The Girl On The Half Shell (7 page)

As we talk I see flashes. Someone is taking pictures and the last thing I need is a picture of me with this crowd making the rounds. I look around frantically trying to find the camera. Then I see the girl on the couch with the Polaroid and I feel foolish for being paranoid. I steady my breathing and tell Neil I have to go.

The club is empty as we walk out the back entrance. The windows to my dad’s car are all steamed up and I can see Rene and Josh in the back seat.
Jeez, Rene, in my dad’s car? Did you really just screw a guy you met in a bar in my dad’s car?

“Hey Josh. Let’s roll,” Neil shouts.

I stop a few cars away. “Thanks, Neil. You’ve been a really cool guy tonight.”

He smiles and it’s sort of like he’s disconcerted, not knowing how he should deal with me.

“It’s been OK, Chris. I had fun with you tonight. If you’re ever in Seattle look me up. Maybe we can hang out sometime.”

I brace myself. “Maybe I should give you my number in case you come back to Santa Barbara this summer.”

Neil’s smiles at me quizzically. I feel instantly stupid. If the guy wanted my number he’d have asked for it.

“I leave next week on a six month tour. I don’t plan to be back in Santa Barbara.”

God, why did I have to offer him my number?

Josh and Rene climb out of the car. She starts giving him her number and I wonder if it’s her real number, if she gives her real number to guys she screws in parking lots.

All and all, it hasn’t been a completely disastrous night. I’m feeling kind of OK even though Neil did give me the brush off. I sink into the driver’s seat and wait for Rene to climb in.

I turn the ignition and put the car in gear. There’s a tap on my window. I roll it down. Neil says, “Drive carefully. You’ve had a few drinks. Not enough to be legally drunk, but they could pick you up anyway.”

I nod. That was a really sweet thing to say. “I’ll take it really, really slow.”

Neil laughs at the really, really. He turns to leave and then pauses. It’s almost like he’s debating with himself. His fingers curl over the top of my open window. “Hey, I know I’m just some guy you just met, but nice girls with rich, famous daddies shouldn’t be in bars trying to play games with guys like me. The guys you meet in bars play cruel games that hurt. Fuck! Didn’t Daddy teach you anything about how the world works?”

Oh crap!
I know, I suddenly know. “You used me. You were a cool guy so you could use me to get into the party.”

I’m furious now.

He shrugs.

“Everyone uses everyone, Christian Parker.”

I roll up my window and pull from the parking space.

* * *

“God, Chrissie! Do you have to drive so slowly? I want to get home, get a shower and get some sleep.”

Rene is slouched in her seat trying to adjust her panties. It’s 2a.m. and the fog is really thick.

“I don’t want to get pulled over. If I get popped for drunk driving in my dad’s car it will make the front page of the NewsPress.”

“If you keep driving so slow the first cop that sees you will know you’ve been drinking.” She pulls down the visor and starts to touch up her lip gloss with the lighted mirror, which is really irritating because it makes it harder to see out of her side of the car. “You should have let me drive.”

“Oh yeah, that’s a great idea. What are you on, anyway? You guys didn’t do drugs in my dad’s car, did you?”

Rene glares at me. “I wouldn’t do that. I can’t believe you asked me that.”

“Really. Oh, really. You screwed a guy in my dad’s car.”

Rene shrugs. “He was cute. Neil was cute too. He was really into you, Chrissie. Did you give him your number?”

“No. And he wasn’t into me. Just another user. Why is the world so full of jerks?”

“Because half the planet is male.”

I change the subject. “Did you see Eliza’s face as Neil and I went into the private party. She was pissed.”

“Jeez, you’d think it would have stopped being about Eliza as soon as you had that hot guy bouncing you on the floor. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. You should have bounced him back to his place.”

“I couldn’t. You were bouncing my dad’s car.”

“What was the private party like?” Rene asks, rummaging through her bag.

“It was awful. Smoky. Packed. All kinds of freak girls there doing drugs.”

Rene laughs. “Why do you have half a dollar bill stuck in the fold of your UGG boot?”

“Neil made me a bet. He thinks that band is like the Second Coming or something. If he’s right, I have to give him back the half of the dollar.”

I see the high metal arch on Marina Drive that signals we are officially off the city streets and back into the safety of Hope Ranch. I increase my speed.

“See, he does want to see you again,” Rene says shoving her junk back into her bag. She sprays her mouth with breath spray. I park the car as close to the front door as I can manage. Rene grabs my arm. “You go in first. See if I can make a clean shot to the bathroom.”

“Why?”

Rene’s eyes widen intensely. “I smell like sex. I don’t want to get caught by Jack smelling like sex.”

“You can smell sex?”

“God you are ignorant. Guys can always smell sex. Go check the house for me.”

“Slut.” I only say it because it’s a joke and it seems to fit.

“Prude.” Fiercely back at me.

Rene grabs my cheeks and gives me a hard kiss. “Do I kiss better than Neil?”

I push her away. She is laughing at me folded over in her seat. She looks up. “Run and check. Hurry. I have to pee.”

As I walk to the front door I can hear the sound of rowdy men floating over the roof. The noise makes me think of my brother. Sammy and his friends used to fill the house with laughter and music. As a little girl I would hover, hidden, just enjoying watching my big brother, knowing if I got caught all Sam would do is ruffle my hair, toss me over his shoulder, and send me back to my room with a stern warning not to tell Jack.

I peek into the empty entryway and step in. I should have told my dad about the parties. I knew that Sammy’s parties were bad. I didn’t tell because I didn’t understand why I was supposed to. I loved him. Sammy said don’t tell. That I understood.

I go as far down the hallway as Sammy’s room and turn around and go back for Rene. When I get outside, she’s hopping beside the car like she’s about to pee. God, she is really messed up. I didn’t notice in the car that she is all crumpled and ratty haired, and acting wired.

She is more than just drunk. She did coke with Josh in my dad’s car and lied to me about it. I can see it in her agitated movements and the way she is standing. She’s coked up. Josh got her coked up and screwed her in a car.

I put my hands on her arms to stop her hopping. “It’s OK. Everyone is on the patio and Maria is asleep. Just run. Clear shot to the bathroom.”

Rene runs into the house. I hear my bedroom door slam. The shower turns on. I go to the kitchen and I fill a glass with ice water even though I’m not thirsty, but if I don’t drink it I’ll have a headache in the morning because of the alcohol.

I toss Jack’s keys back on the breakfast bar. I lean against it, sipping my water. The patio door opens and Jack steps into the kitchen.

“I’m glad you’re back. I was worried about you driving in this fog.”

He smiles, then goes to the refrigerator.

I watch him over my ice water.
I’m wearing different clothes, Jack. Don’t you even notice? And my hair is all puffed out and sprayed like a heavy metal chick.

Jack leans an ear up toward the ceiling. “Is someone taking a shower?”

Ours is an old house. Large, solidly built, but the plumbing groans all through the adobe.

“Rene. She doesn’t think there will be time in the morning.”

“Oh, that reminds me. I’m taking you to the airport at nine, only a half hour earlier than we planned. I’ve got this thing.”

“Sure, Daddy. No problem.”

“Are you OK, Chrissie?”

I put down the water glass. “I’m fine.”

“You should turn in too, baby girl.”

He drops a kiss on my head.

“I think I’m going to practice for a while.”

“Well, don’t stay up too late. You have an early plane.”

I watch Jack disappear back onto the patio. If he had asked one probing question I would have crumbled. There is so much I want to talk to Jack about. I want to tell him about Rene. I want to tell him about me. I just don’t know how to start it and Jack never tries to start it.

In my bedroom I find Rene curled atop the covers of my bed, hair still damp, my mother’s quilt wrapped around her. I sit down beside her and I close my eyes. I’m exhausted, but not the kind of exhausted that gives way to restful sleep. If I go to sleep now, the way I feel, I will only have dreams, dark dreams, the kind that scare me.

I tuck the blanket in around Rene, and then I make my way down the long hallway to the back of the house where the studio is. The recording studio walls are lined with gold and platinum records, but I stop at the pictures of my mother to pay homage to how beautiful she was, how elegant she appears in the photos of her during her career with the New York Philharmonic.

My parents were such a strange couple. Opposites. I’ve never understood how they locked in place together.

I go through the soundproofing door into the studio and I sink to my knees before my cello case. I pull free the instrument and bow, and I switch off all the lights except a single dim spotlight above my chair. I settle in the chair and go through my routine, adjusting the instrument, clearing my mind and preparing to play.

It feels good to play. The music is soothing in its beautiful precision. It is not angry and confused like the music in the club tonight. I focus on the controlled moves of my fingers. The music is not like me. I’m angry and confused most of the time. But Bach is beautiful and precise. Slow, and then building, then pulling back. I wonder if that’s why I still play the cello even though I’m not very good at it.

I am almost through the prelude when I sense someone is watching me. The room beyond is almost pitch black. I can’t see anyone, yet somehow I feel them, the presence of someone beyond the soundproof glass when that should be impossible to feel. I try to lose myself in the music. I can’t. I halt the bow above the strings. I stare.

“You’re very good.”

The voice floating in on the intercom is male, low, raspy and accented. So it isn’t my imagination. I’m not alone. I strain to pick out detail at the dimly lit console behind the soundproofing glass. I am only able to see a figure, large and casually reclined in a chair, bare feet propped on the table. Jeez, how long has he been watching me? He looks settled in.

Why doesn’t he say something? Oh, it must be my turn to talk.

“
That
was mediocre. It’s my audition piece for Juilliard, but I’m waffling and I think I should play Kodaly’s Sonata for Solo Cello Opus Eight. Bach seems just a little too predictable. What do you think?”

OK, that was rotten. This guy probably doesn’t know Bach from Bon Jovi.

“The Bach. It suits you. The Kodaly I think too dark, too dramatic, too aggressive for you. Stay with the Bach.”

Jeez, it’s a sexy voice.
British and raspy. I don’t recognize the voice. Who is this guy? I struggle to pick out more detail of my companion. He rises, and I can see that he tall, muscled, and graceful of movement. I wish I could see his face.

“Close your eyes,” says the voice on the intercom.

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

I close my eyes. There is something so imperative about his manner that disobeying doesn’t seem an option. The studio door opens. There is the sound of bare feet against floor. The warm presence of a body moves into me.

“Don’t open your eyes. I’m not going to hurt you and if you open your eyes this will do you no good.”

“It won’t?”

My fingers tighten around the neck of the cello.

“No.” I feel the displacement of air that follows movement and then the heat of him even closer. “You are a very beautiful girl.”

“What?” I don’t know what to say to that.

I start to ease back but he stops me. “You are a very talented girl,” he whispers. “You are going to be remarkable at your audition. And you should most definitely play the Bach. It was flawless.”

I try to speak. His fingers touch across my lips to silence me. He leans forward and I am paralyzed just feeling his body near me. I haven’t even seen his face and I’m wondering what it would be like to be kissed by him. His voice is a seduction. His words. The way he turns them on his lips.

He takes a deep breath. On my cheek there is the whispering touch of a fingertip. The skin is rough and hardened. The kind of harshness you get from years of working the metal strings of a guitar. But somehow he knows how to touch with them so they are like a velvet seduction. Like his voice. A little raspy. A little rough. A velvet seduction. His touch moves down my face to trace my lower lip. The play of him leaves me frantic and weak. He puts a light kiss on my forehead and then I feel him moving away.

NO!
That’s wrong. All that just to kiss me on the forehead?

“Open your eyes. Don’t hit me. It was a kiss for luck.”

“I wasn’t going to hit you. It was a peck, not a kiss. Downright…”

Oh my god!
He is crouched down in front of me and only inches from me is a face I’ve seen a thousand times from a poster hanging on my wall in my dorm room. He doesn’t look at all like he does in his music videos, and stepping out of the TV definitely improves him. I like him better this way: simple jeans, a loose fitting t-shirt and what is surely one of Jack’s worn long-sleeve flannels. Even if I didn’t own every scrap of music he’s ever recorded, even if I hadn’t seen every video, I would have been blown away just looking at his face.

Alan Manzone is beautiful. He has lustrous black, unkempt shoulder length hair. I don’t really like long hair on guys, but oh, on this guy it is perfect. It frames his face and softens the features that would have been too strongly carved without it, especially with those dangerously intense black eyes. God, they are true black. I’ve never seen such a thing before, and they’ve got giant iridescent irises flecked with shimmers.