Charmer

by Loring, Kayley

  Kat

  “Can I bring you anything else, buddy? Juice. I forgot the juice.”

  “I don’t want juice.”

  “You sure? Let me get you another pillow for your back.”

  “I’m fine, Mom. Where’s your phone?”

  “My phone?” I don’t even know where my phone is. “Why do you want my phone?”

  “I want to show you something.”

  “Okay just eat your breakfast.”

  “I am eating it. Knock knock.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Not you because you’re going to get your phone.”

  “Okay okay, geez.”

  Tate is all set up to sleep on the sofa in the living room for the next few days, so he doesn’t have to go up and down the stairs, and I’ve brought him breakfast on a tray. I didn’t get home until almost midnight and just knelt beside him, checking and replacing the ice pack around his raised ankle, watching him breathe until I fell asleep on the carpet. When Lou found me on the floor, she just rolled her eyes, sighed, and went to the kitchen.

  I started bawling my eyes out as soon as I saw the little crutches leaning against the side table. My poor little guy. It could have been a lot worse, I know. But his eyes are still puffy from crying yesterday. I’m sure mine are too.

  My purse is on the floor in the front hall. I must have just dropped everything as soon as I walked in. The phone is in there, but the battery is dead. Of course. And I can’t find my phone charger. Of course. I go to the kitchen to use the charger that my mother keeps on the counter at all times, because she never does things like forget her phone charger on her boyfriend’s bus while panicking about returning home as quickly as possible to her injured child. Of course.

  Lou is at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and pretending not to be a Judge-y Judgerson who’s dying to tell me that I shouldn’t have come home. That I overreacted. That I need to work on my boundaries and my career and my social life and stop worrying about my son so much. Easy for her to say! She has nothing to feel guilty about.

  I plug my phone into the charger and turn to face her, with my arms crossed, waiting. She ignores me. I pour myself a cup of coffee and wait for her to say something. She doesn’t. She just drinks her coffee and stares into space. So infuriating.

  “Oh my God, what? Just say it.”

  She calmly turns to look at me, frowning. “I’m not going to tell you how to feel, or what to do with your life, Katherine.”

  “Yes you are.”

  “But Tate could have had an accident anywhere, at any time. Whether you were with him or not. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have come home. Even though I am a physiotherapist who is trained to help people who have sustained this kind of injury and I’m not going to work right now—but you’re his mother. Of course you want to be with him. I would have rushed home to be with you too. I understand that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But you can’t be with your son all the time, so just stop feeling guilty about not being here when you were doing your job. Now that you’ve seen he’s okay, maybe you should fly back to meet Nico tomorrow, wherever he is.”

  “No. He needs help getting to the bathroom. He needs to stay off his foot and keep his leg propped up and iced. He needs to be entertained while he’s lying on the sofa. What if you need to run errands? What if something happens to you? What if you fall down the stairs and break your ankle? Who will help Tate then?”

  She arches an eyebrow. “First of all, sweet child of mine, thank you for your concern about me when I hypothetically fall down the stairs.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  “I do have friends who are nurses, you know. I can call Maria to watch him if I ever have to go out.”

  “Maria works full-time. That’s not enough of a backup plan.”

  She looks like she just sucked on a lemon because she can’t argue with me on this and she knows it and she hates it. Hah. I finally have more momsense than she does.

  “Fine. But if you hurt Nico and mess up what you’ve started with him, I will end you.”

  “Jesus. Mom!”

  “You know what I mean. I just like that boy a lot.”

  “Well I do too, obviously.”

  “Oh really? Have you even talked to him since you got home?”

  “I got home in the middle of the night. You know what—I need to check on Tate.”

  “Check your phone.”

  “Okay fine.” My phone is back on, and I’ve missed three calls and six texts from Nico. Oh, poor Nico. I completely forgot to text him when I got home. He’s probably worried sick.

  NICO: You home yet?

  NICO: Hey. Let me know that you got home okay.

  NICO: I’m assuming you got home okay. How’s Tate?

  NICO: I just found your phone charger. Shit. Maybe your phone died.

  NICO: Okay I’m going to assume your phone died and you’re at home and Tate’s okay. But call or FaceTime me whenever if you want to. If you can.

  NICO: I love you. Both of you. I’m totally not panicking or bugging you to text or call me like some giant pussy. I’m requesting that you text or call me in a really fucking badass sexy way. So do it. When you can. Good night.

  I’m about to text him back, when I hear something from the living room. My mother and I exchange looks. “Is that The Beatles?”

  I find Tate leaning on one of his crutches, lifting the needle on the record player.

  “What are you doing up?!”

  “Tate, you have to use both crutches.” My mother grabs the other one and brings it to him, placing it under one of his arms. “Remember how I showed you last night?”

  “You didn’t bring me your phone. I’m trying to find the octopus song. To make you feel better.”

  I pick up the Abbey Road album cover from the floor. “The octopus song? But I don’t like that one.”

  “Nico said to play it if you’re crying. Because it’s silly.”

  “He did? I’m not crying, honey.”

  “But you’re not happy.”

  “I just feel bad that you got hurt, baby. You don’t have to worry about me. Come on back to the sofa and finish your breakfast.” I turn off the record player and reach out to pick him up.

  “Let him use the crutches,” my mother hisses.

  I do. He does. He gets to the sofa just fine, and then lets the crutches fall away as he plops down on the cushions. One smashes onto the coffee table, the other crashes against the breakfast tray that he had left on the sofa with loud clangs and thuds. Good thing I forgot to bring him juice.

  “Okay. Nothing broke, but next time try to gently place the crutches down beside you. Right?”

  Tate wipes his face with his hands. He seems tired. “Why can’t I just hop on one foot?”

  “Because you might land on the foot with the broken ankle and that would be bad and it would hurt,” Lou explains, somewhat calmly.

  “Why’d you turn the song off?”

  “Honey, we need you to understand how important it is for you to stay off your foot with the broken ankle. You have to keep it up on these pillows for a few more days and we have to keep icing it too. Okay?”

  “Forever?”

  “Just for two or three more days.”

  “But why can’t I do that at magic camp? I wanna do the performance. You never got to see me do the tricks.”

  “You can show me some of them here, as long as you can do them lying down.”

  “I was gonna learn to do the cupped balls today,” he pouts.

  My mother has disappeared, to let me deal with my sulky child by myself. “I’m really sorry you have to miss it.”

  “When can I go back?”

  “To magic camp? Well, school will be starting in a few weeks. But you probably won’t be able to go to magic camp before then.”

  He heaves a massive sigh of self-pity, raising his arms in the air and then flopping them down. “It’s not fair.”

  �
��I know.”

  “I can go next summer?”

  Next summer. “We’ll see. Maybe. Did you not have any fun at all while we were traveling?”

  “Yeah. Where’s Nico at?”

  “He’s still on the road doing his shows. He’s worried about you. He would have come back with me if he could.”

  “I want him to draw on my cast.”

  “You do? But you haven’t even asked me to draw on your cast.”

  “You can draw on it too, Mom.”

  “Thanks… Hey. How would you feel about doing another trip with Nico next summer?”

  He wrinkles his nose. Not a good sign. “On the bus again?”

  “I don’t think so. This would be to Europe.”

  “What’s Europe?”

  “It’s a place we’d have to get on a plane and fly to. There are other countries there.”

  “With the different kind of food?”

  “Sort of different, but not too different. Remember the movie Mary Poppins with the nanny and the umbrella?”

  “Where they talk funny.”

  “Right, that’s a place called England. We could go there. With Nico. For a week. And to Ireland, where they talk like the Lucky Charms guy. And Scotland where they talk like Shrek. We’d stay in nice hotels.”

  “Can I poop in a toilet whenever I want to?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think they like to talk about poop as much over there. And then we could go to a few other countries too if you want. Would you like that?”

  He shrugs. “What about magic camp?”

  Oh fuck you, magic camp.

  “Well, if you still want to go to magic camp next summer then you’d be able to go for a week or two, sure.”

  “Jonah got to go for five whole weeks.”

  “Well, Jonah didn’t get to go all across the country in an awesome bus, did he?”

  I don’t get a response from Tate. He’s staring into space, and then slowly, slowly, his eyes shut. And just like that he’s asleep. My whiny little turd of a six-year-old is a sleeping angel again and I could just watch him like this for hours.

  But I won’t. Because boundaries. And because I need to call my sexy badass panicky boyfriend.

  29

  Nico

  Well, this is a pretty picture. Good thing I don’t have anyone here documenting this. But if Kat were here, I wouldn’t be sprawled out in the back of a bus binge-eating potato chips and watching Jerry Maguire while having a beer at shit o’clock in the morning. I don’t even know what time it is or where I am anymore. Somewhere between Iowa City and Lonely Pathetic Loserville. I just know that I barely slept last night. I keep muttering “Here I go again on my own” like a giant whiny baby and sniffing the pillows because they still smell like Kat’s shampoo.

  I am not crying.

  There’s something in the air here in the Midwest that’s making my eyes watery. But why didn’t I ever pay attention to this movie before? It’s the best movie ever. The kid is so cute. Not as cute as Tate or the twins, but…okay, he’s really fucking cute though. I want a little kid with glasses to hug me and kiss me goodbye and listen to me complain about stuff.

  Shit, am I drunk?

  I think my ovaries hurt.

  Do I have ovaries now?

  What is wrong with me?

  Fuck you, Jerry Maguire. Super glad everything worked out for you just because you gave a little speech in a living room. Some of us are trying to give everything they have and aren’t even getting replies to our text messages over here.

  I hear Ricky plodding down the hall through Bunk Alley, so he must be done dropping a load at this lucky rest stop.

  “Y’all still crying like a little girl back here?”

  “I’m not crying.”

  He steps into the doorway and eyes the situation, snorting. “Whatever you say, Nicole.”

  Whatever. Last night after the show we both just drank and played cards in my hotel room while feeling sorry for ourselves. The Dempseys have left a giant gaping hole in this bus and in our hearts and there’s no use talking about it.

  “Lulu said the little one is going to be just fine.”

  “Yeah? You’ve heard from her?”

  “You haven’t heard from Kat?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I’m sure she’s busy with Tate. She’ll call.”

  “I know she’ll call.”

  “Okay okay,” he holds his hands up in front of his chest. “Don’t shoot. You want to get out and walk around a bit or can I hit the road?”

  “Might as well hit the road. I’ll just keep lying here like a manly man and keep thinking manly thoughts.”

  “Yeah. You do that.”

  My phone starts ringing and I dive for it. When I see that it’s Kat calling, my entire being exhales. How do girls even survive being teenagers? I’ve been one for about twenty hours and it has nearly killed me. I clear my throat and answer with a deep and not at all angsty, “Hello.”

  “Hey. I’m so sorry I didn’t text you last night.”

  God, it’s good to hear her voice.

  “It’s okay. Everything alright over there?”

  “Yes. He’s still adjusting to things. He wants you to doodle on his cast.”

  “It would be my honor. I’ll draw more pictures of you in your new bras. Can I talk to him?”

  “He’s asleep, actually.”

  “Are you somewhere private right now?” That came out a little skeezier than I meant it to.

  “I’m in my room alone, yes,” she laughs.

  “Can we FaceTime?”

  “Ugh. I’m a mess. I fell asleep on the floor. I haven’t showered yet. Let’s just talk. Okay?”

  “Okay. I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.” I hear her sigh. “You sure you don’t want to be with some twenty-three-year-old whose only responsibility is getting to her Pilates class on time?”

  “Why would you even ask me that?”

  She sniffles.

  “Are you crying? Hey. I want to see your face.”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine. How are you? How was your show last night?”

  “Good. I did like three encores. I did ‘The Wait.’ It felt weird singing it without you there.”

  “And you spent the night in Iowa?”

  “Yeah. Didn’t get much sleep though.”

  “You were waiting to hear from me. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize.” Jesus. This is the lamest conversation we have ever had. “I just miss you.” Fuck. I already said that.

  “Did Ricky make you hit the road early?”

  “Yeah. He’s being a cranky ass, but we’ve got a long drive ahead of us, so…I’m just watching movies by myself back here. Dealing with manager shit.”

  “What manager shit?”

  “It’s nothing. He just wants an answer about Europe.”

  She doesn’t say anything.

  “The Europe tour.”

  “Yeah. He wants to start booking the tour?”

  “He’s still pushing for a March start date, but…”

  “The earlier the better, though, right? For your album? For your career?”

  “I mean. Probably. But it’s my life. This is the whole reason I’m not signed to a label—I want it to ultimately be my decision.”

  She’s all quiet again.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi… I just…I don’t want you to base your decision on whether or not we can go with you…”

  “Oh.” Why does that hurt so much?

  “I mean, if you have to decide right now. I’m not saying we won’t be able to join you, or that I won’t be able to join you for some of the tour—I want to. Of course I do. I just don’t want to complicate things for you…”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you should decide when to go to Europe based on what’s best for you. Decide the way you normally would. Without thinking about school calendars. I don’t want to hold you back.�
��

  “Really? Because it seems like that’s what you’re doing again. Holding me back.”

  “I didn’t mean for it to come out that way. I just want what’s best for everyone.”

  “I know. I thought for a minute there you’d agreed that us being together was what’s best for everyone.”

  “I guess I’m just not sure what us being together means. For all of us.”

  Fuck. I should have just told her I want to marry her as soon as I felt it. “It means I don’t consider rearranging things to accommodate you and Tate to be a complication. And I can’t believe you still think of me as one.”

  Shit. Are we arguing? Did I just turn this into a fight?

  “That’s not what I…” Her voice muffles. “Don’t get up, I’ll be right there!” She clears her throat and says, “I have to help him go to the bathroom. I think we’re both just tired, Nico. Let’s talk later.” She yells out, “Don’t get up yet—I’m coming!” And then I don’t hear anything anymore.

  She hung up.

  What just happened?

  Why can’t I have one good conversation with a woman who’s in LA while I’m on the road?

  The phone rings again and I answer with “Thank God,” before my tired brain computes that the reason my grandmother’s face showed up on the screen is because she’s the one calling me.

  “That’s sweet,” she says. “But I’m the only one you need to thank right now.”

  “Hey Grammie.”

  “Hey yourself. What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I just didn’t get enough sleep last night. How are you?”

  “Fantastic. I was just sitting around waiting for you to call and then I figured well what the heck. I’ll call him myself. Make him feel bad.”

  “Well played.”

  “How are the delightful Dempseys doing?”

  “They’re back in LA.”

  “All of them?”

  “Tate wanted to go home, so Lou took him back from Chicago. He started going to magic camp and jumped off a stage and got a hairline fracture on his ankle from landing wrong.”

  “Ooof. Poor thing.”

  “Yeah. Kat went back yesterday.”

  “Well of course she did.”