by Karen Booth
But no. I had work to do. I focused on exactly that while the perfect words popped from my mouth. “Where do you want to do this? On the couch?”
A smirk spread across his face. He was enjoying himself. Good. He could have fun while I held him over the coals. “Sure, the couch, the floor, the bathroom. Whatever you like,” he shot back. “Can I get you a drink? Beer? Wine?”
“I’d love a bottle of water.”
“You sure? I’ve got plenty of the good stuff.” He cast me another of his enticing looks.
“Thank you. I’m sure.”
He ambled to the couch, beer in hand, spreading his gangly arms over the back and stretching out his remaining lovely limbs. “Shall we?” He patted the spot next to him.
The couch seemed to shrink the instant I sat down. I crossed my leg and eased my skirt up over my knee, intentionally putting my shoe dangerously close to his leg. He studied every movement, but I wasn’t sure if I should feel flattered or scared. I glanced up to see that it was getting dark outside, the windows turning steely.
I started my digital recorder. “Let’s get back to where we were this afternoon. You said you had a mid-life crisis after your divorce and that influenced the record. Tell me about that.”
He sucked a deep breath through his nose and rolled his head toward me, conducting a thorough search of my face. He held his stare without blinking for what felt like an eon.
“It wasn’t anything special. A guy turns forty and he wonders what he’s done with his bloody life.”
“But you’re several years beyond forty and this was last year. I’m not sure I follow what you’re saying.”
His stare narrowed. “Cute. I’m forty-four and I was forty-two or forty-three when it happened, it’s not a big difference. May I continue?”
I nodded and retreated to my notes.
“My marriage didn’t end. It disintegrated.” He drew out his words as if it would help me grasp how awful the experience had been. “Elise had been the center of my life and that was over. We hurt each other a great deal.” He continued to look at me, never glancing away. “At that point, my friends were tired of me. I’d been too wrapped up in Elise’s drama to be a good friend. I’d spent all of my time dealing with her.”
“When you say you were dealing with her, you’re referring to her drug use?” The question was irksome even to me, and the look in his eyes said that he recognized my new tack.
“Is this where we’re going with this? Because I don’t have to keep talking.”
“This is background on your divorce and how that played into the writing of the record.” I didn’t dare look at him, so I focused on my notes.
“I’m telling you now, I don’t plan to share all of that with you. I’ll tell you the basics, as it pertains to our divorce and the record.” He cleared his throat and shifted in his seat. “I’ll give you that much. It’s no secret that Elise has a drug problem. That caused our marriage to fail. All she wanted to do was party every night and sleep all day. There’s a reason it’s a cliché. It gets old, fast.”
I stole a breath as encouragement for the question that had to be asked. “What about your own drug use? It was widely reported that your problem was as bad as hers.”
“No, I was never as bad as Elise.”
“Isn’t that all relative though? If you weren’t quite as bad, you could still be in rough shape.”
“As I said, I never had a problem as bad as Elise.”
“Then how do you explain your stint in rehab together?”
His jaw tensed and it made me hold my breath. His eyes darted back and forth as he seemed to be grappling with what I’d provoked.
“I don’t see how this relates to my new record. We were discussing Elise, not me.” He jerked forward and clunked his empty beer bottle on the table and stood. “I believe I told you that this is off limits.” He trudged back to the mini fridge.
Another moment without eye contact bolstered my confidence. “I understand that you may not want to talk about some of these things, but this is what people want to know about you. Surely, you had to know that I would ask you about this. You don’t get to be on the cover of Rolling Stone by telling people only what you want them to hear.”
He popped the top off another beer and returned to his place at the opposite end of the couch. The wheels were busy churning behind those exquisite green eyes of his. At times, it felt as if I could see the years of secrets bottled up inside. If he was weighing his options, throwing me out of his hotel room was likely first on the list.
“Are you saying they might take away the cover?”
“They very well might. I only know you’ll guarantee it if you answer my questions.”
He gave me another of his intense penetrating stares.
“Think about it this way,” I continued. “This might be your one chance to tell your story on your terms, to a huge audience.”
“I don’t know.”
“You control the story this way. No more speculation. No more rumors. Just the truth.”
He pursed his lips. “If I talk to you about all of this, you can’t twist my words to fit your idea of what the story should be. You have to promise me you won’t screw me over.”
“I would never screw you over.”
“Good, because it’d kill me if you did.” He took a slow, full breath and closed his eyes. He seemed to be regaining his composure. “That’s why I never do interviews. Writers love to take you out of context and make you look like a bloody jerk. No offense.”
“I have no interest in doing that. I want to know the truth, so I can put it in a story that portrays you accurately. You’re going to have to tell somebody these things, some day. It may as well be me.” I smiled, as if I could win over one of the most secretive and handsome men in the world with a show of my teeth.
“If I do this, it’s only because I trust you,” he again searched my face. “For some reason.”
Was that really true? Had I earned his trust? “You can trust me. I promise.” It felt as if he left me waiting for an eternity.
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
Goose bumps blanketed me from head to toe. I wasn’t even sure of what I’d heard. My sense of accomplishment was quickly tempered by the fear of what would come next. Most likely he was about to tell me things that would destroy my adolescent fantasy, forever.
Chapter Six
“This will take some time, you know. If I’m going to spill my guts, we could be here until two or three in the morning. I hope you’re ready.”
“I should use the bathroom before we start.”
“Good idea.” Chris seemed to relax again, much more this time. “Have you eaten?” he asked as I stepped past the previously beckoning bed into his immense bathroom.
“No. I’m still full from lunch,” I called.
“I ordered room service before you got here. It should be here any minute. We can share.”
I wriggled my hips back and forth, hiking up my skirt to pee, my outfit now seeming beyond harebrained. I washed my hands in the white porcelain vessel sink and smoothed back my hair.
He sat on the bed waiting when I opened the door. He smiled, which generated a stabbing sensation in my chest, but I returned the gesture politely. “My turn,” he quipped as he stood.
Even with my shoes on, he kept an advantage of three or four inches. I tingled when he passed me, a subtle rush of air between our bodies. I shied away to keep the reverberation to myself, but recognized one indisputable fact—the world was different around him. I didn’t possess all of my faculties in his world, I couldn’t breathe most of the time, but I couldn’t bring myself to leave. There was something new at every turn and I didn’t care that I had no idea how to survive.
Chris yelled to me from the bathroom. “Why don’t you take off those ridiculous shoes? They’ve got to be killing your feet.”
“How do you know that?” I grumbled under my breath. Men were supposed to think my shoes
were hot.
He emerged from the bathroom, having changed into black track pants. He fetched another beer and offered me one again, but I stuck with water. “I thought I’d get comfortable since we’re hunkering down for the night.”
“Good idea. Comfortable is good.”
“Do you want to change?” He pointed at me with his beer bottle. “You look smashing, don’t get me wrong, but that outfit should be worn for very short amounts of time.” He winked at me, telling me he’d known exactly what I was up to when I arrived. Of course. He’d probably seen every trick a woman could have in her arsenal.
“No, I’m fine.”
“Don’t be silly. That skirt can’t be comfortable. It’s like a second skin. I’ll wait while you run downstairs.”
“Really, it’s fine. We should focus on the interview.”
A knock came at the door and Chris answered it quickly. The room service guy wheeled the cart into the room, looking quizzically at us and taking full survey of the situation. I felt goofy and self-conscious, dolled up when Chris was practically in his pajamas. Chris signed for the food and loudly announced as the room service guy was leaving, “Is it five hundred for the whole night or do I have to pay extra for that?”
“I suppose you think that’s funny,” I said.
He laughed. “I know it’s funny.”
“It’s not that funny.” I looked over the food he’d ordered, a cheeseburger with onion rings, fish and chips, and cheesecake. “Healthy. God forbid you should order a salad.”
He downed an onion ring. “The burger comes with lettuce.”
“Are you ready to launch into this?” It wasn’t an actual question, but I had to steer us back to the task at hand.
“You’re all business, aren’t you?” He arched one of his very talented eyebrows, again, and carried the plates of food to the coffee table in front of the couch.
“Yes. I guess I am,” I said, joining him. “There’s one common thread I found in my research, that you and Elise both had a serious drug problem. So, why don’t you tell me what the truth is?”
Chris peered at me while he finished a bite of his burger. “Thank you for asking me to tell you the story, rather than asking a leading question that makes me sound like a bloody tosser.” He wiped his hand on the napkin. “Mmm. Good burger.” He nodded eagerly. “I’m not going to say that I never did drugs, because I did. Much of it was on the road with Banks Forest, normal backstage partying. I smoked pot and did coke when it was around, but I never got into the more serious stuff.” He took another bite.
“Tell me more about Elise. Was she an addict when you met her?”
“I didn’t realize she had a problem when I met her. We met backstage at a show in Montreal. She was with this guy, a dealer, who was tight with one of our roadies. He was her boyfriend too, but she latched on to me right away.”
He described their first few months together; she’d seemed different from the typical groupie and he was intrigued when she’d called herself an artist although that later turned out to be a lie. The beginning of their relationship seemed to hinge on three things: his fame, her beauty, and drugs.
“When did her addiction become an issue?”
“I suppose it was always an issue, but I dealt with it. We had years of an on-again, off-again relationship. She’d get pissed at me for something and leave for a few weeks, but she always came back. After we were married, I started to see just how bloody barmy she was.” He took a drink of beer. “Banks was still together and our last tour before we took our hiatus was massive. We had paparazzi following us everywhere and she loved the attention.”
He continued after several more bites of his burger. “Elise got really wrapped up in it, especially because her friends treated her like royalty. They were parasites. They only wanted to be backstage or go to parties and they were always wasted.” He leaned back on the couch now that most of the food had disappeared. “Much better. I was starving.”
He turned in my direction and pulled his leg up on to the couch, resting his knee against the back. He smiled as he settled in and I felt a spark, a verifiable jolt. Honestly, there was one every time he looked at me, but some were stronger than others.
He continued with his story. “During the hiatus, I hoped it’d be a chance to be normal. I tried to insulate her from her friends, but that didn’t work at all. They always found a way to be around and I’d eventually give up because she’d take it out on me if she couldn’t be with them.”
“What do you mean by normal?”
“I really wanted to have children, but Elise refused. We argued about it constantly. She said she didn’t want to be tied down and she didn’t want it to ruin her body. She even suggested that I get a vasectomy, which I refused to do. That wasn’t a fun conversation.”
His voice wobbled on this topic. It made me sad to hear that tone in his voice, so out of step with his generally upbeat demeanor.
Now that he was talking, it seemed like it might be hard to get him to stop. He continued for at least two more hours, telling stories about his tumultuous marriage, her drug use, and his desire to become a dad. Things got worse when the band re-united.
“The reunion tour gave me something to do, and I needed a distraction if Elise wasn’t going to give in on the baby. It was literally driving me crazy.”
“What made you want to be a father so badly?”
He shrugged his shoulders. “I thought it would be great to be a dad. Having a little one running around and being able to show them the world, that seems like the greatest experience a person could have.”
I knew, firsthand, that he was right.
“And I lost my dad when I was eight,” he continued. “Heart attack. He went to bed one night and never woke up. I was so young I don’t remember much about him, not like my sisters do. After he died, I used to pretend he was around, that he was there to do things with me like play in the yard. It seemed so normal at the time. He reappeared in my mind as easily as he disappeared from the real world.” His voice trembled again. “I still want the chance to do those things with my own child.”
I cleared my throat to keep the tears at bay. I’d known his dad has passed away, but hearing him tell the story made it much more than a fact about someone I was interviewing. “I’m sorry,” I said, softly. I couldn’t bear to look at him, fearing my own reaction.
“It’s okay, Claire.”
“I lost my mom. I know how hard it is.” I stared at my notes, not seeing the words, and swallowed back my emotions. “Please, go on. You were talking about the reunion tour.”
“Right. Well, Elise was excited about the tour because it meant partying every night, but we fought all the time. We’d go out on our days off and if I said or did something she didn’t like, she would act up in front of the paparazzi to get back at me. It was usually harmless, but you can’t give those vultures any ammunition.”
He paused. “I don’t know if you know about this, but there was a pretty infamous shot of us outside of a restaurant in LA. Photographers had been following us everywhere the whole day. Elise got drunk at dinner and accused me of flirting with the waitress. When we went outside to wait for the valet, she blew her top, a bloody temper tantrum. The photos were all over the Internet within an hour and in the tabloids after that. People ate it up.”
It made me sick to think about the photos now, knowing the truth behind the images. It was all too easy to tell a lie with a photograph.
“After the tour,” he continued, “I prayed things would calm down. That’s when everything changed.” He was struggling, looking at me, then away and back again. “You know, I don’t think I want to go any further.” He pleaded with his eyes.
Seeing that look on his face, I felt torn between being a writer and being human, knowing that some things should remain private. Whatever he was about to talk about seemed to weigh on him even more than the subject of losing his dad.
“All right. I understand. You’ve said a lot.”
We shared a moment of crystal-clear eye contact where I felt the entire universe shift, as if it was making room for something. “I hope you know that you really can trust me. I don’t have a single reason to do anything other than treat you and your story with respect.”
“I don’t know that you really want to hear this.”
“If you’re willing to tell me, then I do.” I braced myself for the answer. The silence nearly shook the room.
He closed his eyes and his forehead wrinkled. “Elise got pregnant. I had no idea until she was nearly three months along, but she’d known for weeks. She was on the pill, but I’m sure she forgot to take it. Funny, since she seemed to take everything else.” A pained rush of air escaped him. “I was excited, but I was also at sixes and sevens, freaking out. She’d been using and drinking and she’d lied to me about the pregnancy. I was worried. I begged her to go into rehab so they could watch her twenty-four hours a day. I knew she had to quit everything right then and there.”
He continued. “She agreed to it, but only if I went with her. I wasn’t even drinking at the time, but I was desperate to get her there and I didn’t trust her to do what she needed to do. We checked ourselves in very early the next morning. The paparazzi caught wind of it, probably from one of Elise’s friends. They would sell tips to the photographers. Anything to make some money.” He shook his head in disgust. “The photos of us walking into rehab were everywhere in less than twenty-four hours. It was awful. I knew my mom and sisters had to be in a state. I’d go to support meetings, lying through the sessions so it seemed as if I belonged there.”
The corners of his mouth drew down. “She lost the baby four days after we checked in.” He sat up and settled his head in his hands, and I had to battle my inclination to comfort him. “I suppose it was a blessing because the baby probably would’ve had all kinds of problems. It’s not like she would’ve made a good mother.”
