Between You and Me (23 page)

She comes out carrying her travel mug. “It’s a sick joke of nature that leading up to a baby, when you should be sleeping, you can’t sleep. I just don’t get it,” she says with a nod of greeting to Peter in the driver’s seat as I open the car door for her. “An album has ten tracks. This is one single. It should be one-tenth the work.”

“It should,” I agree.

“Make a note about holiday decorations, would you? I don’t want to ask Momma who she used for Malibu, all that flashing color like friggin’ Times Square. I’m thinkin’ steady white lights on the trees and white poinsettias for the front walk.”

“Mornin’, Lo,” Aaron calls as he jogs down the front steps, swinging his car keys.

“Break a leg, baby.” Kelsey blows him a kiss.

“I’ve got my girl,” Aaron croons in a low drawl, walking backward to the Porsche that was his wedding present, much to Andy’s disapproval.

“This is the one—I can feel it!” Kelsey pulls her door closed. “Fourth audition since tour ended,” she says under her breath, surprisingly sharing something more personal than a paint preference. “Some shit about his new notoriety upstaging the headliners, which is ridiculous. Aaron’s too professional for that.” He answers his cell as he opens his car door.

“I had no idea,” I say carefully, as if trying not to startle a doe in the woods.

“It’ll be fine.” She reaches for the seatbelt, her eyes still on her husband. “Okay, trees. I want a real one. Not gi-normous, like Momma . . . ” Her voice trails as Aaron gets back out of the car. He slams the door hard. Kelsey rolls down her window. “Babe?”

“They, uh, canceled my audition, so . . . ”

“Fuck them. This just wasn’t the gig for—”

“My agent doesn’t want to send me out for a while, says things need to ‘cool.’”

“What’s ‘a while?’” she asks, her face pleated in concern.

“Didn’t say.” Aaron shakes his head and walks back into the house.

“Dammit.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, wanting to squeeze her hand.

She turns away from me as Peter backs down the drive.

Hours later, Kelsey is still
repeating her same love of all that is Christmas in back-to-back three-minute intervals to different radio stations.

I stand on the other side of the sound booth holding Kelsey’s remicrowaved fries and wait for the next sixty-second break, in which she’ll attempt to pound them before they grow cold again.

Michelle chats happily behind me to yet another licensing agent
about Kelsey Kids. “Sing nursery rhymes together? Me? Well, you know, there was ‘Itsy Bitsy Spider.’ The standards.”

“Michelle,” Andy says with blatant annoyance. “Take it in the hall.”

“Oh, that’s sweet, people always said I was good with a tune,” she continues.

“Michelle.”

“I will do just that . . . Okay. ’Bye now!” She hangs up. “Phew, I am just about losing my voice!”

“Doubt it,” Andy mutters.

“Everyone.” Michelle prickles, and I am surprised to hear her continue, given his obvious mood. “Is calling me, everyone.”

“I know, I hear you talking to them all the damn day. She’s distracted enough.”

“And . . . clear.” The producer waves me into the claustrophobic chamber, and I lead with a fry right into Kelsey’s mouth.

“Forty-five seconds,” the producer warns.

“I can’t go this long without eating.”

“Logan.” Andy leans on the intercom. “Your cell.”

“Be right there.”

“Get me a smoothie, something I can chug.”

“Sorry—I’m sorry—just let me grab my phone, and I’ll, uh, one minute.” I dash back out to lunge into my bag.

“GM?”

“We got a situation.”

Kelsey’s hands are wrapped protectively
around her belly as GM swerves our Suburban in and out of traffic. “I wish y’all would let me handle this,” GM says to Kelsey in the passenger seat beside him. “You shouldn’t be here. You just shouldn’t.”

She sucks in her lips as she searches the crowded stretch of road. “There.” Kelsey points at the approaching Walmart sign. GM peels in, checking his rear mirror to make sure that Andy and Michelle made the light. We haul past the SUVs and wagons to the nauseating string of—“Motorcycles,” Kelsey says, the same way she says, “Turbulence,” when we hit rocky air.

“Stay here,” GM instructs as he tugs out the keys. But Kelsey has already thrown off her seatbelt. He clamps his arm over her. “Kelsey. You can
not
go into this.” She struggles.

“Kelsey.” I scoot forward.

“You want me to get him, right? Get him out of here?” GM asks.

She nods.

“I cannot focus on doing that if I’m keeping those shutters off you. Stay. Here.”

She whips to me. “Logan, go. Please go. Please?”

I follow GM through the crowd as he appraises possible retrieval points. “Okay, you’ll be able to get the closest to him without drawing attention. Tell him to walk directly to the employee exit.” He points to a door on the side of the building. “Go.”

The barren checkout lanes are unmanned. The aisles are empty. In the packed snack bar there’s about a five-foot radius of space around Aaron maintained by the unmistakable “fuck off” vibe he’s emitting. I take a breath and in three steps am sitting across from him, setting off fresh flashes. He jerks his face up, and I recoil from a look of such rage that it knocks out my breath like a sparking power line.

“Logan,” he says with surprise, dropping his gaze to his sweating wax-paper cup.

“GM is waiting at the edge of this crowd.”

“
This
crowd?”

“There’s, uh, another outside. Okay, on the count of three, we’re going to get up and go.”

“I have to pay for the lights.”

“What?”

He nods down, and I see a jumbo pack of white Christmas-tree lights between his feet.

“Aaron, I’ll call the florist.”

“I need to get these.” His lip quivers, and cameras flash once again. “I need to pay for these. Myself.”

“Aaron, seriously.”

“I just wanted to run an errand on my own. I used to spend whole days on my own.”

“How long have you been here?”

“I don’t know. Two hours? It started in the decorations aisle, then I went to check out, but everyone was leaving their lines to take a picture. My card was declined—it was my fault—I grabbed the wrong card—but I didn’t want more pics of me pulling out more cards, how that would look. So I came over, ordered a soda, but all the servers started taking pictures. I thought maybe if I just sat, acted normal—”

“Why didn’t you text us earlier?” I can’t help asking.

“I used to get myself outta my own shit.”

“But this isn’t your own. Aaron, we have to go. Kelsey’s in the car—”

“She’s here? You brought her here? Are you fucking crazy?” He jumps to his feet, and I leap to follow as we are bombarded by flashes.

“Fuckin’ pussy!” someone shouts. The crowd grabs at whatever part of him they can reach. Then GM has his arm around both of us and runs us straight into the back of his car. Andy peels away. I right myself on the seat as I turn to see GM hop into the car driven by Michelle behind us.

“Aaron!” Kelsey twists in the front seat to reach to him. “Baby, you okay?”

“Kelsey.” Andy tugs her back around. The brakes screech as the car in front stops short, and we all brace for an eluded impact. “Sit fucking still, and keep your seatbelt fucking on. Aaron, FUCK were you thinking?” Aaron stares out the window. “You pull a stunt like this again, so help me God, I will fucking—”

“I was trying to decorate my family’s house for Christmas.” Aaron’s steel tone cuts through Andy’s histrionics. “There’s not a thing you can say to me that I have not said to myself in the last two hours, so if you don’t mind, sir, could we please.” Aaron clenches his jaw. “Get home.”

That night marks Bison Fest
. It’s what I imagine Burning Man might be if it took place at a mansion and had staff. Instead of dish towels, Travis’s guests are armed against the smoke with all manner of designer scarves as if we’re about to shoot a rap video. Just as Travis is readying for “old-timey fire chants,” my cell rings.

“Hi,” I answer. “Sorry, with all the craziness this afternoon, I didn’t connect with the florist, but I will tomorrow.”

“Oh,” Kelsey says. “That’s fine, whatever.”

“Okay,” I say uncertainly as Finn triages the dwindling Wild Turkey reserves.

“Aaron felt like he needed to get out.”

“Sure,” I say, marveling that he would venture beyond the driveway.

“Just to meet up with some of his buds. Get a drink or whatever. GM’s with him.”

“Cool.”

“And I was wondering . . . want to watch a movie or something? I mean, if you’re not doing anything.”

Travis walks past, smearing something gaggingly pungent under his eyes that I’d venture came out of one end or the other of that bison. “On my way.”

“Aw, you look so cuddly,”
Kelsey says as she leans against the the guest room door.

“
You
look cuddly.” I smile as I close the last button on my borrowed pajamas. It was eleven by the time I arrived, so Kelsey made hot cocoa and conversation while I drank in her openness with every steaming slurp.

“I love when I can take my bra off.” She hunches in Aaron’s sweatshirt. “Taking off my bra is the highlight of my day. Didn’t see that coming.”

“But soon a beautiful baby girl will be the highlight of your day.” I switch off the bathroom light and flip back the duvet. “So it’s all worth it.”

“I don’t know. It’s going to be hard to upstage this bra thing.”

“What time is Aaron due back?” I ask as she curls up at the foot of the bed.

She’s quiet for a moment “Howard Stern’s calling him Twatts, and today it trended. His agent messengered over termination papers.”

“Oh, man.”

“Yeah, so whenever he’s ready to call it a night is fine by me.” She rolls onto her back. “It’s not like he needs to work.”

“But he needs to work.”

“And I love that about him.”

“He came to L.A. to have a solo career. So, maybe that? Or he could open a club or a restaurant or something?” I feel my eyes getting heavy.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she says.

“I missed ya, chica.” I nudge her from under the comforter.

“Well, you really hurt me,” she says with a severity I hadn’t anticipated.

“I . . . I’m sorry.”

She turns on her side, her hands tucked together to form a pillow. “When I was sick in Amsterdam, you told me I wouldn’t have to entertain you.”

“You don’t, but that doesn’t mean—”

“I need one person I don’t have to sell it to.” She sits up.

“Kelsey, you don’t have to sell me, but it kinda sucks to be in the last-to-know category. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

“But you said I didn’t have to
anything
with you.”

I open my mouth, stunned by her interpretation of support.

“Okay, good.” She pulls a bolster into what’s left of her lap and smushes it. “I’m glad we talked. I just want things to go back to how they were.”

“Yes. No, I do, too.” I think.

“You’re spending Christmas with us, right? Remember Daddy dragging us on the sled to cut down the tree? And when he dresses up with the Santa beard? You’ll be here, won’t you, Lo?” she asks with a look that tells me this is the moment to show that I’ve heard her.

“How can I pass up Andy in a Santa suit?”

“Yea!” She claps and climbs off the bed as visions of hot rum at the Carlyle recede. “All right, then, happy faces in the morning.”

I reach for the lamp, my hand freezing at the distinct sound of a twig breaking outside the window. I flick off the light. Another twig. Branches moving and then the sound of heavy footsteps on the porch.

“You’re sure it’s not Aaron?”

“Did you hear a car?”

“What about your parents?”

“At a movie.” She grabs my hand, and we run. Kelsey tugs open a kitchen drawer and fumbles for a knife as I race to the security panel, and the front door opens to—Andy.

“Daddy
,” Kelsey gasps.

“You okay?” I turn to Kelsey. “Is the baby okay?”

“Come on out.” Andy waves to us.

“When did you get back?” Kelsey asks, breathing hard. “We thought somebody was out there.”

“Come on, it’ll be quick.”

Kelsey grips my hand as Andy futzes with something. The front bushes light up in a mish-mash of multicolored blinking lights.

“Oh,” Kelsey says.

“And check this out.” A motor comes on, and a trio of ten-foot blow-up snowmen whip frenetically to and fro. “You know,” Andy says sheepishly to his sneakers. “Like y’all wanted.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” Kelsey holds her belly. “It’s just what I pictured.”

Later, the rainbow flickers across
the guest-room ceiling and into my looping dreams. I wake with a start and realize I’m listening to the dull thud of Andy’s hammer, still pounding in his decorations on the back of the house. Hearing a car doom slam, I look out the window. Gripping his coat in one hand, Aaron takes in the decorations while a taxi U-turns around him. He lifts a middle finger at seemingly the entire property, his frame swerving before his arm falls slack. With a dropped head, he stumbles out of view.