I don’t feel as bad as I felt when I went back to bed. Still groggy and tired as shit, but not ‘bad’.
The house is quiet from here. The clock says that it’s only five o’clock in the afternoon. It must still be raining out, ‘cause if it wasn’t, the sun would be showing through the drapes. And the drapes are closed, which means that someone, probably Shi, has been in here and closed them up.
I sit up and grope for my cigarettes.
I don’t know if I’m better than I was this morning, or not. I still feel sorta down, only, it could be because of the tickets in my pocket. When I fell asleep it was with the thought of Sarah performin’ at the Viper Room and her not tellin’ me about it. I know that’s what she wouldn’t tell me about the night she came over here. She doesn’t want me to be there, and I don’t know if I want to go to it or not. ‘Cause if I go, I know that she’s gonna be pissed. And I’m not sure if I wanna piss her off.
I guess I could kinda go incognito. Blend into the crowd. All that takes is a jacket, a shave, and a baseball cap.
Another part of me just says to forget it. It’s not important what she does or doesn’t do. I can’t help her with it, and she doesn’t want my help anyway. She doesn’t want me to be a part of her life, especially a part of her ‘professional’ life. And especially right now.
Still. I’m kinda curious ‘bout it, though. Like, is she gonna get a deal? I know it’s what she wants. She wants to be famous. She’s wanted to be famous forever. Since way before I knew her. She told me so, told me all ‘bout it. Her whole family is like that, all hangin’ around Hollywood since forever and tryin’ to break through. None of ‘em did. Including Sarah. This is another try at ‘the big break’.
Sometimes I thought it was kinda funny. Sometimes I thought Sarah thought that where I was, where I’d got to in my career, came real easy. Probably ‘cause she wasn’t there when we were struggling to make it work. She didn’t meet me until we were on the downswing. She met me at my lowest point, after the money and success and fame, but when the problems were really startin’. And by then the Backstreet Boys were old school, established, headin’ towards has-beens. What she saw was, like, finished product. And it LOOKED easy. When she traveled with us, it was as smooth as it gets.
So sometimes I thought, and I guess I still think, that she believed all this was a cakewalk.
What I kinda thought was strange was the way she ‘worked’, which was like, not at all. She hardly ever performed. Never did the live thing. Oh, she’d get up and sing in bars and shit, do the karaoke thing, but no gigs. Hell, there’s clubs all over the place out here, but there was always somethin’ else goin’ on, or nothin’ goin’ on. I don’t know. There were days when me and the other guys would sing in a fuckin’ toilet if you asked us to, and sometimes we did, so I never got the ‘waitin’ on the showcase gig’ train of thought.
Sarah auditioned a lot, too. I never really knew if she wanted the singing thing, or the acting thing. All I knew for sure about is she wanted the fame thing. If I think about it now, the happiest times were when we were goin’ out to premiers and shit, where we would be doin’ the ‘red carpet’ gig. She loved that, all the press and cameras and stuff. I guess I encouraged that, too. I liked to see her muggin’ it up for the cameras, even if she was an amateur at it. It was fun to watch. They ate her up. She’s all tits and legs and big-toothed smiles when the cameras are on her. Photographers love that shit. And I was bored with it, so Sarah played the game when we were out.
I dunno. Everyone’s different about it. At the time, I didn’t mind Sarah workin’ the room. Now it bugs me. Like it bugs me when she gives me all that rag about ‘doin’ it on my own’, ‘cause she didn’t. Plain and simple. I know it and she knows it and everyone who knew ‘us’ knows it. So this gig at the Viper Room is kinda pissin’ me off, and that she doesn’t want me there, or to even know about it, pisses me off more.
Maybe I’m feelin’ better. I’m not cryin’ about this. I’m mad.
I drag myself up outta bed. I’m kinda hungry now. I stink, too. I musta worked up a sweat and my sweat smells funny a lot of the time, ‘cause of the meds. I strip off and drop my clothes on the bed, and walk into the shower.
The water feels good. Helps to clear my head. I don’t stay in it long, just enough to wash and feel more human. Then I get out, get dried, and get dressed in another pair of sweats and a clean T-shirt.
As soon as I open my bedroom door I can smell somethin’ wonderful. Shi must still be here, even though I haven’t heard her at all. I kinda notice that the house has been cleaned, because some of what I smell is the lemon-scented cleaner they use. And the wood floors are slippery slick under my bare feet. I end up kinda glidin’ on them instead of pickin’ up my feet when I walk, ‘cause they’re so freakin’ slick I think I might fall.
Shi is sittin’ in the kitchen makin’ those notes she makes. I still haven’t got her that sticky-note pad I wanted to, shit, I can’t remember dick these days. Then I almost laugh to myself. Maybe I should get a notepad, too. Tish is sitting with her, her head bent over a notebook. The both of them look up as they hear me. Shi flicks her eyes at Tish, and Tish gathers up her work.
“Hi,” she says. “I gotta run.”
“‘Have to’ run,” Shi corrects. Tish rolls her eyes, picks up all her stuff, and lets herself out with a small ‘bye’.
“She didn’t have to leave,” I say.
“She was just keeping me company,” Shi tells me. “Are you feeling any better?”
“Yeah, a lot.” I grab a soda from the fridge and sit down, too. “Could you, uh, would you mind makin’ the bed again? I kinda got all...”
“No problem,” she says. “Are you hungry? I have some soup for you. Or pastina?”
“Past-whatta?”
“Pastina. Little pasta stars. I can boil them and put some butter and cheese on them for you. I thought you might not be up for a heavy meal.”
“Baby food?”
“Pretty much, yeah,” she says with a laugh. “Tish likes it when she’s feeling out of sorts.”
“Baby food.”
“I can grill you a steak if you’d rather have that, but I’ll bet your stomach would put up a bit of a rebellion.”
She stares at me. I stare back. She’s right. I know it. Pisses me off, like, not in a bad way, but ‘cause she also knows I know that she’s right.
“Soup?” she offers again. “Grilled cheese sandwich?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “And the little star things, too.”
“Good.” She gets up and ladles out a cup of soup right away. That’s what I was smellin’ all through the house. It’s chicken, with bits of rice and stuff in it. It tastes as good as it smells, too. My stomach rumbles after the first sip. I’m empty. I’m empty and Shi is gonna fill me up. In no time the familiar smell of butter meltin’ in a pan fills the room, and she puts a cheese sandwich into it. It doesn’t take her five minutes before there’s a grilled cheese sandwich in front of me.
“That looks great.” It does. Perfectly golden and I’m suddenly starvin’ to death.
“Take it slow. I’m going to go make the bed, and if you’re still hungry when I get back, I’ll make you the pastina.”
I nibble. I kinda wanted her to hang around the kitchen with me. But I need clean sheets, too, ‘cause the ones on the bed are disgusting. If I wanted to be a total asshole, I could just follow her around the house with my sandwich, but I think I can sit here until she gets back. I sorta wish it was Friday, ‘cause on Fridays Shi tends to hang around longer, I guess ‘cause Tish is always busy, or at a friend’s house or somethin’ like that. Tuesdays just suck ass, ‘cause it’s bill payin’ day and the middle of the week is comin’ and there’s nothin’ goin’ on. And Shi can’t hang, she needs to be home with Tish.
This is just so pathetic to be sittin’ here and addin’ up the days to the weekend. Used to be that every day was a weekend day. Every night was an ‘anything goes’ night, hell, none of us barely knew what the hell night it was if you asked, we were so fuckin’ busy with workin’ and touring and all that shit.
I miss it.
I miss all of it. I miss everything about it, even the crappy assed stuff. I miss not knowing exactly what was gonna happen next. I miss reeking locker rooms and bad food and ridin’ on the bus, and, hell, even planes and I HATE to fly. I miss the pace, I miss the fun. I miss the people. Goddamn, I miss the people. So many people. Always someone to hang out with, to talk to, to bullshit with, to do interviews with. You name it, there was always someone to do it with.
Instead, I’m sittin’ in the kitchen eatin’ my dinner alone. And I’m the one that got me here.
There was a time when my phone rang off the hook. Not any more. There was a time that I was makin’ phone calls, too. Not anymore. I don’t know when that happened, or how that happened.
That’s a lie. I know how it happened. I kept thinkin’ that the more time I spent just one-on-one with Sarah, the more time I spent makin’ us a ‘couple’, the more of a ‘couple’ we’d be. I thought that it had to be like other people I saw, people who were real comfortable just bein’ with each other. I thought that to be like that you couldn’t let too many other people interfere. And that we just had to be with other couples. Pairs. So I let a lot of friendships fade, and didn’t really get together with single friends. Girl friends were outta the question. Not ‘girlfriends’, friends that were girls. Women. Sarah was always uncomfortable with that, with women in my life. Any women. I was kinda surprised that she was cool with Juliette, but Juliette is in a dead serious relationship.
Sarah was uncomfortable with the weirdest shit.
But I can see now that the more I got into Sarah, and wanted to be with her, it was only about HER. Until, like, there really wasn’t anyone else but her. Her and her mother and a few people who were in ‘couples’ and they were people that Sarah knew from before she knew me.
Oh, there was Brian and his wife, Leighanne, and Kevin, and his wife, Kris, but that was only once in a while. Bri and Leigh took off for Georgia once she got pregnant, and they haven’t been back to LA since she had the baby, which was, like, last year; the end of last year. And Kevin’s been gone back east. New York. Kentucky, where he comes from. Workin’. Doin’ his own thing. Kris is around, but she’s busy, too, and when she would come by it always turned into ‘chick’ shit. I don’t mind it some of the time, but if it’s all of the time it’s a drag.
I can’t blame it all on Sarah. I know that at the time I really and truly believed that hangin’ with a lot of my old friends was a bad, bad thing to be doin’. They were all a part of the drinkin’ and drugs part of my life and I was tryin’ to keep away from all of that. For sure, I was. I was.
But, still. It’s weird to think about it now, ‘cause I’m alone and there were plenty of people who weren’t heavy into the party scene that I knew. And I miss my ‘girl friends’. I think I miss them the most, ‘cause there’s none of them around. Which is why it was so cool to see Mindi again, she was one of those friends.
Shit. And all I had to do was call her. I could do that with anyone I guess. Maybe. I was pretty sure that Mindi would come around when I called, though. I’m not real sure about any of the others. Too much time; too much shit. And I don’t know if I could take any of them bein’ really ugly and rejecting right now. I’m not sure about THAT at all.
Still.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
