Gloss

by Marilyn Kaye

  She wasn’t worried about supporting Sam forever. He’d never take a regular job of course — his philosophy wouldn’t allow for that. He was perfectly content living off the pittance he collected from playing in parks and on streets and in subways. But there were ways he could make a little more money without giving up his principles. He was bound to get a paying gig for his music. And that song he wrote, the one about the seasons — it was as good if not better than any folk song she’d heard before. Maybe he could record it … or sell it, to someone like Bob Dylan!

  ‘What’s that street number again?’ the driver asked.

  She glanced at the paper she was still clutching, and told him. Looking out the window, she found it hard to believe they were only thirty minutes out of Manhattan. It was a completely different scene here in suburbia. Modest two-storey houses set back from the street, with tiny but well-kept lawns. On the sidewalk there were people walking dogs, wheeling baby carriages. Kids on bikes and roller skates whizzed by.

  The driver pulled up in front of the house. Turning, he handed her a card.

  ‘Call this number when you’re ready to leave and the service will send a car for you.’

  ‘It won’t be late,’ she told him. Sam was doing another open mic at a folk club, and she planned to meet him there at seven.

  Holding on tightly to her handbag, now heavy with the addition of the tape recorder, she moved up the paved walkway to the front door. Suddenly she became a little nervous. Had Mr Connelly given her the wrong address? This did not look like the residence of a pop star. No guards, no doormen … she gave a tentative knock.

  Bobby Dale himself opened the door.

  ‘Hi, Allison. Come on in.’

  He remembered her name. That was nice, and unexpected. But she reminded herself that his manager had most likely prepared him.

  She was ushered into a living room that was a far cry from the Park Avenue penthouse where she’d last seen him. Fat, overstuffed furniture, a worn but bright braided rug, an old-fashioned bookcase filled with knick-knacks. A counter held a TV, a radio and a record player. There was a piano, but not a grand, just an ordinary upright. On a coffee table, a vase held flowers that looked like they’d been plucked from a garden, not arranged by a florist.

  Definitely not a teen-idol abode, and maybe that was the point. ‘Is this where you hide from your fans?’ she asked him.

  ‘It’s where I live,’ he said simply.

  Allison recalled her research. ‘I thought you lived in Los Angeles.’

  ‘This is where I grew up,’ he told her. ‘After my first record I moved my parents and my sisters to LA. They like the weather. And the swimming pool. But when I’m in New York, this is still home.’

  ‘What about the apartment on Park Avenue?’

  ‘You thought I lived there? With velvet curtains and chandeliers?’ Bobby shuddered. ‘That was Lou’s place.’

  A plump, grey-haired woman bustled into the room. ‘Bobby, haven’t you offered your guest any refreshment?’

  ‘I was just about to, Nana. Allison, this is my grandmother. She’s the only one who refused to move to Los Angeles.’

  ‘Who wants to live in a city with one season?’ the woman asked. ‘And I don’t swim. Bobby, you haven’t even asked your guest to sit down!’

  ‘I’m not really a guest,’ Allison explained. ‘I’m interviewing Bobby for a magazine.’

  ‘Well, if you promise you’ll only write nice things about my grandson, there’s a chocolate cake in the fridge. Now, I’m off to my garden-club meeting. You young people behave yourselves.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Nana. I’ll keep my hands off her.’

  His grandmother made a ‘tch tch’ sound. ‘Don’t you sass me, young man. It was lovely to meet you, Allison.’ ‘

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ Allison murmured. She had the strangest feeling, like she’d just stepped into one of those wholesome family situation comedies on TV.

  She turned back to Bobby. ‘I need to plug in the tape recorder.’

  ‘Let’s go in the kitchen,’ he suggested.

  It was another cosy room, all yellow and white. Chintz curtains with a floral print framed the window, shiny brass pots and pans hung from hooks on the walls. She and Bobby sat down at a round wooden table, and Bobby indicated the electric outlet.

  ‘I suppose your manager told you what kind of interview we’re doing,’ she said as she carefully wrote BOBBY DALE on a label and stuck it on the frame.

  ‘Probably, but I forget. Just between us, half of what Lou says goes in one ear and out the other. Hey, that thing’s not on yet, is it? I wouldn’t want Lou to hear that.’

  Allison. shook her head. ‘No, but here goes.’ She pressed the two buttons and cleared her throat. ‘Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three.’

  She thought she sounded pretty professional, and Bobby must have thought so too.

  ‘I guess you do this a lot, huh?’

  Allison wanted to maintain her professional air, but she made the mistake of looking up and into his disarming blue eyes. She was beginning to see what made him so irresistible to his legions of fans.

  ‘Actually I heard a journalist say that on a TV show,’ she confessed. ‘And it’s the first time I’ve ever used a tape recorder.’

  ‘Could’ve fooled me,’ he said.

  She hit the ‘rewind’ button, and then ‘play’. What came out sounded like squealing tyres.

  ‘I think you hit “fast forward”,’ Bobby said kindly. He came around behind her and leaned over her shoulder to press buttons. He smelled nice, she thought. Like minty soap. Sometimes, she wished Sam would smell a little … fresher.

  Now she heard, ‘Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three.’ She grimaced.

  ‘Ick, do I really sound like that?’

  ‘Nobody sounds good on a tape recorder,’ Bobby assured her. ‘You should see what they have to do to voices in recording studios to make them sound good.’

  ‘Is that why so many singers just mouth the words to their records when they sing on TV?’ she asked.

  He nodded. ‘I had to do that the other day in Philadelphia when I was on American Bandstand. It’s because they don’t have a band there. But it still makes me feel like I’m cheating.’

  Now that was interesting, and she looked to make sure the little wheels were turning on the machine. But Bobby looked uncomfortable. ‘Uh-oh, I don’t know if I’m supposed to say that. There might be kids who think we’re really singing on that show.’

  ‘Do you want to check with your manager and find out what you’re allowed to say?’

  He stared at her for a minute. ‘It’s not what you think. I just don’t want to disappoint anyone.’

  ‘And in concerts, do you just move your lips to recorded music?’

  He shook his head firmly. ‘Absolutely not. I have a back-up band that tours with me.’ He frowned. ‘Is this what the interview is going to be about? Lip-syncing?’

  ‘No, I was just making conversation,’ she said. ‘The title for this article is “Could You Be Bobby’s Girl?”’

  He nodded seriously. Then he crossed his eyes and made a face.

  She couldn’t help herself — she burst out laughing. She wished David Barnes was there — this would have made a great photo.

  ‘I know, it’s pretty silly,’ she said. ‘But it’s what the readers want to know.’

  His face went back to normal. ‘Do you really believe that?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ she said promptly. ‘But that’s what the Gloss editors think readers want to know. Maybe they’re right. The magazine has a big circulation.’

  ‘Yeah, but what kind of choice do the readers have?’ Bobby asked. ‘The teen magazines, they’re all pretty much the same, aren’t they? Kids don’t have any choice.’

  Allison cocked her head to one side and looked at him with interest. ‘You think they’d rather read something else?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he admitt
ed. ‘I mean, it’s like TV. Everyone watches these stupid game shows or the detective shows or the medical shows because that’s all there is. And the shows are all alike!’ He was getting excited now. ‘Like, take the detective shows. There are always two detectives, one good-looking sidekick, a pretty secretary. And the medical shows — one young handsome passionate doctor, one older wiser doctor …’

  ‘And a pretty nurse,’ Allison finished.

  ‘Exactly!’

  ‘You could say the same thing about popular music,’ Allison ventured. ‘Singers like Bobby Vee, and Bobby Vinton, and Bobby Rydell, and …’ she hesitated.

  He finished the sentence for her. ‘And me. We’re all singing the same garbage.’ Then he clapped a hand over his mouth and looked at the tape recorder. ‘Uh-oh. Look, this can’t be part of the interview, OK? The record company would kill me.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Allison assured him. ‘Gloss would never publish it anyway.’ But she was curious. ‘Do you really think your music is garbage?’

  He shrugged. ‘It’s OK. Like they always say on American Bandstand, it’s got a good beat and you can dance to it. But it’s not really my kind of music.’

  ‘Then why do you sing it?’

  He gave her an abashed smile. ‘So I can get myself in a position where I can sing my kind of music. If I can become important enough to the record company, they’ll have to let me record what I really want to sing.’

  ‘And what kind of music is that?’

  He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment, as if he was trying to make a decision. Then he stood up. ‘C’mon back in the living room.’

  There, he picked out an album from the bookshelf, and then very carefully he slid the record out from the sleeve. Holding it delicately, as if it was fine bone china, he brought it to the record player.

  ‘Listen,’ he said.

  It was a voice she’d never heard before, sort of gravelly and with a twang. The man sounded a little like a hillbilly, or how she thought a hillbilly would sound. She could almost picture him, sitting on a porch, strumming his guitar, singing to himself.

  The song was about a house in New Orleans, called the Rising Sun, and someone who got in trouble there. It sounded vaguely familiar. And when the song ended, and Bobby lifted the needle, it came back to her.

  She snapped her fingers. ‘That’s on Bob Dylan’s album!’

  ‘Yeah, he recorded it too,’ Bobby said. ‘This is Woody Guthrie. He was singing it long before Bob Dylan.’

  Allison was shocked. ‘You mean, Bob Dylan stole the song?’

  ‘No, this is a real folk song. Nobody knows who wrote it.’

  ‘My boyfriend’s a folk singer,’ Allison announced.

  ‘Yeah? Is he playing anywhere?’

  ‘Well … mainly on street corners. That’s where people are, right?’ She was aware that she was sounding defensive.

  ‘Absolutely,’ Bobby assured her. ‘But I want the kids who listen to me now to hear this kind of music. And the way I figure, if I’m famous enough and popular enough, I might be able to get them to listen.’

  He went to the piano, sat down and began to play. She recognized this song immediately — ‘This Land Is Your Land.’

  Bobby sang it beautifully, simply and clearly, without any fancy flourishes. And she realized it wasn’t just a pretty song about America, but a song full of longing, a song about people yearning to feel that this country belonged to them.

  When he finished, she wasn’t sure whether she should clap. He didn’t seem to expect that.

  ‘Does your boyfriend sing that song?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘He only sings songs he wrote himself.’

  Bobby’s eyebrows went up. ‘Really? That’s odd.’

  She stiffened. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because there’s so much wonderful folk music already out there. I mean, it’s great he writes his own stuff too,’ he added hastily. ‘Woody Guthrie wrote “This Land Is Your Land”. Joan Baez writes songs too. But they all sing other stuff as well. I just don’t think a folk singer should limit himself.’

  Allison could only shrug. She wanted to defend Sam’s point of view, but she wasn’t sure how.

  Bobby seemed to sense that she was uncomfortable, and he changed the subject. ‘Tell me about you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yeah. Why not?’

  ‘Because this isn’t a social visit, it’s an interview!’

  He really had a lovely grin, boyish and easy. ‘But I’m curious. Come on, we’ve got time. I think you told me before, you’re from Boston, right?’

  She nodded. ‘I just graduated from high school there, and I’m here in New York for this summer internship at Gloss.’

  ‘Do you want to be a journalist? Wait, I asked you that before, didn’t I?’

  ‘You did, and I still don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘I don’t even know what I’ll be doing two weeks from now when this internship is finished.’

  ‘You’re not going to college?’

  She hesitated. ‘Probably not.’

  He nodded understandingly. ‘Money, huh? I remember when I was looking at colleges and universities a couple of years ago, before I got the recording contract.’ He whistled. ‘Those tuitions can be outrageous.’

  She wasn’t sure why, but she had a sudden desire to be honest with him. ‘It’s not the money. My parents … well, they can afford it.’

  ‘You’re lucky,’ he said. ‘I had a fantasy about going to one of the Ivy League schools. You know, like Harvard or Yale. I had good grades, and I think I could have gotten in. But I didn’t even bother to apply. There was no way my folks could swing it financially.’

  ‘I’ve been accepted at Radcliffe,’ she told him. ‘That’s the women’s college at Harvard.’

  ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s fantastic!’

  She didn’t know what to say, and then she looked at her watch. ‘Gosh, look at the time. We have to get going on this interview.’

  ‘And we need some of my grandmother’s chocolate cake,’ Bobby declared.

  Moments later they were back at the table, with huge slices of cake in front of them. Allison noted with some dismay that she hadn’t turned off the machine before going into the living room. She could rewind it, but there still seemed to be plenty of tape left, and she was kind of hoping the tape had picked up Bobby singing ‘This Land Is Your Land’.

  ‘Can you be Bobby’s girl?’ Allison said loudly. ‘OK, Bobby, what would you look for in a girlfriend?’

  Bobby grinned. ‘Shall I tell you the truth or what your editors think your readers want to hear? No, don’t worry, I know what to say. I could even write it for you!’ He took a deep breath and began to recite.

  ‘Do you like nature and the outdoors? Because Bobby loves hiking, camping and toasting marshmallows over an open fire. And he loves seeing animals in their natural habitat.

  ‘Bobby likes good conversation. He’s interested in current events, and any girl who wants to snag Bobby should be reading a newspaper every day.

  ‘Bobby likes girls who are down-to-earth, who don’t wear a lot of make-up or worry about the latest fashions. He’s not interested in fancy food. Do you like hot dogs, hamburgers, pizza? Then you and Bobby will get along just fine!’

  It was a good thing the tape was running and she didn’t have to take notes. Her mouth had dropped open. This was exactly what Gloss expected her to write.

  He continued.

  ‘The kind of girl Bobby likes is close to her family. Bobby thinks family is really important. Sure, everyone disagrees with their parents once in a while and maybe they feel the need to rebel. That’s normal. But in the long run, family counts. Friends come and go, and so do romances. But families, they have to love you, no matter what you do!’

  The tape was running out, but that was OK. He’d given her enough for a typical Gloss celebrity interview. All she had to do now was type it up, add a little description, and Mr Connelly would be sati
sfied.

  ‘OK?’ Bobby asked.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘How about another piece of cake?’

  She looked at her watch and gasped. She’d told Sam she’d be at the open mic in fifteen minutes. ‘I have to go. Can I use your phone to call the car service?’

  He walked her outside to wait for her ride.

  ‘How did I do?’ he asked.

  ‘Just fine,’ she said. She couldn’t resist asking, ‘How did I do?’

  He smiled. ‘Listen, I’ve had a gazillion interviews with magazines. And that was the best.’

  ‘But I think you interviewed me more than I interviewed you.’

  ‘That’s what made it the best. Hey, have you got a pen or a pencil? And some paper?’

  She was able to provide both. He scribbled on her pad. ‘That’s my phone number. In case …’

  ‘In case what?’

  ‘Well … maybe you’ll think of something else.’

  ‘To ask you?’

  ‘Or to tell me.’

  The car appeared, and she stuck the paper in her pocket. Before the driver could get out, Bobby opened the door.

  But before she could get in, he said, ‘Hey, one more question. Do you like the outdoors? Hiking, camping, toasting marshmallows over an open fire?’

  ‘I’ve never done that,’ she replied.

  ‘Think you might like to try?’

  He was standing so close to her now, she could smell him. Was it that fresh, minty scent that gave her this sudden, crazy urge to kiss him? Which was absolutely ridiculous, of course. She had a boyfriend, how could she have thoughts like that?

  ‘Where to, lady?’ the driver asked.

  She gave him the address of Gloss, and got into the back seat. Bobby closed the door, but he stayed there, with that questioning look still in his eyes. But all she could do was smile before the car took off.

  Feeling just a bit rattled, she leaned back in her seat. That hadn’t gone exactly the way she’d thought it would. It dawned on her that Bobby probably knew more about her now than Sam did. Much as she hated to admit it, when they talked at lunch Sherry had been right. Sam never asked her questions about her life.

  Sam never talked about the future either. Which was totally cool, she assured herself. That was so conventional, making plans. It was the kind of thing her boring brother did.