by Penny Dee
“Bridge.” My eyes filled with tears behind sunglasses.
“Yes?” She turned to me hopefully.
“I don’t want to miss my flight.”
She looked defeated, but nodded and put her foot down.
When we made it to the airport, my flight was boarding.
Bridge hugged me tightly at the gate.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” she said, holding me tight. I didn’t want to let her go and my face was so frozen with sadness I was afraid it would shatter. “You come back to me whenever you want. There is always a room for you.”
We broke apart and my eyes scanned the airport. Searching for what? Did I really think he was going to show up to say goodbye? Really?
Really…?
“I will, I promise. I will come back soon.” I kissed her and hoped the bright smile I wore was convincing. “You helped give me the most amazing time of my life, Bridge. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
I swallowed the hard lump in my throat. “I’ll see you soon, I promise.”
With that, I turned and boarded my flight, and with a heavy heart I left California and the most incredible summer behind me.
Chapter Twenty-One
HARLOW
“You’ve lost a lot of weight since the last fitting,” the dressmaker complained, pinning the ice-blue satin closer to my hips. “It’s going to take a lot of work to have it ready by the weekend.”
“But you will be able to fix the dress before the gala, won’t you?” My mother looked horrified.
“It will be a stretch—”
“Of course we will pay whatever it takes—”
As this ridiculous conversation took place around me I stood on the small carpeted box lost in a daydream. My earbuds were stuck in my ears but I could still hear them over the music. In the mirrors that surrounded me I could see I had indeed lost weight. But it was hard to eat when your heart had died in your chest and you just didn’t know how you could continue to put one foot in front of the other.
“Well of course, Mrs. Montmarte,” said the dressmaker.
My mother smiled. It amazed me how she could make the warmest gesture feel ice cold.
She rose from the chaise lounge, crossed the dressing room and yanked the earbuds from my ears.
“Did you hear that? It’s going to take some effort, but your dress will be ready.” Her eyes were hard. Her face pinched. “At least some people are willing to make an effort.”
I looked at her. But her words, her sarcasm, her innuendos, didn’t make it past the abundance of heartache and indifference inside of me.
“I’ve already said I am sorry,” I replied. But my words—all of my words—were born out of a necessity to say something, anything, just to shut her up. “I am a week late, Mama. Not a month.”
“The season has already started and you aren’t ready,” she snapped, fiddling with the pins at my hips. She hadn’t forgiven me for delaying her enjoyment of the debutante season. Or for the tattoo. She looked at it as if I’d been marked by the devil and had changed my name to Damien.
“Someone died, Mama. My friend. I had to stay.”
She sniffed. “If he was dead then what does it matter to him if you’re there or not? Really, Harlow, you have responsibilities.”
I hated her in that moment. I shoved my earbuds in my ears to stop myself from saying something really hurtful, but was suddenly swung around and found myself looking straight at Colton.
“Colton!”
He pulled me into his arms and twirled me around. “Look at you Miss Beautiful. Goddamn, woman! You. Are. Hot.”
I stepped out of his arms. “What are you doing here?”
He smiled, conspiratorially. “I’m you’re date.”
“Date?”
“The ball. I’ve come back to escort the prettiest debutante to her coming out party.”
Colton was pure South. His accent. His words. Everything. I couldn’t help but smile. It was comforting to see him.
“Now, now, Colton Labousse, you’re not supposed to see Harlow until the gala. A lady has to keep some mystery about her for the big day,” Mama reproached him gaily in her thick Carolina dialect as she swept across the room.
She loved Colton. His family were rich. Filthy rich. And their golden son could do no wrong in her eyes. She swooped between us and kissed him on each cheek before playfully patting him on the chest, and batting her long lashes at him. I rolled my eyes. Ugh! Really?
“Thus with a kiss I die,” Colton quoted Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as he kissed her on the cheek. Then offering her his most devastating smile, asked, “Not even a sneak peak?”
If there was one thing Colton was good at, it was twisting parents around his little finger. He played up to my mother’s ego and she loved it.
“Okay but just a quick one.” She grinned like a young girl and I rolled my eyes again.
He turned to me and offered me a more genuine, softer smile. He whispered, like we were playing some kind of conspiracy. “Come out and play with me tonight? Dinner at Alto’s?”
I did a quick tally of my options in my head. Another cold and stilted evening with my parents? Or forget my heartache with an evening of distraction with an old friend?
“You got a better offer I am unaware of, Miss Montmarte?”
He was so smooth. Yet comforting. Like a beacon in the darkness. I smiled and shrugged. “Sure. Why not.”
He flashed me that million dollar smile.
“Pick you up at eight?”
The smile disappeared from my face and the months peeled back so rapidly I felt dizzy. Suddenly, I was standing at the dessert bar at the café in LA, with Heath.
“You’re not going to let this go are you?” I said.
“No. Absolutely not,” replied Heath.
“If I agree, will you leave me alone?”
Two dimples flicked next to his floodlight smile. “Pick you up around eight?”
I shifted uncomfortably, bracing myself against the wave of heartache I felt swelling in my chest.
“Can we make it earlier? Seven?”
Another million dollar smile. Perfect. Handsome. “I’ll be there.”
* * * * *
HEATH
The knock on my front door didn’t rouse a response. I remained on the couch, unmoving, my hands behind my head as I stared up at the ceiling. It was how I’d been for days. At one with the couch.
Karma had won and I was all out of fight.
I just wanted to be left alone.
Now that the album was done, I was chasing some serious time out. Which apparently meant not shaving, showering, eating or functioning like a normal human being. Which was just fine by me. Vengeance would be heading off to promote the album in a few weeks and I’d be stuck on the road with my bandmates with little privacy between us. So, until then, I just wanted everyone to leave me the fuck alone.
The next round of knocking on the front door rattled the glass in the living room window. Whoever they were, they were persistent.
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, then scuffed across the floor to the front door ready to tell whoever it was to fuck off.
But then I opened the door and saw her standing there in all her blonde beauty and mid-western innocence.
“Kelsey?”
She fixed those big baby blues on me but her smile faded at the sight of me. Almost a month had passed since she’d last seen me—at Armie’s funeral—and she probably wasn’t expecting the wreck of a man standing before her.
Yeah, I looked like shit. I had a week’s worth of stubble. And I wasn’t sure when I’d showered last. Yesterday maybe? The day before?
I would’ve hugged her if I wasn’t afraid of offending her with my current lack of personal care.
She shook her head and sighed. “I wasn’t sure about coming here today. But now that I’m here, I can see it was the right decision.”
The closed-lipped smile she gave me was sad.
<
br /> “How about you invite me in and I’ll fix us a pot of coffee?” The bright blue of her eyes found mine. “I’ve got something to show you and I think it’s something you’re going to want to see.”
As I watched Kelsey make coffee I was reminded that the last time she been in my house she was with Armie, and a whole new world of hurt went through me.
While she poured cream into our coffee, I quickly sprayed deodorant to mask the stale smell of … self-pity.
We took our coffee back to the lounge room and sat on the couch.
“Armie kept a journal,” she said opening her large handbag. “Quite a comprehensive one.”
“Armie kept a journal?” I was surprised. But then, thinking about it, it made sense. He was our lyric master. Always scribbling down ideas on paper napkins, coasters, whatever he could get his hands on. Writing was an outlet for him, so I guess it was only natural for him to keep a personal journal.
“His mom found it when she packed up his room,” she said softly and the mental image of Armie’s mom having to pack up his things made my chest heavy with grief.
“She said she flicked through it but couldn’t bring herself to read it. Said she saw my name. Figured I was the best person to have it. To read, when I was ready.” Kelsey pulled a thick bundle of paper out of her bag. “Apparently I was ready yesterday.”
Tears welled in her eyes as she handed me the reams of paper. They were held together with a large binder clip.
“It’s not all of it. Just some of the entries I think you need to see.” She was fighting back her tears and swallowed hard. “I photocopied them so you could read them when you’re ready.”
“Are you sure?” I asked quietly.
She nodded. “He’d want you to see them.”
My eyes dropped to Armie’s familiar scribble and I nodded. My grief was a weighted stone around my heart and I had to inhale deeply to catch my breath.
As I looked up, Kelsey rose from the couch. Tears slid down her cheeks.
“And Heath …”
“Yeah?”
“He’d want you to act on them.”
She leaned down and kissed me quickly on the cheek, and then she was gone.
Leaving me alone.
Just me and Armie’s thoughts.
I pushed the photocopies off my lap and leaned forward, my fingers steepled against my lips. Was I ready to read what was in those pages?
I stood up and crossed the room, leaning my elbows on the mantle as I rubbed my hands down my face. My head was in a pretty bad place. Did I want to read it? Could I handle reading it?
I swung around to look at the pages lying my couch and ran a hand through my hair.
Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!
Growling, I crossed the room and picked up the journal.
One thing I knew for sure, I wasn’t going to read Armie’s journal sober. No fucking way. So I hopped on the Harley and rode down to the beach and picked up a fifth of Bourbon from the liquor store near the boardwalk.
It was dusk when I arrived home and the air was cool and heavy with the comforting scents of a Californian fall. I sat in Nikki’s wicker egg-chair on the porch and sipped bourbon straight from the bottle. The pages of Armie’s journal lay unread on my knees while I tried to work up enough courage to pick them up and read them.
Apparently courage came after swallowing the neck of the bourbon bottle. Feeling the warm haze of alcohol in my brain, I started to read.
A lot of it was about his time with the band. About writing songs. About his own observations of what went on around him. About his hopes for our second album and what the future might hold for the band. He had scribbled little pictures over the paper and I traced them with my fingertips. It was so fucking hard to believe he was gone. I’d seen him almost every day for the past twelve years.
By the time night fell, the fifth of bourbon was half finished. My head was in a strange place. Full of Armie and Harlow. Of happier days when life was good.
I sighed and rubbed my eyes. On the day before he died, he’d scribbled down the lyrics to a song he’d written.
Where do you go to, when you’re gone
Where do you go to, when I’m all alone
Without you here, I’m broken apart
With you gone, I’m torn and I’m scarred
I wish I knew where to Go To
So I could leave here and go get you
I climbed off the wicker egg-chair and walked on unsteady legs to the porch steps. Using the handrail to steady myself I slumped down on the top step. The night was bright with moonlight and as I tilted my head back to stare at the milky orb my mind replayed Armie’s words and the lyrics to his unfinished song, Go To.
I stared up into the massive white light of the moon. It seemed so far away. Yet Armie seemed even further. Being with him again wasn’t going to happen until my time here was done.
But Harlow.
Now, that was one thing I could do something about.
As the fog lifted, I knew what I had to do. Things couldn’t have been clearer if Armie had actually walked down from heaven and said, “Dude, seriously, what the fuck are you waiting for?”
I smiled. But it was bittersweet. I missed him so much. I wish I knew where to Go To; so I could leave here and go get you …
I nodded. There was also no denying it. Even from so far away, Armie was so much fucking smarter than me.
* * * * *
HARLOW
“So what happened?”
“Happened?” I echoed.
“Between you and the summer fling?”
Colton and I were sitting on the branch of a great big oak tree. As kids we’d spent a lot of time climbing it, or sitting on the branch amongst the buntings of Spanish moss. Now it was festooned in fairy lights from a previous garden party, like the others that lined the grand driveway leading up to the main house.
It was dark. Above us a full moon was massive and drenched the night in white light. Colton had taken us to dinner at Alto’s and it had been a good distraction. But now, sitting beneath the night sky, my demons were returning.
“He was so much more than that,” I replied quietly.
“You don’t talk about him. Or what happened.”
“He cheated on me.”
Colton was quiet. Like he was giving it a lot of thought.
“Anyone who cheats on you is a fool, Harlow,” he said finally. But his words made no sense. Since he was the one who had started the trend.
“Is that your way of apologizing?” I asked.
“You never gave me a chance to apologize. You ran off to California.”
I glanced at him sideways. “I think we both know it was the best thing.”
“Me doing wrong by you? Or you going to California?”
“Both.” I smiled. “Our relationship had run its course.”
“I’m a fool, Harlow. And so is your Mister Dillinger.” He smiled regretfully. “I will never forgive my actions and how they hurt you. If I could somehow go back in time … well, I wouldn’t be such a fool.”
I turned back to the moon.
“If I could go back in time … I’d do it all over again and not change a thing,” I whispered.
And I would.
Except for the part when Heath ripped my heart out and put it through the sausage mincer. But even then the pain and heartache was worth it for those precious moments I’d shared with him and my friends back in California.
We were quiet for a moment. Our legs swung over the branch while the crickets sang in the grass.
“I’m honored to be escorting you tomorrow, Harlow. I will be very proud, walking down that staircase with you on my arm.”
I smiled, but it was pensive. “Thank you for being here. And for escorting me tomorrow. It’s a comfort having you here.”
“Albeit, a bittersweet comfort.”
I cast my eyes down. “I love him, Colton. As much as I don’t want to, I love him.”
He nodded. “Then
he is a bigger fool than I thought. He should be here.”
“But he’s not.”
“No. No, he’s not.”
We called it a night and Colton saw me to the door. Once inside, I headed towards the grand staircase but my daddy appeared in the doorway of his study and beckoned to me to join him.
“A word with my daughter?”
He poured me a brandy as I sat on one of the three leather Chesterfield sofas in the room. I shifted nervously. Chats with my daddy in his study were usually reserved for those discussions about poor grades or the times I’d been busted sneaking out or playing hooky from school because Colton wanted to go make out. Or like the time Bobby, Bridget and I snuck over state lines to go see Van Halen play in South Carolina because Bobby was a crazy Eddie Van Halen fan.
Oh, and let’s not forget the little chat about tattoos when Mama had seen the black ink inside my wrist. She had gotten so flustered, she’d taken two valium and gone to lie down. How on earth was I going to be the Debutante Queen with that thing on my skin?
For all our chats in this room, my daddy had never given me a brandy before. I took it as a good sign.
Then again, it could be a really, really bad one and maybe he was using the brandy to numb me first. I took a hearty sip and almost choked on the hot liquid as my daddy settled in the Chesterfield across from me. He stared into his brandy for a moment, swirling it before he spoke.
“I had to insist your mother rest. She is worried your heart is not in tomorrow’s events.”
“Then she’d be right. This is her thing. Not mine.”
He nodded, resignedly. “I understand. But this boy … Heath? He has you distracted.”
“I love him,” I said matter-of-factly. Then with less resolve, added, “I just can’t be with him.’
My daddy thought about my words and then nodded. I watched as he swirled his brandy again and took a mouthful.
