by Julie Cannon
“My panties are fine,” I said defiantly. They weren’t, but I’d clammed up again even with Courtney. I didn’t even want to think about my family. They too had plenty to say about my adventure, and I didn’t want to hear it. Rockette, however, gave me unconditional love every minute I was home. She’d loved staying with Courtney’s family and had basked in the attention from her boys.
“Did Tobin get into them?” Courtney asked for at least the fifth time.
“Why do you keep asking me that?”
“Because one of these days you’ll drop your defenses and tell me.” Courtney was still sore that I hadn’t confided in her what had happened.
“Yes.”
Courtney sat up so fast the contents of her beer spilled on the floor. “What?”
“You heard me, obviously,” I added, wiping up the spill with a napkin.
“How was it? Does she look as good naked as she does in clothes? Was she any good or just all show? Did you tell her? Was it good for you? Where did you do it? In that little trailer of hers? Tell me everything.”
I took another swallow as Courtney rattled off her questions in rapid fire. She looked at me expectantly.
“Unbelievable, definitely, yes, yes, in her coach. There. I told you everything.”
Courtney looked at me and cocked her head. I saw her rethinking her questions and my answers, putting together the pieces. “Good,” she said hesitantly, “but you haven’t told me everything. You’ve told me nothing. Spill, girlfriend.”
Two beers later she knew the entire chain of events. She sat back on the couch looking a bit stunned. “And you left?”
“The next morning, yes.” Pain shot through me like it was today.
Courtney tossed a pillow at me, bringing me back to the present. “So what are you going to do now?” she asked.
“Go on with my life. Chalk it up to an experience I’ll never forget and, like you said, move on.”
“You are so full of shit, K. You can’t tell me that wasn’t a turning point in your life.”
“I never said it wasn’t.”
“Then why aren’t you doing anything about it?”
“And just what am I supposed to do, Courtney? Follow her like some groupie from town to town? Live on the crumbs of attention I’d get? Play second fiddle? Sloppy seconds? My God. She can have any woman she wants.”
“And she wanted you.”
“No, Courtney. She wanted my body.” I recalled Tobin’s interview with Bibbie when she stated she wasn’t wired for intimacy; she didn’t feel close to people, and when the mood for sex hit, she struck. “And I wanted hers, so we both got what we wanted. End of story.” One of these days I might admit I got more than I bargained for. Much, much more.
Chapter Forty-seven
I was more than a little nervous. Scared shitless was more like it. Jake had hastily arranged this mini-tour, and it was opening night. It had been a month after our last gig. Four weeks and three days since Kiersten left. But I was the only one counting. I hadn’t heard from her, but then again I didn’t expect to. Kiersten had made it very clear she didn’t want to see me.
I peeked out the curtains on the side of the stage. Jake had told me earlier that every seat was sold. There were only twenty-six hundred seats, but I was more nervous than I was when I played in Yankee Stadium. The theater was in the round, meaning the stage rotated in a circle throughout the show, giving me a three-hundred-sixty-degree view of everyone in their seats. I’d never played in a venue like this. The acoustics were said to be perfect, with limited real-estate for much else on the stage other than the performer. And in this case it was me. Just me. Just me and my red guitar. I heard my name called and stepped out onto the stage.
*
My phone rang and I ignored it. A few seconds later the familiar ding notified me I had a voice mail. A few minutes later it rang again, this time with no accompanying ding. I answered it the third time.
“Kiersten, turn on Phoenix City Limits, channel eighty-three.”
It was Courtney, and she sounded like she was hyperventilating. “What?”
“Channel eighty-three, turn it on. Now!”
“Okay, okay,” I said, looking for the remote. I hadn’t had the TV on for several days, preferring to work in silence. Rockette didn’t mind either. “What am I looking for?”
“Just watch it.”
I found the remote and hit the bright green On button. Then I went back to reading the report on my lap while the black screen slowly came to life. My heart stopped, and my stomach dropped at the familiar voice coming from across the room.
“Courtney, I’m not going to—”
“Shut up and watch it. Rewind it to the beginning and watch it.”
I swallowed as I gathered my nerve to start at the beginning.
“I bet you wonder what I’m doing here all by myself?” The crowd hollered and whistled but was much more subdued than I had ever heard it during a live show. “I was having a conversation one day with someone special to me, and we were talking about reputation. She asked if my reputation or my music sold tickets.” A few more whistles in the background made her smile, and my heart started beating very, very fast.
God, I missed her. I missed her smile, hearing her laugh, seeing the way her music connected with those that others had forgotten. The way she respected her neighbors and her band. The way she lit up the room when she walked in, and the way it felt like she was singing only to me in a stadium filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans.
“I didn’t have an answer for her,” Tobin said. “I wanted to say it was the music, because to me it’s all about the music, but at times, and quite frankly more and more lately, I wasn’t so sure.” Tobin strummed her guitar quietly as she spoke, and I realized that she was the only one on the stage. No Russ, Jones, Cindy, or Charity. She was sitting on a high stool, a mug to her left, a microphone in front of her. She was wearing a pair of pressed jeans and a green, long-sleeve button shirt. Her hair was a little shorter, and she looked thinner and tired. She fidgeted on the stool. Was she nervous? Apprehensive? What was going on?
“I wasn’t good enough for that someone special, but more importantly I wasn’t good enough for me. I got caught up in being Tobin Parks and lost my way from the music. She helped me find my way back. I’m working on being a better person. Not for her, but for me. I want to be someone I’m proud of, someone I can look up to, because it’s not about me. It’s about the music.”
“So I decided to find out. Would people come just to hear me play without all the fanfare and mega production? No video screen, lights, or souvenir T-shirts and key chains for sale in the lobby. Would anyone want to hear my songs, ones I’ve written but never sung before, at least in public? So, for the next hour I’m going to do just that. Just sing. Just me and my guitar. If you stick around you’ll hear some familiar lyrics, but you won’t recognize the melody. You’ll hear some songs you’ve never heard and, depending on your reaction, maybe never will again.”
I could tell Tobin was nervous, very nervous as she spoke to the crowd. The camera panned the audience for reaction to her words, and everyone was on the edge of their seat. This was a very different Tobin Parks.
“So, this is my, ugh, deal for you.” Tobin strummed a few more chords and fidgeted on the stool before she spoke again. “If you don’t like what you hear, I will double the price of your ticket and give you a refund at the door.” The murmurs in the crowd almost drowned out her words. “No questions asked. If this isn’t what you came to hear, then please feel free to leave at any time. I understand. If it is, please sit back and enjoy the show.”
Tobin exhaled, and she smiled at someone in the audience in front of her. The camera over her shoulder zoomed in, and there in the very first row sat Mr. Justin and Mrs. Foster, both looking slightly uncomfortable but beaming.
The crowd was absolutely still as Tobin began. Song after song she told a story. Her story, my story, a single father’s story, a
struggling rancher’s story, the story of loss, the joy of young love, old love, and new love. This was the Tobin that played in the senior centers, the burn wards, and the Alzheimer units. The Tobin that played in the middle of the night, on a tour bus countless miles from nowhere. This was the Tobin I had given myself to. I sat there in stunned silence.
Chapter Forty-eight
I was nervous and the car was going too fast and not fast enough. Mile after mile I repeated what I was going to say. I had written it all down and practiced it in front of the mirror in my bathroom and the lavatory on the plane. I knew what I wanted to say and hoped she’d give me the chance to say it.
The driver stopped in front of number 214. The sun was shining, and it was a beautiful spring day. Before I could change my mind I paid the driver, grabbed my bag, and opened the door. I exited on shaky legs and looked around. Memories flooded back to me. The afternoon we planted the flowers that were in full bloom along the walkway. The morning we sat in the chairs on the deck and watched the birds fight over scraps of paper for their nest. The evenings we sat close watching classics and laughing over silly comedies. The way Tobin looked at me, like I was the only woman on earth. The way I felt when she was near. The way my body tingled when she touched me. The way my body hummed with anticipation and burned with desire just thinking about her.
“It’s about time you came back.”
I turned around, not surprised that Mr. Justin would be the first to greet me. Tobin said he often sat by the window, a sentry watching from his post.
His welcome surprised me. I knew he liked me but was afraid he might be jealous of the time Tobin spent with me and not him. “It’s good to be back.”
“She’s inside,” he said, tipping his bald head toward Tobin’s front door. “But she’s not herself. She doesn’t hardly come out anymore, and when she does it’s more out of obligation than anything else.”
“Why do you think that is?” Please, please, please say it’s because of me.
“She misses you. Mrs. Foster thinks so too.”
I looked from him to Tobin’s front door, then back at him. I stepped toward him and kissed him on the cheek. “I hope to solve that.” I stepped forward, more sure of this than I’d been for days.
I had to knock three times before Tobin opened the door. She was dressed in a pair of ragged cargo shorts, a faded Def Leopard T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, and untied Nike running shoes. Her hair was messy, and she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Her shocked expression clearly indicated I was the last person she expected to see on her doorstep.
“Hi,” I said shyly. So far so good. That was the first word in my well-rehearsed statement. When she didn’t say anything my stomach churned, but I pressed on. “May I come in?” She didn’t say anything but opened the door wider and stepped back, allowing me inside.
The room was dark, and Tobin opened a few shades to let in the natural light. The air was dank and stuffy, indicating the windows had not been opened in some time. Papers, takeout, and delivery containers were scattered around. Several beer bottles were balanced precariously on the top of an overflowing garbage container.
“Why are you here?”
No offer to sit or have a beverage or any other sign she was even remotely happy to see me. Determined to see this through, I placed my bag on the floor and sat down on the couch. I watched as Tobin debated whether to join me until she finally sat in the chair across from me.
“I saw your show on Phoenix City Limits.” I didn’t add that I’d replayed it from the channel’s website at least a dozen times since then. Tobin didn’t say anything, just looked at me suspiciously.
“I loved it.”
She didn’t respond.
“I thought it was the best you’ve ever done, and the audience loved it too.”
Silence.
“The reviews of the show raved about it.”
Finally she spoke. “Tell me something I don’t know.”
Her eyes were hard and her body stiff, the beat of the pulse in her neck the only reaction to my being here. I knew what that pulse tasted like and how it felt beating under my tongue. It gave me the strength and courage I needed.
“I was wrong,” I said. “I was stupid, blind, and afraid.” I was looking her in the eyes and didn’t stop. It was important that she believe me. I detected a slight flicker in them before she blinked it away.
“You were not what I expected. Not at all. I had a preconceived notion of who you were and had prepared myself for that. I couldn’t see anything other than that, and when I did, my reaction to you frightened me.” I chuckled. “No, that’s not right. It scared the holy hell out of me. I’m thirty-six years old, and I felt like a schoolgirl with her first love. You see, I never had that. Never felt the twitter of excitement of being with someone and that someone liking me, wanting me. And when I finally did, it was with you.” Another flicker in her eyes that hadn’t moved from mine.
“And I couldn’t handle that,” I admitted. “It was the most difficult thing I had to come to grips with. I have a reputation that I’ve worked my ass off to grow and achieve. I’m a shrewd businesswoman with impeccable timing of a deal and business savvy. I know when to back off and when to go in for the kill, or so a few business articles say about me.”
“My family, although a bit screwed up, are prominent in the business and philanthropy community. My father owns the top law firm in the city, my brother-in-law is a world-renowned pediatric surgeon, and my baby brother is a missionary in some of the most dangerous, awful places in the world.
“How could I fall for a singer? A singer who sleeps around and is the topic of every gossip rag and website in the country.”
“I would be the laughingstock of my friends, family, and business associates. I would lose everything I’d worked for, including my self-respect. All because I fell for the first person who rocked my world. The first person I allowed to get past all my defenses. Who made me feel confident enough to just let go. And the worst part? She didn’t even know. She’d never given me any indication that I was anything other than the next one or the one before the one after that. If I went stupid over this…this girl, and if I can’t control my personal life, how can I control my professional one?
“I’m smitten by a girl eleven years younger than me. I want to be with her, spend time with her. Hear her laugh and sing and play cards with the lonely old man next door. How funny is that?” I asked again. “And how sad and pitiful. I would be compared to a middle-aged man having a middle-aged crisis who goes after the fountain of youth with a younger woman. That’s all I could see. In that moment, that special moment when I should have been and wanted to reach out for more, I didn’t. I couldn’t. And because of that I couldn’t look you in the eye and could barely look at myself.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Because I don’t care. Plain and simple, I don’t care what people think. I’m done with that. The time I spent with you—at the reunion, on tour, here in your home—were the happiest I’ve been in my life. And I want to feel that again. If not with you, then with someone else. I’ll wait until I find it, but I will not be afraid of it again.”
“Then what are you doing here?” she repeated.
“I came to give you a chance to finish your sentence.”
Her eyebrows rose, the first sign of any emotion or interest in what I was saying.
“The morning after,” I explained, “when you started to say that what happened between us was special. I didn’t want to talk about it, couldn’t talk about it, but I’m ready now if you’ll give me the chance to listen.”
Still nothing. My heart was pounding, and I clenched my hands in my lap to keep them from trembling. Tobin hadn’t moved the entire time I poured out my soul. Funny, not one word after “Hi” had been what I rehearsed. I knew coming here had been a mistake. Deviating from my script had been a colossal blunder. I’d completely misjudged this scene.
How much
longer should I wait for her to comment? Did I even want to hear what she was going to say?
Seconds ticked by, the only noise in the room coming from a lawn mower somewhere in the distance. I wanted to run, I wanted to stay. I wanted to beg and plead, and I was determined to remain strong.
Without warning, Tobin stood and walked over to me and extended her hand. I searched her eyes and found what I’d been praying I’d find. Strength to weather the storm that will surely come, passion, desire, hope, and joy. I placed my hand in hers. I was giving her my past, my present, and my future. She locked the front door as we headed for her bedroom.
Epilogue
Her hands, fingers, lips, and tongue caress every inch of my body. I feel the touch of this woman, inhale the scent of her arousal, and hear the pulse of her desire. I’m lost in sensation, shut out from the world around me, and am swept over the edge in waves of release in her arms.
I bury my hands in her thick blond hair, touch her soft skin, travel over her curves and valleys, and sink into her warm wetness. She makes me have to remember to breathe, forget my name, and lose my inhibitions when I’m with her. I need to know her life history, her favorite color and her name, and I do. Her name is Kiersten Fellows. I am hers and she is mine.
THE END
About the Author
Julie Cannon divides her time by being a corporate suit, a wife, mom, sister, friend, and writer. Julie and her wife have lived in at least a half a dozen states, traveled around the world, and have an unending supply of dedicated friends. And of course, the most important people in their lives are their three kids: #1, Dude, and the Devine Miss Em.