by Selena
Outside, I wrapped my coat tightly around myself and hailed a cab, which took a good ten minutes. Finally, I slid onto the worn upholstery seats of an old yellow taxi, my legs shaking from cold. And fine, maybe I was a little nervous. I’d only dated two guys ever. Guys in New York were probably cynical and jaded, nothing like me. Somehow, I’d end up showing my naivete, and he’d go home thinking I was a country bumpkin still in love with my high school boyfriend. God, I was such a fool. What was I doing here?
Before I could reconsider or tell the cabbie to turn around, he was dropping me off at the designated meeting spot, a place called Last Call. It was small and simple, the façade completely undecorated. A sign on the door mandated that ladies must wear dresses and men must wear jackets. Thank fuck I hadn’t worn jeans.
I walked in, only to be greeted by one of those New York-beautiful women, the ones who looked like they spent hours polishing every bit of themselves—hair, nails, teeth, skin… Probably a model waiting tables on the side.
She gave me a smile that went nowhere near her eyes. “Are we expecting you?”
“I’m meeting my date,” I said, realized I still didn’t know his name. “I’m sure he has a table already. I’m Laney Tucker.”
God, even my name sounded country.
“Ah, here you are,” the woman said. “He did call ahead to tell us to seat you if he wasn’t here yet.”
I wasn’t sure how to take that. It seemed polite, but then, it also seemed like he was giving me permission to sit down instead of standing in the cold entrance waiting for him. I gave the woman my winningest smile. “Can I ask you what his name is again?” I whispered conspiratorially. “Help a girl out?”
The woman did not return my smile. Instead, she gave me a look that was half pity, half contempt. “Robert Mensch,” she said. “Right this way.”
When I was seated and the snooty hostess had gone, I breathed a sigh of relief. The place was dark and small, with only a handful of tables covered with white cloths, four booths along the wall, all occupied, and an old, polished wooden bar. Potted plants, probably fake, hung in square, walnut boxes around the bar, and the walls featured large framed pictures of European castles.
Five minutes later, the waiter had been by my table twice, and I was beginning to wonder if I should order a drink without Robert. I didn’t want to drink alone like a loser, but I also didn’t want to sit there alone all night. What if he stood me up? I should have asked the door girl if he’d said anything else, like that he would be late, instead of asking his name. I wasn’t about to go back and ask now, though.
Finally, I broke down and ordered a gin and tonic. At least it would take the edge off my nerves. It arrived icy cold and sparkling, and I took a sip, relishing the bitterness. Just as I set my drink down, a tall guy approached the table with a confident, determined stride. He wore dark jeans, a button-down shirt and a blazer. Despite the slight bump on the bridge of his nose, he was attractive, with short dark hair, a slight tan, and dark eyes. Not Brody Villines, but handsome in a more sophisticated way.
“You started without me,” he said, sliding into his chair.
“You’re late,” I said with a shrug.
He grinned, his teeth perfectly straight and white. “Your hair is shorter than in your picture.”
I bit back my reply that his hair was thinner than in his picture. No reason to be tasteless just because he’d been late. He probably had a perfectly good reason. I took a long sip of my drink to quell the urge to give him the smart retort he obviously wanted.
“What number is that?” he asked, nodding at my drink.
“One,” I said defensively. Were all New York men so confrontational?
He motioned for the waiter and ordered a scotch, neat. “What number is that for her?” he asked the waiter, nodding at my half-empty glass.
My mouth literally fell open in shock. The waiter looked like he wasn’t sure if he should answer, but when Robert asked again in that impatient, demanding way, he did. When he’d scurried off, Robert grinned at me. “Hey, you’re honest,” he said. “You passed that test. After the false advertising of your picture, I had to make sure.”
“I guess you’re not worried about passing any tests,” I said with a serene smile.
“Why would I be?” he said. “I’m a catch. If it doesn’t work out, there’s ten more of you lined up waiting for me to buy them a drink and take them home, and maybe, someday, give them that hundred-thousand-dollar dream wedding. Isn’t that what you want?”
I finished my drink in two long pulls and pushed back from the table. “For your information, I can pay for my own damn wedding. And it sure as hell won’t be with a prematurely balding egomaniac without a tenth of the tact and charm of a common Kentucky redneck. Thanks for the drink, though.”
“Aw, sit down,” he said. “We’ve barely gotten started.”
“I’ve seen enough,” I said, forcing my voice to be light and offhand. I shrugged into my coat and smiled. “Don’t worry, I can get my own cab.”
Not that he would have bothered to make sure.
When he didn’t show any intention of contradicting me, I turned and headed out. It had been a bad idea from the start. I wasn’t ready for this, for anyone. Last time, I’d jumped back in and gotten engaged to an asshole. This time, I knew to stop at one date. As the fifth cab sped by without slowing for me, a guy going into Last Call grabbed himself and made a lewd comment. The remains of the snow sat in sludgy grey puddles along the street, and when a cab finally slammed on the brakes and slid to a stop beside me, it sprayed frigid slush across my Louboutins.
I climbed into the taxi, wiped off my shoes with a tissue from my purse, and texted my mother. I was time to go home.
forty-one
Brody
“I guess congratulations are in order,” Nash said as he dragged me to the dressing room. “But you barely made this one. Everyone’s getting antsy out there. Your opening number’s already run through their entire repertoire.”
“I told you to cancel,” I snapped. “Uma wasn’t ready to leave.”
“She’ll be as good in the bus as at the hospital,” Nash said, slamming the dressing room door and ripping my t-shirt off with a swiftness that would have impressed even the most rabid baby-doll. “A bed’s a bed.”
“It’s been two days. I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“Does your pussy hurt, too? Jesus, Brody. You’re not the one who gave birth.”
“I want to be there for her,” I said quietly, succumbing to Nash’s insistence on dressing me. I didn’t want to tell Nash about Uma’s odd detachment, like she’d checked out of everything, not just the hospital. I didn’t want to admit that I was a tiny bit afraid to leave Uma alone with her own baby. My baby. The nurse had assured me that not everyone fell in love at first sight, even with their own babies. She said it was perfectly normal for it to feel like a stranger, for the mother to take a while to bond. But I had my doubts.
I knew I didn’t give my best performance at the Forum. My heart and mind were elsewhere, with the baby. Osceola. Uma had come about in the hospital long enough to tell me how to fill out the birth certificate.
“I think her name is Osceola,” she’d said, peering at me almost shyly from beneath her lashes. I’d thought, for a minute, she was going to take an interest. I’d jotted the name down on the form without so much as blinking. I didn’t care what we called her. I’d love her just the same if her name was Horse Manure or Cinderella. But I’d paused, the pen raised, before putting down a last name.
“Villines?” I’d asked, my heart pounding in my ears like a bass drum.
She’d shrugged and gone back to staring out the window, and I’d felt a swell of pride bigger than anything I’d ever felt—more than when I’d filled Madison Square Garden, or had my first number one single, or won Best New Artist at the Grammy’s. Nothing in my life could compare to holding that baby and gazing at her perfection for hours at a time. But giving her my
last name came close. She was mine. By blood, by name, by law. And nothing could take her away.
Except Uma.
Some paranoid little voice in the back of my mind kept asking if I was sure she hadn’t been faking it. If, when I got back from my first time leaving her alone for more than a few minutes, she’d be gone with Osceola, leaving nothing but a stain on the mattress to prove it had happened at all.
After the show, I blew off the obligatory schmoozing and went directly to my tour bus. As soon as I opened the door, I heard the baby’s wails. They’d grown louder in the past few days from the feeble squall in the hospital. Now, she was giving us an earful when she wasn’t happy. And she didn’t sound happy.
I hurried to the bedroom, where we’d set up a bassinet beside the bed. Uma was sitting on the bed, propped up on pillows, with her arms crossed over her chest, frowning at the wall.
“What’s wrong with her?” I asked, bending to scoop Osceola from her little bed.
“Fuck if I know,” Uma said. “I think she hates me. She won’t eat. I tried to feed her, but guess what? Even she doesn’t want anything to do with my tits.”
“I don’t think that’s the problem,” I said, rocking the baby back and forth. “Have you pumped any milk? I can feed her a bottle.”
“No,” Uma said. “I tried, but nothing comes out, and it hurts like hell. Just get her some formula.”
I glanced at Uma, about to argue that breastfeeding was healthier for the baby, but I decided against it. It was her body. Instead, I sent Nash a text asking him to run out and get formula, which went over about as well as expected. When Nash appeared at last, I was sitting on the couch with Osceola, who was only fussing now.
“I’m not going back out,” I said, scanning the back of the formula can. “I need some time off.”
“We can cut most of the post-show crap,” Nash said. “But you gotta do the meet-and-greet before the show if you don’t do it after.”
I held the baby in one arm while I scooped formula into the bottle, added the distilled spring water I’d warmed while waiting, and screwed on the cap, managing to slop it all over the counter in the process. I’d have to get this one-handed thing down a little better before I called myself a pro.
“I’m not talking about after the shows,” I said, glancing back at the bedroom, where Uma remained. “I’m talking about needing a few months. To get her settled, figure out how this whole dad thing works.”
“You let the mom take care of it,” Nash said. “That’s how the whole dad thing works.”
“Not for me,” I said. Though it was true, that’s how my parents had done it. My grandpa had done all the dad things with me, while my dad was a distant, detached kind of figure, rarely home at all. I had a suspicion that was just fine with my mother.
“You’ve got twenty more dates booked,” Nash barked. “People have bought tickets. You can’t back out.”
“Yes, I can.” I plopped the nipple of the bottle right in Osceola’s open mouth. She promptly spit it out and started wailing instead of fussing.
“What am I supposed to tell the ticketholders? The fans? The label?” Nash yelled.
“Tell them I’m in rehab, I don’t care,” I said. “Tell them I had a nervous breakdown, I’m suffering from exhaustion. I don’t fucking care what you tell them. Tell them I died, maybe then they’ll leave me the fuck alone.”
Nash glared, his fists clenching. “You can’t do this.”
“I’m doing it,” I said. “Refund their money. I’m done, Nash.”
“Okay, take a few weeks off, spend time with your… Family. We’ll talk then.”
“I don’t need to talk,” I said, a flood of relief washing over me when Osceola at last accepted the bottle and started sucking. “This is all I want now. Nothing’s going to change that in the next two weeks.”
“That might,” Nash said when the baby broke away and started wailing again. “We’ll see how you feel after listening to that nonstop for a while. In the meantime, I think you can squeeze in these last few shows before you take a break.”
I stared at him hard. “Are you deaf? Or just trying to piss me off? I’m fucking done, Nash. I’m not doing another show tomorrow, or next week, or next month. I might never be doing another show again. Now get your ass on the phone and cancel them, and then you can pack up your shit and go home, too, because I won’t be needing you anymore.”
Osceola wailed and arched her back, and I put her up to my shoulder, patting her back gently.
“You can’t fire me,” Nash roared. Osceola’s body jerked as she startled, then wailed louder, as if to outdo Nash.
Nash went on, yelling over the baby. “I made you, Brody Villines. You were nothing but a shit guitar-playing hick when I found you. If it weren’t for me, you’d be sitting on a street corner collecting change in your guitar case.”
My voice was low but deadly when I spoke. “If you ever scare this baby again, I will fucking end you.”
“End me? End me?” Nash spluttered. Then he barked with laughter. “I will end you, Brody Villines. This is going to cost millions of dollars, and it’s coming out of your pocket. Not mine. Not the label. You are going to pay for this.”
“Fine, I’ll pay for it.”
Nash pointed to the door. “When I walk out this door, you cease to exist,” he said. “You understand me, boy?”
“That’s exactly what I want.”
“Are you hearing me right now?” Nash asked, throwing up his arms. “This is the end of your career.”
“No,” I said, slipping Osceola off my shoulder and into my arms. “That career ended three days ago. And I couldn’t be happier.”
I didn’t even look up to watch Nash go.
March
forty-two
Laney
I had been home for three weeks when my mother came in to tell me the news. “Othal Darling had another stroke,” she said, sitting on the edge of my bed, cradling Majesty’s giant mass in her arms. “They don’t know if he’s going to make it this time. He’s home, but he’s got a hospice nurse in there.”
“Oh my God,” I said, sitting up so quickly my supply caddy toppled over, sending colored pens cascading across my blanket and the floor. The first thing I wanted to ask was if Brody knew.
But of course he knew.
Brody had been home for a few days just a few weeks before, presumably so his family could meet the baby. He hadn’t even stopped by to visit me before leaving again.
“We should go and pay our respects one last time,” Blair said. “After all he’s done for our family and the community.”
“Of course,” I said, tossing off my blanket. Majesty struggled from Blair’s arms and jumped to the floor, where he began batting my pens under the bed.
“I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to throw one of your tantrums, because I’m quite sure the whole family will be with him now,” Blair said.
“Mom, it’s fine,” I said. “We’re adults now. I know I’ll see Brody from time to time.”
But I wondered. We’d gone for years without seeing each other before. It wasn’t hard to imagine we’d go for another three before the next time we met. By then, he’d probably be married to Uma and having another baby, and I’d be finishing grad school. And then in another three, I’d be married, too. Even if we both stayed in the area, which was doubtful, we’d only see each other at church picnics, awkwardly saying hello and chatting about the weather and our kids.
I felt my heart withering away and dying a little at the thought of this grim future. But I didn’t know what I could do to stop it. I’d let Brody go, and he’d gone, taking Uma with him. I’d done the right thing, letting him make an honest go of things with the mother of his child. And he’d done the right thing, too—the fact that he was the kind of guy who would do that was part of why I loved him so much. If he hadn’t tried, I’d have lost all respect for him. So now Uma and he had a baby to raise, and I had a broken heart to tend.
But I could suck it up and be an adult, not avoid him the way I had on the few occasions we’d been home at the same time during the past three years. Othal was a good man, one who had looked out for me as much as he did Brody and his brothers. So I climbed out of bed and made myself presentable, knowing it would break my heart to see Brody happy with his little family, but knowing also that sometimes, you had to break your own heart for someone else’s sake.
* * *
I had expected the house to be full when we arrived, but only a few cars were parked in the driveway, and Brody’s H2 was not among them. A sick feeling climbed into my throat, a conflicting swirl of relief and heart-rending sadness. But this wasn’t about Brody. This was about Othal, a man who had taught me how to spit watermelon seeds along with his grandsons, who had given me tough love warnings when I’d chosen to go to college instead of joining Just 5 Guys on tour.
A woman I didn’t know opened the door to let my family in. When we stepped into the living room, I stopped short. Brody was there, sitting by his grandfather’s side, murmuring to him. He looked up when we entered, and his gaze caught mine. A coil of heat smoldered to life inside me, like a red-hot copper wire twisting down my spine.
I had made a terrible mistake.
Brody broke the connection first, standing to shake hands with my father, then accept a long, tight hug from my mother. Then it was my turn. I swallowed hard, schooling my face into what I hoped was an appropriate expression. Brody stepped toward me, close enough that I could have thrown myself into his arms, told him I was sorry, I didn’t mean it. That I wanted to go back in time and fight for him, the right thing be damned.
But it was too late. I’d left him.
“Laney,” he said, and he reached out, trailing his knuckles down my arm. The fire from his touch spread up my arm, then down my entire body, consuming me, eating me alive.
Faintly, the sound of a baby crying echoed from upstairs. Everyone fell silent for one eternal moment.
“Come and say hello to Othal,” Blair said, hooking her arm through mine.