The Mythic Koda Rose

by Jennifer Nissley

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  For Kellie

  CHAPTER 1

  MY FATHER’S MOST FAMOUS SONG goes, You’re not drowning if your eyes are closed.

  That’s not how I see it. But as Makeup Lady dabs shadow onto my lids, I hold my breath for as long as I can handle, until the burning in my lungs blots out the chaos around me, and the only sounds are ocean ones. Roar of walkie-talkie static. Photographer’s assistants squawking like gulls.

  Makeup Lady switches to my other eye and says relax. Relax, sweetie—no need to be nervous.

  “Not when you have such striking eyes.”

  “Thanks.” I shiver.

  “They’re your father’s.”

  My eyes flash open, and I see everything at once: gawkers and Makeup Lady’s too-red mouth and the whitewashed set behind her. Last of all, I see myself, in the mirror. I blink and my eyelashes rustle. Not mine—I felt her press them on. Tragic purple bruises my lids. I’ve never had this much makeup inflicted on me in my life, but beneath it, my eyes are as uninspiring as ever. Watery blue. I glance from Makeup Lady to the mirror, unconvinced.

  “Most people think I look like my mom.” My mouth is black, practically necrotic. I squish my lips together. Wearing lipstick makes me immediately want to chew it off.

  “Oh.” She laughs. “No. You resemble Mack.”

  A jolt goes through me.

  Mack.

  Like she knew him.

  “He was very talented,” she says quietly.

  I nod.

  She disappears.

  A girl with a gravity-defying blond ponytail hustles in to replace her, clipboard clasped to her chest. “Koda?” she chirps. “We’re ready for you, hon.”

  Great. Fantastic. Lovely, as Mom would say.

  Ponytail leads me onto set. Even the stool they want me to sit on is white. Photographer stands several feet away, viciously adjusting the settings on his camera. He’s dressed completely in black. Long and skinny, like a knife, and something about the gleam of his bald head beneath the lights suggests he must be famous, probably the best photographer ROCK has to offer. “Um. Excuse me?” I wait. Photographer thrusts his camera at an assistant, who immediately passes him another, identical one. “Hi, um, do you want me to… do I sit?” Our lawyer, Mr. Todd, strides by, blah-blahing into his phone. I practically lunge for him. “Is that Mom?” I ask, but he doesn’t hear me either. Okay. I eye the stool.

  Mom promised that makeup, the photo shoot, this whole ordeal, would be easy.

  She’d know if I should sit.

  Ponytail whispers to Photographer, and his head jerks up. “There she is!” he exclaims. I’ve been here since noon—three whole hours—and it’s like he’s just noticed me. “Happy birthday, darling!”

  Definitely famous. And French. All those swallowed vowels. “Thanks.” My birthday isn’t for months. April 1. Ha ha. But we’re doing the photo shoot in December because ROCK’s editor-in-chief deemed it would be so. Probably this has to do with running a monthly publication—interviews must be conducted, articles written, pics shot and Photoshopped a gazillion weeks in advance, especially when the feature story is as momentous as this one. It’s not every day a dead rock god’s only kid turns eighteen.

  An impatient flap from Photographer—sit—and I ease onto the stool, feeling faint. The shirt Wardrobe buttoned me into is only soft on the outside. Inside, it’s a web of frayed stitches, scratchy tight. The pants too. Leather. Hair tickles my nose, but it took Stylist so long to set the curls that I’m afraid to move. Clearly he expected me to show up with something he could work with, instead of the same sad haircut I’ve had since I was four.

  Sweat pools in my butt crack. The pants are that hot. I grind my palms into my thighs as Photographer snaps what must be test shots, aiming his camera at my face, the wall, my face. “Hmm.” He grimaces. Seemingly in pain, if not blinded. Like the set, I am astonishingly white. Did nobody think this through?

  Okay, okay. Right. Mom and I talked about this, and we agreed that inspiration is all about summoning the right mental images. Looking the part. As Photographer advances, hunched behind his camera, I pull my shoulders back. Take a deep breath that is the opposite of drowning.

  The set has gone completely silent. Just him and my swim pose and the steady ping of his camera’s touch display. Finally, he lifts the camera to his eye. “You are having a big New York birthday?” he asks.

  My chest sizzles. Heartburn. Amazing it waited this long. “Maybe. I mean…” It’s like talking to the dentist when his hand’s halfway in your mouth. Am I even supposed to answer? I give it my best. Slowly. Letting my lungs expand. “I want to, but my friends aren’t exactly down with leaving LA in the middle of—”

  “Don’t tense,” he scolds. “Give us a pout, eh?”

  My nose prickles. Oh no. No. I can’t cry. Not now. I’ll ruin the makeup. Everybody will be so mad. Quickly, I glance away, tilting my face to rock the tears back. Mom’s trick, but it doesn’t work. God, if only she could’ve come. If only she could’ve been here, instead of whatever it is she’s doing at the office.

  “Go on,” says Photographer. “Show us what made your father famous.”

  How? My father’s face was 90 percent dimple. I don’t have dimples. Just fat lips—Mom swears they’re not, but they are—and too much forehead and, worst of all, these ugly, blocky cheeks. I am the lowest possible form of my father. A bootleg copy. My lip quivers.

  Click!

  “There!” Photographer murmurs. “A little bird could perch on that lip.”

  Was that a compliment? Can’t tell. Too stunned by the flash. The camera clicks. Click click click!

  He retreats to study his efforts on a laptop. I stare at the floor.

  Photographer comes stalking back. “What is your favorite memory of your father?”

  “Um.”

  Somebody reaches to fluff my hair.

  Does he not… can he seriously not know? “I—I… I don’t have any. He died when I was a month old.”

  He snorts, like this is entirely beside the point. “Yes, but you have seen things? Read things? Your father was absolutely unknown when I photographed him, and yet his magnetism was undeniable. ROCK’s best-selling cover to date. I need you to channel those images, Koda Rose. Become him. Embody the essence that was Mack Grady. So.” He taps his camera. “Smile. You can do this? You know your father’s smile?”

  Everybody knows my father’s smile. See above: dimples. And maybe I don’t know the exact pictures Photographer’s referring to, but if he showed me an example…

  Somehow, I doubt that’s an option. I look up again, avoiding Photographer’s glinting stare.

  “Go on,” he coaxes.

  I smooth on what feels like a smile—a Mack smile—and I guess I do it right, because my mouth is so stiff it sticks that way until Photographer announces, “Okay, we are done smiling, Koda Rose. Let’s look serious. No, serious—how is it possible to have those eyes and not know how to use them?” Click! “The key is to not be pretty.” Click! Click! “Plenty of girls are pretty. It is not so hard to do, and fans’ expectations for this feature are astronomical. You must—”

  In photos my father is pretty. Not much older than me.

  “—look worthy.”

  “Wor
thy?” What? My back tightens, this urge to defend myself—well, I am his kid, whether you think I deserve to be or not. But my mouth only flops.

  Three days since we moved from LA, and nobody has ever spoken to me like this.

  Photographer yanks the camera from his eye, motioning frantically for intervention. Ponytail. She lights a cigarette and drops it between my fingers.

  “Oh,” I say. “I don’t—did my mom agree to this?”

  Exasperated, Photographer explains that I don’t have to smoke it. I’m just supposed to let the smoke snake around me because my father smoked, it’ll be like this echo thing, utterly brilliant—he stops. Ponytail manipulates my fingers, showing me how to hold the cigarette without getting ash all over myself. Then she steps back, and somebody goes, “Shh!” Through my eyelashes I watch as two mouths, many mouths, drop open.

  Slowly, Photographer says, “Move your head.”

  I move it. This cigarette reeks.

  “No! Less!”

  I move it less.

  “That’s it,” he mutters. “That’s it!” Spasms. “There he is. I knew you had him in you!” Click! “Yes!” Click! “Brilliant brilliant brilliant. A little more, darling—” I let the cigarette dangle, like the Mack in pictures I have seen, and—“There! Yes! Beau-ti-ful! Extraor-dinary! Blue eyes, and auburn hair, you fucking ex-qui-site china doll…”

  By the time it’s over, I kind of wish I did smoke, and that Mom could’ve let me in on a few more tips. Also maybe that I could look the tiniest bit more like my father, so I wouldn’t have to turn my head to remind people I’m his.

  CHAPTER 2

  I BLOW THROUGH AN ENTIRE roll of Tums waiting for Mom to get out of her meeting. Photographer’s fault. After wrap he buried me in questions about my father, like what I admire most about him, how very nice it might be if he were, of course, alive? My mouth hurt so much from smiling I couldn’t answer. Somebody suggested I might be allergic to the lipstick. Poison Ivy, the color was called. Hilarious.

  “Want to throw that away?”

  I jump. The Magazine’s receptionist clacks away on a computer, her face lit ghostly blue by the screen.

  “Your wrapper,” she explains.

  The Tums wrapper. I shredded it. “Um… okay. Thanks.”

  She holds a small wire trash can out like some kind of sacred offering. I take three creaking steps toward her—The Magazine might be to fashion what Kleenex is to tissues, but its New York offices are depressingly ancient—then hover there, scraping Tums confetti off my palm. “Sorry,” I mumble. For her part, Receptionist doesn’t seem to mind having me all up in her space. My vision’s still strobing from the flash, but as she scoots the trash can back under her desk, I risk further examination. She’s older than me, but not by much. Scraggly dark hair, a ring through her eyebrow. She catches me looking and smiles.

  I creak back to my chair and hook my feet around its spindly legs. Receptionist resumes typing. A steady clackity-clack.

  “Thanks,” I say again.

  I never know what to do when cute girls smile at me.

  To distract myself, I study the deserted reception area for the thousandth time since our driver dropped me off. It’s not only ancient but soulless, the creamy white walls and chrome-accented furniture giving me serious competition for “Least Rock ’n’ Roll.” The oblong coffee table is way too nice to put my feet on, slathered in months-old magazines—back issues, and sister publications put out by the same company. I sift them around, hoping for something science-y, but they’re what you’d expect. Modern Luxury. Philanthropy Today. I’m about to give up, check my phone again, when a ragged R poking out from the pile stops me. My pulse leaps.

  Last month’s ROCK. Not generally my thing. But—after checking to make sure Mom’s not coming—I pull the magazine quickly into my lap. On the cover, a girl with an Afro strums her guitar, exponentially cooler than me. Thumbing past her, through pages splattered with more names and faces I’ve never heard of, it’s hard not to imagine Receptionist tucking my issue here after April. My own face unrecognizable, Photoshopped smooth.

  I set the magazine down, my gaze creeping toward the door.

  4:24, my phone says.

  Mom’s meeting was supposed to end forty-two minutes ago.

  I slip my phone back into my pocket and switch chairs to be closer to the window. Inexplicably, it’s cracked open, and city sounds drift up with the chilly air. Blaring sirens and horns that I’m positive, after three days in New York, I will never get used to. At home it’s different. Our new apartment, I mean—not Beverly Hills home. The apartment’s so high up you can’t hear anything except your own breathing, and blood slithering around your veins with the skyscraper’s swaying. Mom claims that’s just my imagination, but countless Google searches I’ve conducted in her absence this week proved otherwise. Tall buildings shift to accommodate high winds. It’s weird how she doesn’t feel it.

  Not that this matters now. We live on the Upper East Side, but The Magazine’s offices are way across the city, and there are only six floors, not eighty-five, between the street and me. 4:31, and the sky’s already ashy, Eleventh Avenue strung with headlights like even shitty, smelly New York cares it’s practically Christmas. My phone buzzes with a text from Mom: Almost done! XOXO! Thank God. OK! I reply. Please hurry! <33333 I could tell our driver—John? James? The Magazine’s provided so many over the years I don’t bother learning names anymore—judged me for wanting to come here after the photo shoot. But where was I supposed to go? Home? Alone? I guess I could’ve showered.

  I drop my nose to my shoulder. Sniff test. Mom has a thing about cigarettes.

  “Sure you don’t want a drink?” Receptionist asks.

  My head jerks up. She saw that? She saw me smelling myself?

  “We have coffee,” she adds hopefully. “A wide selection of teas.”

  “No thanks.” Neither is on my list of heartburn-proof foods. I cool my forehead against the glass, eyes trained on the door. I don’t know what Mom is doing in there. I don’t particularly care. I can’t even pick her voice out from the vague mumblings that occasionally rise, then subside again, little jolts of hope. No. Doors stay shut for a reason. They open when Mom says.

  Meanwhile, Receptionist keeps typing, sneaking me glances I pretend not to notice. “Well,” she goes on, like I’ve disappointed her somehow, “I saw you reading ROCK just now. You probably get this all the time, but—you’re going to be on the cover next year, right? In the spring? And I want to tell you we’re so freaking excited. Like, thank you.”

  I smile and fold my hands, fighting the urge to say, You’re welcome. Everybody knows that dumb magazine jumpstarted my father’s entire career. Combine that with the even dumber photos of me that got posted just before we moved, and we didn’t—Mom says—have much of a choice.

  But—“We?” I say.

  She blinks. “Quixote fans.”

  Oh yeah. Them. I turn back to the window. Stare at my face etched on the dark glass. Really, it’s only a reflection. Electrons. Light waves. I can see Receptionist, too, now blatantly staring at me, as wide-eyed and slobbery as Makeup Lady and Photographer were hours ago. Weird. If she’s gawking at me, a nobody, she’d never survive LA. There, celebrities are like those black gnats you find bouncing around after a drought. They get caught in windshields, your teeth, but only tourists freak out about them.

  Receptionist gets up, exiting through a door to the left of her desk that I guess must lead to a bathroom. I sit with my hands on my knees, pretending I can’t hear her peeing while I practice the look Mom’s early admirers dubbed devastatingly casual. The effort pulls my eyes to the window again. Tentatively, I trace a finger along my forehead.

  You must—

  My jaw.

  —look worthy.

  Idiot. The whole point of the ROCK feature is to prove I’m nothing like my father. Setting it up was stressful enough, but Mom will flip anew if my pictures bear even the slightest resemblance to him
—she’ll demand we shoot the whole thing over. And Mom could do that. She wasn’t reassigned to this resuscitation task force at The Magazine’s struggling New York offices for nothing. She was famous too once. She has power. And if Photographer really was so amazing, wouldn’t he have reconciled himself to this basic fact?

  Still, since Mom seems like she might be a while, I take my phone out and google Mack Grady ROCK. Might as well find the pics Photographer kept screaming about.

  Images pop up of a glossy cover dated October 2001. I recognize it immediately. Anybody would. The caption, WHY QUIXOTE WILL REVOLUTIONIZE ROCK ’N’ ROLL, floats above my father and his bandmates, filthy and too cool with their torn velvet shirts and dripping hair. My father is in the middle, obviously, arms flung out and limp like Jesus, one draped around the bassist, Ted, and another around the tomboyish little guitarist. His ex, Sadie. Drummer Vinnie looms behind everybody. Typical.

  I flip through several variations of this picture, wondering what it is I’m supposed to feel. The article reveals nothing. Only the same phrases I’ve always associated with my father: voice of a generation… a brilliant man with a gorgeous mind… and then, on the twentieth-anniversary reprint: left us most unfortunately. Like he caught the wrong bus or something.

  Receptionist reappears, wiping her hands on a paper towel, and I instinctively lower my phone to my lap. Once she’s distracted, I unlock it again. Zoom in on my father’s tangled black hair. The dimple. Makeup Lady was wrong. His eyes were nothing like mine. Layers of gray.

  On impulse I scoot closer to the window. They brushed my hair out after wrap, but it’s still sticky, chemical-smelling. I pull it back over my shoulders, watching my eyes the entire time. It’s weird, staring into yourself like this. Almost like I expect something big to happen. For my father to swim up to me.

  Out in the hall, an elevator dings. Stilettos strike hardwood. “No no, that’s so kind, but it’s right here, isn’t it? I’m sure I remember…”

  I tear myself from the window just in time to hug Mom in front of Receptionist and the magazines and the poor elevator attendant who barely escapes getting trampled. “Koda!” Even Mom seems surprised by my greeting. She cups my cheeks, laughing, and I hug her again. Can’t help it. A three-hour meeting, and her hands still feel like the cool side of the pillow.