by Susan Ward
Decisions? What the hell does that mean? Is he up in my house planning his future with Andy?
I shake my head, trying to maintain my reserve and anger. “I did four interviews for you. I said not one word, not even a hint something was going on with us, and this is how you repay me?”
“Shit, Chrissie, don’t say that. I didn’t do it, baby. I swear.”
My limbs can no longer hold me and I sink down on a sofa. Out of my peripheral vision I catch Brian and Rene alertly watching me.
“How’s Kaley?” he asks.
The beat of my heart grows more chaotic. “She’s fine. Don’t try to change the subject.”
“I’m not trying to change the subject,” he counters, letting surface a bit of anger himself. “That’s my daughter you won’t let me see. I have a right to know how she is.”
There is too much in that for me to deal with, with all the other things coursing through me. “I want this fixed. Now, Neil.”
“I’m going to. It’s being arranged already. I’m going to read a statement apologizing to you tomorrow. I know it’s awful, sweetheart, how Ernie took charge of this, but don’t say anything. Don’t respond to the reporters. Just let it blow over until we can talk things through.”
“There is nothing to talk through.”
“God, Chrissie, don’t say that.”
I sniff back my tears. Damn, it took Helen nearly an hour to apply the makeup so my eyes no longer were puffy and red like a vampire. I need to get off the phone before I break down again.
“I’ve got to go, Neil.”
“When are you coming back?”
“I don’t know. When I’m ready.”
“We need to talk.”
I click shut the phone. I drop my face into my hands.
It’s Brian who speaks first. “Don’t trust him, Chrissie. We need to prepare some kind of response and you need to tell me what is happening so I can help you.”
I shift my gaze to Rene. I can tell what she thinks. She thinks Neil is lying and that I’d be a fool to trust him after everything that happened.
I make a snap decision. “My comment is ‘no comment’, Brian. Maybe Neil can fix this. He says he’s going to and I’m going to let him try.”
Brian lets out something that sounds like a growl. “Things like this mushroom on their own. It’s better to have a strategy. A plan.”
A plan? How does one plan the end of their marriage? I shudder. My life just keeps getting more awful. Divorce by press release.
“I think you should do what Brian advises,” Rene says firmly.
My face jerks up. Rene is probably right. But I can give Neil the benefit of the doubt one day, can’t I?
I’m about to say something when the door is abruptly opened. The thundering noise beyond the walls floods the dressing room untempered.
Alan. Snippets of the press release flash in my brain—continued involvement with rocker Alan Manzone—and everything inside me does a painful shimmy and readjusts.
He doesn’t look at me. “Everyone. Get out.”
Oh fuck.
I frantically try to read his expression, but it is frighteningly blank and I can’t tell what he’s thinking about my marriage ending with Neil or that Ernie Levine suggested in a backhanded way that Alan was to blame.
“Not now, Manny,” Brian counters forcefully.
“Get the fuck out, Brian.” His burning black stare fixes on Rene. “You, too.”
There is a sudden, too rapid flurry of action around me as the room empties. The door shuts.
For the first time Alan looks at me. He’s standing across the room doing nothing but staring at me. Oh no, I know that expression. He’s pissed—I lift my gaze to his—oh no, not pissed. He’s furious.
“Are you doing all right?” he asks quietly yet strangely intense.
I take a moment to organize my thoughts and emotions by studying him, but it does me no good, because even in this hideous morass I still feel that emotion-jarring jolt I always do the first seconds I see him. That jolt that makes my thoughts and mouth never work cooperatively.
He looks simultaneously relaxed and coiled, ready to strike. “Are you doing all right?” he repeats with fierce impatience.
Somehow I manage not to jump. “I’m fine, Alan,” I say, but I hate how unsteady my voice sounds.
His black eyes comb my face. “You’ve had a hell of a week, haven’t you, love?”
I pretend not to understand. Impatience flashes in his eyes.
He sinks down beside me on the sofa, close, but not touching. “It’s in the news, Chrissie. What happen with Neil? What did he do to cause you to walk out on the marriage?”
I hear something in his voice, urgency and an odd note I can’t decipher. How did he know I walked out on the marriage? That’s not how Neil’s people are spinning this.
I somehow manage to pull my features into a calm expression. “Ernie Levine. That’s what happened with Neil. Really, Alan. It’s just a press fuck up. That’s all. I’m sorry that you got dragged into it, but it’s just a fuck up. Nothing more. I’m sorry.”
Alan shrugs and I can’t tell if he believes me or is pretending to. “So that’s all it is, Chrissie?” he says quietly.
“There’s nothing to it.”
His jaw tightens. “OK.” He reaches out to lightly pat my thigh. “I’m here if you need me. Whatever you need, I’ll do anything I can to help you.”
“Thanks, Alan. But everything is going to be fine. There is no problem in my marriage.”
He rises to his feet. He stares down at me in a way that makes me tremble. “I will always be here if you need me. Don’t forget that, love.”
I force a smile. “You better than anyone should know never to believe what you read in the papers, Alan.”
His posture stiffens into something more distant and less accessible. He gives me a curious stare as he rakes back his hair from his face. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. If you need anything, Chrissie, ask. For once in your life, just ask. I’ll do anything I can for you. Anything you want.”
Those burning black eyes lock on me for a single moment and then he leaves. The door clicks closed and I’m too quickly surrounded by vacant air.
Oh crap. I sink down on a chair, hugging my middle, trying to stop whatever it is that’s running wildly inside me. Everything is changing so rapidly and I can’t keep up. Not with my thoughts or emotions. First Brian. Then Neil and now Alan. And I can’t escape my internal warning that I’ve somehow made another catastrophic error with Alan, that something quite different was happening in the room between us than what I thought, that I read it wrong and made another mistake.
I stare at the closed door. Fuck, what have I done? Did Alan just make the first step back toward us and did I just lie and send him away?
Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Oh fuck.
My body doubles over and the air is entering my lungs in short, painful, useless gasps.
The door opens. I look up. Rene.
She does a fast once-over of me. Her lids fly wide. “What happened?”
I stare at her, wide-eyed. “I don’t know. Everything is happening too quickly around me. I can’t catch my breath. I don’t think I can go on stage tonight.”
Rene brushes the hair back from my face. “It’s going to be fine, Chrissie. Go out there. Do your set with Alan. No one will think about what’s being splattered in the papers. It’s going to be fine.”
My breathing starts to grow rapid with my accelerating heart. “I don’t think I can do this. I don’t think I can go on stage. I don’t think I can sing. How could Neil do this to me?”
Rene gives me a heavy, meaningful look. “If you don’t go out there you’ve all but confirmed the stories Ernie Levine let loose in the press. You’ve got to rise above events until you decide how you want to handle everything.”
“My husband is leaving me for a man and blaming me in the papers. Exactly how do I handle that?”
S
hit, why did I say it out loud? My panic attack kicks up ten levels.
“Oh fuck,” Rene exclaims, going to her purse. She grabs something and returns with a little white pill in her hand. She shoves it in my mouth before I can stop her.
“Damn it, Chrissie, don’t spit it out,” she orders, holding a chilled bottle of water in front of me. When I don’t take it she glares. “It’s only a tranquilizer, prescribed by my doctor. See, prescribed.” She holds the bottle in front of my face. “It will only chill you ever so slightly. Take the edge off. Nothing more. Make you pleasantly numb. Hopefully get you through tonight’s performance, until we can go back to my place and deal with Neil.”
She sounds so confident. So sure. I stare at her. I hesitate.
“Damn it, Chrissie, you don’t have to do everything the hard way always. It doesn’t make you weak to need a little help from time to time. There’s a lot of pressure in medical school. This takes off the edge those nights when I need it. The doctor wouldn’t give it to me if it were dangerous or addictive or wrong.”
I grab the water from her hand, take a large swig and swallow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I stand in a darkened corner of the stage wing, trying to keep up with where Alan and the band are in the set as I wait for my entrance. The air is stiflingly hot, the overcrowded arena pulsing, but I’m astonishingly calm, not even a flutter of the nerves I usually get waiting to go on stage. Just a tad drowsy, wonderfully so.
What the fuck did Rene give me?
I sway slightly on my feet and, the head of my security team, Trey, grabs my shoulders, steadying me. His face lowers until his mouth is at my ear.
“Chrissie, are you all right?” he asks anxiously.
The voice I hear is not the one in my head. “She’s fine,” Rene exclaims carelessly.
I open my eyes. Rene is standing close to me and I’m being held on my feet with my back against a piece of equipment by Trey’s strong grip. I see the microphone in my hand. I don’t even remember it being given to me. I start to laugh. I’m so tired and don’t know why I’m laughing.
“Oh fuck, what are you on?” Trey mutters in dread.
“She took a tranquilizer,” Rene counters, annoyed. “A very mild dose of Valium. Christ, do you blame her with all the shit happening today?”
They start to argue over me, their words too rapid to bother to process. I just want to sleep. For the first time in too many days, I feel like I could sleep, really sleep.
Trey grabs my chin, jerking my face toward him. “Chrissie, talk to me. How fucked up are you? How much have you had to drink?”
I shake my head. Then I feel a light slap on my cheek. He swears again, then talks into his headset. “Hey, can someone find Brian Craig and send him to stage left wait? Now. I don’t know what to do. I’ve got one fucked-up singer here. I don’t think she should go on.”
Trey grabs a water from the pile in a bucket and unscrews the lid. He pushes it against my mouth.
“Chrissie, try to drink some.”
“Let me do it,” I hear Rene snap, pushing him out of the way. Her face moves into mine. “Chrissie, look at me.” I stare into her searching gaze and her lids shoot wide. I feel her fingers moving my lower lids. “Holy crap, who gets this fucked up on one Valium? Drink the water, sweetheart.”
The water is pushed into my mouth. Coolness runs down my throat and chin. My arms start flapping.
“Come on, sweetheart.” Rene is making me bounce and moving my arms in a flying motion. “Wake yourself up. You need to pull it together. Get out there and do your thing.”
The motion is good. I slowly focus, less drowsy. Another large gulp of water is poured down my throat. I start to cough.
I push the bottle away. “No, I don’t need more. I’m OK. That blast of ice water on my tits pretty much shocked me awake.”
Rene laughs. “I should pour the whole damn bottle there.”
I stare at her, still feeling too out-of-body. “What did you give me?”
“Just a Valium. I didn’t think it would hit you like this. But then, you didn’t really eat lunch or breakfast, and, crap, I don’t even know how much we’ve had to drink today. Oh God, I’m sorry, Chrissie. I didn’t think it would mess you up like this. I was just trying to help.”
I nod, trying to keep up with her words, and I realize Alan is starting the song before my entrance.
“I’m OK. Don’t worry,” I assure her, but even I can hear my voice is breathy and strange. I put a hard, fast friendship kiss on her lips.
I push away from the wall and start to shake out my body. My wandering vision roams and then locks on Alan center stage and my heartbeat increases. All other parts of me are without sensation; I can feel only my heart, its frantic pounding, and the only thing my heart can feel is Alan. I am consumed by him, even now when he is on center stage, not a thought in his head for me, as unreachable as if he were on another continent.
My vision becomes a narrowing tunnel where there is only him. It is impossible to see anything else when Alan is on stage. I start to grow hotter, less comfortable in my flesh, and Alan is just standing there. Black eyed, black hair, potent in his masculine beauty, a master of the space around him, more erotic, more stirring, more inciting than any man has a right to be.
Shit, he hardly moves. He hasn’t looked at me once. But then again, Alan doesn’t have to. He commands everyone around him with his pain, his passion, his brilliance and his anger. That sense that he invites you inside him and then quickly bolts the door. Intoxicating and unreachable at once.
His low raspy voice swirls around me like caressing chains holding me to him. And I hear in his voice, his music, the Alan I have only ever known in his bed. Alan singing is Alan in bed. A lack of want and a well of screaming need unfed. He needs. He does not need. He wants. He does not want. He loves. He does not love. He hungers. He is not hungry. He devours. He overfills you. He hates. He does not hate.
An endless paradox. Enigmatic, consuming, and enticingly him. Shit, no wonder I’ve always loved him. I’ve lied to myself. There were times I almost believed it. But I have never for a moment since I first met Alan stopped loving him. I feel it so strongly in this moment, rushing all around and through me. I will always love him.
I’m panting, sweating, and out of control again. Only this time it is my Alan-affect. Crap! What’s wrong with me that I can’t take hold of my own mind, heart and body?
I fight to concentrate on the music from the stage. Just listen to the music, Chrissie. Don’t miss your entrance. Don’t look at Alan. Sing. Then leave. Don’t trust yourself. Don’t get near him. Not today.
Time moves in, everything around me takes on a fuzzy cast, and then jumps into focus, accelerating. I hear my own voice, and I realize I’m singing and moving on stage and the crowd has come to its feet.
I count the beats in my head. Stay on the beat, Chrissie. Four songs. And then you can get the hell out of here.
The minutes slip by without a feel of realness. I’m finishing the final note of the last song, vaguely aware I have somehow managed to do this and yet not aware of anything I’ve done. But it’s going to be all right. It’s over. I’m not sure if I performed a good or bad set, the crowd is crazy—they are always crazy in Alan’s universe—but I’m done.
Leaning forward, I breathe in deeply, struggling to collect myself, knowing that I am more exhausted and winded than I should be. I tick off in my head the after-performance ritual. One kiss and one loose, wraparound sort of hug with Alan, three words, a handful of steps, Trey—where the fuck is he?—and then I’m out of here.
I straighten up smiling, waving as I move across the floor toward Alan. Crap, why are my mind and body moving in slow motion and why is everything around me moving too quickly? The arena shimmies and starts to twirl. I’m on my feet, but everything is spinning. My thoughts. My heart. Alan.
Damn.
My shifting vision fixes on Alan. Those black eyes are burning into me and I
grow more disoriented. Why is he staring at me that way? No, don’t think about that. Don’t think of Alan.
Smile at him, Chrissie. Do the little hug/hug/kiss/kiss homage and escape off stage. Just say “thank you LA” and get the hell away quickly. Everything will be OK.
I find Trey in the wings waiting with security for me, and relief joins the gushing blood in my veins. I hold the microphone to my lips, my mouth moves, but I can’t hear my own voice. The crowd erupts, swelling toward the stage, coming to their feet with a riotous response that rumbles through the rafters.
The world shifts and my body feels like it is melting beneath me. I anticipate the impact, but it doesn’t happen. Why don’t I hit the floor? I focus for a moment. Len is holding me against him and his hand is closed over my fingers, and for some reason he is lowering my arm to my side.
“Little kitty, hold onto me. Let me get you off stage,” Len Rowan says soothingly. His arm tightens around my waist and my head droops onto his shoulder.
The look on his face is strange. Why does Len look so anxious? Then I see Alan and the rest of the guys in a tight circle around me, and then I know why the band and tech crew are staring at me so strangely. Why the crowd is going berserk the way it is.
Alan is firing off rapid words and I can’t catch any of them, but everyone is alarmed and staring at me. Maybe I could figure out what was happening if I could take in air and the arena would stop spinning.
Why is Alan yelling?
I feel a slap on my face. “What did you do, Chrissie? What did you take?”
Alan’s voice sounds far away, as if in a tunnel, and I feel his touch but nothing works on my body. I’m motionless.
I feel limp like a ragdoll.
“Valium…booze… Her friend, she said she’d be OK. That she was a doctor. Jesus Christ, I didn’t want to send her on stage. I shouldn’t have.”
I try to talk. Trey sounds so distraught, but I can’t gather my words because the voices around me won’t shut up.