by Eden Butler
When the shop floor was visible, and they all took their time fawning over Wills, and he was too tired to keep center court, then we got busy playing. We played for six hours. We played old school music and stuff that didn’t have titles or were only half-realized melodies. My band and I got back to where we came from, starting from the beginning and exorcising the mierda that had led to our seven-month hiatus.
`Before all that though, I had to apologize.
“There’s no excuse,” I told them, pushing up my shades when one of the girls I didn’t know moved near the open door to Hector’s office, where I’d assembled my band. When the girl joined her friends, walking out of earshot, Lou reached over and shut the door. “What I did,” I continued, “it was low. I know that. I’m sorry to get you mixed up in my mierda."
“So,” Kyle had started, finally looking up at me for the first time since they’d shown up at the shop door. “We’ve all been a little stupid on the road, sleeping with girls who are willing, being immature, but dude, you gonna pull shit like that video again? Because, I gotta say, I got a daughter. I got sisters. Hell, my mom has a wife, and that shit ain’t cool.” He stretched his back, replacing the usual good-natured, always amused smile with something angry and hella scary. “Even if I didn’t have all those women in my life, that shit still wouldn’t be cool. I got zero time for assholes who insult women.”
“Trust me, neither do I.” When Kyle kept staring, seeming unconvinced I held up my hands. “On my life, I’m done being a pendejo.”
“Coño,” Isaiah had said. “You’ll never be done being a pendejo.” He slapped my shoulder, laughing with our bandmates. “That’s genetic code we can’t get rid of.”
My cousin was right. We came from a long line of assholes, but I was true to my word. I didn’t think I could go back to being who I was, and I damn sure wasn’t going to humiliate anyone again.
“It’s got potential,” I finally told Isaiah, waving at Lou as he and two of the girls left through the door. The small blonde that came with Kyle’s wife, the same one who kept throwing looks my way, was being obvious, something I tried to ignore. “The shop, I mean.” My cousin watched me looking over the area, thinking about dimensions and what it might cost me, all this. If I walked away from Riptide and took my band with me, it would likely break me financially. But hell, I’d be free to write what I wanted and get back to the magic that used to matter so much to me.
“Speaking of potential,” Isaiah said, lowering his voice. “Think you can skip out for a night?”
“Why?”
He threw a glance across the room, winking at the redhead he’d brought with him as the blonde whispered in her ear. Then my cousin gave me a smile that reminded me of our early tours, when I was lost and drunk and hated everyone in the world, myself most of all.
“Because, primo, it’s been a while, I know it has.” He turned so that only I could see his face, lowering his voice. “Willow Heights ain’t exactly a hot bed of activity if you’re lonely, and I know you and Iris aren’t…” He stopped, still not comfortable talking about Iris after years of pretending he’d taken her from me. I knew the truth, but that didn’t mean I’d eradicated the image of them together on his bed from my mind. Isaiah knew that too, and he hurried to deflect from his mention of Iris.
“The blonde. She’s sweet. She’s not a groupie, and she likes you.” He pulled on his jacket as he watched me. “Nothing wrong with having a good time.”
As habit, I moved my gaze across the room to the girl with the sweet smile. Her face was heart-shaped, and her eyes were brown, like melted chocolate. She was young—very young from the look of her—but she had curves of a woman and a smile that promised things she was probably too young to know. It would be easy to walk away from this place, from my sleeping father and the responsibilities I’d taken on, if only for a night. And coño, I was lonely. My body craved and wanted, and there was only so much you can do with your own hands.
But the morning would come, and I’d be in bed with a girl whose name I’d likely never ask. I’d smell of her until I came home, until I stood under my showerhead and washed away the traces of her from my body. Until the guilt came on me because I’d spent another wasted night taking something that should never be mine, and, like Iris had told me all those years ago, the girl would never compare.
“The woman who comes after me, all the women who come after me, are discount value,” she’d promised. “They can’t have you like I did.”
She made that promise fighting back tears, her face screwed up in rage. It was a curse that stayed with me. It was a promise that came to light. It was always Iris for me. It always would be.
“No, pai,” I told Isaiah. “I’m good. You have fun, and I’ll see you next week for rehearsal.”
He waited before he walked away, gaze moving over my features, focused on my eyes as though he expected me to change my mind. Finally, my cousin nodded, giving me a one-armed hug that I took without thinking.
The blonde took her time leaving, looking disappointed when Isaiah ushered them out of the shop. She glanced over at me, flipping that long, wavy ponytail off her shoulder, and I watched her move her hips, swinging with each step like teasing and seduction was hers from birth. I looked. I’m sprung, not dead, and when they’d cleared the door, I locked up after them, shutting off the outside light before I moved back into the room. My guitar lay against the stool and I picked it up, slipping off my glasses to see the strings and fret board in the low light of the room.
The song was done, but I still couldn’t figure out the second chorus. It seemed manufactured and a little too poppy, something my father had agreed with when I’d played it for him before my band arrived. Weak though he was from his dialysis, he still liked playing, offering unsolicited opinions and suggestions on chords.
But with the label and what Kenny wanted, Wills didn’t offer any advice at all.
“There are things, my lad, that you’ll have to sort out for yourself,” he’d said, tapping his fingers against his crossed legs as he watched me.
“That’s not very helpful.”
“The big decisions, Jamie, are the ones we can only make for ourselves.” He’d waved me off when I stood to help him up the stairs. “I’m right as rain. Just tired is all.” He’d made it halfway to the stairs, hand on the railing before he’d stopped, tossing a weak smile over his shoulder. “It comes to love, doesn’t it then?”
“What does?”
“Your decision, son.” Wills looked so tired then, exhausted by the day and the time that grew shorter with every breath. “You’ve got to decide whose love is more important to you. Your fans or your family. Your life or your career.”
My father never made anything easy. He came in like a hurricane, wrecking the perfect stupor I was building, bringing with him complication and illness, and now, after months of wanting to see Iris, she’d become a constant fixture. Because, again, Wills wanted it that way.
“She’s writing my biography,” he’d told me that morning, and I hadn’t missed the smug grin he wore. “But don’t get excited. She’s here for me.”
“You’re full of it,” I told him, head shaking when he frowned. “Seems to me you’re making good on that promise.”
“And what promise is that?”
“That you’d bring her here when I proved I was worthy.”
Wills’ laughter was loud and a lot insulting, but I didn’t bite like I knew he wanted. I kept on making his tea and finishing his breakfast. “Jamie, my lad, you are worthy, but not of her, not yet you aren’t.”
The truth was a biting ache, but my father gave it to me anyway. He did it laughing, too. With his remark and the lingering echo of what Iris had written in her article, I was starting to believe that there were lessons I’d convinced myself I didn’t need to learn.
The nob on the amp moved with a click when I lowered it, pulling in my Fender to see if the chord would sound different on the electric. The reverb and moani
ng vibration from it gave the tune a grittier vibe, and I worked through the intro, lyrics coming to me as they had before, while I played. This was her song, and it was the one that mattered most to me; a love letter I’d hoped would show Iris what she still meant to me.
We fall to ashes
We float away
Forget about the past
And the love we betray
My fingers moved, everything coming into sharp focus as I continued, and it was almost there; the melody and lines, the surrender that generally came when I wrote music. But then I heard the rustle of moving feet upstairs and I lowered my fingers from the guitar, listening for Wills’ call. It didn’t come, but there were footsteps, light, a little hurried moving down the steps and then Iris emerged from the shadows, her features tight, her eyes glistening.
“What’s wrong?” I stood, almost throwing my Fender into the floor mount. Fear took hold when she looked up at me and then my heart froze when she grabbed my hand. “Did he fall?”
“No,” she said, unable to keep the panic from her voice.
“Mami, you’re shaking.” She seemed too upset to glare at me for the slip. Instead, Iris let me move her, sit her down in the old office. The worn leather chair was split at the corners, but was the only seat not metal and uncomfortable that I had to put her in. “Tell me. Please, you’re scaring me.”
She pulled out of my touch, cupping her face in her hands, and I knelt down, holding each arm of the chair to keep from pulling her against me. She might be upset, but that didn’t mean she’d take just anyone’s comfort.
“I am so mad at him.” Then she slugged me in the chest. “And you. This is your fault—all this bullshit.” Iris wiped her face, and my jaw clenched as I moved my teeth together, expecting her to scream at me. “I was fine on my own, not knowing anything about music and Hawthorne and you…then you come busting in, and you play those records, and that music changed everything, Jamie.” Her words were clearer now, though none of the anger had left her. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for those records, or Wills, or you making me love them so much. I became obsessed with him—with music—because of the stories those records told and you…” Iris glanced at me through her shaking fingers, bottom lip trembling. “You should have just left me alone. You should have never talked to me that day at assembly.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, though I wasn’t. I’d never be sorry for that day.
“But you did, and I fell in love with that music and that man, and I chased that music, all the music, and found him and talked to him and loved him as much as his songs, even more and now I’m writing his story because I can’t just…” She didn’t pull away when I moved the hair from her face. “I can’t tell him no because I love him. He’s not my—he’s your father, but I still love him.”
“Florecita, you’re not making any sense.” I let her go on crying, wiping the tears away when they came, enjoying just the smallest thrill that came from helping her even as small as this was. “Please, mami, tell me what’s got you so upset.”
“His cousin.” She sniffed, looking irritated at her own tears as she shook her head. “He told me earlier; his cousin isn’t a match. There’s no match, Jamie.”
The dread came in quick, like Iris had slapped me, and there was no fight in me to defend myself. It wasn’t what she needed, but I sat back, on my knees, trying to get the sick feeling in my gut to settle.
“Coño…” I muttered, uselessly, close to joining Iris in her fear and worry. My father had only been with me a little more than a month, but he was still important to me. Losing him would hurt more than I’d have ever guessed.
“You have to try, okay? Try harder to get him to agree to you donating.” I blinked, head shaking as she grabbed me. The sweet scent of honeysuckles swept into my nose, and I also caught the scent of bourbon, heavy and thick on her breath. “I don’t care what you have to do, just please, I’m begging you, make him say yes.”
“I will.” It had been my plan for weeks now. I just never knew how to ask him about it. Anytime I tried, Wills would think of some question to ask me—things that didn’t matter, like the first time I rode a roller coaster or how my mother liked her new part time job at the library in Madison. Even while they cleaned his blood during dialysis, Wills would bring the conversation away from his illness, away from anything that made him seem weak or needy.
But I couldn’t make a promise to Iris and break it. Not now. Not anymore. Hadn’t I just told Isaiah I was done being a pendejo? I had to try harder.
“Jamie, are you sure you’ll try?” she asked me, her breath more even, her hands still shaking against my neck as she held onto my collar. “Please don’t say you will and then let something else distract you. This is too important…”
“Mami, I swear, nothing in the world is more important to me than mi familia. Nothing.”
I couldn’t tell Iris about Kenny and Gunnar Bloody. I couldn’t talk to her about my decision, and how it would change everything in my life. Not when she cried on my shoulder. Not when her heart was breaking for the short time my father had left.
She seemed to believe, and, better still, didn’t pull away from me when I kept her in my arms, moving my fingers into her hair as I whispered things I hoped made her feel better.
“He matters to me,” she admitted. “He’s important.”
“Florecita, he matters to me too.” I held her face, holding my hand against her cheek as I caught her attention. “He’s my blood. Mi familia. For once, that means more than anything to me. Almost as much as…”
She watched me then, eyes still wet and shining, but soft, searching as she shifted her gaze over my face. That sticky-sweet breath warmed my skin, tickled against my nose as we stared at each other, and I didn’t move, too wrapped up in her stare, in how moving away from me seemed impossible for her.
My breath went still, held in my lungs when Iris moved, chin trembling, eyes slipping closed as she moved toward me, landing a soft, sweet kiss against my mouth. There were tears pressing against my face and salting my bottom lip, but I didn’t move or react or do anything but pray for that moment to pause—not stop, not reverse, but pause without any chance of ending. I wanted her to stay there, pressed against me, taking whatever she wanted from me.
“Jamie,” she said, like I wasn’t in the room, a soft whisper of sound that might have been a promise, maybe a curse, but I took it anyway. Then Iris inhaled, jerking away from me, and I lowered my hands from her, knowing that clarity had returned and the flash of memory, of all my sins had broken through the conscious thought that had been clouded by her worry and fear.
She didn’t apologize for kissing me. She didn’t frown or make some excuse. Iris simply nodded, face flaming red as she dried her face with the back of her hand. She glanced away before she got up, leaving me sitting there in front of the empty leather chair, wondering how in the hell I could keep an impossible promise or whether that kiss would be the last Iris ever gave me.
Chapter Fourteen
I slept for a week with the memory of Iris’ breath against my mouth. Dreams are a funny thing, really. Part illusion, all fantasy, but somewhere in the middle of all of that is a hint of memory. Something bitter, something sweet, something we wish we could recall and keep in the palm of our hands. Then there are some that we want to pull from our minds, like a string frayed in the hem of an old sweater. Pull on it and it tears. Clip it and it goes away. That’s what memory had done to me, made worse by the constant recall that Iris had come to me, had wanted my comfort, even if it didn’t last.
We had the same worry. We were both caught by the same fear. The difference between me and Iris, though, was that she wasn’t a liar. I’d tried again to ask Wills about using my kidney, this time just as they’d begun dialysis a day after Iris came to me in the shop. Like usual, he waved me off, asking if I’d made a decision before he gave me a side-eyed glare. That look was all the lecture I needed.
“Fine,” I’d told
him, “but this conversation isn’t over.” I ignored his low, “Tis,” and left the man be as they cleared the junk from his body.
Now the old man sat on my recliner, attention flitting from the national news and whatever ridiculous thing the politicians were trying to do now and his own acoustic Gibson in his hands as he strummed songs and chords I couldn’t quite place. Iris stood across from me at the island, chopping cucumbers for the salad she made as I seasoned the salmon for the cooktop. She hadn’t looked at me directly, likely still embarrassed by the kiss she gave me when her emotions had gotten the best of her. Clearly, that had been a slip she hadn’t meant, not if she could barely look at me.
But that didn’t mean she had forgotten about the promise I made. “Did you ask him again?” she whispered, shooting a glance at my father, I assumed to make sure he hadn’t heard her.
“I tried.” Her low grunt told me well enough that she didn’t believe. “Hey,” I said, tilting my head to catch her gaze, “I told you nothing matters more than family. I meant that. That’s the only thing on my mind right now.”
I needed to stop making promises to her. After all the lies and betrayal, all the hurt that kept those walls between us, you’d think that was a lesson I should have learned. But something about Iris made me want to be better. I wanted her to be happy and have the things she needed. I wanted to deserve her. Funny thing was, sometimes I didn’t have control when it came to giving her what she wanted.
Wills had been strumming something fast, something that drowned out the noise of the news and the slip of the professional, smart-looking anchors discussing politics and international issues that scared the shit out of me. Now they’d moved on to the mundane, pointless celebrity fodder. We were caught in our own tasks, and Wills was lost to his music. Ten minutes in, as the white noise of stories went on, the three of us stopped still, attention on the television when my name was announced.
