Loved - A Novel (14 page)

             
I packed them all away in my journal, the people and my sins, and wondered when I would find something that I wouldn’t have to leave, I wouldn’t try to run away from, and I wouldn’t need to say goodbye to. Was this pattern something I was choosing because I was afraid of settling? Was it a pattern I could break?  I used to fall asleep imagining what I would become, but now I fell asleep worrying about what was wrong with me.

              Maybe L.A. would fix it.

             
January, 2004.

              On New Year’s Eve, I flew to L.A. to start the Belmont West program. There were fifteen of us in the program and we would all live in the same apartment complex. My internship was in the Music Supervision and Publishing department at a major film company, and my jobs were to select music for the movies that the studio was working on at the time, and to monitor the publishing for songs that they owned. The latter consisted mostly of filing and faxing but for the former I got to watch the dailies (what had been filmed on set each day), make notes and research potential music for particular scenes.

I spent a lot of my downtime lounging by the pool in my hot pink bikini, listening to Pearl Jam on my headphones at full blast or hanging out with the other students. We planned group outings to places like the Holocaust Museum, The Crystal Cathedral and some of the hottest restaurants in town, even if all we could afford was a martini and a shared appetizer. We had parties at any one of our apartments, playing cards or watching movies. We went to see live tapings of TV shows like
Leno
and
That 70’s Show
. An old music star from the 70’s was one of our neighbors and we got to hang out with him a couple of times. He had some friends who were younger musicians and we would all sit around listening to their music, the old star praising them and dancing around the room.
Through Service Corps, I also got to work the red carpet at the Grammy Awards.

              I met some guys from San Diego at a
Dave Matthews
show.  I went to visit them in San Diego a few times and I got to work with their band a little, booking a couple shows for them.
 
Since my discovery of
Counting Crows
and the love for rock music that followed, I had begun to think of living in L.A. rather than Nashville in order to be part of the music scene. I planned to come back to L.A. after my last few summer classes at Belmont and continue working at the movie studio. I would get an apartment with some of the other students who planned to stay and keep learning the ropes of the industry.  I also started looking into acting schools, thinking it would be fun to take a few classes.

              Chase and I continued the occasional emails, usually punishing each other for our own failures. I told him over and over about the plans I had and the new bands I liked that made me more like him. He was sarcastic and self-deprecating and I felt guilty for making him that way, though I wondered, was it entirely my fault? I couldn’t get my head around the idea that Chase wasn’t the one but I kept trying to meet others, knowing that if he wasn’t then someone else was bound to be.

              Still he kept writing to me.

Jan 18, 2004  “The Memory of the Fish”

Hello.  How are you doing?  I’m ok.  I’m lying.  I’m actually pretty depressed and I don’t know why.  Perhaps I’m just lonely and I wish there was a girl in my life, or maybe I just hate school, who knows.  I apologize, Kit, I realize none of this is your fault.  I hope things in L.A. are glitzy and exciting.  Don’t spend ALL your time schmoozing with the stars.  I wish I could use that word more in conversation...schmoozing. 

Anyway, take care of yourself.  Stay happy and beautiful.

Take pains, be perfect -Shakespeare. 

Chase

             
June, 2004.

              After Belmont West was over, I spent three weeks or so in P.A. because I was about to graduate college and would soon join the work force in one way or another. I wanted to spend some quality time with friends and family who I didn’t get to see me very often. 

              I planned my time at home to include the
Dave Matthews Band
show at which I had had so much fun the year before. Meredith and I went to the campgrounds with our other girlfriends from high school to set up the tent. Actually, the girls sat and chatted while the guys set up both tents.  The year before, we had waited until after the concert to set up camp, but it was dark and we were drunk and it was a complete disaster.  This year we knew better.

              Once we got to the amphitheater, there was less time to tailgate than usual but we had enough time to get a decent buzz. I wore dark Seven A-Pocket jeans and a hot pink tank top. We were able to find some of the other Westville people including Jeff Meyers just before the band started. Meredith and Rachel left to get more beers from the overpriced concession stands, and the rest of us talked and swayed and sang along. I was ignoring Jeff as I was not going to keep trying to flirt with him forever.

              Eventually, I caught his eye and said “hi,” but left it at that.  He had grown a beard and cut his dark hair short, making him look even more striking than ever. I smiled to myself. 

              “You should really do something about that,” one of the girls, Amy, said to me, referring to Jeff.

              “I am done wishing for that,” I said. “It’s just never going to happen.”

              “I don’t know,” Amy argued.  “Maybe you just need to make a move.”

              Amy had dated Jeff in high school and had nothing good to say about him as a boyfriend, but they had managed to stay friends and she never criticized my crush.

              “Well, if I were to make a move exactly how would I do that?” I asked.

              “Just grab him and start dancing!”

              It sounded insane but what else was I supposed to do?  Meredith wasn’t back yet to give me her advice.
What is taking them so long?  Hmm.  Maybe...

              I turned and smiled at Jeff; then I reached out my hand and said, “Come here!”

              He smiled and came over to me. I was standing about three steps down the hill. He could tell that I wasn’t trying to have a chat. He put his arm around my waist, resting his hand on my lower back and we swayed our hips to the music.  I reached up and put my arms around him and he pulled me closer. I glanced at Amy and she was smiling. 

Jeff kissed my neck and then kissed me on the lips.  My mind went completely blank. I was lost in the moment, the music and the deep slow kiss. When I finally came out of it, Meredith was standing next to me, holding her beer. I laughed. I knew I would have to explain later, but at that moment, there was no way I was letting go of him.

              We danced and kissed through the entire show. Jeff got increasingly drunk and he would stumble down the hill a little and I would hold on to him to keep him from falling.  We would laugh. 

              “Where are you sleeping tonight?” he asked.

              “I don’t know yet.”

              “You should stay with me.”

              “We’ll see,” I said. I wasn’t considering turning him down, I just didn’t believe he was seriously inviting me. 

              It took us forever to get back to the cars after the show. We were all hopelessly drunk on alcohol and euphoria.  Once we finally found the cars, we were in no hurry to leave.  The traffic was barely moving to get out of the parking lot anyway.

              The guys had a bottle of Jagermeister in their trunk.  We took turns taking swigs straight from the bottle. I always thought Jager would be hard to get down but it wasn’t. It tasted like black licorice, which I didn’t like but at least it didn’t taste like the ridiculously strong alcohol it is.

              There were too many of us to sit normally in the car, so I sat on Jeff’s lap, sideways, so I could turn and see him.  I was still smiling, staring into his dark eyes. It was then that I was able to take a few minutes to realize that I had kissed Jeff Meyers, and that he had asked me repeatedly to stay with him that night. I didn’t care that he didn’t love me. I didn’t care that we were drunk. All I wanted with him was a moment.

              When we got to the campground, we started a fire and got out the snacks; no one was tired yet. We were all completely amped. Some people got marshmallows out and held them over the fire on metal sticks. When I went to sit on the table, I put my hands behind me to pull myself up and accidentally rested one of my hands directly on a hot metal stick.  I heard my hand sizzle first and then I felt it. I was too drunk to react quickly and by the time I finally moved my hand there was a decent burn on my palm at the base of my thumb. Some of Jeff’s friends had seen it happen. I was so embarrassed but I assured them that I was fine and that it wasn’t a big deal. Really, it hurt so badly I knew that I would cry in a matter of seconds. 

              “Come on,” Jeff said.  He took my good hand and walked me across the dirt path to where his Jeep was parked.  I wondered if anyone had ointment or a bandage or something. Jeff had a pipe and some pot.
Well, that might help
, I thought. We each took only a hit and Jeff said, “Come on, let’s go find somewhere else.” I buckled my seatbelt even though I knew we were only driving around the campground. It was dark and we were in no state to drive.  I even had visions of us careening off a steep hill, hitting every tree as we rolled down. 

              He drove around for a few minutes until we were lost.  Finally, we found an empty camp spot and parked the Jeep.

              “We can sleep here.”

              Jeff put the seats down in the back and laid out some blankets, making a bed. We climbed in.

              My memory went as dark as the summer night’s sky.

              The next morning when I woke, it took me a few minutes to figure out where I was. Then I remembered: the concert, Jeff, kissing, Jager in the parking lot, campgrounds, Jeep...Oh. My. Gosh.

              My eyes flew open.  There he was, next to me.

              Jeff stirred. 

              “Hey,” he said, pulling me close to him.  “That was fun, we’ll have to do it again sometime when I’m not so drunk and I can enjoy it more.” 

              I was too shocked to respond in decipherable English.

              We stretched our cramped legs, stiff from sleeping in such a small space, and climbed to the front. SUVs may have ample cargo space but they are not better than a tent.

              “Great, now we have to find where everyone else is,” Jeff said. Of course neither of us remembered exactly how we got to where we were.

              He backed the jeep out of our spot and drove about thirty feet before we noticed a few familiar cars and some early risers we recognized a few camp spots down. All that driving and we had somehow managed to sleep at a neighboring camp spot. Meredith had to be up and back to her house early that morning so Jeff and Jesse drove me back to her place. We got on the highway and Jeff turned on the stereo. He had an
Incubus
CD in.

              “I love
Incubus
,” I said. “A friend of mine is their tour manager.”

              “No way,” Jesse said.

              “That’s awesome. I can’t imagine meeting famous people like you do,” Jeff added.

              “Yeah, they’re playing in Nashville again this fall.  You guys should come down for the show.” I have a habit of inviting people to do everything. Sometimes I need to just shut up.

              “Oh my gosh, that would be awesome,” Jeff said.  “What do you do that you get to meet all of these people? I mean, I know you’re in music somehow.”

              “Um, I just finished up a semester in L.A. doing music supervision for a film studio, which is choosing music for movies, and getting all the proper licenses and stuff. Now I’m about to graduate and I’ll be back and forth between L.A. and Nashville this summer.” It was true, after my time at home I was going back to L.A. to find a job and an apartment, then I would be in Nashville again in August for graduation.

              “That’s so cool,” Jeff said.

              “You’re in Ohio, right?” I asked Jeff. “How’s that going?”

              He had changed his major to history.

              I found it amazing that all the years I had had such a crush on him, and yet we knew very little about each other. I asked Jeff and Jesse both
questions about their schools, their lives and I told them some more of my own
stories, trying to fit the best stuff into one car ride without sounding like a name dropper. 

              We eventually made it to Meredith’s house. I thanked her for not minding that I didn’t stay with her or ride home with her.

              “I would never stand in the way of that!” she said.  “Now, tell me all about it!”

              I told her what I could remember and we laughed about how she had made her way back to us at the concert to find Dave’s tongue down my throat. 

              “Ims,” she giggled, using her special nickname for me, “I had no warning at all!”

              I remembered my burnt hand.  Meredith offered me some ointment and a bandage but it didn’t hurt very badly and I decided I wouldn’t mind if it scarred so I passed on her offer. I could use a permanent memory of that evening.

              The next day I drove to Westville. Chase and I had emailed a few times while I was in L.A. but things were really weird with us. We both admitted that we still had feelings for each other but he was either cruel or cold most of the time. 

              I figured I deserved it, although the worst I had ever done to him was break up with him. Twice. The desire to be with him fueled many of my decisions. I wanted so badly for him to be in love with me again, though I believed he still was deep down. Although his
I’m so happy for you
statements were dripping with sarcasm, I thought he strived to impress me too, in his own way.