All the Girls in Town

RED-1

REDH

ighway 395 curved like a razor scar through the sharp rock incline of the Mojave desert. The gray sky overhead offered a false promise of rain. Red rolled down the window, letting the cold air hit her hot tears, and turned up the volume. Take it. Take another little piece of my heart now, Janis defied. “I want you to come on, come on, come on, come on and take it, Take it! Take another little piece of my heart now, baby! Oh, oh, break it!” Red screamed, banging her fist on the wheel.

The hurt was sharp like the tip of a blade in the center of her chest. What in the hell was wrong with her? The first time Peter had broken her heart was twenty years ago. Back then, she was a virgin, a Christian, a college junior. Now, she was a jaded, wary agnostic, a women’s crisis counselor, of all things. Hadn’t she learned anything?

The horizon darkened as the car sped through the flats of the Morongo Valley, trailer parks, pottery, an Italian restaurant with a faux-Western facade, then up the grade with cactus, stumps of old Joshua Trees, an abandoned yoga studio, and down into JT as shadows spread across the desert floor. She shivered, wiping away tears with her sleeve, turning left on Old Woman Springs Road. A wave of nausea, a small cramp. She’d given him her heart, and he’d smashed it into pieces. Again. Why?

Peter was a master at the art of seduction, talented at reconciliation, skilled at playing regret without any apologies. He had that infamous hangdog look with those dark brown puppy eyes, pretending he was warm and that he meant true love—that he was more than an actor. He’d worked his way back into her heart to get what he needed, and when she’d refused, he’d broken it harder than the first time.

She was the girl who fell on the knife.

The property was a ten-minute drive up the road from Pappy & Harriet’s bar through Nature Conservancy land. No wires, no plumbing, no lights, few humans. “HERE,” read a cardboard sign on the padlocked gate. It was forty acres owned by Carlos, a metal artist, who was dating her close friend, Matt, an eternal-romantic. Matt worked for a human rights group that hosted fundraising events for organizations like Planned Parenthood. He was a smart guy when it came to work, and a supportive friend with a great sense of humor. But when it came to love, Matt’s choices were as skewed as Red’s. This had cemented their friendship. She hoped Carlos, a real Renaissance guy, was a positive choice for her friend. Carlos was generous. He planned to build a house on the land with his own hands. Until then, he offered the land as a nature retreat for friends. She entered the padlock’s combination and swung the wide gate open. A weekend to herself.

Red drove up the steep hill, parked, and climbed out, dust settling around her feet. She dragged her camping gear up the small hill. Mice, rats, a stray dog or maybe a coyote sparkled across the desert floor. There was nobody around for miles. After pitching her tent under the lone pine tree, Red started a fire in Carlos’s makeshift cooking barrel. While she waited for her chili to heat, Red twisted off a Pacifico cap, flipped it into the night, and took a swig. And then another. She hit repeat on the button on her iPhone and turned up Janis. She knew she would dance this song out—this rage and this sorrow—all weekend, barefoot and alone under the desert stars, unwinding memories until she purged everything about him.

They met in a college class. “Hey, Red?” Peter had called, chasing her out of the classroom one sunny afternoon.

She’d turned. “My name is Rebecca.”

His gaze moved to her breastbone, which was bare in a summer dress. Her heart beat a little faster. She smiled and bit her lip. Caught, Peter had looked up, face flushed. “You have the most beautiful hair I’ve ever seen. The way it catches the light. It’s like fire, or a sunset.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Her stomach fluttered under his soulful gaze, but she had a boyfriend. Brad. He went to school in Tulsa. They were waiting to consummate.

Peter offered her a promo flyer. Open mic at a coffee house in North Hollywood. “I’m playing there this weekend.” The color rose in his cheeks. “It’s no big deal. I just do cover stuff. But it would be cool to see you.”

She took the flyer from his outstretched hand, well-muscled, strong. A shiver crept up her spine, like the ones she’d heard about in movies. “My boyfriend, Brad, is in town this weekend. I’ll see if he wants to come.”

Peter didn’t hide his disappointment. “My loss.”

If only Brad hadn’t come down with a bad cold and cancelled his trip. If only her roommate, Savannah, hadn’t commandeered their living room for a Trivial Pursuit party with Jell-O shots. If only curiosity and loneliness hadn’t driven her across the San Fernando Valley to that gig.

The coffee house was rustic Western themed, with scuffed wood floors powdered in sawdust and old, black-and-white photographs of cowboys tacked to faux-log walls. A small plastic tree flashing cheerfully in the front window reminded her that it was almost Christmas again. It was Rebecca’s most dreaded holiday. Soon, a festive card would arrive from her parents, happily playing volunteers for orphans on another continent, while Rebecca anxiously found ways to stay busy until the new year, when classes resumed and her loneliness would recede.

After paying the mohawked waitress for an overpriced, frothy peppermint drink, Rebecca had found an open seat at a large wagon wheel table and waited, feeling like a sore thumb in the hip crowd.

When Peter finally jumped up on stage, her heartbeat quickened. There was no way to ignore it; he was devastatingly handsome, and she had a crush. Those dark, long lashes, the strong chin. Full lips. Dressed in a button-down, short-sleeved cotton shirt and worn jeans, Peter had moved easily in his lean frame. Carrying a small amp to the front, the sinewy muscles of his arms engaged, and Rebecca’s whole body blushed to life. It was a new feeling, to physically yearn for a person just by looking at him. She’d never felt that attraction for Brad.

It was a sin—forbidden, but delicious.

Peter grabbed his guitar and straddled the wooden stool. Leaning over to tune, a thick wave of dark hair fell across his face, and he pulled it into a ponytail. Rebecca desperately wanted to clutch fistfuls of his thick locks.

“One, two, three.” His deep voice into the microphone tested the sound levels. He strummed, tuning slightly, and Rebecca took a sip of her sweet drink, hoping no one could read her improper thoughts.

“Woo!” a guy’s voice from the back of the room belted.

A young woman’s voice called out, “Go, Peter.”

Rebecca turned in the direction of the female voice to discover a pretty woman with short, cropped hair and big eyes staring up adoringly at Peter. A small violin case rested on the table near the woman’s arm. Suddenly, Rebecca regretted giving up piano lessons in eleventh grade.

Peter looked out into the room, and their eyes met. He clasped his hands together at his heart, as if Rebecca took his breath away. She blushed with hormones and possibility.

Please, let him kiss me, she caught herself thinking, forgetting about God completely.

Peter cleared his throat and leaned back into the microphone, never taking his gaze from hers. “Hey, everybody. Thanks for coming,” he said, his voice quiet, almost humble. “I’d like to dedicate this song to a new friend. I hope she’ll stick around.” He winked at Rebecca.

She squirmed, feeling the flow of heat below and crossed her legs.

He strummed a few chords and started to sing, “Just before our love got lost, you said, I am as constant as a northern star.”

His raw, masculine voice dripped with honey, with the sincerity of a man who’d felt love and loss. Rebecca hadn’t a clue about Joni Mitchell, or any kind of secular music except country, but the melancholy sound, the poetry of loving something, someone so wrong, rang true.

In later years, she’d wonder if falling in love with Peter had been Joni’s fault. The depth of a soul, looking into her soul. Someone who understood loneliness and pain.

Constantly in the darkness, where’s that at? If you want me, I’ll be in the bar.

Peter drew her in with Joni’s words. Making Joni’s melancholy their own. “I could drink a case of you darlin’ and I would still be on my feet. I would still be on my feet.”

Her body hummed with music. The sound of his soothing voice was a communion, an invitation, to join with his energy. She drifted into the vibration with Peter. Was this the way real love felt? Her heart opened, and for the first time, she wasn’t alone. She and Peter rode this current together.

“Love is touching souls. Surely you touched mine. Part of you pours out of me in these lines from time to time.”

Later, in Peter’s apartment in Van Nuys, candles lit and jazz softly playing, Rebecca had willingly given her virginity to Peter and been reborn as Red. The s*x was slightly painful, but not frightening. It was slow, tender, and exciting, full of sweet words and promises, caresses that were freeing, opening and healing. “You are not alone. You are not alone. You are not alone.”

Afterwards, lying naked and sweaty, together as one, on the hard futon, Peter had wrapped his strong arms around her shaking shoulders and whispered, “I see you,” caressing her hair. “I see you.” His eyes filled with tears of love.

Peter made her feel like she was the only woman in the world.

The next day, she broke up with Brad and moved into Peter’s shitty apartment.

It was pure bliss.

Love doesn’t come with a warning sign. A woman will fight for years to get back the first hit of bliss. The memory, the pictures and feelings, are vivid. She can lose her compass and get lost in what-was, unable to see what is—the dead end getting closer, right in front of her.

Peter finished college and got a graphic design job to support them, while Red worked that last year to finish her BA in psychology. They made candlelight dinners, went to the movies, drank Chianti, had great s*x, and Red started singing backup for Peter at the coffee house.

She had never been happier in her life.

Finally, after much love and cajoling, Peter decided to be brave and play his first original song on stage. Because it was a friendly place, people loved him, and Red had promised to sing backup.

“Mi madre, mi madre el ángel,” he’d sung, his buttery voice honest and raw. The stars are like your eyes when I look up at them. . . .

Yes, Red had cringed a little over the lyrics. They were clunky, but it was his first. And to fail at first meant that Peter had been trying. She hadn’t wanted to discourage creativity. “Madre, so lonely so lost,” she’d quietly sung backup beside him.

“Mi madre el ángel,” they’d sung in unison. “You are an angel up in heaven.”

Suddenly, a man’s voice had called out, “Dude, go back to covers,” followed by a smattering of uncomfortable laughter.

Peter immediately stopped strumming. Red had looked out across the warm, dim room. Maybe ten people were seated with coffees, watching in silence, not a big enough crowd to humiliate. She spotted a tall guy wearing a Dodgers cap by the bar. A friend of Peter’s. She’d shaken her head, shooting daggers at him.

“Hey,” the guy called out. “I was only kidding. How about some Van Halen?”

The small group had laughed.

Peter stood then and walked silently off stage with his guitar, leaving Red to grab the small amplifier and chase after him to their car in the parking lot.

For the next two years, Red watched Peter watch TV, smoke pot, drink beer, go to bed, get up, go to work, repeat. Avoiding Woody, his guitar. Avoiding her. Refusing to talk about that one ridiculous bad moment, to recover, to climb back on the horse.