Nobody's Hero

by Melanie Harvey

  “Perhaps you should have stayed in the publisher’s budget? Maybe the YMCA? No private restrooms, but they have a swimming pool.”

  “Absolutely not.” Carolyn went to inspect the private bathroom. More flowers.

  “The Plaza always got all the glory,” Liz said, “but I’ve always thought if you want the style and old-world elegance … ”

  Liz had grown up in the South Bronx, but she clearly preferred the finer areas of New York.

  Carolyn unlatched the shower door, revealing gleaming white tiles. “Well, it’s beautiful. Oh! What time is it?”

  “Almost time,” Liz said. “How did that go? I can’t believe I forgot to ask.”

  Carolyn went back to the living room and grabbed the remote. “Honestly, I don’t know. I had this buzzing in my ears the entire time.”

  “Well, if you could hear through the buzzing, tell me one thing. Did anybody laugh?”

  “Um. I think I remember hearing some of that.”

  “What did I tell you? I knew you’d find the humor in it.”

  “Ah, Liz?”

  “Hmm?”

  “The humor … well. It might seem … slightly lacking in taste.”

  “From you?” Liz laughed. “I can’t imagine it.”

  “Just chalk it up to nerves.” And bad influences.

  “But did they laugh?”

  “Oh, yeah. They laughed.”

  Liz confirmed their lunch for tomorrow before she said good-bye. Carolyn called the front desk to request privacy until eight a.m. She turned off her cell phone, too, so that no one — especially Eve — could reach her until morning.

  The eleven o’clock news was on. But not for much longer.

  8: Don’t Misunderstand Me

  When Holly displayed her all-over tan, Rick asked if she knew those booths would give her skin cancer. She giggled and turned around, like she thought he was kidding. Then she started talking. As soon as she climbed on top of him, he didn’t need help tuning her out. The second verse of Blueprint’s “Big Girls Need Love Too” ran through his head.

  I know why you been skipping dinner / the white boys been telling you you need to be thinner.

  Holly was half the calories and half the fat, but her chest wasn’t flat. Obvious as a total body tan the second week of June, the saline bouncing above him reminded him of the show at the barrier — and the wide gold eyes. He gritted his teeth and picked up the verse again — everywhere we go people give grub to you / cause you look like a hungry P-O-W — until it distracted him some. At this rate, he was running the possibility of somebody passing him a printout of a message board with her saying he came so fast she didn’t even have a chance.

  That kept him steady until the ‘Oh, Ricky’s’ started flying.

  His mind flew to the sidewalk. He saw Carolyn’s eyes more clearly because of the grip he had on her, pulling her against him instead of letting her escape.

  Rick exhaled quietly over a sharp shoulder. Some other bone was digging into his thigh, and he thought the next time he ran into Print, he’d be taking offense at being stereotyped with all those white boys like that.

  Holly shifted, and Rick jammed his hand between them to grab the slipping condom. She sat up and slid her hands under his jersey; he grabbed both her wrists with his free hand and rolled her off him. He glanced at the clock as he headed for the bathroom, stripping off the condom into the trashcan.

  I don’t bone thugs or sing harmony / call me Eminem don’t call me Eazy-E.

  The clinic nurse hadn’t thought that was funny. Neither did Rick, really, it was just that discussing his sexual practices with someone who reminded him of Terrance’s mother sent him looking for some way to break up the mood. The nurse’s spiel was wasted on him, but she didn’t know Rick convinced Tammy Prescott to drop her miniskirt only a month before Eazy died of AIDS. Rick thought about it every time he got the offer to skip the jacket. And they said rappers were a bad influence. Then three years ago, Mary tried to pin a case of the clap on him, no matter that his test results caught it — dated proof that she was the one who’d given it to him. He quit arguing when it hit him that her insistence that he was always fucking around on her had nothing to do with him.

  Rick slapped the bathroom light off. That had demolished any temptation to kiss without Saran Wrap, a weak-ass metaphor some rubber-skipping chicken had suggested. As if kissing had anything to do with …

  You might want to check your thesaurus, Mr. Ranière.

  Rick shook his head over the incomprehensible rush. Probably even more than …

  … multiple choice … B … Carolyn Coffman sticking it to you.

  Goddamn Terrance.

  Holly was stretched out on the king size bed, still not dressed, making herself at home. Rick glanced at the clock.

  “Is my time up?”

  Rick figured she was clever enough to read a digital clock. He nodded anyway.

  She reached her arms over her head thrusting her oversized boobs and defining the ribs underneath. You’re so skinny I can see your heart beating.

  Not through saline, Blueprint. Rick looked at the dress on the end of the bed.

  She followed his gaze. “You going somewhere?”

  “You writing a book?”

  She looked away.

  Rick skirted the bed to retrieve his hat. “Show starts in a few minutes.”

  She didn’t ask what show; he had a feeling she knew. At least she was getting dressed.

  She looked up after she strapped on her heels. “Why don’t I stay and watch with you?”

  “Because I don’t want you to.” She looked away, pouting. So much for honesty being the best policy. “I told you twenty minutes, you said okay.”

  “I thought you’d want to hang out for a while.”

  Rick’s stomach dropped. “That ain’t what you — ” He clamped his mouth shut and spun the bolt on the door to the living room without looking back. Her voice followed him, confirming that he’d once again made the asinine mistake of believing a single word that came out of a woman’s mouth. He didn’t feel the bottle in his hand until he heard the seal snap open. Rick swirled the amber liquid and the bitching faded. Terrance’s voice came back to him, echoing off the walls of a cheap motel room in Kansas City.

  Only five weeks ago. He tipped the bottle, poured it into the sink and read the letters he’d forced under his skin almost five years ago — until Holly’s voice crashed back in.

  He couldn’t have heard that right. “What the fuck did you just say?”

  She tossed her hair over her skinny shoulder. “I said, maybe Mary ain’t the one with the problem.”

  Rick slammed the thick bottle into the sink. It didn’t break. “Get the fuck out of my room.”

  She stared at him.

  “You got a hearing problem?”

  “Oh, I get it.” She snatched her bag off the couch. “The truth hurts.”

  The truth? “I’m telling you. Now.”

  She heard fine when it sounded like that. Her heels clattered on the tile when she hit the entry. The truth.

  He heard the main door open and Terrance almost colliding with her, her snapping at him now. After the door slammed, Terrance called, “There goes another satisfied customer.”

  “You trying to get your ass kicked?” He snatched the bottle from the sink and buried it in the trashcan. Mary ain’t the one with the problem. Who the fuck did she think she was/

  “Somebody opening up a can of whoop ass in here?” Terrance’s body filled the doorway. “Or did the top already get popped?”

  Rick filled a glass with cold water and drank, which didn’t help. “That was not my fault.”

  “Want to know what she said?”

  “Hell, no.”

  “She said it’s true what they say about the size of white boys’ di — ”

  “Am I the only one without a fucking hearing problem?”

  Terrance’s broad smile faded.

  “Shit.” Rick dodg
ed the couch to turn on the flat screen TV. “What time is it?”

  “I believe it’s time to pass your test papers to the front of the class.”

  “All those questions are biased in favor of middle-class white kids.” He dropped onto the couch and flipped through a half dozen stations. “What channel is CBS?”

  “There was a big number two on the sign outside the theater.” Terrance sat down and put his feet up on the coffee table. “You know, sometimes whipped cream goes sour on you.”

  “Terrance. Shut up.”

  “Nasty,” Terrance said, with a big fake shudder. “Like when you forget to smell the milk carton.”

  Rick winged the remote at him, which he caught as easily as he used to catch screen passes for Coach Owens. Still laughing at his own joke. A commercial ended, and there was Matt Damon, talking to Letterman about … baseball? And Rick thought nothing was more boring than watching it. The conversation about the Red Sox and the Yankees couldn’t hold his attention, not even for a minute. Or twenty.

  Goddamn it. So many guys fed out all kinds of shit. Oh, baby I love you, I’m really into you, you the only one. You and all the others. What was the point? Nobody’s under any fucking obligation here, we cool with that? Oh, yeah, we cool.

  Bullshit. “Bullshit.”

  “It’s only June,” Terrance said. “Even the Indians still got a chance.”

  “What the — ?” Oh. Baseball.

  Terrance threw the remote at him. “Ricky, you the only brother I know who’s in a worse mood after he gets laid.”

  “Whatever.”

  “What’d you say to her, anyway?”

  “I said, look, I got plans in twenty — ”

  “Not her, you idiot. What’d you say to Carolyn? Before she told you off.”

  “Oh.” Rick grinned. “I said … ah … I said ‘are you offering’.”

  “And she wasn’t?”

  Rick shot him a look before he returned his attention to the TV.

  I wondered if anyone had ever really loved the guy who wrote it.

  The commercial ended and the chair was empty. Rick heard Letterman announce Carolyn Coffman and something about a book. He leaned forward in his seat as she walked across the stage, almost life-size on the flat-screen.

  Then he saw Terrance watching him and leaned back. “She ain’t bad.”

  “No, she ain’t,” Terrance agreed. “She’s fast too, when she running away from you.”

  The comment converged with a close-up on Carolyn’s face as she smiled, then she touched her tongue to her lips before she spoke again. Damn.

  “Odors and pheromones?” Terrance said. “You know what she’s talking about?”

  Rick could only hear the sounds. It gave him the same feeling when somebody finally turned a wrench on the fire hydrant. The first blast was a shock, but then the relief set in and you weren’t gonna die from the heat anymore.

  He forced himself to listen.

  “It’s biological,” Carolyn was saying. “A woman’s receptivity to these signals peaks during ovulation.”

  Letterman stuttered, “Ov-ovulation?” and the audience laughed.

  “Meaning,” Carolyn said, “it’s Darwinian. The studies have shown that when women are only exposed to the odors of men, they will be aroused by some but not by others. They determined the genetic makeup of the men and women, and found that arousal was present when their genes were substantially different.”

  Rick didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but he guessed he could listen to her talk about arousal for as long as they let her.

  “So chemistry is real?” Letterman asked.

  “Yes, and everybody knows it. This just proves how it works.”

  “Then why would you want to fight the pheromone factor?”

  Rick exhaled quietly when Carolyn smiled again and tucked the hair behind her ear.

  “Because when you’re only following your nose,” she said, “you can get steered in the wrong direction.”

  The audience over-laughed on the bad joke.

  “You have to put your brain in the driver’s seat,” she continued, “so you won’t be overcome by something as unreliable as chemistry.”

  “I take it you would never be overcome.”

  Carolyn smiled. “I’ve been overcome.”

  “Oh, really?” Dave leaned forward. “Anyone I know?”

  Terrance laughed. Rick didn’t. He watched something change in her eyes.

  “Well,” she said, “you invited him on the show tonight.”

  Rick jumped. “Did she just — ”

  “Baby-G.”

  “No fucking way, man.”

  “Could be Damon — ”

  “Would you shut up?” Rick hit the volume. He’d almost missed the question.

  “ — your book’s advice?”

  Her eyes and her face changed again. “Well, Dave, I’ve been working on a new theory. The get-it-out-of-your-system-quick method. So I borrowed that leather couch in your green room. I hope you don’t mind.”

  Rick closed his mouth and swallowed. “Holy shit.”

  Carolyn leaned forward, touched Letterman’s hand. “I’m kidding, Dave.”

  The audience was laughing its ass off, and Rick couldn’t keep his in his seat. He held both arms up, for the touchdown.

  Terrance snorted. “She wasn’t talking about you.”

  “Oh, yes she was. And she did not want me to hear that. No ‘might’ about it, Carolyn Coffman — I’m loving it.”

  Terrance just laughed at him, talking to the television. Damn. Rick crossed to the bar, caught Terrance’s glance and reached for a can of A&W, which he’d been after in the first place.

  “You know she just playing,” Terrance said.

  Rick shrugged and popped the top. The commercial was over. He watched and listened from behind the couch, looking over Terrance’s head. The cameras stayed with Guillotine almost the whole time, intercut with a few shots of his DJ. They finally pulled back for both of them during the hook. Pretty far back, seemed like. Rick held his breath when the chorus ended. It’d been a long time since he’d seen himself on video. He didn’t know if his opinion of what he looked like was too critical. Or not critical enough. His voice sounded almost the same, but then —

  “What the fuck?” He had one damn verse and they turned the camera on some shadow in the corner.

  It wasn’t a shadow. Carolyn stood on the side of the stage, running a perfect lip sync — dead on — until she tripped on the word change. The video cut back to him, the last few lines. He watched, but he didn’t hear it anymore. She knew all the words, and the album hadn’t even dropped until …

  He glanced at the clock on the VCR. Half an hour ago.

  Terrance’s phone rang, and Rick re-focused on the TV. Commercials.

  “Kale says he tried your phone,” Terrance said. “And that’s the sorriest damn thing he ever saw on television.”

  “Tell Kale — ”

  “Oh, except for the part where Carolyn was lip-syncing you.”

  “ — he can kiss my white ass.”

  Terrance stood up and stretched. “Ricky says ‘no doubt’.”

  Rick flipped him off before he headed for his bedroom to collect his phone. Jesse was probably calling, too.

  “He says she was talking about him.” Terrance gave a short laugh. “Yeah, he pissed her off about ten minutes after.”

  “Shut up, T.”

  “Might a been fifteen. An hour ago, another one was stomping out the hotel room.”

  “Terrance — ”

  “And in between those two, he got one hauled off for indecent exposure.”

  Rick stopped in the doorway. “Oh, I ain’t taking the fall on that.”

  Terrance ignored him. “Yeah, same shit, different city.”

  Rick shut himself in his bedroom and caught his phone before it vibrated off the dresser.

  “I didn’t close my eyes this time,” Jesse said. “You did great
.”

  “Good thing I got you. Nobody else want to tell me that.”

  Except Carolyn. Exact same words. Rick shook that off and a different stream of words replaced it. “Jesse, did you put where I’m staying on my website?”

  Jesse said yes, but Rick already knew the answer, just now registering Holly’s yell from the bedroom. I’m sorry I even looked at your website today.

  She wasn’t the only one. “Jesse, would you get that off there? Now.”

  9: Crossing Fifth Avenue

  Rick stared at the clock. He closed his eyes, opened them again. 8:05. His first night in a real bed in five days, and he’d woken up every goddamn hour. He yanked the blankets over his head, but sleep wasn’t interested in coming back this round. He groaned and sat up, rubbing his eyes with one hand and digging clothes out of the duffel bag with the other. Not really fair for ‘sleeping’ to wind up on the long list of shit he sucked at. He found the Excedrin, dry-swallowed three, and headed for his bathroom.

  Found his hat in there. Out in the living room, he stood and listened to the quiet. Terrance’s iPod was jacked into the speakers. He could crank it and wake up Terrance, but he didn’t want to start relating to Terrance on that note.

  He had his own notes to deal with anyway. He turned back toward the bedroom for his backpack and saw his boots next to the couch. First the hat, then the shoes, but he never left anything lying around like that. That’s how you lost shit you had to replace.

  He shoved his boots on and went for the notebook and music, right where he’d left it. But the beats Zeus had loaded onto an mp3 player didn’t sound any different than all the other times he’d listened to them. He ripped off the earphones, then couldn’t find his damn keycard either. But Terrance’s card was on the coffee table. That’d work.

  Guests crowded against the check-in desk, bellhops picked up bags. Rick jumped out of the way of a passing trolley and ducked through the revolving door. Outside, he was met by even more people and all their cars. Christ, why did everyone like this city so much?

  “Do you need a taxi, Mr. Ranière?”

  That was creepy. “I don’t know.” He looked at the doorman, maybe sixty, with white fuzzy-caterpillar eyebrows under a green hat. Rick plunged his hands in his pockets. His left hand didn’t feel the slip of paper. “You know where the Sherry-Netherland hotel is?”