It had been two weeks since I had talked to my dad, and as far as I knew, they hadn't tried to contact me again. Of course, it wasn't as if I was home very often, and Aunt Janice had something of a hectic schedule, too. The company she worked for was restructuring, and she worked all the time, trying to either prove her worth or earn enough overtime to that if she did get laid off, she could survive for awhile. Meanwhile, I gave her as much of my paychecks as she would accept, but she was proud, so it was difficult. I helped out by buying the food and doing some laundry, and I tried not to bring about too many expenses. Nonetheless, I could tell she was worried. She left for work early in the morning and usually came home while I was at the club if it was our night to play or after I had gone to bed if it wasn't.
I had told her that I would be leaving, so only she and George knew. I had scheduled a flight that was now fifteen days away, so I knew that I needed to tell the other guys that I would be leaving.
Of course, it didn't go exactly as I had hoped.
I waited until after the gig, and as we packed up, I told them I needed to talk to them. I explained that my birthday was late in the year, and I still legally had to do what my parents said. And they said to come home and go to school. I told them that I wanted to stay and would come back as soon as I could.
Craig gave me dagger eyes which I could not even look at.
Phillip stood speechless for a few minutes, then threw down his drumsticks, breaking one of them, and stormed out.
John just stood there. I couldn't meet his eyes.
The silence was incredibly uncomfortable, even with the noise of the club permeating the air. Finally, I decided I needed to break it. "I'm sorry. If there were something I could do to change this, I would. But I can't. Not until after the semester, and even then, it'll be tough. I may not be back til next summer."
Craig followed Phillip. I watched him go, trying to keep the tears from coming to my eyes.
I saw John move out of the corner of my eye, and I lowered my head, thinking he was going to leave, too. Instead, he picked up his acoustic and sat down, and fiddled with it. Then, he started to play a familiar tune. The tears came to my eyes, but I was determined not to cry. John started to sing.
Listen to my Bluebird laugh, she can't tell you why
Deep within her heart, you see, she knows only crying
Just crying, yeah.
Did Phillip somehow know? When he had given me that nickname, had he felt a shadow of what was to come?
There she sits, a lofty bird, strangest colour blue
Flying is forgotten now, thinks only of you
Just you, oh
Then John skipped a couple verses. Maybe he felt that I was on the verge of running out.
Soon, she's going to fly away
Sadness is her own
Fill herself a bath of tears,
And go home, and go home.
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. When John set his guitar down and looked up at me, it was incredibly unnerving. Somewhere in the back of my mind, it struck me that it would be much easier to deal with all this if he had gotten angry and blown up at me.
"I-- I better go," I said shakily, reaching for my guitar to leave. John stood up and began to walk over to me, but I ducked out of the room and rushed outside. I'd been prepared for my bandmates to be angry, been prepared for them to gently accept my leaving and carry on when I left, but the feeling that I got from John didn't fit either category. Heck, I had been more prepared for them to be glad of my leaving.
It was late, and since I had some cash in my pocket, I stood in front of the club for a few minutes trying to get a cab. Unfortunately, the few that went by had passengers. After a few minutes, I sighed and started walking. I was admittedly a little worried, since it was late and all.
After only a few steps, my own paranoia had taken hold. I had long outgrown the stage of being afraid of slimy monsters in the night, but I was in a downtown area, and it was very late. I jumped at shadows and shied away from anyone who was also walking along the sidewalk.
There was a fair amount of traffic on the street, and my senses were so caught up with trying to keep track of the people that I could see and knew or suspected were nearby that I really paid no attention to the traffic other than to keep my eyes peeled for an unoccupied cab.
"Janice!"
I was momentarily terrified, and whirled around to the source of the voice just as I placed it. "George!" I cried. I rushed over to him, relieved to see a familiar face. It was as though he brought a sense of reality to my visions of evil lurking in every crack and crevice. "What are you doing here?"
He laughed. "What, I'm not allowed to go out on my own?"
I blushed. "I just didn't expect to see you here."
"Actually, I just left a meeting and was on my way back home. I was a little surprised to see you just walking along at this time of night."
"Well, I couldn't get a cab, and I've walked home before." I tried to sound nonchalant, not specifying whether my other walks home had been in similar conditions.
"How about a ride?"
"I would love a ride!" I answered a little too quickly, and he laughed.
"Walked home plenty of times, you say?"
I was already putting my guitar in the backseat of his Mercedes. Even George's driving was preferable to walking home right then! I suppose I could have called Aunt Janice and asked her to come get me, but I would certainly have woken her up.
"You had a gig tonight, didn't you?" George said as he pulled the car back onto the street.
I nodded, debating whether or not to tell him about it. "Yeah, we played at that one," I said as we passed the club.
"So what happened?"
"What?"
"Well, something's not right. I don't know what, but something happened, didn't it?"
I sighed and said, "I told them that I would be leaving."
"You hadn't already told them?"
"No, I was afraid of what might happen. And now I think it did happen. Two of the guys were furious. They didn't even say anything, they just left."
"Oh, Jan. I'm so sorry." It struck me that he could probably identify pretty well. There was a pause, as if he were trying to think of his next words.
"Don't worry about it, I'd have had to leave them pretty soon, anyway. They'd stay here, I'd go home. The earliest I could probably be back would be next summer, anyway."
"Are you going to come back?"
That was a good question. "I'm not sure," I said hesitantly. "I think I want to, but I will, of course, have to figure that out when the time comes. I love it here, though, I have to say that much."
"Well, I don't know what can happen in a year, but let me know when you come back. Oh, and I was going to tell you this tomorrow, but it might as well be now. I got in touch with a couple people at the Capitol offices in Los Angeles. How would you like a job there?"
A job? In Los Angeles? At Capitol?? "I would love it! I can hardly believe this!" I thought about it, trying to remember if I already knew the area. "The building's on Wilshire, right?"
"I think so," George answered with a grin.
"Did they say what kind of job they'd want me for?"
"It would probably by some kind of regular job, not the personal assistant job you had here."
"That's fine." I remembered why I was going back in the first place. "What kind of hours?"
"Well, you'd have to talk to them about it, of course. You could probably work just about any hours you'd want to."
I nodded. "I'll have to remember to schedule my classes all as close together as I can."
"What are you going to major in?"
"I'll go in undeclared. Cal State Fullerton doesn't have a music major, and that's about all I can see myself doing."
"You've been getting some good experience," he said with a smile as we pulled up to the apartment building. "Let me know if I can help."
I quickly opened the door and started to get out so that he wouldn't feel obligated to get out and open it for me. "Be careful, I might take you up on that!"
"I'll see you in the morning!" He called as I ran up to the entrance.
When I got home the following evening, the phone was ringing. I rushed to pick it up, but the caller had hung up by the time I got to it. I consoled myself with the thought that if it was someone who knew my aunt or me, they would know that we would be in soon enough and call back, as well as if the call was important.
For a few minutes, I sat and wondered what to do with my time. I was used to coming home, grabbing a quick bite, and leaving again. Now, I could... well, I could get some sleep. But I wasn't really that sleepy. I'd be able to eat a decent meal. But I wasn't really hungry. I turned the television on and looked for something to watch. I learned that day that even though I had thought there was a shortage of things to watch in America, there were fewer channels and fewer shows worth my time in England. I turned the TV off and laid back in the chair.
Okay, I might as well make some kind of dinner. I went into the kitchen and looked around. By the time Aunt Janice got home, I was almost finished with the chicken stir fry. I had been forced to improvise with some of the ingredients, since the common foods in England seemed to differ from those in Southern California. I would normally have served it over rice, but I used pasta for this dish. It didn't turn out half bad, either.
"No singing tonight?" Aunt Janice said when I sat down across from her.
I shook my head. "No, all done with that now. Well, at least for the time being. How's the job going?"
She grimaced. "It's going. They're moving around some of the offices, things like that." She sighed. "In truth, I'm a little worried. The men in the company always are regarded higher than the women, and even though my position is one of the better ones, this is a perfect time to get lost in the shuffle."
I nodded. This kind of corporate world was foreign to me. I understood very little of it, even though most of my family was involved with it. There seemed to be a constant worry about your future, and always the sense that to stay ahead, you had to be practically, well, married to your job. I sure as hell didn't want that.
"I ought to still be able to get the Thursday after next off, though," she said.
"Oh, no, please. It's okay, really. I can get to the airport and on my plane just fine."
She held up a hand. "I won't hear of it. I'll go and see you off."
"And I won't hear of you taking the risk." We both sat stubbornly, and I finally said, "Okay, let's leave it alone for now. Please, wait a couple more days at least until you try to get the day off."
"Okay, then. I'll give you that much. Oh," she said, looking at the clock. "I've got to run. I've got a date."
"A what? You said you have a date?"
She grinned mischeviously. "Believe it or not. Don't wait up for me."
"On the condition that I get the whole story within the next couple days," I said with a grin.
It had been hectic, but fun. Lots of fun. I didn't want to give it up. I'd have done almost anything to stay here in London. Part of it was the joy of living on my own and being responsible for myself, another part of it was having a job I loved. Yet another part consisted of feeling like a whole person, an important person, someone strong and individual, not one of the nameless faces of the population.
But was any of this directly connected to London? I wasn't sure. I could probably be independent and strong in Los Angeles. If I worked at Capitol, I'd have to arrange my schedule very carefully. It would take me around an hour, maybe a little longer, to get from Fullerton to Wilshire. I wanted to keep on trying with music, playing clubs and such, but I really didn't see how I could do any of that. I would probably have to try to get settled into school and a regular job before I started contemplating moonlighting.
I sighed and leaned back against the trunk of the tree. I had come once again to the park near the flat, and decided I'd rather sit under a tree than on the hard bench. Of course, the ground was wet from last night's rain, so I had climbed the tree and was sitting on a branch about five meters up. It was a Saturday, and I would be leaving the following Thursday. I had decided to work right up until Tuesday. If nothing else, it gave me something to do. And I was painfully aware of the fact that I might not see anyone again -- Jill, Carol, and the other Scruffs... Grace... George. I didn't want to leave.
"The Bluebird sitting in her nest?" A voice below me said, breaking through my thoughts. I looked down.
"Oh, hi, John!" I wasn't sure just how to react. I wasn't exactly sure how he felt about me, and I didn't want to make a fool out of myself.
Oddly enough, he seemed as hesitant as I to speak. After a few moments of uncomfortable silence, though, he finally said, "Your aunt said you might be here."
I nodded. "She knows my habits pretty well. Um... you were looking for me?"
"Yeah. I've tried to call a few times, but there's never an answer. I, ah, I mean... I just hope you're not mad at me."
I swung down off the branch and landed on my feet in front of John. "I'm not mad at you." I realized I should probably say something more. "My aunt and I aren't home during the day."
"Oh. Well, I'm glad you're not mad." He still seemed very hesitant. He wanted to say something, but was afraid, or couldn't find the words.
I felt the same way. "What's on your mind?"
"I, ah... that is..." he trailed off. I waited. "Well, for one, I saw you get into someone's car when you left. I guess I'm wondering if you're dating someone."
This was easy. "No, I'm not dating anyone. I didn't want to walk home alone, couldn't get a cab, and my friend happened by at that moment."
He nodded. "Okay. I, um... well, I was coming out to walk you home."
"Well, I thank you for your consideration."
"I had an ulterior motive. I wanted to talk to you."
"You can talk to me now."
"Right. I know. I just... I thought it would be easier."
"Well, just tell yourself it is easy. I'm dying of curiosity by now!" I said to lighten the mood.
It seemed to work. He grinned. "Okay, fine. Maybe I won't tell you. No, I've got to get this said, regardless of what you deserve! This time next week, you'll be in California. I wish you weren't going. And I think I'll probably be stepping out of line here, but I think this also needs to be said. When the four of us first started playing together, Phillip told Craig and I to keep away from you. He wouldn't say just why. We assumed he meant that you and he -- that is, you two..."
"I get it. We weren't." I was quite unhappy about this news, and I'm sure it showed.
"I see that now. I think he just wanted to try to keep tensions low. Or maybe he had hopes that you'd come 'round to him. Regardless, that's the explanation for how Craig behaved to you. Feels right rotten about it now, he does. Wants to apologize, but won't admit it."
So John was delivering a message for his friend. I was both disappointed and relieved. "Tell him it's okay, I hold no hard feelings. And tell him that if I don't get to see him before I leave, then to write me, for sure."
John nodded. I had assumed that was why he was looking for me, but he didn't leave. "It's different, now that you're leaving. I want to know, though. Are you... can I... do you have a boyfriend in California?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "I've never actually had a boyfriend."
"Well, I... if you should ever come back to London, give me a call?"
I reached out and hugged him. "Of course. And let me know if you're ever in California!"
I started to pull away, but he stopped me, holding me for just a moment longer. It felt like he never wanted to let go. In that moment, it was almost as though I could read his mind. It was, as Sarah would have said, supremely weird. I felt his hold begin to relax, but instead of pulling away, he leaned down and kissed me. It was just a quick kiss, but it was enough to catch me off guard. I stood, momentarily surprised, and in the next moment, John had gone.
Chapter 9 - - - - Chapter 11