Chapter 21: Fate

Sandy recognizes the sensation of a hang-over immediately despite the fact that it has been decades since she had one. The headache is less present than a migraine The dull ache is tolerable, but sudden unexpected waves of dizziness, as if your brain is adrift in some black hole with interspersed pockets of gravity and antigravity, combined with a desperate thirst, makes it hard to think or care about anything else but stabilization of your body systems. Still, Sandy realizes she is not in her own bed and is wearing an unfamiliar nightgown. Trying to remember the previous evening somehow intensifies the waves of dizziness and so she simply lies for a while. She gradually realizes she is lying on someone’s chest and a pair of strong arms are wrapped around her. Please don’t let it be Sammy! At the thought, she tenses up.

Dwayne: Stay where you are, woman. I have earned the right to hold you in my arms a few minutes longer.

It’s Dwayne. Thank God! Sandy gratefully relaxes back onto his chest and becomes aware of the scent of him. Despite having no recollection of how she arrived here in this bed with him, she is content. How well she fits here! She lays on his right side. Her left leg is under his right leg and her right leg is over his right leg. She is sort of half on and half off his chest. Her head is on the spot between his chest and shoulder in the cradle of the arms which are wrapped so tightly around her. As she relaxes the waves of dizziness subside. Her body systems are stabilizing. She feels safe from her own internal body’s chemistry and safe from the external forces of the world. She is safe from everything within his arms. She opens her eyes and looks up at him. He smiles down at her. His eyes are amused but in a benevolent, caring non-judgmental way. Damn, he is even more handsome first thing in the morning.

Dwayne: The girls are fine. I sent Frank, Fred, and Tom over last night with movies and popcorn. They stayed a couple of hours and left my cell number with Isadora who just texted me that they are fine. (Sandy starts to rise up). I said stay where you are at, woman. Frank and the girls think you had food poisoning and stayed the night because of that. Fred was the one who came and got me so he knows the truth, but I swore him to secrecy.

When Dwayne mentions Isadora, Sandy feels ashamed for not making it home last night. What else does she have to be ashamed of? She thinks she should get up, but he told her not to and it feels so good just to lie here without thinking. How would anyone ever get out of bed if they woke up to this every day? Scattered images begin to pop into her brain and she groans. With her eyes closed, she asks Dwayne, “was I in jail at some point last night?” Dwayne kisses her forehead: “yes, Darlin’, you were.”

There is a knock at the door and Dwayne attempts to disengage from Sandy. She grabs onto him with protestations of no. He laughs, kisses her on the cheek and says thank you, but still disengages. Dwayne has ordered room service. He brings over a glass of milk and an orange juice. He tells Sandy in a commanding voice to sit up. She does not seem to have will of her own and so obeys his command.

Dwayne: Honey, you are just going to feel bad this morning. I wish I could feel it for you, but I can’t. Drink a little milk to coat your stomach and then a little orange juice. You’ve got to get your blood sugar up. There’s water on the nightstand beside you. You’re dehydrated as well. I have toast and fruit when you are ready. Take your time. We threw away your clothes, but I looked at your sizes and I sent out the concierge to the all night department store. Its cheap brands, but you will have something to wear, at least, and he brought back a toothbrush, hair brush and other stuff as well. I think we thought of everything you will need. It was a pretty dress we had to throw away. I’m sorry, but between the blood and the puke. The dress looked good on you. You were really pretty at the party. I don’t think I told you how pretty you were. You were (not knowing how to express it) pretty.

Sandy alternates drinking from the three beverages (milk, orange juice, and water). Dwayne puts on a white t-shirt, sits down at the table where the food has been placed, pours himself a cup of coffee and starts spreading butter on pancakes.

Sandy: What are you doing?

Dwayne: I ordered pancakes, eggs, bacon, and hash browns. I worked up quite the appetite last night.

Sandy tries again to remember. After Dwayne told her he had not meant to hurt her, he walked into the hotel suite, told the band they better go, kissed the journalist goodbye and said he would see her after, and then told the four non-band guests to drink up, finish the bottle and the ribs. Hope they enjoy the show. Two more rounds had been poured and drank swiftly before they went to the show and Sandy wasn’t used to whiskey. Once at the concert, the intern who had taken Dwayne and Sandy’s picture earlier in the day, came up to Sammy and Sandy. He said Dwayne had told him his job was to take special care of them. He would get them anything they needed. Sammy kept ordering more whiskey and Sandy kept slamming them. Why did I drink so much, she asks herself now, feeling her stomach react to the liquids she was putting in her system.

Oh, she remembers, to feel numb. Soon as Dwayne left, Sandy was ashamed of herself. What right did she have to be jealous? Sandy knew at the core of her soul how much it had hurt Dwayne to look in her eyes and see the pain he dreaded seeing. She thought of the line in the poem: “I dread the day I see disgust in your eyes.” She hated that she had been the one whose eyes he saw disgust in. Really, why? The journalist wasn’t a child and it was certainly consensual. All Dwayne had ever been was nice to Sandy. He had helped her clean up the bar, had walked her home, and had agreed to play her song. He had been the knight and the Prince. She had been irrational and jealous.

Three times in less than 24 hours she had been with her soulmate and each time ended badly. She knew it was her fault. She hadn’t been honest with him; hadn’t told him that she thinks he visited her in his dreams (it sounds so crazy). Still, if he didn’t know about the dreams? It just seemed unfair that she had knowledge of their special bond which she was keeping from him.

Sammy kept whispering to her to look at this person or that person. He asked what she and Dwayne had been talking about so long. Just the arrangement of the song, she answered. The band started. Sammy kept trying to make comments, making fun of Dwayne, and the more he did, the more she drank.

It was near the end of the show that Dwayne played “The First Time.” He introduced it by saying he knew there was at least one woman in the audience who had never heard any version of it. The audience shouted in laughter and disbelief. Dwayne said he knew it was hard to believe. He said, “She knows who she is and I hope she enjoys it.” Sandy was moved to tears. It was such a beautiful song. He then said he had two new songs to debut tonight and that he wasn’t going to do an encore. It was his birthday. He turned fifty today. He hoped they understood he wanted to celebrate a little. The crowd roared again. He told them that, in a way, both songs were birthday gifts from the same woman because the first was inspired by her and the other was written by her. He said he hoped she knew that, why they hadn’t known each other long, she had made him wish he was young enough to fall in love again. The crowd cheered. He said no, really, if he knew anything in this moment, it’s that he was never going to be in love again. He was thinking he would just go live with Alex and they could be the odd couple together. Alex said, jokingly, that Dwayne wasn’t living with him. Dwayne said “Well, destined to be alone then.” Women in the crowd screamed and someone threw up their panties. He said, “Here are two new songs about love.” The audience stood up and danced to “Then, I met you.” Then, the band left. Dwayne pulled a chair up to the microphone and put the dulcimer on his lap. It was just his voice and one instrument with 1000 people watching as he played “Bliss”. His voice broke and cracked when he sang the words: “I’m a man growing old, yet my journey onward goes, wandering eternal across winter’s frozen ground.” He stopped for a moment, closed his eyes and the audience applauded. They could see he was struggling, but stayed with him; giving him the kind of love only a dedicated fan base can. He smiled, regrouped and continued. “Looking for a soft place just to lie and rest, would like a few nights to recall, the close to, but not quite bliss”. He finished the song, stood up, and bowed to the applause. He stood a few minutes and seemed to be looking out over the crowd. Sandy noticed that his shoulders sagged as he walked off the stage. He was defeated, sad and old.

As Sammy and Sandy stood up to leave, Sandy’s head began to feel dizzy and she found it hard to focus. She was very drunk. She held onto Sammy as they made it through the crowd outside. Sandy began to sweat. She felt hot from the inside out. She stumbled, bounced against a large over-sized man. The man was understanding and steadied her before he walked on. Sammy remarked on the man.

Sammy: Look at Jethro. Seems like he had a few too many fry chickens. Just the type who would come to a concert like this.

Sandy: (slurring her words) You are a mean spirited man.

Sammy: Oh, please, should I deliver you up to Dwayne’s bed now? That whole scene he played at the end was exactly for menopausal women like you to wet yourself a little and beg to go to his next show; which by the way is already sold out. But maybe you could get tickets, you did write him a song.

Sammy was himself drunk and very jealous of his date’s obvious infatuation with Dwayne. He thought they were coming for a little fun. It turned out the woman he brought had not only bought into the hype, but was actually a contributor to it by having written that ridiculous song. A couple next to him started to sing “The First Time” as they walked hand in hand beside him.

Sammy: Oh, please, every couple’s first time is uncomfortable and awkward. If you go home expecting anything like the song, you are just going to be disappointed when he farts right after you’re done.

The couple looked at Sammy angrily. The male pushed Sammy who pushed back. He then punched Sammy one aggressive punch right in the nose. Sammy fell backwards into Sandy. He landed with his bleeding nose directly on her dress. Sandy pushed Sammy away. She thought she was pushing him back at the guy who just punched him, but that guy had moved on. Instead she pushed him back into the arms of a police officer who had made it through the crowd to see what was happening. Sandy recognized the officer and then puked up all over her dress.

The next thing Sandy can remember is that she was at the police station; sitting in a room with the same police officer who routinely answered calls at the bar. He was talking to her in a patient voice and it sounded like he might have been talking to her for a while. He seemed to be repeating information over again as Sandy gained clarity of thought enough to focus on his words. She was aware that she had puke and blood on her dress and some chunks in her hair. He was asking who they could call to come and get her. Nobody she tells him.

Police Officer: We can hold you for drunk and disorderly conduct, but I don’t know what that might do for your employment. I prefer to just send you home, but can’t do that unless I know someone is going to take care of you. If no one can come for you, I will have to book you.

Another police officer sticks his head in. It appears like someone has come to claim Sandy. Of course, it is Dwayne. “Your knight to the rescue again.”

Dwayne had been more than a little shaken following the party. He asked Alex if he had ever met, fell in love and lost a girl within 24 hours. Of course not. Alex thought maybe he had been wrong about Sandy. He advised Dwayne to forget her, she was too much drama and remember that the journalist was still here. Dwayne shook his head.

When the concert was over, Dwayne walked off feeling like he had lost all sense of direction or independent thought… While he was on stage, knowing Sandy could hear his voice, he felt as if he had a purpose. The purpose was to impress her. He sung every song knowing she was listening. He had looked out in the audience to see if he could see her. With the concert over, he was standing off stage and leaning against a wall; confused what he was supposed to do next. Alex waited for him. He asked him if he was okay. Dwayne nodded, but stayed against the wall; disoriented. What was his purpose now? Alex lifted Dwayne’s left arm and put it over his shoulder. Alex wrapped his right arm around Dwayne’s waist. “It’s okay, buddy. Lean on me for a while.” They walked out of the theater together.

By the time they were back at the hotel, Dwayne was walking on his own. Alex and Dwayne rode the elevator together in silence. The journalist was standing by Dwayne’s door. She was subdued as Dwayne let her into his room.

Jackie: You brought down the house, Professor Cowboy, with the talk about turning fifty and playing that last song tonight. I wish I had a film crew here. It would have made my trip worthwhile.

Dwayne: Have I done something to offend you?

Jackie: You announced to about 1000 people that you had given up on love. You told another woman in the audience that Sandy woman, right, that she made you wish you were young enough to fall in love.

Dwayne: Is love what you were wanting from me?

Jackie : I knew you didn’t love me and I don’t love you, but when you’ve flown twice in one week to two different cities to see a man, it would be nice if, at the very least, he wasn’t melancholy about not having found love. Whatever we had I thought was good. I’m not going to be with you while you pine for another woman.

Dwayne: I don’t know why she has affected me so much, but it’s no reflection on you. Being with you has been as close to bliss as it can be without being in love.

Jackie (kissing him goodbye on the cheek): Don’t give up yet. My guess is you will still find your bliss.

Shortly before midnight, Dwayne was thinking his birthday was going to end the way it begun; standing on his balcony lonely for a woman. Someone lit off left-over fireworks. He heard a knock on the door. It was Fred telling him he didn’t know what to do. He had seen Isadora’s mother being arrested.

Dwayne was dismayed by how bad Sandy looked and smelt. The police officer explained that Sammy was arrested. He had become belligerent and started throwing punches. Sandy really hadn’t done anything wrong, but been drunk and sick. He just knew Sandy and didn’t want her to get into trouble with work; you know a bar manager being arrested for drunk and disorderly. Dwayne thanked him. He told the police officer that Sandy and he were friends. He would make sure she was safe.

They walked back to the hotel from the downtown precinct. Dwayne held the back of her shoulders and guided her. Twice, she stopped to puke. After the second time puking, he handed her a handkerchief and she seemed to stand up steady enough to talk to him.

Sandy: Why are you doing this?

Dwayne: Doing what?

Sandy: Rescuing me; being my knight again.

Dwayne: To get you in the sack?

Sandy: No.

Dwayne: Because I know it aggravates you?

Sandy: No.

Dwayne: I don’t know how to not rescue you. I said goodbye to you three times today. Here we are for a fourth time.

Sandy: It’s fate.

Dwayne: For me to rescue you over and over and you to get irritated about it every time?

Sandy: No, fate for us to fall in love.

Dwayne: Oh, is it now? I thought you didn’t believe in that type of thing.

Sandy: I didn’t until I met you, by golly.

Sandy collapsed and Dwayne caught her in his arms. He carried her the remainder of the way to the hotel, through the lobby, up the elevator and to his room.

Chapter 22: The First Time

Sandy is dressed in the clothes the concierge brought her. She has brushed her teeth and her hair. Her dizziness stopped after she drank water and orange juice. She sits with Dwayne eating her toast and fruit while he devours a huge breakfast. When Dwayne sits back unable to finish his huge breakfast, she finishes his bacon. She is nothing if not resilient, she tells Dwayne. She seals to Isadora on the phone. Juanita picked up Carmen and Isadora is getting ready for her lunch date alone with Frank. Isadora tells her mother about her phone call with Dwayne last night and how he sent Tom, Fred and Frank with movies and popcorn. He had made sure to tell her to call him if she needed anything and had checked on her by text this morning. He is so sweet.

Sandy watches Dwayne pack and thinks about a knight who not only rescues damsels in distress, but makes sure the children are cared for as well. Dwayne is wearing jeans with a hole in the knee and a plain white t-shirt. He has freshly shaved this morning. The old Laker’s cap is on his head. He is humming as he packs. Sandy asks what he is humming and Dwayne tells her he is trying to work out a melody for a song he wrote for her this morning.

Sandy remembers what she can from last night. She cannot remember what happened after she threw up outside the theater and before she got to the police station, but Dwayne told her about Sammy being arrested. She remembers vaguely Dwayne at the police station and helping her back to the hotel, but not all of it. There are remembered glimpses of Dwayne unzipping her dress, of helping her climb into the shower, of him telling her to raise her arms and sliding the nightgown over her nude body, of him cradling her between his legs while he combed out her wet hair. Then, she woke up in his arms this morning.

Dwayne is aware that Sandy doesn’t remember telling him she thought it was fate for them to fall in love. No problem! Dwayne remembers. While he held her in his arms this morning, he composed lyrics for a new song: “Your home is in my arms.” He is struggling with the bridge, but he will get there once he gets a guitar in his hands. Part of the reason he was so insistent that Sandy stay in what he now considers “her spot” in his arms this morning is so he could finalize the lyrics she inspired. He is glad to have regained the ability to write songs. He thinks how it returned when he met Sandy. He clearly needed a muse. He expects that Sandy will still be stubborn about how she feels this morning. He is trying to convince himself that he finds her stubbornness endearing. It doesn’t matter now that he knows her true feelings. If her drunken confession last night was not enough to convince him of her true feelings, the way she held onto him this morning and said no when he left the bed to answer the door for room service was. She loves me, he has thought to himself all morning, and has enjoyed a little that she doesn’t know he knows that fact. He is aware he sent her away yesterday at the rehearsal warning her he would break her heart. He, also, remembers how he felt when he ended the concert last night. He is through resisting. It seems as if she might be right. There might be a little bit of fate at work here. As he packs he has been waiting for Sandy to begin the conversation. When she does, he stops packing and pulls up a chair next to her and looks at her fully in the face.

Sandy: Dwayne?

Dwayne: Sandy?

Sandy: I’m not completely sure how I got here or undressed or clean. (She is shy.)

Dwayne: I carried you the last few feet, through the lobby, up the elevator into my room.

Sandy: Then?

Dwayne: Darlin’, I had to get you clean. I undressed you, put you in the shower, washed your hair, put your nightgown on, and combed your hair. I’m sorry. I know it…Well, it is what it is. I am the knight whose job it is to rescue you and in this case it meant violating your privacy. I’m sorry.

Sandy: Did we?

Dwayne: Woman, I am your knight, your prince and your cowboy. None of the three of us would ever take advantage of a woman in the condition you were in last night. The man in me, though, I’m only human. I peeked at you a little more than I should have. (She is ashamed and embarrassed. Dwayne thinks his talking about looking at her body will get that stubbornness back and she will forget to be embarrassed.)

Sandy: It’s just this morning we were so…entwined. (Sandy is embarrassed, but has not stopped thinking about how it felt to be in his arms.)

Dwayne: I laid down beside you to sleep. I swear you moved over to me, snuggled up and you just felt so good. It felt like you belonged. It’s why I wrote a song about you being in my arms. I’m weak, I guess. I couldn’t not hold you. I’m sorry.

Sandy: No, don’t apologize. I can’t believe how kind you’ve been to me when I’ve been so much trouble. It was nice to wake up with you this morning.

Dwayne: (wondering where all the stubbornness has gone, he thinks he will tease her a little) I’m glad I could be there for you, Princess. At least I make a good teddy bear to snuggle up next to even if you still think I’m not fuckable.

Sandy: No, it’s not that, but the first time we (instead of that word she will use the word that describes how she feels) make love I want to remember every detail.

Sandy looks at Dwayne with the expectation of a kiss. Has the knight won his fair maiden’s hand? He thinks about how much he tried not to look at her body as he was helping her. He thinks about how much he yearns to look openly and long at her body. There is still time before the hotel check out to take this woman back to bed. He leans in for a kiss. His eyes are closed. Right before he touches her lips, he feels her finger on his lips and hears her voice saying wait. Wait?! Doesn’t this woman realize the torture he has been in? He opens his eyes without moving his face away. “Why am I waiting?” He sees her lips and hears her voice say, “I haven’t been completely honest with you.” He sits back and looks at her. Sandy explains that she hasn’t lied to him, she just hasn’t told him everything. He tells her to spill it. What does she need to tell him? Sandy doesn’t know how to explain. How should she tell this man? How can she explain about her dreams? Instead she tells him she needs to play him a song. Could she use his dulcimer?

She wants to play me a song? Dwayne has never wanted a woman more. His mind plays back through toweling her off from the shower and holding her in his arms. She wants me, he thinks. I know she does. She has given him every indication in her face, her eyes, and her tone that she wanted him to take her to bed. Now, instead, she wants to play him a song?! Sure, he says, he will call down and have them bring up a dulcimer. After he calls down, he resumes packing. Sandy reads his body language. She knows he is frustrated, but she needs to be completely honest with him. No secrets, she thinks, before their first time.

An intern brings up the dulcimer. Dwayne thanks him and he hands it to Sandy. He resumes his packing.

Sandy: You have to listen.

Dwayne: I can listen while I pack.

Sandy: You have repacked that same bag four times.

Dwayne throws the last two shirts he had taken out and rolled tightly into the bag, zips the bag up and tosses it by the door. He sits down again in front of Sandy. His whole body continues to be tense with the anticipation of how much he had wanted to make love to her. Sandy reaches out to touch his hand and he pulls it away.

Dwayne: Is this another song you want me to sing?

Sandy: It belongs to you. It’s up to you. Dwayne, I have only written two songs and three poems. I only have one song and one poem you haven’t heard. What I haven’t told you is that I don’t think I actually wrote them. I think you did. Somehow in my sleep, you gave them to me. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s about fate and love. (Looking down at the last word)

Dwayne: It’s impossible for me to give you songs and poems in your sleep.

Sandy: I have been having dreams where the songs are written on a blue screen. (Dwayne’s face changes when she mentions dreams and blue). Some man has been sending me these songs and poems. The only way for me to know if it you is to let you hear the last two and see if they have any meaning to you.

Dwayne simply nods. What is the likelihood of both of them having so much blue in their dreams? Sandy plays and sings “Blue”. It doesn’t take more than two verses for Dwayne to recognize the story she is telling. He stands up and turns away from her when she speaks of his and Dani’s wedding night. How dare she? Something so personal and private. His fist clinches when she sings about Dani’s bruise on her hand. He moves near to the wall next to the bed. He feels like he wants to hide. This is too much. He thought Sandy was falling in love with him and instead? Has she talked to Dani? Did Alex tell her about his dreams of blue? Fame, he thinks. This is the problem with fame. “You’re some type of sick psycho. You’ve researched me; studied me, talked to my ex. This is a game to you.” Dwayne punches his hand through the wall. He pulls his hand out. It has been a decade or so since he has done something like this. There are cuts across the knuckles, but it is not bleeding. He bends the fingers. Nothing broken. In an hour or two, he knows from experience, the bruising and swelling will start. He realizes he won’t be playing the guitar tonight. Damn. He looks at Sandy. “I want you to get the fuck out of here.”

Sandy has never known a man to hit a wall before. Her father never did and neither did Isadora’s father. She trembles and is afraid, but more afraid for Dwayne than herself. He is so upset. Clearly the songs came from him. That’s a fact that is no longer deniable. She needs to see this through.

Sandy: Absolutely. I will leave after you hear the last poem.

Dwayne: (What else could she possibly have in a poem to hurt him? He doesn’t want to know.) Is tearing my heart out and bouncing it off the wall not enough? Do you want to have it on the ground where you can stomp on it a while as well?

Sandy: My last poem, Dwayne, and you can send me away forever, but at least all we need to be said will have been said.

As she begins to recite “I dreamt you” Dwayne is standing with his back to Sandy. His hands are flat against the wall on either side of the hole he made with his fist. She says: “I have seen you in blue.” Dwayne turns to her. This is a poem about the dreams he had been having, but how could anyone know this many details about his dreams. Even Alex didn’t know these details. Sandy says, “I have seen you dancing”. Dwayne remembers Sandy telling him she had been a dancer. He remembers the first time he met her when he thought for a while that Sandy was the woman in his dreams. Even Alex told him yesterday that Sandy is the one he had been dreaming about. Is that really possible? He realizes he has thought this the whole time, but hasn’t allowed himself to really consider what it means. How can it be possible? I have dreamt of her in blue. She has read my lyrics and poems on a blue screen. She isn’t playing a game. It is meant somehow for us to be together. It is our fate to fall in love. He sinks down on the bed. Sandy finishes the poem. She can tell by Dwayne’s body language that he is processing the fact that somehow they have been in each other’s dreams. She comes to the bed and drops down on her knees in front of Dwayne. She puts her hands on Dwayne’s legs and looks up into his face.

Dwayne: I have had dreams. The world of the dreams were all blue. The only two people in my dreams were you and me, but I couldn’t really see you clearly and we never met- except twice I walked up in back of you and held you tight.

Sandy: And you couldn’t write?

Dwayne: No, I couldn’t put any words together. It was driving me crazy.

Sandy: You were writing in your dreams and sending the songs and poems to me. I’m not a poet or a songwriter, but these were gifts you sent to me. Didn’t you say you had been thinking about the themes in “Bliss”? How about “The Uncommonly Handsome Common Man”? Isn’t it you who dreads the disgust in a woman’s eyes. (Sandy remembers the party the day before). I’m so sorry about yesterday. I never wanted you to see that look in my eyes. It’s the reason I drank so much. I knew exactly how much it hurt you to see the pain in my eyes.”

Dwayne thinks about four times in one day. Yesterday, on his fiftieth birthday, he kept saying goodbye to her and somehow they kept coming back together. All these dreams! In the last few weeks, he had wanted to meet the woman in his dreams. He thinks about holding Sandy in his arms this morning. Is it really fate? Has he, in fact, met a woman he was destined to love? What other explanation can there be? What other explanation when they are, in fact, already in love?

Sandy looks up at Dwayne. Her look of concern and of anguish has changed to simple love. He pulls her up next to him on the bed. He leans forward and kisses her fully on the mouth. He pulls his mouth away and grabs her shirt at the bottom. “Raise your hands,” he commands in a husky voice. She does and he lifts the t shirt over her head. He tosses the shirt to the floor. He reaches both arms around her and unsnaps her bra. Her breasts bound forward. He takes a moment just to stare at them. There is no thought in his mind of comparing them to any other woman’s. He throws the bra to the floor. He takes his fingers of either hand and softly rubs her breasts under her nipples. Her nipples harden. He leans down to kiss her breasts, but stops. His mouth goes instead to Sandy’s lips. He gives her quick kisses on the mouth as he positions her on the bed. He rolls to her side and reaches into her pants without unzipping them. He wants to just touch her clit. She breathes in deeply at his first touch and he quickly moves his hand to her stomach. Sandy searches his face. She notices his Adam’s apple as he swallows. She knows he is aware of how much this moment means. He is a little unsure of how to begin. She whispers, “Come here.” He moves back on top of her. She reaches down to unzip his pants. He raises his hips to let her slide his pants down. She grabs his ass and then moves her hands to unzip and pull down her own pants. Dwayne looks into her eyes. He thinks, “I am about to have a first time with a soulmate.” He knows it is a first time he will never forget.

Section 8: Your Home is in My Arms

Your home is in my arms, babe.

It’s the one place you know where you belong.

It’s the simplest of homes-

Nothing grand or austere.

Reminds you of a good old gospel song.

Your home is in my arms, babe.

We knew it the first time we made love.

There is a special way

That only you lay

On the chest half off, half on

One leg under, one above

Your head in that spot where it belongs

Your home is in my arms, babe.

Go wherever you need to roam.

Travel wide, travel free

I’m not saying you belong to me.

Be with whoever you want to love.

Know when you return

Your home will be right here.

Your home is comfortable and strong.

Your home is in my arms, babe.

Call me when you find a spot to rest.

By a brook, under a tree

In a city, if it must be

We’ll live where ever you think is best.

When you think the time is right

Don’t delay, don’t think twice.

You know the one place never wrong

You know the one place you feel strong

You know your home can follow you

I’ll make you see our love is true.

When you think the time is right

When you’re tired of the fight

When you’ve forgotten you left in haste

When you remember better days

When you’re tired of the pace

In your home, nothing’s out of place.

Come back to my arms, babe be one

Be one with the only man you ever truly loved

Please come home, babe

Come back home tonight.

Chapter 23: After Happily Ever After

Dwayne is on the phone with Alex. He is sitting on his bed in just his boxers with his right hand in the ice bucket. Sandy is standing by the window in her nightgown. Sandy has already called her boss. Afraid he would find out about the incident with the police, she thought she should provide full disclosure. Her boss was concerned about the reputation of the bar with the police and the bar’s license. He tells her he needs to suspend her from work for two days without pay as a disciplinary action. The first thought she had when he told her was: two days off and Dwayne’s next gig only two hours away! She called and told Isadora to pack and that Frank could drive with them. She overhears Dwayne’s side of the conversation with Alex.

Dwayne: Just tell them for me I will be down and will pay for an extra night. I’m not spending the night. I know we have a gig, but it’s only 2 hours from here. I just need the room for another hour or so, but I will pay for the night. Also, there’s some damage to the room. I put my hand through a damn wall. It’s bruised, not broken. You will have to play guitar tonight. I know it was a fool thing to do, but at least I didn’t break my ass, that’s all you care about, right? (Dwayne takes his hand out of the ice bucket and wipes it on a towel by the bed.) You don’t have to wait for me. I’ll drive with Sandy. Hey, Isadora and Sandy are coming. We will need an extra room. Will you call and make arrangements? (The sun shining through the window is making Sandy’s nightgown almost transparent. Dwayne can see the outline of her body clearly). I know you are not my damn secretary or travel agent, but you can take care of these details for me this once. I will shake my ass extra hard tonight for you. I’m ok. Better than ok. Yeah, she’s full of drama, but she’s worth it.

Their phone calls made, now the room is quiet. Dwayne lounges back against the headboard and stretches out on the bed. He puts his injured hand above his head. He looks at Sandy, with her back turned, without comment. His eyes move up and down her body. Sandy turns around. She sees him smiling at her with a type of sideways smile. She has not seen that smile or expression on his face before and it makes her smile back in return. She notices the movement of his eyes. He is stretching back on the bed and leisurely looking at her body. She removes the nightgown and stands completely exposed. Might as well allow him to take her in as fully as he wants. She begins to look at him up and down, but her eyes stops at his underpants. Dwayne follows her eyes to see where she is looking. “That’s right, woman, get over here.”

Afterwards, she is in that spot in his arms he tells her will forever be “hers.” She tells him, hesitantly, that if Isadora is with her tonight. He shushes her. He knows she will need to stay in the room with Isadora tonight. Still, he needs to get to know her daughter, doesn’t he? Sandy just wants him to keep holding her forever.

Sandy tells him about the regression hypnotist, the clairvoyant, and the tarot card reader. She tells him that Gypsy had said their souls were not supposed to be together in this lifetime, but they had missed each other and had forced their souls to find each other through a psychic bond. Dwayne laughs and she looks up at him. Was he not taking their dreams seriously? Dwayne thinks he can almost read her mind.

Dwayne: I take our dreams very seriously. They’re a miracle. They brought us together. I believe in love. I believe in soulmates. I used to think about reincarnation, but I don’t know about a gypsy or a clairvoyant seeing into our souls or past lives. That just doesn’t seem right.

Sandy: Then, how did our dreams happen? What brought us together? What kept bringing us together over and over yesterday?

Dwayne: God? If miracles occur, then God has a hand. I was raised a Catholic and, I guess, I’m a Protestant now. I’m not all that religious, but if we accept the premise of a God, then we have to believe he can make us dream of each other.

Sandy had been raised an Episcopalian. Yet it never occurred to her that God could have had a hand in their psychic bond. She ponders it.

Dwayne: I wrote that song about having loved a woman and thinking we’ve loved and lived before. I can understand why you might believe in reincarnation. If I had my druthers, then I prefer God had a hand in it. With reincarnation and soulmates, as you described it, maybe we will love in another lifetime and maybe not. If you believe in God and that we are soulmates, then our love is forever. We will be in heaven in love like we are now.

Sandy’s mind reels a little to hear a man whose arms she is in talk about eternal love. She thinks for a minute: is this real? In his arms, though, and in the afterglow of their lovemaking, Sandy thinks she could believe in anything. Certainly she could believe they would be in love forever. She likes that thought. However, she is not willing to let go of the concept of their souls searching for each other in a cosmic void until they found each other in their dreams. It is a romantic notion and Gypsy seemed so convinced and she did meet Dwayne as Gypsy said she would. How would they ever know the truth? What is the use of spending time thinking about it if they can’t ever really know?

Sandy: Maybe it doesn’t matter why we had our dreams or if it was God or cosmic energy. The only thing that matters is that we are together now. We are meant to be in love and we will be in love forever.

Dwayne: You didn’t even believe in love a couple of days ago.

Sandy: Darlin’, till I met you.

Dwayne laughs and holds her tighter. He remembers her saying close to those same words before she collapsed last night. Now the way they feel is out in the open. The Now of this moment is the best Now he has ever experienced. He strokes her hair with his one left, uninjured hand and kisses her forehead. Dwayne so often regrets the past or worries about the future. Now, his mind is focused on simply this moment; this moment of Now. Sandy thinks that Now is the moment of Bliss she has never experienced before. Sandy seldom thinks about the past. It is not in her nature to ponder life’s mysteries; past or present. In this blissful, poignant moment where it appears that her dreams have answered questions she didn’t know she had or hopes she had kept hidden, or- wait, wasn’t bliss always fleeting? This is a Now she didn’t imagine was possible a few weeks ago. She doesn’t want the Now to end ever. She wants to look ahead to the future to see how to make sure the Now turns into forever, for real. Sandy rolls over so that her full body is laying on top of her handsome Prince. Dwayne sits up a little and cups her face with his left hand. They are looking eye to eye.

Sandy: Do you believe in Happily Ever After?

Dwayne: Like the fairy tales?

Sandy: I’ve always been suspicious that we never got to see what happily ever after looks like.

Dwayne: It would make for a bit of a boring story, wouldn’t it, if we saw Cinderella and Prince Charming living happily ever after? Maybe that’s why they just end it there.

Sandy: Seriously, do you believe in Happy Endings?

Sandy’s eyes are looking into Dwayne’s with complete trust. He realizes she thinks he has all the answers. His fears of hurting her resurfaces. With the worries of the future, that feeling he so seldom experiences when he is not performing or having sex, that feeling of Now, disappears. Dwayne does not answer glibly. He has been married. He still thinks about the vow before God that he had broken with divorce. He wants to reassure Sandy that happily ever after is possible, but the memory of Dani on their wedding day won’t leave his mind. The look of trust in Dani’s eyes on that day! The look of trust in Sandy’s eyes now! He rolls with Sandy so she is now underneath him. He balances on one arm still staring into her eyes. How should he answer?

Dwayne: I want to believe.

Sandy: Sounds like a saying from a dorky motivational poster.

Sandy laughs and he lays back on his back again. He laughs as well. They both sit up now with their backs leaning against the wall. They look at one another and laugh again. Dwayne and Sandy are both surprised by how comfortable they feel with each other. Neither of them would describe this immediate moment as blissful, but neither can stop smiling at each other. Their mood has shifted back to sheer happiness at this love neither was expecting to occur in this way.

Dwayne: What do you believe?

Sandy: I guess when I was thinking about destiny and soulmates, I never thought about it. If it is destiny, then the future is written, isn’t it? Doesn’t finding your soulmate mean happily ever after?

Dwayne: Is it all destiny? Is there no such thing as freewill?

Sandy now sits up fully, brings her legs up to her chest and wraps her arms around them. Dwayne smiles thinking how her nose somewhat wrinkles when she is deep in thought. Sandy has always set her own path. She remembers arguments with her mother over her decision to become a professional dancer. The only time she had ever felt like she had no control was when she was so obsessed with Isadora’s father. Before the dreams, she would have declared fully that she and she alone was master of her fate. How could she reconcile that with the destiny of finding her one true love? Dwayne is simply enjoying looking at her; so serious and thinking through life’s mysteries. When she answers, he sits up fully and gives her his complete attention.

Sandy: I think that there is a force or forces- God or cosmic energy- that directs us and points us. I believe that the reason we kept coming together yesterday is because someone or something wanted us to be together. It was destiny. Still- at any time we could have exerted our strength of will. I could have not came with Isadora to the rehearsal. You could have left me at the police station. It’s important to me to believe we set our own paths. Otherwise, we’re just pawns in someone else’s game. I told myself years ago as a teenager I would not be a pawn in someone else’s game. (Sandy thinks of her mother and her decision to do whatever her husband told her.) I have to believe I have some say in my own destiny.

Dwayne: Then that would mean that, even after all this, we can choose to be together or not. (Dwayne looks down at his hands.) You can still walk away before I break your heart.

Sandy’s eyes open wide with amazement. The last thing she was thinking is that Dwayne would hurt her. It is not her freewill to walk away from him. Her heart breaks for him thinking how afraid he is of hurting her.

Sandy: I’m not afraid that you will hurt me.

Dwayne: But you are afraid?

Sandy: I can’t see our future, I guess.

Sandy realizes they live in different cities. Will he expect her to move? How about Isadora and school? Sandy is just as independent and self-reliant as she was yesterday.

Sandy: Do you think we have a future together?

Dwayne: We have freewill. Yes, we have a future together, if we want it.

It is Dwayne’s turn to spend a few minutes thinking about fate and freewill. Sandy smiles at how he draws one knee up, puts his elbow on it, rests his head on his hand. It is the pose of The Thinker except that his left thumb and fore finger pulls on his bottom lip when he thinks. He notices her looking at him and stops. They both laugh again.

Dwayne: I don’t think happily ever after means there’s not hard work. Maybe happily ever after simply means: ( the Professor Cowboy, thinker and poet, throws his arms open and proclaims the true meaning of happily ever after ) they learned to love each other and lean on each other through all the hard times that came afterwards.

Sandy thinks about how self-reliant she is. Could she learn to lean on someone? Sandy knows he is worried about hurting her and she is worried about her ability to change her life for him. Destiny might have caused them to fall in love, but it hadn’t fundamentally changed either of their personalities.

Sandy: I can be really stubborn.

Dwayne laughs. He lays back on his back laughing and covers his face with his injured right hand. He stops laughing briefly and begins to giggle uncontrollably, rolling away from her towards the edge of the bed. Sandy says “hey,” but smiles herself and pulls him back so he is lying on his back again. He raises his right arm and gestures for her to return to “her” spot in his arms. The laughter returns him to the moment of Now. He is joyous upon its return.

Dwayne: I’m sorry, but it’s such an understatement. Babe, it all begins simply enough with a commitment and, for now, just for today, we don’t need to make every decision for the future. The commitment begins with three words and that is all we should worried about for today. (He takes Sandy’s face in both hands; ignoring the pain in his right hand). I love you.

It sounds so stupid, she thinks. How can those three simple, absurd words convey so much meaning of hope and of a belief in tomorrow? It is a commitment. It’s a commitment to try. She smiles as widely as she has ever smiled in her life. She says the words she has never said before to a man. “I love you.”

Chapter 24: Wherever you think is best

Wthrough New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada and home to California, but on a different route, playing different cities than they had on their outbound journey. Today, Thursday, is simply a travel day, but it is a long run. Ten hours in the damn bus! Then, three days in the Roswell/Ruidoso area. Originally, the band was booked for just the Saturday festival in Roswell. They are booked as the second stage headliner, but Dwayne looked for reasons to extend their time in New Mexico. A Friday night concert has been added at the large casino/resort and then a Sunday afternoon at a winery in the area. The winery show is sold out after being advertised as an exclusive event; just 75 people at $150 each. The band is pocketing all the money from ticket sells. The tickets are exclusive to wine club members. The winery is attempting to increase local wine subscriptions through bringing in prestige acts to a much smaller, intimate venue: an opportunity to be up close and personal with Dwayne Hucks and the Lonely Players.

This is how they will be marketing themselves going forward. Dwayne is the established star and the Lonely Players are his backup band. He has notified the community college in California he will not be coming back. Once back in California, Dwayne will immediately audition for two new band members, a bassist to replace Tom, and another guitarist to take over lead guitar functions. Alex cannot be replaced. Over the last three weeks Dwayne and Alex have spent every spare minute in lessons. Alex is trying to teach Dwayne the basics of all the instruments he can. Going forward, Dwayne will be the singer, front man and, occasionally, will play additional instruments. Lead guitarist is a role he has accepted he needs to leave behind. The new band members will be hired before the band’s recording for their first album. Alex will, also, record with the band in September before his retirement. Tom will stay on full time as the band’s publicity agent. Dwayne has already started reviewing resumes and interviewing for band managers. This summer has truly changed Dwayne’s professional career.

Dwayne and Alex have had many long conversations during the last three weeks. Alex has explained to Dwayne that learning different instruments will help him with different arrangements and another change to the sound with the new band. Dwayne continues to be fueled by the love of the music and the pursuit of an always changing sound. After lessons, the two old friends have shared their philosophy on life, love, and keeping your head when all around is losing yours. Alex has had a good summer. Dwayne has done everything he can to assure himself of that. It was at an outdoor concert in Boulder, Colorado to a crowd of over 1000 that Dwayne looked over at Alex, playing the harmonica, and gained true appreciation of the gift that Alex had given him this summer. That night, the band added a dulcimer and harmonica version of “The Battle Hymn of The Republic”. The dulcimer set, as they had started to call it, began with “North Country Girl”. It was followed by the civil war battle hymn, and then ended with the song “Bliss.” It had become one of the most popular parts of the concert. Dwayne and Alex had been asked to do just those three songs on Austin City Limits in early September.

Along with all the other gifts Alex has given Dwayne this summer is a true appreciation of how short life can be. Dwayne has wasted enough of his time in the mediocrity of life. Dwayne realizes that he doesn’t have to segregate his interests. He has brought his knowledge of the history of music to this summer’s tour. The dulcimer and harmonica on the civil war ballad reminds him of how much he loves learning about the history of music. This early passion will continue to shape the sound going forward. He will still educate. He has started to blog on music history as Tom had suggested. He has been approached about putting out a book of his original poetry in his own name. He has begun to start each concert with reading one of his poems. Alex told him about Tony Whitman’s help with the publicity and the “Make Dwayne a Star” conspiracy. It has been more successful than they could possibly have hoped. Dwayne continues to be concerned about how he will handle ongoing fame. He is counting on how much he loves Sandy to help him stay centered and focused on what really matters.

July 6th was a joyous day. Sandy drove Dwayne, Isadora and Frank to the casino venue between Gallup and Grants. Isadora and Frank sat in the backseat holding hands. The band’s performance that night was a little shaky as the band made the adjustments to Dwayne’s one night break from playing guitar. Dwayne tried to convince Sandy to play the dulcimer part on ’Bliss”. When she refused, they took that part out of the performance for that night. After the concert, Dwayne, Sandy, and “the kids”, Isadora and the young people who had been following the band, hung out in the hotel lobby where they could hear the local country band playing in the bar. Dwayne gave the kids a lesson on country style dancing. Isadora had on make-up, her hair curled and was wearing a dress from her mother’s closet. She looked beautiful, but older than she was. She was a quick learner, a good dancer, and Dwayne became a little fancy with her in some turns. At one point, both Isadora and Dwayne looked over at Sandy to see if she had caught the move Isadora had executed perfectly. Sandy, the former professional dancer, watching her daughter and the man she loved dancing, was beaming with pride and adoration. All was right with the world.

The next morning they woke up to the scandal hitting the local Albuquerque papers and being tweeted and blogged about online. Hotel room trashed, hotel concierge sent out to buy women’s clothing following a drunken altercation with Country star and unknown female friend. Star unable to play guitar after putting his hand through a wall. Someone had taken a picture of Dwayne carrying Sandy and getting onto the elevator. Luckily, Sandy’s face was away from the photographer. However, the blood and puke on the dress was not.

Isadora saw the newspaper before Sandy was awake and went to Dwayne’s room to confront him. He had told her that her mother had food poisoning. This was a lie. Isadora woke Dwayne up and he quickly got dressed and read the newspaper. She sat across from him. He looked at her and thought how much she looked like her mother when angry. She threw her hair back and her eyes flashed a defiant look.

Isadora: Is it true?

Dwayne: There is nothing untrue about it, but it’s not the whole truth. What they print in the papers seldom is.

Isadora: I guess I was kind of hoping that instead of Mom being sick you two were- you know, but I didn’t expect this.

Dwayne: I don’t want you to judge your mother harshly. It was my fault.

Isadora: Did you spike her drink or make her drink?

Dwayne: I actually wasn’t with her when she was doing most of the drinking. I was on stage.

Isadora: So why was it your fault?

Dwayne: It’s complicated.

Isadora: I’ve never seen her drunk or even drink.

Dwayne: We had a disagreement. She was upset.

Isadora: So that’s an excuse to get so drunk that you throw up and pass out.

Dwayne: No, of course not, but people sometimes make bad decisions, even adults.

Isadora: Anything could have happened. How about if you had not been there to help her. She’s always telling me not to drink.

Dwayne: Isadora, as you age, you will realize we all make mistakes. Your mother and I have had an unusual romance the last couple of days. It’s been confusing for us and we both have made mistakes. It doesn’t change who she is.

Isadora: I’m hoping it does.

Dwayne: What?

Isadora: Are the two of you in love?

Dwayne: Yes. I love your mother. I’m hoping that you will allow me to love you too.

Isadora: Do you believe she loves you?

Dwayne: She tells me she does and I believe her.

Isadora: It’s the only thing that makes sense. People do stupid things when they are in love.

Dwayne: There’s truth in that.

Isadora: She’s never been in love before. She was always afraid because she wanted to protect me from being hurt if it didn’t work out. I am hoping being in love will change her. Not that she will pass out drunk, but that she will soften a little. She’s grown a little hard through having to take care of a little girl on her own.

Dwayne: You are not a little girl anymore.

Isadora: No and I don’t like being lied to-especially about my mother-and when it’s always been just the two of us. You should have told me the truth. I would have able to take care of her.

Dwayne: I understand. It’s always been just the two of you and you are protective of her the way she is of you. You have my solemn vow to be truthful going forward if you will give me another chance.

Isadora: Even about my mother?

Dwayne: About her being in trouble, hurt, or sick, yes, but your mother’s and my relationship is about us. I will keep that private.

Isadora: But it impacts me.

Dwayne: I suppose it does.

Isadora: I don’t know, then, if I should allow myself to love you because it might not work out between the two of you. (Isadora’s bottom lip quivered. She appeared much younger than her fifteen years.)

Dwayne: I’m going to do my best to be in your mother’s life. This means I will be in yours. I can’t give you guarantees. I can only promise I will try.

Isadora: I have never had a male figure, you know in my life, and I have always wanted one. Last night, when we were dancing, I started fantasizing that someday, if I was to get married, you would be there to give me away and dance the father-daughter dance with me. Is that silly?

Dwayne: (Dwayne closed his eyes. In some ways she is mature beyond her years, but in wanting a father she is a little girl.). I’ve never had children- a daughter. I was thinking I have a nightstand that belongs to my family. It is always supposed to be in the baby’s room. Someday, if you have a baby…

Isadora: (Interrupted). But it’s really up to if you and Mom make a go with it. My relationship with you is dependent on your relationship with her.

Dwayne: (Nodded) Can you understand why she was so reluctant to bring someone in your life and have you get close to him?

Isadora thought for a while on that. It helped to give her a different perspective on her mother. Her mother always put Isadora’s needs before her own. It would have been so easy for Isadora to be hurt. Her mother, maybe, had sacrificed love so Isadora would not get hurt. Then, her mother had to raise her alone. Now, though, there was hope for both her mother to be in love and Isadora to have a father.

Isadora: But it’s worth the risk, isn’t it? For us to at least hope we’re going to be in each other’s life. I know I haven’t known you long, but I think you could be someone I could depend on if I was in trouble. I want you to be my father.

Dwayne: Honey, nothing would give me more honor.

A few hours later Dwayne said goodbye to Sandy with promises to meet in three weeks in Roswell and to talk at least once a day until then. It was about a week later, when the story of the Albuquerque trashed hotel room was calming down, that the next scandal broke. It appeared that the handsome fifty year old performer had a “thing” for younger women. The journalist had received her sought after job in Sacramento. The story was well timed and well planned. It brought attention to the journalist without any confirmation or damage to her reputation. It was good for her and, in some ways, good for Dwayne’s career. Tickets soared and offers poured in. Scandal is good for celebrity.

The internet entertainment sites started to run stories: fifty-year old singer, who claims to have given up on love, consoles himself with younger women. As long as the pictures were of the journalist with details of her having flown to see him, he did not respond. He was furious when Tom came to him to show him that in addition to the picture of the journalist, was a picture of Dwayne and Isadora dancing. Isadora looked to be 21 and not fifteen in the picture, but…this was Sandy’s daughter! It wasn’t romantic it was… God, Dwayne couldn’t even discuss how disgusted he was with the implications. What if Isadora’s classmates saw it? What kind of reputation would she get?

Tom took control of the situation. With the permission of Sandy, Frank, and Fred, Tom issued a picture of Dwayne Hucks’ young fans. Isadora and Frank made statements on how Dwayne had taken a fatherly interest in his younger fans. Quotes from Frank’s and Fred’s parents on how comforted they felt about Dwayne taking such a personal interest were included. Tom wrote a blog about his experience as a mentor to the interns and four young people following the band. He spoke about the educational aspects of traveling. He highlighted that Dwayne had, until recently, been an educator at a local community college. Dwayne wrote his first historical blog on the harmonica and the civil war. Without ever addressing the issue of the journalist, Tom successfully changed the publicity to highlight Dwayne’s image as a Cowboy Professor. This image will be the established image that Dwayne would have for the rest of his career.

Still, it had been difficult for Dwayne to deal with increased scrutiny and increased media attention. It was exactly what he feared. He wasn’t used to the invasion of privacy. He hated it. He hated it especially on this Thursday heading down to Ruidoso. He had planned on telling Sandy tomorrow what had happened last night. He knew it would be a hard conversation, but was sure Sandy would understand. Now, he fears she would come to the conversation hurt and heartbroken with assumptions already made. A picture broke this morning of him and Dani kissing with the headline: Broken Hearted Cowboy Professor reunites with lost love.

Last night they played their last gig in Colorado. Dwayne returned to the hotel from the concert alone. The other band members were going out for an after show drink, but Dwayne was tired. There was a crowd in the lobby of the hotel who had returned from the concert. They called out to him “thanks for the show.” He waved and smiled. He noticed a woman standing by the elevators as he walked towards them. He thought there was something about her that was familiar. She was smiling. He looked into those beautiful blue eyes and, without thinking, took her in his arms and passionately kissed her.

They stopped kissing when the elevator beeped. They rode the elevator in silence looking at each other and measuring how the years had changed them. Dani had not aged well. She was overweight with a sag to her middle and the beginnings of a double chin. Her hair was dyed dark black. She wore too much make-up and too much jewelry. Her eyes were still the bluest, prettiest eyes Dwayne had ever seen. They went into his room. Dwayne offered her a drink. She said no and sat stiffly in a straight back desk chair. Dwayne sat on the bed, took off his shoes, and looked at her. He was silent and waited for her to explain why she was there.

Dani: I saw the show tonight

Dwayne: I thought you were still living…

Dani: I came especially to see you. I traveled by myself because I wanted to see you.

Dwayne picked up the bottle he had started keeping in his room and took a couple of swigs directly from it. He was more impacted by seeing Dani than he would have thought. Before him sat the woman who, as a young girl, he had sworn before God to love until death do them part. His emotions were conflicted. He felt loyalty, annoyance, heart break, curiosity. He was both drawn towards her and a little repulsed by the older version of his lost love.

Dani: Someone showed me a video of the song, “Blue.” I had to come see it for myself.

Dwayne noticed for the first time she was wearing a dark blue skirt and a white shirt with blue embroidered flowers. It was nothing like the dress she wore on the day he proposed. He wondered if she remembered the dress as much as he did.

Dani: It’s the first time you wrote a song for me or, rather, about me.

Is that true? Dwayne took a last long swig from the bottle. He realized he was dehydrated from the concert and the alcohol was already affecting him. Good, he needed some help at this moment.

Dwayne: Not true. I wrote you a song about your fanny.

Dani: That wasn’t a serious song. You made it up on the spot and forget it right after.

Dwayne: I don’t know why I never wrote a song about you before. I loved you.

Dani: Do you remember our first time?

Dwayne: My God, Dani, of course. I could never forget.

Dani: But your song “The First Time “wasn’t about our first time.

Dwayne shook his head. Had she came all this way to fight over ancient history?

Dani: I’ve thought so much over the years about why I left you. Why couldn’t I have just gone to Nashville with you? I wasn’t honest with either of us at the time.

Dwayne: No?

Dani: No. You told me you had never cheated on me and I believed you. Still “The First Time” wasn’t about our first time.

Dwayne: I told you. It was made up. It wasn’t real.

Dani: But what was real wasn’t worth writing about. You were going to Nashville to write songs about women you were making up in your head and it didn’t matter that they were made up because you weren’t writing about me. I didn’t inspire love songs from you.

Dwayne: I’ve thought about you so many times. Fourth of July I was thinking about that summer when we made all that ice cream –remember? We were kids when we met, we did childish things and I loved you desperately. I loved making love to you. I loved growing up with you. I wasn’t a song writer, then. We were kids is all- having fun together.

Dani: But we grew up and you became a song writer and preferred making up women then writing songs about me.

Dwayne: (He feels defeated and disgusted with himself. What can he do about the past?). What do you want me to tell you?

Dani: That we grew up and you no longer loved me.

Dwayne: You left me. I would never have left you. I would never have cheated on you. I would have been true to our wedding vows. I would have been fine just writing songs and sticking it out with you as I had promised God and you I would do. I just needed the music. I still need the music. I would have stayed with you.

Dani: You would have been fine sticking it out with me? Do you really think what a woman wants is for a man to stick it out with her after he no longer loves her? To be a suffering martyr who stays anyway? It’s not very flattering. I couldn’t stay with you because you no longer loved me, but once we had been in love. I knew what it was to be loved by you.

Dwayne: I’m sorry. I don’t know why I stopped loving you.

Dani: You were always such a romantic and a dreamer when we were kids. It’s why I loved you, really. You were always so in love with concepts and thoughts. So in love with doing right, so in love with history, so in love with learning, so in love with the concept of being in love. You still are. Blogging about the harmonica and the civil war and the music you’re writing now! (Dani laughed and Dwayne thought about how much he has missed her laughter). Everything I’ve seen about you the last few weeks makes me see that boy in you. You are still so…you, at your essence. Everything I fell in love with as a girl. It just made me missed being myself-who I was then, but I had pushed all that away because it was so painful to me. Hearing that song you wrote about an imagined woman when I thought our first time was so beautiful! Then, you finally wrote a song about me. It’s a song about loving me once and about pain when we split and it’s just, I feel like I can be myself. I can at least remember that girl once again who had been young and in love with a handsome, romantic boy.

Dani had moved to sit beside him on the bed. She had put her hand on his back as she said the last part. As Dwayne looked at her, he remembered the girl she had been and the boy in him loved her all over again. He was lost in nostalgia as he made love to her.

An hour later, Dani came out of the bathroom and walked to the side of the bed where Dwayne was sitting. Dwayne was sitting with his shoulders bent, his hands straight in front of him, and his head staring straight down. Dani started to put back on the jewelry she had taken off and put on the nightstand. The last thing she picked up and put on was her wedding ring. As she did, Dwayne raised his head to look at her. She saw the ashamed look on his face.

Dani: You’re not the first man I’ve taken my wedding ring off for.

Dwayne: (shutting his eyes) It doesn’t help to imagine you with other men.

Dani: I just don’t want you to make more of it than what it is. That’s the problem with being such a romantic and believer. Every action is so big to you, but I’ve learned to live in the moment and understand there is very little significance in anything we do.

Dwayne: You and your husband are not in love.

Dani: We are sticking by each other. You were the great love of my life.

Dwayne: I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.

Dani: Do you have any body now?

Dwayne: I have recently became involved with the great love of my life.

Dani: I hope you are the great love in your great love’s life. That is something few of us get.

Dwayne: Why did you come to me tonight?

Dani: To thank you for my song and to say a real good-bye. To tell you not to be blue. To ask you to remember me sometimes as that young girl who loved you.

Dwayne: Dani, I will always remember.

Dani walked out of the hotel room and Dwayne’s life. This, the last time he made love to her, was nothing like the first time. It mostly made him feel sad for who his sweet Dani had become. Yet, he didn’t feel responsible anymore. He didn’t choose to not be in love with her. He had just grown up and wasn’t. If they had stayed married –him no longer loving her and her still loving him, they would just both have been miserable. Dani was right to leave. He could see that now. She had been the wise one.

Dwayne took another swig from his bottle. Sandy would need to know, of course. He wouldn’t keep such a thing from her. Dwayne knew the moment Dani walked out the hotel room door that he was free to give himself to Sandy in a way he hadn’t been before. He felt released from the vow he had made before God. He felt sure he could love Sandy without hurting her. He had to make love with his ex-wife before he could truly commit to this new love. Sounded crazy and he knew it didn’t make sense in any type of logical way. It only made sense in the crazy, screwed up world of the way love actually is. He was free now to ask Sandy to marry him.

Dwayne woke up early Thursday morning and went out to buy Sandy an engagement ring. When he saw the blue sapphire in a silver setting, he knew it was the perfect ring. The bus had to wait for him. He was the last ones to get on. Soon as he did, Tom informed him about the picture of Dani and him sweeping the Internet.

Now, Dwayne wonders, if Sandy will even talk to him. He hates the modern world. Everyone has a cell phone, is tweeting, texting, instantly sending images and there is no thought to slowing down and thinking through the moment. Tom reminds Dwayne that without social media they would never have gained the success they had in just five weeks. Yeah, Dwayne thinks, but one kiss in a hotel lobby and look what happens. He tries to get Sandy on the phone and it goes to voice mail. He texts her again, five times in half an hour, and she responds simply that they will talk about it tomorrow.

Sandy is watching her beautiful daughter in her flamenco dance recital and nothing is going to distract her from this wonderful moment. Sandy always knew that with her and her father’s genes, Isadora would have great natural ability for dance. Yet, somehow, Isadora had been bored with ballet classes as a young child. The natural ability hadn’t been accompanied by an interest until Isadora had asked to take Flamenco lessons. Isadora is far from the star of the show. Many of the girls had been taking these summer lessons at the Flamenco Institute for years. Isadora is flawless as part of the background ensemble of dancers. Frank agrees with Sandy’s assessment. He skipped the last few days on the road. He took a bus to Albuquerque to see Isadora in her big performance. The three of them will travel to Ruidoso tomorrow. Frank will travel on with his brother, sister and friend to California. They will not be following the band on the way home. Frank only has a couple of weeks before he starts college in Southern California. Fred is returning to college as well. Jane wants some time with her parents before her senior year of high school. It is a busy time of year. Summer is winding down and real life is beckoning.

Isadora had begged Sandy to move to Southern California so she could be close to Frank. Ridiculous, said Sandy. They had different lives to travel and, if it was meant to be, it would be in a few years. Isadora had argued that a move to California would mean Sandy could be close to Dwayne as well. Sandy feels strongly that it is in Isadora’s best interest to finish school in Albuquerque.

Sandy is in love with Dwayne. Three weeks of communicating just by phone and text had not diminished her love for him. It had, however, given her an opportunity to think about life and love, fate and free-will. She is in love with him, but independent women in the twenty-first century do not move to another state to live with a man they had just met. Sandy has thought about her parents’ relationship and now that she is in love is more determined than ever to keep her independence.

Sandy is not worried about the picture of Dwayne kissing his ex-wife. She is curious about how their conversation went, but knows, from her recent experience with the picture of Dwayne and Isadora, not to trust the Internet world. She is more distracted about the conversation she knows they need to have about the future. Sandy wants them to try a long distance relationship. She knows Dwayne is a romantic. He will think they need a grand gesture and will want to move in together. Sandy is a realist. She has played the conversation over again in her brain and, each time, she sees herself hurting Dwayne. She has told herself to be firm. The most important thing is and always has been Isadora. She would never sacrifice the needs of her daughter for a man. Dwayne has his career which is best served by living in California. There really is no other option. Either they have a long distance relationship or they didn’t have a relationship.

Friday mid-day, Sandy and Isadora check into their room. Isadora immediately goes off with Frank to join Fred and Jane. Sandy wanders downstairs and is allowed into to the auditorium where the band is practicing. Dwayne is singing “Your Home is in My Arms”. She remembers the brief times he had held her three weeks ago. The song is proof of how romantic he is. He had composed it before they had even made love the first time. In hearing the words of the song, Sandy realizes he thinks of her as his with a type of ownership and pride. It is not a concept with which she is comfortable. Sandy stares at him on the stage. She marvels, as she always does, at how uncommonly handsome he is.

It is not long after the rehearsal before they are in Dwayne’s room and she is in her spot in his arms after having made love. Dwayne tried to talk to her first about Dani, but Sandy had told him “sex now, talk later” and he was, after all, only human and had missed her so much. They lay together dreading different conversations. They arrive at an unspoken agreement to postpone the conversations for later on in the week-end. They think to have the conversations early will ruin the week-end. Why not enjoy the time together first? What a relief to be together! The dread of the conversations will vibrate between then like a low sounding, annoying hum throughout the week-end.

Saturday, Sandy and Dwayne go with the “kids” to the alien museum in Roswell. It is campy and silly. There is picture taking, laughing, holding hands. Sandy thinks how nice it is to be with a man whose company she enjoys outside of the bedroom. She notices the way Dwayne interacts with Isabella. He asks about the dance recital. Frank shows him the video he took with his phone. Dwayne and Isadora lean together to watch the video. Lunch is burgers, fries and shakes. Dwayne wipes the mustard off Sandy’s face and brings his lips to hers.

At the Saturday concert, Dwayne gives a shout out to his young fans on their last night of following the band. Isadora will travel back with the kids tomorrow morning as they drive through Albuquerque, so that Sandy can stay for the show at the winery and have one more night with Dwayne before the band leaves on Monday. After the concert, Isadora and Dwayne hug goodbye. She whispers something in his ear and Dwayne kisses her on the forehead. Sandy thinks of the conversation Isadora and she had about how nice it would have been to have had a male presence. Sandy’s lover and daughter are bonded in a natural older male figure and younger daughter relationship. Sandy is somewhat dismayed by how easily and willingly Dwayne took on that role. Neither Dwayne nor Isadora have told Sandy about their conversation of a few weeks earlier. What Isadora whispers is: “I still want you to be my father.”

Saturday evening is an early night for the band. As the second stage headliner, they are done by eight so the crowd can head to the main stage. Dwayne has made dinner reservations at the nicest steak house in Roswell. He had planned on proposing. Now, he hesitates with so much left unsaid between them. It is over dinner that Sandy brings up the conversation about Dani.

Sandy: So she just showed up?

Dwayne: After all these years without any communication at all. She heard the song “Blue”. I never thought about the fact that I had never written a song for her or about her. She wanted to tell me not to be blue.

Sandy: You wrote poems about your divorce.

Dwayne: She wouldn’t have known about those. She wouldn’t have known about “Blue” except for all the publicity we’ve gotten. The thing is I wrote songs about Carolyn and about you. It doesn’t make sense why I didn’t ever write a song about her. I had never thought, really, how she might have felt. I thought as long as I was doing the right thing by my vows, but that didn’t mean we were right together any longer.

Sandy: You weren’t a songwriter when you were in love with her.

Dwayne: I was when we were still married. I’ve been thinking about that boy I was that was so in love with her. Dani said I was a romantic. Maybe I wanted to protect that boy and that girl. Dani had given me so much, but obligation without love; not much of a marriage at the end. We weren’t that boy and girl when we divorced.

Sandy: It makes me scared for Isadora.

Dwayne: But you have to let her have the experience. There is something special about your first love at that young age. Frank is a good kid. I can tell you at that age no one would have stopped me from marrying Dani and I don’t regret it any longer. I can think about the girl I was in love with fondly.

They finish their meal and return to the hotel. When they park the car, Sandy says, “So, you slept with her?”

Dwayne: I did. I didn’t even think about why or how it might affect you. I just…did. I guess in a way we needed to say good-bye, but it was sad. I don’t think I had ever experienced goodbye sex before. (Dwayne let’s out a loud sigh and turns and look Sandy fully in the eyes.)

Sandy: Dwayne, you won’t see that look of disappointment in my eyes. We’re not married or engaged.

Dwayne: Should that matter?

Sandy: If you told me you had sex with a stranger and it didn’t mean anything that would matter. Maybe it’s because “Blue” came through me. The two of you had to have some closure after all this time. I really understand. I know it doesn’t mean you don’t love me.

They walk up to the door of the hotel room Sandy is sharing with her daughter. Dwayne leans on the wall next to the door.

Dwayne: You are an unusual woman.

Sandy: I think it is unusual how much I know your heart and your mind. Our connection is what is unusual.

Dwayne: Perhaps, it is the only way you could have fallen in love. You had to hold my heart and know it before you could open yourself up to love.

Sandy: I think you are right. God or cosmic energy, whichever, had to intervene or I would never have been able to love. Now that I have, I can’t imagine I could go through my whole life without ever being in love.

Dwayne: Just remember you still hold my heart completely. Be gentle with it.

He kisses her goodnight.

The next morning Sandy doesn’t see Dwayne. She takes the kids to breakfast and helps them to organize their stuff so they will have more room for the return home. With admonishments to be careful, she watches them drive away. Dwayne meets with reporters in the morning and interviews a candidate for band manager after. The Marketing Director from the hotel in Albuquerque has driven to Roswell to interview. Dwayne is impressed with him again and offers him the job.

Sandy is late getting to the winery. Dwayne moves through the crowd mingling before the show. She thinks he looks much more professorial then a cowboy. These people had paid good money for intimate time and Dwayne is giving them their money’s worth; making them laugh and charming them. Sandy hangs back and watches. She is impressed with how much he knows about wine and local area history. Alex sees her and comes over to talk to her.

Alex: You know he’s always been like this. He refers to himself as a social introvert.

Sandy: What exactly does that mean?

Alex: Hell if I know. I think it means that everybody loves him, but he loves very few people.

Sandy: He loves you.

Alex: He loves you.

Sandy: Is that all?

Alex: He could love your daughter.

Sandy thinks about that as her and Alex’s wine glasses are filled. She knows a father is what Isadora wants, but it has been just the two of them for so long.

Alex: How many people can you say you really love?

Sandy: My daughter and her best friend, my best friend, and Dwayne.

Alex: Anybody else?

Sandy: I could learn to love you.

Alex: Why?

Sandy: Because Dwayne does.

Alex: I wouldn’t spend a lot of time learning to love me. (He looks her in the eyes until he could see that she fully understands what he is saying).

Sandy: Does Dwayne know?

Alex: He suspects, I guess.

Sandy: Why are you telling me?

Alex: When I’m gone, he will only love you. Will you be ready for that?

Sandy: I don’t know. I might hurt him.

Alex: That sometimes happens when you roll the dice on love.

Sandy: Why didn’t you marry?

Alex: I had a common law marriage in New Orleans. My woman, my sister and her son, my namesake, were all killed in one disaster.

Sandy: That’s horrible.

Alex: That also sometimes happens when you roll the dice. It’s easier not to love, but you miss out on a lot too when you make that choice. It’s better to roll the dice than not.

Can Alex somehow know that Sandy wants to play it safe with Dwayne? Sandy pushes the conversation she still needs to have out of her mind to enjoy the concert. It is the last time she will see the band in this configuration.

Dwayne and Sandy have made love and have taken a long hot shower. He is in sweatpants and is shirtless. She is in the nightgown she wore in Albuquerque. He towel dries her hair, takes the comb out of her hand, sits on the bed and brings her to sit with her back towards him, he wraps his legs around her waist and begins to comb her hair. When he is almost done, he speaks.

Dwayne: I guess we can decide not to talk about it. We can go our different ways tomorrow and I can call you after the tour, ask you to come out for a visit or come visit you.

Sandy: (That is exactly what I want). Would that be so bad?

Dwayne stops combing and puts the comb on the nightstand. He leans forward and puts his left arm around her waist. He smells her hair and kisses her cheek. It is a new moon and there is no light as the night settles in. He turns on a table lamp.

Dwayne: I took you for a planner.

Sandy: I am.

Dwayne: Then let’s plan.

Dwayne knows just where the engagement ring he bought is. He hopes this conversation is leaning towards the path he wants it to take.

Sandy: I know your career and all of your plans involve California.

Dwayne: They do now, but I’ve only made plans a few months out. I don’t have to base my career in Los Angeles. I do have Alex to worry about. He won’t tell me, but he’s dying. I think it will just be a few months.

Sandy: I have Isadora to think about.

Dwayne: Wouldn’t she prefer to be close to Frank?

Sandy: She’s in high school and he is in college. They could be out of love in a month.

Dwayne: Maybe.

Sandy: I don’t see how our lives fit together.

Dwayne: They don’t. Is that the point? Maybe we shouldn’t try to fit each other into our current lives. Instead we take the leap, say we want to be together, it’s a priority, and then think about how to make it happen and what our lives will look like going forward. We plan it together, but it begins with the commitment to each other as our top priority.

Sandy: Is that how it happened with your other two loves?

Dwayne: With Dani we were graduating high school. Our lives were going to change anyway. With Carolyn, it was easy. She was already in Nashville. I just moved into her place.

Sandy: We’ve only known each other a few weeks. This is literally the fifth day we’ve spent together.

Dwayne: I know that you are the great love of my life.

Sandy: I love you, too. You are the only man I have ever loved.

Dwayne: Just because you are the great love in my life does not mean I am the great love of yours. Maybe I am just your first.

Sandy turns and wraps her legs around Dwayne’s waist. She looks him in the eyes.

Sandy: You are my one and only. You are the only man I could ever love.

Dwayne: Can you trust me?

Sandy: Yes, it’s not about trust. It’s about common sense that we get to know each other more.

Dwayne: You said it last night. The connection between us is unique. You have held my thoughts, my heart and my soul in your head. How could you know me better? Marry me.

Dwayne wants to reach for the ring, but stops. He sees flight in Sandy’s eyes unlike anything he has ever seen before. She is withdrawing from him. He thinks of the time she trembled in fright while teaching him the song “Bliss”. What is she so afraid of?

Sandy: Marry you? I wasn’t expecting…

Dwayne: Say yes, baby. Just say yes. Take the leap.

Sandy: But we haven’t answer the questions of …

Dwayne: It’s a leap of faith, we will figure it out after the commitment.

Sandy: I’ve been thinking all weekend that you would ask me to move to California and when I said no we would end it.

Dwayne: How in the Hell can we decide to end it when we love each other so much?

Sandy: Is love enough?

Dwayne: It’s the most important thing, I thought. Happily ever after means marriage. It does to me.

Sandy: Not yet.

Dwayne rises from the bed. He is disappointed. He walks over to the mirror and runs his hands over his face. Time for a shave. He slowly and methodically spreads shaving cream on his face and begins to shave. While he does he looks in the mirror at Sandy who begins to get dressed. Dwayne has only shaved one side of his face when he turns to her.

Dwayne: What the Hell are you doing?

Sandy: I’m getting dressed to leave.

Dwayne: Do you not want to spend the night in my arms?

Sandy: Do you still want me to?

Dwayne: Forever and always, but I will settle for whatever time you can spare.

Sandy begins to sob. Dwayne remembers a verse of a poem. The last thing he had written-the only thing he written- when the blue dreams started. The verse he hadn’t known where the inspiration came from. It had somehow came from her in premonition of this moment. The fright! The flight! He asked her too soon. He goes to Sandy and folds her in his arms.

Dwayne: I’m sorry, babe. I forgot.

Sandy: What?

Dwayne: You don’t believe in love. Fate or God or whatever intervened and now you’re in love, but you still don’t believe in it. It’s not me you don’t trust, its love. I need to stand by until you do. When you decide you believe in love, my arms, your home will be waiting for you. We will live wherever you think is best.

Chapter 25: Distance

Juanita: She is not a bad kid.

Sandy: She is driving me crazy.

Juanita: You’re driving her crazy.

Sandy: Whose side are you on?

Juanita: The side of true love.

It is the day before Halloween and Juanita is busy making Halloween costumes. Sandy came over to help.

Sandy: I don’t know what love has to do with it. Missing Frank is no excuse for how she is behaving.

Juanita: She’s not just missing Frank. She thought she was going to have a father figure in her life. Now she doesn’t.

Sandy: She can’t miss Dwayne more than I do.

Juanita: That’s part of the problem. She is also missing you the way you used to be. Now you’re just irritable all the time; angry, and grouchy. I’m kind of missing you the way you were, too.

Sandy: I’m horny as hell.

Juanita: Since you and Dwayne aren’t in a committed relationship, why don’t you just find yourself some 34 year old to fuck?

Sandy doesn’t answer. Juanita tells her to go stir the posole and bring back more margaritas. Juanita couldn’t believe it when Sandy told her Dwayne had proposed and she had said no. Sandy would say she hadn’t said no. She said not now. Sandy hasn’t been herself since.

At first Dwayne called her every day. He took pictures of scenery on the journey home to send to her. He wrote poetry about her. It seemed the long distance relationship could work. In September they had started talking about visits. Dwayne was auditioning for band members, rehearsing, recording and they had the Austin City Limits thing. Wouldn’t it be easier for her to fly out on her days off? Even for just two days? But Sandy was having problems with Isadora. Daily phone calls with Dwayne had shifted to weekly awkward calls where they didn’t have much to say except I miss you.

Juanita: You should just go ahead and move to California.

Sandy: We’re going over Thanksgiving. Isadora is going to ride up North with Frank to meet his parents and I will spend Thursday and Friday with Dwayne. I work on the Saturday and Sunday.

Juanita: You should tell him you want a do over. Tell him to ask you to marry you again and say yes.

Sandy: It’s not that easy.

Juanita: It’s not as hard as you’re making it.

There are days when Sandy agrees. The last two months have been Hell. Isadora made some new girlfriends. There were nights when Sandy would get calls at the bar from neighbors. Isadora had snuck out or they could smell pot coming from the condominium. One night she left work early to surprise Isadora and Isadora and her friends were at the condominium drinking. Sandy isn’t sure what to do, but is worried about her. Sandy feels like she needs constant monitoring.

Juanita: What is Isadora going to be for Halloween?

Sandy: Flamenco dancer so she can wear the outfit from the summer.

Juanita: At least she’s in love with a boy from out of state, so even if she is a little wild she won’t get pregnant.

Sandy: I’m in love with a guy from out of state and you just told me to go find someone to fuck. How can you be so sure Isadora won’t screw around with someone else?

Juanita: Because unlike you, she believes in love.

Sandy: Why does everyone keep saying I don’t believe in love?

Juanita: Sandy, with everything you told me, you had the world’s most romantic, epic love story. Soulmates, destiny! A handsome, smart, charming guy! It ends with him asking you to marry him. How do you not say yes?

Sandy: I don’t know.

Juanita: Fear of happiness.

Sandy: What if I said yes and we married and I was unhappy.

Juanita: How would that be different than now?

Sandy: Because now I can say I’m not happy because I said no, but if I said yes and we were unhappy then I would know that happiness isn’t possible.

Juanita: What if you said yes and was happy? You are the most stubborn woman I know.

Sandy thinks about that “Paracelsus” poem. She is still too stubborn to utter up a prayer upon death. In her mind, when Sandy thinks about marriage she equates it with the death of her independence. She still doesn’t believe the prayer would be answered.

Early Halloween night Sandy makes a video chat call with Dwayne so he could see Isadora and her in costume. Dwayne and Isadora fall immediately into an easy joking and rapport. Juanita might be right that Isadora was angry and acting out because Sandy hadn’t provided her the father figure she craved. Isadora rushes away to a party. Sandy tells Dwayne she can’t talk long because she has to get to the bar. She puts on her cowboy hat and shows off her costume. Dwayne asks where her rhinestones are and she laughs. “Where’s your costume?” Dwayne says he is going to spend the night at the hospital with Alex. The good news is that Alex will be out of the hospital and able to have Thanksgiving dinner with them when she flies out.

It has been a busy couple of months for Dwayne. His new bassist is a rock musician from England. He is eager to learn more of a Western style. He is a bit of an amateur historian and encourages Dwayne to tell him about Americana music. Dwayne had been hesitant at first about hiring a rock bassist, but, after Alex had seen Dwayne and him talk for an hour about the British sixties invasion, Alex had encouraged Dwayne to select him. It will give him someone to talk to on the bus. The new guitarist was a little more of a struggle until Fred asked him to audition his new girlfriend, Donna. It was ridiculous; a twenty- three year old girl, but then Dwayne heard her. Americana through and through. She also played the harmonica. She kept calling him professor. Alex said she would do as well. Alex acted as if he was still in charge and Dwayne mostly let him.

Alex and Dwayne had appeared live at Austin City Limits. It was hard to believe Alex was sick at all, but by late September, while recording the album, Dwayne began to calculate what songs Alex was going to play on and how to spread recording them out so he wouldn’t be so tired. The last song they recorded was “The First Time”. When they were through and putting away the instruments, Alex said, “That’s the last time.” Alex hasn’t picked up an instrument since.

The album was released on October 25th. It already had some critical acclaim and was receiving lots of play. There were talks of a CMA. It is a great first album. Alex went into the hospital on October 26th. The new band manager stopped by the hospital to talk about tour dates and television engagements. One of the late night talk shows wanted to book the band. Dwayne said he would fire him the next time he disturbed him at the hospital. He thought Alex was sleeping. He felt Alex grip his arms. Alex said to begin the tour on New Year’s Eve in Vegas. Dwayne told him no, damn him. Alex said there wouldn’t be anything keeping him in California come New Year’s.

Thanksgiving, Isadora and Sandy arrive on a morning flight. Sandy kisses Isadora good-bye as Isadora’s climb into Frank’s car and then Sandy grabs a taxi to Alex’s apartment. Dwayne has ordered in Thanksgiving dinner for the three of them. Sandy enters the apartment as she knocks. There is a football game on the television. Dwayne is in the kitchen wearing a chef’s apron. Alex is sitting on the couch in striped pajamas. He stands up as she enters and she crosses to him and hugs him. He is thin. He tries to smile. She kisses him on the cheek. “You better go give your man some loving. We don’t want him getting jealous.”

Dwayne looks tired and worn himself. He has been the at home caregiver for three weeks. Sandy grasps him hard and he holds her, but without the sexual overtones she expected. “I’m so glad you’re here,” he whispers in her ear. She shoos him out of the kitchen and tells him to go watch football. “I knew you were my ideal woman” he says and gladly leaves the kitchen to her. When the food is heated and she has plated three servings, she looks into the living room. Alex is lying down on the couch. Dwayne is in the chair beside him with his head back. They are both asleep and holding hands.

They eat on TV trays. When they are through and cleaning up, Sandy tells Dwayne there would be plenty for left-overs. None of the three of them ate very much. Dwayne says it is the desert he thinks Alex really wants. Dwayne cuts two large slices of sweet potato pie. He sits on the couch beside Alex and puts a bite in Alex’s mouth. Alex smiles and savors it. “That’s what I’m talking about.” Dwayne asks him “who used to make sweet potato pie?” Alex tell him it was his Aunt Charlotte. Dwayne asks who she was married to. He is trying to get Alex to remember and to enjoy the memories. Sandy can tell this is a routine they have fallen into.

Later that evening, Dwayne helps Alex to bathe and puts him in bed. He comes out and folds up the bedding Alex has used to sleep on the couch. He pulls out a different blanket and pillow and goes to the end of the couch opposite of where Alex had been lying. He tells Sandy, “I know it’s not grand accommodations.” He lays down and opens his arms. She lies down on the couch beside him and says “Reminds me of a good old gospel song.” Sometime in the middle of the night she hears Dwayne say into her ear “I’ve missed you so much. You have no idea.” Dwayne takes her hand and guides it to his erection. She scrambles up on top of him. “You just lie there and relax. I can do all the work”.

The next day she sends Dwayne home. She tells him to go run or box. He will feel better. Take a long hot shower and stretch out on your own bed. He tell hers he knew she hadn’t come to play nurse maid. Besides she leaves on a plane tonight. He wants to spend time with her. She looks at this man who is so tired and fatigued. She tells him again to go home. She teases when Alex gets up that she thinks Dwayne is afraid to leave them alone together. Dwayne finally leaves. Soon as Dwayne leaves Alex asks Sandy to help him plan his funeral.

It is later that day. Alex has fallen asleep on the couch. Sandy sits on the floor beside the couch organizing the notes she has taken on what Alex wants for his funeral. Sandy is thinking about death and prayer. Alex wakes up and looks at Sandy. He says, “That poem?” Sandy asks, “The verse for your service?” Alex said no. The one she keeps thinking about: “Paracelsus”. Sandy hasn’t told Dwayne about the poem and doesn’t know how Alex would know she is thinking about it, but she is. “What you’re forgetting is that if he hadn’t died of arrogance self-reliance, he wouldn’t have had to send up the prayer.” Sandy is confused. What is it Alex is saying? “You keep focusing on if you would send up the prayer for another chance at life like Paracelsus, but if he hadn’t been so self-reliant, he wouldn’t have sent up a prayer at all. When you’re dying with a love one beside you, all you feel is grateful.” He falls asleep again and Sandy ponders life, death, and death do us part questions.

Chapter 26: Do you believe in Happy Endings?

For the next two weeks, Dwayne, Sandy and Alex have daily online video chats. Sandy is taking care of the wake arrangements in California and the internment and additional wake in New Orleans. Sandy convinces Dwayne to get an evening nurse so he can go home at night, but she knows there are still nights he stays at Alex’s –in case. Dwayne and Sandy have their own nightly phone calls. After Thanksgiving, they seem to have reconnected in a meaningful way. One Sunday early morning, they discuss the dreams from before they knew each other. They laughingly argue over whether it was a blue screen as Sandy calls the dream background or a blue world as Dwayne calls the background. They decide they are describing the same phenomena, but isn’t it interesting how differently they perceived what they saw? They agree to refer to their collective experience as “the Blue Dreams”.

During these two to three hours of nightly conversations, Dwayne discusses what an honor it truly is to be with Alex during this time. There is something about being with a love one as he dies which makes you realize death and life are all part of the same cycle. Dwayne has started to read portions of the Bible and is, also, researching other religions. He is considering that reincarnation is possible. He isn’t sure what happens after death, but he is happy that he is here to help Alex as he passes.

Dwayne asks almost every phone call about Isadora. He gives Sandy advice. He tells her what a great job she has done as a single mother. He says to her in one conversation about whether or not she should let Isadora come to California for the winter break, “I guess Frank and Isadora’s love lasted longer than a month?” He tells her that knowing Isadora has meant a lot to him.

On another phone call he simply sobs. “I love him,” he repeats over and over. Sandy tells him how much she wishes she was there at this time to help him. Dwayne is silent for a few minutes and then says, “That’s a decision you can make at any time, babe.”

When Alex goes into the hospital, the nightly phone calls end. Sandy knows that Dwayne’s inclination is to withdraw and isolate. She asks Frank to go and check on him. Dwayne calls her and tells her he is not isolating. He is trying to write a song about Alex in tribute, but he is blocked again. It feels unfair to Alex, but, now that Alex is unconscious, all he can think about is her and if they have a real future together. Sandy tells him she is relieved he is thinking about the future. It is something Alex would want. She avoids answering the implied question. She tells him she loves him. She finds herself telling him this repeatedly. It sounds hollow even to her own ears.

Alex dies on December 10th. It is Frank that calls to let her know. Frank has begun to see himself as Dwayne’s caregiver during this time while Dwayne is holding vigil by Alex’s deathbed. Frank tells Sandy that Dwayne is going to be ok, but he is distant and seems a little cold. He is processing…a lot of different things. This is all Frank can tell her.

On December 12th, Carmen celebrates her sweet sixteen birthday with a quinceanara. Isadora is in her court. Juanita alternates between pride and tears. “Our little girls are women now” she tells Sandy. Carmen is dating an 18 year old high school senior, but she still has a crush on Dwayne. Sandy sends Dwayne and Frank a photo of Carmen and Isadora together. Dwayne sends back a congratulations to Carmen. He messages Isadora separately to tell her how beautiful she is, he wishes he had been there to dance with her, he hopes to see her soon. After the Quinceanara, Isadora shows the message to Sandy.

Isadora: I don’t understand. Don’t you love him?

Sandy: Of course I do.

Isadora: Frank says he is heartbroken and it’s not just about his friend dying. He misses us. I only have a couple of years left at home. This is a man I would be proud to call Father.

Sandy: Isadora, if we were there, you would have missed Carmen’s Quinceanara. You grew up with her.

Isadora: I could have flown out for this event. It’s not the big events I’m thinking about. It’s the day to day stuff. It’s waking up on a Sunday morning and coming out and seeing the two of you kissing. It’s sitting and watching a ballgame on television with Dwayne.

Sandy: Since when have you watched ball games?

Isadora: Never, but Frank and Dwayne watched a basketball game yesterday. Dwayne said it was something his friend and him used to do. You should be there for him now. I would be proud to watch some ball games with him to ease his loneliness.

Sandy: I’m going out in a couple of days for Alex’s wake.

Isadora: Then what? I’m not saying you need to make the decision for me. I understand you can’t love Dwayne just because I want a father, but you keep saying you can’t move out there because of me. You need to stop using me as the reason for not making the decision. That’s not fair to me when I love Dwayne. The two men I love are in California. So, make your decision, but don’t use me as an excuse. Just remove me from the equation.

Sandy thinks to herself that her daughter is now a woman: in love and able to give her advice. Sandy decides that when she sees Dwayne in a few days she will ask him to move to Albuquerque. He has said his base could be anywhere. It might be soon to move in together, but at least they will be in the same town.

Sandy is packing on the morning of the 15th. She dropped Isadora off at Juanita’s the night before. Sandy is sad thinking of Alex. Tomorrow is his wake in Los Angeles. She will spend a few days with Dwayne and will ask him to move to Albuquerque. They will fly together to New Orleans for the internment ceremony and another gathering of musicians. Maybe, Dwayne will come home with her for Christmas, she thinks, and she will go to Vegas for his New Year’s Eve show. She begins to smile. She knows Alex would want them to be happy. The phone rings and she picks it up. At first, there is silence and, then, sobbing. Juanita tells her the girls were in an accident this morning on their way to the last day of class before Winter Break.

Sandy rushes to the hospital. Her phone buzzes with a text from Dwayne. Someone must have called Frank who told Dwayne. The text says: I’m flying out with Frank. Wait, her mind says, I don’t know if I want that. Juanita is at the hospital and they hug: “She’s going to be ok. They are both going to be ok.” Carmen’s boyfriend was seriously injured.

Carmen’s boyfriend had been driving. Carmen was in the passenger seat. Isadora was in the back on the driver’s side so she and Carmen could talk. They were t-boned on the driver side by a drunk driver. Drunk at 7 a.m. in the morning! Carmen just has minor whiplash and will not even stay overnight. Carmen’s boyfriend is in surgery. Juanita is so happy she has not tried to keep them apart or tell them he was too old because now… “Isadora,” Sandy asks, “Isadora?” Her leg is broken. Sandy sighs. That does not sound too bad. She will need minor surgery. Surgery? No surgery is minor. She will have the surgery this afternoon and be released tomorrow morning. Sandy’s phone keeps ringing. It is Dwayne. Why the hell is he bothering me now, she thinks, and turns off her phone.

Sandy sees Isadora. She is bravely facing surgery. She tells her mother Frank is flying out. Isadora tells Sandy not to worry. Frank will help to take care of her until she is recovered. It is just minor surgery. Sandy turns back on her phone. Dwayne has left several voice and text messages. She responds by text saying: she is ok. Don’t come. He responds immediately: I’m coming. Her response back is: I don’t need you here. He responds: Face to Face now!

Carmen has been released and is sitting with her mother waiting to hear about her boyfriend’s surgery. Sandy hugs and kisses Carmen. Sandy goes to her car, pulls out the tablet she keeps in her purse, connects to the hospital Internet. Dwayne and she are quickly face to face over electronic devices. She tells Dwayne the news on all three of the kids.

Dwayne: Jesus, poor Carmen.

Sandy: My heart breaks for her.

Dwayne: Isadora?

Sandy: It’s minor surgery. She is already being prepped. She will be released early tomorrow morning.

Dwayne: Are you ok?

Sandy: Of course, I’m fine.

Dwayne: Let me come out, babe.

Sandy: You have Alex’s wake.

Dwayne: Tomorrow afternoon. I can fly home tomorrow morning. You might not need me, but Isadora might like to know I’m there for her.

Sandy: It’s minor surgery.

Dwayne: And a friend of hers might die. She must be scared. Don’t shut me out, I’m her…

Sandy: What? What exactly are you to her?

Dwayne: I don’t know. Friend? Can I at least say that I am yours and Isadora’s friend?

Sandy thinks to herself that friend is a cold way to describe their relationship, but realizes that if he had used any other word to describe Isadora, she would have exploded.

Dwayne: (In a cold and distant voice) if you don’t want me, of course, I won’t come.

Sandy: I just need to really focus on Isadora now.

Dwayne: And you think having someone to lean on would make it harder instead of easier? Ok. I will see you tomorrow.

Sandy: What?

Dwayne: You’re still going to fly out for Alex’s wake?

Sandy: My daughter is having surgery.

Dwayne: Minor surgery and she is being released in the morning. You can fly out tomorrow morning and fly back after the wake. Frank will be there for Isadora. He’s already at the airport.

Sandy: I can’t afford to fly out for one day.

Dwayne: No, that’s not an excuse. I have money. I can help you with travel expenses.

Sandy realizes that she is reluctant to let him buy her plane tickets or pay for expenses. What type of woman does that with a man she is only dating?

Dwayne: (Deciding to open up as emotionally to her as he can.) Sandy, I need you. It will be a tough day for me. I miss you. I just really want to hold you, babe-whether I come there or you come here- I can’t tell you how much I need you right now. Whichever you want- I will fly out there tonight-you can fly out here tomorrow. I need you.

Sandy: My daughter has to be my priority, Dwayne, always. I will fly to New Orleans for the ceremony there.

By the time, Isadora’s surgery is completed, Carmen has the news that her boyfriend is out of surgery and his chances are good. He will have a long recovery. Carmen and Juanita rejoices over the news. Frank arrives late afternoon. Isadora is awake but groggy. Frank kisses her and tells her not to worry. His classes are over and he will help her through her recovery. Frank pulls Sandy out into the hallway.

Frank: You know you sent me to check on Dwayne.

Sandy: I appreciate it.

Frank: Well, there’s nothing I can do for him. He’s lonely, but not just for a companion. He talks about Alex, but he talks about you. You are the last and great love of his life, according to him. If you don’t feel the same way, don’t you think you should tell him?

At first, Sandy is furious. Some kid telling her how to be in love! The next morning, she watches Frank as he carries Isadora up to their condominium. The way Isadora and Frank look at one another! It is months, they have been apart, and they are still in love. Sandy realizes Isadora is leaning on her less for support and leaning on Frank more.

The next day Sandy goes to visit Carmen’s boyfriend in the hospital. He is not yet conscious, but the prognosis is good. As Sandy enters the hospital room, she sees Carmen and her boyfriend’s mother are together arm in arm. Sandy backs out of the room. They would barely have known each other, Sandy thinks, and yet they both love the boy in the hospital bed. That boy’s mother and girlfriend are literally leaning on each other. The symbolism of two people leaning on each other reminds Sandy of Dwayne’s definition of Happily Ever After; they learned to love each other and lean on each other through all the hard times that came afterwards. Sandy realizes she has missed out on the opportunity for Dwayne and her to lean on each other. She passes the hospital chapel on the way out. She hesitates. Should she go in and pray for Carmen’s boyfriend? Is that who she would be praying for? She walks out without going into the chapel.

Dwayne will not return her phone calls. He texts her that he has bought her a plane ticket to fly into New Orleans the evening of December 22 and out the morning of December 24. He has reserved a room for her for the two nights at a hotel. He thinks it is best if they just see each other at the service.

Alex is interned at the Musician’s Tomb. Dwayne had offered Alex any funeral arrangements he wanted, but Alex said he had been a musician in New Orleans most of his life. He wanted to be interned in the tomb set up for New Orleans musicians; some of who could afford no other gravesite. Dwayne said he would make an annual donation in Alex’s name to the group who keeps up the Musician’s Tomb. It is an overcast day with temperatures in the sixties. Old musician friends have brought instruments to play “When the Saints”. Dwayne is already in the cemetery when Sandy arrives. She goes to stand by him. During the ceremony, Dwayne reaches for her hand and she holds his hand tightly. She looks up at a glass musical note with an iron cross above the tomb. She is glad to see it is made of blue glass.

Sandy has made arrangements and Dwayne had paid for a second brief wake in a bar in The French Quarter. Sandy and Dwayne walk together, still hand in hand, from the cemetery to the bar. Sandy starts to update Dwayne on Isadora and Carmen’s boyfriend. Dwayne stops her. Frank is keeping him informed. Dwayne thanks her for all the work she has done setting up the two wakes and the internment. He knew it meant a lot to Alex. “Of course,” she says, “I know how much he meant to you.” Once at the bar everyone wants Dwayne to participate in the impromptu jam session. Dwayne smiles at Sandy and says a similar thing happened in LA. The best way to honor Alex was with music. Sandy looks at Dwayne, the social introvert, as he interacts with these men. These are his men even though he has never met them. They share the language of music. Despite the solemn occasion, Dwayne is smiling, laughing, and singing. At one point he says that he knows not everyone will understand, but Alex wouldn’t be happy if they didn’t play at least one song where Dwayne could shake his ass.

The wake is over and the bar sets up to open to the public. Sandy looks around for Dwayne. The bartender says Dwayne asked him to tell her where he would be. Sandy finds Dwayne in a little courtyard off a street in the French Quarter. He is sitting on a rod iron bench near a statue of a green and purple court jester. The sky is still overcast, but the temperature has risen. It is hot and muggy. Dwayne has taken off his tie and unbuttoned his shirt. Sandy observes Dwayne for a minutes unnoticed. He has aged in a few weeks. There are hints of grey in his hair. His muscles are turning a little into fat from lack of exercise. The lines on the corners of his eyes seem a little deeper. He looks up at her and smiles. It is a sad smile. Sandy’s heart goes out to him. The smile does not reach his eyes. She does love him completely. She sits on the bench beside him, but far away. He does not look at her at first. He looks instead at the statue.

Sandy: Did you dream of me this morning?

Dwayne: I think you know I did. I had a blue dream of you.

Sandy: Why do you think?

Dwayne: I guess because we are so far apart in every possible way. It’s our destiny, I guess, to have our blue dreams.

Sandy: (That is not the only destiny possible). Or be together?

Dwayne: That requires freewill. It is not destiny.

Sandy: It was kind of nice to have you in my head again. It feels so good to know so completely everything you are thinking and feeling.

Dwayne: I don’t have you in that way. I don’t know what you are thinking. I could see you clearly, that has changed. It wasn’t nice, though, it was torture seeing…seeing you all in white.

Sandy: Isn’t that what you want, though? Isn’t it just a vision of the future?

Dwayne: Darlin’- I’ve never met anybody as stubborn as you in my life. Only you could thumb your nose consistently at destiny. I used to think your stubbornness was cute, but it’s keeping us apart. It’s breaking us up. (He turns his head, finally, to look at her.)

Sandy: I was wrong not to come to you or let you come to me.

It hurts Dwayne to see Sandy in pain. He wonders if she is relenting a little in her resolve to be so damn independent. She is lucky. She knows everything I am feeling. Dwayne would do anything to see inside her heart and mind for a minute so he could understand what is keeping them apart.

Dwayne: It’s understandable why you wanted to stay in Albuquerque, but do you understand that it would have been easier for me to support you with your daughter or you to support me with Alex if we lived in the same damn town?

Sandy tries to stop him. She knows all of his thoughts and feelings, but Dwayne needs to verbally tell her. He doesn’t care that she knows from the dreams this morning. He is done with being cold and distant. He is done with not letting the woman he loves in. He might not be able to keep them together, but it isn’t going to be because he shuts her out of his emotions.

Dwayne: Part of it is sex. You know that so I might as well admit it. I am a physical being. One time in four months isn’t really going to cut it for me in the long run.

Sandy nods. She knows.

Dwayne: Now that Alex is gone, I could live wherever you think is best. You would just have to tell me where you wanted to live-anywhere in the world- and I would move heaven and earth to make it happen, but you’re too stubborn to tell me. So I thought I could just move to Albuquerque now. Why the Hell not? You can’t actually stop me from moving to be close to you. But what difference would that make, really, if you don’t let me in. If you won’t lean on me when you need me and if I can’t lean on you, then it might be worse being near. It might make it impossible to be close to you and you not let me help you. Not commit. Not try to have a life with me. If you’re too damn stubborn to let me in and what would it take? My God…well, yeah, possibly God himself has brought us together to love one another and you still can’t…if you can’t love me and be with me now after our blue dreams and…you can never really be with me.

Sandy: What are you saying?

Dwayne: It’s not in my nature to do this crawl thing and it’s not working. I want to move forward, take the leap, and jump the broom, as they say. I want us to commit to one another.

Sandy: If I’m not ready?

Dwayne: Then I need to get on with the business of getting on because you never will be. (Turning to face her fully). You are my great love and might be my only shot at bliss. But, darlin’, if I have to, I think I could learn to live without you.

Dwayne has tears in his eyes. He can see that she does do. If only he knew what she is thinking? What did she think when she woke up from her sleep this morning after holding his heart and soul in her mind?

Dwayne: I know what I was thinking when I went to bed. I know what I was thinking when I saw you all in white. Do you have a song or a poem for me?

Sandy: (hands him a flash drive) I do. I love you, Dwayne, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to answer.

Dwayne: I can’t just keep asking you. There’s only so much humiliation and rejection a man can take.

Sandy thinks that he is the one being stubborn and issuing ultimatums. She might not be ready to answer, but she isn’t so sure she could learn to live without him.

Sandy: Will you play that song on New Year’s Eve?

Dwayne thinks to himself that, if he has to learn to live without her, this song would be harder to perform than “the First Time” ever was.

Dwayne: Will you have an answer by then?

Sandy cannot think. She does not believe this might be the last time she sees him.

Dwayne: My love…

Sandy looks at him with tears streaming down her cheeks. He has never addressed her like that. She likes it more than anything she has ever heard.

Dwayne: My love, I can wait that long for your decision, but no longer. If I see you backstage on New Year’s Eve after I sing this song, then I will know the answer is yes. If I don’t, then the answer is no. There is no in between. There is no someday or maybe. I’m sorry if it’s selfish, but I’m just not strong enough for the in between and the waiting and hoping for someday. Life is too short for the someday when your soulmate is sitting right beside you.

Sandy nods. She understands. 8 days to make the decision that will decide the rest of her life. Dwayne comes and bends down in front of her. “In case, the answer is no,” he kisses her a deep, slow kiss, “then I guess I will see you in my blue dreams.”

Sandy is left alone in the courtyard. She looks at the sculpture of the jester in green and purple who seems to be mocking her. She feels completely and utterly alone. A few raindrops begin to fall. She sits there until the moon rises and she hears someone in the distance singing “Blue Moon.” Sandy closes her eyes. She sends up a prayer so earnest so…

New Year’s Eve. It has been a good concert. It is strange to play without Alex or Tom, but the new kids can play. There is a different energy with this band. It is an energy of the future. No looking towards the past. The New Year begins tomorrow. It will be the saddest or happiest of his life, but it will come. It is the only thing he is sure of. He has saved the song for his encore. He tells the crowd he wants to debut a new song. The crowd roars. It’s for a very special woman, he says, and all I can say is I hope she’s here. He searches the crowd, but in the sea of people he cannot make out any one person. He closes his eyes and sings the song knowing she already knew the words. He hopes she believes…

Closing Song

Do you believe in Death Do Us Part?

Do you want to believe in forever?

Do you believe you can break my heart

If you persist in the cynical never.

Can you believe in destiny?

Can you believe in happy endings?

Can you believe in the beautiful mystery

That we don’t know what God is intending?

Will you take a leap with me

To a future we just can’t see?

Can we combine our lives as one

And ride off into the setting sun…

Ride off into the setting sun.

Will you say goodbye to sorrow?

Will you say goodbye to the past?

Will you put your faith in tomorrow?

Say you’ll build with me something to last.

With you I will stand in the present.

With you I will stare down the fear.

With you I will treasure every moment sent

If you will marry me, my dear.

Will you take a leap with me

To a future we just can’t see?

Can we combine our lives as one

And ride off into the setting sun…

Ride off into the setting sun.

Shall we take a chance at bliss?

Shall we roll the dice on life?

Shall we seal it with a kiss?

I’m asking you to be my wife.

Will you take a leap with me

To a future we just can’t see?

Can we combine our lives as one

And ride off into the setting sun..

Ride off into the setting sun.

Epilogue 1: Walk into the Setting Sun

The nursery is painted a light blue with pictures of flamenco dancers and guitars drawn in darker blue. Not typical themes for a nursery, but Juanita has never been typical. This room represents everything she hopes to share with her son when he is born. He will be named Hucks. It is her grandfather’s last name. He never had a son to carry the name forward. The horses and the guitars represent the cowboy professor, musical legend, who to her is just grandpa. He is the man who sang and played guitar and the dulcimer for her when she was little. The flamenco dancers represent the passion her and her mother share. Juanita dreamt of being a professional flamenco dancer as long as she can remember. All dreams, except for dreams about her son, were put on hold when she found out she was pregnant. Dance lessons, high school and her boyfriend seem like from a lifetime ago. It was going to be hard to be a single mother and not yet 17, but she had graduated early and was fortunate to have her parents to help her. Juanita touched the antique blue night stand. It had been in her room forever, but now would be in her son’s room. Her grandfather’s great grandfather had made it. It was too many greats for her to keep track, but it was reassuring to touch this old thing that had been in her family forever. It had been in her grandfather’s room as a boy and in hers and will belong to her son. She has a family history and traditions and her and her boy would be fine. It is not as if she is raising him alone. The soothing color blue represents her grandmother. Everyone said she inherited her stubbornness from her grandmother. She asked her one time if blue had always been her favorite color and grandma had said it had been red once, but then she met grandpa. There was a story there, but grandma never wanted to talk about it.

Juanita looks at all the shower gifts in the corner of the room waiting to be sorted and organized. Aunt Carmen and Aunt Donna organized the shower. Aunt Carmen isn’t really her aunt. She is her mom’s best friend since the age of 3. Juanita is named after Aunt Carmen’s mother who had been her grandmother’s best friend. Aunt Donna is really her aunt. She is married to her father’s brother. Juanita is comforted by the sense of family. She has so many people on whom she could lean and depend.

Sandy arrives home from the baby shower tired, but happy. She is eager to tease Dwayne about being a great grandfather; especially after last night. It is hard to believe a man his age could be that passionate and active still. It isn’t frequent, but when they are both in the right mood! Sandy has found herself humming all day long. She hums the now classic country love songs that Dwayne wrote for her over the years: “Then, I met you,” “Your Home is in my Arms,” “Ride Off Into the Setting Sun,” “Sandy on the Beaches,” and, the song he wrote when she was sick with cancer, “Leaning on Each Other…” She loves thinking of Dwayne as a great grandfather. Dwayne might have started late and never had biological children, but he had so many “children” now who were grown and had children of their own. Of course, Isadora, but Fred and Frank and Donna as well. Donna’s father had died when she was young. Once Donna started playing in Dwayne’s band and became Isadora’s sister-in-law, he had become almost as close to her as to Isadora. So many kids now who call him grandpa and gather around him at family gatherings asking him to play the dulcimer. Her child had one child and that child was giving them their first great grandchild, a boy. Sandy enters their house through the garage door and walks straight out to the back porch where she knows Dwayne always sits at dusk. A chill is in the air, but it is still warm enough to sit out and enjoy the view from their home in Placitas, New Mexico. Dwayne is playing the guitar. Three years ago at the age of 75, Dwayne had retired and gave away his guitars; except the blue one his first wife had bought him years ago. He gave one guitar to the country music hall of fame and another to Donna. The rest he had given to the musician’s tomb in New Orleans to auction off. Sandy thought about the day he told her he was keeping the blue guitar because sometimes he would like to still pick a little and it wasn’t worth as much as the others. She had kissed him and reminded him “Blue” had been the first song of their blue dreams. She knew how he felt about the early years with Dani. It didn’t diminish what he felt about her. He has kept the dulcimer Alex had given him and the harmonica which had belonged to Alex. He has never again had a peer friendship as close as he had with Alex. On the patio table is a yellow pad and different color pens. Dwayne is immersed in the tune which sounds very much like “the First Time” with some chord variations. He doesn’t look up until Sandy touches him on the shoulder. She asks if he has been writing. He seems shy about it. He tells her he has been thinking about the “the First Time” and thinks it is time, at his age, to write his last song, the last time to write a song, “the Last Time.” It isn’t quite done.

He puts the guitar aside and pulls his thin, frail wife to sit on his lap. Her hair, mostly grey now, as is his, has that constant stray curl falling out of her bun. It reminds him of the first time they met. He is reminded to include that in the song; the last time I touch your hair. He tucks the curl back in its place. He presses his lips against hers softly, forces her lips open, forces her tongue to touch his and bites her lower lip as he pulls his lips away.

Sandy: That was some kiss, great grandpa.

Dwayne: Sexiest great grandmother.

Sandy: You realize we have had 27 years of wedded bliss.

Dwayne: No regrets?

Sandy shakes her head no: Are you coming in?

Dwayne: I would like to finish this song.

Sandy: How many times have you told me that?

Dwayne: I will be in soon, I promise. I will hold you in my arms tonight.

Sandy: (Hearing something different in his voice). Are you okay?

Dwayne: Yes. I just think that every time I hold you is like the first time.

Sandy kisses him and starts to get up. His arms tighten around her. She looks at him quizzically.

Dwayne: Last night was amazing. I want you to know how much it still means to me after all these years.

Still on his lap, Sandy turns so her back is against him. She stretches her arms over his head and her legs out in front of her. Dwayne wraps both arms around her and rubs his full grown beard against the back of her neck. The first time he held her it was in a blue dream and he was in back of her like now. She begins to shiver a little. She never gained back weight after the cancer and is easily cold since. Dwayne pushes her up and off of him. He tells her he will see her in bed.

As Sandy prepares for bed, she smiles at the thought that Dwayne is writing. He hasn’t written in three years. She wishes, as she has many times over the decades, that she could still have a blue dream. She knows Dwayne better than anyone, but it has been so long since she held his heart and mind within her own. She wakes only briefly when Dwayne comes to bed, moves over, but once he lies down, he pulls her back close to him so she is lying in her spot in his arms.

It is not a blue screen, she realizes, and never has been. It is a blue world with a lack of dimension, shading or hue. She sees Dwayne approaching, looking very much as he did on their wedding day, including that cowboy hat he had insisted on wearing (ironically). He walks to her, gazes in her eyes, but does not touch her. He takes off the hat and holds it in his hands.

Dwayne: I have so much I want to tell you, but there is no need. You hold my heart and mind within you. I do yours for the first time. There are no words left to say.

They smile at each other. He puts on the cowboy hat, turns, and walks away. Sandy yells after him to wait. Please wait. He stops. His head bows down. He lifts his head, shakes it, breathes in and turns around and walks back towards her.

Sandy: Do you have to leave now? Today? It can’t wait? Can it be in a year? A week? Just until Juanita has her baby?

Dwayne: I’m not choosing. It is my time.

Sandy: Then I will go too.

Dwayne: It is not your time.

Sandy: Are you going to tell me that I don’t have any say? Destiny makes all the decisions?

Dwayne: It made me happy to think of you holding our great grandson. (He notes that fire in her eyes. Did he or anyone have the power to stop her once she made up her mind? Did he want to?) You have the most stubborn nature; even after all these years. Are you sure?

Sandy nods. She had made a commitment to Happily Ever After and she could not be happy without him. Dwayne holds out his hand.

Dwayne: Well, come on then, darlin’.

She grabs onto his hand and he pulls her to him. He puts his arm around her. As they walk, the blue around them disappears and dimension appears. In a horizon the sun is setting. They walk off into the setting sun.

For those of you who believe in happy endings, this epilogue is written. You are a breed easily disappointed and I did not write Blue Dreams to disappoint, but to celebrate the true believers. You have most likely been successful in maintaining a love relationship over years, are young and believe one is in front of you, or, have had love and blame only yourself for its failure. You are the stewards of the myth that you see as truth. God bless you. I entrust to you every fairy tale and full responsibility for assuring that Happily Ever After never ends.

Epilogue 2: The Last Blue Dream

Sandy sends Dwayne the song that came to her in a blue dream a few days after New Year’s Eve. She wakes, sobbing. Her tears are of remorse, shame, heartbreak. She is battling her own grief at their lost relationship. It is not her decision only. He had been the one to issue an ultimatum. Her grief is real. She does not need to so completely hold his mind, soul, and heart beside her own on top of her grief. She has done more than hurt him. She has shaken him to his core. His sense of self-identity, his belief in the fundamental goodness of life, even his faith in God is rocked by a decision he sees as hers alone. She knew he would be hurt. She is unprepared for the anger. She doesn’t hate him. How could she ever? She doesn’t know where that level of deep hatred came from towards anyone. She will always love him. In one dream, she has felt his deep love, his hurt, his anger, his hatred; all existing towards her simultaneously in one heart. How can her soulmate hate her with this intensity? How can he doubt how deeply she loves him?

She sends him the song as a link to a recording of her playing the dulcimer and singing. It isn’t a song for the dulcimer. It requires drums and a bass and a shrill guitar, but he will have to work all that out. In the email she includes a brief explanation.

“I tried to believe. I even prayed as earnestly and sincerely as I could to a God I now know I don’t even believe in. If he existed, he would have answered my prayer. How could he not with so heartfelt a prayer? He didn’t answer my prayer. Don’t hate me. I have only love for you; a love so deep I didn’t know such a love was possible. I wanted us to continue. I still do. If I had given in to your ultimatum-either marry me or we are over-wouldn’t I be subjugating my will to yours? Wouldn’t it had been the first of many tests of wills with an expectation that you would always get your way? Please change your mind and let’s be in a relationship. If I need to crawl, can’t you love me enough to understand? At the very least, forgive me and stop hating me.”

Dwayne responds: “Thanks for the song. As to the other, fuck you. What the Hell did you expect from God or from me? All conceit aside, I was the answer to your prayer. It only required faith to believe. What the fuck would it have taken? Were the blue dreams not a miracle to bring us together? Even with that you can’t seem to believe in love or maybe just don’t believe in me as a man. I never wanted to control you. I only wanted to have a life with you. God-even he would have to give up on you eventually-save his miracles for someone else. I have given up on you. You want to blame God or me? What happened to your own free will? You had a choice to simply love me, but you decided that either I or love was not worth it. So, happy life to you. Don’t worry about me, darling. I’ve never felt a lack of female companionship.”

Sandy is angry when she reads the response. How can he not believe that she loves him? How can he not know how hard this decision was? Men! How much of his response is about pride? The last part about female companionship! She knows his heart, soul, and mind. She knows he wants only her and anything else is just escape. After a couple of days of being angry that Dwayne doesn’t understand her as well as she understands him, she realizes it isn’t his fault. He has only seen her in his dreams; probably still does nightly. Only she, in her blue dreams, knew his thoughts, feelings, fears and dreams so intimately. Why do the blue dreams work that way? How different it might be if he knew her thoughts and feelings so intimately as well? Who should she be angry with at how the blue dreams work if she doesn’t believe in a God? Should she be angry at destiny or fate, Dwayne or at herself? She still believes that the blue dreams happen because Dwayne’s soul and hers missed each other in this lifetime. She is unsure if they will know each other in other lifetimes.

Over the next two years whenever she has blue dreams she sends Dwayne a link to her playing and singing the songs with no other comment.

Dwayne Hucks’ New Year’s Eve performance was a legendary concert. For over ten years, it was the only time he ever sang “Ride off into the Setting Sun.” There are several phone recordings on the Internet and a lot of social media debate over why he didn’t sing it for a decade. The rumor mill had that a very famous celebrity couple had offered him at first a million and then five million for him to sing it at their wedding. He refused.

Instead, through-out the first year of his national tour, he closes every show with the angriest of heartbreak songs called “Soul Mated In Hate.” It is not a country song, though, he did play banjo alongside his guitarist’s, Donna’s, screaming amplified and loud riffs. It is Punk grass, he replies, when asked about it. It attracts a lot of younger fans.

Two years after the first album, Dwayne Hucks and the Lonely Players release a second album. It is a break up album. Critics compare it to the legendary Dylan album “Blood on the Tracks.” A few critics say it is even better than Dylan’s. They claim it is the break-up album to which all other future break-up albums will be compared.

While the listening and gossip hungry public wonders who the muse had been for the break-up album, there is no shortage of gossip related to with whom he is getting over his sorrow. There are pictures of him and, a much younger, up and coming red-headed journalist at the clubs and on the beach. He appears as arm candy on the Oscar’s red carpet with a 35 year old dark and sultry actress. She is dressed in what will become a notoriously scant dress and when she wins the Oscar for best supporting actress, she gives the Professor Cowboy a kiss that ends with her licking his bottom lip before she tugs on it with her teeth. It is possibly the most erotic kiss of Oscar’s history. Then, there is his opening act on the tour for the second album. She is 27 years old, blonde and leggy, voice like an angel and every time they are seen in public his hand is on her ass as if he owns it. There are tabloid headlines next to a picture of the journalist slapping him with the blonde standing in the background.

Sandy knows, through the blue dreams, what Dwayne is experiencing over the two years. There is a mournful love song to her called “Lost Love”, there is a song about his ex-wife, there is a song of blame, a song of trying to forgive, a song of being numb, a song of falling off the wagon. The biggest hit off the album, outside of “Soul Mated in Hate” is “Beaches without Sand.” It describes how the ocean would feel if it could not wash up onto the sand. The song expresses the emptiness of meaningless sex without the woman he loves. Dwayne is trying to forgive Sandy, not because of her, but because he feels the anger is consuming his life. The blue dreams often leaves her scared for him and shaking in the morning. She knows his self-destructive behavior, his self-loathing, his experiences with drugs and multiple women at the same time, his search for strange to escape her memory. She knows how much he hates seeing her in the blue dreams. As for her, she lives in simultaneous desire for and dread of the blue dreams.

Shortly after the tabloid pictures come out, Sandy has a strange blue dream. She barely falls asleep. She tries to focus on the words on the blue, but red paint keeps being thrown on top of it. She can’t quite feel Dwayne’s thoughts or his emotions. She wakes with a feeling of emptiness.

She receives an email from Dwayne: “My Dearest Sandy, I have been attending meetings and am back in recovery. I am seeing a therapist to work on my pattern of self-destructive behaviors. I am working with a hypnotist to gain better control of my mind, my subconscious and my dreams. It is time for free will of my own. No more blue dreams. It is time I wrote my own songs. It is time for me to end the torture of seeing you in my dreams. I have learned not to hate you. I am often overwhelmed with love for you, but more often now, with sadness for you and for me and of the time loss to a love that apparently wasn’t destined to be. I have decided that the lesson of us for me is that I believe in the miracle of love. At least, I want to believe. I will continue in search of the myth. Know I gave myself as fully in love to you as I have ever given myself to a woman. I hope you will have a long and happy life.”

Sandy finds this e-mail to be cold and heartless. How can he say that theirs is a love that wasn’t destined to be? It was one thing to bury himself in sex, but to say he believed that there was another love for him? As much as she dreaded the blue dreams, it is not a relief to have them gone. Though she feared for him, she still had contact with the man she loved. Didn’t he know how empty and devoid of meaning her life will be without the blue dreams?

Dwayne’s attorney, Anthony Whitman, contacts Sandy about payment for the songs she had been partially responsible for over the years of her relationship with Dwayne. Tony is having a hard time understanding the nature of their collaboration, but Dwayne is insistent she receives payment and ongoing residuals. No, Sandy said, they were his songs only, his intellectual property. It was never really a collaboration. Think of what she did as more clerical, she explains, as if she had simply taken dictation.

Isadora attends two years at UNM while she lives with Sandy. Sandy and Isadora never talks about Dwayne or Frank. Frank and Isadora had broken up when she couldn’t accept the things he was saying about her mother. It did change the mother and daughter relationship. They are close enough as it goes, but do not share confidences. Isadora studies international business with a minor in Spanish. She studies her third year in Spain and returns to UNM in her fourth year to graduate with honors. Sandy is so proud.

Isadora marries an Albuquerque attorney two years after graduation. Dwayne attends the wedding and reception. Carmen’s father, Bernie, walks Isadora down the aisle and dances the father/daughter dance. Sandy and Dwayne do not speak. At one point during the reception, Sandy turns and sees him looking at her, up and down, as if memorizing the way she looks now. When he realizes she is looking at him, their eyes meet. He smiles; a little embarrassed to be caught looking with such obvious yearning. He raises his glass of champagne as if in a toast, takes a sip, and walks out of the reception.

On Sandy’s sixtieth birthday, while on the internet, she sees the news item that the Professor Cowboy, now 64, has married a woman 45 and they are expecting a child. Moments pass, as they do, into another year.

Isadora says her goodbyes to her mother without knowing if she can hear her. Her mother is losing her struggle with cancer. She had delayed seeing a doctor until it was too late. So arrogant and so like Mother! Too stubborn to see a doctor for her annual check-up. Isadora’s mind has already gone to plans for the funeral. How few friends Sandy has. It will be a small funeral. Isadora thinks about calling Dwayne, but so many years have passed, and he is happy now. Sandy and Dwayne’s love affair had been so brief that in Isadora’s mind it might never had happened. As Isadora and her doctor stand beside Sandy talking, Isadora remembers how close she had been once to her mother and tries to remember when they had grown so distant. Answering those questions wouldn’t change the outcome, Isadora thinks, and briefly touches her own stomach.

Sandy has heard Isadora, the nurses and the doctors by her bed as if they are far away in another room. She doesn’t have the energy to open her eyes. Suddenly she realizes that Dwayne is in her mind. She opens her eyes into a world of blue. She looks for the words on the screen-his last song to her- but there are no words. He is gone from her mind and the horrible emptiness returns. Then she sees him. He is older now with grey in his hair and beard, but still so fucking handsome. He is wearing grandfather jeans, a t-shirt and old cap. He smiles at her.

Dwayne: Hello, Darlin’.

Sandy: You’re here. I can see you

Dwayne: And I you. You are as beautiful as ever.

Sandy: I don’t feel your mind or heart.

Dwayne: No. It’s my turn to feel you-mind, heart and soul- such a strange sensation. It’s a gift, I guess, you’ve finally decided to give me.

Sandy: I want you to understand before I go.

Dwayne: I do, now. You know you don’t have to go. You’re giving up. You’re choosing to leave. You could fight this harder. Isadora is finally expecting after trying so long. Be there for your grandchild.

Sandy looks at Dwayne’s lips before looking into his eyes. Why had she ever given this man up?

Dwayne: You had your reasons.

Sandy: Do you love your wife?

Dwayne: Yes, I do. There are many types of love. We have given each other our trust. I’m not saying this to hurt you. You asked. We were not in love, but we were going to be parents. We decided to at least give each other our trust and it grew into love. I have loved four women and my love with her is the strongest. You were the great love of my life, but my love with her is the strongest as in resilient. Maybe because it started not with romanticism, but with a commitment to trust. She is a strong woman.

Sandy: I have been strong about the wrong things and weak when I should have been strong.

Dwayne: Be strong now. Live for your grandchild.

Sandy: I’m so tired. I’m ready to go. I just wanted you to know it wasn’t you I couldn’t love.

Dwayne: I know now. It was yourself. Our love was everything you thought you didn’t deserve.

Sandy closes her eyes. She opens them again. She is in the hospital. Dwayne is sitting in a chair beside her sleeping and holding her hand. When she squeezes his hand, he wakes up and leans towards her.

Sandy: How did you?

Dwayne: I just knew.

Sandy: My prayer from so long ago has been answered then.

Dwayne looks at her questioning. He remembers vaguely an email about a prayer and her not believing in God. Has she found religion through the years?

Dwayne: Do you want to pray now?

Sandy shakes her head no: Alex was right.

Dwayne: About?

Sandy: When you are dying with a love one near, there is no need for a prayer, you just feel grateful.

Dwayne bends down and kisses her lips for the last time.

In Dwayne Hucks and the Lonely Players’ retirement tour, he sings as the closing song every night “Ride Off into the Setting Sun.” It replaces “Soul Mated in Hate” which he swears he will never sing again.

For those of you who do not believe in Happy Endings, this epilogue is written. If you believe that Sandy’s earnest prayer was not answered and she did not go to Dwayne on New Year’s Eve, you are a creative breed. You are the breed that are the writers, poets, artists and inventors. You want to live every moment in life not only in the moment but in a thousand reinvented ways to experience the moment. It is less important that you have a happy ending then that you have lived fully whatever heartbreak, pain, happiness, or ecstasy is inherent in each poignant moment. How much do you have to feel to know you have wrung every emotion you can from a memory of a moment?

You have likely sat on your balcony, patio, or in your back yard with a drink of something fine, looking at stars and thinking what if. You are hoping and dreaming of a love to come or you have relived each of your own love stories over and said your good-byes a thousand different ways. If, on these evenings, there is a love that lingers a little longer, someone you can feel in your arms or feel them holding you, so real that you can smell the aftershave or perfume, feel the gristle of a unshaven beard or hear her sweet lilting laughter, lost in those moments until your spouse calls you into bed or the cat jumps on your lap, then God bless you, you have experienced your own blue dreams. You are the reason why some stories are best told in song or verse.

Afterword: A Third Alternative

The story ends with how the reader answers the question: do you believe in happy endings? The epilogues are written for those who need an answer to what happens after. Choose based on your answer, but…

There is a breed of readers who want to believe that Sandy’s prayer was answered and that she did go to Dwayne on New Year’s Eve, but that this did not result in happily ever after. You choose to believe that they were happy at first, but eventually divorced, or stayed together in misery, or that life treated them so harshly that, even though their love survived, their story could not be considered by any stretch of the imagination a happy ending. You are a stubborn breed and no epilogue would satisfy you. You need a sequel which would not be Blue Dreams. Call it Stark White Realities. Write it with the twists, complications, heart breaks and new joys you can imagine. Make it about desires, regrets and yearnings. It is not that you do not want or can’t believe in happy endings. It is that the characters and life story means so much to you that you will sacrifice the happy ending to the ongoing journey. God bless you. You are the reason good story telling never ends.

As for me, the omnipotent narrator and author, who decided to have the reader choose, do I believe in Happy Endings? It depends on the moment I am living. What day is it and what time? I am a woman who does not believe in an omnipotent God, but who has gotten down on her knees. I am a woman sometimes lost and sometimes found; sometimes strong and sometimes weak. I am a woman with the arrogant self-reliance of Sandy and the belief in the meaning of Happily Ever After as Dwayne defines it. I am a woman who has yet to meet my soulmate, but when pondering a past love that I know was not my true love, I still cling to the fact that I made a vow before God (the omnipotent God in whom I do not believe). Do I believe in happy endings? I want to believe. How could I have written a novel such as Blue Dreams if I didn’t believe? Yes, I believe. I know the man who entered my dreams to help me write this novel exists and I will meet him someday. Except I know I won’t. My brain made him up as a means of escape. But if I were to meet him, I could believe. Except, I would likely screw it up. Perhaps, it is best we never meet. Yes, I believe in happy endings and I want to meet him. No, I do not believe in fairy tales. Do I believe in happy endings? Maybe? If true love and happily ever after are myths, then they are myths I can’t resist. I wrote Blue Dreams and I go through the motions of it all in the quest for the myth. I am a woman growing old. Yet, the journey onward goes…