Chapter 57

I found myself sitting alone with Jill at the hotel bar. Liz and Skye had headed to the restroom and Brian and Dom had accompanied them.

The bar wasn’t designed for a large crowd. It had a small dance area but the music came from a small band instead of a DJ’s personal mix of music. It was quiet enough we could talk without screaming at each other. I liked it.

“Uh, earlier,” I said, “sorry if I brought up something that makes you uncomfortable.”

Jill gave me a smile.

“Jesus, Travis, we’ve dissected every facet of your life for the past few weeks,” she said. “If you want to know something then you deserve to know it.”

“No, I don’t,” I said. “If I walk into something you don’t want to talk about then you tell me to mind my own business. I just ... I like you guys and I want to know you better. But not at the expense of your comfort. OK?”

“Yeah,” Jill said. “You know, we like you, too. I mean, I get a little mouthy but I do think you’re a good guy.”

“You don’t bother me,” I said. “I’ve been around Sarah Costello for years. I can usually figure out when you’re yanking my chain. You’ve only crossed me up a couple of times. I just give you crap and we go on.”

“Yeah,” Jill said again. “That’s pretty cool. You don’t ... you don’t get pissed off. Like at dinner, we couldn’t have had that conversation a month ago. Liz got pissy if someone thought she was wrong about something – even if they had facts and figures to back it up. She’d bring up some odd fact and we’d be done. You just threw different facts back at her.”

“You gotta bring your ‘A’ game if you’re going to talk politics with me,” I said, laughing.

“You are ... a lot better informed than I thought,” Jill admitted. “I ... I underestimated you. I was there when Liz popped up to give you a hug. I thought ... you were cute but probably not too smart. You looked ... vacuous.”

“Whoa,” I said.

“It was just a first impression,” Jill said quickly.

“No, I’m just shocked a bimbo would know such a big word,” I replied. “I’m betting you’ve been called that a lot so you had someone explain it to you.”

“I see why Liz calls you a dick so often,” she said.

“I always knew,” I replied.

“You did look ... a little blank at the convention center,” Jill said.

“I was distracted and I was ... uncomfortable,” I admitted. “I really didn’t expect her to remember me at all. Then she came around to hug me.”

I looked away and thought about that morning.

“I wasn’t prepared for how she looked,” I decided. “I wasn’t ready for how I felt when she hugged me.”

“You had to know what she looked like!” Jill said.

“Not really,” I said with a sigh. “I pretty much avoided anything that mentioned her or showed her. Liz Larimer was not the one from our high school that was supposed to get famous. I was. There was some bitterness, some jealousy.”

“But no longer,” Jill said.

“No,” I said. “Really, I’ve probably been over it for two or three years. It took some time to get over having my career end so ... abruptly. One minute I was a day from heading to Triple-A and the next ... I was done. I kept trying to get better and I hung around longer than I should have. So ... I didn’t acknowledge that I knew Liz or remembered her or anything. Then Susan said she heard one of her songs and ... I decided that I was really happy for her. Then Thompson got shitty with me and ... here we are.”

“Wow!” Jill said. “I didn’t know the backstory, I guess. I didn’t know there was resentment toward her.”

“Not just her,” I corrected. “It was pretty much everybody. I felt like a failure ... like I’d let a lot of people down. I didn’t have many friends at San Diego State. I lived off campus. I was older than most of them. I carried my bitterness over until ... very recently. I think Liz has helped me a lot. I’m not ... afraid ... to be honest. I can admit I’m scared. I can tell my friends and my mother how much they mean to me.

“I’ve always been standoffish around others. I don’t mean just strangers. I’ve been that way with people I’ve known well. I always kept them on the periphery. I intended to do that with her. I figured I’d drive her around while she talked to my mom about people she remembered and then...”

“No,” Jill cut in. “I already knew at the station that you were going to at least get to know her ... intimately. I didn’t figure it would be so soon but I could see that she had plans to ... find a way to get closer to you. I’m with her pretty much all the time. I’ve seen pro athletes and actors and men with a zillion dollars put the moves on her but she had always just ... brushed them off. She was never rude but she made it clear that their attention wasn’t reciprocated. Then you popped up. She was totally after you. I wasn’t surprised when she told us that she wanted to stay with you for a few days. I ... I guess I didn’t understand that you were the reluctant one. Shit, most guys would dump their wife on their wedding day to spend an afternoon licking the soles of her feet. You just...”

“It took me a bit of time to understand where she was going,” I admitted. “I was ... I was going to hit on you, actually.”

“Good thing you didn’t,” Jill said.

“Yeah, that would have been awkward,” I said.

“Shit,” Jill said, stretching the word out to five seconds. “I would have totally rocked you and ruined you for other women. I’m a wildcat in the sack!”

“You won’t even let a guy donkey punch you,” I countered. “Total tease!”

Jill laughed and pointed her finger at me. Her face changed and she glanced around me.

“Speaking of teases,” she said, “that skanky Skye is dancing with my man!”

“Skanky Skye, Luscious Liz and ... Juicy Jill?” I asked with a laugh.

Jill fished an ice cube out of her drink and tossed it at me. I caught it.

“Come on,” I said, extending a hand to her. “It looks like Dom is making a play for my woman! I’m not up for any swapping.”

“Me either,” Jill said as she took my hand. I waited until we were almost to the dance floor to slip the ice cube down the back of her shirt.

Jill jumped and then smacked me on my stomach.

“You fucking dick!” she said though her laughter.

“I was going to go for the shorts but they are way too tight,” I said.

We danced with our strange partners until a slow song came on. Then we switched to the person we’d go to sleep with later. Liz put her arms around my neck and I put my hands on her hips.

“Flirting with my friends,” she said, winking at me.

“Typical boy,” I said, winking at her.

Liz laughed and gave me a short kiss.

“Give me a minute,” she said when the song ended. The band was taking a break.

“Sure,” I told her. There were only a couple of dozen of people in the bar, the weather having kept the clientele to the people in the hotel that only had to come downstairs.

She caught up to the guitar player and talked to him for a minute. I didn’t know what she said but he was nodding eagerly. A second later, he handed his guitar to Liz. She shook her head and handed it back. He disappeared and came back with a second guitar. A moment later, she stepped up on the stage with the band.

“I just finished a song last week and I want to try it out if nobody minds,” she announced.

Pretty much everyone had turned to the stage when her voice came over the speakers – including all of us. We were close enough to get next to the stage. Almost everybody – famous and unknown alike – moved forward, too.

“OK, the music might be a little rough,” Liz said. “We’re just going to wing it.”

She played a couple of chords on the borrowed guitar and nodded. Then she started a guitar intro. The men behind her picked up on the key and the tempo and just sort of joined in as Liz nodded in appreciation.

“She saw a picture of us together, our honeymoon in sunny weather,” she sang. “She couldn’t help but sigh. You looked so refined in your black tie from your flip-flops and the tie dyes. It seemed like a different guy.

“She got the high school bleachers; I get the white doves and the preacher. She got picnics in the sand; I get the kids and the minivan. She left the boy he was; I love the man he is.”

“Wow,” Skye muttered, glancing over at me.

“Two guesses who this one is about,” Jill offered.

“No takers,” Brian answered.

“Deb Sutton,” I said.

They turned to look at me.

“She wrote most of this when she was 14 years old,” I confided.

“No shit,” Dom mumbled as he shook his head. We stopped the conversation and just listened. Liz was correct: The music was rough. At least they were smart enough to know they were just the sidelight to the vocalist. The drummer set a soft beat and didn’t launching into a stick-tossing solo act. The pianist just stayed with major chords that didn’t clash with the singer. The second guitarist seemed happy to be relegated to bass. He watched Liz’s fingers (which was a shame because her butt looked really sweet in her pink shorts) and shifted when she did. But it was evident that the quartet hadn’t performed together before.

Still, the lyrics were pretty haunting.

“‘She got the hothead with the farmer’s tan; I get the calm and steady hand. She left the boy he was; I love the man he is. She left the boy; I love the man, ‘“ she finished.

By the end, Liz had shifted until she was looking right at me. I gave her a golf clap and she smiled as the last chord still hung in the air.

After that, it got a little loud when the rest of the room started to applaud and cheer.

I think some of them thought they were going to get a free Liz Larimer concert but it wasn’t to be. She gave hugs to the three makeshift backup musicians and then came off the stage to a new set of hugs.

“God damn, Girl!” Jill said. “That’s Number One for sure!”

“I’m not going to cut it,” Liz said. “It’s a little too personal, I think. I sent it to Chelsea Rome to see if she wanted to do it. I heard she was looking for something slow to finish up her album. She’s a sweetie and I thought she’d do it justice.”

“Damn,” Skye echoed. “I ... I’m not sure I could do that. It’s like writing my thesis on my family and then letting someone else publish it under her name. Did you really write that when you were a teenager?”

“He told you?” Liz asked, looking at me. The answer had to be obvious because she and I were probably the only two that had known before she started to sing.

“I didn’t know it was a secret,” I said.

“No, it isn’t,” Liz said. “I just don’t want them to think I was an obsessive teenager. I mean, I totally was an obsessive teenager but I don’t want them thinking it.”

Our laughter was interrupted by a host of well-wishers that had heard the song (and either liked it or were really good liars).

The last was a young Hispanic girl that I’d seen handing out drinks to the customers. She barely spoke English so I translated for her.

“She recorded it and wants to know if she can post it to Facebook,” I explained.

“If you want to,” Liz said. “If you give me your screen name, I’ll send you a friend invite and then link to your page.”

The kid’s face lit up like it was Christmas. I took down the information and Liz pulled out her phone. The waitress walked around to the rest of the staff showing the friend invitation before accepting it.