To Selena, With Love (21 page)

“Uh-huh,” Selena said. She was watching me with an odd sort of sideways look while I fumbled through this conversation.

I tried again. “I want to try something different,” I said. “I love you, and I love being onstage with you. You know that. But I’m bored, Selena, and that’s the truth. It’s time I tried something else, like Latin rock.”

Selena came around to stand in front of me. She looked me in the eye without saying anything at first. She just pinned me in place with her dark eyes.

“What?” I asked, suddenly nervous.

“That’s not going to happen,” Selena said. “If you quit the band and do something else, Chris, it will be over between us.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked in alarm. By now my
palms were sweating because of that cold look she was giving me. “Why would it be over just because I wanted to try playing another kind of music?”

Her voice was still calm, but with an undercurrent of tension that made me afraid to touch her. “You would be on the road away from me,” she said. “I’ve been on the road all my life, so I know what it’s like for guys. I saw how you were with women and drinking before we were together. If you and I were on the road separately, I would think about that and worry.”

As soon as Selena said that, I knew that it was the truth. Even though I was a year older, Selena had been on the road far longer than I had; she had been doing this since she was a kid. She knew the reality of the music business.

We didn’t know life apart from each other as a couple. Since falling in love, we had always been together—on buses, in planes, and on stages at this hotel or that arena. Selena knew that, no matter how much we vowed to be faithful to one another, that vow would be too easy to break if we weren’t playing in a band together.

Selena had also seen me at my worst. She had known me when I got arrested for drunk driving, and she had nearly left me when I trashed that hotel room with the road crew and nearly trashed her family’s reputation in the process.

My wife had taught me that the meaning of true love is forgiveness. Here was somebody who had seen me make some of the worst mistakes of my life, yet she had accepted my apologies and believed in me. I owed Selena the same kind of trust and loyalty that she had shown me.

“Yeah,” I said. “I guess you’re right.”

Selena smiled, her brown eyes alight with warmth again. “So you’ll stay with Los Dinos?”

“I’ll keep backing you up,” I said. I meant what I said to apply to our lives both offstage and on, and Selena knew it.

I never resented Selena for making me stay. Far from it. What possible gripe could I have? I was making a living playing my guitar. I was in a Tejano band, true, but it was a badass Tejano band fronted by the love of my life.

Most important of all, this girl had my back, and I was going to have hers until we were old and left this earth. Little did I know that my time with her would be so short.

I had been wanting a motorcycle for a while. My father was a motorcycle rider until he got into a massive accident. My cousins and uncles on my father’s side always had bikes around, too. Finally I told Selena that I was going to buy one for myself.

Most women I know have problems accepting the idea that the thrill of riding a motorcycle is worth the risk, but not Selena. Right up there with loving her family, our dogs, fashion, and me, she was crazy about any kind of vehicle. She excitedly accompanied me to the dealer in San Antonio when I bought the bike I’d been longing for—a Kawasaki Ninja.

On the drive back home to Corpus Christi, Selena drew up beside me on the highway in her BMW M3. “Race you,” she called, goading me into it with one of those wild looks in her eyes.

“You bet,” I said.

Within seconds, we were flying side by side down the highway. The bike wouldn’t break 100 mph no matter how flat I lay on that
gas tank to decrease the wind resistance or how hard I pushed it. Selena easily pulled in front of me, laughing her foolish head off as she passed, then gunned the BMW even faster just to prove her point: she’d won another dare.

Selena and I spent as much of our time together as possible, even when we weren’t on the road. Despite having been married a year and having known each other for three, we were still fully aware every day of how lucky we were to be married now, because we could do things like just go to the grocery store. Life couldn’t get any better than that.

Selena especially loved going for rides on that motorcycle with me, especially at night when it wasn’t so hot. We’d cruise along the shoreline in Corpus Christi, admiring all of the fancy houses on the waterfront. Sometimes we would pull over and park, then get off the bike to sit on the seawall or walk along the jetties, just as we had when we were seeing each other secretly.

Not long after I got the Ninja, Selena and I had taken just such a cooling night ride, her body pressed against mine as we leaned around the turns, the breeze in our faces. We were resting on the seawall, admiring the reflection of the lights on the water, when she suddenly declared, “I want to learn how to drive the bike.”

“Um, how about no?” I said. “No way.”

“Why not?” Selena started to argue with me.

Maybe it was because she grew up as the youngest in her family, or maybe it was because she was the most like Abraham. For whatever reason, Selena was one of the most stubborn people I’ve ever known. She never liked anyone to tell her “no”—not A.B., Suzette, or her parents, much less her own husband, whom she knew she had wrapped around her little finger.

“Oh, come on, Chris. I can drive a motorcycle if you can do it,” she said.

“You think it’s easy to drive this motorcycle?” I asked in disbelief. “It’s not like riding a bicycle, you know. You just think the Ninja is lightweight because it’s always upright when you get on it. But I can promise you this: if you drove this motorcycle and let it lean past a certain point, it would fall over and you wouldn’t be able to pick it back up. It would probably fall on your leg and break it.”

Now Selena was giving me that puppy look with her big brown eyes and frowning. “But I want to learn how to drive the bike,” she insisted.

I sighed. I knew Selena well enough by now to understand that, once she got an idea in her head about something she wanted to do, there was no stopping her. Selena was like our mini Doberman, André, with a toy. She would shake that idea of hers until she’d succeeded in tearing it to pieces, and God help anybody who tried to take it away.

“Okay,” I said at last. “We’ll go to the grocery store parking lot to see if you can balance on the bike. But that’s all we’re going to do, okay?”

“Okay,” she promised.

Selena was fairly mechanical and a very hands-on person. She also loved to drive, so it wasn’t really any surprise to me that, within minutes of me explaining them, she understood how the clutch, the brake, and the gears worked on the motorcycle. This, plus the fact that we were now in a huge, empty parking lot, put me a little more at ease.

“Okay, I’m getting on behind you,” I said. “I’ll hold the bike up.”

She straddled the bike in front of me. “This is so cool,” she said.

Cool unless you wreck my bike
, I thought. “Yeah, it is cool, as long as you’re careful,” I reminded her. “Just think what your dad will do to me if I let you get hurt. All right. I’m getting off now. See if you can keep the bike balanced.”

Selena wobbled a little from side to side. “Whoa! You’re right. It is heavy.”

“Remember that,” I warned. “You’re really going to get hurt if you start to fall over and don’t put your foot down in time to catch yourself.”

I showed her how to work the clutch and throttle, telling her to imagine her hand on the bar was like her foot working the accelerator. We talked things through as she engaged the clutch and explored the brakes. Meanwhile, I was thinking,
Bad idea to do this, Chris
.

But there was no backing out now. Selena’s dark eyes were bright with excitement beneath the big helmet. Just then, the bike did a little hiccup, and she jumped. “What’s that?” she asked, looking down at the motorcycle between her knees.

“It’s cool,” I said. “You’re in first gear now.”

“Can I ride it? For real?”

I had to smile. “Sure. Go for it. Click it up into second gear, but don’t go past that. And remember where your brakes are!” I yelled as Selena started to drive away from me. “That’s the most important thing!”

Selena took off slowly and without wobbling. I was proud of her; the bike didn’t jump forward or stall. It was a nice, smooth start.

In seconds, of course, she was all the way across the parking lot and I couldn’t see anything but the lights on my bike. “Okay!” I yelled. “That’s far enough. You can come back now.”

Selena rode back toward me, the big motorcycle purring between her knees. “How do I do the other gears?” she asked.

I taught her that, too, and then Selena took off around the parking lot again. She drove for about five minutes, getting more and more comfortable. Soon she started doing figure eights while I held my breath, watching her. As always, Selena had surprised me by how quickly she could learn something new.

She rode back eventually and said, “I think I got it.”

“You do,” I agreed. “You’re doing everything right. Now let’s try adding in the blinkers and practice that.” I hadn’t wanted to teach her too many things at once, but Selena had no trouble using the turn signals as she toured the parking lot again.

Pretty soon she was beside me again. “Get on,” she suggested.

“Ha-ha. That’s really funny,” I said, rolling my eyes at her. “How about you get off.”

“Come on, please?” Selena said. “Can I drive home?”

“You’re scaring me,” I said. “No. I can’t let you do that. We have to get on the highway to drive home.”

Selena, of course, got that bullheaded expression and started arguing. “What if I just stay on the access road?”

“That’s even scarier,” I said. “There are all kinds of intersections and stop signs.”

“I’ll go real slow,” she promised. “Please?”

Eventually, she wore me down.
What’s the harm?
I decided. If I were on the back of the bike, I could take control of the machine if she made a mistake.

“All right. Let’s do it,” I said.

Her grin was wide and white beneath that helmet as I got on the back of the bike behind her.

Selena eased the bike carefully out of the parking lot and onto the access road. As we got to the light near the access ramp for the highway, she wobbled a bit but I held us steady. That made me realize that she would probably do better on the highway; we’d be safer if she didn’t have to stop or turn. Plus, there would be little traffic at night.

“Go ahead,” I yelled over the engine. “Get on the highway.”

“For real?”

I could hear the smile in her voice. “Yeah, get on the highway and see what’s up.”

Onto the highway we went. Selena started out at a gentle cruising speed, maybe 60 mph, but before too long she hit 65, then 70 mph.

“That’s it! That’s fast enough!” I yelled, tapping her side. I could hear her laughing through her helmet, but she slowed down a little.

Our ride was almost without incident. I started to relax. Selena was a good driver in a car and, despite her love of speed, she seemed fairly steady on a motorcycle.

The one thing that hadn’t occurred to me until it was time to exit off the highway ramp was that Selena really hadn’t had enough experience on a motorcycle to know how it would react. She had never made a turn off one street and onto another.

I was in a near panic. I lifted my visor and hurriedly started yelling things at her, telling Selena how to lean when she wanted to change lanes or turn a corner, demonstrating by pressing my body against hers.

When it was time to actually hit the exit ramp, Selena was still going too fast. “Slow down!” I yelled.

Thankfully, the light was green as we came off the highway.
Selena made the right turn successfully, cruising right through it. Then we had to make a quick left. Unfortunately, Selena decided to lean the bike before I did, so that the bike started turning before we reached the intersection.

I had to think fast. If I tried to fight her and the bike by leaning the other way, I risked having her straighten up, and that momentum could tip us over. If I sat up straight, she might lean even more and flip us over as well. It was going to be bad if I fought her in any way.

Finally I decided to lean with her, just a little. We popped a curb and went right over somebody’s front yard, then came down hard off that curb and coasted onto the street. I felt Selena stiffen a little against me as she panicked. “Oh no!” she yelled.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t panic. Just keep driving,” I said, even though inside, I was yelling the same thing she was. The last thing I wanted to do was crash on our own street and have Abraham find out.

I told Selena to stop at the corner before we were close enough for her father to see us. “Why?” she yelled.

“What if your dad is outside for whatever reason, or he hears the motorcycle come up and decides to look out the window?” I yelled. “The last thing Abraham needs is to see you driving a motorcycle!”