Question
December 10th, 2012, 10:10 P.M.
How surreal is this. Wasn't I just thinking about her the other day? About how much I suck at song writing without her? About how much I hated the way things ended between us? About how I can't seem to form any bond with any other woman that means something since her? About how much I missed her?
Daria and I sat on a couch in the private green room, as far away from everyone else as possible. The guys had taken it upon themselves to keep Hunter away so we could talk, so they had him on the other side of the room and started showing him how to play their instruments. I was having a hard time reconciling the fact that I was sitting in the room with my ex … the proverbial 'one that got away', and her kid even though I could definitely see the resemblance now. It was kind of awkward to get a conversation going.
"So …"
"A needle pulling thread?"
I laughed my little nervous cough/laugh at that. Haven't done that in years; I've only ever done it around her and I have no idea why.
"Only you would think of something as sick and twisted as to try and distract me right now with 'The Sound of Music'."
"I'm only trying to lighten the mood. You're acting like you did way back when you wrote that jingle and tried to hide it from me and Jane."
Wow, she remembers that. I had hoped to leave that in my past. Wait, damnit she's trying to distract me again! In a matter of two sentences she has me completely off the matter at hand. I'm not going to let her talk her way out of this conversation.
"Daria. I've missed you, and apparently I've missed out on so much in your life," I said as I gestured towards the back of the private lounge where Max was showing Hunter his drum set and he was grilling the guys about something. Every now and then he glanced over at Daria and me with a look of confusion and awe in his eyes.
"Come on Trent, I know Jane keeps you up to date. Plus you knew I had a kid, we talked about it the last time we saw each other."
Oh yeah, she did mention having a son when I saw her three years ago at Janey's wedding. I guess I never really asked her about it because I was so high back then but I apparently had the wrong impression that it was a baby, not a kid. I just didn't want to hear about her moving on, that's why that was the last time I saw or spoke to her. I guess I didn't really keep in touch with her before that either, but once I heard about that it was like the last nail in the coffin for me. I couldn't handle any more info than that right then when I was still caught up in the drugs and stuff. I remember going on a month-long bender that nearly killed me right after that day …
"Yeah, but I never really realized you ACTUALLY had a kid until I saw him right now calling you 'mom'."
"So all this time you thought I was pretending to have procreated?"
"No, more like I was in denial I think. I've just never seen you as the mom type."
"Hey I don't blame you; I was in denial myself for a while there. Up until I got him on baby food I called him 'mommy's little parasite'."
"It's just, wow, you know?" I phased out, trying to keep my irrational feelings in check to make sure I didn't say something that would royally piss her off. "I mean, I didn't think you even wanted kids."
"Well, it was either get a kid or a bunch of cats. That or else the whole talking to myself thing would become scary. This option only had a few years of dealing with diapers whereas with a cat I would always have a litter box to change."
That got me laughing again, and I sat there afterwards in an awkward pause trying to figure out what to ask her next.
Is it too soon to ask who the father is? That's kinda personal I guess, but we used to be so close. I just need to know who she let get even that close, or rather closer than me, that she felt she could have a kid with him. Do I even want to know the answer? Maybe I should dance around it a little longer.
"How is work? I haven't seen any books gracing the shelves with you as the author."
"Wow, apparently Jane hasn't been keeping you in the loop when it comes to me. Maybe that's my fault, we don't talk very often," she muttered.
"Yeah, Janey and I don't see each other as much as we used to either. Ever since she left the band so we could get a stronger industry manager and then when she got hitched it's been harder and harder to get together. Plus it doesn't help that I haven't even seen my own house for months; trying to squeeze every last drop of that 15 minutes of fame ya know?"
She smiled weakly at that before gazing over towards her kid. She also started fidgeting with the fabric of her shirt and tapping her foot at the same time, both obviously nervous movements that I'd never seen her do before. She's just always been so … zen. So Daria. It was a startling change.
"I'm not a writer anymore Trent. I don't even get the chance now to do it for fun."
"Sorry to hear that … no one ever had a way with words like you did. Plus I know how much you loved it. You ever think of starting it up again?"
"Sometimes, yeah. I'll tell you this, if I ever start writing again I want to interview Jane about that year-long trip to China she took and how she met Xiang. She and X have such an interesting story about how they fell in love that it sounds like a piece of fiction."
When Jane stepped aside as our manager shortly before our second album blew up, she didn't know what to do with herself. She didn't want to go back to school to just study art, so I offered her the funds to go anywhere she wanted to study anything she pleased. After a dart toss at the map she decided to go to Beijing to meet and study with local artists and crafts people. Xiang was an up-and-coming jewelry designer. His modern and avant garde pieces caught the attention of China's blossoming middle and upper classes, but his heart was in researching ancient Chinese historical jewelry and reinterpreting the designs in modern creations. When Janey brought home this skinny Chinese guy with bright blue hair and more piercings in his face than the whole band put together I wasn't sure about it, but after seeing the way he treated my sister and made her happy I was glad that she had found someone special. Even if she now split her years half and half between the US and China.
How two people can fall in love through an interpreter, I'll never know.
"So what do you do then, if you aren't writing?"
She looked like she didn't want to answer me for a moment and I had a sudden fear that maybe, just maybe, she had returned to doing something a bit … exotic …to get the cash to take care of her kid. She still had the body for it I could see, maybe even more so now actually than she did back when she was in college. I guessed that childbirth could be kind to some lucky women. I raised my eyebrow at her, waiting for her response, and after seeing her cheeks flush for a moment I remembered just what that used to do to her.
Wow, that still has an effect on her. After all this time she still blushes at me, and damn me if it still isn't as cute as hell.
"I'm a lowly lab technician for the CDC here in San Francisco."
"Wow, why did you move out here? Why didn't you become a doctor or a professor like you wanted?"
She looked down for a while, a sad smile spreading on her face, before looking over at her kid.
"With Hunter in my life it was … difficult to pursue any education beyond my bachelors and I had to pick something practical as a career. The CDC had child care, moving allowances, and still kept me in line with researching and science. The lab here in San Fran was just the place they had a position they needed to fill that I was qualified for, so I took it."
"Are you happy?"
She let a quick, harsh laugh escape her before staring at me with a disbelieving look on her face.
"Trent, do you remember who you are talking to? Have I ever really been just happy in your memories?"
"Well," I paused, feeling a little hurt at her words, "I sorta remember a good year and a half of your life where you were smiling a lot. I always thought that, for the most part, you were happy with me. Weren't you?"
"Yeah, I guess you're right. I was happy then," she said quietly with an apologetic look on her face, "and I'm happy now with Hunter. He's a great kid; thank god he's turned out more like me than like normal kids. I couldn't stand children even when I was a child. But what about you? How are things going for you and the guys, other than the obvious?"
"Well our second album sold really well, and we've been touring almost nonstop ever since. I haven't seen my home in L.A. in months actually, and that last time I was there was only for a few weeks. The last two albums we released haven't done as well though; this fourth one is bombing actually, so we'll probably take some time off to decompress before working on the next one."
"We got it the day it came out. Hunter is a truly loyal fan so he loved it regardless but honestly? I was far from impressed."
She looked away from me as she basically told me this last album was crap. I knew her well enough to know that she was trying hard to not be harsh about it, but with what she had just said plus the fact that she refused to let me see her eyes when she said it proved to me that I was the one she wasn't impressed with. It wasn't the band that sucked; I had let her down by reverting to my horrible song writing without her influence. I decided to tell her that I agreed with her silent judgment.
"I think that's because we didn't have you to help out with the lyrics with the last two albums. They set me up with a professional song writer but he just kept pissing me off with phrases like 'radio-friendly', 'commercial beat', and 'sex appeal'. I really wish I could have gotten you to help us like you did in the old days for the first and second records, but you asked me not to call anymore after we wrapped up the second album and you didn't seem very receptive to the idea when I brought it up at the wedding."
"Sorry that I couldn't drop my work and parenting responsibilities to help you get even more rich and famous Trent," she said sarcastically. That ticked me off a little bit. She always used to blame others for so much crap in her life, but the fact was that if she made a little more effort a lot of that crap could have been avoided. Looks like she was still staying true to that character trait.
She's trying to make that sound like a joke, but she just can't keep the knives out of her tone. Everything comes from a kernel of truth, but fuck, how was I supposed to know?
"How come you didn't tell me about you having those 'parenting responsibilities' when you were helping me on that second album? I would have backed off. You didn't even tell Janey you were pregnant because I know she would have told me. I had to wait till a couple of years ago to find out, and even then I was under the impression that you had just had the kid. Now I find out Hunter is twice as old as I thought he was, so I only find out now that you had him to take care of while I called and bugged you for lyrics."
Daria continued to stare off into the distance, refusing to look at me. I took the chance to really look her over and saw that she had really become a more vibrant version of herself. If it was absence clouding my mind's eye or reality I couldn't tell, but even though she looked older she looked younger to me if that made any sense at all. She had always been too old for her age; perhaps having a kid had made her loosen up. Finally, after a long silence she answered me in a way that was much more serious than I had expected from her.
"Cowardice? I don't know why I didn't tell you then. I missed you, I was lonely, and I loved hearing your voice over the phone all those times and pretending that I was still important to you somehow. In all the hectic stuff going on with becoming a new mom; helping you with lyrics when you called felt like a part of the old me that hadn't changed I guess. I didn't want to face whatever reaction you were going to have right then about the fact that I had become a breeder, no matter what reaction you had, because it was going to change things. But things just got too crazy, in my life and in yours, and I couldn't help you anymore. That's when I asked you to stop calling."
She missed me! Weird, right? That out of everything she just said, that's what I pick up on?
"How could you think that I would ever not be happy for you? That you wouldn't be important to me? It's been a long time Daria but that year and a half we had together was special and haunts me to this day; especially since ending things wasn't my idea. I still think about you all the time."
"I get the feeling that you are not going to be thinking fondly of me anytime soon after tonight," she mumbled.
"What? That's not possible, I'm ecstatic that you came to see me tonight and that you brought Hunter."
"Trent I've been waiting for you to ask me one very particular question tonight, but once again your obliviousness is showing so I need to bring it up. I brought Hunter here tonight because I've waited too damn long to see you and explain this, and it wasn't fair to anyone."
"Daria, what are you talking about? One second we are reminiscing about old times and now you … you just aren't making any sense. What question am I supposed to be asking?"
"Trent, I know you can do the math. How long ago did we break up? How old is Hunter? So why haven't you asked me yet who his father is?"
