Chapter 14 #2
At the mention of the unnamed act, last night came back in chunks. The realization seeped in like bile. The regret was so immense I couldn’t absorb it. It only sat there pooling, this sense that I had done something so awful that it couldn’t be undone.
“Dear God. Hess, I’m so sorry.” I thought I might spew if I said anything else. The sickness was overpowering. But I kept going. “It wasn’t me. I mean… it was my body, but it wasn’t me making it happen. It was like somebody else in my body calling the shots. Does that make sense?”
“I’m familiar with the concept of being drunk.
” She was quiet. “But Lou, you weren’t drunk when you left me alone and went to the bar.
I could tell you were on some kind of mission from hell.
Which I might’ve understood if you’d talked to me.
I could have come with you. We could have gotten drunk together. ”
“I needed to be alone for just one moment, so I could breathe. I’ve been feeling trapped lately. Like if I don’t bust out, I’m gonna end up in pieces painting the walls.”
She finally looked at me, and I flinched at the pain in her eyes. She sat down at the edge of the bed and smoothed the comforter. “You feel trapped with me?”
“It ain’t just you. It’s Clayton, too. Making all the decisions and running my life.”
“But it is partly me, then.” She brought her thumbnail to her mouth. “Is this about the kids? Lou, we don’t have to have kids. It was just a daydream.”
“No. It ain’t about the kids. You know if you really wanted them, I’d do it for you.” I’d already slit the skin open, so I just let the blood flow. “But you dream of a future for us, of us growing old together. And it just can’t happen.”
“Oh, Lou. I know we can’t be together in front of people, but we can at our own house. You have Clayton to hide behind. We have the freedom to be whatever we want. You aren’t trapped.”
“I’m not talking about what other people think.
I’m talking about me. I only got ten years left.
What are you gonna do after I’m gone? It’s not right for you to build a life around me.
” My mouth filled with salt. “I can’t do that to you.
And I… I can’t be with someone who doesn’t understand that.
” My vision went cloudy, and the tree on my chest felt like it might split in two.
She crawled across the bed and took both of my hands in hers.
She focused hard on my eyes, making sure I was tuned in.
“Listen to me. You are not cursed, Lulabelle Powers. That is just a silly story someone told you when you were a child. You are going to have a long, beautiful life. And we can have it together. All you have to do is say yes. And promise to never step out on me again. We can get through this. I know we can.”
I pulled my hands back. “I’ve made up my mind. This can’t go on any longer with us.” I turned over so I wouldn’t have to look at her face. “You should go.”
“You can’t do this. You don’t want to do this.”
I continued to stare at the wall in silence, refusing to answer any of her pleas.
I heard her slump to the floor, and then I listened to her weep for a while. I wanted to leap out of bed and wrap my arms around her and tell her I didn’t mean it.
We had grown up together, from girlhood to whatever we were now, so that I wasn’t quite sure where I ended and she began. Separating from her was crude and bloody. I imagined I was losing parts of myself in the severing. My body crooned with pain.
I knew I’d never love anyone like I loved her.
But there was a bitter relief in it, too. A part of me knew it was the right thing to do. She and I could both be free now.
After a while, I heard the door shut, and I could feel that she was gone.
I was truly alone now.
I could feel myself fading, losing color.
Then I disappeared, floating back into unconsciousness, grateful for its void.
I slept for eons. Civilizations collapsed and were reborn. The planet froze and thawed. The tree on my chest fell to the side and slowly returned to the land grain by grain, before reawakening once again.
On top of my hangover, I’d caught some nasty cold on that roof, and I stayed in bed for a week. Looking back, it might have just been heartbreak making me sick.
I kept waiting for Clayton to visit, to face his judgment, but he stayed away, looming on the horizon like a storm about to break. Then one morning when I woke, I saw him sitting in the corner watching me. His hair was freshly oiled, and he had on a clean, pressed suit.
I hadn’t showered in centuries, and though I couldn’t smell my own stink, I’m sure it was like a dead possum left under a house. My hair, which I kept short to fit under my wigs, was matted against my head like a dog’s, and I knew my makeup was smeared down my face like an old whore.
It felt good to be so undone in his presence. Stripped down to my studs, I could really confront him.
I must have been smiling to myself because he said, “I’m curious to know what you find so amusing. From where I’m sitting, you don’t have much to smile about.”
“I was just thinking about how good it’s gonna feel when this conversation is over.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?
Employees from the hotel found you and Alice up there half naked and unconscious.
They almost called the police.” He took a deep breath.
“Thankfully, I’m close with the manager, and he called me first. The staff were paid for their silence. ”
When I didn’t respond, he looked me dead in the eye. “Hess moved out.”
At the mention of her name, my chest jerked. I couldn’t go there right now, not in front of him.
“I see she was unsparing. Good.”
“My relationship with Hess is none of your business.”
“You are my wife. Everything you do is my business.”
I was ready to go for the throat. “I think I’d like to change that. The wife part. Clayton, I don’t want to be married to you anymore.”
A rare surprise crossed his face. He took a moment, carefully choosing his words.
“Lou, I know I’m being severe, but it’s only because I want you to understand the danger you put yourself in.
If this got out, it wouldn’t just end your career.
It would ruin you. It could put you in jail.
” His face softened. “I don’t want that to happen to you. ”
My anger receded. “This is about more than that night. I want to make my own music. Run my own life. I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m not your doll to dress up. I want to be my own person.”
He took a deep breath. “I hear you, all right? You can have more input on the albums from now on. You can pick which songs you record for your solo tracks. I won’t get in the way.”
“When you say my songs don’t fit on our albums, you’re right. Because we don’t fit together anymore. I want to explore new things. To experiment with a new sound. And that ain’t you.”
I could see him starting to panic. He was in negotiations for The Clayton Redd Show on TV, featuring me as the main entertainer.
If anything proved how fucked things were, it was that.
His name on the show, my ass playing my heart out.
I knew it’d probably fall through if I didn’t go along with it. But that was his problem, not mine.
He walked over and kneeled at the side of the bed. He took my hand and held it in his. “What’s going to happen to you if I’m not around? People don’t mess with Clayton Redd’s wife. You know it’s true.”
I patted the top of his hand like he was a small child and I was his aging grandma, laid up sick in the bed. “You forget where I come from ’cause I’m so fancy now.” Clayton smiled at this, taking in my sorry state. “I’m the meanest son of a bitch in this pretty city. They should be scared of me.”
I wish I could say this story ends with a heartfelt goodbye. But this is a business, and there was money on the line.
I thought we could get a quick, easy divorce and not have to spend a lot on lawyers and whatnot. We were both from a place where people settled their fights amongst themselves without strangers getting in the middle.
When the divorce papers arrived at Martha’s where I was staying, I forced myself to read every page, even though it was painful. I’m no illiterate, but that kind of language is made to confuse. To trick people into agreeing to whatever the other person wants.
And I was sure as hell confused. It said that Clayton would receive 50 percent of all my music earnings.
For the rest of my life.
Apparently I’d signed some agreement that guaranteed him part ownership of any music I ever made, even if he didn’t work on it.
What right did he have to my money? To my music?
That was when I called Alice. We hadn’t spoken since that night, and I made it clear it wasn’t a social call. I wanted to know what greasy son of a bitch helped her get a good divorce.
And thank God, she delivered.
Part of me thinks this was Clayton’s way of trying to hold on to me. To keep me from leaving. There was a little tenderness to it.
But he also thought he owned me. That he made me, and that entitled him to some return on his investment. He wouldn’t accept that I kept him afloat those years. His career would have died a slow, wheezing death, and instead, my pretty little ass came around and brought it back to life.
I’ll spare you all the dry legal proceedings.
What’s important is that we ended up in a very different place from where we started.
He still walked away with more than he’d earned.
All the publishing rights, and most of the royalties.
He’d set it up from the beginning so I got a tiny fraction of each record sale and nothing else.
But I had enough to strike out on my own and not have to depend on anyone. It’s what I’d wanted all along, and I’d made it happen with just my voice.
I was my own person now, and all I had to do was figure out who that really was.