The Girl On The Half Shell

by Susan Ward

  “What can I do for you? I don’t know what you need me to do.”

  His eyes widen and he blinks. He reaches up and wipes away the tears from my cheek with his finger, those callused fingers that can touch with such velvet care.

  “Just stay and be good to me.”

  I bury my lips in his hair. I wrap my arms around him. I let him sink into my breasts. Alan is crying, real tears, real sounds, and it feels like it is something he has really needed to do for a really long time.

  Chapter Eleven

  I wake alone in the bed. It is still dark and it feels like the middle of the night. I don’t know if I should stir and let Alan see that I’m awake. He is playing very quietly and it is the first time he’s even picked up an instrument. The music is beautiful, quiet, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard out of him. It is haunting and it is sad and full of pain.

  What hurt him so much that his life would disintegrate into the train wreck of last year? Something hurt him. Jack is right, the everything else of last year is only a symptom, and the real issue, whatever I am hearing now fighting its way out of him, is something dark and very real.

  The Rowans stayed late. It was almost as if Linda was afraid to leave, almost as if she could see inside of Alan. There is something special, emotionally entangled between them, and I can see it and Len can see it. Alan is connected to Linda in a way I don’t understand.

  We had sex after the Rowans left. I didn’t want Alan to touch me. I was still rattled inside, emotionally messy from all that happened. He knew, he sensed it, and it hurt him.

  It was just touching at first. Those gentle touches he does with such care. And I could not stop myself from touching him. And that was it, it started as it always does once I reach out to him.

  I wouldn’t call what we did making love. And yes, now I completely understand the difference between making love and fucking. No, this was fucking—hard, intense, erotic, violent fucking. It was draining in a strange way. Oddly necessary. Life affirming. Yes, that was what it was. Intensely violent fucking to affirm we are both alive.

  Afterward, we lay sprawled on the bed, naked and sweaty, and we didn’t touch. There were no tender touches and kisses from Alan. We just lay. Disconnected. Limp. And yet, really connected in a way unlike any other way I’ve known with him. Connected in the disconnect. I don’t know how to explain that.

  We stayed where we had finished until I could crawl on the bed to my pillow, and I went to sleep without him holding me and for some reason, it was OK. The distance. The quiet neither of us seemed to want to disturb.

  And now there is music in the room, and there is some undefined emotion in it, something I’ve not heard before, something complex and beyond me. And here I lie, pretending sleep, because I do not know what he is revealing to me.

  The bedroom door closes. I sit up in bed, hugging my knees with my arms, and turn to check the clock. It’s only one in the morning. I thought it would be much later. The Rowans left at eleven. Then there was the fucking. Then I dozed. It all happened in only two hours. So much and it was only two hours.

  Every human emotion in two hours has flowed through my flesh and veins. I have touched death. I have touched life. I have fucked. I have felt love. I have lain in the quiet. Alone. Lost in someone. Connected. Untouched. Disconnected. There is sadness. There is hope. There is the past, haunting us both it seems. And there is no future. I can’t see it. Is that why I am lost inside myself? Is that why Alan is lost as well?

  I lie back against the pillows. I wonder where he went. How long will he be gone? I don’t want to fall back asleep to open my eyes and not see Alan watching me. There is a smile in his eyes he has only at that moment; the moment I wake when he is watching me.

  I need that smile right now. It is life affirming, as well, and it is hopeful.

  I let an hour pass before I pull on my panties and Alan’s t-shirt. I love wearing his shirts, the scent of him brushing my senses, feeling surrounded by him by just being tucked into his clothes. There are so many new emotions, richer and fuller, now that I’ve shared myself with Alan.

  Everything changes. It changes quickly. Even the feel of my body is different. I move differently. I have a different level of awareness of myself. I touch myself differently, even if I’m only brushing back my hair. I want richness of feeling in everything I do, awareness, and a sense of being female. It is such a mind blowing change, to have been so not aware of myself seven days ago, and now completely aware of myself, to feel my own femaleness in me, awake and dominant.

  I can feel it as I walk down the hall trying to figure out where Alan disappeared to. In the great room, I find Jeanette curled on a sofa reading. Linda warned me that Jeanette lives here. I didn’t see her the first three days I was here, and now I can’t seem to avoid her. She was hovering in the background the entire time the Rowans were here.

  I ignore Jeanette as I look out onto the terrace. I can feel her watching me. Why does she dislike me so much? I search the patio furniture. No Alan. I turn around and go back down the hall.

  I turn down an artery I have not explored before. Alan’s apartment consumes the entire top floor of the building and there is a maze of interior construction, encompassing the space. The elegance and the scale had seemed strange to me, and I couldn’t understand why Alan would want to live in a place that’s practically a museum. It is so formal and unwelcoming.

  Linda explained that it was Lillian’s apartment, purchased with some sort of trust fund Alan had from his childhood—one-hundred million pounds, she’d whispered confidentially with raised eyebrows. Alan was a child genius and musical prodigy with a highbrow, British clan of theatrical people, but the posh tea and biscuit image only works after a musician is famous, so pouf, there was Manny. Manny hides most parts of himself from everyone except his inner circle. Alan is not good for the brand.

  A year ago, he booted Lillian out and took possession of the place. As for their most recent feud, sometime early last year, Linda knew none of the details. She avoids Lillian like the plague. And Alan was starting to unravel at that time. Linda didn’t know what happened, only that he walked away from them all, and then began to crash and burn: A total downward spiral, Len chasing after his heels, Len trying to keep him sane, Alan unmanageable, and then that one, great, terrible awful that Len won’t talk about, where Alan was whisked away, “for six fucking months.”

  That part of the story is the only part of the story I know. He was with Jack.

  I peek into rooms, guest rooms and sitting rooms, each stunningly arranged, unique, the stylish décor of old money. Whatever can be said about Lillian, she is a woman of exceptional taste.

  At the end of the hall, there is a heavier door and I know what it is before I enter it. A recording studio, tucked away in the English Country Manor. Alan’s only alteration to Lillian’s showplace. His space to work.

  There are two guys sitting at the sound board talking quietly. So, Alan slipped off in the night to work, probably to finish the tracks that are going to be shelved by the label according to Arnie Arnowitz.

  I shut the door. The room is heavy with the smell of weed, there is booze all over the console, and ashtrays overflowing with cigarettes.

  The chair swivels around to face me and I am held in a stare that makes me breathless. Oh my, Ian Kennedy—golden blond hair, deep California tan, twinkling caramel eyes from a face thirty-five and youthfully roguish, and wearing crumpled clothes as if he’s just rolled from bed.

  “It’s Chrissie Parker!”

  He’s on his feet and I grin up at him. “It’s Ian Kennedy!”

  He laughs, pulling me into a bear bug. “Jesus, girl, what are you doing here all grown up and everything? Would you look at you. I knew you were going to be a stunner once you got those braces off.”

  I blush furiously. When I was fifteen, I had an absolutely, humiliatingly obvious crush on Ian Kennedy, music producer extraordinaire. He was such a good guy about it and I wonder if he reme
mbers.

  Arm draped loosely around my shoulders, he turns to his mix engineer. “Ryan, do you know who this chick’s old man is? This is Jackson Parker’s girl.”

  We shake hands and Ryan returns to his work. Ian sinks back into his chair, holding my hands as I settle on the couch.

  Those lovely caramel eyes smile at me. “We’ve got to do dinner while you’re here. We’ve got to catch up. Is your old man here?”

  “No, just me in New York.” I look through the glass and I don’t see Alan. “I never expected to run into you here.”

  He tosses me a wink. “I never expected to run into you here.”

  I change the subject quickly. “Is it going well?”

  Ian laughs and lights a cigarette. “He’s almost human tonight. Amazing, since every exec at the label has their head up his ass over this.”

  I study the whiteboard chart. An X and Y schedule with each track labeled, the various tracks that go into the track, color coded, filled in as completed. Fourteen tracks. Instrument tracks completed for all, but only five tracks completely finished. He’s got nine vocal tracks left to go.

  I search the studio with my gaze. “Where’s Alan?”

  “Five minute lyric break,” Ian explains. He points to the ground, and I ease up to find Alan huddled on the studio floor, staring down at a yellow notepad.

  “He writes lyrics in five minutes?”

  Ian laughs and props his feet on the console, leaning slightly back in his chair. “You’ve never seen him work? He’s like Mozart. A fucking musical genius. Every track written in his head before he enters the studio.”

  Ian rolls across the room and grabs a tape. “I don’t know who he worked with on the instrument tracks. The execs didn’t know he was working while on…sabbatical.” Ian grins and winks. “They just flew in last week. Every track. Every instrument. Him. No band.”

  I smile and refrain from comment.

  Ian studies me. “So, did your old man send you east to keep Manny on a leash until this is finished?” Ian shakes his head. “I don’t think me finding you in the middle of the night in Manny’s t-shirt is quite what your old man had in mind.”

  Oh shit, I blush and try to stutter out a reasonable diversion.

  Ian throws his head back, laughs, and plants his feet loudly on the floor. “Jeez girl! I’m just messing with you. Your secret is safe with me. Jack would kill Manny if he knew about this, especially since it’s obvious who Manny’s been working with. I recognized the mix day one, and there are quite a few riffs that are a giveaway.”

  Ian is queuing up the tape. “Do you want to hear? It is unbelievable work.”

  Ian grabs the cans and rolls away from the viewing glass. He pulls me down on his thigh, and I laugh, since three years ago this would have been a dream come true, but today it is nothing. Then I realize that the headset can only stretch so far, and he’s trying to keep Alan from seeing us.

  “I’m not supposed to do this,” Ian says. “For some reason, no one hears this until it’s finished. Don’t tell him I did this. I don’t want to manage a pissed off Manny.”

  Ian motions for Ryan to roll the tracks, and I’m consumed by the music practically from note one. I’ve never heard anything like it. It starts quietly, acoustic quiet, precise and haunting and then building waves, angry, sad, powerful, intensely quiet, and unlike anything I’ve ever heard in contemporary music. It’s definitely not music like anything Alan’s ever released. His raspy voice and gifted fingers flood my senses with waves of intensity, penetrating, a blending of darkness and light.

  I look at the white board and I know which track it is. It is All I want and it is a five minute reveal of all that is Alan. I blush… it exemplifies what it feels like to go to bed with him, to be consumed by him, to exist inside of him. This is the music of his touch and his lovemaking and his pain and his regrets. Extremes and contradictions, every emotion unfurled, hauntingly him.

  I pull off the cans, and for a moment I am breathless and can’t speak.

  “The only music he didn’t record on these tracks are moments of background symphony.”

  I shake my head, searching for words to describe it, realizing that the label is right. This will never sell to his fan base.

  “It’s acoustic,” I say in disbelief, “and yet the sound is so powerful.”

  “I don’t know how to describe it, either. It is brilliant and it will never be released. It is a masterpiece. It’s not commercial. The label will shelve it. They have to avoid another year of loss. Manny is the only one who doesn’t believe that.”

  I fix my eyes on Ian. “I want to hear another track.”

  Ian laughs. “You’ve got it bad, girl. I’ve seen that look before. But don’t worry. Being on the merry-go-round with Manny is the antitoxin.”

  I feel my cheeks burn scarlet. Ian tells Ryan that it’s OK to queue up another track.

  Alan’s five-minute lyric break stretches into forty-five minutes and four more tracks in my ears. Each track individually a complete event. It makes me think of us in bed. Each kiss. Each touch. A complete event. The tracks all connected, a different complete event. I want to hear it all, but there are only five tracks complete. In the music there is much about Alan to be learned, much I don’t think he will ever share with anyone any other way.

  I don’t know what’s on my face as I listen, but when I pull the headset off, I realize that Ian has watched me, fascinated, through it all.

  He takes the headset, tosses it on the console and holds me in a sloppy bear hug, giving me a little shake. “I shouldn’t have done that. You’re already under his spell, but after watching you listen to that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to steal you away from him.”

  I roll my eyes. “As if you’d try.”

  Ian laughs giving me a big sloppy wet one on my cheek. “Keep walking around dressed only in his t-shirt and I won’t be able to stop myself.”

  I relax back against him as we laugh, and it is funny how we’ve slipped into this comfortable friendship-like flirtation, when there had once been a time when I’d have given anything for Ian to notice me.

  I am breathless and smiling. “How long do you think he’ll work tonight?”

  “I don’t know. Five minutes. Five hours. Five days. You know the drill, Chrissie. You can never tell what it’s going to be until it’s over.”

  I do know the drill. Sometimes Jack would go into the studio and I wouldn’t see him for days. I debate with myself whether to go back to bed, but I’m wide awake now and sleep just isn’t going to happen.

  I move from Ian’s lap and settle on the couch. Alan is still absorbed in his five-minute lyric break, and Ian grabs a bottle, settling on the couch beside me. We are slouched into each other, taking alternate drinks from the bottle, reminiscing about the old days and all the California shit.

  Laughing, I cover my face, curling into Ian because some of his memories embarrass me. So, he did notice my awkward crush on him.

  I peek from behind fingers covering my reddened face. “You are a jerk to let me know you remember any of that,” I exclaim.

  I part my fingers and find Ian smiling at me.

  “Oh, Chrissie. It was flattering. You were like my own little groupie. So cute and shy.”

  I’m giving him little nudges with my leg when the studio door flies open. Ian Kennedy is suddenly shoved up against the wall.

  “You don’t look at her,” Alan growls. “You don’t talk to her. You don’t touch her. Or I will put you through this fucking wall so that you’ll remember.”

  I jump from the couch, but Ryan has already flown across the room.

  Ian is struggling and trying to push Alan away, but Alan is an unrelenting force.

  “Shit, Manny, get your hands off me!” Ian shouts, panting and furious. “Chrissie and I are old friends. Get the fuck off of me.”

  Ryan pulls them apart, and Ian slides down the wall to the floor.

  “What is wrong with you, Alan? We were jus
t talking,” I whisper, stunned.

  Alan doesn’t look at me, and his anger is very extreme. It was like it was at CBGBs, out of nowhere, illogical.

  “Take it easy. We’re all on edge, and nothing happened, so let it go, Manny.” Ryan says intensely. There is a uniquely soothing quality to Ryan’s voice.

  I can see the tension shuddering through Alan’s flesh. He looks at me. “Fuck, Chrissie! First Jimmy Stallworth, then Vince Carroll and now Ian Kennedy. It’s like you’re a magnet for fuck-you-over guys.”

  I flush scarlet. That was insulting, and worse, it has a hurtful ring of truth because it could be said about me being with him, the recovering heroin addict, train wreck, blasting extreme emotions without warning.

  “So what are you going to do, break his arm like you did Vince Carroll for not getting me out of CBGB’s quietly?” I snap, smarting and indignant.

  “I broke Vince Carroll’s arm for drugging you,” Alan growls at my departing back, clipping each word harshly.

  My hand freezes on the knob. Oh shit, and suddenly everything about that night makes sense. I sink away from him onto the couch, feeling small and stupid and struggling not to cry.

  The studio is nerve-rackingly tense. I can’t even look at him now. “Still, you shouldn’t have broken his arm,” I whisper. “He’s a drummer, Alan.”

  I’m held in the raging burn of his gaze. I look at him and the tears rise behind my lids. On top of all the other things I’m feeling, I’m scared because I have never done a hard drug in my life, am terrified that I’d become an addict like my brother.

  “What did he drug me with?” I ask on a trembling voice.

  Alan drops to sit on his knees in front of my curled legs. “Just ludes. I’m pretty sure it was just ludes by the way you were acting.” I nod, and he starts to brush the hairs from my face. “It was only ludes, baby. If I thought it was something worse, I would have broken his other arm the next day.”

  A soggy laugh bursts out of me after Alan’s weird reassurance.

  I blink at him rapidly. “Can we pretend I never came to the studio?”