Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  Rick snorted. “Beatrice thinks you idolize me.”

  Jesse crossed his arms. “I’m not a kid anymore.”

  “No, you all grown up. Look how big you are.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “And how good you cuss.”

  “I had a good teacher.”

  Rick laughed, but Jesse didn’t crack a smile. “What’s your problem?”

  Jesse just gave him a look. He wasn’t being taken seriously.

  Rick sighed. “You read it. I’m bad for her.”

  “They say.”

  “I say.”

  “So you decided.”

  “She gonna lose her whole career if — ”

  “Did you even ask her? Did you tell her what you wanted?”

  “You can’t do shit like that.”

  “Why not?”

  Because he knew what that felt like. Rick shook his head.

  “Well, I would ask.”

  “Well, when you get the chance to fuck up somebody’s whole life, you go right ahead.”

  “Why do you think you’d fuck it up, maybe — ”

  Rick turned on him. “You’re reading this shit. What are they saying about her? Why is that fucking song making me money now?”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about!”

  “Jesse — ”

  “No, Ricky, you listen to me for once. You don’t know how much it sucks being on the other end of it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about how you think — it’s always about you. I hated that song — no, not that one, my song. And it never stopped. Everything you ever write about me is one-sided. They took you away from me, too, you know.”

  “You were a baby.”

  “I was not! Dad told me that Mom — that Beatrice thought it’d be better if I just started over. But she couldn’t stand it, because I was crying myself to sleep every night. For you.”

  Rick heard Jesse’s voice crack, and he didn’t want to look.

  “I don’t remember that,” Jesse said after a second. “Dad told me. He said I probably blocked it out. First thing I remember about that house is you in the front yard. You were crying, and I never saw you do that before. Or since.”

  If Jesse didn’t shut up, he might get the chance.

  “She’s sorry. Beatrice is.”

  Rick snorted. “Yeah, she all warm and fuzzy now.”

  “You don’t give her a chance.”

  “Been a long time.”

  “And you think she was right, you always have. You act like my life would have been perfect if you hadn’t interfered in it. Like I wouldn’t have heard the word ‘fuck’ if you weren’t my brother.”

  “Maybe not so early.”

  Jesse finally smiled and shut up for almost a whole half-mile. “I snuck out after you sent me that song from Miami.”

  “You never snuck out.”

  “I told Dad I was going to Corey’s house, but I walked to the train station, rode it to Shaker Square. But when I got to the busses, I couldn’t figure out where to go.”

  “Where were you wanting to go?”

  “Ninety-Third Street.”

  “Christ — alone?”

  “That’s where you came from every week when you were thirteen.”

  “Yeah, but … ” It was also where he got his ass kicked every week. “What the hell were you thinking?”

  “I was thinking: ‘how did he do this?’ Because I couldn’t figure it out, but I was so glad you did. That’s what I wanted to tell you, when you came back, I wanted to say thank you for doing that. Because I was afraid for a long time that everything would disappear again, and they’d take me away and move me somewhere else. And I’d just keep telling myself it didn’t matter if they did, because they could move me anywhere, and you would still find me, you would still be there on Saturday.”

  Jesse’s voice had started to sound thick. Rick kept his focus on the giant interchange for I-77. The green sign announced the next major city.

  “I never got to say thank you. Because you never came back from Miami. Not really.”

  The sign said Akron. It had always said Akron.

  “If you won’t ask, at least don’t make her listen to how you never did anything for her.”

  Rick flicked on his blinker for the turn, glanced up at the glass elevators on the Crown Center. “I did plenty.”

  “That wasn’t your fault.”

  He didn’t answer, and Jesse gave him a look, so Rick said, “I listened, but I don’t agree with you.”

  Jesse shrugged. “That doesn’t mean I’m wrong.”

  Rick pulled into the parking lot where Zeus leaned against the back of his rented SUV. He checked his watch on the beat with Rick’s glance at the digits on his stereo. Four minutes early, he’d get to keep his whole ass another day.

  He parked next to the Lexus. “Was a time I was real into getting you to talk.”

  Jesse bumped his fist to his chin.

  “You ain’t welcome.” Rick shoved open the car door. “Now, go inside, sit down in the lobby and be quiet. If we look like we a gang of thugs rolling blunts in the bathroom, they gonna kick us out.”

  Jesse obeyed, probably because he’d heard the same speech from Zeus yesterday.

  “And pull your pants up,” Rick called after him.

  Zeus grinned. “You’re three minutes early.”

  “Four,” Rick said. “Your watch is fast.”

  Zeus fired up a cigarette. “Louis called. They’re gonna hunt you down if you don’t give them an interview.”

  Rick glanced around the wooded parking lot. “They ain’t gonna be looking here.”

  “I told him if you wait, it’ll be bigger when you do talk.”

  That seemed to be Zeus’s strategy; he never gave interviews. Rick leaned on his car and watched Zeus blow a smoke ring. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “You just did,” Zeus pointed out.

  Rick glanced at the front of the studio. It was built in a circle, without a single parallel surface inside, so the sound waves couldn’t bounce. It might have been the silence yesterday that made him finally comprehend her whisper.

  Just ask why he came to Cleveland. Maybe it’s not so bad.

  Zeus took another drag off the cigarette, his watch lifting with his arm.

  “Why’d you come up here?”

  Zeus raised his eyebrows. “I like it up here. Catch the breeze off the lake.”

  “We’re fucking miles from the lake. You got a whole ocean out your back door.”

  “Actually, it’s down the stairs.”

  “I gotta know.”

  Zeus looked at him for a long time. Finally, he said, “Second time you asked to move the date back, I figured this would be better.”

  “Better how?”

  “Thought you just didn’t want to come to Florida. Bad shit kept happening to you there. So I called around, they have these data lines here, leave Jimmy in my studio, link up, you do your shit here. No big deal.”

  Except for the cost. “That’s it?”

  “You had a lot riding on this album, I figured it was worth it to keep you happy.” Zeus started for the front door. “Or what passes for happy with you.”

  Rick followed him. “I’d a been fine.”

  Zeus nodded, but he didn’t say anything else. So that was it.

  He didn’t know how she’d guessed, but he knew this was still costing too much. “After this — ” Rick lifted his chin toward the building “ — I don’t want you producing me no more.”

  Zeus tossed his butt in a tin bucket on the sidewalk. “You unhappy with my work?”

  “Hell, no. I’m unhappy you ain’t getting paid what you’re worth.”

  Zeus raised his eyebrows as he pulled open the glass door. “I’m worth millions.”

  The cold air made Rick shiver. Zeus gave the receptionist a broad smile, and Rick glanced around for Jesse.

  The receptionist saw him l
ooking. “Brian took him in the studio.”

  Brian was the engineer they’d worked with yesterday, so he thought that was all right. Zeus started around the curve, and Rick changed the subject since Zeus was ignoring him anyway.

  “Did you clear the sample I wanted?” he asked.

  “I just heard your song yesterday,” Zeus said.

  “Well, if we can’t clear the sample, maybe we could just get the compulsory license.”

  Zeus turned slowly and stared at him.

  Rick shrugged. “I mean, they gotta sell you that, that’s what compulsory means.”

  “Yes, Mister Vocabulary, that’s what compulsory means.”

  Rick ignored him. “It’s an eighties pop song. What is that, like three notes in the chorus?”

  “No. It’s four notes.”

  Rick hesitated. “Was I being disrespectful?”

  Zeus made a noise that sounded like a snort or a laugh and started for Studio 3.

  “Let me get this straight.” Zeus pulled open the outer door. “See if I’m hearing you right.”

  “You heard me.” Rick glanced through the right interior door’s window, saw Jesse on the couch. Behaving himself. “It’s just an idea.”

  “Sounds like an idea I heard before,” Zeus said. “‘Try singing that hook’ — yeah wait. It sounded exactly like that, my voice and everything.”

  “I heard you the first thirty times.”

  “Can’t get the compulsory license,” Zeus said, “because you’re altering the song. But I still like your idea.”

  He reached for the second door, and Rick put his hand on it. “I’m serious about that other thing. I don’t want you wasting more paper on me.”

  “I never waste money, Rick. I invest it.”

  “Zeus — ”

  Rick stopped, because he was talking to his back and the commotion inside the studio.

  “Time, on the other hand,” Zeus said loudly, “runs like water through a sieve when Ricky Rain’s around.”

  They all laughed, but Rick heard what he was saying. Carnage wanted the masters yesterday. Not a big surprise.

  Zeus spoke into the air. “Jimmy, how’s the weather down there?”

  Jimmy’s disembodied voice came through the speakers. “Raining in Miami, too. But no lightning.”

  “We should be able to take care of that from here.” He lifted his chin in Rick’s direction. “You ready?”

  Rhetorical question. Rick pushed open the door to the recording booth.

  48: Tabloid Fever

  Ashley raised both arms straight over her head. One hand held the fax page that had just spit from the machine in her office. “What time is it?”

  Dwayne answered. “Three-thirty.”

  “Is that too early for champagne?” Ashley dropped the page on the table in front of her. “That’s the story running in People next week. Read it and weep, Carolyn Coffman. You’re nothing but a blurb.”

  Carolyn scanned the three-line paragraph, then searched the words again, just to be sure, before she slumped into a chair. “It’s just about the new book.”

  “That’s right baby.” Ashley high-fived Dwayne. “We rock.”

  “Oh, my God.”

  A whoop from Ashley’s crew drowned out Carolyn’s words. It was only Friday. One week had gone by, in a blur of interviews, book signings, hotels and rushed trips to airports. She read the words again. Could it be possible?

  Dwayne popped a cork from a bottle. A moment later, he held a glass to her.

  Carolyn accepted it with a trembling hand. “I don’t know what to say.”

  Ashley spread her arms; sparkling wine sloshed the rim of her glass. “Say ‘Thank you, Ashley’ for returning me to the un-gossip-worthy lives of people who just write books. And for doing it in one week’s time.”

  “Thank you Ashley. Thank you.” She looked around at the four people who’d worked night and day to turn her into a blurb. “It’s not enough, but thank you.”

  They clinked glasses together, before beginning the war stories of the past week, near misses and episodes that hadn’t been funny at all. Until now.

  One hit had been from Liz, who faxed her thirty-day notice yesterday, making Carolyn an agent-less blurb now. Ashley hadn’t been forgiving, but Carolyn couldn’t rouse herself to care.

  The bubbles tickled her nose. Seven straight days of non-stop worrying, unending fatigue, the stress of always being on. Maintaining the façade of emotions she was allowed to display, forcing back the ones she wasn’t. Until she crawled into another empty hotel bed and gave herself permission to cry.

  Someone turned up the stereo and she watched Size-Zero-Marcia shaking with Dwayne to Bow Wow’s latest spin on the radio.

  Ashley appeared at her side. “It’s over,” she said softly. “Really.”

  Carolyn searched her face for the assurance that her words were true. She found what she was looking for and felt her eyes fill. “What about the contract?”

  “Went to his manager today. They’ll counter, but it’s a done deal.”

  Carolyn exhaled a long shudder of relief. “Thank you.”

  Ashley hugged her. “You’re my favorite client, you know that?”

  “I don’t want to be on your wall.”

  Ashley turned and pointed. “I was going to put you in that empty spot by him.”

  Carolyn looked at the hard face in line with Ashley’s finger. “But he would stab me the second you turned the lights out.”

  Ashley laughed. “He’s a doll.”

  Carolyn shook her head, and Ashley grinned before she took another swallow of champagne. The woman had been a tight ball of barking orders and boundless energy for seven days straight, but now she joined the impromptu dance party.

  When Carolyn sank back to her chair, Dwayne appeared to top off her glass and take the seat next to her. He looked tired.

  “She drives you hard, doesn’t she?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “She’s fun about it.” He took a sip from his own glass and made a face. “Why do people drink this stuff?”

  Carolyn smiled. “Not a sippin-on-Cristal kind of guy?”

  He shook his head and set down the glass. One of the dancing assistants let out a yelp, and Carolyn turned to see her almost go down. When she looked back to Dwayne, he was frowning.

  “Something wrong?”

  He shook his head. “This is highly inappropriate.”

  Carolyn lifted her glass. “It’s five o’clock somewhere.”

  “Would you have dinner with me tonight?”

  The shock must have been all over her face, judging by the look on his. “I’m sorry, Dwayne. You caught me by surprise.”

  “I see that.”

  It was more relief, a confirmation that she’d been as convincing to him as she hadn’t been to Ashley. And that what Ashley knew had remained secret, even from her staff.

  “You do know,” Carolyn said lightly. “I’d need a full FBI background check. And just out of curiosity, have you written any songs? Ever? About anything?”

  He grinned. “I only write press releases.”

  She couldn’t imagine anyone but Rick anymore. Maybe forever. “I’m sorry, Dwayne. It’s nothing personal.”

  He raised his eyebrows, and she tried to think of something else to say, but the music suddenly vanished.

  Walter Landrieu stood across the room next to the stereo. She hadn’t seen him since last Friday. His gaze was steady on Carolyn.

  “Did you ever quote any lyrics?” he asked. “Say at a reading, some months back?”

  “No, never, why would I?”

  “In Iowa?” Walter finished.

  “Have I been to Iowa?” A vision of a few women in a tiny bookstore broke through the murky surface of Carolyn’s abysmal memory. “Oh, my God.”

  Walter’s jaw set hard.

  Ashley looked confused. “What’s going on?”

  “The Star called me half an hour ago,” Walter said evenly. “It’s posted on t
heir website now.”

  “Fucking tabloids.”

  “Yes, Ashley.” Walter glared at her. “That’s why they called me. Because you won’t speak to them!”

  Dwayne vaulted for the computer behind the Plexiglas divider filled with notes, the trails of media contacts and the results of those contacts for the past week.

  There wasn’t a tabloid among them.

  Ashley waved Walter away. “Because speaking to them gives them legitimacy. What the hell happened?”

  Walter turned to face Carolyn. “Do you remember now?”

  She’d forced all those early speaking horrors from her mind. Carolyn looked helplessly at Ashley. “I swear, I just forgot. It was in January — before I hired Walter. His last album had just come out … the ‘Fairy Tale’ song. I quoted two lines, said wouldn’t it be nice if they all said what they meant like that?”

  Ashley took a deep breath.

  “It was stuck in my head,” Carolyn said. “That was all. And I was trying … ” For a laugh she hadn’t received. “It was in the middle of a snowstorm, hardly anyone was there — ”

  “Someone was.” Walter’s eyes bored into her. “She was on vacation in Paris and came home yesterday. She taped your talk that night, and motivated by cold cash to pay off her hotel bills, she sold the tape.”

  No happy ever after for you, Princess. Carolyn swallowed and looked at Ashley. “I swear to God, Ashley. I just forgot about it.”

  “It’s not your fault.” Ashley turned to Walter. “I told you. I told you and I told you. You arrogant prick.”

  “You — ”

  “Me? Did I insist that we fucking lie? Goddamn it, Walter! Your prejudice blinded you and you have the balls to blame her for a lapse in memory?” Ashley snatched a printout from Dwayne’s outstretched hand and scowled as she read it. “Shit.”

  Walter stabbed a finger at the page. “How do you plan to deal — ”

  “I could have dealt with it already! It would have meant nothing! WE DON’T LIE!” She was half a foot shorter than him, but Ashley’s rage seemed to push him backwards. “But no, Walter, you couldn’t deal with your high-yellow princess fucking around with a white boy, could you? And a goddamn rapper! Jesus Christ.”

  “You little bitch.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Walter. You turned your back on them because they don’t represent the image you want out there. You’re no better than the goddamn modeling agencies hitting up light-skinned kids in the grocery store.”