Page 106 of If Not for My Baby
“Well, I didn’t know you were fucking him, did I?”
I’m stunned into silence. We weren’t even seeing each other then. But…we had spent the night flirting in that Raleigh hotel. Did Molly know? It’s so hot, I can’t breathe right. My bra is digging into my lungs. “Our relationship is none of your business.”
“Relationship?” Jen laughs without humor. “Clementine, he and Cara are practically back together. You saw the show.”
“That was aperformance.”
“Don’t be naïve. Those two have something nobody can replicate. They’ve been talking the entire time he’s been on tour. I’ve known Tommy since I signed him at twenty-five. All the women he’s dated since then are just Cara placeholders.”
None of this is adding up. Indy would have told me if Tom had been holding a candle for Cara. Someone would have told me.Tomwould have told me. Right?
“He’s very private,” Jen says, as if reading my mind.
“Iknowthat.”
“I don’t want to be harsh.” Jen sighs. “Someone has to tell you the truth before you upturn your life for some guy that would never do the same for you.”
Just like my mom. Just like she did for my dad—
“Why are you doing this?” My voice is a rasp.
“It’s my job to look out for Tom. Sometimes that means doing the dirty work needed to make sure he succeeds the way webothwant him to. You think I liked taking theRolling Stonepiece from Grayson? Getting Tom the headliner spot at Dreamland? I do what I have to, to protect him.”
The spot at Dreamland…For an instant I imagine Jen making a call on a burner phone to have someone’s Achilles tendon sliced. “You gave that singer a family emergency?”
“Of course not.” She glares at me. “I’m not a Bond villain. I paid them off. My fee on Tom’s next album will be fifteen times that.”
“Tom isn’t doing another album.”
She folds her arms across her chest. “We’ll see.”
And she’s right. Who was I kidding? Tom Halloran’s not going to release another album? Go on another tour? I’ve been deluding myself—slipping into a false version of me. A version that was way too confident not only in us but in myself.The way it felt to perform in all these shows, to revel in the only thing in life I know I’m good at…The person Ibecame on this tour is as unsustainable as the relationship I’d started to believe in.
I need to get out of this closet. “I appreciate your interest in my well-being,” I say stiffly. “I’ll be sure to tell Tom how thoughtfully you look after his bandmates.”
“Please do.”
“Iwill.”
“And what—I’m just asking—happens after that? After he assures you there’s nobody for him but you, and you ride off into the sunset together?”
I don’t have an answer ready on that one yet. In fact, I’d been waiting all day to ask Tom the same question. “We’re not sure yet.”
“You ask Tom Halloran to give up his career and move to Cherry Grove with you and your sick mother?”
“Leave my mom out of this.”
“You’re halfway there. You already got him to decline a new contract.”
“I had nothing to do with—”
“Or do you abandon mommy dearest and follow him back to Ireland until he gets sick of you? Until you stop inspiring him? Clementine, whether it’s Cara or not, someone else will come along eventually. Maybe you’ll last long enough to be his next muse. But”—Jen shrugs—“maybe not.”
Something is wailing inside of me, crumpled up in the fetal position, bleeding out into my organs. The worst part about the assault is that I know she’s right. Regardless of whether Tom wants to be with Cara again—I’ve known this since our first kiss: we have no future. Nobody does, but usespecially. He will continue to hop from love to love. Jen has only stoked the flames of a bonfire I’ve been tending for weeks.
Perhaps she can tell from my silence that she’s delivered the death blow. Like a warrior paying respects to her kill, she takes my hand in hers. “I’m sorry, Clementine. It wasn’t my intention to hurt you. But this is one of those life lessons you’ll be glad to have learned young.”
I stand there, dumbfounded, her hand in mine. How had I been so stupid to think we had an actual shot?
