Fear and Laundry (23 page)

“C’mon, Vee. Who does this notebook remind you of?” She held it up and I knew what she was getting at. It was a black and white composition book, like the ones she liked to use. “You don’t think that’s a weird coincidence?”

“That you and Clyde Kameron both use the same notebook popular with fifth graders everywhere? It’s remarkable,” I said flatly. “The two of you are obviously soul mates.”

She made a face and I expected her to tell me to “chill out” or “relax,” as usual, when a sort of rattling came from a door in the west wall and distracted her.

“The connecting door,” I whispered, focusing on a door set into a recess beside an ornate chest of drawers across the room. “I’d forgotten all about it.”

“What?”

“This suite connects to the one next door,” I explained as the doorknob turned. “Clyde must’ve rented both rooms and been in there this whole time.” Now I knew why the guard hadn’t seemed surprised or worried to find his client missing from the first room.

The connecting door opened and a young, thin guy in a Soundgarden t-shirt and pair of threadbare khaki shorts staggered into the suite. He looked down, struggling with something in his hand.

It was him. Clyde Kameron. Carreen’s prodigal punk, returned at last. Although I’d never been the fan Lia was, I couldn’t help being awed by the sight of him just standing there in person, such a short distance away.

“Holy crap,” I breathed.

When he heard me, his head shot up and he dropped the thing in his hand. It was a pill bottle and as it fell, the loosened lid flew away and pills sprayed out all over the very expensive carpet.

“The fuck?” Clyde said. He was shorter than I’d expected and his longish blonde hair was greasy. His eyes, rimmed with black makeup, looked glassy and confused.

“I’m sorry,” I blurted, putting my hands up to show him we meant him no harm.

He backed up, almost tripping over a duffle bag lying just outside the connecting door. “Who are you?” He asked, catching himself on the chest of drawers.

“We didn’t mean to scare you,” I said, looking over at Lia. She’d paled and sat, unblinking, with the notebook still clutched in her lap.
Wonderful
, I thought.
She picks now to stop talking.

Clyde squinted at our uniforms. “Are you the freaking maids? Thought I told that little twerp at the front desk I didn’t want any service.”

“No, no. We, uh, don’t actually work for the hotel.” I twisted my hands together. “Technically.”

He looked startled. “Then just who in the hell are you?”

“We’re just, you know, fans.”

“Fans?”

“Of Blank Fiction.”

“Aw, Christ.” He brought a hand to his chest and exhaled, visibly relaxing. But then his raccoon eyes fell on the notebook still in Lia’s hands and his face went all stony.

“We weren’t going to take it,” I said.

He went on staring at the book. I could tell he wanted to lunge for it, but something held him back. Probably a healthy fear of getting too close to some potential psycho he’d just caught ransacking his personal belongings.

“We’re sorry,” I repeated, not knowing what else to say.

“Yeah, I got that,” he said, waving his hand in annoyance. He moved a few inches to the side, eyeing the telephone on the desk beside me.

I pried the notebook out of Lia’s grip and held it out to him. “Here you go,” I said, waggling the book back and forth to try and distract him from running for the phone to call security.

He tilted his head to examine me and must’ve concluded I wasn’t much of a threat because he decided to chance it, coming forward to snatch the book from my hand.

“I know this looks really bad,” I said as he backed up again, flipping through the notebook presumably to see if anything was missing. “But we just wanted to talk to you.”

He snapped the notebook shut. “You’ve got twenty seconds to get out of here,” he told me, pointing at the door with a black nail-polished finger.

“No,” I said. “Please, we just need like five minutes...” I could see he wasn’t buying it, his face twisting into a scowl. I was blowing it, I thought. Losing our one chance to get Lia’s interview and save Lynch’s. Not to mention my chance to prove to Lia I wasn’t the wimp she thought I was. “Please,” I said again, trying to think of the right thing to say that would make him listen.

Thankfully Lia chose that moment to regain her faculties. She shot to her feet and sprang in front of me, holding out her hand.

“I’m Lia Mlinarich,” she said to him. “And oh my God, it is such a huge honor to meet you. I am your
biggest
fan. I mean, seriously. Ask Vee,” she gestured at me. “Ask anybody.”

I don’t know what I expected Clyde Kameron to say to this announcement, but it wasn’t this:

“Mlinarich?” Clyde squinted. “Wait a second. The zine girl?”

***

L
ia was beyond ecstatic. “I’ve sent you every issue. I figured you might not even get them, you know, but...you did! He
did
,” she said to me, shaking my arm. Then she turned back to Clyde. “So what’d you think of it? I mean, did you like it? Truth.” She clasped her hands together, eagerly awaiting his response.

Clyde tossed his hair back. “Course I did. It was all about me.” He laughed, but I couldn’t tell if he was really joking or not.

There was a sharp knock at the main door. “Mr. Ecks?”

“Your security guy,” I hissed at Clyde. “He thinks I’m in here making your bed. And he doesn’t even know Lia’s here.”

“Oh, please don’t have him throw us out,” pleaded Lia.

Clyde gave her a bored look. “What d’you think, I’m just gonna let you stay in here? Hang out? Play board games or somethin’?”

There was another knock at the door.

“At least don’t tell him who we really are,” I said to Clyde. “My mom works here and it’d be this whole...thing.”

He looked from one to the other of us and back again. “Aw, crap,” he sighed and shook his head. “I’ll get rid of him.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Lia hopped up and down.

“Don’t get too excited,” he said, tucking his notebook under his arm. “I’ll give you five more minutes and then you’re outta here.” He moved to the door and opened it a few inches to address the guy outside. “Yeah, what is it, Rhett?”

“The laundry lady still in there?” I heard Rhett boom.

Clyde glanced over his shoulder at Lia and me and then stepped out into the hall. He was only gone a minute, during which I was treated to the sight of Lia jumping up and down again, and then running around me, doing her happiest happy dance.

“What’s going on?” I demanded of Clyde as soon as he’d come back in.

“Relax, Boss.” He slid the security chain onto its track and strode toward us. “Everything’s cool.”

“I mean it, what’d you tell that guy?” If he’d let the wrong word slip, I could be in serious trouble.

He stopped in front of me, looking grave. “I told him I’d taken a liking to ya and we’d need about an hour of privacy,” he deadpanned. “He won’t bother us again.”

My stomach clenched. “What? Ew.”

“That was a joke,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder. “She always wound this tight?” he asked Lia.

“You have no idea,” she said. She was still breathing a little hard from the happy dance. I frowned at both of them.

“I told him I’d asked you to make up the bed in the next room, too,” he said, shaking me a little before releasing my shoulder. “And then I told him to go get me a Snapple and a chicken sandwich. That oughtta keep him busy for a few, give you a chance to slip out without any questions.”

He ambled over and replaced his notebook in the nightstand drawer. “So what is it you girls want before you go? An autograph or something?” He’d relaxed considerably since we’d first encountered him and now leaned casually against the back of the desk chair. Maybe this wasn’t the first time Clyde Kameron’s fans had broken into his hotel room. Regardless, I was impressed by how well he was handling it.

“Actually, we were hoping to get an interview for
The Blank Slate
,” said Lia. “And get you to maybe drop by this benefit concert I’m throwing tomorrow night. I wrote to you about it, remember?”

Clyde shook his head. “Sorry, kiddo. No can do.”

Lia’s face fell. “Why not?”

“Won’t be here. I’ve got this museum thing tomorrow afternoon and then I’m out,” he waved his thumb toward the door. “Flight leaves right after.”

“What about the interview? We could do that now.” We’d be quick, Lia promised, patting her smock pocket for the tape recorder.

He sighed. “Nope. Sorry. No time.”

It bothered me that he denied her so quickly and flatly, without even pretending to think about it. “Yeah, you look really busy,” I said, looking pointedly from the whiskey bottle on his pillow to the pills peppering the carpet. “We obviously interrupted something.”

He squinted at me. “Hey, Boss, I’m not as dumb as you think I am,” he said. “I know what you’re getting at. But this isn’t what it looks like. These?” He walked over to the scattered pills. “This is my new prescription.” He kicked the lid of the pill bottle. It skipped across the carpet a couple of times before rolling to a stop against a baseboard. “Totally legit. For anxiety. ‘Cause being a rock star can be pretty nerve-wracking, you know. Sometimes strangers break into your room and go through your stuff, get all up in your business...”

“All we’re asking for is a little of your time,” I interrupted him. The interview would take minutes. The benefit, maybe an hour. We’d gone to all this trouble. And Lia was his biggest fan, I reiterated. It’d mean so much to her.

He sighed again, seeming totally put out by the suggestion. “No offense, sweetheart,” he said to Lia. “But you know how many biggest fans I’ve got?”

Now I was really annoyed. “Not as many as you used to,” I said.

Lia waved her hands. “Uh. She didn’t mean that,” she hurried to pacify him. But it was unnecessary. The criticism hardly seemed to register.

“Look,” he said. “I’m just here to get my award or whatever and then split. I’m not staying in this crap-hole town a second longer than I need to.”

I felt my blood heat up. “Carreen is not a crap-hole,” I said.

He looked at me sadly. “No offense but who’re you kidding? Look around. There’s no place here for people like me – or you either. You guys must’ve figured that out by now. My advice to you would be to do what I did and get the hell out of here as soon as you can. And don’t look back.”

“But what about Lynch’s?” asked Lia.

“Who?”

“You said there’s no place for us here,” she said, “but there is. There’s
Lynch’s
.”

“Oh, right. The Laundromat,” he said.

“You really did read the zine,” I said, amazed.

He looked insulted. “Said I did.”

“And?” asked Lia.

“And what?”

“What’d you think when you read about Lynch’s?”

“No offense,” he snorted. “But the whole scene sounds pathetic. Like it hasn’t changed a bit. It’s still just a bunch of spoiled rich kids playing around at being punks, same as when I lived here.”

Lia gasped.

“You realize just saying ‘no offense’ first doesn’t make whatever you say right afterward okay?” I asked him.

“Look, I’m really not trying to hurt your feelings here,” he said. “I’m just trying to give it to you straight. You seem like you’ve got some talent,” he told Lia, “Which is all the more reason for you to get out of this place. I remember what it was like and it’s no good.” He crossed the room and crouched down, picking a few pills out of the carpet.

“What’re you talking about?” asked Lia.

“I’m talking about the ignorant hicks who followed me around, harassing me and kicking my ass for wearing eyeliner to school. And the wannabe rock stars who wouldn’t know a decent chord if it bit ‘em in the ass,” he said, straightening up again. “Who think they’re entitled to be in a band just ‘cause their daddy can afford to buy ‘em a guitar.”

I thought I knew what he was getting at with these comments. Clyde’s father had abandoned him when he was little, and his mother had had drug problems. He’d been taken by the state when he was seven and grown up shuttled from one foster home to another. His mother had eventually disappeared. If Clyde really had grown up fending for himself against the types of people he was describing, I could see why he’d be bitter. Still, I didn’t think his bad experience was any reason to discount the whole town and refuse to help us. He was being irrational.

“
No offense
,” I said. “But that was a long time ago. We know a lot of cool people. They’re not like that at all.”

Clyde shook his head, unconvinced. “Trust me, if that Lynch’s place goes under it’ll be a favor to you all. Cure you of some of your delusions. Force you to move on to someplace better.” He tossed the pills into his mouth, opened a dresser drawer and took out a clear plastic water bottle.

“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” said Lia in a small voice. The sight of her chin trembling made me want to throttle Clyde Kameron.

“So what if you hate Carreen?” I said to him. “Some of your fans live here. And we helped make you a star. Don’t you think you owe it to us to show up and play for us once in a while? I mean, would it kill you?”

“Owe you?” He unscrewed the bottle cap and took a long swallow, washing down the medication. “Why would I owe you anything?”

“Because without us, you wouldn’t have a career,” I said. Without Lia, I pointed out, he wouldn’t have been recognized at the museum tomorrow.

“And because we love you,” breathed Lia, tears in her eyes.

Clyde stood still, the bottle halfway to his mouth. “I appreciate that,” he said quietly. “I really do. But I think maybe you’ve put your time and energy into the wrong guy.”

“Why?” asked Lia, sounding scared.

“Because I’m quitting,” he said, exhausted.

***

“W
hat do you mean, quitting?”

“I’m done.” Clyde crossed to the bed and sat heavily on the mattress, looking up at me through a curtain of dirty bangs. “Blank Fiction’s breaking up. The press release has already been written.”

“But...” I said, shocked. “You can’t just
quit
.” Beside me, Lia started to sniffle.