She sighed. “I’m not trying to make it hard on you.”
“When did you ever try to make it easy? Goddamn it, he’s all I got.”
He hadn’t meant to say that, not to her, especially not when he caught the look she gave him. More sympathy.
Fuck it. Rick yanked open the cab door. “I told Jesse I’d see him Saturday.”
“Then I suppose we won’t need the calendar to know when it’s Saturday.”
He stopped halfway into the cab, because what the hell was this? Was she reminding him of the time when she had made excuses for him? Or finally admitting that in all the years before — and the five years since — she never had to make one?
He couldn’t tell, so he just said, “Guess you won’t,” climbed in and slammed the door.
Jesse had pushed his luck at dinner, brought up going to the studio next Monday. Beatrice didn’t veto Martin’s answer. He didn’t see why not, since Rick wasn’t going to Miami.
No one asked why Zeus wanted to record in Cleveland this time. Including Rick. He wondered if anyone had ever shown up anywhere and told Zeus they didn’t have anything to record. Could he really shoot lightning bolts under those conditions?
The cab pulled away, and Terrance glanced at his watch. “Late.”
Like it mattered. He wouldn’t have a career for Louis to manage if he didn’t find his words. And soon. Rick looked out the window and wondered how his problem wasn’t Mary anymore, wasn’t Beatrice anymore, maybe wasn’t even being white anymore. How his problem had become that every pen he touched might as well have run dry.
Seven days. Christ, he hoped the pens at the hotel worked.
6: Strikeouts and Whipped Cream
When they finally rolled into the Park Lane Hotel hours later, Rick learned he’d been booked into an executive suite registered to Jack Diamond. On the twenty-seventh floor. Luckily, Jack Diamond was Zeus, and they seemed to want Zeus’s money to continue sleeping here after the Plaza was refurbished. Rick let them rearrange three adjoining rooms on the sixth floor into a two-bedroom suite, paid the bellhop to quit explaining this convoluted accommodation and how long it would take, and went back down the stairs to wait at the bar. Terrance had followed.
Rick held up his glass, and the bartender nodded. Terrance shook his head for the third time when the man glanced at his.
Rick swallowed the last of his third whiskey, which didn’t erase the tape of his two hour conversation with Louis from his head. His manager was concerned; his fifteen percent wouldn’t increase if Rick’s sales didn’t go up. Being on Guillotine’s album helped, but Louis thought he needed more publicity. Maybe a nice scandal? Rick said he could shoot somebody if Louis wanted, but the only person he really wanted dead was doing life without parole, and he figured killing the bastard now would be doing him a favor.
The flipside, Rick said, was also a problem, since he didn’t know anybody who wanted to shoot him. Maybe he could ask around, unless Louis thought that shit was starting to get old? He wasn’t unwilling; he was just unenthusiastic about the lack of creativity.
Louis had cleared his throat, said he didn’t want him to get hurt. Rick said he’d spent most of his life wanting the same, so maybe he’d just try to record a kick-ass album, and maybe Louis could weasel more promo money out of Carnage Records. Then the earth would stand still, the sun would go dark, the FCC would bust up the radio conglomerates, and the Clear Channel barrier would come tumbling down.
Rick hadn’t heard what Louis said after that, because he’d thought about the paper in his pocket the Canton, Ohio guy had written the name of Carolyn’s Manhattan hotel on. Had he thought that would do him any good?
The waiter brought fresh whiskey, and Rick felt the first long swallow melt into his bones. That was doing some good.
Terrance eyed Rick’s glass.
“My counting’s fine,” Rick said. He held up four fingers as he took another sip.
Terrance lifted his eyebrows. “Your counting include Louis’s office?”
“Hell, no,” Rick said. “That’s anesthesia.”
Terrance didn’t even crack a grin.
“Steak soaked that up anyway,” Rick said.
Terrance just took a sip of his own drink. His only drink.
“T, get off my dick. Christ, we’re at the Park Lane Hotel.” He held up his keycard. “It’s a Helmsley.”
Terrance smirked, finally.
“Hell, even the whores look good here.” Rick glanced at the bar. About twenty-five? He had trouble with overestimating white girls. A few thought he was hilarious when he wanted to see their IDs. Particularly the one who was fourteen — yeah, that was a riot. Sorry, I can’t finish the tour, Louis — and can you find me a good criminal lawyer? I forgot they wasn’t carding the door at this place. You said we could use a nice scandal. Tell that lawyer to bring a bucket, too, because I’m about to puke.
Rick was sure they were carding here. She looked good, at least from the neck down. Maybe a little thin.
Terrance lifted his eyebrows. “Not quite.”
“Oh, she at least as good looking as Louis’s new secretary.”
A guy in a suit leaned over the chick’s shoulder, then jumped away like she bit him.
Rick looked at Terrance. “Dude’s wearing a Rolex.”
Terrance seemed to think that was funny, too. “Ain’t the first one she turned down.”
Rick looked back, wondering what the hell Terrance found so goddamn amusing that he was missing. She turned a little more, crossed one leg over the other. Her stretchy black dress hardly covered her ass and didn’t leave a lot to the imagination. He was appreciating the lack of effort required of him, when she turned and leaned her elbows back on the bar, showing off a pair of huge tits.
Probably explained why she wasn’t settling for Rolexes.
For a second, she looked straight at him with a half smile before she looked away, tossing blonde hair over her shoulder. Hard-ons were always free.
“Oh, baby,” Rick muttered. “I don’t even know what costs more than a Rolex.”
Terrance laughed.
Rick leaned across the table. “You wanna share with the rest of the class?”
Terrance just grinned.
“You ain’t even looked.”
Terrance threw back the rest of his Jack and shook his head at the bartender. “I looked. You the one who ain’t been looking. She been waiting there since before we came in.”
She switched the leg cross around, too tan for so early in the summer, and flipped her hair over her bare shoulder.
“You need to be more observant of your surroundings,” Terrance said.
“I pay you for that.”
“Not much and I’m on vacation.”
A waitress collected Terrance’s glass, and when she moved, the girl caught Rick’s eye again. He watched her make sure he was looking and wondered when he got so fucked up that he couldn’t read something this obvious.
Rick leaned back and took another sip as he put his foot on the rung of the empty chair and pushed it away from the table. She glanced at it, like that was the most confusing message she’d ever seen.
“You changing your rules?” Terrance asked him. “Or is that a test?”
Rick looked at the surprise on Terrance’s face and kept his own face still. Not quite a whore. He glanced back at the groupie, who’d tracked him down in a city of a zillion people, so she would know better than to take him up on his very fucking mistaken invitation.
“A test,” Rick said. “And she passed. What time is it?”
“Eleven.”
“What time’s the show come on TV?”
“Eleven thirty-five.”
“You wanna meet me upstairs then?”
A waitress dropped a dessert on the table that Rick was sure no one had ordered. Terrance ignored her and the lost piece of pie. Everything but the glass Rick drained.
“Four in a half-hour,” he said.
Rick shot him
a bored look. “You want, we could hit Baby-G’s party. Then you’d really have something to watch.”
That was idle bullshit, even though Terrance didn’t know the half of how weak Rick was feeling. The bartender wasn’t serving what he really wanted.
Terrance didn’t say anything.
“I ain’t drunk. I got a hard-on. Probably because I didn’t get to fuck Louis’s secretary three hours ago.”
He hadn’t done anything of the sort for too long, but Rick figured that was his own damn business.
“Me neither.” Terrance took a bite of pie. “Only got her phone number fifteen minutes before your meeting was over.”
Rick smirked. “You make that sound like something to be proud of.”
“It’s harder to cut steak than whipped cream.”
In case Rick didn’t know what he meant, Terrance demonstrated with his spoon.
“Now that’s a metaphor I understand,” Rick said. “Not the point of it, but at least I understand the metaphor. Not like that baseball shit you always — ”
“I’d rather strike out than draw an intentional walk.”
“Don’t make no more sense when you repeat it.”
Terrance shoved in a bite of pie. “When was the last time you had a good steak, Ricky?”
“Tonight. I thought you was there.” Rick stood and sampled the whipped cream with a finger. “That ain’t bad either. See you later.”
Terrance wrapped a large hand around his wrist. “Stay out of the mini-bar.”
Some part of Rick’s brain, the semi-defective part that occasionally fought through the impulse and kept his mouth shut, reminded him they’d established this deal once and supposedly for all more than a month ago. So he didn’t tell Terrance to go fuck himself, because he only had one of those cards left.
He wasn’t drunk enough to play it tonight. “I’ll probably be too occupied to open it.”
“Whipped cream,” Terrance muttered, releasing his arm.
Rick put his hands on the table. “You know what pisses me off the most about you?”
“That I’m better looking than you are?”
“I got enough people fucking with my head. If you got something to say, say it.”
Terrance leaned forward until he was so close Rick could smell his aftershave. “What’s the most exciting thing that happened to you tonight?”
“Night ain’t over yet.”
“When it is,” Terrance said. “Pop quiz, multiple choice.”
“Doubt I’ll need more than one.”
“I’ll give you two. A … ” Terrance said, nodding to the bar. “You sticking it in her.”
Rick opened his mouth, but Terrance cut him off.
“B: Carolyn Coffman sticking it to you.”
Rick snorted. “You need your head examined.”
Terrance went back to his pie. “One of us does.”
Rick shoved his hands in his pockets and felt the paper again. “You’re probably right about that.”
He heard Terrance laugh as he saw the girl’s eyes widen when he started for the bar.
“So you turning down cats with Rolexes?”
She smiled. “I didn’t want a Rolex.”
“What did you want?”
“You.”
Coy shit. But he was curious. “How’d you find me?”
“They say Zeus stays here now.” She shrugged. “I figured you would too.”
Rick wondered who ‘they’ were. “Clever.”
“Thank you.” She reached for his waistband, but he stepped back.
“I’m kinda on a tight schedule.”
She leaned against the back of the stool. “How tight?”
He didn’t really know anymore since Terrance had taken up some with his metaphors. “Twenty minutes.” She gave him a disappointed look. Rick shrugged. “Up to you.”
As she stood up, he glanced back to Terrance, who did his whipped cream demonstration again. Right. He got it.
The girl started bitching when he passed up the elevator.
“I heard they’re real slow,” he said. “It’s only six flights.”
She didn’t like it. By the second landing, he guessed it was her shoes and slowed down for the last four. At the door that opened into the living room, he reached into his pocket for the keycard, then stopped. It was past eleven on a weeknight, and the hallway was empty except for an older woman coming out the elevator. More power to you, lady. Glad you made it.
He waited until she went around the corner, because he didn’t really want to risk a scene.
“So what’s your name?”
She reached her arms around his neck, pressed up against him. “Holly.”
Rick flipped the card between his fingers, kept his arms at his sides.
“Holly,” he said. “You really ain’t staying more than twenty minutes. We gonna have a problem with that?”
Holly pulled herself tighter against him. She was clever, but if she thought grinding against his dick in the hallway was going to distract him, she was just proving what he already knew. She didn’t know him.
“I ain’t playing games. There’s the elevators. Like I said, up to you.” She glanced over her shoulder to the line of coffin doors. Rick lowered his voice. “I ain’t trying to be mean. I just don’t got enough energy left tonight to deal with any misunderstandings.”
She started to look offended.
Rick decided that he didn’t like this. “Take it or leave it.”
Or pick it yourself. Goddamn Terrance. Fucker talked too much. He had picked it. Sort of. “You know what, Holly? Why’nt you catch that elevator.”
“No.”
Rick raised his eyebrows. She eased away from him, took hold of his free hand, and pushed it between her legs. He’d already seen there wasn’t any panty line through the dress. His groin ached when he slid his finger into her. Yeah, T. I’m a go with ‘A.’ He slipped it out again, watched her eyes close. “So we clear?”
After a second, she nodded. He shoved the card into the slot and the light flicked to green.
7: Peter and Poor Taste
Carolyn smiled when she saw the fresh flowers distributed around her suite at the Sherry-Netherland Hotel. She crossed plush carpeting to the desk under the window and switched on her laptop. Peter’s e-mail downloaded as soon as the Wi-Fi connected.
So I’m in Manhattan, and you’re in Manhattan. I understand this anomaly has occurred three times before, but this time … you’re not leaving Manhattan.
Not until Saturday. Every other time she’d been rushing in and out, unwilling to finally meet him face to face at a JFK coffee shop. She scanned Peter’s directions to a spot in Central Park where he was working on a magazine shoot tomorrow. Just for an hour, then she had an evening signing, then after that …
The photographer will be wearing a baseball cap you won’t like. Is it too much to say this, Carolyn? That I can’t help but believe more than geography should perfectly align?
I’ll see you — and talk to you — tomorrow.
Peter
PS: I have a surprise for you.
Carolyn let out a slow breath. She’d never even spoken to him on the phone. Nearly nineteen months since she’d ‘met’ him in an online biracial message board. One post had sent her reeling. Peter had replied to her, privately. Don’t you think you’re being a little idealistic? Or do you never leave the house?
Carolyn appreciated the private reply amid the blast of public slamming.
Yes, I do. But that guy said never. What if my mother’s generation had said forget it, nothing will ever change? I know I’m idealistic, but things have changed — and I’m tired of apologizing for taking advantage of that. And it’s not just about race — I mean, shouldn’t men care more about what was inside women than what’s outside? (Although even I’m not that idealistic.)
He’d replied immediately: Is that a challenge? Or a dare?
That was two years ago, when Eve was on her case about her thri
ft-store clothes, her pony-tailed hair. Carolyn still got more attention than she wanted, all physical. She wanted to be taken seriously. The possibility that he might care about what she thought …
Yeah, baby, I wanna hear every thought you could fathom / but my ears don’t start workin until I had an orgasm.
She gritted her teeth and sent a confirmation to Peter while she forced Rick’s lines from her head. She’d once told Eve that she just liked the way he put things. Carolyn closed the laptop and glanced at the clock, not liking it much when the way he put things mocked her own thoughts. Of all the people in the world to be so attracted to. Ironclad proof that biology didn’t discriminate.
Her cell phone rang just as she collapsed on the sofa.
“Oh, sweetheart,” Liz said. “Did you survive your night?”
Carolyn smiled. Her agent’s first phone call had made her voice tremble with the effort to remain professional. Now it felt like talking to her mother. “Of course I survived.”
“Did you run into that famous rapper?”
“Um … no, actually. No, I didn’t.”
“I swear, the way these girls get caught up with those players.”
Carolyn swallowed. “I don’t understand it either.”
“Honestly, what are they thinking?” Liz sighed. “Well, you’ve heard me carry on about that. How was the signing?”
“Small,” Carolyn said, reaching for the box of chocolates on the coffee table. “I only sold a dozen copies.”
Liz laughed. “I think we’re doing fine.”
That was an understatement. Since she’d hired Walter, her publicist had made sure her book didn’t fall below number seventeen on the New York Times bestseller list.
“I wish I could have been there,” Liz said.
“Really, Liz, I’ve been doing this a while now.” Carolyn unwrapped a chocolate. “And I still think you’re the greatest.”
“And I always love talking to you. How’s the Sherry?”
“Fabulous. I’m sitting on the sofa, admiring the artwork, and — ” Carolyn nibbled the edge of the chocolate “ — melting Godiva on my tongue as we speak. I don’t think I can act as sophisticated as the place expects me to.”
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