It took a while, but over time Mac seriously began to question her decision to come to Los Angeles. She loved music—always had—but she simply had no patience for the politics of the business, or for that matter many of her female counterparts who, unlike her, had no problem sleeping their way to the top of the corporate ladder. She’d never doubted her abilities as an independent businesswoman or her eye for legitimate musical talent, but that wasn’t the problem. The fact was, in a world of stoned roadies, rockstar divas, and scumbag A&R guys who’d just as soon poach someone else’s clients as find their own, all the drive and zeal in the world didn’t guarantee success. In the end, L.A. was all about “the lucky break,” and those who didn’t get it were just spinning their wheels.
Still, the only alternative was to pack up and go home… back to the same old bar, the same old people, and the same old life that she’d spent her entire savings account and the bulk of her 20s trying to escape.
One night, following an extremely heated argument with one of her musicians in which a vodka bottle had been hurled at her head, Mac clocked out early and rushed home, teetering on the edge of insanity. Enraged and exhausted from not only the conflict but everything else in her miserable life, she collapsed down on the bed and slammed a pillow over her face, fighting as best she could to stave off both the sobs building in her chest and the complete mental breakdown that now seemed all but imminent. After a few moments and in desperate need of a friendly voice, she reached a trembling hand to her nightstand, picked up the phone, and dialed the one number that came almost instinctively to mind.
“Hello…” a groggy voice stammered.
“Damn it!” she blurted miserably, wiping her eyes and staring at the bedside alarm clock. “I’m so sorry, Lee. I forgot about the time difference. Please, go back to sleep, okay? Really, I’m so sorry.” Her words came like rapid fire over the phone.
“Hey, hey, hey, it’s alright. Don’t worry about it,” he said, now audibly awake and alert with the awareness that something was very wrong. “Ya know what? I needed to get an early start on today anyway, so this is actually good. What’s up?”
“No, no, it’s okay. Really,” she fumbled, her voice cracking under the stress as the tears began to fall. “I’m sorry I woke you up, Lee. Please, go back to bed, okay? I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”
“I know it’s not, Mac, so c’mon,” he pressed. “Talk to me, alright? Besides, it ain’t like I’ve never dragged you out of bed at all hours of the night, only in my case I was drunk and stupid, not mixed up and in trouble…”
She hiccupped a giggle.
“Now don’t make me hop a redeye out there and browbeat it outta you in person, because you know I will. Just try to calm down and talk to me, Mac. I’ve got nothin’ but time, and it’s all yours. Whatever this is, we’ll get through it. I promise.”
In the three and a half hours that followed, Mac proceeded to unload everything on him, starting with the fight at the club then chronicling each and every exhaustive element of her embattled life—from her constant dealings with obnoxious musicians, to her inability to escape the service industry, to the hypocrisy of the record business, and culminating with the complete and utter state of loneliness which she now found herself. Throughout the conversation, Lee was mostly silent—opting instead to listen patiently and let her get it all out, though occasionally reassuring her that he understood why she was so down and offering an uplifting compliment or a show of confidence in her where he could.
Once the call finally came to a close, and Mac had eluded sleep as long as she could, Lee hung up the phone and lamented the fact that he couldn’t be there for her in person. He’d known Mac long enough to know that by her very nature, she was a doer, and doers hate losing control. When faced with a problem, Mac would work herself into a virtual frenzy to fix it or drive herself nuts in the process. She couldn’t help it; it’s just who she was. Only in this case, no amount of hard work or dedication would bring her the answers she was looking for.
It also wasn’t lost on Lee just how much pride she’d swallowed to call him that night. Mac was always the first one in line to help someone in need but when the time came for her to be that person, it took a meltdown the size of a nuclear reactor to get her to speak up. Then again, it takes one to know one in the pride department and if his own set of demons at the time was any indication, he knew he couldn’t fault her much there.
In the end, he wasn’t sure if their talk had done any good. He only hoped that if Mac had taken anything away from their conversation it was that—no matter the circumstance or the hour—she could always “call home” when she needed, just like Greg Allman had said.
Much to Lee’s delight, that would be the first of many calls between the two over the next year; some angry vent sessions as the first had been, while others were more of the casual “What’s up?” variety. Still, regardless of the nature of the call or how busy he was when it came, it was just always nice to hear from her, and after a while it began to dawn on Lee just how true that was. Granted, the two had been close from the beginning, but their relationship had always been defined within the context of the group. However that was changing now and he, for one, was okay with that.
After several agonizing months of weighing the pros and cons of sticking it out in L.A. versus returning home, Mac finally managed to set aside her pride long enough to make three calls; one to her parents, alerting them to her decision; one to a children’s charity about her furniture and TV; then a third to a cabbie for a one-way trip to LAX airport.
Several hours later on the drive to the McKinsey house, Lee observed Mac’s quiet stare through the passenger-side window of his Jeep and tried his best to understand what she was thinking. It went without saying that the choice to leave L.A. had been a tough one for her, but he wondered if anyone (himself included) would ever truly understand the bitter taste of that decision. In coming home, Mac had effectively abandoned everything she’d spent her adult life working to build, and Lee couldn’t imagine the kind of emotional hell that had played on her psyche. It would take a while for her to come completely to grips with all of it, if she ever really did; but at least this way he could be there for her personally while she tried. He was grateful for that.
Then again, the ear-shattering shriek of joy that ripped through his skull upon her seeing Danny and Hamish outside the bar—waiting in surprise for a celebratory Happy Hour in honor of her return—reaffirmed his belief that, in time, she’d be alright. After all, some things were worth coming home to.
****
“So how’s it going down there in Margaritaville?” Mac asked. “You still babysitting all the world leaders of tomorrow?”
“Always you with the sarcasm,” Lee chuckled. “Just because you never had a prof as cool as me in college, that’s still no justification for jealousy.”
Mac snorted a laugh, nearly choking on the sip of soda she’d just taken. “Give it time,” she gasped, wiping her mouth. “My guess is that halfway through the semester, they’ll peg you for the same lovable, bumpkin-loser that all of your friends did years ago.”
“Your belief in me is inspirin’ Mac, really. Appreciate that,” he muttered, drawing another grin back at him through the webcam monitor.
“Hey BTW, how are the ribs?” she asked.
“Not bad,” Lee shrugged. “Still a little sore, but I’m already back out on the board.”
“Nice! Danny says you’re actually getting pretty decent on that thing.”
“I try,” he said, perusing through the file he’d just uploaded. “Hey speakin’ of Danny, how’s he really doin’ anyway? I mean, I talked to him earlier today, and he seemed like his usual machismo self. But even so, I could still tell he’s pretty stressed.”
Mac’s lips thinned. “No doubt,” she agreed. “Let’s face it; he’s been on the unemployment line for a while now and you of all people can appreciate what that does to a person.”
Lee nodded.
/> “I tell him he should pick up the phone and call his Dad for help, but—”
“That’ll never happen,” he interrupted. “Those two have been at odds for years—ever since Danny blew off the family shrink business to become, as his father put it, a lowly civil servant.” Lee shook his head in disgust. “It all came to a head when his Mom got sick, though.”
“ALS, wasn’t it?” Mac wondered.
“Yeah,” said Lee. “It was bad, too, Mac… particularly there at the end. Danny doesn’t talk about it much—for obvious reasons—but the way I understand it, she didn’t have a clue who he even was in those last few weeks; and even then the nurses said he still refused to leave. Doctor visits—second, third, and fourth opinions—clinical screw-ups… trips to the bathroom for god’s sake! He was there for everything.” Lee sat up straight and ruffled his hair. “Ya know, I ain’t above throwin’ the occasional jab at Danny for how he conducts his love life; that’s no secret. But I’m here to tell ya… that boy loved his Mom.”
“Where was his dad through all of this?” Mac asked, drawing a snort from Lee.
“Oh, the good Dr. Tucker was otherwise occupied at the time,” he said sardonically. “He was holed up in a condo on South Beach—a bottle in one hand and his 23-year-old psych patient in the other… drunk son of a bitch!”
Mac’s face oozed with revulsion, and Lee felt his fists clinch.
“Anyway,” he continued after cooling off. “Maggie’s passing pretty much sealed the deal between Danny and the Tucker family tree. To my knowledge, he hasn’t spoken to any of ‘em since the funeral, and that’s been almost five years now. Can’t say as I blame him, either.”
“Man, I can’t even imagine,” Mac murmured. “Being excommunicated from your own family like that… And there’s nobody on his Mom’s side of the family he can call?”
“Nobody’s left,” said Lee. “She was an only child, and her folks died of old age when Danny was just a toddler. He never even knew them.”
Mac stared in disbelief back through the webcam, and Lee thought he had a pretty good inkling what was going through her mind. In a lot of ways, Danny had always been like a brother to her too. Plus, given that she’d always been thick as thieves with her own family, it stood to reason that a story like Danny’s would hit her pretty hard.
“So,” Lee said, feeling the need for a shift in conversation. “How’s life up there in Athens as the big boss lady of your own shop?”
She frowned.
“That good, huh?”
“It has its moments,” Mac conceded. “I mean, it’s not like management is anything new to me. Even though Dad hasn’t officially retired from the business, he took a back seat years ago. So it’s not like I had to learn how to run a bar or anything.” Her head fell back as she billowed a sigh. “I dunno. Athens isn’t a bad town. Honestly, if I were 20 years old and looking to get outta town for college, this would probably be a pretty ideal place, what with the local music scene and all. But I’m hell and gone from 20, and I’ve already done the ‘away from home on a dream and a prayer’ thing—not that running a bar was ever my dream…”
Mac paused reflectively for a moment, and Lee didn’t have to wonder why.
“Anyway,” she said after collecting her thoughts. “I’m just ready to come home is all. I miss my family, I miss my friends and at this point in my life, those are kinda what’s most important to me, ya know?” She paused with a light, throaty chuckle. “… Because god knows it’s not a real career!”
“Danny says you just need a GM and you’re outta there,” Lee offered.
“You’d think that’d be fairly easy, right?” she mocked, “but apparently not. I’ve spent the better part of six months looking for a qualified candidate to run this place so I can come home, but I have yet to meet someone I’d trust with my grocery list, much less the bar’s payroll and inventory books.”
“What about Tom?” Lee asked. “He’s been with you guys in Tally for years and he’s always wanted to go management, right?”
“He would’ve been the ideal choice, for sure,” Mac agreed. “He was next in line to run the Tally location before I came back from L.A. and we’d have definitely made it worth his while to move up here to run Athens—relo, salary, benefits, the whole nine—but he’s moving to Pittsburgh at the end of the year.”
“Pittsburgh?” Lee wondered aloud.
“Yeah. He got engaged a while back and his fiancée’s family apparently has some sort of cushy gig waiting for her up there. So he’s sticking around to work one more football season, and then he’s headed for PA.”
“Ouch, major bummer,” Lee muttered, a little saddened at the thought of losing one of his favorite bartenders, not to mention a good friend. “Hey, how’s Joel? He still workin’ security?”
“Joel got redeployed last summer,” Mac answered. “He’s supposed to be back sometime next spring, but who knows if he’ll even come back to Tally after that?”
“Hadn’t heard that. He say where he was headed?”
“Nah,” she shook her head. “But then again, those SEAL boys rarely ever do, so it’s anybody’s guess. All I know is he still owes me a cool 50 from the Bucs/Jets game last season, so he’d better make it back long enough to pay up—the bum!”
Lee flashed a smile and slumped back in his seat. He’d had some good times with those guys, and as much as he loved the Pourhouse, the place would never be the same without them.
“Garrett’s still there though,” Mac noted, drawing an eye roll from Lee.
“Shocker,” Lee grumbled. “That guy’ll be there until the day he dies. He still a big fan of the undergrad girls?”
“You know it!” she laughed. “Tom tells me that a few of the dayshifters have tagged him with a new nickname too… Dom.”
“Dom?” Lee asked, the reference failing to register.
“Yeah Dom, as in D.O.M… Dirty Old Man.”
Lee bellowed a laugh, almost knocking the water bottle onto his keyboard.
“I’ll give the guy credit, though,” she added once the hilarity had faded. “Younger girls or not, Garrett’s about the closest thing I have to a reliable staffer down there right now—outside of Tom, that is. He always shows up, always does his job, and never complains. D.O.M. or not, I need more of those.”
“So other than that, how’s business?”
“Eh, not bad” Mac shrugged. “Our numbers so far this year are definitely down, but if there’s an upside to this particular line of work, it’s that for the most part it’s as close to recession-proof as you can get. You know as well as I do—people are gonna drink. Be it because they’ve got money and want to spend it or because they’re broke and want to forget the fact, they’re gonna drink.”
“Bein’ down there on the strip next to campus doesn’t hurt though,” Lee observed, recalling the countless number of parental credit cards that could always be spotted piling into the Pourhouse register.
“Amen to that,” she grinned. “American Express… don’t leave Daddy’s home without it!”
Chapter 5: Virtual Reunions
“Evening, kids,” Danny said as his face appeared next to Mac’s in the upper left corner of Lee’s webcam screen. “Hope I’m not interrupting.”
“Negative, chief, just catchin’ up,” Lee said. “Come on in.”
“Hey Danny, you just get back in from a date or something?” Mac asked, eyeing his freshly shaven face and neatly styled blonde hair.
“No, why?”
“Because your hair… it’s like… all spiky!”
“Neah,” Danny shrugged, inspecting his rifle controller. “Just been bumming around the house all day, why?”
“Good grief, son,” she crowed. “I know chicks who spend less time in front of the mirror than you do. Seriously, how long does it take for you to get it to stick out like that, anyway?”
“And can it pick up ESPN Radio?” Lee chided.
“Both of you can kindly bite me,” Danny de
clared, though his expression quickly morphed into a sly grin. “Besides Mac, one never knows who might be stopping by later.”
“Skanks!” she gagged with a finger in her throat.
“Whatever,” said Danny. “So how’s life up there in Bulldog country?”
“Not bad,” Mac huffed. “Be a lot better if Ted Danson would step through the door of my bar and offer to run the place, though. I’ll give Athens this much; it blows the doors off of Tally when it comes to a local music scene.”
“That’s not hard to do,” Lee noted, remembering the town’s overabundance of mediocre cover bands.
“Yeah, tell me about it. Anyway, I finally got a night off last weekend and headed out with another one of the girls from the bar to this little dive off of Clayton Street, and the band there was absolutely fantastic. Lee, you’d have loved them. Very southern rock—but with a harder, power chord edge and a sort of folky lyrical twist. Between the sticky floors, the hot waitresses in halter tops, and the band, you guys would’ve been right at home.”
“Speaking of home, any news on when you get to come back to yours?” Danny asked.
“Hopefully sooner rather than later. The staff up here is pretty much set, so now it’s all about the GM. I’ve got three candidates interviewing later this week, so cross your fingers.”
“Sweet,” Lee replied. “If that works out, Danny’s been talkin’ about makin’ a trip over my way, and you oughta load up and come with if he does.”
“No argument here,” Mac agreed. “Oh, speaking of roadtrips… Danny, one of the girls from the bar up here is getting married in late November, and I need a date. Seeing as how you’ve got nothing better to do—tag, you’re it.”
“Yeah,” Danny droned, “I don’t do weddings anymore so you’re gonna need to find a Plan B on that. Sorry hun.”
“Oh c’mon, Danny,” Mac persisted. “I don’t have anyone else up here to go with me. Link’s flying home to Denver that weekend to visit his Dad, Hamish is bogged down with work, and Lee’s got class, which means you’re it. So get your unemployed butt off the couch, tell your stripper girlfriend that you’ve gotta wingman up for an old friend, and hit the road for Athens.”
Mako (The Mako Saga: Book 1) Page 5
