Page 91 of If Not for My Baby
Briefly I pride myself on how well I’ve come to translate Conor’s brogue.
“Nah.” Tom’s mouth curves down. “Jen’s given up on me. I told Brad I wasn’t after doin’ the record.”
Conor claps Tom hard on his back. “Good on you, boyo. Feck ’em, right?”
I smile, watching Tom and Conor clink their glasses.
“Cara’s goin’ta be fair delighted to see ya,” Conor says. “What a show that’ll be. The old gang together again.”
For some reason my brain tells me,Don’t puke. “What show?”
Tom loops his arm around my waist, loosening up just as I’ve turned stiff as a board. “She’s got a show in Los Angeles same weekend as ours. She’s going to open for us, and then we’ll surprise everyone with ‘If Not for My Baby.’ ”
“First time they’ll be singin’ it live together since the original tour,” Conor adds.
“No way,” I say, even though my throat might be closing up. Can you develop anaphylaxis? I think I’m allergic to this information. “Our last show—the one in a week at the Hollywood Bowl—will end with you and Cara singing our so—your song?”
Tom nods like this is pretty straightforward.
“That’s great! So great. Really cool.” I need to be medevaced from this conversation. “Excuse me one second,” I say. “I’m going to run to the ladies’ room.”
It’s possible Tom says something likeSounds goodbut my ears are ringing and the banjo sounds like a death knell and I just need some fresh air. I push through the crowd until I’m outside and remember it’s July in Austin and the air is even warmer than all the human breath stored up inside the bar.
I have no clothes to shed—I’m in a black tank top, cut-off denim shorts, and my cowboy boots—so I pace around the back parking lot of Dime a Dozen until I can’t hear anything but the buzz of cicadas and hum of fluorescent streetlamps. The lot is empty, aside from the wide stretch of pitch-blacksky and the freckling of stars. I sink against the wall and close my eyes, breathing in night air.
So what if Tom and Cara are going to be reunited in LA? Why would I be affected by a man I’m casually sleeping with hanging out with an old flame? I never wanted to care about trivial things like that. I’ve been working for weeks—a lifetime, really—to avoidthisexact feeling.
A mosquito lands on my upper arm and I slap it hard enough to sting. I look at my palm and find it bare. Too late. It’s too late for me. I never wanted to care, but…I do. And now all I can think is what I’ll do with the scraps that are left of me when this is all over. This is why we don’t talk about the tour ending soon. It’s not a game of who-cares-less chicken as I’d once thought—it’s because we’re both so frightened.
A sickly, unfamiliar horror seizes my gut deep and low—what if I’m never the same? How could I be, after Tom? Maybe I’ve already made the same mistake my mom did. Let some man change me for the worse. Stamped as damaged goods for the rest of my life.
“Damnit,” I say on a mighty exhale, slamming my head into the wall behind me. “Goddamn it.”
“Bad night?”
I look up to find the last man I want to.
Thirty
Grayson doesn’t look too goodunder the pool of stark parking lot light. He’s sliding his phone into his pocket, face coated in a sheen of sweat, eyes glazed.
“Could ask you the same thing,” I say, standing up.
“Those drinks arestrong.”
“Looks like it.” When he saunters toward me with a stumble, I ask, “You okay? That was kind of rough. With Jen.”
“Yeah.” His vodka breath fans over my face and I realize how close he is. “I should’ve seen it coming.”
I back away a foot to avoid nausea.
“Actually.” He swivels on his heel. “I’m not really okay.”
My instinct to offer help is immediately stanched by the hard edge in his voice. There’s a meanness to it. A petulant whine like a kid bully who didn’t get the lunch money he had his eyes on. I’ve been a petite blond woman living in a near-rural town all my life. I know this feeling better than I’d like to, and I turn on my heel to hustle back to the bar.
But Grayson grabs my wrist with enough strength I can’tpull free. “Don’t you want to hear why I’m not okay, Clementine?”
“Let me go.”
