For the Love of a Lush (Lush No. 2)

by Selena Laurence

  I don’t normally do things like hug, but she’s so cute that I decide to make an exception.

  "I told you you’d kill it. You’re going to have to learn to trust me. I hope you’re ready to spend your whole summer driving to Dallas and Austin because you’re going to be booked every Saturday night for a few months."

  She bounces around on her seat and then calls Mike while I take us to our next appointment.

  By the time Jenny and I get back to the hotel that night, she’s got her first three bookings and a possible fourth if the club can adjust its schedule. The money isn’t great, but right now, she needs exposure more than she needs the money, so I choose not to push too hard on that point. By the end of the summer, we’ll be able to demand higher pay and she’ll be ready to play some larger venues. Maybe open for a local celebrity or a band that’s past their prime. I can’t help but smile at the day’s success.

  And that’s when the sorrow hits me, because the first person—really, the only person—I want to call and tell about all of this is Walsh. And I can’t. I know I can’t. It leaves me with a bittersweet feeling in my gut. Joy for Jenny and everything I know we can accomplish together, but sorrow for me because I no longer have him to share it with.

  I don’t want to rain on Jenny’s parade, so after we eat dinner, I give the excuse of being tired and go to my room. Outside my door, I can hear her talking on the phone in the living room. "Mama, you won’t believe what happened today—"

  My chest burns, and my eyes as well. I draw the curtains, lie down on the bed, and remember his voice. "I love you, Tammy. God, I love you."

  Walsh

  I CAN’T believe I went for nearly a year without my own wheels. What the fuck was the matter with me? After I finish the AA meeting in Dallas, I hit a music store and rent a kit. It’s nearly the last of my reserve money, but it’s completely worth it to have the chance to pound the skins again.

  I pull into town at nine p.m. on Sunday night. I’ve got work first thing in the morning and nowhere to sleep. I’d really rather not spend the night in my truck. In addition, I’m still in the same clothes I passed out in at the park. I’m rank, and I need a shower. I had the foresight to grab a duffle bag of stuff while I was at the ranch earlier in the day, but I didn’t put much thought into where I’d live now.

  I cruise around town slowly, ending up right where I knew I would—Mrs Stallworth’s boarding house. I park out front and try to finger-comb my hair into some semblance of order. It’s relatively hopeless. When I ring the bell, it’s after nine and I hope I don’t wake the little ancient wonder. Moments after I ring, however, there she is, dressed like always in a cotton dress that looks like something a 1940s housewife would have worn, hair tightly wound into her white bun.

  "Well, I’ve been waiting for you," she says.

  I grin, fascinated by the way she always seems to know what I’m doing before I do.

  "Hi, Mrs. S.," I say as I walk into the foyer.

  "You have to stay in the basement," she tells me as she motions for me to follow her.

  "How did you know I needed a place to stay?" I ask, perplexed.

  "Well, Leanne told Barb at the mayor’s office you’d moved off the ranch, and Barb asked me if you’d moved in here. I said you hadn’t, but I figured you would. Especially since she’s gone."

  My heart crumples like a piece of tissue paper at the mention of Tammy. I knew she’d be gone—I wanted her gone—but thinking of her makes me hurt anyway.

  "So…" I clear my throat, shaking off the sensation of aching for something I don’t understand yet. "What’s in the basement? Do I have to stay with the rats and snakes?"

  She scoffs and shuffles off down the hallway that leads from the front of the house straight through to the back. At the end, next to the back door, is a staircase. We head down, and I’m greeted by a fully finished basement with a lounge, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.

  "You can pick which room you want. Bring your sheets up to get a new set once a week, and pick up after yourself down here. It’s $150 a week, and that includes breakfast and dinner. You have to do dishes on Wednesdays."

  I set my duffle bag down. "I’ve got one question, Mrs. S."

  I see a little smile nudging her lips at my new nickname for her. "Well, come on. What is it? I don’t have all night. I’ve got an episode of Scandal waiting on the DVR," she snips at me.

  "You know I play the drums?"

  "Of course. Everyone in town knows. You’re a big rock star, but I don’t care about that, so don’t go thinking you can get out of doing the dishes because you have groupies."

  I look at her, stunned. "Everyone in town knows?"

  She snorts. "The town is small, boy, but it’s not another planet. We get E! TV here too."

  "No one ever said a word…" I’m incredulous.

  "We figured if you wanted to talk about it you would. We have better manners than you big-city folks do."

  I feel like a chump. All this time, Mike and I thought we were so crafty. Total chumps. "So, uh, do you think it would be okay if I brought my drums down here to practice?" I ask, fully expecting her to freak out.

  "My oldest boy?" she responds, seemingly off-topic. "He’s an idiot. He runs the bank now. All bankers are idiots. He used to play that electric guitar. All day and all night. If I could survive that, I can survive anything. But keep them out of my way. At my age, if I trip over a bunch of drums, it’ll put me in the hospital."

  "Yes, ma’am," I tell her, trying very hard not to smile and thinking that I need to go by the bank tomorrow to see this idiot son of hers for myself.

  "Good. I’m going to bed now. Lock up the front door when you’re done bringing your things in. And I don’t know when that girl’s coming back, but there’s no sneaking upstairs in the middle of the night. I’ve got ears like a bat. I’ll know the minute you try anything funny, boy." She shakes a bony little finger at me.

  I think back to the night before, Tammy and me in her bed upstairs, me pumping into her over and over, her gasps, my moans. I sneak a glance at Mrs. Stallworth’s hearing aids that curve around the backs of her ears. Somehow I think her bat-like hearing may be an exaggeration, but I nod my assent anyway.

  Later on, after I’ve brought everything in from the truck and set up my kit in the lounge area of the basement, I lie in bed and finally let myself replay the night before in my mind. I remember the feel of Tammy’s hand in mine as she led me to her room, the way she so gently slipped my clothes off. How she gave me that first tentative touch like she was afraid I’d reject her, turn her down, even standing there with all of her overwhelming beauty in front of me. I don’t think she realized that I was a goner the first moment her hands smoothed along my skin. It’s a wonder she could have possibly doubted how desperately I wanted her. Really, how desperately I always want her.

  Tammy’s become a better person in the months we’ve been apart. She’s survived a nervous breakdown and my walking out and come out the other side stronger, kinder, smarter. She controls her temper, she listens to people, and she’s even restarting her career without a single thing from me. I want to be with that woman more than I want anything else in my life, but what if she decides that I’m too fucked up to bother with and leaves me for someone else again? I lay in her bed last night and those thoughts cycled through my head over and over again. When it got to be too much, I finally gave in and drank.

  But now I’m done punishing myself. It’s not an answer—for Tammy or for me. Just like I realized this morning that I can crawl in a bottle and die or I can choose to live, I also realize that I can sit back and watch someone else take the girl who will always be the love of my life or I can figure out how to be with her. Make myself into the kind of guy who can hold on to a woman like her. Learn to trust her again. Learn to give her what she needs. I only hope she’ll still be there waiting when I get done.

  I SPEND the next week doing three things: working, driving to Dallas for AA meetings, and banging on
the drums. Ronny has meetings at the ranch, but I need to do this on my own. Make the drive, face the strangers, admit my weaknesses so I can get stronger. The three hours of driving each day is tiring, but I still make sure to come home at night and practice for an hour. It feels good. Lets my mind rest and reenergizes me. One thing I can say I’ve learned now—I can’t let my music go again the way I did this last year.

  I eat breakfast with Mrs. S. every day, and she leaves me dinners to warm up at night after I get back from Dallas. I’m getting attached to the little crusty thing, and I make a mental note to mow her lawn this weekend and see if there’re any other chores that need to be done around the place on my day off.

  Mike is still at the ranch. He and Ronny seem fine with him staying there for the time being. We haven’t talked much. He’s been working with a different group of guys out on the north acreage, and Ronny’s kept me closer to home, giving me jobs around the barns and the house. I’ve become a pretty competent carpenter during the last few months, and I put that to use more this week, even building a really cool set of shelves and cabinets in the garage for storage. I like the challenge of figuring out how to make it look a certain way but also function in a certain way. The two things aren’t always complementary, and it’s like solving a puzzle to make them mesh.

  When Saturday afternoon rolls around, I’m looking forward to having Sunday off, and I skip a meeting so that I can mow Mrs. Stallworth’s lawn after dinner. I’m outside, shirt off, sweating up a storm as I do a fancy crosshatch pattern with the mower when I see a familiar red Mustang pull up to the curb right behind my truck. Tammy emerges, long legs bare in cut-offs, her hair up in a high ponytail. She’s wearing Keds with no socks and an old Lush t-shirt that’s shrunk just enough to bare a tiny strip of skin above the waist of her shorts. I stop mowing and kill the engine. Then I stand there and just soak her in, every luscious, golden, smooth inch of her.

  She grabs her bags out of the trunk and starts up the sidewalk. When she draws nearer, she stops and raises her sunglasses onto the top of her head. She squints at me a touch.

  "Walsh? What are you doing?"

  I grin at her cute little nose all wrinkled. "Mowing the lawn. If you can’t tell, I must be doing it all wrong."

  "No, I mean, what are you doing here? At Mrs. Stallworth’s?"

  I scratch my head. "Well, I’m staying here. I mean, it’s kind of the only place in town to stay. I’m working out at the ranch, but I can’t live there anymore since… Well, since I downed a fifth of J.B. in a couple of hours last weekend."

  She purses her lips. "Okay. Well, I guess I can head back to Dallas then. I came for a couple of days because I was worried about Mrs. Stallworth getting lonely, but since you’re here, she’s fine, and it’s probably better if I’m not here too." She turns and walks back toward the car.

  "Whoa, Tam! Wait. You just got here. Slow down." I step to where she’s frozen on the front walk, her chin tipped up defiantly. "You don’t have to go. Mrs. Stallworth will kill me if she finds out I let you leave. She’s up there dusting your room every day. I’m a poor-ass substitute. She can’t stop singing your praises. Seriously."

  "Really?" she asks quietly.

  "Yes." I catch myself reaching out to her hand and quickly drop my arm back to my side. "You’re by far her favorite. She tolerates me at best."

  "Huh. She barely tolerates everyone. She only likes me because I fold the laundry and don’t mention when she sneaks chocolate while she’s cooking dinner."

  I laugh, and Tammy smiles. It might be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen all week.

  "And what about you? I mean, you don’t want me here. I don’t want to force myself on you again," she says, bitterness leaching into her voice even though her expression remains neutral.

  "No," I’m quick to respond. "No, it’s not like that. I want you to be wherever you want to be."

  "Which is it, Walsh? You’ve wanted me gone for weeks, and now it’s fine if I’m in town—in the same house as you? You walked away from me at the diner like I was something you couldn’t get rid of fast enough." She pauses, seeming to collect herself. "And I understand that. I get I’ve been…—well, too much like I always am. I get that I never should have come here and pushed myself into your world. And I’m trying to get out of it as fast as I can. Once I get Jenny’s summer tour schedule set, I can go back to Portland. Or at least to Dallas or Austin and manage everything from there. I can stay out of your way, but staying in the same house as you really won’t do that."

  It hits me like a brick to the gut, the thought of her leaving my world like that. The thought of being so far from her again. She may have forced her way into town, but I didn’t realize until right this moment how I’ve been absorbing her essence every moment she’s been here.

  "No," I tell her sincerely. "Don’t let me ruin your visit, Tammy. And come back whenever you want. I’ll stay out of your way, and I’ll be back at work first thing Monday morning. You’ll hardly even know I’m here."

  I hear her mumble something like, "I wish," but then she clears her throat and straightens her spine. "Okay. Well, then, I’m going to go on in. I guess I’ll see you around or whatever." She marches up the walk and into the house.

  I take a deep breath and let it out slowly as things inside me zing like there are moths in there bouncing around, touching first on my heart, next on my gut, and then on some tender place so far inside me that I’m not sure exactly where it lies.

  I watch the early evening sunlight as it filters through the big trees along the block. They’re almost fully dressed in their summer leaves now, and tiny bugs are swarming all over in their branches. Birds are flying back and forth, snatching at the bugs, feasting before they go silent for the night. It’s a moment in time, a late spring evening, standing on the edge between the hustle and bustle of day and the silent peace of night. It feels like my life right now, this edge that I’m balancing on. But will I step toward the light or the dark? Today, after seeing Tammy emerge from that car, with her energy and her vibrancy, I know I want to go to the day, to the light, to all that’s warm and wild and fresh. Like her. I want to go to her. If I can only figure out how.

  TAMMY COMES and goes in the next two days, and as promised, we stay far away from one another. But seeing her, listening to her plans for Jenny, an idea starts to form in my mind. I think it through over the next few days, and finally on Wednesday, I go to Mike after we finish our shift at the ranch.

  "Hey, man," I call out to him as he emerges from the bunkhouse when Leanne rings the dinner bell.

  "What’s up?" he asks, striding over to where I stand by my truck in the front parking circle.

  "Wondering if you want to go to dinner in town? I’ve got a business proposition for you."

  One side of his mouth tilts up and he gives me a wry smile. "A business proposition? Really?"

  "Yeah. Really."

  He shrugs in that I don’t give a shit way he has. "All right, but you’re buying if you’re going to proposition me."

  I roll my eyes. "Burgers at The Bronco it is, then. ‘Cause I gave all my money away. Remember?"

  Mike laughs, and we head to my truck and bump our way into town.

  At The Bronco, we manage to find seats in a back corner away from most of the noise and commotion. Jimmy’s got some sort of Hump Day sliders promo going on, so the place is packed with people who seem intent on making tiny hamburgers their dinners.

  "Well, didn’t expect to see you two back anytime soon," Marsha drawls as she saunters up to our table and sets down two glasses of ice water. "You planning on jumping anyone tonight or can I tell Jimmy to put the shotgun back under the bar?"

  I chuckle at her melodrama. "Jesus, Marsha, it was a little barroom scuffle. Chill out, will ya?"

  "You’re just lucky the little scuffle ended before Ray Henry brought that beer mug down on your head. You’ve obviously got a ridiculously thick skull, but I’m not sure anyone could have made it through that."
She plants her hands on her hips, daring me to challenge her on it further.

  "All’s well that ends well," I tell her. "Can we get some service here, or is it lectures only tonight?" I cock an eyebrow at her and see a smirk peeking through. Yeah, Marsha can’t ever stay mad at me for long.

  She sighs. "What’ll you two bums have?"

  Mike throws an arm around her waist and pulls her into his lap. "Maybe just a little bite of you, sassy," he gloats.

  "Get off of me, you big ape," she responds, standing and smoothing her skirt down. "Come on, boys. I don’t have all night."

  "Two burgers, a basket of fries, a Bud for Mike, and O.J. and club for me," I tell her as Mike continues to tug at her waitress apron and generally annoy the shit out of her.

  "You need to get laid or something?" I ask him after Marsha leaves to fill our order.

  He scrubs a hand over his scruffy cheeks. "If only it were that simple," he laments.

  "You going to tell me about it?"

  "Nah. Just get to the business proposition. I’m watching a movie over at Jenny’s in a bit."

  "Oh you are, huh?" I can’t help but give him a shit-eating grin. She must be putting him through his paces. Mike’s never put up with that crap from a woman before. Fucker deserves whatever she does to him.

  "Walsh—" he warns.

  I put my hands up in surrender. "Okay. So here’s the deal. Until the little fight the other night, I thought we had something real going with Jenny. It was great, and like you and Tammy, I can see that Jenny’s got a lot of talent. If you’re going to go out on tour with her this summer you’re going to need a full band—bassist, fiddle, maybe a piano, and of course, a drummer."

  "You serious?" he asks, leaning forward to put his elbows on the table. "You want to play backup for Jenny?"

  "I do. It felt good to play. So good that I went and picked up a kit in Dallas. I’ve been playing every night at the boarding house. I like it."