by Judy Clemens
Leaving San on her own, I wandered toward the band.
“Glad to see you have a drummer today,” I said to Tom.
He glanced over at me. “Yeah. We figured Ricky would pull one of these someday. I’m just glad he did it here, and not in Idaho or some god-forsaken place. It’s not like we could find a replacement just anywhere.”
“Park looks excited.”
Tom smiled. “Yeah. He misses the music, even though he won’t admit it.”
I watched as Jordan and Annie unrolled a black swath of carpet and laid it on a trail of cords.
“Think he’ll be joining you full-time again?” I asked Tom.
“Parker? Nah. He might like it once in a while, but not as a full-time gig again. In fact…” He hesitated, and I looked at him.
“What?”
“We’re probably going to be taking some time off.”
I stared at him. “What do you mean?”
He sighed loudly, shoving his hands in his front pockets. “We’ve been thinking about it for a while. Ever since Genna admitted she was considering quitting—”
“Wait. You knew?”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “She told Tonya. You know. Being best friends and all. And Tonya told me. You know. Being my wife and all.”
“So all along, Genna thought it was a secret, but it wasn’t?” Jordan had thought so, too.
“Aw, I don’t know. She had to figure Tonya would tell me. But we acted like it was a secret. We never talked about it.” He shook his head. “I should say the guys and I never talked about it with Genna. But we’ve been talking without her.”
“About what would happen if she quit.”
“Sure.”
“And what did you decide?”
He took his hands out of his pockets and ran his fingers through his hair. “We never got a chance to decide anything. We thought we’d have time. We thought she’d tell us, and give us a chance to find somebody else, if we wanted to. But…”
“Yeah,” I said. “It didn’t exactly turn out that way.”
We were quiet for a minute as we watched Jordan and Annie cover another section of cables.
“So we’re going to take some time off,” Tom said. “Do our next round of commitments with Parker, and then call it quits. We’re tired. LeRoy has a gal in his church choir who’s got her eye on him, and he’s not sure she’ll wait much longer.”
I laughed.
“And,” Tom said, “Tonya’s pregnant.”
I looked at him. “Congratulations.”
“Yeah. Thanks. That was the final straw for me. The road’s no place for a kid. And I don’t want a child staying home and growing up without me ever being around. Not fair to anybody.”
“So the gig with Club Independence?”
He shrugged. “I told Gary we might do the occasional concert. It’s in town, we all live here. But just for fun. Not as a regular act every weekend or anything. At least not for now. We’re just…I’m just…family is where I have to put my energy right now.”
I looked at him, at his face. He was at peace with it. With this decision to put his career on hold. To put it in what he considered its proper place.
“So that’s why you let Marley sing,” I said.
He glanced at me. “What?”
“You knew it was just for a couple gigs. You didn’t want to find somebody really good when you knew you were breaking up.”
His lips twitched into a sort of smile. “She was cheap.”
A scream shattered the peaceful hum of the reception, and I jerked my head around. Annie stood with her hands raised, screaming as Ricky sat on Jordan, hammering him with his fists. Tom and I raced over, pulling Ricky off and getting his hands secured.
Jermaine suddenly appeared, his security-guard personality overriding his family one, and hauled Ricky away from all of us, wrenching his arm behind his back. I wondered if Jermaine had taught Jordan that move, seeing how Jordan had used the exact same one on Baronne the night before.
I squatted by Jordan and sat him upright. Blood dripped from a cut on his lip. Good grief. The second injury in as many days. “Get me something for this,” I told Annie. It took a moment for my words to register before she sprinted off.
“Where’d he come from?” I asked Jordan.
He shook his head and felt at his face with his fingers. “Don’t know. I was working, and suddenly there he was.”
“Here.” Annie thrust some of the Harley wedding napkins toward me, and I pressed one on Jordan’s lip. He took it and looked at it, grimacing at the blood before putting it back on the cut.
“It’s his fault,” Ricky yelled. All eyes shot to him, and the finger he pointed at Jordan. “If it wouldn’t have been for him, I’d still be with the band. I’d still have…I’d still have Genna.” He sobbed once. “He pressured her into it, saying Marley could take her place. That it would be fine. It was all because of him.” He sank against Jermaine, a pathetic specimen, wearing the same clothes he’d had on the night before, his hair now a disaster, the spikes not so much stylish as clumps of greasy black.
Jordan stared at him, dropping the napkin from his mouth. “I never did. I never would’ve…”
“I know,” I said. “I know you didn’t.”
“Marley’s a terrible singer.”
Annie gave a bark of laughter, then clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes filling with tears. She turned and ran away.
I watched her go, arms flailing, her feet stumbling on the grass. Finally, she disappeared behind the storage shed.
And something in my mind clicked.
I got up and began walking where the girl had gone. Footsteps padded behind me.
“Where are you going?” Jordan asked.
“To ask some questions.”
“To Annie?”
We rounded the corner of the shed and found the girl sitting on the ground, her back against the wooden siding. She stared at her feet, not even looking up as we approached. I sank beside her, sitting on my heels.
“You knew Genna was leaving, didn’t you?” I asked her.
She was silent, biting her lip.
“You heard her and Jordan arguing at the concert. Genna saying she wanted to quit.”
She closed her eyes, and Jordan sucked in a breath. “She told the cops about Genna and me fighting?”
“But you didn’t want Genna to leave, did you, Annie?” I said. “You knew Marley couldn’t take her place. At least, not permanently. And if Genna left, that meant Jordan would be leaving, too.”
Jordan was breathing through his mouth, the gist of my questions beginning to hit him.
“Your place with the band would be gone, wouldn’t it, Annie?” I said. “Marley would go off sulking when she realized she’d never get her dream, and Jordan wouldn’t be there to ask for your help. You’d be alone. And you don’t do alone, do you?”
She pulled up her knees and dropped her head onto them.
“It was an accident,” she finally said.
“An accident.”
“She was there, at that back hallway, and I needed to get to the storage room to get a new cable. It was between the two sets, and the sound system wasn’t working. Jordan sent me…”
Oh, God.
“So Genna was there,” I said. “And you fought?”
She rolled her head side to side on her knees. “I asked her to get out of the way. Said I needed to get to the storage room to get something for Jordan. She followed me back, to see if she could help.” She stopped her head and glared at Jordan. “Since it was for him.”
I waited, but she didn’t continue. “So what happened?” I asked.
“I told her I’d heard her and Jordan fighting. That I knew she wanted to leave the band. I told her she couldn’t. She couldn’t.” She lifted her head and banged her fists on her knees. “Things would never be the same. Marley would never get the singing job, and I would…�
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“You’d be lost.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“So you hit her?” I said.
“No. No. We were at the storage room. I needed to get in the door. It was open and she was blocking it, telling me I didn’t know what I was talking about. That it was none of my business. That I’d find a way to fit in. I pushed her to the side, and…and she tripped. She fell backwards, onto that old drum set. She went…she got this look on her face, and I saw it. One of the stands for the drum heads had gone right through her leg. It was sticking out the front. I…I tried to help. I yanked it out from the back, but that just made her bleed like crazy.
“She looked at me. She wasn’t even scared. She was just…mad. She yelled at me to go get Jordan. Or somebody who could help. I just…I grabbed the mic from the shelf that I was supposed to get, one of the old kind with a cord sticking out of it, and I…started swinging it. I hit her, and I…I probably would’ve kept hitting her, except I heard the first song of the next set starting. Jordan had been able to fix the sound without me, after all.”
She went quiet.
“So you left her there.”
She dropped her face into her hands. “She was still alive. She was okay. I thought she’d…I thought she’d just come out. But then we had the bomb threat, and I…I forgot about her.”
“You forgot.”
She met my eyes for a brief moment, then looked away, her guilt almost visible in the air between us.
I glanced at Jordan, and his face had gone white, his eyes glassy. I stood and pushed him down so he was sitting on the grass.
I stepped out from behind the shed, keeping an eye on the two of them, and saw Lucy, her face hard with anxiety. Lenny stood beside her, his arm around her shoulders. I caught Lucy’s eye, and she knew immediately that I needed her. She was at my side in a few long strides.
“I need Willard,” I said.
She turned without question to go find him.
“And Lucy,” I called after her.
She stopped.
“Tell Ma the time has come. Her son needs her. And he won’t turn her away this time.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
The Tom Copper Band was playing now. Tom crooned a ballad. One of their best. I tried not to listen, but couldn’t close my ears.
The love I feel
Is not my own
It’s not my heart
I’m not its home
But hold me close
You’ll know it’s true
The love I feel
Is all for you
The party was back in full swing since Willard had discreetly removed Annie from the reception. Besides the murder, she’d also admitted to lying about Jordan and Baronne fighting at the concert. She’d wanted the heat on someone else, and since she’d already decided Jordan had caused all the problems, she was glad to sic the cops on him.
Problems? She had a lot of them. And they weren’t Jordan’s fault.
Ricky left the reception with a little more noise, but at least he was gone. Ma, along with Jermaine and his family, had taken Jordan home.
My heart ached.
I sat alone at a table, my hand gripping a lukewarm glass of lemonade. I’d tried to smile. I’d tried to remember it was Lucy and Lenny’s wedding reception. I’d done the dance with Bart, and with Lenny.
But all I kept seeing was Jordan’s face.
A hand fell on my shoulder, and I looked up at Nick. He tilted his head. “Care to dance?”
I stood up slowly, my eyes not leaving his. We stood there for a few moments, not touching, not speaking.
“Jordan really loved her,” I finally said.
He nodded. “I know.”
“But he let everything else get in the way.”
Nick looked over my shoulder. “Stella, I—”
“I love you, Nick. I’ve loved you ever since you stepped onto my farm last summer. It took me a while to realize it, but I know it now.” I reached up and placed a finger on his chin, forcing him to look at me. “I need to know if you know it. If you believe it. Because I won’t live the rest of my life having you doubt me.”
Tears welled in his eyes. “I don’t doubt you,” he said. His voice was husky. “I just want you to have what you want, not some guy who—”
I placed a hand over his mouth. “Nick, you are who I want. Even if that means… Whatever that means.”
He leaned forward, his forehead resting on mine. “I love you, Stella. So much.”
“I know,” I said.
And I did.
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