A Lush Reunion

by Selena Laurence

Carson laughs until he’s bent over, struggling for breath. When he finally recovers, his gaze is hard and cold. “Jeff could give a fuck about Jesus, but he likes a job where he has access to the donation plates and all those rich church members. Plus, it’ll go a long way in court when he gets Sean back.”

  I have to work to get my next breath in. My chest feels like it’s going to explode. I have never considered that Jeff would want Sean back. He never cared one way or the other about his son. The only thing he ever did with Sean was watch cartoons when he was hungover from having been out all night with his buddies.

  The fire in my chest spreads, and soon I’m burning up all over. There’s no way this can be true. No damn way. Why? Why now?

  “Because he can,” Carson answers, a smug grin firmly in place. I realize I said it out loud.

  I look at the bastard who was sent to do Jeff’s dirty work. If I get upset or angry, if I cry or rage, I’ll be giving them exactly what they want. And I can’t do that.

  “Tell Jeff I got his message,” I say coldly. “And he’ll get custody of Sean when I’m dead, and not a moment sooner.”

  As I walk away Carson mumbles, “We might be able to arrange that.”

  But I don’t believe him. Jeff’s a dishonest, sleazy creep, but he’s not a murderer.

  A tiny voice in the back of my head whispers, You hope.

  Chapter Nine

  Colin

  THEIR TIMING is impeccable. I’ve convinced Marsha to spend some time with me and gotten Chet his health check at the vet when Joss calls and basically demands that I get my ass back to Portland. You’d think with the band broken up I wouldn’t have to follow his directives, but the fact is we still have joint business and joint decisions to make. Also, I’m not sure what everyone else is thinking, but I want us back together, so the more we can meet and talk the more likely that’ll happen.

  Luckily for me, Mrs. S. has loves Chet as much as I have. I think she likes having his company and protection. If I’m not entertaining enough Chet is glued to Mrs. S., following her around the kitchen grabbing any stray food he can find, and keeping himself between her and any visitors who come by. No one’s going to bother that little old lady while Chet has breath in his body.

  I get her to agree to care for him while I go to Portland. Then I spend the morning packing and text Marsha:

  Me: Hi. Are you busy this afternoon?

  She gets back to me right away.

  Marsha: Doing some errands. What do you need?

  Me: Meet me at Mrs. S.’s?

  Marsha: When?

  Me: Now?

  Marsha: How about in an hour?

  Me: I’ll be waiting.

  Entertaining at Mrs. S.’s is a hassle. She has firm rules about no opposite-sex visitors in your room. Not that any of us have ever paid any attention to that. I’m pretty sure in fact, that Tammy and Walsh’s baby was conceived right here under Mrs. S.’s roof. But it’s the middle of the day, and Mrs. S. is shuffling around in the kitchen baking something, Chet at her side. So I’m left with the front parlor, which is an abomination of floral mishaps that would make even the most stalwart Victorian cringe. But it does at least have doors, so I can shut Mrs. S. out. Combined with her hearing loss that pretty much ensures she won’t know what’s going on.

  Marsha’s right on time, and I meet her at the front door.

  “We have two choices,” I tell her. “The flower room or the front porch.”

  “It’s hot,” she answers. “I’ll put up with the flowers.”

  “Do you want anything to drink? I think Mrs. S. has some iced tea in the fridge.” I open the door to the parlor and gesture for Marsha to enter.

  “No, thanks. I’m good.” Her smile is sweet and makes me want to kiss her again, but I decide not to press my luck just yet.

  After we’ve sat down, her on the sofa and me on the armchair adjacent, I look at her and all I can think is that she’s the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, peering at me.

  I shake off the lust that’s clouding my mind. “Yeah, sorry. I’m, uh, distracted.” I stand and move to the sofa with her, making sure to leave a foot or so between us. “You were kind of far away,” I tell her by way of explanation.

  She blushes, and I grin. It really feels like being in high school again, that rush of adrenaline, the way I can’t stop smiling, the rapid pace of my heart.

  “Did you need something?” she asks. “Did you have me come over for a reason?”

  “Oh! Yeah, of course. Sorry. I got a call last night from Joss, and we’ve got some business we need to deal with in Portland.”

  “Oh-kay.”

  She doesn’t know what this has to do with her. “I wanted to make sure you knew I was leaving town for a few days so you didn’t think I up and skipped out on you.”

  “Oh! Oh yeah, that’s fine. You don’t have to clear your schedule with me.”

  I lean toward her to try to get a whiff of that honey scent that seems to follow her everywhere. My eyes glaze over as I look at the fluttering pulse on her throat.

  “Colin?” She snaps me out of my Marsha coma.

  “Yeah. Well, I have to go to Portland for a couple of days, but then I have a benefit in Hawaii next week too, and I was, uh, wondering if maybe you and Sean might like to go along?”

  Her eyes grow to the size of Frisbees. “To Hawaii?”

  “Yeah. It’s going to be a great concert benefiting the Honolulu Zoo. I’m playing with a couple of the guys from Indigo and the lead singer from Stone Wall. Because it’s for the zoo there will be lots of families there, kids Sean’s age. They’re putting us all up at the Hilton Waikiki resort. Pools, beaches, the whole nine yards. I have a suite, so you and Sean can have a room all to yourselves, and while I’m at rehearsals you can hit the beach. They’ve even offered me a private tour of the behind-the-scenes part of the zoo. I bet Sean would love that.” I pause, knowing she’s going to shoot me down. I want this so much I couldn’t bear not to ask.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “I’ve never been more serious.

  “Colin. I can’t afford to go to Hawaii. I can barely afford to go to the Walmart in McKinney.”

  I can’t help but chuckle. “Babe, do you think I’d ask you to come on a trip with me and expect you to pay? I’ve got it covered. The zoo’s paying for the rooms. They got screaming deals from the resort, and we’re donating our time, paying for our plane tickets and all that. It’s no big deal. I’ll grab you and the little dude a couple of tickets on my flight and we’ll be set.”

  “I don’t think you understand, Colin. I can’t go to some fancy resort in Hawaii. I don’t have a swimsuit, or a suitcase that’s not a torn-up, old duffel bag. My clothes are all…” She blushes. “Well, honestly, they’re secondhand and I’d be embarrassed to wear them in a place like that. I—I could never.”

  My breath leaves me like the air in a pair of bellows. What’s left is pain. It’s so wrong that this gorgeous, hardworking woman should ever feel ashamed of who she is or what she wears. Sometimes I wonder how the world spins at all when it’s often so fucked up.

  I grasp her hand. “I would never ask you to do something that you felt uncomfortable with. If you don’t have the kinds of clothes or luggage or whatever that you need then we’ll—I’ll buy you some. For Sean too. I don’t want anything about this to be stressful for you. It’s supposed to be a vacation. I know you don’t get many of those.”

  She laughs bitterly. “I’ve never been on a vacation.”

  “What? You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, Colin. I’m not.”

  I sit with that information for a moment. “But what about when your ex was in the picture? You had two incomes then, right? Didn’t you ever go spend the weekend in Dallas or something? Maybe go camping or visit family?”

  Then it occurs to me that I haven’t heard a word about Marsha’s mother in all this time. I have no idea where she is o
r if they’re speaking. I’ve never asked, and even though I couldn’t stand the bitter old bat, I’m a total heel for never having thought to at least ask about her.

  Marsha shakes her head, but before she can continue, I interrupt.

  “What about your mother? Don’t you ever go visit your mother?”

  She pales right before my eyes, her mouth drawing tight. “No. We’re not on speaking terms. I haven’t seen her since my senior year.”

  There’s a whole tragic story in her words, but there’s only so much I can deal with at one time. My objective now is to get her to come to Hawaii with me, so I focus on that.

  I plaster a smile on my face. “You’re definitely due for a vacation then. Come with me, Marsha.”

  “I also can’t afford to miss days of work.” She gives me a sympathetic look like I’m such a dumbass I would never understand all of this shit.

  “A step ahead of you. I already asked Jimmy, and he said you’re entitled to a paid vacation. He’ll give you half the tips from the bar for the days you miss and your regular wages.”

  “You talked to Jimmy?”

  “I did. As soon as I got the idea this morning. I wasn’t trying to intrude, but I knew that would be a big issue. I was trying to remove all the obstacles before I got to you.”

  She shakes her head and laughs softly. “You’re kind of unbelievable.”

  “But you love it. Admit it. And you want to go to Hawaii too.”

  “Gah!” She pulls her hair in both hands. “You’re incredibly stubborn.”

  “I am. I also know that this is a really fantastic opportunity for Sean. You know my parents weren’t rich when I was growing up, but all that traveling made me feel like we were. I saw places and met people who helped me understand the possibilities in the world. Don’t you want Sean to have some of that? I want it for him.”

  It’s playing dirty. Sean was my trump card, and I pulled it, but I also know that it’s about guaranteed to work. Marsha will deny herself all sorts of things, but she won’t deny her son if she can help it.

  She sighs, and I can tell I’ve got her.

  “Fine. When do we leave?”

  As the t-shirts say, “Life is good.”

  I SAUNTER into the lounge of Studio B in Portland about ninety minutes after my flight lands. I went straight to Walsh and Tammy’s where I’m staying and picked Walsh up. Tammy says she’s, “keeping the hell out of band business” from now on, so she stayed at home. As much as I love her, it’s probably for the best. The four of us have been together a couple of times since the breakup—once at Ronny’s ranch, and once at Walsh and Tammy’s for dinner—but never to discuss business, so this is different.

  “Hey, bro. It’s great to see you,” Joss says as he grabs me for a hug when I walk in.

  “It’s good to see you too,” I tell him. “How’s Mel?”

  “She’s great. You going to stop by tonight and have a drink?”

  “Sure. That’d be cool.”

  “It’s Dave the magic manager!” Mike shouts out as the door to the studio opens.

  “Greetings, boys. How is everyone? Colin, how’s it going?”

  I shake Dave’s hand and smile. I haven’t seen him in months. “It’s all good.”

  He watches me with narrowed eyes. “You’re looking…fit,” he says.

  I hate when people mention that I used to be stoned all the time. It’s not who I was, just what I did, but a lot of people don’t seem to understand the difference. I’d rather not get into it with Dave, either.

  “Yeah. I spent some time surfing, I’ve been working out, that kind of stuff,” I tell him to deflect as much as I can.

  Dave’s always been pretty perceptive, so he smiles and looks to the other three. “Everyone ready to get to it?” he asks.

  We all nod and sit as he pulls out reams of papers and puts his reading glasses in place. It’s going to be a long afternoon.

  A FUNNY thing happened on the way to Lush’s big breakup. Apparently, nothing legally binding was done. Dave casually tells us that none of our endorsements were canceled, our next album wasn’t killed, and our tour was suspended rather than closed down.

  Of course none of us knew this until today.

  Joss is incredulous. “So you’re telling me that even though I held an enormous press conference announcing it, and Rock Steady did a cover issue on it, as far as any of our business partners—the tour venues, the corporate sponsors, the record company—are concerned, we’re still a viable band?”

  Dave scratches his head. He’s trying to play this off as some sort of oversight, but we aren’t that stupid. “Something like that. What it means is they chose not to release you from your contractual obligations. Instead, they decided to postpone those obligations.”

  Mike fills in the blanks. “In the hope that we’d get back together.”

  Dave shrugs. “Possibly.”

  “And where in the world would they have gotten the idea that was a possibility?” Joss questions, one eyebrow raised.

  Dave shoots him a look, and Walsh chuckles next to me.

  “I’m not sure, but there it is. The only question now is—What do you want to do about it? Time is running out on the postponements and we’re going to have to start providing answers soon.”

  The five of us sit there, in a deadlock, everyone afraid to make the first move.

  “Dude,” I finally say. “You totally played us.” I narrow my eyes at Dave.

  The room is silent for a moment, then Mike bursts out laughing, and within seconds all of us are guffawing so hard we have tears running down our faces.

  Dave throws his hands up in surrender. “I plead the Fifth,” he chuckles. “I don’t know how things got arranged this way, but it is what it is.”

  Joss sits back in his seat. “And all that cash we each got? I thought that was the residual money that was owed to us once we dissolved the partnership?”

  “Those were the assets in the business account. If you decide to cancel on all of these contracts, you’ll need to pay some of that back. Those monies included advances given in good faith that you’d fulfill the terms of the contracts.”

  “Shit,” Mike mumbles.

  “Damn, Dave.” Walsh shakes his head. “What would you have done if one of us had blown our wad?”

  “Then I guess you’d be left without the option of splitting up permanently.” His lips twitch, and I can tell he almost hoped for such a scenario.

  “Well, luckily for you we’re all smart enough not to have done that,” Joss says severely.

  Now I don’t know the specifics of everyone else’s finances, but I do know that Walsh gave all of his money to Tammy who promptly invested it and earned him even more. Joss is conservative as hell with his money, and Mike is the most likely to have done something stupid. I live on almost nothing, and until I found Marsha again, I had no use for my money other than charity. Now I see that it could be useful to help out her and Sean.

  I glance over at Mike.

  He shakes his head. “I’m good,” he tells me. “I’ve put some into Jenny’s album and my dad’s house, but my old man’s a CPA, he made sure it was all set up in blue-chip investments from the get-go.”

  “Great.” Dave stands up. “Then I guess all that’s left is for the four of you to decide what you’re going to do next. We have about a month until the first extension on a contract expires, so you’ll need to decide by then.”

  We all look at each other awkwardly. We never in a million years thought this wasn’t already a done deal. As much as I’ve secretly wanted to get the group back together, I wasn’t picturing doing it under pressure like this.

  “What’s the contract?” Joss asks.

  “Wheeler’s Beer,” Dave answers. “And their guys are already working on a huge rollout with them announcing your reunion, World Cup ad time, the works.”

  Mike groans and rubs his hand over his face. Joss purses his lips, and Walsh and I look at each other, trying not
to panic.

  “Okay,” Joss says. “We’ll get back to you ASAP.”

  With that Dave’s gone, and I’m left staring at my three best friends, no clue as to what our next move should be.

  “That crafty bastard,” Mike says, shaking his head as he rests it on the sofa.

  “No shit,” Walsh echoes.

  “I can’t believe he kept that from us all this time,” Joss says.

  “So, what the hell do we do now?” I ask.

  “I guess it’s time to decide what we want our lives to look like,” Joss answers.

  I think he’s right. And I think that means a lot more than whether the band gets back together or not.

  THE PORTLAND dusk is familiar and comforting. I forget how much I miss the only place I’ve ever really considered to be “home.” The air is moist and cool compared to Texas. There’s a fire crackling in Joss and Mel’s outdoor fireplace even though it’s late spring and Mel and Tammy have cooked up what they call appetizers but those of us who aren’t Italian consider dinner. I smell the food the minute I walk into the condo, and there’s heat pouring out of the kitchen.

  Set up on the dining room table are two huge antipasto platters, stuffed mushrooms, fluffy baguettes, and a bunch of other stuff I don’t know the names for. It’s all fucking good though, and I’m one happy camper to grab a beer and a plate full of food before I sit down on the sofa on Joss’s enormous deck overlooking the Portland skyline.

  “Hey,” Mel says as she sits next to me and tucks her bare feet up underneath her denim-clad legs.

  “Hey, you.” I give her a side-arm hug. “You and Tam outdid yourselves this time.” I gesture to my plate.

  She flaps her hand at me like it’s no big thing. “You guys are easy. The food was nothing. Lots of meat, cheese, and pasta—not that hard to put together.”

  “Well, I appreciate it. I haven’t eaten since I got on the plane this morning. That damn meeting took forever.”

  “And how did it go? I haven’t had a chance to ask Joss yet.”

  “Oh, you need to get him to explain it. Let’s say that it’s a hell of a lot more complicated but possibly a hell of a lot more promising than any of us would have guessed.” I shove another mushroom in my mouth.