Falling Stars Read Online Free PDF Page A

(Julia)
    “T alk to me, sis,” Carrie said.
    The sun was almost up, the sky a beautiful wash of pale blues and greens. Crank and Sean were three hundred yards away and moving down the highway on foot, Crank carrying a gas can, so Carrie’s question wasn’t even remotely unexpected. I’d been avoiding talking about this for hours. I knew that it was coming; I knew that I was going to have to talk about it. I also knew wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready to say it out loud. I wasn’t ready to tell her how I felt, how much I hurt, how just fucking awful the summer tour had been. And the worst part of it was, neither Crank nor I had been able to talk about it.  
    As Crank and his brother walked away, Carrie and I sat on the hood of the car watching.
    I sighed. “Okay, well.   Where do I start?”
    “The beginning?” Carrie was always logical.
    I shook my head. “Sometimes it’s hard to know where a story begins.”
    “Why don’t you tell me about the tour then? Because last time I saw you two, you couldn’t keep your hands off each other. What the hell happened this summer, Julia?”
    I leaned back on the hood and stared up at the streaks of light blue now stretching across the dome of the heavens as the sun approached.   I sniffled, just once. “It’s been a really rough summer.”
    “What the fuck happened, Julia?”
    I felt sick to my stomach. As if saying it out loud would make it worse. As if saying it out loud would remove any chance of fixing it.
    “Spit it out, Julia! What did he do? I’ll kill him if he hurt you.”
    I shook my head. “Not like that… It’s just… Okay…”   I slumped. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to do anything but climb into bed somewhere and rest.
    “Sometimes I just think we’re too young to be this… serious. I don’t know. I love Crank, but… Okay, back in June, we flew out to Vegas to meet Allan for the beginning of the tour.”
    “I remember.”  
    I began to tell Carrie the story in halting steps as I sat on the car mostly looking away from her, playing with my hair or scanning the slowly lightening sky.
    I’d never forget those first impressions when we had arrived in Vegas. For several weeks prior to our departure, I’d been working on the phone and via email with Preston Reeve, the manager for Allan Rourke’s band. Preston had been helpful every step of the way, and that was a big deal, because even though I’d done a good job managing Crank’s band so far, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Preston had been the manager for the Rourke band for more than ten years. He knew the ropes; he knew how to deal with the venues, the hotels and the record labels. Most of all, he was a professional, and so it wasn’t a big deal or a big surprise when he met us at the airport. At least not to me.
    Crank, however, had been surprised. Not once during the planning of our flight to Vegas, or the planning of the tour itself, had he ever inquired about our travel arrangements, where we’d be sleeping, or what we would be doing. He had placed all of that in my hands as a matter of course, and I was okay with that. After all, it was my job as manager of the band. Apparently, he had found it alarming that the moment we walked out of the security gates at the Las Vegas airport, we were approached by Preston.
    Preston was a big, bold guy. Just like me, he’d attended Harvard, though he graduated in ‘93, ten years before I did. He wore a blue suit coat with an open-collared white shirt and faded jeans and had a single turquoise stud in his left ear. The earring was set off by short, cropped brown hair and pale blue eyes. To anyone else, he looked cool and professional and friendly.
    He approached with an easy, lopsided grin and a warm, firm handshake.   “Julia? Crank? I’m Preston Reeve.”
    He and Crank sized each other up on the spot and I could tell neither of them liked what they saw, but we managed to get moving safely toward ground transportation.