No Pink Caddy (ACE Book 1) (42 page)

Attached are twelve digital musical files.

Oh my God! MyPinkCaddy is Aaron.

My heart races, and I feel lightheaded as I reread his message. For the first time since he slammed the door, there’s a foreign tingle in my soul—it’s hope, and it’s a powerful feeling. I yell at my computer screen, “Fight, Aaron. Get better and come back to me.” I’d give anything if he could hear me.

I carry my laptop to my room and shut the door. I close the blinds, blocking out the afternoon sun, and turn off the lights.

Staring at the files, I try to predict what they are, but ultimately, it doesn’t matter. They’re from him—a gift after a week of wondering if I’d ever hear from him again.

After a couple of deep breaths, I hit play. As soon as his voice tickles my ears, chills travel over my body. He sounds like silk and sex and my heart recognizes its kindred partner.

The song is upbeat and fun. I can picture him singing with a broad smile on his face, tapping his foot and being the playful, fun Aaron who reminds me of the little boy who never grew up. My very own Peter Pan.

By the second verse, I realize it’s a song about meeting a quirky girl. He sings about how she turns heads in a room by her easy nature and has a smile for every stranger. He refers to her as his sunshine. It’s a catchy song. I can imagine hearing it on the radio.

I think he’s sharing ACE’s new album with me.

The next song is a bit moodier. It’s about a guy who’s studying a sleeping girl wondering how he can capture the wind. Aaron’s voice is higher in parts, which adds to the angst. Some stanzas feel desperate. Holding up my hand, I watch it quiver in the bits of sunlight streaming through the shut blinds, and my stomach clenches.

After it’s over, I pause the music file, staring at the dream-catcher piece of art on the wall opposite my bed. The first two songs seem to be about us. However, the little voice in the back of my head says I’m reading too much into the lyrics. Aaron could have written them about anyone. The last song left me feeling uncomfortable in my skin.

Standing up, I walk into the kitchen and grab an already open bottle of red wine—the kind Seamus purchased.

With the open bottle on my night stand and a full glass in my hand, I hit play. The sounds of an ukulele fill my bedroom and I laugh out loud, grabbing a pillow and holding it over my mouth. It’s this catchy tune about a boy eating cereal and dreaming of a girl as he spells her name using marshmallows in the sugary milk. Bongo drums join the ukulele, and I wonder if Whistling Willy contributed. It’s a great song! Like, it’s the kind of silly tune which could be the song of spring break. I find myself humming along and tapping my feet against the sheets.

In fact, I like it so much I play it twice. It’s as if Aaron is in the room with me being his playful self with a boyish glint in his eye. I catch myself—it’s as if I’m scanning the room for a ghost.

The next song is instrumental. I keep waiting to hear Aaron’s voice, but it never joins in. It’s probably a very complicated piece, but I don’t know enough about music to appreciate the complexity, which makes me a bit sad. I make a mental note to look into a music appreciation class at the local junior college. Aaron has opened my eyes to how musically blind I’ve been.

The following two songs are also not my style. One, I would classify as heavy metal. It’s got a hard driving beat, and Aaron screams a lot about being back on top and how no one can hold him down. The next one also has a pretty heavy beat, and I’ve a difficult time understanding him.

I know that’s one of ACE’s signatures—making diverse music. They don’t want to be classified into a particular genre. That’s fine, but I guess I’m just not a heavy metal chick.

Before the next song plays, I take a break. My joints are stiff. I finish my glass of wine in a couple of gulps and perform some of the yoga poses I learned in class.

In my time with Aaron, I only heard him sing a couple of times, and it was hypnotizing. But hearing him in my bedroom without being able to touch him is making me off-balance. I equate it to how it must be to hear the voicemail of someone who’s passed. My fingers itch to text him. After another round of poses and one more glass of wine, I grab my phone, sending him this message, knowing he’s probably not going to respond.
Halfway through. I love it. I love you.

After waiting for thirty minutes with no word from him, I lie back down and play the next song. When it begins, I think for a moment that it’s an Eagles tune. It has a 70s rock vibe which I appreciate. When the lyrics start, my mouth opens wide, and my hands grasp my heart. Aaron is singing about a girl in a pink vintage Cadillac. Her hair is the color of milk chocolate and her eyes are the deepest shade of brown. It’s a fun song. He’s standing on the corner of an abandoned town at the only four-way stop when I pull up in my car. I toss my hair, and he loses his mind for the brown-eyed girl.

There’s no doubt this song was written about me. I’m driving the pink Caddy.

Listening to it again, I stand up, dancing around my room. My phone becomes my microphone as I pretend I’m Aaron on-stage performing. Leaping on my bed, I dance like crazy. My hair whips from side to side as I belt out the chorus. After all, it’s not every day a girl gets her pink Caddy and such a great song written about her.

I send him another text.
Only in music does Mary Kay Landry get her pink Cadillac! How fun! Thank you.

Once again, there’s no response.

I hit play. The music begins softly—such a contrast to the fun song before. It makes me weep for the man I know I adore. It’s about a guy trying not to drink the bottle in front of him. He sings about the pressure to stay sober when life is constantly hurling negativity your way. There’s a line about trying to hold on to the one you love when everyone is trying to take her from you. It progresses to a hard driving beat where Aaron’s guitar skills really shine. I don’t have an addictive personality, but after listening to this song, I understand more what he’s struggling with. The instruments stop playing abruptly and Aaron sings the last line in such a haunting voice that tears sting my eyes—
I’m the one who made her go.

The last song was too upsetting, so I take a break. A shower is a good distraction from the pain I’m feeling—needing to be cleansed of the demons that haunt him. It’s hard listening to him talk about the pull of his vices, and what’s even harder is admitting that I’m one of them. I don’t know how not to be. It’s not possible for me to walk on eggshells and bend to his every whim to keep him from using. That’s not realistic, and I can’t live that way.

There’s a great old country song my mom used to play in the car. The lyrics are sung by a woman. She says to whiskey if she were a woman, she would fight her and win and remove her from his tangled mind for good. God, I can relate.

Reliving the night I found the cocaine chopped into fine lines on his bedside table, I turn the knob so only hot water pours over my chest. Subconsciously, I hope to burn away the memory and the power drugs hold over him. I want Aaron without his addiction—to be healthy, so Jude isn’t scared to death to lose another parent. So I can be bold and not wilt in his shadow for fear my actions will make him use.

When the hot turns to cold, I step out of the shower. Through the fog of condensation, I picture him sitting on my toilet, eating a bowl of cereal. It grossed me out at the time, but now, I’d give anything to have him here—sober and happy.

The first thing I do after putting on his T-shirt is to check my phone. No messages from the man I long for.

I settle back into bed wondering if I can listen to the final songs. When the album ends, so will my connection with Aaron. There’ll be nothing new anymore, and I’ll have to face the very real possibility he’s left my life for good. Sure. I can Google his pictures and videos, but I’ll be looking at Johnny Knite. I may never have my Aaron again.

With a glass of wine in hand and much trepidation, I hit play. Jazz notes fill my bedroom. It’s the fun jazz played on New Orleans street corners. There are horns and a sax. I love it. The lyrics are about a guy falling in love with the city. He sings about places I went after leaving my job. It mentions a girl dancing with a jazz band in Jackson Square. That’s me! He sings about eating soft shell crab and red beans and rice. It’s an ode to the city I love, and I smile the whole time while listening to it.

The following song is a thank you of sorts. It doesn’t quite make sense, and it’s one that I’ll have to listen to again. There’s a deeper meaning, and it nags at me like an itch I can’t scratch. After listening to it a couple more times, I decide it’s like making homemade bread—you can rush it, but it’s just going to be flat and dense. To fully appreciate it takes time.

One song left. Exhaling, I finish my glass of wine and snuggle against my pillows. It’s now completely dark in my bedroom. Once again, when I spend time with Aaron, it doesn’t play by the rules of physics.

I don’t want the album to end. For the past five hours, Aaron has been back in my life. Hearing the final song will give finality to us. I let the silence and the darkness bathe and support me until I finally feel brave enough to hit play.

It’s Aaron on the guitar, and I soon realize it’s the guitar performance I watched him record in his studio. Hearing it again makes me relive the anxiety of the moment. How angry he was when he smashed the glass. How wild I felt to get away from him, and then, with a swing of the pendulum, how his playing soothed me.

I reminisce about how soft his bed is and his white fluffy duvet, his shallow breathing, and how relaxed his face is in sleep. I want more. It’s not fair it should be over—that his soul is so tortured.

The song is acoustic, just as Aaron and Bobby discussed. His voice begins quietly singing about a girl he can’t get enough of. It’s intimate and rough. He sings about me seeing him naked on my bed, and the feeling of power he had when he knew I wanted him just as much as he wanted me. He tells a story about the beast stealing the prettiest girl away from Prince Charming at the ball knowing all along he could only give her the worst of him. He sings about feeling inadequate because the girl is too perfect, and he’s a broken fragment of his former self. When the guitar wails, tears slide down my cheeks.

Then it becomes clear. Our relationship was never the simple story of a girl falling for a rock star. It was just the opposite. It was the broken Peter Pan falling in love with Wendy, the perfect girl—at least in his eyes—and knowing he would never be good enough to hold on to her, trying everything he could to keep her.

Aaron’s marriage proposal.

Aaron tracking me on my phone.

It was all his way to hold on to what he thought he wasn’t worthy of.

The song plays again, and I listen closely, hearing a line I missed the first time.
She wears her scars on the outside but mine are internal and oh so deep.

Sobbing overtakes my body, a purging of sorts. It’s his inadequacies put to music. I was his wings giving him flight, and I never realized it.

Grabbing my phone, I send him a reply to his MyPinkCaddy screen name.
Now I understand. Your last song said what you couldn’t.

Staring at my computer, I will him to respond. Something.
Anything.
Just let me know that somewhere in the universe we are connecting.

I don’t have to wait long. Eagerly, I click on the message. There are no words just a jpeg file. Opening it, I see what I think is the album cover. On a white background, just Aaron’s Adam’s apple to below his ribs are visible. His arms are extended over his head, as if he’s surrendering. My shark tooth necklace rests close to his heart tattoo.

Then I notice it. It’s as clear as day. Breath catches in my throat, and tears threaten to cloud my vision. Swiping at my eyes, I clear them so I can focus on the image. On the fist that squeezes the anatomically correct heart is Jude’s name. The finger below features my name, MK, in a beautiful shade of bright pink. Gasping, I touch the computer screen, tracing the letters. My name is permanently tattooed on his chest. A smile travels from my lips to all over my body. For the first time since he stormed out of my life, I’m happy.

Maybe me ending our relationship over his drug use will be the catalyst for him to do the hard work and get better. I prayed for God to let me know if Aaron is not who I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. Maybe his drug use was a sign—a sign for me to force him to get better so we could have a future.

My eyes go to the bottom of the album cover. In the same font Cara used when she sketched on the napkin in the bar on Bourbon Street are the words
alis volat propriis.
I gasp. He used my mantra as the name of his album. Touching his heart, I thank him for the gift.

I don’t know what his intended meaning is, but just like all the stories I’ve concocted before, I make up one now . . .

The reports are true, and Aaron has sought treatment for his addictions. He wants to get better so we have a future together
—
so he’s not the beast giving the girl only the worst of himself while Prince Charming lurks in the shadows.

Aaron is still mine. He’s taking the time he needs to work on himself. For some reason, he can’t call to explain this so he shared his unreleased album and cover art as a message for me to stay strong . . . to wait for him until he can be the man I deserve.

This is the hope I cling to, but as I know all too well, so far, not a single one of my stories have been correct.

So now, I wait . . .

Dear Reader,

Thank you for stepping into MK and Aaron’s world. This is the first book in my new series ACE. I know how hard it is to wait for more of their story so I created MK’s website
www.NoPinkCaddy.com
. You’ll find pictures of the actual places in New Orleans that are featured in this book. I also share the recipes that MK prepares as well as some of my favorite Cajun inspired dishes. Oh! And did I mention there will be teasers for the next book? It’s true. As you witnessed in
No Pink Caddy
, MK has a difficult time staying off of social media. You can follow her here: