How to Kill a Rock Star (33 page)

“
GQ
?” Burke laughed as we boarded the plane. “Since when do you read
GQ
?”

I’d tried to hide that one, but Burke grabbed it from under my stack. And when he saw Loring on the cover next to the headline:
Life, Love, and the
Pursuit of Happiness—Blackman
Speaks Candidly,
he put it back and said, “Ah, man, why do you have to torture yourself like that?”

Now I understand what Eliza meant when she complained about pity. Burke’s face was a goddamn symphony of the stuff.

Less than five minutes after we took off, the first officer announced they were expecting moderate to severe turbulence for the next half hour. He asked everyone to stay in their seats with their seatbelts fastened until he shut off the sign.

I didn’t think it was any big deal, but most of the tour per-sonnel, who were seated toward the back, acted like they’d just been told the plane was going down. They al started rustling in their seats, their lips formed little Os of worry, and they talked in these hushed tones that sounded like a bunch of elves behind me.

But the real ruckus was coming from the front of the plane, where Ian was laughing and singing a drunken medley that included the best of Jim Croce, Pasty Cline, Harold “Hawkshaw” Hawkins, Rick Nelson, and every other music-related plane-crash fatality that popped into his blueberry-sized brain.

Eliza would have hated that. With a passion only she would have been capable of exhibiting.

Burke put on his earphones and fidgeted. Angelo bounced his way up to the gal ey and armed himself with a can of tomato juice and a mini bottle of Smirnoff. I asked him to grab me a soda and he told me to fuck off. Angelo and I haven’t been getting along. He keeps accusing me of undermining my success and I keep lecturing him about fal ing prey to the trappings of the rock ’n’ rol lifestyle. Another week on the road and I’m sure it would’ve come to blows.

The flight got bumpy, worse than I’d ever experienced. But what can you do? It’s not like they could pul over and let us out. I tightened my seatbelt and stared out the window. And maybe Burke was right. Maybe I do like to torture myself.

Because I kept trying to picture al the things Eliza would have been doing if she’d been there. I knew exactly what she would How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 290

29have wanted to do—walk up to Ian and kick him, only she would have been too afraid to get out of her seat.

“Turbulence is like driving on a worn-out road,” I would have explained to her. “Just a couple potholes. Nothing to worry about.” Then I would have pul ed down the shades, held both of her hands and sang “To Sir with Love” or something by Jeff Buckley until the bumps went away.

The plane flew into a thicker, darker cloud, and we al shook like little bits on the inside of a rattle. That’s when Burke tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I was scared. I wasn’t. “Not with that guy around,” I said, pointing at Caelum asleep across the aisle. “He’s a guardian angel for the whole rotten bunch of us.”

According to my calculations, the law of probability was on our side, as the likelihood of Michael being in a plane crash after losing his parents in one seemed nonexistent. No exaggeration, the plane could’ve run out of fuel or flown into a wind shear and I stil would’ve expected to walk away unscathed.

Had Eliza been with us we’d have been doubly blessed.

“Bring on the hurricane!” I shouted. “Fate is on our side!” Burke said if I didn’t shut up I was going to jinx the flight, but I assured him that the jerk-off up front singing “Crazy Train” at the top of his lungs was the real bad luck charm.

Just between me and you, tape recorder, the reason Burke was such a basket case was because he’d had a little incident in Austin where he’d gotten drunk and ended up fooling around with some chubby blond who worked for the caterer.

Only Burke. There are supermodel-caliber groupies everywhere and he ends up with the caterer. Anyway, to say he felt guilty is an understatement.

He was positive the flight was the wrath of God raining down on him. And he swore he was going to confess to Queenie as soon as he got home.

Then he said, “Do you think I should tel her? Paul? I should tel her, right?” Thinking about Eliza had put me in a crappy mood. Burke’s How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 291

my friend, he needed my shoulder to lean on, but you know how I answered him? I told him it didn’t matter. I reminded him that Eliza and Queenie were friends, and that meant Queenie had probably been screwing the mailman while Burke was gone.

Burke cal ed me an asshole and turned the movie up so loud I heard voices coming out of his ears.

I spent the rest of the trip dwel ing on how Eliza should have been sitting next to me on that plane, and how she should have been my goddamn wife.

And what did I get in her place?

Loring Blackman’s perfect
GQ
face staring out from the seat pocket in front of me. Even if I was wrong about fate, losing an engine or flying directly into the eye of the storm couldn’t have been much worse than that.

With Burke distracted, I pul ed out the magazine. One more look at the cover and I decided the whole thing was part of a plot to destroy me. Loring had al owed his face to grace the pages simply to crush yours truly. Loring had “Eliza Is Mine” written al over him. Loring had “I’m head over heels”

in his smile. He had “too bad, Paul” in his eyes.

But you know what hurts the most? In so many ways Loring is everything I’m not, everything I’l never be, and honestly, part of me doesn’t blame Eliza for choosing him.

Let Loring be her goddamn messiah. Let Loring save the world with his sappy goddamn radio songs. I’m not trying to save the world, I’m just trying to save myself. And hel , I can’t even do that.

Al his humble-ass bul shit was bad enough. I certainly didn’t need to see the two of them together like that. But there they were—The Thief and The Liar in a candid, picture-perfect love embrace.

Life, Love, and the Goddamn Pursuit of Happiness.

Funny. Ha Ha.

I cal it highway robbery.

Overoveroveroverover.

Al I wanted was a Snickers. I was in the 59th Street station, standing in a zigzag of strangers, trying to forget the words to that old Tom Waits song about riding the train with girls from Brooklyn, the one about being lonely, when the craving hit. Before that I’d been musing over the likelihood that one of the strangers would turn around and be Paul.

Almost eight mil ion to one, I figured. I had a better chance of getting hit by the subway than I did of running into Paul while I was riding it.

It was a bril iant idea, pretending pain was hunger. I walked to the newsstand for a candy bar and the first thing I saw was Loring on the cover of
GQ
.

Compared to my plummeting blood sugar—i.e., self-induced, world-weary malaise—he was nothing more than a random face on a magazine.

A few bites into the Snickers, I regained my equilibrium enough to admit that Loring looked quite handsome in the photo. And yet the idea that his face was
right there
gave me a headache. Or maybe that was the chocolate. Something felt inappropriate. Loring seemed vulnerable and manipulated.

A Winkle’s pawn.

I realized how hypocritical my sentiments were considering I’d encouraged Paul to become the sacrificial lamb of rock ’n’

rol , and I immediately questioned the rightness of my decisions, but the idea that I might have been pursuing a selfish, erroneous goal was too hard a pil to swal ow, and so I spit it out.

Paul had gotten what he’d wanted. He was content. I had to believe that.

With no sign of the train, I picked Loring up off the rack and read for distraction: ...Blackman lights up at the mention of her name, and when pressed for details about his new girlfriend (Eliza Caelum, a journalist), al he’l say at first is, “She’s an amazing girl and I’m real y happy.” Slowly, Blackman opens up and tel s me the story of how the two met.

“I was standing in a buffet line at a party when someone tapped me on the shoulder. I turned around and almost dropped my plate.”

Rumor has it Blackman romanced his new live-in love right out from under the nose of Paul Hudson, lead vocalist for Bananafish, the band Loring toured with earlier this year. It’s a rumor he adamantly denies.

“That’s not how it happened at al ,” he says.

Blackman speaks with a shy taciturnity that makes me believe his declaration. He goes on to say that they live a pretty ordinary existence and spend most of their time with his two sons from a previous marriage, or…

And then there was the shot of us standing at the top of a knol in Central Park: My arms were thrown around Loring’s neck, and I was reaching up so far my T-shirt was rising, exposing my navel. Loring’s arms were clasped at the smal of my back.

We looked happy.

We looked like two people in love.

I remembered exactly when the photograph had been taken. Right before Loring left for the video shoot, Sean and Walker had wanted to go to the park, and while the boys stood in line for ice cream sandwiches, Loring and I waited on the grass. We’d been about to kiss when Loring covered my face,
29put his head down and said, “Someone just took our picture.” I bought the magazine, exited the subway station, and ran ten blocks down Broadway, toward Doug’s manager’s office, where Loring was in the process of planning an upcoming Doug Blackman tribute concert that would coincide with the legendary singer’s sixtieth birthday in October.

The reception area of the management company looked like a nursery school. Every piece of furniture was a different primary color, and there were framed chalkboards on the wal s where visitors had signed their names and sketched drawings.

The receptionist, an exotic, attractive woman—Persian maybe—with dark skin, bright green eyes, and voluptuous lips, greeted me.

“I need to see Loring. Could you please tel him Eliza’s here?”

The receptionist disappeared and I doodled on one of the chalkboards. I drew a banana, but then realized what I’d done and erased it with my palm. I was rubbing my hands together, trying to rid them of white dust, when a door to the right of the desk opened and Loring walked out.

I dragged Loring into the hal way, leaving chalky finger-prints on the arm of his navy blue shirt, and held the
GQ
in front of his face. Only then did I realize how heavily I was breathing. I must’ve sprinted the whole way there. “Have you seen this?”

He scratched his temple and looked at me sideways.

I opened the magazine and pointed to the parts where I was mentioned. “I never said you could make my life public knowledge!”

A blond, disheveled guy, who probably spent the majority of his workday fantasizing about the receptionist, stuck his head around the corner. Loring said, “Hey, Lou. How’s it going?”

Lou apparently sensed something unpleasant going down. He waved and then ducked back into his office.

Loring glanced at the paragraph in the magazine. “I was just making conversation.” But then his focus became critical, his expression sul en. “Oh,”

he said. “I get it. This is about
him
, isn’t it? You don’t want Paul to see this.” It probably would have behooved me to utter loud, thrashing words of denial, but I didn’t see the point.

Loring handed the magazine back to me. “I’m sorry, Eliza. Real y.” He was already walking away. “I promise I’l never again tel anyone how happy you make me.” I spent the next hour walking around the park, trying to figure out why I stil cared what that bastard thought. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t formulate an explanation that fit into my life as I currently knew it.

When I got back to the apartment I waited for Loring on the couch. The minute he walked off the elevator he announced he was going for a run. He came back an hour later, took a three-minute-long shower, made tea, and went out to the terrace with a Taiwanese Oolong that smel ed like lilacs.

Watching him from behind the glass, he looked like a suddenly sentient specimen in one of the dioramas at the Museum of Natural History across the street.

I slid open the door and tried to act like an oblivious housewife. “Want me to order some dinner?”

“No. Thanks, though.”

Few things were more aggravating to me than someone who was clearly mad as hel but stil being polite. I wished Loring would scream at me or put his fist through the door or toss that cup of lilac-flavored tea in my face.

Loring scraped chipped paint from the iron railing. Then he turned around and said, “Eliza, do I have a birthmark?” How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08

5:00 PM Page 296

29I stopped short of answering him.

“Yes or no?” he said. “It’s not a trick question.”

“Um, yes?”

“Good guess. Where is it?”

I perused his body top to bottom and had a vague notion there might be something over his right shoulder, but I was terribly unsure, and I guessed that making an inconclusive statement would have been much worse than verbalizing nothing at al .

“You don’t have a clue,” he said.

He lifted his left foot and pointed to a tan-colored, amoeba-shaped splotch at least an inch in diameter, right at the top of his ankle. He made sure I got a good look at it, and then he put his foot back down.

“You have one on your right wrist and one under your left arm,” he said. “And something tel s me that if Paul Hudson has one, you not only know where it is, you’d probably be able to find it with your eyes closed.” Paul’s birthmark was on the left side of his forehead, right beyond his hair line. It was the size of a pea, the color of a weak latte, and I used to kiss it sometimes before we went to sleep. With my eyes closed.

“You were right,” I sighed. “About the article. About Paul.”

He stared at me for a long moment. “You’re stil in love with him, aren’t you?”

“It’s over between me and Paul. We’re beyond repair. He’s made that crystal clear.”

“See, why do you say it that way? As if it’s al up to Paul?