by BJ Knapp
“Hey, it’s me.”
“What’s going on? Are you at work?”
“No, I left early. Just too much going on right now. I can’t focus on anything.”
“I have the opposite going on here. I can distract myself with my work.” I hear his office door close; the noise of the shop is silenced. He’s in his office. “So, how’s it going with Hydra? Any ideas?”
“Well, why don’t we just go to a hotel while they’re here? Won’t that make it easier?” I already know he won’t go for it, but I figure I might as well try.
“Bren, you mean to tell me that you want us to move out until the rock stars see fit to leave? I will not be driven out of my home by these assholes.”
“Tim, you’re already out of your home. Where did you sleep last night?”
“That’s not the point. I stayed here not because they’re there. I stayed here because I saw my wife kissing one of them.”
“Well, these are our options. We can’t afford to pay for all of these people to live somewhere else.”
“Then I don’t want to see you until they’re gone, Bren.”
“Tim, come on. You can’t be serious.”
“Look, I did this for you. I knew that letting you live out your little teenage fantasy would make you happy. But you’re the one who took it too far. I need you to make a decision about this. How important am I to you? How important is our marriage?”
I sit quietly for a moment. I know he’s right. I have to find a way to get out of this. But how?
“Are you there?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say, tears streaming down my cheeks again.
“You didn’t say anything. So I guess I know my answer.”
“Tim...”
“Just go do whatever you want, Bren. I am done with this.” He hangs up the phone, and I sob into the dial tone until the robotic voice tells me to hang up. And then I get mad and call him back.
“What,” he grunts into the phone.
“What exactly are you done with, Tim? If you can’t trust me, then fine, I understand. But I don’t think I want to be married to someone who doesn’t trust me and won’t even try to forgive me. It was a mistake, Tim. A stupid fucking mistake. And if I apologize to you for the rest of my life, I will never live it down. So, if you want to play the poor husband whose wife kissed another man, then you go right ahead. Stay at your shop and move the fuck out. I am sure that Aria would be happy to have you.” I slam down the phone, but that’s not good enough. I throw it at the wall and the plastic casing shatters. The wires and microchip guts scatter all over the floor. I sit on the floor and lean against Tim’s side of the bed, sobbing into my hands. I hear a soft knock, and then the door opens.
“Brenda?” Keith asks. “I heard a noise. Are you okay?” He walks in and sits on the floor beside me. He brushes my hair off my face, takes a tissue from the box on Tim’s night table, and hands it to me.
“Okay, so here are my options,” I say, exhaling. “Plan A, leave things the way they are. Plan B, try to get you to stay in a motel. Plan C, move to a motel myself, knowing that Tim won’t go with me.” I dab at my eyes. “Any way I slice it, my marriage is over.”
“Brenda, Tim is just very angry right now. Surely he’ll come around.”
“I don’t think so. Not until you guys leave. How long does it really take to record an album?”
“Well, that depends on how well rehearsed we are. I’ve seen it take a week, and I’ve seen it take a year.”
“A year?” I leap off the floor. “A fucking year?”
“These are brand new songs, Brenda. We haven’t had the time to work out the kinks. We’re writing them as we go. It takes a bit of time for them to tighten the songs up before we record them.”
“So, dare I ask how far along you are?” I wipe my eyes with the back of my hands and start pacing. There is no way Tim and I can withstand a year of Hydra in the house.
“We’ve completed four songs so far. Nine more to go.”
“Nine more? That’ll take, what, two months?”
“That’s entirely possible,” he replies. “Sometimes we listen to them later and re-do them, too.”
“Keith, please listen to me.” I wipe the tears off my face and turn toward him. “I need you out of this house, whether it’s the whole band or just you. Will you please do that for me?”
“You know that Erik won’t allow that,” he replies.
“So you aren’t even going to try? What happened to being more likeable?” Now I’m just getting pissed. “Tell me, Keith, does Erik work for you, or do you work for Erik?”
“He doesn’t like to lose, Brenda. He will dig in on principle. That’s what makes him such a great band manager. He will not bend for anything.”
“Keith, I am begging you. Will you please try?”
He doesn’t even try to answer. He shuffles out, and I clean up the pile of phone guts and try to figure out what the hell I am going to do for the rest of the weekend.
Chapter 22
I WAKE UP ON SATURDAY MORNING sprawled across the center of the bed with my head on Tim’s pillow. I press my face into it and smell him on it; I feel a dull ache in my chest just from missing him. I roll over and see that it’s 11 a.m. I am thankful that I’ve slept the morning away and wish I was tired enough to sleep all of Saturday, too. Vito paces at the bedroom door; he needs to go out. I throw on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and say, “So let’s go for a walk. A long one that takes all day!” He wags his tail excitedly.
The kitchen is empty; hopefully everyone’s at Del’s. It’s nice to know that rock stars don’t take weekends off. For the moment, I have the house to myself, and I wish Tim was here to share the quiet with me. I imagine us eating a leisurely brunch and then deciding what to do with the rest of the day. A visit to Mystic Aquarium? Even better, a day in Boston? I wonder if we’ll ever again hold hands and stroll through the narrow winding streets of Boston’s North End. I can almost smell the garlic and the bread baking, just thinking about it. When did I last eat?
Due to Angela’s diligence, there aren’t any chores to do other than the laundry. I throw a load into the washer and grab Vito’s leash. “Let’s go, Buddy Dog!”
We walk on the trail from our back yard into the woods. Vito immediately puts his nose to the ground, tracking something or someone that walked there before we did. When he does that, I always wish that he could tell me what he smells. I think it would be fun to solve a mystery with him. He could say something like, “It smells like peaches,” and then I could try to guess anything that might smell like peaches that walked there ahead of us.
“Who is it, Vito? Do you know?” I ask. He doesn’t look up and instead remains focused. Beagles are excellent trackers in the woods, and once his instincts take over, he cannot be distracted for anything.
He stops and raises his front leg, bent at the knee; he’s pointing with it off the trail to the right. He can’t tell me what it smells like, but at least he can tell me where it’s going. Should I follow him? For all I know, he’ll lead me into a rabbit hole. But he isn’t baying the way he normally does when chasing a rabbit. He calmly and methodically sniffs at the unseen trail before him and ignores everything else. What else am I going to do today? Might as well let my dog take me on a tour of the woods, right?
We take a right and head off the trail; I walk quietly behind so I won’t distract him. And then I hear the leaves rustle ahead. There’s something moving just beyond a cluster of low trees, but the foliage is too thick; I can’t make out what it is. It might just be a deer.
Vito cocks his head and listens. I am holding my breath. It’s not at all like the sound of a bounding deer or the rustle of a squirrel or rabbit. The footsteps get progressively louder and my heart races. Our woods aren’t accessible to the public, so it’s unlikely that hikers would be roaming around out here. I feel my pockets and realize that I’ve left my cell phone at home.
I can barely make out a man walking tow
ard me—and then I realize it’s Keith. When he spots me, he calls to me, and I see that he has his camera strapped around his neck. I am annoyed; he’s out here sightseeing when he should be in the studio, working toward getting out of my house.
“Hello, Brenda.” He bends to scratch Vito’s ears. The dog arches his back in pleasure; I silently call him a traitor. “And hello, little beagle. Sniffing around, are you?” Vito tips his head to coax Keith to scratch his favorite spot on his neck.
“Actually, I think he followed your trail. We don’t normally go this way.”
“I came upon a hummingbird nest back that way,” he says. He points to the clump of trees.
“Really? I don’t think I’ve ever seen one.” I forget that I am annoyed with him. It would be cool to see an actual hummingbird nest. “Will you show me?”
I know I should be mad at him. He’s supposed to be working, not spying on hummingbirds. And how on earth would he have found a hummingbird nest? There are miles and miles of forest out here. But then I figure I’ll never get this chance again. I leash Vito and tie him to a tree; he whimpers at being left behind. I shush him and follow Keith to the clump of trees. I’ll have him show me, and then I’ll lay down the law and tell him he needs to get back to work. He places his finger over his lips to warn me to be quiet. How does Keith manage to do this to me every time I should be mad at him? He insists on showing me some loveable sensitive side that makes my insides go all gooey. If only he could exert this influence on the American listening audience.
He points to a small cup fashioned out of twigs and grass. Then he gestures to a log, and I step on it to get a better view. The opening is about the diameter of a quarter, and there is a single tiny egg inside. I gasp.
He tilts his head upward and whispers, “The mother is up there, watching us. See her?” He holds out his hand to steady me as I step off the log. “We’d better leave her be. Don’t want to stress her out and cause her to abandon her nest.” I want to stay longer and stare. Maybe I can stand here and wait for the tiny egg to hatch. I look around to spot a few landmarks so I can come back and check on the baby hummingbird’s progress.
I untie Vito, and we walk back to the trail. Keith holds out his camera to me. “I got some great shots of her sitting on the egg.” We stop so I can check out his pictures. He’s right: they are great. How the hell did he find this nest way out here? Just how much time is he spending in the woods, when he should be working? I consider asking him but decide not to. I think I need to become friends with him again, and then maybe he can help me to get the band out of my house.
“You could probably sell these to National Geographic, if this whole rock-star thing doesn’t work out,” I say and hand his camera back to him.
“Actually, I am just going to send them to my mum. She can send them to National Geographic if she wants. Hummingbirds are her favorite.”
“So, any word yet on her lump?”
“Actually, yes. She called me this morning. Turns out it’s benign. She’s fine.”
“Really? Oh, Keith, that’s great news.” I throw my arms around him. “You must be so relieved.”
“Yes, I really am. I truly could not face the prospect of life without Mum.”
We are standing on the trail at the edge of my lawn with our arms still around each other. I am happy that his mom is okay, but yet somehow I cannot pull away from him. He doesn’t pull away, either. He brushes the hair off my face and tucks it behind my ear then caresses my cheek. My pulse is racing in all the right places. Is it possible to feel so right and know I am so wrong at the same time?
“Brenda, I have never met anyone like you. You had the courage to put me in my place and be honest with me. Honestly, it’s refreshing and sexy.”
“Keith, you are so infuriating.” It doesn’t escape my attention that Keith Kutter called me sexy. He pulls me closer, so close that I take in his spicy, sweaty scent. I remember picking up on that the day he’d helped me take in the laundry from the rain. The smell of him goes right to my head. All I want to do now is press my face into his neck and stay there for the entire afternoon, letting whatever happens, happen.
It would be so easy to just go with it. What it would be like to go on tour with him? I don’t think I would need to worry about groupies anymore, as the band’s now older than the talent that the average groupie considers. Other than Trisha, that is. I would stand in the wings night after night and watch them play for thousands of screaming fans.
Never mind being backstage with the band—what about getting to see the whole world one city at a time for months on end? How amazing would that be? While he’s rehearsing, I can go walk along the Seine in Paris or take a gondola ride through Venice or hike in Red Rocks. London. Moscow. Tokyo. But when I think about it a bit longer, I realize that I’ll probably be seeing those places alone. I’ll be there only because Keith is there working, not because I am on a trip around the world with someone I love. I don’t really want to see those places with Keith.
I can picture standing in front of the Kremlin with Tim, watching the colorful domes change as the sun hangs lower in the sky. I can imagine a long deep kiss with Tim while a gondolier expertly navigates through the canals of Venice. Really, it’s with Tim that I want to see those places. He’s the one I sat up with to the wee hours of the morning, talking about all the places in the world we wanted to go. Tim’s the one who would make sure I had a blanket to keep warm on the plane. Tim’s the one who would learn how to say, “No onions,” in several different languages, so I wouldn’t have to deal with having them on my plate. I don’t see Keith doing any of that for me. With Keith, I’d be the one tagging along behind him, rather than walking beside him. And that’s really how life with Tim is: we stand beside each other. We support one another. My God, I really am being a shitty wife. What the hell is wrong with me? I pull myself away from Keith’s embrace.
“You need to get out of the woods and back into the studio, Keith. Get back to work.” I really have to get the idea of being Keith Kutter’s girlfriend out of my brain. But there’s still that little voice that asks me why I need to do that. When will I ever have this kind of chance again? It probably wouldn’t last, but it would probably be a lot of fun. But then, what would happen when it eventually ends? Which it will. End it before it starts.
We walk toward the house. I bend down and unclip Vito from the leash. He bolts across the lawn, past Tent City and up the deck stairs to the door. He taps on the glass with his claws until the door opens. I wonder who is inside to let him in. When Keith and I get to the door, we see Tim standing just inside. He glares at me then at Keith and then at me again. I can see the look of disappointment in his eyes.
“Tim...” I begin.
“You are unbelievable, Brenda.” He pushes past me and walks toward the deck stairs.
“Tim, would you wait a second?”
He turns to face me. “Why should I?” He lunges at Keith, and for a second, I am afraid that Tim is going to deck him. Keith flinches and takes a step back. “And you! You are a guest in my home, and now you’re trying to get into my wife’s pants.”
Keith turns to face Tim. He’s about to say something that’ll probably piss off Tim, but then cocks his head to the side and says, “Okay, I am off to work then.” Classic Keith: stir up the drama and then slip out the back door. But he doesn’t leave yet. He’s cleaning the lens on his camera and placing it into its case.
“That’s not it at all,” I try to explain to Tim.
“Then what is it? Looks like my wife and my dog went for a romp in the woods with Keith Kutter. Did you fuck him out there, too?”
“It wasn’t like that at all. Will you please listen?” But he won’t listen. Instead he’s pacing around the deck, and I am starting to get a bit scared. I feel like, any second, he’s going to haul off and punch Keith. Frustration radiates from Tim; I need to get control of this situation. Fast.
And then I notice a red BMW pulling into the driveway. �
��Oh, shit,” I mutter. Any hope of controlling the situation is now gone. Keith spots her, turns on his heel, and goes back into the house. I wish I could, too.
“Be nice,” Tim warns.
“Did you call her?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Are you fucking crazy?”
“Brenda, she’s my mother. I should be able to call her when I’m going through a tough time.”
“And have her hate me even more?”
“She doesn’t hate you.”
“Just watch.” I plaster a smile on my face; I figure I should lay on the charm a bit, seeing as how she thinks I called her rude. “Portia! How lovely to see you,” I call out as she emerges from behind the wheel. She’s wearing one of her Chanel suits. She never seems to sweat in them, even on the hottest of days—another way I can tell that she’s not human. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Keith in the window, jumping back so he can dodge her view. Lucky. Wish I could do the same. Portia, as usual, doesn’t acknowledge that I’ve even spoken to her.
“Timothy, I’ve called Albert, and we’ll have you out of this mess in no time flat,” she says, breezing by me.
“Mess? What mess?” I ask. She ignores me. I haven’t talked to Tim about the shop in about a week; is he in some kind of legal trouble? Portia has this friend, Albert Sharpley, from her club. He’s pretty famous in Rhode Island for being a legal shark. Whatever the problem is, this guy will get results for Tim. That’s actually a good thing about Portia: she’s pretty well connected.
“Albert is brilliant with divorce, dear. You’ll be out of this,” she gestures toward me, “in no time.”
“And hello to you, too, Portia.” I plaster on an even wider, faker smile. I am so over this bitch. “How lovely of you to stop by, unannounced. Again.”
