The Rock Star in Seat (7 page)

Chapter 16

I don’t want to see pictures of Hollywood stars in their dressing gowns taking out the rubbish. It ruins the fantasy.

—Sarah Brightman

T
his time, the plane flew steadily through the crystal blue skies, visibility thousands of miles, liftoff glorious. But if my head were any gauge, it was as if we were flying through the tumbling tumult once again, bumpy and in free fall, nauseating and flirting with ashen sprinklage on some rectangular red state in the middle.

It was Finn’s fault. Fuck. He kept popping up on my screen like a hidden point in one of Badass’s video games—a pixilated pot of gold, a secret weapon stashed in a hidden closet door, a bonus round in life. I tried to highlight and delete him from my brain, only for him to pop up again. And soon enough, somewhere over Utah, I found myself fantasizing about him ravishing me. My problems with him were myriad, though the crux lay tied up in this paradox: Finn brought out the best and the worst in me. He elicited a brilliant streak; I was much funnier with him, more clever, on a quicker setting than normal. He turned me on, not just sexually, okay that, too, but literally, like a new bulb was installed, I burned brighter, stronger. I was so excited by his larger-than-life presence that perhaps I dug deeper, tried harder, was super-Hazel, Good Witch Hazel, Super Me. Though quite honestly it all seemed to flow naturally with zero effort. He just sparked me to be better, like a worthy tennis opponent luring out the aces inside you. If I were a witch, it was he that gave me my wand. And I couldn’t stop thinking about his wand.

But then there was the dark side. The naughty witch. A Kansas house should fall on me for daydreaming of Finn when I was totally taken. And in love! Wylie was Kansas . . . he was my head, my heart, my courage . . . my home. He was everything to me, the real life I always wanted to open my eyes to after a bad dream, exhaling in dulcet relief that he was beside me.

But here was the thing about Kansas. There was no color. Not that Wylie was gray and blah—he wasn’t at all—but Finn was like the first time I’d seen fluorescents. I went to Day-Glo instantly on that flight. But while Finn made me sharper, he also brought out many of the seven deadly sins and the stark colors that accompany them. Green greed, for one. For more time with him, another text, an e-mail, a sighting, another scavenged moment to connect. And for jealousy, of the girls who shared his bed, got inside, even the ones who scissored his heart to smithereens. I wish I could have been there, in his more innocent times, leading him down a different path, one that showed him how much love can make it all better rather than worse. And let’s not even speak of Lust. Passionate purple like the quivering arrow from
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
whose errant bull’s-eye of a lily-white flower rendered it violent violet. Yes, I loved Wylie. He was my cam, my touchstone. My all-clear on the Doppler 5000. But there it was: an all-encompassing storm that made me shiver with desire for Finn. And what was sunshine without the storms? The truth is this: I felt more alive than ever before. Even if tortured, I felt woken up. My stomach did a loop-de-loop just like my westbound flight. I gripped the armrests as if we’d taken a deep dip, when we hadn’t. I opened my eyes and realized the ghost of Finn next to me was making me feel like a shooting star, not the metal bird I was flying inside. I closed my eyes again. I wondered how it’d feel if I had let him kiss me in that warehouse. I mentally pressed the rewind button, dreaming of his lips on mine, as he held me in his strong enormous arms. I had looked up all his lyrics on the Internet, even though I knew most of them, and even in the absence of his throaty voice and pummeling guitars, his words set me afire. Especially as I imagined him writing them in a fury of prolific inspiration. Cut to my hotel room. I pictured him there, lying next to me where I slept alone. I imagined what he would be like, his tattooed arms around me, my hands in his black hair, his warm mouth that sang such hemlock-dipped words. Of course he’d be wildly different from Wylie, violent maybe. I probably couldn’t even keep up, given that I’m not incredibly prone to kink, being somewhat of a control freak and not wanting to succumb to blindfolds or wrists tied to bedposts, both of which have been featured in his videos. I’d probably be boring to him, no matter how fevered my grip of his back, no matter how high-speed my breaths. I could moan and kiss and bite with the best of ’em but I’m sure the courtesan types who fucked him rotten would find my sheet style positively junior varsity. I’m just not that exciting. Basic sex excites me enough.

It seemed every hour my thoughts were flooded with images of us having sex, in the airplane bathroom, the warehouse, his tinted-windowed car. Maybe I could be the antidote for his years of pounding poison. Maybe I could make it all better. Maybe I could show Finn that within that crushed hollow rib cage he sings about, there is a chance to feel again.

Wait . . . WTF?!?!?! I had Wylie! See, this is why fantasies are wrong. Wrong! How can I let my mind go adrift and wandering like this? Too crazy. Okay . . . Hazel, I told myself.
You love Wylie
. He is the greatest guy on the face of the earth. You have built a life together. You once had lust for him like this . . . right? Yeah! I think. Yes, of course you did. I thought back to my first kisses with Wylie, Robert Doisneau–rivaling, passionate, beautiful. He’d cooked me dinner and walked me to get a taxi home. He’d gallantly flagged one for me and we high-fived over the score of a coveted van cab. And then after he’d opened the door, he took my hand and pulled me into him, kissing me so softly and deftly, it was as if I’d never been kissed. The ghosts of all boyfriends past faded into the black hours of the early morning with that kiss. Our tongues sweetly searched each other’s as I put my arms around him and squeezed him, my fingers searching his hair dotingly as he parted, panting and aglow.

But there was Finn, walking in stage left. Out of nowhere, I fantasized we were in the warehouse again, but this time, I’d push him against the wall and kiss him, pulling off his jacket and running my hands down his back. I’d make love to him like in his song, lovingly and violently, his words and notes throbbing in my ears, my entire body awakened in a desire for him that was so intense it clouded my every thought. The plane’s takeoff? Didn’t notice. Some turbulence? Who cares. I used to wish to hasten each painful step of travel, the grody food placed in front of us, the clearing of said food, the dumbass
Mighty Ducks 4
crap that played on the screens. I would flip through
SkyMall
or do a stupid in-flight magazine crossword, anything anything to make this time go faster. But not this time. I stared at the hideous airplane fabric upholstery on the seat in front of me as I zoned into a reverie of Finn. What I would do to him. What I’d give up this time. If he’d have me. We had connected, even just in unspeakable chemistry . . . or was it in my head? It felt real when he held my hand momentarily. I could perhaps pull it off. How far we’d get I had no idea, but my crush on him was so intense I hoped I could at the very least scratch the itch once. To know what it was like to taste him, run my hands down his ribs, through his black hair. I knew from how his body racked with fierce breaths in something so tame as a song that in sex he would positively destroy the mattress, feathers afloat from his animalistic quest for pleasure. I ran my hand down my neck, dreaming it was his palm on my veins, his fingers walking their way to my head. I got chills from my hallucination. I felt the chill turn to a hot flash, which surged through my whole body, knowing I was fired up more by the illusion of Finn on top of me than I ever had been in real life. Maybe I couldn’t handle a guy like him. Maybe I’d melt into a puddle to be spatula’d off the cement floor. Whatever the reality may bring, I clung to my closed-eyed reveries. So much so that I could barely handle deplaning, baggage claim, and navigating arrivals terminal hell, not because of the hordes or the racket but because it all required my eyes to be open. Thank god for the time change, which catapulted me into night as I hit New York and the lights of JFK. When the wheels hit the tarmac I officially realized I was a mess. In Los Angeles, my moral elasticity was like when you overspend in Monopoly—it was a game, so who cares? But now I was home. In “real life.” In my territory. In the streets I’d walked with my boyfriend and love. And yet . . . I couldn’t wait to get in bed just so I could lie down and not have to face the glaring light of day and the realities it held. The only place I wanted to go was fetal position in my bed. Under the covers, secure and cozy with my reveries. Seventh row center in the movie theater within my head. Watching the film that starred Finn and me.

I got home to find some supper waiting for me in the fridge with a cute note from Wy, who was cooking for a client that night. I felt a twinge of guilt as I looked at his adorable handwriting, the hand that felt familiar from years of Post-its on nights of missed intersections when he’d leave to cater a dinner before I came home. Dear heart.

Before flopping on my bed, I went to take a shower, and when I emerged, I quickly glanced at my phone. My pulse pounded with three little words:
New. Text. Message:
“Wanted to make sure you got home safe, little witch.” Bingo. Somehow my moral compass quivered, as if clutched by a magnetic schizo seizure, like
War of the Worlds
. All the warm feelings engendered by Wy’s Tupperware’d meal and precious note were somehow eclipsed by Finn’s soul-searing check-in. My quiet inner-cinematographer gulped. Action.

Chapter 17

A restaurant is a fantasy—a kind of living fantasy in which diners are the most important members of the cast.

—Warner LeRoy

T
he next day I woke up and got dressed for work, tiptoeing to let Wylie sleep, but then wanted to have some form of communication that didn’t involve a pen.

“Babe?” I whispered gently in his slumbering ear. “Babe, I’m leaving for work. I loved my scallion pancakes and smoked salmon, honeykins, thank you.”

I could tell by his comatose state that he must’ve come in really late. I was just about to back away slowly when I heard him mutter two virtually unintelligible whispered words: “human blanket.”

I was almost at the door and frankly a bit warm in my jacket, but I obliged, per our tradition. I lay down on top of him and smashed him into the Tempur-Pedic. We always did it when we were not overlapping in waking hours and if one had to sneak off, we’d always at least stop for a human blanket.

“Ahhhhhhh, my FAVORITE,” he said, this time clearer.

“Hi, Wyliekins.”

“Hi,” he said, eyes still closed. “Wait, lemme look at you, Velcro.”

He rolled over and opened his big brown peepers. He really was James Franco–esque. “Beautiful girl,” he said, drunk on fatigue. “Welcome home.”

We sometimes called each other Velcro ’cause when we had started dating we literally would stay adhered to each other in bed Sunday mornings until our tummies were growling so much we had to get up to eat.

I smiled and patted his head on the down pillow.

“Missed you.”

“You didn’t check in enough,” he said, not accusatorily but kind of needily.

I exhaled. “Babe, I was crazed. You know you were never not with me.” Lies.

“Haze, you’re my family,” he said.

Fuck. Pang of guilt scissored my guts, but at the same time a tsunami of claustrophobia crashed over me.

“Shoot, honey, I have to go, I’m late.” I leaned over and kissed his forehead. “I love you.”

“Love you so.”

I walked out and when I got in the street, after fishing my MetroCard out of my messenger bag, my first order of business was a phone check.

Nuthin.

Fuck!

Before crashing, I had texted back “How chivalrous . . . here safe and sound xoH,” which ever-so-slightly upped the flirtation ante with the casual insertion of kiss/hug, but it was benign and common in my e-mails to everyone; it was so routine I literally wrote it to my Poland Spring delivery service guy. For some reason I started to panic when there was no sign of life. Wait . . . was I totally delusional?! I was A NOBODY AND HE WAS A GRAMMY-WINNING quote unquote “RECORDING ARTIST.” Was I just some insane dysmorphic freak who was so swept up in fantasy she couldn’t get a grip? Oh my god . . . was I like those fat people who line up for model-search auditions? Shit.

I walked to the station and hopped on the L train to Brooklyn, got my morning iced coffee at Blue Bottle in Williamsburg, which Noah also frequented, though he rather grossly announced he doesn’t take his first sip until he sees the front door of the office because if he so much as sniffs it he can feel the intestines a-chuggin’. Nice. Basically it’s the equivalent of Roto-Rooter for humans. Also known as the SNL fauxmercial sketch ColonBlow. I walked to the office and arrived early enough that most of my colleagues hadn’t yet cruised in on their skateboards, motorcycles, Segways, or some other mildly alternative mode of transport.

I sat down at my desk, and while I was catching up on all the e-mails I’d blown off in California my phone buzzed.

“Guess what my 1st thought of the day was?” read the text. Finn!

“What?” I wrote back.

“Menu item #1 for Topless Tapas. QuesaDDillas.”

I howled at my desk as people started to meander in.

“GENIUS.”

Fuck, I loved him. I was texting with a fucking ROCK STAR. Okay . . . I rubbed my hands together mentally, gotta add to the game here. Lightbulb.

“Chips platter: I’m Nacho Bitch.”

I waited for his response.

Shwing!

“LOL!!!!!!!” he replied.

“Haze, whatcha got?” Noah asked, entering in his normal Tasmanian devil flurry. “Brad, Mike, Severin, Paco, conference room.” He walked by all of us, and we obediently rose from our various areas, following him to the all-glass-and-steel room overlooking the river.

“Boss in—gotta bolt, more in a bit,” I texted Finn.

We went into the room, each plopping on a sleekly designed-yet-ergonomically correct three-thousand-dollar-but-doesn’t-look-it swivel chair Noah had had flown in from Copenhagen.

“How was California?” Noah asked as everyone took their seats.

“Insane,” I pronounced. “I’m glad you’re all sitting down. ’Cause you’re gonna faint.”

I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, what can I say?

“Out with it!” Sev demanded.

I began with a description of my harrowing yet heavenly flight. The barf, the comfort, the convo, and the denouement at LAX.

My office mates were literally on the edge of the $3,000 ergonomic seats Noah had proffered after his yogi touted their praises.

“He’s literally obsessed with our stuff. He plays it all the time at home and on the road with his band and he freaked when I said we were doing our launch in L.A. this time. And when I said I was touring raw spaces downtown he offered me his building.”

“Just like that?” Paco asked, incredulous.

“Just like that,” I gloated. “And at no charge.”

“Finn Schiller has a building?” Mike asked. “Why?”

“I don’t know. Real estate investment, maybe potential empire headquarters for The Void empire? The point is, it’s ours. And it rocks.”

“No way he wants no dough,” Noah probed, leaning back in his chair.

“Goose egg. Gratis,” I said, hand raised, as if in a witness booth. “All he wants is to bring a few friends.”

“Wait a second . . . are you saying he’d come?!” Sev asked, mouth agape.

“Holy shit!” Noah beamed. “Good going, Haze! I’m so psyched you puked your little brains out! That’s for taking one for the team.”

He leaned across the conference table and high-fived me.

We went over other logistics and the meeting wrapped with a huge pat on the back for yours truly.

After a flurry of editor phone calls and fine-tuning a press release, my phone buzzed with a text.

“Chicken Flautata’s.”

I giggled in my chair. My creative juices were flowing. My turn.

“Enchilaaaahhhhdas.”

I went back to my computer until he TM’d me again a half hour later “for our COCKtail menu: Tres Equis beer XXX.”

I was pulled into a meeting with the design department, but as they showed me options, my wheels were turning.

“Shimmychangas” I surreptitiously sent him under the table.

I went to lunch with Brad, who actually was a sick guitar player in his own right, and snuck a couple peeks at my phone.

The first was another addition to our cocktails (“SINgria”) and then the next made my heart skip a beat. “What date are you coming back, bewitching girl?”

“What’s wrong?” Brad asked as he saw my eyes widen into saucers.

“Oh, uh, nothing. Let’s go back to the office.”

I called my sister, asking if I could come up and see my nieces and have a much-needed drink, I had deets to download and craved her advice.

“Anytime,” she said, almost begging. “You know the corkscrew hits the pinot noir the second the door closes behind my nanny.”

I texted back Finn with the dates for my next trip, plus one more for good measure (Sopa de Whoretilla—not my best, I know), and within minutes he wrote back that we would have dinner that night. Then another buzz.

“And I’d love to scoop you up from LAX if you don’t have a ride.”

I was breathless. I thought I was going to explode. Because of his text flurry, including what he was up to and the weather there, my day flew by. Work was actually a blast, and because he was so into what we were doing at Badass, suddenly, so was I. It was like he renewed my vigor for what I do every day, just when it was getting monotonous.