by Teagan Kade
I open the sliding door and walk down the stairs, the pool luminous under the night sky, Rick lit in aquamarine.
He doesn’t acknowledge me, a glass of scotch in hand, legs spread at the edge of the pool looking over the fairy lights of the city.
I stand beside him and for the first time it feels like I’m standing next to a stranger, a loaded trap. “Everything okay?”
He holds the tumbler up and looks through it. “Did you have fun?”
I pull my coat around myself. “Yeah, I did.” I consider whether or not to tell him about my idea of working with Mat.
Screw it.
“I was actually thinking I might do some songs with Mat, a Rhianna-Vedder kind of thing.”
He lowers the tumbler and looks sideways at me, eyes cold. “I think you should be concentrating on your own career, Selena.”
“I think it would be beneficial for both of our careers. We had real chemistry on Delaney.”
“Chemistry,” snorts Rick, taking a swig. “What good am I as your agent if you won’t even listen to me?”
He’s starting to piss me off. I didn’t work my ass off today to come home to this, whatever it is. “I am listening, Rick, but I’m telling you I want to do this. I’m not going to be one of these pop princesses who’s nothing more than a puppet, her only decision when and where to have a nervous breakdown.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” he scoffs.
I stand in front of him. “Rick, what’s with the attitude, seriously?”
He gets defensive. “Attitude? You think I am the one with the attitude here? What about your attitude to your career. Don’t you think I am best placed to make those decisions?”
I cross my arms. “I’m a big girl, Rick. I can make my own damn decisions.”
He throws the tumbler into the sky. It shatters further down the hill somewhere. “Then what the fuck are we even doing?” He takes me by the arms, pulls me towards him. “Let’s forget the whole agent-singer thing. Let’s keep business out of this.” His hands move down my hips, fingers pressing against the back of my legs. “What do you say?”
He shifts himself against me. “Can you feel how hard I am for you right now?”
His hands run under my panties. He grabs my ass cheeks, my skirt bunched up at his wrists.
I get a whiff of his breath. “You’re drunk, Rick.”
He kisses the side of my neck. “Drunk and horny.” One of his hands dipping between my legs, but I’m hardly about to give into him after that little hissy fit. No fucking way.
I push him away softly. “Why don’t you sober up a little first?”
He grabs my ass again and brings me forward. “Come on. It’s been weeks now. Don’t you think I deserve something?”
Yeah, a big ol’ kick in the balls if you keep this up. I push him away, a little more forcefully now. “Rick. Not now. Like I said, I want to take this slow. If you’re serious about this, us, I can’t see why you’d have a problem with that.”
“A problem?” he laughs, grabbing his dick and thrusting in my direction. “Only blue balls the size of melons. I could have any girl, but I chose you.”
Like I should be so damn lucky. “How sweet. You’re embarrassing yourself now.”
I step back and he stumbles forward, almost overcorrects and finds himself in the pool.
“You’re not even going to give me a fucking handjob?” he spits.
“No,” I stammer, still trying to comprehend this is the same Rick Evans I grew up with, the sweet boy from my youth.
He stops, waves his hand at me dismissively. “Whatever. I’m going to the office to work, jerk off—something.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in the morning.”
He hmmphs and stumbles up to the house.
I stand watching the light play on the surface of the pool, thinking, frustrated.
Don’t let it get to you. You had fun today. You don’t owe him any explanation.
I walk past the office door on the way to the bedroom. The door’s closed, but I can see the glow of his computer screen coming from underneath it. Truth be told, I don’t really care what he’s doing in there. I don’t care if he comes out at all tonight.
I change and slip into bed.
Elvis is curled up in the corner of the room on a cushion, his little doggy chest moving in and out.
I’m running through everything in my already overcrowded head as I try to fall asleep. Maybe this thing with Rick, whatever it is, isn’t going to work. Maybe I’m deluding myself. It makes sense in theory—the singer and her agent, childhood friends turned lovers—but the reality is turning into something that’s increasingly holding less and less appeal.
I roll over, an empty space beside me, my hand between my legs.
Mat.
I try to think about what his type is now, the kind of girl he’d take to bed. I’ve read about his antics. Women love him, and why not? He’s the complete package. Strong jaw, messy hair, and broad shoulders—a man you’d happily take to bed but never tell your mother about. What does Mat think in return? Does he sleep with them and forget them, hit and quit, another notch on his bedpost?
My thoughts grow more abstract, turning to his body, what he’s hiding under those jeans. It’s not like I haven’t thought about him before. I had my first orgasm whispering his name, my hand caught in the sticky web between my legs, but that was a long time ago. That innocent boy is probably long gone.
Mat’s been around the world. Why on earth would he settle for one woman?
CHAPTER FOUR
MAT
Dad left a garage of cars behind when he died, but the only one that starts is the Pontiac. Just as well. It’s my favorite.
The hour-and-a-half trip to Palm Springs seems to fly by when you’ve got a three-fifty-cube Chev V8 for a soundtrack. The damn thing doesn’t even have a tape deck.
My cell starts to ring. I set it to speaker and toss it onto the passenger seat, downshifting to take a corner. “Who do I have here?”
“Mat?” It’s Selena.
“Selena, hi. What’s up?”
She sounds a little more unsure than usual. “I was hoping… we could meet up.”
I’m not going to argue, but I doubt a trip to a psych hospital is high on her list of things to do on her day off. “I’m on my way to visit Mom in Palm Springs, actually.”
“She’s still in the hospital?”
“She is,” I reply.
“I can come with. Could do with some fresh air.”
I pull the Pontiac over. “Mom’s been a bit…” I search for the right word. “Hazy of late. I can’t guarantee she’ll be hospitable.”
“Don’t worry about it. You’re on your way now?”
“About halfway.”
“I’ll have Ari drive me to that little Roadside diner we used to go when she first went in.”
The corners of my mouth curl up. “The one with that deep-fried Oreo abomination?”
Her voice is back to normal. “You know it.”
*
In a simple tee and jeans, Selena is once more the girl who used to crash at my place, the girl who used to sing her lungs out to Cherry Pie and hang her head out the car window. I met a lot of girls on tour, but none of them were like her—only pale imitations.
She holds her stomach, slouched back in the seat. “I don’t know how we did it when we were kids. I feel like I’m about to explode, like Alien explode.”
I smile. “I don’t think the guy on the grill has left it in twenty years. Those tongs are part of his hand.”
She puts her hand up. “Don’t. Just… don’t. If I think about the greasy monstrosity I just ate any more I might very well paint your dash with puke.”
“Dad’s dash,” I correct.
“But it’s yours now, isn’t it?”
I never really gave it much thought. Technically, everything was passed on to my mother, not that she’s in any state to be useful. She can barely take care of herself let
alone a Beverly Hills mansion and the maintenance required to stop it becoming an urban wasteland. “I suppose so. And you? You’re moving up in the world. You’ve no doubt got a whole fleet of flamingo Hummers or something.”
She rolls her eyes, running her hair back behind her ear. She’s wearing simple studs, so much better than the flashy hoops Rick had her wearing. “Do I look like a Hummer girl?”
“No, ma’am.”
“I told you Rick’s investing my royalties, but I did make sure he paid off my parents’ house when the first check came through. It was the least I could do. Mom deserved it.”
I always liked Sel’s Mom and Dad. The suburb they lived in was a long way from Beverly Hills, but they made do with what they had. They scrimped on meals to pay for Sel’s singing lessons, spent their weekends carting her around to shows and talent contests, anything to get her into the eye of a judge or someone who might be able to give her that influential leg-up into the glamorous world of super stardom.
That’s how I found her, sitting alone singing to herself backstage at one of those cheesy American Idol-type events. Dad was a judge. She didn’t make it through. She was too nervous, but we became friends, and so something beautiful was born.
To think I wasn’t here when she lost her own father—another thing we now share in common. Our dads, taken by the monster in the bottle.
“How about you?” she asks. “Was your ‘world tour’ everything you hoped it would be?”
I ease my grip on the steering wheel, the desert stretching on ahead. “On Dad’s first world tour he sold out stadiums worldwide. People camped overnight for tickets. Me? I don’t know what Delaney was on about, but I played in dive bars, shacks, even on the beach in Laos, but you know what? It was still amazing. Yes, we might have gotten around in Kombis and rickshaws instead of Leer jets, but I loved every fucking minute of it.”
“And the groupies?” Sel asks shyly, looking ahead. She looks so tiny in that seat.
Careful now. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t partake of the local produce, but after a while it all tends to blend together, tastes the same. Hell, half of the time I didn’t even know what country I was in.”
She looks back to me, eyes like amber ice cubes, large and seductive. “So what brought you home?”
You.
I clear my throat. “It was just time. A man can only live on exposure for so long, you know. Did you tell Rick about us working together?”
She tightens in her seat. “He didn’t take it very well.”
Given the icy treatment I received from him at the studio, I’m not surprised. “Everything okay with you guys?”
I don’t want to sound like I’m stepping across a line here, but if there’s an in, any in, I want to know about it. We might have been the three amigos growing up, but now it’s every man for himself where Sel’s concerned. I don’t think I’ve wanted anything more in my entire life, but I’m not going to sabotage her happiness… If that is what she has with Rick. But I see the way he holds her, the way he looks at her. She’s a trophy to him—nothing more. He was always like that, always jealous of what my father had acquired with his wealth, his fame, of how Sel loved coming to my house. It seems things haven’t changed. But thinking about his hands on her…
Sel takes her time to answer. “We haven’t seen each other in years, Mat. I don’t know if I should be talking about this stuff with you, but I feel like I can. I feel like I can trust you. Does that make any damn sense?”
“You can.”
Another pause. “Honestly, I don’t know what’s happening. When we first started going out he was great, such a gentleman. He was into these huge, grand gestures. I mean he hired out a stadium for our second date for crying out loud, had the Dodgers mascot serve us dinner.”
I grip the steering wheel harder again. I’m surprised. “Really? Because I remember him trying to hit on Lucy Collins with the buck teeth back in high school. His idea of a ‘grand gesture’ back then was a pack of gum with ‘blow me’ written on it in permanent marker.”
Sel laughs at the memory. “Well, he upped his game.”
And I’ll up mine if that’s what it takes.
“But,” she continues, and here it comes. “Rick’s been strange lately, especially since you arrived. He’s got this whole alpha male, chest-beating bullshit going on I can’t stand.”
“We are talking about the same Rick Evans, aren’t we? The wimpy Rick Evans who’d run from the whiff of a fist fight?”
“The one and only. I don’t know. He’s been… distant lately.”
I could press the matter, but that’s enough for now. Whatever happens between them, it has to be by Rick’s own hand. I can’t have anything to do with it if there’s ever going to be something with Sel and me. It kills me, but it’s the way it has to be.
I see the sign for Palm Springs ahead. “We’re almost there.”
“You think your mom will remember me?” Sel asks.
I turn and grin. “How could she not remember you? You’re hard to forget.”
I let the compliment settle between us. “Mathew Barton the charmer, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Selena Torres the sucker, boys and girls.”
She reaches across and slaps me on the chest. “Just drive, will you?”
I smile as I bring my other hand up onto the steering wheel. “Sure thing, Ms. Torres.”
*
Palm Springs has become a hub for all manner of centers and retreats, places to whisk the unpleasantness of Hollywood away. We pass a number of rehab centers, grand palaces that could double as five-star hotels. The place Mom’s at, Freedom House, slips right in. The driveway alone probably cost a couple mill.
I help Sel out. Her delicate hand is soft in my own, hot.
I adjust my pants as we walk. A boner won’t make for a great introduction at the front desk.
Walking through the facility you’d have no idea this was a psychiatric hospital at all if it wasn’t for the small peculiarities—a woman tapping a window over and over, a man with his clothes on back to front humping a balcony, another singing Katy Perry’s Firework at the top of his lungs, a nurse trying to get him to calm down.
The staff member signing us in clearly knows who Selena is by the way her eyes pop when we enter, but this is the kind of establishment that prides itself on confidentiality given the frequency with which celebrities come and go.
We’re led out to a sun deck at the back of the hospital perched over a manmade lake. Mom sits there looking vacant wearing huge sunglasses that could easily double as ping-pong paddles.
I take a seat beside her, Selena standing beside me. “Mom? It’s me, Mathew.”
Her head slowly turns. She removes her sunglasses, but there’s no flicker of recognition in her juniper eyes. “I’m sorry. Have we met?”
The treatment here was supposed to make her better, not worse, but lately I’ve become a stranger. I was hoping, for Selena’s sake, it would be different today.
“Mom,” I continue, pulling my chair closer so she can get a good look at me. I take her hand. “I’m Mat, your son.”
She draws back offended, her hand pulling away. “I don’t have a son.”
It’s like a hot knife to the gut.
Selena sees my frustration and steps forward, extending her own hand. “Hi, I’m Selena.”
Mom looks up. “Selena? Selena Torres?”
Oh, come on.
Selena smiles, that summer morning, everything-is-right-in-the-world smile that’s helped make her a superstar. “Yes, ma’am.”
Mom sits forward. “My, what a surprise! How are you, Selena? Are your parents well?”
Selena takes a seat beside me. “They are. Mom still works part-time at the salon.” She neglects to mention her father.
Mom looks off into the distance. “You always had the most beautiful voice, Selena, the voice of an angel. Do you still sing?”
Selena nods. “Yes, Mrs. Barton. In fact, I’m work
ing on my second album right now.” Sel looks to me. “Actually, Mat and I might be working on a couple of tracks together.”
Mom’s face screws up in confusion. “Mat?”
The knife digs deeper. “I can’t do it.” I stand and walk away.
“Mat?” calls Sel, but I can’t sit there while my own mother doesn’t recognize me, her only son, so I watch. I watch as she talks with Selena. They laugh and hold hands. It’s nice in a way, nice to see Mom so happy, but I can’t help the nagging thought I’m still a stranger to her.
Half an hour later, Sel says her goodbyes and joins me by the window inside.
“I’m sorry,” I start, but she puts her hand on my chest lightly.
“No, Mat. It’s okay. I completely get it.” She stands. “Come on. Let’s go.”
I nod my approval.
The sun’s semi-sunken as we head out of Palm Springs. I’m heavier on the gas pedal than I should be, my fingers tight on the steering wheel, my knuckles white.
“You haven’t said a thing since we left,” comments Sel.
“It just pisses me off, you know. My own mother and she doesn’t give a damn, doesn’t even remember what her fucking son looks like.” I can’t stop the anger, the frustration from eating at me.
Sel looks at her reflection in the window. “I don’t blame you. It would drive me crazy too, but you can’t give up. You know that, right?”
“Sometimes I think it would be easier that way, a clean break.”
“She’s your mother, Mat, and you’re a dutiful son. I hope to god if I was in her place my son would come to visit me, whether or not I remembered his name.”
She’s right. She’s always right. That’s the beautiful thing about Sel—empathy. She understands people. “What did you guys talk about?”
“The weather, home… Just small talk, really.”
“Thanks for coming out. I mean it. It was nice to see her happy.”
Sel smiles my way. “Any time. I was supposed to go to lunch with Rick today, you know, but he cancelled at the last minute.”
“Does he do that a lot?”
She laughs. “More than I’d like.”
“Sorry. I mean, I didn’t mean to pull you away.”
