Too Weird for Ziggy (25 page)

They'd gone a short way when she noticed for the first time the icon that hung from his rearview mirror.

“Saint Dymphna!” exclaimed Pussy.

The driver saw her lips move in the mirror and pulled back the glass divide.

“The medallion,” she said. “Saint Dymphna.”

“That's right,” he said. He looked a little taken aback.

“She's my favorite saint,” said Pussy. “So beautiful. I first heard about her when I was a little girl, and I fell in love with her. Her father tried to have sex with her and when she said no he chopped her head off. She died a virgin. No head.” She gave a little laugh. “But in every other way intact.”

“The patron saint of amputees, lost souls, and the mentally deranged,” said the driver.

“And which of those,” she asked, “are you?”

And, staring straight ahead at the road, Reeve explained how before he'd become the perfect limo driver he was the consummate Jim Morrison. He told her about the car crash, the epiphany, his Doors tribute band, the hit TV show he had in Germany, and how one day he woke up and knew he couldn't do it anymore and just walked away. Pussy listened with rapt attention. She shuddered as if someone were walking over her grave.

The limo might have been a funeral car, the way that half the people it passed on the street stopped and stared with a mix of curiosity and respect. “Heaven,” said Pussy, “will have tinted windows. So I can see them but they can't see me.”

“I heard somewhere,” the driver answered, “that they reckon there's a separate heaven for celebrities. Because even after they're dead people still want to look at them.”

“Paparazzi angels.” Pussy shivered again. “An eternal audience of ghosts. That
would
be hell. You know,” she said after a long silence, “when I was young I was so afraid of crowds that my mother took me to see a psychiatrist.”

“Not a great career choice then.” She saw his smile in the rearview mirror. She smiled too, but her face was sad. She told him everything that had happened to her—the deaths, her disappearance. The glass screen separating them made it feel like a confession box, a separate confession box for celebrities, with minibar, TV, and luxury, cream leather seats.

“Hey, do you have to be anywhere?” she asked. He shook his head. “Then would you mind if we just drove around for a while?” Reeve indicated left, turned at the lights, and headed back down to the beach.

It was late afternoon when she got back to the hotel.
Jack was in the lobby, fuming. He might have been there all night. “Where the fuck have you been? No, don't tell me. I don't fucking want to know. What I
do
want to know is, is it really worth me being out here working my fucking ass off for you”—she noticed he said “ass,” not “arse”; he was already going native—“when
you
can't be arsed”—this time she noted he said “arse”; curious—“to show up for the most Crucial Fucking Meeting of this Whole Fucking Trip? Hello?” He was talking now through the mouthpiece of his headset, his voice all humility, charm. It was the record company A&R department; they'd finally taken his call. “Sure,” he said. “Absolutely. I know how busy he is. But you know those stomach bugs, I thought it best if she see a doctor. Absolutely. Thursday at four? Thank you
so
much. I appreciate it, truly.” His voice switched back to a bark. “You hear that?” Pussy nodded confirmation. “And you look like crap,” he said, though actually he thought she looked beautiful. Bruised mouth, too-bright eyes smudged with yesterday's eyeliner, tangled brown hair. She'd ignored all his entreaties to bleach it blonde again.

She changed her mind about calling Churchill. Maybe she'd get him to write some lyrics. See how Jack would like that. Talking of Jack, he was heading in her direction, dressed in swimming shorts and clutching a towel. “Drinking?” he said, glowering at the empty glass. “I don't have to tell you how important this afternoon is.”

“No you don't.” She shot him a radiant smile.

“Good,” he said. “Three o'clock. On the dot.”

“It's only twenty minutes away.”

“I'm not taking any chances this time. And don't stay in the sun too long—I want you clearheaded.” He dived into the pool, swam a length underwater, stood up in the shallow
end, shaking his dark hair like a Labrador, and got out. Two women in one-piece bathing suits dived in from opposite ends of the pool, surfacing at the same time, like water ballet stars.

Pussy tried to get a waiter's attention, but they were all running about fetching endless cocktails for a knot of unprepossessing young men in shabby rock T-shirts. English music journalists. She recognized the type. She followed their gaze to the lobby door, where a party of people were coming through. Pussy recognized the psychiatrist first—Dr. Hank's picture had been all over the Shining Star Institute. And then she saw Cal West. Her heart skipped momentarily; even stars get starstruck. She'd read that he was making a comeback. Right now he looked like he wanted to run away. Hank's palm, flat in his back, ushered him into a roomful of people.

At three on the dot, like he said, Pussy's room phone rang. “The car's out front,” said Jack. “I'll come by your room.”

“It's okay,” she said. “I'll meet you in the lobby.”

“Now?”

“Now.”

“If you're not there in five I'm coming to get you.”

Stuffing her cigarettes in her purse, she took a last look in the mirror. She'd made an effort; Jack couldn't complain. She was wearing the tiny silk dress she wore to the party. It had worked on Churchill.

“Well, look at you!” Jack held out his arms in the lobby. “Sweetheart, you're fabulous. Just the ticket. Come on, let's get this business over with and then I'll take you out on the town.” There was something they needed to talk about; he couldn't keep putting it off. He guided her into the car,
simultaneously announcing to the record company through his mouthpiece, “We're on our way.” The car cut into the sluggish traffic and joined the slow crawl west through the tunnel of palms down Sunset Boulevard.

The A&R man kept them waiting more than half an hour—part punishment, part power game. Finally they were fetched up to the conference room. Various record company people Pussy vaguely recognized were shuffled around an enormous polished table shaped like a giant surfboard. “Well hey there!” said a plump, tanned guy with the formless face of a fetus dunked in Orangina. “Terri Allen. My favorite star.” He got up from his leather seat and wrapped a soft arm around Pussy's small shoulders, pumping Jack's hand with the other, then handed them back to the assistant to lead off to the far end of the table where the lighting was harsher. “Make yourself comfortable.” The room appeared to have been specifically chosen for its discomfort factor.

“I believe you know everybody?” He indicated around the table, then looked at his watch. “Okay, let's hear what we've got.” All eyes followed Jack as he walked the length of the room to the sound system. The A&R man rolled back his chair, put the disk in the machine, pressed play, then put his feet up on the table.

“Well,” he said, a full minute after the music had stopped. His colleagues looked at him to see what facial expression they should wear, Buddha Boy's having remained benignly neutral. “I gotta say you are one
sweet
sounding woman. Your voice is better than ever, babe. Pure fucking sex.
Better
than sex. Those young boys are gonna cream on you all over again. But”—he swung his feet back down to the floor—“a voice as good as that comes with a
price, and do you know what that is? Songs that do it justice. A
band
that does it justice.

“I love you; as far as I'm concerned you're fucking
perfect
. If it was down to me”—he waved his girlish arms around the room—“I'd shake this company upside down by the ankles and give you all the money we got and say, take it, do what you want with it, just make me a fucking record. But the market, babe, is a bitch. It don't give a fuck that you're a genius. It don't care that you can sing anybody in this goddamn business, anyfuckingbody you can name, under this table. You gotta give the market what it wants, and what it wants is you
plus
. Plus great songs. Plus great band. And angel, I'd be hurting you if I didn't tell the truth, I don't hear them here.”

Everyone at the table shook their heads mournfully from side to side.

“But I tell you where I
do
hear it,” he said, slapping both palms on the table, his face all joy. “
Pussy
. There was a reason that band was a legend, and in these troubled times that's what the people want again.”

She shot her manager a desperate look, but his eyes were glued to Buddha Boy.

“What the world needs now is
Pussy
.”

“
Pussy
,” echoed the voices around the surfboard. They were all smiling; a couple of true disciples slapped the table with their palms as well.
“We want Pussy!”

“Frank,” she whispered, “you've got to say something.”

“It's all right.” He patted her thigh, soothingly, his focus on Buddha Boy a little impaired by the electricity that shot through his groin as his hand touched her bare flesh.

“Then I'm saying something,” she hissed. She stood up. “I'm sorry,” she said, “but I thought it had been made clear. Pussy is not an option.”

There was a long silence. She could hear a bass beat pulsing through from the other side of the wall. Buddha Boy pushed himself out of his chair and walked over to them, his shoes creaking on the polished floor. They weren't new; he didn't do much walking. He shooed a young man out of the chair next to Pussy's and sat down. She was sandwiched between the A&R man and her manager, the three of them close enough to sing harmonies on one microphone.

Buddha Boy took her hand in his, stroked it slowly. “Let's talk a moment,” he said, gently, “just you and me. There's nobody else in the room, Terri. They don't matter. This is all about you, your music, how to make it work for
you
. That's all I'm here for, you and your music. You gotta trust me on this one, work with me. The environment has never been tougher than it is right now. People aren't buying records like they used to. They want a sure bet, something they know they're gonna like. It's a comfort thing. And they like Pussy—no, no,” he said, squeezing her hand, “don't say anything, listen to me for a moment. One Pussy album. That's all I'm saying. To get your face back out there. And when it's the monster hit I guarantee you it will be, then we'll do a solo album.”

She pulled her hand away, shook her head. “Pussy is dead.”

“And ready to rise from the ashes,” smiled Buddha Boy.

“That is not going to happen,” she said, working hard to control her voice.

Buddha Boy hesitated for a moment. Jack was staring at him hard, willing him not to divert from their agreed script. But the A&R man was in improvising mode. He looked her straight in the eyes. “I've spoken to the band,” he said, “and they're a hundred percent up for a reunion.”

She was enraged. “I'm sorry you've wasted your time and I'm sorry you decided to talk to Robbie, Chas, and Johnnie and get their hopes up. But they know how I feel about it. There
is
no band. There never can be. When Taylor died, Pussy died.”

She could feel Jack stiffen. She turned around. His face looked strange. “I'm sorry, sweetheart” was all he said.

Buddha Boy took both her hands and rolled himself forward so that his round mouth almost touched her ear.

“Taylor is up for it too.”

“What did you say?” Her cheeks reddened. “That is not funny.” She turned to her manager. “Let's go.” Jack was sitting, rigid, in his chair. Under the bright halogen, his tan had turned a purply gray.

“Come on,” she said. “We'll find another label. That is so sick.”

“I'm sorry,” he said again, “truly I am. I only just found out myself.”

“Found out
what?
” she screamed.

“They tracked him down and flew him out. He got in yesterday.”

“
What are you talking about?
”

“Taylor's alive. They're in the studio. We weren't”—he shot the A&R man a hostile look—“going to even talk about this before …”

The words ceased to register. Just lips moving; plaintive sounds. The room was churning. In a single moment,
the thoughts and questions and images coalesced and a great clump of vomit shot from her mouth. Buddha Boy rolled his chair out of range, untouched. She puked voluminously, violently, over herself, over the giant surfboard. A couple of people looked away. Buddha Boy sat and watched her. Jack jumped up, held out his arms.

“Get the fuck away from me!”

“She's upset,” he announced, ludicrously. “Look, I think it's best if you give us some time alone?”

Buddha Boy nodded, “Okay, everyone, we'll take five.” Some of the people around the table seemed unable to move. “Come on!” he ordered, and strode ahead of them. As, one by one, they joined him, his secretary came over to where Pussy sat, carrying a stack of extra-large promotional T-shirts. She tossed one over the biggest pool of puke and put the rest on the chair next to Pussy. “The rest room's out of the door, second left,” she said softly. “If you need anything, we'll be two rooms along,” then followed everyone out.

Pussy sat up straight. Her face was scary; even her lips were white.

“Where is he?”

“In the studio, Burbank. The rest of the guys are there. We'll go over as soon as we're out of here. Or maybe you want to see him somewhere on your own first? Whatever you want, just say it. I swear to you, Terri, I didn't want this to happen.” His eyes were pleading. She'd seen that face so often before on men who were desperate to fuck her.