by Leslie Wells
“Tomorrow we’ll get our own ride,” Darrell said as he slammed the door.
Jack laughed. “I guess Bubba doesn’t like competition.”
“What an asshole,” Rick said. “Why is your mother seeing someone like that?”
“So how’s my downstroke?” Jack paused mid-motion. I gazed up at him, my hands gripping his shoulders.
“It’s amazing,” I breathed. “But god, Darrell’s awful. I haven’t been subjected to one of her Romeos in a long time. I’m glad they’re leaving tomorrow.”
“He didn’t seem to be into the city all that much. Or your mother, for that matter.”
Suddenly I wasn’t in the mood for lovemaking. I slid away from Jack and turned toward the wall. “What did I say?” he asked.
“Nothing. It’s just depressing to see her with someone like that. It reminds me of all the awful men she went out with after my father left.”
Jack turned me over to face him. “You said she got around. I know that was hard on you.” He regarded me with his fathomless brown eyes.
“She always seemed so desperate, like she’d do anything to catch a man. Picking up guys from Buck’s, and god knows where else.” I winced at the memory. “I couldn’t believe my Dad never came back for me. It was like the rug got pulled out from under my whole life.” I didn’t mention what had always run through my mind: If your own father doesn’t want you, then why would anyone else?
Jack traced the curve of my cheek. “It was pretty bad after my own Pop left, too. After they split up, Mum had to take a full-time job. I hated coming home from school to an empty house. I always told myself I’d make enough money so my own kid would never have to do that.”
This gave me a queasy feeling. Was he saying he wouldn’t have a child with someone who had a career? “Did Maggie like working?” I asked.
“She loathed it. She would’ve loved to have been home with me, but it wasn’t until awhile after she remarried that she could quit. Sharon was little, but by then I was a teenager.” He scowled. “I moved out before her douchebag of a second husband threw me out. Then after they divorced, I was able to buy Mum the house she’s in now.” I lay there in silence, taking it all in.
“So.” Jack took me by my shoulders. “Are we gonna look for your Dad, or not?”
“Let me think about it some more,” I said.
Chapter Thirteen
Popstar
Unzipping my coat, I stuffed my damp gloves in my pocket as the elevator whooshed up to the penthouse. I hoped Jack was home, but I knew the band was in furious preparations for their upcoming tour. According to him, rehearsals had been anything but smooth.
I pushed through the front door and stopped in my tracks. A woman was on the couch with Jack—Oh my god! Her head’s in his lap!
Jack turned around and saw me. He pulled the woman up to a sitting position.
“Julia, this is Robin.” He got up and came over to me. “She felt something in her hair. I thought it might be a mantis.”
The tutor—who was very attractive, I noticed—was calmly gathering her papers from the coffee table.
“Did you find anything? Or did she get what she was groping for?” I asked as Muddy anxiously circled us.
Robin was pulling on her coat. I took a good look at her; lush brunette hair and plenty of curves under her clingy sweater. Jack had always implied she was rather plain. Tucking in her scarf, she glanced at me.
“Lesson’s over; we’ve done everything we wanted to do,” she said with smug emphasis. “That was great, Jack. I’ll see you Thursday.” She brushed past me on her way out.
Well, bully for you. I stared at Jack. I figured he wasn’t dumb enough or sleazy enough to fool around with someone in the loft, particularly since he knew I’d be home at any minute. But I was interested in what he’d have to say.
Jack sighed. “It wasn’t what it looked like. She felt something crawling in her head.” He gave a wry smile. “As opposed to giving me head.”
“That didn’t look too good. In fact, that was the definition of ‘compromising position’.” I put my hands on my hips. “What if I’d come in five minutes later; what would I have seen then?”
“Keep your knickers on. Nothing happened.” Jack crossed his arms.
“Did she keep hers on?”
“C’mon, Julia.” Jack turned on his heel and went toward the kitchen. “She’s helping me with the reading. That’s all there is to it,” he said as he opened the refrigerator. It was annoying that he thought he could just blow off my concerns.
“What would you do if you came home and found my face in some guy’s lap?”
“What d’you think? I’d kick seven shades of shit out of him.” He rummaged in the fridge and returned with a bottle in each hand. “Here, have a beer. Tell me about your day.” He indicated a spot next to him on the couch, but I sat at the other end. From his fleece-lined bed Muddy warily pricked his ears.
“My day went pretty well until I found you two together,” I said.
“Look, if I was going to fuck somebody, it wouldn’t be her.” With this not-entirely-reassuring statement, Jack snapped his fingers. “Come here, Muddy.” The puppy trotted over. As I stroked his soft black head, he buried his nose in my crotch.
“Hey, dog, that’s my spot.” Jack pulled Muddy away by his collar. “What happened at work?” He took a gulp from the bottle and fixed his deep chocolate gaze on me.
I took a swig of beer. “My day was almost as exciting as yours seems to have been.”
Jack made a “keep it rolling” gesture, so I resumed. “Today I got Little Things Can Be Big into production, since we’re rushing it out. And I didn’t get a chance to tell you with Dot around, but I got assigned a new author. New to me; not to Hawtey. One of our big bestsellers.”
“That’s great, Julia. Who is it?” Jack put his arm around my shoulder. Even though I was used to his touch, it still sent an electric jolt through my body. I took in his sexy five o’clock shadow; his long dark lashes that would seem almost pretty if not for his decidedly masculine features. No wonder he melts women in all seven continents, I told myself. Not to mention his uppity tutor. The thought of her made me decide to do a little lesson-teaching of my own.
“This writer’s a real big shot: Dermot Chase. He’s our most important author, in fact. I ran into him in the elevator, and he decided on the spot that he wanted me.” I waited a beat. “To be his editor.”
Jack removed his arm. “How old is this guy?”
“I’d say early forties. You’ve probably seen his picture in the paper; he’s really photogenic. They always run huge ads whenever he has a new book out. I have to set up a meeting with him right away. He said he likes to work very closely together.” Put that in your bong and smoke it, I told him mentally.
“I thought they just send the manuscript to you, and then you mark it up.”
“With a big author like him, I guess it’s pretty hands-on. I’ll probably have to meet with him after work,” I said. “But since you’re in the studio so late most nights, it won’t really matter. I imagine I’ll be home by the time you get in.”
Jack frowned, but what could he say? It was pretty much tit for tat. “Do you want to order something for dinner?” I asked.
“Patrick’s coming over. We have to nail down some details about the tour. Mark and Sammy will probably stop by, too.”
My pulse leapt; I dreaded having his world-famous band mate here. Patrick always seemed to look down his nose at me, assessing me with contempt and slight disgust—the way you might examine a stray hair floating in your soup. Of course that hadn’t kept him from trying to seduce me in a restaurant bathroom last summer, but I’d always thought that was just a way to get Jack’s goat. The two of them seemed to be in an ongoing competition over—as Suzanne once put it—everything from who got the hottest girl to who wrote the best lyrics; who had the coolest clothes to who could hold the most liquor.
“What time are they coming?”
I got up to feed Muddy, thinking maybe I could take him out for a walk to avoid Patrick. The puppy leaned against me as I reached for his dish. Something was sticking out of his mouth. I held his chin and removed—ugh!—a small green matchstick. Quickly I tossed the mantis leg into the garbage so Jack wouldn’t see.
“I’ve already fed him, and he’s done his business. On the rug again, but I cleaned it up,” Jack said.
“Oh. Okay.” Too bad—that would have been a great excuse to vacate the premises.
“Patrick should be here any minute. For a while there today at the studio, we were working on this new song.” Jack got a faraway look in his eyes, as he did sometimes when talking about music.
“Have I heard this one yet?”
“No, it’s brand new. But it’s really coming together. When Patrick and I can just sit down and play, without all the bullshit…It’s like when two strings are vibrating on different wavelengths, but eventually they come together and get in tune. When that happens, it’s the best thing ever—even better than sex.” Jack smiled. “And you know how much I like that. I wish it could be that way all the time with him.”
“It must be amazing when it is,” I said.
“Yeah, but he always claims I come up with better stuff when I’m gutted. I wrote ‘Bent, Not Broken’ in that frame of mind.” He named The Floor’s saddest ballad about having lost love and even the will to go on. “Sometimes I do think I write the best songs when I’m knocked-down and drug-out,” he continued musingly.
Assuming he hadn’t felt that way lately, I wondered how it affected his songwriting. Or his feelings about me.
The buzzer from the doorman sounded, and Jack went to answer it. A few minutes later, Patrick came in. I could smell his cologne from across the room; a signature scent that Jack said he had specially made up for him in Paris. Patrick unwove his cashmere scarf, took off his coat and tossed his fur hat on the table, smoothing his perfectly feathered blonde hair.
“Fucking freezing out there,” he said in his upper-crusty London accent. He removed the sunglasses he’d worn to avoid being recognized in the lobby. Despite the wintry chill, he had the year-round tan of the extremely privileged.
“What else is new. Did you bring the tape?” Jack asked.
Patrick plopped down on the couch and pushed Muddy away from his wool pants. “Shit. I thought you had it.”
“I left it there, since you wanted to redo your vocals for the trillionth time.” Jack sat in an armchair.
Patrick’s blue-green gaze flicked over me. “Fetch me a drink, will you sweetheart? Gin with a dash of bitters. D’you have any Tanqueray?”
“Get your own. You know where it’s kept,” Jack said as he stretched his legs.
“I’ll get it.” I’d rather keep busy than have to make small talk with his cranky lead singer. I fixed the drink, going heavy on the bitters, opened another beer for Jack and brought it over with the bottle of whiskey I knew he’d want.
“We’ve got to finalize the stops on the tour. Should we bother with Ohio this time around? It’s so inconvenient.” Patrick took his drink without thanking me, and handed Jack a typed itinerary. “We could fly right over, go straight from St. Louis to Philly.”
“We could do. But the fans would probably riot,” Jack said.
“That’s just ’coz you like Cincinnati Patty.” Patrick smirked.
Jack glanced at me. “That was Sammy.”
The door banged open. “Patty’s a complete minger!” Mark waltzed in, Sammy in tow. “It’s Dallas Alice that’s the mutt’s nuts.” The men tugged off their coats as Muddy barked. I went over to calm him down.
“Hello, luv.” Mark kissed my cheek and rifled the snow out of his spiky yellow hair, exposing dark roots. Suzanne needs to give him a touch-up, I thought. They had met when she was a stylist in London, but she had long since stopped working in salons. Now she only practiced on Mark, changing his hair color every few weeks.
“Hello. Is it still snowing?” I asked.
“It’s cold as a lawyer’s heart,” Sammy drawled. He grabbed me, leaned me back and pretended to make out with my neck as I giggled. “Come on, you know you’re tired of that limp teabag over there. Time to try a Georgia king snake, baby.”
“Lay off her,” Jack growled. “She’s had a long day at work.”
“How’s the new job?” Sammy asked, releasing me.
“It’s great. I just signed up my first book: Little Things Can Be Big.”
Sammy stared at me. “You mean like those ads in back of the Village Voice? I didn’t know your company did that kind of thing.”
I laughed at his shocked expression. “No, it’s nothing like that.”
“Ignore him, his head’s in the gutter,” Jack said.
“Got any Vitamin T?” Sammy asked, sprawling in a chair. “I need some lubrication.”
“I’m fresh out of tequila; pass him the Wild Turkey. We’ve been having a chin wag about the schedule,” Jack added.
“I thought it was all set.” Mark grabbed Patrick’s drink off the coffee table and drained it in one gulp. Sammy lit a huge joint and handed it around.
“It still needs finessing.” Patrick took a hit and gave it to Mark.
“He’s changing it up last-minute. Just like the lyrics,” Jack said.
“You two aren’t still on about that, are you?” Mark poured shots of whiskey and opened a beer. I settled into a chair as they discussed the tour. Patrick only wanted to do twenty-five cities, complaining that his voice wouldn’t hold out, but Jack was pushing for thirty.
“If I can get it finished, I’ll do my new song in the middle of the set,” Jack said. “That’ll give you a break.”
“Oh, that. I guess you could, if we’re desperate for something to fill in.” Patrick looked distinctly underwhelmed.
Jack glared at him. “Don’t bite your arm off.”
“Yeah, show a little enthusiasm.” Mark passed the joint and scratched his head, sending his roosterish yellow hair pointing in all directions. “Did you hear Nicky Headon’s leaving The Clash? They’ve kicked him out ’coz he won’t give up the junk.”
“Who cares?” Jack flicked an ash and rubbed it into his jeans.
Patrick looked bored. “How sad to hear of such a…schism.”
“Bless you!” Sammy said.
There was a knock at the door, and I got up to get it. A tall, stick-thin redhead in a long leather coat strode inside. “I was working on a painting and lost all track of time,” Suzanne said, bussing my cheek. As I took her coat, the men continued their conversation.
“Let’s leave them to their bitching.” She followed me into the kitchen and I poured us both a beer. Suzanne made a face as she sat at the table, so I moved the mantis cage to the counter.
“Bugs give me the willies,” she said. “I hope Jack appreciates you indulging his twisted ways.”
“I don’t mind, as long as they stay put. How’s the painting coming along?” I asked.
Suzanne tsk’ed. “This is the first time I’ve done any in over a month. With all the concert preparations, I just haven’t had time. And Mark’s such a sodding infant: Where’s my orange jeans? Can you touch up my hair? Did you order the nylon-tipped drumsticks? She ran her hand through her spiky red layers, her skeleton earrings swaying.
“I hope you’ll be able to get back to it, once the tour’s over. Your opening was so great.” I’d attended her first solo show at a gallery on Spring Street last fall.
Suzanne picked at the bottle’s label. “It’s driving me crazy. I feel like I had my big breakthrough, but now I’m back to ironing Mark’s shirts. How about you? You seem to have time to work, and also be Jack’s love slave.” She smiled, showing upper gum in a way that was appealingly childlike.
“I guess. Although lately the work part seems to be overtaking the romantic part. By the time he gets home, I’m usually sacked out. Then of course he’s asleep when I leave for the office in the morning.”
Suza
nne touched my hand. “Well, I admire your drive. But keep in mind that these guys are big babies. They expect everything to happen when they want it, how they want it—almost even before they’ve realized they wanted it. ‘My wish is your command’ type of thing.”
I hadn’t really seen that aspect of Jack yet, but she seemed to know what she was talking about. “Okay, forewarned is forearmed, I guess.”
“Hey, Suzie! Can you bring us more beer?” As if on cue, Sammy’s voice came from the front of the loft.
“And another whiskey!” Mark called out.
“See what I mean?” she said. We grabbed a few bottles and took them to the men.
Patrick stood and smoothed down his pants. “I’ve got to go. Stephanie’s picking me up at eleven.” He named the most recent supermodel in his collection. “Later, you lot.” He fitted his hat on his head and grabbed his coat. Sammy hummed “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” as the door closed.
“Stephanie’s picking me up,” Mark imitated in a high-pitched voice. “It’s not like she’s all that hot. Why’d you let him cut back on the tour?” he asked Jack. “It doesn’t make sense, if people want to see us. He’s always got to throw a spanner in the works.”
“Better to let him think he’s getting his way, while he’s still at 98.6,” Jack replied. “I’ll tell Mary Jo to leave it as it was.”
“Who told him he’s in charge?” Mark said.
“You know Patrice; he always wants to control everything. And I just want to lose control.” Jack stretched his arms over his head and yawned.
“That’s for sure,” Sammy said. “All right, I’m gonna make like a prom dress and take off.” He took one last big draw of the roach—the third or fourth of the evening—and rose to get his coat. “Julia, I don’t know what you see in these crumpet-suckers. Any time you get bored, you’ve got my number.”
“And I’m gonna make like a dog and flea.” Mark petted Muddy’s head and got up to go.
“Both of you make like birds, and flock off,” Jack said. Suzanne blew him a kiss, hugged me goodnight, and ushered Mark and Sammy into the elevator. I could hear the echo of their voices singing “Love Me Tender” as it descended.