Being Audrey Hepburn (35 page)

53

Tabitha took the door of the Talkhouse by storm—the big Asian bouncer seemed familiar with her and waved us in. There were too many of us, so they stamped our hands without even counting to get us out of the way. The bartender knew Tabitha and her taste for tequila, so he set up a margarita for her and lined up drinks for us immediately.

A great variety of people were pouring into the club for the next show—some arrived in limos, some on foot. One couple, looking like they just came from a wedding reception, were toasting others in their wedding party, which included the best man and three bridesmaids in identical hideous purple dresses. Others wore sandals and cut off jeans. It was a totally eclectic mix.

I was surprised to find Chase drinking at the bar across the room. I hadn’t seen him since the paparazzi disaster at D&G and his last-minute rescue. He waved, I smiled, and he sauntered over.

Before he reached me, everything fell apart.

Tabitha was already on her second margarita when the Big Asian guy from the door walked over. Someone at the bar must have alerted him, because he headed straight for Maxwell, our underage stowaway. Maxwell was taking a sip of his drink when the bouncer grabbed his hand to stop him. Maxwell had the guilty expression of someone waiting to be caught. Being a kid of fifteen, he was totally willing to walk away. But Tabitha wasn’t.

When the bouncer asked Maxwell for his ID, she went ballistic. Maybe she had forgotten that he was only fifteen, maybe she was just so drunk on the parade of drinks that made a wet, dizzy trail through every party we had attended that she didn’t know where she was, or maybe the Princess of Pop was so insecure she needed to impress the little entitled rich kid. Whatever it was, she was indignant.

The Asian guy seemed perfectly capable of handling Tabitha, and it would have just been a drunken rant if a woman at the bar, no less drunk than Tabitha, hadn’t thrown her two cents in. It was all too loud, too crowded, and happened too quickly for me to try to calm Tabitha down.

“He’s just doing his job,” the lady screamed as the Asian dude listened, stone-faced, to Tabitha’s tirade.

“Back off, bitch!” Tabitha countered as friends of the lady at the bar tried to pull the lady away. When the lady lost her footing and accidently wavered toward Tabitha, she overreacted. Let’s face it, in Tabitha’s diminished state a fly buzzing nearby might have made her feel threatened. She, being the totally smashed Princess of Pop, hauled off and punched the woman.

Chaos ensued, and Tabitha, Maxwell, and the lady at the bar were all hustled outside. Mocha had already jumped out of the limo, opened the door, and was ready to hurry her off.

Chase followed me as I trailed Tabitha outside. I didn’t know if Maxwell was already inside the limo or not, but as I approached on the street side, Tabitha’s window rolled down.

“Come on,” she said, “let’s get out of here and go to Robert’s, where we can do what we want. ZK will be there. He’s dying to see you.” As I processed that Robert’s was Robert Francis’s house, I began to panic. At 2
A.M.
, it was about the last place I wanted to go near.

“Think I’ll stay here with Chase,” I said as gently as I could.

“Who?” She scrutinized Chase in her drunken haze. “You’re the video shooter.”

“Yep, that’s me,” Chase said self-effacingly.

“You’re hooking up with a video shooter instead of ZK Northcott?” she asked drunkenly, sneering at me as if I were a lowlife. Chase took an immediate step back. I sensed he was embarrassed and maybe had a different orientation altogether.

“Tabitha, please,” I said and wanted to explain we were just friends when Mocha tapped the partition to get her attention. A police car was approaching.

“Suit yourself,” she said, silently closing her window as Mocha drove away.

“What’s this world coming to when a pop star can’t score a drink for an underage booty call?” Chase said as we watched her limo get swallowed up in the night. I assumed Tabitha figured it would be better to explain things to the cops when she wasn’t totally plastered.

“Can I buy you a drink?” he asked. “You know, the Talkhouse is a pretty good antidote to the limos and McMansion parties, not that I ever go to those. But you look like you could use a change.”

“Sure, why not?” I shrugged. To think I had just arrived that day. Uh, it was 2
A.M.
Okay, the day before.

As the East Hampton Police pulled up, we squeezed our way back in the door. Chase grabbed us a couple of beers and found a spot at the corner of the stage on the far left of the club near the soundboard. The flashing red police light reflected intermittently on the windows of the club, but everyone inside seemed to have moved on. The cops appeared content to confine their investigation to people outside. I wondered if they would follow up with Tabitha.

The whole club was so small you could literally step up on the stage if you wanted. It was only a foot or two off the floor and about twenty feet wide and fourteen feet deep. The ceiling was low enough to almost touch on your tiptoes.

Behind the stage was a backdrop, an ancient sepia-toned picture of a stoic man with long black hair, his shirt buttoned at the top with a scarf tied at the neck, holding a walking stick in one hand that almost looked like a rifle but wasn’t.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“That’s Stephen Talkhouse,” Chase told me. “He was one of the last chiefs of the Montaukett Indians. Where we’re sitting used to be their land, before the tribes of Laurens and Von Furstenbergs invaded.” I laughed.

“And what brings you out here?” I asked.

“I had a gig shooting a charity event that turned into a weeklong job,” he said. “I thought I’d hang out a little, get some sun, maybe pick up another gig before heading back. And what’s your angle out here.”

A seizure of insecurity washed over me, and I wondered if I had already let my guard down with Chase.

“Some family matters to clear up in East Hampton,” I lied, hoping to sound superior. “Then back to the city for Fashion Week.” His inquisitive brown eyes brightened, and he ran his hands through his tousled auburn hair.

“For Designer X?” he asked with a knowing hipster smile that renewed my fears he was onto me.

“Yes,” I said, leaving it at that. He had been following my blog. I worried why. Moments later, the energy inside the steamy club inexplicably ratcheted up as people started to clap in unison. Everyone seemed to know that the band was about to come out.

The first band member onstage was a hot-looking drummer followed by a tall, languid bass player who reminded me of Max from Tabitha’s band, then a keyboard player and the lead singer.

“With all these fans, they must be local,” Chase said. The lead singer picked up his guitar to wild cheers. I nearly spit my beer.

It was Jake.

He wore the same sky-colored Blue Note Records T-shirt he used to wear at the Hole. He threw a nod to cue the band, and the bassist slid his finger all the way down the neck of his guitar, thumping a low bass-line intro as Jake hammered four chunky power chords, then kicked the distortion pedal. Immediately, everyone was on their feet, dancing and singing along.

It was one of those classic guitar hooks you couldn’t forget, a throwback, like the opening to Rick Springfield’s “Jesse’s Girl.” His immediate feedback loop with the audience encircled the room. Preppies and locals were dancing together.

I was awestruck.

He had no idea I was standing a few feet away, and I hoped he wouldn’t see me. On the second chorus, Jake allowed the noise of the band and the crowd to build to a crescendo. Watching him move with such grace and power, I found I couldn’t swallow or speak or breathe. I could only remember my mistakes, starting with the fact that I just didn’t have the confidence to believe that Jake Berns was really interested in me.

I had been right about one thing though. Hearing his yearning, soulful voice opened a hole in my heart. The band joined in with husky harmonies while Jake’s distinctively silky lead guitar ripped across the melody. Why couldn’t I have confided in him? Why couldn’t I have let him know what was going on?

As he stalked across the stage, totally in his element, I had to admit to myself that I had always been hopelessly attracted to him and afraid of what that might mean. Probably like every other girl here, I guessed.

Some chick in a cropped shirt in the front row got up on the other end of the stage and started dancing, and he played off her excitement. The crowd loved it. At the end of the song Jake politely escorted her offstage, and that’s when he caught sight of me. He appeared shocked momentarily but recovered immediately, turning away.

I don’t think anyone noticed except Chase.

“Do you know him?” he shouted above the music. I shrugged yes, hoping I didn’t look as totally undone as I felt.

Jake’s whole set was mind-blowing with its emotional anthems and flat-out rockers. I was standing so close that I could almost touch him.

He pretty much avoided looking my way through most of the performance, although he gave me a soft smile near the end.
Just enough to be kind,
I thought. He leapt around the stage with his unassuming charm in the same old tennis shoes he used to wear at the Hole.

The Rockets finished with a rollicking dance song that everyone in the crowd seemed to know by heart. As soon as Jake ripped the last chord, the Talkhouse was on its feet, demanding an encore. After a few moments, the band gave them what they wanted: two more songs.

Still, they asked for more. These were his fans, his following from all walks of life, not just locals. They wouldn’t let him go.

They began to cry out for a third encore.

“One night! One night!” they chanted. I didn’t know what that meant, but even when the houselights went on, the fans wouldn’t let up, they wouldn’t stop. Usually when the lights come up people leave, but no one moved an inch.

“One night! One night!” It seemed like a song they had come to expect.

Finally the lights dimmed, but the band didn’t come out. Only Jake. The audience quieted down immediately as soon as they saw him.

He plugged the lead to his Sunburst electric into the amp and flicked on the power switch.

“Okay, I wasn’t going to sing this one tonight, but I guess I will,” he said in his soft, melodic voice. He was looking down at his guitar, adjusting the tuning. “This song is for a friend of mine.”

Even though I was standing right next to the stage, what he said didn’t register in my mind until he lifted his head and I saw that Jake was looking at me.

“You know when there’s someone so awesome and you love her with all your heart and it doesn’t work out?” The crowd moaned, but I barely heard them. The room seemed very far away, like I was in a tunnel with Jake Berns at the other end.

“Take me Jake Berns, I’m yours!” someone yelled in the back and everyone laughed, but then got real quiet again.

“This song is for that girl,” he said, and I had to look away. I didn’t want to see him looking at me. “It’s about what
didn’t
happen … that one night.”

With a palm-muted intensity he played the solo rock chords on his guitar and started singing.

One night the look in your eyes was like a light,

It shined so bright that I couldn’t see,

That … one … night,

The whole audience sung along to the chorus as it repeated.

That … one … night.

Jake poured himself into the song, singing to me as if no one else was in the room. Chase knew—I could tell by the way he was looking at me. The crowd didn’t know why Jake was staring offstage, and they were straining to see whom he was looking at. I wanted to run out, run away, but there was nothing I could do.

You know the clothes you wear?

The color in your hair?

You were so damn fine,

That … one … night.

Though muted, Jake rocked through the mournful chords of the bridge. He had everyone in the room completely under his spell.

Hey I was the one,

I was the one with the bird in the hand that let her get away.

His voice went into a dark, haunted place and then rose back up only to plunge again, and everyone was singing along …

That … one … night.

He kicked into the bridge, and the crowd knew every word.

Time heals everything; it truly does.

Time heals everything, but love.

There was a serious key change, and Jake cut off into a sailing riff on the guitar, spinning around onstage until he jumped and landed right in front of me, and somehow they turned the spotlight on us.

We both knew he was singing to me and only to me, driving his muffled guitar down to almost nothing. I was flat-out embarrassed, trying to keep my composure, but I couldn’t turn away.

Hey I’m the one,

I’m the one with the bird in the hand that you let get away,

One night,

Just one night,

That one night.

Everyone knew every single word to the song but me.

They were all singing along to a song that was about that night in the parking lot behind the diner when I ran away. And as Jake sang, I knew the real reason I fled. I thought I was going on an adventure to the Big Apple. I thought I was Being Audrey—and I was—but, more than that, I was afraid of Jake Berns, afraid of how he made me feel and afraid of how he felt about me.

He repeated the chorus one more time.

One night,

Just one night,

That one night.