Mike places a big, hot hand on the small of my back and presses me toward the door, impatient to get me out of his dad’s room. Once we get into the hallway, he takes his hand away. I feel the cold spill over my skin where his touch was and I realize that, no matter what he did that night, I still crave him like he’s some sort of drug.
“Did Tammy tell you to come up?” he asks, crossing his arms over his chest and making those biceps look even bigger.
I try to control the racing of my heart and remember to lift my eyes to look at his face. “No. But she did tell me about the letter she sent to your attorney, and I’m so sorry, Michael. You have to believe I didn’t know anything about that. You have enough to deal with without worrying about my little project.”
“It’s not your little project,” he scowls down at me. “It’s our big project and it’s no less important to me now than it was the day I signed that contract. I just need a little time to get my dad’s recovery handled. Then we’re going to finish the album.”
“Is that what you want?” I ask, feeling vulnerable.
He clears his throat and answers softly. “Of course it is. Jenny…” There’s such pain in his voice that I can’t help but look into his eyes. “I never meant to hurt you. Never. I don’t know what I was thinking. I just… I didn’t know how to handle it. I didn’t know how to handle you. And I’m sorry. More sorry than you can ever know.”
That achy feeling is back in my heart—the one that seems to follow me whenever Michael is near.
“It’s okay,” I breathe deeply before I charge on. “Maybe we can start over? I mean, you were my friend for months and I miss that.”
I can’t look at him, but he takes my hand in his. I see our fingers intertwined—his dark, rough ones and my smaller, smoother ones. It takes my breath clean away.
“You’re my best friend, too, Sunshine. I’d like nothing more than to have you back. I’ve missed you.”
The tears burn my nose and the backs of my eyes. I don’t want him to see me cry, so I throw my arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.
“Shh, shh,” he whispers. “It’s okay now. It’ll all be fine.”
There is so much joy and sadness all wrapped up inside me right now that I don’t know how to begin to unravel it all. I just continue to cling to his warmth and the soothing sound of his voice, feeling like, at least for this one brief moment, everything’s going to be all right.
“God, I knew I couldn’t trust you anywhere near her.” Tammy’s voice breaks through my haze. “Jenny, you have to quit hugging him, because as of ten a.m. tomorrow we’re suing him for breach of contract.”
Mike
I HAVE Jenny pressed against me and it’s like I’ve died and gone to Heaven. To feel her again, her feathersoft hair and soft curves, her warm face on my neck. I thought my luck with Jenny had run out for good. But for some reason I can’t understand, she’s here, clinging to me like I’m the last anchor on Earth, and I’m not going to question it.
I know that I can’t ever have her the way I’d like. That privilege is reserved for a guy like JR. Someone who’s as inherently good as Jenny is. Someone who doesn’t have a downward spiral into evil and insanity waiting for them around every bend in the road. But if she’ll still have me as this—her friend—I’ll take it, and I’ll make sure she has the absolute best of everything I can give her.
Then I hear my least favorite voice on the planet announcing that she’s come to make my life as hellish as possible.
I pull Jenny’s arms from around my neck and turn to face Tammy Clark.
“You did not just say you’re suing me, did you?” I ask, exasperation dripping from my words. I still have a hold of Jenny’s hand and damn if I’m going to let it go until she tells me to.
Tammy stands there, her arms crossed under her much-increased chest, a scowl on her face. If she weren’t pregnant, I’d be ready to throw down with her, but even I’m not going to give my buddy’s pregnant wife a hard time.
“I did say we’re going to sue you,” she bites back. “I told your attorney, per addendum 1.3 to the contract, that you had forty-eight hours to remedy the situation regarding Jenny’s album, and if you don’t by tomorrow morning you’ll be in violation.. We’ll file our motion in the morning and my attorney will be in touch with yours. Now, if you’ll please unhand my artist, we need to get going.”
I feel Jenny tug on her hand, but I’m not having it. She’s not pulling away because she wants to. She’s pulling away because she’s always a good girl and does what people tell her to.
I look down at her and say quietly. “Don’t. Don’t pull away from me. Not when we just got us back.”
She grimaces and nods her head.
“Mike...” Tammy warns.
“Tammy. Stop this. I know I’ve made some mistakes here, but you can’t deny I’ve always had Jenny’s best interests at heart. Her album’s going to get made, and it’s going to be a huge hit. I just need a few weeks to get my dad settled and on the road to recovery. I know we can work something out. Can’t we, Sunshine?”
From behind me and down the hallway somewhere, I hear a young kid’s voice say, “Holy crap, that’s Mike Owens from Lush.”
Shit.
Tammy obviously heard it as well, and she steps closer so that she’s blocking Jenny and me from the rest of the hall, placing us between her and the wall.
Jenny looks up at me then at Tammy. I can feel her wavering. She doesn’t fully trust me anymore. I can sense it. I need to do something fast here or Tammy’s going to drive an even bigger wedge between us.
In desperation, I blurt out the only thing I can think of. “We’ll record here,” I say, gripping Jenny’s hand tighter. “The only reason we were doing it in Dallas was so Jenny could be closer to home. If she needs to go back to Texas, I’ll pay for it and we can work it into the recording schedule.”
As the idea takes hold in my mind, I run with it, the logic of the whole thing picking up speed as I go along. “The whole project will go faster since we won’t have to fly technicians in. We’ll do it at Studio B, and we’ll get guest artists. I don’t have to play on every track. I jammed with Luc Nellos last spring at a benefit in Indiana. He has some girl here in Portland he’s hot for. He’d love to come up. I’ll call him. We might be able to get Vincent G. too. He has a place in L.A. and it’s an easy flight from there. He could come up for an afternoon. I know a guy who’s been in his backup band for years—”
“Whoa. Mike.” Tammy holds out her hand in a “stop” motion. “Are you serious? You always said that no one would play guitar on Jenny’s album but you. It’s in the contract.”
Jenny looks up at me, her pretty face a mixture of trepidation and hope. I face her and take her other hand in mine too.
“What do you think, Sunshine? Would you be willing to record here while I help out my dad and maybe work with some of the best in the business?”
She swallows, her eyes wide. “I already am working with one of the best in the business,” she says, her voice and words equally sweet.
“Thanks, but the more big names you have on the album, the farther your reach. You get Luc and Vincent on there and you’ll be a sure thing in the straight country market as well as the rock crossover set. It’s exactly what we’ve been talking about. They won’t know where to put you and that’s going to send you soaring so far you won’t believe it. You’ll be on every late-night talk show and awards program there is in weeks. This is even bigger than we’ve talked about, Jenny.”
She looks at Tammy, who is about to drool on the floor of the hospital.
“It’s your call,” Tammy says. “But if he’s willing to do this, I’d take him up on it. He owes you.” Tammy scowls at me, pretty much confirming that someone—I’m guessing Mel—told her about Jenny and me and our ill-fated night together. It’s a damn good thing I’m used to women hating me.
“I’d move the recordings to Portland anyway.” Jenny gives Tammy a reproachful look.
“But if you think that we could have those kinds of people work on the album, well I’d be a fool ten ways to Sunday to turn that down.”
I grin. That’s my girl.
“Damn right you would,” I say, picking her up and swinging her around once while she squeals.
Tammy rolls her eyes. “Put my client down you big ape,” she snarls at me as she yanks Jenny away from me. “She hasn’t even been home since she came from the airport. She needs to get settled and eat something. The last thing we need is her getting sick before we start recording.”
“She’s fine. Aren’t you, Sunshine?”
“No thanks to you,” Tammy answers for Jenny, who looks at me and tries not to giggle. “And before you even think it, she’s staying with me. No hotels, no fancy lofts or condos you’ve obtained through whatever sleazy means you acquire real estate. She’ll be at my house until the album is made, and I’ll have the contract revisions delivered to your attorney tomorrow before noon. You’d better have the kind of access to Luc and Vincent that you say you do, because if you can’t get them, you’re going to have to get someone even bigger. Maybe Luc’s dad instead. We clear?”
Jenny must see by the look on my face that my goodwill toward Tammy is about to run out. “It’s all good, Tammy. Michael will take care of it. Won’t you? And I am kind of tired. Let’s get going. I left my bag at the front desk downstairs. We’ll go pick it up. Michael, have a nice night with your dad. We’ll talk in the morning?”
I nod, sending a glare at Tammy, who snarls right back. But then I turn a smile on Jenny, my Sunshine. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
They walk off down the hall, arm in arm, Jenny chattering to Tammy in an effort to get her to wind down. I’m not sure Walsh should be letting her negotiate for clients when she’s pregnant. She’s liable to pop the kid out accidently in the middle of one of her fits. But one thing Walsh’s son will always have is his mother’s unconditional love. Because when Tammy DiLorenzo Clark loves you, she loves you for life. Tammy would kill herself before she’d ever hurt her child, and that’s all you can ask from a mother. It’s the only thing I ever asked from mine.
I HAVE my dad back home and his stuff put away. He’s eaten dinner and watched some TV, and now, he’s sleeping in his own bed. I walk around my childhood home, looking at the pictures and furniture and knickknacks from my youth. I wonder, not for the first time, why my dad never changed anything after my mother’s death. The décor is all hers. The wall hangings? Things she chose. The furniture? Items she bought. I make my way through the living room, looking at the photograph of a flamenco dancer that she bought when she was in Spain before she met my dad. Then I see the candy dish she made in a pottery class one summer when she was feeling well enough to take a class.
I shift to the kitchen, the faded wallpaper sprinkled with French words she used to translate for me sometimes when she was cooking. When she cooked the fancy three- or four-course meals, I loved to sit on the barstools and see what she was doing. If she was in a good mood, she’d let me and she’d tell me about the cooking class she took in Paris on the same trip when she visited Spain. It was her one and only trip overseas and she never forgot it.
As I continue on down the hallway, I look at the school pictures of me from age five on up to eighteen. I stop and look at all of those frozen moments of time, trying to see what others must have seen when they looked at me—the smiling little boy with the unruly shock of dark hair who became the haunted adolescent and finally the angry young man. I remember that boy, but the memory is so vague that it might as well be someone else. A younger sibling or a best friend from childhood, not someone I can actually relate to directly. Not someone I really share life or experiences with. No, that boy died a very long time ago, and no one, not even I, remembers him anymore.
Before I realize it, I’ve reached the guest bathroom. I stand, staring into the black, cavernous opening, images flashing through my mind—the screaming, the blood, the pain. Her voice shrieking over and over, “You fucking little snake. You’ve ruined my life. You. Ruin. Everything!”
I shudder, cold washing over me, and once again, I’m hit hard in the center of my chest with the urge to flee. Run from the house, from Portland, from where I come from. But this time, I can’t. My dad needs me and I won’t let him down no matter how painful it is here.
I reach forward and shut the door to the bathroom, wishing it were as simple to close off the memories and the feelings. But I have to try, so I move on to my room. The room where I spent the first eighteen years of my life.
My dad at least had the sense to replace the single bed with a bunk that has a double on the bottom. I don’t think I could even fit on a twin at this point. I flop down on my back, pulling out my phone and swiping it on. The wallpaper is a photo of me and Jenny at The Bronco bar back in her hometown. The place where I first saw her sing. She’s smiling that beautiful smile, her blue eyes sparkling beneath an old straw cowboy hat. I’m leaning in, looking like some homeless dude who’s about to take a bite out of her, my teeth snapping at her earlobe while she bats me away with one tiny hand.
I run my thumb across the image of her, thinking of how my heart released so much pain when she threw herself into my arms today. It was like years’ worth of sorrow fled from my body. I can’t believe I went without her for even one day, no less many. I vow that it will never happen again. I know she’ll meet someone, have relationships, and maybe even get married. But I’m going to be there. I can handle it—her with another guy—because I know that she and I share something special. Even her future husband can’t take it from us. I’ll be there by her side until I can’t be any longer, and then I’ll make sure that someone’s there to take my place. Someone to keep her safe and happy and love her as much as I do. Because I do. I love Jenny Turner, and I know now there’s nothing that’ll make me stop.
I’M AWAKE by seven a.m. just like the last four mornings in a row. Yeah, the sleep-all-day, party-all-night rock-star life seems to have dumped me in Portland suburbia and raced on out of town. I have to get up at seven because that’s when my old man gets up. If I’m not up when Richard is, then he’ll start cleaning or cooking or trying to do yard work and completely disregard the doctor’s orders about his recovery.
So I head him off every morning, waving the coffeepot around so he can see that I’m making the one cup of decaf he’s allowed. Then I insist he sit down at the kitchen counter while I get him his breakfast of whole grains, fruit, nuts, and absolutely no dairy, sugar, or trans fats of any sort. Yes, that’s right. I cook my dad a healthy breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. Every. Single. Day. And I think I might be slowly going insane because I’m even considering going to Tammy and Walsh’s tonight for dinner with them and Jenny and JR just so I don’t have to sit and watch my dad eat organic cardboard one more time.
“Mike?” my dad grunts from the other room, where he’s taken his newspaper and coffee while I clean up the kitchen.
“Yeah, Dad?”
“You going to Studio B today?”
“Yep. We’re starting to lay down tracks for the album. But I’ll be back by two so I can take you to your doctor’s appointment and I’ll make your lunch up before I go.”
“You know, I’m not four. I can make my own lunch,” he gripes.
“Yeah, and what would you make for yourself?” Here it comes. The reason I do all of this.
“There’s a whole box of those gourmet cheeseburgers in the garage freezer. Only takes five minutes to cook one of them up. I might even do one up on the grill outside. It needs to be cleaned anyway—”
“Dad,” I interrupt, walking into the living room and glaring at him. “How many times do we have to tell you? Red meat is off the menu. Your heart was nearly stopped up completely with all the freaking fat and crap you’ve been inhaling the last decade. And until those incisions are completely healed, you can’t be doing stuff like cleaning the grill. No pushing and pulling
with those chest muscles.”
“It’s easy for you to say,” he mumbles.
I walk over and sit down next to him on the sofa. He keeps reading the paper. I put my hand over the top and push down on it until he’s forced to stop reading and he looks at me.
“I know it’s hard, Dad. And I know you’re not always going to eat perfectly or follow every instruction to the letter, but you need to take this seriously. You’re only fifty-two years old. You have another two or three decades ahead and you want to be healthy for them, don’t you?”
“I don’t know.” He looks at me with a grin that says he has me exactly where he wants me now. “You going to marry that pretty country singer and give me some grandchildren to play with?”
Holy shit. This is my dad’s new plan. Ever since he got out of the hospital, he’s become obsessed with me settling down. It’s like the past ten years never happened and he’s some old neighborhood housewife nagging her grown daughter about marrying the kid from down the street.
I clear my throat and remind myself that I cannot lose my temper with my father, who was in open-heart surgery a mere week ago. “Dad. We’ve been over this. Jenny is a colleague. We’re not dating. I’m not getting married and I’m sure as hell not reproducing, so you’ll have to satisfy yourself with Tammy and Walsh’s kid. I’m sure they don’t mind an extra grandparent or two. You’ll just have to fight Mrs. DiLorenzo for him.”
Dad puts down the newspaper and turns to face me. “Why, Michael? Why don’t you want the same things everyone else your age does? You might be a rock star, but I see plenty of them in relationships, having kids, building families. Hell, even Mick Jagger goes to his kids’ soccer matches.”
I shake my head. I’m trying so hard to do the right thing here, to be a good son. And I love him. I do. But if he keeps pushing me like this, I don’t know if I can last another five weeks.
“Dad,” I say, standing. “We’ve had this conversation. I don’t want to keep having it. You of all people should know why I can’t get married and have kids.”
Lowdown and Lush Page 12
