Falcon Song: A love story

by Cross, Kristin

  She hadn’t gone that much, but she decided that since she would be there in Lubbock and near the venue anyway, she would go and enjoy it. She even decided to just buy a ticket like any other Joe so she could experience one of their concerts just the way they did it, without any changes they may have made for her. She wanted to be able to sit in that stadium seat and hear him sing her song and be the only one in the whole place who knew who’d he’d written it to.

  Her plans made, Tuesday morning she got on-line and bought her ticket, gassed up her car, told her mother of her plans, packed an over night bag and then went and got her hair cut. The idea of talking to Jason still made her nervous and maybe having perfect hair would help.

  Wednesday she slept in as long as she could, knowing it might be a record late night for her. She’d been planning to spend an hour or two at work, but then when she got there, Maxine had things well in hand and Kate went almost straight back out to her car. This was it.

  She phoned their manager, Scotty, and asked what hotel they’d be in and what Jason’s room number was. He didn’t ask why she wanted to know and she didn’t offer. Then, with a trepidatious deep breath, she got in and headed one more time to Texas, and this time it wasn’t to talk to God.

  Lubbock was a long drive from Wye, Oklahoma and she stopped several times en route. She’d eaten a late breakfast and stopped in Wichita Falls for a late lunch and to rest her back again. Arriving in the city of Lubbock, she located the venue at Texas Tech, and then grabbed a deli sandwich before walking in to find her seat.

  She was more than forty five minutes early and it was actually kind of fun to watch the last minute preparations from a totally unconnected perspective.

  As the stadium steadily filled, she began to be frankly somewhat flabbergasted at how many people were here to see her friends make music. She’d been absolutely aware of the numbers they were attracting lately, but seeing it in the flesh was much more impactful. So was the fact that a huge percentage of this crowd was female.

  Finally, the lights went down and for just a second the crowded quieted and then as a whole, they went wild. A shock of excitement went up her spine even though she knew there would be a warm up band appear before Jason and the rest of Aerie did.

  The warm up band was good. Remarkably so and Kate didn’t doubt they’d go big if they had the work ethic and could keep getting along well enough. Still, she wasn’t sad to see them leave the stage. It had been several months since she’d been to an actual concert of Jason’s and she could feel her pulse rate go up a notch just thinking about him.

  She could tell they were coming up the ramp before she could see them because there were people who started to scream and cheer even before the spot lights were there. Cody appeared first. He ran on to the stage with his usual energy and the crowd around her went into a frenzy. The drummer began and as Jason appeared, the crowd let out a scream and then Jason started on his guitar and the others joined in. The sudden onslaught to her senses of sound and lights, energy and Jason had her feeling like she had taken something illegal and she couldn’t help but let her body move to the rhythm . They were really good at what they did. She’d forgotten how good.

  She’d meant what she’d said to Jason the other day about being a magician out there. That phenomenal sensuality she’d mentioned began to work on her and she watched him as her pulse rate went up even further. He was incredibly attractive out there under those lights with the slight sheen of perspiration delineating every muscle in the sleeveless shirt he wore. She felt herself almost drowning in his music and his spell as they sang song after song. All she had to do was look at him and she completely lost all sense of time and reality.

  They must have been nearing the end of the concert when that sense of reality came back in a hurry. This whole time, she had been entertained and thrilled with watching Jason and the others put on a magnificent show. Suddenly, as the tempo slowed right down to a ballad, Jason began to sing and it looked like he was singing right to one woman near his lower stage left. Kate’s breath caught and her heart did some pathetic off beat thing that hurt.

  A moment later, Jason focused on another woman and then Kate felt slightly better. He was just working the crowd. That was all. Still, the magic had dissipated and been replaced with that familiar anxious weight in the pit of her stomach and she almost felt like leaving right now. She glanced around and realized it would be swimming up stream and decided to wait. The show would be ending in just a few minutes anyway.

  The ballad ended and Kate took a deep breath. It was silly to get this upset over a stupid song and the way Jason sang it.

  A hot guitar lick rang out and her attention was drawn back to the stage where Jason and Cody were standing together with their guitars snarling in their hands. The crowd recognized the song and there was a huge, scream that threatened to shake the very structure of the stadium. Kate felt even more shaken as Jason moved out to the front of the stage and began to dance as he sang to the crowd below him.

  He began the same skanky, suggestive moves Kate had been so disturbed by that night at Cody’s party and the anxious feeling in her tummy intensified. Suddenly the air felt close and the crowd felt suffocating. For the first time, she noticed the almost overpowering smell of hundreds of different perfumes and colognes mixed with body odor and she began to feel light headed. She watched Jason for several more minutes as she struggled to take deep breaths and not let what she was watching him do toward tens of thousands of women bother her.

  Everyone in the entire stadium was standing and dancing and screaming, but Kate took her seat anyway. The air in here was stifling and she suddenly wished she hadn’t come after all. Deciding to take her chances with being caught in the downstream current, she left her seat and began the long trek through the mass of crowded bodies to the aisle and then up the stairs. It took her most of the next two songs to make her way to a landing at the top of the concourse.

  She paused for a breath of the slightly cooler, fresher air and Aerie ended a song and got ready to start another. She stopped as she went to walk out of the curtained door way between two security guards and took one last look down at the guys on the stage. Jason and Cody were laughing together as Jason yelled, “One, two, three, four” and the drummer started in. She sighed, Jason was beautiful, that was all there was to it, and amazingly talented. He truly was a master entertainer, but she wasn’t cut out for this.

  She pushed aside the curtain and stepped into the lighted hall that circled the perimeter of the venue. As she started to head for the doors, Jason began to sing her song.

  Stepping into the clear air of the outdoors was unbelievably refreshing, even though it was probably still nearly eighty degrees on this balmy, West Texas night. Kate looked around, trying to get her bearings and figure out where she’d parked her car. It was actually on the other side of the building and she stayed close under the lights as she headed all the way around on the walkway.

  She didn’t even realize she’d started to cry as she walked until her tears splashed on her hand where she clutched her keys. Some people were coming and she tried to brush away the tears as she had to walk past and then decided it didn’t matter who saw anyway. What did anything matter when you’ve just truly understood you are foundationally at odds with what you want most in life?

  Acknowledging she loved Jason was simple. Acknowledging that what they each deemed appropriate behavior for a spouse was not even close to correlating was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life.

  Locating her car, she got in and locked the doors and then gave in to the heartbreak she felt at having finally come to the decision that she couldn’t marry Jason right now, even if he had officially deemed her the best flavor. His behavior toward the women here tonight and the way he had danced were too at odds with her own personal value system to ever make this situation work, even if he had proven his undying love. Even if he was only putting on a show, she couldn’t marry that and have the rest of the
world believe her husband was that much of a hustler, but knowing that for sure hurt more than anything she’d ever experienced.

  She sat in the car and cried and the tears rolling didn’t feel like they were helping her feel better like they usually did. Tonight, they were simply the result of an incredibly aching heart, and she sobbed until she finally realized the concert must have ended because people were streaming through the parking lot around her. Remembering why she’d come to Lubbock in the first place, she tried to mop up her tears so she wasn’t such a mess when she went to tell Jason they’d conceived a baby together. And then the thought of a baby brought into this situation between unmarried parents made her dissolve into sobbing one more time.

  At length she realized she’d forgotten to ask Scotty when she got the hotel information when the band was leaving and she reached for the ignition. She had to get a handle on herself and get this over with, in case Jason was heading to the airport any time soon.

  Praying for strength, she resolutely dried her eyes, touched up her make up, combed her hair and drove to the downtown Marriot Hotel. She had to do this. She had to do this right now.

  The hotel carpeting was some weird pattern that made her almost a little nauseous as she walked down the hallway to room three forty one and in a disconnected way, she registered that she was hungry again and needed to eat something to settle her stomach.

  Her heart was pounding and her hands were moist and she felt lightheaded as she saw the number beside the dark brown wood door. She walked up and knocked, not willing to prolong this any longer. It would be such a relief to get it over with.

  As she waited for an answer, she realized she could hear music and laughter on the other side of the door and she hoped she hadn’t gotten mixed up and gone to the wrong place. It finally opened and a man she’d never seen answered it. Just as she was going to apologize for knocking on the wrong hotel room door at after eleven thirty at night, he let out a low whistling cat call and said, “My, my, what do we have here? I end up with the prettiest one of all.” He looked her up and down appreciatively and then went on, “Everyone else here is taken for the night, darlin’, so it looks like it’s you and me. Come on in and I’ll go next door and grab you a brew. How did y’all like the concert?” He advanced into the hall toward her.

  A bit confused at the talk of the concert, Kate was just backing away and starting to explain that she had the wrong room when she heard Cody’s laugh and then Jason’s. At that, she took a step in to the doorway of the room with perfect timing to come face to face with Jason as he came around the edge of the entry hall. He had a beer in his right hand and a tall, red head under his left arm with her arm wrapped around his waist.

  For a moment they were both stunned and the door answerer, who didn’t appear to notice the sudden explosive tension, put an arm around Kate’s shoulders and laughed again as he repeated, “I guess it’s you and me.”

  Kate recovered first and shrugged off the disgusting arm as she spoke amazingly calmly, “I’m sorry. I seem to have gotten the wrong room.” With that, she turned on her heel and headed back down the nauseating carpeting.

  Several steps down the hall Jason caught her shoulder from behind and said, “Kate, wait. Don’t go.” She turned toward him, taking in the worried looks of Cody and the rest of the now quiet band who stood in the hallway outside the door with the clueless guy who had answered it and the willowy redhead. The clueless idiot and the redhead both looked confused.

  Kate looked up at Jason and then pointedly looked at the beer he still held and back to his face. He glanced at the beer and said, “It’s not mine. I was holding it for Chauncy. I swear it Kate. What are you doing here?”

  She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “What? Are you going to tell me you were holding her for someone else too? I mistakenly thought I needed to come talk to you Jason. I was wrong. The concert was good. See you around.”

  Turning again, she began to walk and Jason came down the hall after her. “Look, Kate. I can explain. Give me a chance. Let’s talk about this.” She kept walking. “Kate. Stop. We can figure this out.”

  At that, she did stop and turned to him. “You’re right, Jason. We can figure this out. I just did.” She started walking one more time and this time he took her by the arm and pulled her to a stop in front of the elevator.

  “Kate, listen.”

  Pushing the down button, she shook her head and said calmly, “No, Jason. I’m sorry, but I can’t. I love you. I always will. But I can’t. And I shouldn’t.” A bell dinged and the door opened and she stepped in and turned around. He put a hand to the door to keep it propped open and she shook her head one more time. “Let it go, Jason. There’s no point. Good luck Friday.”

  They stood staring at each other for a full five seconds and then Kate pointedly reached over and hit the G button. They stared at each other again and then Jason sighed and let go of the door. Kate turned to look at the button panel. She couldn’t bear to look at him as the doors closed in his face.

  She made it to her car. She even made it to the freeway before she let her life dissolve into the maelstrom of tears she couldn’t contain. She fought to focus on her driving and kept wiping at her eyes so she could see.

  She couldn’t even bring herself to question how she’d gotten to this place at this time. There was nobody to blame, no actions to second guess, there was only the knowledge that it was over. She was no longer the other half of Jason and Kate. She wasn’t even sure how long his half of them had been essentially gone.

  And she had his baby inside her.

  That was the kicker. That was the thing that was sadder than any other in this whole mess. Their foolish mistakes had caused an innocent, tiny baby to get dropped smack into the middle of a star crossed romance. Singing star crossed.

  And now she had consciously decided that not only would this baby be born out of wedlock, it would be born fatherless, because she’d never even told Jason. It had been a snap decision as she’d taken in the situation in that hotel room, but it had been the right one. She was the one ultimately responsible for this child and there was no way she’d force it to be a part of where that hotel room was headed. It would drag the poor baby through a valueless mess of worldliness and make co-parenting miserable. Cody and his lifestyle was no place for a child. And that was apparently the path Jason was on.

  It was the right decision, but it still broke her heart.

  She cried all the way to Childress and then had to stop and get a room. She was thoroughly exhausted. As the clerk checked her in, she called and left a message on her mom’s cell phone about where she was. She walked inside her room, closed and locked the door and then stripped and stepped into the shower, hoping it would wash some of the deep sadness off and help her sleep in spite of the thoughts that kept swirling around and around her exhausted head.

  As she toweled off, she looked at her naked body in the mirror. She couldn’t see any outward sign of the tiny body growing inside her, although some of her jeans felt marginally tighter, but it wouldn’t be long. She put a hand over her neat, flat belly, wondering if it was a boy or a girl. She sighed and pulled a pair of panties and a night shirt out of her bag. She’d so hoped for some of Jason’s wisdom after talking to him tonight. He hadn’t seemed wise, standing there in that doorway with his girl and his beer. But she knew he truly was usually.

  Tonight, she felt incredibly alone. And she was. She’d already decided that tomorrow she was going to move. She not only wanted to spare having to have this child raised in a party world without values, which it would be if Jason found about it—she knew him well enough to know he’d never walk away from a baby he knew he’d fathered. But she also honestly didn’t think she could face living where thoughts of Jason and the life he’d shared with her for the last twenty years completely surrounded her.

  Back home, he literally permeated her life. And even though after tonight she knew she finally had to walk away, she also knew she was incred
ibly human when it came to Jason Falcon. He may not have truly mated for life, but she had, and she couldn’t live where she had to deal with him and his memory every day. It would kill her.

  There was also the fact that she and her parents and even Jason and his parents, had been extremely active in their church. The last thing Kate wanted would be to cast dispersion on such great Christians because one of their fold was having a baby out of wedlock. Yeah, she knew the world didn’t think it was that big a deal now days, but in her heart she knew it was, and knew she needed to move away to where the gossip mill wouldn’t tear down the kingdom her parents and others had worked so hard to be building.

  She towel dried her short, dark curls and then knelt beside the bed to pour out her heart to her Father. She had long ago made her peace with Him about the baby, now she just needed God to help her make peace with herself. He knew about the pregnancy and how much Kate regretted it and would try to make restitution. There was no way she could completely, but in spite of having made one of the world’s most devastating mistakes, she was going to do her best to carry on from here on out with honor.

  She told him of all that had transpired tonight and how she felt about it and how scared she was to be responsible for one of His small spirits all on her own. She talked of her plans to uproot her life and take if far from Jason and the people of their small community and asked for confirmation that that was the wisest course of action for everyone involved. And she asked for help in handling everything she needed to as she started out on this new life. She asked for that peace, and she asked for Him to bless and watch over Jason, the friend she would probably continue to pray for all of her life.

  It was after three AM when she finally climbed stiffly into the big, lonely bed and turned on her side to go to sleep, but as tired as she was, she still couldn’t help the thoughts that crept into her head and the tears that crept into her eyes. She rolled into a fetal position and cradled a hand over her tummy and whispered, “Oh, Jason. I wish things had turned out differently.