by Megan Crane
Duncan’s response had been the highlight of the experience. It wasn’t every day a man got to see his enemy that white of face. Much less reduced to shrieking, like a highly agitated pre-teen girl. He grinned, thinking about it.
Jenna sniffed. ‘Maybe he’s a good actor.’
‘He’s a terrible actor,’ Tommy retorted, with a laugh. ‘I know, because he pretends to like me on a daily basis.’
‘I don’t agree with you,’ she said obstinately. ‘I think you’re wrong, and it might just get you killed.’
‘How refreshing.’ He eyed her. ‘But it doesn’t matter what you think. The fact is, even if Duncan is trying to kill me, you can’t prove it.’ A sudden suspicion flashed through his head then. ‘Is that why you were lurking outside my house that night? What was your plan, exactly? To disarm Duncan? He outweighs you by at least three hundred pounds.’
‘I thought maybe I’d hang around and see if anything happened to you,’ Jenna said drily. ‘And aren’t you glad I did?’
Tommy didn’t answer her. He leaned forward and mixed himself a drink from the limo’s bar, and then settled back against the plush seat, ice cubes clanking against the glass. He was tired. It wasn’t every afternoon that he was nearly crushed to death, and he was pretending to be far more relaxed about it than he truly was. He didn’t have to believe someone was trying to kill him to find narrowly avoiding his own death alarming. He had a healthy attachment to his body as it was, thank you.
He was lucky Jenna was turning paranoid, because if she hadn’t screamed bloody murder like that, scaring years off his life, he wouldn’t have lunged forward to save her – like some white knight from a fairy tale. He’d leapt to defend her without even thinking, diving towards the sound of her terror, mindless, wanting only to get to her and rescue her from whatever was making her scream – and it had taken him a long moment to hear the huge crash behind him. He’d only been aware of Jenna.
He didn’t care to examine that too closely. Or at all.
He shifted against his seat. Jenna sat next to him, her jaw tight and her lips pursed as she stared out the tinted windows while dusk fell across the city. What did he know about this woman, anyway? She was a real person, with a real job, for one thing. Well. A more real job than his; he wasn’t sure Video TV really qualified as normal. In truth, all he knew about her was that she was susceptible to Wild Boys marketing, had lost her head over Tommy Seer: the Legend, and was now perhaps too quick to see conspiracies wherever she looked. If he didn’t want to sleep with her so desperately, to the point that he was losing sleep and walking around in a distracting state of arousal, he’d be tempted to worry that she was your garden-variety psycho.
It wouldn’t be the first time he’d overlooked psychosis en route to the nearest bed. Some claimed it was an aphrodisiac. Nick always maintained the crazy ones were the best in bed, because all the things that made them terrible human beings – lack of boundaries, intensity, emotional reactions to the slightest little thing – made them fantastic between the sheets. It was the insanity of what happened afterwards that everyone agreed got tedious.
‘Tell me about yourself,’ he said then, his voice too brusque. Her eyebrows arched up her forehead.
‘Did this turn into a job interview?’ She smiled. ‘I already have a job, but thank you.’
‘My life is an open book,’ Tommy said with a shrug. ‘An open book you, apparently, read several thousand times and committed to memory …’
‘I’m the target demographic,’ Jenna snapped at him, evidently stung. ‘Wouldn’t it be worse if I thought you and your music were bullshit?’
‘I think me and my music are bullshit half the time,’ he drawled, enjoying the flush that moved across her neck and stained her soft cheeks. ‘We could have bonded.’
‘And your life is not an open book at all, unless you mean it’s a work of fiction,’ Jenna continued, colour high and eyes too bright. ‘Everything that’s supposedly true about you is a lie. Why pretend to be English? Why maintain the fake fiancée?’
‘I think Duncan really wanted to play on the Beatles idea, and therefore Nick and I became English, which also keeps people from connecting us to our past upstate,’ Tommy said with a shrug. ‘I take comfort in the knowledge he has to pay a lot of money to maintain that story. And the good news is that when I leave the band, there goes Eugenia’s cover. I’m predicting we break up, destroying the happy fairy tale of our relationship.’ He sent her a challenging look. ‘See? An open book.’
‘Uh huh.’ Jenna straightened her back – or he thought she did, beneath the layers she wore and the padded shoulders that winged away from her body. The patterned coat she was wearing was louder than a glam-rock power ballad.
‘But you remain a mystery,’ Tommy pointed out. ‘Where are you from? Why did you want to work for Video TV? How do you feel about being plucked from your ordinary life and forced to hang around us, doing nothing, for weeks on end? Do you have a boyfriend? These are only sample questions,’ he said smoothly as her brows clapped together. ‘Feel free to answer any of them, in any order you please.’
‘I grew up in Indiana,’ she said after a moment. He watched her closely, sensing that she was concealing something. It was the way she paused after she said it, as if her home state was a delicate subject.
‘Are you afraid the New Yorkers will rise up and eject you because you’re a corn-fed Midwesterner?’ he asked.
‘I wasn’t until you said that.’ Her nose wrinkled as if she was fighting off laughter.
‘I don’t think they do that any more.’ He made a languid sort of gesture with his tumbler. ‘Not openly. Only when the smell of corn overwhelms them and they’re forced to act.’
He had no idea what the hell he was talking about. From the odd look she shot his way, neither did she.
‘I grew up in Indiana, and I always wanted to move to New York City,’ she continued. He suspected she was speaking to save them both from whatever nonsense he kept spouting. She shrugged. ‘My favourite aunt lived here when I was a kid and it always seemed like the best city in the world to me. “If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere,” you know? My parents would have preferred I felt that way about Chicago, probably, but only New York would do. I came to attend NYU and I never left.’
He waited, but she didn’t seem inclined to continue. He sighed.
‘And? That’s it? Who you are can be summed up in your choice of university?’ He shook his head. ‘Your entire personality is an alumni magazine?’
Jenna shrugged, but he knew she was lying. He didn’t know why she felt she had to lie, or what she could be lying about. He entertained the notion that this normal, everyday girl could have a whole secret life he knew nothing about. Much as the idea intrigued him, he rejected it. He’d seen where she lived. He saw her every day, with her puppy-dog eyes and curly hair and secretarial outfits. He knew who she was, no matter what she thought she was concealing.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say,’ she said, her voice defensive. ‘I’m a normal person. I live a normal life. I have pictures of beach vacations and hiking trips on my mantel. I live in a studio apartment and I’m good at my job.’ She glared at him, but he could see the emotion there, rolling underneath. And despite the fact he’d thought much the same thing about her normality moments before, when she said it herself, it put him on guard. It was like the people who self-identified as nice. Untrustworthy and notably not nice, every one of them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said in that snippy tone when he didn’t answer, ‘but I didn’t put out hit singles or get on any magazine covers in my twenties. I just worked.’
‘Do you have thoughts? Dreams?’ he asked, his attention on her expression, and the distance there. As if he could see her lies written on her skin. ‘First you tell me you’re all about NYU, now you’re defined by Video TV …’
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you, Tommy,’ she said in a voice that was in no way apologetic. ‘But I’m n
ot complicated. I dream about whether or not to get a cat. The pros? Cats are awesome. The cons? I don’t like cat litter. See? Exciting stuff.’
‘And that’s it,’ he said. Mocking her. ‘To cat or not to cat, that’s the central question of your existence. That’s your internal life.’ He shook his head. ‘If I believed you, I’d be sad.’
‘I used to be a big fan of this one band,’ Jenna said tartly. ‘But no more, unfortunately. I think the front man is a jackass.’
‘No, you do not.’ Tommy grinned, despite himself and his suspicions. ‘You sound very boring to me. I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but I think you need to get a life.’
‘I have a very rich, very fulfilling—’ She broke off, and rolled her eyes. ‘Whatever. Listen, who cares about my life? My life is great and I don’t care what you think about it. I’m more concerned about yours. No one’s tried to mow me down on the street lately. Or thrown a seventeen-ton steel cage at my head. It’s a miracle you’re not in the hospital right now. Or worse.’
‘This may come as a shock to you,’ Tommy replied, ‘but I don’t particularly want to talk about near-death experiences. I would rather get to know you, which seems to terrify you, for some reason. Did you really announce that you have vacation pictures on your mantel? What does that even mean? Why does that need announcing?’ He shook his head, and swirled his drink around in its tumbler, staring at it instead of her for a moment. ‘I think the so-called near-death experiences are a coincidence, anyway.’
‘How many near-death experiences do you have to have before you think they’re more than a coincidence?’ she asked, her mouth twisting. ‘When does it become a pattern?’
‘Two events are not a pattern.’
‘Not yet.’ She rubbed at the back of her neck with one hand, as if it ached. ‘Are three?’
‘And it doesn’t count if you throw me off a balcony, Jenna,’ he teased her. Her lips twitched.
‘Don’t tempt me.’
‘I think it’s cute that you’re so convinced I’m in danger,’ he told her.
‘Great, and in addition to ignoring me, he’s now patronizing me,’ she said, as if she was narrating to a third party. Tommy found himself laughing without even meaning to start.
‘Genuine concern,’ he told her. ‘That’s what I meant. It’s nice to see it.’
Jenna shook her head, and then leaned forward to peer out the window.
‘We’re at your building,’ she said. ‘I think I’m going to walk across the park and go—’
‘No,’ he said. Having not meant to say anything, having planned to leave her and go about his business, he was as surprised as she looked. He blinked. ‘I have a party I have to go to, and I don’t want to go alone.’
‘You should call Eugenia,’ Jenna suggested without missing a beat. Or looking at him. ‘Your fairy-tale princess.’
‘I want you,’ he said, and then had to clear his throat, because that came out far too husky. She pretended not to notice, but he saw her swallow, and she was staring out at the sidewalk as if it fascinated her beyond measure. ‘If you come, I can claim it’s a work thing and I have to leave sooner.’ He eyed her. ‘Why? Do you have plans?’
She didn’t answer him. Maybe because he’d asked it in that snide way, insinuating that she couldn’t possibly have plans to rival his. Which might be obnoxious, but was also probably true, assuming she cared about the high life and all it contained. Finally, she turned back and nodded.
‘I’ll go with you,’ she said. ‘If you won’t look out for yourself, I will.’
‘Excellent,’ Tommy murmured. He smiled. ‘A babysitter.’
Of course, he failed to mention that it was a sit-down dinner party, a fact that Jenna obviously found infuriating. She hissed something about couture that he didn’t catch, and looked mortified, sitting amid a collection of Manhattan stars and their assorted sycophants in a Greenwich Village town house.
He wanted to tell her that she stood out from the glittering crowd, but not in the way she probably thought. They were all flash and surface, and she, by contrast, was real. Not quite normal, whatever that was, but real enough to still blush with shame or embarrassment. Real enough to look more than bored when surrounded by various famous people. Real enough to feel out of place, instead of grasping her way towards some higher social level.
He found her endlessly refreshing.
‘Did you bring your secretary?’ the woman next to him, some pop singer he knew he ought to recognize, trilled in scandalized tones.
‘My assistant travels everywhere with me,’ he replied in a bored, affected tone that was calculated to make everyone around him think he was unable to wipe his own ass without assistance. Something he suspected was true of half the people there.
From across the table, Jenna glared at him as if she’d like to strangle him.
Which had the usual effect of cheering him right up.
‘You had no business putting me through that,’ she snapped at him when they finally made their escape – long before the main course arrived. Tommy didn’t know why anyone bothered serving food at these things. None of the guests ate. As policy. ‘Not to mention it was rude to the hostess.’
‘The hostess will comfort herself with the large amounts of cocaine she and the rest of the party will be consuming,’ Tommy said drily, ushering Jenna out of the building and on to the bustle of the street. ‘They probably won’t remember you were there.’
‘I felt like an idiot,’ Jenna bit out. ‘Is that what you wanted? Was that the plan?’
He had no plan. He only wanted to be near her. He accepted that, suddenly, as he looked down at her scowl and the blush on her cheeks. He knew it didn’t make any sense, that she should hold as much interest for him as a lamp-post, but he had never been able to ignore her or relegate her elsewhere. The less beautiful he told himself she was, the more beautiful he found her to be. The more out of her reach he thought he should keep himself, the more he insisted on being close to her.
He was infatuated, she was looking at him as if she thought he was a lunatic, and he felt absurdly and unreasonably pleased with the entire, ridiculous situation.
He reached over and traced a pattern across her rich mouth with his thumb, then took her hand in his when she shuddered.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s a Friday night and we’re in Manhattan. Let’s go dancing.’
20
When Tommy Seer talked about dancing, Jenna learned, he was not referring to the sorts of experiences she had had in her time: paying some insulting cover charge to listen to mediocre music spun by so-so DJs before drinking too much and rocking out on the dance floor, surrounded by Bridge and Tunnel clubbers. Oh, no.
Tommy Seer did not wait in lines, or pay cover charges. Tommy Seer sauntered up to doors guarded by very large bouncers and smiled slightly as they leapt to whisk the velvet ropes out of his way. Tommy Seer was converged upon by club kids and promoters – one of whom looked a great deal like Dr Cuddy from House – and then whisked away to a private room where the likes of Linda Evangelista, Andrew McCarthy, Tama Janowitz and Keith Haring lounged about being wildly famous in the Eighties.
Tommy Seer (and whoever happened to be with him) was plied with free drinks while astoundingly pretty girls shook their barely clad butts at him. Jenna sat next to him in her tacky overcoat and couldn’t find it in her to be anything but delighted.
This, after all, was the club scene everyone talked about in reverent tones more than twenty years later. Artists and club kids and supermodels and actors all mixed together while a very short man Jenna suspected was Steve Rubell, founder of Studio 54, held court. Out in the main part of the club, DJs played Bananarama, some hip-hop, Madonna, Duran Duran, the Cure, the Smiths, the Bangles, the very beginnings of what would turn into house music some day soon. And the Wild Boys, of course.
It was fun and glorious, but it wasn’t dancing. It was the Palladium in 1987, long before it became the cheesy club Jen
na recalled from her college days. It was an experience.
And it was no surprise that Jenna found herself a little bit tipsy, especially when she’d been forced to contend with some German princess of taxis – well, no, that didn’t make sense, but that’s what Jenna thought she’d said – and had nearly collided with Ally Sheedy on her way to the bathroom. To say nothing of Molly Ringwald herself, looking at her famous pout in the bathroom mirror. How was someone who had originally been a starry-eyed adolescent in 1987 supposed to deal with so much Brat Pack goodness?
It was all a little too much, and then, of course, so was Tommy.
He watched her, his green eyes alert, his mouth in that faint smile, and Jenna might not have known why, exactly, he had brought her here, to this once-famous and now (in the 2000s) demolished club, but she knew it had something to do with that expression he wore. As if he was waiting for some sign that only she could give, though she couldn’t imagine what that sign might be.
So she did the only thing she could do. She danced. She sang, I’ll be alone, dancing, you know it baby to herself. She danced for what seemed like hours, at the best Eighties night imaginable, until he came and took her arms in his warm hands and looked down at her, and she knew it was time to go.
‘What was that about?’ she asked as they burst outside into the cold night. Her skin was hot and her hair was wet with sweat on the back of her neck. ‘You didn’t dance at all.’
‘I watched you,’ he said simply, as if that was an explanation. ‘Did you have fun?’
‘Sure,’ Jenna said, but she was confused. It must have shown on her face, because his smile twisted and he reached over to thread his fingers in her curls.
‘You looked like you were in heaven,’ he said. ‘You really do like the music.’ His hand was hot against the top of her head, his fingers making even her skull sensitive. He moved his hand over her temple, then along the line of her jaw.
‘I really do,’ she said, and then she whispered, ‘What are you doing?’