by Kyra Davis
“But this doesn’t need to be forever,” he says hopefully. “You . . . I . . . we might still have a chance, sometime down the line. Tell me this doesn’t have to be forever.”
I let out a staccato breath and look up at the ceiling as I struggle to keep it together. “I don’t know what forever means! So . . . so I guess maybe, someday . . . but not now, and I can’t . . . I can’t ask you to wait for me.” And again I meet his gaze, and then in a split second we are in each other’s arms, and this time the kisses are even more passionate and so . . . so perfect. I feel his tears mixed up with mine. I feel the fast beating of his heart. I feel everything. And for a moment, he rests his forehead against mine. “I love you,” he says. “And I don’t care what name you use or how long you stay away, that will never change. I love you.”
“And I love you,” I whisper. And with one more kiss I pull away again . . . and this time I run out the door.
CHAPTER 37
November 2006
STANDING HERE AT the front of the stage as the last instrumental notes of the song are played out behind me, it’s impossible not to be impressed by this crowd. The club’s almost filled to capacity. There must be close to three hundred people here!
And they’re all here for us!
Impulsively I wrap my hand around the mic and pull it to my mouth as I scream, “I love this country!”
And I swear to God, it feels like all of Belgium screams back at me. They don’t even care that I’m speaking English; in fact maybe they love me a little more for it. They know I can get by in French, I’ve lived here for over two years now. But when you’re moved by passion only your native tongue will do. I whirl around to see my Spanish guitarist, Rubén, grinning at me like a madman. Only my drummer and bass player are local. I met our Dutch keyboardist when she signed up for one of the pole dancing classes I teach downtown. We’re a truly international group and yet Brussels has become a home to all of us. And what an amazing home it’s been.
I hold up my hand and start snapping my fingers in a resolute rhythm, which my drummer quickly imitates. I turn back to the crowd just as Rubén adds his strings to the beat.
And the room goes wild. They know my song! A song I wrote as a wry tribute to my father. It’s one of the biggest highs I’ve ever had, and that’s saying something.
I snatch the microphone from the stand and run to the other side of the stage and launch into the lyrics:
I died for your sins
And came back for my own
I rebuilt my heart
I revived my soul
I will never disappear (never disappear)
I will never disappear (never disappear)
I will never disappear
And the room is singing with me. Words that might not have meant a thing to them if spoken mean everything to them when put to music. That girl standing on the table waving her arms in the air in an expression of grace and freedom, that boy who’s jumping up and down by the stage, crying out the lyrics as if they’re coming straight from his heart. My lyrics coming from his heart! This isn’t just love, this is understanding! This is my world! And when I launch into the next stanza they’re all with me:
I’m of the kind
You don’t understand
We see the world
In ways you never can
We will never disappear (never disappear)
We will never disappear (never disappear)
And the energy keeps building, even as we move into the instrumentals. Now it’s not just the girl who has her hands in the air, almost all of the audience does. I glance toward the bar and see my boyfriend, Logan, hold up his bottle of Belgian beer in a salute, a sweet grin on his face. I’ve never tasted any of the beer here. I haven’t tasted any alcohol since 2002.
I bring my lips to the mic again:
We here are human
And sometimes a mess
We have a beauty
You’ll never possess
We will never disappear
And as the music comes to a stop the voices of the crowd only grow louder, this time joined in a cheer that quickly morphs into a roar. I. Love. This!
“We are Tar!” I cry out and the cheers spike again at the sound of my band’s name. I was the one who chose it. Many take it as a heroin reference.
Brad would know the truth.
It’s surreal that after more than five years of absence the thought of him can still make me smile . . . or cry. In the time since I last spoke to him I’ve gone on the wagon, fallen off the wagon, and then gotten back on. In those years I started taking a prescribed medication, nothing too heavy, but enough to help me resist some of my more destructive impulses. In that time I met Logan, a Belgian documentarian with a quiet disposition and a love of books that rivals my own. In those years my country was attacked, wars have been launched, elections have been contested. I’ve switched continents, given up phone sex, traded dancing in a cage for teaching pole dancing classes to self-deprecating Belgians, I’ve moved in with Logan, I’ve learned French. Everything has changed!
And yet I still miss the man I walked away from all those years ago.
But tonight is not about pain. It’s about the life I’ve made for myself. And so we launch into another song and then another and another. I’ll be twenty-nine years old tomorrow. I’ve gone from one of the least accomplished members of my peer group to . . . well, not being the most accomplished, but I’m up there. I mean look at this! Tar owns the indie scene in this country and we’re getting gigs in other European cities, too! Lyon, Liverpool, Barcelona, Florence, it’s crazy! An LA-based producer who I’ve dreamed of working with has approached me but he only wanted to work with me, not the rest of the band, so I turned him down. Just like that. Because while I want to work with him, I don’t need to. It’s a distinction I’ve come to appreciate more and more with each passing year.
Of course there are record labels that’ve expressed interest in working with Tar, but we continue to put out our albums independently. We have total control. Just like we’re controlling this crowd, this room, this energy!
When we finally wrap I throw my arms out to either side as if trying to embrace the night itself. People are chanting my name while others chant the name of the band. Still others cry out words of love, lyrics from my songs, so many wonderful things! No, tonight isn’t about pain at all.
Tonight is about triumph.
When we move from the spotlight to backstage everyone in the band breaks into laughter. Hugging one another, ruffling one another’s hair—yes, this is what success is supposed to feel like.
It only takes Logan a few minutes to work his way to where we are and then he, too, is taking me into his arms, kissing my cheek, and gazing down at me with those dark blue eyes, his blond hair as messy as ever. “You were fantastic,” he says.
“Thank you,” I say meekly. “And thank you for coming.”
He nods magnanimously. Logan hates crowds. In his ideal world I’d be singing in dusty little coffeehouses with a lone guitar and a beret on my head. But since tomorrow’s my birthday he has agreed to spend about thirty hours doing all the things I love to do regardless of his own preferences. That starts tonight with this concert. Then tomorrow he’s accompanying me and some friends to a soccer . . . er . . . football match, and tomorrow night we’ll be meeting more friends at a different club to go dancing.
In other words, it’ll be a day of hell for him but he’s willing to walk through that hell for me. If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.
I give each of my bandmates one last hug good-bye before Logan and I head out through the back door. Last week the city was covered in snow but tonight the cobblestone streets are merely a little icy, making them both beautiful and precarious.
“It’s after one in the morning,” Logan says in French as we walk past a few fans who are hoping I’ll stop to sign their CDs. Sometimes I do, but rarely when I’m with Logan . . . or when it’s exceptionally cold like
tonight. “You played for three hours straight,” he continues. “You must be exhausted!”
I shrug and give his hand a squeeze. I’m actually not tired at all. The adrenaline is still pumping through me. But I have no doubt that in an hour or so I’ll be ready to crash. “Did you really like the performance?” I ask, also in French, once we get to his car. He holds the passenger door open for me as I slip inside.
“You were amazing,” he says in response before closing the door.
I smile and rest my head against the leather seat as he gets behind the wheel and directs us toward home.
I STARTED DATING Logan in 2004, while he was studying to be a documentarian at USC. And now here we are, living in Brussels, the city he grew up in, which is perfect because in this case what he sees as his comfort zone is my adventure.
“Home,” he says, yawning as we pull into the small parking lot for our building. I know the yawn is his subtle way of telling me he might be too tired for sex tonight. I don’t mind. It’s not that our sex life isn’t good—it is. But something about turning twenty-nine, the very last year of my twenties, has gotten me thinking about everything that’s happened in this last decade. In nine years I went from being a cokehead, to being pregnant, to being an alcoholic, to heading my first band, to being with Ash, the unwitting father of my child, to being with . . . with . . .
I squeeze my eyes closed, trying to force the memories of Brad out of my head. Brad is gone. Eventually my heart will figure that out, right? It has to. This simply cannot go on forever.
We take the elevator up to our flat and I slip into our bedroom as Logan slips into the shower. I should change into my nightshirt and start preparing for sleep. But instead I go into our closet and dig out a box I’ve hidden in the back. Inside is Mr. Cuddly Bubbles and the picture taken at the back of Apocalypse. The picture is folded over. I don’t have the strength to look at it. But I do allow myself to hold Mr. Cuddly Bubbles. Part of me feels guilty for keeping my plush little friend. But then, Logan knows all about Mr. Cuddly Bubbles. I even told him a little about Brad, albeit not much. I just told him that a man had taken me to the La Brea Tar Pits and that I found magic there. Logan had questioned my use of the word magic, pointing out that the phenomenon of the constantly bubbling-up tar and the finding of fossils were things that should be classified under science because we knew how things were done. But I had just smiled and quoted a Terry Pratchett book I had recently read: “That time it had been magic. And it didn’t stop being magic just because you found out how it was done.”
Still, there’s a lot Logan doesn’t know. For instance, I haven’t told him about the last time I saw Brad, only six months before Logan and I started dating.
After I had managed my first full year without a single drink, joint, or line, I had started thinking about trying to reconnect with Brad. Maybe the best way to handle that would have been to call him up. But instead I started stalking him. Yes, yes, I know, but it’s not like we had Facebook then, so I had to resort to going old-school stalker in order to figure out what was up with him. I drove by his place when I didn’t need to, sometimes parking kitty-corner to it in hopes that maybe he would come out, that I would see him.
And then one day . . . he did. I was just sitting in my car and he walked outside.
And he looked beautiful.
Just utterly perfect. He was wearing jeans and a sport coat. His white button-down had the first few buttons undone, and even though it was getting dark and the distance made it impossible for me to see too many details, I still imagined that light spattering of chest hair that I had once run my hands over, feeling its coarseness between my fingers as he gently kissed my neck. Yes, this was my Brad. He walked right up to the edge of the sidewalk and then looked up at the full moon that was still low in the sky. It was draped in golden tones and looked massive. For a moment it took my attention, too, and I thought, Here we are, gazing at the moon together . . .
. . . and he doesn’t even know it.
Slowly, hesitantly, I got out of the car and stood there on the street, right in plain view. But Brad didn’t see me. His eyes were on the moon. And so I took the opportunity to study him, now without the impediment of my car window being between us. There was just the slightest breeze and it ran through my hair and through his. Even sharing that felt unbelievably intimate. When he closed his eyes against the breeze, when he took what appeared to be a deep cleansing breath, I stepped forward . . .
. . . And she came out. Nalla, wearing a sophisticated and sexy little black dress. And she was holding June’s hand.
In an instant I retreated, ducking behind the bumper of my car as I peeked out at them. June was taller. So much taller it took me aback. But she was definitely still June, wearing a long pink skirt that she held out to the side like she was a Disney princess. She was skipping by her mother’s side.
When Nalla put her hand on Brad’s shoulder, he turned to her, and though I was too far away to see his smile, it was easy to remember the way he used to smile at me. It always made me feel so beautiful, so happy, and . . . and now he was smiling at Nalla.
I stayed hidden as the three of them got into Brad’s car and drove away. Just one happy family going out for an evening of fun.
After that I stopped stalking him.
That was the last time I saw Brad. I sigh and lean my head against the doorframe of the closet, staring at my clothes crammed in with Logan’s while holding Mr. Cuddly Bubbles to my heart. There have been times when I considered contacting Brad. Like when Logan asked if I’d move to Brussels with him once his student visa ran out. We had been dating for about four months at the time and I knew I’d miss him if he were gone. After all, Logan is nothing short of wonderful. He’s hot and he’s smart, funny, creative, giving . . . I could go on and on. Any woman would be happy to have him. I’m happy to have him.
He’s just not Brad.
But then, no one ever will be.
So yes, I considered tracking Brad down at the time, but by then I wasn’t sure how to do it. I didn’t even know if he was in LA anymore. The building he used to live in had been demolished, sacrificed to the housing boom and the dreams of ambitious developers. And June, she would have been eight years old by that point! Eight!
Undoubtedly she forgot my name shortly after I left Brad. She may not even remember I exist. And Brad probably wishes I never had. Judging from what I saw during my last stalking trip it’s likely he’s with Nalla now. And if he isn’t (dear God, I hope he’s not!) he still might not want to see me. How many times did I pull that man close only to push him away? It must have been crazy making.
Perhaps I broke his heart.
So no, I didn’t scratch at that wound. I chose to move on.
“Are you all right?” Logan asks in French. We’ve agreed to speak French in the house until I’m fluent, unless I’m particularly emotional, busy, or overly tired. In other words, we occasionally speak French in the house.
I turn my head to see Logan by the bed wearing navy pin-striped pajamas. He’s the only man I’ve ever known who actually has pajamas. Not sweats or boxers, not pajama bottoms with a T-shirt, oh no. For Logan it’s straight-up pajamas. He’s adorable.
I discreetly tuck Mr. Cuddly Bubbles between some sweaters on a shelf and then close the closet door as I step out to meet Logan. “Just trying to figure out what to wear tomorrow,” I lie smoothly in his language as I give him a light kiss. He laughs and makes some teasing comment about my obsession with style and fashion and then he crawls into bed. By the time I’ve brushed my teeth and washed my face he’s dead to the world. So I get in next to him, as quietly as possible, remind myself how lucky I am to have such a good life despite all my previous fuckups, and then send up a silent prayer that I don’t dream of Brad.
It’s a prayer that’s rarely answered.
CHAPTER 38
THE NEXT MORNING is perfect. Logan makes us brunch, which consists of fresh-squeezed orange juice, bacon, eggs, toast, and
rice pudding. Yes, really. I’ve become a pretty good cook but Logan is a friggin’ gourmet. I tap my fork against the plate and smile across the table at him. “This,” I say in French, “is why I moved here.”
“Really?” Logan deadpans as he switches to English. “I thought it was for my amazing wiener dog.”
I laugh even though the joke doesn’t quite work. No one calls hot dogs wiener dogs and even if they did, someone who cooked them would be known for their wiener dogs. Plural. But you gotta respect a guy who attempts wordplay in a foreign language. “It’s your day,” he says as he reaches for his orange juice, “so we speak your language.”
I nod, accepting this reasoning but no longer willing to sacrifice eating for talking in any language.
“I forgot to tell you,” he says as he watches me shovel in more pudding, “I was able to set up another meeting with a prospective financier. He seems very enthusiastic.”
“Logan, that’s fantastic!” I manage. Since he moved back here Logan has created a series of very well-received shorts. He even did a little rockumentary for Tar that he posted on YouTube, delving into everything from our music to our eating habits. He interviews the band, too.
Now he’s working on a bigger documentary about the integration of Muslim immigrants into Belgian society. I know it’s going to be great but he needs more people to invest in order to get it off the ground. “Who’s the investor?”
Logan launches into explaining how he attracted this man’s attention, what he hopes the meeting will lead to, how much he needs. I try to pay attention, but these are the kind of details I have a hard time getting amped about. “It seems things are going well for both our careers,” he says, once he’s completely filled me in. He lifts his OJ as if making a toast. “Here’s to living the American Dream . . . in Belgium.”
