Someone to Watch Over Me (30 page)

“Tate, you don’t have to talk about him if
you don’t want to. Just say so and I won’t ask you anymore
questions.”

“Screw it. You’re going to find out sooner
or later.” Running a hand through his hair, he panned the room
again. “If I don’t tell you, my dad will. He’ll never let it go. In
fact, I’m surprised he hasn’t called me on it already.”

“‘You’re going to find out sooner or later’
is not a promising start.”

“No, no, it’s kinda embarrassing, that’s
all. You know the story behind the band’s name, right?”

I nodded. “I meant to ask you about it,
actually. It’s a pretty dark story. What made you choose something
so morbid?”

“Because Ben Ure and his wife are my
ancestors.”

“Oh. Wow. Would it be rude if I said I was
sorry?”

Tate arched one dark brow with dry
amusement. “You can imagine why it’s not public knowledge. Would
you want anyone to know you were related to Ben Ure?”

“Not at all.” Who’d want to be associated
with a man who threw his slaves to a watery death so that he could
escape arrest? Who wanted to be related to a slave trader
period?

“His wife was American Indian. Somena, I
think. I don’t know. I can’t recall all the details. I never took
it seriously. She was my great grandmother five times removed or
something like that. My grandmother swore to it, but I just thought
she was a kook. When she passed away, though, my dad was going
through her things and he came across our family tree. It was true,
all of it.”

“I guess I can see it.”

“See what?”

“That you’ve Native American in your blood.”
Watered down as it was, I could still see it in his features and
coloring.

Again, Tate rolled his eyes. “My dad’s going
to love you.”

“What’s the big deal?”

Tate smiled awkwardly. One more time, he
panned the bus and leaned closer to my ear. His voice came out low,
hesitant for anyone else to hear. “My dad, he embraced his heritage
with heart and soul. But me, I don’t put any stock into this kind
of stuff, just so that we’re clear. I don’t believe in vision
quests or any of that Native American mojo.”

“Ok,” I said hesitantly. “I still don’t
understand what the big deal is.”

“I’m getting to that. A few years ago, well,
more than a few, I was sick. Really, really sick. My fever was so
high that I had hallucinations and everything. My dad prefers to
call them ‘visions.’” Rolling his eyes, Tate expressed his opinion
on the notion.

“Visions. Like prophecies of the
future?”

“Yes and no. They’re symbolic or
metaphorical, and dependent upon interpretation. They’re supposed
to give you ‘spiritual guidance’ and a ‘deeper understanding of
your life’s purpose.’” He said this in a manner that implied he’d
heard it a thousand times before. “Anyhow, I don’t remember a lot
of it. I was just a kid, and it was a long time ago. Everything’s
kind of fuzzy. It involved this Red-tail. A hawk, you know? She was
perched on this branch, wearing a hood and jesses. She was
beautiful. Beautiful, but sad. It just seemed wrong for something
so majestic to be confined. So I took them off. As I pulled the
hood off, she spread her wings. She was just amazing.
Amazing
. I remember being in awe. And I remember being
afraid. She was huge, and imposing, but letting her go was worth
every ounce of fear.”

“Overall, that doesn’t seem so weird.”

“I didn’t think so either. It was just a
dream. But that’s not all. This is the kicker. When I was recording
my first album, I asked my dad to do the cover art. It was a kind
of dedication to him. He made me who I am, you know? He was always
there, even at my worst.

“So about a month later, he hands me this
illustration.” Holding up his tablet, Tate showed me the image from
his first album, which, as I mentioned, looked uncannily similar to
me. “And he tells me that while subtlety works on some, others need
a good hard slap in the face. And he laughed. No explanation. No
anything. He just laughed.”

It didn’t take long for me to construe what
Tate was implying. I was the falcon. And although he had his own
deep-seated fears, he was freeing me from my own emotional
bondage.

“You’re kidding.” Taking the tablet from his
hand, I studied the image. My God, it was me. Well, not exactly me,
but it was a pretty damn close interpretation.

“Tell me about it.”

“This is a joke, right?”

“Nope.”

“God, the girls at work would go crazy over
this. They were all ranting and raving about fate and how much I
looked like this damn picture.”

“Coop, if you tell anyone about this, I
swear, the retribution will not be pleasant. Humiliation will be
putting it lightly.”

“What’s the big deal?”

“People will look at me like I’m a
fruitcake.”

“But you don’t believe any of it.”

“No.” Flipping the cover shut, Tate placed
the tablet on the side table. “No. It’s just a coincidence. It’s
simple to connect two imminent events by twisting words until they
fit the right outcome. Look at Nostradamus. He supposedly made over
six thousand prophesies anywhere from the French Revolution to
9/11. It’s all a bunch of crap.”

“It’s certainly unnerving.”

“The media would tear it apart.”

“Dude!” Carter exclaimed. “Did you
fart
on my feet?” Answering Carter’s question, Levy’s giggle
burbled across the room. “You did! You farted on my feet!”

“I no fart! I poopie!”

“Aw God! Get off! Get off now! Cooper, come
get your kid! He just sh—poopied on my feet!”

“I no poopie on yew feet! I poopie in my
diaper!”

“Which is resting on my feet! Go, kid, go
tell your mom to clean you up.”

“Yew cween it up!” Levy pointed a pudgy
finger at Carter.

“Oh, no, no, no! Go ask that guy over there.
He’s your daddy now.”

Levy looked at Tate with confusion.

I promptly decided it was best to intervene
before Levy thought too hard about it. Sliding from Tate’s lap, I
hoisted him from Carter’s feet. “Come on kiddo. Let’s get you
cleaned up.”

“I poopie.”

“You sure did.”

“Tate poopie.”

“No, Tate farted.”

“Stinky.”

“Yup.”

“It was not that bad!” Tate exclaimed as we
walked past. Levy smiled and squirmed on my hip, preparing for a
rebuttal by virtually scaling my side until Tate was safely in the
distance.

“YEW stinky!”

“I’m not the one with DOODIE in his
drawers!”

“Uh huh!”

“Un uh!”

Laughing, I laid Levy on the bed and made
quick work of changing his diaper. Neither of us wanted to spend
any more time on the task than possible. He was behaving. He hadn’t
when he was younger. When Levy was smaller, he would wiggle and
fuss. So I had made of game of it by singing with him. Currently,
he was crooning Classy Girls, what parts he knew.

“Teaching him young, aren’t you,” Tate said,
standing behind me.

“He doesn’t know what the song means.”

“I meant to sing, babe. With his looks, I
imagine he won’t have any problem kissing girls in bars.”

The bus shimmied, undulating Levy’s voice
similar to speaking into a fan. Noting the resonation, Levy beamed
a smile. His mouth fell slack. “A-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-h-h-h-h…”

Tate and I looked at each other, puzzled
over the source of the vibrations. That’s when I noticed the
warbling sound coming from outside. Rising to my toes, I peered out
the window.

“Oh my God! Stop the bus!” I shouted. “Stop
the bu—” Just then, I felt a deep shudder, and heard a sharp snap.
The right front wheel of my Mini broke free of the axle and shot
out into the left lane; the right rear wheel wobbled precariously
before it, too, broke the lug nuts and bounced into traffic. That
was when we lost my Mini. “My car!” I couldn’t look. I couldn’t
turn away. The scene was an atrocity.

Cars swerved left and right trying to avoid
the unmanned vehicle. Horns began blaring as they swerved
haphazardly into neighboring lanes of traffic. My car dug into the
asphalt, spinning in a wide circle, the naked rotors sparking and
grinding. It narrowly missed a large cargo van, and continued to
spin, broadsiding the concrete median and rebounding into
traffic.

Carter made his way to the back, as did Jake
and Shane. We all watched out the rear window of the bus in awe and
trepidation as my car caused mayhem on the highway.

A subcompact matching its size darted to the
left, clipping my bumper and spinning out of control. The semi
tractor-trailer behind it wasn’t as lucky. My car had spun one
hundred and eighty degrees by this time. The semi hit it head on,
crushing the front end into a ball of twisted metal. The Mini rode
on its stubbed nose as the semi jackknifed and pushed it forward,
cradling my car between its cab and trailer. The driver of the semi
made a valiant attempt to gain control of his vehicle, but it was
no use. The momentum sent it teetering precariously to the side. In
the meantime, my car had slipped past the cab of the semi, so when
the semi finally lost its battle with inertia, it landed on the
remains of my freshly painted Mini Cooper.

When all came to a rest, the semi blocked
two of the four lanes of traffic.

“Momma, das your car?” Levy asked. “Is dat
your car, Momma?”

“Yeah, Lev,” I murmured, half in shock,
“That was momma’s car.”

Chapter
16

“I
’ll be right
back,” I told Marshall. “I just want to check something out.”
Rising from my seat in the C section of The Garden, I made my way
up to the edge of the stage. “Tate!”

Tate’s head shot up from where he was
speaking to one of the stage crew. He gestured to the man to hold
his thought, and jogged over. “What up, babe?”

“Move the drums up closer to the audience.
Shane’s lost in the back.”

“Really?” Lifting his arm, he shrilled a
whistle to get Shane’s attention and beckoned him over. “Coop says
you’re lost back there.”

Shane lifted his shoulder apathetically.
“It’s where I’m always positioned.”

“You’re way out in left field. You need to
be closer to the front.” Pushing my hair from my face, I turned my
attention back to Tate. “Put him on an angle so that he’s not
completely hidden by his drums. Let your fans see him. I caught a
little bit of him the other night. He’s fuckin’ hot when he’s
playing. He has energy. He projects it to the audience. It pumps
them up.”

“All right. We’ll move him up then.” That
said, Tate turned and went back to work. Shane just looked around,
as if he were standing in an alternate universe.

“You’re pretty amazing behind those
drums.”

“Thanks.”

“Can I just make one suggestion, though—make
sure you wear a belt tonight, or you’re gonna give your fans more
of a show than they bargained for.” Shane liked ultra low-rise
jeans. The problem was they tended to sag when he stood from his
chair. From watching him play the past three concerts, I knew he
came off his stool when he immersed himself in his playing.
Scoffing, Shane turned, but as he walked away, I watched him hike
up his drawers.

“You’re welcome!”

“Yeah, thanks, Coop, you’re all right.”

“Yeah, thanks, Coop, you’re all right,” I
mimed. I tried really stinking hard to win over Tate’s band. I
wasn’t a hard person to get along with, but damn if Shane wasn’t
difficult. He was a loner. He didn’t talk much, and when he did,
what came out of his mouth was hardly forthcoming. Ok, so it wasn’t
so much Tate’s band as Shane.

“You shouldn’t bother,” Carter spoke up,
sitting on the edge of the stage. His legs hung over the sides. He
was sipping at a beer. “He’s unsociable.”

“So I shouldn’t assume that he doesn’t like
me.”

“Sure you should. He doesn’t like anybody.
Want a drink?” Generously, he offered me a sip of his beer.

“No thanks.”

“Oh, that’s right, you can’t.”

“Fuck off Carter.” I was beginning to
rethink my view on friends razzing each other. Carter never
stopped. For nearly a week now, he taunted me with suggestions of
pregnancy.

“Moody, are we?”

“I just find you intolerable.” I didn’t
really. Carter was a good friend to Tate. He just liked to push
buttons. Mine, particularly. “And it’s not frustration because I
secretly want you.”

“At least you’re admitting it now. That’s
the first step.”

With a sound of disgust hissing up my
throat, I returned to my seat next to Marshall, who was watching
over Levy as he hopped from seat to seat with an infinite amount of
energy.

“You need fresh air,” Marshall observed,
rising from his seat. “And the kid’s hungry. Let’s get out of here
for a few.”

“Ok.” I’d been climbing out of my own skin
since watching my car skid to its demise on the I95. The entire day
before, I spent on the phone with the insurance company and
alternately sulking over the loss. It was like losing a child. I
loved my Mini with all my heart. Its purchase had been an
accomplishment. I had earned every penny that went toward the down
payment.

Pulling his phone from its holster, Marshall
spoke a few words into the speaker. A few seconds later, he
received a message back. The whole exchange was clandestine and
completely pretentious.

“Do you really need to do that every time I
go somewhere?”

“Yeah. Boss’s orders.”

“I think you enjoy it.”

“I do. I take your safety seriously.”

“That’s not what I meant, though I do
appreciate that.” Contrary to my previous beliefs, wheels didn’t
just randomly fall off your car. Someone had to loosen the lug nuts
first. Furthermore, imagine the chances that two wheels fell off my
car at one shot. It was almost unheard of. Especially since the
body shop hadn’t needed to remove the tires to paint my car. “I
meant the whole ‘chirp chirp’ thing.
Chirp chirp
. ‘The
assignment requests formal permission to vacate the premises.’
Chirp chirp
.”