Take It With Me

A week passed, then another, and life in the city breezed by, but Tom just couldn’t seem to settle in.

Anthony had gotten him a room at the Tropicana motel, told him to stay put for a while, write some songs, and he obeyed, not really sure of what to do.

The tour was being postponed. Ticket sales had been slow, even in his hometown, and the label decided that he needed to write some new material, start a new record, and then they’d go on tour in a month or two to promote it.

“Can I go back to New Orleans?”

Tom sat in the stuffy corporate looking office of his record label, feeling like a fish in the middle of a chicken coop. Anthony, on the other hand, looked perfectly at home, sitting in a black leather chair with his green lacquered pens and fancy leather binders in front of him.

“No. Why would you want to back to that sinkhole anyway?” Anthony laughed, motioning around him. “You’re in California, Tom! Sunny California, where all of the great U S of A would kill to be right now! Forget New Orleans, unless it spurs on your songwriting muscles. But whatever you do, write some songs.”

Tom had sighed, agreed, and walked out with his hands firmly in his coat pockets. He didn’t like this. Didn’t like it one bit. He didn’t like being forced to stay in one place. And besides, he couldn’t really write if someone was making him. It ruined his creative process.

But whatever it took to please the suits.

On the way back to the hotel, he’d finally come across a spare quarter in his pocket.

“Ah-ha! Gotcha!” he exclaimed, his heart picking up speed a bit as he approached the little blue payphone booth cautiously.

When he first tried to put the quarter in, he’d dropped it. That should have been his first sign. Then, when he finally got the quarter in the slot and the number he’d scribbled in black ink on his palm dialed, his heart jumped into his throat his mouth went dry when it started ringing. He didn’t know why he was so nervous, just calling to check in on Kitty. But he was.

“Hello, Rolling Waters Motel, how may I direct your call?”

Tom had almost jumped when the girl answered, then he cleared his throat, trying to gain composure.

“Yes, uh, can you connect me to room 71, please?”

He fidgeted inside his too big coat, loosening his collar. It was too warm in the phone booth. Much too warm.

“Hold one moment, sir.”

Damn, he hated being on hold. Tom kicked the concrete floor of the phone booth, scuffing up the toes of his leather shoes.

“I’m sorry sir, the occupant of room 71 is not receiving calls at the moment. If you’d like to try back later, you could, or if you want, I could write down a message and deliver it for you.”

Tom was kind of taken aback. He didn’t think that Kitty wouldn’t be taking calls. Didn’t she expect him to call? Didn’t she want to talk to him?

“Uh, thanks, I’ll, uh, call back later.”

Tom hung up the phone and slunk back onto the sidewalk, joining the multitude of out of towners and businessmen on lunch break and busy housewives trying to wear out hyperactive toddlers.

And even now, a day later, he was still kind of hurt over Kitty not answering his call. True, he hadn’t tried calling back, and maybe she’d been sleeping or out or, God forbid, with someone, but it still kind of stung.

He knew it wasn’t right, though. She didn’t owe him anything. Especially after how he left. But God, he missed her. He didn’t want to admit it to himself, but he did.

Over the past two weeks, Tom had slept with at least six different girls. He knew it wasn’t right. And he knew he was using them. But he almost couldn’t help himself.

“I’m trying to help myself move on,” he’d rationalize. And he’d hit on a pretty girl at a bar, bring her back to the hotel, spend the night with her, and wake up the next morning realizing why he’d done it.

Every single one of them reminded him of Kitty. Not in a straightforward way, but subtle little similarities that, for a moment, made it easy to pretend that he was back in New Orleans with Kitty and everything was simple again in a completely complicated way. Some of them looked kind of like her. One girl had curly hair, another was a little thicker than most girls in the bars, another had dark skin that sorta clashed against her bottle blonde hair, but in the dark who could see? With the others, it was less easy to see. Maybe it was the way they laughed, or sat up really straight in their chairs, or the way their eyes crinkled when they smiled, but whatever it was, it was there.

And Tom thought that if he didn’t get to see the real Kitty soon, he might just lose his mind.