Unattainable

by Victoria Ashe

  There was nothing he could confide even to William. He felt as if to speak the words of what was inside him aloud would be to lose their magic. When he wrote lyrics, they came out grim, a purging of the unwanted things he pushed out of his psyche. But these words—these words his mind strung together about Anna—he wanted to hold them inside himself and let them ruminate until they changed his existence.

  The reviews of Leaven’s shows in Oregon and Washington those two weeks piled up stronger than in the entire year before. He supposed he faked it well, because he’d never felt so disconnected from his own music before in his life. The repetition of the songs forced him to go someplace distant in his own mind just to get through them each night on stage.

  All he wanted to do was mark the days as gone.

  “I don’t get why you’re going back there, buddy,” William said as he rolled into his bunk one night.

  “I do,” Zach added. He grinned as if he had a clue.

  “It’s not like that,” John said. “You wouldn’t understand and I can’t explain it right.”

  He could see the doubt in William’s eyes, that fear that John was going headlong into a disaster that would cause the Valium and vodka to come out again, to cause the band to falter.

  So much responsibility rode on his shoulders. Vocalists weren’t replaceable. Van Halen had taught the entire industry that much. Zach could be replaced, but never John Leaven.

  His best friends in the world, the guys who would take a bullet for him—he had to keep himself pulled together for them. Their families depended on him. He was the fricking “guiding light,” after all.

  I will never be able to get out of this business. Who am I kidding?

  “We have to be in Berlin on November second. Don’t forget it,” William said.

  “Forget it? I’m not sure I ever knew it.”

  “Don’t let us down. Just get the schedule from Linda and follow it. Please, John.”

  “I know. I know.”

  His career was big enough now, somehow, that they’d stopped paying any attention to where they’d been or where they were headed. When had that happened? His was handled. Scheduled. Told where to go and pointed in that direction.

  William propped himself up on one elbow and narrowed his eyes. “John. I’m gonna tell it to you straight, okay? You never last longer than a year or maybe two with any woman. It starts out with you ecstatic, then ends with her furious and you convinced the world hates you.”

  “I don’t know about the world, but the women? Yep.”

  William rolled his eyes. “Women don’t like to feel second string to anything.”

  “But they were,” he said slowly. “Every single one of them. I didn’t have it in me to give up this career we all fought so hard for. Relationships end, buddy. But maybe this one won’t. This feels—different.”

  “At least it’s age appropriate this time, I’ll give you that. The fact she’s married with a kid is way out of bounds even for you, though.”

  “Maybe I’m just not meant to be happy. I tell you what—I’ve thought that more times than I can count.”

  “Nobody is happy all the time, jackass. Most of the time we’re all just content with little spikes of … of … joy. You know? That’s the best we get.”

  That final morning in Seattle, Washington, he waved a temporary farewell to the band, to Linda the lanyard woman, and to all the rest. Then he rented a car and began the nine-hour drive back to that park in the middle of nowhere. He thought of praying, but he wasn’t sure he even remembered how. He was less sure of what good it would do him.

  •

  She arrived at the park before he did. Cold and stark, evening was about to fall and the faint mist from the river flowed as it usually did up over the banks and across the dry grass.

  The old stone bridge arched gothic over what was once a creek bed, now paved with dark asphalt. The once-colorful leaves had begun their fade, flattening against the walkway, disintegrating a little more each day. The air smelled of them, musty and earthen.

  Anna’s coat was long and black, her hair in stark contrast to it, falling around her shoulders. She wrung her hands so slightly—the only outward tell that belied her apparent calm.

  She saw him in the distance, crossing the park, slowly passing the bench on which they’d once sat together. Sunlight illuminated him from behind with its final rays of the day. A touch of the sunset’s first pink blended with the gray of his coat.

  His boots were dark brown, his jeans faded blue. She knew the wool coat itself probably hid something warm and plaid beneath.

  When he saw her, he smiled. Not the ridiculous, cheesy smiles she’d seen him put on in so many fan photos, but a real smile all the way from his heart.

  He put his hands deep into his pockets as he neared. “You made it,” he said.

  They stood together under the stone arch, facing one another.

  “I think I used up my last babysitting credit to pull this off.”

  “Have you told anyone about us?” The air was just crisp enough to show a hint of breath when he spoke.

  “Us?” She laughed. “No.”

  “So what do we do now?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I’m in the middle of something and I don’t even know how to tell you.”

  “Should I be worried?”

  “John, I’m in a mess right now. Michael is—gone. I mean, he quite literally has disappeared. I filed a report with the police about two weeks back, and when they followed up with his employer, they knew exactly where his was. And I have no idea why he won’t contact me or Regan.”

  “I’ve never heard the like.” His brown eyes registered a gleam of hope she knew she shouldn’t encourage—but she went on.

  “And the strange thing is—I feel nothing. I don’t know what to feel. I’ve wanted to call and talk to you a thousand times these last two weeks, but I’ve been handling this.”

  “How is your daughter?”

  “She has night terrors. She asks for him. Jess and my mom keep her distracted whenever I can’t. She keeps saying that Daddy is listening to the man in the blue shirt. And something about the man in the blue shirt needs to listen to himself so it’ll all be okay. I have zero idea what that means. None. Then there’s this identity theft issue I have going, so I’ve had to shut everything down and reopen every account, transfer all the money elsewhere. I’m tired, John.”

  “Do you need money?”

  Now that surprised her. “Wow. Thanks. No. I can take care of myself pretty well all alone when I have to. I’ve saved quite a bit.”

  “Are you divorcing?”

  “Are you quitting touring?”

  “Touché.”

  Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a skateboard hitting cement mixed with the flutter of birds’ wings.

  “I don’t know what I am,” she whispered finally. “I think I’m in a holding pattern until I figure out what’s going on.”

  He took a cautious step toward her and took his hands from his pockets, the dragonfly showing at his wrist. He started to reach for her, then thought the better of it.

  “It’ll be a while before I’m back stateside, you know.”

  “Yes. I know.”

  He hung his head, dug the heel of his boot into the loose soil at the side of the asphalt. When he concentrated, when he was disturbed and the words wouldn’t come, a crease always appeared between his eyes right above his nose.

  “What are you smiling at?” he looked up and asked.

  “Nothing. This is awkward,” she said.

  “Yes,” he laughed. “Yes, it is.”

  “It reminds me of when you’re on stage.”

  “I’m awkward on stage?”

  “Not exactly. Just … self-contained. Or self-conscious. I think you can never drop that wall completely and just let go with the music. Because the audience would see you.”

  “That’s bad?”

  “It’s what gets the critical reviews—bu
t I think it’s wonderful. I understand it. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t want to be fully accessible to everyone who paid for a ticket either somehow.”

  He nodded. “I’m awkward here right now because I’m terrified.”

  “I know.” She studied the shape of his hands, the straight black fringe of lashes when he looked down at his feet—the wave of his hair across his forehead. “You have a tiny scar right by your hairline. How’d you get it?”

  “Chicken pox as a preschooler. What? You thought bar fight?”

  He leaned in, and this time, found the courage to place his hands on her shoulders. She felt a tremor pass through him—through her.

  He pulled her in just a few inches more, leaning ever farther until his forehead touched hers.

  She felt the heat of anticipation in that frozen moment that lasted for minutes upon minutes it seemed.

  She absorbed the warm of his breath on her face, and knew with unfailing instinct that his eyes were closed tightly in some internal struggle. Hers were as well. He smelled sublimely male, as earthen as the leaves fading into the soil around them.

  And so they stood together that way, each breathing in the essence of the other with a silent need akin to pain.

  Then slowly, very slowly, she opened her eyes and tilted her head back a mere inch.

  His lips touched hers softly, and she swore she heard the beat of his heart through his wool coat. His mouth remained as still against hers as possible, the beautiful warmth of him contrasting with a point of cold where that tiny gold loop rested.

  Her mind swam with the merits of self-control, all the while realizing that without the strength to move away, the nearness only heightened the tension into something palpable, something irresistible.

  “I can’t—” he murmured against her. His words were lost against her mouth. His hands slid from her arms up into her thick hair, and with his kiss, her soul unfolded from wherever it had been too long hidden.

  Her fingers moved up to his lapels, twined through the fabric and pulled him in closer. He was a lightning bolt through her blood. He was a comfort to her spirit. There was nothing more right in all the universe—and at the same time, more wrong.

  She pulled away and looked up at his handsome face, flushed with want, brown eyes glittering like dark diamonds.

  “There has never been anything like this,” he whispered.

  “Never.”

  He took her hand and tugged gently. “We need to go somewhere public, I think, before I try to convince you to go somewhere private.”

  “What if someone recognizes you?”

  “Then we’ll get up and leave.”

  They walked in silence to his rental car—a black Landrover with the grill covered in nine hours worth of bugs.

  He opened the door and guided her into the leather seat, then drove to a nondescript café with not a word spoken between them until he turned the key off in the parking lot. His hands gripped the wheel. Hers remained folded in her lap. But the beating of her heart hadn’t calmed. His breath was ragged, and he looked at her again with the look of a drowning man haunting his eyes.

  “I want inside you, Anna.”

  She closed her eyes again and fought against the emotions that consumed her.

  “You think I mean that only one way, but I don’t. I want all the way into your heart.” His voice was soft, clear. “And I’m going to wait and wait and wait until there’s no hope left, if that’s what it takes.”

  Sometimes from the most innocent of beginnings, the greatest evil can begin, she’d once heard. Sometimes from all that felt good, real good could be destroyed. She had no doubt that when she’d calmed down after Regan was put to bed and she had time to think, the guilt would creep in with a vengeance.

  “When you’re overseas on that tour, John, we’ll talk, all right?”

  “Yes. But it’s the next half hour I’m trying to talk myself through right now.” He laughed low in his throat, lust making his accent heavier than normal.

  She smiled and brushed her hair back away from her face. “So in the next half hour here’s what we’ll do. We’ll go get a table in the corner.”

  “Nothing but senior citizens in there. I think I’ll be fine,” he said.

  “It’ll work out. Then I’ll go to the rest room for a few minutes to give us some space. Then we can sit and talk until it’s all better.”

  He nodded. And that’s what they did.

  She slid back into the red vinyl booth across from him a few minutes later. He’d shrugged his coat off, and sure enough, beneath had been a gray and black plaid shirt over a cream-colored sweater. He ran a hand across his beard stubble, then through the hair at one temple.

  She picked up the steaming mug of green tea in front of her and held it, clicking the rim with her long nails for a while.

  “Where did your husband’s employer say he was?”

  “Apparently he really had gone to Brazil. Then he came back and from there, I don’t know.”

  “Is there another woman?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “What’s your favorite color?” he asked.

  She laughed then, and took a sip from the mug. “I don’t have one. Green, orange, bright blue. Black.”

  “Favorite song?”

  “No idea. Too many to ever decide.”

  “Favorite day of the week.”

  “Thursday. Thursday’s child, full of woe. That’s me.”

  He laughed, and leaned back as the waitress put a steak in front of him and a chef salad in front of her.

  “Did you know I can cook?” he said. “I can bake like nobody’s business. I don’t even tell the guys this, but I pick up recipe books sometimes—when there’s time anyway—on tour. ”

  “Would you settle into that? A normal family life? Coming home in the evening, cooking dinner together, reading bedtime stories?”

  “It’s the dream, isn’t it?” He sighed. “I would give anything to look forward to coming home from work everyday and see the person I love waiting at the door for me. I’d love to roll over in the morning and have someone I deeply love sound asleep on the pillow beside me. I’ve never had that in my entire life—at least not for very long. There were a few times I thought it would go that way—it started that way for a bit, then was gone in weeks. Every time I’ve tried, it slipped right through my fingers.”

  “What happened?”

  “Well, mostly I’d pretend. Fake it till you make it, right? But that never works. Then when the pretending was too much, I’d hit the road. Whichever girlfriend would always be around waiting for the plane to land that next time. Pretty soon they resent running to the airport at two in the morning or waiting by the phone, and the relationship implodes.”

  “Did you think of marrying again?”

  “I think about it all the time.”

  “You know, it isn’t all cookies and cuddles when you’re married.”

  “Why? What parts aren’t?”

  She swallowed a bite and leaned back. “The toilets that don’t get flushed. The man sitting in front of a football game farting. The walking around belching, sneezing, coughing all over the dinner table with his mouth wide open.”

  “What the hell did you marry? A Neanderthal?”

  “I’m starting to think so. A hairless Neanderthal.”

  John flashed one of those smiles that light up the room without even trying.

  “He was always paranoid about body hair. I have no idea how much he spent on electrolysis. And the mani-pedis with the buffing and the clear polish. I do my own nails, and there he goes to the salon again.”

  “Is he gay?”

  “He might have been for all I know. Would have explained a few things.” She took another sip.

  John folded his arms across his chest. “You referred to him in past tense, Anna.”

  They talked another hour into the evening, and after when he dropped her off at her car, she watched until she couldn’t pic
k out his taillights far ahead on the freeway any longer, then she turned off the nearest exit and headed home.

  The day blurred through her mind, but that kiss—that kiss she relived a thousand times.

  EIGHT.

  November

  The billing department at the hospital was the means by which Anna Anderson at last made contact with her husband. As the bills began to mount, and her challenges to each charge stacked up, one last time, she and the lady she’d gotten to know simply as Suzette, went through all the information in the file.

  There, on the monitor, a phone number she didn’t recognize blinked at her. And when she went home, sat down in her kitchen and called it, Michael answered.

  She sat silently staring at the phone in her hand, words just out of reach.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  “It’s been over a month,” she said.

  “Anna.”

  “Well, good. You remember your wife’s name.”

  “I guess you figured out I’m not in Brazil. The company said you’d tried …”

  She wanted to laugh, cry, throw the phone—something. The rage inside her reached a peak, but it didn’t blow. Instead, it culminated into something so furious, it simply imploded, snapped. And when the implosion was finished, as fast as that, the last shred of emotion she had for Michael was wiped away.

  Good? There was no real good left in their marriage. And now she saw that fact so clearly.

  She pictured the light blond of his hair, the baby blue of his eyes—and the colors seemed cold and weak even in her memory. She imagined the times they’d laughed, and knew with abject certainty that there had been too few to hold them together. Had he ever truly loved her? In the next heartbeat, she knew the answer wasn’t one she’d ever want to hear. And so she didn’t ask.

  “What was it, Michael? The responsibility of a family? Another woman? What?”

  “I have cancer, Anna.”

  Her pulse rang in her ears. Each second that passed was marked with the beat of her heart, slow, steady.

  He cleared his throat. “I had cancer.”

  “Wha—what?”

  “Don’t worry. I’ve sent a check to cover everything at the hospital. You won’t have to take a dime out of savings.”