Walking Heartbreak (15 page)

She squirms, but she’s still too mad to be embarrassed. “Yeah, but it isn’t. Zoe wouldn’t make stuff like that up!”

“So… Zoe knows her shit?” I caress her face with one hand, running my thumb over her lower lip. She blinks slowly, the anger in her eyes receding. She’s affected.
We’re
affected. And damn, there’s nothing like a little power game.

“Yeah. She’d have been super-happy if he wrote it for her.”

“Okay.” My voice comes out husky. “I admit I wrote it, dirty lyrics and all. But who’s to say it’s about you?” That delicious blush steals back up her throat. I’ve got her pressed so deep into the corner, she’s stuck.

“I—I don’t know. I... assumed.”

I fold our fingers. Lift her hands over her head and press them against the wall behind her. Then I run my nose up the side of hers. “It could have been about another girl,” I whisper with my lips pressed to her skin. She shivers. “Did we fuck like in the song?” I ask.

She tries to pull away. Of course it’s to no avail, so she crumples her lids shut in an effort to protect herself. “No,” she breathes. “Not like that.”

“So you’re wrong then?” I kiss her lips, and she accepts, opening.

“Mm-hmm,” she manages.

“No.”

She opens her eyes, meeting mine shyly. “What? I’m not wrong?”

“No. You’re correct. The song is about you, about how you make me feel, what I dream of doing to you. I want to fuck you like that, devour you, and make you scream. Oh yeah.
Fuck You
is about us, darling.”

Nadia’s confusion. The flush rising in her cheeks. The stress and desire warring in her features. Everything about her makes me high. Every. Damn. Thing.

“Bo,” she whimpers. “Why are you like this? I’m married. I can’t… You need to…”

Anger flares in me. Over
a girl
. It’s unprecedented and strange, but hey, Nadia came out here, and now she throws her husband in my face again!

And
so
? What’s it to you, Bo?

Suddenly, exhaustion hits me like bricks. Here I am, trapping a beautiful girl I have no claim to against a wall in a dirty radio station corridor. I’m allowing whatever emotion to rule me, all sorts of non-premeditated stuff. Nothing good can come of this. Nadia is just a song, not above an exquisite new brand of strings for my guitar. Just—

I need to let her go.

“Thanks for supporting me,” I start, closing my eyes. Then, before I drop her, I follow my instinct because it’s strong and I’m tired. I sink down and bury my face against her throat in a way I don’t recall having done with anyone before. “I really wanted you here.”

BO

We go viral all right.
Holy Mother of God, we go viral. What the hell was Troll thinking? We’re not prepared for this! My number’s out there, and my cell doesn’t stop ringing. Emil’s is the same way.

The video.
Shit, that video.

When I confront Troll, he says, “Dude it was all you guys. All I did was film, and then I turned the file in to my bud, Hector, who’s a pro. I
told
you you’d go viral, and now you’re all pussy about it?”

What do you say to that? Troll’s Norwegian, but he has spent most of his adult life in the States and has the show-biz mentality down to a T.
While Clown Irruption? We’re a small college band from a Swedish city no one has even heard of. We needed to ease into things, grow
as a band before things went ape, but that idea just went down the drain with YouTube.

Yeah, I don’t want to crash and burn because we can’t handle fame. Troll wants the best for us. There’s no doubt he works for us because he believes in our music, but—

Holy. Fucking. Shit?

Like a child, I miss home. I miss Ingela. But most of all, I miss New Girl. That’s what Elias has taken to calling Nadia. Whenever he’s sneaking off with his Nigerian princess and sending me smug looks over his shoulder, he whispers, “You gonna head over to New Girl’s soon?”

“I wish you’d let me see it first,” I tell Troll.

“The video? Hey, I’ll take it down if you want me to,” Troll offers, sounding metallic on the phone.

“No, it’s too late now. Where are you?” I ask though it matters zip.

“Restroom. Sorry.”

“Jesus, Troll. Why do you even pick up from the throne? Call me when you’re done.”

“Sure, man. A last squeeze-out, and I’m—”

“Bye, dude. Just, bye.”

I haven’t seen Nadia since she left the radio station three days ago. I miss her—and spend time pondering why. Beautiful women grow on trees in L.A.; what else has she done to burrow under my skin? I mean, she’s married, melancholic, and hard to tease out of her shell.

Nadia saw me already in our first meeting in that crummy dressing room. She gets me through my music, which is so rare.

It’s weird how people treat me separately from my songs. They want to ask questions in interviews, learn more about me, but never do they relate back to my lyrics, or to how I play the songs. To be honest though, it’s better that way.

Nadia ran away from me
because
of a song. Because of the lyrics, the way I played it, and the way I “aired our business.” A small twinge, part contentment, part disappointment, implodes in my chest at that.

My thoughts keep looping back to her marriage. I’m the last person to judge people’s actions and the first to admit my own flaws. I used to run my life so badly. And someone else’s—Ingela’s. Yeah, unconsciously, I ran hers too.

That’s what’s happening to Nadia
, I think to myself. She’s unable to get out from under the husband’s thumb. Maybe she’s scared? Then again, he doesn’t stop her from leaving the house. It’s confusing. All I know is he’s too lucky for his own lameness.

I grab the guitar at my feet. It’s a brand new, high end Fender that was hand-delivered to me by a company rep in a barefaced response to our video having gone viral. I stride through the den with it en route to my bedroom.

“Bo. You good, man?” Emil asks from the couch. He presses two hamburgers together into one flattened mess, competitive-eater-style, and glances up at me. “Troy’s on his way. We’re playing World of Warcraft, I think, or— What’s his latest game obsession again?”

I have no idea. I go along with whatever Troy whips out on the tour bus and don’t worry about the details.

“That,” I help. “But no, I’m not good. The whole viral thing is out of hand, and we need to do something.”

“Turn off your phone,” Emil says, eyes on the TV screen.

“What?”

“Kill your cell. And if they keep calling and you can’t turn it back on, do what I’ve done.” He winks slowly, the way he does on stage, and adds a tongue-click. “Get a secret number.”

“You did that? When?” Sometimes, Emil actually has a point.

“I picked this baby up exactly…” He looks at his watch. “Thirty minutes ago. And you might get the number—if you promise not to complain the next time Zoe orgasms all over my bed.”

“Jesus. Why the hell would I worry about your bed?” I ask.

“Not the bed, idiot. You know what I mean:
ah cooks—I can’t take it anymore,
” he mimics, and it’s so real, it makes me wonder if he’s faking Zoe’s voice every night.

The next leg of the tour starts tomorrow. For the most part, it’ll be an East Coast run. And already clubs are promoting our visits with “Luminessence and the band with the
Fuck You
video.”

NADIA

I’m going back to college.
My break has lasted long enough. I can’t let my dream of becoming a veterinarian slip away because of Jude. A long time has passed since I finished my GED exams and started… sort of started… dabbling in a few classes at the local community college.

Jude’s parents have set aside funds so I can begin whenever I’m ready. They’ll help me get into whatever school I want, they say, and they don’t want me to worry about the money. I can’t accept their offer.

Usually, I can’t think of these things without wanting to hurl, but today’s a good day. I’m still realistic enough to know I’m not ready. To sit still in class all day long would drive me crazy. I adore Scott and my regulars over at the diner, and I need my job for my sanity. Which is why I’m browsing online colleges.

I’ve got my tea lights flickering. Jude’s with me. I stare at him and whisper, “I’ll do it. I’ll pick up school again if you…” I stand abruptly and head to the kitchen. It’s early on my day off, and I wish it wasn’t.

I feel him behind me as I shove items around in the fridge searching for…? I grab a yogurt. Pull it open and start eating without shutting the fridge door.

“I’ll go back to school. Get us on the right track if I get my husband back,” I promise him. “I’m too young for this. I can’t handle it, baby. Don’t you see?”

I swing around, but he’s already gone.

“Okay, how about this?” I shout as I stomp into the living room. “I know I shouldn’t have dropped out entirely, that I should have listened to you and stuck to the plan from the get-go: I should have rushed through college as a full-time student instead of wanting to split the responsibility and help support us.”

I continue, lowering my voice because I don’t want the neighbors to be on our door. “Let’s do this: we go to sleep tonight. When we wake up, we’ll have gone back in time to when Scott offered me work at the diner. This time, I’ll turn it down. I’ll turn it down, baby! Then do you promise me that my in-your-face, sweet husband who does everything right, will be back? And once we’re done with our education and settled in great jobs, we’ll have those three babies—two daughters and one son, because—”

I start sobbing. Of course I start sobbing. “—because we wouldn’t be so stupid as to think we could raise more than one rebellious boy like you.”

Today began as a good day, but here I go again. I wonder what Zoe’s up to. I know Clown Irruption is leaving town, and she’s probably upset. What if I snapped out of my own issues for once to go comfort a friend?

That’s what I need to do.

While I pull an old T-shirt over my head, I’m still mulling over Jude and my options. “Okay, the time machine hasn’t been invented yet. But tomorrow can still be a new day full of opportunities for us. Right?”

In shorts and gladiators, I grab my purse by the door and deposit my cell inside it. I cross the threshold before I swing to look inside. A brief trickle of contentment hits me at how I’m good at this stuff—at decorating. I make our home a home. It looks pretty.

I let my eyes swipe over the small, colored pots with flowers in them. Linger on the smooth roundness of the bigger, ornamental pot at the center. My gaze catches flickering lights between the plants on the table, and I take the three steps back in. I blow out the candles because Jude won’t appreciate them the way I do.

“Tomorrow, Jude, we’re starting a new life. If you promise that I’ll be waking up with the one I married kissing me, loving me—maybe even
making
love to me, I’ll walk right on over to Scott’s tomorrow, I’ll quit my job, and I’ll finish college so fast your head will spin. Then I’ll do what you wanted all along: I’ll be your sugar mama while you study to become my grease monkey.”

Oh Jude.
A lanky teenager with long hair and confusion in his eyes.

When he began attending sermons at the Heavenly Harbor, my world shrunk further. No longer could I visit the neighbor girls. Once Jude stayed behind to help me tidy up after church coffee, I was no longer allowed to attend that activity. I remember his stare on me when we left early the next Sunday, Mother with a firm hand on my shoulder and ushering me out.

We didn’t know of Jude’s tenacity at the time. His shrewdness and his knack for getting what he wanted. My family would learn soon. Me, I had no experience with sneaking around behind my grandparents’ backs. At most, I’d learned to keep my biggest sins to myself. That changed after Jude caught me and kissed me behind the church.

“You’re so pretty,” he said as if that was reason enough, and I let him kiss me again because I had no one else. The next Sunday, he slipped me a note saying, “I like you a lot.” And I? I thought he was handsome.

Shortly after their move to Payne Point, he appeared in my classroom, all grins and with a book bag slung over his shoulder. But a few days of minuscule lunch breaks was all we got before Mother handed in her resignation.

Thus begun my years as a homeschooled child of extremist Christians. Long dresses. Buttons so high they rubbed tight against my throat. I’d never owned a cell phone, so there was no remaining in contact with the outside world.

In hindsight I can see it: Mother changed me into someone that should not be approached, and with one exception, it worked.

Jude remained at our school for a few weeks with Ms. Sanchez, a stand-in for Mother. On the first Sunday after my domestic imprisonment, it was liberating to attend church, to get out of the house for more than walking my dog.

I remember Jude’s eyes on me in church: searching, curious when he saw my new, old-fashioned clothes. I remember the shame flying up my face and covering it with scarlet. During a psalm, I needed to escape. Mother shifted anxiously in her seat when I slipped off to the ladies’ room.

That’s when Jude followed me and whispered against my ear for the first time. “What happened? You never returned to school? I’m stuck there now,” he said, playful and serious at once. “No one tells me anything here. People are weird. Not you,” he added even though it wasn’t true. I was weird too.

“Mother homeschools me now. She says it’s better education for me.”

“Bullshit,” he hissed, voice low and eyes narrowed. “How can it be better if the teacher is the same?”

My logical, sweet Jude.

“She didn’t like it when we talked before,” he said.

I shrugged, not used to such conversations.