I’d imagined running into him again a million times, each scenario different from the one before. I already knew what I wanted to say to him. How I wanted to be perceived. The way I wanted him to feel about me. But they all had one thing in common – they were just fantasies I’d dreamed up.
This was real. This was really happening. And there was no way to stop it.
“Right this way, Ms. Bissett,” a stocky older man with tufts of white hair sticking out from his Stetson hat led me down a dark corridor. A faded, black Beau Mason ‘Young and Reckless 2012 Tour’ t-shirt hugged his bulbous belly, and he waddled a bit as he walked. He stopped short at the third door on the left. “Here it is.”
His hand dove deep into the front pocket of his tight jeans as he fished out some keys. He proceeded to try several before finding a match.
“They never mark these things right,” he said with a cordial laugh, though I could hardly hear him above the blood-rushed thumping of my heart in my ears.
Echoes of discordant warm-up music from the stage trailed down from the dressing rooms, and various sound and stage crew members rushed up and down the hall with arms full of wires and cords and clipboards and headphones.
“You’re welcome to wait in here during the show.” He turned and offered me a kind smile, lifting the apples of his rosy cheeks in the process. His name was Mickey, and he had been Beau’s tour manager for the last decade. My heart tightened at the realization that Mickey probably knew Beau better than I ever did. “Or I can get you a backstage pass if you want to watch the show from stage right?”
“Oh, um,” I said, tugging on my bottom lip before forcing a polite, professional smile on my face. I could sit in his dressing room and go over my list of questions and give myself the silent pep talk I so desperately needed. Or I could go and see him before he had a chance to see me. I gripped the chain strap of my quilted Chanel handbag and lifted my chin up, overriding the anxious tone of my voice with faux, camera-worthy excitement. “Maybe I’ll watch a couple songs and then come back here and prep for the first part of my interview?”
Mickey dug deep into a back pocket and whipped out a VIP backstage pass and handed it to me. “You sure don’t look like you’re from Darlington.”
“Pardon me?” My fingers reached for the pearl necklace that circled my neck, grazing the round, smooth beads slowly.
“Beau said you were an old friend of his from back home,” he said, giving me a friendly once over. “You’re fancier than I expected.”
I wanted to ask if Beau spoke of me much or what kinds of things he’d told Mickey about me, but I swallowed my curiosity and instead pretended like I didn’t care. I didn’t want him going back to Beau and telling him I cared.
“I live in New York now.” I offered a humble smile, running my hand over the length of a cocoa-colored wave that draped my left shoulder. “I haven’t lived in Darlington for ten years.”
“I see that.” Mickey’s eyes dropped to my bag before he turned to leave. “Just follow the signs to stage right. Ask around if you get lost. Plenty of people here can help you.”
The door slammed behind him, leaving me alone amongst all of Beau’s personal effects. A garment rack chock full of pressed blue jeans and button downs in every imaginable shade. A stage mirror surrounded by round lights illuminating an empty makeup chair. A red cooler full of beer and bottled water swimming in ice. A pair of boots rested underneath a counter, and lined up by the sink was a myriad of various toiletries, one of which happened to be a bottle of Yves Saint Laurent cologne. The very same kind he wore in high school.
My eyes stayed glued to the door as I walked backward toward the cologne, unable to resist the urge to give it one innocent sniff. I uncapped the bottle and quickly brought it just under my nose, inhaling a generous lungful of ginger, bergamot, and musky woods. Pure unbridled nostalgia. Closing my eyes, I was transported to that last summer we shared under the stars ten years back.
“I’m never going to love anyone the way I love you,” Beau had said as I curled up into his arms. We’d found a secluded spot just outside Darlington with a winding drive that led up the side of a small mountain. Houses would be built there eventually, but at the time, it was nothing but a cul-de-sac on top of a hill surrounded by a thicket of yet-to-be-demolished evergreens. We’d slow danced all night in front of the headlights of his blue Ford truck, whispering promises and leaving everything else unspoken. “And never is a promise. You know that, Dakota? Where we come from, never is a promise.”