The Song

by Chris Fabry

  “But?”

  “This is not easy.”

  “Say it.”

  “I heard Vivian say something the other day, while we were all sitting around waiting, wondering when you’d come back. It was about you and Shelby.”

  Jed swallowed hard.

  “Is there something going on with you two?”

  Jed smiled. “There’s something going on with everybody and Shelby. You know that. She draws people in, you know?”

  “She’s never drawn me in. Not to spend the night in her room.”

  The hallway spun and Jed took a deep breath. “Look, I appreciate you saying something. I’ll talk with Shelby about spreading rumors, okay? Vivian too.”

  “Yeah. Okay, let me show you to the stage. This is a sweet venue.”

  Johnny led him down the long hallway while Jed’s heart thumped in his chest. The stage was close to the audience, the way Jed liked, where he could feel the energy coming from the fans.

  “This is a nice place to come back to,” Jed said.

  Johnny agreed. “I’ll catch you later.”

  “All right, dude.”

  Jed walked toward the stage, where the band was setting up and the roadies were loading in. And Shelby was there, walking slowly toward him in an outfit that made her look like something out of a Nashville production of Cleopatra. Her hair was longer—it must have been a wig or extensions—with gold tassels running through. Her shirt was gold-sequined and made her tattoos even more prominent.

  She moved like a cat toward him, smiling. “Hi,” she whispered, then hugged him around the neck and held on tightly. “Welcome home.”

  It felt good to have her so close, to have her in his arms, but there was something about what she said, something that wasn’t right. The road had been his home for so long. Maybe she didn’t mean anything by it. Or maybe she did. He was going to mention what Johnny had said, how they needed to keep things between them. But he didn’t. He just said, “Thanks.”

  She led him to the stage and they worked on the set list for the night. The band ate together; then Shelby opened the show with Jed prowling backstage. Performing was a bike you got back on every time, singing the same songs, trying to make each performance fresh, but there was something different going on inside him tonight. He chalked it up to nerves and the break for the funeral. Or maybe it was something he ate.

  When it was his turn, he walked out to wild applause. The audience was with them, the band sounded great, and Jed was ready. But when Shelby started playing the solo to begin “The Song,” the melody and the applause and screams changed the climate of his heart. Shelby turned to him and smiled, showing him what a familiar tune could do to people.

  Jed walked up to the microphone as the rest of the band joined in. The guitar, which usually felt like an extension of his soul, felt heavy, like an albatross. He looked out at the audience, at the young girls jumping and older fans swaying to the easy beat of the tune.

  And then Jed saw him. In the middle of the throng stood Shepherd Jordan. For a split second he was there, scowling, staring at Jed like he was ready to pounce on him and teach him a lesson. Pull out the knife and plunge it in again.

  Jed blinked, trying to catch up with the band, but they were going too fast or he was too far behind. Music had always been intuitive to him and now he had to think about where his fingers went and how to strum. He looked again and the place where he’d seen Shep was empty. Just gone in a flash. But the effects of the vision were immediate. His heart sped up, and he struggled for even a shallow breath. He felt the sweat on his brow and his arms felt like lead.

  He looked at Shelby for help, trying to communicate something with his stare, but how could he tell her with his eyes what was going on, what he had just seen? Truth was, he didn’t know what was happening. He turned quickly and his guitar hit the microphone stand and toppled it to the floor, sending feedback through the hall before the sound engineer could mute the mic.

  The band slowed, thrown by the fact that Jed hadn’t begun the first verse, and Shelby got them going again as Jed bent over and picked up the microphone and tried to let the audience know everything was okay. But everything wasn’t okay. Everything was swirling in his brain and his body. He was feeling something he’d never felt before and it had all begun with the first notes of that song. Her song. Rose’s song.

  Instead of getting better, Jed’s vision blurred. He staggered backward and looked at the audience. Someone in the front row mouthed, “There’s something wrong.”

  Finally he took off his guitar and set it on the floor of the stage, put a hand to his chest and gasped. The stage spun now and his legs felt like jelly. He wobbled a bit and then fell like the mic stand, hitting the stage. He heard screams from fans and the music stopped and then there were people around him, his band members—he saw Johnny, concern on his face. Shelby too.

  Jed held his chest and looked at Shelby. He shook his head and mouthed, “Can’t breathe.”

  “Just breathe. Breathe, baby.” She put a hand on his chest.

  “What happened?” Stan said, on the floor at Jed’s side. He seemed more concerned about the show, the crowd, but Jed couldn’t focus. Couldn’t get a breath.

  “Breathe, baby,” Shelby said again. “Slow down.”

  “I can’t,” Jed said, panting. He felt hollow like a balloon that had sprung a leak and was limp and airless.

  “You can, Jed. You’re okay.”

  “Call 911,” Stan said.

  “No, it’s a panic attack,” Shelby said, her voice strong. “Jed, listen to me. You’re not going to die, okay? Breathe.”

  “He needs help,” Stan said.

  “Help me get him backstage,” Shelby said.

  The feeling was crazy. Jed’s whole body seized like something inside had come loose—a fan belt in his heart. Was this what a heart attack felt like?

  They got him to Shelby’s dressing room and sat him in a chair. Stan said he’d take care of the crowd. “I’ll have the guys play something—if you think you can help him.”

  Shelby put a hand on Stan’s arm. “He’s going to be fine. Give me ten minutes.”

  When they were alone, Jed dropped his face into his hands and tried to calm himself, but his heart was still racing. “This has never happened to me before.”

  “It’s a physical reaction. Stress. It feels like the world is ending, but it’s not. You just need some help.”

  She unscrewed a bottle of pills, poured two into her hand, and held them out to Jed. He looked at the pills and back at Shelby, and she saw his hesitation.

  “To help you relax, okay? I’m just trying to help you.”

  Her eyes were piercing and beautiful and kind. But there was something else going on and Jed didn’t know what it was. Gasping, struggling for breath, he shook his head.

  “I can’t sing that song, Shel.”

  “Yes, you can, Jedidiah.”

  His name. She used his real name and it felt good to hear it from her. As he struggled to get a grip, Shelby was the only one between him and the abyss.

  “It’s her song,” he said.

  She closed her eyes and with resolve said, “No, it’s your song.”

  Shep’s face flashed in his mind and he tried to get another breath. He needed to explain something to Shelby, something she couldn’t understand.

  “You ever feel like you don’t write your own songs? Like they were given to you?”

  “By who?” she said, bewildered. Then she smirked. “God?”

  “What if he takes them away?”

  “Why? Because he doesn’t like what you’re doing? Look at the world, Jed. You like what he’s doing?”

  He let the thought hang there. She had a point. The world was a mess. Wars and death and poverty and starving children. Planes falling from the sky in pieces, scattered along hillsides. The world was a messed-up place, for sure, but that wasn’t God’s fault. Or was it?

  “The first time I heard your music, I th
ought, This is it. This guy really gets it. This is what I need. But I also thought, If only he weren’t so . . .”

  “Married,” Jed said, his breathing more even now.

  “Narrow,” she corrected, coaxing him off his ledge. “But think of the music he could write if he just let go and lived without all of these rules. And then I realized, I can help him let go. He needs me too.”

  He stared at her, taking in her beauty and the softness of her voice and how it brought a calm to him.

  “I thought I was going to die out there,” he said. “I don’t ever want to feel like that again.”

  She smiled and drew closer. There was a twinkle in her eyes like she knew something he didn’t. “You won’t.”

  She put the pills in his hand and he took them.

  CHAPTER 38

  SHELBY HAD VISITED the hash bar the night before with Vivian. It was a dark place with brick walls and uncomfortable chairs, but no one came to this part of town with the flashing neon signs to find a comfortable chair. She bought a bag of the stuff that had worked the night before, and Jed, still high from the pills, was a willing subject. She wanted to loosen him up even more, and from the way he smiled when she blew smoke in his face, she knew they were in for a good, long night.

  Vivian leaned in. “I thought you were dead when you fell on that stage tonight.”

  “So did I,” Jed said.

  “I guess this is Jed’s resurrection,” Shelby said. “And we should do something to celebrate the occasion.”

  “What?” Jed said. “This is not enough of a celebration?”

  “It’s time to give up the scrapbooking, Jed. Let’s remember this night forever.”

  “What are you talking about?” Vivian said.

  Shelby smiled. “Follow me.”

  They walked down the street with all the Xs and tacky silhouettes of naked women and went into a tattoo parlor. A man who looked like a bowling ball saw Shelby and nodded. She took Jed over to the man’s station in the dimly lit room, and Jed sat like a sheep ready for shearing.

  “Is this the guy you were talking about?” Bowling Ball said.

  “It is. I think he’s ready.”

  Jed looked like he didn’t know what was happening at first. Then, when the needle came out, he flinched. “What are you going to paint or draw or whatever you call it?”

  “I’ve got the perfect thing.” Shelby handed him something else to smoke. “All of my tattoos were done when I was high. You won’t feel a thing.”

  The man went to work, and when he was done and had wiped the blood from the skin, Jed stared at the creation.

  “What do you think?” Shelby said.

  “You’re the expert,” Jed said, holding up his arm and showing the crown that circled his wrist. “What do you think?”

  She leaned into him and whispered in his ear. It amused her to see that even with a thick beard, a man could blush.

  Jed paid the artist and they stumbled back to their hotel. Shelby was surprised at how quickly Jed jettisoned his rules and laws and morality. She knew he’d just been waiting for something to come along and release him from the prison he’d made of his heart, but she couldn’t have predicted how fast the leap into the dark would happen. And she loved leaping into the dark with him.

  The tour continued; the music flowed, and so did the liquor and pills. Back in the States, in New York, they spent the night at one of the most expensive hotels Shelby had ever been in and Jed sampled more than just the wine. In Washington, DC, where the power brokers of the world came to have their way, she had hers. And the bond between them kept growing; the drugs and alcohol and sex and secrets united them, became the glue that held them together.

  In Pittsburgh their performance, though fueled by their personal cocktails of booze and pills, was magical and incandescent. They were going somewhere, and not just with their music. Their hearts were beating as one, and when Shelby looked at Jed onstage, she saw the man she loved, the man who brought her pleasure and who she brought pleasure to.

  There were some performances, though, that neither of them could remember. The further they went into themselves and into the substances that had now taken over, the less she remembered about the shows, and the nights all seemed to merge into each other. Cleveland was no different from Amsterdam was no different from London or Baltimore.

  Shelby could feel the momentum, the push and pull toward Cincinnati. The Queen City, where she could be queen and Jed king. There was only one thing holding them back from really being together. Only one person standing between her and happiness.

  CHAPTER 39

  ROSE DROVE the two hours to Cincinnati and Ray slept on the way. The car always lulled him, and she would watch him in the rearview, his eyelids getting heavier, his head nodding down and then up as he fought sleep. Finally he would surrender, and she loved the peaceful look on his face when it happened. Complete and total submission, and not a care in the world.

  She hadn’t told Jed about the baby. It didn’t seem right to just tell something like that over the phone or in a text message. She wanted to wait and surprise him with the little bump when they were together. But the little bump had grown to a much bigger bump. Would Jed be as excited as she was? Would he understand why she had kept the news from him?

  Yesterday, Denise had driven up from Nashville to spend the day. Rose met her in the driveway and told her how sorry she was for driving off and getting so upset.

  “You have nothing to apologize for, but I accept,” Denise said. “If you’ll accept my apology, I’m sorry I came on so strong. It’s not my place—I just care about you so much.”

  The two had hugged outside the house, in tears. They moved inside to the kitchen and Ray played with LEGOs on the floor while Rose and Denise sat at the table and had tea.

  “I think one of the reasons I was so upset,” Rose said, “was because I’ve had the feeling you’re talking about. I’ve seen the music videos and the publicity stuff and the way she looks at him . . .”

  “It’s hard not to extrapolate from there, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. But the hardest was something I found on YouTube. Somebody uploaded a video from one of their shows—it was just a two-minute clip, but they were singing our song and Shelby was standing so close to him and looking straight at him, like he was hers.”

  “Have you talked about it with him?” Denise said.

  “We haven’t talked in so long. I get a text every now and then. A voice mail. And when we do talk, it’s short. He has to go.”

  “Have you thought about counseling?”

  “He’s never home. How are we going to go to counseling?”

  “Not for the two of you, for you. Maybe it would help if you talked with your pastor or a counselor. To help you get healthy, you know?”

  Rose hadn’t thought about counseling for herself, but suddenly something flared up inside. “Are you saying this is my fault? That I did something to push Jed away?”

  “Not at all. We don’t know what’s going on with him. All we know is how you feel. Distance. Dissatisfaction with the relationship. You two are not moving together, you’re getting further apart.”

  “But isn’t that the nature of his work?”

  “It’s part of the package, I understand. But nobody is holding a gun to his head and forcing him to be out there on the road all this time.”

  “Stan is. Not the gun part, but he’s the one driving it.”

  “Really?”

  “What, you don’t believe me? Then you don’t know Stan.”

  “I believe you that Stan is pushy and is in this for himself. He wants to make money and he sees Jed as his ticket. And it’s working. But Jed is a willing participant. He wants this as much as Stan does—at least, that’s what he’s saying by being on the road as much as he is.”

  “But if I bring this up to Jed, he’s going to say that in order to make it in the business, you have to tour, you have to pay your dues. You have to build your fan base and
that’s all he’s doing.”

  “That’s a choice he’s willing to make right now. But every yes he says to touring is a no to something else.” Denise took a sip of tea and stared at the cup. “Maybe nothing’s going on with Shelby. Maybe he’s having a Bible study every night. Maybe he’s out there singing and touring and when he finally gets done with that, everything will get back to normal.”

  “That’s what I’m hoping happens.”

  “But that’s your choice, Rose. You’re choosing to act on what you hope is going to happen. Not on what you feel.”

  “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right? Believe all things. Hope all things.”

  “True. Love forgives and keeps no record of wrongs. But it also deals with the truth. And if deep inside, you know there’s something off, something not right, you have to listen to that and not shove it down.”

  Rose kept the radio off as she drove toward Cincinnati, thinking about Denise’s words. She didn’t want to think of Jed negatively. That was too easy to do. She wanted to believe he was the gentle, kind, caring man who had walked with her through her father’s funeral, who had wooed her and been inspired to write a great song because of her. And all that was true. But there was the other part, the fears about him and Shelby, about his lack of communication after going back on tour . . .

  “God,” she prayed, “make things clear tonight. Show me what I need to do in order to love Jed and our family. Even if it’s hard, Lord. Open my eyes and help me see. Make me wise.”

  Rose had left a message for Jed that morning, but she knew they were traveling and sometimes he didn’t get his messages till later. When the Cincinnati skyline came into view, she called again but the phone went to voice mail.

  “Hey, it’s a big night for Ray and me,” she said with a smile. “He’s excited about seeing his daddy. I was thinking maybe we could do dinner beforehand, but if not . . . Well, call me, okay?”