Don't You Remember (25 page)

“I’ll do that.” Johnny laughed casually at Dave’s love-sick puppy act.

“SURPRISE!” came the collective roar of the room.

“Damn it,” I mumbled looking in the bathroom mirror, I applied a fresh touch of lip gloss. I’d only missed the big surprise. I looked at my watch and realized the birthday boy was five minutes early. I quickly put the lid back on my lip gloss and dashed back to the club room as fast as I could.

“One, two, three, four,” came the sound of the band. The drummer clicked his sticks together and smashed them down hard on the drums, followed by the guitar and electric piano. I ran back to Sean’s side and positioned myself so I could get a good view of the band.

It all happened so quickly. I recognized the sound of the music and then Johnny came onto the stage. My heart pounded like it did the first time I kissed him. I felt light, almost faint and told myself to get it together. He started singing, with his undeniable signature voice and looked around the room as if to make every single person in the room feel important and privileged to be his presence. His eyes stopped on me. This was the moment I had been waiting ten years for! I grabbed hold of the side of the bar as heat rushed through my body. I looked away, feeling peculiar, unable to explain the strangeness of the situation. What was happening?

“He’s staring at you,” Sean said, leaning over to meet my ear.

“Mmm,” was all I could come out with. I was truly lost for words.

“He is really staring now,” Sean continued.

Sean was right. Johnny’s eyes were fixed on me like he had just seen a ghost. The intensity of his gaze made several others look over in my direction as if they, too, were wondering what Johnny was looking at.

“This is one of your favorite bands, right?” Sean stated.

“Mmm,” was all I could muster. I still couldn’t talk. What was I to do? What would happen next? I didn’t know how to proceed; what to think. The girl that left my apartment feeling not half bad was all of a sudden feeling worse for wear.

The song ended, Johnny thanked the audience and walked back stage. Where was he going? He had seen me, I was sure of it. Everyone was sure of it. I held the bar with two hands now, instead of one. Sean put his arms around me. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I think so.”

“Never had so much attention before and from none other than a rock ’n’ roll legend.” He put his arms around my waist as if to show the world that I was with him. Well I was, so why didn’t I want him to do that?

I moved his arms from around my waist. “Just give me a second. I need to breathe.”

“He’s rumored to be getting married to someone,” Sean said, stating the obvious. “He knows how to give girls his attention. It’s what lead singers do, they have this way of making a pretty girl think they’re the one.”

I listened to his words and realized he was absolutely right. I recalled the last ten years quickly in my head. All that mattered was that Johnny had never bothered to contact me since the fire; he had let me down more than anyone, broken my heart and left it wounded for many years. If I was honest, my heart had never really recovered.

When I eventually got to grips with what just happened, I stood up straight and composed myself. I looked straight ahead and saw Johnny walking in my direction as if on a mission. I took a deep breath, trying to stay balanced and levelheaded. He stood in front of me, looking at me with disappointment in his eyes. I knew those eyes. I knew how to read him with no words.

“Hello, Jen,” Johnny said.

Sean looked at him and then at me wondering if he was missing something. How did Johnny know his girlfriend’s name?

“Hello, Johnny,” I said, searching his eyes as to why this was happening.

“I don’t know what to say to you?“ he said as if he was annoyed with me.

“Why?”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Why are you here? Now? Like this?” he said, looking at me in my dress.

“Because I was invited to this party.”

“No. Why have you turned up now after all these years?”

“What are you talking about? I should be asking you why you are even bothering to talk to me after all these years. You didn’t care then, why now?” I realized that Sean was standing beside me listening to our conversation. He looked confused.

“I looked for you.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“If you did, you would have found me waiting for you. I waited and waited for you, Johnny. You rubbed your numerous flings, girlfriends and relationships in my face. Didn’t you know that would torment me? It took me a long time, but I’m over you,” I said, exasperated trying to believe the words.

“Right,” he nodded. “Right, so that’s it.” He looked cross with me and walked out the front door, leaving the club. Leaving me! I looked around from left to right trying to work out what just happened. How was this, my fault? How did he make me feel responsible for him crushing my heart? I was cross now and this time I was going to give him a piece of my mind.

I hurried out of the club, climbing two steps at a time in heels and a black dress. I didn’t care; I didn’t want him to get off so easily. I pushed the heavy metal doors open and stood outside scanning the street. I watched him step into a black SUV and ran to the street and flagged down a taxi.

“Follow that SUV,” I said to the cab driver.

“Right on it. I’ve been waiting for years for someone to come into my cab and say ‘follow that car.’” He said smiling at me through the rear view mirror, but I was not in humorous mood. I positioned myself squarely in the centre of the vehicle with both my hands on the corners of the front two seats.

The back window in the cab was open and I was thankful for the breeze. I felt hot and bothered as adrenaline rushed through my body. This was not over. Not over for me. Not like this. It occurred to me that I had just left Sean in the club. I felt horrible having done that. Poor Sean wouldn’t have understood anything because I never told him about Johnny. I would just have to explain as soon as I got back, but first I needed to tell Johnny a thing or two.

There was thunder and lightening in the sky. I looked ahead to make sure we were keeping up with the SUV and then looked back outside as the trees swayed as if a storm was approaching.

“It looks like the rain is going to hit us,” the cab driver observed.

“Yes,” I said, looking straight on.

“It’s been like this for the last hour. It’ll start any minute I reckon.”

The first few raindrops hit the windscreen on the cab. The driver continued to keep up with the SUV and then came to a halt. I looked ahead and realized the SUV had stopped. Fumbling through my purse, I gave the driver a $20 note and told him to keep the change. I didn’t have time to wait for change and I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off where Johnny was going.

I slid out of the back seat in my evening dress and let the rain soak me. I didn’t care; all I cared about was getting the last word in. I needed Johnny to know it was he who had let me down. I did not understand what he meant when he said ‘I looked for you.’ I wasn’t hard to find. I had given him many opportunities. I’d left a message with his mother who told me she’d passed on my message. If he wanted to make sure, he could have contacted Rushton High School and they would have told him I had moved. I also left a message with his management company and had even called back to verify he got the message.

I raced to the building he had just walked into, climbed the stairs and tried to push the glass door open, but it was locked and only opened for the occupants of the building. I watched him walk into the lift as I stood outside. Not happy I thumped on the door with all my might.

“Johnny!  Johnny Cromwell, don’t you walk away from me, you’re not getting off that easy,” I shouted. But he was gone.

I took my heels off so as not to slip down the stairs in the rain and stomped like a child having a tantrum. I screamed out in frustration “Argh!”.

I walked down the stairs and the tears began to drown my face. I didn’t want to cry, I wanted to be strong and show he didn’t matter to me. But my heart seemed to have a will of its own and, all of a sudden, it felt like it had been broken all over again, and by the same person. I began to walk down the street feeling like a rag doll, completely void of stature and shape. I had lost the will to care about anything. I wanted to walk in the rain, to feel the water on my entire being, wishing it would wash away the way I felt.

“Jen,” Johnny shouted behind me.

He had heard me. I stopped and turned around and saw him standing outside the building on the top of the stairs.

“What do you mean, you looked for me?” I cried out to him as the rain poured over me.

“I did look for you. My mother told me you were dead.”

“But I gave her a note for you and she promised me you got it.”

“I never got it, I never got anything. I can’t trust anything my mother says, she doesn’t know if she’s coming or going half the time and her memory has been shot to pieces for years. I checked with Rushton High and they told me you had died in the fire too. I’ve been living the last ten years believing you were dead, comparing every woman I ever met with you. And I want to know why you never bothered to contact me. You knew me better than anyone and you would know I would never want to live without you. I told you that, I’m a man of my word and that has never changed. Why, Jen Redman, did you never contact me?”

I shouted to him standing on top of the stairs, he needed to understand my side of the story. “You’re mother told me she gave you the note, she promised she did. It had all my contact details and I waited for you to contact me every single day. I gave up when I saw you sprawled all over the tabloids with one woman one week and a new one the next. I even spoke to your management company and begged them to give you my message – where I was and my contact details. They told me they had but you didn’t do anything about it. I believed that success had changed you and that you didn’t want me any more.”

Johnny walked down the stairs until he reached me. With no words, he took my chin in his hand, bent down and kissed me slowly, passionately, tasting my lips and feeling my mouth. He continued to kiss me pulling me toward him as close as I could go. I did nothing, unable to move in his arms, enjoying the moment. He took his hands to my head and ran his fingers through my wet long hair, tilting my head back ever so slightly as we continued to kiss each other with long awaited intensity.

I don’t know how long we were like that for when we eventually stopped for some air. Johnny stopped, stepped back for a moment and bit down on his lip licking them as if he had just had a taste sensation. He stepped forward and gently took my face in his hands again, looking directly into my eyes.

“You’re going to catch a cold. We need to get you inside,” he said.

I didn’t answer, I just followed him as he led me up the stairs, through the front doors of the building, past the doorman who watched us curiously as if we were the evening entertainment. We got into the lift and I stood there cold and shaking. I think I was shaking from shock, excitement and because I was cold and wet. He let my hand go and took me in his arms, right into his chest and rubbed my back. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you warm.”

I could feel his body heat and I was starting to feel warm. I snapped out of the moment for a split second realizing I was positioned against his taunt chest, a chest I could look at forever. He was so gorgeous, so undeniably hot and sexy, I wanted him right now. With no inhibitions, I looked up at him and instigated the next kiss. He returned my advance pushing me up and into the elevator wall so he could fix his hands on the wall as if to keep him steady. I felt safe and secure, the way I had always felt when I was with him. The elevator doors opened, we had reached the top floor. He dug deep into his pockets, collected his keys then opened the door pulling me inside with him at the same time he entered. We giggled at the same time, at us, at what we were doing. My giggle turned into a laugh, an uncontrollable laugh, a laugh that told me how stupid I was. For ten years I had lived my life believing my man didn’t want to be with me any more. How wrong could I have been?