Chapter Six
Six
“What a start to the tour, Tom,” Jen says. “Congrats, you guys. Just excellent. Now pack quickly—Lionel has dinner on the bus already and it’s a long one to New Orleans.”
I grab my things from the dressing room and walk past all the riggers and roadies down to the tour bus. All my adrenaline has vanished. I am a deflated balloon.
A soft, summer wind breezes through the nearly vacant back alley—blocked off and safe from hungry fans—and my nostrils fill with warm evening air and the scent of asphalt cooling after a day of hot sun. My ears ring despite the earplugs I wore, and the buzz of cicadas doesn’t help.
Alongside Pete’s barking at some stagehand to hold Grayson’s keyboard properly, I can just make out Conor’s thick accent behind me as he says, “Oi, Tommy, you meet the new singer?”
Despite having just performed in front of thousands of people, my entire face heats.
Perhaps because I’m so tired, and I know I’m not going to be my most winning self.
Or maybe it’s because after seeing Halloran perform, I’m intimidated by him.
Either way, I can feel a sticky, warm flush work its way down my neck.
I try to swallow and somehow fail, resulting in a cough.
“Clementine,” Conor says, turning me by the shoulder. “This is Halloran.”
When I spin, I make direct eye contact with a series of buttons over a strong, broad chest. I crane my neck up.
And up, and up.
Until my gaze lands on Halloran’s eyes. They are the richest green on earth. The green of a lush wood untouched by man. “Hey,” he says coolly, dipping his chin in greeting. “Welcome.”
His voice is smooth like a cloudless night, but there’s a depth to it, too—thunder rumbling just below the surface.
Up close his nose is long and masculine, brows thick, jaw strong, though hidden under a close-trimmed beard.
You can just tell if he went even one day without shaving it down, he’d look like a Viking.
“Hi,” I reply, thrusting out my hand like he’s some clip-on-tie-wearing store manager. “I’m Clementine.”
“So I’ve heard.”
Right, duh. Conor just said that. “You were incredible up there,” I tell him.
He winces. “Thanks very much.”
“And that crowd. They love you. You are like a god to them or something.”
“Thank you, really.”
“And your voice, it’s—” I can’t seem to stop myself. “That key change? In ‘Harbinger of’—”
“I’m sorry, Clementine,” he interrupts before pressing his lips together in regret. “I’m going to stop you there. Will you excuse me a moment?”
“Sure,” I try to say, but he’s gone before I utter the word, moving past me and into the bus.
Oh.
My face heats again and this time I know it’s from shame. Why did I fangirl like that? I’m a professional.
No, you’re not, my brain tells me. You’re a twenty-four-year-old waitress from the middle of nowhere.
“Don’t fret over him,” Conor says, pulling out a pack of Marlboro 27s from his back pocket and smacking them against the palm of his hand. “He’s dog-tired and in need of a smoke.”
“Of course. It’s fine.” I smile brightly to convey just how fine it is. I’m here to do a job and provide for my mom and myself, I don’t need to be friends with Halloran.
Conor offers a cheeky smile of his own, exposing the piercing inside his mouth, right above his two front teeth. “Grand so.” With that he moves past me and up the stairs into the bus.
All I need is one soothing inhale of balmy night air to shake off whatever that weird energy was with Halloran before spending six hours on a bus with him. I tell myself I have nothing to be embarrassed about.
“Word to the wise,” Grayson drawls, strolling up to me and placing a hand on my shoulder. “He’s particular about his songs.”
Grayson’s sweaty brown hair’s been pushed back, his Henley buttoned up wrong, and lipstick is smeared into his neck and the grooves of his layered man jewelry. He had time to fool around with someone? The show barely ended thirty minutes ago.
I sidestep, allowing his hand to slip from my body. “What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t even matter. Your voice is so good I doubt anyone cares that you missed those ‘If Not for My Baby’ cues besides him.”
Is Grayson negging me? Suddenly, I don’t much like his supervillain handsomeness.
“I didn’t miss any cues.”
Grayson winks at me. “Sure you didn’t.”
I’ve never felt such a strong urge to become a cicada and chirp off into the night. I wish my mom was here to talk me down. How could I have messed up my first show? And then lied about it like a defensive idiot?
And with Halloran…Why was that so…so—
“Clementine!”
I snap out of my panic-daze to see Lionel’s head thrust from one of the tour bus windows. “Any day now! It’s not like New Orleans is six hours away— OH WAIT, IT IS!”
Shit. I cannot get a single thing right tonight. I scurry up the stairs of the bus before I make yet another mistake.
Halloran’s tour bus is nothing like the Greyhound I took here.
The entire front half serves as a sleek lounge, with beige leather upholstery on both sides and a shiny wood floor.
The band—minus a notably missing Halloran—crowds around the table in the center, chowing through cartons of greasy Chinese food and ice-cold beers.
Someone’s put a funky house song on the speaker system, and my stomach grumbles at the heavenly smell of garlic and MSG.
“This way,” Lionel instructs hastily, guiding me past Molly, who’s kicking off her platform Mary Janes and pushing her sweaty feet into Pete’s face as he feigns disgust. We pass a kitchenette with a coffee maker, various mugs, nutrition bars, and cereal packets for the morning.
Beyond that is a narrow hallway lined with multiple short gray curtains on either wall.
“This bunk’s yours,” Lionel states, pointing to one of the curtains sandwiched between two others. To my utter horror, he pulls it aside to reveal a tiny bed. Three stacked on either side of the bus hallway, like a morgue.
“Always sleep feet forward,” Lionel adds. “If the bus gets T-boned you don’t want your head to get crushed.”
I attempt something more gracious than a grimace, but Lionel is already moving. “Here’s the bathroom. And back there is Halloran’s suite.”
My eyes find the closed door. Faint music—blues or jazz or something else mellow—wafts out from under the doorframe. My heart picks up speed for no reason at all.
To take my eyes off the very clear boundary between Halloran and everyone else, I poke my head into the bathroom in question. It’s got a shower, sink, and toilet and is about the size of a coat closet. “We all share this one bathroom?”
“Halloran has his own, of course. But yes, the rest of the band does. And Indy, too. She rides with you all so she can film behind-the-scenes content.”
“And you?”
“Jen and I,” Lionel says with twinkling pride, “are on the other bus with the crew. Except for Pete,” Lionel adds conspiratorially. “He sleeps wherever Molly tells him to. His bunk’s pretty much become our shoe rack.”
Interest piqued, we both peer down the hallway and into the front lounge. Molly’s trying to hide her laugh as Indy and Grayson try on her shoes. Pete just stares at her, cheeks a little flushed from the alcohol.
It’s a risk, but my gut tells me if anyone’s got the gossip, it would be Lionel. “What’s the deal with Grayson?”
He clucks his tongue at me like a disappointed schoolteacher. “Womanizer. Prides himself on bedding the fresh meat.”
I don’t love being compared to slaughterhouse fare, and my facial expression must say as much, because Lionel adds, “I know. I was on a different tour with him last year. He was sleeping with the drummer, a vocalist, and the TM and none of them even knew. Well, until I told everyone, anyway.”
“Avoid like the plague.” I laugh. “Got it.”
He gives me a pat on the back. “See you tomorrow!”
And with that he slips out of the bus, the doors shut, and we lurch forward toward New Orleans.
—
After a shower that felt more like a dribble—not much water pressure in a moving vehicle, it seems—I emerge from the shared bathroom in my pajamas humming the tune to “If Not for My Baby.” It’s been a long time since I’ve felt this tired, but the voices echoing from the front lounge keep me from my tiny bed.
In theater, all run long, you play and fight and lean on each other, and by the end of the show, you’re near tears thinking about never sharing that stage together again.
You promise each other next year , but every year, half of you graduate or move or don’t have the grades to come back.
It’s bittersweet, and always too short-lived, and I don’t want to miss out on building that comradery with these people.
So despite the protests from my aching feet and weary eyes, I shuffle out to the lounge.
“Jen told me Rolling Stone ’s finally gonna do that piece on me this tour,” Grayson says, reclining in his lounger.
“It’s about time,” Indy tells him. “In New York?”
“In LA.”
“Indy’s still hung up on the same NYU guy she was into on Halloran’s first tour,” Wren tells me before biting into an egg roll. “Can you tell?”
I take a seat next to Indy. She’s fresh-faced and ready for sleep in a floral-patterned waffle-knit pajama set, thick green glasses, and two twin braids instead of her long one from earlier.
“That was five years ago! I was an impressionable college freshman back then.”
“You ran social media on Halloran’s first tour while you were in college?”
“It was a good summer gig. He wasn’t such a big star back then…” Indy shrugs. “It was Molly’s first tour, too.”
I study the group before me. “You’re all back for the second time?”
“Yep,” Indy says. “And this time around I’m not hung up on anyone. I just miss Manhattan.”
“Yeah,” Grayson agrees. “If Manhattan is code for Jacob’s dick.”
Indy turns to me, ignoring him. “Clementine, you strike me as an NYC girl. You get it, right?”
“Actually, I’ve never been.”
But my heart skips a beat at the belated realization that I’ll be going there on this tour. New York City , the home of Broadway. The lights, the history—
Indy jolts upright, nearly knocking over Molly’s beer. “Oh my God!” she squeals. “I’m going to show you every single thing. Washington Square Park, and MoMA, and the best bagels you’ve ever had in your life.”
“Count me in,” Grayson says, tipping his chin up. “I want to witness baby’s first time in the big city.”
“Oh! And Baby Grand and Marie’s Crisis—the best bars. Serendipity for a frozen hot chocolate…”
Wren sips her beer. “I’m in, too. Long as Jen doesn’t pull Halloran from Dreamland.”
Pull Halloran from the biggest East Coast music festival? “Why would she do that?”
Grayson’s eye roll tells me he’s sick of the subject.
“He’s not headlining, and she’s pissed about it,” Molly says. Pete seems to have dozed off beside her, his Boston baseball cap over his face, but that hasn’t stopped Molly from curling up into him like he’s a human body pillow.
“It’s a midday concert,” Indy adds. “And he is playing directly before the headliner. I don’t think it’s insulting at all.”
Wren picks at the label on her bottle. “Tommy sure doesn’t give a shit.”
“Well, if we go, your New York itinerary sounds perfect,” I say. “But more importantly…Who’s this NYU guy?”
Grayson and Wren snicker and I’m grateful to have rerouted the conversation.
“Stop,” Indy moans at all of us. “Jacob is— He’s nobody. We dated for ten minutes.”
Molly’s grin is like the Cheshire cat’s. “He texts her daily.”
“He’s not important,” Indy reiterates. “Clementine, we didn’t even ask you, what did you think of your first night?”
“It was unbelievable,” I admit. “Such a rush. You guys put on a fantastic show.”
“Thanks, kid,” Wren says, at the same time Molly says, “I know.”
Wren’s in men’s boxers and an oversized, moth-eaten Motley Crüe T-shirt while Molly’s silk black nightgown might as well be a Leg Avenue Elvira costume.
Suddenly, my mom’s striped pajama bottoms and my Happy Tortilla T-shirt with the beaming round quesadilla decal on the front need to be burned immediately.
“If every night’s a slumber party like this one,” I say, “I’ll need to invest in some cooler pj’s.”
“Just wait until I take you shopping in SoHo,” Indy says.
“Don’t trash these, though.” Grayson’s voice is a little husky as he leans forward to grab my pants with his thumb and forefinger. “They’re hot on you. You have a good figure for dorky stuff.”
I look away to hide my discomfort and my eyes land on Halloran, making himself tea right behind us. I didn’t even hear him come out.
He’s in low-slung gray sweats and a Trinity College hoodie, with glasses on and his unruly hair tied back at the nape of his neck.
Some of his fingers are smudged with ink.
It’s comforting, how human he appears. But the grim expression on his face seizes the breath from my lungs. He’s practically glaring at us.
“Hi,” I squeak.
“Do ye mind keeping it down?” he asks, softly yet sternly. He’s looking right at Grayson. “I’ve got a bad one.”
“Course, Tommy,” Wren says easily, before Grayson can respond. “In fact, I’m off to bed myself. Night, critters.”
“Night, Mommy.” Molly pouts.
Pete snorts his amusement from under his cap, awake after all.
Halloran gives Wren a weak smile but makes no attempt at eye contact with me.
I definitely have done something to annoy him and hate how self-conscious I feel about it.
He finishes pouring his tea, hot steam curling into the lounge and fogging up his glasses some, and then heads back down the hallway into his room.
The door shuts before any of us say another word.
Grayson snorts. “For a guy who sings about getting drunk too often and waking up with the setting sun, he sure acts like someone’s granny.”
Indy chuckles, but I can’t be the only one to sense some bite in his tone.
“What’s the deal with the tea thing?”
“Halloran doesn’t sing without a mug nearby,” Molly tells me. “Fans caught on and now they ask him if it’s Lyons or Barry’s.”
Indy jumps in as she stands to leave. “They’re Irish tea brands. It’s like a Coke or Pepsi situation.”
“Don’t let Conor hear you make that comparison,” Grayson warns, rising from his lounger, too. “You’ll get an earful.”
We tidy the space as a group and I’m pleased to discover none of the band seem to be cliché rock ’n’ roll slobs save for Conor, apparently, who’s been asleep for the last hour anyway.
On my way back to the bunks, I just can’t help myself—I’ve been body-snatched by some kind of nosy tea detective—I hang back until everyone’s in bed and all the front lounge lights click off.
When all I can hear is the rhythmic rumble of the bus tires beneath us, I open the small drawer below the coffee maker.
Rows of red tea cartons stare back at me.
Barry’s.