50
Scherzo
Soundtrack “German Love,” STRFKR
When Cato was released a day later, Hal had to hire back-up security to fend off the paparazzi. The grounds were crawling with them.
His bassist’s perma-grin wasn’t quite as big it normally was, but other than that, he was back to his old attention-whore self.
He lounged on top of a pile of pillows, while Annie massaged his shoulders, Missy rubbed his feet, and Effie spooned ice cream into his fat mouth.
“You’re just eatin’ this up, aren’t you, buddy?” Elias said.
Cato stretched his arms over the back of the couch and grinned. “Get your ass beat by a bunch of skinheads, and people start treating you like a king.”
Without warning, Gail blasted through the front door with her army at her side. She marched over to Cato. “Hope you’re happy. Your little stunt just cost us the RadioXM sponsorship.”
Elias shot to his feet. “Get out of here, Gail.”
She slapped her hands on her hips. “And go where? To the arena that’s threatening to sue us for canceling tonight’s performance at the last minute?”
“I can still play,” Cato said.
“No, you can’t, asshole,” Griffin said.
“I can stand in for Cato tonight,” Effie said timidly. “I know everything by heart.”
“Who’s gonna play for you?” Missy asked.
“It’s just one night. We can go on without a violin, but we can’t without a bass player.” She clasped her hands in prayer position. “Don’t cancel the show, guys. I can do this. I promise.”
Gail rolled her eyes and spoke over her. “Unless you want to lose more fans, don’t even consider letting Pollyanna here play tonight.”
Out of sheer spite, he told Gail to let the venue know they wouldn’t be canceling after all.
“She’s got her head so far up your ass you can’t even think straight.” Gail scoffed. “Think your fans paid a hundred and fifty Euros to see your girlfriend play shitty bass? Want your career to get flushed down the toilet because of some dumb blonde?”
Elias leapt to his feet. “Get out.”
“Gladly,” Gail said and stormed out with her lapdogs in tow.
The minute she was gone, he fled out the back.
It took almost two hours to summit the mountain behind the villa. At the top, he inhaled the crisp mountain air and took in the flower-freckled valley below. Too bad Effie wasn’t with him, or he’d have proposed right there.
He just needed to be patient a little while longer. Only two more shows, then they could take off on their own. One more week was nothing, when they had a lifetime together.
51
Pizzicato
“But my dear, this is not Wonderland, and you are not Alice.”
Soundtrack “I Give You Power,” Arcade Fire, Mavis Staples
At the concert in Munich that night, the fever hit Effie like a tidal wave and ripped her stomach lining to shreds.
It was a travesty how awful she played. She shivered and shook and tried to keep up with the band, but never managed to catch up.
Fans booed them for the first time ever. Then someone lobbed a full beer cup at her head.
The impact wasn’t half as bad as the blow to her stomach. She covered her mouth and retched.
Elias stopped playing. Missy followed suit. Then Griffin.
Hal dragged the culprit out. While he was gone, someone else threw a rock and just barely missed her head. “Steigen Sie aus der Bühne, deich!” someone chanted in German. Get off the stage, dyke!
“Hey, asshole!” Elias shouted. “Yeah, you.” He pointed at the guy. “Get up here, coward.”
The guy didn’t move.
Elias jumped down from the stage and punched the guy in the jaw. Griffin vaulted into the crowd to help. Hal and a roadie rushed over and pulled them off the guy.
Elias stormed out the side exit, blood dripping from his nose. Griffin followed, flipping double birds to the crowd. Missy booted the beer cup into some guy’s head.
Head spinning and bile rising, Effie stood alone in front of the hostile audience. She took one step and projectile vomited on the faces of a dozen shocked fans. Then she slapped a hand over her mouth and staggered backstage, weaving down the hallway, her tunnel vision focused on the bathroom door.
Three feet from the target, she rammed into someone. “I’m sorry—” She glanced up and slammed into a pair of eyes the same color as hers—except colder and more penetrating.
“Hello, Euphemia.” Only one person called her by her full name.
“Mother.”
It’d been ten years since she’d last seen Greta. Except for a few new lines around her eyes, her mother looked exactly the same. Even her expression was the same—withering disgust.
Effie slapped her hand over her mouth, bent over, and vomited all over the floor. On the verge of passing out, she sank to her knees.
Her mother stepped out of the way and glared down at her. “I see you’ve found the perfect job for your . . . habit.” Her accent had grown harsher since her return to Germany.
“What happened to the violin?” her mother asked. “Did you sell it for drugs?”
She glanced up at her with tears in her eyes, feeling like the same little girl, desperate for her mother’s approval.
“When I saw you on the news,” Greta said. “I thought maybe you’d grown up. Clearly, I was mistaken.” She released a scornful sigh and adjusted the shoulder strap of her purse. “I knew you’d never amount to anything. You took after your father, after all.”
Tina and her band of groupies showed up right then. They stepped over her mess and barged into the bathroom, holding their noses, and crying, “Gross,” and, “Ew,” and, “Disgusting.”
Greta tossed her one last loathsome look, shook her head, and then disappeared down the corridor, her footsteps like bomb blasts on the concrete floor.
Effie crawled through the ladies’ room door. Inside, Tina and her entourage giggled behind a bathroom stall.
All rationale vanished, and one thought pulsed through her brain: I need to get high.
She knocked on the stall door.
Tina peeked through a crack. “Yes?”
“Can I buy some blow off you?”
“How much?”
“Whatever you have.”
Tina opened the door.
An unspeakably sad moment passed between them.
“Just take it.” The groupie slapped a baggie in her hand and walked out with her entourage trailing behind.
Effie clenched the baggie in her fist until the sound of their voices vanished. Then she sprinkled coke on the back of her shaky hand and pushed it into a line.
As she lifted the drug to her nose, she glanced in the mirror and saw a woman about to make a huge mistake.
She’d just barely crawled out of the hole, and now she was diving back in.
Don’t do this, she told the reflection. You’re not a little girl anymore. You have friends now—people who care. A man loves you.
She dumped the blow down the sink and ran the faucet until it disappeared.
Once again, she stared at the reflection. Her hair was caked with beer and vomit, and her eyes were swollen shut, but she’d never looked more beautiful than right then—the moment when she fell in love with herself.
Hal burst through the bathroom door. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Are you hurt?”
She collapsed into his outstretched arms.
“Jesus, you’re burning up. You’ve got the same crud, don’t you?” He led her out to the bus.
Elias sprinted toward them. “Thank God. I thought you’d been kidnapped.”
“She’s sick,” Hal said. “Real sick.”
Elias carried her up to her room and put her in bed. “I’m going to run you a bath,” he said.
She grabbed his leg. “Don’t leave me.”
He swept a cool hand across her burning forehead. “Amor, we ha
ve to get your fever down. Think you can make it to the bathtub?”
In the far-off distance, a waterfall splashed. And then all of a sudden she was swimming through a sea of ice. Cocaine blocks floated like glaciers on the water. She kicked them away. “No! Get them away from me.”
“Amor, please, let me wash your hair.”
Effie’s mother sat on the edge of the bathtub and clucked her tongue. “Pathetic. You can’t even bathe yourself. I thought you’d changed.”
“I have changed,” Effie wept. “Someone loves me.”
“Of course I love you, mi amor,” Elias said. “You’re delirious.”
Someone lifted her from the ice and dried her off. “I’ll be right back,” Elias said.
Greta stood behind him, shaking her head.
“Don’t leave,” she cried. “My mother’s trying to kill me.”
“Jesus, I’m calling a doctor.”
Everyone gathered around her deathbed while her mother sat across from her and scoffed.
“A hundred and four,” someone said.
“Should we take her to the hospital?”
Her mother spoke to her in German. “Euphemia, laziness will not be tolerated. Get up and practice this instant.”
Effie rolled over and moaned. “I can’t play anymore. I’ve been playing for hours.” For days. For years.
Elias pushed the covers around her chin.
“Who’s she talking to?” someone asked.
“I don’t know,” Elias mumbled. “How long will it take for the fever to go down?”
“Half an hour,” said another voice.
Effie’s hands and neck ached. “I can’t practice anymore. Please, Mother.”
“Is she talking to her mother?”
“Shh, amor.” Elias wrapped his arms around her. “Your mother’s not here. Close your eyes and rest.”
“She is!” She pointed at the chair. “She’s right there.”
He hummed a lullaby and blocked out her mother’s terrible voice.
And then darkness swept in.
“‘I AM real!’ said Alice and began to cry. ‘If I wasn’t real,’ Alice said—half laughing though her tears, it all seemed so ridiculous— ‘I shouldn’t be able to cry.’”
Soundtrack “Crystalfilm,” Little Dragon
Bright light filtered through her lids. Effie opened one eye.
Cato smiled down at her, his face still bruised. “You’re alive!”
She raised her head and found Elias at her feet. “I’m so thirsty.”
Elias passed her a glass of water, and she drank the whole thing.
“How long have I been out?”
“Almost thirty-six hours,” Elias said.
She flopped back on her pillow. “What did I miss?”
“You had an interesting conversation with your mother,” Cato said.
Elias curled around her. “You kept saying she was trying to kill you.”
She stiffened. “I saw her.”
“You were delirious,” Elias said.
“No, at the concert. For real. She was there.”
“She lives here?” Elias asked.
She nodded.
“Speaking of parents.” Cato rose to his feet. “I better get back to mine.”
“They’re here?”
“Came in last night.” He broadened his chest. “And I came out last night.”
“You did! How did it go?”
“They already knew.” Elias turned to his bassist. “Told you, dude.”
“Said they’ve known since I was three.” Cato raised his arms. “Free at last!”
She clapped and cheered. “I’m so happy for you.”
“And they caught those motherfuckers,” Cato said.
“The skinheads? Thank God. I hope they rot in prison.”
“Nah, they’ll love it in there. Nine out of ten homophobes are gay.” He patted her leg. “Glad you’re better, sis.”
“Give me a hug, you big gay man.”
“Vagina-challenged.” He grinned and gave her a big hug. “Do me a favor?”
“Anything.”
“Shower before you meet my parents.”
She shoved him off. “You’re such a butthole.”
He fell back, laughing and kicking and slapping the bed.
“All right, get out of here, puto.” Elias said.
After Cato left, Elias nuzzled her neck. “One more week, then I get you all to myself.”
She shivered in his arms. One more week until he broke her heart.
52
Seria
Prague, Czech Republic
“It was getting dark so suddenly that Alice thought there must be a thunderstorm coming on. ‘What a thick black cloud that is!’ she said. ‘And how fast it comes!’”
Soundtrack “Sprawl II,” Arcade Fire
The energy onstage felt different in Prague, liked there’d been some sort of cosmic explosion. Effie could almost hear the frenetic energy buzzing around them. The band’s chi was definitely flowing.
On their last night on tour, they played the most passionate performance of their careers. Everyone and everything was in sync, completely aligned, put back together, and made whole.
The trip had healed each of them in a way.
Griffin had sworn off women for the time being, so he could properly grieve the loss of his childhood sweetheart.
Annie and LeStrange talked about moving in together.
Hal planned to meet up with the woman he’d met in Italy, after he sought counseling for his PTSD.
Missy let go of Elias and started stoking the embers of her relationship with Sam. According to her, the flames were roaring hot after his visit to Rome.
Strangely enough, Cato’s tragic experience had brought him closer to his family, and for once, he seemed optimistic about finding love.
And, of course, she and Elias had fallen in love.
The whole journey seemed like a dream. And the concert that night did too.
Their fans went rabid, demanding four encores. When the spotlights finally dimmed, she wiped her tears and shuffled off the stage with the rest of the band
A mob of reporters greeted them backstage. They must have felt it, too, Effie thought, the band’s cosmic energy that night.
Then a disembodied arm shot up and shoved a microphone in Elias’s face. “Did you know your girlfriend was a drug addict before the tour?”
And then, as the reporters swarmed over them, and the air left her lungs, a ridiculous thought popped into her head: We forgot to go sailing.
53
Stretto
Total Music Magazine
EXPOSED: URBAN’S SOBER LEAD SINGER IN LOVE WITH A DRUG ADDICT
By Len Neal
According to an anonymous source, Effie Murphy, Urban’s new violinist, and El Love’s latest heartthrob, did two stints in rehab for cocaine addiction prior to joining the band on their European tour this summer. El Love is renowned for his drug-free lifestyle, which most likely stems from his mother’s heroin overdose.
Apparently, rehab didn’t take since Murphy purportedly bought coke off a fan during their Munich show.
We contacted the band’s label for a statement, but they haven’t commented yet.
The photos below were taken by Murphy’s former roommate prior to her first visit to rehab.
Warning: Many are graphic in nature.
“The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her for a moment like a wild beast, began screaming ‘Off with her head!’”
Soundtrack “All of Me,” Big Gigantic, Logic, ROZES
Reporters banged on the bus windows outside while she scrolled through the photos.
Back then she was nothing but skin and bones, and her hair was dirty and dreadlocked. She didn’t even recognize herself.
In one shot, she was dancing at a party with one eye barely open. Another featured her half-naked and passed out by a pool.
The pictures of her passed ou
t were aplenty—one with a burning cigarette in her hand, another in the back of Brandon’s car, another on the street somewhere. She didn’t even remember him taking them.
There were fifty in total on the site. How much had Brandon sold them for? What was the final price of her humiliation? Probably just enough to supply his heroin habit for a few months. It was amazing he was still alive.
Elias let out a sharp breath—his first in several seconds—and said one word: “Why?”
She kept her eyes on the photos, too afraid to see that ‘look’ on his face.
“That’s not who I am anymore, Elias. I’ve changed.”
“You almost did it the other night!” he shouted.
She lifted her head and braved a glance. It was worse than she’d expected. He looked broken.
“But I didn’t! I stopped myself. I was sick, and my mother was there, and Tina was in the bathroom. But I didn’t do it!”
He flipped through the phone. “When were these taken?”
She choked back a sob. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. I was twenty-one in that picture, I think.”
“When was the last time you used?” His voice was tight and detached.
“Two years, five months, and four days ago.” She reached for his hand.
He shook her off. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
She buried her face in her hands. Nothing would fix this. It was over. “Because you wouldn’t love me.” She didn’t just cry then—she bled.
He opened his mouth to say something then shot off of the bus.
A minute later, a red blur flew to the back. “Get your shit,” Gail said.
“What? Why?”
A tiny demonic smile slid up the manager’s face—an I-told-you-so smile. “You’re done.”
“I don’t have any money.”
“Not my problem,” she said. “Make sure you have everything. I don’t want you coming back and upsetting my lead singer.”
Head-Tripped: A Sexy Rock Star Romance (Ad Agency Series Book 2) Page 23