Songs Unfinished

by Holly Stratimore

  Nikki stared intensely into Jaymi’s eyes. “What are you saying?”

  Jaymi shook her head and felt tears form. “If you can’t get your ego in check, I’m not sure I want to stay with the band.”

  “Are you crazy?” Brian shouted. He and Kay were both on their feet.

  “No way,” said Kay. “Jaymi, without you, Passion Play doesn’t exist.” She looked at the other two. “Without any one of us, it doesn’t exist. This has been a four-person effort from day one. We’ve all contributed, we’ve all made it what it is, and we can all take credit for our success.” She turned to Nikki. “Jaymi’s right, Nikki. You need to shape up. We’ve all held our tongues for far too long because we know how good you are and how much we need you. But enough already. Enough showing up late, and drinking during gigs, and your goddamn ego. You’re going to ruin it for all of us if you don’t get your act together.”

  Nikki stood alone, facing her three partners lined up like a firing squad, waiting anxiously for her reaction to their implied ultimatum.

  She slowly regained her haughty composure, took three steps backward, and pulled her leather jacket from the back of a metal folding chair by the stairwell. “Fine. I’ll get my fucking act together.” She sneered. “My fucking solo act, that is. I don’t need you. I don’t need any of you. If you’re so fucking tired of me, I’ll go.” She flung the jacket over her shoulder and sprinted up the stairs, slamming the door behind her. They heard her Mustang speed away from the house.

  The remaining members of Passion Play stood motionless and silent. Jaymi’s heart hammered in her chest. My God, what just happened here? How the hell can we replace Nikki? She’s the lead singer, the front man, the main attraction.

  “Now what?” asked Brian, looking to his cousin for guidance.

  “We rehearse. We’ve got a show to do tomorrow and I don’t want to disappoint our fans.” Jaymi tried to disguise the fear rising into her throat. She retrieved her guitar from its case and slung it over her shoulder.

  Kay took a step toward her own instrument and stopped. “Don’t you think they’re going to be disappointed when they show up and our lead singer isn’t there?”

  “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” Jaymi said, plugging into an amp and beginning to tune. “Which means we better put on one hell of a show.”

  “What’re we going to tell them?” asked Brian.

  Jaymi let out a long breath. “We’ll just say she was ill and couldn’t make it.” She strummed a few chords with a bit more force than she intended and adjusted the volume on her Fender Stratocaster. “Don’t worry. Once she cools off, she’ll be back.”

  Kay sighed and shook her head. “I hope so. I wasn’t trying to tell her she had to shape up or ship out, I was just trying to wake her ass up. Besides, I was getting sick of the way she’s been treating you, Jaymi. You don’t deserve it. You’ve been the glue holding us together, and honestly, girl, I’m surprised it took you this long to blow.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” said Brian. “I’ve never seen you lose your temper like that. It was like…” He proceeded to tap into a drumroll, which started quietly then gradually grew louder until it finally exploded into a series of booms and crashes. “Whooooo! Look out!” he shouted above his dramatics. “She’s gonna blow!” He punctuated his demonstration with an ear-shattering cymbal crash.

  “All right, all right,” Jaymi bellowed. “Come on, let’s get to work. We’ve lost enough time already.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  After sweeping out the entire barn and making sure they fed and watered everyone—including the cats—Shawn and Alice brought in the horses. Shawn welcomed the cool air and physical labor. Not only did she need the exercise, but Alice’s charm and easy manner were good company and a distraction she needed until she could sort things out. Alice then bid her good afternoon as Shawn went to work cleaning saddles.

  Shawn inhaled and felt herself relax. The dry, dusty scent of the hay, the faint smell of hot wood, the sensual musk of leather, and the natural odor of the horses were as pleasurable as a bouquet of flowers. As she scrubbed and buffed, she enjoyed the fragrance of the polish and the feel of the tacky cloth in her hand. Two fluorescent shop lights occupied her work area, and a series of dimmer bulbs dotted the ceiling along the hall of stalls, creating a soothing atmosphere. She easily worked up a sweat. Alice kept the barn well heated, and that explained the cozy warmth in Jaymi’s living space above. Alice had explained how she and Peter had designed the apartment so its occupant would receive plenty of sunshine through the kitchen window each morning, and in the afternoon, the rays would pass through the balcony doors into the living room.

  She mentally reviewed the events of the last twenty-four hours. Things were going well, she thought. But she was scared to death. She hoped desperately that her lack of experience in relationships wouldn’t screw things up. She also hoped that she would be able to keep her libido in check. Jaymi was right—they did have a lot to learn about each other, and it would be best to take things slowly. It wasn’t going to be easy.

  Shawn had shared a bed with many women over the years, but after sleeping with Jaymi curled up in her arms last night, her body was screaming for relief. She needed to dismiss it from her mind quickly or she would go crazy. She forced herself to think about other things, and after several attempts, her thoughts landed on the one person who was Jaymi’s polar opposite: her father. In a matter of minutes, her mood was completely altered. She was inundated with slideshows of chaos and instability.

  When she was little, Shawn wondered if her father wished she’d been a boy. Her parents tried for years to have another baby, hoping for a boy, but her mother had been unable to conceive. As fate would have it, from an early age Shawn was a tomboy. Though it confused her mother, it seemed to be some compensation for her father, considering the pleasure he took in playing catch with her, watching football together, teaching her how to change the oil in the car, raving over the skills she demonstrated with any tool placed in her hand. Some days she caught him looking at her strangely, but he never said anything out loud. Having a tomboy daughter was the next best thing to a son, which to Shawn was the closest thing she felt to acceptance.

  Until the day she told him she was a lesbian.

  Then, her mother told her she couldn’t accept something against God’s will.

  That night, with only two months left of her senior year of high school, Shawn secretly began making plans to leave for California. She purposely made no waves with her parents, going through the motions of focusing on her schoolwork and saving the earnings from her part-time job at the stables next door.

  The day after graduation, she set her alarm for five a.m. and loaded up her car. She left a note on the kitchen table, then drove away without looking back, her vision blurred with tears of relief, of pain, of anticipation.

  She planned one stop along the way, to visit her aunt Betty, the only relative she’d ever felt truly close to. She’d been the only person in her life to support her plans for a career in music and had always encouraged her to not give up when her guitar or piano lessons became increasingly difficult. She’d even insisted on sending her the money for lessons, because her parents couldn’t see the purpose in giving their child unrealistic ambitions. Not that they disapproved of her playing, as long as it remained only a hobby—something Shawn’s heart wouldn’t allow her to do.

  Aunt Betty had accepted her as a lesbian. She’d known Shawn was gay before Shawn had figured it out and told her she had lots of gay friends. But when Shawn arrived at her aunt’s house that day on the first leg of her journey west, Betty greeted her in shock, with the terrible news that her mother had died of a stroke.

  Shawn had lost everyone that had mattered in her life. Her mother was gone. Her father had disowned her. Aunt Betty had died without her even knowing. I can’t lose Jaymi, too. She’s all I have.

  *

  Jaymi had expected to come home to the hopeful, flirtatious woman
she had left earlier in the day. Instead, she walked in on a crying mess on the couch, surrounded by tissues. Her guitar was facedown next to her, and the coffee table was covered with scattered pages of scribbled lyrics. Several flickering candles around the room provided the only light.

  Jaymi immediately set down her things and stripped off her coat and gloves. Resisting the strong urge to gather Shawn up in her arms, she gingerly sat next to her instead and asked her what was wrong.

  “I never got to say good-bye,” Shawn sobbed. “She died thinking I hated her…”

  “Who? Your mother?”

  “Yes. And you want to know the worst thing? I did hate her the last time I saw her. At least, I thought I did.”

  “I’m sure she never thought that.”

  Shawn extracted a tissue from the box and blew her nose. “I took off the day after graduation and all I did was leave a note. Two hours later, I’m sitting in my aunt’s house and she’s telling me my mother’s dead. She never even knew I was leaving. I didn’t tell them—I just left.”

  “You were just a kid. You were mad at them, that’s all. What teenager doesn’t get mad at their parents? If you really hated her, you wouldn’t have left a note. Unless…what did the note say?”

  “I don’t remember. Something about them not accepting me for who I am and that I was going to California to go after my music career.”

  “That doesn’t sound hateful to me, it sounds like what a lot of kids say to their parents. Especially gay kids.”

  Shawn wiped her face and shook her hands through her hair. “Yeah, I guess it does. And I did sign it Love, Shawn.”

  “See? She knew you loved her, even though maybe you weren’t getting along at the time. And give yourself a break—you couldn’t have known she would have a stroke that day.”

  “My father blamed me. He said she was so upset about the way I left that I caused her stroke.”

  Jaymi handed her another tissue to wipe her tears. “That’s awful. But you know that’s not true, don’t you? There are underlying conditions that build up for years that can cause a stroke. It wasn’t your fault. I think everyone goes through some feelings of guilt when they lose someone close. Even me, and we knew my mom was dying. I had a very close relationship with her, but to this day, I still think of things I wish I had said or done. Time passes, and you figure out you’re going to have regrets no matter what. You just have to accept that you’re only human and no matter how hard you try, you’re never going to be perfect.” She placed a firm hand on Shawn’s shoulder and told her again, “It’s not your fault.”

  “That’s not all.” Shawn had stopped crying but looked like she could start again any second. “My father freaked out at the funeral and went off on me—yelling and swearing at me, blaming me in front of everybody—until I was so humiliated I had to leave before the end of the service.”

  “Ah, geez, I’m so sorry.”

  “That’s the last time I saw him until the night I showed up here.” Shawn got up, went to the kitchen, and brought them each a tall glass of water. “You guys played a long time tonight.”

  “Actually, we got a late start, thanks to me.”

  “You were only running a few minutes late—”

  “No, not because of that. Nikki and I had it out. It got really ugly.”

  Shawn returned to her seat next to Jaymi and watched as she gulped down half her drink and set the glass on the coffee table.

  “She quit the band.”

  “What? Are you shitting me?”

  Jaymi closed her eyes, nodded, and told her the story. When she had finished, she began to cry, as the aftermath of the altercation hit her. Keeping up a strong front for the band had been a survival reflex. Now she faced the uncertainty of how receptive her audience was going to be without the band’s popular and extremely talented lead singer, and how it could impact the future of her life’s work.

  Shawn put an arm around her. “Why do you think Nikki’s so threatened by me?”

  “My history with Nikki is a long story.”

  “I’ve got all night.” Shawn leaned back into the other end of the sofa, casually crossing her arms over her stomach and stretching her legs out and crossing her ankles, ready to absorb Jaymi’s long story.

  Jaymi smiled and settled back into the sofa, imitating Shawn. “When we met in college, I needed someone like Nikki. I was shy and lacked confidence. Keep in mind, too, that I’d only been out of the closet a little over a year, so I was still finding myself in that respect. She took me under her wing. I was fascinated by how confident she was, how blatantly bold and strong. I wanted to feel that way, too. She didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought of her. She didn’t let anyone tell her she couldn’t make it as a singer. She was so determined and had the most stubborn belief in her talent…I’d never seen anything like it.

  “When we started to become friends, I latched on to her and found that just by being around her, my own confidence began to grow. She saw how insecure I was, but she also believed in my talents. It helped me believe in myself. We made this deal: she would work with me to improve my stage presence and overcome my stage fright, and I would work with her on improving her guitar playing. It worked wonders for both of us.” Jaymi smiled at memories of simpler and happier times.

  “So you guys must have a lot of mutual respect,” said Shawn. “What happened?”

  “Well, for years we focused so hard on our music, and putting the band together, and so on, that I never really had many friends outside the band. I mean, Kay and I get along great, but it’s always been more of a working relationship with her. Nikki was my one and only close friend, until Peach and I started dating. But she was my girlfriend—that’s different. I’m talking strictly friends. I couldn’t quite define what it was at the time, but now that Peach is out of my life and I’ve had time to process things, I can see that there was definitely a power struggle between those two when it came to me. Nikki was used to being the one I depended on for everything, and it was an adjustment for her. She never came right out and said it, but she let me know in subtle ways that she didn’t want Peach tipping the balance and interfering with what was becoming a well-oiled machine, so to speak—”

  “Like Yoko breaking up the Beatles.”

  “Something like that. We were all pretty serious about maintaining certain boundaries when it came to the band. No visitors at rehearsal, for example. The band was everything to Nikki. Anything—or anyone—that threatened what we were setting out to accomplish was bad news in her eyes.”

  “Well, that explains why she wasn’t thrilled when you brought me along to watch you guys a few weeks ago.”

  “Yeah, you could say that. Anyway, when we moved back here, I took a hiatus from the band. I wanted to spend every possible moment with my mom. I watched the most important person in my life fight for her life every day. And when she died…well, you know how much something like that changes you. My priorities changed. It’s not that my music means any less to me, I just realized that I had been so isolated from everyone—including my family—that there was a part of me that was cheating myself out of things that make your life whole. Like friends. I began to make friends outside the band and the music scene. And I began to limit how much time I spent with the band so I could have a life apart from it. I started to socialize more, like with Devin and Sara, my family, and a few other people.”

  “And you don’t need Nikki the way you used to, and she can’t handle it.”

  “Yeah. I think she liked the idea that she had that hold on me—that control. And I know deep down, beneath that giant ego, there’s an insecure little kid who’s afraid of losing her best friend. That I won’t need her anymore, and she’ll get discarded by me just like she was discarded by her family. Her father kicked her out of the house when she was fifteen when he found out she was gay. The only reason she was able to go back home and then eventually go to college was because a week later she lied and told him that she wasn’t ga
y after all, that it was just a phase.” Jaymi finished off her water and traded it for a glass of wine, handing one to Shawn. “She used to brag about how she outsmarted him, tell me how stupid he was to pay for his lesbian daughter’s tuition so that someday when she was famous she could come out publicly and humiliate him by telling the world how her clean-cut father was really a bastard who had rejected his multitalented daughter. I don’t need to explain that to you.”

  They sipped on their wine in silence for a few moments, and then Jaymi got up and walked over to her CD cabinet. She looked them over thoughtfully, fingering several cases before making her selections and firing up the stereo. She sat back down with Shawn, this time right next to her, their knees touching, as the sounds of Shawn Colvin emitted from the speakers.

  Shawn took the bait and leaned toward her. “You know something, Jaymi, whether Nikki comes to her senses and rejoins the band or not, I believe the band will still be a huge success. And you guys are going to kick ass tomorrow night, with or without her. You, not Nikki, are the reason Passion Play is so good, don’t you know that? You write the best songs, you do the arranging, the producing, you keep the focus. Jaymi, you run the show, and whether you realize it or not, it’s you the audience goes crazy for. I’ve seen it. Yeah, Nikki’s a showman, she’s attractive and sexy, blah-blah-blah. And maybe to some, she’s the center of attention. She thinks so. But when you sing, Jaymi, holy shit—it’s like the whole world stops to listen. And watch. And you can’t see it, obviously. But to me and a ton of other people, you are the sexiest thing on that stage. And that, angel, is another reason why Nikki is so threatened by you.”

  Jaymi shyly tried to deflect the compliments, pondering whether what Shawn was saying was really true, or if her perceptions were skewed by attraction. “How do you always know the perfect thing to say?”