Some Kind of Magic

by Mary Ann Marlowe

  I nodded without looking up.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  I shook my head. Forming words and keeping myself from sobbing seemed to be mutually exclusive activities. When I felt in control of my shaky voice, I said, “Can you help me figure out how to call a taxi? I need a ride to the airport.”

  “Taxi? Haven’t you noticed these people only need to snap their fingers to get anywhere?” He leaned back. “Hey, Shane!”

  The raised voices in the back abruptly silenced, and the curtain parted. Shane’s head appeared. “Yeah?”

  “Find Seamus.”

  “On it!”

  Twenty minutes later, Seamus called into the bus, asking who needed a ride. I hugged Micah and promised to text him when I got stateside. “And promise me you’ll look after Adam. I’m afraid I’ve made a mess of things. Hopefully, he’ll get over it.” I wiped another tear from my cheek. “I don’t want him to get over me. Make sure he’s okay.”

  I hugged him one more time and climbed off the bus. A limo sat outside a barricade of wooden sawhorses that encircled the buses. Seamus heaved my suitcase into the open trunk. I laid my hand on the passenger door.

  “Eden!” Adam emerged from around the tour bus, running toward me. My heart lurched. I couldn’t dare to hope he’d forgiven me so quickly. He jogged up and took in the whole scene.

  “You’re leaving?”

  “I—”

  “You couldn’t come find me first?” He held his palm toward me. “Go on then. Have a safe flight.” He turned toward the buses, head down.

  “Adam. Wait.”

  He stopped and spun toward me, and I imagined hope in his eyes. “Yes?”

  I waited for him to tell me why he’d raced over to catch me. “What did you want?”

  He halved the distance between us, stopping short of the idling limo. “Eden. I thought—”

  My heart hammered in my chest. “You thought—?”

  His eyes fell on the waiting limo, and he shook his head. “But it doesn’t matter now.” He twisted his hands together and said nothing more.

  After it became apparent he was waiting for me to leave, I backed slowly toward the open car door, hoping he would stop me. His expression was inscrutable. When I could go no farther, I gave him one last chance to ask me to stay and finally said, “I’ll see you around, Adam.”

  He sucked on his lower lip and then said, “Have a good life, Eden.”

  He might as well have punched me in the gut. I climbed in the limo, and Seamus closed the door behind me. The sanctuary of the backseat allowed me to hide the anguish that twisted my face at those words. I mastered my expression and looked out the rearview window. Adam lifted his hand. I held mine up as the car drove away.

  Chapter 18

  Seamus whisked me to the Copenhagen airport in twenty minutes, but the flight took almost nine hours, direct to Newark. The plane touched down, and I lugged my carry-on out through the mass of bodies jamming up to go through international security. Practically sleepwalking from emotional exhaustion, I handed my passport to an official and answered his questions with a yawn. Once cleared, I shuffled along with the crowd, hoping to find Stacy and get home and sleep for the next month. The wheels on my carry-on wobbled, and the bag nearly overturned several times. I didn’t expend any energy to fix it.

  As soon as I cleared the security checkpoint, I heard a distinct, “There she is.”

  All at once, cameras encircled me, and voices clamored for my attention.

  “Eden, how did you seduce Adam Copeland?”

  “Did Adam kick you out?”

  “Do you have the perfume with you?”

  “Have you seen Adrianna’s statement?”

  I stopped for a second and took stock of the situation. There were only three reporters, but somehow they’d managed to create the impression of twice as many. Their shadows might as well have taken on a life of their own. One cameraman ran several feet ahead, then turned and knelt right in my path, shooting pictures of me while coaxing me to “look over here, Eden.”

  I ducked my head and kept walking until I’d made it to baggage claim. I looked up and saw Stacy right away. When she realized I was the center of the commotion, she rushed in like a professional manager and began demanding the paparazzi step back and give me space. They began interrogating her as well.

  “Holy shit,” she said to me. “I can handle this. Let me wait for your suitcase for you.” She scanned the area and pointed out a restroom. “Go hide.”

  “It’s the red suitcase.” The panic in my voice surprised me.

  Grateful, I rushed for the restroom, trailing reporters behind me. They didn’t pursue me past the door, and I relished the sudden privacy. I stood at the sink, wetting my face to wake up, and considered putting on some makeup so I wouldn’t look like a mugshot in the gossip rags. The door swung open, and a young lady moved to the sink next to me. She laid her phone on the counter and began to wash her hands.

  “Crazy out there,” she said.

  “Mmm hmm.”

  “Were all those reporters following you?”

  She pulled out some paper towels and dried her hands. I didn’t answer.

  “Why are they so interested? Are you famous?”

  I looked at her in the mirror. “You didn’t even use the bathroom.”

  “Excuse me?”

  I took a step toward the door.

  She grabbed her phone. “Eden, come on. Just give me a statement.”

  I grabbed the door handle, weighing the relative evils of my current situation.

  “We’ll pay you. Tell me your story.”

  I opened the door and bolted for the exit. Stacy caught up to me before I fled into the safety of the parking garage. “Let’s go to my car. I’ll come back for your suitcase.”

  She left me alone in the front seat of her RAV4, where I spent the next fifteen minutes hunkered down out of sight. When she finally got back, she just said, “You hungry? Did they feed you on your flight?”

  She went straight to a drive-thru. Food had been the last thing on my mind. “Could you get me . . .” I stared at the wall of food choices, blinking back tears. My stomach growled, but the thought of eating made me want to vomit. “Just get me a salad.”

  Stacy turned the radio down and yelled the order out at the speaker. A disembodied arm held cash out of the black SUV before us, and then several huge bags of food left the open window in the brick wall. Red taillights flashed as the SUV braked then drove away. Stacy rolled up, and a teenager with two-tone hair and a too-big smile asked how we were this evening. Stacy ignored the question and held her debit card out in the air.

  She handed me my salad and jammed hers between her knees. She navigated the parking lot with one hand and mixed her salad with the other. She merged onto Route 1/9. “That was insane. Has it been like that the whole time?”

  In her car, safe from the intense scrutiny, I’d calmed down considerably. Thank God for the normalcy of Stacy. “It’s been quiet. But when that story broke—”

  She bounced in her seat. “Oh, I have news. Kelly got shit-canned.” She grabbed a napkin to blot the dressing off the steering wheel she’d spit there when she’d said “shit.”

  That only made me feel slightly better. I chewed my food slowly. “What the hell was she thinking? How much did they pay her?”

  “I don’t think it was a lot. I told you she was jealous of you.”

  The knot in my stomach made it difficult to keep eating, but I knew I needed the food. I grabbed her soda and took a sip, hoping to settle the queasiness. I leaned my head against the glass and stared up at the nothingness of the dark black sky.

  Stacy reached over and laid a hand on my knee for a second. “Are you okay?”

  “I don’t know. Everything’s too recent.”

  “Tell me about the tour.”

  “The tour was going well. I got to perform onstage with the band. Micah’s having a great time, and Adam’s amazing onstage
.”

  “Yeah. I saw him that one time when they played here. I remember how hot Adam was. And you know, you totally mocked me for having a crush on him.”

  “Did not.” I’m sure I did. The debilitating depression lifted slightly at my false memory of that earlier time. Perspective changed everything.

  “But I wasn’t asking about the concerts. How was it touring with Adam? Spending so much time with him?”

  “It was better than I would have imagined. We roamed around Hamburg yesterday morning just like a regular couple, and I thought things were just about perfect. And then the gossip started, and here I am.”

  She rolled her eyes as wide as a cow’s. “Well, yeah. But it’s obviously bullshit. All that talk about you drugging Adam? Don’t those awful gossip columnists have anything better to do?”

  My head grew light, and I reminded myself to breathe. “Stacy, what are they saying over here? Am I a monster?”

  “What? Oh! You haven’t seen! Get out your phone and Google yourself.”

  I fished it out of my purse and searched news reports. While I was in flight, Adrianna had released a press statement to clarify that she was not now, nor ever had been, engaged to Adam Copeland, nor was she distraught over his relationships with any other women. The article I had up went on to say Adam could not be reached for comment.

  “Oh, my God. That’s—” That would have been perfect twelve hours ago. Now? That asshole troll of a weasel fuck face might’ve run the story about my involvement with the perfume anyway. But without the original story connecting me to Adrianna, nobody would’ve had any incentive to dig up dirt about me in the first place. Without the initial story in the German tabloid, nobody would’ve cared.

  Stacy kept her eyes on the road. “Surely you guys aren’t fighting over these obvious lies. Did you guys fight?”

  “Yeah.” I thought back on the conversation we’d had. “No. Not exactly. It wasn’t a fight exactly.” More like an inevitable collapse.

  “So he asked you to leave just because you had a nonfight?”

  “He didn’t ask me to leave. Not exactly.” But he hadn’t told me to stay. He’d said, “Have a good life.”

  “You’re not making this very clear. I’m starting to think maybe you created some drama for yourself.”

  “Really, I wish that’s all it was. I’m afraid we’re done.”

  When she stopped at a traffic light, she turned toward me. “Look. I don’t know what the problem is. Maybe you discovered he never wants to have kids. Or maybe he grew a mustache. But unless it’s something so obviously bad, I can’t believe you guys would call it quits over one fight.”

  “What if he thinks I intentionally went after him because he’s famous? What if he thinks I meant to trick him into being with me?”

  The light turned green, but I could see her expression from the side. Her lips flattened in disgust with me. She looked at me from the corner of her eye. “Eden, I’m going to guess that if you’d stayed with the tour, you two could’ve talked this out. You have a tendency to judge things too quickly. Do you really think he believes all of that?”

  “I do. I think it’s exactly what he thinks. And he didn’t want me there anymore, Stacy. The last thing he wants is to feel like he’s being used.” I could picture his face as all his fears about me crystallized. “You were right. I should’ve told him right away. But now, he’s never going to trust me again.”

  “Give him some time, Eden. He’ll come to realize you aren’t just another groupie.”

  I laughed, but she’d only identified one half of the problem. Adam had sucked me into his orbit, immediately and like nobody I’d ever known. But his orbit was as suffocating as outer space.

  “There’s more. It’s kind of ironic that I was starting to lose my shit about the exact thing Adam must think I was after. I couldn’t hack living in his world. It was moving too fast.”

  “Well, he was pushing you pretty hard.”

  “But I don’t think he realized it, you know?”

  “Oh, Eden. He totally knew exactly what he was doing.”

  “Okay, but he didn’t mean any harm.”

  “And neither did you. He’ll see that.”

  Stacy parked the car in front of my apartment and helped me drag my suitcase in. The apartment smelled like nobody had been there in a month. It felt empty and lifeless. I turned on the TV to fill the void. On her way out the door, Stacy asked, “You wanna go out tonight? We could hit the watering hole. Get your mind off everything.”

  I stifled a yawn. “I’m beat. I never had a chance to get used to European time, but it’s like—” I did the math. “It’s two a.m. in Denmark now. I’m going to go to bed early.”

  When she was gone, I moved around my apartment, trying to find something to do to keep my mind off my immediate worries. When I heard myself humming “Compulsion,” I gave in and fired up the laptop. I searched on YouTube for any video from the show, but coming up empty, I ventured into the land of the fans.

  The activity on the forum centered around the tour. There were threads up for all different tour dates, but the one that caught my eye right away had the title: “New song—Compulsion.”

  I knew Pumpkin39 wouldn’t let people speculate about Adam’s private life, so I could at least avoid all the idle gossip about Adam if I focused on the music.

  I clicked through to find what I’d been hunting for—shaky phone video from the Paris show. The intro was cut off. The poster explained, I hadn’t intended to record anything tonight, but as soon as Adam said it was a new song, I pulled out my phone. Apologies for the sound quality. I’m in the nose bleeds and this is zoomed in as close as I could get.

  The video jumped all over the place, and the sound was tinny and distorted, but I could make out the song. I couldn’t believe the fans were so dedicated as to upload videos and post on the fan forum during a concert.

  I noticed another video had been posted with better quality soon after. The poster added, I’ve got all the videos in hi def, but knew you’d all want to see this one right away. It was incredible live. God, Adam’s a sexy beast.

  The post following the video with good audio quality asked, Can anyone make out the lyrics? I’ve got this for the first stanza.

  Each successive post added more until the entire song had been transcribed. Then the analysis began in earnest.

  Adams Apple wrote, I’ve always wondered about the biblical allusions in “Expulsion.” Obviously, the first line “In the beginning” and the word “expulsion” refer to the Garden of Eden. Now this new song has very explicit language about returning to paradise, and tree of life, and implies forbidden fruit not to mention the word garden in the first verse. The Garden of Eden. Things that make you go Hmm.

  God, these people were too quick by half. I glanced at the date on the post. At the time this was posted, Adam and I would’ve been getting it on in a Paris green room.

  Marco Polo replied, What the fuck is this anyway? A shitty love song? Jesus, if he’s in love and writing this garbage, I hope he gets his heart stepped on real quick. Give me his angry breakup music every time.

  Crazy4Copeland weighed in. I think it’s sweet. I love it when he breaks out the acoustic. I hope this is proof he’ll be doing more songs like this. His voice gives me shivers. I do wonder though if ‘Expulsion’ was written about the same person as this new song. I know we aren’t supposed to speculate on his personal life, but it is curious.

  Adams Apple wrote, Exactly.

  I looked up the lyrics to “Expulsion” to try to understand what they were talking about. I’d sung them a hundred times but never stopped and paid attention to what it was I was singing. Adam’s lyrics tended toward the allegorical, and while not shrouded in mystery, it was easy to assume the words were just telling a fictional story. Why hadn’t it occurred to me Adam’s lyrics were telling his story? “Compulsion” was obviously based on real life. When did he say he’d written “Expulsion”? Years ago. Why had he wri
tten it? Was it based on a real girl?

  In the beginning

  There was only you

  A part of me

  The world was new

  Free of shame and taboo

  And jealousy we never knew

  Expulsion

  And ejection

  Apart from you

  There’s no connection

  The crunchy guitars and the heavy drum beat covered over a very obvious fact—this pop ballad wasn’t a trite love song. It was a breakup song. Someone had hurt Adam very badly at some point. How had I never heard this song for what it was?

  My misunderstanding hinged on the double meaning of the phrase “apart from you,” which I’d always interpreted as “other than you.” Read that way, it was a song about finding the only person in the world you connect with. After all, Adam and Eve were expelled together into the world.

  But now it occurred to me that “apart from you” actually meant “away from you,” which was slap-my-forehead obvious, given the title of the track. But the meaning turned on its head. This was so clearly a song written in great pain, hidden in a pop alt rock song.

  He once told me they’d changed it to make it more commercial. How had it sounded when Adam had first written it? Whenever I’d played it acoustic, I’d played it with major chords. That explained why he found that so intriguing. The song was probably written in the saddest of all keys.

  I grabbed my guitar and tried the same song again, but this time in E minor. The plaintive and haunting twist hit me hard. It echoed the pain I felt after leaving Copenhagen. Who had done this to him?

  The posters on the forum were smart to make a connection to me, given the biblical link between the songs, but I knew better. I wondered if anyone knew the true story.

  Total Disaster showed a green online icon by her username. I hesitated and then hit Private Message.

  Hi,

  Remember me? I had another nosy question if you wouldn’t mind answering. I noticed some talk on the forum of “Expulsion” as a breakup song. I’d never thought of that before. I know nobody will talk about it openly, but is there a known story?