This was the kind of logic that had gotten her into this position, but the idea of telling him now, over text, seemed like a bad one.
For a moment Emily thought: If I can’t tell my husband what I’m doing over text, maybe that means I shouldn’t do it.
But then he responded with a K. Not even a have fun or are you going with some friends? And she thought: Screw it. I’m doing this.
A few seconds later another text came through with Love you, too. He’d finally read her earlier message. Finally responded. Why did he wait so long? Maybe it was on purpose. Or maybe work was just chaotic. It was hard to know with him. Usually, she didn’t question it, but now it was so difficult not to.
Emily walked to the mirror in her bedroom. She looked responsible, respectable, like a working professional, in a pair of black slacks, ballet flats, and a patterned silk blouse. Nothing like the queen she was in college, with her tight pleather pants and heels. Her hair had been twisted up into a chignon and clipped in place all day, but now it was coming undone. She unclasped the clip and let her hair fall in waves to her shoulders. She looked at herself the way Rob might, if he saw her. She looked older, for sure, tired, sad. She shook her head. Well, it was a good thing he wouldn’t see her.
She slipped on her suede jacket—a subdued one, not like the leather moto jacket she used to wear—and headed for City Winery.
32
Emily got there a little late, and Rob was already on stage. The room felt electric as she entered it; he’d already worked his magic and had the audience mesmerized. Her ticket was for a bar stool in the back, so she turned and walked toward the bar, glad the house lights hadn’t been completely dimmed.
She took off her suede jacket and folded it across her lap, then faced the stage. She couldn’t believe it was really him. His voice was slightly deeper, more resonant than she remembered. He was telling a story about getting to town and walking by some of his old favorite haunts. “All y’all know this Texas boy went to college in New York City,” he said, and the audience cheered and clapped their approval.
He’d deepened his Texas drawl, changed the structure of his sentences, she realized. He was exaggerating himself, creating a persona for the crowd. Or maybe that was who he was now and it wasn’t put on at all.
“I don’t know if y’all have heard the rumors, but I’m here to say they’re true. It was a New York gal who broke my heart all those years ago and inspired my hit song.”
“They’re brutal, man!” someone in the audience shouted.
Emily caught her breath. Had she been brutal? Perhaps she had.
Rob looked like he was scanning the audience for something, someone. He stopped moving when he was facing her directly.
“Queenie?” he said into the microphone, his voice filled with disbelief. “Is that you back there by the bar?”
Emily looked up at the stage. Someone on the light board had found her and focused the spot on her. It shone bright in her eyes, and she tried to shade them with her hand. She couldn’t see Rob anymore, but she knew where he was, of course. Her heart pounding, she gave a small wave toward the stage. The spot dimmed and she could see again. In the half-lit theater, everyone was staring at her.
Rob turned to the audience. She had no idea what he was going to say. Her pulse raced.
“An old college friend of mine came to watch me play tonight,” he said. “I can’t tell y’all how glad I am to see her.”
Emily could feel herself blushing. She dipped her head as the audience clapped, grateful she’d left her hair down so it could swing in front of her face. Grateful, too, that Rob didn’t out her as the woman who broke his heart. The brutal one. Though she wondered if the audience was putting it together. Or at least turning the question over in their minds.
“Queenie, don’t you go walking out of here without saying hello to me after the show,” he said from the stage as Emily readjusted herself on her bar stool.
She lifted her hand in acquiescence.
He had just changed her plans entirely. No more sneaking in and out and satisfying her curiosity. She tried to calm herself, get her sweaty palms to cool. It would be fine. They’d say hello, and then she’d go home. Maybe more than fine.
She took a deep breath and got lost in Rob’s music, in his voice, and rode on the wave of his energy, just like she used to. Then she was remembering him backstage after shows, high on adrenaline. Magnetic. Powerful. And all of a sudden there was a pit in her stomach. What would it be like to see him again? How would she feel? Would it expose cracks in herself she didn’t even know were there?