Baby Be Mine
by and pick me up tomorrow?’ he asks me when he gets out of the car.
‘What time?’ I can’t keep the unimpressed tone from my voice.
‘Not too early.’
‘Ten o’clock?’
‘Eleven?’
‘Whatever. Shut the door.’
He does and I drive off.
I can hear my sister’s raised voice before I even open the front door.
‘Can you keep it down?’ I ask irritably, indicating Barney.
‘Where’s Johnny?’ Susan demands to know.
‘I took him back to his hotel,’ I reply.
‘Why?’ she cries.
‘He was hungover,’ I respond. ‘Not very good company.’
‘Speak for yourself,’ she replies.
‘Oh, would you please get over it!’ I exclaim.
‘Meg, that’s enough.’ My dad frowns at me. He doesn’t often tell me off, but when he does it really hits home.
My mum comes to take Barney from me. ‘No, it’s alright,’ I say, clutching hold of him. ‘I don’t have anything more to say.’
I go to bed early that night, feigning illness. My mum puts Barney to sleep. I don’t want company. I just want to be on my own. I have a deep sadness inside me and I don’t want to do anything other than dwell in my own misery for a while. I’ll feel better in the morning. I’m sure I will.
Chapter 23
I’m sitting in my bedroom with the phone pressed painfully hard against my ear. My stomach is a knot of tension and anxiety. I’m calling Christian again. It’s the fourth time in three days. But he’s not answering. He’s still not answering.
Johnny left a week ago after a whirlwind trip. I was sorry to see him go. Being around him made for a nice escape from reality, but now I’m back in the real world, and I miss Christian.
Aside from everything else, he was my friend. Plus, of course, he was Barney’s father. Barney still seems completely unaware of – and unaffected by – Christian’s absence. I’m thankful for that, at least.
I stare down at the receiver and end the call, my ear burning from the pressure of having the phone pressed up against it. I wonder what he’s doing. I wonder if he’s doing this exact same thing right now: staring down at his phone. I wish he wasn’t refusing to answer it.
Susan and Tony went home a few days ago and, despite the fact that their brush with celebrity made them more unbearable than usual, I even miss them. They talked about Johnny incessantly after he left – even Mum and Dad were on a strange, Johnny-related high. They all forgave him for refusing to grace them with his presence that day. I think they’ve chosen to erase the negative parts of his stay from their memories so they can reminisce about their time with him with untainted affection.
I come out of my bedroom to hear the unmistakable sound of Johnny’s singing coming from my dad’s study. Frowning, I wander down the corridor to the room at the end. My dad is sitting in front of his small stereo, staring down at a CD case. I stand there for a moment, listening. I recognise this song. It’s one of the album tracks Johnny was writing when I worked for him. I listened to his CD only once – during one of the dark moments I had when I was pregnant with Barney. The track comes to an end and the next song starts to play.
‘Hi, Dad!’ I say brightly, making him jump. He looks guilty. ‘I didn’t know you owned any of Johnny’s CDs?’
‘I, er, found this one in town. I thought it might be nice to hear some of his work – you know, seeing as he’s part of the family.’
‘Fair enough,’ I say, trying to block out the lyrics about the ‘brown-eyed girl’. When this single was released, I remember coming across a music review which said Johnny was paying a tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Van Morrison song. But this is the song he wrote for me. I’m the brown-eyed girl.
‘Turn it down, Dad, I don’t want to hear this,’ I say cheerfully.
‘Why not?’ he asks, furrowing his brow. ‘I like it.’
‘Yeah, me, too, but I’ve heard it too many times.’
That part’s the truth. When Johnny asked me to go back to LA with him and I said no, he told me he’d wait for me for three months. One month later, I found out I was pregnant. My decision to stay with Christian seemed pretty clear-cut after that, but sometimes, late at night, I would doubt it. When Johnny’s single came out I would play it over and over, not only to torment myself, but also to question whether I was doing the right thing. I only truly decided to cut my losses with Johnny on the day
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