Diamond Life

by Aliya S. King

  “I’m an idiot?” Bunny screamed. “You have random girls in your hotel room all night and I’m an idiot?!”

  Zander took all the strength he had left and slammed Bunny down on the couch in the front room of the hotel.

  “Look at me, Bunny,” he said softly. Bunny kept her eyes shut tight.

  “I said look at me.”

  Bunny slowly opened her eyes and glared at Zander.

  “I love you.”

  Bunny squirmed, struggling to get out of Zander’s grasp.

  “Just stop and listen to me,” said Zander, still holding her arms down firmly.

  Zander finally felt Bunny stop resisting and go limp in his arms. It always came to this. Zander did something to piss her off. Bunny went buck wild. And then he had to try to subdue her before he lost his temper and smacked the shit out of her (which she wanted) or she caused some kind of irreparable damage to something (or someone).

  “I should not have had that chick up here,” Zander said.

  Bunny just glared at him.

  “But you gotta meet me halfway, Bunny. You can’t always try to kill someone when you get pissed off.”

  “Your problem is that now that you’ve dropped a record, you think you can do whatever you want,” Bunny said.

  “I grew up in this,” Zander said. “You know I’m not fazed by any of this shit. If this don’t work out for me, I’ll be right at Rutgers getting a degree in communications.”

  “Girls want your autograph, your picture . . . you love that shit.”

  “What about you?” Zander asked, slowly letting his body cover hers on the couch. “You think I don’t see how guys look at you?”

  Zander thought he saw the slightest smile on Bunny’s face and his body relaxed. Still holding her arms pinned above her head, he leaned in and kissed her on the lips. Bunny moved her hips beneath him and got him hard without even touching him with her hands.

  “Did you have sex with that girl?” Bunny asked, between kisses.

  “I swear to God, I didn’t touch her.”

  “Don’t lie to me, Zander.”

  Zander pulled away a bit to look at Bunny’s face. When she was calm, soft, and vulnerable, he was in awe of how beautiful she was. Her eyes, dark brown and wide, drew him in. There was something angelic about her—when she wasn’t trying to kill him.

  “I will not lie to you, Bunny,” said Zander, grinding himself slowly on top of her. He kissed her neck and finally let go of her arms. She wrapped them around his back and squeezed him hard. By the third time they’d climaxed together, all was forgiven. Again. Hours later, wrapped up in the hotel bedsheets, Zander pressed Bunny’s small head to his chest and kissed the top of her head. He tried hard to remember the last time they’d had sex without fighting first. He couldn’t think of a single time. He thought back to his childhood, when the sounds of his parents’ screams and the heavy thump of bodies being slammed into walls and onto the floor would eventually segue into loud moans and groans as the night wore on.

  “You see Billboard numbers this week,” Zander asked, his hand winding through her hair.

  “I dropped three spots . . .” said Bunny. “You moved up to eleven. Congratulations.”

  “Give me another month, I’ll pass you right on by.”

  “Not with that crappy video you just shot,” Bunny snapped.

  Zander laughed.

  “Look, when you learn how to dance, maybe you’ll have a halfway decent video.”

  “When I learn how to what?” Bunny sat up and looked back at Zander. “You’re insane.”

  “You dance like a wooden toy soldier.”

  Zander and Bunny collapsed into laughter until heavy knocks at the door interrupted them.

  “Security,” yelled out a deep voice.

  Zander and Bunny looked at each other.

  “You just had to punch that girl,” Zander said, shaking his head. He pulled on a T-shirt and went to the door. He opened it with the chain still on.

  “Yes, sir?” Zander asked.

  “We had a call about a disturbance here a little while ago. A young woman in our lobby is filing a complaint with the NYPD.”

  “I see,” said Zander. He kept the door half-closed. “I’m sure it was just a misunderstanding.”

  “I just thought you should know that the police may be up to question you.”

  “Thanks,” said Zander. “Appreciate you letting me know.”

  Zander shut the door and turned to Bunny, who was still naked under the sheets on the sofa.

  “You think she’s gonna press charges?” Bunny asked.

  “Wouldn’t you?” said Zander. He pulled his legs through his oversized jeans and began lacing up his boots.

  “Should I tell Robert?”

  Robert was Bunny’s manager. He had discovered her and guided her career since the very beginning. He was also a strict disciplinarian who was known for cursing Bunny out when she got out of hand—which was often.

  “You have to tell him,” said Zander. “And he’s going to find a way to make this my fault. As usual.”

  “When I heard you came up here with a bunch of girls last night, I just . . .”

  “I gotta go, Bunny,” Zander said. “I’ve already missed three meetings today and you know our phones are blowing up.”

  Zander turned to Bunny and saw her sitting up straight on the sofa, still naked, her perky breasts poking out of the top of the sheet wrapped around her. She pulled her bag into her lap and took out a small baggie of weed and rolling papers.

  “When the hell did you start smoking?” said Zander, snatching the bag out of her lap.

  “It’s just left over from last night,” Bunny said. “Would you stop freaking out? Since when did a little weed hurt anybody?”

  Zander gave Bunny a look and tossed the weed back onto her lap.

  “I just thought you knew better. That shit will destroy your voice.”

  Bunny blew Zander a kiss.

  “I’ll be fine, Daddy.”

  “What else did you do last night?”

  “I had two drinks and I smoked a little,” said Bunny. “That’s it.”

  “Slow down, Bunny,” Zander said. “Slow down.”

  Bunny stood up, letting the sheets fall around her feet. Zander threw her a towel, which she wrapped around her, and then she walked toward the bathroom.

  “Don’t worry about me,” said Bunny, her hand on the bathroom door. “I got this.”

  A fistful of dollars! A fistful of dollars! All I really need is a fistful of dollars!”

  The chant from the crowd was so loud that it was hard to make out the individual words. The only word Birdie heard clearly was dollars. It was partly because he was at an open-air theater in Tel Aviv. And it was partly because his Israeli fans had accents that made his catchphrase sound a lot different than when he first performed the song to a crowd of fifty at SOB’s in downtown Manhattan.

  Will.I.Am had heard the single at the label offices. He immediately called Birdie and asked him to open for the Black Eyed Peas on an international tour. Prague. London. Paris. Rome. Birdie had seen more of the world in three months than he had in his entire life. It was thrilling. And more than a little bit scary. He hated not knowing the history of the major city he was landing in. And he found himself often sneaking in a call to Alex to ask the difference between Great Britain and the United Kingdom or whether Wales was a part of England or a separate country altogether.

  Tel Aviv had been his favorite city so far. Birdie always thought of bombs, Jesus, and desert when he thought of Israel. But Tel Aviv turned out to be much more than that—it was bright and vibrant and reminded Birdie of Manhattan.

  Onstage, throwing out the fake dollars with his name and photo on them, Birdie was running through his verses, Will.I.Am standing off stage, nodding his head vigorously.

  Birdie stopped rapping abruptly and signaled for the sound tech to stop the music.

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Bird
ie said, mopping his brow with a rag from his back pocket and pacing the stage.

  “My song is called ‘Fistful of Dollars’ and y’all like that joint?”

  The cheers went up in the open-air theater and crushed Birdie with the volume.

  “But y’all ain’t even messing with the dollar right now!”

  Ripples of laughter from the audience.

  “Y’all want a fistful of shekels up in this piece!”

  Birdie signaled to the sound tech, Ras Bennett’s beat dropped and Birdie went in.

  A fistful of shekels! A fistful of shekels!

  All I really want is a fistful of shekels!

  Birdie tore through his last verse, coming back to the chorus one final time. Then he did something he’d dreamed of since he was four years old. He dropped the mic, raised both hands, and screamed “Thank you, Tel Aviv!”

  From backstage, he watched the Black Eyed Peas run through their catalog while mainlining bottled water. Dylan moved around him like a butterfly. The crew from the reality show set up nearby and trained their cameras on both of them.

  “I’m good, Dylan,” Birdie said. “Just chill.”

  “You haven’t eaten since you performed. We have baked chicken and lamb kebobs.”

  Birdie watched Fergie launch into “Big Girls Don’t Cry.”

  “Dylan, I’m a grown man. I managed to feed myself for many years before I got signed.”

  “And if you pass out from exhaustion, I’ll get fired. Just eat some chicken. Please.”

  Birdie laughed and accepted the plate of food. He patted the speaker he was sitting on, inviting Dylan to sit next to him. She climbed up with her clipboard and watched the show with Birdie. After months of working together, Birdie was finally beginning to thaw out his icy feelings for the woman who controlled his daily schedule.

  “It’s the water that really does it for me,” Birdie said.

  “I know, it’s beautiful,” Dylan said. “What’s it like to stand up there and perform, screaming crowds in front of you and a sea of blue water behind them?”

  “No words,” Birdie said.

  The camera crew rotated to get a different view of Birdie. He’d already learned to ignore them. When they stepped to him and motioned that they would like to start shooting, he went into mode. The producer told Birdie they were done for the day and the crew began quietly packing up.

  Dylan shielded her eyes with her hands and peered out toward the water.

  “What body of water is that anyway?” Dylan asked.

  “No clue,” said Birdie. He slipped out his cell phone and held it up. “Let me call my atlas.”

  Dylan laughed.

  “Your wife has to be tired of you calling her for a geography lesson five times a day.”

  Birdie shot a look to the producer of the television show. The producer nodded. No mention of Birdie’s wife was to appear on the show. He didn’t care if people knew he was married; he wore his wedding ring proudly. But their relationship was too delicate to be a plot on a television show.

  Birdie shushed Dylan, covered one ear with his hands, and listened to Alex’s phone ring. He’d called her from the hotel that morning, as soon as he woke up. And he got her voicemail. He called her once more from the tour bus. No answer. And now, again. Nothing.

  Birdie thought back to their last conversation a few days ago. He’d only been half listening because he was in Amsterdam buying legal marijuana. Did she say she was immersed in a story? Was she on deadline? Alex was known to turn off her phone when she had to buckle down and write. Just before he left, she’d gone through the IVF procedure for the third time. So she could have been tired or not feeling well.

  It came to Birdie suddenly. She had met with Z to talk about writing his memoirs.

  Had she agreed to write the book? Or was she just in the negotiating phase? Birdie couldn’t remember. But the realization that she could, at that very moment, be alone with Z, asking him personal questions about his entire life, made him uncomfortable.

  Alex and Birdie were only together because she had broken a cardinal rule in journalism. She was sent to write a story on him. And she ended up sleeping with him.

  Years later, Birdie and Alex had put their beginnings behind them. But now, halfway across the world and unable to get his wife on the phone, doubt crept in. Birdie had talked her into bed with ease. But that was years ago. Could Z do the same?

  Birdie shook the thought out of his head and focused on the show. Alex had never given him a reason to doubt her fidelity. Ever. The distance was messing with his head.

  “Alex, it’s Birdie. Again. I’m saying, this is the fourth voicemail I’m leaving for you today. I hope you’re okay. Call me back.”

  That night, Birdie lay across the bed in his hotel room. There was a knock at the door. He ambled over and looked through the peephole. A busty Israeli woman with too-red lipstick was standing with an equally voluptuous woman.

  “I’m good, ladies,” Birdie said.

  “We know you’re good,” said one woman, in a thick accent. “We’re good too. Can we show you?”

  Birdie shook his head in disbelief. He was no stranger to American groupies in LA, Vegas, and Atlanta. But international pussy-throwing was a completely different variety. He called security and asked them to come up and deal with the girls, then he sat back on the bed and dialed Alex’s number again.

  “Hello?” Alex answered, out of breath.

  “What the hell, Alex?”

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Alex said. “I lost my charger. I just bought another one. Is everything okay?”

  “How’s Tweet?”

  “She’s fine. She’s with her mom.”

  “What happened with Z?”

  “I haven’t decided what to do. I met with him. He has a great story. But I just don’t know if I want to go down that road.”

  “What road?”

  “His story is freaking depressing.”

  “Did you meet with him in person or on the phone?”

  “Both,” said Alex. “Why do you sound like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Like you think I had sex with him or something.”

  “Did you?”

  “Birdie!” Alex yelled.

  “Shit, I’m sorry,” said Birdie. He ran his hands over his face and paced his room. “I don’t know where that came from.”

  “Me either. But it’s not cool.”

  “It’s this trip. Being really far away. My mind starts tripping when your phone goes to voicemail for a whole day.”

  “My marriage vows are valid internationally, Birdie,” Alex said.

  “I know.”

  “No matter where you go, there I am.”

  There was another knock at the door. The groupies were back. Jesus. This time, he wasn’t calling security.

  “Hold on a sec, Alex.”

  Birdie threw open the door, curses ready to fly out of his mouth. And there was his wife, laden with bags.

  “Baby!”

  “I was on the flight, that’s why you couldn’t reach me.” Alex smiled weakly.

  “Get in here!” Birdie picked her up by the waist and hoisted.

  “Wait, Birdie, I’m smelly. I need to shower.”

  “No,” Birdie said, leaning her back onto the bed.

  “Let me bring my bags in . . .” Alex said, in between kissing her husband.

  “No,” Birdie said.

  “Let me take my shoes off at least, Birdie,” Alex said with a laugh.

  “No,” Birdie said, peeling off her clothes and kissing every part of bare skin he could touch.

  Birdie stopped suddenly and touched Alex’s stomach.

  “Are you—Did you . . . What happened with—”

  Alex shook her head slowly from side to side and her eyes filled up quickly.

  “Not this time,” she said.

  Birdie went back to kissing Alex’s neck.

  “It’s okay, baby. Don’t worry. It’s going to
happen.”

  Alex nodded, smiled, and then wiped her eyes. Birdie held her close and stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

  Over breakfast the next morning, Alex and Birdie buried their heads in the news summaries sent up by the hotel.

  “Where are you performing tonight?” Alex asked, between forkfuls of eggs.

  “Off today. Going out on a date with my wife.”

  “Let’s drive out to the Dead Sea! I’ve always wanted to go there!”

  Birdie wiped his mouth with his napkin and placed it back in his lap. He clapped his hands together.

  “Get the info. Let’s go.”

  Alex got up to call the front desk and her cell phone rang.

  “Told you not to get the international joint,” Birdie said.

  Alex spoke to someone for about ten minutes. Birdie tuned out, reading about a suicide bombing that had taken place just two miles away from where he’d performed the night before. He looked out of the tiny sliver of window in their hotel. People were already walking along the beach in Tel Aviv. It was bizarre. From one window, his view was a bright blue sea. From the other window, he could see a bustling city. Manhattan was surrounded by water too, but the Manhattan end of the Hudson River definitely didn’t have any beautiful beaches.

  “It’s official,” Alex said. “I’m doing Z’s book.” Alex flopped into the chair across from Birdie.

  Before Birdie could respond, the camera crew was knocking at the door. Birdie opened the door a crack and told them to come back later. He went back to the breakfast table and looked at his wife.

  “That’s not a good idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s a crackhead.”

  “A reformed crackhead.”

  “Why would he even want to work with you, after Cleo’s book?”

  “I asked him the same thing. He said I was an honest writer. And that’s all he wanted.”

  “Heaped you with praise and that was it.”

  Alex’s eyebrows knitted. She stood up and tied the hotel robe tight around her. “Wait. Birdie. You know this is what I do, right? This is my job. I write books for people.”

  “Yeah. But you don’t have to write them for just anybody.”