Louder Than Love (33 page)

“Time took care of the wound. Smoothed some of the edges.”

“Just enough,” he breathed into my hair, arms encircling my waist. I gripped him tight. “Look how we fit.”

I gulped a laugh, felt his lips find my temple. “Exactly. But you were like a sun kink, too. Blinding and bright, hot. Threw me right off course, but it was right where I needed and wanted to be.” I remembered that day at the Plaza, Adrian grabbing my hand. Being ready for, not scared of, the adventure. “It really was like jumping into the fountain.”

***

Abbey was the first to see us emerge; she ran to hug him. I looked on as he talked softly into her hair; she looked at him and hugged him again. “I’m sorry I was the ogre under the bridge. Can I be the jester again?” She nodded against his chest.

Next, he hugged Liz. I loved that she had him beat by a few inches, even when he was wearing his motorcycle boots. “Thanks, Red,” I heard him say.

“Just so we’re clear, Doom Boy,” she said as she squeezed his shoulders, “I’m naming that cranbagel after you, and you won’t see a penny of royalties.”

“Top notch!” He laughed.

“His pop-ins,” Liz said, turning to me, “always result in a gaggle of Corpse fans straggling in after. Good for business.”

“I don’t quite think the collective noun would be
gaggle
,” Adrian said, pondering, rubbing his goatee. “Kat?”

“How about a grommet of metalheads?” I laughed.

I thought it would be harder to introduce him to Luke and my in-laws, but he somehow made it easier. “It is an honor to meet you all.” Their smiles and open faces made it easier, too. My dreams of Pete and his assurance of “different kinds of love” rang true.

In Touch

“Rock stars only crash in little planes, not commercial jets. You needn’t have worried,” he teased me, calling the moment he landed in LA.

“Hey. You do your job, and I’ll do mine,” I sassed back. “So what’s on your agenda?”

“Meeting Rick in Hollywood. He just dropped the twins off at UCLA. Freshmen in college, I can’t believe it. We’re grabbing lunch and taking it from there.”

“There” turned into renting a place in the Hills and writing together, catching each other back up on the last two decades. Sam, who lived and did session work in Los Angeles, was more than happy to come back on board. They did a few small club shows in LA under the name the Rotten Graves Project.
What would you find in a rotten grave?
he e-mailed me.
A Corroded Corpse, of course!
It was a clever loophole around Wren’s copyright, and for the hardcore fans to discover three-quarters of their favorite band playing under a secret moniker . . . a marketing gold mine. Word got out, the music industry was buzzing again, agents and managers sniffing around.
We can perform all the songs; we own the publishing. Wren can collect his few pennies in royalties if he wants. But we are doing it this time on our own terms.

We talked on the phone, e-mailed, and IMed every day. Abbey got into the action, too, offering up her latest Matt the Bat lyrics.

K: So I have to find out from my fanboy BROTHER that RGP, aka CC, is playing a one-off show at MSG on Halloween? He is freaking. He said he’s flying here for the show and pissed that he missed the secret gigs in LA. Don’t worry, I didn’t let the kitty out of the bag.

A: Sorry, luv—it was only confirmed today!

K: Just kidding. It’s the Information Age. The fans get the info before the artists do.

A: Curse that Internet!

K: Yeah, what happened to Patience?

A: And Fortitude. Speaking of which . . . we are holed up here, practicing till then. Jim is flying in—remember him from Dead Can Dream? He’s taking Adam’s place.

K: That’s amazing!

A: I have to run. Tell your brother not to bother buying tickets when they go on sale tomorrow. Looking forward to meeting him.

That week, a FedEx package arrived. Its note read:
The jewel of my collection. I usually take them, but never have I given one.
Inside was a key. His key. I recognized it immediately, dangling from his Chelsea FC keychain.
I’m coming home on the 25th but will be squirreled away in rehearsals and doing interviews and such. And I know you’ll be busy with Kev once he arrives. So I will see you and Abbey the night of the show.
Love you, my Kat.

* * *

My brother arrived on the twenty-ninth, walking through the security gate wearing a vintage Corpse T and a smile so big, he could barely contain it. With his short bleached blond spikes and earrings, he looked more rocker than hot-shot chef. Liz had traveled to the airport with me after promising to sign over the Naked Bagel to me if she so much as breathed a word about Adrian.

“Hey, Dooley,” he greeted her with a bear hug.

“Hey, Underwood.” Her eyes shined clear and brighter than any of the green pressed glass in my mother’s china cabinet as the hug broke and she stepped away on unsteady legs.

As we hit the outskirts of Lauder Lake in my Smurf, my brother began to snicker and point. “Lame-ass loser ex-boyfriend at ten o’clock!”

Sure enough, there was Grant. Bent over his pussy wagon on the opposite side of the road. Karma couldn’t have dreamed up a more fitting scenario. He was struggling with the lug nuts of his flat tire as the first promising drops of a soaker of a rainstorm began to fall. We slowed to a crawl, and I beeped my horn, causing him to jump a foot. “Aw, nuts too tight?” Kev leaned over me and called in mock sympathy. I flipped Grant a righteous, defiant, and totally deserving middle finger out the open window as we sped off. “They don’t call you Tree
bird
for nothing, sis!” Kev laughed.

Kev reclaimed the boogeymen room. I had, with the help of friends and family, reduced the boxes up there to a manageable number. One box at a time. When Abbey was old enough, she would probably appreciate many of the items contained in them.

With Kev came good meals. Abbey found his chopping hypnotizing. After a fabulous dinner and Abbey ensconced in bed, we stayed up talking into the night. I felt closer to my brother, or rather, more tolerant of him. I was dying to tell him everything, but was also having fun by not.

“So tell me how this works again,” he wanted to know for the tenth time. “Are you sure we’ve got tickets?”

“I’ve got a friend who knows some people in the music business, and he is giving us tickets.” I handed over the last pot for him to dry.

“I hope they’re good seats,” he grumbled.

“Liz is coming, too,” I baited, waiting to gauge his reaction.

“That’s cool.” He began to slowly dry the pot, and I could tell the cogs in his noggin were turning. “Very cool.” A small smile played on his lips. “Now, your friend. He’s not going to stand there with his arms crossed the entire show, too cool for his own good, is he?”

I tried to hide my amusement. “No . . . I think the music will . . . move him.”

“Thank God, I hate guys like that. Fucking New York City hipster music snobs.”

Big Night

We rocketed down the Taconic State Parkway, an amped-up Kev riding shotgun and Abbey in the backseat, all sugared up from her earlier Halloween take. No one did much talking during the trip, all lost in our own thoughts of what the evening would bring.

We snaked through traffic down Twelfth Avenue. “You can drop me at Eighth and Forty-deuce.” Kev was going to meet up with fellow fans for dinner at Virgil’s BBQ.

“How are you going to know one another if you’ve never met?” Corroded Corpse’s extended hiatus had kept fans apart, but the Internet message boards had not. He was meeting with fans he’d been chatting with on a daily basis for years. In fact, he probably spoke to them more often than with all his family combined.

“Believe me, we’ll know. This is like the Corpse family reunion. Everyone will be in black. Drinking heavily and singing at the top of their lungs.”

I laughed. “Don’t forget, eight thirty. Meet me under the big clock on the corner of Eighth and 34th.”

He gave Abbey a knuckle bump before jumping out of the Smurf, and we were free to cruise uptown.

There was no waiting in the lobby, no doorman having to announce us; Abbey and I went right up with our key and entered the quiet apartment.
Ten minutes behind you
, Adrian’s last text read. Roses were waiting there for me on the kitchen island. A note lay next to them.
Abbey, your present is in the library.
We both tiptoed in, like kids on Christmas morning. In the farthest corner lay a cage, and a tiny striped tabby kitten was curled cozily in a fleece bed. Abbey squealed, but the kitten slept on.

“So cute! Oh!”

“Shh, let’s let her sleep. We’ll go get dressed.”

I took Abbey upstairs to the room formerly reserved for Natalie’s visits. There on the bed was another item waiting for Abbey: a plush Maxwell doll with a card. “Abbey, it’s from Adrian’s daughter. She says thank you for the get-well card, and she heard you really loved Maxwell MacGillikitty.”

“She sent him from English?” Abbey was astounded.

“From England, yes. How nice, right?”

I began to unpack our bags. In honor of the red-and-black outfit Digger was known for onstage, Abbey chose a red miniskirt, black and red–striped tights, little black boots, and a black T that said
FUTURE HEADBANGER
in red on it. Uncle Kev had gotten the shirt for her a few years ago, but he had no clue about kids’ sizes. Finally she had grown into it and had the perfect occasion to wear it. She topped the whole ensemble off with her black cat ears and tail. “For fancy dress, remember?” she said, twirling.

Hmm, now what does the girlfriend of a rock star wear?

By the time I figured that out, Adrian was home. California and the company of old friends had been kind to my lover. His skin had a healthy glow, and his eyes looked as if they had absorbed a bit of the Pacific Ocean into their blue during his travels. They practically danced as he shook his shaggy hair, considerably longer and lighter, from them. He hugged us long and hard. “So, Abbey Road. What are we calling the cat?”

“Chelsea!”

“Good girl,” he said, laughing.

He barely had time to grab a shower before a call came, announcing a limo was waiting for us down front. Abbey’s first sitter, Ilana, was now in graduate school at NYU and studying child psych. We had been in touch throughout the years, and she had been my first choice when considering a caregiver for the evening. We swung by to pick her up before heading to the Garden. She and Abbey became quickly reacquainted, playing with every gizmo and button in the back of the stretch limo.

Adrian rested a hand on my knee and smiled. He didn’t look nervous at all, considering he was about to step onstage in front of twenty thousand people.

I hadn’t been in a limo since the funeral. As it passed by the very door into Penn where Pete and I had last stood, it was like watching a movie—time as another dimension. A young metalhead couple happened to be kissing under the doorway this time. I smiled, touched the window, and said a silent good-bye.

Everything began moving at high speed. Doors flew open and uniformed men escorted our entire party to the side entrance door of the arena. A couple of the fans in line noticed the commotion, causing a flurry of excitement and outbursts from the crowd gathered outside. “DIGGER! I love you, Digger!”

Backstage at Madison Square Garden. Heaven for most music and sports fans alike. I was in awe. And happy we had Adrian to lead us through the maze of security guards and road cases. All the cement-bricked walls backstage looked the same. Luckily, several doors had paper signs hanging from them, indicating catering, hospitality, and the production office. We sent a hungry Abbey with Ilana in the direction of food. The catering area looked strangely like a nice restaurant, complete with linen cloths on the tables and candles for ambiance. It was funny to see the burly stage crew and other tattooed hairy types breaking bread politely in there.

Adrian led me past more curtains and cement walls until we came to a door labeled
Riff—Practice Room
. He rapped his knuckles on the door as he turned the handle. The first thing I saw was the headstock of a guitar, with its big silver keys. A chill ran up my excited spine. “Ay up Dig,” came a murmur before its owner turned. As he did, his eyes caught mine and brightened. “Ah, Kat . . . it is you, eh?” He quickly shrugged off the strap of his guitar and freed up his hands. Placing them on my shoulders, he pulled me close and announced, “Thank you. From the bottom of my doomed black heart.” I couldn’t help it. My goosebumps gave way to tears. We hugged. “You have brought my brother back.”

He turned to Adrian, who was standing back with an amused smile. “And you pulled this bird at the library, you say?”

“While drunk,” I added. “In front of a roomful of children.”

“Nice, mate.”

“Oh, and look, Kat.” Adrian pulled something from his pocket.

We observe

the ideals

of how things should

be

the vastness

of burrowing realities

abridges our gaze

dilating into

a dry cut

a cold sun

a fragrant decay

the porcelain purity

uncelebrated

I knew instantly what it was. Coffee stains dotted the napkin’s border like muddy teardrops. “Simone kept it?”

“That whole time. My goddess,” Rick breathed. “She always believed in you, Dig. In us. I used to hate that you knew her so well . . . enough to write what I just couldn’t see.” Rick rubbed his hand over his shaved head. “But now I’m touched you did, and you cared enough to.”

“She helped me learn to know myself, too.” Adrian leaned in, one hand on his friend’s shoulder and the other grasping mine.

Jim popped his head into the room to say hello. He was the kid in the candy store personified, which quickly lightened the mood again. The smile on his face as he bantered with his idols, now bandmates, was infectious. Sam, a tad heavyset and a head taller than his companions, arrived boisterous and British, just as Adrian had described him. His pocked cheeks became ruddier with each sip from his pint of bitter. Or as he called it, “bih-ah”, his tongue barely registering the
T
s and
R
. His accent was thicker than both Adrian’s and Rick’s, but I believe I made out the words “Fancy checking out the New York City Ballet wif me?” in one of his sentences as he and Jim moved onward down the hall.

“Don’t be impressed by his cultural prowess, Kat. He visits the local ‘ballet’ in every town he’s played in,” Rick explained.

“And by ‘ballet,’ he means ‘strip club,’” Adrian finished with a laugh.

It was time for me to go meet Kev and my friends. Adrian called a runner over. “She needs access.” The runner handed him an all-access laminated pass, which Adrian slipped over my head. “Hide that when you are out front,” he advised with a kiss. “Only show it to security. Here are tickets and a pass for your brother.”

I went out to wait for Kev, who was late, not surprisingly. That was nothing new. I had also told Liz, Marissa, and Rob to meet me by the clock. Liz, of course, was in on the antics. My only regret was not being able to convince Leanna and Karen to come, but a concert on both a school night and Halloween was a tough sell.

Marissa greeted me with a cheek kiss. “I thought we were going to a club to see Adrian do his little guitar thingy.”

“This,” I said, sweeping my hands up toward the lit marquee flashing
ROTTEN GRAVES PROJECT
, “is his little guitar thingy.”

Marissa screamed. Rob merely said, “Hot damn!” It wasn’t exactly his normal genre, but I could tell he was impressed.

Kev came bouncing up, hugged Liz, and shook me by the shoulders. “Got the tickets, huh huh huh, lemme see!” He grabbed them from my hands and stared in disbelief. Adrian had made sure to pull some of the best seats in the house. Kev whooped and swung me around. “Hey, what’s this?” He pulled the laminate that had poked him in the chest out from under my shirt.

I grinned. “You. Come with me.” I slapped the sticky VIP pass on his jacket. “We’ll see the rest of you at the seats.” Kev stood there catatonic as I doled out the tickets and grabbed his hand.

“Holy crap, I am shaking. Where are we going? Is there a greenroom? Do you think any of the band will be there? How do you know your way around?”

I wound my way down the corridors, ushered by guard after guard once they caught sight of the pass. We cut through the small curtained section for hospitality, containing friends and the few lucky fans with guest passes. They were all chattering excitedly and sipping comp drinks as they no doubt wondered, like Kev, if they would glimpse a member of the band that night.

A tall, scraggly blonde with a beard strode out of the production office on his way to the front of house. “That’s Miles,” Kev whispered, “Corpse’s sound guy. Holy shit, I just saw Miles! He’s like a celebrity in his own right, he’s been with the band since—”

Suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks. We had walked beyond a long black curtain into the hallway where the dressing rooms were—the inner sanctum. Small groups of people had gathered to talk outside one of the rooms. Standing next to the wall, chatting to some industry types, was Adrian.

He had since changed into his stage clothes, consisting of black leather pants, black boots that raised him at least four inches, and a red and black leather vest. He was shirtless underneath and was holding Abbey in his arms as he chatted with a guy who was nodding and holding on to Adrian’s every word. Abbey was content to just snuggle and run her small fingers around the Celtic cross tattoo on his bicep.

“Omigoddigger. Andhe’sgotyourdaughter.” Kev seemed ready to faint.

Rick came sauntering out of his dressing room, blocking our path. “Oh, hey, Kat. Have you seen Sam about?”

“I saw him a while back in catering. Rick, this is my brother, Kevin. He is a huge fan.”

He shook a stunned Kevin’s hand. “Hey man, thanks for coming out.”

“Riff, I . . . you . . . your music . . . so many of your songs have been the sound track of my life for the past twenty years!”

Rick gave a modest chuckle. “Scary!” he murmured. “But great to hear, mate. Glad you have enjoyed listening to it as much as we enjoyed making it. See you after the show, awright? Cheers.” He patted Kev’s shoulder and was gone.

“I . . . duh . . .”

“Uncle Kev!” Abbey had spotted us. She jumped down from Adrian’s arms and came running. “It’s like a party, Uncle Kev! And there’s going to be music.”

Adrian was watching, smiling. Abbey grabbed her uncle’s hands, swinging them, but he was still in a stupor. Adrian winked at me, excused himself from the people around him, and sauntered over. “Hello, Kevin.” He stuck out a hand.

“Hello, Digger.” Kev couldn’t stop staring at their hands as they shook.

“No, that’s Adrian, silly Uncle Kev. Mommy’s friend. Not like her best friend, because Aunt Miso is her best friend, but he’s a extraspecial friend, and he’s my friend, too. And
I
got to help him put on makeup!” Our laughter was ice-breaking, and Kev recovered from his shock.

“When . . . How . . . Sis, you have a lot of explaining to do!” he sputtered. “I am so psyched you guys are doing this project. Have you written any new music? Think you will record a new studio album? Are you in contact with Adam?”

“He takes after my mom,” I explained. “Lots of questions.”

“Shut it, Tree!” Kev turned back to Adrian. “Any plans to tour the West Coast?”

Adrian laughed and rubbed his goatee. “Well, we wanted to get our feet wet first with this gig. New York has always been our strongest market, tons of metal fans. Honestly, we went in thinking we would play a smaller room, but the offer came in from the Garden and then it sold out in a couple of hours, so yeah, I guess the need is there. We’re working on routing now for next spring. As for Adam, he was happy to hear from us. But he’s got other things going on in his life and wasn’t interested in being a part of the band at this time. Jim, the new drummer, kicks serious . . .” He glanced at Abbey and finished, “. . . double bass drums. Oh, and yes, I’ve been writing some new music. Kat has heard some.”

Kev looked at me as if I were some rare exotic animal all of a sudden. “It’s good stuff,” I assured him.

“Rick and I also worked on some new material out in LA; you’ll hear a few new songs tonight. He’s staying on for a month, and we’ll go into the studio next week to lay down some tracks. How long are you in town for?”

“Just a few more days.” Kev, although considerably calmer, still looked amazed to be in the conversation.

“Cool, you should come down and listen,” Adrian said.

“That would be SO awesome!”

Ilana popped her head out from catering. “Sorry, Ms. Lewis, I was talking to Paul and we lost track of time. I’ll take her.”

A more modern version of 1980s Rick appeared next to her. He had the Rottenberg hair, although with considerably less volume. But his eyes, I could tell, were directly from his mother. Cavernous blue. Adrian introduced us. “I couldn’t miss this reunion,” he explained to me with a shy smile.