How to Kill a Rock Star (25 page)

He put his right hand on his heart. “Swear over my kids.”

“Did you ever want to?”

He thought it over for a moment. “I don’t know,” he said in al honesty. “I guess I’d be lying if I said some of the opportunities that presented themselves weren’t a little entic-ing. Sometimes you meet people who are actual y interesting, and obviously attractive. But there’s a gigantic difference between thinking about it and doing it. You have to cross a line to get to that point, and that line, for me, is not drawn in sand.”

“Justine was out of her mind to let you get away.” Again, her frankness was too sad and blatant to hold any cryptic messages of love. Had Loring been a braver man, or maybe a duplicitous one, he would have seized the moment and owned up to his infatuation, promising to be everything Paul was and more, if only she’d give him a chance.

“What about you?” he asked. “Ever mess around on Paul?”

“
No
,” she said, the thought apparently too outlandish to consider.

The waitress brought Eliza her omelet, along with Loring’s humongous, four-decker club, and he pushed his soup aside to make room for the new plate.

Loring adjusted the toothpick in his sandwich, moving it toward the corner so he didn’t bite into it. Minutes went How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08

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by and they ate in silence. Eventual y Eliza looked up and said, “Do you think Paul would?”

He watched her take a French fry off his plate. He loved that she took it without asking and that she dipped it in his ketchup and for the life of him he couldn’t remember if the capital of Oklahoma was Tulsa or Oklahoma City.

“Do I think Paul would what?”

“He’s in a hotel in Seattle two months from now, and some Christy comes by and whispers her room number into his ear. Does he drop by for a visit?” Loring guessed this is what had been bothering her al night. “Eliza, I can’t answer that.”

She bit the fry in half. “He wants me to go on the tour but I can’t. I want to. More than anything. But there’s no way I can fly al the way to California, then fly from city to city every few days.
Especially
on a 737. That’s why he got mad and stormed off.” She picked a rye seed out of her toast and somehow managed to eat it in three pieces. “I don’t know what to do.”

Loring thought she was going to cry. He almost wished for it. Tears would have given him an excuse to put his arms around her and touch her hair.

“I know you can’t answer it for certain,” she said, “but come on, you went to Yale. Make an educated guess.”

“Should I remind you that our half-wit, sub-literate president also went to Yale?”

“Just tel me what you think. Please?” He took a drink of water and debated what to say. He’d known Paul pre-Eliza and back then he would’ve had a cynical answer. Paul was different now. Stil , Loring considered this his great Machiavel ian opportunity. He could plant a seed in her head. He could tel her how hard it is for someone who isn’t used to al the attention to say no.

He couldn’t do it. Not only would it have been unkind,
21it would have been a lie. Based on his own feelings, Loring believed he understood how much the woman sitting across from him meant to Paul Hudson.

“My opinion?” he said. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
The bus was supposed to leave Boston as soon as Bananafish finished their set. It was the last show of the tour and the drive home would take a little over five hours. As long as it didn’t start snowing, we would be back in Manhattan before the sun came up.

Paul was hungover and choleric, and with the exception of gril ing me about where I’d been when I returned from dinner with Loring, he’d barely spoken to me since our argument.

He walked into the dressing room, sweat stil dripping from his hair, and I watched him make a wil ful effort to avoid me.

“Al right, let’s go,” he said, craning around the room.

“Where’s Angelo?”

Burke said, “He was right behind me a second ago.” We waited for twenty minutes. Everyone sensed Paul’s agitation and tried to stay out of his way. I even offered to go find Angelo, just to get out of the room, but Judo told me to stay put while he tried to locate the missing Michael.

Loring was in the middle of his show by the time Judo returned. “Bus driver saw Angelo wander into the parking lot with that brunette from D.C.”

“Fuck Angelo,” Paul snapped. “The brunette can drive his ass home.”

“Paul,” I sighed. “We can’t leave without him.”

“Whatever. I’m going to watch the rest of the set,” Paul said to no one in particular, before leaving the room.

21Over the course of the tour, Paul had developed a genuine appreciation for Loring’s music. Although Loring’s mid-tempo sound and straightforward style was diametri-cal y opposed to Bananafish’s intensity, and Paul stil categorized Loring’s songs as too radio-friendly, Paul had a habit of saying that what Loring lacked in originality, he made up for in sincerity.

As soon as Paul was out of sight, Michael turned to me and said, “Go with him, please. We don’t need to misplace two band members.”

Loring was in the middle of the title track from
Rusted
when I caught up to Paul on the side of the stage. I reached for his hand and was surprised when he let me take it.

I don’t have the strength to pick up the pieces.

Or to walk away and say that maybe I was wrong.

Loring didn’t have Paul’s pipes, he didn’t have the range or power Paul had, but there was an understated drawl to his voice that was sexy and pleasing to the ear.

If Paul’s music was like flying, Loring’s was an afternoon drive along a rural highway—sunny, romantic, but with an undertone of prosaic sadness that pul ed on the heartstrings.

I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned to see Leith beside me, and grabbed Paul, yel ing, “Loring’s brother,” repeating it three times before Paul understood. Leith went on to tel Paul how much he liked Bananafish’s show the night before.

“I hope you missed tonight’s show,” Paul shouted. “It sucked my ass.”

For the remainder of the song, the two men had a conversation by screaming into each others ears.

“This next one’s new,” Loring said a minute later, futz-ing with the tuning on his black Stratocaster. “No one’s heard it yet, so let me know what you think.”
I looked down at the set list. Between “Rusted” and the encore break, it said “A Thousand Ways.” The phrase struck me as uncomfortably familiar.

Like déjà vu had just punched me in the stomach.

Loring counted backward from four and then started strumming a catchy chord progression. Right before he began to sing, I remembered why the title sounded so familiar. The morning in Toronto, I’d walked into Loring’s suite and that’s what Tab had cal ed me.

It didn’t take long for the whole dreadful scene to unfold in front of my eyes in much the same way watching a car drive off a cliff might. For a fleeting moment I was able to convince myself it was my imagination playing a not-so-funny joke, but that hope vanished when I started to feel guilty for things I knew I hadn’t done. And Loring’s words struck me as so undeniably intimate, had he been whisper-ing them in my ear he couldn’t have been speaking more clearly to me.

If I had the guts I’d ask you to be free
I’d ask you to roam the universe in search of me
I’d ask you to love me the way that you love him
And
always hold me, always near

I swear I would ask you this

If only you were here

I remember how you wore my sweater like moonlight
and how it smelled like heaven for days
And maybe I’ll never get that close to you again
but I’ve dreamt of it a thousand ways
If I had the guts I’d ask you to dance
I’d get down on my knees, beg you for a chance
I’d shed my blood to
touch the pearls that kiss your ears
22
I’d wipe away your every tear

I’d sell my soul to see you fly

I’d chase away your fear

Paul had seemed only marginal y suspicious until the blather about the pearls and the flying, at which point an apocalyptic scowl unfolded across his face.

“I knew it!” he shouted toward the stage as if Loring could hear him. Then he spun to face Leith. “Who does he think he is, Eric fucking Clapton?”

Leith stood with his arms glued to his sides, rigid and helpless, a child taking the rap for something he didn’t do.

Next, Paul turned on me. His teeth were clenched and I saw a pulse beating in his jaw as he searched my face for the answer to a question he was too afraid to ask.

He jumped down off the stage and fled, and I chased after him as best I could, but I was stil moving like a gimp.

Making my way toward the dressing room, I came face-to-face with Loring, who had just exited the stage and was being led down the hal by a bald man with a flashlight.

Paul and I had said our respective goodbyes to Loring earlier that afternoon, explaining that we were leaving right after Bananafish’s show. Judging from the look on Loring’s face, it was clear he had no idea we were stil there.

He froze when he saw me, our eyes locked, and we remained like that until Loring opened his mouth like he was going to speak, and I, conflictingly in shock, overwhelmed, and il -equipped to deal with whatever Loring wanted to say, ran.

On my way out I saw Michael. “Where’s Paul?” I said, digging my nails into my palm to balance out the pain shooting through my foot.

“He just stormed out to the bus. Eliza, what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” I said, hobbling as fast as I could toward the exit.

Angelo was standing in front of the bus. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”

“Where have you been?” I screamed, deciding the whole mess was Angelo’s fault. “Everyone’s looking for you! Go tel Michael you’re here! Do
not
pass Go! Do
not
col ect two hundred dol ars! Just find Michael!”

“Jeeze. Take a chil pil .”

Angelo headed in the direction of the arena, and I pounded on the bus’s door until Paul swung it open so fast it almost whacked me in the face.

I walked cagily up the steps, sat sideways on the couch, exhaled toward the window and watched my breath turn into a thin circle of moisture on the glass. “I don’t think we were supposed to hear that song.”

“Oh, you don’t, huh?” Paul crashed down beside me. “You know what
I
think? I think
I
wasn’t supposed to hear it.
You
, on the other hand…” The hand went to the pancreas. “
You
spent a hel of a lot of time with him in the last two weeks, running and piggyback riding and wherever the hel you were last night—”

“Hold it—”

“No,
you
hold it. I’d like to know when you had the opportunity to wear his clothes. What did you do, play dress-up during al those long runs?”

“What?”

“His goddamn sweater. Don’t tel me you didn’t hear the lyrics because I saw your face. When did you scent his goddamn sweater? And more importantly, what did you scent it with?”

My head fel forward. “The day I interviewed him. I was cold and I borrowed a sweater. That’s al .”

“What about last night?”

“What
about
last night?”

22“Where were you?”

“We went to eat. I already told you.”

“In a
hotel
? What did you order?”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” I said. But Paul didn’t look like he was kidding. “I had an omelet with artichoke hearts, sun-dried tomatoes, and mozzarel a cheese. Loring had soup and a sandwich. Our waitress’s uniform was the color of throw-up and there’s no Chinese food on the menu.

Cal the restaurant right now if you don’t believe me.”

“What kind of goddamn soup?”

“Don’t be gay.”

He moved in so he was practical y in my lap. “I’m only going to ask you this once,” he said, his eyes glistening with panic. “And I swear over my life I’m going to believe whatever you say. Do you understand? With my whole goddamn heart and soul I’m going to believe you so please don’t lie to me because I would never get over it.”

“No,” I said before he even asked the question. “Nothing happened between me and Loring. Not last night, not ever.”

“Look me in the eyes and tel me he never made one pass at you, never tried to kiss you or told you shit like, ‘I only invited your goddamn fool of a fiancé on this tour because I’m fucking in love with you and I want to kiss your earrings and fuck your goddamn brains out.’”

I took his face in my hands and said, “I mean it. I had no idea.”

Paul’s jaw was stil pulsing. “Wel , what if he had? What if he walked on this bus right now and begged you to run off with him? What would you do?”

“Paul, I’m not interested in Loring.”

“You expect me to believe you’re not attracted to him?” This required tact. The honest reply was that only a blind woman wouldn’t be attracted to him —a blind woman who couldn’t get close enough to smel his green, peppery, sex-on-the-grass cologne.

And then there was the matter of the song. I was touched and flattered by the song, and for a moment, at least, I would have to
consider
that. I would discard it, for sure. But a swift, internal maelstrom of contemplation would come first.

“Eliza, please answer me.”

“What are you asking? If I think he’s cute? He’s a very good-looking guy. So what?”

“He’s more than just a good-looking guy and you know it.”
But
, I thought, he doesn’t have flashlight eyes or a cocky-bastard smile that can boil water or a voice from the heavens and most of al he says things like,
It’s only rock ’n’ roll
.

“Corn chowder,” I said.

“What?”

“The soup of the day.”

Paul kissed my palm and then pressed it against his heart.

“Please come on the tour with me. Come to San Francisco.

At least say you’l try.”

“I’l try,” I said. And I meant it. I always meant it. But deep down I knew I was never going to get on that plane.