Abby Road

by Ophelia London

  “Hey,” Hal said from behind me.

  I wasn’t willing to turn around yet, to confront what was coming next. I was just so tired.

  “Hey,” Hal repeated, his voice closer than before. “I know I act kinda stupid some of the time.”

  I let loose an ironic chuckle that burned my throat on the way out.

  “Okay, okay,” he said after his own chuckle, “I know I act really stupid all the time, but . . .” His hand was on my shoulder. “We’re simpatico, you and me. We’re . . . connected.”

  Something in his voice made me close the freezer and turn around.

  Hal’s blue eyes were warm and kind, his mouth set in a compassionate frown. No anxiety and no pity. Hal had grown up.

  Sometimes I forgot. I’d forgotten he was really a man, a whole year older than me, in fact. Despite his leaning toward annoying the crap out of me, he had always cared. I knew I owed him so much. So much more than I was giving him now. I winced inwardly, feeling a fresh wave of guilt.

  “I’m your friend,” he went on, his hand on my shoulder, “and I can listen. Maybe I can even help. And, you know . . .” He looked down, smiling to himself. “Well, I’m sure you know how I’ve always felt—”

  “I just need to sleep,” I interrupted smoothly, rudely, offering this as a legitimate excuse.

  Hal dropped his hand and stared at me.

  I quickly added, “But you know how it goes. There’s no sleep in this business if you want to make it big.” My cheeks hurt as I lifted another jack-o-lantern grin. I immediately felt ridiculous. Hal was only trying to help. There was no excuse to belittle his sentiments because I couldn’t stand to feel any real emotion.

  I hung my head, staring at my feet, ashamed on so many levels.

  After this, I knew Hal wouldn’t stick around. He would sense that I was not about to budge an inch, that the brick wall guarding the fortress was well intact. He would tiptoe out the door, careful that his feet didn’t crunch the layer of eggshells that followed me around. He would leave me alone to wallow, just as everyone else had learned to do.

  But instead, Hal laughed his normal, wonderful, infectious laugh, his head thrown back, his mouth wide open.

  “Hoo hoo ha ha, duchess!” he howled. “Big?” He hooted again. “You wanna be big?”

  I stared at him.

  “Have you been living in a friggin’ cave? We already are big.” He punched my bicep. I stumbled back. “We’re bigger than anyone!”

  “That’s . . . what we wanted,” I said, rubbing my arm. “Right?”

  Hal laughed a minute longer and then pushed out his bottom lip and shook his head. “We three guys, we got what we wanted a long time ago. We got to play the Super Bowl.” His smile widened. “That’s as big as it gets for punks like us.”

  “I’m glad for you,” I replied sincerely.

  Hal said nothing, just watched me in silence.

  After a few moments, I felt the itch to flee. So I made a move toward the exit.

  “But what we didn’t know was that we’d get big at your expense, Abigail.”

  Hearing Hal call me by my real name stopped me in my tracks. A lump formed in my throat as I turned around.

  “From day one,” he continued, leaning on a corner of the kitchen table, “we knew this business was no place for a nice girl like you, someone who actually feels things and has principles.” He smiled. “But you’re just so effin’ talented, and instead of finishing college or having babies, you’ve let us ride your star for all these years.” His smile suddenly dropped, like he was thinking of something else. “I can speak for the rest of the guys and say how sorry we are. Very sorry, about so many things.” His gazed dropped to his shuffling feet. He looked more remorseful than I’d ever seen him.

  “What so many things?” I asked.

  Hal lifted his chin. His face had gone a little pale, but his cheeks were red. He actually looked embarrassed about something. I’d never seen that expression on him, either, but a quick moment later, he shot me one of his easy grins. “For one thing, we all liked the guy. We were hoping he was your ticket outta here.”

  Oh no. Not Hal, too.

  Hal walked toward me. I stood frozen in place, wishing I could jump out the window before he said anything more. “Hal—”

  “He thought you hung the moon, Abby.” His good hand reached out and held onto the back of my neck, squeezing me. “Just seeing him around here, the two of you together, sometimes it made me a little jealous. Stupid, I know.” He looked away to chuckle at something private. “And you . . .”

  I blinked when our foreheads touched.

  “When he was here, I’d never seen anything like it. You sparkled. You went from stately little duchess to delirious swan princess whenever you looked at him, whenever he walked in the room. The look in your eyes, and in his eyes, it was like you were both hearing the same song.”

  “I forgot how poetic you can be,” I said, even as all his sympathetic words bounced off my chest like bullets to Superman.

  Hal let go of my neck, and I took a step back.

  “He wanted to marry you.”

  I bit down on the inside of my cheeks and looked away.

  “He told me,” Hal pressed, as if I didn’t believe him. “He told me the second he knew you were ready, he was dragging your butt away from this crapola. We were all sitting around waiting for it.”

  I took another retreating step as hot blood throbbed and pounded through the artery in my neck. It felt like my whole head was on fire. I wrapped my arms around my middle, breathing slowly, fighting, fighting, consciously trying not to give myself a brain aneurysm.

  “Then poof! He was gone.” Hal paused, perhaps waiting for me to reply, but I had gotten so used to letting people talk. So I stood tongue-tied, hugging myself so tightly that my ribs bowed.

  “He’s a great guy, Abby. He was good for you. I don’t know; maybe the timing wasn’t right.”

  “I couldn’t find a better man to get dumped by? Is that what you’re saying?”

  Hal’s eyebrows bent. “Sometimes,” he muttered quietly, “I just don’t get you.”

  But I barely heard him. My mind had drifted away. I was picturing a man standing in a doorway, the last time I had seen him. That picture was only one of the images I carried around with me, jabbing at my insides like a prickly cactus. I swallowed this every day, over and over, knowing full well that I was slashing away at my soul.

  The man I was picturing was only part of the pain. My brain understood this. I knew I was not well, but I also felt trapped. I was like a functioning alcoholic terrified of rehab. Part of me knew I wasn’t miraculously going to be happy when this record was finished, or at the end of that tour, or when I bought my next flashy car. That same part of me knew that if I wanted to be fixed, I had to do it myself and stop waiting.

  Another part of me, though, couldn’t do it, couldn’t face it. Because I was weak.

  My attention was pulled back when Hal snapped his head to the side, glancing toward the open doorway. We both heard the sound of Max summoning us back to work.

  As I turned to leave, Hal’s one good hand grabbed me by the arm. “Listen, you knucklehead.” He hissed the words in a soft rush. “Do not let Max the Tool scare you or push you around. You hear me? He’s always done it to us, but don’t let him do it to you—not anymore. You’re better than this; you’re bigger than this.” He squeezed my arm, hard. It brought tears to my eyes and a yelp to my throat. “I know you think you can’t deal with all the crap that’s happened, and with your bro, but you can. I know you can.” He squeezed me again.

  A silent sob hung in my chest.

  “You can do it, Abby. But just do it already, okay, kid?”

  His kind yet stern eyes held me a moment longer. I could almost feel his positive energy sizzling through the air, working its way to me. I craved it, badly, but he let go of my arm, grinned, and strolled toward the door.

  “You just say the word, duchess.” His voi
ce was cheerful again. “And I’ll call in the cavalry.”

  As I stared after him, stifling that sob, I knew it was not the cavalry I needed. But what I did need scared the beejeebees out of me.

  The curtain in the entryway pulled back an inch, then I heard locks and deadbolts being released. Just as the door was opening, my insides liquefied. I suddenly wondered if my decision was a terrible, terrible mistake—showing up here in the middle of the night, unannounced. Perhaps unwanted.

  Perhaps unwanted . . .

  But the second I saw the face before me, I knew, down to my toes, that I had finally made the right decision.

  “Abby?” came the voice I couldn’t stop thinking about.

  And then my heart, even after so much time, started tapping in my chest.

  {chapter 27}

  “FIXING A HOLE”

  “What are you—”

  That was all I heard. Her arms reached out, and the next thing I knew, she was hugging me. She smelled just the way I remembered, just like she always smelled, like baked goods and Mary Kay face moisturizer. My arms were weak and heavy, but I lifted them to hug her back, linking my fingers behind her.

  “Hi, Mom,” I whispered, my voice thick.

  She squeezed me tighter, and I released a slow, deep exhale, trying to drive out the stale, poisonous air that had been trapped in my body far too long.

  “Oh, honey,” she said, over and over.

  I could tell she was crying. I sucked in my lips, biting down hard, squeezing my eyelids together to keep it all in.

  When she finally released me and I could see her more clearly under the Tiffany porch light, I was blown away. Even at one in the morning in her pink nightgown and slippers, the woman was gorgeous, classy. She was Lauren Bacall, frozen in time.

  “I’m sorry it’s so late.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head, dusting tears off her cheekbones with the back of a finger. “Nonsense.” We stood for a moment, awkward. “Come in.”

  I crossed through the threshold of the house where I had grown up.

  As soon as the front door shut behind us, she was calling up the stairs to my father. I heard some rustling and a screech that sounded like he’d stepped on the cat’s tail.

  “What is it, Kathleen?” he said. He lumbered down the stairs, rubbing one eye with a fist.

  Swallowing hard, I stared toward my dad, worry and guilt coming back. After all this time, after what I had done, the damage I’d inflicted on our family, I had no idea what his reaction would be. Dad had adored Christian, his only son. They had a special bond no one else understood, and I took it away. I swallowed again, bracing myself for the worst, resigned to face the blame in person.

  Upon seeing me, Dad froze in mid-step, squinted, and protruded his neck to take a better look without his glasses.

  I held my breath.

  “Oh my goodness,” Dad finally said. His handsome and round, sleepy face turned red, and his hazel eyes glassed over with moisture. “Oh my goodness,” he repeated, almost inaudibly this time, because his bottom lip was quivering. “Oh, my baby.”

  “Daddy!” I croaked.

  And finally I broke down crying.

  “Wonderful . . . wonderful!” was all I could understand as he swept me into him, holding me—I’d almost call it smothering, but his embrace was too safe, too completely welcomed to be called anything but Home.

  I felt my face contorting hideously in the way faces hideously contort while engaged in hysterical sobs. I pressed my wet cheek against Dad’s shoulder. Both of our bodies shook as we blubbered in unison. Then another voice joined in, and our soggy duet became a trio, Mom bawling right along with us, her arms wrapping around, holding us together.

  And somehow, I felt a miniscule, yet very real, unclenching of my heart.

  “More bacon, sweets?”

  “Mmm!” I replied, pushing my plate toward my mother, still chewing. “More pancakes, too, please.”

  “How did you sleep?”

  “Like a log. I love that bed.”

  “George, turn down that racket,” Mom called to my dad a couple rooms over. After his breakfast, he’d set out to install a new system of Bose speakers in his study. She looked down, shaking her head with a knowing smile. Dad wasn’t the greatest at reading directions.

  After taking a deep drink of orange juice, I leaned back in my chair, my gaze moving around the kitchen. “I love the new wallpaper in here,” I offered. “You always wanted gold flowers. When did you do this?”

  “Oh,” Mom replied, pouring a swirl of pancake batter on the sizzling griddle, “about a year and a half ago.”

  I held my breath while doing the mental math. My eyes burned with more tears as I pushed the last bite around my plate.

  A few weeks ago, Molly had asked me if I wanted to visit Dr. Robert to get back on the happy pills. I didn’t want pills, though. I ditched my Zoloft the third day I was in Florida. It was like I hadn’t needed them anymore, like I’d been cured, even though I had been far from it. Maybe last summer had been nothing but a bandage and not what I really needed to fix my gaping wound of denial.

  I quickly glanced at my mother, then down at my plate. “Mom? I’m sorry it’s been so long.”

  “We’re just glad you’re home,” she said. “We’ve missed you.”

  “It’s only been a little over a year,” I offered, feeling my cheeks burn. I stared down at my plate.

  “We’ve missed you for much longer than that.”

  “I know.” I crossed my legs under the table, my top foot twitching. “I’ve been, uhh, busy.”

  “I know.” Mom smiled. “Oh, your phone was making all kinds of obscene noises earlier this morning.” She gestured to my charging cell on the counter.

  I grabbed it and read its face. “Molly,” I said, looking at my list of missed calls and messages.

  “Nothing important, I hope.” Mom sounded nervous. We both knew I might be summoned back to L.A. at a moment’s notice.

  “Probably not. She sent an e-mail. She usually sends a couple a day, just touching base.”

  “What did she say?”

  I read through the message, to myself first, just in case there was anything inappropriate for a mother’s ears.

  I hate when my brain doesn’t work, which is most of the time. When I’m not doing, you know, work stuff for you, ppl think I’m shy, but it’s just that I can’t spew out everything my mind thinks bc 1) ppl will think I’m an idiot, and 2) I don’t want to get funny looks. Or maybe that goes w/ ppl thinking I’m an idiot. And then when I do say something, ppl are like, “Wow, you talked.” Bloody ppl. Hope you’re having a great time with your ’rents.

  Safe enough, so I read it aloud.

  “She’s a good friend,” Mom surmised.

  “The best.”

  Molly was the best, the way she took care of my disaster of a life so selflessly. Yes, she was my employee, but we were friends, the best of friends. I knew my pain had been her pain.

  “Have you spoken to Lindsey lately?” Mom asked.

  Absentmindedly, I started straightening my utensils at the sides of my plate. “She calls every week. She came to visit while Steve took the boys to Orlando.”

  “That’s right. She mentioned that.” Mom stared down at the sizzling griddle. “It was probably a good thing.”

  “Probably,” I agreed, lifting up my juice glass and wiping the bottom with a gold-and-orange cloth napkin. “Although I was so busy. Max didn’t—”

  “No, honey,” Mom interrupted. “I mean it was probably a good thing for her to take a vacation.”

  “Why?” I asked, then took another sip of juice.

  “Well, you know, with all that mess last spring.”

  I set down my glass. “What do you mean?”

  My mother looked at me. Her lips were parted and the confused expression in her eyes gave away the fact that she assumed I was privy to information that I wasn’t.

  I dropped my palms on the table. “What
’s going on with Lindsey, Mom?” I asked, feeling a panicky tickle in my stomach. “Is she sick? Are the boys hurt?”

  “No, no, it’s nothing like that.” She paused to flip the pancakes. They looked perfect: golden brown, just like the perfect pancakes Lindsey had made for me over the summer. But pretty much everything Lindsey did was perfect. “Well, I thought you already knew,” Mom finally admitted. “I assumed she told you about it over the summer.”

  “Told me what?” The panic in my stomach was now crawling up my throat like spiders.

  “It was complicated, you know. She and Steve were having problems.”

  “What?” The word came out in a croak.

  “It’s all fine now,” she said, waving her hand dismissively and then running it through her hair. “And it has been for more than seven months. When she moved out for a while—”

  “Wait a minute.” I cut her off, standing up from the table, the chair behind me nearly toppling backward. “Are you telling me that Lindsey left Steve?”

  The lines on Mom’s face were still and blank, but I could see her eyes, and she didn’t have to say another word. The confirmation was there.

  I let out a moan of confusion. “Uh, when? For how long?” I asked, slumping into my chair.

  “Over a year ago. It was after your brother died, and . . .” She let her voice fade out. “You were out on tour. In Amsterdam, I believe. Didn’t she go see you there?”

  “Yes, but . . .” I stared down. The pancakes, bacon, and orange juice were churning in my stomach like a runaway blender. “But . . . ” I shook my head. “I was with her all summer, living in her house. Why didn’t she tell me about it? Why did she leave her family? Her . . . children?”

  “I really don’t know the specifics, but the way she put it afterward . . .” Mom flipped the pancakes onto a plate and turned off the griddle. “She said she was feeling selfish and discouraged.” She took the empty mixing bowl to the sink and rinsed it under the water.