How to Kill a Rock Star (17 page)

Please. Just put me out of my misery.”

“Gimme a gun,” Angelo grumbled.

“Chump,” Queenie said.

Vera threw ice at Paul’s head. I rubbed his arm and said,

“Don’t be gay. This is going to be fun.” We were on our way to a Labor Day picnic at Mr.

Winkle’s East Hampton compound. Winkle had cal ed Feldman personal y to make sure the band would make an appearance. He even sent the limo to pick them up.

Although according to Paul, Winkle made it sound like a job requirement, not an invitation, emphasizing that there would be press there.

“Basical y, the guy ordered us to come,” Paul said. “Who
does
that? Who
orders
people to a party?” Feldman didn’t agree. He considered the attention monumental. “Winkle’s putting a lot of eggs in the Bananafish basket.”

“Mother-of-Pearl,” Vera said when we arrived at the gated entrance and started up the long, paved driveway to the stately Georgian mansion.

“I’ve died and gone to hel ,” Paul said.

Before we got out of the car, Burke commented that the driveway looked like the yel ow brick road to Oz.

“Yeah,” Paul said. “Oz in Hel .”

Paul stepped onto the lawn and looked around in disgust.

“It’s a goddamn heathen-and-pagan festival.” There were at least three hundred people at the party, including numerous famous “heathens and pagans” I recognized right away, along with what Vera described as “the typical Hamptons crowd”—people who looked like they were about to either play or watch Polo.

“These are the same boneheads who used to come to al my events,” Vera said, referring to her former job in the nonprofit world. She pointed to a bejeweled woman slipping forks into her handbag. “See? Al the money in the world and they
steal
things. Winkle should have a guard checking bags on the way out.”

Winkle’s backyard was huge. There was a tennis court to the right of the patio, adjacent to the spot where a white, Barnum & Bailey-sized tent was set up, under which numerous buffets sat. And the lawn was overpopulated by round tables decorated with crisp linens and floral arrangements fil ed with voluptuous purple flowers. It looked more like a debutante’s wedding reception than the Labor Day festivities of a music mogul.

Despite copious bars set up at various strategic locations
14inside and out, a perky waitress popped up to take drink orders the minute we stepped foot on the grass.

“Shit,” Paul said, squeezing my hand. “Here comes Winkle.”

I watched the man move across the lawn at a perfectly calculated, I-Am-the-Boss speed, as if he were on a public relations conveyor belt. His appearance surprised me. The way Paul talked about the guy, I’d expected a gargoyle. But Winkle had a friendly, working-class face. He looked like the lead singer of Styx during the
Kilroy Was Here
phase. And even though his eyebrows were white and bushy, he was younger than I’d imagined. Forty-five, tops.

Mrs. Winkle, donning a hat that seemed to have been designed to match the centerpieces on the tables, fel in line beside her husband and feigned knowing who the band was when Feldman announced them as Bananafish.

“Fol ow me,” Winkle told Paul and the Michaels. “There are people here you need to meet.”

In my ear, Paul whispered, “If we’re not back by dark, cal in the National Guard.”

The band trailed Winkle into the house a moment before the perky waitress returned with al the drinks. She appeared unglued about what to do with the orphaned glasses on her tray.

“Give them to me,” Queenie said, lifting the tray right off the waitress’s arm.

I took my water-fil ed martini goblet, and as Queenie went to distribute libations to Paul and the Michaels, Vera and I made our way to the food tent, stopping at the end of the shortest line, behind a couple of men who were having an amicable dispute about which Doug Blackman record contained a song cal ed “The Landscape You Made Me.”

“It’s on
Speaking Without Words
,” a guy with thinning hair and a bulbous chin said as he scooped a heap of gourmet potato salad onto his plate.

The other guy, who was tal , had thick, shiny hair the color of bronze in the sun, and whose back was to me, mumbled, “
Lay This Burden Down
.”

The shiny-haired guy was right. As sure as I know my name, I know “The Landscape You Made Me” is the third track on
Lay This Burden Down
.

“I don’t care who you are, you’re wrong,” the big-chinned guy said. “While you were off in your oblivious little Brit-punk world, jacking off to the Clash, I was living and breathing Doug Blackman.”

“I’l bet you a grand,” the shiny-haired guy said to his friend.

“Make it two and it’s a deal.”

They sealed the pact by setting down their plates, maneuvering their drinks into their left hands, and then shaking with their rights.

Vera nudged me. She wanted me to set the guys straight.

Shrugging, I tapped Mr. Shiny Hair on the shoulder and said, “If you promise to split half the cash with me, I can settle—”

“Whoa.
Hi
there,” Vera said as soon as the guy turned around.

Like Vera, I recognized Loring Blackman immediately.

Not just as Doug’s oldest son, but as the man whose most recent record,
Rusted
—a gut-wrenching rhapsody about the breakup of his five-year marriage—happened to have been one of the biggest success stories of the last year, making its way into the number one album slot amidst the heathens and pagans, where it remained for four weeks straight.

It was hard not to notice Loring Blackman. His features were flawlessly proportioned and made complete aesthetic sense, as if a sculptor had used mathematical equations to calculate the ideal placement of eyes, nose, and mouth. He was the kind of man I would have normal y referred to How to Kil _internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 144

14derogatorily as “clinical y good-looking,” but there was something about him that enabled me to see beyond his handsomeness—he seemed to wear it like a burden; it often overshadowed his music, garnered him just as much attention as his famous father, and I could tel by the mortified expression on his face after Vera’s greeting that he considered it to be nothing short of a curse.

The blond guy stepped in front of Loring. “What do you two know about Doug Blackman? You’re girls.”

“Thanks for noticing,” Vera said.

“I have to pee,” I whispered to her.

Shaking his head, Loring turned toward me and muttered, “Don’t pay attention to Tab. He just spent the better part of the year on the road and what few social graces he had are long gone.”

Loring’s voice was deep and he spoke so quietly I had to take a step forward to hear him.

“What are you implying?” Vera asked Tab, helping herself to two slices of watermelon, handing one to me. “Girls aren’t al owed to like Doug Blackman?”

“Cal me sexist,” Tab said. “But Doug’s a man’s man.

Women just don’t understand that kind of pain.”

“
Ha
,” I said.

Loring smiled at me. Tab said, “Are you a musician? If not, then you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“She
writes
about music,” Vera announced.

Loring asked me who I wrote for but I just shrugged. I knew
Sonica
was on his shit list. The needle dick who wrote the review of Loring’s record tore it apart by comparing every one of his songs to one of his father’s, proclaiming that he was nothing but a poor imitation of the master. Then Lucy Enfield added insult to injury by having the nerve to bombard Loring with numerous requests for a cover story once he hit number one. After enduring months of her begging, he wrote her a wry letter declaring, in no uncertain terms, that he wouldn’t grant an interview to
Sonica
if his life depended on it.

Tab lurched toward me and began playing with the fringe on the scarf I had around my neck. “Who are you, the president of the Doug Blackman fan club?” Tab’s chin had a deep cleft, reminding me of a butt, and I had to make an effort not to laugh at it.

“Trust me,” I said, yanking the scarf out of his hand and then looking at Loring, thinking he might back me up while I sparred with his friend. But as soon as our eyes met, Loring glanced down at the untouched tomato, basil, and mozzarel a salad on his plate, and I categorized him as shy to the point of being backward.

“You gotta give me better proof than that,” Tab said.

Vera picked up a cube of cheese, plopped it in her mouth, and said, “Hmm. Coke? Pepsi? Oh, sorry,
Tab
—I happen to know that my friend here was listening to that record the first time she had sex. Trust me, a girl’s not going to forget a thing like that.”

“
Vera
.”

Tab bit the side of his cheek, causing his butt-chin to shoot out even farther as he nodded with a newfound affection for his adversary. “You know,”

he told Vera, “if you ix-naed the glasses, you’d be hot. In a math teacher sorta way.

And I think you’ve convinced me.” He elbowed Loring. “She convince you, Lori?”

Loring was stil staring at his tomato. “I didn’t need convincing.”

I was about to pee my pants. As graceful y as possible, I spit two watermelon seeds onto the lawn and started dragging Vera away.

“Mother-of-Pearl,” Vera said as we entered the house.

“What a face on that guy. Whew. Can you say
hottie
?”
14After I peed, it took me five minutes to find Paul in the crowd. When I spotted him he was making his way to the gazebo, shouting: “Samuel goddamn Langhorne!” He was addressing Loring, who looked up and squinted, visibly trying to place the face in front of him.

“Hudson?” Loring final y said, wiping off his hand and extending it out to Paul. “I’l be damned.” The two men greeted each other like long lost war buddies. Paul congratulated Loring on his recent success and Loring dismissed the applause, seemingly more interested in what was happening with Paul’s career.

“
You’re
Bananafish?” Loring said. “No kidding, there’s a serious buzz about you guys. The next Drones, right?” Paul rol ed his eyes and invited Loring to stop by Rings of Saturn on Saturday to judge for himself. “We’re kicking off a two-week club tour around the East Coast. It’s our last New York show until the record’s released.” I stepped up beside Paul and he said, “Ah. Here’s my betrothed.”

With a weak smile, Loring looked up and said, “Hi again.”

“You two met already?” Paul said.

“Not official y.” Loring extended his hand and introduced himself to me in a way that was humble and self-effacing.

“Eliza Caelum,” I said, straightening the bra strap that kept fal ing out from under my T-shirt. “FYI, you might want to put a leash on your friend. He tried to fol ow my sister-in-law into the bathroom.”

“Tab’s not my friend, he’s my drummer,” Loring teased.

Then his eyes spun. “Wait a second.
What
did you say your name was?”

Shit, I thought. He couldn’t possibly know.

“You work for
Sonica
, don’t you?”
I shook my head and Loring nodded, laughing. “Yes, you do. I know who you are. You’re the girl who stalked my dad in Cleveland.”

“Busted,” Paul quipped.

With his thumb, Loring pointed toward the food tent.

“Why didn’t you say anything over there?”

“I know you’re not a big
Sonica
fan.”

“Forget
Sonica
,” Loring said. “My dad told me so much about you, I feel like I know you.”

I found that virtual y impossible to believe. “Can I just say, for the record, I didn’t
stalk
him. I—” But then Mrs. Winkle came rushing over to tel Loring that her sixteen-year-old daughter wanted to have her picture taken with him. As the woman dragged the hapless rock star away, Paul yel ed, “See ya ’round, Sam!”

“Same time, next year, this could be you,” Loring said, waving as if he were going off to war.

Is a Complete

Disappointment

Loring was in trouble and he knew it. He heard the warning bel s and a voice in his head tel ing him that if he were smart, he would walk back out the door and disappear into the crowd on Houston Street.

The voice said
flee
.

It said
fool
.

Unfortunately, Tab’s voice was louder: “There she is. At the bar.”

Loring saw no point in denying the reason he’d come to Rings of Saturn. For the last hour—hel , for the last four days—he’d been tel ing himself it was to see the band. But when he saw the girl slouching over the bar, her chin in her palm, with a tropical flower tucked haphazardly behind her ear, he knew it had nothing to do with the band.

She hadn’t spotted him yet. The bartender, who looked like a one-eyed Hel ’s Angel, had her undivided attention, and was in the middle of an exhaustive explanation on the science of how one could ascertain the distance of a storm in miles simply by counting the number of seconds between thunder and lightning.

“Some people think the lightning can happen without the thunder,” the bartender said. “Not possible. Just because you can’t hear it, doesn’t mean it’s not rumbling out there somewhere.”

Loring didn’t want to interrupt what looked like a
15profound, if not one-sided conversation on the wonders of meteorological phenomena. But if he’d been hoping to remain unobtrusive, bringing Tab along had been the wrong move.

“Don’t just stand there, you shithead. Stop gawking and say hel o.”

“I’m not gawking.”

“You’re a rock star, for fuck’s sake. At least get her phone number.”

“Tab, she’s engaged.”

That’s when she looked over and waved.

“Eliza Caelum,” Loring muttered, as if he’d happened upon her by chance.

After asking the bartender to excuse her, she rotated her barstool in Loring’s direction and said, “Paul didn’t think you were going to show up,” at which point Loring decided he was obligated to stay. For Paul.

Tab took Eliza’s hand, kissed the top of it, and then said he was going upstairs to get a table.