by Lisa Loomis
In many of the pictures, we looked too young to have been doing what we were doing. I looked so childlike to be having such big feelings for him. What wasn’t there, and would never be, was the two of us as a couple. Not many had ever seen that part… Yes, I had loved him.
“I’m glad you decided to come,” Bobby said behind me.
I turned, hugging him to me. I could feel the tears spring into my eyes. Sara gave a moving and sometimes humorous speech about his life. She captured the real Mathew, no sugar coating, it seemed from her words many people could love him and hate him all at one time, even her. Whatever that part was though, that we could hate, it wasn’t enough to deter any of us. We all loved him.
“A group of us put together a CD of Mathew’s life that I would like to play,” Sara announced.
The CD started, and Mathew came onto the large screen. It showed him from a baby all the way up. The pictures changed as music he loved played. I saw so much of his life that I had and also hadn’t experienced. There were video clips of the band, him sitting, playing his guitar solo, and him talking. His voice, so familiar when I heard it, was the closest I came to breaking down. I think I’d cried most of my tears out. Bobby spoke and what was left of Kingdom Come played a trio of songs. Jack stepped up to the microphone.
“This was a song Mathew wrote. It meant a lot to him, although I’m not sure who it’s about. He called it ‘Too Little, Too Late, Kid’.”
Jack took Mathew’s place and led the band into the song. I listened to the words, the story. He’d finished the song after all. He wrote about young unreturned love, the friendship, the girl he called kid always leaving his bed, the distance, how he realized he loved her. I glanced around the table, feeling everyone must know it was me, but no one seemed to notice. The tears silently ran down my face. He had loved me after all, loved me with what he was capable of.
The last song they played was "The Leader of the Band" by Dan Fogelberg. “The leader of the band is tired, and his eyes are growing old, but his blood runs through my instrument, and his song is in my soul.”
The boy in the band was gone, leaving those who loved him, grappling with how they could have changed it. I drifted amongst his friends and family talking, remembering, even laughing about some of his antics.
“How’ve you been?” Jack asked when I came upon him.
“Pretty good, Jack, considering,” I said, hugging him.
“I always thought the two of you would end up together,” he said, referring to Mathew. “You kept coming back.”
“I know I did,” I said. “He had a crazy hold on me.”
“He ever call you kid?” he asked.
I stared at him.
“I asked him about the song, but he would never confirm anything. You know always had his secrets. Said it was about a girl who meant a lot to him. I always thought it had to be you,” Jack said.
I smiled as the tears started again.
“You kid?”
I nodded.
“We’ll all miss him. He was a character,” he said smiling.
“I know, that I know,” I choked out.
Sean joined us.
“Good to see you, Morgan,” Sean said and gave me a squeeze.
“You too, I wish it was under different circumstances.”
“You got that one,” he said.
“Hey, Roxanne,” Sean said.
I turned around to see Roxanne O’Conner. She was still beautiful, her blue eyes and blonde hair exactly as I remembered.
“I was hoping you would be here,” she said, taking my hands.
We talked for several minutes. She was getting married again in a few months; I was happy for her. Mathew hadn’t kept in touch with her either, even though the divorce had been civil. His family stayed in touch with her, and that was how she’d kept up.
“He loved you,” she said, shocking me.
When I looked into her eyes, I knew she knew. He wouldn’t have told her. How did she know?
“It took me awhile, but I figured it out. You knew him too well. You helped me understand him more than once,” she said, tears filling her eyes.
She stepped forward to hug me and held me tight while we both cried.
“He loved you too,” I said.
“We both are better people for having loved him back,” she said.
She was right. He’d had a big impact on my life, on who I had become. He had held my whole heart for a long time.
I called Gayle to come get me. People were slowly filtering out, saying goodbye. I saw Sara standing close to the stage and went to her.
“He would have loved it, Sara. You did a great job,” I said.
She hugged me, and I could feel her body shaking with the tears.
“I didn’t know,” she said.
“Didn’t know what?” I asked.
“That he called you kid. Jack told me.”
“Sara, I don’t know for sure, the song I mean. He did call me kid. He started one about me once he said. It sounds like us, but with Mathew, who knows.”
I could feel the lump in my throat again, and I struggled, trying to hold back the tears.
“I only heard the beginning years ago; he said he would finish it someday,” I said.
I saw him sitting with his guitar, me waiting to listen. Wild, wild horses, I’m gonna ride them someday I heard him sing in my head.
“It could be a combination of a lot of people. It’s about his feelings of longing and loving,” I pondered.
In my heart, I was sure it was our story.
“Mathew taught me to listen to the music, listen to the words, the story. I was part of the story that’s all, just like everyone here.”
She started to cry again, her face red from all the tears.
“Please keep in touch,” she asked. “He would want that, I know.”
“I will, I promise.”
I went back to the pictures on the wall. As I stood viewing so many frozen moments of his life, I realized I’d never stopped loving him. I’d just come to the conclusion that love was not always enough. I’d thought our love to be one-sided, apparently wrongly. I would never understand why he hadn’t pushed harder. He’d said that himself when I got married “I should have tried harder that summer in San Jose.” I suddenly felt guilty we hadn’t kept in touch.
Gayle wouldn’t be here yet, but I had the urge to be outside in the sunlight. The Apollo was dark inside, and today it was filled with too many memories. As I walked down the entrance hallway out into the sunshine, I put on my sunglasses. I could feel the tears roll down my checks. “I hate it when girls cry” I heard him say clearly.
“Too damn bad,” I said aloud.
I knew he would understand. Yes, Mathew, it was a love affair. Not the traditional kind, but real all the same.
The End
The Morgan Mallory story continues to unfold in the sequel to Boy in a Band by Lisa Loomis, Casanova Cowboy.
Available at Amazon.com in Kindle.
Preview a portion of the first chapter of Casanova Cowboy by Lisa Loomis.
Chapter 1
I met Max when I was eighteen, and we had been dating for almost three years. It was the blond surfer look that attracted me; just my type, and the blue eyes cinched it. He was a his-way-or-no-way type of guy. Our first date was a baseball game with his guy friends. I hate baseball, but I didn’t tell him that. Our second date was a Sunday at his house watching football—seven hours of it. Why I didn’t move on then, I will never understand. The only thing I can think of was he was the first boy who actually pursued me, and pretty hard. He quickly claimed me as his girlfriend and introduced himself as my boyfriend. I was convinced this was what love looked like.
I think it was the concussion that finally knocked some sense into me as my whole life started changing after the accident. That morning I had caught Max in another lie about where he was and who he was with. So I took his Chevy Blazer to go to a wedding reception with two other male friends�
��after he specifically told me not to drive it. Randy liked me and I knew it. Max knew it too, so I told Randy I could give him a ride. Tom, on the other hand, just needed a way to get there. I tried to talk Liz, one of my best girlfriends, into rebelling with me, but she already had plans, although she found it quite funny that I would defy Max, as I rarely did. Unfortunately, it would take more than the accident for me to make the final break.
The wedding reception was in Valley Center up the hill from Escondido and took me back to that fateful year when my father moved us when I was a teenager to Escondido, just north of San Diego. I had been horrified. Escondido had reminded me of one of those towns you fly by on a freeway going somewhere else while wondering who in the hell would live there. It had seemed so slow and backwards compared to San Jose. Even the kids my age were more conservative, which in hindsight was probably a good thing. It took me a long time to warm up to it, but I finally did. What choice did I have really?
Valley Center, sort of a charming Hicksville with some funky restaurants and bars, had helped bring me to terms with the move. There was this place called Fat Ivor’s with ribs to die for, and Dad and I would drive there in his sports car and have lunch—one of the rare times my dad and I were alone together because he traveled so much. As I drove, I smiled to myself, remembering that Dad liked the top down, and he liked to go fast. The wind would pull at my long, curly hair and wrap it around my eyelashes. I would have to fight to keep it out of my face.
The boys and I finally got to the reception which was being held in one of those boring halls with no personality, although it had been decorated inside with ribbons and bows in an attempt to make it look festive. But who ever noticed a building once a party got going?
“Sort of festive I guess,” I’d said to Randy as we’d entered.
“Add booze and music,” he said. “Makes any room look good.”
A band played in one of the corners; Randy told me he knew the drummer. Freely flowing alcohol, people dancing and partying made for a great time, and Randy and I sure were having a good time dancing together. Unlike Max, he liked to dance, even slow dances, and the way he held me made me feel sexy; how he was holding me now. I was nervous this would get back to Max, but as the evening progressed I no longer cared, and I stayed longer than I had planned.
“You don’t have to hurry home, Morgan. You know Max will be pissed off no matter how late you are. Does he know you were giving me a ride?” Randy asked.
“Hell no, he doesn’t even know about the reception,” I answered. “I didn’t tell him anything about what I was doing.”
I didn’t want to mention to Randy that I took the car without permission.
“We both have other circles of friends. You know, the ones before Morgan and Max, before the two of us were considered a couple,” I reasoned.
He dipped me and pulled me up. I could tell he thought my comment was odd.
“What’s going on with you two?” he asked as he drew me closer to him.
Randy had his arms draped around my shoulders, his fingers lightly caressing my neck. I was attracted to him all right. It wasn’t his looks that kept me away from him at all. Tall and blond with sexy eyes, he had been a basketball player in school and had a body to match his good looks. When he pulled me closer to him, I could feel my body tingle, a sensation that frightened and excited me. He didn’t like Max much; I knew that. I was pretty certain he wouldn’t have any problem stealing me away if I was game. In my mind, I had a boyfriend, and until that was different, I didn’t think I should open any doors. I’d done that in the past with not pretty results.
“Who knows?” I answered. “He says he still wants to be together, but his actions don’t always say that. He told me the other night he was going out with the boys, and I find out through a friend of a friend that most of the guys brought their girlfriends. That there were a bunch of single girls there; several who I’m sure were hitting on him. Must be what he was looking for because he didn’t invite his girlfriend.”
I could feel the jealous feelings I’d felt rise up in me from that day. Made me mad all over again.
“He’s an ass. If you were my girlfriend, I wouldn’t treat you that way,” Randy said suggestively.
I’d heard that line before from guys: “I would treat you better”. Sure you would, for a while. I let the conversation drop and followed Randy’s lead around the dance floor. We finally took a break and got another beer, and I thought again about heading home, but I didn’t want to go. And the recollection of Max leaving me out was still in my thoughts. I envisioned Max getting to his house and finding my car there and the Blazer missing. Back at you. He was going to be mad, and I planned not to go inside when I got back. I would swap cars and head home to my parents. Most of the time, when we weren’t fighting, I stayed at his place.
I was definitely enjoying the attention from Randy. He would touch me now and then just slightly, brush up against me, or pull me close, body-to-body, for a dance. He wasn’t telling me, he was showing me he was interested; he was giving me room to take it or not. He didn’t rush off alone and mingle, as Max would have. Instead, he stayed by my side and mingled. He made me feel pretty and wanted, made me question again my current relationship.
“You look really nice tonight,” he said.
I looked into his green eyes and my breath caught in my throat as we sat down in the chairs lining the wall. He ran his hand down my bare thigh. I didn’t answer. My attraction to him was getting into my head, and I didn’t want to encourage what was happening. I could feel the excitement inside me, like little butterflies flittering, that there could be a tipping point.
“That dress makes your eyes look really blue,” he said, moving in closer.
I could smell him, the manliness, and the smell of soap or cologne. I looked at his lips and then quickly looked away.
“Thanks,” I answered, blushing slightly.
I kept staring out at the party versus looking at him. I was afraid if I looked at him he might see it in my eyes. See that I really wanted to kiss him; I could almost feel my lips on his. My thoughts jumped back to Max, back to the beginning when he said things like that. Things like how sexy he thought I was. How he’d fondly nicknamed me the long, lean, fucking machine, out of desire. Lately he seemed distracted, like he was half interested, and the things he said were more hurtful than kind.
“Somehow I picture your reception being in a more upscale place,” Randy said.
“My reception,” I chuckled. “That ain’t happening any time soon.”
I wondered if Randy thought that’s where Max and I were headed. Or was he testing me? Wanting me to give him an opening. I glanced at him quickly again. My heart pulsed in my throat and I forced my thoughts back down. More upscale, I knew why he said that. Max came from a wealthy family. Growing up, he had gotten most of what he wanted, would get what he wanted, upscale. Randy and I, on the other hand, were more middle class. Our parents had to scrape to give us a good life, and we understood we couldn’t have everything we wanted. That was it I realized. Max was acting like a spoiled child. Maybe I no longer gave him everything he wanted.
My thoughts were straying into an area I didn’t want to examine. Not now, not yet. I grabbed Randy’s hand instead when the band started playing “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.
“Let’s dance,” I said smiling. “Give me some satisfaction.”
The band was prompting everyone to clap their hands together above their heads, by doing it themselves. In response there was a wave of arms reaching for the ceiling. A big group on the dance floor was shouting out “can’t get no, satisfaction” when the verse came up. There was energy in the room. My body responded to the music and the excitement, gyrating to the beat, and Randy gave me a sexy smile.
When the reception ended, the three of us jumped in Max’s Blazer and headed down the hill. I was buzzed, but I knew I could drive; I’d driven before when I’d felt this way. We had the radio up loud and
all the windows down. My elevated mood was making me overly confident, and I took one of the curves too fast. I knew it when the Blazer fishtailed. I tried to correct it without over correcting, but I was fighting to get the car under control, focusing on the wheel, and slowing down.
I could feel the adrenaline racing through my body, my hands sweaty from tightly gripping the wheel. I was so absorbed in the immediate need to get the Blazer stable, that my vision was limited. The wheel, the road, stop fishtailing. I was concentrating so hard. The picture suddenly opened up just as I felt I was getting the Blazer under control, and everything went into slow motion when I saw the telephone pole looming large in the windshield.
In my struggle to regain control I never saw the telephone pole we were heading for until it was too late. The blood was racing through my veins, pounding in my head. I thought I had slowed the Blazer down enough, but the pole was coming, coming. I tried to turn the wheel just as we hit it head on. I remembered in my elated mood I hadn’t put on my seat belt. The crunch of metal and the breaking of glass filled my ears. I held on to the steering wheel, locking my arms, bracing myself, but I still was thrust forward violently, and then it was over. I didn’t move and suddenly couldn’t remember what had happened start to finish. I tried to put the first fishtail together with all the other details. The car was quiet and still.
“I need to get out of the car and see how bad it is,” I said softly to Randy.
I felt eerily calm.
“No, you don’t,” he said. “You stay right here.”
I slowly came to understand that my head was in his lap, and that I was lying almost parallel from the driver’s seat across the console into his seat. How had I gotten here? Why is he pushing at my head with his hands? I remembered going forward and now I was lying in his lap. I again tried to think through it and couldn’t.
