Groupie/Rock Star Bundle (12 page)

When I returned to the hotel I
opened my computer and immediately downloaded “Wanting Her.” I
needed to hear it again, this time armed with the knowledge that it
actually wasn’t about a hot alien from the Planet Boobjob. The more
I heard it, the more it fit with the Vanni I had seen behind closed
doors. This was the one who wrote me naughty limericks and sang to
me over the phone. This is the one who whispered how he had dreamed
about me and had wanted to kiss me from the moment we
met.

“Someday I’ll wake from this dream and hold my
angel in my arms. And she’ll know all along I’ve wanted
her.”

I trembled in spite of myself. I touched one of
the silky petals of a rose tucked deep in the huge floral display
on my desk. On impulse I pulled out the card. I sucked in a breath
when I read, “Still dreaming of you. V.”

I decided to wear one of Iris’s contributions
to my wardrobe for lunch the next day. It was casual but sexy, in
keeping with the blue theme. It was a snug navy knit top that
plunged low in front but was respectable for an afternoon lunch at
a casual restaurant. I pulled on some well-worn jeans and sandals
and hailed a cab for Brooklyn.

The brick building for Vanni’s favorite pizza
joint looked like it was built in the early 20th century, with the
decor inside to match. It felt more like you were going to visit
your Italian aunt, the one who had actually immigrated from the Old
World, rather than a commercial restaurant. The walls were brick
and covered with old family photos different decades and
generations. There were tables and intimate booths with tiny votive
candles burning on each one. The smell of pepperoni and marinara
filled the air. It was spicy, familiar, warm and inviting. I
instantly fell in love with the place.

If I believed in past lives, I’d have easily
believed I had been there before.

Vanni told me to just give them my name and
they’d take care of me, and of course they did. They set me up in a
booth in the back, brought out some wine and breadsticks, and even
had his favorite pizza cooking in the oven for us to
share.

When Vanni walked in he greeted everyone he
encountered like an old friend. This was the side of him I hadn’t
yet been able to see, the one that was casual, his performance mode
“off,” comfortable in being just another kid from the neighborhood.
He was dressed in black jeans and an old black concert T-shirt from
a classic rock band. He wore his famous locks pulled back in a
ponytail, and for the first time since I met him he wasn’t wearing
heavy eyeliner. He was still anonymous enough to pull this off as a
disguise for now, but those days were going to come quickly to an
end.

He looked so happy, so serene, I was almost sad
for him.

He smiled when he saw me, and wound his way
through the crowded restaurant to our table. These were hearty
regulars who didn’t give a rat’s ass if he was semi-famous or not.
They had other things to discuss than who was on the top of the
music charts that week.

He reached down to kiss my cheek as he sat.
“I’m glad you could make it,” he said as he moved the napkin off
the plate and into his lap. He referenced the restaurant. “What do
you think? Pretty great, right?”

I nodded. If I lived in New York I’d be at this
place at least twice a week. “Thanks for inviting me.”

The waiter brought our pizza as if on cue,
which was dripping with ooey, gooey melted mozzarella. We laughed
as we pulled the huge pieces to our mouths and had to wind up the
never-ending strings just to tear them off. It tasted as heavenly
as it smelled.

This was so my kinda place.

Two pieces in and we were able to
lean back and actually talk, which was something I don’t think we
had ever done. It had always been so flirty, with the purpose of
ending up in bed. Here, now, it was like we were just two people.
Maybe if we started out this way we could have even been friends by
now.

He spoke lovingly about his neighborhood and
how it had changed over the years. He pointed out some of the
regulars and had a witty story or two about their particular
quirks. He confessed how he used to work in the restaurant when he
took care of his mom and his great aunt, and tried to fit gigs in
between his obligations to his family. Thus, he confided, was the
reason for his late start in the music biz, and the reason he had
to work so hard now.

It was great info for an interview, but I
wasn’t there for an interview. About twenty minutes in he stopped
talking momentarily, as if he ran out of things to say that put off
what he really needed to talk about.

“I needed to say I’m sorry about December,” he
started. I started to protest, it had been such a lovely time I
didn’t want to mar it with any rotten memories. “I know you don’t
want to talk about it. And I don’t blame you. What I did was shitty
and you have every right to hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Vanni,” I said quietly. “I
just don’t understand you.” He nodded. He had to be expecting some
kind of negative reaction to his behavior. “Truly, I don’t even
know you. We were just strangers who wanted to fuck.”

It was a harsh way of putting it, and I could
tell it hit him between the eyes. “It was more than that,” he
corrected softly. “At least for me.”

I sat back with my arms crossed and
waited.

“At first, yes. I wanted to make love to you.
You’re a beautiful woman with a body built for sex.” I had to laugh
but he was serious. He didn’t even smirk. “I don’t think you know
what your curves do to a man. Honestly I think that makes you even
sexier.”

I didn’t know what to say.

“Then we started talking. And I find out you’re
smart. You’re funny. You turned me on in ways most women just
don’t. And I found myself thinking about you all the time. It
seeped into my dreams. It wormed its way into my music. It became
something I knew I had to have or else it might drive me literally
crazy. I had never felt like that before. And I didn’t know how to
handle it.”

It all sounded genuine… and much too good to be
true. “So you get another girlfriend?”

“It’s not like that,” he said, reinforcing what
Jacob confided the night before. “Lourdes and I are not in a
traditional relationship. It’s mutually beneficial for all the
wrong reasons, but I’m not the one calling the shots
anymore.”

“That’s silly, Vanni. You always control what
happens in your own life.”

“Not when you’re a commodity,” he confided
sadly. “I’m a product now, not a person. And this trajectory I’m on
has certain consequences. One of which, I can’t be truly honest
with people anymore. I’m playing a part. A sex god one minute, a
knight in romantic shining armor the next. It’s all to reinforce my
brand so we can sell music.”

“So why are you telling me
this?”

“Because it matters to me what you think about
me. I don’t want you to think I’m some philandering asshole who
would sleep around on his girlfriend or find any pleasure in
hurting someone as cruelly as I hurt you.” He reached across the
table for my hands, and God help me I relented. “I wanted to be
with you because I wanted you. It wasn’t a game. I meant the things
I said.”

I nodded. I tried to pull away but he held
fast.

“And you need to know that ‘Wanting Her’ was
not written for Lourdes.” I held my breath. “I wrote it two days
after we came back from Philadelphia.”

I sighed. “What are you doing to me? Why tell
me that?”

“Because it’s the truth. And it feels good to
finally say the truth for once.”

That was when he released me and sank back
against his chair. “The bitch of it all is that I can’t offer you
anything more than that. Like I said my life is not my own, and
anything I give to you would be just a fraction of what you
deserve. It would be nights like my birthday, where we could be
together under the cloak of secrecy, and it could all blow up the
minute my other life tried to get in the way.”

So that was it, then. He was telling me
point-blank how limited he was and giving me the option to accept
it on his terms, with no expectations. If I gave in to my feelings
and desires, then I’d lose all rights to complain later if it
wasn’t any more than the bare minimum he was offering.

And he was being so damn magnanimous
about it I could hardly be mad at him for setting it down in black
in white. That was the right thing to do – something that would
have helped me make better decisions in the beginning.

“And if I walk out of here and never look
back…?”

“Then you’ll at least know that for a brief
moment in time, you were everything I wanted and a dream I couldn’t
claim.”

I closed my eyes. That was not fair of him to
use his lyrics against me. He reached back for my hands, and rubbed
them slightly in his own. “And I will cherish every moment that we
spent together.”

I nodded. “Thank you for telling me this,” I
said. “It does help. I was really hurt in December – when I thought
you were just using me and everything I thought we shared was
nothing more than a lie.”

“I know,” he said, and he looked as though he
were actually pained by the idea. After a pause, “So where do we go
from here, Andy?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. It was
only fair. “I wanted you as much as you wanted me, and I would have
slept with you if she hadn’t have called you.” He nodded. “But in a
way, I was glad she did. I’m not the kind of girl who sleeps
around, and certainly not with the sole purpose of being another
conquest.” He started to protest but I held up a hand. “It doesn’t
really matter what was as much as what is. And you’ve told me what
I can expect from you, which is much less than I’d normally
require.”

“I wish I had met you a year ago,” he offered,
but I just smiled and shook my head.

“It wouldn’t have mattered. You were destined
for this. I guess you can walk away from this knowing that you made
me feel like the sexiest woman on the planet for one very special
night. And maybe that’s all I could ever ask for.”

He leaned across the table and gave me that
same kiss on the nose, something I knew I would always associate
with him now in a tender, sweet way. He rested his forehead on mine
and looked into my eyes. “You deserve all that and more,” he
whispered. “I just wish I could have been the one to give it to
you.”

A tear hovered at the corner of my eye, which
he caught on one fingertip. “Me too,” I said. When I stood he
pulled me into a long, warm hug. There was no sexual desire, just
genuine affection. It was the appropriate way to end our
near-affair. A kiss would have been a painful reminder of what I
couldn’t have, and he couldn’t give me.

He made it painfully clear that Lourdes was
going to be an issue for the foreseeable future, and I wasn’t okay
with just getting leftovers.

I’m not a clandestine kind of girl.

Later that afternoon I called Jacob and told
him about my meeting with Vanni. He was impressed with how maturely
we both handled the situation, and suggested that meant he really
did care about me in a very real, significant way. But he agreed
that I would probably never fit into that world. “You’re too real
to be that fake,” he said. “You deserve better.”

I didn’t know about all that, but I knew that
hanging onto any shreds of hope would just be a prescription for
heartache. Quite frankly I was at my limit of what romantic
disappointment I was willing to endure, even for Vanni.

As I flew home, however, I couldn’t help
listening to “Wanting Her” with a bit of self-
satisfaction.

For all those girls, including Lourdes, who
wanted that song to be about them, it was about me. For one moment
in time he was mine. I now had tangible proof that it had been as
real as it was capable of being.

No one could take that way ever
again.

Las Vegas, July 2008

~Andy~

Vanni’s confession had converted me
back into a fan somewhat, and I began doing some local promotional
work for the band that kept me fairly busy combined with my “real
job.” Iris had set up a website which I helped moderate, filling in
the blanks with gigs and news for the band. It wasn’t something
that paid me any money for my services, but it helped get my name
out there. I was essentially clinging to the tail of Dreaming in
Blue’s comet as they started to rocket into national
consciousness.

I made it work for my own purposes with musical
publications in Nashville, and the band was all too happy to help
me with new interviews and special articles and gossip I was
allowed to sell independently. The money continued to roll in from
all of Jasper’s connections, publications and websites, so I was
exceptionally motivated to return the favor with some odd jobs
where I worked as a volunteer only.

This was particularly tested as
summer approached, and Jasper booked Dreaming in Blue for the big
Sin City Rock Fest in Las Vegas. It was not only a charity event
but also a way to expose Dreaming in Blue, or DIB as they preferred
to brand their merch, to another segment of the country.