How It All Came To Be

For the backstory on what this is all about, skip on over to these three previous posts:

Mutual Admiration Society, Texas Chapter
Mutual Admiration Society, LA Chapter
When It Rains

***

Sitting in the back of the Martini Lounge, she couldn't take her eyes off the man onstage covering Bullet the Blue Sky.

"He has to pose for me," she whispered to her friend.

"I have his number," the friend replied, smiling.

"Fan-fucking-tastic."

She called to set it up a few days later.

***

"Do you want me to take off my shirt?" he asked as she adjusted the studio lights.

"Yeah, that'll work," she replied. "Okay, I want you to hold the snake up here."

"I can take my pants off too, if you want."

Too flustered to imagine him naked in her studio, she declined the offer. A decision she regretted in the very next moment, and every one since.

***

Standing in the middle of a crowd at the Troubadour, they rocked out to the boys closing out their set. He was up in the rafters. They all screamed in equal parts horror and fascination.

"This is the best fucking moment of my life," he exclaimed later when they posed for pictures, him remarking on her groupie status now that she had a band t-shirt.

"This is better than sex?" she teased.

"Well, second best then." And it really was a that great.

***

"It's not working," he told her. "We're fighting constantly and everyone wants to go in a different direction."

"What are you going to do?" she asked, afraid she knew what was coming.

"I think it's over."

"No."

"Yes."

"But you can't! You can't just leave your fans like that."

"Sweetie, I wish I could stop it. But the four of us just can't agree on anything anymore. And we just have to call it quits."

***

Outside Tongue n' Groove he sobbed sorrowfully into her shoulder. It was the last night they'd ever all be together like this.

And out on that San Francisco street, she couldn't believe it was over.

***

"I have a secret to tell you," he intimated over their shared prosciutto sandwhich.

"Ooh," she replied, eyebrow cocked, wondering what she was about to be privy to.

"We haven't made it public yet, but...we're moving to Austin."

Shocked by the confession, she tried her best not to choke, disbelieving what she was hearing. She swallowed hard before speaking. "Why?"

"LA just isn't going to happen. We'll have a better shot in Austin. And frankly, I'm tired of the bullshit here."

As the words settled into her brain, she felt her heart slowly begin to crumble into pieces.

"When?"

"Beginning of the year...maybe a little later, depending."

She was at a loss for words, knowing it was futile to argue. And that the heartbreak would take a long time to heal.

"I get it," she finally replied, choosing her words carefully. "And if that's what you really want, then I fully support you. But I hate to see you leave." She couldn't bring herself to look at him, knowing if she did, she'd immediately start to cry. "I am going to miss you something awful."

"I'm going to miss you too, sweetie."

She was too stunned to say anything more. She returned to work and finally let the tears flow.

***

"So how's it going out there?" she asked during one of their weekly calls.

"We found a drummer. Young guy, really good."

"Congratulations!"

"Yeah. So we're rehearsing and will probably get a tour going at the end of the summer."

"Are you coming through town?!"

"Looks like we might."

"Fuck yeah!!" She couldn't wait to get off the phone and tell everyone else. Her boys were coming back home.

***

It was unseasonably humid for September.

"Suspend me!" screamed the basisst and jumped into the two girls' arms.

"Dammit, you're going to break us!" they complained. Someone took a picture.

"Where are we going now?"

"Miyagis, I think." And they posed for more pictures. Later there would be a photographs of sake being poured down their throats.

***

"I wrote a monologue about it," confessed the actress.

"What about?"

"All the things I wanted to say to him while he was still here. How he broke my heart. And even though we could have never worked out, how much I still love him."

"Does he know?"

"I told him about it when he was here last. I'm going to perform it at the showcase."

"Damn," was all she could think to say.

***

"Oh my god, I did coke for the first time on this street!" she giggled at the stupidity of her youth as they walked away from the theater.

"No!"

"Yeah, it was that night I was late getting to the second party. I was with that weird old guy we met at the first one."

"Oh damn!"

"Man that was fucking stupid!"

"Yeah you are."

"Hee! I feel drunk!" she exclaimed gleefully, despite not having had anything harsher than a diet soda.

"Me too!" answered her sidekick.

When they finally calmed down, she turned to her friend and asked "you know who she was talking about right?"

"Yeah, changing the name to Eric didn't really hide it."

"That was painful," she mulled over the emotional impact of the act, before noticing an amusing license plate on a car. "Dude, look at what it says! MUPPETE?!!"

"Take a picture!"

"I'm sending that to our Muppet."

"Heh. He hates that nickname."

"That doesn't matter. The boys know they're stuck with what we give them."

"Such is the life of our boys."

"Man I miss them."