Play Me (Love on Tour #2) (18 page)

20

I didn’t see Bell for the next 24 hours. She rode on bus two to the venue, along with Baby. Sean rode with me. We didn’t say much.

I didn’t see her at the show either. I also didn’t see Mike, so I assumed he was with her. Even though I was worried to the point of sickness, I didn’t ask about her.

That night I stayed in my own hotel room, with a babysitter. Mike got me a suite and stayed on the pull out couch. He left long enough for me to have a private conversation with Tim.

“Okay, so you’ve talked about the show. You’ve talked about feeling uptight, but that you don’t want a drink. Now tell me what’s really going on.”

I took a deep breath. “The girl.”

“Bell?”

“Yeah, she told me she loved me.”

There was a long pause on the phone.

“Tim?”

“Yeah, I’m here. So, ah, how many other times in your life has that happened?”

Weird question.

“A few,” I admitted.

“And what did you do on those occasions?”

“I left.”

“Is that what you did this time?”

“Kind of.”

“Kind of?”

I told him about our conversation in excruciating detail. It made me sick just to say it. I told him how she ordered me out.

“I don’t get it. I was finally willing to talk to her and she didn’t want to hear it.”

“That’s because, like she said, there was only one right response, and you didn’t give it.”

“So because I wasn’t ready to say it back, that’s it.”

“Yes, Hank. That’s how it works. If she’s in love with you, she can’t continue on if you don’t reciprocate those feelings.”

“I don’t know what the hell I reciprocate!”

“She has to move on.”

“And what am I supposed to do?”

He didn’t answer that question. Instead, he asked me something else. “What did Baby and Sean say?”

“I haven’t seen Baby much, only for a second before the show. She just hugged me and didn’t say anything at all about Bell.”

“Sean?”

“We haven’t discussed it.”

“Interesting.”

“What’s so fucking interesting?”

“Their avoidance. Mike?”

“No. He’s on babysitting duty though. He’s outside the room right now.”

“Hmmm.”

“What? Come on, quit doing that shrink shit and tell me something.”

“I was just wondering if their avoidance was because they were following your lead, or because they’ve already decided on something about all this and know that their best course of action is to stay quiet.”

“Decided what?”

“I can’t say. But I imagine you’ll find out.”

****

The next four days were hell. I saw Bell exactly three times, all in passing at a venue we were playing. She acted as though nothing had happened. She said ‘hi’ and flitted on past me.

She rode on bus two with Mike accompanying her, sometimes Baby as well. Sean stayed with me. We talked a little, but never about her.

A handful of girls tried to get me interested during that time. But I couldn’t stomach the thought of being with any other woman.

I was depressed, more depressed than I’d been since I left rehab and stood in front of the ashes of my house. I wasn’t drinking. But I couldn’t have if I wanted to. I was being constantly watched.

I wasn’t pissed about all the babysitting. In a way I felt cared for. I understood that Sean and Mike were only trying to help me. I appreciated it. But it didn’t improve my mood any.

“I just want this fucking tour to be over,” I told Sean on the bus to Las Vegas. It would be our last stop before the final show in L.A.

“Almost there, man.”

“You still going into the studio this winter?”

“No, I’m changing things up. The baby is due in January. I’m not going to spend any extra time away from home.”

“I’ll take your studio time. But I’ll have to actually write something between then and now.” I rested my head against the seat.

“I doubt you’ll have any trouble.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you always write good music when shit’s fucked up.”

I laughed, for the first time in days. “I guess I do.”

****

“Hey,” Mike said. He busted into my green room like he owned the place. “I got something to show you.”

Mike threw a magazine on the table in front of me. I pulled my feet down and sat up. “What’s this?”

“Bell’s article. It came out today.”

I eyed the glossy cover. “Not interested.”

Mike sat down on the couch next me. “Sure you are.”

“I have to go on in ten minutes,” I said, getting up.

“You’re not even a little curious.”

I examined myself in the mirror on the other side of the room. “Nope.”

“Well I was. I read it.”

“Good for you.”

“It’s a good read. She’s a good writer.”

“You’re starting to piss me off.”

“You’re in it.”

“I bet.”

I was, of course, very curious. But I was not going to let Mike know that. And I was not going to read that damn article.

“Okay, forget it,” he said casually.

“You ever call that Van guy?”

“No way. He was cute, but he was dumb as a brick.”

I laughed. “I still can’t get over the fact that the dude’s name is Van. Who names their kid that?”

“I think it was a stage name.”

“Somehow, that makes it worse.”

“Come on, let’s go,” he said, walking with me out into the hall.

And there she was, standing right outside my room, staring at the door. We looked at each other for a long moment.

“Hi Hank,” she said quietly.

I walked toward her. I couldn’t explain why, but I was drawn to her like a magnet. “Congratulations on the article.”

“Did you read it?”

I shook my head. She frowned.

“I have to go on stage.”

She swallowed hard. “Okay.”

I walked away from her. Each step was painful.

I had a good show. For the first time in four days I felt a little lighter. I was pretty sure it was hope I was feeling. Bell wanted to talk. Maybe I had a chance to get her back. Of course, I had no idea what the hell I was going to say to her.

I decided to get my shit together before I went looking for her. So I went back to my green room while Sean took the stage. And there it was, the magazine, sitting right where Mike had left it.

I locked the door behind me. Which was a potential time bomb, because if someone tried to get in they’d throw a holy fit when they found the door locked. But I wanted to be alone.

I sank into the couch and flipped through the pages until I found the article.

Lessons I Learned on Tour with Chrome and Bantham by Susi O’Malley

I was jobless, homeless, and flat broke when Sean Rush and Hank Tolk’s tour bus pulled up outside my empty apartment. I needed to escape from my life, and my old college roommate had given me that opportunity.

The rest of the world knows her as Baby Rush, Sean’s park ranger wife. But to me she’s a dear friend, a confidant, and on that day, a lifesaver. She’d offered me the chance of a lifetime, to accompany her, her famous husband, and their best friend on a two-month tour of the U.S.

I didn’t know when I stepped onto that bus what I was getting myself into. I had images of a rock tour being filled with drugs, girls, and craziness. But that was all contained to the other two buses following along on this tour. On my bus there was just Tony the stoic bus driver, Mike the sweet and loyal assistant, Baby, her quiet husband, and Hank.

We played a lot of cards, ate great food, and had some of the most bizarre conversations I’ve ever experienced. It all felt very normal. Even when I was backstage watching these amazing men entertain thousands of fans, it felt like a normal day.

I can’t say that there weren’t some insane situations we found ourselves in. There was the pack of wild women that locked Baby and me in a bathroom stall for nearly half an hour, the crowds of fans that swamped us every time we stepped off the bus, Sean’s mom (I’ll save her for a whole other article). But those moments were just a brief reminder of where I really was. Most of the time, I just felt at home.

I learned so much on that tour. First, I learned about music. I grew up on a small commune in central Oregon. The only music I experienced was a group of us singing around the old piano in the community room. Believe it not, I’d never even heard of the Beatles.

But all that changed when I was 15 and suddenly thrust into a public school in Portland. I was so lost, confused, and over-stimulated, that I didn’t have time to appreciate the things around me, including music.

But my companions, all intense connoisseurs of this immaculate art, were more than happy to fill in my education. And while I could not have imagined it before I started the tour, I became a huge fan of both Hank and Sean’s hard, gritty rock n’ roll.

I also learned about friendship. I’d always had friends in my life. But those relationships were not, I learned, as complete as I’d once thought they were. Even with Baby, before this trip, we were connected by a thread of common interest and affection. But these people, Sean, Hank, Mike, and Baby, they have something else altogether, something I was not only lucky enough to get a glimpse of, but I was honored to have been included in. They care for each other deeply. They would sacrifice anything for each other. They are family. That’s what true friendship is, and this lesson will follow me all my life.

Perhaps the most extraordinary thing to happen to me on this tour is also the most terrifying. I fell in love. I fell in love with Hank Tolk. And I can guess what you are thinking, dear reader – what an idiot. Falling in love with a man like Hank Tolk may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And I’ve done a lot of stupid things. But there was no helping it, no stopping it. The man is… indescribable.

I haven’t told him yet. And I am scared, far more scared than I was when I was being held hostage in that bathroom, way more scared than when I was staring out the door of a plane, Hank and a parachute strapped to my back, the earth far, far below. I am scared because this is the first time in my life I’ve fallen in love, and it’s the first time I could have my heart completely shattered.

Which brings me to the final lesson I learned on this tour – some things are worth the risk. I remember my mother saying to me, before I left Portland to gallivant around the country on a rock tour bus, “Susi, it sounds so dangerous.” And I remember thinking that she was right, perhaps I should hole up in my parents’ basement and keep myself safe while I work through my issues with life.

But thank God I didn’t. Because it was all worth the risk. Life is short, moments of pure rapture brief. And if we don’t risk the hurt and the ache, then we risk living without the joy. If this time next week I am a puddle of tears and snot, it will still have been worth it, because for a moment, I knew what it felt like to love someone with my whole heart.

21

The magazine fell into my lap and I sat there, motionless, for a long time. For the first time since I’d met Bell, my emotions were not a muddled mess. For the first time, everything was crystal clear. I was in love with her. That’s what this was.

I remembered Sean telling me once that love was painful. I’d asked him what he meant by that. He’d told me, “It’s the best thing in the world, man. But it hurts. It physically hurts. And when it first hits you, it’s very confusing, like when you get punched in the face and you’re disoriented.”

I couldn’t have said it better myself. But now that I knew what was happening to me I still had to figure out what to do about it.

I probably could have sat there all night running it over and over in my head. But I wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. Instead, I decided to act. I would find Bell. I had no idea what I was going to say to her, but I was going to say something. And I needed to do it right that second.

My body was not in line with my thoughts. My brain was frantic, but my movements were stiff as I got up and walked out into the hall. Nobody was around. Mike and Baby were watching Sean play. My band members were tucked away somewhere, probably smoking a joint, since I always made them come to the stage sober and their work was done now. So I tracked down a security guard.

“Where’s Bell?”

“She’s hanging out with Lance,” he said.

“Where did they go?”

“Um, they went for a walk, I think.”

I headed toward the loading dock door. There was a guard stationed there. I walked up to her. “Bell and Lance out there?” I asked, pointing to the door.

She shook her head.

“Well, have you seen them?”

She nodded. This was irritating.

“Where?”

She pointed to a door to my right. “The guards’ lounge.”

I opened the door. It was a little room. There were a couple metal folding chairs and a small table with coffee and donuts on it. But those items were not what caught my attention.

Up against the far wall, Bell was enveloped in Lance. His hands were on her ass. Her’s were around his neck. They were sucking face like the world was about to end. And mine did.

When I turned around and walked out the door I could hear Bell make a noise, like a wounded animal. Then she said just one thing, my name.

I stood with my back to the door. To the right was the loading dock. I could walk out there right now, cross the street and head to the little bar over there. By the time Sean got off stage and found me, I’d be sloshed.

Him kicking my ass after that wouldn’t be the part that hurt. It would be looking him in the eyes that would be the killer.

I turned left instead and headed back down the hall. I didn’t want to go back into my green room. I’d just sit there for a few minutes and then walk back down to that loading dock door. Instead I followed the music, down the hall, backstage.

Mike and Baby were sitting beside each other on chairs, watching Sean’s show. I looked at them for a long time, just standing there. Eventually, Baby looked over at me.

She stood up immediately and came toward me. She threw her arms around my waist. I pulled her close. Mike stood up, too, but I waved him off. I walked with Baby back to the hallway. I couldn’t go back to my green room. That damn magazine was still in there, waiting to taunt me. So we went to Sean’s green room instead.

The venue director was a huge fan of Sean’s, and he’d gone to a lot of trouble to make his room comfortable, complete with an extra-long leather couch. I stretched out on it. Baby lay down on top of me, her head resting on my chest, her arms wound tightly around me. I put one hand under my head. With the other, I stroked her long, straight brown hair. Like Bell’s, it was soft and silky. I slipped it through my fingers.

Baby and I didn’t speak. We just lay there, completely still. I listened to the music. This room was closer to the stage than mine and I could hear it well. Sean was singing a song that I both loved and hated. It was about me, though no one knew that. The verse he was belting out now had gotten him in a bit of trouble back when the song first hit the charts. “I will kick your ass. I will fuck you up.” Some people thought it was about domestic abuse, and he had once been confronted about it on a morning talk show. Sean didn’t reveal the truth about the song, that it was about the night I burned my house down, that he’d been screaming those words at me while I lay on the ground beneath him. Instead, he’d said, “If I wrote a song about domestic violence it would not be from that perspective.”

He started the chorus now. “I will pull you out of that hole. I will drag you out, one small step at a time.”

I squeezed Baby a little closer to me, and was glad I’d turned left instead of right when I was in that hallway.

When Sean’s set was done there was a break in the music. But no one came to get me for the encore, and I didn’t move. Then I heard him go back on. He played two more songs and said goodnight.

I could see the door from where I was. I watched him come in. He could have pulled his wife off me, but he didn’t. Instead, he pulled a chair across the room and sat opposite us. Baby moved, just a little bit, for the first time in an hour. I figured she’d fallen asleep.

Sean looked at her for a moment, before turning his gaze to me.

“So we’re not talking then?”

I shook my head.

“Okay, then I’m taking a shower.”

This really was a nice venue. The green room had a private bathroom, complete with a shower. Sean disappeared from my view and I heard the water running.

Mike came in. He pulled another chair out from the table and sat down, too. Other than the running of the water, it was very quiet in here.

I felt calm, despite the broken heart I was suffering from. I was in the best possible place. I was surrounded by people who loved me. Bell was right when she wrote about this in her article.

Sean came out of the shower, dressed, with his long black hair hanging wet down his back. He sat back down on the chair.

“We gonna stay here all night?”

“I guess not,” I said. “Though this couch is very comfortable. Oh, and so’s your wife.”

“Hey, don’t rub it in.”

“Come on, Baby,” I gently moved her so that we were both sitting up.

I could finally see her then. And I realized that she’d been crying, so quietly that I couldn’t tell. Tracks of tears streaked her face and her eyes were red.

“Hey, none of that,” I said, kissing her temple.

“Sorry,” she said softly.

I looked up at Sean. “She’s kind of like a security blanket.”

“I know. I’m like Linus right now, man.”

I got Baby up and we walked out to the bus. Mike and Sean followed behind as I walked with Baby tucked into my side. There were a few fans out by the bus, a lot of them scantily clad women. I could easily take one of them back to the hotel with me and drown my sorrows in her. But I knew it was useless. It wouldn’t work.

A flash went off and I heard Mike swear from behind me. The photo of me and Baby snuggled together while Sean walked behind us would probably hit the papers tomorrow.

We got on the bus and sat in the booth, Baby still beside me, Sean opposite her. The door closed, but Tony didn’t start the bus. Instead he stood up and looked at me.

“I’m more than just a bus driver you know,” he said.

We all stared at him. Tony was not verbose, in fact he made Sean look like a motor mouth.

“I’m a student of human nature. I studied psychology before I dropped out of college. And I pay attention to what’s happening around me,” he continued.

We all watched him, as though we’d never in our lives seen such a bizarre spectacle.

“And I never thought I’d see the day that Hank Tolk fell for a girl. But it happened. And I don’t know what you did to make her leave you, but I drove that girl and her new boyfriend back to the hotel earlier, and I got to tell you, she is not into him.” He paused for dramatic effect. “She is not into him.”

Then he turned around, sat in his seat, and started the bus.

“Well that was different,” Mike said.

“Holy fuck,” I whispered. “I had no idea he could talk that long.”

Sean laughed. “That was kind of awesome.”

“Like the part in the movie where the guy no one suspects drops a huge line of insight on everybody,” Baby said.

Sean reached over the table and wiped at a tear track from Baby’s cheek. “You wanna stay with Hank tonight?”

She nodded.

“Thanks, Baby,” I said. “But Mike got me a suite and the couch is all his. Besides, if it got out, Mike would be in hell trying to deal with all the papers.”

“Yes, I would,” Mike grumbled.

“I don’t give a fuck what the papers say,” Sean said.

“Maybe you don’t. But in a couple months everyone is going to find out that Baby’s pregnant and I don’t need some overly made-up talk show host demanding that I take a paternity test.”

Sean laughed. The corner of Baby’s mouth ticked up. I had almost succeeded in making her smile.

****

Mike was kicking my ass on some stupid video game we were playing. He was having way too much fun rubbing it in, too.

“I think I need a different babysitter. You’re a pain in my ass,” I said, throwing the controller down.

“I’m sure you’d rather have Baby, she sucks at video games.”

“She’s so bad, I think she would do better if she just randomly pushed the buttons,” I agreed.

There was a knock on the door. Mike beat me to it and threw it open.

And there she was, with red eyes and rumpled hair. A part of me wanted to grab her and wrap her up in my arms. But a bigger part was too hurt, too betrayed. I couldn’t fathom it.

“So, I’m just gonna be out in the hallway.” Mike slipped past Bell and shut the door behind him.

“Hank, can we talk?”

I looked at her. I loved her. I loved her like crazy. I loved her until it bled me dry. But she didn’t feel that way about me. She couldn’t. I’d been a shithead. So she’d shrugged it off and moved on. If she loved me the way I loved her, she wouldn’t have done that.

I couldn’t blame her, really. It was my fault. Tim was right. I didn’t say it back, so it was over. She had to go on with her life.

But I did blame her. Because I wasn’t going to be able to move on. I was going to be stuck in this misery, with a damn babysitter, for the foreseeable future.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I told her.

“Of course there is.”

“Did he hurt you or force you?”

She shook her head.

I was glad for this, I really was. But it meant that nothing had changed. I’d thrown her heart away four days ago, and tonight she’d tossed mine in the gutter.

“Then you should go.”

“I can explain.”

I took a deep breath. “Bell, there’s no way to fix this. We fucked it up, and this time we can’t just put it back together with a cozy conversation.”

She looked at me for a long time. A tear slipped down her cheek.

“Goodbye, Bell,” I said, turning my back to her.

The next events happened very quickly. Bell walked to the door and opened it. Mike was out there, waiting. He must have called for backup, because I heard Baby run down the hallway. I moved toward the door. I was still inside the room, but I could see what was happening. Bell was sobbing now, into Baby’s shoulder. Baby tried to walk with her back down the hallway, but they both nearly tripped. I lurched forward to help, but Sean was right there. He picked Bell up and carried her down the hall. I watched them go.