Chapter 7 Way Back When
Way Back When
Jace and Paloma stood on the front porch of a stately two-story brick house, doing their best to look creditworthy as they waited for the landlady to arrive with the keys.
Today was the day they were moving to Detroit proper because, when they had returned to Jace’s studio apartment in Hamtramck after the tour wrapped a few weeks before, three things were very clear.
One: Jace and Paloma wanted to live closer to the Detroit venues.
The keyboardist from the Queenlords had been living in Woodbridge for a while and called when a For Rent sign went up in the window of a house two doors down from her.
The hundred-year-old American Four Square offered loads of space for cheap, which was even more appealing now that they had to store all manner of equipment and merch.
Jace was looking forward to setting up a home office with room for an answering machine and a copier/fax to manage Paloma’s upcoming tour and the publicity that went with it.
It would be good to have a spare room if Mary or Colin or anyone else needed to crash for the night.
And Jace wanted a bedroom with enough space for a queen-size bed with a pillowtop mattress after years of making do on her sister’s castoff futon, because…
Two: Jace wanted Paloma to live with her.
There were a lot of practical reasons, like the money they could save and the fact that Paloma had been bouncing from place to place ever since they met.
Lately, she’d been subletting a back bedroom in an Allen Park apartment from the lead singer of Bushwhipped, who littered his dirty boy laundry all over the living room and hairs of all types stuck in the shower drain, and she wanted out.
Besides, the two of them were losing valuable sexy time with the commute to Jace’s place after gigs.
But most important was three: Jace didn’t want to be away from Paloma any minute she didn’t have to be.
After a year of sharing toothpaste and hamburgers and secrets and shower stalls on tour, Paloma had become half of Jace’s whole.
She knew how Jace liked her coffee (no sugar but enough half-and-half to turn it the color of a golden lab).
She could find the upside in any situation, cutting Jace’s cynicism down to size.
She was relentlessly friendly, attracting strangers like moths to a porchlight and striking up an easy banter that Jace would never be able to master.
And when Jace was overwhelmed by frustration and fatigue, Paloma would pull her close and whisper words of encouragement and carnal promises that broke the spell.
Jace had never experienced besottedness before: the Post-Its covered in hearts left for her on the bathroom mirror, Paloma’s hand covering hers on the gear shift of their rattletrap van, the adoring glances from across the table at an all-night diner.
She vowed to do anything to keep Paloma happy, especially since Jace felt she was punching above her weight.
And moving into this place, with its sagging front steps and the black-painted eaves that made the house look like it was wearing a wig, was making Paloma enormously happy.
Paloma peeked through the front door window. “I can’t believe this place has a foyer!” She looked at Jace and grinned. “I never thought I’d be able to afford a foyer.”
Jace shared her glee. “You should be proud of yourself.”
She was proud of herself, too. She’d negotiated larger fees from the clubs for Paloma as well as a cut of the cover charge.
They were moving a lot of merch at Paloma’s shows, too, including her first EP, Grit-o-Matic, and several record shops had placed reorders.
With Jace as her manager, Paloma was finally making enough money performing to quit waitressing—and because she earned 20 percent of whatever Paloma pulled in, Jace could afford her half of the rent of a place with a foyer.
Paloma sat down in a once-pink rusty chair on the porch. “I’m twenty-eight years old, and I’ve never lived anywhere that wasn’t sharing a wall with someone else. And there’s even a front yard!”
Jace looked at the scrubby plot of weeds overwhelming the crumbling front walk and invading the cracks in the cement driveway. “I wouldn’t call this a yard.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” Paloma snorted. “You grew up in a ritzy suburb.”
“Sorry,” Jace said. Even though she’d grown up in a middle-class neighborhood she’d never consider “ritzy,” she didn’t push back.
She knew Paloma’s parents had gotten married right out of high school with no idea how to run a home, raise kids, or make a living.
Paloma didn’t talk about her upbringing all that much, but when she did, her parents’ screaming fights were the red thread that bound up her childhood memories.
Jace would remember the handful of arguments she’d had with her parents, about nonsense like not putting gas in the car or wanting to dye her hair blue, and felt remarkably fortunate.
Paloma gave her a “don’t worry about it” look and waved her over to sit in the rusty blue chair next to her. Jace pointed across the street at a banged-up Chevy Nova with its driver’s side window busted in and the hubcaps missing. “Remind me to test the lock on the garage,” she told Paloma.
“The price of living in the Big City,” Paloma said, shaking her head.
“I wonder if our neighbors are okay with the fact that this house has been ceded to the Lesbian Nation. I don’t want any of them to do this to our car.”
“Queer Nation, hon. I’m bi, remember.”
Jace winced. “I hadn’t forgotten, but that word…echh.”
“What, ‘bi’?”
“ ‘Queer.’ It’s what Terri Roland used to yell at me every damn day in middle school.”
Paloma squared her shoulders. “Can we hunt Terri down so I can beat her up for picking on my girlfriend?”
Jace was touched by the notion of Paloma being her bodyguard; usually Jace was the one on standby to keep the creeps at bay. “That’s so sweet,” she deadpanned.
Paloma rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what the neighbors think of us. That’s their problem, not ours.”
After the landlady had dropped off the keys, they’d run back and forth from Hamtramck three times.
By the time they’d unpacked what they needed to get through the next few days, they were too exhausted to put their new bedframe together.
Instead, they set the mattress on the floor and tossed a couple of blankets on it before lying down, fully clothed, to take a break.
They looked up at the ceiling fan, breathing in sync, enjoying the quiet.
The fan whirred above them. Paloma released a happy sigh. “Whatcha thinking about?” Jace asked.
“How I’d love to get a dog.”
A faint alarm bell went off in Jace’s mind. “A dog?”
“Yeah, now that we have a house and grass and places to walk around here.”
“You can’t be serious. We’re out of town half the month, and when we’re in town, we come home really late. And then there’s the vet bills and—”
Paloma’s face lost its dreamy cast. “I didn’t mean we should get one. I just wish we could. Don’t you?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
“I have enough to do taking care of the band. I’m sorry.”
“No, I get it,” Paloma said. “It was dumb of me to even suggest it.”
“Hey, nothing wrong with wanting a dog,” Jace said gently. “But you have to admit, that would be a huge step for the two of us. It’s practically like having a baby.”
Paloma’s expression softened. “Would you want to have a baby together someday?”
The alarm bell went off again, louder this time. “Why, would you?”
“I asked you first.”
Jace’s mouth went dry. “I didn’t think that was really in the cards because…”
“A lot of gay couples are becoming parents,” Paloma said as she sat up on the mattress, re-energized. “My friend just had a baby with her partner in Ann Arbor. There’s this sperm bank near the university that—”
“Whoa!” Jace scrambled to sit next to her, trying to sound even-keeled even as her heart raced. “I didn’t mean because we’re a gay couple. I meant because we’re in the music business.”
“Well, maybe we won’t be in the music business forever,” Paloma said, her forehead touching Jace’s, her voice playful.
Jace did not want to have this conversation, especially right at this moment.
She was exhausted and dehydrated, which was fueling her internal freakout about the possibility that the two of them weren’t on the same page as a musical partnership, or as a couple.
The way Jace saw it, Paloma was finally being mentioned in the same breath as some of the Detroit musicians she admired.
Plus, her own career as a talent manager was beginning to prosper alongside Paloma.
There was no room for a baby or anything else that would slow them down.
They did need to talk. Just not tonight.
She laced her fingers with Paloma’s and kissed her on the shoulder. “Babe, we just moved in together. We need to unpack, do some repairs and painting, and get the West Coast leg of your tour set up. Can we hold off on talking about the long term until we get the short term taken care of? Please?”
Paloma gave a little laugh. “You’re right. What the shit? We’re here half a day, and suddenly I’m talking about babies and dogs. I’m probably scaring you to death.”
Actually, Paloma was scaring her, so before she could say anything else, Jace kissed her, smoothing her hair with her hand. “I love you.”
Paloma’s shoulders eased. “Thank God.”