The Girl On The Half Shell (27 page)

I don’t answer him.

He opens his eyes and looks at me. “OK. But soon, baby. Please make it soon.”

He lifts me from the tub and sets me onto the waiting towel. He pats me dry, sets me on the bed and goes to my duffel for fresh clothes. He covers me in a long sleeve t-shirt, pulls on my panties and then a pair of sweatpants.

“Do you want to go to sleep?” he asks.

I shake my head no and then notice the exhausted lines on his face. He’s been at it since 7 a.m., he’s still dressed in the types of clothes he wears for interviews, it is 4 a.m., and he came back to the apartment having to deal with me. I feel my heart clench anew, but for kinder reasons.

Fucked up he is, but Alan is a good guy, more than he believes.

“Are you hungry?”

I shake my head no.

“Have you eaten today?”

“No. Too many people in the apartment and a hideous girl in the kitchen.”

That makes Alan laugh in a tired way. “Hideous girl would be Jeanette. My secretary.”

I struggle to make a comical face. “See, you do know what someone does here, who works for you.”

He pulls the blanket from the foot of the bed and wraps me in it. I’m transported down the hall to the kitchen, where he sets me on the butcher block island before going to rummage in the refrigerator.

He starts pulling out cartons and setting them on the counter. “Kitchen finally stocked. An entire buffet of readymade here. What do you like? Does it matter? I just need something to kill the pain.”

I shrug and watch. I haven’t the energy for behaving as if I’m OK. Not just yet, but I’m nearer.

He dumps the cartons and a fork on the counter, settles in a bar high chair, and then scoots me around until I’m facing him, my legs dangling at his side.

He fills a fork and holds it up for me. “I’m not sure what this is. Eat.”

I take a bite. A reluctant laugh whispers out of me. “It’s potato salad.”

He takes a bite. “Not bad. Let’s see what we have here.”

Fork to my lips. Another bite. “Macaroni salad.”

He takes a bite and sets it aside. “This I know. Meatloaf. Do you want me to heat it? I like it cold.”

“Then I’ll eat it cold.”

We pick at the meatloaf until we’ve both had our fill. At some point between forks full, he poured himself a very tall glass of whiskey. A part of me really wishes he wouldn’t, and a part of me taunts
Who are you to be critical of his weaknesses? We are both messed up. Equal. The same.

As he cleans up the mess, he asks, “Are you tired? Are you ready for bed yet?”

I stare at my toes. “No, I don’t want to sleep. I don’t want to go back to the bedroom. I was trapped in there all day.”

Alan laughs, tired. “You didn’t have to stay in the bedroom. I told you to do what you want to do here.”

I shrug. “That’s what I wanted to do.” I stare out the wall of glass. “Can we sit out on the patio for a while? It’s nearly dawn. I want to watch the sunrise.”

He settles us on a double chaise lounge and it is not long after we’ve curled into each other that Alan is asleep. As I tighten my arms around him, strangely finding comfort in holding him, the taut bands of emotion inside me finally finish unraveling. And in this moment—this moment of quiet with Alan—I am completely overcome by my feelings for him. I don’t know if he loves me. I don’t even know if I love him. But for the first time, I am offered a glimmer of understanding of what it should feel like to love.

The sunrise comes and spreads across the sky. Just having Alan near has made me calm faster inside than ever before. Last night in the bathroom was the worst of the worse, lockboxes fully opened, fragments of memories joining into clarity. I expected the horror of finally understanding all the tormenting, unrelenting images to drag me down for weeks, but I am calm today, strangely calm, more than it is logical for me to be.

It is well into morning when I hear sounds from the apartment, the terrace door open and then clicking heels on tile. I lift my cheek from Alan’s head, and open my eyes to find Jeanette hovering in front of me, setting a breakfast tray on the foot of the chaise. One plate. One setting. One cup of coffee. Message received, as if I couldn’t read the look she’s giving: Jeanette hates me.

“He needs to wake,” she says, imperatively. “He needs to eat, shower, dress and leave here by ten. Do you think yourself capable of communicating that to him?”

“Yes, I think I can manage that.”

She doesn’t offer me breakfast. I watch her leave and I don’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me wake him. The perfect lines of Alan’s face look so peaceful when he sleeps, his breathing is so shallow as if he still needs sleep, and I hate the thought of waking him.

I touch my lips to his forehead. “Alan, you need to wake up.”

He straightens up, from dead asleep to wide awake in a blink, those penetrating black eyes fixed on me. “Are you OK?”

I nod. “It’s just your breakfast is here and I have a message to communicate, and I wish to communicate before I forget it and make a mistake: You need to eat, shower, dress and leave here by ten.”

Alan laughs, stabbing his omelet with a fork. “Ah, you don’t like Jeanette. She’s supposed to be a slave driver, Chrissie. She keeps me organized and on track with where I need to be and what I need to do. She is very good at it.”

I take a sip of his coffee.
She is also very beautiful
. I smile. “I’m sure she is.”

We eat, taking alternating bites, until his plate is completely clean.

“Are you really OK, Chrissie? You wouldn’t lie to me would you?”

“Yes, I’m fine today.”

I change the subject. “How did you guys come up with the name Blackpoll?”

Alan laughs, a lazy, sort of quiet laugh. “I can tell by how you say that, that you are one of the three Americans under thirty who know what a Blackpoll is.”

I make a face at him.

“Len has a thing about birds,” he explains, smiling. “Blackpoll is what you get when you don’t have a name for a band and Len answers the phone drunk, holding an Audubon book. There is symmetry to it, so I kept it.”

“A small songbird surrounded by needles and cones?”

Alan laughs. “I didn’t say good symmetry.”

I hug my legs with my arms, pressing my cheek against knees, following him with my eyes as he returns to the kitchen for more coffee.

When he settles beside me, I decide to ask the question I’ve turned in my head since we settled on the terrace last night.

“Why do you keep the box in the bathroom?”

“I told you, I don’t believe in that total sobriety bullshit. It’s no big deal, Chrissie.”

“But the smack, Alan. Why keep the heroin if it’s a good thing you’ve kicked it?”

He hands me the cup of coffee. “Tossing it won’t change a thing if I decide to use again. It would be a meaningless gesture. Christ, I’m surrounded by it all the time. Tossing it would be as pointless as me taking your bracelet away.”

I stare at my toes and I can feel him watching me.

“Jeanette, bring me my book!” Alan bellows.

Clicking heels on the tile close in on us. To Alan, she smiles and sets the book in front of him before taking away the breakfast tray. Alan rummages through the pages.

“There isn’t anything here I can’t cancel if you want me to stay today.”

He gives me a smile and what’s in my center is nearly a happy sensation.

I shake my head. “No, you don’t have to stay. I’m all right. Really, I am.”

“Only if you’re sure.”

The tone of his voice tells me he means it, and it still amazes me that out of nowhere there is this guy who worries about me. “I’m sure.”

His lips touch mine in such a sweetly gentle kiss that I instantly regret that I am sending him on his way. The tender kisses and touches are always the most potent, they light a fuse that makes me desperate for the rest of him.

I don’t know if my impulses are normal, they are too new and fresh, but right now it feels as if it would be desperately right to make love with him.

“My day isn’t long. I’ll be back late afternoon. Jeanette knows how to reach me.” His eyes fix on me sternly. “Call, Chrissie. If you need me, if you need anything, call me. You have to promise me or I won’t go. If something happens again, baby, you will call me first.”

I nod and watch Alan disappear through the doors.

After Alan leaves, I put on my one-piece and sit on the terrace, letting the sunshine soothe me and put me nearly to sleep.

I hear sound from the apartment and I jump.

“Shut the fuck up, Jeanette!” I hear from the great room. “Go back into your coffin or something. I’m not leaving and you are not keeping us away any longer.”

The voice is loud, female, and edgy.

“You really need to leave, Linda,” says Jeanette.

Linda? The girl from the letters in the cabinet?
I’m wide awake now, I haven’t a clue who Linda is, but by how she handles Jeanette I know she is someone to worry about.

“And you really need to get your fucking face out of my face before I toss you over the patio railing. Len! Get your witless, wetback, limey ass in here and dispose of Cruella.”

She comes through the terrace doors like a hurricane. Linda’s severely beautiful face turns toward me, locking me in an absolutely diminishing stare.

“Aha,” she says. She sinks on the chaise beside me. “So that’s it. Manny has a new house cat. Who the fuck are you?”

I don’t have a chance to answer.

“Len, get the fuck out here!” she screams. “We’ve been worrying about nothing. He is fine. The band is not breaking up. He is ignoring everyone because he has a new house cat.”

Her eyes shift back to me. “Well, pretty little kitty, I’m Linda Rowan. Who are you?”

“I’m nobody.” Oh crap, why did I blurt out the first thing that came into my head?

Linda laughs. “Is that your name or your vocation? One can never tell with Manny’s girls.” She grabs a cigarette and lights it. She studies me over the smoke. “You’re a smart girl, aren’t you? You keep your mouth shut. That’s good. Don’t trust anyone, that’s my motto.”

She fixes her intense stare at the terrace doors. Even sitting silently, it feels as if the entire terrace is electrically charged from her.

I would have considered Linda Rowan a flawless beauty like Rene, if not for the ring through her nose, the ring through her eyebrow, and the ring through her lower lip. The stud in her tongue is something particularly irritating since it clicks against the back of her teeth whenever she speaks. It’s hard to tell how old she is. Anywhere between twenty and thirty. The eyes look a lot older, but her face is fresh and young.

I focus on the large pansy tattooed on her wrist, as she reaches to pour herself a hefty glass of whiskey.

“Well, fuck! Don’t just sit there staring at me. Say something.”

“I have nothing to say to you.”

Linda laughs a husky laugh that tells me she laughs often. “I like you, little house cat. I’m never wrong about these things. And I like you.”

I’m really getting irritated at being called the “little house cat” and I’m about to say something when Len Rowan decides to join us. He is a tall, swaggering, and good-humored Britisher. I’d recognize Alan’s bass player anywhere. He is not good looking, but he has an interesting face. Very English features framed by a mane of wavy reddish-blond hair.

“Len, meet the house cat,” Linda announces. “I can’t give you her name because she won’t tell me. This one is a clam. House kitty, this in my husband, Len Rowan.”

Len sinks too close to me on the chaise after grabbing a full bottle of Jack Daniels. He’s reclined on one side of me, Linda in front, so I feel surrounded.

“You’re a pretty little thing, aren’t you? All fresh and cute like he plucked you from an Iowa corn field. Where do you imagine he picked up this one, Linda?”

Linda sighs and shakes her head. “She’s too good for him. I can tell that at a glance. And I like her, so stop messing with her Len and stop staring at her tits.”

Len leans over to kiss his wife. “I only have eyes for you, love. And so long as you like her, that’s all that matters.”

“So, where is Ugly?”

Ugly? Does she mean Alan?
“I don’t know,” I say cautiously.

The Rowans laugh.

“We’re all family here,” Linda says.

“You’re not exactly catching us at our best,” says Len humorously.

“Ya think, Len?” Linda shakes her head. She leans forward into me, chin in hands, eyes sharply on me. “Cruella has a way of bringing out the worst in me. I’ve been trying to call Manny since he touched down in New York. Cruella has been running interference and we worry about him. OK?”

“Haven’t had sight or sound from him in nearly six months,” Len explains. “The only things we hear are from Arnie Arnowitz. How’s a guy supposed to react to finding out his best friend is breaking up the act via a phone call from the accountant? Not even the fucking manager. The fucking accountant. After all that’s gone on, it was time to find out what the hell is going on directly from the source.”

“We got tired of being shut out, so we barged in,” explains Linda, reaching for another cigarette. “Len and Manny are like this.” She crosses her fingers. “Like brothers, and who the fuck tells their brother to kiss off via the accountant.”

I try to keep any reaction from surfacing. The phone call in the car from the airport: I knew before they knew that Alan was quitting.

Linda smiles. “So how long have you been with Manny?”

“I’m only visiting New York.”

That brings a sparkle to Linda’s eyes. “Interesting. We’ve had no contact with him since December so we’d very much appreciate a no bullshit, no carefully spun answer. We’re not the fucking press. We’re family. How is he?”

That question is far from simple, multifaceted, and serious. Linda is worried. Very, very worried. I can feel it underneath everything else.

“I don’t know. I don’t know Alan well enough to know for sure.”

Len spits out a full mouth of JD across the chaise. “You call him Alan?”

“Jesus Christ, Len, it’s nothing to split a gut about. It’s probably part of that Rehab getting to the true, honest self shit. You know how they love to fuck with your mind in Rehab. Pull it together, who gives a fuck what the little house cat calls him. It’s probably therapy.”