Ache (13 page)

Shauna’s eyes twinkle as she squeezes my thigh.  “Definitely sausage.  How’s that sound, baby?”

Baby?

When did we move on to calling each other
baby
?

I’ve never called anyone baby, honey, sweetie or any other cute little fucking term of endearment in my whole goddamn life.

I hear Todd snicker and Tonya sighs.

Carla is staring at the table, avoiding the conversation again, but I can see she has a white-knuckled grip on her menu.  She missed an opportunity and now we’ve moved on to pet names.  I’m wondering if I can get her to kill me before the coffee arrives, but I’m sure she wouldn’t extend the courtesy.

I ignore the banter that starts up and look across the café and watch Shelly pouring our coffee.  My mind drifts back to Aaron’s and I try to remember her.  The backyard was packed, but I can see her.  She was down front, away from the pit.  I remember her eyes peeking out from what was nearly orange hair that night.  Her dye job has faded.  I can tell she was excited to be there, to be in the experience, to be a part of the scene.

I think about what she said about the acoustic song and how it meant so much to her.  I also think about how hard it was for her to say.  She’s fragile, this one.

I need to be more aware of our fans.  I never thought that what we were doing could actually affect people, that it was bigger than ourselves.  Punk saved me and changed my life forever, but I never thought I’d be the one helping, rescuing another kid out there.

To think that writing one song could change someone’s life, maybe forever, is fucking incredible.  This is a goddamn epiphany and it fills me with a weird joy and the sudden weight of responsibility.  I like it.  I can feel my own emotion rising.  And I think I like that too.

I look back up, tuning in and hear Shauna talking to Tonya, she’s going on about something.  “I can get you an interview down at the bank, now that you look normal.”

“Thanks, Shauna, but I’m fine,” Tonya says with a patronizing tone.

“Just trying to help,” Shauna responds.

I’m either too drunk or not drunk enough.  I missed something, but don’t care and tune out again.  I grab a crayon from the cup in the center of the table and begin coloring in
Cowboy Rusty
on my placemat.

I like Shauna.  I’ve been trying to get her to go out with me for a month.  She’s hot, sexy and way into me.  The other night was mostly pretty good, but I can’t reconcile these other emotions
— like, how it’s all wrong somehow.

Add the dream into the soup and nothing makes sense anymore.

Shelly brings us our coffee and I can tell she’s nervous.  She starts setting the cups down and leans over toward me, and then one of the cups slips and coffee spills all over the table.

We all jump and reach for napkins.  It runs off the table and onto my pants.  I jump again, because it’s hot, but I laugh because it’s funny too.

“I’m so sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Shelly starts repeating like a mantra.

“Hey, it’s all good.  Shelly?  Hey, look at me.  Don’t worry, okay?” I say.

And then Shauna screams, “You stained my shirt!  I just bought it, it’s brand new!  Why are you so clumsy?”

My head whips around and I glare at Shauna, suddenly seething, and then nod towards Shelly.  Shauna looks back at me and then to Shelly, confused for a moment.

“Oh, um, I’m sorry, I was just surprised.  It’s okay,” she says flatly.

The total lack of sincerity in Shauna’s voice pisses me off even more.

Shelley’s eyes are watering up again.

Jesus Christ.

I feel Shauna’s hand on my leg again trying to clean up the coffee, but I push it away and slide off the seat and under the table and across Tonya’s feet.  I scramble back up in front of Shelly.

I hear Carla say, “Jesus, Shauna.”

I take the tray and napkins from Shelley’s hands and set them on the table.

“Hey, got a second?” I ask Shelly.

She nods.

I take her by the hand and lead her outside to Todd’s Nova.

Her eyes are still glistening.

I push the crap around in his backseat until I find what I’m looking for, three pieces of paper that I hoped Todd hasn’t tossed out.  One is the set list from Aaron’s party, another is the flyer we put up for it and the other is the hand written lyrics to a song Tonya wrote, a song we played for the first time that night, the acoustic one Shelly was talking about — it’s called
Why I Live
.

I hand them to her.  She reads them and chokes down a sob, she’s an emotional wreck.  I hug her, and she squeezes back with unexpected fierceness.  I hold her for a few minutes and apologize for Shauna, speaking in soft soothing tones.  I’ve seen this before; she’s even more fragile than I thought.

God, I’m so fucking pissed at Shauna.

I lift her chin so I can see her eyes.

“Shelly, look at me.  You know the old industrial park down behind the grocery store?”

She nods.

“Okay, if you go down the main road there and take it all the way back by the railroad tracks, you’ll see an old gas station on the left.  That’s where we hang out and practice.  This is important.  If you need anything, anything, someone to talk to, anything at all — we’re usually there.  Okay?”

She nods again, tears streaming down her face.

“Promise me you’ll come see us, come see
me
if things get too shitty?”

She nods again.

“I want to hear you say it,” I say.

“I promise.”

I’m not sure what her situation is, but I’m guessing it’s fucked up, and it’s suddenly important to me that she knows she’s not alone.

When I let her go, Tonya, Todd and Carla are standing by the Nova.  Tonya and Todd have glassy eyes and even Carla looks a little bit choked up, even though she doesn’t understand the significance of the song like we do. 

Shelley hugs me again and then hugs Tonya.

Tonya hugs her back and quietly says, “Start your own band and then we can play shows together.”  And then she whispers so softly I can barely hear her.  “Write it out, write the bad stuff away.  It helps, I know.”

Shelly tries to smile through quivering lips, but she understands Tonya and nods.  She gives me one more look and then runs back inside.

Tonya stares after her and then looks away as she wipes her eyes.

I’m not sure how much they overheard, but I don’t really care at the moment.

“Someone pay the bill?” I ask tersely.

“Yeah,” Todd says.  “We’re going to take off, okay?”

“Yeah, whatever,” I say and head across the parking lot to Shauna.

She’s standing by her Jeep and looks nervous.

“Let me explain,” she starts as I get close.

“What’s there to explain?  That was one of our fans.  That makes her fucking special.  Don’t you get that?  Didn’t you see how she was?  How emotional she was?  Why did you have to be such a bitch?”

“I don’t know, I was, look what she did.”  She holds out her blouse.

“Who gives a shit?  It’s a goddamn shirt.  You think your shirt is more important than Shelly’s feelings?  Do you have any idea what she’s going through?”

“No, I mean, I’m sorry, but what are you talking about?  She’s just a clumsy waitress.”

“See, that’s our problem.  It’s not always about you.  She’s a human being and she’s in pain.  How can you not see that?  What about all that respect and honesty bullshit you were feeding me the other night?”

“Please, I’m sorry.  I don’t know.  I’m sorry.”

I can’t look at her anymore.

“My brother is gone, we have the house to ourselves, let’s go, okay?”

She leans over to kiss me, but I push her back.

I’m fucking pissed and this is just another layer on top of everything else I’ve been feeling.  I think back to Todd’s comment about my mystery girl the other day.  Is that what this is?  Am I still chasing her, chasing the idea of a perfect girl?  Am I in love with a dream, a fragmented memory instead of a real woman?  What am I willing to sacrifice for that?

“Jesus Christ, Shauna, sex isn’t the answer to everything; it’s not the same thing as love,” I say.  “Don’t you know that?”

And when she looks up at me, I realize that whatever her life story is, whatever her own personal fucked up history is — she doesn’t understand that simple truth, that sex and love are not the same thing and I feel sorry for her all over again. 

I need to think before I say anything worse.

Tears and mascara are running down her face and she’s choking back sobs — again.  What the fuck?  Everyone is crying around me lately.

“I need to think,” I say.  I start back across the parking lot, away from the café.

“Baby!” she shouts after me.

For the second time in three days, I’m walking away from her.

“Connor!” she pleads.

Maybe there’s a reason I keep walking away.

I close the door to the Garage and stop, listening.  But I don’t hear Tonya, she must still be out.  I grab another beer and take a seat on the couch, just staring around the rehearsal room.  We had some great times here, some great music.

I grab my guitar and crank up my Marshall and play jazz standards well into the evening, drinking steadily.  About the time it gets dark, I have a seat on the couch, hugging my guitar.  It doesn’t take me long to pass out.

I wake up again and it’s light out, I’m pretty sure it’s Tuesday morning.

I’m still holding my guitar and the amp is buzzing.

My first thought is of Tonya, she must still be out.  I’m wondering where she is — how she is.  And then I remember Shauna, Saturday night and yesterday, and I worry about her too.

I hurt, like I haven’t in a long time — a combination of shame and guilt with something else I can’t explain thrown in.  My past and present merge into one big emotional shit-storm.  I don’t know what to do, but I feel like I have to do something.  My mind is racing with what-ifs and could-have-beens and should-have-beens.

I set my guitar back on its stand, turn off the amp and begin pacing.

Shauna is waiting for me to talk to her, to explain.  I wonder if she thinks everything is going to be okay — again?  But I don’t know if that is true for either of us.

I run upstairs to take a shower and re-bandage my head anyway.  The whole time, I am playing it out, how I’m going to talk to her, what I’m going to say.  But in the end, I just need to see her, to try and fix it, because whatever this is, it’s fucked up.  And I don’t even know what that means.  I don’t know if I’m going to break up or give it another chance.

I’m still no closer to figuring anything out after I get dressed, so I decide to walk across the railroad tracks behind the Garage and over to the U-totem for smokes and beer.

On the way back to the Garage, I take a seat next to the tracks and open the quart of beer and light a cigarette.  The morning is sunny and warm and pleasant, like it’s mocking me.

I watch the trains go by for an hour as the day gets hotter, pretty much like my beer.  I’m not even drinking it.  I’m just delaying the inevitable.

I can’t forget Shelly’s face and how she reacted to everything.  What Shauna did may be understandable, but I’m not sure it’s forgivable.

I know what I need to do, the whole Shauna thing was wrong from the git-go, it was more about an adolescent dream, wish fulfillment, than her — I was chasing the Sterling Hills fantasy.  Shauna became what I wanted her to be in my head, unfortunately that isn’t really who she ever was.

I leave the mostly full beer bottle next to the tracks and walk back toward the Garage on my way to the bank when I see an unfamiliar car out front.  It’s a bright red BMW.

I hear voices when I get close to the corner of the building and pause.

A familiar scent fills the air.  It’s perfume and it reminds me of honeysuckle.  Memories, long locked away, begin to resurface.

It’s Tonya and that preppie guy, Bradford.

I hear him talking.  “I’m house sitting down in Boca for the summer before Grad School, come with me.  You can lay on the beach, get a tan.  We’ll have fun.”

“I can’t just run off.”

“Why not?  You think this punk thing means anything?  It’s just a fad and Connor doesn’t care about anyone but himself.  He’s out of control, and he’s going to take anyone close to him down with him.”

“You’re going to be my hero?  Is that it?”  I hear Tonya ask.

And then it all hits me in the face like a shovel.

I glance around the corner and see her arms around his neck, staring up at him with hopeful eyes, but I quickly turn away — I can’t bear the thought of her kissing him.

I remember the curly blond hair, the hopeful eyes, eyes that have been anything but hopeful since I met her.  I remember holding her hand, and I remember Officer Dan telling me to let it go.  I remember him calling her Beth at the laundry.

Tonya is Bethany, Bethany is Tonya.

I remember her leg over mine on the way to the Laundromat, her minding my head wounds, her constant support, and what I’ve managed to suppress and ignore finally bursts through.

I remember the six months I spent looking for her, trying to remember her.

I remember my dream.

How could I have been so blind?

It’s been two-years to the day since I felt that ghost of a kiss.

And now I know why I felt so weird when I was with Shauna, I’m in love with Tonya.  My mind was searching for the dream, but my heart had already found it.

Did she like me? Or even think about me like that?  I think of everything she said over the last few months, but I’m not sure.  I remember her telling me about how someone swept her off her feet right after graduation.  Was she talking about me?

But it doesn’t matter anymore, regardless.

I’ve woken up too late.  She’s moved on, to Bradford.  Maybe that’s what Carla was talking about.

I sag to my knees when I think about the hope I saw in her eyes just now.  I never did that, I never gave her hope like that, made her feel like that.  Bradford gave her that, he brought her back, she’s even wearing that same honeysuckle perfume again.  She never wore it before, well, not since the night we met.  I thought her whole new look was because of Carla.  She may have helped, but it was for this dude all along.

I get to my feet and slip back over the tracks, unseen.

If Bradford can make her feel like that, then she needs to be with him.  If I see him again, I’ll apologize for being a dick.

This realization casts a new, more objective light on my relationship with Shauna.  She’s pretty and I do care for her, and while I had already sorted my emotions out, now I know the why of it.  She didn’t do anything weird the other night, I was reacting to everything like a fool.  I didn’t want to think about her like Debbie or those other drunken, parking lot fucks.  I wanted romance, like in the books I read.  I wanted to be
John Carter of Mars.  I wanted the girl with the job, the girl from the better side of town, the girl who wasn’t anywhere near the punk scene, I wanted her to love me, to accept me — to validate me.  I wanted a princess.

Shauna was just trying to have a good time with someone she liked.  She didn’t have an agenda, that was all me.

There are no princesses, not in real life — I should already know that.

And in the end, I realize I have to validate myself and since I fuck up everything I touch, I’m going to need to put some effort into that.  It’s time to grow up and accept reality, dreams are just that — dreams.  I know a lot of guys that would rather be with their second choice than be alone, but I feel ashamed about everything that’s already happened and can’t bring myself to go there.

I’ve been incredibly selfish to both Shauna and Tonya.  I feel like I was using both of them.

And just like that, I know I have to apologize to Shauna and end whatever we almost had.  Anything else would just be wrong.

It’s oddly liberating knowing that Tonya has found someone and regardless of how I feel, we’ll never be together.  She’ll go off this summer and probably end up marrying this guy.

Kevin is gone, which just leaves me and Todd to try and salvage the band, but I know in my heart that that’s dead as well.

Everything is dead.

But is dead all that bad, I mean in the end?  I’ve put up a pretty good fight so far, but when I think about it, there’s not many who would miss me.  But that seems pretty cowardly, besides dead sounds awfully boring.

I’ll get by.  I smile and decide to walk over to the bank, hoping Shauna is there, because I have to deal with her before I can even think about anything else.  Bradford was right, even going to see Shauna is more about me than her.  It’s about making me feel better about everything.

That’s not completely true, but it feels true.

I cut back across the tracks and watch the cars drive up and park, the workers running into the buildings as I make my way to the main boulevard.  They seem happy in their suburban lives, working regular jobs and spending time with their families.  Maybe I’ve been thinking about every thing all wrong.  Maybe I don’t need the rage anymore.  Maybe I don’t need to protect myself like that anymore.

But it’s been my constant companion for so long that I’m not sure how to let it go, or even if I want to.

There’s a lot of traffic as I walk along the sidewalks of the strip shopping malls.  I see people running errands and going about their normal lives, dropping off the little ones at school, getting birthday presents and going shopping.  How do they avoid the rage?  Maybe a zombie life isn’t so bad.

I get nervous when I see the bank in the distance and stop.

I’ve never done anything quite like this before.  Sure, I’ve broken up with girls, but not when I still care and worry about them, even if that isn’t love.  But I’m whispering prayers that she’s there, because I need to see her, be done and find some kind of closure.

I get to the bank parking lot and sit down on the curb, watching the people come and go.  I see her Jeep in the lot, so I know she’s here.  The awfulness of it is suddenly too real now and I’m trying to fight myself, but it’s pointless.  It would be so easy to just bail.  It might even be the wiser course.  But I know I’m going to walk in there sooner or later.  I can’t just take the easy way out, not anymore.

I discard my inner debate, weakness or strength, right or wrong, and walk across the parking lot and as I open the door, I glance through the glass to see a station wagon at the gas pumps across the street.  And my dad sees me.

I look back into the bank and see her right away.  Her eyes are red and swollen.  This was a bad idea after all.  I turn and leave as quickly as I can, hoping she didn’t see me.

I make it almost halfway across the parking lot before I hear my name.

“Connor!  Wait!”

I stop and slowly turn to see her running over to me.  The morning sun is shining off her hair and glowing around her.  She’s beautiful.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come, I have to go.” I say.

“Can you stop please, just for five seconds?” she asks.

“No, I really have to go,” I say as I see my dad getting into his car.

“Just stop.”

“I’m still pissed about yesterday, but sorry for the other night and your parents — I’m so sorry,” I say.

“Yeah, I know.  My turn.”

“What?”

“Okay, I was a bitch.  I admit it.  I was jealous and I’m sorry,” she says.

I drop my head dejected, this is already going wrong and I have seconds before my dad is going to get here.

“And stop feeling sorry for yourself.  I can decide what’s good for me.  I don’t know why I acted like that yesterday.  I think it’s about Saturday.  I just wanted your attention, I wanted you.  I’m not like that, really I’m not.   And, yes, I saw your back the other night, but I could already see you were in pain, that something happened, even before.  Carla started to explain, but I told her not to.  I didn’t want to hear it from her.  When you’re ready to tell me about it, if you want to talk about it, I’m here.  I didn’t want to ruin yesterday.  I just wanted to have fun and forget, but you have every reason to be pissed at me.”

I look across the street.  He’s dodging across four lanes of traffic.

She continues, “You’re special to me, but
you
are not special.  We all ache inside.  We’re all trying to fill up that hole, to feel complete — normal, I guess.  The other night, for a few hours, you took my ache away.  I was happy.  Please, don’t take that away from me.”

I don’t want her to ache like that, but I can’t take that pain away for her anymore, I wish I could, but I can’t.

I hear a siren from down the street.

“Shauna, listen we have to talk.  I have something to say, something I need to say, but not now.”

We both turn our heads at the sound of a growling engine and squealing brakes.

I’m out of time.

“You sum-bitch, I know you did it.  I know you broke my goddamn door.  You’re going to pay for it too, you little shit.”

My dad drags himself out of the station wagon and heads over.  He’s fifty, has a mess of long stringy, greasy gray hair, a gallery of tattoos and has a slender, but muscled frame.  He’s tough as nails.  He’s wearing his gray mechanics uniform.  It’s early, so he’s still mostly sober. He’s the exception to the rule about bullies, he doesn’t back down when you pop him in the face, he just gets more excited.

He flicks his cigarette at me as he gets closer.

I dodge it and suddenly, for the first time in a long time — I’m nine again.

“What the fuck are you doing at a bank?  You never worked a goddamn day in your whole miserable life, what business do you have at a bank?”

“Dad, please?”

“Please what?  Spit it out pussy.  You got something to say to me?”

Shauna is standing next to me, and I’m humiliated and suddenly so weak.  My voice catches in my throat and I can’t speak.  She takes a step back, I can’t protect her and I’m afraid she senses it.