For the Love of a Lush (Lush No. 2) (20 page)

B
Y THE
time Jenny arrives, I’ve got a good list of clubs that host live performances ready. I’ve reached out and tapped Dave, Lush’s former manager, as well as the management of several other bands I know, and I have referrals to nearly all of the good venues in town, so we don’t have to cold call. It’s a Monday, so a lot of clubs are closed, but I schedule three for the afternoon and a fourth via Skype. Beforehand, I take Jenny to the mall that’s connected with the hotel. It’s time to create an image.

"You really don’t have to do all of this," Jenny says, sounding worried as I lead her to Neiman Marcus. "I’ve got plenty of clothes back at the room."

"Listen," I say, stopping to turn and look her in the eyes. "This isn’t about clothes. It’s about an image, like I said before.
You
are the product—your voice, your looks, your personality. The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be. I’ll never ask you to do something that degrades you, but I will ask you to help us package you in the most marketable way we can."

"All right," she replies, looking nervous. "And what is this product going to look like?"

"You’ll see soon enough," I tell her with a wink. "Soon enough."

Two hours later, we’re loaded down with boxes and bags, and Jenny is rocking one of her new outfits—a pair of tight, chocolate-colored leather pants with ankle boots that have a chunky cowboy-boot heel and a cream silk-and-lace blouse. It’s the perfect combination of innocence and sex. And that’s what we’re going to project with her. She’s a combination, an enigma—sex, innocence, country, rock. Mixed-genre music is where it’s at, and she’s got the voice and the looks to pull it off.

We’ve put her golden curls into a loose updo, and she’s wearing a pair of big, gold hoop earrings and a leather thong choker that has a delicate gold angel dangling at the hollow in her throat. She looks like she could take you to heaven by doing really naughty things to you. It’s fucking perfect.

When we get to the parking lot, I snap a picture of her with my cell phone and text it to Mike. His response is quick and tells me I’ve hit the mark.

Mike:
Fuck. Me.

Me:
You like?

Mike:
You’ll have to answer to me if you let any of those fucking slimy club owners touch her.

Me:
Settle down, Romeo. I’m not about to sell my client’s virtue off the first day on the job. Maybe tomorrow or the next day…

Mike:
Tammy!

After that, I quit answering his texts and start driving. Eventually, he gets so frustrated he calls Jenny’s phone. I can hear him yelling from across the car.

"Michael," Jenny says in her best teacher voice. "Do not use that language with me. And don’t talk about Tammy that way either. She’s working hard to help me out here and you need to simmer down and be grateful
you
don’t have to drive me all over Dallas begging clubs to let me sing."

I really wonder if Jenny has any idea at all who she’s dealing with. Mike is an asshole. Certifiable and licensed in being a dick, and he treats women like shit. I guess I should probably give her the full story before she actually gets too far involved with him. Once they hang up, I decide to do a little probing.

"So you and Mike… Are you two…?"

She blushes and bites her bottom lip. "You mean are we dating?" she asks quietly.

"Well, yeah. If that’s what you want to call it. There are things you probably don’t know about him. And you might want to before getting too far in."

"We’re not dating. Or anything else. Just
friends
. I, uh… I’d like to be more, but he won’t." She quickly looks out the side window so I can’t see her face.

"Wait. He said
no
? To you?
Mike
?"

She turns back to me, and there’s actually anger on her face—an emotion I didn’t think she was capable of.

"Yes." Her tone is clipped. "I practically threw myself at him and he turned me down. Said he just wanted to be friends."

I open my mouth then snap it shut again. Mike turned down a good-looking, available woman? I think the world might truly be at an end.

"Yeah," she mutters. "Not much you can say to that, is there? I mean, the guy who’s slept with half the free world won’t fool around with me. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life."

I’m still speechless. And of course, I realize something that she doesn’t. This is major. Really. Major. Mike Owens has fallen for a woman and apparently grown a conscience. Wow.

"Maybe it’s because he cares enough not to use you?" I suggest.

"Lord," she groans. "You sound just like
him
."

"Huh."

We enter downtown traffic, and because I’m pretty much speechless, we leave the topic of Mike along the roadside somewhere.

When we pull up to the parking lot of The Steel Cowboy, I can tell Jenny’s getting nervous. Her hands are clenched in her lap and she’s biting away at that lip like she’s going to gnaw through it.

I shut off the engine and shift in my seat to face her. "Hey. Let me walk you through this. We’ll go in and meet with the club manager"—I check my phone—"Eric. He’ll chat with us for a few minutes, ask you stuff about your music. Just mention the kinds of things we discussed at the hotel this morning. How your roots are in country and gospel but you want to make them contemporary. That you’re a Texas girl through and through. You love your Willie and Waylon but also Stevie Ray.

"Then he’ll ask you to go sing a couple of songs. I’ve got your background CD right here, so you know the music. It’s not hard. After that, he and I will discuss the pay and contracts and dates and you can just relax. It’s simple, I promise."

She nods and swallows. "Okay."

"Come on. Let’s go get you your first gig."

When we come out forty-five minutes later, Jenny is ecstatic. We climb in the car and she starts squealing. "Oh my Lord, oh my Lord! Tammy! He hired me! He really hired me. I’m going to sing in Dallas!" She reaches across the console and grabs me in a tight hug.

I don’t normally do things like hug, but she’s so cute that I decide to make an exception.

"I told you you’d kill it. You’re going to have to learn to trust me. I hope you’re ready to spend your whole summer driving to Dallas and Austin because you’re going to be booked every Saturday night for a few months."

She bounces around on her seat and then calls Mike while I take us to our next appointment.

By the time Jenny and I get back to the hotel that night, she’s got her first three bookings and a possible fourth if the club can adjust its schedule. The money isn’t great, but right now, she needs exposure more than she needs the money, so I choose not to push too hard on that point. By the end of the summer, we’ll be able to demand higher pay and she’ll be ready to play some larger venues. Maybe open for a local celebrity or a band that’s past their prime. I can’t help but smile at the day’s success.

And that’s when the sorrow hits me, because the first person—really, the only person—I want to call and tell about all of this is Walsh. And I can’t. I know I can’t. It leaves me with a bittersweet feeling in my gut. Joy for Jenny and everything I know we can accomplish together, but sorrow for me because I no longer have
him
to share it with.

I don’t want to rain on Jenny’s parade, so after we eat dinner, I give the excuse of being tired and go to my room. Outside my door, I can hear her talking on the phone in the living room. "Mama, you won’t believe what happened today—"

My chest burns, and my eyes as well. I draw the curtains, lie down on the bed, and remember his voice.
"I love you, Tammy. God, I love you."

Walsh

I
CAN’T
believe I went for nearly a year without my own wheels. What the fuck was the matter with me? After I finish the AA meeting in Dallas, I hit a music store and rent a kit. It’s nearly the last of my reserve money, but it’s completely worth it to have the chance to pound the skins again.

I pull into town at nine p.m. on Sunday night. I’ve got work first thing in the morning and nowhere to sleep. I’d really rather not spend the night in my truck. In addition, I’m still in the same clothes I passed out in at the park. I’m rank, and I need a shower. I had the foresight to grab a duffle bag of stuff while I was at the ranch earlier in the day, but I didn’t put much thought into where I’d live now.

I cruise around town slowly, ending up right where I knew I would—Mrs Stallworth’s boarding house. I park out front and try to finger-comb my hair into some semblance of order. It’s relatively hopeless. When I ring the bell, it’s after nine and I hope I don’t wake the little ancient wonder. Moments after I ring, however, there she is, dressed like always in a cotton dress that looks like something a 1940s housewife would have worn, hair tightly wound into her white bun.

"Well, I’ve been waiting for you," she says.

I grin, fascinated by the way she always seems to know what I’m doing before I do.

"Hi, Mrs. S.," I say as I walk into the foyer.

"You have to stay in the basement," she tells me as she motions for me to follow her.

"How did you know I needed a place to stay?" I ask, perplexed.

"Well, Leanne told Barb at the mayor’s office you’d moved off the ranch, and Barb asked me if you’d moved in here. I said you hadn’t, but I figured you would. Especially since
she’s
gone."

My heart crumples like a piece of tissue paper at the mention of Tammy. I knew she’d be gone—I wanted her gone—but thinking of her makes me hurt anyway.

"So…" I clear my throat, shaking off the sensation of aching for something I don’t understand yet. "What’s in the basement? Do I have to stay with the rats and snakes?"

She scoffs and shuffles off down the hallway that leads from the front of the house straight through to the back. At the end, next to the back door, is a staircase. We head down, and I’m greeted by a fully finished basement with a lounge, two bedrooms, and a bathroom.

"You can pick which room you want. Bring your sheets up to get a new set once a week, and pick up after yourself down here. It’s $150 a week, and that includes breakfast and dinner. You have to do dishes on Wednesdays."

I set my duffle bag down. "I’ve got one question, Mrs. S."

I see a little smile nudging her lips at my new nickname for her. "Well, come on. What is it? I don’t have all night. I’ve got an episode of
Scandal
waiting on the DVR," she snips at me.

"You know I play the drums?"

"Of course. Everyone in town knows. You’re a big rock star, but I don’t care about that, so don’t go thinking you can get out of doing the dishes because you have groupies."

I look at her, stunned. "Everyone in town knows?"

She snorts. "The town is small, boy, but it’s not another planet. We get E! TV here too."

"No one ever said a word…" I’m incredulous.

"We figured if you wanted to talk about it you would. We have better manners than you big-city folks do."

I feel like a chump. All this time, Mike and I thought we were so crafty. Total chumps. "So, uh, do you think it would be okay if I brought my drums down here to practice?" I ask, fully expecting her to freak out.

"My oldest boy?" she responds, seemingly off-topic. "He’s an idiot. He runs the bank now. All bankers are idiots. He used to play that electric guitar. All day and all night. If I could survive that, I can survive anything. But keep them out of my way. At my age, if I trip over a bunch of drums, it’ll put me in the hospital."

"Yes, ma’am," I tell her, trying very hard not to smile and thinking that I need to go by the bank tomorrow to see this idiot son of hers for myself.

"Good. I’m going to bed now. Lock up the front door when you’re done bringing your things in. And I don’t know when that girl’s coming back, but there’s no sneaking upstairs in the middle of the night. I’ve got ears like a bat. I’ll know the minute you try anything funny, boy." She shakes a bony little finger at me.

I think back to the night before, Tammy and me in her bed upstairs, me pumping into her over and over, her gasps, my moans. I sneak a glance at Mrs. Stallworth’s hearing aids that curve around the backs of her ears. Somehow I think her bat-like hearing may be an exaggeration, but I nod my assent anyway.