Just a Girl (12 page)

With my senses on alert, the colors of Paul’s tattoos were brighter than usual, and I found myself mesmerized by the bead of sweat running down the side of his neck as he moved above me. There was still a faint taste of whiskey on his tongue; mine had to taste the same. All of it combined to make me ready to explode the moment he slid into me. Paul let it happen, eyes closing in concentration as I pinned him in place with my thighs and the pleasure washed over me.

When at last I went limp, he said, “Goddamn, I wish I could take credit for that.”

“You can,” I panted. “Trust me. It doesn’t happen with everyone.”

“Well, in that case…” He began to move, sending an aftershock through me. I wound my legs around his waist again and let myself drown in sensation.

After, we lay in a messy tangle on the floor, with Paul’s T-shirt acting as a sacrificial lamb to prevent us from having to explain any weird stains on the rug. We’d already broken a rack in the sheet music room, after all. Best not to confirm anyone’s suspicions about what we were up to after hours.

“Can I ask you something?” he said.

“Sure.”

“What kind of music would you do if it were up to you?” He idly coiled and uncoiled a piece of my hair behind my back as I lay tucked in the crook of his arm.

“I love the blues. Blues rock. Anything with some soul in it. You’ve probably figured that out.”

“Yeah, I kind of picked up on that.”

“So, I guess that. I don’t know, though. I mostly just want to find the joy again.”

“The blues is a weird way to find your joy.”

I poked him in the stomach. “Don’t be literal. I mean the joy in the music. I want to be with musicians who can play the hell out of their instruments and know how to smile onstage. The Luminous 6 wasn’t doing any of that.” It was the first time I’d really put it together out loud, but it was true. The band had been marginally successful. We’d been getting noticed, but there was no joy in it. The songs were only decent. The musicians were good at what they did, but not a whole lot more. And smiling was not part of our stage presence.

“Then that’s what you should find,” he said.

“You’re right.” I twisted to prop my chin on his chest and look up at him. “What about you?”

“Me? I…don’t know. I don’t know if I can even know what I’d want as long as what I’ve got keeps scaring the shit out of me.”

“Do you
want
to stop being scared?”

“Believe me, I would really appreciate not being a head case.”

“You’re not a head case.”

“Sure.”

“I’m serious. You’ve got some performance anxiety. In case you hadn’t noticed, music is full of some seriously off-kilter people.” I tapped him on the end of the nose with one finger. “Perhaps you’ve heard of Dinah Mason?”

“Seems familiar,” he teased.

“She doesn’t exactly advertise this, but my mom has battled depression for years.”

“Really? You’d never guess.”

“Not anymore. It took a long time to find the right combination of drugs and therapy.”

“Mmm,” he said.

“Is there anything more you could be doing? Some other medicine that would actually work?”

“It’s complicated.”

“How so?”

“I tried a few things when I was younger. What I’ve got now works the best, but none of them are great. And I hate the side effects some of them have.”

“Like what?”

He exhaled heavily and swung his arm out from under me to sit up. I was left propped awkwardly on one hip with my hands on the floor, feeling abandoned.

“There are a lot of them, but I’m not real excited about the erectile dysfunction, for one.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” He glanced over his shoulder at me for a moment. “There are others, but that seems relevant right now, somehow.”

“Have you—do you, like, talk to anyone about it?” Why was it so hard to ask if he had a therapist?

“Not right now.” He reached for his pants and started to get dressed.

I’d clearly touched on a subject he wasn’t comfortable discussing. I decided to let it go. “You still have a broken string on your guitar, you know.”

He paused, then turned to look at his abandoned acoustic. It seemed like hours since we’d come in here with it. “Well,
someone
decided to take her clothes off and distracted me.”

“Don’t you hate it when that happens?” I pulled on my bra, reaching back to hook it with a grin.

“Gorgeous, naked women are the worst.” He leaned back on one hand to get close enough to kiss me.

June 19

Liv

Word on the street is that the boys aren’t getting along. Apparently mediocrity doesn’t suit them.

Me

I’m happy to report I legitimately don’t care.

Liv

For real?

Me

For serious. :) :) :)

Liv

Smiley faces? Who are you and what have you done with Presley?

Me

Nothing. Presley has got the blues and it’s making her very happy.

Liv

Is that some kind of Yoda thing?

Me

Haha! No.

Liv

I’m confused. But ok. Cool. I’m glad you’re happy! Now, when are you coming home?

Me

I don’t know, Livvy. I’m still not ready.

Liv

Is this about the guitar player?

Me

No.

Not completely.

Liv

Pics. Pics. Pics. Pics. Pics!

Me

I don’t have any.

Liv

Well get one! STAT!

Me

LOL. You’re obsessed.

Liv

What can I say? I miss you. If I can’t have my Presley, don’t I at least deserve to see who’s keeping her from me?

Me

Would you settle for a selfie?

Liv

You’re lucky I adore you. Yes.

Me

Love you, too. xoxoxo

“Presley, baby, we have got to do something about that hair,” my mother said when I came into the house.

My first thought was that I had sex hair. I reached up to examine my head for signs of obvious shenanigans, but couldn’t find any.

“It’s better since the red is gone, but now it’s just…blah. And your roots are about this long.” She held up a hand to show a two-inch length.

“Oh.” Well, that was better than sex hair, I supposed. At least, when you had a mother like mine who deemed her only daughter’s sex life to be a fine topic of conversation.

“You wanna do something about it?”

“Now?” I pulled my phone out of my back pocket to check the time. “It’s midnight.”

“No time like the present. Come on.” She beckoned me upstairs with a sweeping gesture and took me into the bathroom. There was a big closet in there, and my mother kept a surprising number of hair colors on hand. She was like me—she liked to experiment with her hair. Though her tastes mostly ran to the darker colors that suited her complexion, she had one box of a bright blonde and a highlighting kit.

“What do you think?” she asked.

“Okay, let’s do it.”

My mom had always been a night owl. Her depression messed with her sleep cycle, so it wasn’t surprising she was used to being awake at this hour, but it was a little unusual that she wanted to undertake a makeover. I should have seen the setup for what it was: Once she had me trapped in a chair with a chemical bath on my head, she could question me without any chance of my escaping.

“So, are things getting serious with Paul?”

“I don’t know, Mom. Don’t you think it’s a little early to say it’s anything?”

“Do you like him?”

“Well, yeah.” I thought that should have been obvious.

She flipped a freshly saturated chunk of hair over my forehead. “He’s a tasty one, I’ll give you that.”

“Mom!”

“Oh, Presley, lighten up. Jeez, I thought you might have outgrown being such a prude by now.”

“Well, I haven’t. Okay?”

“You’re no fun,” she admonished. There was a long silence while she worked on another section of my hair, and I thought she might have let the subject go, but I should have known better. “So, is he good? I’ve always found guitar players have good hands.”

“Mom!” There were so many reasons I didn’t want to answer that. So much information about my mother I did not need to have added to the already extensive collection of knowledge about her she’d overshared during my lifetime.

“All I’m saying is if he’s not, don’t waste your time. Believe me. There is more to a relationship than sex, but if you don’t have that, the rest of it can’t make up for it.”

It went on like that. I was her captive audience and she knew it. She used the opportunity to impart all kinds of wisdom to me:

“You know, I always thought Brendan was too into himself to be any good for you.

“When your father was younger, before the arthritis got bad, he had the most flexible fingers I have ever seen. You wouldn’t believe the things he could do with them.

“Are you almost done pouting yet? You know we’ve got people coming this Thursday who would love to hear you sing. You really need to get over this and get back out there. Don’t let a little shit like Brendan spoil your life.”

Finally, I had to answer. “I’m not, Ma. I sang with Paul’s band a couple weeks ago.”

Her gloved fingers tightened against my scalp. “Well, it’s about fucking time!”

“It felt…good.”

“I bet it did!”

“I’m not going to let anyone take my voice from me, I promise. I just wanted it to be on my terms.”

“Sometimes you have to trust your mother, Presley. I do have just a tiny bit more life experience than you.”

“Are you admitting you’re old?” I tilted my head backward to catch her eye and she scowled at me.

“Hush your mouth.”

I grinned, pleased to have finally gotten a small victory.

By the time she finished her work, it was after one in the morning. I didn’t feel like drying my hair to see how it all turned out, but even wet, I could see that the “blah” was history.

In the morning, the sun streaming in through the window showed me exactly what she’d done. I wasn’t a fire-engine redhead or a blah color-stripped nothing anymore. Nor was I the bleached blonde who’d lived in L.A. My hair was now a honey blonde, with brighter highlights woven through.

The color was closest to what I’d had as a child, yet it was also something I’d never had before. A bit of an old version of myself and a bit of someone new I was becoming? Maybe so.

I leaned closer to the mirror to block out the background. I had to admit, I liked what I saw.

When Paul arrived at the store that afternoon he did a double take. “Whoa. When did this happen?”

“Last night.”

“Wow.” He set one of his guitar cases on the floor and reached for a lock of my hair. “You look…wow.”

“Is that a good thing?”

He nodded slowly. “Yeah.”

The intensity of his gaze gave me goosebumps. “Okay, good. Go to work.”

“Right.” He picked up the guitar and headed for the classrooms, turning back a few times to look at me.

My mother happened to be behind the front counter and saw the whole thing. She had on a smile so smug I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes.

“Somebody likes you,” she sang.

I didn’t even answer.

June 20

Me

Incomng selfie alert!

What do you think?

Liv

Lookin’ sexy, girl! Love the new hair. Way better than that red crap.

Me

Don’t be shy about your opinions here.

Liv

Kiss, kiss.

Normally, I wouldn’t hang out at another band’s rehearsal. It’s awkward to see other people work through their special brand of band dynamics. A lot of personalities in play and habits that might not make sense to an outsider. And especially since I’d sung with them, I preferred to steer clear of Jukebox Bleu’s private space.

No Yoko Ono am I.

But Kenzie asked me to come so she could show me a few drawings she’d done of tattoo ideas. She’d become a good friend over the last few weeks, so of course I said I would.

They rehearsed in the drummer, Rob’s, basement, which was partially finished, with bare Sheetrock walls and a laminate floor. The small assemblage of power tools in the corner of the room told me this was a work in progress. It would be a great rehearsal space when he was done.

There was a temporary bar set up on a metal cart against one wall, with a small refrigerator stocked with beer on the floor beside it. Kenzie and I grabbed a couple bottles and took a seat on what appeared to be part of a sectional. I wondered where the other half of it was.

She got out a sketchbook and showed me a series of drawings, each a work of art worthy of framing. One was a brightly colored phoenix meant to completely cover my white tattoo. Another turned the curlicues into a lacy backdrop for a blood-red rose. There were others, but the one that caught my eye was a simple black-and-white sketch of a dandelion gone to seed. Bits of the flower’s white fluff were blowing away on an unseen breeze and as they drifted they morphed into musical notes.

“That,” I told her as soon as I saw it. I’d been so hesitant that day in her tattoo parlor, but now that I saw this, I knew it was the right choice.

She smiled. “I kind of thought that might be it.”

“The others are beautiful!” I hurried to assure her. “I really like them all.”

“It’s cool, Pres, you get to have a favorite.” She shot me a sassy look. “Unless of course you want to get them all. You’d look great with a full floral sleeve…” She pointed to her own by way of example.

“Let’s not rush into anything,” I said, holding up a hand.

“All right, all right. We’ll start with this one.”

“Is that what you said to Paul the first time?”

She grinned. Then she flipped through the pages of her sketchbook until she found another drawing. “I’m going to try to talk him into this one next.” It was a merging of a brightly colored mandala and a compass.

I was going to ask her where she imagined it going on his body, but we got distracted by Ronnie’s call for attention at the front of the room.

The whole band was finally there, and they’d been chatting as they set up their instruments and razzed one another about this and that.

“Guys, I’ve got some news,” Ronnie said. He looked pained. “My, uh…my unit’s been called up.”

I’d forgotten that Ronnie was in the Army Reserves. With his small stature, he seemed an unlikely soldier.

“When do you have to go?” James asked.

“We’re leaving in two weeks.”

“Motherfucker,” Rob said while the other guys groaned or echoed his sentiments in a variety of ways.

I looked at Kenzie, but before she could explain, Spence said, “What about Summerfest?”

Ronnie shook his head. “I’m leaving two days before the show.”

“Fuck.” Rob threw a drumstick at the wall. It left a tiny dent in the Sheetrock before clattering to the floor.

“What are we going to do now?” Spence spoke up again.

“I guess we can’t do the show,” Paul said, getting a few dirty looks, probably for not sounding disappointed enough.

“I’m sorry, you guys,” Ronnie said. “But you know we’ve been on alert for a few months now.”

“Yeah, we know,” Aric, the percussionist, said sullenly. “Fuckin’ fuck.”

“We can’t cancel the show,” Nick said. “We’ve been trying to get into Summerfest for two years.”

“We can’t do a show without a singer,” Karl, the other horn player, said.

“Paul’s gonna have to do it,” Nick said.

Paul froze. “Me?”

“You’re the only other person who can sing worth a damn.”

My eyes went wide in surprise. I’d heard Paul myself and he was definitely a good singer, but in the band he did only some backup vocals, and shared a mic with Nick when he did. I couldn’t imagine him facing the audience and singing lead the whole time.

“Fuck that,” Paul said. “I’m not doing it.”

“Come on, man,” Nick cajoled. “You think Rob’s gonna do it? Spence?”

“James,” Paul said. “Make James do it.”

James snorted. “The people can’t handle these golden pipes, you know that.”

Kenzie leaned close to me and whispered, “James sings wicked low. Like Barry White low.”

The back-and-forth went on, with Paul suggesting other people—anyone but himself—and the others shooting him down. His shoulders were ratcheting up higher with each minute, and I noticed his chest heaving.

“Uh-oh,” Kenzie said softly.

Paul lifted his guitar from his shoulders and thrust it out to Nick, who was closest. The bass player took it automatically, then shook his head when he realized what was happening. But Paul was already headed for the stairs.

“I need a minute,” he muttered.

A few of the guys couldn’t hold back groans of annoyance.

“Every fucking time,” someone muttered.

Kenzie stiffened beside me, but didn’t speak up. I understood, but I wasn’t in the mood to sit around listening to them bitch about Paul.

“I’ll check on him,” I told her, pushing to my feet.

“He’ll probably be outside,” she advised me.

Upstairs, most of the lights in the house were off, but even without my being able to see into the rooms, they gave off the air of being unoccupied. I decided to let myself out the sliding doors and check the backyard.

Paul was there, sitting on one of the swings of an ancient swing set. I wasn’t surprised to see the slight glow on the end of a joint as he brought it to his mouth.

“Hey,” I said, approaching cautiously.

He didn’t answer.

“Mind if I sit?”

He gestured to the empty swing beside him, but I sat cross-legged on the ground in front of him instead. The wood chips were irregular and uncomfortable under my butt, but I didn’t show him any of that.

“Bad?” I asked.

“Not the worst I’ve ever had.” He took another drag from the joint and held the smoke in his chest for long enough that I started to feel like I couldn’t breathe.

“Do you want to do that five-things thing Kenzie did?” I offered.

“No.”

“Oh.” I didn’t really have any other ideas, though I made a mental note to see what I could find online that I could do to help him in the future.

“Just need to stop my brain.” He took another purposeful pull off the joint, then scowled at it when the ember got too close to his fingertips. He tapped it out and put it in the familiar prescription bottle before secreting that in his pocket. Now with his hands unoccupied, he scrubbed at his face and leaned forward, elbows on knees, still looking quite worked up.

“Will this help?” I offered, rising up to my knees to kiss him. I didn’t wait for a response, coaxing his lips open with my own. His mouth tasted of spent smoke, but it was soon lost as he deepened the kiss.

Wood chips bit into my knees, and I shifted my weight carefully from one to the other to relieve it, but I wasn’t subtle enough. Paul hooked his arms around me and stood, pulling me to my feet. Thank God we weren’t in a fucking alley this time. He hoisted me up until I wrapped my legs around his waist and then carried me a few steps to a picnic table, where he set me on the top. I lay back, pulling him down with me, and we continued to kiss as though our lives depended on it.

I couldn’t say for sure if we’d managed to stop his brain, but mine was certainly moving at a slower speed. The taste of him, the feel of his hands as he caressed my body, the heat of his skin as I snuck my hands below his shirt to explore his back. The night sounds of crickets and a warm breeze in the trees. He might not have catalogued them aloud for me, but I was certainly aware of the wash of sensory information all around.

Below my shirt, he released the clasp of my bra and covered my breast with one hand. I moaned low in my throat as his lips moved down my chest, dragging the edge of my shirt—the wide neck of it created with a scissors—down low enough to expose my nipple to the night air. Heat pulsed through me and I tightened my thighs around his hips.

Could we get away with having sex right here on Rob’s picnic table? Parts of my anatomy assured me this was exactly the right plan, while the rest of me said I needed to put the brakes on this situation. I dug my fingers into Paul’s hair while I tried to clear my head.

The sliding door made the decision for me. We both heard it and scrambled to sit up. I hauled my shirt back into place, even though my bra was still wild and free inside of it.

“Paul, you out here?” came a voice. I couldn’t be sure which one of the guys it was.

“Yeah, here.” Paul’s voice sounded thick and strange, and he cleared his throat.

“Is Presley out there with you?” the voice asked. It sounded like Aric.

“I’m here,” I said.

“Can you come downstairs? Both of you?”

“Be right there.”

Aric, if it was actually him, closed the door without saying anything else. Paul grabbed my hips and pulled me to the edge of the table so I could feel his erection against me. “Can we get a rain check on this?”

I groaned softly. “I guess we have to.”

He kissed my forehead. “Stay with me tonight?”

“Okay.” I did a bit of contortion to put my bra back together. “Did it help? At least a little?”

“Yes. And it’s way more fun than counting things.”

I grinned and gave him one more kiss before we left the table to rejoin the band downstairs.

They were all approximately where we’d left them, except now each face was turned in the direction of the stairs as Paul and I made our descent.

“What’s going on?” Paul asked.

“We have an idea,” Nick said.

“Obviously you don’t want to take over for Ronnie,” James said matter-of-factly. “But none of us want to give up the Summerfest show. It’s too big.”

I caught Paul’s hand in my own, trying to keep the gesture behind his back for privacy.

“Presley, we want you to do it,” Ronnie said.

“What?” I blinked, dropping Paul’s hand.

“You’re fantastic,” Ronnie said. “You already know the band a little bit. You probably already know most of our covers. You’ll just have to learn the originals.”

“I don’t—” I shook my head. “Why me?”

“Why not you?” Spence asked. “We could try to find another singer, but you’re here and you’re way better than anybody else we could find. It’s like it was meant to be.”

“You guys can’t ask her to do this,” Paul said.

“A little late for that pal—we already did,” Ronnie pointed out.

Paul turned to me now. “Pres, you don’t have to do this.”

“I—” I didn’t know what to think, much less say.

“You didn’t even think you should ask me first?” Paul asked the band.

“You’re the one who wanted her to sing at our last show,” Nick said. “We thought you’d be cool with it.”

“Yeah, come on, it’s kind of a no-brainer,” Spence agreed.

“You guys—” I tried to start again, but again had no idea where to go with my words.

“You’d really be helping us out of a bind,” James said. “You don’t even have to tell anyone your name if you want. I mean, if we’re, like, too small for you or whatever.”

“You can’t blame us for asking,” Aric added.

“What do you say?” Ronnie asked.

“Oh, I—” I put one hand on my temple as if to hold my brain in place. “I—I think I need a drink.”

They laughed, and Rob hopped up from behind the drums. “What’s your poison?”

“Whiskey. Single malt if you got it. On the rocks,” Paul answered for me.

“I knew I liked you,” Rob said with a smile. He crossed to the makeshift bar and selected a tumbler and a bottle of Jameson. He tossed in a few ice cubes from the refrigerator and poured me a finger.

He handed it to me and I drank as much of it down as I could without slopping it on my face. I should have told him to skip the ice. This was decision-making whiskey, not a sipping drink.

“Again,” I said, extending the tumbler to Rob. He dosed out another and I sent it down the hatch.

It probably said something very bad about me that I wanted alcohol the minute I was faced with a tough decision, but there wasn’t time to explore that right now. I had a serious question in front of me. Several, actually. Did I want to do this show? My gut reaction was yes. I craved the stage. As much as I’d resisted it, performing that single song at their last show had reminded me of what I’d been missing. I wanted to perform again, and badly. But I’d promised myself I wouldn’t mix relationships with music anymore. Brendan had burned me over and over again. I would be an idiot to put all my emotions back in one basket. Another band, another guitar player, another relationship. What was wrong with me that I was repeating this pattern again so quickly?

But on the other hand, they weren’t asking me to join the band. They were looking for someone to help them out for one important show. And this was Paul’s band. And I liked Paul. A lot. How could I hurt him by turning them down?

Yet I also knew he’d be not-so-secretly relieved to get out of the big performance. So would I upset him by agreeing to do it? I wanted badly for Paul to know the joy of performing the way I did. He had the chops to be something, if only he could get over his fear. I could be helping him by agreeing to the gig. Couldn’t I?

These thoughts came down on me like a disorganized heap. There were an awful lot of people looking at me, expecting a decision. Their hopes were all over their faces. The only person who didn’t have naked want all over his face was Paul. He was…edgy. I had to look away from him when I spoke.

“I’ll do it.”

“You will?” Ronnie exclaimed at the same time that Paul said, “You don’t have to do this.”

“What the hell?” I shrugged, hoping to sound confident, though that was probably a lost cause given that I’d reacted to their invitation with a demand for whiskey. “It’s just one show. It’ll be fun.”