CHAPTER SEVEN
NOW
VIRGINIA
Back when I thought I was coming on this tour as an intern—not as a pseudo-girlfriend slash band cheerleader—I decided it didn’t make sense to lug my guitar onto a cramped bus. I would be too busy to play much, anyway. Instead, I have no real job to speak of, aside from taking photos, writing band bios, and posting articles about life on the road. In the mornings most of the guys are still dead to the world, busy sleeping off their hangovers from the night before. It’s the perfect time to work on my own music. At least until I can figure out how to win Jenn over and get more involved with promoting the band.
Logan’s acoustic guitar has become an almost permanent fixture on my lap, and the small leather banquette in the kitchen area has an imprint of my butt. On a bus full of guys, it turns out the kitchen is the easiest place to hide. Stereotypical, but true. There’s only seating for two, and it makes a great hiding spot. Not to mention, the female fans who sometimes accumulate on the bus aren’t exactly Susie Homemakers, looking to bake their one-night guy a batch of brownies. If they were smart, they would. Last week, I figured out how to make Rice Krispies treatsin the microwave, and received several marriage proposals. These guys are all about food that doesn’t come in a foil wrapper or paper bag.
The only person who ever infringes on my hiding spot in the kitchen is Tad. He and his camera have become something of my shadow. It doesn’t matter what mundane thing I’m doing—burning a bag of popcorn and filling the bus with smoke, working on the band’s website, unsuccessfully writing new songs, watching TV with the guys—he’s always filming it. Why? I have no idea. Of all of the things happening on this bus, I am far from the most interesting.
For the most part, though, we’ve all gotten used to the cameras. It actually reminds me of being at the nursing home with Nonni. There are always other residents around—playing games, reading books, lounging in the community spaces—but to Nonni, everyone seems to fade into the background. Everyone has an unspoken understanding that they exist in their own bubble. And the cameras have become the same; I hardly even notice them anymore. I don’t usually sing on the bus, but I’m up unusually early, and everyone is still asleep, so I just finished playing one of my favorites. It’s a song I wrote a few years ago called “Catastrophic Love.”
Tad pulls back the curtain to the kitchen and points his camera at me.
I set my guitar on my lap. “You’ve got an awful lot of footage of me.” I’m hoping Tad will catch on to my unspoken plea for privacy. “I hope you’re not making a Best-of-Vee Blooper Reel. I know where you sleep.”
Tad sets his video camera—which really just looks like a fancy digital camera—down on the counter. He gives me a lazy smile, running a hand through the wavy hair that frames his round face. “I’m getting bored filming the guys lying around in bed.” He’s leaning against the wall across from me. His legs are longand thin, but his arms and chest are wide and bulky. His dark skin is paled by his almost-black hair, which brushes his shoulders in waves. “And you seem much more interesting.” His eyes sweep up and down me.
“I promise you, I’m not.” I close my notebook and turn toward him. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at Tad. He’s like a really interesting collage of mismatched pieces you wouldn’t think go together, but work somehow. If I closed my eyes I’d guess that his were brown, because everything about him feels warm, but they’re a strange green. Tad’s become my go-to distraction, when I’m trying to avoid eye contact with Cam.
“So what made you come on tour? You don’t seem like the jealous-girlfriend type, tagging along to babysit.” He’s smiling at me, like always. Amused seems to be his perpetual state of mind, and I wonder if he just loves his job that much.
“Oh, I’m definitely not.” I love how honest I’m finally able to be. “I’m here for moral support, mostly.” I strum a few more notes, plucking the strings idly. “These guys are like my family.”
His head is cocked to one side like he’s examining me. “You write, too?” He crosses his arms and the brightly colored fish wrapping around his forearm seems to move with the flex of his muscles. “I’ve caught you singing a few times. And you’re always jotting things down in that notebook of yours.” One of his long fingers taps against the colorful little journal lying on the table in front of me. “The song you just sang was incredible. It’s one of yours?”
“Yes. But—”
Cam’s voice comes out of the hallway like a ghost. “Her songs are some of our best.” I roll my eyes at his attempt at flattery. How long had he been lurking there, just out of sight?
“Really?” Tad seems interested, adjusting his camera slightly on the counter as Cam takes the seat next to me. I hadn’t realized he was still recording everything.
But of course he is, that’s his job.
Tad looks at me again. “I didn’t know you wrote some of the band’s songs.” He makes it sound like we’ve been sitting around swapping stories and painting each other’s nails.
Cam looks at me and then Tad—and the camera. “‘Push’… ‘Tangerine Love’… all the fan favorites are Vee’s.” Cam is smiling at me like I’m absolute perfection, and for a moment I forget all about the pain and the hate and the anger. I smile back. And for one moment, I truly feel happy, ignited by the way he’s looking at me, like I’ve cured cancer or written the Great American Novel, not scribbled a couple of stupid songs. I’m seventeen again, sitting at the beach after sunset, playing a concert for two.
Cam’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “Let’s do it, Vee.”
Tad has the camera propped in front of his face again. It’s aimed at Cam, who has slid to the end of the bench across from me, his guitar propped on his knee. He starts strumming a steady rhythm. After the opening chords, I can feel my chest tightening. I know the words that will come out of his mouth, and I wish I didn’t.
“There’s this girl, yeah this girl, who makes the world seem brighter than it’s ever been. There’s her smile and her eyes, and I just wanna make her mine. I hear her laugh and I smile, ’cause I know she’s laughin’ at me—” He’s looking at me the entire time he sings, and it takes me back. To the two of us in his apartment after school, singing and playing. The two of us lying on the beach and talking long after the sun had gone down. “There’s this girl, yeah this girl—” All of the feelings surging through me are new, but old, and it feels good to remember them again. And fucking painful to know that the last time I felt like this was so long ago. “This girl. This girl…”Cam’s repeating the end of his chorus over and over, and I know it’s my turn to join in, but I don’t. I can’t go back to that place and let myself feel what I’mfeeling; remember the things that I’ve been able to forget for so long. Every note of this song feels like it’s slicing into me, opening old wounds, taking me back to a different version of me.
I set my guitar on the table, turning to look at Cam, so I’m not staring directly into the camera that’s pointed at me. “I’m actually not feeling all that great. Headache.” I put two fingers to my temple. I expect Tad to try talking me into continuing, but he doesn’t say a word. I give him a smile, thankful this was easier than I thought it would be.
I’m two steps from the curtain—two steps from escaping—when Cam’s body steps into my path. I pause, thinking he’s going to go around me, but he’s still and his eyes are locked on mine. We’re inches apart, and then we’re touching, as his hands come up to gently cup my cheeks.Move, Virginia.Long, warm fingers drift back and gently cup my head. His thumbs begin moving in slow circles at my temples, his fingers laced in my hair now. Someone has hit my pause button—I’m motionless.Move, Virginia.My eyelids, heavy with emotion and numbed by the shock of his touch, flutter shut.
Cam’s voice is soft and cautious. “Better?”
I nod, I think. Cam lets one hand drift down to the side of my neck, his fingers curling softly around it while his other continues its lazy temple circles. All that registers is Cam’s smell. His soap and his minty shampoo fill my nose, and I might as well be seventeen. His hand falls away and is replaced by his warm skin—rough like sandpaper against my check, his breath warm in my ear. “I missed you.” The words drift past my ear, so soft they’re more like a sigh. The old feelings—the bright hot burning that’s bubbling up in my stomach and spreading through my limbs—is overtaking me, and I want to lean forward. I want to bridge this tiny gap between us, fill that space with our lips.
Then a door slams, and his fingers are lead weights on my skin.
As my eyes snap open I pull myself out of the grip of Cam’s hands. One is still resting on my temple while the other rests on my collarbone, his thumb grazing back and forth there. I twist my shoulders and let them both fall away. I look behind me, where Tad’s camera is still rolling, the red light blinking ominously.What had that looked like?I know what it had felt like, and now it’s been permanently copied somewhere other than in my mind.
I take a step around Cam. “I’m going to go lie down.” I’m trying to keep my tone as casual as possible, like we’re just two friends. But really, I’m not sure that we were ever friends.
