Second Best Fantasy (14 page)

We went out with Bobby and Angela to check out a new band and everyone was drinking but me. It was the first time I’d ventured into a bar since the Joplin incident, and it was uncomfortable but it was nice to know I could do something I’d done before but do it sober. The truth was, as it had been explained to me, I could do anything that “normal” people could do, except drink.

* * * *

“Let’s take a vacation.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. It would do us good to get away, have some alone time away from our everyday lives. Lay on the beach, souvenir shop…make love in the morning to the sound of the seagulls…” I leaned over and kissed her.

Since I stopped drinking our sex life had gone through the roof again, we were making love nearly every day, it was as if we’d returned to an earlier time, like it felt new again, it was wonderful.

“We can afford it,” I coaxed. We could. I had picked up 94

several freelance writing gigs and the book was still selling.

Although this was great news for me, I knew Janine was depressed about her own career. As she had predicted a long time ago, Sam quit the Blue Is and started his own band, The Poe Punks, a blues fusion folk-pop unique-sounding band, a cross between Portishead and Blues Traveler if you can imagine such a thing. There was a lot of experimental stuff going on in the music business in 1997, and, although Janine and Dean struggled to keep things going, it was clear the glory days of The Blue Is were coming to an end. Janine and Dean were mostly feeding themselves musically through duo gigs where he played guitar and she sang, and she had some additional solo gigs of her own. She was a decent guitar player, which was a nice security for any singer. Janine was writing more than she had in years, but it wasn’t the star-studded, champagne-filled, neon-lighted life we’d all gotten accustomed to when ‘Too Much Trouble’ was still flying off the shelves.

“The condo?” Janine asked.

“Yes. My parents are in Ireland until May.”

“So when would we go?”

“I dunno. A couple of weeks? I need to wrap up some freelance gigs and make sure everything’s cool at Phantom.”

My parents were snowbirds and spent the better part of the year in Cocoa Beach, Florida. When they weren’t there, my sister and I were free to use the condo whenever we wanted. I’d taken Janine there only once before, early in our relationship.

Prior to our getting together I went down there at least once a year and I missed it. But being partnered with a rock star had its scheduling problems.

I met with Dan the next afternoon and, much to my disappointment, he thought taking a vacation was a terrible idea.

“There’s a very good chance you will come back drunk.”

“You’re out of your mind,” I said.

“Really? My experience says otherwise.”

He was so smug. Sober for sixteen years was supposed to impress me? Truthfully, I was only going to meetings because it did seem to help me stay sober. When I thought about 95

drinking, something someone had said in those meetings came to mind, and the desire would pass. But I wasn’t reading their literature, and I most certainly wasn’t “working the steps,”

whatever that meant. These people seemed to crave some sort of religion or spirituality, and, as far as I was concerned, I already had that. My spiritual mojo was just fine, and I already had a

“higher power of my own understanding.” I believed whole-heartedly the Fates had played a hand in what had happened that night with Joplin, and that it was a god or goddess who saved the dog, and me along with him. Janine and I had also had multiple conversations about something greater than ourselves being responsible for us finding one another in the very large world we lived in, and that our individual artistic talents must have been divinely inspired. I was thoroughly convinced I needed to stop drinking the way I had been, but stop drinking entirely? That couldn’t be necessary. I didn’t need Dan, and I didn’t need recovery either.

“Just don’t call me drunk,” he said, and promptly left me alone in the coffee shop.

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Driving down the B-line from Orlando airport all the way into Cocoa Beach was only about a 45 minute trip. When we drove over the last bridge that straddled the Banana River, I could see the ocean in the distance and began to cry. Every time I came here this happened, my love for the Atlantic moved me so, my desire to be near her overwhelming. True, she was near to me in New York and Jersey also, but it was different down here with the clean beaches and the palm trees and the Tiki bars. If ever there was a presence of God in my heart, it was when I sat on the golden sand, free from my responsibilities for just one week, ruler in a private paradise that belonged only to me and my girl.

I looked over at her, hair blowing in the breeze with Wayfarers on. So beautiful, my angel, my muse, my musician.

She also looked at peace and I knew I’d done right by taking her here, away from worry and stress and the stardom that was slipping through her fingers. Selfishly, I was glad the success of The Blue Is was waning, she was home more, with me more, and writing what she wanted to write instead of what would sell best in the media. Wolf Creek Records and the rest of the industry would have eaten her alive if they had continued along the same path. She would never admit it, but I knew, secretly, she was relieved to be out of the spotlight, at least temporarily.

Janine Jordan had a loyal following, with or without the band, and, if she did it right, she could rebuild as a solo artist. The world belonged to her, she just couldn’t see it yet. I loved the fragility of her esteem, that she
needed
to be talented, it was what created her passion for life, for love, even for me.

We unpacked ourselves in the little one room efficiency. It wasn’t much, but when you were five feet from the shoreline how much did you really need? A bed, a bathroom, and a small kitchenette. We’d buy lunch meat at the grocery store and do nothing but lie on the beach for the next six glorious days.

I had taken other women here, and always thought about them my first few moments inside. How many of them dared I 97

believed would be returning for a second visit, a third? One of them for sure. Maybe two. They all seemed so far away now, distant memories that faded each time the magnificent creature lighting a cigarette on the balcony so much as spoke my name.

I looked at her standing there, the warm April breeze lifting her hair. For just a moment I had a vision of her as an older woman, gracefully gray and still fit, as sexy and appealing at 70 as she was right now. Maybe the worst was behind us. My heavy drinking, her heroin use, the uncertainty of our everyday life. Still, somewhere deep within I heard a quiet and still voice, and that voice assured me the sunny bright future was only a fantasy.
Shut the fuck up,
I demanded of my inner pessimist.

“What?” Janine said from the balcony.

“I love you.”

“Oh. Well, I love you too, baby.”

She smiled and the fog of my melancholy lifted.

“Let’s go out.”

We got dressed in capris and tank tops and were both white as ghosts. It would take a day or two to fit in with the locals. Not much sunning available to us in Astoria, at least not yet. We could lay out in the back yard but it was still not warm enough up north.

April, on the other hand, was perfect in central Florida. I’d been down there in every season, and spring was still the best.

“There’s a great jazz club in Melbourne and the food is awesome.”

“You didn’t tell me that the last time we were here.”

“Maggie. Baby. I barely knew you the last time we were here. The last time we stood on this balcony I wasn’t convinced I wouldn’t be hitching a ride back to the airport the first night. I was so afraid to fall for you.”

I’d had no idea she was that afraid, it never showed.

“And now?” I teased.

“Maggie O’Leary, if you do not know by now you are the greatest love of my life, then you never will.”

She’d never said such a thing and, quite frankly, I was shocked. I thought she could never feel the same after the 98

incident with Joplin. And I never really believed she loved me as much as I did her. But here she was, telling me so. Maybe that voice had been wrong. Just maybe.

* * * *

Forty-five minutes later we were being shown to an outdoor table by our handsome host. Too good looking to
not
be gay. Melbourne had a somewhat visible gay community so it was a nice choice for our first night there. I could relax and be publicly affectionate without raising too many eyebrows. How I missed her, how I missed us. Did we really need to take a vacation to find that, that,
thing
, whatever it was? Magic some would call it. I guess this was what a mature relationship looked like, sometimes you felt it, and sometimes you didn’t. In that instant, being handed a menu, understanding of what I’d been missing all those years finally broke through all the years of pain, of searching, of abandonment issues that would make psychiatrists shrivel in their seats. I wanted to marry her.

Jesus
, I thought.
Did I really just think that?
Most certainly, I had.

“Can I get you a drink?” our waitress said.

“I’ll have a rum runner on the rocks.”

“Diet coke for me please. With a lemon.”

When the waitress trotted away, Janine reached across the table and took my hand.

“We’re on vacation, darling.”

“And?” I knew what she was going to say. She wanted me to drink. And, oh, how I wanted to drink. But I needed it to be her idea.

“Maggie, I’m so proud of you for doing what you’ve done, for going to meetings, for hanging out with Dan, and going back to your old therapist. Really, you have done an about-face, and I’m happy. I’m happy that you seem happier. But isn’t it at least possible you just had a rough patch? I know it’s selfish, but I don’t know if I can get used to the idea of you
never
drinking. We used to have a good time, remember?”

99

The waitress returned with our drinks.

“Bring another one of those, will you sweetheart?” Why shouldn’t I? Everything was better now. I would never, ever, let it get that bad again. I loved my life, and Janine more than ever.

Dan was a good guy, but he didn’t know me. And the recovery community had been a fine bunch of people to hang out with, I even had fun. But it was over now. This was my life, complete with social drinking. I mean, really, what was I going to do, plan a dry wedding? The very idea seemed ridiculous. So I drank, with an overwhelming sense of relief.

* * * *

We shared a wonderful meal complete with a magnificent sunset. The rum runners were tasty, and went straight to my head after not having a drop for two whole months, it felt good, really good. I had two and stopped, no problem. Maybe those

“program” people had been wrong about me. Or, perhaps I’d even still go, and “work the steps” and on myself, that’s what I did in therapy anyway.

“Babe?” Janine shook me from my ruminating.

“Sorry.” I took her hands across the table. “I was somewhere else for a minute.”

“Where to?”

“Dunno. There’s a lesbian bar in Satellite Beach.”

“Sounds good.”

We paid the check and drove the 45 minutes back to Cocoa Beach; the bar in Satellite was only ten minutes in the other direction just over the causeway. After I pulled into a parking spot and cut the engine, I leaned over and kissed Janine. She grinned at me and said, “We really do have an awesome life, don’t we?”

“We do,” I managed to say before I burst into tears of gratitude. I could not remember the last time I’d felt so happy.

The storm had passed, and everything was going to be alright, I could feel it. Maybe Janine was right, we’d had a bad year or so, but it was over now, and neither of us knew what the future held.

100

“We should move here,” I said.

“Really?”

“Yeah. Why not?”

“It would be nice. You could open that little bookstore you’ve always wanted to. I could become a beloved local musician.”

I could tell by her tone she wasn’t serious.

“I mean it, Janine.”

“I know you do. Look, Maggie, I’m not ready. I’m not finished with New York just yet. Dean and I might start a new band. Or I might go produce…I was going to tell you tonight that Sam called me.”

The Poe Punks had done very well for themselves so far.

Simultaneously, Sam had been getting into the production end of things with the label that signed him, he was very ambitious, and knew that’s where the real money was at.

She was right. Florida, or anywhere else, was a dream a long time away. But it was nice to imagine. Me and the glimpse of that older Janine I’d seen earlier in the condo. Our life together. I couldn’t imagine it any other way. So my dream would wait.

Still, when we got back to New York, I was going shopping for a ring. We couldn’t legally get married, but there was hope in the gay community that we would see that day in our lifetime. Until then, there were plenty of progressive churches that would perform the ceremony, even if there wasn’t a bona fide document to back it up. It was more about the ritual, the display of our commitment to one another, in front of our friends and families, God. I’d always wanted that, but had only ever considered going through with the whole thing one other time in my life. I never imagined I’d love anyone like that ever again, but here we were.

No sooner did we enter Sappho’s then we were pounced upon by a leggy blond in daisy dukes with a beer in each hand.

She had an eighties throwback hairstyle and smelled like tanning oil and cigarettes. I was sure she thought Janine was someone else.

“I can’t fucking believe it!” she shrieked. She grabbed my 101

girlfriend and kissed her on the mouth.

“Uh…yeah…Jess, this is my partner, Maggie.”

Jess stepped back for a moment, seemingly shocked.

“Oh. Well, then! Sorry about that, we go way back, I haven’t seen Janine since Tampa! What was that, seven, eight years ago, honey?”