She pulled her head back, pursing her lips. “You don’t have to be a dick.”
I sighed, my shoulders sinking. “Shit. I’m sorry. I just …”
Nessa touched my shoulder once more, and this time, it grounded me somehow.
“I know,” she said. “Later.” She shot me a quick, almost reassuring smile before boarding her bus.
Once finally on mine, I tossed my food in the fridge and entered our “bedroom.” The curtain on CJ’s bed was pulled. Just as well. I changed and got under my covers as quickly as possible in order to sleep, but it was in vain. I ended up staring at the ceiling for an hour before rolling over and pulling out my phone.
Me: He’s just such a thickheaded dick sometimes. It’s enraging.
I stared at the three dots in anticipation of an incoming text.
Nessa: I know. We all are. Sleep with one eye open ;)
I smiled, switching my phone into airplane mode before putting in my earbuds and falling asleep with the sounds of Chopin’s “Nocturne” playing in the background.
***
Seattle was fantastic and, as I predicted, CJ and I carried out our professional responsibilities as professionals. Neither one of us are big on drawn out apologies and make-up scenes, so it seemed for the time being that what happened at that roadside diner was swept under the rug.
The tour was really picking up steam, selling out left and right. Since we had a week before we had to be in Billings, Montana, Yardley added in a fourth Seattle show for us. Moniker was pleased with their new songs, and it seemed to reinvigorate them. Through the Seattle shows, though, they stuck with the guitar over the violin option.
I didn’t really understand why, since when I practiced with them using the violin it really brought the sound together, but maybe that was my bias. Despite not being a musician herself, Yardley did have a great ear for the ensemble. Still, the idea of setting the violin aside just didn’t sit right with me.
At an overnight road stop somewhere in the western part of Montana, I pressed Yardley.
“Give the fiddle another shot with Moniker. If I have to take it on for a while, I will. I think it sounded right on.”
She looked up from her iPhone, situated next to her sparse salad, in surprise. “What are you talking about?”
I winced a little, not wanting to sound snobby. “The guitar’s fine. I don’t mean the player—she’s great—I just … the sound …”
“We’re going to put the violin in, Regan. Chill. I’d like it for Minneapolis, but I talked to Nessa, and she says she’ll need longer—maybe till Chicago. She sight-read it just fine, but she hasn’t performed on stage in a while, and wants more time to polish it.”
A wave of relief washed over me. “Oh good. Okay. Well in the meantime, if you want me to step in …”
She grinned as I did, shaking her head. “Workaholic. I’m not in the business of burning out musicians so, for now, stick with CJ. You guys are one hell of a team together. Did you play around like this in high school?”
I laughed. “No, I was way too much of a prick, then. High and mighty with my classical instrument to slum it with the likes of him while he banged away on steel barrels. That’s what I used to say to tease him.”
Her right eyebrow flicked up. “Did he … kick your ass?”
I winked. “Nah. I could always run faster. Thank God. And, he wasn’t the sweet human he plays now, either. Used to say the violin was gay.” I rolled my eyes, thankful that at least we’d moved past those days.
“I really can’t see you as the prick type, Regan. I gotta say. You’re one of the most down-to-earth genuine guys I’ve met in the business. I held my breath the whole time Celtic Summer was touring. I was worried you’d get sick of it and leave us all in the dust.”
It wasn’t the first time Yardley had mentioned her apprehension over losing me as an artist.
“Down-to-earth and faithful,” I remind her. “Our business relationship is important to me. I love my job and the life I get to have because of it.”
She nodded, the rosy apples of her cheeks swelling as she smiled. “I know.”
“But, about the prick thing? Yeah. Some of it was general self-centered adolescent stuff, and some of it was environmental. Private performing arts high school, the Boston Conservatory … it was a ripe environment for intellectual and musical superiority to reign.” I chuckled, thinking about the high horse I’d long since retired. “It was the work abroad in Indonesia, Ireland, and South America that helped knock me down a few pegs. Watching kids with ripe, fertile, feral passion but with literally no opportunities brought me back to the first time I held a violin. When I got back to the states I was courted by Boston again for their Tanglewood summer program, but I just couldn’t do it. I weaved through the inner-cities and rural towns of Massachusetts, hosting workshops and holding fundraisers … the bitch of it is it’s the public schools that suffer most. Cost-cutting there happens in arts and physical education first. It’s not something you see in private schools that cost as much as some colleges … I’m rambling …” I chuckled, taking the deep breath I so desperately needed.
Yardley blinked a few times as if she’d been in a trance. “No—God, no—it’s fascinating. I mean, I’ve seen your resume, obviously, but that? What you just said? Not on there. That’s good. Where’d you learn your tricks? I can’t picture you in an orchestra setting, but that’s where you’ve spent more than half your life so far.”
“The guy who became my first teacher held me back from trick-playing for a while. He saw I had the wild streak in me—as he called it—but insisted I learn the rules first. Can’t break ’em right until you understand them, he’d always say.”
She laughed, silencing her phone when it rang once. “I like it.”
“Anyway, he let me loose a bit in high school. Even though I was receiving instruction at that point through my school, I still went to him on weekends. He was my friend, above all else. But it wasn’t really until I was out in the world that I let it fly completely. The kids in Indonesia and South America, especially … they were poor enough that they might never actually see the volumes of classical sheet music I’d already played from in their lives. I worked with them on the barest of basics—identifying each note on the staff and corresponding that to the fingers on the instrument. After that it was all free-play. Some of these kids came up with things that I can still hear in my head. It’s two sides of the same coin really—tricks and classical instruction. And I don’t think you need one before the other, anymore. Not if you’ve got it in here.” I pointed to my chest and took another deep breath.
“We’ve gotta hold workshops,” Yardley said, not blinking for several seconds.
A surge of electric feeling whizzed though my chest. “Yes! Let’s do it! There are some lags on this tour where we have several days between shows. We can set something up in one city, then the next.”
She held out her hand. “I was thinking more at home, in San Diego, but way to take on yet another project on the road, Regan.”
“Sorry … I just. Outreach is so important. Music is handed down through generations like language. If no one is around to hand it down because we’re all locked away playing in our ivory towers … we’ve got nothing. We’re hoarding it away from our great-grandchildren.”
Yardley shook her head again, a look of disbelief crossing her face. “You make it hard for me to not parade you around like the amazingness you are. But we’ve all got to keep a vial of humility in our pockets, huh?”
I grinned. “I guess. So, when do we get started?”
Sixteen
Georgia
Brian stood at the counter of Sweet Forty-Two with his weekly dessert order for Live in hand.
“Are we still friends?” he asked, biting his lip and grinning at the same time he handed me a mile-long list.
“Depends.” I arched an eyebrow, snatching the order sheet from him and giving it the once over. “I guess,” I said in a sigh. �
��You’re lucky Regan’s not around or this shit would be hard to fill. I’m ovulating and he’s in fucking Minneapolis.”
It had been over a month since Regan last held me, and the warmth of his arms and the scent that always sat in the nook of his neck and shoulder was only just starting to fade. Still, staring at the ovulation calendar taped to my bathroom mirror drove me nearly mad. It was like a visual biological clock. A loud one, at that.
Brian’s eyes creased at the sides as he winced. “Seattle wasn’t a winner, huh?”
I shook my head. “No, and thank God you’re gay. I can barely talk about ovulation with Regan, let alone any other straight male in my life.”
He held out his arms. “We all have a cross to bear. Your cycle is mine.”
I threw a rag at him, which he caught and threw back, smacking me in the face with a cloud of powdered sugar.
“Anyway, I know we only had two days last month, but I was hoping my body would be as efficient as it is in the kitchen. You know … all the analogies of buns in the oven …”
Brian laughed, walking around the counter to join me and put his arm around my shoulder. “If nothing else, your sarcasm will save us all.”
I rolled my eyes. “Or be the death of me when spewed at the wrong time.”
“How’s the tour going, by the way?”
“Good, I guess. They’re getting great crowds. I think the diversity of the acts helps. And summer is always prime demand for those kinds of shows. Oh, and they’re going to do some clinics for kids, and stuff. Workshop sort of things, like the ones Regan remembers from when he was little.”
There was a nagging piece of a recent call with Regan that was tugging at the back of my brain, but I was letting it go for now.
It was nothing.
Brian jumped up, sitting on the pay counter. “Is Celtic Summer going to record more together? I mean, they had a few albums that were massive hits … even the Grammy nom.”
Ah, yes. The Grammy’s. Regan never talked about it, but Celtic Summer did get a nomination after the release of their first album for Best New Artist. It had been a while since a group had won in that category, and that year a solo artist won again, but the nomination was a huge leap for Regan, the members of Celtic Summer, and their genre as a whole. Well, their non-genre as Regan liked to call it. He confided shortly before the awards that he never wanted to win a Grammy because he was afraid of what it would do to his head.
“The humility in that man …” I said out loud.
“What?” Brian asked, alerting me to my slip.
I sighed. “He told me he hopes he never wins a Grammy because he’s afraid he’ll become an egomaniac. Isn’t that insane? I’d gun for a Nobel Peace Prize if bakeries could enter.”
“They should,” Brian encouraged, lifting up a cupcake from my discard pile before shoving it in his mouth. “Who’s not peaceful with a brain full of sugar?”
“This is what I’m saying. Don’t eat all of those, I crumble them up to make cake pops.”
“In all honesty, though?” Brian continued. “It doesn’t surprise me. He’s more an under-the-radar kind of guy. Odd for someone who spends half the year on a stage, but I get it.”
I cocked my head to the side. “How? How is he so good at that?”
“The stage is a boundary, you know? He’s on it, then he’s off it. Doing music twenty-four-seven, yeah, but he’s available to the fans through albums and on stage. Period. A Grammy would tear those walls down in a heartbeat. It’s good he knows himself as well as he does. He is who he is.”
“Yeah …” I trailed off.
It was nothing.
“What’s that look?”
“It’s nothing,” I said out loud, shaking my head at myself and checking on the dough, rising in four different steel bowls across one of my prep surfaces.
“Clearly.” Brian didn’t buy it, crossing his arms in front of him, still sitting on the counter.
I put my hands on my hips, huffing petulantly. “It’s just … there’s this member of another band he told me about. One on tour with them. I mean, I know them, but … he found out a few weeks ago that they also play the violin, though not on this tour, I guess. But they might, or something, I don’t know—it was hard for me to pay attention.”
“Is that because the they you’re so eloquently referring to is a she, perhaps?”
I twisted my lips. “He told you?”
He pulled his head back. “Fuck no. Regan and I don’t talk about girls.”
My mouth dropped open, but he cut me off.
“Not because of you, weirdo. Not like that, anyway. Because he’s married and I’m gay. What’s there to talk about? And, we don’t communicate a ton while he’s on the road, anyway. You know how he is. Brood City. “
I grinned. Regan’s hermit-like nature was often mislabeled as broodiness, but he didn’t mind and neither did I. There was a fine line between the two, anyway, and he was just as likely to fall on one side as the other. He was quiet, but fierce and passionate. Sure of himself in a way I admired and aspired to.
“Anyway, yes. It’s a girl. The lead singer of The Brewers.”
“Nessa Crowley?” he asked, sliding off the counter to pour himself some coffee.
“Ah, it has a last name.”
Brian’s eyes were wide as he turned, but he relaxed his face when he saw I was smiling.
“Yes,” I continued. “Nessa. I know her last name. She’s lovely. Quiet, but lovely.”
“So … what’s the problem?”
I fumbled for an answer because, really, there wasn’t one. Not one I could put my finger on, anyway. I trusted what I knew of her. And that didn’t even matter. I trusted my husband above all else. There was something else, though.
“Is it because she plays the same instrument Regan does?”
I shook my head. “That can’t be it. He spent years with Shaughn and that didn’t bother me.”
“True. So … What is it, then? What has you all tongue-tied and paranoid—shit … sorry.” Brian winced.
I sighed, waving my hand dismissively.
It’s common American vernacular to tell people to calm down and not be paranoid when things were bugging them. When anxieties surfaced. But for me, the word paranoid was always attached to my mother’s diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, which caused storms far greater than any sized panic attack ever could.
“Don’t worry about it.” I threw him a wink, but he still looked reserved.
“Anyway,” I continued through the awkwardness, “I don’t know what it is. I just miss him, I think. It’s been a month since we’ve seen each other, for fuck’s sake. And, while sexting is all fine and dandy, it doesn’t give mind-blowing orgasms.”
“And it won’t get you knocked up, either,” he added with a laugh.
I twisted my lips. “True. Then Regan would have no mini-him musical protégé to usher through the world.”
I hadn’t thought much about having kids while I was growing up, but hearing Regan tell stories of his time teaching impoverished children warmed my heart, and showed me without him having to tell me how great a dad he hoped to be someday.
“Go to Minneapolis,” Brian said out of nowhere.
My eyes bugged nearly all the way out of my head. “Excuse me?”
He rolled his yes, waving his arms around dramatically. “Whatever will San Diego do without you for one night? Look,” he pointed to my calendar. “You’ve got the next two days free. Get on a flight today, shag his rocker brains out, and you can be back the morning before I need my cannoli’s.”
“He’s planning to come out here between Ohio and New York for a couple days, and then he’s got a few weeks in Massachusetts, and I was going to go out there—“
“Blah, blah, blah,” Brian cut me off, handing me my cell from the basket by the bakery’s phone. “Call the airline. Get you some.”
My pulse pounded in my neck and my throat ran dry. “I can’t … I’ve never left the shop
on such short notice.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Brian lifted his eyebrows, then his look shifted. Slightly pleading.
“Neither,” I said before I had time to think about it. “I’ll go. Can you—”
He held up his hands. “Yes. I’m a chef, and I know your OCD ways with this kitchen.”
An energy I’d never felt before swirled through me. “Am I crazy for doing this?”
Brian smiled, all the way to his eyes. “Not at all. This is your husband. And you miss him. And have you ever surprised him like this?”
I thought for a second. “No. I mean, once or twice very early on.” My face fell. “While his band was on tour, we were taking off business-wise here. So all my trips were well calculated and planned.
He reached for my shoulders, his warm hands giving me a playful squeeze. “Then this will do both of you some good, don’t you think?”
“Spontaneity is really Regan’s department. Relationally, I mean. Like, I have all these tattoos, and he has … none. But he swoops in and does the flowers and brings me lunch even though I work in a kitchen and am twenty feet from my home kitchen …” I trailed off, untying my apron, grabbing my phone, and moving toward the door. “Holy shit, am I doing this?”
Brian nodded, grinning like a love-struck fool. I wondered how he and Randy were doing, but thought better of asking right at that moment. “You’re doing this, Kid. Go, now. Make it a first-class ticket if you can!”
“Let’s not get carried away,” I teased before bounding up the stairs.
Within a half hour I did my makeup, packed two carefully chosen outfits, and was out the door without looking back. My pulse raced and I was jittery like the one time I drank three-too-many espressos during a long wedding week two years ago. But this was better. This adrenaline rush wasn’t from work at all.
It was from my husband.
As the plane took off, miraculously on time and a direct flight to Minneapolis, I stared at the twinkling landscapes below me. I wondered, pressing my head against the window, if there were two people down there even a fraction as happy as Regan and I were. Settling back into my seat, I took some cleansing breaths. Yes, I was ovulating. But I was going to try to keep that way in the back of my mind as I seduced my husband. Normally our sex life is fantastic, but since this baby thing it’s all seemed a little forced and calculated.
Chasing Kane Page 14