Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  — light brown shoulder against the strap. Her skin looked warm under the lights. Rick rubbed the chill from his own shoulder.

  “The hell is wrong with you?” Terrance was looking at the TV. “Who is she?”

  Rick shrugged. Terrance gave him a strange look, then glanced back to the television, but she was gone. Rick heard Paul Schaffer’s band through the closed door before the silent video went to black.

  Carolyn Coffman. After he’d bitched at her for just being in the room. She wouldn’t know he’d just spent four grueling months on the road playing thousand seat clubs (max) so he could drive ten hours home to sleep on Terrance’s lumpy couch, then fly right out again to New York to hear all about Guillotine’s soon-to-be-platinum career. And Rick was not complaining, because it wasn’t like Letterman was beating down Rick’s door. Then, right before he walked into this room — as if Rick moving all his shit into storage yesterday wasn’t clear enough — Mary called to tell him he was making a mistake, that she supported him when no one else did.

  He’d pulled out a dictionary once, to prove she wasn’t clear on the word ‘support,’ but one definition really was ‘tolerate.’ She said that was not what she meant.

  And all that was a parking ticket under his windshield wiper compared to his worst problem, but it kept him distracted so he didn’t have to think about it.

  “Ricky.” Terrance raised his hands. “You gonna get off your ass now?”

  “Maybe.”

  Terrance’s warning look was easy to recognize, Rick had been seeing it for thirteen years. He stood and shot the pop can straight into the garbage. “Or maybe I’m a go so I can demonstrate the flow … ”

  Terrance snorted. “Asshole.”

  “So they can finally know what’s been missing on The Late Show.”

  “No doubt they been waiting for you twenty, thirty years now.”

  Terrance headed out; Rick grabbed the second pop and followed. Behind the eight ball. He wouldn’t say that out loud (again) because he tried, with limited success, to avoid pissing Terrance off. He was probably the best friend he’d ever have.

  He definitely had the shiniest head.

  * * *

  “Wait!” When the intern skidded to a stop, Carolyn cringed at her rudeness. “I’m sorry.” She checked his badge for his name, and he caught her looking.

  Michael handed back the iPod he’d held for her. “That’s okay.”

  “Are you always this patient?”

  He blushed, the freckles standing out on his cheeks. “Patience is a job requirement.”

  He’d proven that backstage. “Listen, is there any way I could … ”

  She glanced over her shoulder in the direction of the activity she couldn’t see. Voices and a few drumbeats broke through the song played by the CBS orchestra. She heard Guillotine first. Then Rick.

  “Mike check. Check-check.” The band overwhelmed his voice for a moment. “Mike-mike-mike … Fred … John … Todd … Bob.”

  Carolyn grinned.

  “Did you want to watch the rest of the taping?”

  “I would love to.”

  Michael led her toward the theater. “We haven’t had crowds outside like that since — ”

  “The crowds — oh, right.” They were for Guillotine.

  Michael glanced over his shoulder.

  “I didn’t mean to interrupt you.”

  “That’s okay,” he said, again. “In New York, seems like if you don’t interrupt, you don’t get to … ” His mouth formed an O. “You want to see the other guy.”

  Carolyn managed a nod. He didn’t seem bothered by the abuse he’d taken over the root beer. She imagined he’d received worse.

  When they came out of the hallway on the opposite end of the studio, Michael spoke to an older white man standing behind a lectern. “She wants to see Ricky Rain.”

  The man glanced to the stage. “Who?”

  “He’s the … um … he’s on the right … the left … ”

  “Did you mean stage left?” Carolyn asked, because she couldn’t help herself when Rick moved again, joining Guillotine and the DJ at the turntables.

  “The one with the red stripe on his hat,” Michael said. He put a finger to his lips before he left, and the other man went back to his work.

  At least their preoccupation over identifying Rick as ‘the white guy’ in non-homogenous company had prevented them from commenting on her interview. She had managed to get a laugh. She wasn’t sure her agent, or Eve, or her parents or — dear God — her grandmothers would appreciate it. Carolyn pressed her shoulder to the blue pillar near the door and waited out the roll in her stomach. Too late to worry about them now.

  She watched Guillotine and his DJ talk while Rick listened, his gaze on the floor. Guillotine spoke into his ear, Rick nodded and moved to the left microphone stand, his gaze roaming the audience as the band continued to play. A man held out four, then three, then two fingers in front of David Letterman before the camera’s red light switched on. Letterman held up Guillotine’s new CD, announced the name of the album, then Guillotine, and then, Carolyn was glad to hear, he announced Rick, too.

  She hardly listened to the first verse, all Guillotine, until the chorus, when they traded lines back and forth. Then Rick moved out in front. It sounded different than the stream on Guillotine’s website, but that was nothing compared to the difference watching him pace the stage, every step matching the beat, as he spit his verse barely a front-yard’s distance away.

  He’d written it, too, created it out of thin air, then made the words sound like —

  Not like that. She grinned as she realized she’d been doing her own lip-sync and forgotten this was edited for television. It was over too fast, back to the chorus, then Guillotine again, and then the audience applauded. Letterman walked across the stage, shook both of their hands. She thought Rick looked surprised.

  What I wanted to say was that I think you’re incredible.

  The band started up again, and the set bustled back to life. As she headed back for her car, she couldn’t resist glancing over her shoulder, in time to catch the DJ exchange a handshake with Rick. Carolyn read the DJ’s lips: “Fly.”

  Then Rick turned to face Guillotine a few yards away. He tapped his chin with his fist, brought it straight out a few inches, and held it there for a split second before he dropped his hand. Guillotine mirrored the action, but slower. His dark, chiseled features held a solemn expression.

  Rick closed his eyes longer than a blink before he turned away, and she lost sight of him in the crowd. God, she hoped he got this stage to himself one day.

  All right, she was a groupie. She’d just go back to being one from a safe distance.

  * * *

  Rick forced Gil and his almost-platinum career from his thoughts by the time he was offstage, which was hardly a minute since he’d gone on. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. He hunted the hallways, turned two corners, saw a security guard, turned back around and ran right into Terrance. Like magic.

  Terrance raised his hands. “Where you been?”

  “Looking for you.” Christ, he was lost now. He had no sense of direction inside buildings. “Everybody leave here the same way?”

  “Yeah, most of ’em walk out,” Terrance said. “Then they catch a cab, maybe a bus. Some of them even — now don’t go postal on me — some of them even take the subway.”

  He didn’t have time for this. “The door we came in. All the guests use those doors?”

  Terrance always seemed to know this shit. Like he asked about it or something.

  “You wanting Matt Damon’s autograph?”

  “Who?”

  Terrance laughed. “She probably left already.”

  Or she was leaving this second. “You know where the fucking doors are or not?”

  More grinning, but Terrance started moving. He tossed a funny look over his shoulder.

  “What?”

  He just shook his head.

 
; “Look,” Rick said. “I just figured out that she’s a fan, and I might a said some shit. And it ain’t like I can afford to be alienating — ”

  “You? Alienating somebody?”

  “Shut the fuck up, T.”

  Terrance laughed as they rounded a corner. “You ever heard the saying ‘quit while you’re ahead’?”

  “Yeah, I heard it,” Rick said. “But I ain’t never been ahead yet, so why would I be quitting?”

  Now that was funny.

  3: Define ‘alienated’

  Manhattan traffic didn’t have enough problems without the Late Show staff barricading the entire street. Carolyn’s car was second in the line of vehicles parked outside the Ed Sullivan Theater. She raised a “wait-a-minute” finger to her driver and shielded her eyes from the sun as she looked to the west. People with front row spots behind the barriers waited for Matt Damon’s autograph as he talked with them. Someone held up a video camera; he nodded and spoke directly to the lens. Then he signed his last autograph, to that person’s great delight and the bitter disappointment of those who would go home empty handed. The happier fans showed their papers to one another.

  Carolyn thought the whole thing was ridiculous, an opinion she kept to herself when she was signing her own book. Why was this scribble worth more than any other scribble?

  She would want to see one scribble Matt Damon wrote. She imagined it on a bar napkin: what if there was this math genius janitor with a troubled past …

  Or whatever his initial thought had been, the thought he turned into an Oscar-winning screenplay. When he was twenty-seven — the same age she was right now. Maybe if she saw it, she could believe it all started with the barest idea and anyone could make it work. Maybe not everyone was Mozart, writing symphonies as though transcribing them directly from God.

  Or maybe it had all been Ben Affleck’s idea.

  When his car drove off, his fans left as well, squeezing through the larger, louder crowd that pressed in to take their place. As if a director had called ‘action,’ they all screamed. Carolyn saw Guillotine and his entourage filing out the door, jewelry blazing in the sunlight.

  She moved back against the warmth of the brick wall as they headed for the blockade that the security guards were determined to keep in place, despite the crowd’s dogged effort to move it. Cameras flashed as boom microphones snaked over the fans’ heads.

  Guillotine ignored the pens, accepted the handshakes, the hugs. Girls wrapped their arms around his neck, and Carolyn tried to imagine kissing a complete stranger.

  “I could get you an autograph.”

  Carolyn shivered. “Yuck. But thanks for the offer.”

  She swallowed hard and turned toward the voice. On the other side of the fireplug planted in the sidewalk, Rick stood with his back sharing her brick wall.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  He glanced at Guillotine. “For having an opinion?”

  “I meant because he’s your friend.”

  He nodded before his gaze drifted back toward Guillotine.

  “Isn’t he?” she asked. “In the songs you did together … ”

  It sounded like Rick had been the one to introduce Guillotine to Zeus, the multi-platinum producer who’d turned a dozen rappers into superstars. But maybe that wasn’t true.

  Rick shrugged. “We grew up together.”

  Carolyn glanced back to the barrier. Bodyguards opened the doors on the town cars to a chorus of “Just one picture!”

  She turned back to Rick. “You did great.”

  He shifted against the wall and put his hands in his pockets. His right shoulder was less than two feet from her, and she felt the intense urge to shift herself closer.

  The breeze swept through the Manhattan canyon. She was downwind. Time to practice what you preach, girl. She slowly took a step to her right — away from him — and his eyes narrowed. “You really did,” Carolyn said quickly. “Sound great.”

  He studied her for so long that she wondered if she’d said something wrong.

  “Thanks,” he said, finally. “How’d you make out?”

  Carolyn raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t watch?”

  “The sound was off. I’ll catch it tonight.”

  Oh, no. “That’s okay, really. I don’t want — I mean, don’t feel like you have to … .”

  Rick’s eyes widened. “What’d you say?”

  “Never mind.” She held back her groan. “You might love it.”

  She thought she heard someone shout his name, but Rick didn’t react. He held her gaze for a moment. Maybe waiting for her to tell him. She refused to even think about it.

  Doors slammed and she turned to watch the security guards try to keep people from injuring themselves reaching for Guillotine’s limousine. Because somehow he’d become famous? “I just don’t get it.”

  When she turned, she thought he looked amused. “You gonna apologize again?”

  Carolyn shook her head. “I like the music.”

  “Zeus makes the beats.”

  “I know,” she said, and he might have found that amusing, too.

  She heard his name again and this time he turned, the tattooed word catching her eye as his hand passed in front of his face to shield his eyes from the sun. Carolyn’s gaze traveled from his square jaw up to where his hairline would be under the hat. An edge of light brown escaped at the back. What would it feel like to slide her hands under the brim of his hat, pull it off? To run her fingers through —

  She had to get out of here. Follow her own advice and run, before she did or said something she would certainly regret.

  “Listen, I — ”

  “Are you — ”

  * * *

  Rick was about to ask if she was doing anything, wanted to go get dinner …

  Do what? Dinner?

  He sure as hell didn’t finish that thought when she laughed, nodding for him to go first. He didn’t usually take to people laughing right at him, but the sound of her laughter cut right through the traffic, the people, like it was louder than all of it and warmer than any of it.

  Warmer for sure than whoever screamed his name again. When he’d looked before, Guillotine’s fans were leaving, so he couldn’t tell if they were just trying to get through to Gil. When he looked now, he caught an eyeful of bare tits, stark white against a tanned body. Christ. He turned back to see Carolyn’s hand clapped over her mouth, gold eyes wide open.

  “Oh, my God,” she said. “Does that happen a lot?”

  He shrugged, because he didn’t know. How many tit-flashes equaled a ‘lot’?

  She lowered her hand, still wide-eyed. “It’s like live pornography.”

  “Yeah. Whatever. Look, I was — ”

  “RICKY!”

  Goddamn it.

  Carolyn turned, slightly away from the tit girl, laughing again. “Please, Rick. Go sign her autograph so she doesn’t do that again.”

  But she would do exactly that again when he had the marker in his hand.

  “Or don’t you sign autographs?”

  He snorted. “I ain’t quite got the luxury to be dissin’ my fans. Yet.”

  “Especially the naked ones.”

  “Any of ’em, really.” The noise was getting to him; he’d forgotten what he wanted to say. He nodded at the waiting Lincoln. “That your car? You think we could — ”

  “No!”

  “So I can hear!”

  Her face told him that wasn’t a good enough reason. He looked down the section of sidewalk with a plywood ceiling and wondered if she was against moving down there. Terrance was talking to a security guard. Both of them kept an eye on the barriers. Rick held up five fingers behind his back, just five minutes, damn.

  “I’m sorry,” Carolyn said, but he didn’t know why. “Maybe I’m not your average fan.”

  “I caught that,” he said. “But I — like I said, I ain’t really got the luxury to be … ”

  Carolyn grinned. Somehow he had managed to almost miss ho
w damn beautiful she was. But she didn’t want him in her car, even for a conversation, which short-circuited his brain.

  “I was a prick. I didn’t mean … ”

  “Yeah, you did,” she said. “I’m okay, though.”

  He thought she meant it. She looked like she meant it.

  Carolyn tilted her head in the direction of the barrier. “Anyway, you’re dissin’ your other fans. And I really do have to go.”

  “Can you … ” Now his brain completely locked up. If he wasn’t allowed in the car, he was sure of the answer he’d get to any other question. He didn’t know what to do about that. Out of practice. He thought of something else, since she obviously wasn’t a Guillotine fan. “Where’d you hear me, anyway?”

  Carolyn glanced toward the barricade. “You’re a little bit famous.”

  Maybe fifteen people were still on the sidewalk.

  “I heard you on the radio,” she added.

  Not unless some renegade DJ had spun a track off Guillotine’s last album. “Nobody told me I broke the Clear Channel barrier.”

  Another laugh, so real it felt like it’d been injected. He would have settled for not having to explain the damn joke.

  “Not as far as I know,” she said. “But there are a few stations left.”

  Carolyn started to … not hum something, she did a “da-da-da,” just two bars.

  He hadn’t heard it himself in years. “And you ran right to the record store after that?”

  Straight dark hair met her bare shoulders when she shrugged.

  He’d heard some of the comments: it was great, it was awful, I felt the same way. Sure you did. Once in a while, some sick bitch missed the point, thought it was a crazy seduction.

  Carolyn didn’t look crazy. The breeze shot down the tunnel of buildings, swirled her skirt around her knees, and he shoved his hands in his pockets. He wanted her, so she had to be crazy. It seemed to be the goddamn pattern.

  “The first time I loved it,” she said. “The second time it made me cry.”

  “What?”

  Carolyn took a step back against the wall.

  He lowered his voice as he leaned toward her. “Why?”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to say that.”