Access All Areas

by Alice Severin

  I must have dozed off, because I woke with a start to the phone buzzing wildly next to me. I grabbed it without thinking and mumbled hello, sitting up with a start, noticing it was light out now.

  “Hey Lily, it’s Dave here. How are you?”

  Dave, my editor at the magazine. The Editor. I hadn’t expected a direct call from him. This could be either really good, or really bad. I held my breath and tried to think positively. “Dave, good, great to hear from you.” I grabbed some water, and focused on waking up. “Did you see the piece? What did you think?” Why not just dive in? Why not?

  He sounded cheerful. “Yeah, that’s why I’m calling.” Pause.

  My heart stopped. I waited.

  “I wanted to call you personally. It’s just brilliant—and his manager—James, you’ve met him? He’s a bit, what could I say, prickly, right? Even he likes it. He’s passed it on to Tristan. And we’re looking into syndication, not the rock mags, but overseas newspapers, magazines. I’ve sent it over to Huff Post in the UK, I know the arts editor pretty well. They won’t run it, because we have it, but they are going to do a link to it.”

  “My god, wow. Holy shit. I mean, that’s great.” I was speechless. This was the big time, knocking on the door. Me? Incredible. I needed to say something more professional. “Overseas rights?”

  “Of course we’ll discuss it. You’ll bring a lot of credibility to the magazine—amazing how these things happen. And you know the buzz around this release?”

  “Yeah, I was at the party on Friday. Could add something about that to the article?”

  He paused for a moment. “You were there? It was great, wasn’t it? No, I think the piece is perfect as it is. There’s a certain wistful quality to the ending that makes it very personal, as though the reader was really connected to the artist, and then it’s broken. Like leaving a great concert. No, it’s good.”

  I shivered a bit when he said that. I wondered if the truth got out, if it would change his perception. From illusion, carefully wrought, to truth.

  He was still speaking. I needed to focus, fuck, my career at stake. I willed my brain to work. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

  “We want you to go to London and write up the secret gig over there. There’s always been…”

  I interrupted him. “London? You’re kidding. When?”

  He laughed, a short bark. “Look, like I was saying. There’s always been a huge buzz about him over in Europe—they aren’t as distracted by the good looks, maybe. Who knows? Anyway, he’s flying out in two weeks, gig possibly at the Barfly, although it’s—probably will be moved to Dingwalls. Do you know them?”

  Now it was my turn to laugh. A series of images, this time of me, standing in a crowd, waiting in line, pushing my way to the front… “I do. Used to go both places a lot, in fact. Happy memories.”

  “Great, you can put that in too. Personal approach. Well, call it as you see it. I couldn’t get you on the flight going out with him. Manager I think threw a wrench into that.”

  My heart stopped. Did that mean he was flying over with someone else? Oh god, did he know it was me coming over to record the show?

  “Does he know I’m going over to write the piece?” My voice sounded tentative, even to me. God. Lie lie lie. Sound stronger, not like some love sick fan girl. Woman.

  “It’s a bit odd, actually. James, you know, this manager person, said yes to it all first without checking with him. I caught the tail end of the shouting, and it wasn’t pretty, considering I was on the phone.”

  “Odd.” I didn’t really know what to say. Had he read the piece? Were we not supposed to interact anymore on a professional level? What game was his manager playing? But Dave was talking again.

  “He’s a hardass, your musical hero, you know. You should have heard him.”

  My blushing was thankfully, invisible on the phone. I was desperate to know what he had heard him say, but I didn’t want to alert him by seeming overly interested.

  “Musical hero? What makes you say that?”

  “It’s in your piece—are you awake yet? Stop kidding around. Come on, I need you conscious for this. He’s reading it now; anyway, you’re due to fly out next Thursday evening, pending his final approval. Ok? Putting you up at No. 5 Maddox Street—very organic and central. And private. In case you need to bring your hero back for some questioning.” He chuckled to himself.

  Musical hero? Did I say that? God, I’d better reread it. Private? Life and art were mixing, obviously. I would deny everything. I blustered. “Right. Sure. When are you getting the final approval?”

  “Depends how fast he reads.” Dave laughed.

  “So you think he’ll say yes?” I was asking a question he couldn’t have the answer to, because he wouldn’t know the reasons anyone would say no. But I couldn’t help myself.

  “Yeah, I think he was reminding James who’s in charge. I’ll let you know as soon as.”

  I let out a long breath I’d been holding in, and tried to keep the light mood going. “So, Business class?”

  “I think we can do that.”

  “Excellent, I want to get used to the high life.” I was smiling. Professionally. I hoped he could tell the difference over the phone.

  “Ok, Lily, I’ll let you know when we hear from him. But start packing.”

  “You got it boss. What do you want from London?”

  “Oh, you’ll get a list. No worries there. Consider it my fee.”

  I hung up, feeling more and more like I’d slipped through the looking glass. I mean, I’d had some good press before, a small book tour. I wasn’t a complete newb. But this. This could be big. I stared at my phone. And now he was reading the article. I almost felt more exposed. It seemed he was going to pass judgment on everything about me.

  I wondered if we would be flying back to the States together.

  London. Again.

  Chapter 16

  I lay back on the pillows. I hadn’t even gotten up, but everything had altered yet again. So I was going back. London. The Big Smoke. Expensive. Tribal. The banker’s paradise. The Queen, and her vast estates. Postcode wars, where kids were drawn into battles over turf that ended up with casualties. The march of centuries of architecture slowing down beside the new towers of metal and glass. Bitchy women and the distant men who loved them. A million people coming to the closest thing Europe had as a frontier of opportunity. A hard place, with a lot of fighting and ugliness and deceit. Yet it could be mystical, with illusion and darkness and light shifting past you to reveal anything, everything you could imagine. I wondered if the streets would look any different, and what it would be like to be there, again, after everything that had happened in between.

  I closed my eyes and thought back. It was only a few years, but it felt like a lifetime ago when I had lived there. Seven years of putting up with the high prices and the tiny flats and general discomfort, until I moved to New York, and found it was all pretty much the same, except without the poetry. I wasn’t sorry, not now. I hadn’t found what I was looking for over there, partly, I reflected, because I didn’t know what I wanted.

  London and I had gone through a really low patch, where it felt like I wasn’t going to find anything I wanted, anywhere, ever. It had been a pretty dark time. I looked out the window, and listened to the New York traffic for a few minutes, thinking back. The whole experience was a little like a wound that hadn’t really healed. When I had moved here, I tiptoed around what was broken. I had stuck to a routine, and that had helped me get over the memories of panic, working on what I could fix. Trying not to anesthetize the rest, trying to avoid cowardice. And all the struggling had paid off. The amazing irony of it though. Going back to see Tristan perform somewhere I’d gone to work off a lot of my nervous energy. I had some good times there, even if they had been a little weird.

  The Barfly was a dive in Camden, where most of the up and coming bands found themselves at one point. Coldplay, Elbow, Muse, The Strokes…all went on to fame
and fortune, in different ways and for different reasons. But once they’d all been just trying, hoping. And Tristan’s first band had played there—I wondered if he found it ironic, or if he’d chosen the place on purpose to remind people of the history, the long standing devotion. Like he had said, he needed the control. So unlikely he wasn’t aware of the links. This trip of course was all orchestrated. Lying there, in bed, it seemed easy to fit it all into the story to be written. But what about me and my old life? Where was all that going to fit in? And did it have anything to do with where I found myself now? I pulled up the covers, and drifted into my past.

  It seemed a long time ago, once upon a time. I used to go to the Barfly on my own, none of my friends really being into indie music. Being alone in a place where everyone was at least in a couple, if not a whole group, was bizarre, but I got used to it. My desires never seemed to be in sync with anyone else’s, so I was alone. A lot. But my weird anxious shyness used to work for me, and people would come up and talk, maybe just to see what the hell I was about. I didn’t know what they saw, or what they wanted, but we talked, we drank, I walked home alone.

  Just like now, I didn’t really do the one night thing. I didn’t get all soft and swoony at the shouted endearments, hot beer breath in my ears, it just made me laugh. I was always looking at them, challenge in my eyes, I think, silently laughing. They never said the line I was waiting for, never stood up to me. Yeah, I wanted to be touched. But I’d forgotten, somewhere along the struggle and the ups and downs, how to give in, how to be welcoming. Maybe I didn’t really want to be. So I waited, for a moment that never came, and so did they. And then there were the walks home alone, in the dark, in the rain. The silence at 3am, listening to the night, was more poetically satisfying than the sickly vague hopeful looks on the skinny legged indie boys, who seemed to find me curious, like a lab project. But I wasn’t laughing now, was I? Would all this be easier, if I had been easier, way back then? Impossible to tell.

  I remembered the first time I went in there, surprised at how ratty it was. The Barfly had a dark, high ceilinged room with banquettes tucked into corners, with a big bar in the center. Too much fake looking wood. Red walls. Filthy floors. And that was the downstairs. When it was time for the music to start, you had to get in line, right through the bar, up the narrow twisting stairs, along the hall, to go into another big room, a big grey and white dirty square, with the stage at one end and the bar at the other. A few chairs and tables by the far wall under a few windows that looked like they hadn’t been washed since before the war. And then there was a VIP line too, right next to the regular queue of punters, which expanded as people grabbed friends to join them, or a good looking girl in heels and lots of eyeliner who looked needy.

  There was that one night, when I got to join the VIP line. This strange girl had come up to me. With her boyfriend. She was pretty, blonde, all eyeliner and push-up bra breasts, covered with a tiny t-shirt -and she latched onto me with a speed and persistence that was alarming. She didn’t wait for any approval—and turned me into the one who was watching, wondering what the hell was going on. She had grabbed my arm like we were old friends, and murmured hazily in my ear. Her breath smelled weirdly like yogurt, but the shock of the sour, milky smell somehow added to her air of mystery. Are you a gay, she had asked, syntax throwing me as much as the question. I nodded silently, figuring I could play along and be whoever she wanted me to be for the moment. I was curious. So nothing had changed there, not really. I liked it, just a little different. Like that song. “Alone Together.” The Strokes. Perfect.

  Lucky for me, she took my nod for acceptance, and she held me closer, and threw a triumphant look to her boyfriend, who had a patient, bored expression. Then he disappeared for a while, while she bought us beers, so I figured this little ritual had been played out before. Sucking down beer, she asked me if I was watching the band. I managed to speak, but still thinking less was more, mumbled yes. She squealed, and hugged me, running her hands over my body. It was nice. I smiled. She seemed so pleased with me. Happy surprise. It was so easy. And she dragged me to the VIP line, so we would be right up front for the concert. She was a fierce little thing, pushing back people that tried to muscle in to our place on line. I liked it. Girls that acted like boys but looked like girls. Sort of like the Blur song.

  When we got upstairs, she found us a place in front of the stage, planted me there to hold it, and went to get us another round. I wasn’t sure if she’d come back, but she did, complaining they tried to give her warm beer and she made them open two new Red Stripes for us. We clinked bottles and she held me close to her as the band hit the stage. They were disappointing, they were supposed to be on the verge of something, but only hit it for a couple of songs. I had always paid close attention to this stuff, having worked in the business, my first job, my first serious boyfriend in the trade, but that had been the first time I’d gone home and written all about what might have gone wrong in between the CD and live show. Funny to think that’s what had gotten me here, writing for the magazine.

  It was always fun to play spot the A and R men, and they had not looked pleased. The week after I followed the band to the ICA, watched the suits give them another chance. It was sickening to watch them turn away, faces cold and grim, leaving as soon as the last note finished, knowing that was it for the band. They missed the golden ring. Disaster. Disappeared. Tristan was more of a sure thing, but the company people would still be there, watching the crowd closely, gauging the reaction. He was taking a gamble, one that hopefully would pay off. The element of risk—that could go in the piece. Remind people it wasn’t as easy as it looked.

  But that night with the yogurt girl was fun. We kissed a lot, even though the taste of yogurt and beer was only somewhat tempered by the Camel Lights we were smoking. I don’t think I ever asked her a single question, not even what her name was, as we made out in a style that owed more to cool club display than actual passion. She was all over me, getting her girl on girl badge, but there was something, yet again, that made me want to leave it at the door. Was it her spacey attitude, or the boyfriend that checked in every so often and exchanged glances with me, that while not overly suspicious, seemed to acknowledge that I wasn’t all I was pretending to be either? Or was it just the power trip in saying you had to go, and watching their faces register the refusal? I guess I liked a little control too. And leaving was easier than staying. I never saw either of them again. I thought about her sometimes though.

  One story in all the history that was following me.

  Going back. To be there. Watching him. I felt my throat constrict. What the hell was I going to say now that wasn’t going to reek of desire? I couldn’t pretend he wasn’t sexy, hell, he was famous for it. I’d have to be very careful. It was all going to be written all over my face. And the past. The ghosts that were going to be there, in the club, watching me.

  I checked the phone. Great. I’d spent a whole fucking hour daydreaming about the weird little moments of life I’d been through. I leapt out of bed, realizing the enormity of what was going to happen. I was frightened of what could go wrong, maybe even more frightened of everything that was going right, so fucking right. I threw on some jeans, and my very own push-up bra and black t shirt. The bruises were fading, I was still a little sore. All that meant was that I was ready for round two. This looked right. Rock and roll lifestyle all the way. I could use what I’d learned, back then in those lonely days.

  I pulled out some boots. Musical hero, what was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking, I’d been caught up in his spell, and now I ran the risk of exposure. Indiscreet could mean losing it all. I stretched out and touched the floor. The ground, to ground me. That’s what the yoga therapy had recommended. I stood up, slowly, and went to brush teeth and hair and put on some makeup. Out in the world. A strong coffee, some notes on the book. Maybe that strange dream idea would give me some direction.

  15 minutes later, I threw on my leather jacket, and left the house
. My phone told me it was just after 12. A bit late to start out the day for normal people, a bit early maybe for the serious music crowd. In between—that’s what dwelling on the past got you. I walked over to Broadway, and up to my favorite bagel place, the one that wasn’t famous. They made really nice plain old coffee, regular, like the old men still called it. Half and half, that brilliant American invention and strong fucking coffee. That would chase away the demons. I smiled up at the sun. I’d walk around. Maybe sit in the park for a while. I checked my bag—notebook, and gloves. Phone. Still nothing. Fine. I needed some caffeine before any more calls came in.

  The guys behind the counter were friendly as always, and one of them stuck a piece of rugelach in the bag for me. I smiled, said my thank yous, and walked out. I decided to sit in the middle of Broadway, on the bench, but when I got there, there was a homeless woman with all her possessions in a shopping cart, bundled up against the cold like a babushka. There but for the grace of a god go I, I thought. And I thought I had problems. I have no problems. I turned away, and walked towards Central Park, sipping at my coffee. I nibbled at the tiny Danish. It was good, buttery. Smooth. I wondered if Tristan ever ate little pieces of pastry, if he would ever just sit with me in the park, and talk and drink coffee.

  He’d warned me. And as usual, I ignored all warnings, plunged ahead with my own philosophical imaginings about how this time I’d get what I wanted. Needed. And here I was, on speed dial to the gods, and I was thinking of more. Stupid idiot fool.

  I threw out the bag, and stomped off towards the park. I crossed Amsterdam, and squeezed through the group of private high school kids coming out for lunch. I listened to their sharp chatter, wishing for a moment that I could feel that entitled and oblivious again. That had been me back then, sneaking out, or faking some kind of permission, and going to smoke in the park, beautifully indifferent and horribly self-conscious all at once. They completely ignored me as I walked past. I was backdrop, stage dressing to their loves and losses. Yeah, yeah, it’s always been that way. All your belongings aren’t in a shopping trolley, and you’re out in the cold because you want to clear your head.