Chapter 12
The Blue Danube was unusually crowded that Friday evening. Tom sat tuning his bass at one of the tables when Heather arrived.
“Die Trying is in the house!” Arissa Svengaarten shrieked from behind the counter.
Some of the patrons glanced up and stared. Heather ducked her head, embarrassed, but Arissa appeared not to notice.
“I saw that letter about you in the paper this week,” she continued loudly. “You guys are becoming famous.”
“I don't know about that,” Heather replied as she slid into the chair opposite Tom.
“Where’s Matthew?” Tom asked. “Weren’t you supposed to pick him up?”
“I was, but he texted me earlier.” Heather set her guitar case on the ground. “Said he would meet us here instead.”
“That’s strange.” Tom glanced at his watch. “Maybe I should call him. After all, we’re playing the new song he wrote tonight.”
“Matthew wrote a song?” Tom and Heather didn’t have to turn around to know that the question was coming from none other than their insane number one fan, Principal Louis…but when they did, Heather’s eyes involuntarily bulged: Principal Louis had taken a faded black t-shirt (which already had a Chevrolet logo over the right breast) and repurposed it, cutting out letters from what appeared to be red felt to spell out the name of the band. It was clear he’d attempted to sew the letters onto the shirt himself as the stitching was all over the place. Imagining Principal Louis sitting on his sofa under incandescent light, struggling with thread and a sewing needle to make his shirt was one of the more absurd images Heather had ever conjured into her brain…and maybe also one of the most touching. She felt her already-ballooning eyes well up with tears, realizing just how moved she was by the clumsy gesture.
“I have to go to the bathroom!” she blurted before running off.
“Wow, Principal Louis,” Tom observed. “That’s a great shirt.”
“And it only took me an hour to sew on the letters!” the principal exclaimed. “Though I must admit, I’m not very handy with a sewing needle.” He removed his right hand from inside his pants pocket, revealing heavily-bandaged, almost mummified fingers.
“Jesus Christ!” Tom flinched.
“I had no idea you were premiering new music tonight,” Principal Louis continued. “But I can’t wait to feast upon the harvest of Die Trying’s artistic development.”
“Well, I’m a little concerned because Matthew hasn’t showed up yet.”
Principal Louis pointed through the window, to a car across the street. “Isn’t that him right over there?”
There was, in fact, a person getting out of their car across the street, but never in a million years would that person have resembled Matthew, Tom thought. At least not in public.
Tom scoffed. “Maybe in another life.”
He squinted. They were getting out of a silver Toyota. Matthew drove a silver Toyota…but Matthew didn’t have a wolf-cut hairdo. He didn’t wear silver platform heels. He almost never wore the shade of electric blue that was on this person’s shirt. And he didn’t cover his face in eyeliner and a red-Bowie-esque lightning bolt surging across his face.
“Holy shit!” Tom exclaimed.
Matthew Yin stepped into The Blue Danooby seconds later with a face full of paint. Platforms, shimmering pants and a shirt that showed off his (rather sculpted) man curves. Arissa turned around, took one look at him, and screamed delightedly at the top of her lungs. Everyone in the cafe turned to face the man in the doorway, who looked like the biggest, baddest rockstar anyone on the island of Alameda had ever seen in real life.
Heather wandered out of the ladies room and blinked at Matthew’s appearance.
“Well.” Heather quipped. “Don’t I feel underdressed.”
After Principal Louis predictably lost his mind for about three minutes, then calmed down long enough to escape to the restroom before their set, Tom, Heather and Matthew had a quick huddle in the corner.
“When did you decide to do this?” Tom asked his best friend.
“Like half an hour ago?”
“You put all this on in half an hour?” Heather marveled. “It takes me that long to wash my hair.”
“I’ve been practicing a long time,” Matthew explained.
“I love it,” Tom declared.
“Do you really?”
“Yes. The more you don’t look like you, the more you look like you. It’s a strange phenomenon, but it totally works.”
“I agree completely,” Heather added.
“Thanks, guys,” Matthew breathed a reassured sigh. “I have to say, I was kinda nervous stepping out of the house dressed like this. The last time I did…” Matthew shot Tom a meaningful look. “Well…let’s just say I had to push through a lot of old fear. But then I realized: I don’t wanna be Matthew Yin who wears button-down shirts and khakis every day of his life. I mean, I am that person, but there’s more to me than that. A side that’s dying to crawl out. The side that wants to be that person on the cover of a rock album…or billboards and posters. I wanna be the person everyone looks at in awe, wonder, and maybe a little bit of confusion. And then I realized: I already am that person. Just never outside my house.”
“Is this side of Matthew here to stay?” Heather raised her eyebrows hopefully.
Matthew looked at Tom and Heather. “As long as you guys got my back.”
Tom raised his right hand. “Firescout Honor.”
“Me too,” Heather splayed her right hand over her heart. “Die Trying Honor.”
“This song is called It Will All Make Sense Someday,” Heather announced into the microphone minutes later. She turned and flashed Matthew a warm smile. “And it was written by our very own drummer, Matthew Yin.”
Matthew raised the sticks above his head and Die Trying plunged directly into the first performance of their newest song. Heather sang:
I never forget my failures
Never put them all away
Driving along on the sting of lament
I did everything right
Everything they told me to do
and I still totaled everything
everything
everything’s through…
As Heather’s voice danced through the song, Tom watched her out of the corner of his eye, mesmerized by her slender fingers against the guitar strings, her lips grazing the microphone, the way she closed her eyes when she sang – partly, he knew, out of fear, but also because she felt the words she was singing. She felt the lyrics, the chords, the melody. Heather had deep reservoirs of emotion that seemed to reveal themselves whenever she sang.
And the somewhat embarrassing truth, Tom realized, was he’d been watching her like this at every single open mic they’d played, every band practice at Matthew’s house and every day at school since the day she’d grabbed the karaoke mic from him at Matthew’s party.
But it will all make sense someday
At least that’s what I’m going to say
It will all make sense someday
It will all make sense someday
The anti-Die Trying outpouring from the public continued into the following weeks, during which the band slowly but consistently expanded their reach to other shitty open mics throughout the East Bay. Spurred on by the high readership of the first anti-Die Trying letter, The Alameda Citizen published every subsequent complaint they received:
I had the misfortune of seeing these no-talent-assclowns (particularly the female singer) performing in Berkeley one night. If I’d had a beer bottle in my hand, I would have thrown it at them for sucking so much. I don’t drink beer anymore because I’m seven years sober and have worked through my anger issues in therapy – plus I didn’t want to get arrested. But if we lived in a world where I was still an alcoholic and people didn’t get arrested for physical battery and assault, I totally would have thrown that bottle…RIGHT INTO THOSE ASSCLOWNS’ FAT FACES.
Another disgruntled citizen wrote:
I dislike Die Trying so much that I started a blog called IHateDieTrying.tumblr.com. Visit it and feel free to post nasty comments and pictures of them looking stupid onstage. Note: you can also “like” the blog on Facebook and follow it on Twitter.
And yet another annoyed audience member wrote in with the following:
I hate Die Trying more than I hate anything in the world. If Die Trying told me to become a vegetarian, I would drive to Outback Steakhouse and eat a (expletive)-load of meat. That’s how much I hate Die Trying.
Tom, Matthew and Heather poured over these letters, just as they had poured over the first angry diatribe published in the Citizen. Over time, it was becoming apparent to each of them that the more vitriol they received, the less they cared. This had been part of Tom’s mission all along…and crazily enough, it seemed to be materializing in real life.
Among the copious spewing of hatred and outrage, however, there existed one anonymous outlier:
I’ve seen Die Trying a few times at various open mics around town. I know the trend in this publication is to berate and revile them, but I think those people just don’t understand the band’s true objective. I can only speculate, mind you, but I get the sense that Matthew Yin, Heather M. Fellaway and Tom Beckett have undertaken this rock band project in order to expand themselves spiritually or emotionally in some way. It takes courage to perform in front of strangers. It takes even more courage to perform in front of strangers when you have no legitimate musical background (as their lead singer has mentioned a few times between songs). Some may view this kind of courage as delusional, but I prefer to see it as inspiring. I think we can all take something positive from the band’s mission and use it to look at where we might stand to take more risks of being seen in our own lives. In the meantime, I hope they keep on rocking.
Signed,
A Lifelong Alameda Citizen
“I wonder who that could be,” Tom said. “They’re like, our one and only fan.”
“Principal Louis would beg to differ,” Matthew objected.
“And AREESa Svengaarten seems to love us, too,” Heather pointed out. Indeed, Ms. Svengaarten had enthusiastically hosted Die Trying at every Friday open mic for the past six weeks. She and Principal Louis were currently in talks with one another about creating Die Trying merch, though the actual band members, especially Heather, thought it was a terrible idea.
“I guess I never expected anyone to actually…like us.” Tom scratched his head. “I mean, aside from ARISSa AREESa and Principal L.“
“What about the Man in Leather Pants and a Leather Jacket that was Too Small for Him?” Matthew asked. “From the first night we performed?”
“He said he liked our sound,” Heather recalled. “I still have his card.”
“Maybe he’s the Lifelong Alamedian!” Tom pointed at the newspaper.
“Doubtful,” Matthew frowned. “I’d remember if I’d seen him again. I mean, he’s the Man in Leather Pants and a Leather Jacket that was Too Small for Him, for God’s sake!”
Heather picked up the newspaper. “So this…whoever this is..is our first ’real’ fan.” She fixed her eyes on the anonymous signoff as doing so would scramble the letters to reveal the person’s real name. Curiosity flooded through her like an ocean wave. In that moment, she would have given anything to know who they were.
After another Saturday band practice, Heather picked up her Blackberry and saw that her mother had left a voicemail. Back in September, after her last visit to the house and the disastrous run-in with The Worst Person in the World, Heather had made a promise to herself that she would leave her mother alone. She wouldn’t call, she wouldn’t write…she wouldn’t try to protect her mother from her terrible choices. She and her mother had not spoken since, and Heather felt her heart lift momentarily, hoping it was her mother calling to admit that the attempted reconciliation had fallen apart…that The Worst Person in the World had once again walked away and had left her shattered and alone, just like so many times before. In Heather’s mind, this was the best case scenario to be hoped for. Sure, Crystal would be devastated and heartbroken. Sure, she’d likely fall to pieces and Heather would worry about her mother starting to use again. But she’d lived through enough of these abandonment scenarios to know how to stomach them. Her father choosing to stay, however, was something Heather had no experience with. Uncharted, terrifying territory she had no idea how to handle…and she didn’t want to put herself through the ordeal of finding out.
Heather held her breath as she dialed her voicemail password and waited.
“Heather,” Crystal’s voice unfurled into her daughter’s right ear. “I know we haven’t seen each other since September and I know you’re mad at me. But I got something important to give you and I think it would be nice if we could act like adults for once in our lives. If you have some time this afternoon, I’m gonna be around the house, so feel free to drop by.”
It was nowhere near the message Heather had been expecting. A part of Heather wanted to call back and stiffly inform her mother that as long as that man was living in the house, she had no intention of ‘stopping by.’ But after getting into the driver's seat, she found herself on the freeway towards El Sobrante once again. Soon she was back at the same freeway exit – that perpetually familiar off ramp that had, Heather realized with some shock, transformed into something eerily foreign-feeling to her over the past three months. It didn’t make sense. El Sobrante was her home. It was in her bones, her blood. How could something that was a part of who she was suddenly feel so far away?
She pulled her car up to the sidewalk in the front of the familiar, unfamiliar house she’d grown up in.
“Well,” Heather muttered to herself with a languid cheerfulness. “It doesn’t appear to have burned down yet.”
His white Volkswagen Passat was still sitting in the driveway. Heather grimaced and with a turn of the key, turned off her own car’s engine.
She had already made up her mind about the visit: it would only last as long as it needed to, meaning that as soon as she got inside and had ascertained that her mother was not drunk, high, bleeding from the head, or dead, she would give herself immediate permission to hightail it out of there. Heather knew that “giving herself permission” was what had allowed her to heal and reclaim a life of her own over the past year. She’d given herself permission to move out of her childhood home, to apply for that teaching job in Alameda (and get it), and, finally, to separate from her mother and start living some semblance of her own life. It was never easy, but like most things, Heather found it was getting easier with practice.
Before she could ball her right hand into a fist to knock, the front door flew open. Behind it was Crystal Fellaway…looking healthier and happier than Heather had admittedly ever seen her before.
“Look what the bat dragged in!” Crystal exclaimed, smiling broadly at her daughter. Although Crystal Fellaway had a decent set of teeth for an ex-tweaker, every time she smiled, the expression “toothy grin” still popped into Heather’s mind.
“I just wanted to make sure you’re alright,” Heather said cautiously, still trying to catch her breath from the shock of seeing how amazing her mother looked.
“You’re the daughter, you’re s’posed to call me,” Crystal fired back. “What are you, playing some kinda game with me? Tryna see who’ll crack first?”
“No,” Heather replied. Though this had, more or less, been the case. “But it’s been threemonths, Mom. Thanksgiving was a couple of weeks ago, and I didn’t hear from you at all.”
“Three months?” Crystal exclaimed. “Has it really been three months?
Heather nodded darkly, offended that her mother clearly hadn’t seemed to notice.
“There’s no way it coulda been that long,” Crystal continued. “Feels like yesterday to tell ya the truth. But I guess that’s what happens when you’re livin’ the life of a person who’s actually happy.”
Heather didn’t like the sound of that at all. Most people were happy if their mothers were enjoying themselves, but in Heather’s case, the things that gave her mother pleasure tended to be really bad for her.
“Come on in!”
Crystal grabbed Heather by the arm.
“I can’t stay!” Heather protested. Once Crystal yanked her inside, Heather looked around. The house was pristine…it didn’t even look like a place where actual people lived. Heather saw no sign of The Worst Person in the World and she breathed a sigh of relief. She noticed the place was decorated with little antiques: a crystal candy dish that looked to be at least 60 years old on the chest of drawers, brass music box in the shape of a galloping horse on the dining room table, and intricate embroidery in turquoise, green, yellow and orange thread hanging on the wall above the hope chest.
“Mom, what are all these knickknacks doing here?”
Crystal looked offended.
“These ain’t knickknacks, they’re hair-looms.”
“Belonging to who?”
“Belongin’ to me, now! Though they used to belong to your Grandma Rose, God rest her soul.”
Heather felt some of the blood drain from her face.
“Grandma Rose…she died?”
Crystal nodded solemnly.
“October 15. Nine-forty-five pm. Don’t worry, it was a peaceful death. Died in her sleep…probably in the middle of a beautiful dream.”
“And you didn’t tell me? How come you didn’t say anything?”
“She was my mother, not yours!” Crystal countered. “Besides, you only met her once when you were a baby. On top of which, the funeral was all the way out in Fuck Off, Montana. You wouldn’t have wanted to go.”
Crystal patted Heather on the shoulder and disappeared into the kitchen. She returned with the program from the funeral service.
“Rose Mae Montez,” Heather read the name aloud.
“Let me tell you, life in Montana ain’t nothing like it is out here,” Crystal said. “’Specially not your gramma’s life. But she wasn’t like anybody you ever known.”
Heather examined the program. There were recent crummy pictures of her grandmother taken with bad lighting and what was probably a cheap excuse for a digital camera. There were pictures of her as an adult standing in the assembly line in the factory she worked at for 51 years. Then there were formal pictures, black and white pictures of her as a little girl. The only ones in which she was smiling were the ones when she was old.
“Your grandma defied the laws of female gravity,” Crystal informed Heather. “Lived by her own rules. Always told the truth and didn’t let nobody intimidate her. ‘Specially not no man.”
Heather’s eyes caught onto a picture of her grandmother riding a horse. She looked to be in her twenties.
“She worked in an assembly line for half a century,” Heather murmured in a sad voice.
“We all gotta work in a line sometimes,” Crystal shrugged. “But it don’t mean that’s who we are. When she wasn’t on her feet workin’ her ass off eight hours a day, she was out livin’ her life. She liked freedom…not in a selfish way, but in the way that tells everyone how much you love life. Not enough women live like she did.”
Crystal laughed softly. “Most women don’t live at all.”
There was a small stirring behind them and they turned around. It was him: The Worst Man in the World.
“Heather finally came to her senses and decided to talk to me again,” Crystal announced proudly.
“About time, don’t you think?” he raised an eyebrow at Heather. “Your mother and I have been worried sick about you.”
Heather flinched, as though he had just sliced her open with his words.
“I can’t stay,” she repeated. And surprised herself by looking him directly in the eyes as she said it.
“I’ve been back three months now. Don’t you realize I’m gonna stick around this time?”
“You were gone for twenty years,” Heather retorted. “In and out, always promising the same things then disappearing again.”
“Listen, Heather and I need to talk,” Crystal turned to him. “Won’t you leave us for a few minutes? I haven’t seen her in a long time and the last thing I need is to get involved in another tear-stained argument.”
The Worst Man in the World heaved a sigh. “Fine,” he said evenly. “I was just on my way out, anyway. Going to the hardware store to buy a new flush valve…to fix my toilet in my house.”
He gave Heather a pointed, disdainful look and brushed past her and Crystal to the front door, which he opened and closed with a deliberate slam.
It was only once he was gone that Heather realized she had been shaking – was still shaking. Her eyes were dry, but her entire body felt out of control, like it was being pumped with some invisible source of electricity.
“Mom,” Heather said, her voice quavering. “Tell me why he’s still here.”
Her mother softly placed the palm of her hand against Heather’s cheek.
“I know you hate me for this, Heather. But I have a real good feeling this time. Things are finally gonna work out for me…the way I always wanted. Can’t you just be happy for me?”
Heather’s brain whirred with counterarguments, things she wanted to say to change her mother’s mind…but she stopped herself. She had learned that perhaps the only way to save her mother was to stop trying to. It seemed like the most absurd idea, but Heather had already spent 27 years trying everything else. Could she love her mother and still let her fall face-first into despair, tripped up by her own mistakes? Heather wasn’t sure she could, but in that moment she gave herself permission to try.
Heather placed her hand on her mother’s shoulder, trying not to let Crystal see that her eyes were now brimming with tears.
“I’m glad you’re happy,” she told her mother.
“There’s a girl,” Crystal said, placing her own hand over Heather’s and giving it a warm squeeze.
“I really do have to go, Mom.”
“Well lemme give you your hair-loom first,” Crystal said with a small jump before disappearing into her bedroom.
“My heirloom?”
“I brought you something back from Montana.”
Crystal emerged carrying a black guitar case. Heather felt her breath hitch.
“Open it.”
Heather unlocked the buckles on the side of the case. A shiny, purple guitar sat inside, beaming warmly up at her. A scent that Heather immediately recognized as her grandmother’s flooded Heather’s senses, - though she wondered if she truly remembered her grandmother’s smell from babyhood, or if it was just her imagination. Heather reached down to touch the curious material on the body of the guitar.
“It’s velvet,” she observed.
“It was your gramma’s,” Crystal told her. “And that’s real Mother-of-pearl inlay, too. Not that cheap plastic shit they make nowadays.”
“I didn’t know there was such a thing as a velvet guitar.” The guitar’s body was covered in deep purple crushed velvet. With a strap to match. Heather had never seen anything like it before. But it was real.
“Bet you never even knew she used to play,” Crystal smirked. “Well, how could you? You never really knew her, did you? But she did. She played beautifully. She would play for everyone.”
“Doesn’t the velvet mess up the sound?” Heather asked, strumming her fingers across the strings that emitted a startling rich sound, almost like an actual human voice.
“Your gramma got the guitar custom made,” Crystal explained. “She had an image of it in her mind…said she’d seen it in a dream. But she couldn’t find it anywhere in real life, so she decided she’d just have to create it herself. She bought the prettiest-sounding guitar in Montana she could afford, and paid a man, an instrument repairman, ten dollars to put the velvet on for her. He had to break the damn thing apart and put it back together to do it.” Crystal laughed at the memory, the story she’d been told so many times. “He told her: ‘You’re crazy! You’ll ruin this thing and it’s already so beautiful. Why destroy it?’ But she didn’t listen to him. That was one thing about your gramma: she knew when to listen to herself.”
Heather slung the strap across the back of her neck and played a few chords, then plucked a few notes.
“How did you know I play?” she asked her mother.
Crystal gave her daughter a funny look. “I didn’t. Guess I just thought you’d figure it out. You were always so good at figuring things out.”
Heather strummed the first chords of It Will All Make Sense Someday, Matthew’s song. She thought about the band and all the gigs they’d played over the past six weeks, the hate mail, Principal Louis and his makeshift fan t-shirts, Arissa Svengaarten behind the counter at The Blue Danooby, the Man in Leather Pants and a Leather Jacket that was Too Small for Him, their first ‘legitimate’ fan letter published in the Alameda Citizen.
Heather looked up at her mother.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to have this,” she said. “It’s too special.”
“What do you mean?” Crystal rolled her eyes playfully. “Ain’t no one else gonna play this thing. If you don’t, it’ll just sit here, silent in a box. And that’s the last thing it was intended for.”
December brought days that were ending earlier and earlier. By the time Heather reached the maze, it was 4:30pm and the glow of twilight lit up the bay like electricity. Tonight, she remembered, was her long-awaited first date with Michael Savery, Mrs. Savery’s son. For weeks, Mrs. Savery had attempted to coordinate their schedules, but Michael, it seemed, was frequently indisposed: either working on something extremely important for his degree or escaping up north on the weekends to do insane things like climb mountains or kayak rapids.
Tonight, however, he was finally coming to pick Heather up at six to go ice skating. Heather realized that she felt too drained from her visit to her mother’s to go ice skating. She wondered if she could tell him that when he got there, but she didn’t want to cancel. Mrs. Savery would never let her hear the end of it and this date had been such a long time coming. Better to just get it over and done with.
Heather had just finished washing her hair when she heard someone banging on the door.
What time was it? She pulled back the shower curtain, dismayed to see that the glass on her bathroom clock was completely fogged up. Heather threw on her robe and ran to the door.
“Who is it?” she asked, leaning her ear towards the door.
“So you are there!”
It was Tom. Heather opened the door.
“I’ve been knocking for twenty minutes!”
“I was in the shower.” Heather paused, noticing he appeared a little disheveled. His always-perfect hair was sticking up a little bit. “Is something wrong?”
“Just came by to see if you wanted to hang out tonight,” Tom replied.
Heather frowned. He’d never dropped by uninvited before.
“Is Matthew here too?”
Tom shook his head. “It would just be us.”
“I can’t,” Heather lamented. “I’ve got that date with Michael Savery. We’ve been trying to plan it for weeks.”
“You’re actually going out with him?” Tom frowned. “I thought that fell through the cracks!”
“Well, it did. Several times. But Mrs. Savery insisted, so tonight it’s finally happening at last.”
“Well, where’s he taking you?”
“Dinner. Then to the Oakland Ice Arena.”
Tom scoffed. “Ice skating.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“First of all, it’s about the most trite thing you can do on a date in the month of December. And second, ice skating is just an excuse to get physically close to another person. You know…like holding their hand and pretending it’s just because they don’t want you to fall.”
“What if they really don’t want you to fall and they’re just being considerate?” Heather refuted.
“Oh Heather, don’t be so naïve. Besides, do you really want a person like Elaine Savery as a mother-in-law?”
“Tom,” Heather said. “I’m just going out on a date with him. One date. People aren’t exactly lined up around the block to date me, so why should I say no?”
“I just thought-”
Tom appeared to stop himself.
“What?” Heather crossed her arms.
“Nothing.”
“What did you think, Tom?”
Tom shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought that…maybe you’d like to watch a movie.”
Heather rolled her eyes. “Live at Wembley again?”
“It’s true I could watch Live at Wembley all day every day,” Tom admitted. “But I was at the video store on Park and thought you might be more interested in this…”
Tom pulled the DVD of Shakira’s Oral Fixation Tour out of his jacket pocket.
Oh. My. God.”
Heather grabbed the DVD and her eyes tore through the content of the back cover.
“I’ve wanted to watch this for so long,” she said. “I heard it was amazing.”
She paused, looking up at Tom.
“You’re actually offering to watch this with me?”
Tom shrugged. “I mean, yeah. Matthew and I have made you listen to so much Queen. It’s only fair, don’t you think?”
Heather looked at the clock. It was 5:15. Makeup and hair would only take twenty minutes, she reasoned. She’s already picked out her outfit for the evening.
“Just one song,” Heather acceded. “One song. And then you have to leave. Okay?”
Tom nodded.
“Just turn on the DVD player and I’ll be back in a minute,” she called, slipping into the bedroom.
Tom picked up the remote on the couch, switched on the television and DVD player and pressed play. He heard Heather shuffling around in the other room, the blow dryer switching on and off, drawers opening and closing. Shakira began the stadium-packed concert with an extended belly-dancing number. So long, in fact, that she hadn’t even started singing her first song until Heather finally emerged from her room. Her hair was slightly damp and she had changed into a black turtleneck with a black shirt and jeans. She was wearing the same makeup Tom had seen her wear at all their shows. Tom paused the DVD.
“You look nice.”
“I debated wearing a skirt,” Heather confessed. “Then I realized how awful it would be if I fell and ended up flashing everyone at the Oakland Ice Center.”
Tom smiled slightly, sensing an energized giddiness in Heather that he hadn’t seen before – not even at shows.
“So…this is your first time going out in a while?”
Heather pondered the question.
“I guess so,” she realized as she spoke the words aloud. “I didn’t date much after my last relationship ended two years ago.”
“And, uh…why did it end?” Tom felt awkward asking the question, but reminded himself that he and Heather were friends now, and therefore this genre of conversation was fair game.
“Truthfully? I got tired of taking care of him all the time,” Heather smiled sourly. “He didn’t have his life together, he always needed me to help him somehow, always some kind of crisis I had to step in and assist with. I realized about a year into it that it was the exact same relationship I had growing up with my mother…”
“Your mother?”
Heather cleared her throat, part of her not wanting to get into the messy details of her life all over again. She knew Tom wanted to know, however, and another part of him felt it was an appropriate time to tell him - especially after the interaction she’d just had with her mother less than two hours ago.
“It’s not something that’s...easy for me to talk about,” Heather began. She inhaled deeply. “My mother had a problem with drugs when I was a kid,” she told Tom. “Crystal meth. In fact, it wasn’t just when I was a kid. She was using it until around the time I started college.”
It was strange how after so many years she still felt scared and embarrassed when telling people the true story of her life, still expecting no one else to understand.
She screwed up her courage and looked Tom in the eyes.
“That’s why I’m so messed up,” she confessed in a small voice.
Tom tilted his head to one side, pained to know this was how she felt.
“You’re not messed up,” he said. “I’m glad you told me.”
“But I am,” Heather laughed, shaking her head. “I’m not a normal person. I know you think I am, but I’m…not.”
“I don’t think you’re normal,” Tom replied. “I think you’re extraordinary.”
“You do?”
The room suddenly felt very quiet. To both of them. Something shifted within Tom and even though he knew it could wind up to be the biggest mistake of his life, he found himself leaning into Heather and kissing her.
When he pulled back to assess her reaction, Tom couldn’t read her face at all. When what felt to him like the longest ten or so seconds in history had passed between them, he assumed he had again done the wrong thing. But when she pulled him into her this time and kissed him back, all his regret and confusion melted away. Joy and relief took their places - relief that this time, he had not made a complete blunder in front of Heather M. Fellaway: a quintessential Killer Queen.
She kissed like one.