worst time I could’ve abandoned her. And then I had the balls to be sad that I was such a failure.”
Hurt flashes in Lindsey’s eyes, and I stare daggers at the sky because it’s better than fully feeling the burn in my eye sockets. I’m not too proud to cry, but I don’t deserve to. It’s Raven I ruined. I swallow and go on. The story deserves to be told. “Somehow, she stayed with me. Then, one day, on the anniversary of losing our daughter, I drank myself into such a stupor that I didn’t realize I’d burnt our house down until I sobered up enough to see Raven crumbling beside my hospital bed. By herself. That’s what I’d done to her—isolated her, strung her along so I wouldn’t have to be alone with my doubts, then mentally checked out because I couldn’t deal with the guilt, the expectations, the anxiety of all this shit that’d become way too big for me. Jenson King—annihilator of all things that are good.”
Pain grows in my chest, and I struggle against the anguished growl that threatens to rip through me. Not only have I stirred up every broken, painful part of my past, but I’ve basically just dug my own grave. This is it, the moment I become alone again. Maybe that’s what this is, Lindsey and me—another lie. Just so I don’t have to face the desolation of my life alone.
“The rest is Google history, as you know. Raven filed for divorce, I fought her every step of the way, and she didn’t even ask me for a penny. She just wanted out. If you can believe it, my drinking got even worse. I’ve tried rehab, but nothing stuck. And now I’m here, trying to piece together what remains of my career, the livelihood of my band, my life.”
Lindsey’s been listening raptly, her eyes filled with tears she doesn’t shed. She grips my hands in hers. “You don’t get any better because you don’t believe in it. How do you expect to change if you don’t have any faith?”
I want to laugh in her face. Of course I don’t have faith. And why would I? “How do I find faith when everything I’ve believed in is in shambles?”
“You find faith when you find your heart. Passion.”
“I have plenty of heart, and it hurts like a bitch.”
She releases me and turns away, but I get a glimpse of her hurt. Her unfettered anger. “Why does alcohol get a say in it? Why does it get that control? Power is where you perceive it, and as soon as you stop looking for reasons to change and realize that you are a reason, you are enough, you won’t ever get that power.”
Like it could be that easy. I glare at her, and she glares back.
“You need to fight for your life. Fight for yourself. You need someone who will fight with you.”
My eyes narrow. “You think you know too damn much.”
Lindsey doesn’t even flinch. She steps so close to me I have to look down at her. “You know why? Because, honestly, I have no real faith in anyone but myself. I’d rather put my heart in a vault than unleash it in this hell. So what do I do? I keep people a comfortable distance away and make them my projects, try to help them sort out their stupid mistakes because I’m too much of a coward to make my own. It’s nothing compared to yours, but that’s my story.”
“That’s hardly a story. You haven’t told me anything about you or why you have a chip on your shoulder the size of Texas.”
She crosses her arms defiantly. “That wasn’t on accident.”
“I didn’t think so, but I’ve just laid out all my shit, knowing no one in their right mind will hang around to witness how it ends. You can at least tell me what’s got you so guarded. What do you have to lose?”
Her eyes flit between mine, debating. Silent wheels of thought churning in her mind. “Maybe later.”
I don’t push her. Instead, I say, “Later, lovely. I’ll hold you to it.”
Chapter 16
Jenson
I didn’t want to believe getting out of my own head was as easy as a change of scenery, but Lindsey was onto something when she suggested I write with her. Things don’t feel so heavy out in the wild, in the presence of others. I write verses that are lighter than they’ve been in a year. And they’re good. I’d accepted my old habits as law, not realizing they’d held me captive until I broke those chains and tried something new. So I write, and Lindsey, by some miracle, still tolerates me. Nothing I said the other night scared her off.
On her breaks, she works on her laptop across from me. Or pretends to. She has this Polaroid camera she sometimes carries with her, and although I’m mostly lost in my own world, I’ll catch the click of a shutter now and then.
“What are always taking pictures of?” I’ll ask her.
“That’s not for you to worry about,” she’ll say with a wink.
In the weeks that follow our mad dash to the rooftop, the band and I rehearse our new songs, getting a feel for how they sound, and I put more effort into making our sessions count. I’m back to doing what I love, after all. It should be easier, hurt less.
The guys are feeling the music I’ve written, but it wasn’t the songs I was worried about. Putting lyrics together is like visiting an old friend; it just works. It’s everything that comes after that I detest. I’m no closer to deciding which direction the band will go than I was six months ago—whether the songs we’re recording and the shows we’re planning mean we’ll be back for good.
It’s my instinct to hide away, escape from the world and the unknowns of the future with a bottle of whiskey or bourbon, but now I feel provoked. Lindsey reminded me that I’ve put too much power in something that shouldn’t possess it. And I’m angry. I’ve allowed alcohol to bring me to my knees and call the shots for far too long.
I grab my bag from the floor and escape into fresh air outside the studio. November used to mean something back when I had a family. Now it’s just colder air, a welcome reprieve from the stagnancy of rehearsal. I could use a cigarette and a fifth of whiskey right about now. Rounding the hood of my truck, I falter when I notice Carter waiting for me on the driver side. His position against the door makes it clear I’m not leaving until I get through him. Well, Carter has probably thirty pounds of muscle on me, and there’s the matter of him being my best friend to consider.
“What’s up?” I ask, feigning ignorance.
Carter pushes off the door, taking a step back so I can get my bag inside. “You want to get a drink?”
That throws me off. Being my roommate both during and after my divorce meant Carter witnessed my downfall in all its pathetic glory. He heard every meltdown. He saw my drinking evolve from an unhealthy routine to a monster that stalks my every step and plays me like a puppet. There’s no hiding anything from him.
I agree before I even really consider it. You can’t hide how easy it is to down a double whiskey when you’re not alone.
“Cool. Mind if I ride with you? I caught a ride with Travis earlier. I can Uber home.” Before I answer, he’s popping the handle on the passenger side.
I light a cigarette for the road and turn the truck toward Tripp’s. I don’t think I’ll get any closer to Music Row anytime soon, unless I feel like inciting a riot.
Meanwhile, my thoughts reel. What Carter has to say can’t be good—after all, I’m the fuck-up between the two of us, and he’s yet to really confront me since the “intervention.” Probably knew his advice would fall on deaf ears.
“Can’t believe this thing is still running, dude,” Carter says, slapping the outside of the door through the open window.
I exhale a ribbon of smoke. “She’s a gem.”
“She’s a piece of shit.”
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” I retort. I’m partial to my Bronco. I’ve had her since I was eighteen, and I’m hanging onto her like I’m hanging onto the hopeful kid I used to be. Getting a new car would be like erasing history. No more sliding into the worn, threadbare seats. No more smelling the hints of nicotine and shitty air-freshener.
Carter barks out a laugh. “If only these seats could talk.”
“They’d tell a hell of a story.”
I park in the back, behind Tripp’s pickup, and we go in through the rear door. Tripp nods at me, then calls out in surprise when he notices Carter. They greet each other the way guys do—handshakes and hard slaps on the back, and we order a round of beers. Now’s not the time to be inhaling liquor. The least I can do is pretend I have my shit together.