Charmer

by Loring, Kayley

  GRAMMIE: Not only that, but the next year he was offered the lead in Beauty and the Beast and he didn’t even have to audition. For Belle.

  NICO: But my voice had already started to change by then, so I had to play Beast.

  GRAMMIE: Yes, I think I have a picture of him popping a woody during the dress rehearsal after waltzing with Belle.

  NICO: Why are you like this?

  KAT: Oh, Nico. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. It’s a tale as old as time.

  NICO: Right. I’ll be in the kitchen, then.

  GRAMMIE: Be our guest, cookie.

  KAT: Is cookie your nickname for him?

  GRAMMIE: Yes, since he was little. Because he’s a sweet treat and he’ll crumble if you mess with him just right.

  KAT: You seem to be very close.

  GRAMMIE: We are. He’s been my best friend ever since my husband passed, to be honest. We’re an odd couple, but it’s the truth. He checks in on me every week, if you can believe it. Always has. A stud muffin like that, checking in on his granny no matter what he’s up to in the world—can you imagine?

  He knows a lot of people, and a lot of people think they know him, but he’s actually quite private. About who he really is. Once he decides someone’s in his inner circle, they’re in it for life. And it’s not a big circle. But it seems to have gotten a little bit bigger recently…

  He's changed, I can tell. We all like to joke about him being a superficial man ho, but that’s an exaggeration. I’ve always known that he’s been protecting a big fragile heart and that one day he’d meet someone who’d get right to the gooey center of him.

  I look forward to meeting your family.

  KAT: (sniffling, clearing throat) Yes. They’re at the hotel. I didn’t think it would be a good idea for them to come to your house since we’re filming here.

  GRAMMIE: Are you crying?

  KAT: Nope. Something in my eye. And my nose. And my throat.

  GRAMMIE: Yes. I think I have a little something in my eye too… You won’t keep this part in your film, obviously.

  KAT: Obviously.

  GRAMMIE: Where is that ass canoe, anyway? (calling out) I’m going to show her the picture of your Michael Jackson Thriller costume now!

  NICO: (yelling offscreen) You’re the devil.

  KAT: Oh man, you are the gift that keeps on giving.

  25

  Kat

  I have never seen Nico Todd looking nervous before, and I have mixed feelings about capturing it on video. But I also think his fans will love seeing him like this, before the Detroit show. It’s sold out and he has a lot of support from his hometown, but it wasn’t until he got a text from his Grammie telling him that she’s coming backstage with his parents that I noticed him wiping his sweaty palms on his jeans. He immediately started tidying up his dressing room. Not that it was a mess, but it’s so sweet that his reaction to hearing his parents are coming over is to clean up his room.

  “You okay?” I ask, from behind the camera.

  “Yup.” He gulps down water and then fidgets with the bottle. “You okay?”

  “I’m great. Do you want me to get your family when they’re in here or should I turn the camera off?”

  “I should probably ask them first.”

  “Good idea.” I turn off the camera and leave it hanging around my shoulder.

  He looks at me for a few seconds before saying, “I’m going to introduce you to them as my girlfriend. Is that okay?”

  So fucking cute. “Yes.” I cross the room to hug him. “It’s more than okay.”

  There’s a knock at the door. I step away from him. Nico wipes his hands on his jeans again and opens it.

  “Are you decent?” Grammie’s tone is teasing, but she isn’t wrong to ask that question.

  “Are you?” he replies, laughing.

  “Define your terms,” she quips, stepping inside. She is wearing a Charmer tour T-shirt over her blouse, a button that says I am a Nicoholic and a Charmer baseball cap. “I had to fight three blondes for this merch, by the way. You’re sold out. You need more merch.”

  “Yeah, I have to talk to my road manager about that. And you didn’t have to pay for it—I could have had some sent to you.”

  “Aw,” she waves dismissively. “Stop trying to buy my love.”

  A man and woman step inside, after Grammie. They are both in their late fifties, perhaps, wearing business attire. They look like they’ve just come from work and it’s safe to assume they do not frequent music venues very often. Looking at the man, you’d think someone said “take this picture of Nico Todd and Photoshop him to look about twenty-five years older and a lot less sexy.” But he’s still handsome. The woman is beautiful. A little more exotic-looking than her husband, even though she seems to be trying to hide it by keeping her hair up in a tight bun and wearing neutral colors.

  “Hey guys,” Nico says, moving to hug his mother first.

  She hugs him warmly, patting him on the back. “You look good, Nico,” she says, pulling away first. “You wouldn’t believe how many people are out there! I mean, women mostly.”

  He reaches out to hug his father, although his dad was about to shake his hand. “Thanks for coming,” Nico says.

  His dad pats him on the back. “Wouldn’t miss it. Been too long.”

  Grammie winks at me as I watch from ten feet away. She came over to the hotel to meet Tate and my mom earlier, before going to meet Nico’s dad and mother for dinner.

  “You guys,” Nico says. “This is Katherine. Kat Dempsey. My girlfriend.”

  Gosh, I really wish I had been filming so I could record the look of shock on his parents’ faces.

  “She’s also documenting my tour for me, and we’re traveling with her son and mom. This is Sylvia and Steffan Todd.”

  I step forward. “Hello, it’s so nice to meet you.” I hold my hand out to shake Sylvia’s.

  “Hello, oh my. Kat, is it?” Her brown eyes are wide and confused.

  “Yes. Very nice to meet you, Mr. Todd.” I shake Steffan’s hand.

  “It’s an honor,” he says, looking at Nico. “And a surprise.”

  “We never thought we’d see the day,” his mom says, staring at Nico. “And you have a son?”

  “Yes, Tate. He’s six. He’s at the hotel with my mother.”

  “Did you know about this?” Steffan nudges Grammie.

  “Of course,” she raises her chin. “It’s not my place to gossip.”

  Nico guffaws at that.

  “Oh hush, you.”

  There’s a knock at the open door. A guy with a headset tells Nico that the opening act is about to take the stage. He’ll need to be alone so he can get into performance mode.

  “Will you be sitting with us?” Grammie asks me.

  Both of Nico’s parents are still staring at me, like I’m some fairy tale creature that they didn’t believe existed.

  “Sometimes, but I’ll be moving around a bit when I’m working.”

  Nico’s family goes out front to their VIP seats, and I give Nico another hug before leaving with my two cameras.

  “I love you,” I tell him.

  “I love you,” he says, kissing my cheek. “I love you.”

  He never says it just once. Ever since the first time, in New York. Like he has to convince me that it’s true, every time. But I believe him.

  * * *

  Nico is halfway through “The Wait.” I’ve now heard him play it a few times, on the bus and at one of his shows. I’m sure my heart will always race and my stomach will never stop doing somersaults when I hear it. Right now I’m standing at the end of the third row, zooming in on Nico’s family as they listen to him sing. I’ve been all around the room, getting great footage of Nico and the audience tonight, with my still and my digital camera. But this is the best yet.

  That dreamy look that Nico spoke of his mother and Grammie having when he saw them listening to music when he was younger—they have it now that they’re listening to him.
And I’m recording it for him. I can get his father in the shot too, and he looks just as engaged as anyone else in the audience, and so proud. I think Nico will love seeing this.

  I had no doubts about how I felt about him before this, but now I know for certain—I love this man and I want him to have everything that he wants.

  I don’t know if I’ll be able to be with him in the way he wants all the time, but he will always have my heart.

  26

  Kat

  “No!”

  “Seriously? You don’t want Cocoa Puffs either? For lunch? They’re your favorite.”

  “I don’t like them anymore.”

  He doesn’t want cereal, any kind of sandwich, soup, toast, cheese and crackers, vegetable sticks, or even oatmeal and raisin cookies.

  I glance over at Nico, who’s eating a bowl of Cocoa Puffs on the sofa. With one silent look, he is trying find a balance between giving me a moment to deal with this alien demon child that used to be my adorable son and showing that he’s here for us if we need him. I shrug my shoulders at him apologetically.

  “You have to eat something, Tate. You’ll feel better if you do.”

  “I won’t.” He knocks the cereal box over on the table, glaring at it.

  Fortunately, the cereal box is closed. I calmly pick it up and place it back in the cereal drawer.

  We are not quite halfway between Detroit and Chicago, and I am hovering somewhere between patient hot single mom who doesn’t want her boyfriend to see this side of things and that exhausted parent who drives to the supermarket in her bathrobe and hair curlers with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth while she yells at her kid in the parking lot.

  I look around the kitchen area. By some miracle, it’s still relatively clean and tidy. Except that Nico insisted on covering the front of the fridge and cupboards with all of Tate’s drawings. And also the birthday card that Nico drew of me in my new bras.

  “What if I make you a fruit salad?”

  Tate crosses his arms in front of his chest, frowning while staring out the window.

  “Buddy. You didn’t eat anything for breakfast. You barely ate dinner last night. Are you sure your tummy doesn’t hurt?”

  He continues to ignore me. He barely slept last night. He has been in a bad mood, off and on ever since he was in New Jersey. My mother insists that they had a good time with my aunt and the other relatives. But Tate hasn’t been like this for a year. Back when I was working the lunch shift and he had to go to daycare during the summer, he went through a moody phase that lasted a couple of months until I changed my schedule so I could spend more time with him.

  I sigh. I hate it when he doesn’t eat. So I try one last, desperate thing. “Potato chips?” I pull a bag out from the cupboard.

  He betrays himself by moving his head just a tiny bit, like a dog perking up his ears. But then he slides down in the seat, until his head is level with the tabletop, while saying “no no nooooo no noooo no noooo noooo.”

  I put the bag of chips back in the cupboard, slam it shut.

  My mother is taking a nap in the bunk bed because she “couldn’t sleep last night.” If she were here, she would be giving him an earful. I try to remember the articles I had read online a year ago, about handling child temper tantrums and moods. I’m going to have to try telling him that I’m done and will be ignoring him until he’s ready to behave like a good boy. Or something like that.

  “I hate this bus,” he says, kicking the base of the kitchen table. “I hate this bus,” he sings, “I hate this bus, I hate this bus, I hate this bus.”

  I look over at Nico again, expecting a look of horror, but instead his expression is breaking my heart.

  “You don’t hate it,” I say to Tate. “Don’t say you hate things, it’s not nice.”

  “I HATE IT! I hate it! I want to go home!”

  I stomp over to him. “Okay, you need a time out, young man.” He starts squealing and making himself as heavy as possible and then flailing about when I try to pick him up.

  “You can take him to the back room,” Nico says, quietly. “You want me to come with you?”

  “Noooooo!” Tate cries out. “No you can’t come!” He breaks free from me and runs down the hall to the back lounge, shutting the door behind himself.

  “I am so sorry,” I say to Nico. “He doesn’t mean that.”

  “It’s fine, go to him.”

  “What’s going on?” my mother asks, from behind the curtain of her bunk.

  “He’s just hungry,” I tell her. “I got it.”

  I take a deep breath, preparing myself to deal with a hellion. Instead, I find my son lying face down on the bed, completely still. Or maybe not completely still—he’s shaking from sobbing. He sounds so sad. I climb onto the bed next to him and wrap my arms around him, kissing him on the back of his head. “Oh, Tate. I’m sorry. What’s wrong, baby?”

  He just cries, all limp in my arms, for a few minutes. When he finally sniffles and stops weeping, he flips around and buries his face in my chest. “Baby. Tell me why you’re sad.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “We’ll be home in about two weeks, I told you.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Tate. We talked about this. I know it’s a long time away from the house, but I have to be with Nico for my job now and Nico has to travel like this for a couple more weeks.”

  He’s quiet for a while, before saying again, “I want to go home.”

  I blow out a breath. “Tell me why you want to go home.”

  “I miss my room. I miss my toys. I miss the backyard. I miss the bathroom. I want to poop in my toilet whenever I want to. I want to go to magic camp. I want to go home.”

  “Yeah. I miss our bathroom too.”

  “And Arthur.”

  Arthur is our neighbor’s dog.

  “And Mr. Marmalade.”

  Another neighbor’s cat.

  “And my tent.”

  “Yeah. But they will all be there when we get back, you know. You know how lucky we are to get to see all these different cities?” Even as I say it, I know I’m not going to sell him on this now.

  He shakes his head. “I want to go home.”

  He wants to go home.

  I get it. Kids need structure. They need to know that things are going to stay the same, especially when their shithead biological father acts like an asshat and their mommy has a new boyfriend. I. Get. It.

  I just don’t want to have to deal with this now. Not when things are going so well with Nico. And that makes me feel so guilty. Now I feel like a shithead.

  There’s a knock on the door. My mom pokes her head through. “Can I come in?”

  I nod.

  She sits on the edge of the bed and sighs. “He wants to go home.”

  “Yeah. He misses the house.”

  “Yeah. Well, so do I. But I wasn’t planning to go back there yet.”

  “I want to go home,” Tate says, again.

  “I can’t go home yet,” I tell him. “I’m sorry.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Tate. Maybe you’re just tired and hungry and you’ll feel better after you eat something and take a nap.”

  “I want to go home.”

  My mother and I stare at each other, until she looks down at Tate. “I’ll call Maria and tell her I’m coming home early. We can get a flight out of Chicago tomorrow.”

  “Mom.”

  “Is that what you want, Tate? Your mom can’t go home yet, so if I take you back to LA that means it’ll just be you and me at the house for two weeks. You understand?”

  He nuzzles me and I could cry. I had allowed myself to imagine some sort of easy-breezy bohemian life with Nico where we could be on tour with him whenever Tate’s out of school. I don’t know if Tate and I are ready to be apart from each other for a matter of weeks at a time.

  “I want to go home,” is all he can say.

  “I’ll talk to Nico. If you decide you miss m
e after a week, Tate…maybe he doesn’t really need me for the last week of the tour and then I can just drive up to Santa Barbara to shoot him there, and then there’s his final show in LA. I’m sure he’ll be fine with that.” I rub Tate’s back. “One or two weeks. That’s not so bad.” I kiss his forehead. “Right?”

  He doesn’t say anything. He’s so tired. I don’t think he can really imagine what it will be like to be away from me for a week or two.

  “Is Nico going to come live with us?”

  “What? You mean back home?”

  “Yeah. Is it going to be like now?”

  “Well, I don’t think so. We certainly haven’t talked about it. He has his own house, you know?”

  My mother and I exchange a look, again.

  “Would you want Nico to live with us?”

  His eyelids are heavy. So tired. “I want to go home,” he whispers, before falling asleep.

  My mother leaves the room and I lie with Tate for a while. I wish he was still a baby. I wish I could feed him while he’s sleeping. I wish he was Nico’s baby.

  That is a startling thought, but it’s true.

  I don’t know if that would make it any easier for Tate and me to adapt to Nico’s way of life, but it would make me feel less vulnerable somehow. If Tate were ours, instead of mine. If it was the two of us at the end of the road, at the end of the line for Nico—maybe we’d all feel better about everything. It’s far from the life I had imagined for Tate and me, but I also hadn’t allowed myself to imagine I could feel or do so much at this point in my life until I met Nico.