Lowdown and Lush

by Selena Laurence

  I sigh and lay my head on his shoulder. And we wait.

  An hour later, Walsh finally comes to tell us what’s happening. Everyone stands up when he walks in, Mel racing to him before anyone else.

  “How are they?” she asks as Joss reaches her and puts his arm around her shoulders.

  “They’re okay,” Walsh says, taking Mel’s hand and holding it. He looks at the rest of us standing there, watching him anxiously. “Pax’s heartbeat is good and strong. He’s tough as nails, and I got to see him on this state-of-the-art 3-D ultrasound.” Walsh’s eyes grow bright. “He’s beautiful. So beautiful.”

  We all sigh in relief as he collects himself.

  “The ultrasound showed that there’s some placenta previa. The placenta has partially grown over her cervix, so she just needs to take it easy, no physical exertion, and watch everything a little more. She’ll have to get a C-section, but she’s good with that because she can probably schedule it ahead of time.” Walsh chuckles. “We all know how much she likes to schedule shit.”

  Everyone laughs, and Mel throws her arms around Walsh’s neck, holding on for a moment. Joss and Michael pump Walsh’s hand a few times, and Mrs. DiLorenzo starts lecturing everyone about how she knew everything was fine.

  “Now, Walsh,” she says, hooking her arm through her son-in-law’s, “we have to start planning the baptism. Take me to Tammy’s room so we can get a list going.”

  Walsh looks back at Joss, panic in his eyes, but Joss just laughs as Mrs. D. pulls Walsh down the hall.

  “Well, Sunshine, another crisis averted,” Michael says, slinging an arm around my shoulders.

  “How about some brunch?” Joss asks, looking at Mel for confirmation.

  “That sounds great,” Mel answers, “And maybe a drink. I’m not used to this much stress on a Sunday morning.”

  “What do you say?” Michael looks to me.

  “I say let’s go find some food,” I answer.

  We say our goodbyes to Mr. DiLorenzo, who nods and waves, never having spoken a word to anyone, and then we make our way to the parking lot. I opt to leave my car at the hospital and ride with Michael since we’re eating nearby.

  “Wow,” he says as we roll through the parking lot. “There’s another good reason not to have kids. It’s like there are about three hundred thousand things that could go wrong for the kid or its mom. I couldn’t take the stress.”

  “Oh, I’m sure, when the time comes, you’ll be able to handle it,” I tell him, digging in my purse for some lip balm.

  He laughs sharply then looks at me with a strange expression on his face. “When the time comes? That time won’t ever come, Sunshine.”

  I stop my hunt, my hand shoved inside my purse, a strange thumping noise in my ears. “What do you mean?” I ask. I’m confused. But I’m not. I just can’t fathom that this could happen. Not when everything’s been so right, so perfect.

  “Jenny,” he says, looking at me gently. “I’m not ever having children. I mean, you knew that...”

  I swallow, my whole foundation crumbling beneath me. “Why would I have known that? When have we ever discussed children? Or even what happens to us more than ten days into the future for that matter?”

  His hands grip the steering wheel tighter as we cruise through a yellow light. “What’s to discuss? We’re together. It’s great. Everyone’s happy. I didn’t know there was anything to discuss.”

  My throat is closing up in a very uncomfortable way. I try to ignore the anger that’s welling up inside me.

  “So, this is it? I mean, I realize it hasn’t been very long, so I haven’t worried about it, but we’re in love. If we stay together, what do you see? Just more of the same?”

  “What the hell’s the matter with more of this same?” he asks, sounding more confused than angry. “I’d say it’s pretty fucking great, and I haven’t heard any complaints out of you.”

  “Nothing stays the same forever, Michael. What about in a year? Or five? What about the fact that I want to get married someday?”

  He shrugs. “If you want to get married, then we’ll get married. I don’t mind.”

  If there were an implement designed to harm to a man’s most sensitive parts, I would want to own one right now. It may not be very Christian of me, but I’m feeling violent at the moment.

  “You don’t mind? Why thank you,” I respond bitterly.

  “Sunshine.” His voice is gentler, less cavalier. “You know I didn’t mean it like that. I’d love to marry you someday. I want you to be happy.”

  I have to bring this back to where it started even though I don’t want to hear the answer. “And kids?”

  “Jenny.” He pleads. “I know you say you’re willing to take the risk that I’ll end up bipolar at some point, but you can’t think I ought to bring kids into the world with that risk. I mean, if I got it and I was a father? Or if one of my kids inherited it? Uh uh. No way. I can’t have kids. Ever.”

  My heart plunges, landing somewhere in the street beneath the car we’re riding in. As the car continues on, my heart is crushed beneath its wheels.

  “I want kids,” I say succinctly.

  He looks at me, frustration skating across his features before a stony expression settles. “I’m not having kids, Jenny. That’s not negotiable.”

  I take a deep, shaky breath. “Then I guess we’d better end this now. Before I get even more attached.”

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” he growls, jerking the car to a stop in the parking lot of the restaurant we’ll be eating at.

  “This isn’t negotiable for you? It’s not negotiable for me. I want children. I’ve dreamed of having them my entire life. I could never be happy without them.”

  Michael pounds the steering wheel. His voice is harsh and loud. “That’s a load of crap, Jenny. I know you’ve been happy the last few weeks. There were no kids in that equation anywhere. You’re fucking perfectly happy making music all day and having me screw the hell out of you all night. You can’t live like that with kids.”

  I open the car door and scramble out. I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I have to get away from him. I feel like I’m being ripped in two from the inside out.

  He’s on me before I make it more than a few steps. He grabs my elbow, spinning me toward him.

  “Don’t you dare touch me!” My voice is shaky with rage and pain.

  “What the fuck, Jenny?” he snarls, his hands fisting and unfisting at his sides.

  “And don’t swear at me either,” I add like a petulant child.

  “You’re just going to fucking walk away from me right now?” he asks, ignoring my admonishment.

  “What’s the point, Michael? Tell me. What’s the point? You think we should keep doing this when we both know in a few years it’ll all have to end? You think it’ll be any easier after we’ve been together all that time? No”—I cross my arms stubbornly—“there’s no point in this now.”

  He grabs my shoulders and pulls me against him. I’m crying as I struggle to free myself. I can’t bear being this close to him. It weakens my resolve and makes that hole in my chest feel even larger.

  “Let. Me. Go,” I sob.

  “Mike!” I hear the horror in Mel’s voice as she approaches and puts her arm around my waist.

  Mike’s eyes dart between her face and mine. He’s furious, and he’s having trouble processing everything.

  “Mike,” Joss’s deep voice sounds from behind Michael. “Let’s take a breath, dude. Someone’s going to snap a pic. It won’t be good.”

  Joss seems to know the magic words as Michael’s hands release my shoulders like I’ve burned him. Mel pulls me into her and I bury my head in her shoulder, trying to get control of myself.

  I hear Joss talking to Michael. “Come on. Let’s take a walk, man. You’ve got this.”

  A moment later, I hear a loud thump and Michael’s voice yelling, “Fuck!” Mel flinches. Then it’s just her and me, and she draws back to
look at my face.

  “Are you okay?” she asks with a grave expression.

  I sniff and wipe my eyes. “I think so.”

  She rubs her hands up and down my arms a few times before dropping them. “What in the world happened? You guys seemed fine at the hospital.”

  I wrap my arms around my middle, feeling like I need to be in a little ball if I’m going to keep pieces of me from falling apart. “We were fine at the hospital.”

  Mel sighs and mutters something about “Mike’s colossally thick head” before she takes my hand and leads me to Joss’s car. She gets me stowed in the passenger’s seat then goes and gets in the driver’s side. “Just let me text Joss and tell him we’re leaving. He can get Mike to give him a ride home.” She fires off the text then starts up the car. “Okay,” she says. “Tell me what happened.”

  Mike

  I PUT my fist into the side of my dad’s car, leaving a baseball-sized dent and most likely breaking the bones in my right hand. It’s going to be tough to do much picking for a long time. And I don’t even give a shit. Everything that matters to me just fucking vanished in a cloud of dust.

  Joss doesn’t say anything, just walks alongside me until I start to breathe again. Eventually, I stop, sitting down on a nearby bus stop bench. I put my head in my hands and try to calm the pounding that’s going on in there.

  Joss sits next to me and leans back against the bench, kicking one ankle up on the opposite knee. “I know you would never hurt a woman, man. But I got to tell you that did not look good. Sort of Jerry Springerish.”

  “Fuck you,” I mumble.

  “Yeah, yeah. Can we skip the part where you tell me to fuck off and I tell you what a dick you are and just get to what the hell happened?”

  I sigh and sit up straight to look at him. He has sunglasses on, so I can’t see his eyes, but his lips are fighting a smirk the size of Oregon and I know that he sees right through my bluster. After all these years, Joss has finally quit taking me so seriously. Hell, maybe he’s quit taking life so seriously. Mel has lightened him.

  “Let’s just say that Jenny and I realized we have a very strong difference of opinion about the future. Hers includes children and mine definitely does not.”

  “No shit?” he asks. “You don’t want kids?”

  See, here’s the thing. Joss and I are dudes. We don’t talk about shit like kids or marriage. At least not in the first twenty-eight years of our lives. I guess we do talk about this shit now. God, for the love of the good old days.

  “No way,” I answer him, watching the cars speed by on the street in front of us, wondering how long it’ll be before one of them recognizes Joss sitting here in his mirrored aviators.

  Fucking Joss Jamison at a bus stop in Portland on a Sunday morning. They could spin that into all kinds of garbage.

  “I love Jenny, man, but I have really fucked-up DNA. There’s no way I’m letting a kid into that equation. If I get it, then I’m not capable of being a parent. If I pass it on, then I’ve doomed a kid to a lifetime of misery. No, this thing stops with me.”

  Joss nods. “I get that. But I’m guessing Jenny didn’t.”

  “Apparently, she wants kids more than she wants world peace.”

  Joss chuckles. “And you were surprised by that? I mean, Jenny’s a pretty traditional kind of girl. I’d guess a big wedding and a passel of kids is right up top of her list.”

  I shift on the uncomfortable bench, noticing that there’s a bar across the street. O’Neil’s Pub. “I just thought we were happy—that she was happy. I hadn’t thought further than that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I don’t think about shit like that either. Mel says men are creatures of the here and now.”

  I stand up. “Well, right here, right now, there’s a bar across the street. I think breakfast is ruined, but I hear some scotch calling your name.”

  Joss looks over at the pub. “I could do with some midday scotch. Maybe it’ll make my dinner with Mrs. D. tonight a little easier. We should also get some ice on your hand. Think it’s broken?”

  “Maybe. You can take me to the E.R. after I’m loaded.”

  I give him a hand up and we head to the bar. In the back of my mind, I know my whole fucking life has just disintegrated, but I can’t deal with that right now. There’s a high to chase, and I’m a damned good hunter.

  “YOU SURE you want to do that?” Joss’s voice comes to me through the haze of low lighting, skin, and alcohol.

  I think about it. I have a brunette on my lap, one hand in her crotch and the other dug into the back of her hair. I’ve been licking her neck and thumbing her clit through her jeans for the last thirty minutes. Now, I’m about to stick my tongue down her throat—except Joss is questioning my choices here.

  I jerk my head up and look over at Joss, who’s kicked back watching the singer who’s been up onstage doing covers for the last hour.

  “I don’t need a backseat driver, dude.”

  “You had an argument, Mike. It happens. What you do in the middle of the argument matters though. I guarantee she’s home crying on her bed or being fed wine and ice cream by Mel. She’s not on another dude’s lap, letting him shove various body parts inside her.”

  At the image of Jenny with another guy, my stomach lurches. Suddenly, the whiskey at noon when I haven’t eaten a bite all day seems like it was a bad idea. I give my head a small shake, trying to clear it. I did shots and I did them fast. I’m six ways to fucked up. And the piece of ass on my knee is warm, friendly, and a good distraction. But Joss wants me to suffer the full effect of having Jenny dump my sorry ass. Sadistic bastard.

  “Goddammit, Joss,” I moan as I take the brunette’s hips and lift her from my lap. “Sorry, darlin’. My conscience has spoken. I’m on a short leash today.”

  She puts on a pouty face then leans down to my ear and tells me what she plans on doing to me if I’ll take her home. It’s pretty creative, even by my standards.

  “Props for originality, gorgeous. But I can’t.”

  She casts a bitter look at Joss—not that he notices—then flounces off to the bar.

  I lay my head down on my arms on the table and mutter, “Why the hell do you want me to suffer like this?”

  Joss hears me even though my words are aimed at the wood of the tabletop. “I don’t want you to suffer, dude. I also don’t want you to give up on a good thing after one bump in the road. Come on. Mike Owens survived his family’s bullshit, taught himself how to play guitar, became one fourth of one of the greatest rock bands of the decade, and managed to get a really hot, talented chick to fall for him. He’s not going to let one fight with her derail all of that. Is he?”

  I look up and he’s watching me, expression serious.

  “I’ll be honest, dude. I do get a certain pleasure out of seeing you get yours, but that doesn’t mean I want to see you fail. Some rough patches are my entertainment, but your ultimate success is still my hope. Screwing the bar bitch won’t help you succeed—at anything.”

  In the booze-soaked recesses of my mind, two contradictory thoughts form—how I’ve gotten so unlucky that Joss Jamison is trying to guilt me into appropriate behavior, and how I’m fortunate enough after everything I’ve done that Joss cares enough to bother with my sorry ass.

  “I wouldn’t have screwed her,” I grumble. “I just wanted a distraction.”

  “Well, I’m pretty sure Jenny wouldn’t have appreciated your distraction techniques.”

  “I guess I’ll just have to drink until I pass out then.”

  “Go for it,” he answers. “I’ll get you home.”

  In the midst of a dank bar in a strip mall in suburban Portland on a Sunday afternoon, I drink myself into a complete stupor. Then, the man whose life I nearly ruined—the guy I’ve been in a mild competition with my whole life, the last person I ever thought I’d be friends with again—watches out for me, listens to me berate my fate, and finally hauls my ass into a waiting cab. He takes me home to my father,
who pours me into bed in my childhood room and waits for me to sober up and tell him how I’ve fucked everything up.

  In my dreams, all I hear is Jenny’s voice telling me, “I want children. I’ve dreamed of having them my entire life. I could never be happy without them.”

  Jenny

  MEL COMES to the studio with me Monday morning. It reminds me too much of the last time she and Joss had to be buffers for Michael and me in a studio. But I realize now that, while that fight with Michael was humiliating, this one is real, deep, and more painful than I could have ever imagined.

  It’s almost noon when he comes in. I’ve been working with the sound techs on some background vocals, so we didn’t need anyone else here. We’ve done three songs before Michael steps into the booth. I see him through the glass and falter, requiring the sound tech to stop the recording. Michael stands watching me, his eyes bruised and tired, his face covered in whiskers that haven’t been shaved since yesterday.

  “Let’s restart that from the third measure, Jenny,” Sonny says through the intercom.

  Then Michael leans down and talks to Sonny. A moment later, Sonny comes back on the intercom.

  “Mike would like to take ten if that’s okay?”

  I nod, knowing there’s no point in avoiding it. Sonny stands and leaves the booth, and Michael follows him. Seconds later, Michael is standing in front of me. I sit on a barstool, microphones and other sound equipment hanging from the ceiling all around me. He has his hands stuffed in his front jean pockets and looks genuinely uncomfortable.

  “I missed you last night,” he says, looking at the floor while he scuffs the carpet.

  It’s a pose that a misbehaved child would strike, and for one blinding moment, I’m overwhelmed with a vision of a younger version of Michael—all dark hair, beautiful brown eyes, sturdy build, defiant temper, utterly loveable. It makes my heart hurt so much that I have to remember to take a breath to ease the pain.

  “Are you…” He takes a deep breath.“Are you okay? I’m sorry I got so angry. I just… God, I can’t bear the idea of you leaving me. Please,” he whispers it as he looks at me from under his long lashes.