by Shayla Black
“Is he telling the truth?” I asked. “You have a deal about me?”
“A deal?” Strat asked, ripping the plastic off his pack. “I wouldn’t call it a deal.”
“What do you call it?” Indy asked. “A pledge?”
“Call it a fucking truce.”
“You guys are both…”
Insane.
Annoying.
Beautiful.
Looking from one to the other, knowing I could have either, I couldn’t pick an adjective, much less a man.
I’d never liked feelings, even before I consciously pushed them away. They made me feel like seven people living in the same skin. Now I had these two guys looking at me as if I was supposed to say something.
What did they want out of me?
One or the other?
What was normal about this? I hadn’t kissed either one of them.
Or anyone.
I threw my hands up. “Fuck you both.”
I walked out. I didn’t want the car to get me. I wanted to walk this off. This bullshit. This pressure. I couldn’t admit I was in over my head. I’d never admit a situation existed that I couldn’t handle, especially not something as basic as two guys wanting me to choose between them.
I was warmed by the setting sun, but the air chilled my skin. Good. I wanted sensory distraction. Anything to make this shit run in the straight line.
What did you expect?
Nothing. I hadn’t expected anything.
No, I’d expected them to choose. I’d suspected that one of them liked me, and the other one kept me around as a courtesy to the other, and I expected that the one who liked me was Indy. And that brought about the bigger question.
Which one did I want?
Both. Neither. Either. Some fourth choice.
“Hold up!”
I thought about not turning around. Just walking to the nearest cross street and calling the driver. I got three steps while deciding what to do. I heard the footsteps quicken behind me, and I turned to see Strat. He was wearing the jacket he kept by the door.
“You got dressed. Nice going.”
“Hold up,” he repeated, grabbing my elbow.
I yanked away. “You guys need to work it out and get back to me.”
“No, baby. You need to wake up. That guy back there? You’re not going to find anyone better in your life. You turn your back on him, and you’re an idiot.”
I was surprised. Here he was, the god of them all, lean and sharp with a voice like a fallen angel, advocating for his friend.
“Why do I feel like a pawn in some game you guys got going?” I asked.
“It’s not a game.”
“What if I want you?” I didn’t mean to say I wanted him, even though I did. I didn’t mean to imply I’d made a choice because I hadn’t even known there was a choice to be made.
“Sorry,” he said, narrowing one eye and shaking his head slightly. “I’m not that kinda guy.” He started to walk away.
“I saw you,” I called, and he stopped. “With two girls. Couple of days ago.”
“Yeah?” He tilted his chin up as if I could swing at it if I wanted, he didn’t care.
“It was hot.”
“That shit’s not for you, Cin. That’s a couple of blues and boredom. Not your scene.”
“How do you know?”
“You’re too good for that shit. He’s too good. This is fucked up, the whole thing. I don’t know who you are or what planet you’re from, but it’s not mine. It’s his.” Without another word, he walked back up the hill, long hair flipping as he stepped into the wind.
I watched him turn into the gate, then I hit the little orange button on my beeper. If I went right home to change, I could make it to the Suffragette Society planning committee. I needed to get away from this weird fucking scene.
Chapter 17
1994
I’d stopped sneezing. Either we had gotten so deep into the trailer we hit ancient allergens I didn’t react to, or my body just gave up.
Drew’s arms and shirt front were covered with dust, and he had a war-paint-shaped grey streak across his jaw. It was getting late and his cheeks were getting a dark shadow. I felt as if we were no closer to the box for Bullets and Blood, and I was close to giving up. But every time I thought to mention it, I stopped myself. I enjoyed Drew. His connection to my life before. The pain we shared. Even the shared pain he didn’t know about.
“I kept the business going, even after the band broke up,” he said. “Gary wanted to find another lead, but I was done. I just wanted that house.” He picked up a box. Looked at the label. The handwriting had changed an hour earlier. Someone must have gotten another job.
“Did your mom ever move in?”
“Yeah. After my dad died of liver failure.”
I took the box from him. Rick Springfield. “Fuck him then.”
Drew laughed. “Yeah. Fuck him.”
I laid Rick’s box on top of the others. We’d developed a quick system so we could get all the boxes back in place, but it would still be a big job. We were deep into the woods.
I went back in to meet him. I was going to say something like, “Hey, I think we gotta ditch this,” but he stood over an open box, looking at the contents with silent reverence, and I knew. I stood next to him. It was late, and the trailer’s fluorescents flickered blue.
“Is this it?” I said, standing next to him, staring at the box’s contents.
Master tape boxes. Ampex. Four of them. A folder. An envelope. He put his hand on a box marked Kentucky Killer. They’d recorded it for Untitled Records at Audio City before I came into the picture.
“Nothing happened,” he said, more to himself than me. “When we did this, we could have been anyone. But nothing happened.”
“You’re not the first.”
“Remember his voice? The way he grumbled then sounded clear in one breath? He developed that here. Before that, he sounded like a girl all the time. See, he could imitate any voice perfectly. Any accent. He could repeat Russian back to a Russian perfectly and not understand a word of it. But he didn’t want to sound like anyone else. So he was trying to create this new sound during that first session, and he sucked. So bad. All over the place. And we were so fucking high. Really high. Everything sounded like shit. The studio smelled like pot and donuts.”
He took a break to smile into nothing. He was beautiful. Radiant.
“What changed?” I asked.
His eyes moved toward me, and the answer was in his intensity.
“After you left?”
“His voice. What changed his voice?”
“We were laughing at Gary. He was doing an imitation of his kid. She was two and said pickups instead of hiccups and fillops instead of flip flops. And…”
A smile spread across his face. He pinched the top of his nose between his thumb and first knuckle.
“Strat couldn’t breathe. We thought he was still laughing but he was choking on a fucking donut.” He took his hands away and looked at the ceiling. “Oh my God, what happened? I remember. I gave him the Heimlich. He spit up this wad of donut that looked like an oyster. We’re laughing. I nearly broke his ribs and we were laughing. But his voice…his esophagus must have gotten shredded or something. Or his throat felt different and knew how to do it. He had a way of hearing that went right to his lungs. He did it once and never forgot it. Fucking gift.”
He tilted his head back to the box and slid out a set of reels.
“You miss him. I’m sorry.”
“I wish I could have stopped him.”
I didn’t expect him to put his arm around me, but he slid it over my back, up my spine, and over my shoulder, then he pulled me to him. I watched as he took the top off the smaller box. Inside was a clear plastic reel with brown magnetic tape. It didn’t look magical, but to him it was, and we stood in silence for a minute as if praying to it. Then he put the top back on as if shutting out a thought.
His arm tighten
ed around me until I had to loop my arm around his waist. From there, the rest was a dance. He turned. I turned with him. He bent down. I leaned up.
He smelled different. He was cologne and tweed. Sharp and clean.
I turned my head before our lips met, and though that movement came with the knowledge that I didn’t know this man, I considered telling him what had happened to me.
Chapter 18
1982 – AFTER THE NIGHT OF THE QUAALUDE
I didn’t know what to pack, but I knew I had to go. I yanked my smallest Louis Vuitton suitcase from the back of my closet and slapped it open. I didn’t know what to put in it, so it was first-grabbed-first-served.
Outside, the anniversary party was breaking up. Long black cars headed down the drive, just moving dots of white and red lights. I didn’t have much time.
I had to get out of there.
Out of that house and to an abortion clinic. I’d come to terms with being disowned. I wasn’t having this baby. Not now. Not scared in my room with a party going on downstairs. Not with my mother getting a hundred congratulations for being just as pregnant as I was. Not with the spanking I’d just gotten still stinging my ass.
He’d never done that before. Would he do it again?
I picked up the phone to beep… who? Lynn or Indy or even Strat, who was the last guy I’d beep unless I was desperate.
Which I was.
Desperate.
Time was slipping away, and the consequences of my stupidity were going to land like an anvil in a cartoon. I’d be flat. I didn’t know what my parents were going to do, didn’t know if my father had even had a chance to tell Mom anything. But I couldn’t get the last half hour back. I’d spent it staring out the window, trying to sort my head out. Identifying feelings for what they were. Useless.
This is fear.
Ignore it.
This is shame.
Pat it on the head and send it away.
This is regret.
Kick it.
I tapped the headset on my upper lip. Lynn’s family knew my family. All my friends were from the same circle. I’d be sent right back home.
E-Y-E-B-R-O-W
I dialed so fast my fingers slipped on the buttons, and I had to start over. Ring. Ring. Three beeps.
I put in my number. They wouldn’t know it. I’d always called from the car phone or a phone booth. Never from home. They didn’t know where I lived. Smartest thing I ever did on one hand, because it protected them. On the other hand, when the beep came through, he wouldn’t know who it was from.
So I waited.
When the phone rang, I picked it up in a rush. “Strat?”
He was outdoors. I heard traffic whoosh and the sound of music far away. A party? A show?
“Cin? What’s up?”
His voice was rock candy, sweet and rough, making a beeline to the part of my brain that didn’t do any of the good thinking. He must have caught the remnants of panic in my voice, because he didn’t sound like his usual casual self. And what was up? What could I tell him over the phone from my own house?
“I need you to meet me at Santa Monica and Vine at midnight. At the gas station.”
“What’s wrong, baby?”
“Don’t call me that.” As I was finishing my sentence, the doorknob to my room turned.
“What—?”
I hung up before I heard the rest of the question.
Chapter 19
1982 – THE NIGHT OF THE QUAALUDE
Palihood wasn’t even a word before my friends got snobby about the wrong side of Pacific Palisades. But it took Palihood House a week and a half to get a reputation, which Strat shrewdly made work in their favor.
Sound Brothers Studios. They trademarked it on a Tuesday and filed corporation papers by Friday. The sound boards weren’t even set up yet, and they were already stealing business from Audio City.
Their parties were riddled with musicians. Some were at the height of their careers. They expected blowjobs. Hawk Bromberg could scream over classical guitar, which qualified him to get his dick wet within minutes of arrival. It was an entitlement, and that night, he got a look at me in my cutoff shorts and Marlboro miasma and decided he was entitled to me.
I clapped the heel of my denim wedge against the shag carpet and listened to him talk to me as if I wanted to fuck him. I didn’t want to fuck him. I wanted Indy and Strat. I had the keen and unpleasant sense I’d lost them both by not choosing.
Hawk was telling me something about how record execs are all assholes and sellouts. Those cats weren’t artists. They didn’t understand the process (man) and those dudes are about money and not the music (man). Did I dig?
I did dig. His eyes were wet and his lips were dry, and I could dig it. I was as relaxed and happy as I ever got. Tiptoeing through fucking tulips.
“They got a bathroom in this place?” he asked.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll show you.”
I was like the lady of the house, even though I wasn’t screwing either of the men who lived there. I was polite, I kept my pants on, and I kept my blood alcohol level low. I got to be in love with both of them without having to choose between them.
I wove through the crowd, Hawk behind me with his hand on my back, which I thought nothing of. He just didn’t want to get separated. Indy saw me through the crowd, out of the corner of his eye while talking to Willie Sharp. Lynn winked at me when I passed her. We had to stop a few times to say hi to this one or that, but I was mindful of Hawk’s needs and pulled away quickly to reach the quiet part of the house. Strat was in the kitchen, sitting on the counter with his feet on the island while two girls giggled at his side. One had her hand on his leg.
I told myself I wasn’t jealous because jealous was a feeling—and I didn’t have those. Also, Stratford Gilliam wasn’t mine to get jealous over. That had been established.
The line for the bathroom was down the hall. I would have told him to just go pee in the bushes like all the other guys, but he’d said bathroom, not bushes. Maybe he had to do a sit-down session. Maybe he had a phobia.
“I’ll take you to the bedroom suite,” I said.
You’re rolling your eyes.
I’m rolling my eyes too.
There are some mistakes you only make once because the stakes are so high, you don’t know how to make them a second time. This was one of those mistakes.
I took him through the closet to the louvered doors. The bedroom had a futon and a night table from a thrift store. White blinds over the windows covered the view to the overgrown side driveway.
I pointed at the half-open door to the bathroom. It was done in pink marbelite and floral wallpaper. The house hadn’t been redone since the 1960s, and the new owners were soon-to-be rock stars blowing their wad on converting half the building to a studio. No one had time for swanky bathrooms.
Hawk smiled at me and flipped his sunglasses to the top of his head. His eyes were red-rimmed and older than his years.
“It’s over there.” I pointed again and turned to walk back into the hall. I wanted to see what Strat was doing. It was a compulsion I didn’t understand, but if he was going to fuck someone, I wanted to see it. See her. Or them. Just to make sure I’d completely lost him.
Hawk didn’t go to the bathroom, and I was so lost in my own thoughts and intentions—again, you could see this coming a mile away—that when he grabbed my arm, I was annoyed, not scared.
“What?” I was still being polite, so I cut the sharpness out of my voice.
“You’re really cute,” he said, lightening his grip a tiny bit.
“Thanks.”
“Sexy. Got a really smart mouth. I like that.”
“You can let me go now.”
He did. I was relieved about that for half a second because he closed the patio door.
I crossed my arms and leaned heavily on one foot. “Dude, I’m not watching you pee. Not my thing, all right?”
“What’s your thing?” He stepped closer to me,
tongue flicking his bottom lip the way it did when he played guitar. The girls loved that. They went nuts. But he wasn’t my thing.
“My thing is getting a beer.”
Oh, Jesus, that was what he was after? My thing. Indiana was my thing. Strat was my thing. Those two assholes made me feel so damn good and they barely even touched me.
“How do you like it?” His hand reached for me, and I curved away.
“I like it on Wednesdays. Today’s Saturday. Sorry. My legs are closed for business.”
I tried to get around him, but his hand shot out and gripped my jaw. He pressed his fingers together, and my mouth opened. I bent my knees trying to get away, but he held me up.
“Your mouth’s open like a dick-shaped hole.”
Did I mention he was a brilliant lyricist?
I grunted and pushed him away, and he slammed me between the wall and his body, his erection pressed against me. The first hard-on I’d ever felt. I squeaked.
He held two little blue capsules in front of my eyes. I tried to focus, but my entire face hurt from his grip.
“You’re going to love this.” He popped one capsule in his mouth and jammed the other one to the back of my throat. “Swallow.”
I shook my head, trying to scream and failing. He pressed my jaw closed. I tried to breathe, letting the weight go from my legs, but he wrestled himself down with me. I slapped his face, and he took it with a snarl.
“You like it rough. I knew it. I could tell.”
I couldn’t move. We were crouched in a corner, his knees and the hand on my mouth leveraged against the wall. His face was slick with sweat, and his tongue kept licking a dry spot on his lips.
I hmphed against his hand. If I spit enough, maybe it would slide off of my face. Maybe someone in the party would hear me scream over the music. But the extra spit dissolved the gelatin capsule, and my mouth was flooded in bitter juice.
“Good girl,” he said.
If I’m so good, why are you still holding me down?
I couldn’t say that with his hand over my mouth. If I could move before the Quaaludes took effect, I could get to Strat or Indy and they’d protect me. But once they were in my blood, I’d be high and horny. I wouldn’t be myself. I’d probably open my legs like it was Wednesday.