Lies and Lullabies

by Sarina Bowen

  “Yeah,” I said, although I couldn’t say why. Adam had made me promise.

  “Is everything okay with Vivi?”

  “Yes—totally fine. She’s all hyped up, actually, because it’s the last week of preschool. They had a birthday party at school for her today. I made strawberry cupcakes with pink frosting.”

  Jonas groaned. “Did you save me one?”

  “No.” I laughed. “They were pink, Jonas. If Barbie made cupcakes, they would look like these.”

  “You’re right,” he joked. “I need manly cupcakes. My birthday is in November. Be ready.”

  I stopped smiling. It was awfully depressing that we didn’t even know each other’s birthdays.

  He must have felt the change in my mood. “You know I’m joking, right? That sounded bad. Like I was putting in an order.”

  “Uh-huh. So you don’t want the cupcakes?” I knew I should try to lighten up. Not that it was easy this week.

  “Sweetness, I want anything you make for me. Maybe I’m a caveman, but the fact that you used to cook for me made me so fucking happy. I could not wait to walk into the store every night just to see what you’d come up with.”

  “It wasn’t much, Jonas. The kitchen at the store isn’t all that great.”

  “That is not how I remember it,” Jonas insisted, dropping his voice to a whisper. “I ate so many of your little savory pies that you started making other things for me. It was thoughtful. And I liked knowing that you were thinking about me.”

  There was a lump in my throat now. “It was just food,” I said. But that was a lie. I had enjoyed feeding him. So much.

  “To me, it was more than that. Do you still think about opening a cafe?”

  “Sometimes,” I admitted. “But I switched tracks because teachers have a more stable work life.”

  “Can you switch again?” he asked. “If you have a little more of a cushion now, you could do what you wanted.”

  “It’s not just money, though. I don’t want to leave for work at four thirty in the morning, or four thirty at night. Those are hours that I would miss out on seeing Vivi.”

  “Ah,” he said, sounding defeated. We were both quiet for a moment, and then Jonas said, “I’m coming to Boston in forty-eight hours to see you both.”

  “Wait. You are?”

  “Yeah. Unless you tell me not to. I can get a ten thirty flight out of Philly after my concert Sunday night. I’ll go to a hotel if you want me to, because I’ll land pretty late. But then I’m all yours on Monday. I can bring Vivi her birthday present. And I’ll fly back to rejoin the tour on Tuesday morning, with plenty of time to reach Nashville so Ethan doesn’t have an aneurysm.”

  I felt a tingle in my chest at the idea of seeing him again so soon. But the timing wasn’t great, because Adam’s surgery was supposed to happen immediately after that. “Wow. The timing sucks, though.”

  “Does it?” he asked, sounding sad.

  “Yeah, Adam…” I broke off.

  “Adam doesn’t like me,” Jonas said bluntly.

  “Adam is having a hard time, Jonas. We’re just a little… busy.”

  There was a silence. “Okay.” I could hear him trying to figure out why I would be so vague. But I’d promised Adam to keep his secret. “Should I not come?”

  I thought about it for a second. “You should,” I decided. Vivi didn’t know about Adam’s illness, and it’s not like we’d planned to sit around all weekend discussing it.

  “All right,” he said, still sounding hesitant. “I want to.”

  My heart fluttered again. I was going to see him again in just a few days? “Vivi is going to be so excited to see you.” And so will I.

  “I hope so. Oh, Christ. Ethan keeps calling my phone because he can’t find me.”

  “Why can’t he find you?”

  “Because I’m in a closet.”

  I laughed. “If you’re going to come out of the closet, I think we need to have another chat.”

  “You crack yourself up, sweetness. Can I call you tomorrow?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good night, my love.”

  More flutters! “Good night,” I said, sounding a little dreamy.

  I hung up the phone feeling lighter. And I couldn’t wait to tell Vivi that her daddy was coming to town.

  I shut off the light and made myself comfortable under the covers. Monday night, Jonas might actually be lying here beside me. How crazy was that?

  I rolled my smiling face into the pillow, wishing he were here already.

  Twenty

  Jonas

  Everything about Sunday night’s show was a little off.

  Although the crowd probably didn’t notice, Nixon and I weren’t communicating very well. “Sweetness” was supposed to be the third song in the set. At least, that’s what I thought we’d agreed upon. But Nixon played the intro to “Start Something With Me” instead.

  So I followed along, even though I was holding my Gibson and always played that song on my Fender. I glared into the wings where my guitar tech stood. As if this was all his fault. But the man just shrugged, as if to say, I gave you the instrument you called for, dummy.

  And maybe it was my fault. I was awfully distracted tonight. My overnight bag was packed. The moment the final encore ended, I’d sprint to the bus, take the fastest shower of my life, and jump into the waiting car. The airport was only a twenty-minute drive from the venue.

  It would be a little tight if we hit traffic, but I knew it could work.

  Thinking all of this through, I accidentally sang the third verse of “Start Something with Me” twice. A glance at Nixon earned me a cocked eyebrow.

  Whoops. I really needed to concentrate a little more. But it wasn’t easy when I was this close to seeing my girls.

  The crowd was huge, but I couldn’t make out many faces, because of the footlights. I was blinded by stage lighting and deafened by the music coming through the wedge speakers.

  The first time I’d played big venues, I’d been scared shitless. The crowd was like a big, hungry beast vibrating in front of me.

  But now? Just another day at the office. Between songs, I took a swig from my water bottle, smiled at the masses, swapped guitars with the instrument tech, and listened for Nixon’s next intro. I could do this. I was good at this. And then I’d get to see my girls.

  When the show finally ended, I ran for the exit with two security guards. Avoiding the aggressive fans waiting by the green-room doors, I slipped out a side door into the darkened parking lot. I tapped the access code into the bus’s keypad lock (the code was Ethan’s birthday.) The doors swung open for me. I thanked the security guards and locked myself in, alone.

  I trotted to the back of the bus, threw the duffel down and stripped off my sweaty concert clothes. In the quirky little bathroom, I hopped beneath the shower spray before it was even warm. Shampoo. Soap. Rinse. If there were records for this, I broke them. Snatching a towel out of their protected cabinet, I covered myself before opening the door again. You never knew who you’d find on a tour bus. And sure enough, the sound of Nixon’s laugh was already coming from the forward lounge.

  If, on my way out, I had to walk by Nixon fucking some girl on the sofa, it wouldn’t be the first time. At least they’d left me the rear lounge, and a quiet place to dress. I swiped the towel over my body and got to work. Not two minutes later I was lacing up my shoes. A text confirmed that my driver was already waiting just outside the bus.

  Nixon and his girl still had their clothes on when I hurried past them with my duffel bag. He palmed something on the table, hiding it from view as I went by. “Have fun with your girls,” he called, his voice a little sloppy. That had to be a record, actually. He was drunk within twenty minutes of finishing a show.

  “Thanks,” I said without a backward glance. I didn’t have the bandwidth to worry about Nixon tonight. I unlocked the front doors and jumped down the steps and into the waiting sedan.

  “The airport?”
the driver asked.

  “That’s right,” I confirmed as the car began to accelerate.

  In the backseat, I tried to relax. There were bottles of water in the cupholders, in case I was thirsty. And a spread of magazines and newspapers was fanned out in the pocket on the back of the driver’s seat. But I was too jumpy to read anything. I tucked my hands behind my head and thought about Kira and Vivi, both of whom were probably asleep in their apartment already.

  I’d dropped by their building unannounced last week for two reasons. Kira had been ducking my calls, but I also wanted to be able to picture their place. And it was as homey as I’d imagined, with Kira’s dogeared cookbooks on the countertop, and Vivi’s toys on the rug.

  I was glad they lived on a nice leafy street close to the park, too. I didn’t know much about Boston beyond good lobster and Paul Revere. Tonight I’d booked myself into a boutique hotel in Back Bay. But tomorrow I’d get up early and take them out for breakfast. Kira could give me a tour of the neighborhood. And I could give Vivi her birthday present…

  Shit!

  I leaned forward to speak to the driver. “Dude, I’m really sorry, but I forgot something important.”

  The driver braked and switched into the right lane. “You want me to go back?” he asked in disbelief. “You might miss your flight.”

  I checked the time on my phone. “There’s no traffic, so I think we can make it, and it’s something I need. There’s an extra fifty bucks in it for you if we get to the airport by ten forty-five.”

  The car made a sharp turn, and my heart accelerated, too. I hoped that turning around wasn’t a stupid decision. But we’d been driving for only five or ten minutes…

  Four aggressively driven minutes later, the sedan pulled up beside the bus. I leapt out, pounding the code into the keypad once again. I skated up the steps into the darkened bus, but then tripped over something heavy.

  What the…?

  I leaned down to put a hand on the obstacle at my feet. The thing I’d tripped over was Nixon.

  Ninety minutes later, Ethan’s voice boomed through the ER waiting room. “The last name is Winters, and I’m his emergency contact.”

  Finally.

  The big man was out there, but I couldn’t exactly flag him down, because I was hiding on a bench beside a dispensary closet, a seat I’d won through sheer stubbornness. “I will not sit in that waiting room,” I’d said fifty times already. “If you send me out there, this will be all over the tabloids, and he’ll sue you.”

  That last bit was probably an empty threat. But if I was spotted in an ER after a concert, there would be a lot of speculation over why, all of it bad for the band’s reputation. It wouldn’t take the vultures too long to hone in on the story.

  I’m in the hallway behind the desk, I texted Ethan.

  A minute later, he came trotting down the hall. He skidded to a stop in front of me. “How is he?”

  “If only I knew. Good luck figuring out who’s in charge. I’m not supposed to be sitting here, so I’ve been blacklisted. They’re all, like, ‘Make sure you don’t give any information to the jerk on the bench.’”

  Ethan sat down beside me with an irritated sigh. “Who gave the bad drugs to our man?”

  “I’ve never seen this girl before. And I don’t even know what it was. Pills, I think. Because there was no evidence of smoking or—” I stopped short of the word injecting. I didn’t know what the hell Nixon was into these days. And I felt horrible for not anticipating this crisis.

  “Shit.” Ethan shook his head. “I meant to check in with him earlier.”

  “You’re not responsible for every stupid thing he does, right? I should have paid more attention. I mean… I saw them hiding something from me, and I didn’t even stop.” Tonight I’d let so many people down. And most of them didn’t even know it yet. “I shouldn’t have told Vivi that I was coming to Boston tonight. Fuck.”

  “Is your girl going to be pissed?”

  “I have no idea.” It was too late to call Kira. I’d have to reach her in the morning and beg forgiveness. I should have known that I couldn’t even go ten days without fucking things up with her. My record already spoke for itself, didn’t it?

  “I’m sorry, man. You want me to call a car and see if I can pay somebody to drive your ass up to Boston?”

  “No,” I said, putting my head in my hands. “I have to wait around for Nixon to wake up. So I can fucking kill him myself.” It was tough talk. But I was terrified for Nixon. Come on, buddy, I privately begged. It doesn’t end like this.

  We waited. As one does at hospitals. At some point a doctor finally deigned to tell us that Nixon was stable, and that they were admitting him to a room upstairs.

  “Can we keep his face covered when you take him up?” Ethan asked.

  “Sure. Whatever. You can do it yourself.” He gave Ethan a look of pure disgust.

  I didn’t even blame the guy. We were playing the part of fucked-up musicians flawlessly tonight. If I’d met myself for the first time tonight, I’d write myself off as an asshole, too.

  I spent the night sitting in a chair beside Nixon’s bed, feeling sorry for both of us. And it wasn’t until gray light had begun to seep into the hospital room’s window that Nixon finally woke up.

  “Shit,” he said, his voice like sandpaper. “Shit.”

  I rose from the chair slowly because my ass had fallen asleep. “I don’t know whether to kiss you or kill you.”

  “You’re not my type,” Nixon tried to joke. But he sounded so sick that it wasn’t funny at all. “So thirsty,” he complained.

  I couldn’t give him a drink if he was flat on his back. I found the button to raise the bed and pressed it.

  “Stop!” he said as the bed began to rise, his body clenching under the sheets

  I grabbed a plastic pan off of a table and handed it to Nixon, who began dry-heaving.

  Ugh. I collapsed into the chair again. “We’re really living the dream now.”

  A nurse walked through the open room door, took one look at Nixon and steadied the bed pan.

  “I didn’t make a mess,” Nixon said when his stomach’s ugly dance had stopped.

  “Congratulations.” The nurse sighed. “Did you get dizzy when the bed was raised?”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “Rookie move.”

  “I’ll get him some ice chips,” the nurse said, leaving again.

  “Aurrgh,” Nixon moaned. “Just kill me already.”

  “I’m tempted.”

  “I’m sure that’s true. I fucking hate summer.”

  I studied my friend. There was a hollowness to his face that shouldn’t be there. “Are you ever going to tell me why you hate summertime?”

  “Doubt it.”

  “Then tell me why you swallowed fentanyl, for fuck’s sake. I’m supposed to be in Boston right now. And you’d be dead if I didn’t screw up and come back to the bus.”

  Nixon closed his eyes, and I thought he might have gone back to sleep. But he answered the question eventually. “She called them her party pills. And I know better. I just didn’t care last night. I was drunk and nothing seemed to matter.”

  “Well it does,” I snapped. “You can’t take that kind of risk again. Not ever.”

  “I know.”

  “Is it the tour? Do you hate touring?” I almost wanted him to say yes. If there were some way I could snap my fingers and finish the tour, I would. Even with a new hit single—“Sweetness” entered the chart at number twenty-six last week—I didn’t give two shits about the tour.

  “It’s not the tour. Hell. I think I’d be in worse shape if I didn’t have to be sober for three hours every other night. And we can’t quit the tour, Jojo. That’s a dick move.”

  He wasn’t wrong. The tour could not be wished away, and neither could Nixon’s issues. “I’ve got to call Kira,” I said. It was seven thirty, so she and Vivi would be awake. They got up early and went to bed early—the exact opposite of my schedule.
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br />   Kira had warned me that there were a hundred obstacles to being together, and right this minute every one of them felt insurmountable.

  I went out into the hall and rang them. “Is this Daddy?” a little voice answered on the second ring.

  The ache in my chest doubled. “Hi, Vivi,” I said, my voice thick. “Happy Birthday.”

  “It’s over,” she said. “We had cupcakes.”

  “I know. I heard they were pink.”

  “With sprinkles. Are you coming over?”

  No, and I am an asshole. “Vivi, I couldn’t get on the plane to Boston. I’m going to have to try again soon.”

  “Why?”

  Because my friend is a world-class dumbass? “My friend needed me. I had to stay with him. He was sick, and it was an emergency.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said uselessly. I would have given anything not to be making excuses to my little girl.

  “Mommy wants the phone.”

  “Vivi, I’m really sorry. I wanted to see you today…”

  “Hello?” Kira’s voice cut in.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m still in Philly. I’m so sorry.”

  “Oh,” she whispered. “You’re not coming?”

  “I would be there right now if I could,” I said quickly. “Nixon had an emergency, and I brought him to the hospital.”

  “Jeez. What happened?”

  I did not want to tell Kira that my best friend overdosed. She’d think… Shit. “He has some issues, Kira. And I’m trying to help him.”

  “Yikes. That sounds serious.”

  “It is.”

  She was quiet for a second. “I wish I hadn’t told Vivi that you were coming.”

  “I know. Lesson learned. I mean…” Damn it all. The “lesson learned” wasn’t supposed to be that I was unreliable.

  “Things happen, Jonas. I know your life can be really hectic.”

  Her words were understanding, but they sounded an awful lot like an indictment of our future. “It’s not usually like this,” I said, the excuse sounding lame even to myself.