by Mel Bossa
Maybe it was the lyrics. Or the intensity in Diego’s cinnamon-colored eyes. Or the fragile cracks of emotion in his voice. But by the time he finished the song, I was on the verge of tears. I was more in love with Diego Delgado than ever. And this terrified me.
I wasn’t expecting someone like him to ever appear in my life. Our relationship had never been on my radar, not even on the secret wish lists I sometimes wrote out on the back of the coffee-colored napkins at Clouds. That afternoon when he’d walked in with the Broken Corners concert poster in his hands felt like a million years ago. So much had happened since. Thinking about it made me feel like I’d just sprinted a five-hundred-yard dash in a matter of seconds.
Diego leaned his guitar against the nightstand, looked at me, and asked, “What did you think?”
I blinked back my tears and managed to get out, “Diego…wow.”
He came to me then. He moved slowly across the carpet, crawling on all fours like a cat. He was seducing me with each slow, fluid motion he made. He reached me and slid a hand from my ankle up my calf, and tickled the inside of my thigh with his fingers. He was kneeling at my feet, looking up and seeking approval. I touched his beautiful face, his tender lips. “I love you, Justin,” he said, not once breaking our gaze. “I meant every word of that song.”
“I love you, too,” I replied. “I wouldn’t be here in Las Vegas with you if I didn’t.”
He turned his face and kissed my palm. He closed his eyes and placed his head in my lap. I stroked his hair, sliding my fingers through strands of hot magenta, bright blue, jet black. I glanced to the window and caught a breathtaking glimpse of the Las Vegas Strip. The city seemed magical to me. The lights were twinkling for us, like stars. Like the illuminated souls of other lovers who had found each other, too.
Diego’s words kissed the outer ridges of my heart. “I don’t think I could ever live without you, Justin.”
A couple of hours later we were curled up together in the dark.
We’d taken a shower together. Made love. Ordered room service. Watched Like Water for Chocolate on cable. Talked about the tour, the band, the cities we would travel to in the weeks to come. How angry Diego still was with Nina. How worried he was about Halo.
After a while, we both fell into a blanket of silence.
I could see the late night Nevada sky through a crack in the golden drapes. I stared at the cloudless span of infinite space. It looked like the horizon never ended.
I knew I’d made the right choice by agreeing to join Diego on the road. As crazy as we were about one another, I wasn’t entirely confident that our new relationship would’ve survived being separated for five weeks.
Yet I was already missing the familiarity of Chicago. The rumble of the “L” train. The majesty of Lake Michigan. My apartment. My walk to work each morning. My regular customers at Clouds. My daily conversations with Starsky. All of these things were a part of my everyday life. I felt my world was disappearing—and fast—with each moment I spent away from it. As much I liked each member of the band, I wasn’t sure I belonged in their circle. I still felt like an outsider.
The sound of Diego’s voice surprised me because I thought he’d fallen asleep. His soft words cut through the dark and tiptoed across my bare skin. “I miss my mom,” he said.
I felt my body tense. I wasn’t ready for this—his grief.
What do I say to him? What’s the right thing to do in this moment? Fuck.
“Come here,” I urged. I pulled him toward me and he slid into my arms. I kissed the back of his neck and whispered, “I know you do.”
“I hate it,” he said. His voice cracked. His body began to shake with emotion. It was then I realized Diego was crying. In my arms. “I don’t want her to be gone.”
I tightened my grip on Diego, reassuring him that no matter what, I wasn’t going anywhere.
Chapter Twenty
All hell broke loose in Los Angeles.
We were there for less than forty-eight hours but each second was filled with conflict, confrontation, and career-changing decisions.
I maintained a low profile. I kept my mouth shut. I hung back, observed, and only offered my opinion when asked. I did my best to stay out of everyone’s way, including Diego’s.
Like Las Vegas, I’d never been to Los Angeles before. I was in complete awe of my surroundings. Everyone I met, saw, spoke to—even strangers at a place I later discovered called the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf—looked like they’d leapt off the pages of an airbrushed magazine ad. I felt incredibly self-conscious, uncool, and awkwardly out of place.
The sights and sounds and smells of Los Angeles were overwhelming. I loved the beautiful shore. The winding canyon roads. The perfect temperature.
Yet I knew L.A. would never be home.
I began to plan a conversation in my mind in which I would have to tell Diego I could never live in this place, this planet of pretty, pretentious people.
Chicago was home to me.
Athena drove us from Las Vegas to L.A. in a cramped passenger van. Nina spent the entire five hours on her cell phone shrieking at anyone she could get on the line. Mary Jane passed out with her headphones on and drooled all over her pink tank top. Diego and I occupied ourselves with scribbled games of Tic-tac-toe and Hangman and constant flirting. Halo retreated from the world and delved into the pages of a fashion magazine.
After dropping Mary Jane off at her apartment in North Hollywood, delivering Nina to her office on Fairfax Avenue, and helping Halo up to her third-floor apartment in Santa Monica, Athena headed south to a place called Redondo Beach. She owned an oceanfront Spanish-styled condo there, courtesy of the wealthy parents she referred to as Chuck and Connie, or “the rich bastards.” Diego was her roommate, so this was the place he called home.
Veronica Marie was already there when we arrived. We stood in the doorway, sweaty and miserable, clutching our suitcases and discarded remnants from fast-food drive-thrus. I wanted a shower. A home-cooked meal. A good night’s sleep.
The Brazilian supermodel was posed on the sun-drenched terrace, staring down at the swimming pool. She was wearing a canary yellow bikini, a white sarong around her hips, and strapped high heels. She had an oversized drink in her hand that I assumed was a daiquiri. On her head was an enormous—and perfectly angled—sun hat. She looked like she’d stepped off the set of a modern version of Dynasty. I expected Joan Collins to jump out at any moment and exclaim, “Veronica Marie, I’ve been searching for you everywhere! I’m your real mother, darling.”
Instead, Veronica Marie launched into a tirade. This pissed me off because I really needed to pee.
“This is bullshit! Athena, I’m not putting up with this anymore!”
Athena let out a deep sigh. “What are you talking about?”
Veronica Marie stood in front of us with a haughty hand on her bony hip. “I checked the messages on your answering machine when I got here.”
I could see anger flash in Athena’s eyes. I prayed she didn’t have a temper. “You did what?”
“Who in the hell is Rebel Crawford? Another one of your groupies?”
Oh, shit. Not again.
“Jesus Christ…Veronica, you’re making a big deal out of nothing.”
Veronica Marie turned on her heels and stormed back onto the terrace. Maybe she was determined to give all those hanging out at the pool an afternoon performance. I waited for her to break out with an a capella version of “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina.”
“Don’t think I’m stupid just because I’m a model,” she said. “I went to college, I’ll have you know. I speak four languages.”
“Yeah and she’s a bitch in all of them,” Diego whispered in my ear.
I bit the inside of my cheek to prevent a roar of laughter.
Athena joined her on the terrace. “I never said you were stupid. You need to calm down. You’re starting to get on my nerves.”
“Oh really?!”
“Look, things have been gre
at between us. It’s been wonderful.”
“Fuck wonderful and fuck you.”
“Diego,” I said, “where’s the bathroom?”
“First door on the left,” he said, gesturing to a hallway near the large kitchen.
The condo was immaculate. I wondered if Athena paid someone to clean every inch of it on the hour. Nothing was out of place. Everything was color coordinated. Very plush. Very chic. Very expensive.
When I grow up, may I please be a rich lesbian drummer in a rock ’n’ roll band? Or at least have a trust fund with my name on it?
Even in the bathroom, I could still hear every word of Veronica Marie’s over-the-top outburst.
“Come inside, Veronica. I’ll fix you another drink.”
“Go to hell!”
“Baby, please. I brought you something from Vegas.”
“I don’t want it. Give it to her.”
“Veronica, can’t you try to be nice for one second? We’re in the middle of a tour. I’ve been driving since seven this morning. I’m really tired. We have a show tonight and we’re recording all day tomorrow.”
“Are you calling me a bitch?”
Okay. Clearly Veronica Marie is insane. Now the crazy woman is hearing things.
“I never said that.”
I washed my hands with soap that smelled like tangerines and rushed back to the living room. Diego was sitting on a comfortable-looking L-shaped white sofa. I joined him.
“This is getting good,” he said.
“I know exactly why you asked me out…for the publicity!” Veronica Marie insisted. “Tell me I’m wrong.”
“That’s not true and you know it. You’re in the closet. Everyone thinks you’re straight.”
Veronica Marie stormed back into the house. Athena reluctantly followed.
Veronica Marie reached for something on the kitchen counter. It was one of those sleazy tabloids found at the checkout line in any supermarket. She flipped it open, gouged a black-and-white photo with her claw-like fingernail, and shouted to Athena, “Not anymore!”
Athena took the gossip rag from her and said, “Oh…fuck.”
Veronica Marie gulped back the rest of her daiquiri, and I wondered if supermodels were immune to a brain freeze. Then I started craving a piña colada Slurpee from 7-Eleven.
And a bag of Funyuns.
Do they even have 7-Elevens in L.A.?
“You don’t even know me, Athena. You know my face, my body, what I look like on the cover of a magazine. But you don’t give a damn about who I really am.”
I wanted to ask Veronica Marie if she’d ever auditioned for a role on The Bold and the Beautiful but resisted.
“Will you stop it?” Athena said. “My God, you’re so full of yourself.”
“You’re one to talk, with your sixteen-year-old groupies.”
“She’s nineteen!”
“It’s disgusting how you treat women.”
“Well, if you don’t like it, then you can leave.”
Veronica Marie stood for a moment, majestic in her fury, then went to a coat closet near the front door. She wheeled out two suitcases, already packed.
Surprise! She’s been ready to go for hours.
“Fine, then. I’m leaving,” she told Athena. “But don’t ever expect me to come back.” She scanned the room, seething at each of us. “None of you will ever see me again…Ever!”
She tried to make a dramatic exit but the door to the condo smacked her in the back of her head and nearly caused her to slip down the cement steps to the gardenia-filled courtyard below. “Son of a bitch!” she bellowed.
Apparently, she had more to say. Once her suitcases, her Coco Chanel purse, and her empty daiquiri glass were safely out of the apartment, she posted herself in the open doorway and declared, as only a true diva could: “There’s just one more thing. I swear to God, if you trash me to the press, I’ll ruin you and your bubblegum career, you got that? Now if you’ll excuse me, Athena, I need to find myself a real woman.”
Of course, she slammed the door as hard as she could. A picture fell off the wall and the glass frame shattered.
Diego turned to me and asked, “Um…would you like to go for a walk on the beach?”
I nodded and replied with a smile, “I’d love to.”
*
Athena was concerned about the merchandise table and, for once, Nina was nowhere in sight to do her job. Athena approached me backstage—just minutes before the Jetsetters were scheduled to go on—and asked me if I’d go to the front lobby of the venue to confirm their souvenir T-shirts and posters had been properly set up by two female roadies.
There I overheard a conversation between the two young women in question. While they opened boxes of T-shirts and tacked up posters and price tags, they exchanged words.
“Halo Jet is a drunk bitch,” said the overweight one with a bad dye job and blotchy skin. She was wearing a pair of faded overalls begging to be put out of their misery.
“And she can’t sing,” agreed her dark-haired slender friend, who was wearing a denim miniskirt, a green halter, and a lopsided ponytail. She reminded me of Popeye’s girlfriend Olive Oyl.
“I can’t believe the way she talks to people,” the chubby-faced blonde continued. “She thinks she’s so cool.”
“How do you think she became famous?” her friend asked.
“Duh. How else?”
Olive Oyl’s doppelganger let out a gasp, followed by: “Are you serious?”
“I swear to God. Mindy in the sound booth told me Halo slept with three record execs to get a contract.”
“She really did that?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her: Nina was lurking in the background, listening to their every word. Waiting.
“Yes,” the blonde said, “but her career’s already a mess. It’ll be over before it even started. I mean, look at her.” She pointed at one of the posters. “Have you ever seen an uglier singer? She looks like a slut.”
The brunette snorted and choked on her laugh. “Do you still wish we were famous?” she asked her cohort.
“Hell yes,” she said. “It’s better than being some lame-ass roadie with this piece-of-shit band.”
“You don’t like the Jetsetters?” the skinny twig asked in mock shock.
“It’s trash. Besides, Athena is the only talented person in the band.”
“Oh, I know. You’re so right. What do you think about the rest of them?”
Yes, tell us. Right before you get destroyed.
Nina was pacing, fired up. Enraged. These two dumbasses would never even know what hit them.
“Mary Jane’s always doped up and crying her eyes out to her mother on the phone. Athena’s getting on with every groupie she can find. Halo is an alcoholic schizo. And I heard their manager was born in hell.”
“What about Diego?”
Yes…what about Diego?
“He’s the only one with any hope. But that’s just because he’s pretty. He can’t play a guitar to save his life.”
Take it back, bitch.
Apparently, the blonde hadn’t said enough about Diego. “I also hear he’s a fag.”
Her friend shook her head and said, “Wow…what a shame.”
“I kinda figured he was,” she said. “Lord knows he wouldn’t wanna fuck Halo. Nobody would.”
That’s when it happened.
Nina Grey stepped forward. She looked like a parent chaperone for a fourth-grade field trip. She should’ve been waiting in a car-pool line in front of a school somewhere to take her twins to after-school soccer practice and swimming lessons. In her matronly white ruffled blouse and navy blue polyester slacks, she seemed completely out of place at a rock concert.
But then she opened her mouth.
“I don’t know who you two nasty little bitches think you are, but you’re talking about my daughter,” she began. “Now shut your mouths for a second and listen to me or else I’m gonna hafta kick your fucking teeth in.”
>
I stood there and listened to her unleash her wrath on them, reducing them to a puddle of suicidal tears. They couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Once she’d spewed her last profanity at them, they scurried off to seek shelter in the ladies’ room like frightened rats.
When they were gone, Nina turned to me. “Don’t ever breathe a word of that to anyone,” she instructed me.
“I’m surprised,” I said. “I never figured you for the maternal type.”
“Then you don’t really know me,” she said, before walking away.
*
Minutes after their performance ended that night, panic set in.
As I’d done in Las Vegas, I waited backstage for each member of the band to make his or her exit. We were in an old nightclub from the 1940s, converted a few years ago into a concert hall. The backstage area was dimly lit and creepy. It was in the basement and it felt haunted. I wondered how many ghosts of dead rock stars were roaming the maze of hallways that snaked their way beneath the wooden dance floor and stage above.
Halo came off first, more pumped up and energized than I’d ever seen her.
“Good show?” I asked.
“Awesome!” she enthused.
“You must be sober,” I cracked.
“For once,” she answered with a smile. “I’ve got something to do, lover boy. So tell everyone to leave me alone for a while.”
I nodded, keeping my eyes glued to the stage door, waiting anxiously for Diego to appear.
Behind me, I heard the door of Halo’s dressing room shut and lock. A tiny flicker of concern ignited inside me.
She’s up to something.
I shook off the thought when Athena and Mary Jane entered the backstage area, arm in arm. Mary Jane didn’t look well.
“Is everything okay?” I asked.
“I made her promise me and look what she did,” Athena said, trying to hold up an almost unconscious Mary Jane. “Help me get her to her dressing room.”
I slid my arm around Mary Jane’s bone-thin waist and assisted Athena in maneuvering the bass player to an overstuffed, drab old sofa in her chilly dressing room. Mary Jane floated from our arms like a piece of paper. She was a letter being delivered via airmail, landing on the lumpy couch.