by Lori L. Otto
“None of those numbers mean anything to me,” she explains.
I wrap my arms around her tighter and kiss her cheek. “This is my ideal date,” I confess to her.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’ve always wanted to do this. I thought it would have to be in a planetarium. And I thought I’d have to twist the girl’s arm or bribe her to feign interest. I didn’t think I’d actually be able to see so many stars in nature and hold a woman in my arms who would ask me questions.”
“I think it’s fascinating. Tell me something about the moon. Something I don’t know.”
We both look to the east at the same time, taking in the not-quite-full moon. I’m overcome with immense sadness, remembering Laramie and Harmon telling me about their bedtime stories. The asshole wasn’t supposed to be sentimental. He’d told me months ago that he’d written me off when he’d done the same with my brother. I hated him for how he treated Max. My dad wasn’t supposed to be keeping my memory alive in made up tales that he told his little girls to get them to sleep every night.
I wasn’t supposed to be affected by shit like this. By him telling me he’s proud of me. By him telling me he’s sorry. I try to hide the tears from Shea, clearing my throat to fill the silence that builds when I should be responding with facts, but the broken gasps of air give me away.
She glances back suddenly, taking care in her movements. “Oh, Will.” She stands up in the car and turns around to face me, putting her arms around me and hugging me tightly. “I’m so sorry, Will.”
“This was about closure,” I tell her. “It was supposed to be me, getting everything off my chest and not letting him say a word. Just me and him. Those little girls were not supposed to be there, Shea.” The tears drip down my cheeks quickly. “I wasn’t meant to meet them. They opened doors I didn’t even see. I was just trying to board everything up. For Max. For me. For a lifetime of hurt.”
“I know,” she whispers.
“How dare he tell me he’s fucking proud of me! He doesn’t even know me. He never bothered. He chose this other family to know. To raise. To love. He didn’t pick me… he didn’t pick me, Shea.” My throat hurts from trying to hold back my emotions, and I can’t do it anymore. Feeling safe with her, I let myself cry over a relationship that was doomed from the day I was born.
“It’s okay, Will.” She runs her fingers through my hair. It’s soothing and calming.
“I can’t believe he tells them stories about me.”
“It sounds like he wanted them to know you. You’ve never been open to having a relationship with him, right? You told me that.”
“No. But he never tried, either. It was never my responsibility to fix our fucked up family.”
“No, it wasn’t, Will. And I’m sure there is a lot more a good father would have done,” she agrees. “Good fathers would never let their sons believe they weren’t loved. That they were unwanted. He obviously was not a good father to you and Max.
“Every day of my life, even when my dad was angry with me, I knew he loved me more than anything. He lived and breathed it. It showed in everything he did for me and my sister and my mom. I wish you could have had that. I’m sorry you didn’t.”
I nod my head. “I had Jon.” I want to make sure she knows I had someone who loved me like that. I’d be a lot more damaged if I hadn’t had him.
“You’re very lucky to have him, too.”
“I know. Even when we were fighting, I knew he had my back.”
“Good.”
“A part of me thinks I should consider his apology…”
“Really?”
“I intend to see Laramie and Harmon again. I can’t just turn my back on them; cross my fingers and hope they turn out okay. Who’s their Jon, you know? Who’s going to challenge them to be better than they are; to reach for things far beyond Divide? I can’t trust my father to do that.”
She wipes the remnants of tears away from beneath my eyes and kisses me.
“But I can’t forgive him until he makes changes, Shea. Until he accepts Max. Until he accepts you.” I take her hair in my hands, saving it from the billowing wind.
“Then make those ultimatums. You have the upper hand. You’re in control, Will. Didn’t you get that from your meeting with him today?” I shake my head. “I did. If you weren’t, he never would have come back out and apologized, or said he was proud. He would have turned on the water hose and chased us off the property. And who knows what his apology was encompassing?”
“I guess that’s true. I guess I have time to think about it… and talk to Max. I think it’s a decision we both have to make. We both vowed to leave him in the past.”
“You have no ties to him,” she says. “No obligations. Everything going forward can be whatever you two want. I don’t think you’ve made any mistakes. You have a family name you’re proud of. You’ve made peace with your mother. You told your dad what you wanted to tell him. The next move is yours. Whatever you want.” She kisses me again.
I dwell on that for a minute or two, then let it go for the night. “I want to get this date back on track,” I tell her.
“Yeah?”
I smile and kiss her. “Wanna make out under the stars?”
“I know your ideal date doesn’t have us simply making out, Will. That’s cute.”
“I was just trying to be polite and ease my way into it, Shea. You always know what my intentions are. Of course my perfect date would end with sex… under Sirius, with Gemini keeping a watchful eye on our surroundings.”
“What’s most comfortable for you?” she asks.
“Just like this, I’m afraid.”
“Perfect,” she says, unbuttoning my jeans for me. “But I think I’d like to share the same vantage point as you again…”
“Meaning…” I finish pulling down my clothes as she turns around and partially undresses, keeping the blankets tucked under her arms. “Backwards?” I ask, touching her behind, then pulling her onto me slowly. “Fuuuuck…” We both lean back, me against the seat of the car, her against me.
“Look up at the sky,” she says, taking my hands in hers and placing them strategically on her body, “see how vast it is. Imagine we’re the only two people on earth, and it’s our last day together. How would you make love to me then?”
I pause for a second. “Are you telling me you’re going home tomorrow?”
“I am. You guys are getting back on the road,” she says, exhaling a heavy breath as she moves against me.
I close my eyes, regretting the time we didn’t have together this past week and wishing we had more time tonight. I should just focus on the time we do have. “I love you.”
“I love you,” she says back to me.
The next morning, we’re bundled in coats as we say goodbye in the hotel parking lot. After we’d made it back in the early morning hours, we made love again. Neither of us have slept much in the past forty-eight hours, and both of us are feeling the effects of that. Plus, I don’t think our exposure to the frigid air last night was good for either of us. I think we’ve both caught colds.
“Promise me you’ll stop somewhere to sleep the second you get tired,” I tell her.
“I promise. And it will probably be soon. I don’t think I’ll make it far.”
“Just stay here,” I urge her. “I’ll book it now.”
She raises her brow, uncertain, but starts to smile. I kiss the exposed dimple. “You wouldn’t mind?”
“I would feel much better knowing you were rested before attempting to drive back to Minneapolis.”
“Okay,” she says.
“Guys?” I yell to the bus. “I’ll be right back!”
“We’re already late, Will!” Alex says.
“Five minutes, I promise.” We go inside to reserve the room one more night for her.
“I think I’ll go get some medicine.”
“Yeah, I’ll have them make a stop for me, too.”
“I’m sorry I got you
sick.”
“I got you sick. It was my ideal date.”
“Do you regret it?”
“Fuck, no. It was the best immobile sex of my life,” I whisper in her ear before meeting her for a kiss. It’s an abbreviated one since neither of us can breathe out of our noses.
“It was… otherworldly,” she says coyly, biting her lip. “The setting, the man, the night… your love. Will, if I could spend every night like that, I would.”
“Well, I guess I need to find a way to make that happen.”
“Please do,” she says softly, kissing me once more after I give her the key card. “Be safe.”
“Of course. I’ll call you tonight when we get to Albuquerque.”
I’m the last one to board the bus–again.
“You look like hell, man,” Damon says.
“It’s just because I haven’t slept. I don’t feel that bad.”
“You guys were quiet…”
“You were probably in a deep sleep by the time we started making noise in the hotel room. We didn’t get in until three-thirty.” He raises his brows at me. “Clear skies. We were out in the middle of nowhere. When else would I have the chance to see the stars like this?”
“See the stars, my ass.” I shrug my shoulders and grin sheepishly. “I fucking know you too well.”
“We did talk stars for awhile, for the record. You know how they excite me, though…” I joke with him. “It was the perfect night. Absolutely perfect.”
“Wasn’t it cold?”
“Yeah, it got cold after awhile. We know how to keep each other warm. We learned that pretty quickly… basic human survival, Damon.”
“Do we need to stop?” Alex asks from the front passenger seat. I make eye contact with our driver, Elijah, in the rearview mirror and shake my head, knowing we have a gallon of orange juice in our fancy new fridge.
“I’m good for now.”
“I’m sure we’ll pull over in Denver, anyway.”
“How’d it go with your dad, Will?” Peron asks.
“Not good… but not like I thought it would go, either. I met my sisters.”
“You have sisters?” Bradley asks.
“Half-sisters. They’re three and five, I think. Cute little things…” I remember the eyes of the youngest one. “Strange how much Harmon looked like Max, since he looks so much like Mom. I’m the one that looks like my father. I wish I had taken a picture of them.”
“What happened?” Tavo asks.
“My racist father threatened to chase Shea and me away with a water hose. That set the tone for a pretty bad meeting, honestly.”
“You should have taken me with you,” Damon says.
“Shit, you didn’t even want me to go!”
“I didn’t know he was gonna be a dick to my girl.” I glare at him, giving him a chance to rethink his statement. “Your girl... Who I would help you defend, for you.”
“Right,” I say, laughing.
“I’m using ‘my girl’ in the colloquial sense.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I’m dying to know what happened!” Peron says, standing up and swiping my arm to get my attention. I tell them all the details as I remember them, getting looks of sympathy at the end of my story. “What do you think he was sorry for?”
“It felt like a bulk-apology. You know, everything rolled into one short little phrase that would never suffice for what he’s done to us.”
“It’s hard to close the door on that, though.” Peron’s thought process is so much like mine sometimes, it’s scary. I think that’s why we’re good writing partners, though. I nod my head.
“It’s not my decision alone to make. I’ll talk to Max when I get home... I figure, whatever happens, it’ll be years before anything’s settled. With me going back to school and my brother getting ready for his senior year and college–I hope–we’ll both be too busy to deal with his mess. The only things I care to keep tabs on for now are those girls. I want to make sure they’re not being tainted by his narrow-mindedness. They’ll have opportunities beyond Divide that they should know about when they’re older, so I want to keep in touch with them. I want to keep the lines of communication open, so I have to figure out how to make that happen without having to get the asshole too involved.”
“That sounds pretty challenging.”
“Yeah. Challenging. Not impossible. I may just have to bend a little.”
“Flexibility’s not your strong suit,” Tavo informs me.
I laugh at his observation. “I can change.”
“He’s made significant changes,” Damon says, sticking up for me. Peron nods.
“Thanks, guys. Peron, you feel like writing?”
“Is this one for your contract?”
“You mean the one I haven’t signed? No. This one’s fair game.”
“Then sure, man… about anything but love.”
“It’s your lucky day. I’ve been seeing toxic images since I left that mobile home yesterday. We’re writing about him. I swore to myself I’d never memorialize him in a song, but I’ve got to get this out of my head and onto paper.”
“Let’s do it.”
“Can I have it?” Damon asks.
“Let’s see if you like it after,” Peron says. “Then we’ll talk money.”
I nod and bump fists with him, liking the beginning of his negotiation tactics, even if he’s talking out of his ass to my best friend.
“Bitches,” Damon mumbles under his breath, sitting down in between us with a pencil and pad of paper to write down whatever we tell him to.
By the time we get to Albuquerque, not only is the song written, but we have two parts for lead guitar, a solid bass line, and Tavo’s frantically unloading his kit into the hotel ballroom, which happens to be vacant tonight, thankfully.
Alex is on the phone with the label, confident that they’ll want to include the song on Damon’s upcoming album, even though the song list was already finalized. He said that there had been talk that they needed another song in a minor key to round things out, and this one was above and beyond what they’d hoped for.
We’re all tuning our instruments, more excited to play than to eat, even though none of us have had a real meal all day. We’re functioning off Cheez-Its, Oreos, sodas and beer at this point, fueled by how much we all like this song about a person we all can agree we do not like.
“Guys, are we ready?” Alex shouts out to us, pointing his phone in our direction. Damon does his trademark peace-sign to the camera, greeting the executives who are watching us.
“Ready?” Damon turns around and asks us. I look at Bradley to make sure he feels good about his part, and he nods at me.
“Yeah.”
“Tavo may be a little rusty. It’s his first time on the kit–”
“Fuck you! I’ve got this!” he yells.
“Scratch that,” Damon says. “We’re all ready. This is Oleander Petals.”
I start in with a strong guitar lick, and Bradley joins me two eight-counts in. The bass line picks up one later, followed quickly by Tavo before everything silences to a hush as Damon starts in on the first verse.
Strong hands never cradled me
Or helped me fix my tie
A deep voice never comforted
The little one who cried
The dim bulbs that need changing
Were always out of reach
Can a boy grow to his worth
When no one’s there to teach?
Oleander petals on her pillow
Words of love professed with venom’d tongue
Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand
The air you breathed was CO in her lung
“dad” was always just a noun
I never deemed it proper
And when Mom called you other things
You made sure to stop her
Was it the drugs and alcohol
That fucked with your mindset
Made you name me aft
er you
To help you not forget?
Oleander petals on her pillow
Words of love professed with venom’d tongue
Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand
The air you breathed was CO in her lung
Mistook me for a quiet child
Thought I’d never say a word
Now I’ve come to see the man
And make sure that I’m heard
How can I look just like you
And still think who the hell
Is this person standing next to me
His frame, a soulless shell?
Without this father in my life
I never learned to brawl
Or how to hate for differences
In anything at all
I fell in love with someone
You would certainly oppose
But she and I will start a life
That’s nothing like you chose
Oleander petals on her pillow
Words of love professed with venom’d tongue
Mom’s cheeks caressed, still rosy from your backhand
The air you breathed was CO in her lung
As the song begins to wind down, Alex takes his phone out into the hallway. We finish it out for ourselves, giving Tavo a chance to experiment with his instrument. Damon begins the applause first, and we all join in, pretty pleased with the outcome of our day’s work. The lyrics were all mine; the music, mine and Peron’s, but I’ve never felt more supported by the band than I was today.
“They want it for Damon,” our manager says, bursting in through the doors, “at the higher royalty rate.” I shake Peron’s hand, extremely happy that the song stays with my best friend.
“You can’t fucking leave me,” he says to me as he hugs me after I’ve put my guitar in its case.
“I’ll always be here in spirit, man. And I’ll be back. You know that.” He nods his head. “And fuck the bonus deal on the contract. I’ll write songs for you over the next year. If Peron wants to write with me long distance, I think that’s what we should do. I’ll just have a library of songs for them, and a separate one for you.”
