Unplugged (A Portrait of a Rock Star) (6 page)

Ronnie jumped up and gave me a big hug.  “At least it wasn’t a no man, I can live with that.  But, Tagg,” Ronnie took a moment, I guess afraid of not making me angry again. “Don’t take too long in making your decision.  We’re really itchin’ to play.”  Then he patted my back, shook my hand and walked out the door.

Dad, on the other hand, began to make himself comfortable in my home.  He helped himself to one of my beers and searched my cupboards for potato chips.  “Taggart,” he stuck his head around the corner from the kitchen to look at me in the living room. “Where are the chips?  I can’t find them.”

“I don’t have any.”

Dad called again from the kitchen, “Okay, what about the cookies?” I heard cabinets slamming, the refrigerator door opening then closing.  “Where is all your goddamn food?”

“Well, Dad, I’ve been trying to cut back a little, so there isn’t much.”  I waited for his reaction.  Silence.  Then I heard footsteps slowly making their way around the bend from the kitchen.

He stood there with his hand on his chin, as if he were The Thinker statue.  “I thought you looked different when I first saw you.  You did drop a lot of weight.  You look good, Taggart.  What’s gotten into you?”

Mara’s gotten into me.  She’s actually given me some zest for life again.  “Well, I’ve been working out.”  I turned to look at Mara who was now leaning against the arm of the couch. “Mara has been training me.”

Dad’s eyes were about to fly out of his head.  “You’re being trained by a girl?”

I still had my eyes set on Mara, who was now rolling her eyes.  I turned back to my dad, “Dad! What the hell?”

He was laughing.  He was using that deep, guttural, Auggie Holland laugh that the world was so familiar with. He was so cocksure of himself; it made me mad.  “I find it humorous that my son needs to be trained by a girl.”

“Dad, shut the hell up.  You haven’t come around in a couple of months and when you do, you just can’t help putting me down.  Nothing changes with you, does it?”

Dad just continued laughing.  He plunked down on the recliner and guzzled his beer.  I wished he would just leave. “Hey, Dad, don’t you have somewhere to be?”

He raised his eyes towards me but not his head.  Instead he chose to look at Mara.  “So what’s your deal, sweetie?  I know you’re my son’s personal trainer, but are you his girlfriend, too?”

“No, Mr. Holland, but I am his friend.” Mara turned and gave her sweet smile to me.  I couldn’t help but get all warm inside.

“Yeah… and I’m the Pope.”  Dad got out of the recliner and came towards me with an extended hand.  “Look, Taggart, I’m sorry I can be so gruff.  You know how I am, but that doesn’t change the way I feel about you. I love you, boy, and I’m happy that you seem to be doing better.  You look good.  And, I’m glad you shaved that nest that was growing on your face.  You got a nice face, son.  A pretty one, just like your mother.”  Dad saw that I was ready to defend myself; he put his hands up, “I just mean it’s handsome, not rough and weathered like mine.  You look good.”

“Thanks, Dad. I think.  I’ll… umm… let you know what I decide as soon as I can.”

“Right.”  Auggie Holland was out the door.

Mara was sitting on the arm of the couch.  I meandered over to her and took one of her hands in mine.  She stood up and looked me straight in the eyes.  “Are you okay, Tagg?  He got you flustered, didn’t he?”

I turned up one side of my mouth in an attempt to smile.  “Now that’s an understatement.  I’m sorry you had to hear all that.  I mean my cursing and all.  I try to refrain from using words like that around you, but he gets my blood boiling sometimes.”

Mara took both my hands this time.  “Don’t worry about the cursing; I’m more concerned with the way your dad was talking to you.”

“Aw, don’t be.  He’s always like that.  I’m used to it.  He used to treat my mom like that; now that got me mad.  I vowed never to treat anyone like that.”  I kind of looked down at the floor.  “I guess my ways are no better, though.  I guess I did pick up his cheating ways.”

Mara let go of one of my hands and led me to the couch with her other hand still holding mine.  We sat down at the same time.  “Tagg, tell me about it.  The night Crystal died.” 

“Mara, I told you that day over coffee.”

“You told me that she found you cheating and she took off and crashed her car.  Those are the facts.  I want to know what you were feeling.  My guess is that you have never talked about it before and as much as it hurts to admit that your actions caused a terrible consequence, maybe you need to talk about how you feel about that.  I mean really feel.”

“Mara, you just said my actions caused the crash?”

“Well, didn’t they?  That’s what you said, it was your fault.”

“Yeah, but anyone else who tries to talk to me says that it wasn’t my fault; I couldn’t have known she was going to get in that crash.”

“But had you not been cheating on her, she never would have gone out.  You said it yourself.”

I took my hands abruptly away from Mara.  What was she trying to do to me?  I saw by the fearful look in her eyes that she regretted saying that.  “Mara, please leave.”

Mara stood up and started walking toward the door.  She turned and said, “Look Tagg, I’m sorry.  I shouldn’t have said that.”  She looked down for a moment and shot her head back up.  “But, I do believe that each and every decision we make, no matter how big or small, affects our lives in some way. No, you couldn’t have known what was going to happen, but that doesn’t change the fact that it did happen.  You feel guilty, and rightly so.  You’ve admitted you were wrong and I’m sure you regret the decisions you’ve made. I just thought that if you talked about it, constructively, that maybe one day you would be able to forgive yourself.  It’s a difficult endeavor, but a necessary one.  Again, Tagg, I’m sorry.  I’ve overstepped my bounds.  Call me when you’re ready to train again.”  Mara walked out with her head down and her shoulders slumped.  I felt bad.  She was right.  But it was so damn hard to forgive myself.

I let Mara leave …but I didn’t want her to.  She had upset me, but only because the truth had hurt …so much.  To hear someone else say it, well that was like pouring alcohol on my already wounded heart.  But, I really had to talk with Mara.  I shouldn’t have let her go.  Not like that.  This day was certainly turning out to be one hell of a bad day.  And it wasn’t even noon yet.

As much as my father and Ronnie had agitated me, my conversation with Mara had left me unsettled.  Not so much was it what she said that bothered me, but how we left things.  Moving forward with our relationship was kind of what I wanted, and talking about the serious stuff, well that would definitely help to lead us there.  It was just so intimidating getting close to Mara.  I was afraid I would mess up big time …again.

After changing into my faded blue t-shirt and my favorite pair of jeans, which were now way too big on me, I googled Ackerman Farms to get the directions.  Mara’s house was cute.  It was a small white Craftsman, with dark green shutters.  The driveway was long and narrow, because her house sat far behind a larger one of the same style, on the same property.  I started to get a little nervous, because as I pulled up the drive, I saw her little white Beetle parked in the back.  She was home.  I saw the white lace curtains in the front window move, so I’m sure she caught a glimpse of me.  There was no turning back now.  I could not, very well, back out of her confining driveway now that she had seen me; there was no need for me to look sillier than I had already felt.  I turned the ignition off and sat idly for a second or two to gather my courage.  I couldn’t take too long, of course or I’d begin to look suspicious.  However, when I looked toward the house, Mara was standing at the edge of her front porch, with her palms turned upward – as if to say, ‘well… are you going to get out of the car or what?’  Of course, I got out, shut the door and stood there …like an ass.

“Tagg, come on in.”  Mara was obviously riddled by my apprehension.  I sauntered towards her, but felt as if I were moving in slow motion, almost in reverse.  If the puzzled look on her face was any indication, I’d venture to guess that she was trying to assess what the hell was wrong with me.  Well, basically everything was wrong with me as far as I was concerned.  “Tagg, are you alright?”

I finally made it up the stairs to her porch.  She gently placed her hand on the upper part of my arm.  “What’s going on Tagg?”  Again, she asked, “Are you alright?”

All I could do was look down and into her beautiful eyes.  “Tagg, why don’t you come in?  I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”

I nodded my head and followed her in.  “Go ‘head and sit down, I’ll go get us coffee.” She must have been wondering why all of a sudden I’d turned mute.

I sat down on her red, green and gold plaid couch.  Obviously something that came with the house, since she seemed too young to like plaid.  I was still too nervous to speak.  Here I was, in Mara’s house and I couldn’t even bring myself to talk to her.  I leaned back against the couch, before noticing the book that was on her coffee table.  I shifted forward to get a closer look at it.  It wasn’t a book.  It was a hard-cover journal.  Pink.  In the upper-right-hand corner, in small black letters, were the words My Letters to Brad.  With my pinky finger, I lifted the cover to peek inside.  In rounded, girly handwriting was a letter that began, ‘Dear Bradley, you don’t know how very much I miss you.  Everyday is a struggle.’  I promptly let the cover drop back down; it was terribly inappropriate to invade her privacy like that.

A few seconds later Mara entered the living room holding two cups of coffee.  I stood up to take one from her.  “This one’s yours,” she said as she gave me the cup in her left hand, “light with two sugars.” A pretty rose color suddenly appeared on her face and she softly said, “I noticed that you usually put two sugars in your latte, I assumed you took your regular coffee that way, too.”

“I do.”  The words came out raspy due to my previous silence.  So, I repeated myself, hopefully sounding clearer.  “I do.”  I sat back down on the couch and sipped my coffee.  Mara sat down on a green and white checked wooden chair that was positioned across from me.  Well, the cushions were green and white check.  The chair itself was made from wood.  It looked like one of those old-fashioned chairs you’d see in someone’s grandmother’s house.

I couldn’t help it, but in between looking at Mara’s questioning eyes, I’d keep glancing down at the journal, wondering who the hell Brad was.  If she had a boyfriend, then I was definitely misinterpreting her  vibes.  Then again, if Brad was her boyfriend, then why would she be writing letters to him in a journal, instead of just talking to him.  Unless he was in the service and stationed somewhere, like Iraq.  Mara had noticed my deliberating.  “Brad was my husband.”  Obviously, I was lousy at hiding my thoughts.

“Oh. I’m sorry.  I …um…”

She cut me off.  “It’s okay.”  In and instant she cut straight to the point.  “Why are you here, Tagg?”

Breathe, Tagg.  Why was this so damn hard?  “I… uh… I… I wanted to apologize … for my behavior before.  I shouldn’t have asked you to leave.”  She tried to interrupt me, but I raised my hand to stop her.  “Let me explain, Mara.”  My courage was finding its way back.  “What you had said was exactly what I had known.  Of course I take full responsibility for Crystal’s death.  Why do you think I’ve closed myself off from society for so long?”  This, of course, was a rhetorical question.  “I guess the reason your comment hit me was because I have never heard it said out loud before.  Oh, I’ve read the implications in all those tabloid magazines.  Hell, I’ve kept them all.  I look at them from time to time as a reminder, just in case I ever thought I’d might forget.  Like that’ll ever happen.”  The last sentence I said quietly, more to myself than to Mara.  “Anyway, hearing the blame out loud, in someone’s voice other than my own, well, I couldn’t handle it.  Not many people are …so blunt …when they’re face to face with me.”  I paused, so when Mara started to speak, I didn’t go on.

“Tagg, I only said what I said to reiterate what I know you must be feeling.  Obviously I can’t know exactly what your emotions hold, but I could imagine.”

I let out a non-humorous chortle.  No, she couldn’t even imagine the emotional horror I was suffering.  “Excuse me, Mara, but I don’t think you could even fathom what goes on inside of me.”

“Give me some credit, Tagg.”  Mara’s beautiful but now tempestuous eyes were boring into mine.  The expression on her face was one of contempt and hurt.

“What’d I say, Mara?  I only implied that unless you were living my life, walking in my Converse All-Stars, you couldn’t possibly fathom the guilt I carry with me.”  This was getting intense.  I had wanted to smooth things over and instead, I was making everything worse.

“One day, my husband …Brad …and I had plans to go down the shore.  It was the end of summer, almost fall, and we had always loved the seaside at that time of year.  Children were back in school, people were back to work, their vacations already spent.”  Why was Mara telling me this?  She’d totally switched subjects on me.  But, she was really somewhere out there, probably reliving their wonderful day at the beach in her mind, so I let her continue.  “So, we picked a day during the week so that there would be even less people around.  We loved an empty boardwalk and an even emptier beach.  Brad had taken a vacation day and I had no classes scheduled that day.  So, our plans were set.  We were really excited to take a much deserved break together.”  Mara looked down, paused and then continued.  “But …well …the night before our trip, I had a sudden panic attack about my upcoming test on the Wednesday after.  So,” another solemn pause, “I had asked Brad if he would mind much changing his vacation day to Thursday so that I could spend Tuesday studying.  Brad was always so wonderful and understanding.  Of course he wouldn’t mind.” Mara sighed.  “The next morning, Brad went off to work and I piled all of my study materials on the kitchen table, made a pot of coffee and turned on the news before setting out to study for the entire day.”