by L A Tavares
“Maybe I’ll hit the lottery in this lifetime.”
“That’s still gambling.” She rolls her eyes. Maybe I am just too far gone.
At the end of the day, I come up with no other solution than the one Stasia offered. I swallow what’s left of my pride and head to Victor’s to see what kind of deal with the devil I’d have to make to earn back what I lost.
The smoke cloud engulfs me the way it usually does when I enter the penthouse, only this time, the scent is different. It’s not just cigars, but cigarettes too. I smell the difference as I inhale and taste the two distinct flavors as I breathe.
“He said you can go up,” Isabella says, rejoining me in the doorway. “All the seats are taken, though.”
I nod but don’t speak. On one hand, I’m glad the table is full—less room for temptation. But I’m frustrated too. I want there to be an open spot.
We take each step of the spiral staircase to the loft, as my desire to turn back grows stronger with each forward motion. Victor laughs and the rest of the table follows suit. I step into the room, trying not to draw too much attention to myself. A woman with long, light-brown, almost blonde hair sits in my usual seat, her back toward me.
“Is there something I can do for you, Blake?” Victor asks. His voice is uninterested, teetering on annoyed.
I’m about to say my piece, to take a chance on asking him what my options are when the newcomer turns over her shoulder, looking me over from head to toe. She analyzes every inch of me, but I can’t tell what she’s thinking.
“Blake,” she says, casually, like we do it all the time.
I take a deep breath, wondering if I’ll be able to get any words out, but I can only manage one.
“Mother.”
I left that penthouse so fast that I almost crashed through the door instead of opening it. There is nothing to say to her and no chance at rekindling a relationship or putting the pieces of our shattered family back together.
And here I thought things couldn’t get any worse. I was wrong. Shocker.
Chapter Nineteen
When Kelly first moved in, I’ll admit, I worried about it. Growing up, mother and I often shared small spaces then I shared a room with Xander. Our success grew practically overnight, and the minute I could afford to be on my own, I took advantage of that and it had been that way since. Kelly knew that I was struggling with the idea of sharing my space. She just didn’t know why. Instead of packing up her belongings, moving them here all at once and claiming my address as her own, she did it gradually. First, a toothbrush. Then, a few shirts. A hairdryer. Nothing major or overwhelming.
She bought me a plant. A plant. I can barely keep myself alive and she brings me some kind of ridiculous fern.
One morning, I watched her walk around the kitchen like she owned the place, pouring us both coffees and doing tedious things I never think of doing—filling the napkin holder, refilling the sugar shaker. That was when I started counting back the days. When was the last time she had left?
As the band prepared to leave on tour, she said, “I’ll tend to your plants,” and we laughed, both knowing all too well that the damn plant wasn’t the only thing that had grown roots there. It wasn’t until later I found out she had cancelled her lease at her apartment weeks before that.
Now I don’t even remember what ‘alone’ is like. She’s been here so long and done so much for me that I can’t find things in my own house and I have no one to ask.
I call her phone, but she doesn’t answer and truthfully, I’m glad. The only way to clean up the mess I had made was face-to-face. Since she won’t come to me, I’ll have to go to her.
The Rock Room is more crowded than I thought it would be for a Sunday night. I didn’t check the calendar to see who was on stage that night, but it must be someone decent.
Kelly walks out of the backroom and behind the bar area. I watch from afar, just for a bit, as she walks back and forth, telling the employees what she needs them to do, and they get to it with a smile. She’s not afraid to dive in. She serves a customer with a smile on her face, punches some buttons on the register then heads through the door once again. She’s only out of sight for a moment, reappearing on stage at the wing when she points at something out of sight, telling the crew how she wants some things adjusted. She crosses her arms and taps her foot as the crew member talks to someone in the microphone of his headset. After a moment or two waiting, Kelly holds out her hand and the crew member hands over his headset. Kelly slides it over her perfectly styled hair. She speaks only for a second but then smiles a victorious grin that says she got her way. I’m not surprised. She hands the headset back and makes her way off the stage again.
She does it all. Every job there is to do in this building, she has done it. She loves bartending—it’s why she refuses to give it up—but she’s got the management side down to a science too. This is Kelly’s business, regardless of if her name is on the title or not.
She belongs to The Rock Room. The Rock Room should belong to her.
And it will.
Whatever I have to do, however I have to make it happen, no matter what promises I have to make, this property will belong to Kelly Montoy.
Her eyes meet mine but as my smile grows, hers fades.
She walks away through the door that separates the main area of the venue from the behind-the-scenes portion of the building. I follow, fighting my way through the crowd to get to her.
She continues to walk away from me, stomping her heeled boots against the tile floor in an effort to keep herself from me. She slams the door to the outside and swings it shut behind her. I catch the door with my body and push it open once more. The cool air in the alleyway bites at my arms and face.
“Kelly,” I yell, my voice echoing against the brick walls. She turns to face me but for the first time, I can’t read her.
“I can’t do this tonight, Blake.” She holds herself tight, rubbing her hands at her upper arms.
“When, then? You haven’t come home, and you won’t answer my calls.”
“I don’t have anything to say yet.” Her voice is fatigued and frustrated.
I lean into the brick wall beside me and pull a box of Marlboro Reds from my pocket, sticking one between my teeth and lighting it. I don’t know what to say but I don’t want to leave either.
I inhale, the red-lit tip of the cigarette brightening against the dark air, then exhale, leaving a ring of smoke to meet the sky and become part of it. Kelly walks toward me, holding her red-painted fingertips toward me. I hand her the cigarette and she takes a drag.
“Are we over?” I ask, forcing out the question I don’t want to ask.
“I don’t know.” She flicks a spray of ashes into the concrete ground.
“Hell of a thing to not know, Kel.” My volume raises in frustration.
“Don’t push me to make a choice this second,” she hisses, tears forming in her eyes. “You won’t like my answer.”
“Why though, Kelly? Why isn’t this something we can work through?”
“I don’t want us to be working all the time, Blake. Sometimes, every once in a while, it would be nice if me and you being together just came easy.”
She walks away, just enough to put distance between us, facing away from me so I can’t see her emotions. My shoulders rise and fall with each breath and my chest tightens.
“That’s part of a relationship, Kel. You work for it. You fight for it.”
“I don’t know that this relationship is worth fighting for.” She flicks the fading cigarette to the cold ground and crushes it beneath the toe of her boot, putting out any heat it had left.
Her words are a sharp weapon that cuts through my layers to the deepest part of me.
“The thing is, I dealt with it when you chose gambling over your work. I stood by you when gambling got in the way of your friendships. You chose gambling over me, more than once, and I still stuck around.” Her turbulent words flow over her trembling bottom lip.
“But this time, Blake, you chose gambling over you. You let it take over everything. If you can’t choose you, how am I supposed to?”
“I can change.” It’s a hollow expression with nothing behind it, like writing a check from an empty bank account. Kelly takes my hands in hers and holds them tight. Everything else is numb except where her skin touches mine.
“I hope that’s true, but don’t change for me. Change for you. Because if you don’t… I’m scared of where you’ll end up.” She steps backward, removing her hands from mine as the space between us grows. She puts her hand on the door and opens it.
“Kelly…please.” My voice cracks under the weight of my emotion. “What do you need from me? Right here, right now. Tell me what I need to do and I’ll do it.”
The world stops, frozen in this partial second between her opening the door and stepping through it or letting go of the handle and giving me one last chance at redemption.
Her hands drop to her sides. She doesn’t face me. She doesn’t turn her head over her shoulder. “I want you to admit you have a problem,” she says into the old, faded door before finally turning toward me. “That’s what I want. If you can say the words, if you can look me in the eyes and say you have a gambling problem, we can talk about fixing this.”
She stares at me with perfect ocean-colored eyes that are magnified behind the tears that flow over them. I bite my bottom lip and shove my hands deep in my pockets.
“I can’t do that, Kelly. It was a mistake, a bad call. But I can stop anytime I want. It’s not a problem.”
She shakes her head in a back-and-forth motion that is seemingly slowed by disbelief and disappointment before she opens the door. She steps through it and closes it between us.
* * * *
My guitar sits across my lap, in the same spot it has been in for hours, waiting to be played. The times when I screw up, when I’m hurt, down or I’m alone usually causes an eruption of musical ideas and potential song lyrics, but here I am, a trifecta of fucked, frustrated and forsaken and nothing comes to mind.
My door opens and Xander strolls in, closing the door behind him. He takes a seat next to me and pats his flat palm against my shoulder hard two times then grips his fingers tight into my collarbone.
He says nothing and everything all at the same time, and for all the minutes that pass by, he doesn’t talk, but he doesn’t let go either.
My phone slides off the couch and crashes to the floor, leaving an impressive thud as the device hits the hardwood and I jolt awake. I don’t even remember falling asleep there. More so than that, I don’t really remember the last time I slept at all.
It’s well into the after midnight-early-morning hours, yet there’s a loud knock on my door. I scratch my head, weighing how dumb of an idea it is to answer at this hour to an unknown party. If they’re here to rob me at gunpoint for any large amount of money, they’re going to be supremely disappointed.
I take the risk and open the door because, hell, I’ve got nothing to lose.
My jaw clenches when I see it’s my mother standing opposite me. I would’ve preferred the armed robbers.
“Do you have a second?”
“Nope.” I start to close the door.
“I’m confident you are going to want to hear me out, Blake.”
“You would lose that bet.”
She drops her head to the side a bit and I wonder what she sees. Does she look at me and feel proud that I became something despite her constant setbacks, that I grew up to be successful? Or does she see through all that bullshit and realize I grew up to be her?
“I can help you get that money back.”
“What’s in it for you?” I ask, knowing the strings she attaches to this will better than likely be worse than the loss in the first place.
“I am no stranger to losing everything because of these life choices, Blake. You lost money. I lost you. Maybe we can both recoup some of those losses.”
* * * *
Then
Our album is actually starting to resemble an album. It’s a surreal feeling, creating something from nothing. Our single is soaring and we’re getting on new stages and growing our fan base. Things are almost perfect.
The problem is that almost everything I’ve contributed comes directly from the prom night fallout. I’d trade the entire damn album for a redo of that night.
“Blake, can I talk to you?” Cooper says. I swallow hard. Who knows what I’ve done now. I follow him down the hall, running through every scenario I can think of. He sits at a messy, paper-cluttered desk and I stand across from him. “I received a phone call from the University of Minnesota, Department of Music Studies.”
My palms drip sweat. His tone and expression give me no indication of what type of news comes next.
“I didn’t even know you applied, Blake. That’s great. You should be proud of yourself.”
“Thank you,” I whisper in a tiny voice that’s the antonym of proud. I don’t feel good about it.
“You know, Blake, if you want to go out to Minneapolis, branch out on your own and see what options are out there, you can.”
“I can’t,” I say, staring at a hole in the knee of my jeans. “I can’t leave Xander behind—and you, and the guys.”
“You have earned the right to put yourself first, Mathews. Don’t say no to this yet. Sleep on it. Decide what’s best for you.”
“I don’t need to sleep on it. I want to be part of this band. I love what we’re doing and where we’re going. I might hate Minnesota, and I’m not much of a risk-taker.”
He nods his head and smiles. “You’re sure?”
“You trying to get rid of me, Coop?” We both laugh.
“No, no. I just want you to put yourself first for once.”
“I am,” I say, knowing for the first time, with confidence, that I belong somewhere. I turn to the door to rejoin the band and Cooper adds one follow-up question.
“Why’d you apply if you didn’t want to go?”
“I just wanted some kind of solid, concrete evidence that I’m good enough to make it. I don’t need college to tell me that. You tell me every damn day.”
Cooper’s words sink in slowly over the days following our conversation. Looking back on it, though I don’t plan to take the spot offered to me, I am proud of myself, I just didn’t recognize it at the time because the feeling was foreign. I’ve never really had anything to be proud of. Now that I’ve had time to sleep on it, I recognize that applying for college and getting accepted are both accomplishments I deserve to reflect on and feel good about.
I sit on the front steps of the school thinking back on it all. Xander and I used to sit here by ourselves before we knew anyone else. I dreaded moving here and starting at this school. Just when I finally started to think I couldn’t possibly miss this place, I realized how much I will.
“Hey,” Xander says, shuffling his feet as he walks toward our old spot on the stairs. “Minnesota, eh?” he says, shoving his hands in his pockets.
I look up at him, trying to read his expression. I hadn’t told him and I didn’t plan to. “Cooper?”
“No”—he shakes his head—“this came in the mail for you.” He pulls out a large folded envelope and hands it to me. “If you want to go, you should. Just because I’m not going anywhere doesn’t mean you should get stuck here.”
“You’re going somewhere, Xander. We both are—and we’re going to do it together. We started this together and we’re going to finish it the same way, whether that means we make it to the top or burn it to the ground.”
“Knowing us, it will be the latter.”
“Probably true.” We both laugh an echoing sound through the stairway. Xander clears his throat and nods his head past me. I turn to see Kelly leaving through the main doors.
I stand and walk toward her with my hands in my pocket and my heart on my sleeve. I have no other choice. If I keep hiding myself from her, I’m never going to know what kind of hand fate hold
s for us.
“Blake,” she says as I approach.
“Kelly,” I respond, my voice matching hers. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Really?” She crosses her arms and leans all her weight into one hip. “We graduate in two weeks and now you’re going to ask me out?”
“I guess so, yeah.” I scratch my hairline.
“I can’t, Blake.”
“Okay, the following weekend then.”
“No, Blake,” she snaps. “No weekend. You and I have been doing this dance around each other for years. If it was meant to be, it would have been.”
“It’s never too late to try.” My voice was smaller and less confident than I needed it to be.
“Blake, I just… I just don’t think you’re what I need right now.” She shakes her head and starts to walk away.
“I will be.” I muster up any sliver of confidence I can find. “Someday, Kelly, I’ll be what you need. You’ll see.”
Her tight lips break into a sliver of a smile—a shimmer of hope, but we both turn away and go our separate directions.
Chapter Twenty
Now
There have been times she’s crossed my mind. Where has she been? What is she doing now? Has she seen me play?
Does she think about me too?
Now she sits here in front of me, and I can’t think of anything to say. There’s more than a decade time-lapse between our reunions, and as far as I can tell, the only thing we have in common is a desire to sit at expensive tables.
“She did a good job with you,” mother says, tapping her fingernails against the ceramic coffee cup in her hands. “Debbie, I mean. She gave you so much.”
I push my hair back off my forehead and sink into the chair. Debbie. I wonder if Xander has told her what I’ve done.
“She did.” I nod my head, keeping my eyes fixed on the blank wall. “I couldn’t have asked for a better mom.”
The words hurt her. I know they do. I just don’t care.
“You didn’t even say goodbye,” I add, my vocal cords strained. “I’ve gone over it time and time again. How could you just drop off my guitar at Xander’s door and tell Debbie you weren’t coming back?”