Public Secrets

You need to be here, with me.”
She felt tears well in her eyes even as laughter bubbled. “You want me to come to America?”
“As soon as you can. You can meet us in New York in—shit. Johnno, when are we in New York?”
Sprawled on a couch, Johnno poured the last of the Jim Beam. “Where the fuck are we now?”
“Never mind.” Brian rubbed his tired eyes and tried to concentrate. His mind was bloaty with booze and smoke. “I’ll get Pete to work out the details. Just pack.”
She was already out of bed. “What should I do with Emma?”
“Bring her, too.” On a burst of family feeling, Brian grinned at the blonde. “Pete will figure out how to get her a passport. Someone will call you this afternoon and tell you what to do. Christ, I miss you, Bev.”
“I miss you, too. We’ll be there as soon as we can. I love you, Bri, more than anything.”
“I love you. Talk to you soon.”
Moody and restless, Brian reached for the brandy bottle the moment he’d hung up. He wanted her with him now, not a day from now, not an hour from now. Just listening to her voice had him hard and hurting.
She had sounded just as she had on the night he’d met her, shy, a little hesitant. She’d been so sweetly out of place in the smoky pub where his band had been playing. Yet even with the shyness, there had been something so solid, so true about her. He hadn’t been able to get her out of his mind, not that night, not any night since.

He lifted the brandy and drank deeply. It seemed as though the brunette and Stevie weren’t going to bother to move to the privacy of one of the bedrooms to have sex. The blonde had given up on Johnno and was rubbing her long, limber body against P.M., their drummer.
Half amused, half envious, Brian drank again. P.M. was barely twenty-one, his face still round and youthful with its sprinkle of acne on the chin. He looked both appalled and delighted as the blonde slid down to bury her face in his lap.
Brian closed his eyes, and with music filling his head, fell asleep.
He dreamed of Bev, and the first night they had spent together. Sitting cross-legged on the floor of his flat, talking earnestly, about music, about poetry. Yeats and Byron and Browning. Dreamily passing a joint back and forth. He’d had no idea it had been her first encounter with drugs. Just as he’d had no idea, until he had slipped into her, there on the floor with the candles guttering in their own wax, that it was her first encounter with sex.
She’d wept a little. Instead of making him feel guilty, her tears had brought out feelings of protectiveness. He’d fallen completely, and somehow poetically, in love. That had been more than a year ago, but he had never been with another woman during that time. Whenever the temptation came strongly, he would see Bev’s face.
The marriage had been for her, and the child, his child, she carried. He didn’t believe in marriage, the foolishness of a contract on love, but he didn’t feel trapped. For the first time since his miserable childhood, he had something more than music to comfort and excite him.
I love you more than anything .
No, he couldn’t say that to her with the ease and honesty she could say it to him. He probably would never be able to say that to her. But he did love, and where he loved, he was loyal.
“Come on, my lad.” Barely rousing him, Johnno dragged Brian to his feet. “It’s bed for you.”
“Bev’s coming, Johnno.”
Brow lifted, Johnno glanced over his shoulder at the tangle of bodies. “So’s everyone else.”
“She’ll meet us in New York.” With a half-laugh, Brian slung a rubbery arm around Johnno’s neck. “We’re going to New York, Johnno. New fucking York. Because we’re the best.”

“That’s dandy, isn’t it?” Grunting only a little, Johnno dumped Brian on the bed. “Sleep it off, Bri. We’ve got to go through the whole bloody business again tomorrow.”
“Got to wake Pete,” Brian mumbled as Johnno pulled off his shoes. “Passport for Emma. Tickets. I have to do the right thing by her.”
“You will.” Weaving a little, courtesy of the Jim Beam, Johnno studied his newly purchased Swiss watch. He didn’t imagine Pete was going to appreciate being awakened, but he staggered off to do the deed.

Chapter Four

O N HER FIRST transatlantic flight, Emma traveled first class. And was miserably sick. She could not, as Bev periodically urged her, look out at the pretty clouds or page through any of the colorful