Chapter Three #2
She says never Paul now, but I remember the post-Kevin depression that made her call Paul last time. How she didn’t leave the couch for two weeks. How I had to help her shower.
“One thousand percent, actually,” she says, rubbing her shoulder. “Go call Ev.”
I bury that petrified part of me—the one that has never left this town, the one that is tangled up in knots thinking about how sick my mom could get, how lonely she’ll be here without me, and how many shitty guys she might lean on to fill the void; the one that thinks it’s a given that I will fail catastrophically and crawl back home with my tail between my legs—deep down inside of me.
Somewhere I won’t be able to find it for the next eight weeks.
I tell myself I’m doing this for us. For our future, for our debt and all the medical bills. For my mom, who gave everything up to take care of me since she was just a kid herself. Now is my chance to take care of her with more than a measly waitress’s salary.
With my new, steely resolve, I call Everly back and accept.
—
Packing is a whirlwind. Not the experience—for my first time, I am a pretty methodical packer, thank you very much, and each outfit is planned down to the number of times I will need to re-wear my lucky black jeans with the rip on the butt.
No, the whirlwind is what the act of packing has done to my bedroom.
It looks like the Wizard of Oz twister hit my closet.
But I’m feeling decent about my chosen wardrobe, and I have a Greyhound bus ticket leaving for Memphis tomorrow morning and an email in my inbox from the tour manager, Jen Gabler. It reads:
Hi!
So thrilled to have you joining the Kingfisher tour.
Ev had great things to say about you and your voice is great.
Lionel cc’d here will meet you at the Graceland Inn at 1 tmw and get you over to sound check.
Will be tight before the show but should be fine.
Lionel pls send Clementine the set list, lyric sheets, travel itinerary, and contract.
Choreo is minimal—Halloran prefers a more intimate & authentic vibe for his shows. Should be fun!
xx Jen
Sent from my iPhone
The Graceland Inn sounds promising. I’m not not an Elvis fan, and I haven’t stayed in a hotel since that elementary school Alamo trip. It’s not like my mom and I have the money to go anywhere worth spending the night.
I’m filling out the contract when she slinks in and plops herself on my bed.
“Mom, you’re squishing all my underwires.”
She makes a face but rolls weakly to the side so I can slide them out from under her.
“Have you googled this guy?”
“Not really,” I say, sitting back at my cluttered desk to sign the deal. “That’s tomorrow’s homework. Why?”
I’ve heard of Halloran, like everyone else—I don’t live under a rock.
I’ve heard “If Not for My Baby” on the radio and at bars and parties.
For a handful of months when the single was released, you couldn’t escape it even if you tried.
Those haunting vocals charged at you from every speaker in the country.
But I haven’t heard his other music. To be honest, I probably couldn’t pick Halloran out of a lineup. My plan is to do extreme amounts of googling and album listening on my way to Memphis.
“He’s only thirty-two. Awfully handsome if you ask me,” my mom says, scrolling on her phone. “And seems like a very kind soul.”
I roll my eyes. “You know that’s all PR training, right?”
“How’d you get your father’s cynicism when he wasn’t even here to raise you? Here,” she says, pointing the phone in my direction. “Watch this one.”
The video she shows me is a fifteen-second clip playing on a loop of Halloran jamming at some music festival.
It’s golden hour, and he’s awash in soft summer light.
His eyes are obscured by round John Lennon–style sunglasses, and his long, curly brown hair falls across his face as he plays.
He’s wearing a pair of sensible navy slacks, white high-tops, and a casual button-down.
No man jewelry. No dumb tattoos. He looks more like a classics professor than a rock star.
He plays the guitar deftly, and I know from my school’s theater band that those chords are no joke. He’s so caught up, he bares his teeth and thrashes his head, overcome by the gravity of the sound. Right when the climax of the song crests, the loop begins again.
The caption reads, Halloran last summer at Carolina Fest. Been waiting since then for a new album from our woodland dreamboat and Kingfisher did not disappoint! Counting down the minutes until he comes back to Charlotte.
And below, the comments are as follows:
Jess_2672: Ok and he’s 6’6 bye
Halloranmylove22: I just bit my phone in half.
Paigexyx213: I’m fine everything’s fine *walks off a cliff*
IfNotForMyBabyTom: I NEED HIM BIBLICALLY
Halcyon_Eyes: Halloran is not only the Shakespeare of our generation (srsly go listen to the lyrics of under a silver sun) but he’s THAT gorgeous and lives in a castle in Ireland how is he real????
TXmom007: What a cool guy!
I narrow my gaze at my mom. “Was that one you?”
My mom only shrugs, mischief in her eyes.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t really see it.
” That whole Irish Jim-Morrison-meets-Jesus-if-he-lived-in-the-forest thing isn’t really for me.
I like a clean-cut, American boy. Like Aaron Tveit or Jonathan Groff, or Mike.
“But I’m excited to meet him and the rest of the band,” I add, to brighten my mom’s spirits.
“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, like you said. I’m getting excited.”
That last bit gets her. I can see it in her hopeful smile. She doesn’t want me doing this for her, and I don’t want her thinking I am even when…I am.
Sitting back down at my desk, I suck in a deep breath and sign my name on the dotted line. I send a picture back to Jen and Lionel and release a shaky exhale.
No going back now.