Web of Lies

by Elizabeth Knox

  “I’m really sorry,” Joe placed his hand on my shoulder and gave me a saddened smile.

  “Enough chick talk?” I joked and Joe nodded his head rapidly. “We need to man up. We need to drink beer, watch football, and put in some nut scratching time while women yell to take out the trash.”

  Joe laughed out loud and I was happy to see that he felt more at ease. I knew it hadn’t been easy being between Hallie and me.

  “Come on, I’ll help you pack up the U-Haul,” Joe offered, and I reached over, picking up a box, and tossing it his way.

  Nightfall had come and there was no surprise when Hallie disappeared instead of saying goodbye. I hated leaving things unfinished, but it seemed I was the only one who thought we needed closure.

  “Call me when you get there,” Joe shook my hand then pulled me in for a hug. “Drive safe.”

  I waved at him as I walked around the truck and climbed inside. The next ten days of driving were going to be torture, but soon I would be in the new apartment they were holding for me with a new job.

  “Dean,” Sharon’s voice squealed through the line. Her voice reminded me of a rat stuck in a trap. It was almost painful.

  “Hi Sharon,” I responded and turned my volume down.

  “Are you on the road yet?”

  “Yeah, I am in southern Indiana already,” I replied factoring up the hours I had been on the road.

  “Why aren’t you going through Chicago?” She sounded displeased. “It will save you time if you take the route I chose for you.” Then under her breath I heard “had you thrown everything away and flown you would already be here.”

  “Sharon, I told you this when we planned the route. I am stopping off at the edge of Texas to put flowers on my mother’s grave. Then I have someone I need to meet in Phoenix before I get into California. I will still be there in time for whatever you have ready for me to do.”

  I could hear her disapproval through the line. It was as if she could send out radio waves of hatefulness when things weren’t going her way.

  “Okay then. I guess I will have to wait for you to get here. I think we need a full makeover. We can shave your head, add some neck tattoos, a piercing or two. It would throw everyone off when you sing with that angelic voice. It would be like Korn singing Whitney Houston. It’s fresh, it’s new, and it can be you.”

  I stared at the phone unsure of what to say. I wanted to put my foot down and tell her how things were going to be, but I needed to read my contract to see if I could. No sense in throwing away my entire career at the beginning because I didn’t want my hair cut.

  “Keep your radio on because we sent your demo in to be added to rotations worldwide. It will be a great way to break you in.”

  I muted the phone and turned my volume all the way to silent, so she could continue her conversation without me. That woman could carry on with a street sign. She wasn’t my shot of whiskey, but then again, I had found what I was looking for with Hallie. Maybe my voice that she loved so much on the radio would make her feel the way she made me feel. I knew it was petty, but it was all I had left to hold onto at the moment.

  I made it into Texas on the fourth day and stopped off to see my mom. I set aside my anger, laid in the cemetery beside her, and told her everything that was going on. As the sun warmed my face I was finally able to say, “I made it.” I could only hope she would be as proud of me as I was of her.

  I stopped by my sister Julie’s house and saw my nephew for a little while. I even loaded up my old Harley from her garage into the U-Haul. It might come in handy in a place like California. I’d heard talk about the 440 and I would be stuck in traffic on it daily.

  “Hey Jules,” I called for her as I locked up the bay door on the truck. She came out with my nephew on her hip holding his bottle on his own. “I want to give you something,” I explained as she walked up.

  “Dean, you don’t have to give me anything. You have given me too much,” she was talking about the money I had been sending her every month to help with daycare. I pulled an envelope out of my pocket and handed it to her.

  “I told you if I ever made it you and Seth would be taken care of,” I smiled for Seth as she opened the envelope. “It’s just the signing bonus they offered me for allowing them more in royalties and creative decisions.”

  “Dean,” she cried as she threw her arms around me. “Now that you will be closer you have to come and see me more,” she softly sobbed on my shoulder while Seth patted my chest in his own baby way of saying good job.

  “Or with that money you can finally buy a car that runs and come see me. We can take him to Lego Land or Disney.”

  “You’ve changed,” my sister pointed out. “I think Hallie has mellowed you. You don’t have a different girl on each arm. You’re not running out the door with your guitar to go from bar to bar. You seem settled, but you don’t seem happy. Are you sure this deal is what you want?”

  That was the million-dollar question. I had paced the streets of New York for hours the night I found out, wondering if I wanted this life. Of course, it was everything I ever dreamed about, but now that it was here I did have my doubts. It didn’t happen the way I planned. I wanted to be the one they picked out of a crowd. I wanted to earn my place and my deal. I definitely didn’t want some girl I fucked to have her dad call in favors.

  Hallie had put a stain on the road map my life was headed down. I could no longer see where I was going so I just followed where people sent me. I don’t know if it was worse losing her as my best friend or the girl I was meant to be with, but either way I carried my scorched heart with me and became a little thicker skinned.

  “Happiness is overrated,” I lied to my sister before heading to Phoenix to meet Hallie’s brother.

  My visit with her brother went as well as could be expected. He told me to have patience that when she got angry she reacted without thinking. He told me she was miserable, but I didn’t make her that way. She did that all by herself.

  I wanted to date her, and have a formal relationship with her. I wanted her in my arms no matter what was happening in my life, and she wanted to claim me as a mistake. A regret that she had made.

  Pulling into sunny California after nine days on the road was a welcomed sight as I was tired of driving. I was making good time and was grateful because I was getting sick of hearing my song on the radio. I had written it for my mom, sang it for Hallie, and someone recorded the live version and aired it. Now no matter what station I turned on there was a big fat slap in the face reminder that Hallie rejected me, and I loved her.

  Chapter Seven

  Hallie

  I woke up and reached for my phone. Keeping my eyes closed I touched at the screen until I heard noise coming through it and spoke.

  “Dean?” I asked hopeful he would come to the conclusion that I was a bitch and forgive me without me saying a word to him. He had been gone for nearly three months, and yet I still looked for him when I came in from work.

  “No honey, it's Cherry,” one of the girls I worked with was calling. “You okay?”

  “I’m fine, I just thought you were someone else,” I negated to tell her I was just waking up.

  “Look, I know you're tired from working a double yesterday, but this new bartender that Denny hired is shit. We don’t make any money if men are spending their entire night trying to get a drink.”

  “Denny hired her, take it up with him,” I sighed. This was not my problem, but somehow, I got the impression it was about to be.

  “We talked to Denny, and we pooled a portion of our tips together and can offer you fifty dollars for the night, under the table. Please come in,” she was begging.

  “Give me an hour,” I instantly caved. I hated it when someone needed me and I wasn’t there. Made me feel like I was letting them down. I climbed out of bed and took a shower. Then I climbed into my truck and headed to work.

  The first couple of hours drug on, but later in the night the girls made back the mone
y they had given me. I looked up at the television in the back of the bar to see Dean’s face plastered once again across the screen. Some entertainment show was doing a story on him. For the last five weeks they had been promoting him nonstop. It had been nothing but Dean this and Dean that. Even my brother called weekly to remind me that I let one of the good ones get away. It never stopped.

  “Hallie, we need more ice,” my boss yelled across the darkened club. I think they were going for the Guinness World record on making different girls dance to the same rock song over and over again tonight. I was happy to step away and hear the roar of the air conditioner and the ice machine in the back room over that stupid song again.

  I collected a bucket of ice and walked back out in the heels that hurt my feet, and poured it into my container as the other bartender immediately scooped some into a glass.

  “You’re welcome,” I sarcastically remarked the phrase under my breath as I went back for another bucket. My replacement seemed like a very young political skank. She only took the job here to see if she could see someone famous she could take home and milk money out of. I laughed every time my boss got near her and did an obvious U-turn to get away.

  She wasn’t supposed to get the job. She had no qualifications. It was so bad, she thought every shot got one ice cube in it. My boss was going to let me pick my replacement, but then one late night at work and things happened. My replacement fucked her way into my job to try to fuck someone over eventually.

  “Hallie,” my boss bellowed for me again. “The computer is broken, and the girls are revolting. I need you to go up on stage and dance. They won’t repeat the same song again.”

  “No,” my mouth issued an auto-response before I even took a breath. “Absolutely not.”

  “Hallie, you work for me still. Now go up there and shake something,” he demanded, and I shook my head. “Then go talk to the girls because those are the only two options I see.”

  I filled up my ice tray one more time and then I went in the back with all the girls.

  “Hey ladies, is there any way I could convince you to go back on stage? Maybe a few drinks on the house?” I offered, but they looked annoyed.

  “Get that damn song off and I will dance to anything,” Cherry announced, and the girls cheered her on.

  “I will never listen to Motley Crue again,” Monica continued as she put a silk robe over her lingerie and sat down at the break table.

  V was standing over by the boss’s office and wiggling her finger for me. I walked over, and she pointed to an old stereo that was probably identical to the one John Cusack used in Say Anything. I doubted this thing would work, it had been here since Reagan was President.

  I plugged it into the computer system and said a small prayer that this worked because I was not going out on that stage. After a few minutes the same rock song ended, but only static played through the speakers. I turned the knob and slapped the ancient piece of machinery. I was only picking up pieces of stations.

  “Let me,” V declared as she moved me out of the way. I walked back out to see the girls watching the same television show with Dean on it. I couldn’t get away from him.

  “Isn’t that your roommate?” Cherry asked, and I shook my head. I saw the realization hit her from her phone call that I thought it was him and knew I had to say something.

  “No, he moved out and we don’t talk anymore,” I spoke softly.

  “I would have tied him to my bed and kept him there if that was my roommate,” Monica continued, and Cherry agreed. Then it was a group discussion about how they all wanted a piece of Dean when they didn’t even know him.

  “No!” I screamed.

  “Calm down, we’re just joking,” Cherry tried to keep me composed, but it was useless.

  “We all joke about the famous people who will never see us as someone deserving of them,” Monica tried to help, but it didn’t.

  “He was mine,” I rasped the words out for the first time since he left. “He was my best friend, and I threw it away.”

  They all tried to comfort me, but I wanted to continue my self-punishment of ignoring what happened. I didn’t want to think about it or talk about my role in it.

  “Hey H—,” Cherry wrapped her arm around me. “You need to listen to this,” she told me as she turned the television up.

  “Tell me Dean, what do you love most about being in California?” The reporter asked.

  “It’s always bright. You never know how much you miss the sunshine in your life till it's gone,” he responded as I noticed a tattoo of what looked like a Native American sun symbol wrapped in tribal. That was new.

  “Tell me about the sunshine in your life,” the reporter probed for a response.

  “I never kiss and tell,” Dean toyed with her.

  “Are you single?” the reporter flirted, and I shouted back at her.

  “He’s too good for you, slut!”

  The girls around me all cheered me on, but it didn’t matter what I said to a television screen. What mattered was the hurt I saw when I said it was a mistake to love him. Even though I had every right to be angry with him staying out, I also should have listened to why.

  “You miss him,” V asked as she walked to the mirror to fix her wig.

  “If I admit it does that make me weak?” I asked and I got a lot of shrugs. “He snapped at me, and then I turned it on him and said it was a mistake to love him,” I confessed as the girls gave me that face that said it had to have hurt him.

  “Damn, you won’t ever see him again,” Monica scoffed. “If you had said that to me, I would have kicked your ass.”

  “Hey, do you still have that gum we had last night?” Cherry asked as she walked to my locker. She opened it and reached into my purse. “Hey, can I use your phone?” She asked and I nodded. I didn’t care. My head was swirling as it relived that awful moment when I stabbed Dean in the heart with the words I spoke.

  “Hallie,” my boss angrily yelled. It was too late. I was going to go on stage. I wanted to vomit. “You have thirty minutes and then you are on.”

  I turned to the girls with a pleading look, hopeful they would go on in my place, but they were done. Most of them had been here since dinner and we were approaching the dawn hours.

  “I just thought you should know,” Cherry spoke into the phone. Monica shook her head and we all ignored it because Cherry went through men. She talked, flirted, and toyed with them, but like whoever was on the end of my phone he wouldn’t be allowed five minutes alone with her. She was extremely reserved for a stripper in a place like this.

  The hands on the clock seemed to spin faster than the Flash as time marched on and I was going to have to do the one thing I never wanted to. Thankfully it was my last week here. Hopefully I would be able to leave with some semblance of self-respect that I walked in here with.

  “Next up we have Hallie,” I heard my name on the mic and my body trembled. I didn’t want to do this.

  “Don’t throw up,” Monica offered advice as Cherry showed me my phone and a smile.

  I walked through the curtain in the darkness and walked out onto the stage. I put my back to the pole and held on tight as they found a radio station that started playing Dean’s song and I cringed. Destiny was toying with me now. Fate wanted me to know I screwed up, and this was my punishment.

  Chapter Eight

  Dean

  “The show was great,” Harris cheered me on after I walked off the stage at Madison Square Garden. “You were made for this.”

  “It was a lot of fun,” I admitted. I was glad I followed through and came out here to New York. I questioned if it was a good idea or not since last I heard Hallie was still here, but it felt good to be able to visit after all the time I spent here. I even spent the morning going to the schools who turned me away and told me I had no future in music.

  I didn’t do the asshole thing I wanted to do and shove it in their face that I made it without them. Instead, I offered to sponsor one kid each
year and let them spend a summer touring with me.

  “Almost morning, you want to go get breakfast or something?” Harris asked and I nodded as we walked outside. “Come on,” Harris yawned as the car pulled up. I climbed inside and we headed downtown to try and find food. We went to this little restaurant that had a waitress who looked dead on her feet at about six months pregnant, but I smiled and she perked up when she figured out who I was.

  I had to sign a napkin for her, and sing a chord for her baby. I was never going to get used to this stuff. Before no one knew me and could care less, but then Sharon found me and now everyone wanted to know me for some reason or another.

  When she refilled the coffee I looked up to see the breaking news, some men had robbed a store and shot the store owner. The men were brazen to rob a bodega no more than two blocks from one of the precincts and it caught my attention. I called over our waitress and asked if she could turn it up.

  I had been watching the entire story unfold when my phone rang and it showed up as Hallie’s number on the caller ID.

  “Hallie,” I answered, but the whispering voice that responded wasn’t her.

  “Are you Dean?”

  “I am, who is this?” I inquired as panic began to fill my thoughts. As far as I knew I was still listed as Hallie’s emergency contact up here because she didn’t have anyone else . . . or did she? Had she moved on?

  “Names Cherry, love,” she responded quietly. “We have a mutual friend, Hallie.”

  “Is she okay?” I immediately asked and put it on speaker so Harris could hear.

  “Yes, love, she’s fine. I just wanted to call you and tell you that this girl loves you.”