“Sorry,” said Daisy with an impish grin. “Trish is here.”
“Oh,” I said, looking past Daisy and seeing Trish wave at me. “Yeah, she can come out here.”
“Head on out,” said Daisy to Trish.
Trish stepped past Daisy, and Daisy closed the door behind her. I kept seated on the deck as Trish made her way around me and leaned back against the railing.
She looked down to me and smiled.
“Feeling centered?” she said in a tease. “How many chakras are you up to?”
“Is that how it works?” I said. “Do you collect them or something?”
“I don’t know,” said Trish. “I never bought into any of that mumbo jumbo.”
“I don’t know if it’s all mumbo jumbo,” I said. “This has been helping.”
“Just don’t join any cults on me, dolly,” said Trish. “I had another client going in that direction and that’s just not something I want to do again.”
“Okay,” I smiled. “So what are you doing here?”
“That’s some welcome,” she snorted. “Here I am, trying to keep you out of a cult and you—“
“Trish!” I said, laughing. “C’mon.”
“Dear,” she begun, getting serious. “It’s all sorted with Providence for eight million. There. You love me now?”
“Of course I love you,” I said. “What would make you think I didn’t?”
“Well, hold your applause,” Trish continued. “Because you’ll be wanting to plant adoring smooches on me all day long when you hear what’s next.”
“I’m taken,” I said. Trish rolled her eyes.
“You’re a pretty gal, sweetie,” said Trish. “But you know I’m partial to the mustachioed type.” When she said this, she put her finger under her nose.
“Okay, so tell me what’s up,” I said. “You’re here, I’ve dropped all my chakras, my hands want to applaud…”
“I’ve been actively working with some of the… less serious media outlets here in Hollywood,” said Trish. “We’ve come to a deal and they’re going to drop the ‘Layla Bean is crazy’ storyline. I called in a favor. You don’t need to know any more about that.”
“All right,” I said skeptically, nodding at her, but unable to keep the smile off my face.
“So it’s going your way, babe,” she said. “Everything’s coming up Layla.”
“When do I have the John Zane movie thing?” I asked. “When does that start with Providence?”
“Another month or so,” she said. “For now, you just focus on you. Forget everything else in this nutso town. Work on whatever you need to do to get you fighting again.”
“Thanks Trish,” I said. Uncrossing my legs, I stood up from the ground and stepped forward, wrapping my arms around her.
“You’re a sweetie,” Trish said. “I’m glad we can work together.” She hugged me back like a mother.
“Me too,” I said.
Later on that day, Daisy and I were sitting on our large leather couch with the TV on at a low volume in the background. Daisy had her laptop out, furiously typing into it, something for work most likely, and I had a notebook in my lap to capture lyrics as they entered my brain.
I was hardly even paying attention to the sounds coming from the TV until I heard my name spoken. I looked up from my notebook, and Daisy looked up as well.
“Should I change it?” she asked, raising up the remote control and pointing it at the television.
“No,” I said. “Let’s listen… for just a minute.”
“Just tell me when you’re ready to stop the torture,” said Daisy with a knowing smile.
“Layla Bean reportedly signed a ten million dollar contract with Providence Pictures,” said one of the paparazzi media idiots on screen.
“Eight,” I corrected aloud.
“She’s the new Zane Girl,” another said, snickering.
“No, no,” the original guy said. “She’s going to be in the next Zane film but she’s not the star. She’s just performing a song.”
“Looks like after a few bumps in the road, Layla Bean is back on top,” said the host of the show, sipping from his characteristic oversized cup. “Some lucky fans caught a surprise show of hers at the Roxy the other night. They played a bunch of Cast Party songs, I hear.”
“That would have been a great show to be at,” said someone else.
I exhaled and smiled.
“Okay,” I said. “Flip the channel.” Daisy obeyed.
“Well, that wasn’t bad at all,” said Daisy. “That’s certainly not what I would have expected from them.”
“Yeah, it was a pleasant surprise,” I said. After a moment, I leaned over and kissed her.
“Hmm,” said Daisy. “I think I need another.”
“All right,” I said, kissing her once again.
“Phew,” said Daisy, leaning back into the couch. “My eyes are getting tired staring at this screen.”
“Close it,” I said. “We can do something else.”
“Yeah,” she said. “I’m just working on something.”
“What is it?”
“A lot of brainstorming and organizational stuff,” she said.
“For Municipal?” I asked.
“No,” Daisy said. “It’s a personal thing.”
“Well, what is it?” I said again with a laugh.
“It’s for my own company,” she said with a hint of embarrassment. “It’s silly.”
“It’s totally not,” I said. “That’s super cool. You should do your own thing.”
“It’s my own PR company,” said Daisy. “I’m thinking about getting out of the music industry specifically, but still doing some work in it, and also movies and TV. What do you think about that?”
“You should,” I said. “I like it.”
“Good,” said Daisy sweetly. We kissed again.
I had taken a pretty hard fall. Mostly because I had neglected to take care of myself. Instead of addressing my problems, I let them pile up until I could no longer see over them. In a way, I wanted everything to be black and white. At least, that’s how I had been looking at the world. Right and wrong, good and bad, but nothing is ever that simple. No, the world was complicated — especially the world I lived in — and people were even more so.
I was complicated. Daisy was complicated. And our relationship was complicated. But that’s really what love is. It’s this wavy line, filled with sharp crests, and deep valleys. It’s a lot like what music looks like when you’re staring at a song on a computer screen in the studio. It gets loud, it gets quiet, but it’s always fluid, it’s always moving. Love wasn’t a straight line. It couldn’t possibly be.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up in yourself, in your thoughts, in your ego, and just think that everyone else around you is crazy. It’s not you, it’s them. Why don’t they understand me? But maybe that’s just how everyone feels. It’s hard to be empathetic when you can’t even give yourself the love you deserve.
My fall was a wake up call. And it wasn’t anybody else’s fault. It was the culmination of everything I’d put off for so long. I didn’t want to look within because I was afraid of what I might see. All that anxiety was there for a reason. And now, at the very least, I finally felt like I was on the right path. That knowledge was comforting.
“Do you think I should try to get Cast Party back together?” I asked Daisy out of nowhere.
“What?” she said. “Really?”
“Well, maybe,” I said. “Do you think it’s a good idea?”
“I think that people always loved you guys together,” said Daisy. “It was really exciting to see you and James reunited, even if it was a different band behind you.”
“Yeah, I don’t know,” I mused. “Those days… I just really miss it all. I felt so free back then, so alive.”
“As long as you’re not trying to live in the past,” said Daisy, her eyes shifting, her lip curling.
“No, it’s not that,” I said. �
�I know things can’t ever be like that again. That’s just how it works. Natural progression of time.”
“So what is it?”
“Friends,” I said. “It’s just… you gotta know who your friends are. And I do. I really do.”
“Cast Party was something special for you,” she said. “And I think everybody could tell. Your fans, the people around you. They knew it was magical.”
“It really was,” I said. “It gave me so much. It took me out of my shell. It revealed another side of me. And now… all this,” I said, spreading my arms out. “When you give in to something like that, when you follow your heart, when you suffer through bad times and enjoy yourself in the good, it really pays off.”
“Things are going to be okay,” said Daisy tenderly, gently placing her hand on my leg. “Let’s do this together.”
“Definitely,” I said, peering into her eyes. They glimmered with hope, with happiness, with possibility.
Taking up my notebook again, I opened it up and flipped through it until I’d reached a blank page. I stared down into the emptiness of it. The possibility. And, after tapping my pen a few times onto the page, I yanked the cap off and pressed the tip down to the paper. At the top, I wrote ‘Cast Party Songs’ and immediately something clicked over in my mind. It was an immediate change of perception.
It was almost as though I’d been transported back in time, sitting across from Nikki in our diner in Royal Oak, scribbling my problems down into my notebook to make them seem a little less daunting. It didn’t make them go away, my problems, my anxiety, but they became manageable. I had some greater control when I put them to words. And that was everything to me.
It wasn’t always easy for me to talk about my feelings, mostly because they were hard to speak aloud. But when I could write them down, and then craft those writings into song, put them to music, that was my outlet to say what I had to say. When I did that, and found that people could relate to me, I knew that I wasn’t alone. As long as I had my music, I’d never be alone.
My pen furiously scribbled. I had so much left to say.
Three
I opened my eyes and looked around the room. I was in my childhood bedroom, with most of my things still in tact. Yes, my Mom had straightened it up and organized it more than I ever had, making it a suitable place to sleep for guests, but there were still remnants of me. Maybe a shrine to me, in a way. And probably a curiosity for people who slept there. ‘Sleep where the famous Layla Bean has slept!’ Regardless, it made me feel undeniably comfortable. It made me feel calm.
Walking down the stairs and entering the kitchen, I saw my Mom sitting at the table with a mug of coffee and a quartered newspaper, folded in such a way to feature the crossword puzzle. She looked up from her puzzle and smiled at me.
“There’s coffee in the pot,” she said.
Once I got my own mug of coffee, I sat down at the table opposite her and groggily sipped the warm drink.
Even though, since rising to fame, I had given my parents plenty of money, they still kept everything at home more or less the same as I remembered it. They were both able to retire and work on whatever projects they wanted, but the money didn’t change them all that much. I appreciated that. Being back home, it easily reminded me of simpler times. I felt like I had some room to breathe.
“We’re not going to be responsible for fielding all the crazy fans?” asked my Mom carefully. “Are we, dear?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “Not many people know I’m here.”
“That’s good,” she said, giving me a quick look, and then filling in an answer on her puzzle.
“I just need to hide away for a bit,” I said. “I need a break.”
“We were so worried about you,” said my Mom. “Oh, it was heartbreaking to see you collapse on stage.”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“We’re just glad you’re okay,” she said. “I don’t know how you do it.”
“It’s impossible to describe the pressure,” I said. “It’s very suffocating.”
“You can always just quit,” my Mom said, as though it were the simple solution I’d overlooked.
“When you reach this level,” I said. “You can’t ever really quit. If you do quit, you get absolutely hounded by the media, chased around, everybody wanting to know the story. And even if you quit, you can’t go back to your normal life. Because if I walked around anywhere, people couldn’t help but stop me, want a picture, want to chat. That kind of public attention, it’s isolating.”
“I see,” she said. “Yes, I can understand how that would get tiring.”
“It’s more than tiring.”
“Well, you do look pretty tired,” said my Mom. “I hope you can get some rest here.”
“I have some things I want to accomplish while I’m here,” I said. “Some people I need to see.”
“What’s that on your hand?” she asked, raising an eyebrow as she looked at the smudged name and phone number in blue ink on my hand.
“Oh,” I said, looking down at it. “I met a fan at LAX and we got to talking. She was sweet, and she gave me her number.” When I said this, my Mom gave me a suspicious look.
“What about Daisy?” she said.
“This is totally innocent,” I said, trying to hide my hand from view. “And Daisy and I… I just don’t know.”
“You know she’s quite responsible for helping you achieve this success of yours,” said my Mom.
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I’m worried about.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I’m beginning to question the motives of a lot of people around me,” I admitted. “Whether things that have happened were out of love, or out of greed.”
“That’s a slippery slope,” she said. “Have you spoken with a therapist?”
“Not in a while,” I said.
“That may be something you consider while you’re here at home,” said my Mom. “You know how you are.”
“Yes,” I said. “I know.”
“Just don’t throw a good relationship away because of a speed bump,” she said. “The two of you have been together a long time.”
“I know,” I repeated.
“In the past,” began my Mom. “Whenever I’d read about some celebrity having a breakdown, I’d scoff. Like they had it so bad. All the fame and fortune, people fawning over them. But then I see you, Layla,” she said. “And now I understand that they’re just people like anyone else.”
“Everybody thinks they own you,” I said. “The fans think you’re just there for their own amusement, and the people who pay you, that’s even worse. They command you, they make you do whatever project they think will most maximize profit. And it’s hard to say no. You get swept up in it all. And for some people in that position, people like me, it can come crashing down if you lose your footing.”
“You need to take better care of yourself,” said my Mom. “It’s obvious that you’ve lost sight of whatever made you happy about this career.”
“Yes,” I said. “And the money… it can be overwhelming. Truly. It feels like so much responsibility. And when you get to a certain level of money, there’s just nothing left to buy. It doesn’t make you any happier.”
“You were never a girl who wanted anything fancy,” she said.
“That’s true.”
“You might want to reconsider your opinion on quitting,” said my Mom. “I know it seems insurmountable, but if you’re not having fun, there’s always a way out. You just might have to get creative with it.”
“I’ll think about that,” I said.
“And be good, okay?” she said. “We really like Daisy.”
“I love Daisy,” I said.
“I know, dear,” she said.
My Mom smiled at me, then she took a sip of her coffee and returned her focus to her crossword. I watched her for a few moments, drinking from my own mug, letting our conversation ruminate a bit in my head. I felt
fried. Like every little synapse in my brain was burnt, smoldering, brain cells going up in smoke. But at least the fire felt extinguished for now. The ashes would cool down in time.
The nervousness was palpable as I walked up the concrete porch. Her house was small and quaint, with white siding that could use a power-washing, a little cottage that had probably been built in the 50s for Detroit auto workers. I didn’t know what to expect, how I’d be received, but I needed to do this. I needed to get some closure.
After a few moments of standing outside, trying to calm my breathing, I rang the doorbell and I waited.
The door swung open, and there she stood, holding a toddler in her arms, a little boy with blonde curls, staring out at me with preoccupation in her face.
“Hello?” she said. But then her eyes widened. She recognized me. “Oh my God… Layla.”
“Hi Nikki,” I said.
“Layla?” she said again. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m in town,” I said. “Can I come in?”
“Yeah,” said Nikki, flabbergasted and confused. She stepped out of the way, bouncing her little boy at her hip, and I slinked inside of her house.
Nikki was so different from when I had last seen her. Her hair, which had been a key component of her punky image, was quite normal. Straight and brown, hanging shoulder length. She wore a plaid shirt and jeans, white socks. Nikki looked like an adult. She looked like a mother.
“I still do hair occasionally,” she said, as the two of us sat around her coffee table drinking sparkling water. “But since Henry came along,” said Nikki, her eyes darting across the room to check on her boy, who was making a tower out of paperboard books. “I’m really just at home all the time.”
“Your husband works?” I asked.
“Brian,” she said. “Yeah, he works a lot. He’s an electrician.”
“Wow,” I mused. “I missed out on so much.” Nikki laughed softly.
“I mean, not really,” she said. “We’re totally boring compared to the life you’ve lived.”
“Right,” I said absently.
“Layla,” said Nikki with sadness in her eyes. “When I saw you collapse at the Grammys, I just started crying. I knew exactly what you were going through. I know how your anxiety has plagued you.”
Fall Of The Rock Girl: A Lesbian Romance (Revolving Record Book 2) Page 10
