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Hey
Ladies!
Hey ladies in the place I'm callin' out to ya
You be listening to my records' a number one sound
Girls with curls and big long locks
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I ran into the men’s room just as Zac began throwing up. I hurried over and pulled his hair back out of his face. I’d often witnessed Jarrod “puking up a lung” after partying a little too hard, but I’d never seen anyone get as violently sick as Zac was at that moment. Once he had finished, I walked over to the sink and got some wet towels for his face. He was sitting on the floor next to the toilet with his head leaning back.
“Thanks.” Zac said his voice slurred. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Actually, I think I did.” I said sliding down the wall until I was sitting next to him. “It’s part of my job description, remember I’m your “personal” assistant.”
“And I can’t think of anything more personal.” Zac said as I put the cool towels on his face. He leaned over and put his head in my lap. “Doofus, I really don’t feel very well.”
“Don’t call me that.” I said stroking his hair softly. “You know I hate to be called Cleophus and Doofus.”
“And yet, I keep calling you that.” Zac said, his face serious as I rubbed his stomach. I could practically feel it churning. “C’mon, Thad would be seriously hurt if he knew we had let his favorite nicknames go unused.” At the mention of my brother, we both became really quiet. I watched as his eyes scanned my face as though he were looking for something, trying to remember something important. I honestly wondered what he was thinking. “I can’t believe you’re an actual grown up. You’ve graduated from college. I mean, you have a master’s degree. And I really can’t believe you’re my teacher.”
“Yeah, it’s pretty scary.” I said. “You know, if your mother hadn’t hired me, I would be in some high school teaching English and history right now. I’m barely older than the students.”
“Does it ever bother you how much of your life you missed out on?” Zac asked me.
“What?” I asked my eyebrows coming together. “I didn’t miss out on anything, you guys missed out on a lot more than I did.”
“That’s true... Still, you missed a lot too.” Zac said quietly. “You skipped 3 grades. You didn’t have any choice in always being the smartest person in your class and I know this made you an outsider. You were never a part of school, really. Not like Thaddeus. You never made friends like he did; you were not destined to be class president or voted most likable. Not to say your not likable, you’re just... you. So, if it wasn’t your oversized brain or your social butterfly brother causing problems, it was Jarrod.”
“Wow, you’ve mentioned Thad twice in the last few minutes and I have to admit that is the first time I’ve thought of him for days.” I said shocked at how little I had thought of him. For a long time, I thought of him constantly. I had imaginary conversations with him. I was such a basket case and this did not help me to fit in. In college, I was the resident genius at the tri-Delt house, so it was all right for me to be eccentric. “I can’t believe I’ve been so busy I haven’t thought about him.”
“I pretty much think of him every time I see you. You always looked so alike, of course, he was a guy, but you have the same smile and laugh. Even though he was 5 years older than me, I considered him my best friend. He never left me out and never made me feel like a fifth wheel. Man, I still really, really miss him.”
“Me too,” I said running my fingers through his long blonde hair. “I miss him so bad I can’t even think about how bad I miss him or I go crazy.”
“Try saying that 10 times fast.” Zac said reaching up and grabbing one of my hands. He laced his fingers through mine. We had done this thousands of times, but this was the first time I noticed how huge his hand was compared to mine. His fingers were covered with Band-Aids and scars. His 16-year-old hands looked like they belonged to a much older man. “Cleo...”
“What?”
“I have a serious question to ask you.” He said it so quietly I wasn’t sure what he’d said.
“What?” I asked.
“I need to ask you a serious question.”
“A serious question? Should I be scared by the sound of that?”
“Probably.” He paused, maybe for dramatic effect and maybe ‘cause he really didn’t want to know the answer. “Do you think you would have ever started dating Jarrod if Thad hadn’t died?” Woah, this really was a serious question. Jarrod and Thad had been best friends, while Ike and I were best friends. After Thad drowned, I didn’t have Ike, because he had left for California, so for comfort I had run into the arms of Jarrod. A decision I ended up regretting.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“Don’t you think you’d have gone out with Ike if everything hadn’t happened the way it did?” Zac asked squeezing my hand. Without him articulating exactly what he meant, I knew what he was asking. He was asking me why I hadn’t waited for Ike. Why I hadn’t waited for the one person who truly loved me. I had always known how Ike felt about me, but I just didn’t know how to respond. “I could never figure out why someone as smart as you could date such a major dumb ass. Cleo, why’d you settle for someone who treated you so badly?”
“I honestly don’t know.” I said sighing, hot tears building behind my eyes. “Maybe because I hurt so bad after Thad died. Whenever I heard Mmmbop, I thought of Ike playing the guitar and Thad teasing Taylor for sounding so much like a girl and it made me so sad, ‘cause I missed both of them so much. It was impossible to go anywhere, especially in Tulsa, without hearing that damned song, so I was pretty much in constant pain. I still hate that song to this day and I hated Thad for dying. And I hated you guys for leaving me. Before Thad died, we heard from you everyday no matter where you were. After... You didn’t even call me when you got back from LA.” I had to stop. The tears that had only been threatening were now choking me. Zac just sat and stared at me as I cried. He reached up and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “I felt so damn guilty he had died and I was still alive. It should have been me. I should have died.”
I pulled away from him, bringing my knees up to my chest, and burying my face between my knees. I cried so hard I was practically keening. I felt him move next to me, then his strong arms wrapped around me. I grabbed him fiercely around the waist. He was smoothing back my hair and making soft soothing sounds. He felt so warm and safe. I wanted to merge myself with him, to feed off his confidence and his sense of security. I wanted to surrender to him fully. “Cleo,” he began softly. “Don’t ever, EVER say you wish it had been you. Do you understand?”
I nodded my head as he paled to almost translucent. He scrambled over to the toilet and started to throw up again. I held his hair out of his face and rubbed his back. When he had finished, we resumed our original positions, me leaning against the wall with his head in my lap our hands intertwined. “Cleo?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you another serious question?” Zac asked as my breath hitched in my chest.
“Ugh! I don’t think I’m ready for another serious question.”
“Whatever.” He said rolling his eyes. “I already know the answer to this, but did you have sex with Jarrod?”
“What?
“It’s a fairly simple yes or no question.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Just call it natural curiosity.” Zac said reaching up and moving my hair behind my ear. “I always fantasized you were waiting for me. One day you would wake up and think, “it’s time for me to go to Zac,” and crawl in my window and have your way with me.”
“Oh how very Dawson’s Creek of you and how very unrealistic.” I said. “Yes, I slept with Jarrod. That item sits atop my list of things I regret.”
“I was always so in love with you. Just the thought of you could make everything alright.” His eyes looked so sad and far away. How could someone with everything they could ever possibly want look so very sad? “You know, I wrote Wish That I Was There for you.”
“I wish I had waited for you.”
“Well, I didn’t wait for you either.” Zac said sitting back up. I was afraid he was going to throw up again, but instead, he just closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall.
“What?”
“Man, you ask that a lot.”
“Well, sometime you gotta ask the little questions to get the big answers.” I shrugged. “Seriously, what did you mean?”
He suddenly wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Jason and I have worked out a system where I let him know which girl from the audience I want brought backstage. Most of these girls are so desperate for any sort of attention, it’s easy to get them naked or at the very least a mind blowing blowjob.”
“Oh, how very rock star of you.” I said disgusted.
“Hey, don’t try and act superior, ‘cause I’m not the one who let someone beat the shit out of me on a regular basis, then crawl back asking for forgiveness, begging the bastard to take me back.” Zac cut me off just as I was about to rip him a new one. “You allowed yourself to be treated like shit when there were plenty of people, of guys, around who loved you and would have never, ever hurt you.”
“Zac, it’s not that cut and dried.” I said. I knew one day this conversation would happen, but I didn’t think it would be with him. “There are so many things you don’t understand.”
“A broken arm? Now there’s a mystery.” He said sarcastically. “Oh and the ever popular black eye. You must have thought we were idiots to not know where they came from. I came close to killing him so many times.”
“Well, it wasn’t your battle to fight.”
“And you weren’t fighting it, you were allowing it to happen.”
“It’s not that easy to explain. It would take a long, long time to hash this out.”
“Hey, I’m here now and we have nothing but time.” He had his eyes closed his head resting against the wall. He was so beautiful.
“Well, call me old fashioned, but I don’t think the men’s room floor of a radio station is the place for this conversation.” I didn’t want to ever have to tell him why I stayed with Jarrod so long. I really didn’t need to dredge up all my self-esteem issues, which moves directly into my food and alcohol issues. I somehow managed to avoid drugs, but just barely and not altogether. Oh yeah, Zac I’m really, really smart. “Come to my room some night and I promise I will tell you every last gory detail.”
“I was always so in love with you.” He said not opening his eyes. His cheeks were flushed, but at his admission, he turned a brighter red. “I don’t think I can adequately define the level of my love for you.”
“And now, you’re not? In love with me that is?” I asked. It’s not as if I wanted him to be in love with me, but it was disappointing to know he would no longer be watching me out of the corner of his eye. I always knew how he felt about me, because both Ike and Tay took such immense pleasure making sure I knew.
“Yes, I still love you, but I will never possess you, so I guess I can settle with being friends.” Zac said.
“So, have you just given up on me or have you given up on love altogether.”
“Just you. I see love all around everyday.” Zac was so pale and he looked so sad. I actually momentarily considered leaning over and planting a kiss on his lips. I wanted to comfort him, but I knew I wasn’t the one who could do it. “Ike has Emory and Tay, well, Tay has who he’s always had and I have the nameless faceless crowd.”
“Taylor’s in love with someone? Who is Tay in love with?” I asked. A little bit hurt I hadn’t been let in the secret. Actually, I was a lot hurt and I wasn’t exactly sure why.
“Oh, he isn’t officially seeing anyone, but he’s been in love with the same person for practically forever.” Zac said. “He doesn’t think anyone knows, in fact, I would bet money Ike hasn’t even figured it out, but I have.”
“Who is it?”
“Actually, I don’t think you know this person.” Zac said quietly.
“I don’t know her? How many people has Tay known forever that I don’t know?” I asked raising an eyebrow. I found it very hard to believe Tay could know someone I had never met. Unless, it wasn’t a her. “It is a her, right?”
“Seriously, I can’t say anything more. He’s never confirmed he likes this person.” Zac said.
Suddenly the door to the bathroom was thrown open. Taylor stood in front of us. He was a vision in tight black jeans and a black T-shirt with Einstein on the front and his big motorcycle boots. He’d long ago moved away from being the cute kid I’d grown up with into an amazingly handsome man. “I found them! Hey Zac, do you feel well enough to at least come and sing?”
Zac shook his head slowly as he stood up. Once he was upright, he held his hand out for me. “As the saying goes, the show must go on.”