by Kat Turner
Brian hummed and fired up the ignition. The engine purred like a kitten; the cliché was true.
“You okay?” His considerate question made double the impact because he was the one in trouble and she should have asked first.
Though she hadn’t eaten all day, the faint gnawing in her belly fled. She tried in vain to press a delete button and erase the thought about Brian being egotistical, but it wouldn’t vanish.
What was wrong with her? He wasn’t that egotistical, but the visual reminders of his fame and success threw her relative insignificance and litany of failures into relief. All of these logical points made sense, but intellectualizing didn’t help. “I’m fine. Tired is all. Long flight.”
“Well, relax and enjoy the ride in a custom-made One-Seven-Seven Aston Martin. While you’re here, I’d love to take you for a cruise down the PCH and show you what she’s made of. Rest assured, it’s not to creep through the traffic we’re about to hit.”
Face boyish in its delight, he yanked the gearshift into drive. He owned the stick, a firm and confident grip. Pulling the wheel in a similarly deliberate tug, hands at the ten and six position, he zipped out of the loading zone and onto the exit ramp. The tune he hummed triggered a memory. He was singing one of his own band’s songs.
Overcome by a low-grade stomachache, Helen resigned herself to emotional defeat as she sank into the swampy bile of her past.
A typical Midwestern girl growing up in the decade she had, she’d spent many a tweener night gazing up at the Fyre posters on her walls, coveting those hot-yet-nice British rockers, good boys playing at being bad who drove hormonal, star-struck girls to the brink of madness.
At thirteen, when she’d seen them live in some amphitheater in Bumblefuck, Minnesota, she’d sworn, as all female peers of her generation did, that Brian had looked right at her during that dumb “Deep Dark Woods” song.
Well, correction, it wasn’t a dumb song. It was a chart topper, a masterpiece, the single that earned Fyre a Grammy and made them a household name.
Her feelings, the meaning she ascribed to Brian and the song, were dumb.
An intoxicating spate of teenage fever dreams followed that false magic moment, school days and lonely nights in un-homes spent fantasizing, at times in embarrassingly specific detail, that she’d make her way backstage at one of their concerts, connect on a soul-mate level, and find herself whisked away from her shitty life by a sensitive rocker white knight.
And now here she was, fifteen-plus years later, riding in Brian Shepherd’s overpriced European car under outlandish paranormal circumstances. Ridiculous. Absurd.
Where was he when she was getting slapped around by that one drunk foster dad? Where the hell was he when she was showing her pussy and asshole for crumpled dollar bills? Probably getting his dick sucked in a car much like this one.
And now she had to save his life. But what happened to her glitzy, rock star savior fantasy? Where had that gone, why hadn’t the universe offered that up when she’d would have chopped off a finger to have it?
In lieu of fulfilment of her youthful wish, she got bungled witchcraft, a curse, and the toxic adhesive resulting from it binding her and Brian together. Helen swore sometimes that she was the butt of a cosmic joke.
She bit down on her tongue and stared into the space in front of her, a fleet of red taillights like alligator eyes peeping out of black bayous. God, she had a shitload of unresolved issues, and the present instant managed to trigger every single one of them.
Brian addressed her silence with a patient murmur. “You aren’t obligated to talk to me. It’s not lost on me that you’re putting yourself out on my behalf. This is stressful for you. I want you to know I care. And that if you want to talk, I’m here to listen.”
She crunched a mint, its wintergreen sting burning away the funk. Unfair to lash out at Brian because, after all of these years, she still sorta low-grade hated herself and the idea of him swirled around the outer orbit of that hate field.
In fact, allowing such toxicity to run amok was super unfair and messed up. Because as easy at it was to resent Brian for his money and status and inability to save a younger version of her, he was innocent. A victim of her mistakes.
“I’m trying to be more emotionally intelligent, more measured in my reactions to things, but sometimes I melt down and get really angry. That’s as best as I can explain it right now,” she said.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked as the car nudged forward.
In the slow-moving cell, there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to run and hide from the clusterfuck of her feelings, the decades of garbage floating up from her subconscious, the unbearable impulse to rapidly regress.
“No.” She scratched the tops of her thighs, the repetitive motion making a series of comforting friction sounds. “It’s hard for me to talk to people, to be vulnerable. Instead I get pissed off and retreat into this cyclic fixation on my grievances from the past. I swear I’ve had therapy. Probably not enough. Nothing is ever enough.”
Brian stroked the steering wheel in those practiced and deliberate touches of his, as if he wanted to massage meaning out of the leather circle.
“I can relate to feeling like nothing is ever enough,” he said.
Maybe if she eased up on the angst valve, a better version of herself could breathe in Brian’s presence. He’d oxygenate her potential by recognizing it. He was genuine, integrated, generous. A bit cocky, sure. But his pride was commensurate with actual meteoric achievements—the man was no narcissist steeped in delusions of grandeur, no overcompensating Napoleonic nobody.
“How so?” she asked.
A comfortable silence expanded throughout their bubble, soft illumination from the dashboard contributing to the sense of personal, reserved bonding. The car made for a confession booth, with he and she alternating roles of priest and parishioner.
“When I feel overwhelmed, or afraid, I focus on success and money and material possessions. I still find myself looking to money and things when feeling certain emotions is just too bloody hard. I revel in consumption to fill the hole in my heart, I suppose, and of course no matter how much stuff I have, stuff will never suffice to bring me spiritual wholeness. Which means I’m not blameless in this. My involvement with Joe arose from greed.”
“Fair.” Her voice came out croaky. She cleared her throat, some of the hard and brittle dirt inside crumbling with a detoxing breath, a yogic lesson. Breathe in positivity, breathe out negativity. Unknot fury and heal the grief beneath it. “I have a hole in my heart, too. More like a rotten pit, but I digress.”
He turned his head, cheek muscle twitching with a melancholy bend of the lips. “Seems we’re a bit of a pair in that regard. It took me so long to even begin to figure out how to fill that void, that screaming gap threatening to suck up everything. When I was younger and the band was starting out, during our first stateside tour in particular, I sought fulfilment in every single cocked up way you can imagine. Drinking, drugs, surrounding myself with an entourage of flatterers and fake friends. Buying junk just to spend money. Sex with people I didn’t care about—that one probably took the biggest pieces of my soul. And I wondered why I kept feeling worse and worse despite doing more and more of those things. Stupid of me, not to see the truth in front of my face. I’m still struggling with the materialistic mindset, chasing external validation and victory and such, but I’m trying to be better.”
Brian deserved more credit. He’d figured a lot out, accrued a king’s ransom of wisdom while navigating, as a young man, a career and lifestyle set up to reward and enable hedonism and excess.
“I am, too. Trying to be better. But I could try harder. And I admire you for everything you’ve done,” she said.
“Not sure how admirable I am, but thank you. And I look up to you as well, to have achieved so much after everything you went through. So don’t sell yourself short. We’re both works in progress.”
Her guard lowered enough for her to ackn
owledge that she liked, she really liked, the ongoing and consistent way that Brian rolled the two of them into a “we.” A team, which they needed to be to solve the problem plaguing their lives. Fixing their broken pieces, together, might come later.
In the left lane, a Jaguar the color of earwax inched by. A hirsute, shirtless man hung out of the passenger seat, shaking a fist and hurling invective at Brian’s rolled-up window.
Helen studied his tirade with a blend of discomfort, amusement, and empathy. She taught yoga for important reasons, and with conviction. To help others, and herself, let go of all of the crap and embrace the Zen.
“You think he has a hole in his heart, too?” she asked.
Brian threw his head back and let rip a peal of laughter, the roundness and timing blasting tension into smithereens. He cast a baleful glance at the provocateur. “Among other issues, I’d wager.”
Glittery with spontaneity, she pulled her wallet from her satchel and slipped out one of the free class cards. Of course the random dude wouldn’t come to Minneapolis, but the thought counted. She handed the card to Brian and bent her head at the commotion beyond his Aston Martin. Brian took her offering, shared a knowing look with her, and rolled down his widow.
Screaming Dude accepted, scowled at the paper rectangle in his hand, and threw the card onto the street. But at least he quit yelling and rolled up his window.
“Oh, well,” Helen said.
“You had a good idea. Some people are inconsolable.”
“Wonder what his problem is.”
“That kind of thing happens all of the time here. He might have a gripe with me stemming from something in the past, some beef with one of my band members or ex-manager.”
The invocation of Joe cast a pall over the car, Brian’s indirection and censorship of the man’s name worsening the discomfiture. A figurative specter now haunted them. The crisp fragrance of perfumed ornamental trees became a stifling miasma. So much for nixing tension. No better time than the present to yank off the sticky bandage.
“That reminds me, what did you want to talk about before we got in the car?” she asked.
“Ah, God.”
And here they went, careening down the road to hell once again. While stalled on an actual road, going nowhere. There had to be some symbolism. Helen let out a sarcastic snicker.
At times like these, one really did have to make a choice between tears and laughter.
“Lay it on me.” Hey, this was becoming her catchphrase. Boo-yah, and stuff.
“The clone we talked about showed up again, after I rang you. She stuck a hand through my body then vanished into nothing. She put marks on me, or took credit for an injury.”
Helen rubbed her forehead. A nearby car’s honking horn set off a flurry of successive bleats, their cacophony worsening the chaos in her head. “Are you okay? Hurt?”
“I’m fine. A bruise is all. I can’t say for certain if she really caused the wound or was bluffing to try to scare or rattle me.”
Sharp edges of the grimoire pressed into her flesh through her bag, the book making its presence known like a dead albatross. “Did she offer any clues, anything I might be able to work with? Hints as to the locations of the crystals, the next steps of their plan?”
“Vague threats. She said that Joe was a pawn in the scheme, that they would kill him after he’d served his purpose. And that she was confident you wouldn’t be able to stop her.”
A jab of indignation spurred Helen. “She has another thing coming.”
There was the whole “ban on Left Hand spells” issue to navigate, but Helen wasn’t about to swallow this doppelganger’s slight like some pathetic loser. She needed a win, bad.
“There’s my Helen.” After saying her name, he trailed off.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s silly. I realized I didn’t know your middle name.”
“It’s Britney. With one “t” and an “e.””
“Helen Britney Schrader. Brilliant.”
“It’s schlocky, but you’re sweet. What’s your middle name?”
He made a face like he’d eaten a lemon. “Not telling. It’s too awful.”
She pushed his arm, a gentle shove. He replied with a theatrical flop to one side, affectionate nonverbal play. “Middle names are supposed to suck. Tell me.”
“Fine. It’s Eugene.”
“Aw, that’s not so bad. Stately, in fact. Very English.”
He rolled his eyes. “Stop.”
“No way. I declare that we get to steal at least a few minutes here and there to pretend to be regular people who like each other. And that involves the usual get-to-know-you chit chat.”
He took a hand off of the wheel and stroked the half-moon of one of her cuticle beds, a tiny touch so personal as to be huge. “We may not be regular people, but in no way am I pretending to like you.”
She leaned in and rested her head against the firm muscle of his upper arm. “Ditto.”
In the temporary silence of Helen’s calm mind, a picture changed. The two of them weren’t stalled in horrid traffic, they appreciated an opportunity to slow down and reflect. An opportunity to explore more of the odd ties connecting them.
Who knew she’d end up having so much in common with this person, someone so famous, so far away, so high above her.
But in the moment, awash in traffic and darkness and touches of local color in the form of highway-flanking palm trees and hilly slopes, Helen fell into serenity. She couldn’t say which of the elements had that effect on her, or if it was the intangible woo-woo factor created by their gestalt, but the old higher power was a tease when it came to showing its enigmatic machinations.
“What are you thinking about?” Brian’s question had a dreamlike aspect, as if he’d siphoned off a drink of her contemplative elixir.
“Right this second? The imperceptible, subtle nature of causality.”
“Ah. Let me guess, you went to university and majored in philosophy.”
“Yep. Good guess. I almost got a PhD, too.” She tipped her head, looking up at the side of his face. She was baby birdlike in the exchange, smaller and younger and dwarfed by his star, and in some safe space way the power dynamic suited her.
“Why almost?” Their hands remained locked, fingers entwined in an interwoven grip.
The closeness of the hold evoked the intimacy of the sex they’d shared, yet surpassed those bedroom delights. Complexity and history thrived in the spaces between their laced fingers.
“Long story short, it was a difficult time in my life. I was working a degrading job and also reading tons of self-help books and doing yoga teacher training to try and fix my damage and better myself. Grad school fell between the cracks. Now tell me more about you.”
“What do you want to know?” He kissed her hair, right on the part.
Beside him, in the force field of his current, Helen yielded. With his small moves, Brian attuned to her needs.
“When did the band form?” The car’s atmosphere was a cozy sanctuary. No pentagrams or spells or insidious clones allowed.
“Ah, yes. We met in secondary school. A bunch of fourteen-year-old lads messing about. The school had a talent show, and a scout showed up. God, what an intense time. The New Wave of British heavy metal reigned. These executives were scouring the UK, Helen. They craved the next Iron Maiden, Zeppelin, Leppard. I could see dollar signs in the man’s eyes.”
“So you guys rang the right bells?”
“Oh, yes. The sound struck his fancy straight away. Our school uniforms triggered an AC/DC association. Bonus.”
“And the name?”
“Jonas, our drummer, is spiritual. A bit like you, actually. He’d recently read this rather strange book, Chariots of the Gods. He had this whole concept. We would be the next big thing, these rock gods who would descend upon the world and take it by storm. In our teen arrogance, we loved it. The vehicle association thrilled us, too. The label wanted an alternative spelling to push the
Zep/Lep button. That’s what they called it. Sometimes I look back and it all seems preposterous.”
“I knew it.” She tugged Brian’s shirt, high on the confirmation of decades-old hunch.
His crow’s feet deepened, and laugh line parentheses popped with his dimples as a whole face smile took over.
“Knew what?” Brian urged her closer, maintaining his one-handed steering. They were like two teens in love in the car, canoodling as unstructured time flowed in circular loops.
The L-word she’d thought, though, didn’t escape the loop. It sailed down the tubes in her brain and heart, a dense pinball ricocheting against the walls. The machine inside lit up, red signs. Danger, danger. If she didn’t stomp the ball of feelings into submission, though, it got less scary. So, with managed expectations and on a trial basis, she let it be.
“I had a strong inkling you got your band name from von Daniken’s interpretation of the Krishna story in The Bhagavad Gita, the whole idea that ancient aliens visited our world and taught us how to evolve. Cosmic astronauts. I would have gone with either the Z or the Y, not both, but I digress.”
“Well, subtlety isn’t exactly the record label’s forte. I’m surprised they didn’t make us slap an umlaut over one of vowels.”
There was much to appreciate about Brian, a ton of stuff in the win column. His dry humor and versatile, sparkling mind. He was mordant, though not cynical, an entertainer with the comedian’s gift of coloring his world. She nuzzled his arm with her cheek, holding his hand like he was the anchor preventing her from flying into outer space untethered.
“Would you sing me a song?”
“Of course. Any requests?”
“‘Deep Dark Woods.’”
The opening refrain of the classic rock anthem, her generation’s “Stairway to Heaven,” prompted a divine series of chills, a rush of stirrings in her soul. Her eyelids fell as he treated her to the private serenade in his distinctive, tenor-baritone croon, a voice made to crush it in arena rock while remaining true to English blues-rock roots. Stuff of beauty, legends. Music touched sacred emotional places.
Brian sang, melodies rising and falling in weightless crests.