Chapter Thirteen

In my cubicle, I spent three and a half hours copyediting articles written on what were perhaps the most boring events that have ever happened in recorded human history. A fire in a Riverdale apartment that was caused by a faulty electrical box. A former city hall official getting a new job at the chamber of commerce. Senator Howell renewing a call for fishing disaster relief.

Stonebury news was never heart-stopping, but it was like I was being punished for our underwhelming interview with Jack Moreland.

Hilary had called Gillian and me into her office. She had her glasses way down on her nose as she read the copy in her hands, and she’d looked at us over the frames and said, “Are you kidding me?”

“What?” Gillian had asked innocently.

“There’s not one exclusive piece of news in this entire exclusive interview.” She put air-quotes around the word “exclusive.”

Gillian squirmed in her seat, glancing at me for help.

“His manager gave us an entire list of questions we weren’t allowed to ask, and that was on it,” I said.

“Of course he did. That’s his job. And it was your job, as journalists, to get him to tell you the things they don’t want him to say.”

Gillian and I looked at each other again, both of us trying to think of an excuse that sounded good. Hilary sighed. “Oh, who am I kidding? We all know he’ll end up spilling his guts to Celebrity Weekly for a nice chunk of change. We’re just the hometown rag that no one even reads.”

Whoa. It was one thing for me to think this, quite another for my boss to be saying it out loud. Hilary tossed the copy into the blue recycling bin under her desk and turned to her computer, and it was clear we were dismissed.

Now I struggled to stay awake as the words on the screen in front of me began to blur together.

I needed a break. Gillian was out on an interview, so I walked across the street to the coffeehouse alone. While I waited for my latte, I took out my phone. Another missed call from Sarah. I’d been putting off calling her back for the past few days. I was sure Amber must’ve mentioned our little spat and had somehow managed to twist the story so that she came off as the victim. I wasn’t ready to defend myself. And I wasn’t ready to apologize to Sarah. I had to, eventually. I had to tell her the truth. But not yet.

Once I got my drink, I sat in the corner by the window and took the newest copy of Celebrity Weekly out of my bag. I’d already read most of it. This issue was filled with endless pictures of reality stars flaunting cleavage and telling us all about the secret contents of their bags. Why did I care? I didn’t know. But it was like my day was somehow incomplete without this knowledge.

There was an article I’d saved for last, when I had the time to savor the words and pictures. I flipped to the dog-eared page.

what you need to know about the force of nature tour!

The Headliner: Force of Nature, fronted by bad boy with a heart of gold, Alex Stone, has been owning the rock/pop charts ever since their debut “Frat House Rock” dropped in 2010. This is their second tour of the States, and Stone, who married his high school sweetheart last spring and welcomed his son in May, says it will be even bigger this time around. “We’ve got pyrotechnics, jugglers, little people. Totally a Cirque du Soleil type of feel. Although in the end, it is really just about the music.”

The Openers: This year, Force of Nature will welcome two opening acts! The Yellow Chevys, whose sound MuchMusic has described as “the Beach Boys with electric guitars,” have been famous in their home state of California for years. “We’re looking forward to branching out from the west coast,” lead singer, Tyler Harris, tells us, “though we’ll always keep our signature California sound.”

Regular readers of Celebrity Weekly will have heard all about the additional opener, Jack Moreland, who was added to the tour late after Alex Stone was introduced to Moreland’s debut album by his wife. “I was shocked when I got the call, to be honest,” Moreland says. “I’ve always dreamed of touring the country, and now it’s become a reality. It’s a little surreal.”

There was a tiny shot of the cover of Good Enough beside Jack’s part of the story. Surreal, indeed. I touched the image of him with my finger, feeling myself fall slowly into the delicious sea of sadness I’d been swimming in ever since I saw him again. My phone rang before I could completely submerge myself.

It was Sarah. I almost didn’t answer it.

At first, she sounded annoyed by my radio silence, but then her tone changed. “I have to ask you something,” she said, hesitantly.

I considered pretending we were losing our connection, but I knew I couldn’t keep running away. Although, this wasn’t exactly a conversation we should be having over the phone. “Yeah?”

“Did you tell Adam Dixon you were in love with him?”

I nearly fell out of my chair. “Excuse me?” An older couple sharing a plate of apple pie stared at me. I pressed the phone into my ear and faced the wall. “What are you talking about?”

“I thought it was crazy, too. But that’s what he’s telling everyone. That you told him that at Amber’s shower and he said he wasn’t interested and you got all hysterical and left the party.”

I stared at the syrup-stained wall of the diner, my mouth hanging open. “You have got to be kidding me. What a delusional liar. That’s not what happened.”

“I didn’t think so,” said Sarah. “But that’s his story, and that’s what everyone believes.”

My head was spinning. I wasn’t in high school anymore, but it didn’t seem like it. “He’s lying. It was the other way around. He made a pass at me and he’s lucky I didn’t kick him in the—”

Someone cleared their throat, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the couple frowning at me disapprovingly. “Sorry,” I said.

“What?” Sarah asked.

“Nothing. You believe me, right?”

“Of course. If it were true, I know that’s something you would have told me, first of all. And second of all, it’s Adam. Gross. I just wanted to let you know what was going on.”

I pressed my fingers to my temples. “I’m done hanging around with him. If he’s going to show up, I’m out.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, and I knew she was thinking that Adam was Kurt’s friend and Kurt was Lori’s boyfriend and all the implications of that, but I didn’t care. I really was done.

“Oh, shit,” she said. “I’ve got to go, my client is here. Last time he showed up early for an appointment and I didn’t know it and I was clipping my nails at my desk, looked up, and saw him staring at me.”

I laughed. That sounded very much like a Gillian story. The two of them would probably love each other, but Sarah came packaged with Lori and Amber, and I now had zero intentions of ever introducing Gillian to them. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks for telling me about this.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said.

She hung up, and I hung my head. Sarah might not stand up to Amber, but she always had my back. I didn’t deserve to be her friend.

Back at the office, Gillian had returned to her cube and was on the phone when I got back. She held the phone to her shoulder with the side of her head while she attempted to unfurl the phone cord and conduct an interview at the same time. I went back to my edits. I was trying to clean up a mess of misplaced modifiers and dangling participles when there was a tap on my shoulder.

Gillian didn’t look right. Pale, or something. “Copy room,” she mouthed, and I followed her there.

Our copy machine was from 1972 and never worked. Most of the reporters had caved and bought their own desktop printers, so no one was ever in the copy room. “What’s wrong?” I asked immediately. “Are you not moving in?”

“No. I mean, yes, I am. And I’m kind of flattered you’d get so panicked over that.”

I shrugged casually, but yes, I would. I wanted this whole Gillian-and-me thing to work out. She was the only other person on the planet besides Jack to know about every bad thing I’d done, and, unlike him, she still wanted to be my friend.

“No,” Gillian said again. “This is actually good news.”

“It is?”

She nodded. She pulled something out of her pocket and handed it to me. force of nature – td garden – boston ma – admit one.

I shook my head and tried to give it back. Instead of taking it, she handed me something else. backstage pass.

“I’m not going,” I said. I couldn’t. It was bad enough talking to him. I didn’t think I could handle hearing him sing.

I tried to leave, but she stood in front of me, blocking my way. Her face was solemn, extremely serious. “Natalie. Remember. Unfinished business.”

I sighed, staring down at the ticket in my hands. Jack Moreland. TD Garden. Next weekend. Unbelievable. “How’d you get this?”

She laughed. “Did you forget we work for a newspaper?”

“Well, that’s debatable.”

She laughed again. “I’m writing the concert review, you’re taking the pictures.”

“Are you kidding? She’s letting us do this again?”

Gillian shrugged. “We’re all she’s got, babe.”

“That’s really, really sad.”

She leaned up against the copy machine and picked at a stain on her skirt. “Yeah, I know.” Then she looked at me. “Jack’s going to be expecting me. A follow-up interview. I booked it with Ray.” She wrinkled her nose. “Apparently, he thought I was cute, because he also asked me out.”

“What?”

“Yeah, it was a little creepy.”

“What did you say?”

“I told him maybe the next time he was in town. Luckily, he’s in Canada with some other band right now. So don’t say I never did anything for you, okay?”

I shook my head. “Never.” I sighed, staring at the compliance sign behind her head: if you see something, say something! “What should I say?” I asked in a small voice. “What will I do?”

Gillian put both of her hands on my shoulders. “Finish it,” she said.

…

I skipped out on the usual Saturday morning at the coffee shop. By one o’clock, Sarah was calling me. I’d been lying in bed, staring at the ceiling all morning, listening to Jack sing. Damn him for writing so many fantastic songs.

“Are you doing okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I was going to come today, but I guess I needed a break.”

“I told everyone what really happened with Adam,” Sarah said.

I could tell by her tone that it had been a futile endeavor. “And no one believed you.”

“You know how it is around here. Plus, you have been acting kind of different lately.”

I didn’t bother to deny it.

There was a muffled sound on the other end, like wind. She was probably leaving the coffee shop, walking down the street. “Have you booked any more jobs?”

“I’m working on my website,” I said, to evade her question and sound like I was getting something done. But it wasn’t a total lie. I had gotten a WordPress domain and had started to work on designing a logo.

“Hey, you want to come with me to get a pedicure? I really have no right to be walking around town in flip-flops.”

A part of me wanted to, but another part of me knew I could not justify spending the day with Sarah without telling her the truth, and thinking about telling her the truth made me extremely tired. I settled back against the pillows and closed my eyes. “Thanks, but I can’t. I’m doing work from home today, and then Gillian’s coming over to start moving in some of her things.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“We’ll hang out soon, though. I promise.”

“Yes, please. Lunch with Lori and Amber was…well, it’s just better with you.”

“I promise,” I said. We hung up.

I turned the volume back up and pulled the covers over my head. I let Jack sing me to sleep.

…

A week later, I was dressing for his concert at TD Garden.

I officially hated everything in my closet. Not that it mattered. I was there to take pictures for the paper, and then I was finally going to apologize. No one (and by no one, I meant Jack) cared if I wore the green shirt or the pink shirt. I went with the green. I always went with the green.

Once I heard the honk and grabbed my bag and went downstairs and saw Gillian waiting for me in the parking lot, I was pretty confident no one was going to be looking at me anyway. She smiled through the lowered window. I poked my head in. “Okay, did I miss something? Is this 1986? Is Jack opening for Poison?”

She grinned, fluffed her already fluffy hair, and checked her red lipstick in the rearview mirror. The thing was, she looked adorable, like she always did, while the sad truth was I’d peaked in high school.

“You look sexy,” she said.

“Ha ha.”

“Hey, since you’re doing this whole self-improvement thing, could you please work on how to take a compliment?”

I grimaced. “Okay. Thank you.”

“That’s better. Now get in. We have a concert to go to.”

Third row was closer than you’d think.

As we approached and everything on stage magnified—and Gillian’s squealing intensified—the storm in my stomach got worse, too. There was hardly any space between the stage and the seats. Stoic security guards in yellow T-shirts stood with their backs to the stage, staring out into the crowd, straight-faced, bored. All around us, people (mostly women) took pictures of each other holding up newly purchased concert T-shirts and posters. How many of the people here came for Jack, I couldn’t say. Force of Nature was huge. It hardly mattered, though. Even if they hadn’t come for him, they’d come back for him. As the seats filled up around me, my heart felt like it was filling up, too.

Gillian grabbed my arm. “I’m sorry,” she said, reacting to what was probably a mixture of terror and sadness on my face. “I’m really trying not to geek out over here, but it’s really, really hard.”

“I hope Hilary wasn’t expecting an unbiased review,” I said dryly.

“Come on, let’s get sodas. If we start now, we can fit two pee breaks in before the show starts.”

“I didn’t realize there was a pee itinerary for the evening.”

After a few sips, I did start to feel better. We finished our sodas and had time for one extra trip to the women’s room before the show started. As each minute passed, the seats in the Garden began to fill, and the noise of collective excitement got my blood pumping. This was Nona’s on steroids. I swore I could smell coffee, hazelnut. Tea with honey. I wondered if Darcy was somewhere in the crowd.

Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, the lights dimmed. All around me, shrieks lifted and carried. People in the first few rows in front of us jumped up and down. Gillian did, too, grabbing my hand. But I was unable to move, as if anchored to the floor by the mass of anticipation building in my stomach.

“Omigod Omigod Omigod! There he is!”

He was a few feet away now, walking on stage, and I almost forgot I was there to take pictures. Gillian gently pushed me out into the aisle, and I crept to the front, bringing the camera to my eye. I clicked as he lifted one hand to the crowd in a wave; I clicked as he pulled his guitar into position; I clicked as he stepped toward the microphone and began to sing.

I got a few good shots and moved back into the third row beside Gillian. The whole time, I couldn’t take my eyes off him. He had charisma on stage when I knew him, but this was charisma times a hundred. Relaxed, forcing nothing. His voice was both smooth and gritty, full of emotion. There were layers. The words he sang meant something to him. They were more than words on a page; they were what separated him from the dime-a-dozen voices on the radio.

He didn’t talk much between songs. When he introduced himself, the crowd cheered, and he smiled. I couldn’t help but stare into his eyes, and my muscles weakened when it seemed like he looked back at me. But then I remembered what he’d told me once. With all the stage lights, the artist could see only colors and shapes in the crowd. Anyway, the moment lasted only seconds, and then the girls beside me squealed, convinced he was looking at them.

Jack didn’t say much during the show, except about halfway through when he stopped to take a drink of water. He set the bottle on the stage, then strummed his guitar, looking out into the crowd. “So here I am in Massachusetts,” he said. “It’s very special to be back.”

Everyone cheered, as if he meant it in a good way. But he’d wanted to get out of here as badly as I had, and even though this homecoming was on his terms, I knew he must have mixed feelings about it. He kept strumming for a few seconds, staring at the audience, or at nothing. Eventually, he smiled. “Thank you all for coming,” he said. There were more cheers, and he started the next song.

He ended with, of course, “Good Enough.” The crowd sang along to every word. I might have been the only person in the place not singing. But I knew every word, too, and recited them, along with Jack and his fans, in my head.

When Jack’s set was over, Gillian grabbed my hand and led me over to one of the yellow-shirted bodyguards.

“Press,” she said, flashing our passes. “From the Stonebury Gazette, here to see Jack Moreland.”

The man conferred with another security guard, who checked something off on a clipboard. The guard returned and nodded at us. “Follow me.”

He ushered us out of the seating area and around the side of the stage to that mysterious door spectators were never allowed to pass through. We followed him down a tiled hallway, past the long-haired roadies carrying equipment out the back door. I moved with a sense of being pushed—I couldn’t stop now, not even if I wanted to.

At the end of a dark hallway, we turned the corner and another hallway opened up before us, not unlike a corridor of a high school. The bodyguard stopped in front of a closed door. On it was a handwritten sign that said Talent II.

“You ladies have a good night,” he said, and left us there.

“Nice security,” Gillian said. “Good thing we’re not crazy stalkers.”

I turned to her in a sudden panic. “What if he thinks I’m a crazy stalker once I go in there? What if—”

Gillian put her hands on either of my shoulders. “Okay,” she said, “this is it. This is what you’ve been waiting for. Go tell him what you need to tell him. I’ll be right here waiting for you.”

“How very Richard Marx,” I said, trying to make a joke. I could tell she thought it was funny, but she was trying to keep me focused. I nodded. She was right. This was what I’d come for.

“You can do this,” she said. We fist-bumped. She took my bag and my camera from me and turned me toward the door.

Slowly, I turned the door knob, half expecting it to be locked. It wasn’t. It opened slowly, creaking. The room it revealed was unspectacular. A dirty floor with white walls, a card table with folding chairs, a case of beer on the table with an unfinished sandwich. It was like the backroom at Nona’s—not exactly rock-star worthy. Jack’s back was to me, but there he was, standing by a table with water bottles and a fruit plate, assessing his options.

With one last look at Gillian, I walked inside and closed the door behind me.

He turned swiftly, an orange in his hand. “You’re not Gillian,” he said.

I held up my press pass like some sort of shield. “No, but I am here on official Stonebury Gazette business,” I said in a shaky voice. “I’m not a crazy stalker.”

He half smiled. “Well, that’s good to know.” He waved at the fruit tray. “Want any?”

“No, thanks.”

He peeled the orange with his fingers and popped a piece in his mouth. “Have a seat,” he said, and we both moved to the folding table.

“Do you have any other interviews?” I asked, proud of myself for sounding so normal.

“A couple last night,” he said. He ate another orange slice, and I tried not to be distracted by his lips. “So what questions do you have for me this time, Science Club?”

Will you ever forgive me? Do you still think I’m a horrible person? Could you ever love me again? All completely professional questions worthy of a journalist with a degree from Brown.

“Okay, here’s the truth,” I said. “I came to your concert on official newspaper business, but that’s not why I’m really here.”

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought you said you weren’t stalking me.”

“I’m not, I promise. I wanted to tell you something.”

“The floor is yours,” he said.

“Okay. Well, I apologized. Like I said I would. To Fiona and Talia.”

“Really?” He was genuinely surprised.

“You didn’t think I was going to?”

He shrugged. “I never know what to think when it comes to you.”

The seriousness of his eyes as he looked at me made me bite my lip. It wasn’t quite the look he had before a kiss, but it was close. A flush started at the top of my head, traveled down my body, and settled at my toes. Also very professional. “Thank you for helping me figure out what I needed to do.”

He nodded. “Talia still working at that creepy place?”

“So I’m not the only one who thought that? Yeah, she is. She told me she keeps in touch with you and the band. What are Travis and Reid doing now? Do you see them a lot?”

He smiled at the mention of their names. “Trav’s in Connecticut doing something with numbers. Reid’s a music teacher. He lives a few blocks from me. We hang out all the time. He’s doing well. They both are.”

I loved the thought of a grown-up card game, where they could bet with actual money instead of vegetables. “How about your parents? Your dad must be freaking out.”

Jack’s jaw twitched. “He passed away a couple years ago. Heart attack. He was always so active, but it was one of those fluke things, I guess. It was right after he retired, too, and they moved to Florida. Didn’t even get to see one southern summer.”

His dark eyes got darker and I looked down at the dirty floor. I hadn’t been there for him. That was all that mattered. Everything else was details.

“I’m so sorry. I—”

“It’s not your fault, just a simple act of God.”

I shook my head. “Not only for that. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what I did to you.” I managed a smile. “You’re on my list. My biggest apology.”

I waited for him to say something—I forgive you or too little, too late—something, anything, but he didn’t. I reached across the table, but this time I didn’t have the guts to grab his hand, so mine simply sat out there, as useless as my apology.

Jack got up abruptly and reassessed the fruit tray. An incredible heaviness settled over me. I had to fight through it to stand up and go over to him.

“Do you know,” he said, taking a bite of an apple, “that by this time tomorrow, I’m going to be in Philadelphia? Then DC, Atlanta, Jacksonville. Next week is Chicago and Omaha and Houston. By the end of the month, I’ll have been to Seattle, LA, and San Diego. Not bad for a kid who just wanted to get to New York City.”

We were both looking at the fruit tray. “The first time I ever heard you sing at Nona’s, I realized there was something special about you. I felt so stupid for never seeing it before. Now the whole world sees it.”

He wanted to keep on eating his apple, to keep his defenses up, I saw it in his eyes. I couldn’t blame him for wanting to. But I couldn’t let him.

I took the apple from his hands and set it on the table so that he didn’t have anything to focus on except for me. I waited until he looked at me again, and then I said, “Please. I’ll do anything to fix things. To make it up to you. Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do it…”

I sounded desperate, a little crazy, and my voice broke at the end. Jack stood there, watching me, and I had no idea what he was thinking. “Okay,” he said. “I accept your apology.” He didn’t shrug, but he may as well have. The curt way he spoke stung a little, and I took a step back. He leaned against the table. “That’s what you want to hear, right?”

Of course. I’d waited years to hear these words, but now I wasn’t sure they meant anything. “Not if you don’t mean them,” I said.

He laughed humorlessly, throwing up his hands. “What exactly is it that you want?”

What I really wanted from him, I could never ask for. “I just want…I just want to be friends,” was all I managed to say.

He glanced down at the floor, then back up at me, and I swore that I recognized disappointment on his face. I’d failed him again, though I wasn’t sure why or how. He started to speak when his phone buzzed, vibrating loudly on the table next to the fruit. He read the text, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“What is it?” I asked.

He didn’t look up from his phone. “Apparently, there’s a reporter here from Rolling Stone. They came to interview Force of Nature but they want to see me, too. I have to be at the Boston Harbor Hotel in fifteen minutes.”

He ran his hands through his hair, grabbed his phone, and put it in his pocket. His eyes brightened with anticipation, and it was like catching a glimpse of the old Jack—signing autographs at Nona’s Café, breaking into the abandoned lighthouse for his stupid notebook. It reminded me of myself then, too, when everything seemed new and possible.

So before he could walk away, disappear into the Boston Harbor Hotel and out of my life again, I stood in front of him. I pulled a piece of paper out of my bag. I opened his palm, holding his warm hand for as long as I could. His dark eyes were uncertain but curious. I put the paper in his hand and closed his fingers down over it.

“If you’re ever in town again,” I said.

I released his hand, and he opened the piece of paper, where I’d written my phone number and home address. Not that he couldn’t have gotten it from the internet or by calling the Gazette, but this felt like a statement. I don’t want this to end.

Jack stared at the paper for longer than it would’ve taken him to read it. Then he folded it up, putting it in his pocket. For a second, he didn’t move. A little spark of hope lit me up inside as he studied my face. I watched his eyes as they traveled from my face, down my neck to my collarbone, and then back up to my eyes. He was only looking, but I swore I could feel it like a touch. His phone buzzed again, he said he had to go, and the hope fizzled out.

Before he reached the door, he turned back to me. “All I wanted,” he said, “was for you to want to be with me more than you were scared of what your friends would think.”

I’d always known this, but he’d never said it so plainly, and whoever said that words couldn’t hurt had obviously never been in love.

There were some thing you couldn’t apologize for. Like making someone who trusted you, who confided in you, who treated you like something special, feel like they weren’t good enough. Things like that stayed with you for life.

It was the stuff songs were made of.

“So there’s nothing I can do?” I blurted out as he walked away.

This time when he turned around, he looked sad. “Can you go back in time?” he asked. Then he opened the door.

Gillian nearly fell through the door when he pulled it open. Jack nodded at her and she said, way too loudly, “Oh! Hi!” as if his dressing room was the last place on earth she’d ever expect him to be.

I waited in the doorway, giving him a head start, and Gillian watched him go. Then I grabbed her and hurried down the hall. Music throbbed through the walls; it was the middle of the Yellow Chevys set. There were a few people hanging out in the halls, the occasional group of midriff-baring girls clutching rolled-up posters and giggling to one another. We turned down a long hall and passed a man with shoulder-length brown hair and a cowboy hat, his arms draped around two blonde women. He looked both Gillian and me up and down, then nodded as he passed. He was gone before I realized it was Alex Stone, family-man-with-a-heart-of-gold lead singer of Force of Nature.

It wasn’t until we were safely in Gillian’s car before either of us spoke.

“So?” she asked.

I shook my head and closed my eyes. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, you don’t know?”

I told her everything. “And then…he just left.”

She rested her puffy hair against the back of her seat and sighed. “Men.”

I thought I’d have some sort of closure after tonight, but I was only more confused. You held my hand a few weeks ago…it was awkward and over too fast, but it happened! You accepted my apology, but it didn’t sound like you meant it. You could have asked me to come with you to the hotel, but you didn’t. You left. Now you want me to turn back time to before I screwed everything up, but that’s impossible. You didn’t touch me, but you looked like you wanted to. What does it all mean? Did my apology mean anything to you? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?

The thoughts ran through my head like some sort of demented Celebrity Weekly article.

“Well,” Gillian said slowly, “at least he didn’t throw it out. I mean, he put it in his pocket. That’s good! If he hadn’t—”

“It wasn’t enough,” I said.

Gillian was looking at me, but all I could do was stare straight ahead at the parking garage’s gray concrete walls. “I have to do something else,” I said. It was the one thing I was 100 percent sure of. “I can’t turn back time, but I have to do something. Something big, so he knows I’ve really changed.”

“Okay,” she said slowly. “Like what?”

I closed my eyes again. I wished that if I kept them closed long enough, I’d wake up as someone else. Someone better. “I have no idea,” I told her.