Chapter Twenty-Three
The dam had burst! Cavern filled up,
With a bubbling, foaming brine,
The lass was stuck, in a bottom of muck,
For her shoes were number nine.
Lyrics from the folk song “Crossroads Coyote”
All morning Clementine considered what was going on with her husband. With a little bit of contemplation, it wasn’t hard for her to figure out why he’d panicked after they had sex:
He’d said he needed her.
Bill was terrified that he’d need someone and then lose them. He’d rather hide all his deepest emotions than risk abandonment. He kept all the barriers in his mind locked tight, wary of being hurt. Clementine suspected his reticence to open up was directly related to the missing piece that she’d sensed during sex. They couldn’t connect in a perfect, complete, epic way, if one of them was holding back.
Still, Clem was an optimistic person. She believed her relationship with Bill was strong and reciprocal and forever. Between the two of them, they were able to handle just about anything, because they complimented each other so well as partners.
After just one try, sex between them was eighty-nine percent perfect. That was a pretty great start! With a little bit of patience, Bill would understand that she’d never abandon him. There was no one else in the world Clem wanted to be with. She’d chosen him . In time, he’d see that and then he’d grow more confident in their bond. The final eleven percent would come.
Like all artists, Bill’s emotions were intense. Passion and sensitivity went hand in hand. He already seemed very satisfied with the “passion” part of their wedding night. Clem’s body was sore, but otherwise she was thrilled to be an un-virgin. She couldn’t wait to try sex again and Bill seemed to be on exactly the same page.
The poor man had to rise up so early in the morn, because he hadn’t budged on his stubborn insistence on finding “reliable work.” But there had been a smug smile on his face when he’d kissed her goodbye. He’d whispered that he had some bothersome errands to run and then the job interview, so he’d be back in the evening. He’d recommended that she stay in bed all day and “rest up for him.” Then, he’d strolled out of the apartment, whistling.
Clem didn’t know the tune… Only she did know it.
My Own True Love .
Her father’s song was being reborn through Bill’s genius. She heard the old bones of it, but they’d been fleshed out. Expanded and shined into something new. Magic was happening inside Bill’s head.
She mixed up the batter for the dumpling she was making, because Bill couldn’t just eat sugar, no matter how much he wanted to. Under her breath, she hummed his song to hear how right it sounded. Her own powers glided over the notes, admiring how neatly they all fit together. As if their arrangement was destined from the start. As if they’d just been waiting for Bill to make them whole.
Her father would be thrilled. He’d worked so hard on My Own True Love and finally it was coming alive. Strange how both men had contributed to the song, but neither had a True Love. Maybe that’s why it resonated with them both. They yearned for what they didn’t have.
Her brow furrowed.
Bill should have a True Love. He was a deeply romantic man. It would make him happy to feel a fated bond. If he had that kind of assurance, he’d surely open up his emotions without hesitation.
True Love didn’t matter so much to Clem. She liked making her own choices. Although, when My-True-Love-For-To-See had placed in the horse race, the day before, she’d experienced a pang in her chest. Clem did see the appeal of Bill belonging to her through celestial decree. It seemed… right.
And a True Love bond would make her feel even more justified, for all but shoving the poor guy into her bed. A muse had to do whatever it took to chase down her cowboy, of course, so she didn’t regret her tactics. She just felt a little guilty about enticing him so hard. He’d mostly married her to help his career, but she’d said “I do” because she was insanely in love with him.
If coyotes could feel True Love, Bill would obviously feel it for Clem.
That aspect of the situation didn’t worry her, at all. They were destined for each other, True Loves or not. No other girl could love him half as much as her. If the missing True Love bond bothered Bill or kept him from confidently sharing his emotions, maybe she could fix it. She was Bill’s manager. It was her job to solve problems.
Two minutes later, her dumplings forgotten, Clementine was scrolling through her tablet. When she searched “coyotes” and “True Love,” the algorithm led her straight to “Crossroads Coyote.” It was an old song. No one knew who wrote it exactly, because it seemed like it had always existed as a part of the musical landscape. It had never been Clem’s favorite. The tune was repetitive and some of the verses had too many syllables.
The story itself was what bugged her the most, though. In the song, a coyote wanted musical fame, while his wife wanted a life at home. He asked a three-headed crossroads woman to break the True Love bond, so he could be free. The crossroads woman agreed… but there was a trick. She unbound them as mates by killing the man’s wife and cursing all the coyotes thereafter to never find their True Loves.
Clem thought it was sad that the poor wife died, just to teach her idiot husband a lesson. And why should all the coyotes suffer, for one man’s lousy deal-making skills? Really, there were far better country-western standards to appreciate, so she’d never paid much attention to Crossroads Coyote .
…Until now. Now, it seemed right to examine the song closer. Why were coyotes cursed to have no True Loves?
To Clem’s way of thinking, songs were a way to pass on history. Maybe there was some thread of truth to the legend. Her eyes scanned the tablet, reading the lyrics closer than she ever had before.
“When cy’otes sing, our lesson imparts,
But our curse won’t bid adieu,
‘Til a partner gives one her whole heart,
And loves that cowboy so true.”
“All doors that keep the cowboy safe,
Must fall before his bride.
He must need that darling waif,
And choose no more to hide.”
Clem squinted at that gibberish. Honestly, Crossroads Coyote was just not the best song. Why people considered it a classic was a complete mystery. How could coyotes reclaim their lost True Loves, if the crossroad’s woman wasn’t more specific about how to uncurse them?
An imperious knock sounded on the door, interrupting her research. “Clementine?” Johnny called. “Open up!”
Clementine groaned and looked up towards the ceiling, seriously considering just staying quiet.
“I know you’re in there.” Johnny pounded on the door some more. “And I know Bill’s gone off someplace. The naga downstairs said so.”
Woody was an idiot. They really needed to have a tenant’s meeting about his subpar performance as building manager. He never did repairs right, was exceptionally creepy, and she’d caught him taping an eviction notice to Luke’s door, even after she’d told him the poor kid was hiding someplace in emotional turmoil. Woody didn’t care, at all!
Unfortunately, Clem and Bill couldn’t afford to move. They were stuck at the Westward Arms, Woody or no Woody. They’d just have to offer Luke her old room, when he turned up. Bill wouldn’t mind him moving in, once she explained it all. They couldn’t let a little boy go homeless.
“You might as well answer.” Johnny shouted righteously. “I’m not going away!”
He wasn’t going away.
She reluctantly put down the tablet and got to her feet.
“Hello?” More loud pounding. “ Hello? Come on, Clem! We need to have this out, right now!”
“Have what out?” She headed for the door, throwing it open. “Johnny, we don’t have anything to talk about…”
“You got married!” He accused, cutting her off. “How could you do that to me?”
Johnny looked awful. His dark hair was a wreck, like he’d been combing it with his fingers. There were circles under his eyes and his pupils were too dilated. Also, he smelled horrendous.
“Good Lord, have you been drinking?” Clem gasped. “That’s not like you. Especially not at 3 in the afternoon.”
“It’s not like you to get married to an asshole!” Johnny reiterated, as if her wedding was now an excuse for everything wrong in his life.
“Don’t call Bill names!”
Johnny ignored that. “You didn’t even tell me, before you ran off to say ‘I do’.” He shouldered his way into the apartment, not bothering to wait for an invitation. “And you know why you didn’t tell me?”
“Because it’s absolutely none of your business?” She closed the door, wishing he was still on the other side of it. She’d never been so unhappy to see anyone.
“Because you knew you’d never be able to go through with it, if you talked to me first.” His bloodshot eyes cut around the apartment, derision on his face. “You’re trying to prove a point, marrying that coyote and living in squalor. You’re trying to punish me.”
Clementine rubbed at her forehead, feeling a familiar headache forming. It was the one she’d so often developed when she’d lived with Johnny. Since she’d been with Bill, it didn’t appear at all. “Why are you here? Actually, it doesn’t matter. I think you should go.”
“Clem, don’t you see what’s happening?”
“I see that you’ve shown up at my house, uninvited and drunk , and insulted my husband. I want you to go.”
“I’m not drunk and he’s not your husband. I am!”
Her hand dropped from her head in astonishment, not even knowing how to respond to that lunacy.
Johnny took her stunned silence as an opening for more madness. “I was thinking about it all last night and finally inspiration struck! You and me? We’re True Loves.”
Clementine blinked. “I’m going to pour you some coffee to sober you up.” She decided. “Then, you really need to go.”
“I’m serious.” He laid a palm against his chest, his face a little crazed. “Coyotes steal True Loves. Everybody knows it. Bill sensed you were mine and that’s why he targeted you.”
“Bill did not ‘target me’ and you and I are not True Loves.” She grabbed the coffee pot in disgust. The coffee in it was cold, but it would do just fine. “This behavior is inexcusable. In all the time I lived with you, I never saw you like this. You never drank to excess.”
“I haven’t been drinking.”
Clem didn’t believe him. “What in the world’s gotten into you lately?” Or maybe he’d always been like this, like Hank said. Maybe Clem was the idiot for not noticing Johnny’s idiocy for so long.
“You’re the one who’d changed. Not me. We were each other’s first loves, and you just threw me away!”
“You dumped me , years ago. And we were never in love.” Now that she’d found Bill, her childhood romance with Johnny seemed downright bland.
“We only went our separate ways in college, because we had to grow as people.” Johnny argued, following her into the kitchen area. “We were fated to come back together. Two perfectly-matched souls reunited. But then Bill ruined it all.” He paused by the stove and scowled. “Are you making him chicken and dumplings? That’s my favorite!”
“Since when? You never once told me that you liked my cooking.”
“Sure I did. I told you all the time.”
Clem refused to acknowledge that lie. Johnny was just making up stories to fit his inebriated narrative. She sloshed coffee into the purple tarantula mug for him. “How is it Bill’s fault that you fired me from the band?”
“He manipulated everything. I don’t know how he did it exactly, but then I don’t have the mind of a devious animal.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “Johnny, I did my best not to discard our entire relationship, but we’ve reached the point of no return. I can’t do this anymore. I am not going to be friends with a bigot. I’m just not.”
“That’s exactly what Bill wants. To drive us apart. Rosalee did the same. It’s part of the reason I fired her.”
Clem’s jaw dropped at that news, momentarily distracted. “Fired her? You said Rosalee was the only one who understood your new sophisticated vision.”
He shook his head, his eyes darting around. “She never got me, ya know? Not like you do. She and Bill were jealous of our bond and they tried to ruin it.”
“ You ruined it.” Clementine corrected. “Firing Rosalee was very shortsighted.”
“Yeah, well, I heard her life is imploding anyhow. Something about her luxury sand-yacht and herd of jackalopes. Like zillions of jackalopes. Like a plague of jackalopes.”
Clem wasn’t real sorry to hear about the woman’s zoological troubles. “With Rosalee gone, who’s going to produce your record?”
“You are! Like you did on the first one.”
“Absolutely not.” She thunked the mug on the counter in front of him. Black. He preferred coffee with creamer. She preferred not having her afternoon interrupted. They were both making do. “I work with Bill and I don’t ever want that to change.”
“You’re supposed to be with me , not him! Everybody knows it. You need to come back to The Yellow Roses, so we can make something great.”
“I’m not coming back, Johnny. Drink the coffee, while I call you a buckboard taxi.” Wait, she didn’t have a phone. “I’m going to call on your phone. In the meantime, sit down and try to get the liquor out of your system.”
“I’m not drunk.” He repeated scathingly, pacing now. “I’m so cognizant, I can even say ‘cognizant’! I’m thinking clearly for the first time in months.”
“If you were thinking clearly, you wouldn’t be here.” She reached into the breast pocket of his overwrought jacket to grab his phone.
Bill was so right. That fringe monstrosity of a coat belonged on the Red River Gazette’s Worst Dressed List.
Clem jabbed in the phone’s code, which was Johnny’s birthday. It was sad she knew that date, since it was a sure bet he didn’t know hers. “Honestly, I am embarrassed for you, right now. If you’re even a little bit sober, this whole mess is even more appalling.”
“A man will gladly make a fool of himself over his True Love.”
“We’re not True Loves.”
“How do you know?”
“Because it’s obvious! There was never any passion between us.”
“We haven’t kissed since we were teenagers. We need to try again.”
Clementine rolled her eyes, still ordering the taxi. “Don’t be ridiculous. Now, where do you want to go?”
Home would be best, so he could sleep it off. (And shower. He smelled horrendous .) Johnny would just get into trouble, if he was wandering around, spoiling for an argument and feeling sorry for himself.
“I’m not going anywhere without you!” Johnny bellowed, crashing his palms against the countertop hard enough to make her jolt. “I’m not leaving you with that damn coyote!”
“Oh, yes you are!” It took a lot to make Clem lose her temper, but he was pushing her right over the edge. “I’ve done everything I can to be a friend to you, but I don’t think you’ve ever tried to be a friend to me in return. If you were, you’d be more respectful to my husband.”
“Respectful!? That son of a bitch ruined my life! Have you not been following Ti-Yi-Yo today? Do you not see what’s happening?!”
“What? No, my phone is broken…”
He cut her off, like he’d been bottling up the words he really wanted to say. Anger and indignation poured from him. “Women are coming out of the woodwork, claiming I sexually assaulted them. Groupie sluts, who I slept with two years ago, are suddenly remembering they didn’t consent. One of them has already given Vulture Valente an exclusive about me putting something in her drink. It’s slander!”
Clementine felt herself go very still.
Johnny didn’t notice. “They want a payout. That’s what this is about. You can see just by looking at them what kind of women they are. Why were they even at a party with musicians, if they didn’t want to screw one?”
Clem didn’t answer. She couldn’t find the oxygen. She looked down at his phone, which was still in her hand. Three clicks and she’d accessed Ti-Yi-Yo.
Johnny’s name was the first topic listed, along with words like “venues canceling,” “lurid photographs,” and “multiple allegations.”
Social media was on fire. Subscribers were fleeing The Yellow Roses’ official page. Vulture Valente was crowing about the scandal nonstop. Fans were burning Johnny’s records in effigy. Messages were piling up, the silenced-phone vibrating in her palm, as some reporter tried to contact him.
And there were at least a dozen pictures of women. Even with black strips censoring parts of the images, they were clearly drugged and naked.
“My God!” She choked out in horror.
“Ever since Bill posted his ‘support women’ message, more and more tramps have been coming forward with stories about me.” Johnny spat out. “They all think someone else must have said something first, which is why Bill quit the band. They feel ‘heard,’ now.” He added mocking air-quotes to the word.
Clem gave a dazed blink. In sticking up for her, Bill had unknowingly uncovered a far deeper problem in the music business. His photo was now in every feed too, as the herald of Johnny’s downfall.
Bill would hate all this publicity, if he ever logged onto the internet and noticed it. He liked his mischief-making to be more mysterious. Having his name front-and-center would take all the fun out of it for him. But then this wasn’t fun, at all. Not for anyone. This was beyond anything Bill could’ve ever imagined exposing.
“About a dozen of the girls decided to post some open letter and those pictures, a couple hours ago. They now feel ‘safe coming forward.’” Johnny was seething. “It’s going viral! I’m going to sue Mamie!”
“Mamie O’Rourke?” Clem clarified blankly.
“She wouldn’t put me on Home on the Range! ” Johnny wailed. “She should have convinced her dad to give me a slot. I still had some pictures of her, from when we were dating. If Bill could use the tabloids to ruin me, I thought I could use them to threaten Mamie. Get an audition with…”
“ You were the one blackmailing Mamie?” Clem interrupted, her sense of unreality deepening.
“It wasn’t blackmail! All she had to do was get me on that show! Instead, she hired some damn dragon to steal the photos and I guess he must have found some of my other pictures, as well. The next thing I know, Mamie has them all. And she’s turned into this vengeful shrew, selling me out to the press.”
“Twelve women are accusing you of raping them.” Clem said slowly. So she really understood what was happening here.
“They can’t prove it!” He defended righteously. “The pictures could’ve been doctored. Nobody trusts dragons. Why does this Trevelyan guy care what happened to those whores, anyhow? And besides those photos were mine! Why would he give my personal property to Mamie? I’ll sue him, too!”
“Oh, Johnny…” She covered her eyes with the palm of her hand, knowing everything she’d ever seen in him was gone forever. “How could you?”
“It’s not my fault!” Johnny kept talking, too fast and too loud. “Rosalee should’ve handled this! She should’ve shut it down before it ever went this far. She tried to make it seem like it was my fault. But she only quit, because she knows how badly she screwed this up.”
“I thought you said you fired Rosalee?”
“What difference does it make? She left. Just like you did.” Johnny kicked one of the kitchen stools over, so it clattered to the ground.
Clementine winced as the wooden stool broke.
Johnny continued raging. “And now the record is fucked . Bowleg Bob has had to skip town. Somebody alerted his ex-wife that he was in Red River Valley. He owes like a decade of back child support. I’ll bet you Bill is the one who called that bitch, so she could come after him.”
Probably. Bowleg Bob hadn’t protested Clem’s firing. Bill didn’t appreciate that. And he would certainly want a single mom to get her money.
“Susannah Alabama’s suing me for sexual harassment. That PR team I pay won’t even take my calls. Some weirdo with a contagious skin condition is living in my guestroom. I don’t even know how he got a key.” Johnny ran a hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in spikes. In his frustration, he was handling it so often that the styling products were clumping up the strands. “ It’s not fair! ” He screamed, the words echoing off the walls. “ None of this is fair! ”
A rapist was spiraling out of control and she was alone with him.
Clem carefully put the phone down, so it wouldn’t upset Johnny any further. It suddenly struck her as very important that she calm him down. “How did I not know about this side of you before?” She said as evenly as she could.
“I never wanted any of the partying near you.” His too-wild eyes met hers, his voice dropping in volume but not intensity. “You’re a sweet little rosebud, Clem. Not some cheap whore.” He reached out to touch her cheek. “You’re exactly what a man wants in his True Love. I probably always knew that, but Bill interfered before I could marry you. You get that, right?”
She shied away from his touch. “No. I don’t get that.”
His expression darkened. “The True Love bond doesn’t materialize for Good folks until they sleep together. That’s what we’re going to do, now.”
Clementine edged back a step, her pulse pounding. “No.”
“Yes! Then, you’ll see you belong to me. You’ll come back home and help me fix this mess and everything will be right again. You always know how to make it right.” His hand whipped out, grabbing onto her arm. “ It’s Johnny and Clementine, remember?”