The Rock Star in Seat 3A: A Novel

by Jill Kargman

  Chapter 13

  I have too many fantasies to be a housewife.

  I guess I am a fantasy.

  —Marilyn Monroe

  It was nearing six. Meetings finished, I meandered in a daze into the early evening, like my body was an avatar controlled by remote as my real self lounged around, eating bonbons, dreaming of Finn. His music played in the car and in my head during meetings. His voice accompanied me into elevators, garages, up the steps to a front door, as if perched above my head in a cartoon bubble, all-caps reminders of clever things he said or little witticisms he rattled off with the ease of breathing.

  After my last work thing—a tech run-through with the sound and lighting guy with Clarissa in a crappy vegetarian joint I’d seen on Entourage, I asked to be dropped off at Kira’s mother ship—Beverly Hills. Whenever I visited L.A. I felt more at home on Vermont—in Silverlake or Los Feliz. But Ki and my parents preferred Rodeo Drive. I happened upon a swank salon so I wandered in, hoping to get a quick blow-dry. A little primp wouldn’t kill me, right? Shit, I just never played those girlie girl games, no beauty binges, nary an Alicia Silverstone shopping spree at the mall. But Finn made me feel like a girl, not the cool tomboy the guys at work liked me for, or the normal slobby Hazel who Wylie waited for at Urban Outfitters, but a real girl. Femme it up, Kira said. Ally Sheedy, here I come.

  Bingo, they had an opening. I put on the robe and was offered tea as a “washing technician” scrubbed my scalp with intoxicating apple cider–infused shampoos and cream rinses. I got it. This shit was actually fun and enjoyable. They even had a footrest for my outstretched gams.

  I exited feeling like a million bucks. I hoped it wouldn’t get addictive, I could get used to this, like my sister with her weekly standing appointments at Frédéric Fekkai. I drove back to my hotel where I tried to figure out what to wear, eventually settling on my same jeans but this time a slightly more feminine white lace blouse with piping of black velvet ribbons around the short sleeves. It was Edwardian granny-chic but remained a tad sexy, due to my black cami underneath. I exhaled in front of the mirror. Less is more, I thought. Especially ’cause Finn was used to Hooters Girls and the like. Better to be myself. Better to be demure. Better to keep him guessing.

  “You look beautiful,” he said as I hopped in the passenger side as he stood next to the open door.

  “Oh, thanks,” I replied, blushing a little.

  He got back in the car and gunned out of the driveway, flying down the streets in his small Porsche. Normally it was what Wylie and I called an SPC, Small Penis Car, but somehow Finn had a Get Out of Jail Free Card because he was an actual rock star whereas all other douche bags who drove expensive sports cars were merely trying to look like one.

  “I love L.A.,” I said, staring out the window. “I don’t know why everyone in New York L.A. bashes for sport.”

  “Well, it’s not as sophisticated, for one,” Finn said. “I love living here but I have this insatiable urge to travel. I hate staying in one place for too long. I must’ve descended from nomads or something; I’m one of those people who just needs to be on the move. Especially if this is my base. I miss Europe too much. Asia.”

  “I could see that. If it’s just sunshine and convertibles forever,” I replied. “Daisy Dukes, bikinis on top.”

  “That part’s not so bad,” he joked with a wink. “But even I know there’s a dark side here if you look for it. And you don’t have to look too hard.”

  So weird! I’d thought that exact thing before a million times.

  “My theory has always been that New York admits to its dark side in its weather and gray pavement and people on top of each other,” I explained, surveying the lights. “Whereas there’s just as much of it here but it’s all sunglasses and cherry red cars and boobie implants, but it’s smoke and mirrors. There’s just as much competition and relentless drive, it’s just cruising beneath the surface, which makes it creepier. I do like how New York wears its edge on its sleeve.”

  We drove the opening credits of the Entourage strip complete with tacky signage and dizzying downward views of orange-lit lights and rooftops as far as I could see.

  “That is a very good theory, New York is more openly hostile and then you’re happily surprised when people are nice and warm, whereas here you think of it as friendly but there’s just as much hostility,” he said. “If not more. Someone pats you on the back but they’re pissing down your leg.”

  “I just think of L.A. Story where all the weatherman has to do is shove up some magnetic suns with shades on. Sun! Sun! Sun!” I said in a singsongy mock-happy voice. “But I love the rainy days. People here freak like it’s fucking acid falling on their hairdos.”

  “I love when it’s cold here. I fuckin’ hate sweating my balls off. But I hate freezing them off, too.”

  “Yeah, well. I can see that. If you didn’t grow up with seasons. I mean, even I’m dreading going back to my coat and scarves and hats and Rudolph nose.”

  “How long are you here until?” he asked.

  “I leave tomorrow,” I lamented, suddenly. “But I’m back again in two weeks and then for the event two weeks after that. I’m sooo excited to see this space of yours.”

  “Should we go now or after dinner?”

  “Whatever you want!”

  “I’m starving.”

  Yay, I was, too. Desperately.

  Chapter 14

  Without this playing with fantasy no creative work has ever yet come to birth. The debt we owe to the play of the imagination is incalculable.

  —Carl Gustav Jung

  We went inside the dimly lit restaurant where he got a hero’s welcome from the staff and a corner nook, where we were seated on the floor on these cool pillows. It sounds weird but was actually cool and foreign and felt like we were on some kind of trip. Which I was.

  We talked about other places in the city he loved, including some trendy tapas bar. He loved the mini paella cakes.

  “Oh, I thought you said topless.” I laughed, almost spitting out my papadum.

  “I know, it always sounds like that!” He chortled. “Someone should actually open a topless tapas bar. Called Topless Tapas.”

  “Oh my god, that’s genius! Let’s totally open that!” I squealed. “We would mint money!” Not that he needed it.

  “We’d love another bottle of wine, please, Anju,” Finn asked the pierced waiter. “We have to come up with fun dishes and cocktails for our menu. Put the cock in the cocktails,” he said. “Like Mojitoesucker.”

  I almost spat out my Rioja. “Okay, this is hilarious. This is big time. Move over, Hooters!”

  “So where do you like to eat in New York?” he asked.

  Fuck. Okay . . . here was a perfectly organic, opportune time to introduce Wylie.

  “Um, well . . . my uh, boyfriend is a personal chef, actually—”

  “Oh, well that must be nice,” he said. I couldn’t read his face but he seemed blasé about Wylie’s existence. “So you don’t even have to leave the apartment!”

  “Well, we do, still, but he cooks at home a lot, too. He, um, actually has one client, this hedge fund family on Fifth Avenue, that is so into his food that they want to invest in a restaurant for him with some big New York restaurateurs. So, it looks like that might happen pretty soon, but it’s not, like, definite or anything.”

  “Well, ask them how they feel about a nudie Mexican chain. I think our idea has legs. Long ones.”

  “Yeah, and boobs.”

  “Here’s to our business venture,” he joked, raising his newly poured glass to meet mine.

  I felt calmer and happy; Kira was right; it felt good to get out there—not that he would ever think of me as anything other than the lap-barfer from the airplane. We giggled over new Topless Tapas menu offerings, and the mood was light and even straight-up fun. It’s not like I ever los
t sight of the fact that I was drinking with my idol, but there was a sweetness and pure fun that infused our pillowed perch. Was I becoming friends with Finn Schiller?

  He ordered a second bottle of wine and we clinked refilled glasses as the food came. And nothing I’ve ever tasted had ever been so delicious.

  Chapter 15

  One supreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy-imagination that creates. Imagination is the creative force. Imagination creates reality.

  —Richard Wagner

  Sated and slightly tipsy, we drove off from the dinner, and I thanked him for such a lovely time.

  “It’s not over yet, I have to show you my special secret lair for your big party.”

  We cruised toward the mini-skyline of downtown Los Angeles, which was obviously dwarfed by comparison to my hometown but stood like an imposing metropolis when cut and pasted against the teeny-tinily scaled local architecture. A few minutes later we pulled down a street that didn’t look very Angelino to me. It was exactly what my mind’s eye had fantasized about—huge warehouses with tons of windows, an industrial, edgy vibe with an urban brick-built strength. We got out of the car in front of the most amazing of the buildings and walked inside the huge antique metal sliding door.

  “Holy shit,” I marveled. The ceiling had to’ve been fifty feet high, all the interior had been gutted from the days of chocolate bars past.

  “Veruca Salt, eat your heart out,” I said, gaping at the massive space.

  “It’s fuckin’ cool, right?”

  He walked me across the cavern of gray moonlit space over to the windows where a metal spiral staircase to nowhere hung above us.

  “You could put a DJ up there,” he suggested. “Just bring in some machine or forklift and he can spin from the loft.”

  “Infuckingcredible,” I marveled. I saw it all unfold. The lights, the crowd, the jaws falling to the paved floor in unison. The promotion.

  “What about press, is it okay to have all the—”

  “Absolutely. Whatever you need.”

  “Really? Finn . . . this is so perfect, I couldn’t have dreamed up a better location for this—”

  “Good, it’s yours, then.”

  “We’re honestly more than happy to compensate you.”

  “Please. Now I’m gonna barf. It’s fine.”

  “Okay,” I said, looking down bashfully as I got a good glance at his hot Edward Scissorhandsian leather fencing jacket. Breathe, Hazel.

  I watched as Finn’s eyes narrowed as he caught sight of the antique locket around my neck. Finn reached over and barely dusted the skin on my collarbone with his fingers as he lifted the heart-shaped mini-diptych.

  “H,” he said, simply, after deciphering the extremely calligraphic thus virtually illegible letter engraved on the surface. As he held it delicately in his left hand, he took his right index finger and gently ran it over the curves and seraphs of my ornate initial, following the gentle tracks of the burin, then looking up into my unblinkable eyes. “It’s just beautiful,” he said, studying it.

  “It was my grandmother’s,” I stammered. “I was named for her.”

  “What’s inside?”

  “Uh . . . nothing, actually.”

  “Nothing?” he said, lifting his eyes from the charm to meet mine.

  “I know, it’s weird,” I admitted with a shrug. “I didn’t really know what to put in it, so it’s just empty.”

  To my utter shock he slowly leaned down toward his hand, and as my lungs were unable to squeeze out the CO2, he put his lips to my locket. He kissed it. And in doing so thieved about five beats of my pulse. He stood back up and looked at me with his searing blue eyes.

  “I’m not allowed to kiss your mouth, so I’ll kiss your heart.”

  Lightning bolt chucked down by Zeus himself electrified my entire being. In that moment, as he let my necklace gently fall from his fingertips back to my clavicle, Finn pressed the pause button on my entire respiratory system. I could barely gather the thoughts let alone the words to make their way to my tongue, so my hand simply found itself taking his. I gave it a doting squeeze then turned away toward the door. “We should go,” I said as my pulse shot through the cavernous ceiling. “I have an early flight.”

  “All right, H.”

  “Sorry,” I offered, not quite knowing why.

  “No need to be,” he said, with a warm, sincere smile. “Anyway,” he added. “You’ll be back soon enough.”

  Chapter 16

  I don’t want to see pictures of Hollywood stars in their dressing gowns taking out the rubbish. It ruins the fantasy.

  —Sarah Brightman

  This time, the plane flew steadily through the crystal blue skies, visibility thousands of miles, liftoff glorious. But if my head were any gauge, it was as if we were flying through the tumbling tumult once again, bumpy and in free fall, nauseating and flirting with ashen sprinklage on some rectangular red state in the middle.

  It was Finn’s fault. Fuck. He kept popping up on my screen like a hidden point in one of Badass’s video games—a pixilated pot of gold, a secret weapon stashed in a hidden closet door, a bonus round in life. I tried to highlight and delete him from my brain, only for him to pop up again. And soon enough, somewhere over Utah, I found myself fantasizing about him ravishing me. My problems with him were myriad, though the crux lay tied up in this paradox: Finn brought out the best and the worst in me. He elicited a brilliant streak; I was much funnier with him, more clever, on a quicker setting than normal. He turned me on, not just sexually, okay that, too, but literally, like a new bulb was installed, I burned brighter, stronger. I was so excited by his larger-than-life presence that perhaps I dug deeper, tried harder, was super-Hazel, Good Witch Hazel, Super Me. Though quite honestly it all seemed to flow naturally with zero effort. He just sparked me to be better, like a worthy tennis opponent luring out the aces inside you. If I were a witch, it was he that gave me my wand. And I couldn’t stop thinking about his wand.

  But then there was the dark side. The naughty witch. A Kansas house should fall on me for daydreaming of Finn when I was totally taken. And in love! Wylie was Kansas . . . he was my head, my heart, my courage . . . my home. He was everything to me, the real life I always wanted to open my eyes to after a bad dream, exhaling in dulcet relief that he was beside me.

  But here was the thing about Kansas. There was no color. Not that Wylie was gray and blah—he wasn’t at all—but Finn was like the first time I’d seen fluorescents. I went to Day-Glo instantly on that flight. But while Finn made me sharper, he also brought out many of the seven deadly sins and the stark colors that accompany them. Green greed, for one. For more time with him, another text, an e-mail, a sighting, another scavenged moment to connect. And for jealousy, of the girls who shared his bed, got inside, even the ones who scissored his heart to smithereens. I wish I could have been there, in his more innocent times, leading him down a different path, one that showed him how much love can make it all better rather than worse. And let’s not even speak of Lust. Passionate purple like the quivering arrow from A Midsummer Night’s Dream whose errant bull’s-eye of a lily-white flower rendered it violent violet. Yes, I loved Wylie. He was my cam, my touchstone. My all-clear on the Doppler 5000. But there it was: an all-encompassing storm that made me shiver with desire for Finn. And what was sunshine without the storms? The truth is this: I felt more alive than ever before. Even if tortured, I felt woken up. My stomach did a loop-de-loop just like my westbound flight. I gripped the armrests as if we’d taken a deep dip, when we hadn’t. I opened my eyes and realized the ghost of Finn next to me was making me feel like a shooting star, not the metal bird I was flying inside. I closed my eyes again. I wondered how it’d feel if I had let him kiss me in that warehouse. I mentally pressed the rewind button, dreaming of his lips on mine, as he held me in his strong enormous arms. I h
ad looked up all his lyrics on the Internet, even though I knew most of them, and even in the absence of his throaty voice and pummeling guitars, his words set me afire. Especially as I imagined him writing them in a fury of prolific inspiration. Cut to my hotel room. I pictured him there, lying next to me where I slept alone. I imagined what he would be like, his tattooed arms around me, my hands in his black hair, his warm mouth that sang such hemlock-dipped words. Of course he’d be wildly different from Wylie, violent maybe. I probably couldn’t even keep up, given that I’m not incredibly prone to kink, being somewhat of a control freak and not wanting to succumb to blindfolds or wrists tied to bedposts, both of which have been featured in his videos. I’d probably be boring to him, no matter how fevered my grip of his back, no matter how high-speed my breaths. I could moan and kiss and bite with the best of ’em but I’m sure the courtesan types who fucked him rotten would find my sheet style positively junior varsity. I’m just not that exciting. Basic sex excites me enough.

  It seemed every hour my thoughts were flooded with images of us having sex, in the airplane bathroom, the warehouse, his tinted-windowed car. Maybe I could be the antidote for his years of pounding poison. Maybe I could make it all better. Maybe I could show Finn that within that crushed hollow rib cage he sings about, there is a chance to feel again.

  Wait . . . WTF?!?!?! I had Wylie! See, this is why fantasies are wrong. Wrong! How can I let my mind go adrift and wandering like this? Too crazy. Okay . . . Hazel, I told myself. You love Wylie. He is the greatest guy on the face of the earth. You have built a life together. You once had lust for him like this . . . right? Yeah! I think. Yes, of course you did. I thought back to my first kisses with Wylie, Robert Doisneau–rivaling, passionate, beautiful. He’d cooked me dinner and walked me to get a taxi home. He’d gallantly flagged one for me and we high-fived over the score of a coveted van cab. And then after he’d opened the door, he took my hand and pulled me into him, kissing me so softly and deftly, it was as if I’d never been kissed. The ghosts of all boyfriends past faded into the black hours of the early morning with that kiss. Our tongues sweetly searched each other’s as I put my arms around him and squeezed him, my fingers searching his hair dotingly as he parted, panting and aglow.