The Girl On The Half Shell (41 page)

I watch Alan wash me. He is gentle and kind. I never expected him to be that kind of guy. Alan was right. I did think he was safe. I did think he was going to prove only to be an asshole.

I start to cry again. He always takes such good care of me, but today I realize it is important to him to take care of me, something more about him than me.

I curl into a tight ball as he washes my back. I am someone Alan loves. And that is something more about him than me.

Chapter Sixteen

The next morning, I wake alone and go to the kitchen to find Alan making breakfast. I feel badly. It must be my turn and he’s cooking because I don’t know how to.

“Is pancakes all right with you?” he asks.

I nod and drop a kiss on his cheek. There are things I don’t like about Alan, but these sweet, thoughtful moments and how he loves me are enough to keep me here with him. I stay with him because I love how he loves me.

I sink at the piano. I start to play. I feel good today. Last night I told Alan I love him, it felt right finally to say the words, they flowed easily and honestly out of me, and those black eyes filled with some expression, something I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before. I love him. He loves me. What could be more wonderful than that?

Kenny Jones enters the room. “What the fuck is she playing?”

“
Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring
.” Alan flips a pancake. “And no, Kenny, it is not the Beatles. It’s Bach.”

“Are you sure she’s Jackson Parker’s daughter?”

Alan ignores him.

I feel Kenny too close to me. I continue to play.

“Play Chrissie, Joy of Kenny’s Desiring.”

Oh crap! I stop playing. There is never any telling what Alan’s reaction will be to shit like that. I grab my book of D.H. Lawrence and move to the sofa to read.

I look at Alan. He is pissed, but he isn’t exploding today. He continues to cook breakfast.

“You’re a fucking piece of shit, Kenny,” Alan says quietly easing food onto a plate.

“I know,” Kenny says, sinking on a chair at the table. He reaches for the coffee pot. He fills a cup. Kenny looks at me. “Hey, little kitty, what happened to the music? I thought you were going to play Chrissie, Joy of Kenny’s Desiring.”

I ignore him and turn a page. The Rowans step down the stairs. Linda pats me on the arm. Len drops a kiss on the top of my head. I follow them with my eyes as they go to the breakfast bar to grab pancakes.

The vibe in the room is strange, painfully taut, and then I remember last night during the girl melee, Alan had announced he was leaving and quitting. The strangeness in the room isn’t about me. It’s about Alan.

Alan brings me my plate and sets it on the coffee table beside me. “Do you at least know how to wash dishes?” he asks.

I make a face and shake my head.

Linda starts to laugh. “She’s lying, Manny. I can tell.”

He drops a kiss on my nose and those black eyes are shimmering with affection. “I can tell, too.”

He sinks down beside me and I ease up, reaching with my fork to grab a bite of my pancake. He turns my book to see what I’m reading.

“Have you read that?” I ask. “I hate it. I would be willing to wash dishes for a week if you could give me a synopsis.”

“Chrissie, what’s wrong with you? This is great literature. Don’t they teach you to appreciate literature in California?”

I toss the book on the table. “Sorry, Alan, that I don’t match your highbrow standard. I wasn’t raised to appreciate
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
. I was raised to appreciate
Rule for Radicals
. I think Jack gave it to me for Christmas the same year he gave me my Tiffany bracelet. Never philosophically consistent, not even over the holidays.”

Alan studies my face. “Do you want to go to the village to call Jack?”

I tense, since I don’t know what’s in my expression that he would ask me that. “Nope, I want to eat pancakes.”

He leaves it alone and goes back to the kitchen.

After we’re done cleaning up the dishes, Alan takes me to the barn with him. It is my first time in the rehearsal space. It is empty. The guys aren’t here, and I sit on the floor as Alan methodically positions the effect pedals, and I stare at the rafters, the old wood, the spider webs, and the musty, dark world that is the barn.

It is a place before time. A place without time. Alan is playing, adjusting, working through something that is only in his head.

I wander over to look at some kind of rusty, half broken piece of farm equipment. There is the most extraordinary spider web in the wheel spokes. Thick and intricate and swirling. Definitely a mercilessly constructed trap. But no spider. I stare at the floor, wondering if it’s near me.

I hear a sound close to me and I look up to find Alan has unplugged and is standing above me.

“This is the most incredible spider web I’ve ever seen,” I exclaim, pointing. “I wonder how longs it’s been there.”

“I had a little girl,” he begins in a soft voice, and every nerve in my body feels a prick. “Molly. She was five. She died fifteen months ago.”

Quiet. Alan steps away from me and sits on an old crate. I straighten up and I don’t know whether to move toward him or stay where I am. I don’t even know why he’s telling me this today.

He gives me a rough laugh that has nothing to do with humor. “Don’t look so apprehensive, Chrissie. This is just a story.”

My heart twists.
Bullshit, Alan. This isn’t just “a story” to you.

“I never wanted her. I didn’t want to be bothered having to care about someone and I didn’t know her mother. Not at all. I did all the correct things financially, but I didn’t want to be bothered, and I made sure everyone knew it.”

He stares up at the rafters and runs a hand through his hair. “But Molly was a cute little thing and she wasn’t the least bit put off by me. She did what she wanted, smiled and laughed, and eventually she had me, she owned me. I adored her in every way.”

I feel a sad smile I can’t hold back.
Yes, that’s the Alan I know.

“What happened to her?” I ask.

He rises from the crate and goes back to plug in the guitar. “She got sick. A week later she was dead. Her mother never bothered to call me. She was dead before I found out she was sick.”

Oh my. How awful, how absolutely awful. Knowing Alan, I can’t imagine any girl doing that to him.

He hesitates at my reaction. “I’m not responsible for her dying. And I am not responsible for not being there. But I regret them both. There is a difference.”

The hairs on my body stand up. “Did Linda tell you what we talked about?” I ask nervously.

Alan shakes his head. “No, she wouldn’t do that. She’s a true friend. You can trust her with anything. Linda is one of the few people on earth I trust completely.”

He turns until his back is facing me, starts adjusting things and begins to play. I realize this conversation isn’t intended to start or finish anything. It’s an Alan truth card. He takes a step forward and will wait until I follow. He’s letting it alone until I’m ready.

I sit on the old crate, watching him play, as the barn fills up with the rest of the band. I don’t know why I could tell Linda all my messed up shit. I don’t know why I can’t tell Alan.

Maybe I just can’t tell him that worst part of me because I love him.

* * *

Tonight there is something frantic in me. After the guys finished rehearsal for the day, Alan and I went back to the bedroom, made love, and I slept curled into him. When I opened my eyes, Alan was beside me watching me sleep. The world looked the same, but internally I woke different.

I pull on Linda’s awful loaner mini dress and I fluff out my hair, brushing the underside, spraying it, in that way that Rene calls the “just been fucked” look of hair. My body is anxious, I feel it my flesh, frantic sensations running loose inside me.

We are on our way to the village, to some sort of bar, where the guys might or might not play before an audience to get a little of the edge back before they go back on the road.

I study my face as I put the finishing touches of makeup on and find something strange about me that I can’t identify.

Everyone is already gathered downstairs waiting, by the time I leave the bedroom. The air is filled with cigarette and other smoke, and I can tell by the loudness that quite a bit of drinking and other stuff has gone on while Alan and I slept.

I can feel Alan watching, but he doesn’t come to me. God, he is beautiful. Black hair, intense dark eyes, ordinary casual dress, but all Alan. It is still a little mind blowing that he is with me.

Len smiles. “Is that all right with you, little kitty?”

All right? What is Len’s talking about? I’ve not followed any of the conversation since I entered the room.

“The cars,” he says with heavier meaning. “We’ve got to pair off. You’re driving with us.”

Everyone is moving, getting ready to leave, and I roll forward onto my feet. Len puts his hand on the bare skin of the small of my back.

“You OK?” Len whispers.

“Sure I’m great,” I say with an overly bright smile.

He gives me a half smile. “You know, Linda has a dress just like that. I always want to jump her when she’s wearing that dress.”

I shrug. “Maybe I should take it off.”

Len laughs a little too loudly.

Once we are out in front of the farmhouse, everything suddenly feels very weird to me. But then, it’s been a weird day.

I can barely see Alan’s face in the darkness around the gravel driveway, but I can feel he is studying me closely. The air is chilly, it touches my flesh, and I shiver. I am beginning to feel a dull, persistent sadness mixing with the frantic. Something is off. Is it me or is it him?

“You OK, Chrissie? Cold?”

I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

Yes, this definitely feels strange.

The Rowans stop bickering and pile into the car. Alan leans a hand on my door, not opening it.

“Why don’t we stay behind tonight,” he says quietly. His eyes touch my face softly, gauging my reaction. There is something in his voice I can’t quite make out.

Alan turns us until I’m in his arms and his back is against the car. His mouth joins mine and I feel an almost hungry desperation in his need for me. Then it occurs to me in the way he kisses me, in the way he touches me, that he needs to know that we’re OK, that I’m OK. I suddenly know he can feel the weirdness, too, and that the weirdness is in me.

He doesn’t break the kiss; he intensifies it. His hands move up beneath my dress, to the bare flesh of my thighs and I am lifted and molded into him. He is doing what he does so well, pulling me into him.

“Let’s stay, Chrissie,” he breathes into my ear.

He is using that voice he uses. The velvet seduction. The voice he uses to get me to do what he wants me to do. For some reason, he doesn’t want me going on the dysfunctional outing tonight.

I tip my head back. “No, Alan, you are not using me as an excuse to bail on them. I don’t want
them
thinking I’m some uptight bitch who ruins everyone’s fun.”

He sets me back on my feet. He is studying me again and his eyes are black and totally unrevealing. “Fuck what they think, Chrissie. I think we should stay behind.”

He stares at me. God, he can be so frustrating at times. If he has something to say, why doesn’t he just say it?

He opens my door and I drop into my seat. I can see that he doesn’t want to go, but I climb into my seat and we are going.

The car is strangely quiet as we drive. After the loudness of the house, it is very eerie. Alan doesn’t turn on music, and even the Rowans aren’t bickering.

The roads are narrow, lined with trees, and without street lamps. Without the mountains and the ocean, I can never tell what direction I’m going. Are we going north, south, east or west? I stare out the window into the smothering darkness. I don’t know. I can’t feel the direction. It is an unexpectedly disturbing thing.

The rest of the dysfunctional are at the bar by the time we get there, their pretty line of fancy cars tucked into a lot full of less spectacular vehicles. As we pull into a gravel parking space, I look around for something to give an indication as to what amusement this place could hold for them. It is rustic and tucked in a thicket of trees, and I have a feeling we’re more likely to find NRA members than the rocker set here.

But this is Alan’s choice. Alan’s favorite place at the lake. I wonder what he likes here.

Linda is pushing at the back of my seat, and I climb out of the car before Alan can open my door. She springs out of the car and agitatedly begins to adjust her clothing.

Linda shakes in head in irritation. “I hate that backseat.”

Len gives his wife a roguish grin. “You didn’t last week, love.”

“Oh, shut up, Len.”

I laugh as the Rowans move ahead of us. Their bickering is part of them. I have a strange feeling they are going to be the only normal, the only constant tonight.

Alan gives me a small smile as he pulls back the heavy wood doors, and I step into a dim, smoky tomb and feel a rush of dread. The bar is packed, pulsing and loud. But this is not a trendy nightspot for the fashionable off on holiday from the city. This is a redneck bar full of locals.

The attention of the entire establishment is trained on us. The guys root out a space in the far end of the bar, away from the stage but near the dancing. They are dragging two tables and putting the chairs together for us.

Linda snakes her arm around my waist and guides me deeper into the room. “Don’t worry, Chrissie. They know us here and the UK has a peace treaty with the Beverly Hillbillies. But if the room explodes, run. Our job is to stay clear and bail them out in the morning.”

I laugh as Linda sinks into her chair and gestures for the waitress. Alan waits for me to sit and I scoot over in between him and Linda.

“What do you want to drink?” Linda asks.

“What are you drinking?”

“Tequila shooters with a beer chaser.”

I look up at the girl. “I’ll have the same.”

Alan is watching me and somehow staying engaged in the rapid laughter and chatter around the table. The waitress returns with her heavily burdened tray.