Coming Home (27 page)

Casey wore a laminated tag hanging around her neck that identified
her as a member of the crew and allowed her the run of every facility they
played.  As soon as the boys hit the stage, the first thing she did was sprint
out front and check out the crowd.  There were never more than a handful of
empty seats.  Night after night, she stood at the back of some darkened
auditorium, arms folded across her chest, listening to the weeping, the
yelling, the screaming that was so loud it drowned out the music.  And night
after night, she wondered just where, and how far, this merry-go-round ride
would take them.

There was one place it definitely didn’t take them.  They came
home only four times in twelve months, and during those rare visits, New York
no longer felt like home.  They’d been so busy working on the album that they’d
never really gotten settled into the new apartment.  A year after the move,
boxes were still piled in corners.  Rob was still sleeping on the couch, and
she hadn’t yet unearthed Mama’s antique china.  The new Mustang sat in storage,
gathering dust, and during the first three-month stint on the road, all her
houseplants died.

They were in a hotel room in Buffalo when they got the news.  Rob
nearly pounded the door down in his enthusiasm.  “Wake up, children,” he said. 
“Santa Claus has just arrived.”

Grumbling, Danny crawled out of bed and went to the
door.  “This had better be good,” he said.

Rob waltzed in, newspaper in hand, and plunked down heavily on the
foot of the bed.  With one hand, he shook Casey’s hip.  “You might want to be
awake for this one,” he said.

She pulled the covers over her head.  “Go away.”

“Fine,” he said, and folded up the newspaper.  “If you’re not
interested in hearing who’s been nominated for a Grammy for Song of the Year,
it’s fine with me.”

It took a moment for his words to register.  “What?” she said, her
mind fogged with sleep.  “What did you say?”

Rob stood at the foot of the bed, grinning like the Cheshire cat. 
Casey reached for the paper.  “Let me see!” she shouted.

He pulled it back out of reach.  “Oh, no, Fiore.  You wanted to
sleep instead, remember?”

“Give me the damn paper or I’ll pluck out your eyebrows, one hair
at a time!”

She snatched the paper from his hands, folded it in her lap, and
devoured the list of nominees.  And there it was, in black and white: 
Casey
Fiore and Rob MacKenzie
.  “Ohmigod,” she said.  “Ohmigod, ohmigod,
ohmigod.”

“Her eloquence,” Danny said, “is matched only by her—”

She picked up a shoe and threw it at him.  “Geez,” Rob said.  “I
don’t believe I’ve ever seen her quite this feisty.”

“I never thought this day would come,” she said.

Rob patted her knee.  “I told you it would, kiddo.  You just
didn’t believe me.”

She peered at him over the top of the newspaper.  “No,” she said. 
“I didn’t.”

“Don’t get your hopes up too high,” Danny said.  “A nomination is
just that.  It doesn’t mean you’ll win.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she told him.  “What matters is that we’ve
earned the recognition of our peers.”

Rob chucked her under the chin.  “The bus pulls out in an hour.” 
He pulled a pair of mirrored sunglasses from his pocket and put them on.  “Meet
me in the restaurant in twenty minutes,” he said, shoving the glasses up the
bridge of his nose, “and I’ll spring for breakfast.”

“If those things got any flashier,” Casey said, “they’d blind me.”

Behind the wire frames, he waggled his eyebrows.  “Just call me
Flash MacKenzie.”

“Right.  Then get your carcass out of here, Flash, so we can
shower and get dressed.”

Her heart in her throat, Casey leaned forward, fingers threaded
with Danny’s on one side, Rob’s on the other, as the presenters named the
nominees in the Song of the Year category.  She’d grown numb, her circulation
dammed, her fingers tingling, her chest aching from the need to breathe.  Danny
squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back as Elly Simmons, lead singer for the band
Crossroad, opened the envelope, glanced at it.  Smiled, leaned toward the
microphone.  “The winner of this year’s Song of the Year award is—”  She paused
dramatically, and the audience was hushed, waiting. 

“—Casey Fiore and Rob MacKenzie, for
Whisper in My Dreams
.”

All Casey’s bodily functions had ceased.  She sat there, stunned,
as the applause grew around her, and then Danny was standing to let her get by,
and Rob, tugging at her arm, bent to whisper in her ear, “Jesus Christ, Fiore,
don’t fall apart on me now.”

She plastered on a smile so wide her cheeks ached and took Rob’s
hand and somehow managed to place one foot in front of the other until she
reached the stage without falling on her face.  Elly Simmons was waiting with
the coveted award.   Casey clutched it to her with both hands, looked at it in
utter disbelief as the applause grew and then died down.  She looked out over
the sea of faces in sheer terror.  “I’m speechless,” she said aloud.  And then,
in a whisper meant for Rob’s ears alone, “Help me, Flash.”

Rob leaned forward without a trace of nervousness.  “Casey and I,”
he said into the microphone, “have been writing songs together for a long
time.  But we never thought that what started out as a way to pass a few long
winter afternoons would ever end up here.”  He looked out over the audience,
caught her hand in his and squeezed.  “And we can’t take full blame for this.”

There were a few scattered laughs.  Casey searched for Danny and
found him, told him with her eyes that she loved him, and anticipated Rob’s
next words.  “Sure, we wrote a great song,” he said.  “But a great song’s not
enough.  It takes somebody with the colossal talent of Danny Fiore to make it a
monster hit.”

The applause was wild, and Rob waited patiently for it to die down. 
“So we have to share this award with Danny, because without him, there wouldn’t
have been any
Whisper in My Dreams
.  Thank you.”  And he held her arm
aloft in a victory sign.

***

The celebration party was in full swing when she returned from the
powder room.  Danny was standing half-hidden by a potted palm, smoking a
cigarette and watching the dancers.  “Where’s Rob?” she asked.

He nodded in the direction of the buffet table, where Rob was
leaning casually against a marble column, talking animatedly to a petite, blond
goddess.  “Isn’t that Monique Lapierre?” Casey said, watching as the woman with
the blond-streaked hair tossed her head and uttered a crystalline, silvery
laugh.

Danny dropped his cigarette into the plant pot.  “
Vive la
France
,” he said dryly.

Casey caught Rob’s eye and motioned to him.  He said something to
the blond actress and then crossed the room to them.  “Hey, guys,” he said,
“tell me your hearts won’t be broken if I skip out on the celebration.”

“She’s out of your league, MacKenzie,” Danny said.  “She’ll eat
you up.”

Rob grinned.  “I can always hope.”

Casey laughed.  “You’re totally incorrigible.”

Rob kissed her cheek.  “And you love me just the way I am.  If I’m
not back in a month or two, have me declared legally dead.”  He saluted
smartly, then walked away without a backward glance.

“Well, darling,” Casey said to Danny, “I guess it’s just the two
of us.  Do you think we can find an appropriate way to celebrate?”

“I’m sure,” he said dryly, “we can think of something.”

***

“I tell you guys, this is it, this is love, this is the real
thing.”  Nibbling on a celery stick, Rob perched on a bar stool in the kitchen
of the Fiores’ new Venice Beach apartment.  Two blocks away, the Pacific Ocean
roared, and palm trees dotted the courtyard outside the window.  “This girl has
the face that launched a thousand ships,” he said.  “She’s intelligent, witty,
talented—”

“But can she cook?” Danny said.

“Who cares?  She has a house full of servants to do that stuff.”

Casey exchanged a glance with Danny.  “But, lovey, isn’t this
rather sudden?  I mean, you’ve only known her for a month.”

“And lusted after her image on the silver screen for many a
month.”

“Rob,” she said, “all we’re asking is that you give it some time. 
Don’t rush into something you might regret later.”

“Hey, I appreciate the concern.  But I’m a big boy.  I can take
care of myself.  Listen, I thought I’d bring her around this weekend.  That is,
if you don’t have other plans.”

“We’d love to have her,” Casey said.  “Come by for supper on
Saturday.”

“Thanks for letting me bend your ear.”  He kissed Casey’s cheek
and slapped Danny on the shoulder.  “See you Saturday.”

The apartment was uncomfortably silent after he’d gone.  Casey
bent over the bar next to Danny and leaned her chin on her palm.  Picking up
the celery stick Rob had discarded, she chewed on it thoughtfully.  “He’s lost
all sense of reason,” she said.

“He’s thinking with what’s between his legs, instead of what’s
between his ears.  I know.  I’ve been there.”

“What can we do?”

“Not a damn thing.  Let it run its course.  Maybe she’ll be good
for him.  We haven’t met her yet, after all.”

“I know.”  She stared glumly into space.  “I just have a bad
feeling about it.  I haven’t forgotten how the last one turned out.”

“Neither have I.  Listen, there’s something I’ve been meaning to
talk to you about.  I’ve been doing some thinking.”

She set down the celery stick.  “This sounds serious.”

He tapped his fingers absently on the bar.  “It looks as though
we’ve both launched ourselves solidly, career-wise.”

Wondering what he was getting at, she sat on the stool beside him
and rested her chin on her palm.  “And?” she said.

 “It’s probably the right time,” he said, “to buy a house.”

“A house?”  Her heart began a slow hammering.  “Are you serious?”

“Yes.  I also thought, while we’re about it—”  He paused, cleared
his throat.  “It’s probably time to start thinking about having a baby, too.”

***

Monique Lapierre waltzed through Casey’s door with the air of a
queen in the midst of the peasantry.  She eyed the new living room set with
distaste, then plunked her dainty rump down on the antique love seat.  Rob sat
stiffly beside her, and Danny attempted conversation while Casey escaped to the
kitchen to bring in the tray of
hors d’oeuvres
.  Monique looked askance
at the stuffed mushroom caps, cubed Monterey Jack, and cocktail shrimp, poked a
lacquered fingernail at a mushroom, and delicately plucked a single shrimp from
the tray.  Ignoring Casey, she presented Danny with a dazzling smile.  “Rob has
told me so much about you,” she said.

“Don’t believe a word of it,” Danny said dryly.  “It’s all a lie.”

She laughed as though he’d made a splendid joke.  She reached for
a second piece of shrimp, peeled away the shell, and held it up in front of
Rob.  “
Robert
,” she said, giving his name the French pronunciation.

Flushing, Rob ate the piece of seafood from her fingers.  She
patted his knee as though he were a particularly obedient child and said to
Danny, “Tell me, Mr. Fiore, have you ever considered a career in the movies?”

“Right now,” he said, “I’m concentrating on my singing career.  I
suppose movies might be a possibility for the future.”

“
Mais oui!
  Such a face as yours would certainly make the
young ladies flock to see your pictures.  You would be an overnight sensation. 
You could perhaps make musicals.  With my
Robert
, of course, writing the
score.”

Rob cleared his throat.  “Casey and I,” he said, “generally write
together.  We’ve been working together for years.”

“Yes, of course.  Casey,
chere
, I must have your stuffed
mushroom recipe to take home to Cook.  She’s really a horrible little woman,
but her cooking is
magnifique.
  Sometimes—”  Those limpid blue eyes took
on a faraway look.  “Sometimes I wish I’d been born with some domestic talent,
but unfortunately, it has bypassed me completely.  How fortunate you are to be
able to do your own cooking and cleaning.”  Those elegant shoulders heaved in a
thoroughly Gallic shrug.  “Good help is so difficult to find these days.”

Heat rose slowly from Casey’s chest, up her neck to her face, and
she clamped her jaw, hard.  Then Danny spilled his drink, and she ran for a wet
cloth to clean up the mess.  By the time she returned, the conversation had
drifted to other topics.  On her knees in front of Danny, she glared at him. 
“Sorry,” he said, bending until they were at eye level.  He took the cloth from
her hand and dabbed clumsily at the carpet.  And winked at her.

He joined her in the kitchen as she finished last-minute dinner
preparations. “I can’t believe him!” she fumed.  “Has he lost his mind?  The
woman is a monster!”