Chapter 19 Way Back When
Way Back When
Jace was changing into her sleep duds and prepping for bed as if it were any old Wednesday night back at the house.
As usual, she’d had no more than two cocktails and kept moving throughout the evening, sipping club soda and squiring Paloma around to meet the industry folks she needed to kiss up to.
Thankfully, a few people they’d met during their Chicago gigs had swung by; even so, Paloma felt like she was the entertainment at a convention instead of the guest of honor.
That was the downside of having a milestone birthday in the middle of a tour: She’d celebrated with the people footing the bill, not her friends.
“Do you want to sleep there tonight?” Jace asked as she brushed her teeth.
“Nungh,” Paloma replied as a stiletto slipped off her foot and hit the floor.
“Does that mean you do want to sleep on the couch?”
“No, I’m coming to bed,” she said, carefully rolling into an upright position and kicking off her other shoe before walking barefoot toward the bathroom. She turned her back to Jace, who slipped the sash over her head before unzipping her dress.
“I got us late checkout; we don’t have to be out of here before two,” Jace said.
“Thanks.” Paloma stepped out of the frock and left it in a fluffy pile on the carpet, not wanting to risk what might happen to her digestive tract if she bent down to pick it up.
She stood behind Jace to look in the mirror and reared back when she saw the flaky black rings around her eyes.
“Why didn’t you tell me my mascara looked like shit? ”
“You’ve done it that way on purpose before,” Jace said, rinsing her toothbrush and putting it into her travel kit.
“I look like a raccoon after a bar fight.”
“You always look beautiful to me,” Jace said with a twinkle in her eye before kissing Paloma’s bare shoulder.
Paloma tried to lift the tiara off her head and yelped. “Can you get this off of me? I think the hair stylist used staples.”
“Sure. Sit down.”
She sat on the toilet seat in her bandeau and underpants, the weariness of playing a concert then partying for hours settling in. “I’m really looking forward to being off the road for the summer. Aren’t you?”
“Sure,” Jace said as she worked the tiara free. “I have to get back to the sound engineer, check on your royalty statement…”
“And see your brand-new nieces.”
“They’re not so new,” Jace joked. “They’re four and seven.”
“New to your family. What’s the latest from Joyce?”
She placed a bobby pin on the counter. “She called this afternoon during sound check. She said the girls are finally getting used to sleeping in their own beds. The first two weeks, she’d find them curled around each other on the floor in a puddle of blankets.”
Paloma flashed on her first few nights at Bobbie and Bud’s, huddled in a corner fully dressed, terrified that her parents would break down the bedroom door and throw her out on the street. “It’s going to take a lot of time and love before they’ll be able to trust her.”
“Joyce said the social worker told her that a huge part of being a successful adoptive parent is physically being there. The girls have been in the foster system for a long time and don’t expect anyone they love to stick around.
Seeing that she’s there when they go to bed and when they wake up will go a long way.
” Jace gently pulled the tiara free. “Joyce is already in love with them; I can hear it in her voice. She’s wanted to be a mom forever, and she’s going to do great. ”
“I know how much you wanted to be at the adoption hearing.”
“Well, we were on the other side of the country, and the judge moved up the date.”
“You excited to meet them?”
Jace smiled. “Yeah, I’m looking forward to being the ‘cool aunt,’ taking them to the playground or going to a concert when they’re old enough. It’ll be fun.”
“Could I go with you when you meet them?”
Jace dropped a handful of pins onto the counter. “Let me check with Joyce.”
Paloma froze. “Does she not think of us as a couple yet? We’ve been together three years.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Is she nervous about having the queers around her kids?”
“Oh my God, no! That’s not it at all,” Jace replied. “I want to check with Joyce about when’s a good time for us to visit. She said she’s trying to get them used to a routine before bringing people over. She likes you. She likes us being together.”
As Jace brushed the hair spray out of her hair, Paloma’s scalp tingled. “So you do like kids. I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah, I like kids. I was a great day camp counselor in high school. I babysat a little boy on my block for a few years. Kids are fun. Of course, it helped that I was getting paid and I could send them back to their parents at the end of the day.”
With her Big 3-0 birthday looming, Paloma had planned to have this conversation for months and hadn’t found the right time or place. Now it was coming up at four in the morning, and since she was too tired and residually drunk to stop herself, Paloma dove in. “I really want to be a mother. Soon.”
The brush hit a bobby pin. “Oh?”
“Being thirty is young enough for me to have the energy to play with our kids but old enough to have my shit together and be an adult.”
Jace hooted. “We’re in rock and roll! We’re more like eternal teenagers: playing music too loud, drinking too much, staying out really late, and sleeping most of the day.”
“That can change. I can change.”
“If you want to end your career, sure.”
“Lots of female rock stars have kids. Pat Benatar. Nancy Wilson.”
“When’s the last time they’ve had a hit?”
“Melissa Etheridge has two kids.”
“She didn’t get pregnant. Julie did.”
“If they could figure out how to have babies and a music career, so could we.”
Jace snorted. “Well, I’m sure as hell not getting pregnant.”
“I’m not asking you to!”
Jace stood in front of Paloma and gently cupped her face in her hands.
“Babe, I love you,” she said tenderly. “I love us. I love that you’re finally getting the attention you’ve deserved all along and your career is in a really good place.
So many doors are opening right now, based on all the work you’re putting in.
This isn’t exactly the perfect time to have a baby. ”
“There’s never a perfect time to have a baby.”
“And there’s no magic age to have one, either. We’ve got some time yet. Let’s get through the summer, get your album done, and we can talk more about this.”
We. That gave Paloma hope. Besides, she was too tired to talk much longer.
“Okay.”
Jace’s fingers roamed over Paloma’s scalp. “That should be all of them.”
Paloma stood and gave Jace a peck on the lips. “Thank you. I’m taking a shower.”
Jace kissed her back. “That’s a birthday gift for both of us.”
Once she’d successfully dissolved the layers of makeup and hair spray and downed a bottle of water and a couple of Tylenol, she slid into bed next to Jace, trying not to wake her but nudging her out of a doze anyway.
“Did you enjoy your party?” Jace whispered.
“It was a party; I’m not sure if it was my party,” Paloma replied.
Jace put her arm around her and kissed her brow. “Do you want your present now or in the morning?”
Paloma snuggled in. “The morning.”
Jace chuckled. “Well, it is morning.”
Paloma didn’t answer. Within seconds, she was asleep.
She regained consciousness just before noon.
Jace was huddled over the desk, talking on her cell phone in low tones.
Figuring it was a business call, Paloma went into the bathroom to get dressed and made up before saying hello.
By the time she came out, Jace was off the phone.
She took one look at Paloma and beamed. “Who is this sexy, mature woman I see before me?”
She snickered. “I’m only ten months older than you.”
Jace wouldn’t let up. “You’re dating a girl in her twenties, Mrs. Robinson.”
“Shut up and get me some coffee, youngster.”
“Want to go out or have room service?”
“I’m making room-service-level money now?”
“The suite is on Seal-Eye’s tab. That’s what you get for your birthday when you close a deal for your third album.”
“And you’re sure they aren’t going to charge this back to us?”
“I have an email saying they’re covering all expenses, so you’ve got the green light to order whatever you want, babe.”
Soon, they were sitting at the dining room table in their suite tearing into surf and turf, giddily feeding each other forkfuls of heavily buttered mashed potatoes and sipping out of each other’s champagne flutes.
Paloma picked up a lobster tail by the fin and looked at it from every angle, perplexed.
“How do you get the meat out of this thing?”
“Here, let me show you.” Jace put the tail in her left hand. “You take this weird-looking little fork and slide it in here under the shell and pull it out.” Mission accomplished, she put the lobster meat on Paloma’s plate next to her filet.
“How did you learn how to do that?” Paloma asked.
“We went to Maine when I was a kid,” Jace said, wiping her hands with a massive cloth napkin. “They had instructions on the placemats.”
“See, I knew you grew up rich,” Paloma said. “I’ve never eaten lobster before.”
Jace looked confused. “We only went that one time, and—wait, you mean you never went to Red Lobster?”
“We couldn’t afford it when I was growing up. Besides, my parents thought eating out was ‘sinful spending’ and yelled at me and Dustin if we asked to go to McDonald’s.” She looked at her plate. “Now what?”
“Cut off a piece, dip it into that bowl of melted butter, and enjoy. Oh, and you can use your regular fork now.”
She did so. “Oh my God.”
“Good, huh?”
“This must be what being a princess tastes like.”
Jace laughed. “Rich, sweet, and salty?”
“Yep.”
Jace leaned closer. “Wait until you have French food.”
Paloma waved a bite of lobster on her fork like a baton. “I dunno. This will be hard to beat.”
“Well, you’ll find out in a few weeks.”
“What do you mean?”