Absolutely Unforgivable

chapter 9 - Meet My Mom

Before I could give what had those boys so excited much thought, Kita walked into the room with my cell phone in her hand. “Miss Stacy, your phone has been buzzing all morning.” I wasn’t sure where I had left my cell phone the night before; but I was glad to have it back. I had become strangely dependent on the little thing. I had even started color coordinating my phone cases with my outfits.

I looked down at my phone and I saw I had quite a few missed calls and several text messages from Jeromy. I read through a few of them to see what reason Jeromy could have possibly given me for not coming home last night, but my phone rang before I could finish.

“Good morning, beautiful.”

I just grunted. I wasn’t going to let him off of the hook that easily.

“I know you are mad. Please don’t be, though. I couldn’t help it. It was so late when we finally wrapped up our meeting I just crashed here at the office.”

I sighed. I guess I could understand that. But still I missed him. “Why didn’t you call me?” I asked softly.

“Time just got away from me, baby. Before I knew it, it was already 3 am and I knew you were probably fast asleep and I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Will you be home tonight?”

“Yeah. I’m just finishing up here. I’ll be home in a few hours.”

When I hung up the phone I made my way back upstairs. With all the boys here in the house I thought I better find some actual clothes to put on. I didn’t mind prancing around the house in my nightclothes when it was just Billy and Jeromy here but with the rest of the band, I wasn’t so comfortable.

I decided that today I would try out my big fancy bathtub. Before now I had always just taken showers. I ran into Kita and asked her if she had any bubbles. She went off to find some and soon returned with bottle in hand. “Here, try this,” she said as she handed it to me.

After a nice, long bubble bath I found something to wear for the day; put my hair up in a ponytail on top of my head and with a light brush of makeup on my face, I made my way back downstairs.

Billy was in the kitchen again, leaning on his side against the wall with his hands in his pockets, while Kita made him a sandwich.

“Where are the boys?” I asked Billy as he took the first bite of his sandwich.

He shrugged and then looked toward his studio. “They are back there working on some stupid shit with Brick, I guess.”

Billy seemed tired and frustrated. I hated to see him look like that. It made me horribly sad and I just wanted to go up to him and comfort him, but before I could my phone started buzzing. It was Jeromy sending me a text message. “I see you’ve been having a good time while I have been away.”

“Umm I guess,” I texted him back. Not sure what he was talking about. Next came a link. I clicked it to see what video Jeromy had sent me. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped open as the video started playing.

I had almost forgotten about the video we recorded the other day in Billy’s studio. It was all really innocent at the time but not so much after Brick did a little editing. Billy jumped up and stood behind me to look over my shoulder to see what had me so horrified.

The first thing I noticed was the song had changed. It was no longer Joan Jett’s Bad Reputation. He had dubbed another song over and now the song playing was Kid Rock’s Cowboy. It was strange how they could make it look like that was really the song we sang that day. I had to give him props for that.

Billy looked great for his part, singing the song. But when it came to the chorus, it flashed to me dancing erotically with the microphone stand. Then it flashed back to the other girls swaying back and forth, leaning into the microphone as if they were signing the words.

Oh God. I can’t believe I did that. I wanted to turn away and stop watching but I just couldn’t. Billy put a hand on my shoulder and gently rubbed my neck. I threw my phone down on the table. I wanted to jump up and yell BRICK! YOU STUPID PIECE OF SHIT. But how could I? Brick didn’t grab the microphone stand and treat it like a stripper pole. That was all my doing. I had nobody to blame but myself. All Brick did was piece together different clips of my dance moves. Then again, that jackass did release it without talking to me first.

I folded my arms, put them the table, and laid my head down.

“It’s okay,” Billy said as he gently stroked my arm.

I didn’t look up; I just kept my head down on the table. “Apparently not.” I popped my head up, flipped through my phone to find the text message from Jeromy and showed Billy what he had said. Billy just laughed and told me I was overreacting; but I knew that I wasn’t. Jeromy wouldn’t have said something if he wasn’t mad.

I wonder if my parents would ever find this stupid video online. Surely they don’t hang out on YouTube very often searching my name, but just in case I better give them a call and warn them about it. That’s not a call I’m looking forward too at all. I don’t even know how I am going to explain this video to my mother.

Before I could continue to argue my point with Billy, my phone rang. It was Jeromy.

“Baby?”

“Yeah, I just ...” But I couldn’t finish. What could I possibly say to justify what I had done? While he was off working hard to take care of us, I was at home partying with his friends, acting like a whore.

I tried to hide the tremor in my voice as tears began to form and cloud my vision. “I’m so sorry, Jeromy. I didn’t mean to ....”

Before I could finish what I was trying to say, Jeromy broke in. “Oh baby, don’t be upset. I thought your dance was great. I loved every minute of it.

All I could think to say was, “Are you kidding me?”

“No. Really. I loved it. It was the hottest thing ever. You are so sexy. I love seeing you dance around like that, confident and seductive. I wished you would do it more often.”

I could hear every word of what he was saying but still I felt mortified by my behavior. That wasn’t like me. I’m not that kind of girl.

“Please, baby, it’s going to be okay. And hey, I’ll be home in about an hour to show you how much I’ve missed you.”

“Oh?” I perked up that he would be home soon.

“Listen, I want you to go upstairs and get fixed up in a pretty outfit. I am going to take you out to a late lunch.

“Okay ... but ....” I started to say, when he interrupted me, “I want you to meet someone special. Can you be ready in about an hour?”

“Yeah. Of course. Are you going to tell me who we are going to have lunch with?”

“My mother.”

My heart skipped a beat when he said those words. It took me a second to catch my breath but before I could speak he continued. “My mom’s home now from Virginia and she wants to finally meet you.”

When we first arrived, Jeromy’s mother had been away visiting Jeromy’s little brother Nathan, who was stationed in Virginia. He was serving his second term in the Navy. I was so nervous to meet his mother, but it was something I had wanted to do for a while now. I had spoken to her several times on the phone before over the past year, but this would be our first official meeting. She was always so sweet when we spoke on the phone. But still, she was Jeromy’s mother and I worried about what she would think of me after meeting in person.

Without remembering that Billy was standing right behind me, I just ran up the stairs after I hung up the phone with Jeromy. I ran to my closest to try and find something to wear. Worried that something might be wrong, Billy ran upstairs after me. He found me in my closet in a full blown panic attack, going through everything I had, desperately trying to find something appropriate to wear.

He leaned on the door frame. “You okay?”

I fell to my knees, on top of the pile of clothes at my feet with a tear in my eye. “Jeromy is going to be here in about an hour.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

I sighed. “No. It’s just he wants to take me to meet his mother and I don’t know what to wear.”

He stepped into the closet, coming closer to me. He put his hands on my chin and forced me to look up at him.

“I’ve known Debbie for a long time. Trust me, it doesn’t matter what you wear, she isn't going to judge you like that. She is going to love you.”

“I can’t do this, Billy. I just can’t.”

“I have never been as confident as I am right now when I say that I know Debbie is going to absolutely adore you. How can she not?” His words, while sweet, were still not all that reassuring.

“How about I go sit on the bed and you try on some different outfits that you like and come show them to me and I’ll let you know which one I like best?”

“Okay. I guess that would be a good idea,” I said as I tried to wipe the tears from my eyes.

I picked out a few of my favorite dresses and as I put each of them on I paraded past Billy who was sitting on my bed, propping himself up with an elbow. After about the fourth or fifth dress he grumbled, “My Lord, girl, you have way too many clothes.”

“No way! A girl can never have too many outfits,” I said as I twirled around in my latest number.

“Oh yeah, that’s hot,” he murmured.

I was feeling better now. Billy did seem to know how to make me forget about my troubles. But before I could thank him for being so wonderful, my bedroom door burst open. I was startled and jumped. Billy quickly sat all the way up on the edge of my bed.

It was Trista. “There you are. Billy, damn it, they are waiting for you downstairs in the studio.”

“Uh yeah sorry. Something came up.”

Trista glared at me. “I noticed.”

She hurried him out the door, closing it behind them. I started to walk back into my closet to actually find something I could wear when she came back in to my room.

“What the hell do you think you are doing?” she demanded.

“Billy was just trying to help me find something to wear.” I hated how she thought she could talk to me like that but I really didn’t have the time to deal with her drama today. I had to focus on getting ready to meet Jeromy’s mother.

Trista looked me up and down, “Yeah, well, I need this shit to stop. I don’t need you distracting Billy with your little clothing drama or whatever problem you may have. He needs to be downstairs with the band practicing, not up here with you.”

I really would have just apologized and let everything else she said go, but then she added, “We have enough bimbos in our life. We don’t need one more.”

I was livid. How dare she call me a bimbo! My hands started to shake. I took a deep breath and spoke my piece.

“I don’t know who in the hell you think you are speaking to me like that but that’s not going to cut it with me. First of all, you are in MY room. I don’t know what made you think it was okay to burst into my private part of this house but it’s not. And it better not happen again.”

I took another deep breath and continued. “Secondly, what I do with Billy is my business. Not yours, not the band’s. Mine! If I want to dance around for him buck naked then I will do just that and you don’t have a say in it at all. You don’t matter to me. You are nothing to me. I am not in the band and therefore you have no say in my life so take your rude little ass out of my room and go back downstairs and keep pretending like you matter to the rest of the boys.”

She stormed out of my bedroom, slamming the door behind her. I went back to my closet and pulled out a hot pink dress that hung loose off of my body and had a lot of flowing material.

I suddenly didn’t care what anyone thought of what I was wearing. If she didn’t like me it wouldn’t be because of the outfit I had chosen. I grabbed a pair of black strappy heels, and was putting them on as Jeromy walked in.

“What the hell did you do to Trista?”

I looked up at him and shrugged, finished putting on my shoes, and then jumped into his arms and wrapped my arms tightly around his neck. He spun me around. “Let me look at you,” he said eagerly. “You look amazing.”

I gave him a soft kiss and a smile. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah but what’s going on with Trista? She is pissed off. I walked in on her ranting about how you think you rule this house.”

I grabbed Jeromy’s hand and said, “Don’t care. Let’s go” and I dragged him down the stairs.

When we reached the bottom of the staircase where Trista was with Billy, I didn’t say a word to her. I kissed Billy on the cheek and thanked him for his help and then walked out the door.

I threw my keys over to Jeromy and we headed to my car. As we got in, I plugged my phone into the radio and started playing Bad Reputation. It was really by accident that the song came up; but I must admit it was perfectly fitting.

A few years ago Jeromy had bought up some land out near where his company was now working. This wasn't exactly big news to me because he bought up empty land all of the time. But this particular acreage, which he had been sitting on for a while, was what kept him away from me the night before. It was a deal he was working on. If the deal went through and they drilled on the land he would get a big pay day. I wanted to ask him how big. But growing up in the South we learned at a young age that money wasn’t an appropriate topic of conversation, so I resisted the urge.

Luckily for me, Jeromy had no qualms discussing such things, so when he told me, I must say I was completely shocked. If the deal worked out in the way that he hoped, he stood to make about $3 million over a period of about eighteen months.

But, he warned, it wasn’t a done deal yet. There were still a lot of little details to work out. But there was a good eighty percent chance that it was going to go through in the next three to six months.

I was really happy for Jeromy. If anyone deserved that kind of success, it was him. He was the most kind and wonderfully sweet person in the whole world and the reason he turned out the way that he did was now standing in front of me.

When we arrived at the restaurant, Debbie was out front waiting for us. I was so nervous to meet her that luckily Jeromy distracted me with talk of his work on the way over or I might have actually gotten sick I was so worked up about it.

Jeromy’s mother looked nothing like I had imagined she would. She was tall, and incredibly thin. She had long, brown hair and a natural sun-kissed skin color. I looked at her carefully. Being from Oklahoma I had known several Native Americans before and while I couldn’t be sure, I had to wonder if she had at least some Native American heritage. Before I could put my hand out to shake hers, Debbie reached up and grabbed me, pulling me in for a hug.

“How’s Nathan?” Jeromy asked his mother.

She sighed. “You know your brother. He’s still the same ornery little shit that he has always been. Sometimes I wonder if he’ll ever grow up.”

“I really thought the military would smack some sense into the boy,” Jeromy told his mother and then he pulled her in for a tight hug.

“I know, son. Me too.”

When we sat down I glanced over the menu while Jeromy and his mother made small talk and continued on about Nathan. I hadn’t been to this place before and I wasn’t sure what to order. But luckily Debbie was quick to make some suggestions of things I might like.

Debbie complimented my outfit, my hair and spoke for quite a bit on the subject of my nails and how much she loved the color of my polish. I know she was probably just trying to find things to talk to me about and put me at ease, and I appreciated it.

I wasn’t quite sure what was going on with Jeromy’s brother Nathan. I had spoken to him quite a bit over the phone and through Facebook and Twitter, and he seemed perfectly fine. Young and crazy, but isn’t that what being young is all about?

Nathan was a sort of happy surprise for his parents, who after years of trying for another child had simply given up. Then one day, there he was. They were ecstatic, and treated him like the miracle baby he really was; because of complications from giving birth to Jeromy the doctor said she would never be able to have another child. So when Nathan came around some ten years later, they were beyond happy.

Perhaps treating him like a miracle baby wasn’t a good idea though, because he grew up differently than Jeromy as a result. He wasn’t the well-mannered, goal-oriented, ambitious, loving son that Jeromy was. He was far more carefree and reckless with his life choices.

When he joined the military, they were confident he would settle down and grow up but that only seemed to have fueled his wild ways. I was pretty sure they were exaggerating some of the stories but I didn’t want to speak up about it and get involved. It really was a private family moment and while I loved Jeromy dearly and knew he felt the same for me, I still wasn’t family and this Nathan problem really wasn’t any of my business.

Much to my surprise though Debbie made every effort to pull me into the conversation, asking me what I thought about Nathan.

“Well, you’ve known him longer than me so it’s hard for me to really say. But I think he’s a sweet kid and he means well.”

Debbie gave me a polite smile and then changed the subject, perhaps sensing I was uncomfortable. “You know we’ve been so caught up in talking about Nathan, I haven’t even remembered to ask how you have been enjoying Houston.”

“It’s different, that’s for sure. But all of the people I have met so far have been wonderful. I’ve really been enjoying myself. I’ve become good friends with Mindy, who is dating the drummer in Billy’s band.”

“Yes, I think I met her before. Sweet girl. She came by the house before with Billy and the boys for dinner.”

I started to warm up to Debbie and even told her about the horribly embarrassing video that Brick posted about me on the band’s YouTube page, the first one, not the latest one.

“Ahh yes, the superstar video. Billy told me about that.”

I was shocked that Billy had told her about the video. I hadn’t even realized Billy and Debbie talked as often as they apparently did.

“They do seem to have trouble with boundaries. I reminded Billy of that today. They sometimes forget that you aren’t one of the boys and they need to respect your privacy or at the very least ask your permission before posting videos that you are in.”

Jeromy chimed in, defending his buddies. “I don’t know mom, I thought the video was kind of cute.”

“Cute or not, it was not cool for them to post videos of your girlfriend without at least telling her first. If you and Stacy are going to live with Billy then his friends need to learn to respect her boundaries. She does have a reasonable expectation of privacy in her own home, does she not?” I was beaming. I was glad someone finally agreed with me.

Jeromy shrugged. “Yeah. I guess you are right, when you look at it that way.”

“Of course I am. I’m your mother. It’s my job to be right,” Debbie replied playfully.

Wow, Billy was right. She was wonderfully sweet. There was not a mean bone in her tiny little, frail body. I don’t know why I was so worried she wasn’t going to like me. She was great.

After lunch, Jeromy and I made our way back home. While I was sitting in the passenger seat looking out my window my phone buzzed. I looked down to see Billy had left me a text message. “Told you everything was going to be okay.” He was absolutely right. The lunch had gone great. I loved Jeromy’s mother. She was a wonderfully warm-hearted person. I texted him back to let him know that it went well and that I appreciated all of his support and that we would be home soon and I would tell him all about it.

With my phone in my hand, I mindlessly started flipping through photos I had taken from the night before of the band and the girls. I smiled as I looked at pictures of Bran drinking shots out of Mindy’s bellybutton and several different pictures of Billy on stage.

Soon though, Jeromy put his hand over on my knee and gently rubbed it. “Baby, can we talk?” I stiffened at hearing those words. He sounded so serious, it worried me, and even more so when I looked over at him and saw the horribly sad but serious look on his face.

“Okay? What about?” I asked him cautiously.

“I know you don’t want to hear this, but I’m not going to be able to make it to the big blowout this weekend.”

Just before I could say umm okay, it hit me. He was talking about the big Fourth of July party. My heart sank, tears started to well up in my eyes.

“Baby, I have to work. It can’t be helped.”

“Can’t I go with you? Maybe I can help. I’m not too bad with the clerical stuff,” I muttered, tears now rolling down my cheek.

“No, wives can’t go there.”

Wives? That was a strange way to say what he did. What did he mean wives can’t go there? Does that mean other kind of women could go? Why didn’t he say women can’t go there, why phrase it like he did? And where is there?

I barely got a “But ...” out of my mouth when he said, “Let’s go inside and talk about it.” I looked around, to see where we were. I was so caught up in what he was saying to me I hadn’t even noticed we were back home, in our driveway.

I was pissed. How could he do this? And what the hell did he mean by wives can’t go there? I flung open the car door, slamming it behind me and ran to the front door, Jeromy chasing behind me trying to catch me.

When I got in the front door I ran right into Billy. I didn’t say a word just let out a growl and then stormed up the stairs with Jeromy close behind me. Billy said, “Is she okay man?” Jeromy didn’t respond, he just ran up the stairs trying to catch me.

I was in a hurry to get to the bathroom so that I could lock the door behind me; I needed just a moment to myself to calm down, but I wasn’t fast enough and before I could slam it shut Jeromy had his foot in the door.

“Baby please, I have to go. I have about three million reasons why I have to go.”

“Don’t baby me! And I don’t care about the money. I just want to be with you. I want you to be here with me and I don’t understand why I can’t go with you.”

I probably wouldn’t have reacted in the way that I did, because we’ve spent time apart before, but something about the way he said wives can’t go really bugged me. It was like he was trying to say that other women would be there, like mistresses or hookers or something. I was probably just overreacting but I knew he wasn’t being honest with me. I knew something else was going on that he wasn’t telling me and that was what was getting to me.

I just met his mother. This should have been a huge step forward in our relationship. But it’s not. This news of his trip takes us two steps back.

He put his arms around me and held me tightly. “Please don’t cry, Stacy. Please. I love you.” I looked up at him, still tightly locked in his arms, but I didn’t say a word. I buried my face in his chest again for a moment and then Jeromy heard me sniff and pulled back to look at me. His eyebrows creased, and he asked, “Are you going to be okay?”

A few more tears toppled out but I did my best to say, “Yeah. I will be fine.” He pulled me back into him for another tight and reassuring hug, rubbing his hands up and down my back, trying to calm me down.

“I love you so much, Stacy. I hate seeing you like this.”

I looked up at him, while he looked down on me. He had just love and warmth in his eyes and I found it hard not to believe every word he was saying. He lifted me off of the ground as he hugged me tightly and began kissing me passionately. He lifted me up to the bathroom sink as we continued to lock lips.

Our bed was only a few feet away, in the next room, but in the heat of the moment it didn’t seem to matter. He took me right there on the bathroom counter.

Eventually I made my way back downstairs. I wanted to apologize to Billy for my rude entrance; but the place was quiet. He and the band must have already been at Rowdy’s for their gig.