Missing chord, p.20
Missing Chord, page 20
“Sucks. That’s some of your best work. But sure, we’ll run through the new list a few times before you arrive. Keep the practices to a minimum.”
“You’re the best.” I was so lucky, really. “Can’t wait to see you and everyone.”
“You’ll be blown away. Quinn cut his hair and shaved off his beard. We tell him he looks like an aging boy band drummer now.”
“Can’t wait,” I repeated.
“See you then.”
I stuck my phone into my pocket, bought coffee and a donut, and watched the clock until I could have them. A pair of half-grown black and white cats romped across the floor, mock-battling, tails fluffed to bottle-brush, until they suddenly declared a truce. Both cats leaped up into the hammock of a climber and they began washing each other’s fur. I smiled.
It occurred to me that I was happy. I mean yeah, the vocal cord thing was a bitch, but I was sure it was nothing. A temporary hitch. I had a cup of great java, a chocolate fudge donut, a wonderful man who would spend the evening with me, a huge concert on the horizon, and a room full of cats.
Linda Bellingham will never have any of those again.
The thought still hurt, but it didn’t suck me down in a dark hole like it would’ve two months ago. I desperately wished I’d done something different, anything different. But no one won by having me jump into a grave alongside her. If I kept living, and working, and singing, I could help these cats. I could send her kids more money, maybe. I could make Lee feel good. Help his mom, Harvey, Owen.
I finished my snack, colored the cartoon me’s shirt pink, and passed the finished product over to be displayed before making my way home.
***
The cat café concert went off without a hitch. Yeah, Lee gave me some shit about performing but I told him the ENT doctor had no objections. I didn’t tell him I hadn’t mentioned anything for her to object to. A little creative license. She hadn’t said anything about not singing.
The café was packed full that night, hitting the fire marshal’s limit, and other folks gathered in the street outside, looking in the windows. The owner had left four of the most mellow cats in the café to wander around and charm the guests, and even before I started singing, all four were spoken for. He gave a me nice intro, saying far more flattering things than I deserved, and a lot of cell phones were out recording the whole concert. My manager would’ve had a fit. Good thing I fired her.
I sang my best acoustic material, mostly from my second album, and a lot of the crowd sang along with old favorites. The donation jar on the counter ended up stuffed with bills.
Walking to Lee’s car at his side, high on the performance, I was stopped over and over by fans. I signed papers and phone cases and arms, and drew the line at boobs. The mood was warm and celebratory, but I heaved a relieved sigh when I was in the car and Lee pulled away from the curb.
“They really like you,” Lee murmured.
“Yeah, I guess. There were more people than I expected.”
“Did you ever have to have a bodyguard?”
I chuckled. “Hell, yeah. For about fifteen years from the end of the Wings of Ice tour until after Day Trip. Not full time, like around my apartment, but if I was performing or on a tour, there was always at least one guy. Or gal, though I only had a female bodyguard once. She was great. If I’d hit it really big, she’s who I’d have hired.”
Lee raised an eyebrow at me. “Must’ve made it hard to get laid on tour.”
I tipped my hand back and forth. “Some. If I’d been deep in the closet then yeah, guys on the down-low are screwed by the surveillance. Or sadly, not screwed. For me, it was the NDAs and the hassle more than anything. I could pick up a guy in a club and bring him to the hotel but ‘read this whole form and sign on the line before we fuck’ is a major boner-killer.”
“You haven’t made me sign an NDA.”
“I trust you. If you decide to spill the tea about me, it’ll only be because I deserve it.” I watched the streetlights flicker across his face, highlighting a curve of his cheekbone, his full lower lip, the hint of red in his shadowed hair. “NDAs are for hookups, not the man I hope to keep in my life.”
“I have a feeling a lot of famous people have been burned by that assumption.” But Lee smiled.
At my building, I dug my keys out, balancing my guitar and mic stand. “Could you get the door, babe? Maybe the mail too?”
“Sure thing.” He held the outer lobby door for me, stopped by my mailbox to dig out a handful of envelopes, then held the inner door.
I smiled as I passed. “I’m glad you’re here.” To make my point clear, I licked my lips.
He laughed as the elevator arrived. “Aren’t you tired after that performance?”
“Not really. Performing revs me up. Takes me a while to come down afterward and that was a low-key event. No hot lights, no screaming, no dancing, no exhaustion.”
“Just cats.”
“Excellent cats. I could totally get used to them being part of my shows.” I waited till he opened the apartment, then led the way inside, putting my guitar case on its stand.
Lee shut the door, set the mail on the kitchen counter, then froze, picking up one piece. “Hey, this is a reminder for a biopsy appointment.”
“Well, yeah.” I’d tried to hydrate during the show, but I poured myself a big glass of water and sipped it. My throat felt… okay. A bit dry, a little thick and scratchy. Not worse than it had been. “I told you she might want to do one.”
“This is dated five weeks from now.”
“First workable date.” I went and took the card from his hand, pinning it on the fridge with a magnet. “I guess they’re kind of booked out.”
“That’s ridiculous.” Lee paced three steps, whirled and came back. “For a tumor biopsy? In a vulnerable location? Why didn’t she do it right then while you were in the office. You said she did endoscopy. Why wait?”
“I think she was going to, but then she had some kind of emergency, so she told the nurse to reschedule it.”
“Fuck.” Lee turned again. “And you sang tonight. You’re going to do Rocktoberfest? What if the mass bleeds? You know it could seed the tumor lower in your throat, turn a simple surgery into a complicated one?”
I didn’t like the shaky feeling in my stomach and that made me angry. “The doctor didn’t say anything about that. I told the nurse I was performing on the first biopsy date and she pushed it later and said nothing about don’t sing or don’t wait. They should know better than you.”
“Wait.” Lee came and stared into my eyes. “What first date?”
I wished I hadn’t mentioned it, but I wasn’t going to lie. “They offered me a date in two weeks, but it’s in the middle of Rocktoberfest, so I couldn’t make it. November was the next available.”
“Oh, hell no.” Lee poked my chest with his finger. “You’re not playing those games with your health. First thing Monday morning you call them and tell them you’ll take the early date.”
I stepped back. “Excuse me? Who made you the boss? Anyhow, it’s probably not available anymore. They were booking up fast.”
“Aargh!” Lee knotted his fingers in his hair. “If so, you ask them to put you on a wait list. Cancel Rocktoberfest and tell them you can come in any day, any time, first available. Take care of your goddamned life!”
“You’re making a big fucking deal out of this.”
“Because it is a big fucking deal. Do you know the survival statistics for squamous cell carcinoma once it metastasizes? A tumor can kill you.”
“It’s a polyp. A nothing. The doctor was pretty sure.”
“If she was really sure, she wouldn’t have scheduled a biopsy.” Lee yanked on his hair, then knuckled his eyes. “Look, Griff, for me? Do this for me if you won’t do it for yourself. I saw Alice deal with a dozen major health crises that started minor but there was nothing we could do to prevent them. You have a chance for prevention. Or at least early intervention. Fucking take it!”
“I’m not cancelling Rocktoberfest. I’m committed. Pete and his band are practicing my songs. The tickets are sold and I won’t renege on a commitment.”
Lee’s lips twisted. “How many of the fans are going to the Fest just to see you? There’s lots of other bands. They won’t miss you that much.”
My breath whooshed out of my lungs like I’d been punched. I felt dizzy and my chest ached. “Oh, nice. So glad you support my work.”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” He glared at me. “I meant one concert isn’t worth dying for.”
“And keeping my word? Not to mention the money. My health insurance is shit. I have a six-thousand-dollar deductible before it pays a penny, and because it’s based in California, everything here is out of network. If I need surgery, I’ll need that money.”
“Are you lecturing me about medical debt? Seriously? Mom lost everything but the house before the state began covering Alice. But we never put money ahead of her health.”
“How nice for you,” I drawled.
“Fuck you. There are other ways to get money. Admit it. Even now, you can’t put your health or me and my heart above performing as Griffin Marsh, the rock star.”
“This isn’t about you!”
The cold, dead look in Lee’s eyes as he stepped away made me want to call back those words. “No, I guess it isn’t. I guess I don’t matter enough to be part of your real life.”
“I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I don’t care. It’s obvious. I’m not sticking around to watch you play stupid games with your life. You want to stick your head in the sand and play the ‘it’s just a polyp’ game? You want to put a cheering crowd ahead of medical advice? You do that. But don’t expect me to hang around for the crash. I’m gone.” He whirled and stomped to the door.
“Lee, wait!” I held out a hand. My fingers trembled and my vision blurred.
He eyed me like I was a rotting piece of fish. “Will you skip Rocktoberfest?”
“Maybe I don’t have to,” I babbled. “It’s just a few days. Maybe I can get a wait-list biopsy slot some other time.”
“Are you going to California on Friday and singing for a week?”
I didn’t say anything because the answer had to be yes. Pete and Chaser Lost were expecting me.
“That’s what I thought.” Lee shook his head. “You’re never going to put anything ahead of performing, are you? I was a fool to think you might.” He opened the door, slipped through with an agility that belied his size, and was gone.
“Wait.” The word caught in my throat and I wasn’t sure he heard it. Either way, his footsteps thudded off down the hall.
Wait…
I sank into a chair, feeling like I’d been whiplashed. How did I go from on top of the world to Lee charging out the door? My whole body ached, like the verbal blows he’d landed had been physical.
Surely he’d be back any minute. Surely he’d realize that asking me not to do Rocktoberfest for his ridiculous paranoia— what if it’s not paranoia? I shushed that obnoxious inner voice. Lee had to see he was asking too much. I’d promised to stop touring. I’d told him I was putting down roots in the community.
I am putting him first, as much as I can. I’d committed to Rocktoberfest long before we’d met up again. He couldn’t expect me to break my word, just because he asked me to.
Or could he?
I’d never had a real, healthy relationship, other than maybe with Lee all those years ago. I didn’t know what was too much, what was love and what wasn’t healthy. Maybe I was supposed to sacrifice everything for what Lee wanted. He’d lost so much. Could I blame him for not wanting to take any slightest chance?
Maybe if he came back and walked through the door and asked me again…
I dropped my face in my hands and sat there, every muscle tense. And I wasn’t sure if I was more afraid he would come back and ask again, or he wouldn’t. In the end, my fears didn’t matter. When I dragged my ass to bed in the small hours of morning, Lee hadn’t returned.
Chapter 18
Lee
I wasn’t sure how I’d driven home. All muscle memory and reflexes, because I found myself in Mom’s garage, my head pounding, and no recollection of the trip.
He’s doing it again. Worse this time, because this delay, this refusal to put anything ahead of his music and performing, might kill him. I could lose him not just to the distant whirl of the music world, but completely.
Or maybe not lose him. Maybe I never had him in the first place. He lied to me about what the doctor said, obviously. He knew I’d worry, and he treated me like an unreasonable child.
Fucking Rocktoberfest and sixty thousand fans mattered more to him than I did. No doubt it would always be that way, even if the mass turned out to be nothing. He’d keep going. One more concert and one more, a trip here, a few days away there, a little series of shows, a longer series. He wasn’t made for a normal life, and he clearly couldn’t stick to one.
I might not need him at my side now the way I had when Alice got sick, but I still couldn’t afford to fall this hard and fast and completely— except I did fall— I wouldn’t stay with a man who couldn’t put me first.
I clenched the steering wheel and breathed through gritted teeth. If I didn’t calm the fuck down, Mom would see something was up. Too much to hope she wasn’t waiting up for me. Willow and the meds were helping her anxiety but she was invested in the success of the cat café concert.
At the back of my mind, a little pulse of panic beat like frantic wings, fluttering, calling, suggesting I turn around, talk to Griffin, that maybe I was the unreasonable one. That I was losing the best thing in my life by walking away. But a bigger piece of me clung to my panic and my escape. If I stayed, if I cared, losing Griffin from his own stupid obsession with performing, health or no, would destroy me in deeper and far more painful ways than this.
Yeah, every bit of me ached at the thought of walking into Wellhaven on Monday and treating Griffin like a stranger. My throat clamped down hard at the image. But it was better than the alternative. Better than being the one ditched and left behind in travel or in death, the one not worth staying for, after falling in love. I was dodging a bullet.
I’m being smart. Damage control. Triage. Take the smaller loss to avoid the big one.
Except this didn’t feel small. This felt like an earthquake ripping the ground from beneath my feet.
Well, so did Dad leaving when I was a kid. So did Griffin leaving twenty years ago. So did losing Alice. I survived, went on, made good choices. I’d do the same now.
I climbed out of the car, which took more effort than I was used to. I should work out more. I’d been skimping on exercise time for Griffin time.
The door into the house squeaked as I pushed it open. Mom called, “Lee, is that you?”
“Yes.” I headed her way. She sat sprawled against the pillows on the couch as if she’d drifted off while reading.
I squatted and picked up her book from the floor. Willow reached out from Mom’s lap and booped my chin with her paw. “Hi, kitty.” I rubbed her cheeks and she purred.
“So how did it go?” Mom asked. “Tell me everything. Did they make much money?”
“Went great.” I kept my eyes on Willow, petting her as I described the crowd and the stuffed donation jar and four cats with likely new homes.
“So what aren’t you telling me?” she murmured when I ran out of words.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Bullshit.”
That made me blink and look up, because Mom could cut loose swearwords with the best of them but she almost never did.
“I know you, Lee. If everything was fine, you’d be smiling and waving your hands and telling me the little funny stuff. You’d have a light in your eyes.”
“It’s pretty late and it was a long night.”
“See, I remember when you went to one of Griffin’s concerts, back before you broke up, and you bopped around the living room humming the tunes and grinning until one-thirty.”
“I was twenty then. I’m forty now.” Older and wiser.
“I repeat. Bullshit. What’s wrong?”
Mothers. Sometimes there was no choice but to give in to their X-ray vision. “We kind of had a fight.”
“Like a little ‘give us some space overnight’ fight? Or an ‘I want to napalm your memory’ fight? Or in between?”
I could legitimately say, “In between,” because while I wasn’t going back and putting my heart into that bear trap ever again, I didn’t want to forget Griffin completely. I just wanted him in the safe friend zone where whatever happened to him was not my circus, not my monkeys, not my heart ripped out bleeding on the floor. “I’m tired. I’m gonna head to bed.”
“Good night, honey.” Mom set her hand on mine so I was sandwiched between her soft palm and Willow’s silky fur. “Hopefully it will all look better in the morning.”
I had my doubts, but all I wanted to do was hide under the covers. Or eat my way through a bag of Oreos and that would just get me guilt and black teeth. “Night, Mom.”
I climbed the stairs to my room, did a skimpy wash, and got into bed. Those comforting covers were too hot, then throwing them off was too cold. Something downstairs was ticking, and I didn’t know what and didn’t want to go look. I tossed and turned, running through the protocol for a ketoacidotic diabetic crisis to keep my brain from going painful places. Fluids, electrolytes, blood gasses, acid-base, insulin, osmolality, CBC… If I just kept moving through the protocol, there was no room for remembering the tears in Griffin’s eyes when I walked out the door.
I didn’t regret standing up for what mattered, couldn’t, but knowing I hurt him made me sick to my stomach, even if he hurt me first.
In the morning, I’d have to go in to work. At some point, unless I hid in my office, I’d run into Griffin in the halls or the lobby. Instead of meeting his warm gaze and holding back a smile I’d… I’d what? Turn and walk away? Pretend we were still friends? Kick his goddamned ass into calling his doctor for a new appointment? Because I’d bet he still wouldn’t do it.
