Chapter 17 #2
“Tea,” I said. I miss you. Please don’t go.
“Well,” said Gabe, “good seeing you.”
He was the one who had lied, but I’d asked for space.
He was giving me what he thought I wanted.
He was a good man. What was wrong with me?
I bit down hard on the knuckle of my index finger as he turned to leave.
He was walking away, those broad, perfect shoulders, that slight hunch, as if when not onstage, he was afraid to take up space.
If I were brave, I would abandon the drink I didn’t even want and follow him.
I took a step away from the counter just as he turned back.
“I—”
“If you—”
We spoke at once, both stopped. I laughed nervously.
“I’m going out of town tomorrow. Taking the bus around the Midwest for a few weeks. But maybe when I get back, we can do this again?” He was vulnerable, stripped totally bare. I could see the twelve-year-old he’d been on The Tiger Crew, the little kid obsessed with Elvis.
“I mean, I’m always down for awkward coffee run-ins,” I said.
“No better kind, right?” Gabe smiled.
“But yeah,” I said, despite my better judgment. “That sounds good.”
That night, after putting in a few hours for Mr. Pichietti and bemoaning to Celia my bad luck with finding work I actually liked, I checked my email hoping to hear back from one of the line producers Lauren had sworn wouldn’t hire me.
Nothing on that front, but I did have something from Gabe. The subject line read, “I’m Sorry.”
Cassidy,
I think I’ve probably already said this, but not enough or in the right way. I am so sorry about everything that happened last year. I can try to explain it, but when you get down to it I hurt you, and I’m sorry.
It was really good to see you today. Very weird and unexpected, but also very good. You ordered a rosehip ginger latte with whipped cream, which makes me think it was also maybe weird and unexpected for you. Hopefully also good.
It’s a lot easier to write a song than it is to write this email.
I know you aren’t one for what you think is corny stuff.
I’m not going to show up under your balcony and play you a song about how much I’ve missed you, or even hold up a boombox.
It’s harder but probably better to just say outright: I’ve missed you.
In the spirit of just saying things, I have been seeing Maggie occasionally.
Not “seeing” her as a euphemism for dating—the tabloid stuff is all made up.
Our stuff from years ago is over, coffin closed.
But we’ve been working on new music together.
I’ve been helping with her album. It seems like something you should know right up front, given everything.
Maybe that makes this all even more awkward, but I’m taking you at your word that you are interested in meeting up again, and I just want it all out there this time.
I have a lot of regrets about the way I handled that before.
Anyway, I’ll be back in town on the 7th. I hope this note isn’t too much.
Love (I’ve deleted this three times but fuck, I’m just going to say it),
Gabe
C.isthe.Baum@ to
Gabriel.Leighton@
October 8, 2004, 8:08 PM
Dear Gabe,
Hi. Thank you. For the email, I mean. It’s not too much. It’s actually really good to hear from you, and it was also good to see you, although not so good to get stuck with that drink. When you go back there, I do not recommend.
I also probably should have emailed you sooner, and/or called you back. The whole thing was (is?) sort of confusing, but I wish I hadn’t bailed. Thank you for not showing up under my window with a boombox.
Where are you guys headed?
Gabriel.Leighton@ to
C.isthe.Baum@
October 9, 2004, 10:23 AM
On the way to Des Moines now, then Milwaukee, Chicago, Kansas City. Honestly off the top of my head I don’t know all of it. I’ll send you the link for the tour.
I get why you didn’t call. I’m glad you’re emailing now. Celia said that you were back in Pennsylvania. (I promise I only asked her once.) We put out a few singles, and one of them got okay traction. Hence the tour. We’ve had some changes in the band, though. Jimmy quit, Jody got married.
C.isthe.Baum@ to
Gabriel.Leighton@
October 9, 2004, 7:08 PM
Pennsylvania was not exciting. My brother graduated medical school, which I know pales in comparison to leaving a production assistant gig mid-season, but weirdly my mom sees things differently and now wants me to “get an actual job.” Slim pickings out here so far, but I persist. I’m back with Jen and Celia in Silver Lake, and have been for a few months.
About the band—you should have known you would never get far.
I’ve heard the single, and it’s catchy. It’s a good song, but I also creeped around to hear some of the other new stuff and I like that even better.
Is it weird to ask about whatever happened to that other song, the one you wrote with Maggie? It definitely feels weird, but in the spirit of ripping off Band-Aids I figured I’d just ask.
(PS: Bryan Adams? Ha! You’ve got to try harder to stump me.)
Gabriel.Leighton@ to
C.isthe.Baum@
October 11, 2004, 1:13 AM
In the Spirit of Ripping Off Band-Aids could be its own song. Even better than The Other Song, which I’m beginning to think might be cursed. The devil’s music: sounds real pretty but keeps screwing with my life. I don’t want it anymore. I don’t need it.
Anyway, the Band-Aid song would go something like: Maggie and me/easy to see/we write well together but there’s an impenetrable level of something that’s still keeping her from saying it’s okay to record what she actually feels and it’s very frustrating as a collaborator/dum dee dee. Sounds better with music behind it.
I’m glad you think the single’s catchy, and glad you’ve been keeping tabs on the band.
I’m writing this from a bus that smells like Axe Body Spray and stale McDonalds’ french fries, but I really do think there’s something to going after what you love.
I’m sort of wondering what we’re doing here. I don’t want to go into things expecting something that I shouldn’t, just because you replied to my email. It can be lonely on the road (they say it’s no place to start a family, etc.), and I don’t want to be here reading into things.
Sending, yet again, before I make myself delete this.
-G
In early November, I drove to Gabe’s gig just outside Las Vegas.
He didn’t know I was coming, and I stood near the back, watching him play.
This was the final stop on what they called their Midwest tour, and I sipped on a watery vodka tonic while Gabe sang about the one that got away.
I watched the familiar way he pushed back his hair, the flush of his cheeks under the lights.
I’m not sure when he saw me, how he knew I was in the mass of people filling the small venue. Maybe it was the same way that I sensed him when he was in a room, a radar screaming out the fact of his body, drawing me near.
The consummate professional, Gabe didn’t flinch while doing his audience banter. A tornado could hit, and Gabe would say Well, thanks, folks with a smile. He retuned the guitar, an apparent cue to the rest of the band that he was going off script.
“I’m going to go solo for you all for a minute,” he said.
“We’ve got somebody special here tonight.
” Gabe was comfortable riffing. I didn’t recognize the tune.
“I’m going to try out something new. Something for the lady in the back.
” At this everyone turned around, but he was mercifully vague enough that I could keep sipping my drink, pretending I was looking back too.
“Hello, lady.” Gabe smiled and started to play.
“Hi,” Gabe said. “I’ve missed you.” We were in my car, outside a motel in Nevada.
He smelled like someone else’s cigarette smoke.
He had sweat through the back of his shirt.
I thought I had been waiting for this moment since I’d seen him at the coffee shop several weeks earlier, but I had actually been waiting since that day at the production office when I’d spotted him on camera with Maggie and first broken up with him.
I’d been waiting since the day I first met him, that quick glance out my rearview mirror as he stood there and I pulled the car away.
This same car, the bumper still scarred. We were still the same people.
I had never wanted anything the way that I wanted to brush his hair off his forehead, get rid of his T-shirt. I had left and returned so many times. I’d called him to me and sent him away. But I was here now. I had come.
“I’ve missed you too.”