Rock Chick Redemption

by Ashley, Kristen

“Uncle Tex,” I started, still looking at Whisky, in fact, entirely unable to tear my eyes from his, “I… can’t… breathe.”

  That’s when Whisky smiled.

  If I thought I couldn’t breathe before, I was wrong. Whisky’s smile was so damn good, it made me forget how to breathe entirely.

  “Sorry, Darlin’.” Tex let me go, grabbed onto my arms and shook me so hard, my head bobbed back and forth. “Yee ha!” he boomed and looked around the room and then he slung an arm around my shoulders. “This is my niece, Roxie!” he announced to all and sundry (like they didn’t already know).

  He jerked me around and my head snapped back.

  “Nance, meet my niece.”

  I let my brain juices calm down and then smiled dazedly at the pretty woman who walked in with Uncle Tex.

  “Hi Roxie, I’m Nancy, Jet’s mother.” She shook my hand and then sat down on the arm of a chair in a way that made me think that if she hadn’t, she would have fallen over. I glanced worriedly at her and her dangling arm, which appeared to be useless. I was about to move toward her to ask if she was all right, when Tex jerked me around toward the espresso counter and my head snapped back again, then again as he yanked me forward.

  “Indy, woman, Ally, Loopy Loo, get your asses over here and meet my niece,” he ordered and they came forward.

  I was right about all of them. Ally was Whisky’s sister. Loopy Loo was obviously (for some reason) Tex’s nickname for Jet.

  Then I was introduced to Lee; I learned the latest news, that Lee was now Indy’s fiancé and I noticed he had dark brown eyes, Vance; the Native American, Mace; who I guessed had some native Hawaiian or Polynesian in him, was almost as tall as Tex and had fantastic jade green eyes, Matt; a good-looking blond guy that was my height and Eddie; I’d already figured that out but didn’t tell Tex and, luckily, the announcement of blood relation to Tex made Eddie’s coolness toward me melt a bit.

  And finally, Whisky, or as Tex introduced him, Hank Nightingale.

  Hank Nightingale.

  Jesus.

  Be still my heart.

  That was a great, fucking name.

  Hank’s hand came out and I put mine in his and immediately pulled my bottom lip between my teeth when our skin made contact.

  Shit, Roxie, pull yourself together, I thought and took a breath, forced my teeth to let go of my lip and tried to smile (and failed miserably). Luckily, he didn’t notice as his eyes were doing a full body scan and then they came up and locked on mine just as Tex jerked me in another direction.

  Hank’s hand let mine go but instead of moving away, as the others had, his fingers wrapped around my upper arm and he pulled me gently, but firmly, away from Uncle Tex, toward him. Then more toward him, his hand sliding down my arm. Then more, his fingers circling my wrist. Then more, his hand finding and wrapping around mine. And finally, I was at his side, our shoulders nearly touching.

  Uncle Tex looked around, his eyes narrowing on Hank but before he could speak, Hank did. “I know you’re excited Roxie’s here,” he said in a low, soft voice that was meant only for Tex (and, due to my proximity, me). “But maybe you can get a little control so she doesn’t get whiplash.”

  My heart fluttered and I leaned into him a bit. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even want to, my body just did it like it had a mind of its own (it did, of course, have a mind of its own, it just wasn’t working at that moment).

  My shoulder hit Hank’s bicep. The second it did, his hand squeezed mine and my throat closed with fear that he might drop my hand and move away.

  He didn’t.

  This was good for two reasons. One, if he did, I’d have toppled over like a tree, and two, I liked that he was holding my hand.

  Uncle Tex looked at me, then he looked at Hank, then he looked back at me. Then, he took a step back and looked at the both of us. We were standing close, I could feel the heat from Hank’s arm burning through my sweater, his hand tight on mine and I was beginning to feel faint again. My eyes weakly flitted to Uncle Tex’s and when he saw it, he grinned.

  “Fuckin’ A, Roxie. Right on!” Uncle Tex boomed and I stared, not knowing what in the hell he was talking about.

  “What?” I asked.

  Uncle Tex didn’t answer me, he looked to Mace and Vance and declared, “You boys gotta learn to move faster or all the good ones’ll be gone.”

  To this, I heard Hank laugh softly next to me. I looked at him and his eyes were back to lazy, but now they were also amused and, I could swear, behind them, there was an intensity that made my heart start to race.

  I tore my eyes away and looked back at Uncle Tex.

  “What?” I repeated.

  Again, Uncle Tex ignored me as Nancy moved carefully toward us and then grabbed on to his arm. She leaned into him and he took her weight naturally, as if this had happened many times before. She smiled at me. “Why don’t you and Tex come over to my place for dinner? Maybe we can talk Jet into cooking for us.”

  Without hesitation, Tex turned toward Jet and boomed, “Make those fuckin’ brownies with the caramel, Loopy Loo. It’s a special fuckin’ occasion!”

  I jumped at this latest boom and Hank let go of my hand and moved away. I felt his loss like a physical blow and I closed my eyes tight to push it away.

  The last time this had happened to me, I’d lost seven years of my life to Billy.

  It wasn’t going to happen to me again, no way.

  No… fucking… way.

  I hadn’t even gotten rid of Billy, I certainly didn’t need the trouble that Hank Nightingale had written all over him.

  This trouble was worse. This trouble said loud and clear that Hank would eventually find out about Billy and realize what a fucking moron I was and Hank would never hold my hand again. Don’t ask me how I knew this, I just knew this like I knew that Manolo Blahnik made the best shoes in history.

  I opened my eyes again and Nancy was watching me.

  “You okay?” she asked softly.

  I nodded but said, just as softly, “I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Stroke,” she answered, without hesitation. “Nearly nine months ago.”

  I moved toward her and then stopped when Eddie came in my peripheral vision.

  “I’m so sorry,” I whispered, not attempting to get any closer and feeling weirdly scared of Eddie.

  “I’m getting better every day,” Nancy told me.

  I smiled at her. “That’s fantastic.”

  She smiled back, it was a glamorous smile, like her daughter’s.

  “Holy cow, Nancy. Jet and you have the same smile,” I said.

  “Don’t tell Jet.”

  “Why not?”

  “She won’t believe you.”

  Eddie came in close to Nancy and took her weight off Tex when I heard Indy shout, “Let’s have a big old party!”

  Tex moved away and boomed. “Now you’re talkin’, woman!”

  I looked at Eddie and he was watching me, his black eyes no longer blank but active. I glanced away, feeling that he knew my secrets and I wanted to keep them to myself.

  It was then, I noticed with alarm, that the Witches of Eastwick had thrown themselves wholeheartedly into planning the impromptu party.

  I wasn’t sure this was a good idea.

  “I’m not getting a good feeling about this,” I said to Nancy (and Eddie, since he was there).

  “I’m not either,” Eddie said in a tone that made a shiver go across my skin.

  Nancy patted my arm quickly then grabbed on to Eddie again.

  “It’ll be fine,” she said, grinning at Tex.

  “I’ll make the caramel layer squares,” Jet said, walking up to Eddie, linking her arm through his and putting her head on his shoulder, obviously deciding their tiff was over.

  “Damn straight, Loopy Loo,” Tex said.

  “I’ll get the booze,” Ally said, also arriving at our group.

  “Where are we having it?” Indy asked, coming up beside me. Lee mat
erialized next to her and his arm went across her shoulders as hers went around his waist. He was looking at me and he kind of scared me too, both in a general way and in an Eddie way.

  “It can’t be at Tex’s place, we’ll get cat hair in the caramel squares,” Ally said and I saw Hank come up behind her and he wrapped both of his arms around her neck and yanked her back into his chest, playful and rough. Gil would do that to me: Gil had done that to me.

  They were close, you could tell, all of them, everyone around me, even Mace, Vance and Matt who’d joined our enormous huddle. They were family, and they’d taken in Uncle Tex as one of their own. This made me simultaneously happy for Uncle Tex, because he finally had this, and sad for me, because I never would.

  “Cats!” Tex boomed and turned to me. “Roxie, darlin’, you got to meet the cats.”

  I looked up at him and grinned. “I can’t wait.” And this was the truth, Uncle Tex had been talking about his cats for years.

  “Nancy, you okay with Jet?” Tex asked.

  Nancy nodded.

  “Good, you all figure it out, tell us where to be. Roxie and me got some catchin’ up to do,” Tex said, grabbing on to me. “Darlin’ girl, we’re goin’ to go meet the cats.”

  Then Uncle Tex dragged me out of the store.

  I hadn’t taken even a sip of my caramel latte.

  * * * * *

  I did have the chance to turn around, I caught Indy’s eye and I mouthed, “Thank you.”

  She cocked her head and smiled a confused smile before I was pulled through the door. She had no idea what I was talking about but I didn’t care, I had to say it all the same, for my Grams, my Mom, my aunts and myself.

  * * * * *

  I didn’t look at Hank.

  Hank had ceased to exist for me.

  He had to.

  For his own good and mine.

  Chapter Three

  Naughty Girl Martini

  This is how it got better, and worse.

  * * * * *

  I met the cats.

  There were a lot of them. As in, a lot.

  Some of them Uncle Tex was getting paid to watch, most of them were Uncle Tex’s.

  “Is it legal to have this many cats?” I asked, jiggling a laser light on the wall and watching a cat named Petunia, who had splotches of ginger and splotches of white, try to crawl up the wall to get at the red dot.

  “Nope,” Tex said standing by where I was sitting on his couch and gazing at my laser cat play like I was the Master Cat Queen and no one could jiggle a laser light as well as me.

  I couldn’t help myself, even with all that was on my mind, I laughed. After all these years, and all our letters, it was good to know Uncle Tex felt the same way about me as I felt about him.

  “I thought Hank and Eddie were cops. Do they know about your cats?” I asked.

  “Those boys have had bigger fish to fry these past months. What with Indy gettin’ kidnapped and shot at all the time and Jet wrestlin’ with a loan shark carryin’ a knife and runnin’ from a crazy rapist.”

  The red dot arrested on the wall as I blinked at Tex.

  “Petunia’s goin’ loco, darlin’ girl, jiggle!” Tex said, staring at the wall.

  “Kidnapped… shot at… rapist… ” I said, or kind of, spluttered.

  Uncle Tex turned to me. “It’s a long story.”

  “I think we have time.”

  “It’s actually two long stories” he said.

  “I still think we have time.”

  He sat down next to me on the couch, took the laser light away from me and started jiggling it another direction, trying to get a cat named Rocky interested.

  “Rocky’s too damn lazy, gettin’ fat,” he muttered.

  “Uncle Tex.”

  He sighed.

  Then he told me two long stories.

  * * * * *

  “Can we call Mom?” I asked after I’d gotten over Indy and Jet’s stories of murder, gunplay, pot farms, strip club mayhem, knife wielding men, rampant kidnapping and assault by taking a shot of Uncle Tex’s homemade, gut-dissolving hooch (okay, maybe it took two shots, one for each story).

  “Not ready for that,” Tex answered me.

  I nodded. I’d give him time. Hopefully, one day, when my love life was sorted out, we’d have all the time in the world. Then I leaned into him and put my head on his shoulder and, surprise of surprises, he let me.

  “You wanna tell me why you’re here?” he asked in his soft boom.

  I stiffened then sighed.

  “Not ready for that,” I said. “But soon.”

  I felt him nod and then he rested his head on top of mine. “Tell me one thing, you through with him?”

  He meant Billy.

  I closed my eyes then opened them.

  “I’m working on it.”

  He nodded against my head. “Good.”

  * * * * *

  Uncle Tex took me to get my car so I could go back to my hotel room to rest and get ready for the party. When I got out of his car, he told me that in Denver, people wore jeans.

  “Give me your cell phone number, so I can get hold of you,” I said, talking to him through his open window.

  “Don’t have a cell.”

  I stared at him.

  Then he slammed War into the 8-track player (yes, I said 8-track) and hurtled down Broadway with “Low Rider” blaring from the speakers of his bronze El Camino. Uncle Tex, I realized quickly, was kind of living in the 70’s and didn’t feel like leaving it.

  I went to my hotel, asked at reception where the nearest mall was, drove to Cherry Creek, went directly to the nearest phone store and bought Uncle Tex a cell phone. He could have his 8-track but he was also getting a goddamned cell phone. Not having one in this day and age was sheer lunacy. (Okay, so Uncle Tex was as close to a functioning lunatic as I knew—Billy notwithstanding—but still.)

  I went back to the hotel, changed out of my fancy Meet Uncle Tex Outfit, and put on a pair of corduroys that were kind of a cross between green and gray and had a silvery sheen because Denver might do jeans but I didn’t, at least not at a party, or, I should say, at least not at a party where Whisky was. Hank may have ceased to exist for me but he hadn’t actually ceased to exist and I was relatively certain he was going to be at the party. A girl had her pride. I kept the turtleneck and boots and threaded a glittery ribbon belt through the belt loops.

  Then I turned on my cell.

  Nine calls, nine voicemails, all from Billy, all getting steadily angrier and angrier until the last one.

  “I’ll find you Roxie.”

  I knew he would, I was counting on it.

  One more time.

  Then freedom.

  * * * * *

  Uncle Tex picked me up and I gave him the cell phone.

  “I’ve charged it and put my number in it. You can pass it around the party and get everyone’s numbers.”

  “You should have saved your money, won’t use it.”

  “Uncle Tex.”

  “Won’t use it.”

  “Uncle Tex!”

  “Darlin’ girl, that’s sweet but I won’t use it.”

  I crossed my arms on my chest.

  “Okay then, I’ll pass it around the party and get everyone’s numbers.”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  Uncle Tex never seemed stubborn in his letters.

  “Bet Nancy has a cell,” I tried (I could be stubborn too).

  Uncle Tex didn’t answer.

  “So, what were you doing with Nancy this morning?”

  Uncle Tex still didn’t answer.

  I looked at him. I could see his blush in the dark.

  “You like her!” I shouted (in a happy way).

  “Shee-it.”

  “Uncle Tex and Nancy, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g…” I sang.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty one.”

  “Act it.”

  Hee hee.

  * * * * *

/>   We went to a duplex, the lights blazing on one side, the curtains open and there seemed to be a million people, shoulder-to-shoulder, inside.

  It was all the folks from that morning at Fortnum’s, plus Indy’s neighbors; a gay couple named Stevie and Tod. There was also a very pretty lady who looked a lot, and dressed a lot, like Dolly Parton (including the bodacious ta-tas) named Daisy.

  Into this mix was thrown Indy’s Dad; Tom, Hank’s parents; Malcolm and Kitty Sue and Jet’s Mom’s friends; Trixie and Ada.

  Add a dash of a Harley guy with long, gray hair in a braid and a rolled red bandana tied around his forehead named Duke (I’d heard about Duke in Tex’s letters, he worked at Fortnum’s too), a serious stoner named “The Kevster” (The Kevster didn’t work at all), a couple of Indy and Ally’s girlfriends named Andrea and Marianne and a bunch of guys, some of them cops, some of them worked for Lee (I learned Mace, Vance and Matt all worked for Lee at his private investigation service).

  Everyone (but Daisy) was wearing jeans (though Daisy was wearing a jeans skirt encrusted with rhinestones at the hem, the pockets and along the seams).

  Little did I know, this was a recipe for disaster for me.

  At the time, I thought this party crush was a good thing. In fact, I was having fun. Uncle Tex had good friends, they seemed to like him a lot and I felt comfortable with them immediately. This meant I could enjoy myself, maybe a bit too much and maybe a bit too crazily considering the fact that Daisy told me a story about her, Ally, Jet and Indy stun gunning some women in a bar that made me double over laughing and nearly pee my pants and Tod told me a story about Indy lip-synching with him during a drag show that made me shove him in the shoulder and shout “Shut up!” so loud everyone turned to stare. This also meant I could easily avoid Hank at the same time, (well, kind of, it wasn’t a big duplex, but I tried real hard).

  I was doing pretty well, for a while.

  Trouble was, it was a good party, nice (albeit slightly crazy) people who enjoyed each other’s company and bowls of cashews (everyone knew, cashews equaled good party). Worse still, Indy was at the martini shaker and she made a mean dirty martini, so good, I had three before I even realized it.

  Worse than that (and my fatal mistake a couple of hours into the party), I took a bite of Jet’s chocolate caramel layer squares while Hank was in the vicinity.