Far Too Tempting (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-four

The great part about being an artist is it gives you license to be eccentric. You can pull off spectacularly selfish acts like leaving a recording studio mid-day that’s been booked for you for the next several weeks. You can
not
return calls to your label or your producer brother or your boyfriend, who call two, three, and four times respectively.

Sorry, I mean
former boyfriend
.

Matthew tries to “explain” on his messages. I delete every single one of them. And Jeremy’s and Owen’s too, just for good measure. I turn off the e-mail on my phone. I don’t trust myself not to cave if Matthew sends me one of his patented e-mails. Those swoonworthy e-mails that hooked me in the first place. Nope. I’m not going to fall for another one of his perfectly worded explanations.

Damn writer. The man knew how to use words to his advantage and he worked me over with them.

That night, Ethan and I sequester ourselves in the apartment, ordering a pineapple-and-cheese pizza for dinner.
He insists on doing a Lego Star Wars demonstration for me, showing me how he can make Yoda with Han Solo’s head and a storm trooper’s body to fend off bounty hunters in the canteen. Or something like that. Bedtime comes next and I convince him, at least for one night, to try a new book. So I read him Roald Dahl’s
The Giraffe and The Pelly and Me.

“That’s a good story, too. Will you read it again tomorrow on the plane?”

“Of course, sweetheart. Good night,” I say, and tuck him in, grateful as always for the one true thing in my life.

My son.

Now, he’s sound asleep and I’ve resorted to my Flint playlist. Dionne Warwick’s “Walk on By” is blasting in my earbuds as I pack for Maine. Let me grieve, indeed. After a few songs, I turn the volume down and call my mom.

“Hi, Mom,” I say in a barren voice when she answers.

“What’s wrong? You don’t sound like yourself.”

Nothing gets past my mom. She has pinpoint radar for her daughter’s moods and emotions. “Oh, just a long day,” I tell her.

“Are you sure?”

“I promise.”

“We can’t wait to see you both tomorrow. I’ll have your room ready for you, but I should let you know the Duran Duran posters are gone.”

An image of that night in the studio singing to Matthew flashes past me.

“It’s okay, Mom. I’m so over Duran Duran.”

Then I say good-bye and finish packing. I pull a black skirt out of my closet, dropping it into my suitcase. Even though I believe jeans are suitable for nearly every occasion—dress them up, dress them down—I know my mom will appreciate the skirt. I add a few T-shirts for Ethan, a Star Wars sweatshirt, and a long-sleeve button-down for him to wear to the show. He hates button-downs, but he respects sartorial rules about special occasions.

I leave the nearly full suitcase on the floor of my bedroom. I’ll finish it tomorrow morning when I can add toiletries. I head into the kitchen, grab the empty pizza box, and bag up the trash. Then I head down the hall to toss them both in the trash can before I go.

Quon is walking toward me, carrying a paper bag, presumably full of food.

“Hey,” I call out, and narrow my eyes at him. “Don’t tell me you’re seeing other people in my building.”

“4E called in an order, but no one is there. Go figure. Now I have two cartons of noodles without a home.” Then he spies my pizza box. “But you’ve been seeing the pizza man. That makes me very sad,” he says, and rubs his eyes, pretending to cry.

Then my eyes start to water, and I don’t have to pretend to cry. I do it for real.

“Are you okay?” he asks gently.

I shake my head.

“You are sad again. Like you were before,” he says, and I nod. Because, odd as it may seem, Quon was there for me to talk to during many of my lonely nights after Aidan. “We need to have some noodles then. Noodles always cheered you up. Here.” He thrusts the paper bag at me. “Give me the trash.”

I hand him the trash bag and the pizza box, and he takes them to the garbage chute at the end of the hall, then returns to me. We head back inside my apartment and out to the deck.

He takes two white-and-red cartons from the bag and hands me chopsticks. “Have some noodles and tell me everything.”

I sigh and tell him the story. The whole story, chapter and verse.

Quon nods at the end of the story, his brow crinkled, the momentary furrows signaling some sort of deep thought. He expertly maneuvers his chopsticks around the noodles, slurping them up in one seamless movement. Then, with the wooden eating implements poised in midair, he declares, “You are looking for inspiration in the wrong place.”

He reels in another helping of noodles, a pro fisherman he could be.

I roll my eyes. “Quon, that sounds like a fortune cookie. And a bad one at that. What does that even mean?”

“I can’t tell you. It’s an ancient Chinese secret,” he teases.

“Very funny. But maybe you could tell me where to look rather than just tell me where
not
to look.”

I attempt to stare him down. But he’ll have none of it. He dips a hand into the brown paper bag and plucks out two fortune cookies. He hands one to me and takes the other for himself.

“I will be blessed with luck in business and love,” he reads off. “My lucky number is seven. Oh, that is a good lucky number.”

“That’s not fair,” I whine. I want luck in business
and
love. “Maybe that was really mine.”

He shrugs his shoulders. “You always get the fortune you need.”

I crack mine open and unfurl the little slip of paper. I frown at Quon. “You did this on purpose.”

He shakes his head adamantly. “I never mess with the fortune cookies. It wasn’t even your order, you crazy woman!”

“Mine says:
You will find answers when you stop looking
.”

He nods sagely, as if the ancient wisdom of his elders is indeed being passed on, generation to generation, person to person, through the vehicle of sugared, baked dough.

Then I flip it over. My lucky number? “Thirteen.”

I want to shake my fists at the Gods of Music, cry out that this is unfair, rail against their little game of roulette. But really, what can I do?

Except say good-bye to Quon and get to work on my next breakup album.

…

Ethan and I walk past security and find my mom and dad waiting for us.

“Grandpa!” Ethan shouts. He runs to my father, flinging himself at him. My dad lifts Ethan high and gives him a huge hug.

“You’re a big boy. How’d you get so tall?”

“I don’t know, Grandpa. What’s your Patronus?” he asks, referring to a charm the wizards in the Harry Potter series cast when being pursued by Dementors.

My dad strokes his chin thoughtfully, then holds a finger in the air. “A raccoon.”

“A raccoon!” Ethan shrieks. “I’ve never heard of a raccoon for a Patronus!”

We head down to baggage claim, grab our shared suitcase, then cover the short distance to my parents’ car, right outside the terminal. I love small airports.

I slide into the back seat of their car, ready to return to the home I love—the house where I lived when I discovered the joys of melody, rhythm, and harmony. This won’t be such a joyous homecoming musically, but at least I finally have fodder.

The Bastard Who Used Me.

I better write that down. That’s going to be the single we release first on iTunes. How fitting.

…

“Your brother told me what happened.”

My mom is in her study packing her brown leather shoulder bag the next day, stuffing the sheet music for
Tommy
in it
.
We’re about to head to the Maine Musical Theater. I’m going to watch the final prep before tonight’s performance. My dad and Ethan are spending the afternoon in the boat on the lake with the dogs. They’ll meet us at the theater at curtain.

“Why are you bringing the music with you?” I point to the papers she just deposited in her bag. “Don’t they know the songs by heart by now?”

“Your brother told me what happened,” she repeats. My mother is phenomenally good at staying on message. But I don’t want to talk about
what happened
. Though, that might be another good title for a song.

“Do you think I could play the Acid Queen, maybe just for one performance?” I run my hands over the framed posters for all the shows she’s directed—
Grand Hotel
,
42
nd
Street
,
South Pacific,
and so on. Each one comes complete with autographs from all her actors and actresses.

“Your brother told me what happened,” she says one more time, as she loops her shoulder bag onto her arm and gestures that it’s time to go. She’s not going to back down, so I meet her gaze as we leave the house.

“Which part?”

“All of it,” she says, as we slip into their car.

Owen called me again yesterday too: “I know you’re there with Mom and Dad and I just want you to know that Matthew is a really—”

I had hit skip, then skip again over Matthew’s message, and then Jeremy’s voice started next. “Jane, I’m really sorry for pressuring you, both on the album and the story. This is all my fault. It wasn’t fair to put you under that kind of pressure. I want you to know I will happily take your next album whenever you feel like doing it.
Whenever
,” he added once more for emphasis. His was the only message I listened to all the way through.

“News travels fast in this family.”

“We’ve always been a chatty crew,” she says, then gently places a hand on my chin so I’m facing her as she drives. “You can sit there looking pissy or you can reach into my bag and grab some of my special dark chocolate from Paris to eat as you listen to me. It has little orange bits in it.”

“Mom! You are such a dork. I can’t believe you have chocolate in your bag,” I say as I dip my hand in to reach for the bar.

“Of course I have chocolate in my bag,” she says, as if traveling sans chocolate is simply insane. “Now, Jane, I won’t pretend to have all the details, but you should know that Matthew has already introduced Owen to the literary agent. Owen was so excited at the prospect of getting his book in front of an agent that he went home Monday night and stayed up all night and finished the manuscript. He even asked Matthew if he wanted to see it first before he made the intro. Matthew said no, that he trusted him and knew it would be good.”

I break off a chunk of the chocolate bar and take a bite, savoring the dark of the chocolate, the spice of the fruit. It tastes like I imagine Paris would be. I’ve never been, but it tastes like I’m looking at the Eiffel Tower with a lover, like I’m strolling through the Musée d’Orsay, like I’m absentmindedly running my hands across the spines of the books at Shakespeare & Co., my eyes on the six foot two dark-haired man next to me, enrapt in a book of his own.

A book of his own
.

About me. Without my permission. Unauthorized. I snap out of my Paris reverie, remembering that Matthew was using me as fodder for a book.

“I am telling you that because it’s something you should know.” We pull into the parking lot. “And if he’d make that effort for your brother, maybe you
should
hear him out.”

We get out of the car and walk into the theater. “Are you sure you don’t want me to be the Acid Queen?” I ask once more.

My mom looks at me and lays a hand on my shoulder. “If you were the Acid Queen, you’d have a scene with Haley Mauvais. He sings “Eyesight to the Blind,” the song that leads into the Acid Queen scene.”

“Haley Mauvais! I haven’t seen him in ages.”

Haley Mauvais. The guru, the teacher, the master. The authority on the Gods of Music.

We walk down the aisle in the theater that’s practically a second home to my mom. I trail my fingers along the red upholstered seats. She looks at her watch. “He’s going to close up his shop at six today so he can be at the theater at in time.”

“Mom, do you mind if I use your car to visit Haley at Play Without Ceasing?”

She reaches into her bag and hands me her keys. “Here you go.” Then she leans in to give me a kiss on the cheek. “And maybe you want to make a phone call on your way over, too.”

But I don’t have to make a phone call on my way over. Because as soon as I push open the doors, stepping out of the dark inside of the theater and into the bright afternoon sun, I see Matthew.

Chapter Twenty-five

“What are you doing here?” I blurt out.

“I’m doing a piece on regional musical theater for
Beat.
I thought this would be a good place to start,” he says gesturing at the theater. He’s wearing jeans and a T-shirt that says
Blame the Cat
under his usual leather jacket.

“But what are you even doing in Maine?” I shield my eyes from the sun, then reach a hand into my bag to find a pair of sunglasses. I put them on. This is better. He can’t see my eyes. My sunglasses are another layer of protection between him and me.

“You told me you and Ethan were going to Maine,” he says in a soft voice. “So I went to your house first and when no one was there, I came here.”

I cut him off. “But
why
are you here?”

He reaches a hand out to touch my shoulder or my arm or something, but I pull back, standing firmly against the hard brick of the outside wall of the theater.

“Jane, I waited for you outside the Ed Sullivan Theater after you did Letterman to convince you to do a story. Did you think I wouldn’t come all the way to Maine for you?”

“It didn’t occur to me you would show up at all. Considering you never were interested in me. I’m sure you’re only here
pursuing
your book,” I say sharply, emphasizing the word he used when he made me cave after Letterman, when he fooled me into thinking he wanted me. “Because that’s all I ever was to you. Now you can really have fun with it. One-hit wonder. Can’t write again. Poor, sad Jane.” I play an imaginary violin, mocking my own sorry state.

He takes a step closer. “You know that’s not true. Please tell me you know that’s not true.”

I hold up a hand, try to speak. Take a breath. Try again. “It is true,” I say. “It’s clearly true. You didn’t want me. You only wanted access.”

He takes a step closer. This time he reaches for my sunglasses with both hands and pushes them up on my head. He looks me in the eyes, and I can’t hide anymore. He won’t let me look away. I have no choice but to face him.

“I’m not doing the book,” he begins.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m not going to do the book. I called Alicia, that’s her name, the agent, and told her I wasn’t interested. You’re more important to me than a book. You’re more important to me than a story. You’re the most important person in the world to me.”

“I am?” I ask, in utter disbelief. There’s no way this can possibly be true.

“You are,” he says, and there’s no teasing, no toying, none of the usual banter. “And I fucked up. I should have told you sooner, but I’m so used to keeping these firm lines with my work and protecting what I’m writing. And I’m sorry. I am truly, deeply sorry. I never want to hurt you. The last thing I want is for you to think this isn’t real,” he says gesturing from him to me. “It’s completely real, and completely true. I was going to tell you about the book, Jane. I know it seemed like I was keeping secrets from you and you thought I was using you, and I feel terrible that I didn’t tell you sooner. I feel so absolutely awful that I could kick myself in the face,” he says, and I nearly laugh because I’ve thought about face-kicking myself at times too. “The truth was I didn’t think it was a big deal. The book, that is. Because it’s not a big deal to me. Alicia phoned me one day out of the blue. She’d been reading my columns and she wanted to see if I would be interested in writing a book. And I’d never thought about it before. So that’s why I bought
Sex, Drugs, and Updating Your Facebook Page
that night I saw you at An Open Book. But I could barely make it through. You know me, I prefer fiction.”

“You’re a fiction fanatic,” I say, softening a bit. Then I realize I’m suddenly speaking on his behalf, explaining his desires, his likes, his dislikes. This does not go unnoticed by Matthew. The sliver of a smile forms on his mouth.

“In any case, I finally finished the book the day of your show. At the Knitting Factory,” he adds, to jog my memory. But I have a crystal-clear recollection of that show. Every single solitary second of it from start to finish. “And I talked to Alicia that afternoon and said I
might
be interested in something that explored the indie music business. So we tossed around some ideas. I mentioned I was doing this story with you, she liked the idea, and then I told her I’d have to see how you felt.”

“You wanted to see how I felt about it?” I narrow my eyes, as if I can somehow dissect the truth better this way.

“Yes, which you made pretty clear earlier this week,” he says, playfully. I am reminded of one of the many reasons I love Matthew—the way he teases, the way he knocks things down a few notches, even in the middle of a serious moment. “Nevertheless, I was going to ask you at the show, but then as soon as I walked into the dressing room…” Matthew’s voice trails off, the corners of his lips curling up.

I look at him expectantly, fighting back a smile too. “As soon as you walked into my dressing room,” I say, making a rolling gesture with my right hand, prompting him to pick up where he left off.

“You looked so gorgeous and I wanted you so much and I had to tell you I was madly fucking in love with you,” he says and holds his hands out wide. “And because of that I honestly forgot about the book and everything else.”

Goose bumps rise on my skin, and I want to banish them so I can be mad. I want to shoo them away, but I can’t, because he’s melting me again. Like he’s always done. “You wanted me so much you forgot about everything else,” I repeat, letting the sheer enormity of that statement, of the sentiment, register. He wanted me so much he couldn’t think straight. Ever since the first night he kissed me I have felt wanted by him. But to be wanted that much, to be loved that much…

It’s completely the opposite of my marriage and completely wonderful.

These are the quiet compromises people make to be together. These are the tentative dances of a new relationship, the tender moves of new hearts coming together, awkwardly at times. These are the secrets a relationship
can
sustain because they are secrets that are no longer hidden.

“Yes, I wanted you. I want you. I love you. I am completely crazy about you, Jane, and it’s bloody hell without you. So I came here to tell you that. To tell you I was never using you. To tell you that you mean more to me than a book, than an article. To tell you I can’t stand the thought of never kissing you again, and the only thing worse than not kissing is not being able to be with you,” he says so softly, so sincerely that I find myself inching closer to him.

I remember the first night Matthew kissed me when I felt the world slip away. His words today mean a thousand times more. This is a man who told me he was falling in love with me without any expectations. This is a man who came all the way to Maine to tell me that
again
. This is a man who told his boss he was falling for me. This is the man who held back until I insisted that I had to have him.

Until I broke down his resistance.

“I’m sorry, too,” I say, shaking my head.

“Why are you sorry?” he asks curiously.

“Because I made it impossible for you to hold out. That day in the park after we saw Goos Mom. Remember?”

He laughs. “Yeah, I remember that day. Every single detail.”

“I knew you were trying to behave, and I wouldn’t let you.”

“Oh my God,” he says, and runs his hand down my arm. “Are you kidding me? I am so glad you didn’t behave. I am so glad you took me back to my place and seduced me.” He leans close to me, rests his forehead against mine. “Please let me kiss you again. I can’t take it. I can’t stand this. Do whatever you want. Objectify me again. I can’t stand not being with you.”

Objectify
.

There it is again, and the word echoes louder this time, coming back to me. Louder, clearer, and I can very nearly hear the lyrics, the words that should follow the chorus. They’re sounding low in the back of my brain, but they’re there.

I place my hands on his stubbly jawline, loving the feel of him, but needing to resist. “But if you kiss me, I won’t want to stop.”

“I know. That’s the point. Let’s not stop. Let’s not stop anything. Let’s just keep going,” he says, imploring me, and I am aching to give in.

There’s something I need to do first, though.

I take a deep breath, then tell him my whole truth. “I thought I had to end things with you. I was thinking about breaking up with you,” I say, each word coarse and calloused on my tongue.

He tenses and pulls back. “I had a feeling you were. When Jeremy suggested it.”

I bite my lip briefly, hating to admit this, but knowing I have to be honest with him. “I thought I had to leave you to write. But I couldn’t go through with it. And once I knew I couldn’t go through with it, I started to write again. Not much, but it was something, and I finally started to connect with music…but then the possibility of the book made me sure I had to go back to breakup songs.”

“Do you have to return to breakup songs?” he asks, his voice pocked with nerves.

I close my eyes for a moment, listening hard. I can make out the faintest sounds, and I think I might know where to find the music I’ve been missing.

I open my eyes. “No.” I hold up my right index finger. “But there’s some place I have to be right now.”

…

“You finally came to sign your picture.”

Haley’s walking toward me, looking like he stepped out of my memory perfectly intact. He’s still wearing the same tan cowboy boots, the same diamond-stud earring, and the same getup—jeans and a jean jacket. He has crow’s feet around his eyes and his hair is speckled with gray, but other than that he could be a photograph of Haley from many years ago.

We exchange the obligatory small talk: how are the kids (his are twenty-five and twenty-seven now), how’s the Grammy holding up (fabulous, of course), is he nervous or thrilled to be performing tonight (a little of both). He expanded his shop in the last few years, he tells me, adding more drums and keyboards when the yogurt shop closed down and he “annexed it.” Used to pump frozen yogurt, now pumps tunes.

He pulls a guitar from the wall. It’s a Les Paul, fire-engine red, and it looks hot. Some teenage boy in a garage band is going to love it. “Want to hear this baby?”

He strokes the Les Paul lovingly and plugs it into an amp. Then he plucks out the opening chords for “All Along the Watchtower”
by Jimi Hendrix.

“I can’t pick up a guitar without playing that, even though Hendrix was a Fender Strat man.”

“The Gods of Music are commanding you,” I say, quickly getting to the reason I’m here.

He points the neck of the guitar toward me, smiling and nodding.

“Speaking of. What do you do, Haley, if you feel like you’re at odds with them?”

“You having a disagreement with the Gods of Music there, Jane?”

I hold up my thumb and index finger so there’s just an inch of space between them. “A wee little one. Been going on for a few months now. But I think it might be ending. I wanted to talk to you first though. I want to understand fully what you taught me when I was younger.”

He puts the guitar on the shelf, patting it once, and ushers me outside. We sit on a bench outside his store. He’s not in a rush, so he looks up at the sky, then the parking lot, then me. “The Gods of Music give you your gift, right?”

I nod.

“And you need to respect that like I told you when you were younger.”

“Right.”

“But, Jane, they don’t exist to have disagreements with.”

“What do you mean?”

He places his hands on his legs, tilting his face to the sun, warm this clear April day as it descends into its sunset. “They’re guides, they’re there to help you, not to tell you what to do.” He scratches his chin, then continues. “They hover in the background, they linger, waiting for
you
to find inspiration wherever you need to find it. Then they help you along.”

I look toward the sun; the orange disc skips like a stone lower in the sky. “Wherever I need it?” I ask, arching an eyebrow, eager to hear him confirm what I’ve been thinking. “So I could find it elsewhere?”

“You can find it in front of you. You can find it behind you. It can be whatever you want it to be. You’re not always going to find it in the same place.”

I nod, and it makes sense. I’m starting to understand the inkling of a song that’s been forming in my head. I’m starting to see that the music is coming from all around me.

Not just in a little corner of my heart. But in my whole heart.

“What I am saying is they don’t control you,” Haley continues. “They don’t tell you what to do. They aren’t in charge. You are. And if something is getting in the way of making music, get it out of the way. And I suspect that you
might be getting in your own way. So get out of your own way and listen to what the Gods of Music have for you.”

“Really?”

Haley erupts into a torrent of laughter, slapping my thigh with his hand. “Jane, you’re overthinking this.” He stands up, spreading his arms wide, holding his hands up toward the sky. “The music will come to you when you are ready for it. And when it does the Gods will be there to help you. Let them channel you. Let them use you. Let them help you when they wake you up in the middle of the night.”