The Miles Between Us (26 page)

“Thinking isn’t necessarily a bad thing
. It sounds as though she has a lot to work out in her mind. And your older daughter is there, too?”

“Yea
h. Thank God. Otherwise, I never would’ve heard about the episode with the little girl. Casey would never have told me about that if Paige hadn’t spilled it to me. So now I have Paige watching her. I don’t like to do that. It feels a little too much like betrayal. But this thing is snowballing out of control. Just thinking about her ducking cars in the middle of Manhattan makes me sick to my stomach.”

“I can certainly understand that.”

“I don’t want to see this get any worse. I don’t know if she needs meds, or counseling, or—I don’t know. Maybe a support group. They must have support groups for women who’ve miscarried.”

“They do.
I’m not sure what we can scare up around here, but if she’d be willing to travel to Lewiston or Portland, there would be options. Look, Rob, I can’t tell you what to do, but I admire your husbandly concern. Not a lot of men would be as understanding as you.”

“I just want my wife back
. That amazing, smart, talented, confident woman I married. I know she’s in there somewhere. I keep seeing glimpses of her, but then she disappears again.”

“We’ll find her. I’ll give her a call, ask her to come in for a follow-up.
While she’s here, I’ll talk to her about counseling.”

“It might be better if you didn’t mention my name when you do that.
Or if you do, give me a call, so I can lock up all the knives before she gets home.”

“Depending on how forthcoming she is, I may have to
tell her. But I’ll try to avoid mentioning you until she’s sitting in my office.”

“I’ll be on the lookout for the mushroom cloud. Dr. Levasseur—thank you.”

“It’s Deb. And you’re welcome. Thank
you
. If you hadn’t called, I would never have known what was going on.”

* * *

On a bright and cloudless morning at the beginning of September, they wrapped up the recording. He could finally kiss this place goodbye. Kyle would come up to Maine, they’d finish the mixing at Two Dreamers, and the album would be completed.

And he’d never again have to deal with Phoenix Hightower.

So why was it that on this, his last day in the studio, his stomach was tied up in knots? What the hell was that all about? He didn’t like Phoenix Hightower. Didn’t like his massive ego, his arrogance, his flippant attitude. He absolutely was not, repeat,
not
, going to foster any warm and fuzzy paternal feelings for the little hood rat. Theirs was a business relationship, nothing more. They were not friends. Matter of fact, they barely tolerated each other. Their belief systems were polar opposites. They came from two different schools of thought, each of them with both feet firmly planted in his own camp. Rob was concerned with making the music the best it could possibly be. Phoenix was concerned with…Phoenix.

He was not going to allow that snot-nosed little turd to burrow under his skin.
Except that he had a sneaking suspicion it was already too late. Somehow, this bratty, obnoxious, fatherless, possibly motherless kid had managed to do just that. And he couldn’t figure out how or when it had happened.

The kid reminded him of somebody
. It had been eating at him since the first time he walked into the studio and they shook hands. He hadn’t been able to figure it out. Not until the night they sang together onstage, and then he couldn’t imagine how it had taken him so long to see it.

The
kid was a carbon copy of Danny Fiore.

It wasn’t his looks, although
Phoenix had the perfect hair and the soulful blue eyes that drew in teenage girls like flies to flypaper. It wasn’t his arrogance, although he and Danny shared the same colossal ego. And it wasn’t his attitude, because that was where he and Fiore totally diverged. Danny had been a white-hot arrow, aiming himself directly toward the stars, with no time for side trips along the way. Phoenix, on the other hand, didn’t much care about his career. He was in it for the girls, the money, the partying. His career, his future, the music itself, were of little import.
Live for today, to hell with tomorrow.
That was Phoenix Hightower’s philosophy. And while on the surface, Danny’s oft-repeated philosophy,
Live hard and fast, and die young enough to leave a good-looking corpse
, looked similar, it was only a superficial resemblance. Danny’s definition of living hard and fast was working himself to death with single-minded determination to reach out and catch that brass ring.

It was
some other place where Danny and Phoenix ran on parallel tracks. Something else that Rob had subconsciously reacted to:  they were both broken.

Like Danny Fiore
decades earlier, Phoenix was misshapen, twisted. Somewhere in his development, something dark and painful had shaped him into a broken creature who needed to be glued back together.

But was it really up to Rob MacKenzie to
play savior to every broken musician who crossed his path? Even if it was his responsibility, was that because he really gave a damn about Phoenix, or did he simply want to assuage his own guilt because he hadn’t tried hard enough to save Danny? He’d stood there and watched his best friend falter, and he hadn’t even bothered to try to prevent his fall. Because in some part of him, he knew that if Danny fell far enough, his marriage, which already existed on a fault line, would split apart at the seams. And when it did, guess who would be waiting to console Danny’s wife?

He’d never really believed
that life was about weights and balances. But if it was, his Karmic scale was seriously tilted in the wrong direction. For purely selfish reasons, he hadn’t done enough to help Danny. Maybe he could redeem himself, tilt those scales in the other direction, if he helped Phoenix.

It was a crazy idea
. But did it really matter which side of the fence his intentions fell on? If he could teach the kid to ground himself so he wouldn’t crash and burn, did it really matter why he was doing it?

Jesus Christ on a Popsicle stick.
Why was he always stuck with these moral dilemmas?

* * *

With what was left of his little studio family gathered around, wearing solemn faces, he said, “So. It looks like we’ve come to the end of the road. I guess it’s up to me to say a few words before we go our separate ways. It’s been great working with you. All of you. Except maybe you, Luther.” They all laughed. “We’ve worked really hard here, we’ve suffered—and survived—a New York heat wave, as well as Phoenix’s, um…moodiness.” Smiles all around. “I’ve even survived a mugging. But the important thing is that we survived. And I think we’ve put together a terrific record. I can’t wait to finish the mixing, so we can all hear the final result.”

Glances were exchanged all around, but nobody spoke. He looked from face to face, then said, “Okay, then, folks
. You’re dismissed. Kyle, I’ll give you a call in a few days. Phee, I need to talk to you.”

“Blimey, old man,” the kid
groused, “I’ve told you eleventy-hundred times that my name isn’t Phee.”

“And I’ll probably call you that until the day I die
. Luther, give yourself a couple of well-deserved hours off, compliments of yours truly. I’m taking our friend here to lunch.”

“You,” the kid scoffed, “want to take me to lunch.”

“I don’t want you to think I’m an ogre all the time.”

“I don’t know, mate
. Will it be a step up from a bleedin’ sidewalk hot dog and a bottle of water?”

“Better be careful, or I’ll rescind the offer.
” He held out a hand to Luther, shook it, and clapped him on the shoulder. “Go,” he said. “I may end up regretting this, but I’ll take responsibility for the kid.”

“I’m an adult,” Phoenix said
. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“
Truth,” he said.

They took a cab
because it was too far to walk, and if he took Phoenix Hightower on the subway, there would be pandemonium. They’d both be lucky to come out of it in one piece. While the taxi driver spent the entire trip talking into his cell phone in some foreign language, Phoenix stared out the window at the unfamiliar surroundings. When they crossed the bridge, the kid said, “Where in bloody hell are we going for lunch? Saturn?”

“It’s called Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn? Sounds like the punch line to a joke.”

“You say that now
, but wait until you taste the food in this place. You’ll be singing a different tune.” A thought occurred to him, and he peered at the kid closely. “You’re not allergic to shellfish, are you?”

“
Can’t say that I’ve ever eaten shellfish.”

“You’ve never had lobster?
” The kid shrugged. “Clams?” Again, that shrug.

Rob
leaned back against the seat and said, “We’ll make sure they have an oxygen mask and an epi-pen on standby, then. Just in case.”

Phoenix just scowled.

The restaurant was exactly as he remembered it, small and sunny, with Formica-topped tables and vinyl-upholstered chairs that dated back to 1963. Two blue-haired elderly ladies sat at one table, a lobster in front of each of them. Another table held a couple in their fifties, sharing a massive King crab. The middle-aged hostess, who doubled as their waitress, led them to a table at the back of the room and handed them menus. “You can take off your hat and glasses,” Rob told the kid. “You don’t have to worry about being seen here. Trust me, nobody here has a clue who you are.”

To the waitress, he said, “We’ll have a pot of steamers
for the table, and we’ll each have the lazy lobster. I’ll take whatever you have on draft, and the kid here will have—”

“I’ll have the same.”

“Nice try, but no dice. He’ll have a Coke,” he told the waitress, and handed the menus back to her. “Thank you.”

When she was gone, Phoenix said, “Has anybody ever told you that you’re a humorless dick?”

“Loudly and often. You’ll have to stand in line.”

The kid
glanced around and the corner of his mouth drooped. “This looks like the type of place where old people go to eat.”

“
I’m surprised you haven’t heard. That’s where you find the best food.”

“
Yes, well, that remains to be seen.”

“Jesus, Phee, d
o you have to try so hard to win the Miss Congeniality prize?”

The kid snorted, and Rob fought back a
smile. The waitress returned with their drinks, and he took a long slug of beer. “Really hits the spot,” he said.

“Sadist.”

“Allow yourself to be a kid, Phee. The older you get, the quicker life moves, and the thing is, when you’re older, you’ll wish you’d appreciated it more, being young. Because I have to tell you, buddy, you can’t go backwards.”

“I’m not a kid. As
we’ve already clearly established, I’m eighteen years old. An adult.”

“There’s not a person in this restaurant who wouldn’t laugh if they heard you say that.”

“Yes, well, what else can you expect? They’re all positively geriatric.”

“Has anybody ever told you that you’re a negative
Nellie?”

“Clever retort.”

“I thought so. Tell me about the upcoming tour.”

The kid slithered back on his tailbone and crossed his arms over his puny chest.
“November first, we open in New York. Madison Square Garden. After that, two dozen other places I’m not familiar with. This country of yours is incredibly spread out.”

“Compared to that teeny-tiny
island you’re from, yes, it is.”

The kid raised a dark eyebrow.
“Is this one of those ‘mine’s bigger than yours’ pissing contests?”

“Make of it what you will
. I’m just making idle chit-chat to pass the time while we’re waiting for our lunch.” He took a sip of beer and said, “How much longer are you contracted with Ariel?”

“Two more albums
. Why?”

“Just curious. You’re a talented kid
, and Ariel’s a one-trick pony. If you want to keep on making bouncy pop records for twelve-year-olds, Ariel’s your label. But if you ever want to start making serious music—” He took out his wallet and pulled out a business card. Handing it to Phoenix, he said, “Give me a call and we’ll see what Two Dreamers can do for you.”

The kid studied the card, then look up with a smirk
. “So this is what lunch was about? A solicitation? I should have suspected you had an ulterior motive.”

“No ulterior motive
. Just an offer. So you’ll know you have options. That’s what it’s all about, Phee. Choices. As long as you have choices, you’ll never find yourself trapped, with no way out.”

“Thank you for the charming
little homespun life lesson.”

“Stop being such a little shit and tell me about yourself.”