“Stop it. I’m late. I’m not a groupie, and I’m not an idiot either.”
“That ain’t what I said.”
Carolyn covered her face with her hands, dark hair falling forward. “I can’t believe I’m saying this. I know. That in some twisted way that was actually a compliment.” She finally looked at him. “Rick, I have to go — ”
“But — ”
“Let me finish!” Carolyn waited for a second, like she was making sure he would. “I’m glad you came, because I did want to apologize for what I said to you last night, and because I never got the chance to tell you that I think you’re incredible. And I really hope you make it, because I never heard anybody who deserves it more than you do.”
The words sank in, he saw the seriousness in her eyes, and he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. Carolyn lifted one shoulder with a halfway smile. She started to turn away and he wanted to grab her arm, ask if she could run that by him one more time. Because he felt the same way he did last night, when they caught her on camera.
Why did it matter what she thought?
She gave him another shrug — maybe she didn’t know why either — and he turned to watch her go. She disappeared around the corner, back to the elevators. That felt pretty damn familiar, except instead of Terrance laughing, Rick had the desk clerk giving him a look.
He glanced at the revolving exit door, took a step toward it, then turned around, crossed the lobby to the front desk. Didn’t make Dan the Desk Clerk happy, but Rick was low on sympathy. “You got a piece of paper?”
Daniel didn’t have to hand it over, and they both knew it. He raised his eyebrows, asking if Rick thought it’d really help him now. The guy probably couldn’t imagine some of the shit Rick had stood still for. With an audience.
Whatever, Daniel. Lay it on me.
He slid over piece of hotel stationery. “Two minutes.”
“What?”
He didn’t answer, except to look at his watch.
“You mind giving me a pen before you start the clock?”
The clerk crossed his arms. “I don’t have to give you anything.”
The irony was a killer. Rick had spent most of his life with paper stuffed in his pockets, gas receipts, junk mail envelopes, anything with blank space on it. Now, and for months, he was walking around without so much as a pen on him. Because he’d had no use for one.
Daniel heaved a sigh full of drama and passed it over. “Two minutes.”
So he didn’t have time to argue. He moved to the far end of the counter and started scribbling. He was scrawling his name halfway down the paper when the clerk cleared his throat. Rick looked up, thinking time was a lot more relative than it ought to be.
“Sixty seconds,” Daniel said.
It took Rick almost a beat to remember why those two words came with an instant rush. Then he smiled.
He felt the clerk watching when he put the pen back to the paper. 60 seconds.
11: Live on the Radio
“Once again, we’d like to thank our guest this morning.” Karen Hunter, co-host of the WWRL Morning Show, smiled at Carolyn. “The book is Fighting the Pheromone Factor, written by Carolyn Coffman, who finally decided to come see us — ”
“Now wait a minute,” Steve Feuerstein, the other host, said. “You make it sound like she’s been avoiding us. How many times have we talked to you, Carolyn? Three? Four?”
Carolyn grinned her thanks to her defender. “Twice, I think.”
“I said she came to see us,” Karen said. “Not call us on the phone from California.”
Carolyn laughed. Karen had been one of her book’s first public supporters. Once the title shot up the charts, she asked for a second phone-in interview. That was when Carolyn promised that the next time she was in New York, she’d come to the studio and even join the call-in party after the interview. The half-hour had flown; now the clock showed just ninety seconds remaining.
“We have time for one more call,” Karen said.
Carolyn took a quick swallow of water. More talking could be squeezed into radio time than she’d ever imagined.
Steve started the call. “Sadie from Brooklyn. Do you have a question for Carolyn?”
The woman’s voice sounded hesitant in Carolyn’s headphones. “I just … I don’t know — I’ve read your book, I’ve listened to you and watched you, but … ”
Carolyn glanced at the clock in the second’s pause.
“Well, you’ve got her now,” Karen said. “What’s your question, Sadie?”
“This is so embarrassing. He’s my boss.”
Carolyn held back a sigh. “Sounds like it might be time for a new job.”
The caller’s hesitancy vanished. “You think I haven’t looked? Ever since the day they brought him in?”
“I’m sorry, Sadie. Surely there’s — ”
“Maybe you’d say I should just quit. I got kids to feed.”
Carolyn glanced at Karen, whose sympathetic look strengthened her. “I know, but — ”
“No. You don’t. You think everyone’s got choices, and that’s not true. All you ever say is run away. But I can’t — I’ve tried. This is the best job I’ve ever had. So what do I do now?”
Carolyn’s mind raced as seconds ticked on the clock. She looked helplessly at Karen, then Steve, but the question wasn’t for them.
“Nothing’s happened yet,” Sadie rushed on, “but you are right about one thing. You can feel it coming. He’s married.”
Carolyn’s hand tightened around the coffee cup.
“So what am I supposed to do when I can’t get away?”
I don’t know. Carolyn closed her eyes and listened to the silence in her headphones. Through a fog, she heard Karen say they were out of time, then took a swallow of water and managed to respond to Karen and Steve’s thanks.
“You’re listening to WWRL, New York’s Urban Talk, on 1600 AM.”
I never meant to say I had all the answers.
All the way down to the lobby, she fought back tears, wishing she were sure her distress was over the caller’s pain rather than her own embarrassment. She fled the Seventh Avenue building to the safety of her waiting car. The driver knew her destination and seemed to recognize that she didn’t want to make conversation. That was as clear as the dead air she’d left hanging on the radio.
Did I ever say I did? Carolyn closed her eyes. She reached for a tissue and caught the flap on the outside pocket of her purse.
Her hand jerked away. After grabbing her blazer upstairs this morning, she’d rushed through the lobby. The desk clerk called after her, raising the envelope in explanation. She’d started to open it on her way out of the lobby … until she realized who must have left it.
What am I supposed to do when I can’t get away?
She’d thought she’d done well to ignore the phone ringing in her suite. She hadn’t even checked the voice mail. The paper inside tore when she ripped through the envelope’s seal.
* * *
Carolyn —
Dan the Desk Clerk’s giving me two minutes.
My cell phone is 216-555-7212
If you don’t want — Terrance is at 216-555-8438
Just don’t get stuck somewhere you can’t get out of — most guys — they just don’t say it. But I’m telling you, it’s the ones that don’t seem like it … Believe me. I know.
Park Lane Hotel room is 632 — don’t know the phone #. I ain’t telling you that so you can I just don’t know if you got anybody to call.
I’m running out of time. Just — watch for the congruence. And —
Thanks. Good coffee.
Rick
* * *
Carolyn blinked at the words. Most guys … believe me. I know.
She stared out the window, not seeing the traffic or the crowded sidewalks, barely hearing the occasional horn blast. The beats at the end of his last album ran through her mind and overrode the noise.
Was I supposed to see the
sign / when he ripped up that trumpet vine?
You told me it was all benign / How would I know you was next in line?
She’d been sucked into the harsh anger in his voice. The song sounded like a story. One that couldn’t be true. She glanced back to the hotel stationery. Rick was merely reinforcing his very solid opinion that she shouldn’t trust him. And by ‘him,’ Rick meant Peter.
She started to refold the paper before she realized there was more.
60 seconds. (didn’t know I was writing so fast) You know what 60 seconds is? 16 bars.
I know what you was thinking
That it’s some kind of jealousy
W That just Orange OJ you was drinking?
You said Ain’t you heard my CDs?
But this talking shit ain’t iner giving me a chance —
Cuz you walking — shit! — and you still in your pants!
And that ain’t funny — even tho it’s true.
And I know this is corny — best I could do
Just don’t let nobody else at it too —
(You hear me Carolyn? I’m counting on you.)
Takes longer to write. Time’s up. Be careful. R
A moment passed before she realized her mouth was open. This was exactly what she’d been wishing for last night, to see the beginning of it, to see where it came from. She had thought it was jealousy. She grinned. Yes, I have heard your CDs. What was I thinking?
She shook her head over the last lines. Don’t let anybody else see this. Not good enough. She re-folded the paper and wondered how she would feel if anyone else ever saw the fits and starts of her horrible attempts at fiction.
“Miss Coffman?”
The driver smiled when she jumped. She smiled back and gathered her things as he got out to open her door. Through the spaces between women smoking on the sidewalk, she saw the display in the store window, the stacks of her book covers. He’d left his cell phone number. If she wanted to, she could probably see him again.
She caught a glimpse of the sign announcing her appearance and shoved the envelope into her purse. She did not want to.
12: Gold Records
“I’m going to the gym.”
“I’m excited.” Rick rounded the corner on the video game track, then cursed when his car crashed into the wall. Terrance acted like it wasn’t his fault. When Rick’s cell phone vibrated in his pocket, he jerked it out, checked the display, and cursed again. Silent since last night, and here he’d been thinking the bitch might have finally given up. He tossed it on the coffee table and went back to the race.
“You expecting someone?” Terrance asked.
Rick shook his head and concentrated on the video game Terrance had hauled to New York in one of his seven hundred suitcases.
Terrance’s phone rang, and he checked the caller. “Asshole.”
“I didn’t call you.”
Terrance flipped open the phone. “Yeah?”
Rick heard Mary blathering when Terrance held the phone away from his ear.
“You might want to talk to him, Mary. What do you want me to do about it?” Terrance shot a glare at Rick, like it was his fault he’d answered the damn phone. “Okay. Okay. I will.”
He hung up. “Mary says to tell you she called.”
“Thanks.”
“She sounds sane today.”
“That’s when you really gotta watch out.”
Terrance pocketed his phone and hotel keycard. “You coming?”
“I got work to do.”
Terrance glanced at the television. “You do look busy.”
“Go lift your weights, T.”
“You sure you don’t want to join me?”
Rick flipped him off, which only made Terrance laugh as he started for the door.
The car hit the wall again. “Yo, T? Don’t answer it next time.”
Terrance gave him a long look from the doorway. Then he left.
Rick’s phone buzzed again. He’d have to call Mary back to tell her to quit treating Terrance like he was a damn secretary. Later. He almost shut the thing off. He had work to do, and he’d spent half the day worrying about a girl he didn’t know meeting a guy she didn’t know. He had his own problems and she could take care of herself. So she’d said.
Terrance wouldn’t lay off that gym shit, either. He’d never even thought about that, working ten-hour days in Duke’s garage, but he hadn’t wrestled so much as an oil filter since last summer, when he’d figured out he could survive without working there. Thanks to Guillotine.
Maybe Terrance was right. Not that he’d be climbing fake steps at a fitness center. Christ. He dug out his mp3 player. Again. For “inspiration,” Zeus had said. Get it? Inspiration? From a god?
Rick started them up again, like the hundred and seventh time would be a charm, and dropped face down on the floor. His arms shook on the last push-up he could manage. Twenty-three? He must have lost count. He forced himself up once more and collapsed on the carpet with sweat dripping off his face. He closed his eyes, but the inspiration didn’t come in fifty sit-ups either, before he sat up for good and saw the phone lighting up again.
He cursed himself for checking the display. This was his goddamn fault. He’d had a clean break, no word for a month, and all he’d had to do was keep it that way. Then Jesse had called him in March, just four weeks after the last tour started. Their grandmother had died of a heart attack, did Rick want to come back for the funeral? Not really. Would he come back anyway?
Of course he would. Jesse barely knew Violet, didn’t know any of their mother’s relatives. Rick stood with his brother at the cemetery in drizzling snow mixed with rain, the really messy shit, listening to Reverend somebody who clearly hadn’t lived with Violet for five very long years.
Their mother was the only one who didn’t show for the funeral. He heard her oldest sister whisper to the middle one that Lydia must have finally drunk herself to death. Mary had slipped through the small crowd at the grave and stood silently next to him. After a while, she reached for his hand and the familiarity of her mixed up with the history and guilt in his head, and he confused it all again again again with love. Like a damn fool he blew a good run, asked her to come when he flew out the next day. She bitched for fourteen days, then said she supported him when no one else did, and he was so damn sick of hearing it.
She said she wasn’t getting back with him, not again. He asked if that was a promise.
When the taxi honked for her at the motel, she said it didn’t have to be this way, and he said it never seemed to end up any other way, so what the hell was she talking about?
She slung her bag over her shoulder. “You know what I’m talking about.”
Rick spread his hands.
“Give it up,” she said. “Come home.”
“I’m in the middle of a tour.”
“Of piss-ant clubs and shitty motel rooms.”
In case he hadn’t heard her the first hundred times.
“When will you face it, Ricky? This is as good as it’s ever gonna get for you.”
“Never.”
“You’re delusional.”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t see how quitting would fix that.
She stood in the doorway, hand on her hip, glittered red nails on skintight yellow pants, looking like a cheap Chinese restaurant. “It’s been five years.”
The taxi honked again. “Your cab’s waiting.”
She looked around the room crowded with beat-up furniture, the TV bolted down, her gaze finally resting on a piece of gum matted into the carpet. Then she looked straight at him. “This wasn’t my choice.”
Her toneless words shot straight into his gut, where they boiled into a fury that sprang up, hot and alive. “You fucking bitch! I swear to God, Mary — ” He saw the smirk on her face and shoved the anger down. “Stay in this room another minute — ”
“Don’t be so predictable, Ricky. It’s boring.”
The cab honked again. Rick steadied his voi
ce. “I ain’t paying for that.”
She snorted. “Don’t got no money anyhow.”
“Yeah, Mary. I do.” He looked her up and down. “But I won’t spend it on you.”
Her face flushed with anger and this time he laughed. Redheads. Predictable.
She yanked open the motel room door and let in blinding sunlight. “You can’t fuck your way to a gold record, Ricky. That takes talent.”
In both or either? Whatever. She’d slammed the door shut, and he’d actually had the thought that it was finally over. After five goddamn years thinking all he had to do was overlook the fact that she never wavered from her belief that he was no good, that he was never going to make it. That he didn’t deserve it anyway.
I think you’re incredible. And I really hope you make it, because I never heard anybody who deserves it more than you do.
Christ. No wonder he choked in that damn lobby this morning.
The beats in his ears ended in deafening silence, and he still had nothing. Rick ripped the earphones off. He was out of the shower and out the door before Terrance came back from his workout. Mary had finally quit calling — for now — and the phone was still on the tenth time he checked on the way downstairs. Good thing Zeus was putting up a shitload of cash for a place he couldn’t sleep or be awake in. Once he went through the revolving door, he stopped. The traffic and pedestrian rivers still ran; he couldn’t imagine wading into it. He couldn’t turn around. This wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing.
He was hooking his left earphone on when George appeared next to him, looking like he hadn’t hailed a thousand cabs since Rick saw him last.
“How did it go?” George asked with a cap tip. “If you don’t mind my asking. With the amnesia.”
“Well, her memory’s good. And now there’s more of it.”
George laughed.
“How bout you, George? You get me that line I needed? Time for plan B.”
George put on a sad face. “It’s been too long.”
“Ah, it don’t matter. Turns out there’s competition.”
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