A Song for Julia (17 page)

“Barrett Randall,” he said, and I could hear his teeth were clenched as he spoke. 

“This is Mark and Pathin,” Crank said. “Mark, Pathin, meet Julia.”

Mark I’d met in Washington, very briefly.  

Pathin held his hand out. “You must be the infamous Julia. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Anyone who can get Crank writing songs like that, I like.”

I took his hand, stunned by his words. What had Crank told them? “It’s nice to meet you,” I said.

The girl said, “Crank, aren’t you going to introduce me?”

Crank looked mystified. “I hadn’t planned to,” he said.

Her mouth opened wide. She yanked her hand out of his pocket and shouted, “I was right. You are such a prick!” 

She turned and tottered off. That was a dick move. But at the same time? I was thrilled he’d blown the girl off. Something was seriously wrong with me. Just a moment ago, I’d thought of her with the term whore. What the hell? I never, ever used that word. I’d had it thrown at me too often, too casually, to ever say it or even think it of another woman. But something in me snatched that word right out of the recesses of my mind. I felt ashamed of myself. Where did that come from? It was only a week ago I’d invited him to come back to my parents’ condo in Bethesda. Who was I to judge that girl?

A nagging voice in the back of my head told me I was already getting too wrapped up in this guy. I needed some breathing room, right now. Starting with the arm Barrett had clamped around my waist. I reached down with my right hand and peeled him off of me. 

“Having a good date?” Crank asked. His jaw worked when he asked the question, and his eyes were intense. Angry. I don’t know what right he thought he had to be angry with me. It’s not like he hadn’t been standing with that girl, who was about to give him a blow job right here in the bar.

“Yes, and you? I didn’t realize you had a date tonight,” I replied, with more than an edge in my tone. He’d asked me out tonight. To play piano. But he hadn’t wasted any time finding some girl to hang out with instead. I had absolutely no reason to feel this way. He wasn’t mine. We weren’t together. We weren’t anything. I didn’t want to be anything. But I was pissed, anyway.

Mark helpfully said, “That’s no date. That’s Alicia, the walking disaster. You just saved us from another horrible scene in the morning.”

Another horrible scene in the morning? I looked at Crank, a little incredulous. Jesus, he was such an ass. I don’t know what I was thinking or feeling, but I knew I was being inexcusably rude to Barrett. So I opened my mouth and said the first thing that came to my brain—never a smart idea and definitely not in this case, because the words that came out were, “Oh, I’m sure he’ll find some other girl to score with. Right, Crank?”

Mark and Pathin both winced, and Crank’s eyes narrowed in anger. 

“Gotta go, guys. Nice to see you,” I said. I grabbed Barrett’s arm. “Let’s go?”

“Certainly,” he said. He nodded to Crank and the guys and turned to walk away.

Crank reached out and touched my arm. “Julia? Can I have just a minute?”

I froze. Barrett looked very annoyed. Frustrated and annoyed. But you know what? He didn’t own me, and I didn’t ask him to go spend all that money on dinner. He could just cool his heels for a couple minutes.

“Sure. Barrett? I’ll be just a second.”

So, I followed Crank away from the other three, about twenty feet down the bar, where we squeezed in between two columns near the wall.

“Why are you angry with me?” he asked.

“I’m not angry with you,” I said, clenching my teeth. “Why would I be angry?”

“I don’t know. But you’re sure acting like it,” he replied.

“You were giving me some pretty nasty looks back there, too.”

He looked up, his eyes darting to Barrett, then back to me, down to my lips, then back to my eyes. He held them, his face tense, then his eyes dropped back down to my lips.

For a second, I thought he was going to kiss me. 

“Sorry,” he said. “I don’t have any reason to be … anything.”

I took a deep breath. “What are we doing?”

“You look wicked hot in that dress. Good enough to eat.”

I gasped and looked up at his eyes. Dreamy eyes. Eyes that could drive me out of control in a second. Quieter now, my voice unsure, I said, “What do you want from me, Crank?”

He gritted his teeth, and I saw his Adam’s apple bob as he swallowed. “I want to know what you look like with that dress off. I want to take you home with me and tear it off and make love to you until you scream.”

He smirked a little. Like he was making fun of me. Then said, “I want to make music together.”

I was hyperventilating. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think. Did he really just say that? My lips parted, but I didn’t—couldn’t—say anything. 

His eyes traced along my lips, and I bit my lower lip, because I was on the verge of doing something crazy. 

“What are you afraid of?” he asked.

“Losing control,” I replied.

“Sometimes losing control can be wicked awesome,” he said.

“And sometimes it’s a disaster. Sometimes it can take your whole life and rip it to pieces. I should go. My date …”

“Screw him.”

“That wasn’t on the agenda for tonight.”

He gave me a wicked grin. “I’m glad.”

“I don’t want to be one of your conquests. I don’t want to be another fucking girl getting screwed—someone your bandmates say was a horrible scene the next morning.”

“I like it when you say ‘fucking.’”

I closed my eyes. “You’re impossible.”

“That’s why you love me.”

“I do not love you. I don’t even like you.”

“You will,” he said, his voice low and luscious. I could feel the vibration of that voice from my ears all the way down to my feet.

“Maybe,” I whispered. “But not tonight.” So I backed away a foot or two, then turned, and stumbled back through the crowd until I found Barrett. I plastered a fake smile on my face. “Sorry about that. We should go.”

CHAPTER NINE

I was trouble (Crank)

It was close to two in the afternoon before I got clear of work, drove home and showered, then headed out for Dad’s. I was in my new car, an ’85 Toyota that ran surprisingly well.

Another of Julia’s hidden talents. When I got the final quote for repairing the car, I almost had a heart attack. Five thousand dollars to repair a car I’d paid a thousand for? No chance of that happening. She didn’t want to get the insurance company involved, or her parents, I suspect. She met me on Wednesday afternoon after her classes were out, and we went car shopping. Which made me wonder just what kind of world she came from, that she could drop a thousand dollars on a car without her parents noticing.

The first one I liked, she’d vetoed, pointing out coolant on the oil dipstick. “Means the head gasket is cracked,” she said, matter-of-factly. The second car met a similar fate: rusted and bent frame. It had been in an accident at some point and repaired.

We finally found a car being sold by an old widow in Malden. Damn near perfect condition, despite being twenty years old. While I stood there, open mouthed, she negotiated the woman down from twelve hundred to an even thousand, and I drove out of there the happy owner of a much better car than I’d started out with.

We stopped at a coffee shop on the edge of Somerville, briefly. “Where did you learn so much about cars?” I asked. I was flabbergasted. She was a diplomat’s kid … not the person you’d expect to know about engines. 

“My bodyguard in middle school was a car enthusiast. He used to keep a couple hotrods in the embassy garage in Brussels.”

Her bodyguard in middle school. Yes, she really said that. 

“So … he taught you about cars?”

She shrugged, a rare open smile on her face. “His name was Corporal Lewis … he was in the Marines. And I was a very lonely kid, so he let me tag along whenever he was working on the cars.”

“So, you like, know how to change your own oil?”

Her mouth quirked up on the left side, the same peculiar little smile she’d used the other day when she called me Dougal. “I could rebuild an engine with the right tools.”  

That was wicked hot.

We didn’t discuss my declaration of lust last weekend, nor her date. Though I was seriously dying, wanting to know what happened after she left. And not wanting to know. Because if that English prick touched her, I was going to kill him, and that wouldn’t be good at all.

But she cut the coffee short, saying she had to get back and study for a big exam the next morning. I know that, in theory, you have to take lots of exams and stuff in college, but you want to know the truth? I think she was just dodging me.

Whatever. I had awesome wheels, and I was full of crazy energy because I hadn’t gotten laid in like … three weeks? That’ll drive you insane. The result being, I was both energetic and crazy as all hell on the way to my dad’s on Saturday. And I’d verified by phone the night before that Julia was going to be there, which was going to make me crazier.

I needed mental help. It was starting to get cold out, like twenty degrees, so I rolled down my power windows to cool off, lit a cigarette, and cranked up Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” on the stereo and sang along at the top of my lungs. 

Okay. Time to get serious and figure out just what the hell was going on in my head.

Fact: As a rule, an often stated and confirmed rule, I don’t chase girls. They chase me.

Fact: I don’t get involved. You want a quick lay, well, I’m your guy. But only for the night.

Fact: I’ve got a brother to watch out for, a band to drive forward to success, a job flipping burgers, and I don’t have time to get emotionally tied up in some girl.

Fact: Six nights running, I’d dreamed about Julia, and that hot retro dress she wore Saturday night for her date.

Her date with some British guy in an expensive suit.

Oh, shit.

Next thing you know, I was going to be turning off the punk, listening to frickin’ Barry Manilow and the Carpenters and Aaron Neville. I’d cry my heart out at sob-story movies and send her chocolates and roses and tiny pearl earrings. I was so screwed. Because no matter how much I tried to think about Alicia or Candy or … whatever that girl’s name was with the leopard pumps … all I could think about was Julia.

This was not healthy, for a number of reasons.

Number one: refer back to the facts above.

Number two: she’d made it very clear that she wasn’t interested in me. She was up for me being her tool for one night but only until the sun came up.

And for some reason, with her, that wasn’t good enough. I wanted more.

She had, however, left a tiny little door open the other night. Maybe, she said. But not tonight. What the hell did that mean?

I wasn’t looking forward to her being there for Sean’s birthday party. But other than me, the next youngest person who was coming would be like fifty. So having her there meant a lot to him. And to be honest: I’d do anything for Sean. Even stomach the first girl since middle school that I wanted, but who didn’t want me back.

Needless to say, I was in just a wonderful mood when I drove up to my dad’s house. Looked like I was the first person there, at least. My mother would be there later, of course. I didn’t see her often, didn’t talk to her often, and that was just as well, because those conversations rarely went well. I’d be on my best behavior today, for Sean. Tony D’Amato, my dad’s partner would be there, and Mrs. Doyle, who always got wicked flustered when I flirted with her, which I did incessantly because it annoyed my dad, amused me, and made her happy. And Julia.

Not much of a party, but Sean didn’t have friends. 

I got out of the car, crushed my cigarette, and headed up the back steps, backpack slung over my shoulder.

When I walked in, things looked normal. Sean was sitting on the couch, curled up with a comic. I walked over to him and leaned over, kissing him on the top of his head. “Hey, bud. You doing all right? Happy birthday.”

He ignored me, which I pretty much expected. I started to walk to the kitchen, and Sean said to my back, “Did you bring Julia?”

I looked over my shoulder. Sean was still looking down at his magazine. “She’s coming separately. But she said she’d be here.”

He didn’t answer. It worried me that he’d become attached to her so quickly. Sean didn’t need that kind of letdown.

I headed on into the kitchen. Dad was in there, wearing his “World’s Best Mom” apron, just taking the cake out of the oven. Gluten-free, corn-free, dairy-free, because Sean was on a special diet. But, believe it or not, it would be pretty good. We’d all learned over the years to work around some things, and making food out of ingredients like tapioca and rice flour had become par for the course.

“Hey, Dad.”

“About time you showed up, punk.”

“Good to see you, too,” I replied, zipping open my backpack. Inside, I had two gifts for Sean, both of them newly released video games. “Cake looks good.”

He grumbled, setting it on the counter to cool. “Your mother will be here shortly. I want you on your best behavior.”

I took a deep breath. “I promise, Dad,” I said in a low voice. “Sean doesn’t need any arguments.”

“I don’t either,” he said equally quiet. Sean had uncanny hearing and would bring up conversations he hadn’t been in the room for, sometimes days later. “I’ve had it up to here with all of that. I wish you’d learn to …”

“To what, Dad? To forgive my mom walking out? Leaving you alone struggling with Sean?”

“Why not? You left at about the same time, kid.”

“I couldn’t take it any more,” I said.

He just stared at me. Which sucked, because about that, he was right. I was in trouble all the time back then. Drinking, partying, sex, drugs. Got picked up by the cops repeatedly, which is pretty embarrassing for your dad when he’s one of them.

I looked down at the table and clenched my fist. “I’ve done a lot of growing up since then, Dad.”