Page 19 of If Not for My Baby
“Clementine? Kurt Cobain bar?”
That was weird. I am so desperate for sleep. “As special as that sounds—”
“You didn’t come out last night, either,” Indy whines. “Do you hate us or something?”
Molly looks up at that one, her burgundy lipstick glinting in the streetlight as she purses her lips. I don’t get the impression she’d care one iota if I hated her, but something tells me if I were to hurt Indy’s feelings, Molly would scrape my eyes from their sockets. I blink twice to dispel the mental image.
“Not at all. Not even close. But tonight is the first night we have an actual hotel, which means a real bed, and I have to rehearse the new additions to the set list. Please let me off thehook and I promise to go all out with you guys wherever there is nightlife next. Atlantic City?”
Indy contemplates my offer and I hold my breath. I need this for my sanity and aching body, but I also don’t want to disappoint them. I pray neither one can tell I’m seconds away from folding.
“Fine.” Indy sighs, taking Molly’s hand in hers. “Study song lyrics while we get wasted. But I’m holding you to that. In Atlantic City, you’remine.” She cackles evilly to prove her point and all the freckles on her nose scrunch up with the theatrics. Even Molly cracks a smirk.
“Done and done,” I promise.
Back at the hotel, the plush queen bed and spacious, silent room beckon to me. I’m in some kind of Hilton oasis.
I kick off my heeled boots and dump my bags on the desk before launching myself into the duvet. Clean white cotton envelopes me and soothes my aching feet and pounding head.
I call my mom as I do every night, but it rings through and I realize she’s probably sleeping. I imagine her snoring before Scully and Mulder and a little pang of homesickness trills in my chest. But it feels different than I expect it to. A bit of relief, too, to be here and not there.
A Snickers from the minibar and long hot shower later, I think I’ve just about face-masked my way into being a real human again and chalk up those uncomfortable home-related feelings to sleep deprivation. Now I can focus. I have lyrics to memorize and vocals to rehearse. I snuggle cozily under the covers in my hotel robe and review the pages.
Jen had noticed that the acoustic songs in the middle of the set seemed to bring down audience energy, so she replaced them with two of Halloran’s more galvanizing, blues-rock hits. One of them, “Heart of Darkness,” was a song I realized I’ve heard many times—in fact, it’s on my rarely used but always important “Feeling Hot Tonight” playlist. The other, “Meadowlark”—an up-tempo jaunt depicting elderberries and the delicate scales of dragonflies—was new to me, and both required a couple solo rehearsal hours to make sure the Memphis performance mishap never occurs again.
I study the new pages like I’m prepping for the SATs. Then I study the lyrics of the entire set list again, just to confirm they’re branded into my brain. Two hours of vocal riffs and only one complaint call from the hotel’s front desk later, I’m feeling solid.
My eyes drift over to the queen bed across from mine. Molly should be back soon, meaning I only have a little more blessed time to myself. I’m not usually antisocial, but this tour…Having never gone to summer camp, or lived in a college dorm, I can’t recall ever having so little personal space, and for such an extended period of time. Showering in the tour bus is practically an Olympic sport of balancing hygiene and not flashing Grayson, who seems to always be waiting just outside whenever I’m finishing up.
I grimace at the thought. He’s good-looking, but there’s something about the way he talks to me—the way he talks to the women he picks up after the shows, too—that’s just obnoxiously self-assured. Call me crazy, but I think it’s hotterwhen the guy you’re sleeping with considersyouthe prize, not himself. Halloran could probably give Grayson a symposium on the subject.
“In rebirth I stretch as grassland, shielding my honey from the hunt. She’s born a fox, I am the hedgerow, whatever her burden I’ll bear the brunt.”
The lyrics from tonight’s study session seem to have branded themselves on my psyche.
“She sways, a graceful miracle, less mortal than heaven given form. But it’s Hell she drags me to, her perfect body held in another man’s arms.”
Now that’s devotion. That’s worship. That’s desire.
But it gets worse. There are hisotherlyrics.
“Breath faster than your virtue, heat on your skin feels new, the aches and chills I’d soothe you through. Can’t you picture it, babe, the fever of my loving you?”
Or,“The longer since she’s left me, the less it takes to believe my palm is hers. Lights out, down half the whiskey, work myself until she returns.”
I can’t help but press my legs together beneath the sheets. It has nothing to do withhim, but so much of his music is about sex. I’ve just spent the past three hours studying eloquent descriptions of ethereal horniness. And I’m probably not going to be alone for another week or so. We’re only in the hotel tonight because there’s no show tomorrow and we don’t drive to Richmond until the afternoon.
I check my phone: 12:46 a.m. But I’m an hour ahead. Maybe Mike’s still awake?
We don’t make a habit of it, but there’s not a ton to do in Cherry Grove. Sometimes the nights are long and shifts are slow and who better to get you off than a friend you have comfortable chemistry with?
I turn off the bedside light, drowning the room in darkness. Then I shoot him a text.
Clementine:Hi. You up?
Mike Stanwell:I’ve been reduced to a bad cliché.
A grin tugs at my cheeks, and I begin to untie my robe.
