Chapter 12 Carissa
Chapter twelve
Carissa
“Are you sure this is okay? I know you’re a strong, independent woman, but I was just involved in a tour that lasted for the better part of a year. I was supposed to be back. I’m worried you’re going to miss me. And I’m leaving you with the cats. And Woof Woof Dog.”
He wags his tail madly, rushing me for pets. I stroke his soft ears, then gently pluck at the hair on top of his head until it’s all standing on end.
Mom picks up my duffel bag for me, moving it closer to the door. “If you’re sure you want to do this, then I’m sure I want you to go and have a good time. It’s a few days, not a few years. We’ll make it.”
Pumpkin can’t stand the dog having all the love.
He comes racing across the room, meowing his own special brand of the song of his people.
He climbs my leg until I stoop to pick him up or get shredded.
I turn him over into the baby hold. Out of all the cats, he’s the only one that allows it and doesn’t have an immediate urge to flip himself upright.
I put my face near his face, and he immediately licks my nose.
“Are you having second thoughts?” Mom asks.
“Second? More like second times a hundred. It’s not about Wilder.”
“But?” Mom presses.
Pumpkin’s purr motor gets going madly when I pat his bottom like I would do to a child. He’s a big boy, and there’s quite a lot of hind end overflowing my arms.
“You know what the buts are. The fame and the game.”
“It’s been a hard two weeks. If you canceled on him now, I think he’d be very hurt.”
My stomach turns over. “I don’t want to cancel on him.
I’ve been dying the slowest of slow deaths, not being able to be close to him.
” Space sucks. It’s the hardest thing in the world.
I’ve had years and years and years of freaking space.
I just never saw this happening for us. I’m still overwhelmed, and he’s feeling it multiplied a million gazillion infinity, with all that’s been happening.
All that’s been happening is a lot. Thankfully, the label understood that the band needed to take a break. Right now, that’s the official word for it. Not a breakup. People think they just need time. They need to hit pause.
Wilder called me that first night to tell me he’d talked to Matt, and he was open to taking an extended break. No one wanted to break the hearts of millions of fans around the world. It wasn’t an issue of breaches of contracts or money that would be owed or venues already booked.
Matt cares just as much about the fans as Wilder does.
Wilder did say that after a year or two, if they announced the band was splitting up, it might be less painful, and he did still see it trending in that direction.
He wanted to stay positive. Time doesn’t just cause people to drift away.
It could be what they need to heal and find their way back, or they could grow and change their perspective.
He’s not all that hopeful, but he isn’t unhopeful either.
I kiss Pumpkin and set him down. He takes two steps and flops over, putting his legs in the air and crooking them, making air biscuits like his life depends on his production rate.
“I guess it’s just that… I feel so blessed to know him. I’m still a little bit in awe of him, and I probably always will be. What if I disappoint him? What if I’m not enough? I’m worried I’ll fail on a basic level long before the stress of us trying to navigate a relationship does.”
Mom sets my bag down by the door. “Breathe, sweetheart.”
“I hate being told to breathe.” Also? I’m not breathing. I’m two seconds away from gasping for air. “What therapist says breathe? That’s the equivalent of calm down.”
“Medically speaking, you need oxygen. Inhale. Exhale. It’s not a metaphor.”
“I need you to tell me that everything is going to be okay.” I gulp air, taking it deep into my lungs and holding it before letting it out in one long, messy, jerky exhale.
“You know I can’t do that.”
“As my mother!”
“I can’t do that, especially as your mother.
” She walks over and hugs me hard in one of those mom hugs that will never cease to make at least a few things better.
Hugging triggers the brain to release all its happy chemicals.
You know what else apparently has trace amounts of relax, you’ve got this vibes? Potatoes. For real.
I could use a whole heaping serving of potatoes right now. If I could only eat one food for the rest of my life, it would be that. You can make potatoes a gazillion and one ways.
“I can tell you that no matter what happens, I’ll be here to listen to everything you have to say, or if you don’t want to say anything at all.
I’ll be here as your mom and as your friend.
I do believe that hard work pays off. You’re the hardest worker I know.
You’re open-minded, and you’re a great person.
Do you know how proud I am that you’re my daughter, and how honored I feel to know you? ”
“Stop!” I shove Mom’s shoulder playfully as my eyes start to burn. “I’d like to get out of the house without bawling. I have to execute a crazy maneuver and basically swipe Wilder right off the street so we can make our getaway. That takes a lot of mental toughness. I can’t get soft now.”
“You’ve never been afraid to feel. You know what you want.
You want Wilder. The rest can work itself out if you plug away at it together.
Create a safe space to be open with each other.
Talk often. Fall for each other over and over again.
Be open to change. You know these are the things I believe in, and you know they’re far easier said than done.
When you’re at the worst of your doubts, hopefully that helps. ”
“It does.” I hug her hard and release her, ready to shoulder my bag and get out of here before I’m late.
I can’t be late. I’m basically panicking as it is about pulling this off without a hitch, and it’s not like it’s the plan of the century.
I could always circle the block several times without anyone catching on.
Wilder will be in a disguise. We decided on a location, and it’s all going to be fine.
The drive to the private studio in Reno will be fine.
Woof Woof Dog gives me a sad doggy look, complete with lolling tongue and forlorn eyes.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’ll be home in a week. Not months this time. I promise.”
Pumpkin flips right side up and saunters into the kitchen, shaking his tail at me like a rattlesnake, chastising me as well.
“I’m so sorry if he poops outside the litterbox because of this.”
Mom only smiles indulgently. We all know about Pumpkin’s moods.
And how the poor other cats find his spite offerings in funky places and try to cover them up with anything available.
Most of the time, it’s air. And most of the time, the spite poop is therefore located by their scratching the floor or the wall to try and cover it.
Sometimes, it’s the smell that announces it first.
“Don’t worry about anything here. Go nab your prince charming straight off the street. And this time, I hope that if he’s wearing leather pants, he has underwear on underneath. That kind of sweat can lead to some real crotch rot. Just a word to the wise.”
“Mom!” And here I was, just about over the shame of her finding out about me and Wilder by walking in on us in a tangled shower heap.
It’s one thing for me to be grossed out about my mom getting it on with some guy.
There’s a ninety-eight point nine nine two percent chance that walking in on her would kill me.
Even if I’m a nurse, there are things I just don’t want to see.
But it’s probably just as haunting for her the other way around.
“I’m worried I won’t come close to being the kind of woman that Wilder would sing about if he ever did sing about women.
I don’t know if I want to be his muse, but I don’t know if I want to be his un-muse either.
Oh my god, I haven’t even left to start Operation Kidnap A Man I Can’t Stick A Definition On Past Echo Of My Soul, and I’m already freaking out.
This is bad.” I inhale dramatically. I need to stop freaking out.
I was almost past the door this time. “Can you smell that? My failure fumes are already wafting strongly.”
Mom turns her face away, slamming her hands over her eyes. “They’re burning me. Help!” She fans herself and shoots me a grin that makes me feel a hundred percent better. Sometimes I don’t need words of encouragement, a pep talk, or solid advice. Sometimes, I just need this.
I fist bump her playfully on the shoulder.
“You’re going to do great. I know it. Trust that. Trust yourself. It goes a long way in combating failure fumes,” Mom tells me.
I shoulder my bag. “Will do. Or at least, will try.”
I have to leave this time. I have approximately zero minutes to spare.
I manage to get out the door and make it all the way to the unobtrusive white rental. My own car hardly ever gets driven, but it’s a sixties classic and not exactly the kind of thing that won’t turn heads. I opted for the rental so I could blend in.
Despite its family sedan appearance, the car is actually quite peppy, and I gain a few minutes back as I head to the park on the other side of downtown, where I agreed to meet Wilder.
Meet as in drive past slowly so he can spot me and make a break straight for the backseat, catapult himself in, and have me drive away like I just committed a felony.
We did discuss my picking him up from his house or his coming here when he first proposed the idea of us going to Reno for a few days to record the songs I wrote in a private studio.
He promised they didn’t have to go anywhere if I didn’t want them to.
He just wanted to do this with me. Us. Together.
Making music. It was magic the first time, even if it was in the back of a tour bus, and Wilder was so ill.
I want to give him this.