Moving Neutral (21 page)

Hey, he said, leaning against the wall next to the jukebox. What’s your name?

Jessica, I lied smoothly, turning away from him and punching in the buttons for my first song pick, Sweet Jane by the Velvet Underground.

Hey, Jessica, he said, still with that excited expression. I think I saw you in a magazine.

I looked at him, horrified. This two-hundred pound, six-foot tall guy read US Weekly?

And he recognized me, but my parents didn t?

I think you’re confused, I said, punching in the code for Ain’t No Sunshine.

I don’t think I am, he said. Cause who’s that guy you’re over there with?

I felt the color drain out of my face as I hit the numbers for Simon and Garfunkel. The machine loaded the first CD, and soon the opening chords came streaming through the restaurant.

Listen, the guy said, relishing in my awkwardness. It’s totally cool. I mean, April is hot, he said, emphasizing it, but you’re cute, too.

Thanks? I thought, wondering if that was supposed to be a compliment.

Listen, I have to go, I said, trying to sound authoritative.

No, you really don’t, he drawled. Stay, have a drink with us, he took my elbow in his hand, his palm clammy and sweating. I looked over, the table of guys all watching us, saying nothing. I tried to move away, but it was impossible with his grip on my arm.

Leave her alone, Blake’s voice boomed through the room. Part of me was relieved to hear it, but most of me realized that Blake would make this situation worse -- a lot worse.

He was behind me in an instant, and the drunk guy seemed so surprised at Blake’s anger that he dropped my elbow instantly.

Blake, the guy stammered, taking a step back.

Are you done bothering my girlfriend? Blake asked him, his eyes blazing.

No, listen man, it’s cool, the guy said. I was just telling her, she’s cute. I mean, he looked at his buddies for encouragement, continuing. I mean, April’s gorgeous, but this chick is so, he paused, searching for the right word, and then found it. Young. He stared at me in a way that made me want a hole in the ground to open up right where I stood. I get it, man.

I felt like I was going to be sick to my stomach, and just at the moment that I started to walk away, my cheeks burning with humiliation, Blake punched him.

I barely even saw it happening. One moment, Blake was standing next to me, looking like he was going to snap the guy’s neck, and the next moment, the guy was flying backwards, into the wall and then sinking down onto the floor, holding the side of his head in his hand.

His friends were up in the next moment, and Blake grabbed my hand. Come on, he said, walking towards the door of the restaurant. He caught Sophie’s eye, and she threw some money down on the table, following behind us as we walked out into the street.

Call Derek, he handed me his phone, walking quickly away from the restaurant. God, I am such an idiot. This is going to make everything worse.

I thought about the few reporters who’d been waiting for us today, my hope that the attention was dying down as rapidly as it had sprung up. By this time tomorrow, I had a feeling there were going to be a whole lot more of them.

Three days later, after we left Austin, Derek stopped the buses at a news stand to pick up the latest round of tabloids. He set them down on a table in front of Blake, and then walked off our bus without a word. I’d thought there was supposed to be no such thing as bad publicity, but apparently, that was wrong.

BAD BOY BLAKE, the headline read. Drinking and Fighting, Friends Worry He’s Gone Too Far.

Friends? I wondered to myself. Who exactly were these so-called friends?

The cover picture was of Blake at one of the shows in New Orleans, looking larger than life onstage, colored lights and sound equipment behind him. If it weren’t for the captions, I would have thought he looked pretty hot.

The actors who eloped were relegated to a side column. Below them, the magazine promised a feature on slimming lingerie for every body type. Below that, a photo of an A-list actress taking her adopted daughter for ice cream.

The article had an account of Blake’s fight, as told by the friends of the guy he’d punched and the waitress. The two beers Blake had ordered became so many that she’d lost count, and they’d conveniently left out the part where the guy had grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go. According to the article, close sources speculated that Blake was distraught over his breakup with April, and he’d turned to alcohol and fighting as a remedy.

At least they didn’t claim I was a drug addict, Blake said with a wry smile after he finished reading the article.

Well, there’s that, I agreed, trying to smile back. It felt like ever since I’d gotten on the bus, things had started going wrong for Moving Neutral. Just what I needed to end the best summer I’d ever had -- the downfall of my favorite band.

Why don’t you write something for the band’s website? I asked him. At least your fans will know that it’s not true.

I don’t know, he wavered. We have a few more days on the road, so they won’t get any photos of us. I think things will have chilled out by the time we get back to L.A.

I guess.

There was nothing off the interstate between Austin and the border of New Mexico, just fields and fields and some silos and barns every few miles. We didn’t even pass anywhere to stop for food for most of the day, and Sophie and I made a dinner of fruit roll ups and granola, while Blake and Jesse ate microwaved pop tarts.

At around ten, Blake’s cell phone rang. I thought it was Brett, who still hadn’t gotten in touch with me. Blake answered it, sighing as he recognized the number on the caller ID.

Hi mom, he said reluctantly.

My ears perked up -- in the weeks that I’d been on the road, this was the first time that Blake had spoken to his parents. Sophie’s and Jesse’s called once a week or so, and April talked to her mom almost every day. But until now, Blake’s hadn’t called once.

No, it’s fine, he said after a moment, and I could hear chatter coming from the other end of the line. It’s all made up, he paused. No, it is -- well, I don’t know, mom, people lie.

He walked to the back of the bus for some privacy, and I didn’t follow him. The words echoed in my ears, and I thought about Blake had said back in Vermont, about never being able to trust the girls who liked him because he was famous.

I’d never do anything to betray Blake. But the more I understood how fragile that trust was, the harder it got to imagine him ever forgiving me.

I looked down at the laptop, listlessly opening my email and checking for new messages. For lack of anything better to do, I opened a blank document, thinking about drafting an update for the band’s blog if Blake wouldn’t.

Don’t believe everything you read, I typed, and then deleted it.

There’s a lot of stuff being said right now, and I want to set the record straight.

I deleted that too. No one could write this but Blake, and he had to decide he wanted to do it.

I decided to put up some photos from inside the tour bus, taking my digital camera out of my overnight bag and snapping one of Sophie sticking out her tongue at me. Jesse made a peace sign with his fingers and grinned, and I took one of him too.

April-- Sophie called to her, and she looked up from reading one of the tabloid magazines with Blake on the cover. Oh, come on, Sophie said. Are you seriously reading that, after they said Blake is some kind of alcoholic loose cannon?

What? she said, pursing her lips. There’s other stuff in here, too. April was in a much better mood lately, now that the negative publicity was focused squarely on Blake.

Just put it under a pillow or something, I said, holding up the camera. She smiled, flashing perfect white teeth at me, and I snapped three shots.

Let me see, she said, holding out her hand for me to pass her the camera.

I set it in her palm and she flipped on the viewing screen, making gagging noises as she looked at the first one. You cannot use that one, she said emphatically, continuing to flip through photos. I’d taken other pictures over the last few weeks, and I watched as she scrolled back through them, looking at the shots of Blake on the bus, the concerts, the various cities we’d been through.

She stopped on one photo and stared at it for a long time, and then looked up at me with an expression that I couldn’t read. She handed the camera back to me without turning it off.

I looked down at the image she’d been staring at, wondering what was so interesting.

Staring down at the photo, I recognized it immediately, feeling my head spin as I realized what it was.

It was the photo I’d taken of Blake onstage, where he looked like a tiny speck of green, so far away that you could barely make out that it was him. I had taken it from our seats in the sixteenth row at the Moving Neutral show in New York.

It proved that I was a big fat liar.

And I’d just given it to April.

I pressed the button to delete the picture, knowing it was futile. If April told him, I couldn’t tell keep up the lie, not straight to his face.

She looked at me, as if sensing my desperation. We sat in silence for several minutes, but she didn’t say anything to Sophie or Jesse. Maybe she was waiting for Blake. Maybe she wanted to break the news to him first.

Use the second one, she finally said, about the photos I’d taken for the website. I’m going to go take a shower, she said, giving me a gloating look as she headed for the back of the bus.

I felt like I was going to cry. How could everything go so wrong, so fast?

Blake passed April on the way back to us, turning sideways so she could squeeze past him in the narrow corridor. Hey, he tossed the phone to me. Your friend buzzed in while I was on the phone with my mom -- you should call him back.

I smiled weakly at him. Thanks, I said. I should call Brett quickly, I thought to myself. I might not have a place to stay in Los Angeles once April told Blake I’d been lying from the minute we’d met.

Two nights later, the night before we were scheduled to get to Los Angeles, I was awake on one of the couches after everyone else had gone to sleep. Looking over the mess of items on the couch next to me, I saw Blake’s book of poetry by T.S. Eliot, the copy that Keith had given him on that first night in New York. Picking it up, I scanned the index for my favorite poem and flipped to the page, barely needing to look at the words to remember it, but still I stared down, as if something about the page could give me some comfort. This is the dead land, I thought, staring out at the Arizona desert as we passed by.

It was all coming to a close so quickly, I wanted to stop time, pause the bus in Arizona, live in this cactus land for months, years, before I had to resume my real life. I thought about the calendar I’d kept at home, counting off the days until college. There were only a few weeks left now, and I tried not to dread it. I read out loud in a whisper, half memorized, feeling the words soften the cracks in my mind.

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

This is the way the world ends.

Not with a bang, but a whimper.

I’d lived this summer with the knowledge that it could all end at any moment, but it felt closer and more inevitable now than ever. After so long staying in neutral, things were about to change. There was nothing that I could do to put it off -- no matter how hard I wanted to.

For reasons I couldn’t fathom, a day had passed and April still hadn’t told Blake about the picture. It was like she was keeping it as an ace up her sleeve, ready to throw it down when she needed it most. Thinking about it made me shudder, and I wondered if I should just tell Blake myself.

But I knew that I wouldn’t. Selfish and greedy, I wanted every last second before it all came crashing down. In this valley of dying stars, I read to myself, and then put the book down and closed my eyes.

As we drove through the outskirts of Los Angeles, the buildings were only a story or two high and shabby-looking, like they were just waiting for some developer to come in and tear them down. Billboards announced movies I hadn’t even heard of, and every street seemed to have more cars than the last.

Where do you live? I asked Blake, realizing that I didn’t know. There were a few pieces of information that even the biggest Moving Neutral fans couldn’t find out from magazines or the internet.

Santa Monica, he said. Right on the beach. You’re going to love it.

We’ll drop Blake off first, Sophie said. Jesse and I live in Hollywood, and April lives in Beverly Hills.

Of course she does, I thought to myself.

You need clothes, Sophie squealed, jumping down from one of the bunks. Casey, what would you do without me?

She’d wear my old tee-shirts and still look gorgeous, Blake said, ruffling my hair as I got up to follow Sophie. A few days had passed since the articles about him had come out, and his mood seemed to be improving. He was sure there would be photographers waiting outside his house in Los Angeles, but the house had a gate and the bus could pull up close enough that they couldn’t harass us too much as we went inside.