Abby Road

by Ophelia London

  “Seriously, though,” Molly said after a moment, “do you want me to have Max send in some muscle men to pull you out of there? He has connections everywhere. Like the mob.”

  “No!” I exclaimed, then dropped my voice. “We promised each other I would be manager-free this summer.” I slid the hot-vampire-meets-socially-awkward-teenager book back into its place on the shelf and glanced down the aisle. “It’s not like I’m being assaulted by psychos jumping out of corners, so why cause a scene?”

  “I’m your biggest fan, Abigail Kelly,” Molly quoted in her best Kathy Bates stalker voice.

  “I’ll leave soon,” I promised, mostly to myself. “I’m just not ready to go back to Lindsey’s yet. She’ll have questions I don’t want to answer.”

  There was a silent beat before Molly exhaled a noncommittal, “Yeah.”

  I immediately felt the vibe of our conversation darken. I bit my lip, hating how disconnected and gray my life had become.

  After another stretch of silence, Molly said, “So, Abby? I called you for a reason this time, actually . . . b-because . . .” After some uncharacteristic stammering, her comments changed direction. “Well, anyway.” She exhaled. “I have to ask, you still taking your meds?”

  My stomach dropped. I knew she was just doing her job, but I hated being treated like a mental patient. “Yes, Molly,” I reported, busying myself with the growing stack of books in my bag. “Every morning,” I practically cheered. “Every morning for three hundred and sixty-three days—” The last word caught in my throat.

  I had no idea why I tried to make a joke out of it. Reciting the exact number of days since Christian died was not totally hilarious. And suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. That year-old noose, that long, slippery snake was slithering up my throat, coiling around my insides, choking me until I couldn’t—

  “Well!” Molly cut in brightly. “You’ll be happy to hear that the stalkerazzi are still ’round your house here. And you haven’t even been up in Malibu for, like, what? A year?” She scoffed. “So completely stupid.”

  I caught my breath, listening to her complain unintelligibly for a while, her slurry Eliza Doolittle lost on me again. Since Molly and I were practically joined at the hip, the paparazzi pissed her off as much as me.

  “Any guys around?” she asked, veering us toward a more pleasant distraction subject. “Describe them, please. It’s high time you got a little action.”

  I shook my head but played along. “There’s a tall gangster wannabe behind the computer games,” I reported in a low voice while leaning against the end of the bookshelf. “He’s holding his hand over half his face trying to make it look like he’s not totally ogling.” I whipped off my sunglasses and made a point of holding direct eye contact with the guy. His face went beet red before he backed up and disappeared.

  “How ugly is he?” This was always Molly’s first question about anybody.

  My reply to her was always the same. “Butt,” I answered. “Gold chains, wife beater, fedora. He looks like 2003’s Justin Timberlake puked on him.”

  “Hot.”

  When I moved my phone to the other ear and turned around, I noticed him, standing alone, right across the aisle at the end of Sports & Outdoors. I did a double take, which didn’t happen often, because except for the ones with wicked-tall blue hair or an exceptionally nice posterior, I hardly noticed the existence of guys anymore. Occupational hazard of living in L.A., where everyone was perfect, plastic, and beautiful.

  But I did notice this guy. He was laughing out loud at whatever he was reading.

  That’s what hooked my attention, the laugh. I wished it were contagious. Before I fully realized that we were staring at each other and that maybe I should have, I don’t know, smiled or something similarly human, he tucked the book into the crook of his arm and walked away.

  “Listen.” Molly broke into my thoughts. “I’ll pay ya ten bucks to walk over and kiss him. Right now. Chop-chop.”

  “What?” I gasped, feeling a little fluttery. “No way, Molly.” As I spoke, I couldn’t help standing on my tiptoes to see where Laughing Guy had gone.

  “Go on, then,” Molly continued. “March up, tear off his stupid fedora and gold chains, close your eyes, and think of England.”

  That’s when I realized who she was talking about. “Oh. Har har. Here I go. Alert the media.” It was a joke, but even back in the day when I was milking my celebrity for all it was worth, I never would have sauntered up to a stranger and attacked. After another quick glance around, I realized Laughing Guy had left my section of the store. I sighed, a bit disappointed.

  “You’ve been out of the VIP scene for too long,” Molly said.

  “He’s gone, anyway. So much for all men fainting into a heap at my feet.”

  When I heard Molly’s chuckles turn to snorts, I started laughing, too. I absolutely adored her—she was as close to me as my sister, Lindsey. While running my fingers along the skinny spines of Dr. Seuss, I calculated how long it had been since Molly and I hit those VIP clubs on our rare nights off.

  Not long enough.

  “The very idea of the club scene is exhausting, it’n it?” Molly said, continuing my thought.

  I answered with one confirming chuckle.

  “At twenty-four,” she went on, “your partying days are over.”

  I chuckled again, only bleaker. Another confirmation.

  “So, what books have you collected so far?” she asked, probably realizing that my thoughts had strayed toward the dark again.

  “Well . . .” I sat down on the long bench in front of the magazines, pulling from the tote bag my potential purchases one at a time. “A coffee table book about Maui,” I reported.

  “For Hal?” Molly exhaled one humorless laugh. “At least it will give him something to read besides Rolling Stone or Lead Guitarists’ Worst Hair Weekly.” I could almost hear the roll of her eyes. Then she beeped her horn at something—probably a mother pushing a baby in a stroller. “He’s been tweeting every few minutes,” she continued. “The boy needs a hobby. It doesn’t sound like the band is up to anything useful this summer.”

  With one finger, I traced the line of breaking waves on the cover of the Maui book. “The guys are never productive when I’m not around,” I mumbled. Then I bit my lip, considering something else. “Molly?” I looked up. “What if fans lose interest because we’re taking the summer off? What if we never sell another record? That kind of thing’s happened before. I’ve seen those shows on VH1.” I clutched my phone, allowing myself two seconds to imagine the consequences. Then I sprang to my feet. “I need to come home. Today. Right now. Can you get me on the next flight?”

  “Abby? Abby!”

  In a panic, I swung to grab my purse, nearly knocking over my shopping bag of books.

  “Abby? Listen to me. Abby—stop!”

  Molly’s voice had the stern tone she saved for emergencies. Hearing it grounded me in place, and I didn’t dare move.

  “We talked about this. You deserve this vacation, okay?” she said, speaking much calmer. “We all do.”

  I exhaled, but my heart was still pounding in my chest.

  “And don’t worry about the lads; it’s not your fault they bought that gigantic mansion up in the hills. Your fans aren’t going anywhere, either. They can’t wait to buy the next record, okay?”

  I nodded, blinking back sudden tears.

  “Are you all right, then?” she asked. “Abby?”

  “Can’t you hear me nodding?”

  Molly laughed approvingly. I wouldn’t have survived this without her. She held me together, above and beyond her job description.

  “Doctor Robert said this summer needs to be about me,” I said in a small voice. “Like a test to see how I survive without a crew of people telling me what to do and where to go and what to wear.” When I took in a deep inhale, my lungs shook. “So far . . . I’m failing.”

  “Give it time, sweetie,” Molly soothed. “Collect your thing
s, yeah? It’s time to leave the store.”

  I nodded once more and then obeyed her gentle command.

  “Leave the magazine area. Do it straightaway, okay?”

  “Why?” I asked, knowing Molly was excellent at steering me from tab rags with bad press or pictures that made me look fat. “Is there something new?”

  “No,” she said immediately. “Well, yes and no. It’s not new, per se.”

  I was already on my feet in front of the rack, scanning the covers for what she was warning me about.

  Then I saw it. It wasn’t my face on the cover, but it might as well have been.

  “Are you talking about Recognise?” I tore the magazine from its stack and then stared at the picture on the cover. “Huh. I haven’t seen his face in almost a year.”

  Molly huffed. “Your ex is a moron,” she uttered flatly. “Why is it that the more symmetrical the face and perfect the abs, the more idiotic the personality? Look at the title of the cover story.”

  I read it aloud: “‘Miles Carlisle’s Tortured Heart.’” Now that was a laugh. “Still tortured after almost a year? Maybe he needs to write a song about cheating on his girlfriend and then swear it isn’t autobiographical. That used to make him happy.”

  “He needs to be castrated,” Molly stated. “Don’t call him.”

  “Like I would.” I sat down, crossed my legs, and opened the magazine. “I’m on dating ice, anyway. Until I find a combination of Clark Kent and a young Paul McCartney, I’m out of the game.”

  “You’ll be single for a while, chica.”

  I chuckled, mindlessly flipping through the magazine. That’s when I noticed the large, ice-blue eyes of the girl on page five stared back like I was gazing into a mirror. I remembered this photo shoot. It was five years ago, right at the beginning of my new life. Against my better judgment, I flipped to the center.

  There she was again.

  I leaned forward. “I’m in it, too.”

  “I know,” Molly said. “The article is total crap, though. Taking that idiot Miles’s side. Horrid cow of a writer.”

  I rubbed a fist into my forehead, massaging away a new headache. “Ya know, a year ago, Christian would have bought up every copy in the store and hidden them in the trunk of his car.”

  “I know.” I heard a sad smile in Molly’s voice.

  I was smiling, too.

  “I never knew what he did with all those,” she said, “but I’m sure he recycled.”

  I started to laugh but choked instead as reality resurfaced: Christian isn’t here now. He’ll never be here again. I felt the magazine shaking between my trembling hands.

  “Grab the stack,” Molly ordered, almost as if she’d heard my thoughts. “Grab them, Abby.”

  I walked toward the magazine rack, quickly looked around me—no one was close by, of course—and snagged the few mags that were left.

  “Drop them on the floor.”

  I did.

  “Now kick the lot of them under the rack.”

  I paused for a moment, then obeyed. As I stepped back, I wiped my hands on my jeans like I’d just been touching something dirty.

  I’d driven almost ten miles toward Seagrove Beach when Molly announced that she had arrived at her apartment. This was the same moment that my cell beeped, warning me of the low battery. Molly had surely been talking to me the whole time, but my mind hadn’t been on our conversation.

  “I’m FedExing a new charger straightaway.”

  I told her I had one with me.

  “Do you know exactly where it is, Abby?”

  I frowned, picturing my still unpacked heap of suitcases in Lindsey’s guest bedroom.

  “It’ll be at your sister’s house by tomorrow. Plug it in—I need to be able to contact you via mobile.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  When I didn’t say anything more for a few minutes, Molly suddenly asked, “Do you want me out there?” I heard forced enthusiasm in her voice. “I’ll fly out tonight if you want. We’ll veg on the beach all summer. Just you and me. You know, since your brother—”

  “No.” I cut her off.

  But then I didn’t know how to continue.

  After I fell silent again, Molly said, “Okay, Abby, okay.” Her upbeat tone turned defeated. “But please, call if you need me. Please.”

  The touch of pleading in her voice made my throat feel tight and snaky again.

  “Day or night. Promise me?”

  I promised, then quickly ended the call.

  ASSOCIATED PRESS, NEW YORK CITY: Music in Me held its eleventh annual concert in New York’s Madison Square Garden last week. The charity event raised more than five million dollars for the music and art departments of inner-city schools throughout the country. Those most notable in attendance were . . . Abigail Kelly (of Mustang Sally). This year marked Kelly’s fourth to perform at the event and her second as co-host. Mustang Sally has been voted Best Pop Group at the three major music award competitions four years running. No other group has held such high honors.

  {chapter 2}

  “HELP!”

  Lindsey’s house was bright yellow, with a wrap-around porch big enough to accommodate everything from four large wooden rockers, a gas grill, every Tonka truck known to man, and a secluded corner reserved for sunbathing.

  Her garage door magically opened as Lemon Drop—Lindsey’s vintage yellow Beetle that I’d borrowed earlier—proceeded cantankerously up the driveway. I parked beside her silverish-greenish Volvo. Probably hearing Lemon Drop’s final sputter, Lindsey threw open the door to the house. Her bright, smiling face looked fresh and lovely, making me wish for two hours in a makeup chair to catch up.

  “You were just on the news!” She beamed. Seems she’d forgiven me for stealing her car and taking off like that. “My little starlet.” Over her white skinny jeans, tailored pale-blue button-up top, and hot pink leather flip-flops, she was wearing a white apron with her name embroidered in large red script surrounded by daisies. She could’ve been the front cover for Better Homes & Gardens as well as the Victoria’s Secret catalog.

  “For what?” I asked, hauling myself out of the car.

  “That charity gig last week.” She leaned in and started confiscating my shopping bags from the back seat. “I didn’t know you wanted to save the rainforest. How noble of you.”

  “Is that what that concert was for? They never tell us.”

  I heard my sister’s “har har” from inside the car.

  Lindsey whistled a tune as she continued pulling out my bags. I stared at the back of her glossy blond hair. How was it that she always seemed so organically happy? This made me recall the earlier conversation with Molly when she’d offered to call Dr. Robert to change my prescription. Maybe she should have.

  His name wasn’t really Dr. Robert; it was Craig, I think. It was sort of an inside joke. “Doctor Robert” is the name of a Beatles song, the one about the lads being all nice and fixed up on drugs. Well, one of those songs. I’ve been stealing from all things Beatles since I was sixteen.

  Anyway, I digress.

  Meanwhile, back on Penny Lane . . .

  “Why is it so quiet?” I asked, hooking my arm through three shopping bag handles. “Where is everyone?”

  “Steve will be home late,” my sister replied, “and the boys are out back.” She gestured toward the yard. “Running through the sprinklers till dinner.” She showed absolutely no leftover frustration from the battle she and her husband had fought against their four-year-old twins that morning.

  As we entered the house, I told Lindsey about a photographer I’d spotted in the parking lot across from the bookstore.

  “Those people are such parasites,” she said, the corner of her lip curling in disgust.

  “At least he wasn’t hanging out in your hedges,” I offered cheerily, with only a touch of cynicism. “I do give him props for initiative; his telephoto lens was bigger than the Hubble Telescope.”

  “Shoulda rammed him with Lemo
n Drop,” Lindsey suggested. “That car’s one tough broad. And that dude, he was probably from one of those magazines.” She crinkled her nose like she smelled something foul. “And they call themselves journalists.”

  We nodded at each other in unspoken accord.

  Those reporters didn’t even attempt to get the truth anymore. They caught a whiff and then ran with it. I’d learned to ignore it, to grow a thick skin, but it became intolerable when those stories started to include my brother and how I wasn’t at his funeral.

  “My cell died,” I blurted, needing to distract myself before I got that snaky feeling in my throat again. “Did anyone call for me? Max has your number, so any of my guys can get it.”

  “Are you expecting to hear from Max?” Lindsey crinkled her nose again. Another foul stench.

  “Eventually.” I kicked off my sandals by the door.

  “I hate that guy,” she muttered under her breath. “Hal called my cell looking for you.” She turned and fluttered her lashes at me.

  “What’d he want?”

  “We talked for only a few. Sounds like he’s missing you.”

  “He’s bored,” I said, which was much more logical than her explanation.

  “He’s madly in love with you,” Lindsey trilled over her shoulder while I followed her down the hall. “I’ve been telling you for years.”

  “Hal and I are buds, Lindsey. Ease up on the match making.”

  “Don’t break his heart—he’s sweet.”

  Now my nose crinkled. “Hal?”

  “He cracks me up. He’s so witty.”

  “Are we talking about the same person who recently tweeted ‘I just ate some noodles’ and ‘My toenails are amazing’?”

  “Funny, see?” Lindsey laughed and flipped her hair. “And so cute.” She stopped to restart the clothes dryer. “Don’t you think he’s cute?”

  “Kind of.” I shrugged. “But not the type of cute that makes me want to rip his shirt open.”

  “Like Miles Carlisle, you mean?”