Some Kind of Magic

by Mary Ann Marlowe

  “Let me do that again.” They posed again, and I clicked another. Adam looked completely one hundred percent identical to the previous picture. Stacy’s picture would have to do. She came around to grab it. I glanced at him. “Do you practice posing for pictures or what?”

  He chuckled. “Busted. But the first few times fan photos turned up online, I wanted to hunt them down and have them burned. So I hired a photographer to help me out. You know, with some practice everyone can learn a pose that works more or less all the time.”

  “I never thought of that. If you take Micah along with you, I hope you’ll teach him stuff like that.”

  “Whoever comes with me will get a crash course.”

  We left Stacy standing starstruck in the doorway of my apartment. Adam walked me out to his car. His car. Not his limo. Just a plain old Acura. It was a nice car, but not my fantasy date ride. I recovered from disappointment when I made eye contact with Adam and he sucked in his breath, squashing my fear that he might’ve changed his mind about me.

  He opened the door for me. When I bent to climb in, he laid his hand across my back, and a chill of nervous adrenaline shot down my spine. He grasped my upper arm, spun me, and pressed me against the inside of the passenger door.

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t wait an entire date for a kiss.”

  His fingers twined in my hair, grazing the nape of my neck. My skin prickled from his touch. He drew me to him and kissed me deep, somehow both confident and needy. I felt such a surge of desire, he could’ve fucked me against the side of the car at that moment.

  He backed away instead and laughed. “That might’ve been a miscalculation.” My eyes landed on the bulge in his pants. “I hate to be so forward, but will your roommate be there when we get back?”

  My stomach flipped. “She’s not my roommate. And no. She better not be there.”

  “Thank God. Let’s go eat.”

  Adam followed the GPS and chatted about how he rarely drove anymore and hoped he wouldn’t get us lost.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Do you like Italian?” He reached over and took my hand. We veered onto 287 West.

  “Of course. Who doesn’t?” I was having a hard time keeping myself from staring at him.

  “A friend of mine has a place close to here, over in Bound Brook.”

  Not Midtown. Plain old Bound Brook. We couldn’t get more suburban than that. And I was pretty sure I knew which restaurant we were going to.

  There certainly wouldn’t be any paparazzi in Bound Brook.

  At that thought, it hit me again who I was with. Jesus, this guy had played Madison Square Garden two nights ago. My lungs sought oxygen. My hands trembled.

  He glanced over. “Is everything all right?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Oh.” He frowned. “Does it make a difference?”

  “Well, yeah. A little bit. It makes a little bit of a difference.” My voice sounded shrill, panicked.

  “And that’s why.” He retracted his hand and gripped the steering wheel with both fists.

  “I’m sorry. I know it shouldn’t matter. It’s kind of hard to process. It was hard enough to process before.”

  He drove silently for another few minutes, and I didn’t speak either. I hadn’t realized how upset the whole thing had made me until I’d confronted him. I stared out the window, trying to find the words to ask him about Adrianna LaRue as well, but then decided I’d rather fight one battle at a time.

  He turned off the road into the restaurant’s parking lot and switched off the ignition. In the dark, quiet car, he shifted to face me. “Look, Eden. I can’t help the way things are. I would’ve given anything to put whatever this is between us in a bubble until we could sort it out like regular people. When I realized you thought I was someone else—”

  “Is that what you like? The novelty of slumming it with someone ignorant of your celebrity status?”

  “Honestly, I do love that—having someone see me for myself. But until you started talking about it, I had no reason to think you didn’t know who I was, and I know for a fact I was drawn to you before you were ready to give me the time of day.”

  “So you’re into indifference.”

  He laid his hand on my knee and dragged his finger in a slow line along the exposed skin. The hem of my skirt rose.

  “I’m definitely not into indifference.” My shallow breath redoubled as the electricity climbed up my leg. “But I’m also not into idol worship.”

  He drew his hand back, and my disappointment was total. He opened his door. “Do you think we could go inside? We have a reservation.”

  The maître d’ greeted us. If he recognized Adam, he gave no sign. He escorted us to a corner table and pulled a chair out for me so I’d be facing the restaurant. Adam would be shrouded in mystery with his back facing any prying eyes. Not that it mattered. The place was practically deserted. I couldn’t help but wonder if Adam had brought other dates here before me. Was this a regular spot where he could go to escape the paparazzi? Or to cheat on his fiancée? I shook my head. I was going to drive myself crazy.

  We ordered, and then Adam took my hand in his on the table. “So . . .”

  I pressed my lips together, trying to think of anything interesting to say. He was about to discover how boring I was. “So . . .”

  Then I thought of something and asked, “How do you know the guy who—?”

  At the same moment, he asked, “How long have you known your—?”

  I laughed, awkward. “Sorry, you go first.”

  “No, go ahead.”

  “Just . . . How do you know this place?”

  He shifted in his seat. Was he nervous too? “The owner’s son, Bobby, used to work as a roadie for us.”

  Right on cue, the kitchen door swung open, and a large man hurried over to our table. Adam stood and shook hands with him. The man reeled Adam in for a bear hug.

  “Adam! It’s so good to see you. It’s been too long. What brings you out this way?”

  Adam gestured at me, and I stood, not knowing what else to do. “Anthony, this is Eden. I wanted to take her out for the best Italian food in Jersey.”

  “In Jersey, you say? In the world.” He laughed, but his hands flew about as he talked, and he seemed harried. “You know Bobby always talks about the days when he worked with you. Whenever he hears your songs on the radio, he tells everyone he knows you.”

  “How is Bobby?”

  “Eh. He got married.” He burst out laughing again. “But otherwise he’s just fine.”

  Adam smiled politely. “It’s so good to see you again, Anthony.”

  “Don’t be a stranger.” As he turned to go, he told the waiter standing at attention to bring us a bottle of something nice.

  Adam and I sat down, and the tension broke. We smiled privately at the bombastic encounter, waiting for the waiter to uncork a red and pour it out. Adam looked into my eyes, and my stomach did things that made me question my ability to keep my food down.

  Finally alone, I mustered my courage. “Adam, there’s something I have to ask you.”

  “Oh, no.” He took a bite from one of the rolls the waiter had left.

  “You’re not engaged, are you?”

  He coughed violently. I was about to jump up to help him, when he hacked extra hard and started to breathe. He wiped his eyes with the napkin. “You’ve been doing some serious research.”

  “And?”

  “No. Definitely not engaged.” He narrowed his eyes. “Can I tell you a secret?”

  “Probably not, but I want to hear it anyway.”

  “Okay, but I’ll know who leaked it because only three other people know this.”

  I leaned in, curious.

  He glanced around dramatically and bent closer. “I made it up.”

  “You what?”

  “Or we made it up—Adrianna and I.”

  “You made up the engagement?”

  He forced a tight s
mile. “Yeah. See, we were at this awards ceremony. She gets a lot more tabloid attention than I do, and she was complaining about all the backlash because of that music video. You know the one, right?”

  I shook my head. I hadn’t watched a music video, on purpose, since I was in high school. And until very recently, yesterday in fact, I’d never paid attention to entertainment news.

  “It doesn’t matter. We just thought it would be funny to give the gossip rags something to talk about and leaked out news of our engagement. We made a point of doing this in the shadiest way possible so it could never be more than mere speculation. But I regretted it almost immediately.”

  My eyes were probably saucers. “Because you couldn’t date anyone after that?”

  “What? No. Not at all. It’s just that I hadn’t thought about the ramifications of hitching myself to Adrianna’s star. It raised my profile, which was something I’d rather avoid. I mean, I want my band to succeed, but personal fame isn’t something I’d wish on my worst enemy.”

  “That makes sense,” I said, as if I’d ever struggled with fame. I blushed, embarrassed by my own gawking. “I’m sorry I looked. It’s kind of impossible not to.”

  “Yeah, I understand. But promise me you’ll ask me before you take anything you read at face value.”

  I was relieved he hadn’t gotten angry with me, both for snooping and for confronting him. “I promise.”

  “So now, you know everything about me, and I want to know everything about you.”

  “Oh, no. I only know that you’re thirty and a Sagittarius.”

  “Okay, so what are you?”

  “Twenty-eight and an Aries . . .”

  The waiter placed our salads on the table and ground pepper over them. I pushed some around with my fork, thinking of something to talk about. “What were you like as a kid, Adam?”

  He shrugged. “Not very interesting. I wore braces and played the drums in the marching band.”

  “Not guitar?”

  “Guitar, too. Like Micah, I started playing early, but I was better on the drums. I was the drummer in the band until we found Hervé.”

  “Was that the Pickup Artists?”

  He smiled. “So you did find out more. It’s actually the same band. We renamed it when we changed the lineup.”

  “How’d you end up the lead?”

  “That’s a good question. The guys should’ve kicked me out. We already had a charismatic lead singer who played rhythm guitar. I served no earthly purpose once Hervé replaced me. I’d started to place ads on craigslist for bands in need of a drummer.”

  “So what happened?”

  “Well, I played guitar better than Chris. And he was a bit of a diva, ya know? Turns out the guys in the band just liked me better. And since I’d been one of them for a long time, mistreated and ignored, they knew I respected them and would never forget my place. And besides, I’d started writing songs by then. So they were patient with me while I learned how to perform. Very patient. It was a step back for us as a band, and I sucked at first.”

  I’d gotten so comfortable talking to him he could’ve been telling me how he got into law school. “It’s the age-old story. Average boy turns rock star.”

  As soon as the words left my lips, I felt a wave of panic begin to surge again, but he smiled. “I’m still an average guy.”

  That put me at ease, and the panic subsided, replaced by the other churning in my insides. What would happen if I grabbed his collar and tore his shirt open? I imagined tracing my fingers across his tattoos right here in the restaurant. I fanned myself with my napkin. Was it getting hot?

  The chicken parm came, and he asked, “What about you? What were you like?”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, my childhood was far from average.”

  “I was wondering how you ended up with a name like Eden. And Micah is unusual, too. Were your parents very religious?”

  I laughed out loud. “Yeah, you could say that. When I was nine, we crisscrossed the country on a mission to prepare everyone for the imminent apocalypse.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Unfortunately. That lasted about a year, and then we went back to normal suburban life. I wore braces. I played the violin in the orchestra.”

  “How does that work, exactly? They just tore you out of school and threw you on a church bus?”

  “Pretty much, yeah. The Salvation Bus.”

  “What about school?”

  “My parents taught us the important things: arithmetic and Jesus.”

  “And then they just quit their mission? Wow.”

  I poked at my spaghetti, trying to find a way to explain. “End Times cults end with a bang or a fizzle. You know, when you spend a year spreading the word the end is nigh and the end never comes, you only have a few options.”

  “Kool-Aid?”

  I closed my eyes and shook my head, chuckling at the inappropriateness of the joke. “That would be one way. And at least that way you never have to admit you were wrong. It’s kind of mortifying to be so monumentally mistaken, you know.”

  “So the world kept turning, and your parents moved to Edison, New Jersey?”

  “Woodbridge. But yeah, my dad went to work as a claims adjuster, and my mom made sack lunches and went to PTA meetings and church socials. Normal life.”

  “That must’ve been hard to have a mission to save the world, and then just go back to regular day-to-day life.”

  “Oh, she still has a mission.” I tore off a small piece of bread and popped it in my mouth.

  “Yeah? But not the end of the world still?”

  “Well, to her it is. She won’t rest until she’s married me off to a doctor. Or possibly a lawyer. Currently, she’s working the doctor angle. Gynecologist to be exact.”

  Adam laughed into his napkin. “Really?”

  I nodded.

  His whole gorgeous face was alight with his laughter. “Oh, she’s going to love me.”

  “She will. She loves Micah after all.”

  “She’ll love a nice Jewish boy?”

  “Yeah, she mellowed out a whole lot after the world failed to end. You put a ring on this, and she’ll start a cult around you.” I heard the words as they left my mouth and wanted to reel them back in. “I mean—”

  “You’re completely fascinating. You know that?” Before I could think of a response to that, he changed the subject back. “So what was it like for you and Micah after all that?”

  “Micah started a band, smoked cigarettes, snuck out at night, and basically turned into your stereotypical bad boy. Nobody was surprised when he decided to become a full-time musician and moved out. He always loved the adventure.”

  “But not you?”

  “Nope. I hated our nomadic life. It convinced me early on I needed some stability.” Tired of hearing my own voice, I asked him, “What about you? Did you have a religious upbringing?”

  “Sort of. I mean, we went to synagogue and observed the convenient holy days. I had a Bar Mitzvah. But we were more culturally Jewish, you know? My mom was a big socialite.”

  Our plates were cleared, and the waiter brought out two coffees. I sipped on mine and continued to ask him questions about his family and found out he had two older brothers.

  “Daniel followed in Dad’s footsteps and became a pediatrician.” He chuckled. “I better not let your mom meet him.”

  “Daniel’s your oldest brother?”

  “Yeah. Joshua moved to LA to try to break into acting. You may have seen him in that movie about that talking bear? And then there’s me.”

  “The rock star.”

  “Tell that to my parents. They worried I’d end up destitute and tried to get me to learn something more practical, but I always came back to music. That’s why I’m the one who got the apartment. That and because they’ll always think of me as the baby.”

  “But you’re doing very well.”

  “Yeah, I am. But who knows if our band will last? We could be a flash
in the pan. You see it happen all the time. I’m socking everything I can away in case. Honestly, I took my parents’ apartment because I’m afraid to jinx my success by moving out to my own place.” He saw the smile cross my face. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. I find it ironic I’ve avoided dating musicians my whole life because there’s no financial security in it. The first one I go out with is stinking rich.”

  He grew serious. “It may not always be that way. But I’m thinking ahead. I don’t want to ever need money.”

  “I didn’t mean to imply that wealth is all that important. It’s the freedom that comes with having enough money. It’s one less thing to worry about, right?”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what I meant, too.”

  I laid my hand on the table, palm up, and he reached over and clasped my fingers. I squeezed back. “But you have to know that even when I assumed you were a poor struggling artist, I was attracted to you.”

  The boyish smile lit up his features. “Is that so?” He turned around and flagged the waiter with the universal hand gesture for check, please.

  On the drive back, an awkward silence grew up between us, couched by the music on the radio. It happened as he took the exit for Edison—his song came on. I sang the first verse, “ ‘In the beginning, there was only you.’”

  He laughed and sang along, too. “ ‘A part of me. The world was new.’” His voice doubled in stereo. It was completely surreal.

  I was surprised I knew all the words to this song, but it seriously played all the time and was catchy as hell. When it ended, he reached over and took my hand. “I thought you didn’t like that song.”

  “I never said that. It just plays so much. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I prefer your voice without the production.”

  “Why would I take that the wrong way? I have to perform that song live practically every day, so I hope I sound good enough without the studio help.” He released my hand and dragged his finger up my thigh a little. I was dying. If he weren’t driving, I would’ve climbed over the center console and dropped his seat back. He kept up a steady stream of conversation, but the splotches on his cheeks gave him away. “Just between you and me, I’ve been sick of that song for a year or more.”