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.Selena was creative and she could be exceedingly impulsive, but no matter what ideas she expressed to me, I was never negative—I’d had enough negativity in my own family when I first tried to become a rock guitarist, so I knew how bad that could feel.Instead, she and I would talk things through in an attempt to encourage Selena to be less impulsive, do a little planning, and articulate her vision clearly enough so that she could see whether her idea was workable or not.Her dreams were my dreams.If something was important to Selena, it was important to me, too.That’s how much I loved her.Selena was quick to appreciate this about me, too.“Thank you, Chris,” she’d say, whenever I supported her position on something.“Thank you for helping me.”Now, Selena brought the newspaper into the kitchen, where I watched her comb through the classified ads and circle various houses for rent.“You really want to move this time?” I asked.We had been down this road together before, usually after similar family arguments.“Oh, I really do,” Selena said.“We need to get out of here.”Without much more discussion, we got in the car and started driving around, even pulling into the driveways of houses at the addresses she’d circled.Afterward, Selena made some phone calls, but that was the end of it.I’m sure part of the reason she dropped the idea was that it would be a lot of work to move, and she was usually exhausted just from her recording and performance obligations.But Selena wasn’t ready yet to put even that much distance between herself and her family.To me, it didn’t really matter where we lived.What mattered to me was Selena’s happiness.As long as she wanted to live in that neighborhood, and in that house alongside her father and brother, I could be happy there.If Selena ever really wanted to leave, I would be right beside her, helping her every step of the way.Selena was as supportive of me as I was of her, with one important exception: the time I talked about leaving Los Dinos to pursue my dream of starting a rock band, she shut me down cold.We were nearly at the pinnacle of our success by 1993, and I loved making a living playing in a Tejano band as successful as Los Dinos.That was my work and I took pride in it.I even developed a certain love and respect for Tejano music.Still, I was a musician before I met Selena, and I had my own taste.I continued to listen to rock music and even introduced Selena to a lot of the bands I liked.A big part of me still longed to play that music.Selena and I always listened to music on road trips, and she was open-minded.She could appreciate most of my choices, which included everything from Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam to Green Day.We had a sort of unspoken agreement that she would listen to my music if I listened to hers; at the time, her favorite artists were Bonnie Raitt, Whitney Houston, and Janet Jackson.Selena especially loved Jackson’s song “Black Cat,” which Janet wrote for her Rhythm Nation 1814 album.I can’t even count how many times Selena and I listened to that single.After we had been married for a few months, I confessed to Selena that I still harbored those desires to play a different kind of music.I had become a fan of Latin rock, and I was listening to a lot of that on my headphones or with her.I thought maybe I could start a Latin rock band and make my own way in that direction.“I love Tejano music,” I told Selena, “and you know I love playing with Los Dinos.But you have to admit that Tejano music isn’t really geared toward guitar players.I’m just playing the same chords over and over again.”“That’s not true,” she protested.“A.B.lets you play a lot of things the way you want.”She was right, but even though I was pushing the boundaries a little bit in the context of Tejano music, I still couldn’t see any way to continue developing as a guitar player if I restricted myself to this genre.The music just wasn’t challenging enough and I was feeling stifled, I told her.“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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]