Rock Chick Redemption (Rock Chick #3)(2)

Mom told me not to write Uncle Tex. She told me it was a waste of time, he’d never write back.

Talking about Uncle Tex made Mom’s face get sad, which didn’t happen very often. Usual y only when she talked about Uncle Tex and sometimes when she saw me with Bil y and thought I wasn’t paying attention.

Mom and Uncle Tex were super close growing up, but he went into the army on his eighteenth birthday and went to Vietnam close to the end of the war and that was al she’d heard from him.

Uncle Tex wrote back to me though, surprising everyone.

He wouldn’t write back to Mom or Grams or Mom’s two sisters, but he wrote back to me. Even when he was in prison for messing up a drug dealer, he wrote back to me.

Once, when I was fourteen, I caught Mom going through my stash, reading Uncle Tex’s letters and crying. I didn’t let her know I caught her and I had the feeling it wasn’t the first time she did it either.

From his letters, I could tel Uncle Tex was a hilarious guy, crazy, like me (maybe a wee bit crazier). I’d never met him, but I knew why Mom loved him so much and, through our letters, I knew I loved him too.

* * * * *

I met Bil y when I was twenty-four. I fel for him immediately and I fel for him hard. He was good-looking; he had more energy than anyone I’d ever met; he made me laugh; he treated me like a princess; and he was real y, real y good with his mouth (in a fast-talking kind of way and other kinds of ways besides).

Everyone hated him, Mom, Dad, Gil, Mimi and al my friends. I played them the Cowboy Junkies song,

“Misguided Angel” and told them to get over it.

A year into it, Bil y was living with me in my apartment and we were having the time of our lives… good sex, lots of laughs, tons of partying. I had no idea what Bil y did to make his money and I was so lost in him, I didn’t care.

Then one day, he said he had an opportunity in St. Louis that he couldn’t pass up. He said, in six months, we’d retire and live in St. Tropez and I’d spend my days sunbathing topless and he’d pour me champagne before our gourmet dinners every night. He told me he’d give me the life I deserved, the life I was meant to have: designer clothes, diamonds and pearls, champagne breakfasts, the lot.

I believed him (yes, I was twenty-five and yes, I was stupid). Even though everyone told me not to do it (even Uncle Tex), I quit my job, gave up my apartment and moved to St. Louis. I moved my shit there, got a job there and started over.

Six months later, Bil y told me he had an even better opportunity and we moved to Pensacola.

Then to Charleston.

Then to Atlanta.

I should have seen this coming. Before he met me, Bil y had gone from Boston (where he grew up), to Phil y, to Cincinnati, to Louisvil e, to Indianapolis. I should have been pleased he spent a year in Indy with me.

By the time we made it to Chicago, three years into our travels, I was fed up. I had a blast in St. Louis, Pensacola, Charleston and Atlanta. I had good jobs in al those places and made friends. I hated leaving, I hated being on the road, packing, moving. Sometimes I had only a week to do it (and in that week, Bil y was long gone, tel ing me he was

“scouting” our locations for the move). I was spending more and more time writing letters to al the people I left behind and was going to miss and I was done with being a nomad.

Furthermore, I was beginning to figure out why Bil y was so cagey about how he spent his days and where he got his cash. It was always cash. He never brought home a paycheck. Sometimes it was a lot of cash, most of the time it was none.

At first, I believed in him, believed in his dreams and his fast-talk convinced me that the life I “deserved” was just around the corner. Then I wanted to believe, so I didn’t ask too many questions. Then I couldn’t believe how stupid I was for believing in the first place and set myself firmly in denial, which was a good place to be… for a while.

“To hel with him, darlin’,” Uncle Tex wrote with his usual brutal honesty, “He sounds no good. Cut him loose and find yourself a real man.”

* * * * *

Chicago would have lasted less time than al the rest if Bil y had had his way. He was ready to rol after three months. I’d started my own web designing business, Annette had moved up from Indianapolis so I had a ready-made friend base and I found a couple of good clients. We’d rented a loft that I loved. I was close to Wrigley Field (what can I say, I’m a Cubs fan) and I was only four hours away from family.

No way was I going anywhere.

So, I told Bil y he could go but I was staying.

We got in a big, old fight that ended in tears; my tears, I was a crier, I cried al the time. I’d cry at a card with a picture of a cute, little kitty on it and I didn’t even have to look at what the card said, and we stayed.

This happened a lot. Bil y would want to go, I’d want to stay, we’d have a rip roarin’ fight, I’d cry, and then we’d stay.

Then Bil y came home late one night and said we had to go. I could tel by the way he was acting that things I didn’t understand, things I’d closed my eyes to al those years, were bad as in real y bad.

I didn’t care. I dug in my heels. It hadn’t been the same between us since the first time I refused to go. We’d been in a slow decline and I hated it. I wanted Bil y to be a good guy and do right by me (and himself) but I was beginning to realize this wasn’t going to happen. It broke my heart because we’d had good times, no, great times, and I’d miss him. But there was only so much a girl could take. I hated it that everyone was right about Bil y but when you f**k up, you have to admit it, deal with it and move on.