Chapter 21 Not Long Ago
Not Long Ago
“Hey, P! You home?”
Bud had already come in the front door before Paloma could answer with a muffled grunt.
She watched him from her spot lying on the couch as he set plastic containers on the kitchen counter.
At eighty-four, his brush cut was white and his gait was measured.
He made a to-do about stacking them straight in size order, always the mechanical technician even all these years after he retired from the line at GM.
“It’s about time I got these back to you,” he said. “Let me tell you, any time you want to make that egg casserole again, I’m happy to take your leftovers.”
Ever since she’d moved to Stone Beach, Paloma had made sure to spend as much time with Bud on his own as she did with Bobbie because, as quiet and accommodating as he was, he often got overshadowed by his extroverted wife.
She felt she owed it to him because from the moment Paloma had arrived in their home as a terrified teenager, he’d done right by her at every turn.
He’d found her a waitressing job when she was in high school by talking to a friend from the plant whose father-in-law was hiring.
For Kaden’s third birthday, he’d made a wagon out of gorgeous cherry wood with a tiny personalized license plate.
He’d drop jars of homemade strawberry jam and butter pickles off every summer.
He took Kaden and Paloma on numerous long walks through sand dunes and along the water, collecting the beach glass and sand-polished stones they’d find and making them into lamps and jewelry.
And as blunt as Bobbie was about how to handle a situation, Bud cared more about how everyone was feeling to the point where he seemed to pick up on Paloma’s moods like a change in the weather.
Which had to be why he’d chosen this particular moment to bring back a bunch of used take-out containers that Paloma had left with them weeks before. He wanted to check on her, and for that, Paloma was grateful.
“Hey, how you doing, girl?” he said, sitting at the end of the sofa next to her feet. “Last night at the Cherry Mill, you seemed out of sorts during your set.”
She sat up, smoothing back her hair and hoping she looked like she’d been taking a refreshing mid-morning nap instead of refusing to get off the couch to deal with her current situation.
“Well, it’s been about three weeks since Jace fell off the map and almost two months since I heard from Kaden.
I’ve barreled through most days and have been okay, but then there are days when I feel like a living, breathing country song. ”
“Aw, that’s awful,” he said, putting an arm around her shoulders. “But you’re not alone, you know. You have plenty of friends.”
Paloma squeezed his hand. “Oh, I’m not sure about that. Now that the show is being publicized, I had to let people around here know I’m not who I said I was.”
“How’d they take it?”
“Not well.” She blew out a sigh and turned to face him.
“Folks at the grocery store keep asking for my autograph, which is flattering but really weird. Tony and Kevin believe I didn’t tell them because I think I’m too good to play with them, which honestly is not true.
What hurts most are the parents of Kaden’s friends who I’ve known since he was in preschool who say they need time to process this and don’t want to talk to me right now.
The number of people I’ve hurt just keeps growing, and I feel like it’s never going to stop. ”
She hated crying in front of Bud because he was so tenderhearted, he often started crying, too. But she was so glad to be comforted when he pulled her into a big bear hug, hushing her tears.
“Honey, I know this is really tough, but I promise it’s going to get better,” he said with a squeeze before letting her go. “Owning up to your past takes guts, and the people who are your real friends will respect that. Just give them time.”
“Do you respect me, Bud?” she asked, wiping her eyes.
He smiled fondly. “I respect you. I love you. I gotta admit, I don’t always understand you, but I’m always here for you. So is Bobbie. No matter what. Got it?”
“Got it,” she said, overwhelmed by the decency and love of this dear, extraordinary man.
“Good,” he said with a nod before getting to his feet. “Well, I don’t want to keep you from your nap.”
She stood as well. “Naptime is over. I have to get ready for a meeting with Jace’s niece about the show. She’ll be here within the hour.”
“So you’ll have time for a shower then?” he asked as he walked toward the door.
Paloma sniffed her armpit. “I’m not that bad, Bud.”
He turned and smiled. “You could be better. Love you, P.”
Earlier in the week when Livvy had scheduled a time to visit Stone Beach to prep Paloma for media interviews, she’d mentioned she’d be bringing someone to talk about equipment and staging. Paloma hoped against hope that someone would be Jace.
After their last conversation, after so many days of her texts and phone calls being ignored, Paloma reluctantly tried to stuff her feelings for Jace back into the psychic box she’d been hauling around every day since New York, assuming she could lock them down like she’d done for years.
Instead, they were popping out all over the place.
She’d been looking out the window toward the lake, then could have sworn Jace was standing behind her.
She’d gone to the grocery store at the center of town and stopped cold when she recognized the bouquet Jace had brought her the first time they’d re-met.
She’d even woken up that very morning flushed and gasping after dreams of the two of them naked and intertwined on a too-small bed as if they were back at Jace’s place in Hamtramck.
When her doorbell rang, Paloma’s heart sank when she saw that Jace hadn’t come. She was surprised, however, to find a gangly and very, very stoked young person with a piercing through the bridge of their nose and an awestruck expression taking up her front doorway.
“Holy shit, you are Paloma Doralle!”
“Hi,” Paloma said tentatively. “Are you from the Artemis?”
“Yes, Rennie is from the Artemis and is also one of your biggest admirers,” Livvy said wearily as she maneuvered around them with a grim expression and a laptop bag. “In fact, they’ve been talking about you nonstop for the entire ride up here.”
“Sorry, I should have introduced myself,” Rennie said, “but shit, you’re Paloma Doralle, and I forgot my own name for a second!”
It had been a long time since she’d talked with a fan who was this sincere, and Paloma was charmed. “Nice to meet you, Rennie. Please come in.”
Paloma settled them on the deck then brought out a charcuterie board, crudités, and a basket of crackers. “What would you like to drink? Red? White? Beer? Pop?”
“White, please,” Livvy said.
“Water for me, please. I’m the DD,” Rennie said.
When she came back with their drinks, Rennie was beaming. “Your place is unbelievable, Paloma. That deck. That kitchen. That lake! Everything is so—”
“HGTV?” Livvy said.
“Airy,” Rennie said, loading chèvre onto a seedy wafer and topping it with a blueberry. “Is this how everyone lives in Stone Beach?”
“Actually, not many people live here year-round,” Paloma said. “A lot of the cottages aren’t winterized; they’re just tourist rentals or summer vacation homes for people from downstate. And the folks who stick it out are pretty eclectic.”
“That must have worked out well for you,” Livvy said, not making eye contact as she put a slice of prosciutto onto her plate. “It’s an ideal place to disappear and raise a kid out of the limelight.”
“It’s a nice place,” Paloma said, her tone purposely friendly. She sensed that Livvy was no fonder of her than when they’d chatted three weeks before, probably because Jace had to have brought her up to speed about Kaden and everything else.
“So, Livvy told me you’ve become a music critic,” Rennie said, seemingly oblivious to Livvy’s tone. “Went over to the Dark Side, huh?”
That made Paloma laugh. “I hadn’t really thought of it that way.”
“It’s ironic, because the press didn’t really get you when you were performing,” Rennie said, stabbing a cube of Swiss with a toothpick.
“Most of the reviews I found online didn’t give your musicianship or your songcraft enough credit.
They didn’t analyze your riffs, your hooks, your stage presence.
They mostly harped on the fact that you were a woman in a man’s game and that you were bisexual—and it was obvious they didn’t understand what that even meant.
If they’d been writing about me like that, I would have lost my mind. ”
“It worried Jace more than me,” Paloma said. “She was all about building my reputation. I just wanted to play music.”
“Is that why you’ve done a lot of articles about female artists and queer musicians?” Livvy asked, slipping an orange notebook out of her bag.
“Yes,” Paloma said. “At first, I didn’t want editors to pigeonhole me or assume I couldn’t review a Metallica concert because I was a girl.
But then I figured it was good to have someone like me writing about those bands because I’d see them as musicians first and foremost and evaluate them on their own terms. Some bands center their music around their female or queer identity, and others happen to have queer musicians and sing about whatever is important to them—and some do both.
Anyway, they have to be good at what they do. ”
“I admire you for that,” Rennie said, picking up a spear of blanched asparagus and crunching thoughtfully. “That’s the kind of review I hope to get someday.”
“You play?”
“Yup,” Rennie said with a self-deprecating nod. “Write my own songs, too.”
“Do you like their stuff?” Paloma asked Livvy.