That thought is swimming through my head when we finally stop for dinner that night. I slouch off the bus, expecting that I’ll get a table for Mel and I in some dark corner where Tammy can’t see us, when Walsh comes up and murmurs into my ear. “Mel’s going to talk to Tammy over dinner. You and I can eat with the guys.”
I give him a sideways glance. “Fine,” I grumble.
By the time we get inside, Mike and Colin have secured a big table for themselves and a bunch of the roadies. The place is one of those giant warehouse barbecue setups—concrete floors, corrugated metal walls here and there, lots of cow skulls and Texas license plates hanging from the ceilings. The smell of smoking meat permeates the space. Walsh and I take seats at the end of the crew’s table next to one another. The wait staff was forewarned of our arrival hours ago, but I can see they’re still tripping out over us. I try to keep my head down and don’t take off my sunglasses, hoping it’ll dissuade any requests for autographs.
The little busgirl has come by to refill our waters down at my end of the table about six times in fifteen minutes, and Walsh rolls his eyes at me as she hits us up yet again. “I’m going to have to piss for the next three hours,” he mutters under his breath. I can’t help but laugh and I start to relax. God, I wish he and I could get back to who we used to be. I miss him so much sometimes that I can almost feel it in the air around me. It’s chilly and damp and dull.
“Can I get you boys something from the bar?” our middle-aged bleach-blond waitress asks as she smooths her hand over her tight t-shirt, thrusting her chest out at the same time.
“Nah, I’m good,” I say, keeping my eyes on her face.
“You can have a beer, you know,” Walsh says as he looks at me. “I’m not going to freak out or anything.”
I smile wryly. “I’m fine, really. But thanks.”
“Just water for me,” Walsh tells her when she looks at him.
“Okay, but if you boys need anything else at all, just holler. I’m Carrie.”
“Sure thing.” Walsh smiles benignly.
“Hey, Walsh!” Mike yells suddenly from midway up the table.
“Yo,” Walsh replies.
“Why the hell were you over at the auditorium this morning? I called for a car and they said you and Joss had both of them over there. Did you leave something last night?”
Walsh shoots me a sharp look out of the corner of his eye. He’s no better at lying than I am, so I’m sure he’s freaking out right about now. “Yeah, Tammy thought she’d lost something over there, but turns out Joss had picked it up.”
I see the glint in Mike’s eye, even from several seats away. He leans back in his chair and affects a casual air. “Oh yeah, man? I heard it was Mel that you guys lost, and Joss was kind enough to keep her overnight for you.”
The crew guys sitting in between Mike and us start snickering.
Fucking asshole. I’m halfway up out of my seat before I feel Walsh’s arm on mine. “Don’t do it. Not here,” he mutters. I slam back down in my chair. Then he raises his voice so Mike will hear it. “Dude, that’s my future sister-in-law you’re talking about. Let’s not go there, all right? It’s all good, and everybody made the bus, so drop it.”
I can nearly see the wheels turning in Mike’s head. “You protecting Mel or Joss?” he asks bitterly.
I’m clenching my jaw so hard to keep from responding that I can feel a sharp pain shoot up the side of my head.
“I just don’t think this is the kind of conversation we want to have right now, right here, man. You can dig that, can’t you?” Walsh asks.
“Yeah, I can dig that—Hey, Joss.”
“Shit. Just don’t, Mike,” I grit out as I run my hand through my hair.
He bats his eyelashes at me. “Just making friendly conversation, bro.”
“What do you want?”
“Do you remember that time you and Walsh both had the hots for Samantha O’Neil?”
Walsh tries to choke back a laugh.
“Yeah. What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I ask.
“Just taking a little walk down memory lane. You always were pissed she picked Walsh over you, huh?”
“Yeah, we were what? Twelve? I never quite got over it,” I snort. “What the fuck is he going on about?” I mutter to Walsh under my breath.
“I have no idea,” Walsh whispers. “But I’m guessing he’s fucked up as usual.”
“See, what I remember,” Mike continues, “is that, after she started going out with Walsh, you kept flirting with her behind his back.”
Colin laughs, shaking his head. “Bud, that’s not kosher, even when you’re twelve.”
A cold shiver rolls over me and I watch Mike. I’m suddenly thinking there’s mote to this than simple professional jealousy.
“Yeah, you know, it was a long time ago and we were kids, Mike, so I don’t really remember exactly how it all went.”
“Huh,” he replies. “I remember it real clearly. Walsh went on spring break with his parents and you spent the whole week calling Samantha, trying to get her to go out with you. And wait! Didn’t I see you with her at Kyle’s Big Burger one day? You two were sharing a Coke I think. It was so romantic—in a twelve-year-old cheating kind of way.”
I can’t believe he’s such a prick. I did eat lunch with Samantha one day, but only because we’d run into each other at the burger place. Our mothers knew each other and were sitting at the table next to us. And yeah, I talked to her on the phone because she’d called me wanting to know when Walsh was going to be back.
Walsh’s hand is clenched in his lap now, and I can see his fingers flexing and unflexing. It occurs to me that one of the reasons Walsh may have been so easy to be with all these years is because he was drunk much of the time. There’s an underlying anger to him right now that I’ve never noticed before. He gives Mike a hard look. “Mike. Enough. Whatever did or didn’t happen when we were twelve is stupid and no one cares. Quit being an ass.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Mike answers enigmatically before he goes back to talking to the roadie next to him.
“I did not try to date Samantha while you were out of town, I swear,” I say to Walsh, feeling as much like a twelve-year-old as I sound like one.
“Please. You think I’d pay any attention to what he says? Or care what the hell you did when we were twelve? Joss, whatever problems we’ve had this last year, I know you’d never betray me.” He looks me in the eye. “I know you’ve always had my back.”
My heart freezes and then shrivels inside my chest. I almost can’t breathe because the pain is so sharp. I put my fist to my chest and press down, trying to stop this thing that has me in its clutches, crushing me bit by bit. I swallow once, hard.
“Yeah, man, and I always will,” I say. At least from now on, I think to myself.
Walsh nods and we eat the rest of our meal in silence.
When I was a teenager, I was fascinated with Arthur Miller, the playwright. I liked the dude because he was this tall, nerdy white guy who’d managed to get Marilyn Monroe to marry him. It always seemed to be proof of some sort of divine justice in the universe. Whenever I was feeling like I didn’t fit somewhere, I’d think of Arthur Miller and dream about finding my own metaphorical Marilyn someday. As it ended up, rock and roll is my Marilyn, and of course I’ve come to realize that marrying her has its own set of problems.
One of the quotes from Miller that I’ve always remembered is, “Betrayal is the only truth that sticks.” Walsh said the word at dinner and now I can’t stop it from thrumming through my head—betrayal. As I lie in my bed on the bus after dinner while we barrel across the miles of bleak highway, I can’t help but wonder if Miller was speaking to me when he said that. More and more, the years of friendship between Walsh and me—the thousands of hours of laughter, the millions of shared experiences, the hundreds of times we looked out for one another—seem to come down to one essential truth—I slept with the love of his life. It can’t be undone, yet it undoing everything that came before it.
I can hardly look at Walsh or think about him without my ultimate betrayal coloring the picture. I’ve come to realize that this is my punishment. I am caught in a web of my own making and I will never be free. When I took Tammy there that night, I committed an act that is for life. There is no way to resolve it. No way to assuage the guilt, no way to make amends. If I tell Walsh, it will destroy him. If I don’t, it might destroy me. And as for Tammy? I don’t how much of what happened is playing into her behavior at this point, but I know for damn sure she’s not the same woman she was before I got ahold of her.
These thoughts and the concurrent guilt are keeping me from seeking out Mel tonight. We haven’t talked since we got on the bus in Denver, and even though I crave her warm presence—the only thing that makes me feel hope at this point—I can’t bring myself to go find her. So I lie in my bed and try not to feel quite so wrecked.
Eventually I doze off, and the next thing I hear is the quiet click of the latch on the door to my room. A small figure enters the dark space and climbs onto the bed with me.