Hawk and Dove (Rock Star Romance Novel) (3 page)

“Just scowl at Mitch a lot onstage,” she suggests, “That’ll
throw people off.”

“I might not be able to help it, if he keeps up his
whining,” I tell her.

“I bet things will be OK when you get down there.”

“Yeah...I bet.”

We lapse into silence, staring out toward the hilly horizon,
each wondering what the next week might hold.

Chapter Two

Something heavy smashes against the rickety door separating
the tiny kitchen from the rest of the tour bus. Tipsy cheers rise up from the
main cabin—my band mates have started power hour without me, what a bunch of dicks.
And I’m stuck back here giving my ten thousandth interview to some first-time
music journalist who hasn’t gone ten words without saying “um” since she’s
arrived. At least she's got a nice rack.

“What was that?” squeaks the mousy girl sitting across from
me.

I shrug, turning my gaze away from her. “Just the usual,” I
say, “Probably a bottle of tequila. We have plenty of those to spare.”

“Is your band always this...um...destructive?” she asks.

I scoff and turn back to face her. She’s practically trembling
with nerves. Usually, that kind of thing turns me on—the feigned reluctance,
wilting flower thing, but this girl does not wear it well. She actually dressed
up in a power suit to come meet me. A power suit.

“My band is a force of nature,” I grin, “They’re as
destructive as they feel like being, whenever they feel like it.”

“That must make traveling like this difficult,” she
ventures.

Another loud crash rings out from beyond the barrier. I
smile, silently thanking the guys for their impeccable comedic timing. “You’re
assuming that we’re trying to abide by anyone’s rules,” I say to the girl. I’m
laying on the bad boy thing thick. Reporters don’t know what to do with me when
I’m not acting like a caricature of a rock and roller. I’ve long since given up
on being up front with these people. Instead, I try and feed them a couple of
good lines and get them on their way as quickly as possible. And I can tell
that this one is starting to wear thin.

“Um. Mr. Parker,” she starts.

“Trent,” I say, leaning forward with my best screw-it-all
smile, “You can just call me Trent.”

“Um. OK, Trent,” she says, her eyes widening in her already
narrow face. “Why did you decide to play at the Hawk and Dove festival this
year? You usually steer clear of things like this, don’t you?”

“What kinds of things do you mean?” I ask, giving her a very
obvious once-over. I can feel her shiver from three feet away. “You mean
commercial pig sties brimming with rich hipster kids with poor taste in music
and even worse taste in beer?”

“Sure, yes that.” the girl says softly.

“Well, what can I say,” I smile, “The money’s great.” Before
she can leap in with a follow up, I hold up my hands and go on, “I’m kidding,
of course. Look, any chance to perform is one that the guys and I are going to
take. And this whole festival needs a few more hawks and a few less doves, if
you ask me.”

“Fewer,” she mutters.

“What?”

“It’s fewer doves, not less,” she says, picking her chin up
bravely.

“Aha,” I say, “Your journalistic balls have finally dropped,
I see. Care to ask me a few real questions, now that you’ve arrived?”

She clears her throat and begins, “You call the Hawk and
Dove festival commercial, but compared to your recent behavior with regard to
touring and merchandising, they’re practically a charity. Wouldn’t you say that
you’ve become a commercial commodity yourself, rather than the more independent
artist you once were?”

“Coming out swinging I see,” I say, nodding with approval,
“I like that. As it happens, Lindsay, I’m not—”

“Lucy,” she interjects, “My name is Lucy.”

“Right,” I say, waving away her interruption, “Anyone who
says that they’re not hoping to make a little cash as a musician is just lying
through his teeth. Their teeth? Whatever. My guys and I have hit the jackpot
with our popularity. So, yeah, we’re playing all the concerts we can, selling
all the albums. So there are tee shirts out there with my face on them. So
what? I still sleep perfectly sound at night.”

“Do you think that you’ve lost any fans, as you’ve become
more mainstream?” the reporter asks.

“What do you think?” I shoot back.

“I...I think...” she stutters, “Well, yes. I know that some
of my friends who were fans during your early years no longer think you
represent the core values of rock and roll.”

“Oh, please,” I groan, “What core values? Rock is not a
moral code. It’s the negative space of one. It’s not a prescriptive movement,
it’s how you choose to interpret it.” Lucy’s scribbling down my words like a
maniac, and I heave a heavy sigh. “Scratch all that out,” I tell her.

“What?” she says, looking baffled, “But that was all
brilliant! Why—?”

“Scratch it out,” I tell her again. That was all far too
heady for the blogosphere. I have to watch myself during these interviews, make
sure that I’m staying on message. Jesus...In ten years, I’ll have so much
experience with bullshit politics, I’ll be able to run for president.

The tour bus slows to a crawl in front of a rundown motel.
We’re dropping off Nancy Drew here and heading on into Kansas tonight. The door
separating us from the rest of the bus swings open, and my manager Kelly peers
in at us. She’s all teeth and pep, just like she always is for the press.

“Here’s your stop!” Kelly trills to the reporter.

“Right,” Lucy says, standing up awkwardly, “Thank you for
speaking with me, Mr. Parker.”

“Trent,” I remind her again, “For God’s sake, just Trent.”

She nods quickly and hurries away. I watch her step over
broken glass and brimming ashtrays, ignoring the cat calls of my band mates.
The engine revs back to life as the little lady makes her way across the
parking lot and disappears into the hotel. The second that the revolving door
has swallowed Lucy up, Kelly turns to me, her features crumpled into a cynical,
bad-tempered scowl.

“What the hell was she wearing?” Kelly asks, “God. Do you
think they sent us an intern or something? Remind me not to take any more
interviews from them.”

“You got it, Boss,” I say, watching the hotel disappear
behind us.

“Well, how did it go?” Kelly demands, crossing her skinny
arms in front of her chest. I let my eyes linger on her fine body, wondering as
I always do why Kelly doesn’t have any effect on me. By all rights, she should
leave me in a puddle every time she walks by. She’s tall, lean, with a
surgically perfected rack and blonde curls as far as the eye can see. Maybe I
just know her too well to be attracted to her. It’s a pity...I bet she’d be a
good, angry fuck.

“It went fine,” I tell her, “The usual. I was hoping to have
a little more fun with the girl.”

“That girl?” Kelly asks.

“Not that kind of fun,” I tell her, “The cat with a mouse
kind of fun.”

“Well, preserve your energy,” Kelly tells me, “We’ll be
there soon, and then the festivities can really kick off.”

“You sound thrilled,” I say sarcastically.

“Well, this is a royal waste of our time,” she says,
exasperated.

We’ve had this argument many times before.

Kelly had no interest in taking this little field trip down
to Kansas, but I held out. Whatever I might have to say in front of the press,
I’ve honestly just been craving a good stretch of days filled with nothing but
booze, food, and some excellent bud. We’ve been touring like lunatics promoting
our latest album, and because I’m technically a solo act with a backing band, I
end up doing all the press crap myself. But for these seven beautiful days, I
don’t have to worry about any of that. No interviews, no signings—nothing but a
few excellent shows and the clean country air.

I’ve secretly been looking forward to this for months,
though my manager would rake me over the coals if I admitted that I’m dragging
us all down to Kansas for the sake of my own peace of mind. Half the time it
seems like Kelly’s job is making me happy, the other half I just feel like a
whipping boy. Anyone who says that being a good ol' fashioned rock star isn’t
as much of a pain in the ass as any other job is selling you something.

I never thought I’d have the chance to learn that little
lesson first hand. Growing up, rock stars were pretty much on par with
astronauts and circus clowns—cool guys with jobs that were totally off limits
to even dream about. I was raised in a factory town in the Midwest, not exactly
a hotbed for creativity. Both of my parents worked long hours, longer than nine
to five on most days. So, my big brothers and I were left to entertain ourselves
most of the time. For most of us, that meant watching a lot of TV and eating
Hostess cakes by the dozen. But for me, it meant saving up my pocket change to
buy my first acoustic guitar. I bought it at a pawn shop downtown, it didn’t
even have all its strings...but it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever laid
eyes on.

I used to practice in the shed we kept in our back yard.
That was the only place on the property I could find any peace and quiet. With
three older brothers around, secrets didn’t last for long. I wanted to be good
and ready before they heard me play. We were all competitive with each other,
and I didn’t want any of them getting ideas about picking up the instrument
themselves. If I was going to play guitar, I was going to be the best at it. So,
I kept practicing and practicing, straight through junior high. When I got to
high school, I grabbed some buddies by the scruffs of the neck and forced them
to be in a band with me. We signed up for a talent night at a local pub, and I
invited my family to come see me play.

A little cringe seizes me as the memory of that night
unfolds in my mind’s eye. I was fourteen years old, and out of my mind with
nerves over playing in front of a whopping ten people. The two kids I’d forced
into my band were on the verge of puking, or wetting themselves, or both. We
were not what you might call a class act. But when the poor bartender who was
forced into emcee duty that night called out our band’s name—Raptor Flesh—we
trudged onto the stage like good little soldiers.

And as the hazy stage lights hit my face, something snapped
into place inside of me. I knew what to do, instinctively. I greeted the crowd,
feeling a foreign confidence holding me up. I could feel exactly what the
audience needed in order to get excited. I could get a laugh, I could get a
moment of silence. I had control. I led our little trio through the one song
we’d picked out for the occasion: Nirvana’s “Lithium”. (We were babies of the
eighties, after all). The song moved through me, through my guitar, and out
into the smoky dimness of the bar.

We raced through the ending, the other two kids struggling
to keep up with me. I knew we hadn’t sounded perfect, and I didn’t much care. I
smiled out into the bar and saw four faces looking up at me in baffled,
impressed silence. My mom and four brothers rushed the stage, yelling over each
other about how great I’d been. Through their embracing arms, I could see my
dad checking his watch. He walked over to our happy group and announced that it
was time to head home—he was missing the game already.

My parents never hit me. We were poor, but not destitute. I
have all four limbs, all five senses, and a career people dream about, but it’s
never really felt like enough. From that night on, I’ve been single-minded, obsessed
with my music. I practiced until my fingers bled and calloused, said “no thank
you” to college so that I could focus on my next move. I left that tiny town in
the middle of the country and moved to LA, along with what felt like half my
generation. And that’s when it all started to work out.

I was eighteen when I moved to California, fresh out of high
school. I had about two thousand dollars to my name, and a good half of it was
gone when I rented my first apartment. But I can still remember sitting in that
empty apartment, my first night in LA, beaming into the darkness. I don’t think
I’ve ever been happier in my life. Part of me thinks that I’d be better off
giving all my money away, and throwing myself back into the rat race. But
there’s no way to rewind the past seven years. No way to quit.

Even if I could take myself out of the spotlight—retire, or
whatever—I’d never make it back to that place of happiness that I found alone
in a bare apartment in LA at the ripe old age of eighteen. I’ll never be able
to feel that optimism, or that star struck hope again. I’m only twenty-five,
but you see a lot of the world as a musician. You start to realize that people
are the same everywhere, that just about anyone you think you can trust will
sell you for a hundred bucks and a pack of cigarettes. Sometimes I wish I could
even go back further—never play that talent show, never see the blank look on
my dad’s face afterward. I could work in the factory now, like him. Or tend
bar. Or do any number of normal, comfortable things. I’ve got all the money in
the world, and none of it will buy me a moment’s peace.

“You OK?” Kelly asks, snapping me back to reality.

“What?” I ask, shaking my head. My father’s eyes still
linger, just behind mine.