She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel (23 page)

Slade’s Pool, Monday, June 18, 2007, 3:00 p.m.

It’d been two weeks since the video shoot and Eddie had nearly six songs completely finished. Her eyes had grown tired of staring at the grand staff, and she had earned a break. Slade’s pool had been teasing her for days and looking at it through the windows from a piano bench, she went upstairs to change.

She headed outside, threw a beach towel on a deck chaise and putting her hand in to test the water, judged it to be sufficient and dove in. She swam a few laps, her body began to loosen up, and the strain of sitting at a piano started to ease. Putting her arms out of the water over the rim, she remembered the last time she was in a pool, at the Chateau Marmont. This was infinitely better and what was more, she could look out and see all of downtown Los Angeles while kicking her legs in the water.

Getting out, she covered the chaise with her towel, shook the water out of her hair and, lying down, applied sunscreen. She donned her sunglasses, and felt the warmth of the sun gently bake over her wet fuchsia suit. She thought of the minor harmonics that could be used in her last composition before falling asleep.

The long black limo made its way to the front door of the house. The driver got the bags out of the trunk, and Slade told him where to put them inside, and tipped him. He was glad to be off the road and able to sleep in his own bed. He glanced at Eddie’s white van in the driveway and went inside, walking across the marble entrance of his home. He kept going deeper into the house, making his way into the living room. When he got there, he saw where Eddie set up shop at his Steinway. He walked over and saw a stack of classical music books and her hand written manuscript on the piano. He picked up the manuscript and viewed the titled, “Sultana Reign.”
“This must be what she’s working on.”
He read:

Verse:

She woke up screaming

It was her own voice

Either Heaven or Hell

The only choice

The sultan’s iron fist

His selfish life of unfilled bliss

Chorus:

And like the devil is on her heels

She must run

As the Saints call for her unborn son

Verse:

She had a family

She had a will

Nature’s Forces gather round her

So she takes the pill, Yeah!

Flipping to the next chart, he read:

“All For The Show”

Verse:

It was comedy

I didn’t laugh

An audience to meet

Statistics & math

The boys want a hit

Hands on a blank page

Gotta get it right

Where’s my muse? Where’s my sage?

Chorus:

I brought you flowers

You gave me beer

Don’t serve ‘em high brow

Prose don’t qualify here

Seal a pact

Sign in blood

Design your life

Till you’ve had enough

And when you’re dead

Or cracked & old

You’ll realize it was all for show

Setting them down, he called out,
“Eddie.”
There was no reply.

Thinking she might have taken off somewhere, he went to the garage, but saw all four of his babies present. His mood always perked up when he saw his machines in the garage. Smiling as he shut the garage door, he went back through the house calling her name. “Eddie!” He turned at the top of the stairs, looked through the huge glass panels, and saw her out by the pool.

Walking outside, Slade could see she had fallen asleep. Her large sunglasses had fallen off her face to the cement; her body, face down; hair over the top of her head. Wondering whether to wake her up or leave her sleeping, he went to shake her. As he did so, he couldn’t help but notice a jagged scar at the base of her neck.

“
That’s a rather odd place to have a scar.”
With his finger, he traced the scar and whispered, “Eddie, I’m home.”

Coming out of the heavy trance, she awoke to concrete, not realizing there was another human standing next to her. She turned her head, saw a denim pant leg, followed the leg upward, and looked into Slade’s blue eyes.

Smiling his Slade smile, he said, “Hey.” He was surprised at how glad he was to see her.

Eddie sat upright and rubbed her eyes. “Sorry, I must have fallen asleep.” She let out a big yawn, and apologized again. She picked up the sunglasses, put them back in place, and said, “I had no idea you were coming home this soon.”

“I didn’t either.” His eyes roamed over the pink suit. “I was going to stay in England for a while and visit, but after being away for so long, I just wanted to get home.”

“My plan was to be out of here before you got back,” she said, not wanting to invade his space.

“You don’t have to leave because I’m here. Stay.”

“Hmm—”

The sun was beating down on Slade. Without another word, he yanked off his boots, unsnapped his shirt, stripped down to his white tank top, and unzipped his pants, pulling them off to exposing a pair of grey Calvin Klein’s. Donning his own shades, he stretched out on the chaise next to Eddie’s and said, “That’s much better.” Reading her mind, Slade surmised, “You’re going to leave aren’t you?”

“You want me to be honest?” she asked, rolling over on her side, her arm holding her head up.

“No, Eddie, I want you to lie to me.”

“Okay, here’s the deal. My best friend is flying into town the day after tomorrow and since I was hanging out here, she was going to stay with me . . . here at your house, but Todd told me the whole reason I was trusted to come in and work on my songs was because I wasn’t going to throw any wild parties, and the real story is that my girlfriend and I were going to have one anyway.”

“You, the girlfriend and how many others?”

“Oh, just the two of us—we don’t know anybody else to invite.”

The comment made Slade laugh.

“What’s so funny? I’m following your rules.”

“You thought I’d get
upset
because of some teeny bopper get together with one friend?” Slade considered some of the barbarically shameless fetes he’d had in the past and eyed Eddie, bewildered at her seriousness. He bargained, “So, if I allow your friend over, am I invited to this très exclusive get together?”

“You’re makin’ fun.”

“No, it sounds very intriguing, all clandestine and everything. What are we celebrating anyway?”

Eddie grimaced, “My birthday.”

“Please tell me you’re going to be eighteen.”

“Nope, seventeen
.”

“One more year—” He held up his index finger, waving it. “So who is this surprise guest, anyway? You did say it’s a
she,
‘cause if it’s ‘doctor-boy,’ then no deal.”

“It’s doctor-boy’s sister,” she said, finding it a bit peculiar that Slade still remembered, “doctor-boy.”

“Speaking of doctors, how’d you get that nasty scar on the back of your neck?”

Eddie said nothing, but got up off the chaise and dove into the pool.

Slade dove in after her. Seeing her head come up out of the water, he swam next to her and asked, “What’s wrong?”

Not clever enough to come up with a lie on the spot, she leveled, “Doctor-boy broke up with me a month ago.”

Slade studied her expression, which revealed the emotional bruise Kai had left. “Whoever this guy is, and for all the brains you profess he has, he’s a crowned fool. If the man doesn’t know what he has, and tosses
you, Esther,
aside? . . . He doesn’t deserve you. Obviously, he doesn’t have a clue.” And with that, Slade pulled Eddie close, as the blue shining water of the pool propelled her into his arms. He grasped her wet body and gave her the proper welcome home kiss he had been saving since he saw her from the top of the stairs.

She, in return, wanted to heal, wanted to kiss him back, and with Kai out of the picture, there was nothing to stop her. She opened her mouth and indulged, feeling a twinge of revenge. Eddie wrapped her arms around the back of his neck and earnestly pressed up against him. The body language pleased Slade immensely and it felt good, better than good. Eddie forced Kai out of her heart and mind.

That night, Eddie realized she’d have to exit Shangri-La soon and using up the last of her alone time, she practiced. She pounded out the notes of her favorite pieces. She played and played, having her way with the sublime keys until her forearms were pumped and screaming for mercy.

She got off the bench and went in search of Slade, knowing she had become a boring houseguest. He was in his office, sitting behind a Louis XIV gilt wood desk, speaking on the phone. He motioned for her to come in.

Sitting across from him on a purple velvet upholstered arm chair, she took in his heavy booted feet up on the extravagant piece of furniture as she waited for him to say “goodbye” and hang up. When he did, she lightly scolded, “This is like a thirty thousand dollar desk and you’re scratching it all up with those boots on?”

Planting his feet on the carpet, he leaned over and said, “Funny, I could have sworn I left me mum back in England.”

“Sorry
.”

“So, are you finished, then?”

“I think so. I know I’ve made a complete nuisance of myself, crashing your space, using your pool, driving the cars, disturbing the peace with all my constant pounding away on that magnificent instrument you got collecting dust in your living room. I wanted to thank you for everything. This has all been, well, the only word I can think of is surreal.”

Slade picked up the bottle of Cabernet he was working on and poured himself another glass.

“Nuisance isn’t the word,” he told her. “And you are more than welcome to come here and practice my piano any time. I have never heard it played like that,
ever
.”

“Slade, don’t even think of extending an invitation like that to me, because trust me, the word
nuisance
, would really apply,” Eddie cautioned.

“How many hours a day do you practice?”

“Before I moved to L.A. . . . anywhere from four to six.”

“
Every day?”

Eddie nodded, “Only I haven’t had my own piano since I’ve been here and that’s why all the banging on yours.”

“Musicians are a notorious bunch of blow-hards—over-bragging, under-delivering. I had no idea you played like that.”

“Sure you did. I told you,” she mumbled.

“Yes, I know what you
told
me, but there’s playing, and then there’s getting schooled—No wonder Gretchen tossed you in the pool.”

Eddie groaned. “Yeah, showing up to the video shoot in your Porsche didn’t exactly help either.”

Slade gave a knowing smile and asked, “So, how did you like driving my other grand babies?’

“That’s the other half of leaving here – the cars! Did you know that a high performance vehicle is very much like a Marshall stack? The engine, and how it growls under your seat, it’s like the overdrive of an amp—when you shift through the gears there’s all this pitch and timing. Slade, your Aston Martin is like a vintage Marshall with a twenty-twenty one reverb unit. It’s awesome.”

“Oh, you are really going to hate getting back in that heap of yours.” Motioning to his phone on the desk, he said, “That was Fiona on the phone.”

“Is that who takes over when Bebe’s out of town?”

“
Funny
—no, she’s my assistant.”

“Is that what they call them these days?”

“She’s coming over tomorrow to get me unpacked and put together a little birthday
.”

“No.”

“Eddie, it’s your birthday.” Slade figured she’d protest, but he didn’t expect her to be quite so firm. “I promise to keep it low key, sedate . . .
boring
. But I want you to call and invite the rest of your band over.”

Eddie’s face fell. “My birthdays in the past were nothing more than an excuse for my mother to invite all her opera friends to the house and throw one big adult party. One year, Placido Domingo actually sang happy birthday to me. I prefer the day come and gone without fanfare of any kind.”

Slade advised, “This would be a good opportunity for you to mend a fence or two. You should be gracious and invite them. They’ll love you for it.”

“I could have sworn I left me mum back in the bay area.”

“Just make the call, Eddie.”

“Fine, but only because you’re making me
.”