Chapter 2: Love Story

The week I met Jack began unremarkably. I woke up in my one-bedroom apartment on Monday morning and snoozed for half an hour—longer than it took for me to get ready for work. I didn’t bother with any beauty regimen beyond cleaning my teeth, brushing the tangles out of my long hair, and throwing on some mascara because there was no one at work I needed to impress, no tenable prospects. At the time, that’s how I perceived virtually every attractive, available man I encountered: as a prospect. But the guys I worked with—mostly software developers—were more interested in getting their work done than flirting with the company’s Community Manager. I wiggled into a pair of skinny jeans and pulled on a short sleeve printed blouse that set off the tan of my olive complexion. I added a pair of open-toed Mary Jane heels and headed out the door into the midsummer light.

As soon as I got to the office, I made myself a cup of tea and sat down to check email, beginning with my personal inbox. The first message was from my favorite radio station announcing a contest to win tickets to an intimate performance with my favorite band later that week. For the next half an hour I buckled down—not on the white paper I was supposed to be writing for a prospective customer, but entering the contest over and over again, until it finally occurred to me to email the station directly and ask if I could come.

Jack in the Morning was the one to reply. My stomach fluttered at the inbox brush with celebrity: Jack was a deejay I’d listened to every weekday for close to ten years. Suddenly there he was in my inbox, responding to my request.

“Let me see what I can do,” he wrote.

A few minutes later I got the confirmation. “All good; you’re in!”

Beside myself with anticipation, I took that Friday, the day of the concert, off work, still hardly believing I was going to get to see them up close. For years I had loved that band. The first time I saw them perform I was so affected by their music and the spectacle of it all that I stood in the crowd crying happy, I’m-so-glad-I’m-alive-to-experience-this tears and repeating prayers of gratitude. Thank you for singing my heart. From that point on I would be unable to talk about this band without completely losing my cool. I had no chill, only effusive superlatives spoken a little too loud.

The morning of the show I sat front and center during the performance and cried more tears of joy through every song. It was my dream come true. If the sincerity of my admiration made me look like a lovesick teenybopper, I didn’t care. I couldn’t think of anything in the whole wide world that would mean more to me than an experience like this.

After the performance, standing in line to meet the lead singer, I noticed Jack in the Morning standing nearby. With beautiful blue eyes behind artsy glasses, bleached white hair that stood up like David Byrne’s, and a John Slattery cool, he was unmistakable. I’d seen his photo a couple years before when I had looked him up on the station’s website. I noted several things about his profile at the time: he liked to road bike and do Pilates. He played the piano, loved dogs, and enjoyed a weekly martini. Also, he looked older than me—(25 years, to be precise)—and he was married. I let the thought go.

Standing there in the studio with him, I decided to introduce myself. I thanked him for the opportunity. We exchanged a few words until I realized I was holding up the line. I said a quick goodbye to Jack and stepped forward to meet the musician, the closest thing I’d ever had to a hero.

It wasn’t just that I loved his songs, or what he stood for, or his skill as a songwriter and musician, or the way he looked and carried himself, or the power he conveyed. The Musician inspired me to a better version of myself. He appeared to be so fully realized that I felt empowered to express myself similarly. I wanted to know that feeling of self- possession and mastery in my own life.

 I handed him my journal to sign. He asked why I wasn’t at work. I told him I had taken the day off to be there.

“You should come hang out,” he said.

“I was planning to go to a yoga class this afternoon,” I stammered.

“Why don’t we go together?”

A little scared but utterly giddy and trying to play it cool, I suggested a yoga studio near the venue where they were playing. I gave him my number and could hardly believe when he texted me an hour later to coordinate. I floated through the rest of the day, most of which I spent sorting out my yoga outfit and what I would wear for the show itself.

After yoga, I followed him to the venue, where he took me straight to his bedroom at the back of his tour bus. I don’t remember what we talked about, just that there was nowhere to sit but on his bed, and that within a few minutes, without warning, he stripped off his yoga clothes and pulled on his outfit for the show. I definitely don’t remember what we talked about after that.

I do remember that he stepped away at some point so I could change, and that when he returned, he invited me to ride with him on the bus overnight to Portland.

My excitement bubbled up and I burst out, “I packed a bag!”

A part of me thought it was wishful thinking when I threw an extra outfit and a pair of pretty underwear into a backpack in my car just in case, but another part of me must have sensed the opportunity. I was already planning to go to the Portland show the next night. I just never dared to dream that I’d get to go as The Musician’s guest, nor that I would get a ride there on his tour bus.

I felt so fancy milling around backstage during the show, though I watched most of it from the audience so I could see him and be a part of it all. My whole body felt filled with helium. After the show he led me to the after-party, then back to the tour bus for the after-after party where we danced in the aisle between the bunks of his bandmates and he sang their new record quietly in my ear. It was the absolute most spectacular turn of events that I could ever have imagined.

When we finally got in his bed, he seemed fully in command of the experience he wanted to have, beginning with a suggestion to straddle his lap. He pulled my shirt over my head, so I moved to take off my bra. He stopped me.

“I like a slow reveal,” he said.