It would probably be a wonderful place to stay if the aged wood walls didn’t feel like they were about to burst from the pressure of containing the earsplitting cacophony of a tight knit cult. God they are loud, and they feel like so much more than ten people. I really hate that Alan brought me here.
“At last the band is together again,” Len Rowan announces, and Alan instantly becomes the focal point of the room among a dazzling display of exuberant hugs and vacant pleasantries.
Alan stays at my side, his hand tightening its hold on me, and no one really looks at me except to give a fast greeting or smile in a move-on-quickly sort of way. It’s unnerving. Something has changed. My standing with these people has changed and it has made them less openly rude and more standoffish. Interesting.
I glance at Linda, and she winks as if in reassurance, her eyes bright and wide. Before I can say anything to her, Alan steps deeper into the center of the room, pulling me with him. The rapid voices swirl all around him as I step out of his hold to remove my jacket, and it’s then that I notice he has that expression again, dominant and aloof and tired of them all.
The strange undercurrent in the room isn’t just about me, part of it is about Alan. I get an internal warning that this little adventure could go either way, peacefully or a total shitstorm. What the heck is happening here?
“Oh my god, Chrissie, where did you get those?” Linda says, her piercing voice punching through the loudness of the room. “They are vintage and I absolutely love them.”
I flush. I’d forgotten about the out-of-style 1970s overalls underneath the jacket, and I am in a room of girls dressed in expensive, provocative chic. Good one, Linda. Now all the wives are looking at me.
When I turn to hand Linda my jacket, I realize she is sincere and she really does like the darn thing. She grabs me by the hand and pulls me toward the kitchen. “Do you want a glass of wine or something? Dinner is almost ready. Don’t believe that nonsense about Jewish women not being able to cook. I’m an excellent cook.”
As she pushes through the swinging door, I note that whatever is cooking in the kitchen does smell delicious.
Once the door swings closed behind us the chatter stops, she turns to stare at me, and her lively eyes are alertly searching. “Are you OK?”
The way she says that tells me it’s not a casual question and that she’s been worried about me.
I nod. “I’m fine. We talked. It’s good.”
Linda slams open the oven door and shakes her head. “I’ve never seen Manny like he was when he realized you’d left. At first I thought it was just ego. Girls just don’t walk out on Manny…” Linda lifts her brows with heavy meaning. “…And then I realized it was something more. He was frantic, he was going to bail right then in the middle of the party to go after you until Len stopped him. That’s when I knew he must have done something pretty fucked up with that temper of his.”
Frantic? Alan is many things, but he is never frantic. Surely, Linda is exaggerating.
She straightens up and leans back against the counter. “And then when the last of the party cleared out, the fireworks. Oh, Chrissie, you missed one hell of an explosion. Kenny made some stupid comment—nothing new for him, by the way—and then boom. I’ve never seen the five of them fight so badly. I thought, this is it. They are over.”
She starts to lift lids from pots to give each an aggressive stir—something that looks like rice and chorizo and cheese, Mexican style refried beans, some kind of spicy red sauce, and if I’m not mistaken, those are enchiladas I smell in the oven. I never expected to find traditional California Mexican cuisine cooking in the kitchen, and then I remember Linda is from LA.
She pushes a glass of wine into my hand. “Then the shitstorm of press started. That’s when things got really interesting.” She turns to pour herself another margarita. “I don’t have to tell you that this is a pretty paranoid group of guys. Every one of them just waiting for the day Manny walks out on the band. You wouldn’t believe some of the shit I’ve heard out of them since he landed in New York with you.”
She shakes her head and takes a hefty sip of her Margarita. “Manny’s drama, exhausting, and then all the strangeness suddenly makes sense. Why he was so secretive and shit after he returned to New York. And so careful about keeping everyone away. You’re Jackson Parker’s daughter and Manny was delusional enough to think he could keep you out of the eye of the tabloid hurricane. Mr. Fucked Up British Superstar with the daughter of an American Icon. Yeah, right? Like that was ever going to happen.”
Oh shit. I’ve somehow managed not to think about this the last twenty-four hours. Do I have hours, days or weeks before I have my own shitstorm to face with Jack?
“How much print has there been? Is it awful?” I ask in dread.
“Nothing much yet, but its coming. There is no way to stop it. And it’s going to be a lot and it’s going to be ugly. Manny’s made a fortune kicking up black tar ink. The tabloids live for this shit. So now the paranoid lot out there in the living room doesn’t know what to be paranoid about, and the tabloids are picking out your wedding dress.”
Linda starts pulling out blue-edged plates from a glass front whitewashed cabinet.
“So was Manny really just in California with you the entire five months after Rehab?” she asks with a hint of irritation.
I sputter into my wine. Oh shit, he is lying to them and I don’t know what that means or what I should do here.
“Well?” she demands.
“He was in California the entire five months,” I reply with awkward, truthful diversion.
Her eyes narrow on me. “Why didn’t you tell me you were Jack’s girl, and all this drama was just to keep the two of you hush-hush? It really hurts that you guys didn’t trust me.”
I sigh and stare off into space, that last question not even worth making an effort to construct a lie in response. I’ve got my own problems here and Linda, succinctly, with the speed of a machine gun, made sure I’m reminded of each one: a tabloid bloodletting en route to me; a pissed off Jack eventually en route to me; Alan’s confusing never-ending drama…oh, and the album, Chrissie, don’t forget the album…and all the things in me that I have to work through when I get home, within my perfectly fucked up life that I just fucked up even more.
Linda points to a drawer. “Can you start pulling the silverware out for me?”
I start to slam knives and forks on the wood block counter.
It’s funny how delusional you can be when you want to do something you know you shouldn’t. How could I have ever thought that Alan would be someone who just quietly passed through my life privately? There isn’t a single thing Alan does that is ever private. I’m delusional. How the heck did I get so deep into a hole so quickly?
“You don’t have to murder the flatware, Chrissie, just because everything is fucked. That’s pretty much SOP.”
Humor has returned to Linda’s voice. I wish I had her emotional dexterity, but then Linda has existed for a very long time in Alan’s epic universe.
Linda slams open the wood shutters above the splash counter and begins to lay out heat mats for the pans.
I stare out into the living room at Alan. He is relaxed in a chair, laughing, long limbs in front of him, disheveled dark hair, shimmering black eyes, an unrelenting centerpiece in any setting, almost too perfect to be real. I jumped into the hole willingly. I wanted to, and I want him.
But wanting him doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t be nice if having him didn’t involve all the rest of the complicated shit, if it were something even slightly approaching normal and familiar. A month ago I didn’t even have a boyfriend. How quickly I’ve been swallowed up by Alan and his world. Why does it feel like I’ve jumped a track in my life, that I am speeding on a road where I can’t see where I’m going? Alan and I are just a temporary thing. Why doesn’t it feel temporary?