I find my way to a horseshoe-shaped bar. Another band—Here We Are—is finishing up their set.
I order myself a flute of champagne. At least my drink can be celebratory.
Why did Bubby try to pity-coffee-date me, especially after what happened at prom and not telling me about living in New York this summer?
Corrinne Corcoran doesn’t need anyone’s pity. Pity isn’t on tonight’s blackboard. Tonight’s about partying, not pitying.
I lean with my back against the bar and try to block my own thoughts out with the music. I check my iPhone again. Shockingly, I’m early—courtesy of my dinner being cut short—so the girls won’t be here for a while.
For the second time tonight, I surprise myself by wishing the night would speed up rather than slow down.
As I turn around, I spot Rider sauntering in from a side door. I instantly remember why I liked him. With his shaggy brown hair and perfect facial symmetry, he’s always had the look for stardom, which I imagine is seven-eighths the reason for his success. His music isn’t exactly on par with Mozart—or Justin Bieber.
“Rider!” I squeal, waving him over and giving him a hug.
“I was hoping to run into you before my set,” he says. He looks around. “I thought you were bringing friends.”
“They’re coming later,” I answer.
“Always the heartbreaker, Corrinne.” He winks at me. “Walk with me? I need to talk to the bouncer.”
I grab my drink off the bar. “Don’t you have people to do that for you?”
“I’m not a Rock God—or Monster—yet,” Rider says.
Everyone at the bar is giving us stares, but no one says anything. New Yorkers, by rule, try to play it cool when they see someone they recognize.
“Are you excited about college?” Rider asks me as we make our way back to the entrance.
“Ambivalent,” I admit. “It’s hard to say goodbye. I thought I had it all figured out, but I realize now you never get to all the loose threads.”
Rider and I stand near the coat check. “I wish I had done a better goodbye when I left Spoke. I’ve only been back there once in the last year, and I actually miss it, especially when I’m on the road.”
He leans in close. “I’ll—of course—publicly deny that, especially after I ran out of that town like it was on fire. But I’d bet you understand the sentiment, being a city girl who did a stint in the place.”
“I get it,” I say, following Rider outside. “The Spoke is special. You realize that even more when you’ve seen other places.”
And it is. As much as New York is my home, Broken Spoke is where I did a lot of my growing up.
Rider pats the bouncer on the back. “Hey man, can you put my friend Bubby on the list?”
I freeze.
“Does he have a last name?” the bouncer asks. He pauses and waves his hand. “Forget it actually. The odds of two Bubbys?”
“Thanks,” Rider says.
Wait—Bubby?
The odds of two Bubbys in one city, even one as big as New York?
Slim.
The odds of two Bubby run-ins in one night?
About the same odds of winning a Powerball, except without the hundred million dollar payout.
I follow Rider back inside.
“Have you seen a lot of Bubby in the city?” he asks me. “I know you two are like ancient history, but I figured y’all got together at least a few times while you both were here.”
I gulp. “Uh—I saw him once,” I answer. “I didn’t realize he was coming tonight, since you guys were never the best of friends.”
In fact, Rider and Bubby hated each other back in the Spoke. It never even crossed my mind he’d also be here tonight.
I start to wonder if it’s possible to avoid Bubby all night in this place. It is pretty big.
As I’m thinking this, the door opens—and of course—it’s Bubby who walks in.
Bubby’s wearing khakis and an untucked striped button-down, which is very un-Texas of him. And I’ll admit it looks good, although I even once thought Bubby did cowboy boots well.
He and Rider do some guy-high-five-slap-the-back-type of thing.
Then Rider turns to Bubby. “I was about to tell Corrinne that even though we were never friends exactly, we’re still from the same place and ought to look out for each other, especially in the big, bad city.”
Bubby nods.
“Good to see you, man. So glad you texted me about coming tonight,” Rider says. “It’ll be nice to have a few familiar faces in the crowd.” He points at the stage. “Funny how in Broken Spoke, you were the one everyone was cheering for on the football field . . . and now it’s me getting the fandom.” He pauses. “And the girls. And the money.”
Bubby laughs and I can’t help it, but I start laughing, too.
Rider can be a clueless jerk, and I remember now why it didn’t work out.
From the main room, we hear someone shout, “Thanks so much. Please check out Here We Are’s music on iTunes and like us on Facebook.”
“That’s my cue,” Rider says. “I have to go warm up. If I don’t see y’all after, good luck with the college thing. Nice part about being in a band is there are no tests or grades, only performances and hot chicks.”
I give Rider a quick hug, and then all of the sudden, I’m standing alone with Bubby. For the second time tonight. Both unscheduled events.
“So here we are again,” Bubby says, laughing at his own joke. “What are the chances?” He looks around. “Hey, do you want to grab a drink? Where’s your date?”
I take a few steps. “He’s meeting up with some new friends,” I say over my shoulder. “I’m waiting on my girls, but I guess I have a few minutes.”
Dear Waverly would tell me that pretending is equivalent to being. Even if I’m flaming out internally, I can act otherwise externally.
We make our way back to the bar, where Bubby orders a beer. “Do you want anything, Corrinne?” he asks.
I hold up my glass. “I’m good,” I say, even though I don’t exactly feel it.
“Cheers?” Bubby says, grabbing his beer from the counter and tapping it against mine.
“To what?” I ask.
Ruined plans and disastrous coincidences?
Bubby holds up his beer. “It’s my first night out this summer. I mean—actually out. I just got so involved in the paper that I didn’t really experience New York City.” He looks around at the scene, and he smiles. “But tonight—tonight, I’m cooking on the front burner, as Texans would say.”
“I’m glad you’re having a good night,” I say.
Especially since you keep messing up mine.
I finish my drink. “I would’ve showed you around if you had asked.”
Bubby sets down his beer and taps his fingers on the bar. “We didn’t leave things on the best of terms. I didn’t even know if you’d want to see me.”
“Who said I do?” I shake my head. “Besides, that all sounds like excuses for not actually wanting to see me.”
He takes a step toward me. “You know that’s not true.”
Dear Waverly would be screaming at me. I’m acting as cool as a Sonic ice cream Blast, but Bubby has always had the power to unravel me like a spool of thread.
I lean in. “Before prom, we were talking all the time,” I say. “While everyone else was so into senior year and the lasts of everything, I was on the phone with you. I don’t know—I guess I thought something was going to happen between the two of us, but then you made it clear that it wasn’t.”
And there—I’ve finally said it.
“You’re such a revisionist,” Bubby says, looking at me with unbelieving eyes. “It’s good thing that you’re not in journalism. You sure do only know how to tell one side of story. There’s nothing fair or balanced about how you see the world.”
My mouth drops open. “So that’s not how it happened?”
I feel a tap on my shoulder, and I spin around.
&nb
sp; Vladlena and Waverly are standing right behind me.
Waverly points and whispers loudly to Vladlena, “It’s Bubby. You owe me twenty bucks and a shot, preferably a fruity one.”
I lightly pinch Waverly’s arm. Betting on a friend’s love life is low even for Waverly. And how could she ever have guessed this? She’s an amateur advice columnist, not a psychic.
“Where’s Benson?” Vladlena asks, looking around.
Waverly sticks out her hand toward Bubby. “Remember me?” she says, referring to the time she visited Broken Spoke.
“Who could forget Hurricane Waverly?” he says, taking her hand.
“I’m Dear Waverly now,” she says.
Bubby raises his eyebrows but doesn’t ask. He reaches his hand out to Vladlena.
“So you are the Bubby,” she declares if he were the rock star, not Rider.
I grit my teeth. “Bubby, meet Vladlena.”
They shake hands.
Then Vladlena leans toward me. “He looks different than the photos, even cuter.”
I give Vladlena a look that could scare the toughest Real Housewife. Even the New Jersey table-flipping ones.
“I’m in my New York clothes tonight,” Bubby says, obviously having overheard her. “But I might need to start wearing cowboy boots here. I’ve had four women in heels step on my feet in the last month. It hurt more than a horse’s hoof.” He points toward Vladlena’s shoes. “Those things are sharp.”
“I had a photo of everyone from the Spoke’s rodeo in my dorm room,” I explain to Bubby. “That’s how she knows what you look like.”
I also may have showed Vladlena my Broken Spoke photo album a hundred times.
Vladlena turns to Bubby and me. “We’re going to get drinks,” she declares, grabbing Waverly’s hand.
“Remember What Would Dear Waverly Do!” Waverly calls back at me, as Vladlena drags her to another bar.
“So . . .” Bubby says.
I fiddle with my glass. “We were talking about prom. But, Bubby. That was months ago. And tonight’s my last night in New York.”
Goodbyes aren’t about lingering over what could’ve happened, I remind myself. Goodbyes are about saying goodbye to what actually did.
To the people who stuck around—not the ones who didn’t.
Maybe the only way for this night to improve is to get back on schedule. I worked hard on reconstructing my life post-prom, and I’m not going to let Bubby’s presence dismantle that. And I’m also not going to let him huff and puff and blow my night over, like some big bad wolf from a fairy tale.
“I get it,” Bubby says, gesturing in the direction of Vladlena and Waverly. “You want to spend time with your friends.”
Bubby holds his beer up to cheek; he’s starting to grow the smallest amount of stubble.
It looks good on him.
He shrugs. “Go!” he says. “We’ll run into each other again someday.”
I give Bubby a side hug. “You know—it was good to see you,” I manage to say.
I decide to end this with bit of class. And maybe we will run into each other again, and maybe that time, it’ll hurt a little less.
Maybe next time, I won’t feel this way at all.
Bubby nods. “It was great to see you, too, Corrinne.”
“Enjoy the show,” I say, motioning to the stage. “Hope you have a magical night in my city. She is going to be my hardest goodbye.”
And that’s a lie. Because I know now that it’s actually this one.
I wave and move my way toward the girls, standing at the bar across the room.
I flag down the bartender. “Champagne, please.”
“Where’s Bubby?” asks Waverly.
“Where’s Benson?” asks Vladlena.
“Benson is going to meet up with us later,” I answer, ignoring Waverly’s question altogether.
And I know that Benson will show. Even if he was upset over me not wanting to stay together, I know he wouldn’t ever leave without a true goodbye.
Unlike some people.
“And Bubby?” Waverly prods.
I shake my head. “Oh, that,” I say in a tone reserved for bumping into my old math teacher rather than an ex-boyfriend. “We just ran into each other by accident. Twice, actually. But tonight’s not about him. He doesn’t get to ride in like a cowboy and take center ring. We’re in New York, not Tejas.”
“Dear Waverly would say accidents and fate resemble each other.”
I smile. “Dear Waverly needs to take some time off and enjoy the night.”
“Okay. It’s your night,” Waverly says. “We’re just living in it.”
I put my arm around her waist. “That’s right. My night.” I point toward the stage, where Rider and his bandmates are tuning their instruments. “And I’m thinking it’s about time that we make our way into the crowd and dance. Goodbyes don’t have to be all sad. Even on the sinking Titanic, the band still played on.”
And without looking back, I make my way to the front of the stage with Waverly and Vladlena.
Rider takes the microphone, and Tad—a guy Kitsy hung out with when she lived in New York one summer—starts strumming his guitar.
“This is a new song,” Rider says. “We wrote it while on our tour. Hope you all like it. We’re calling it ‘Of Mice and Men.’”
I sigh. Rider’s past songwriting attempts have made me wonder if he should’ve stayed in school. There are legitimate reasons why most rock stars don’t write their own music. One of the most valid ones is that many rock stars don’t have high school diplomas.
“An old man once wrote . . .” Rider sings.
Waverly groans and whispers, “Fame is baffling.”
“An old man once wrote, of all the words of mice and men, the saddest were, what might have been,” Rider sings again, then hums.
Tad leans forward and joins in. “What might have been . . .” the guys echo again and again. “Of all the wonders of the world, the one I want to solve is what might have been.”
“Is this serious?” Waverly asks me under her breath.
“I don’t think it’s that bad,” I admit. “It’s better than the song he wrote about my Levi jeans.”
I actually think this song’s pretty true. It is the-what-might-have-beens that keep you up at night.
Rider brushes his hair out of his face and I hear girls in the audience audibly gasp.
“And I’ve sailed seven seas, but none of them took me to the port of what might’ve been. So I go back to that night—again and again—and I wonder what might’ve been. . . .”
Tad joins back in. “What might’ve been. What might’ve been . . .”
I turn to Waverly and Vladlena. “I’ll be right back,” I say, and dart through the crowd.
I run back to the bar where Bubby had just been standing, but he’s gone now.
The universe keeps telling me it isn’t right. I need to start listening.
I feel my phone vibrate in my purse and I pull it out. I refuse to get excited.
Two messages.
Kitsy: How’s your night? Anything unexpected happen?
Benson: See u at the Jane. I promise I’ll be fun. Sorry I tried to steamroll the night. Goodbyes make you do crazy things.
I sigh and look around one last time before heading back into the crowd toward my friends.
When I reach the front, Waverly raises her eyebrows. “Care to tell us anything?”
“I went to the bathroom,” I lie, and turn my attention back to the stage.
Rider leans down and reaches out for a girl’s hand in the crowd.
“Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are what might have been,” he sings to her.
Tad plays the final chords, and thankfully the song ends.
I don’t want to think about the what-might-have-beens anymore.
I put my arms around Waverly and Vladlena. “I’m going to miss you girls,” I say.
And it’s true. Even if I keep thinking of some
thing else—someone else.
Namely, the might-have-been.
April. Broken Spoke High Prom, Broken Spoke, Texas.
“Last song!” the DJ announces over the loudspeaker. “Grab that someone special. In ten years, you’ll be looking back to this and wonder . . .” He pauses. “You’ll be wondering what was I thinking with my hair.” Then he laughs at his own joke. DJs are a special breed. Note to self: my wedding must have a band.
Bubby takes my hand and pulls me onto the dance floor. We missed the only other slow song when I was redoing my hair with Kitsy in the bathroom.
Prom at Kent was last weekend. It was held in the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. I went with a decent guy—Benson. But nothing—not the guy, not the band, not even dancing under dinosaur bones—felt as special as the way it does when Bubby wraps his hands around my waist.
“Secret,” I whisper into Bubby’s ear. “I’m a terrible dancer. I was almost kicked out of cotillion because my partner’s tooth got knocked out when I accidently tripped him during the foxtrot.”
Even though I’m coordinated on a horse, I’m a disaster on a dance floor.
Bubby purposefully steps on my foot. “We can be terrible together. And I promise—from now on—to wear a mouth guard whenever we dance.”
The words “from now on” send shivers up my bare back.
Kitsy and Hands two-step over toward us.
“Looking good, y’all. See, you can take the girl out of the city,” Hands jokes.
When they’ve scooted away, Bubby leans in. “They’re still saying they are just friends.”
We laugh.
Even though Kitsy and Hands are no longer officially dating, they’re always together. I guess they’re connected by something more than a label.
“So tell me. Are you going to Baylor? It’s going to be May soon. You have to decide.”
I think I’m more curious about Bubby’s college choice than my own, and Baylor’s football coach has been calling him since last fall.
The Art of Goodbye Page 4