Page 16 of If Not for My Baby
I snap out of my panic-daze to see Lionel’s head thrust from one of the tour bus windows. “Any day now! It’s not like New Orleans is six hours away— OH WAIT, IT IS!”
Shit.I cannot get a single thing right tonight. I scurry up the stairs of the bus before I make yet another mistake.
Halloran’s tour bus is nothing like the Greyhound I took here. The entire front half serves as a sleek lounge, with beige leather upholstery on both sides and a shiny wood floor. The band—minus a notably missing Halloran—crowds around the table in the center, chowing through cartons of greasy Chinese food and ice-cold beers. Someone’s put a funky house song on the speaker system, and my stomach grumbles at the heavenly smell of garlic and MSG.
“This way,” Lionel instructs hastily, guiding me past Molly, who’s kicking off her platform Mary Janes and pushing her sweaty feet into Pete’s face as he feigns disgust. We pass a kitchenette with a coffee maker, various mugs, nutrition bars, and cereal packets for the morning.
Beyond that is a narrow hallway lined with multiple short gray curtains on either wall.
“This bunk’s yours,” Lionel states, pointing to one of the curtains sandwiched between two others. To my utter horror, he pulls it aside to reveal a tiny bed. Three stacked on either side of the bus hallway, like a morgue.
“Always sleep feet forward,” Lionel adds. “If the bus gets T-boned you don’t want your head to get crushed.”
I attempt something more gracious than a grimace, but Lionel is already moving. “Here’s the bathroom. And back there is Halloran’s suite.”
My eyes find the closed door. Faint music—blues or jazz or something else mellow—wafts out from under the doorframe. My heart picks up speed for no reason at all.
To take my eyes off the very clear boundary between Halloran and everyone else, I poke my head into the bathroom in question. It’s got a shower, sink, and toilet and is about the size of a coat closet. “We all share this one bathroom?”
“Halloran has his own, of course. But yes, the rest of the band does. And Indy, too. She rides with you all so she can film behind-the-scenes content.”
“And you?”
“Jen and I,” Lionel says with twinkling pride, “are on the other bus with the crew. Except for Pete,” Lionel adds conspiratorially. “He sleeps wherever Molly tells him to. His bunk’s pretty much become our shoe rack.”
Interest piqued, we both peer down the hallway and into the front lounge. Molly’s trying to hide her laugh as Indy and Grayson try on her shoes. Pete just stares at her, cheeks a little flushed from the alcohol.
It’s a risk, but my gut tells me if anyone’s got the gossip, it would be Lionel. “What’s the deal with Grayson?”
He clucks his tongue at me like a disappointed schoolteacher. “Womanizer. Prides himself on bedding the fresh meat.”
I don’t love being compared to slaughterhouse fare, and my facial expression must say as much, because Lionel adds, “I know. I was on a different tour with him last year. He was sleeping with the drummer, a vocalist,andthe TM and none of them even knew. Well, until I told everyone, anyway.”
“Avoid like the plague.” I laugh. “Got it.”
He gives me a pat on the back. “See you tomorrow!”
And with that he slips out of the bus, the doors shut, and we lurch forward toward New Orleans.
—
After a shower that felt more like a dribble—not much water pressure in a moving vehicle, it seems—I emerge from the shared bathroom in my pajamas humming the tune to “If Not for My Baby.” It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this tired, but the voices echoing from the front lounge keep me from my tiny bed.
In theater, all run long, you play and fight and lean on each other, and by the end of the show, you’re near tears thinking about never sharing that stage together again. You promise each othernext year, but every year, half of you graduate or move or don’t have the grades to come back. It’s bittersweet, and always too short-lived, and I don’t want to miss out on building that comradery with these people. So despite the protests from my aching feet and weary eyes, I shuffle out to the lounge.
“Jen told meRolling Stone’s finally gonna do that piece on me this tour,” Grayson says, reclining in his lounger.
“It’s about time,” Indy tells him. “In New York?”
“In LA.”
“Indy’s still hung up on the same NYU guy she was into on Halloran’s first tour,” Wren tells me before biting into an egg roll. “Can you tell?”
I take a seat next to Indy. She’s fresh-faced and ready for sleep in a floral-patterned waffle-knit pajama set, thick green glasses, and two twin braids instead of her long one from earlier.
“That was five years ago! I was an impressionable college freshman back then.”
“You ran social media on Halloran’s first tour while you were in college?”
