True North

by Liora Blake

  “Maybe a little. Not sure what it is. I’ve spent a lot of time in bed the last few days.”

  This isn’t a complete lie. It’s what my dad used to call an “effective lie.” The kind of lie you tell to save someone’s feelings, or in this case, to save yourself from having to explain the naked man in your bedroom.

  “Well, I wanted to make sure you were still alive. I haven’t heard from you in a week.” Shrugging her shoulders, Lacey points at the breakfast prep in the kitchen. “You can’t be that sick. Quite a spread you have there.”

  Lacey starts to take her jacket off, because apparently she’s ready to dig in and have a family breakfast together. I have to get her out of here—now. Why would she pick today, out of every other day, to decide we should do brunch? Next, she’ll want to make friendship bracelets and get a mani-pedi together.

  “Lace, you can’t stay.” I grab her jacket and shove it toward her.

  “What? Why? Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine. I’m just not in the mood for company right now. Don’t you have to work today anyway?” I steer her toward the door, lowering my voice so Trevor doesn’t hear and decide to get curious.

  “Not until two. I traded shifts with Sandi so she could go to her kid’s soccer game.” Lacey stumbles a bit, her foot catching against the errant edge of an area rug.

  “Katie?” Trevor’s voice emerges from the bedroom and I close my eyes, enjoying a drop of remaining peace before that freight train I’m imagining does its fiery-crash thing. I can practically hear the bloodcurdling screams of innocent townspeople in my head.

  Lacey halts and raises her hand up in a gesture to silence me, looking out the corners of her eyes toward the hallway leading to the bedroom. Before I can fake a heart attack or something to distract her, Trevor is standing there, still a little wet from the shower, with only a towel wrapped around his waist. Thank God he at least has a towel on.

  “Baby, do you have any more—oh, hi.” Trevor gives Lacey a small wave and then looks at me with his eyes big.

  “Hi.” Lacey manages to strangle out the tiny word, but her voice is the quietest I’ve ever heard it. I drop my shoulders in resignation and flail my hand between them.

  “Trevor, this is my sister, Lacey. Lacey, this is Trevor.”

  “Nice to meet you. Sorry I’m not exactly dressed for the occasion. Just got out of the shower.” Trevor points to the bathroom and looks back toward it like he wishes a time machine would appear.

  “Uh-huh. Nice to meet you, too.” Lacey’s jaw is gaping and I see her take a labored breath, then swallow. Her eyes rake over his body and I can’t blame her for staring a little longer than would be considered socially appropriate. Besides, “appropriate” left the room when Trevor sauntered in looking like an ad for a very manly scented body wash.

  “Well, it’s great you two could meet and all, but Lacey was just on her way out. She has to be at work soon—don’t want to be late, right?”

  I give her a restrained kidney punch that is sufficient enough to get her moving forward again. Toward the door, where she belongs. Anywhere but here, in this room with a half-naked Trevor.

  “I don’t have to be there for another four hours.”

  “Still. Long drive, wide-open spaces of Montana and all. Who knows how the traffic will be today? Can’t take any risks.”

  I almost have her out the door, when Trevor calls out to me. “Katie?”

  When I turn back to him, he mouths the word “sorry” and grips the towel to ensure it doesn’t fall open. If Lacey saw the rest of him, all those perfect bits, she would probably die. Again, totally understandable, but then I might have to step over her body to get to him.

  “Do you have any more toothpaste? We’re almost out.”

  “Under the sink, right-hand side.”

  Lacey continues out the door, and when we make it to the porch, I’m exhausted because it seems like we’ve been stuck in the house having that awkward conversation for hours. I stop at the edge of the porch and pray Lacey will just walk away. Not likely, but a girl can dream.

  “What the hell is going on?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t screw around; you know what I mean, Kate! How long has he been here?”

  “Three days.”

  “Were you going to tell me?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe? Did you sleep with him?”

  “I’ll plead the fifth on that.”

  “Well, that answers my question. I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing. This isn’t some random guy. This is Trax!”

  “Trevor.”

  “Trevor, whatever. Oh, and who the hell is ‘Katie’? Nobody calls you that.”

  “He does.” I stare out at the driveway, avoiding my sister’s admonishing looks, and try to ignore the way she’s huffing and sighing exaggeratedly. Lacey walks down the stairs and then turns back to face me.

  “Don’t get sucked into this. Nothing good can come out of it. Do you actually think you’re going to move to California and live happily ever after with him?”

  “I like him and he likes me. Even if it all falls to pieces tomorrow, I’ll survive. It won’t be the worst thing that’s ever happened to me. A little heartbreak never killed anyone. A world full of heartbreak didn’t kill me, did it? Here I am, standing upright and loving the way that guy in there makes me feel.”

  I step toward the front door, grasping the doorknob before turning to give my sister a conciliatory smile. Lacey responds by letting her shoulders slump and shaking her head gently. “I love you, Kate, and I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  She offers her own small smile, a silent sisterly truce acknowledged because of it, then starts toward her car. As she pulls out of the driveway, she rolls down the window and hollers, “Tell him I’ll kill him if he screws with you!”

  The next morning, Trevor and I sit in bed, eating cold pizza from the night before. I’m picking the toppings off and eating them first, watching Trevor mindfully chew each bite.

  I take a breath and ask the question that’s been on my mind on and off since he arrived. “Is this a bad idea?”

  “Eating pizza in bed? For breakfast?”

  “No—”

  “Because it’s not. It’s way better than a Pop-Tart or something. Pop-Tarts are full of partially hydrogenated weirdness and high-fructose shit.”

  “No. This. Whatever it is that we’re doing.” I pick a mushroom off the top and throw it in my mouth, cocking my head to the side. “Maybe we’re being unrealistic.”

  “About what?”

  “Your life. Parties and touring and slutty women putting their hands on you.” I look down. “That kind of stuff.”

  Trevor inspects his last bite and chews carefully. He throws the crust in the box and dusts his hands off.

  “Let me break this down for you. I’ve been doing this shit for ten years, and I’m not the same guy that I was when I started out. I still like to party sometimes, but I don’t do drugs anymore and I don’t get wrecked like before.”

  “What was it like before?” Keeping my focus on my pizza slice, I hope he might tell me that he liked to attend poetry readings and spent his craziest nights at the library, researching ancient Greek mythology.

  “You really want to know?”

  “I asked, didn’t I?”

  “Just don’t hold it against me later, OK? Someday, when we have a fight, don’t throw this in my face.”

  I nod and gulp. So much for those zany evenings buried in the dusty library stacks. Unless strippers and groupies get off on that kind of thing.

  “When my first record came out, I went from being a nobody to everyone knowing my name. I had money. Shitloads of money. And whatever money can’t buy you, being famous can. Cars, houses, clothes, drugs, people. Anything you want. Maybe for someone like you, who didn’t grow up poor—”

  “I didn’t exactly grow up with a silver spoon in my mouth.”

  “But y
ou also didn’t grow up on food stamps or in public housing. The projects are a long way from middle-class, you know?”

  I concede to his point with a shrug, knowing I probably wouldn’t last a day in the inner city.

  He continues. “What I’m trying to say is that after being dirt poor, when someone hands you a check with all those zeros, it makes you feel like nothing can touch you. On top of that, I was fucking famous. It’s like you’re invincible. That kind of trip makes you do some stupid shit. I spent years pushing every limit you can think of. Seeing how much I could drink before blacking out. How much coke I could blow through in a day. How many girls I could fuck in the same night. How much of an asshole I could be before somebody called the cops.”

  “How many did you fuck in one night?” In the library, of course. While the girl recites Tennyson or Wordsworth between shrieks of pleasure.

  “No way. Do I look like a moron to you?”

  I take in his face, the few faint lines that crease around his eyes, the two little freckles that sit just near his hairline, and the traces of gold that dot his irises. Nope, he doesn’t look like a moron to me. Unless “moron” also happens to be French for “yummy” or something.

  Smiling, I shake my head back and forth, figuring I really don’t want to know anyway.

  “Are you saying you aren’t like that anymore?”

  “I’m not like that anymore. Especially now.”

  “What about the chicks, the bitches, the hos?” Adding my best urban inflection, I shove my hands in the air in some kind of awkward Montana gang sign.

  Trevor stops chewing and smirks. “Don’t try to be ghetto. It doesn’t work for you.” He leans back into the pillows. “I got tired of that, too. The same shit with slutty chicks can get old. At a certain point, beating off is just as satisfying as fucking some groupie.”

  “What?”

  “It’s the same every time. I tell them they’re hot, they say they’re my biggest fan, I bend them over. Done.”

  “Jesus.” I cough and snort an uncomfortable laugh. “Are you trying to tell me that you’re not a ‘playa’ anymore?” He shoots me the same look as he did a minute ago. Fine, message received. I’m better with using words like “matriarch” and “erudite,” anyway.

  Trevor looks at the ceiling and sighs. “If I tell you something, you have to promise that if we break up and hate each other, you won’t sell this to some gossip rag.”

  “OK.” Like I would even know how to contact a gossip magazine. Are they listed in the phone book? Under what? Gossip, Sales? Or maybe, Celeb Life, Sales & Destruction?

  “Until you, I hadn’t been with anybody in almost six months.”

  “So?” Obviously, he would be horrified if he did the math on my three merry-go-round rides since James died. Until him, of course. My stats are shooting through the roof now.

  “I’m Trax, for Christ’s sake. My reputation precedes me. I sell records because of it.” He raises his brows at me and throws his hands out toward the ceiling.

  “Oh, I get it. You don’t think people would buy your records if they knew you lived like a monk, you know, for six whole months?” I shake my head incredulously.

  “Maybe. Before you, it’d been forever since I’d met someone I wanted to be with. Most of the women I met just annoyed the shit out of me. Then there you were, sitting in that greenroom in that tight skirt and those heels, blowing Simon off, and looking at me with those sexy blue eyes. I barely got home before I got off thinking about you bent over in the greenroom after we finished taping. Then, at the skatepark, when we kissed you tasted so good, your body felt so perfect in my hands, I knew I was completely fucked. Totally. Screwed.”

  Trevor shakes his head and rolls his eyes, grinning at me as I slither back under the covers. “The whole time, I kept thinking about how you were too much for me. That night at the club, when you said you wanted me and I drove us back to your hotel?”

  Nodding, I remember the stony silence and the tic in his clenching jaw. “I was freaking out. Partly because I knew I had to find condoms before you changed your mind.” He shakes his head and sighs. “But mostly, I had no idea what to do with you.”

  I screw up my face and shake my head. “Why? Because you hadn’t had sex in six months? It’s like riding a bike. You don’t really forget.”

  Trust me. I would know.

  “No. Because it was you. Not some trashy groupie or a dipshit starlet. I didn’t know what to do with a sexy, capable, smart, grown woman who didn’t want anything from me.”

  “Oh, see, you’re wrong there, I totally wanted something from you.”

  Snorting a laugh, I raise one eyebrow at him. He gives me a small smile back and then looks down at his hands. When he raises his eyes back to mine, his voice is hushed and it cracks a little.

  “But I wanted to give you everything. I wanted to make sure I got under your skin, because I wanted you to be as deep into me as I was into you.”

  Blinking, I hold my eyes closed for a moment. Then I reach over and thread my fingers through his.

  “I think everybody got what they wanted, then, Jenkins.”

  17

  Herm leaves a rambling message on my cell in the morning, apologizing profusely for bothering me, but needing my help finding some files for the weekend features spread. I hold my breath and off we go, driving into Crowell in the daylight. Together. It feels a little like we are driving straight into the hell mouth.

  I introduce Trevor to Rita, leaving them to chat while I check my messages and track down the files Herm needs. My desk is a mess, a clear sign that Herm turned the place upside down before calling me. I can easily imagine him, grumbling, with his little seventies glasses hanging down to the tip of his skinny nose, shoving things around on my desk, then scratching his bald head before giving up.

  “Rita, why didn’t he call me earlier and ask me where the files were? I told him I would be home all week and to call if he needed anything.” I holler into the hallway from my office. Rita comes down the hall and pokes her head through the office doorway.

  “Well, your sister came by and told us you had a houseguest,” Rita whispers and then juts her head in the direction of Trevor. “She said you probably didn’t want to be disturbed. Now I see why.”

  “Rita, you tell Herm when he gets back that he should have called me. Besides, Trevor’s leaving tom—” I’m interrupted with the sound of a shrieking girl. First one voice, then two. Rita and I look at each other and hurry into the main office.

  Trevor is leaning against an antique printing press, looking a bit unnerved as Rita’s teenage daughter and her best friend shriek and hold on to each other, while jumping around. Rita runs over to her daughter and grabs her by the shoulders.

  “Jocelyn! Jocelyn, shut up! What is your problem?”

  They finally stop screaming and begin quietly boiling over while staring at Trevor. After a few seconds, he relaxes and leans forward with his hand out.

  “Hi, I’m Trax.”

  That sets them off again, squealing and shaking, so adolescently dramatic that I can’t help but laugh. Trevor flinches when they start to scream again and poor Rita is stuck between them trying to figure out what all the fuss about.

  “Could someone tell me what is going on here?” Rita has her arms extended, with one teenage girl on either side.

  “Mom, this is Trax. Trax is here. Standing in your office!”

  “Should I know who that is?”

  “You know the songs you won’t let me play in the car?” Jocelyn looks at Rita impatiently, waiting for her old geezer of a mother to catch up.

  “Which one?” Rita stops and looks at Trevor. “Oh Lord, the one that goes on about dealing drugs with a baby in the car? The one where every other word is a curse word?”

  “Mom, you’re embarrassing me,” Jocelyn whines while poking her mother in the ribs with her elbow.

  “I’m just asking him if that fine melody is his work. Is it?”

 
Trevor looks down at his feet and back up at Rita sheepishly. “Yeah, that’s me. Have you listened to the whole record? It’s not all like that. Well, the cussing is pretty consistent, but the content isn’t all like that.”

  “I’ll take your word for it. Jocelyn, you and Megan find something for Mr. Trax here to sign while I talk to Kate. Then I’m sure they have to be on their way.”

  Rita looks straight at me, grabs the sleeve of my shirt, and drags us back to my office. I turn and gape at Trevor and he shrugs his shoulders, not knowing any way to help. Shutting the door to my office, Rita crosses her arms in a huff.

  “You have some explaining to do, missy.”

  “What would you like me to explain?”

  “I don’t know, try starting from the beginning, when the devil approached you and asked if you wanted to go on a date with one of his disciples. Let’s start there.”

  “Rita, he’s not the devil or a disciple of the devil, whatever that is. Far from it, but I can’t exactly condense three months into five minutes and I’m afraid if I leave those girls out there with him for longer than that, there’ll be nothing left of him.”

  “You’re worried about him? What about the impressionable minds of those girls? Three months? You didn’t even mention you were seeing anyone. I want a full report on Monday; don’t leave anything out.”

  Trevor looks exasperated when we emerge from my office, smiling and trying to look like Trax in the fifty-seven million selfie-style pictures the girls are taking with him. I grab his hand and we say our good-byes to the girls and Rita. Halfway down the stairs, the high-pitched squeals start again. After a minute or so, over the din of it all, Rita finally hollers, “Shut up! You’re giving me a headache!”

  Trevor and I look at each other and bust up laughing, wrapping our arms around each other’s waists as we step out of the building. Out on the streets of Crowell, I peer around to see if anyone else in town seems to notice that Trax is wandering around their little hamlet. He might not be able to handle another fan encounter today, and I certainly can’t handle another explanation of him. Trevor is staring across Main Street at something, lifting his sunglasses up and squinting. He looks over at me and points across the way.