by Trish Cook
“Me, neither,” said Bebe. “He’s still pretty smokin’, huh?”
“For a dad,” I said. “Is he married?”
She examined her fingers like they were the most interesting things in the world. “He wasn’t wearing a ring.”
“So maybe there’s still hope for the two of you,” I said.
“Don’t go all Parent Trap-y on me,” Bebe said, still staring at her hands. “Because I am.”
“You are what?” I asked her.
“Wearing a ring.”
I looked down and saw the diamond glinting up from Bebe’s left hand. “Oh, my God!” I screamed, throwing my arms around her. “When did this happen?”
“Last night on the beach,” she said. “Steve and I wanted to tell you together, but I just couldn’t hold it in any longer.”
“Congratulations, Bebe,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.
“Can you do me a favor?” Bebe asked. “Can you pretend I didn’t say anything about it?”
“Sure thing,” I said.
Mr. Steve was waiting for us back at the room, champagne bottle in hand. “This calls for a celebration,” he said, popping the cork and passing us glasses.
“To running the race of your life, Trace,” he said, toasting me. “And to a beautiful beginning of our life together, Belinda.”
“To a great race and beautiful beginnings,” I said, and we clinked glasses all around.
“You told Trace already, didn’t you?” Mr. Steve said to Belinda, looking disappointed. “She isn’t freaked-out at all.”
Bebe nodded. “Sorry. I never was any good at keeping secrets.”
I cleared my throat. It was such an absurd statement. “Well, except for that one small issue about my dad,” I said.
“Oh, yeah,” she said. “Well, at least that’s over.”
“Over?” Mr. Steve said.
“It’s not over,” I said, correcting Bebe. “It’s just beginning.”
“What are you girls talking about?”
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“We’ll fill you in later,” Bebe told him.
“Did you already tell Trace we picked our wedding song, too?” Mr. Steve asked Bebe.
“No. You do it.”
“ ‘Never Gonna Give You Up,’ ” he said, smiling now. “Rick Astley.”
“Well, it’s better than ‘Fourth of July, Asbury Park,’ ” I said. “That was your song with my dad, right?”
“Right,” Bebe said. “But I’m all grown-up now. I have much better judgment. About a lot of things.”
The phone rang and I hobbled over to answer it. “Hi, Trace.” It was Zander. Not that I wanted him to know I knew that.
“Who is this?”
“It’s Zander. Who did you think it was?”
“Zander,” I said, grinning. I’d kind of thought he might call today.
“So, how’d you do?”
“I did OK, thanks to Elvis.”
“I’m not even gonna ask what that means.”
“Good idea.”
“Trace, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” Zander said. “Something I should’ve said before you went to visit UCLA.”
Oh, Jesus, I thought. Here we go again. He’s about to tell me he and Buffy are back together or something equally as vomitous. “Yeah?”
“I love you, too.”
“You what?” My legs didn’t just threaten this time—they really gave in. I fell to the floor with a splat and shook my head to clear it.
“I was so stupid. I thought that if I broke up with you, my feelings would just go away,” he said. “You know, running away never solves anything.”
I thought of Shamus. “Ain’t that the truth.”
“I know I don’t deserve it, but would you consider giving us another shot, Trace?” he said. “I’ll even book us flights so we can see each other every other weekend once we get to school.”
“Twice-a-month cross-country trips are more than my bank account can handle, Zander.”
“There are specials from New York to LA. I’ll make sure to stock up on tickets every time there’s a fare war.”
“What’s New York got to do with it?” I asked him.
“I finally told my dad I’d rather be a filmmaker than follow in his footsteps,” Zander said. “I’m going to NYU.”
“And what does LA have to do with it?” I said, toying with him now.
“The last time I checked, that’s where UCLA was.”
“Who said anything about me going to UCLA?”
“You did?”
“Naaaah,” I said. “You’ve been gone longer than I thought, dude. I’m gonna be a Beheaded Deer next year.”
“What?” Zander said.
“You heard me. I’m going to Fairfield,” I said.
“Really?” Zander asked.
“Yup,” I said, grinning from ear to ear.
Zander let out a whoop. “So we’ll only be an hour away from each other!”
“So true,” I said.
“When I need a break from the big city, I’ll come see you,” he said, already planning our future together. “And when you need a little more excitement, you hop a train down to me.”
“Hold on just a sec,” I said. “I didn’t say I forgave you just yet. You still have an awful lot of sucking up to do.”
A great feeling came over me after I hung up the phone, and I realized it was pride for everything I had accomplished. Like figuring out Fairfield was the right place for me, even if it wasn’t anywhere near as sexy as UCLA. Like running a marathon, especially those last few grueling miles when I wanted to quit more than anything in the world. Like being able to forgive my mom for not working harder to find my dad, and my dad for almost running away again. Like letting Zander off the hook for being human, just like the rest of us.
As I was patting myself on the back, I realized the hunch was finally gone—probably for good. I could stand tall, knowing I had the courage to face whatever life threw my way.
“Sing it with me.” Mr. Steve leaned forward and cranked the volume on the stereo as soon as “Sing for the Moment” came on.
“Who’s this, bastardizing Aerosmith?” Bebe wanted to know. She really had been living under a musical rock for the past few years, I thought.
“Ever heard of Eminem?” I asked her.
“Christ, what will those marketing guys think up next?” Bebe said. “Imagine, having cartoon candy singing a great old song.”
Mr. Steve rolled his eyes at me, and we both started laughing hysterically. “No, Eminem. E-m-i-n-e-m,” I said, spelling it out for her.
“Who?” Bebe said. Now I knew how Bebe must feel when she talks to my friends about her bands.
“If you don’t know now,” I told her, smiling, “you never will.”
“Give it up, old lady,” Mr. Steve said, giving Bebe a kiss on the cheek. “You’re so out of it.”
OK. So even though lots of things in my life were never going to be the same, it was looking more and more like some things would never change.
Trish Cook is a freelance writer who, like Trace, survived high school, a marathon (actually two), and being best friends with a hottie/drama queen. She lives outside Chicago with her husband and two daughters. When Trish isn’t busy dreaming up new stories, you can usually find her playing electric guitar, running down Sheridan Road, or catching her favorite bands in Chicago.
Don’t you just love
cool new novels like
SO LYRICAL?
Now here’s a preview of two books
just like it that rock!
Turn the page to sample
Liza Conrad’s
ROCK MY WORLD: A Novel of Thongs,
Spandex, and Love in G Minor
(on sale June 2005)
and
Emily Franklin’s
THE PRINCIPLES OF LOVE
(on sale July 2005)
ROCK MY WORLD: A Novel of Thongs,
&nb
sp; Spandex, and Love in G Minor
by Liza Conrad
“And on the sixth day, God created Nick Hoffman’s voice, Liz Phair’s lyrics, Kurt Cobain’s angst, and Lenny Kravitz’s guitar licks. And He saw that it was good. So He just said, Screw it . . . tomorrow I’m resting.”
I looked across the table at Carl Erikson, Rock On magazine’s editor-in-chief, as he put down my essay, “Creation of Rock and Roll,” that had run in my high school newspaper. I held my breath.
“This is really quite clever, Livy,” he said.
I relaxed a little. “Clever” is a lot better than “What were you thinking, clacker?” or “Cheesy”—and I so wanted this summer gig. I tried to picture Carl forty pounds lighter. With hair. And an earring. In tight jeans. With eyeliner. Back when he was cool, or at least not bald and “pleasantly plump,” back when he and my father used to hang out after Babydolls’ concerts and smoke an ungodly amount of pot. And Lord knows what else. Trying not to laugh, I simply said, “Thanks.”
One time, my father said, when I was four years old, Carl stripped naked and played air guitar in our living room during a party. I don’t remember that, which is just as well. If I’d been able to recall Carl’s flaccid—my father remembers that detail perfectly—penis, I was quite positive I would have fallen on the floor in hysterics and wouldn’t have been able to do this interview.
“You know what we’re asking you to do, right?” Carl raised an eyebrow, his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose.
I nodded.
“Good,” he said. “I like the way you write. At seventeen, you’re better than half of my staff, and I mean that—though don’t tell them. Rock On is for the MTV set. We’re not like Rolling Stone. They cover the whole spectrum, and they’re oh-so-self-important.” He took his glasses off and laid them on his desk. “We want readers mostly your age . . . and into their twenties. We’ve got gossip and lots of photos. Backstage candids. Interviews with actors. Do you read Rock On?”
I nodded, even though I didn’t. I thought most of it was crap.
“Of course you do. All teens in your age bracket do.”
“Sure,” I said convincingly.
“Well.” Carl leaned back in his enormous leather chair, a view of the New York skyline behind him. “I don’t have to tell you what the Babydolls mean to rock and roll history. I’m sure you meet people all the time who tell you what an amazing musician and singer your father was—and is. And the reunion tour is going to be the hottest summer stadium ticket both here and in Europe.”
“And Japan,” I said. “That’s where the tour starts.”
“Yeah. The Japanese love them. And now he’s got that American Express commercial. Hysterical. Comes across as uber-hip. And with the Wolves opening for the Babydolls on the tour . . . Jesus, I wish I was twenty again.” He smiled, and for a split second, I could see the twenty-year-old Carl. His eyes were less tired, and his dimples showed.
“Well, Livy . . . I’m sold. What I want is a series of articles—you could make them like journal entries—from the road. Places like Madison Square Garden, L.A., London . . . Wherever they are—wherever you are. And then mingled with that, I’d love to read the story of the Babydolls . . . and your life with your parents and the band and so on. I’d love to connect this tour with readers your age—they’ll be able to relate to you.”
“Like Kelly Osbourne without the pink hair. And the foul mouth—most of the time.”
“Yeah. Minus the pink hair and the f-word.” He smiled at me. “I like how you think. You’re quick—like your old man. I’ll give you my e-mail, and Rob’s—he’s a very sharp editor. He’s good, and he’s excited about this.”
“Great.”
“I’d also like you to take digital pictures—candids—of the tour bus, the jet, the crowds, the band, the Wolves.”
The Wolves were opening for my father’s band. Nick Hoffman was so good-looking that grown women got wolf paw tattoos on their breasts. I remember being five or six and seeing women throwing babydoll pajamas on the stage at my father. Though tossing pajamas and permanently inking your body seem like two entirely different brands of fan obsession.
“Sure.” Photograph Nick Hoffman? I could just imagine my best friend Cammie’s response when she heard that: Can we take his picture with his shirt off?
“One story a week for the summer tour . . . We’ll put you on the payroll for two hundred dollars a week; fifty bucks for every photo we use.”
“Deal.” I said it calmly, but I would have done the stories for free—just to start building up press clippings. My dream was to someday start my own rock magazine. Getting paid to write? That meant I could actually say I was a writer. For real.
Carl stood and shook my hand, then came out from behind the desk. Suddenly, and without warning, he enveloped me in a bear hug. “God, I remember when you used to toddle around the house in your diapers. Can’t believe it. You look like a model, and you’re taller than I am.”
“That’s not hard, Carl,” I said, looking down at the top of his bald head. I’m five foot eleven. He had to be five foot five.
He laughed and put his arm around me.
“So you think if I was as tall as your dad, I would have gotten all the groupies?”
“Not unless you put on some spandex back then.”
“Oh, I had spandex.”
“Well, you know how chicks dig musicians. And you can’t play anything,” I teased.
“I once played the tambourine on stage with the Babydolls. At Wembley.”
We left his office in search of my father.
“Tambourines don’t count.”
“Yeah, well, I had hair then, too.” He looked over at me and winked.
Down the hall, I heard female giggling. Lots of it. Along with a cooing sort of fawning. It could only be for my dad—women still fall all over him. He says it’s because he kicked hard drugs, so he didn’t age like Keith Richards, the walking cadaver—though that’s giving cadavers a bad name. They don’t make the corpses on CSI look that bad. My father still looks young. He wears his hair to his shoulders, and it’s as thick and dirty blond as when he was twenty-one. He has blue eyes and a lanky build, and he speaks with a raspy voice like some late-night DJ who’s chain-smoking through the night shift. He wears boot-cut jeans, custom-made lizard-skin cowboy boots, and tight black T-shirts that show off his body. He looks, all the time, like what he is: a rock star. All my life, girls tried to be friends with me because of him. It’s beyond creepy to go to a friend’s house and see a poster of your father in her bedroom—when you know in her fifth-grade mind she’s kissing him. Gross!
Carl opened the door to Rock On’s conference room. And there was my dad, Paul James, black Sharpie pen in hand, signing the left breast of some woman, her top unbuttoned to her belly button. She blushed and covered up. The other women were laughing. Not just women my dad’s age either. There were interns there who looked just a couple of years older than I am—college girls. I rolled my eyes, and Dad came over and kissed me.
“Well, baby?”
Carl smiled. “She’s hired. We worked it all out. Have some paperwork to fill out, but it’s all set.”
“Cool. That’s my girl.”
We hung around the office, took care of the paperwork, and then Dad and I went downstairs where our limousine waited. My father got his fifth DUI before I was even in junior high. After that, he never bothered to get his license back again. It’s kind of pathetic when you have to drive your own parents around. My mother’s from England, and she never did learn to drive on our side of the road. What a pair they are. At least, however, I have a convertible. I mean, if you have to drive your father around, might as well drive something you’re not embarrassed by. And when I don’t drive, then it’s the limo. Toby is our driver/bodyguard. He used to drive me to school every day until I got my license. He also keeps all the liquor in the house under lock and key.
In the back of the limousine, Dad grinne
d. He has this lopsided smile women have been swooning over forever.
“You’re all grown up, Livy.”
I rolled my eyes. “Please don’t get all mushy on me.”
“Well, it seems like yesterday. I mean, holy shit, I can barely remember you when you were small. And now you’ve got your first job as a real writer. Next thing it’ll be college. One year. Christ, just one more year. Then next thing you know you’ll be hosting Total Request Live.”
“Dad, I’m a writer, not a TV host. They read cue cards.”
“Well . . . where did the time go?”
“The time went down the sucking vortex of drugs, Dad. You can’t remember me because you pretty much went through the 1990s in a blackout.”
“Ahh, yes. And now, unfortunately, I’m constantly reminded you’re way too clever with words, courtesy of that very expensive private school you go to . . . so you can mouth off to me—and I get to remember it all because I have no blackouts to help me forget,” he sighed. “Anyway, I’m sober now.”
“Yes. Now.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Dad, sometimes I don’t think you really . . . think things through. Have you thought about this tour, Dad? I mean really thought about it?”
“Yeah. . . . At least I think so. Why?”
“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll, Dad. . . . You’re going back on tour with Greg Essex and Steve Zane. Neither of whom has ever met a drug he didn’t like. And you and Charlie have been trying to go to AA. Have you thought about what the tour bus is going to be like? What backstage is going to be like? Not to mention the whole Paris incident. The stuff of legend, Dad. Are you sure you can handle this?”
“Since when did you get so fucking smart?”
“Since I raised myself. Toby went to more of my school events than you did.”
He leaned his head back, shut his eyes, and pretended to sleep. I could see Toby in the rearview mirror and knew he was hoping I’d let it drop. I watched my dad fake-sleeping, trying to remember a time when he was responsible, and pretty much recalling none. We rode back to Nyack in silence, and Toby pulled into the gate and up our long driveway. Dad pretended to wake up. As we got out of the car, he grabbed my hand.