The Rock Star in Seat 3A

by Jill Kargman

  After awhile he stopped to introduce the band, and after each name came a smattering of applause. Then he looked at me and pointed. My cheeks grew flush and I instantly looked behind me to see if Rob or someone was there. I was like Molly Ringwald exiting the church with Jake Ryan standing there, leaning against his Porsche. ME? No . . . I nodded, as if to say no way.

  “She’s being shy,” Finn said sweetly with a puppy dog face, “but this one is for my girl.”

  The yellow guitar pick hit the strings and I knew from the first chord it was “Frost.” A surge jolted through me as my hand found itself upon my spastic ticker; if Kira could only be here now . . . we used to lie awake at night playing his power ballad, telling each other romantic stories until we fell asleep.

  It encrusted my core

  Strangled my soul

  Cut off the air

  My body was coal

  The frost

  The frost

  It slowed my pulse

  It made me gasp

  It killed my joy

  I was in death’s grasp

  And then came you

  You melted the frost

  You kissed away the gloom

  A quicksand of doom

  I’d thought all was lost

  You chiseled away

  The frost

  The frost . . .

  I swayed to the sexual grinding of the bass and couldn’t believe my ears. Or eyes. Even the smell—big-time pot in the air and the stench of spilled beers and body odor—normally none too appetizing—felt amazing. My arm hairs stood on end. The aged scotch hung on my brain, and my brain saw a kaleidoscope of swirling lights in every hue. When a color changed, the memory of the last bulb stayed with me, until the point where each blink brought a majestic palette of former shined wattage. It was youth and music and all my senses were appealed to. I made a mental note to Xerox this moment with my whole being. A memory CT scan. Life didn’t get more alive than this.

  Chapter 35

  Heaven knows, I’ve exposed myself in my novels through the use of fantasy and imagination . . .

  now my new book is about what really happened to me . . . not my heroines.

  —Judith Krantz

  Paris followed. On the plane, while Finn was in a meeting, I checked my e-mail and filled in the gang, who all had sent worried e-mails wondering WTF. No one could believe our little parlor game had managed to be home-wrecking. And then after perusing the latest J.Crew eblast, a new e-mail popped up. That was odd—it was the dead of night in New York. I opened it up and my heart stopped. Wylie.

  Dear Hazel, Don’t worry: not here to stalk or boil rabbits or anything. I just wanted to lob a little platonic pebble to your cyber window in the hopes that down the road we can at the very least be friends, catch up with a late night soufflé, or even just e-mail from time to time. I miss you in my life, and even if it means seeing you once in awhile (or having to endure your wearing some Finn Schiller tour T-shirt) it would just make me happy to be in touch. Even if we aren’t Velcros, you will always be my lucky charm. xoWy.

  To try and stave off any tears I blamed the rising lump in my throat on travel fatigue and I closed my laptop and then closed my eyes.

  I awoke in the City of Lights, another nation of fame fuckers who ushered us through customs with ease into an awaiting Maybach. A suite at the Ritz was opened with majestic double-height double doors. There were peonies from Lachaume sent by Karl Lagerfeld, a friend of Finn’s, chilled champs waiting, and a personal note from the manager ribboned onto a basket of fruit that could feed a Ugandan village. For brunch, we ordered rich hot chocolates and butter-soaked scrambled eggs that were a yellow fluffy bullet to the coeur but worth every ambrosial bite.

  “Tonight we have dinner with Johnny and Vanessa,” Finn said casually.

  “Um . . . like . . . Depp and Paradis?”

  “Oui, mon ange.”

  He laughed at my starstruck self and leaned over the bed to kiss my forehead.

  I got a quick pang of sadness thinking of Wylie’s and my Double Dog Dare game where we’d go up to a celeb and compliment them on their amazing performance in one of their bombs. You wouldn’t do it to, say, Meryl Streep in She-Devil (though let the record reflect that I fucking LOVE that movie, forced on me by Kira at 2:00 A.M., no less) but more like obnoxious peeps. I happened to WORSHIP Johnny Depp, even though it’s kind of weird for a grown man to be named Johnny, but he was sealed into the Pantheon forever and ever. But I mean what would Finn do if I hailed his 21 Jump Street days?

  I was giddy all day. We met the famed couple at La Société and it was weird having passersby survey the table and notice that I was the only nobody. They were both perfectly lovely and I’m happy to say I held my own, though I freakishly SMS’d Kira beforehand with enough OMGs to beat out a high school full of texting teens.

  “So Finn, where you are recording next?” Vanessa smiled. “Not back to that funeral parlor, non?”

  “No, no.” Finn shook his head. “I’m done with that. I think next we’ll hit this abandoned sake brewery in Japan. I heard the acoustics are amazing, and after that monastery I can’t go back to a lifeless studio, it’s canned and manufactured. I have Charles, ya know, in Tokyo and he always hooks us up and this place is apparently just awe inspiring.”

  Japan? A sake brewery? I wasn’t quite sure if I fit into the “we” in the “we’ll go” equation. I found myself being sort of a mute the second half of dinner.

  We went back to our magnificent suite at the Ritz facing the Place Vendôme and I looked at the carved obelisk in the center as I let the chilled night air wash over me. Finn was tinkering in the bathroom and soon I felt his arms around my waist and his lips lightly dotting the back of my neck. His feather-light kisses sent chills up my arms to my shoulders as he magnified the goose bumps but delicately slid one of the thin satin straps from my nightgown.

  We made love. I’d been insecure about my blowj skills, because for some reason, probably common sense, I’d suspected or rather known for shizzle, that countless groupies had given him killer head. But again, my what-the-heck guts kicked in, and I went for it.

  “Bewitched again, Hazel. You are a world-class fellatrix.”

  “Oh really?” I grinned coyly. (Yes!)

  He grabbed me and tackled me to the bed and we fell asleep in a cuddleball.

  The next day was press galore for Finn and some shopping for me. I raided the Bonpoint soldes outlet for the nieces and scored myself a couple cute blouses, and made my way back to the hotel in the light drizzle. The color gray never looks as beautiful as it does in Paris. Moody yet soft, complementing the rooftops yet a stylish pop all its own. I swung my shopping bags in the spring rain and turned back to the Ritz circle.

  How strange to walk these cobblestones in such a different way. I’d been to the famed hotel years back with Wylie. We just wanted to see it and could never afford to stay there, or even dine, so we splurged on a round of drinks in the Hemingway Bar, strolling the long hallway of vitrines and gawking at the chic crowd.

  “Who are these people?” Wylie had mused as we looked at our fellow drinkers. “That guy has to be a Greek shipping magnate. And that woman is a Russian oil heiress. And there, that’s gotta be a Bond villain of some sort.”

  We spied Valentino Garavani with his boyfriend and a half dozen models. I had been staring at the beautiful lines of their silhouettes.

  “You’re way more beautiful,” Wylie had said, taking my hand.

  I rolled my eyes, as if to say bullshit.

  He turned my hand over and traced a heart on my wrist with his finger, then kissed my pulse.

  I snapped back to the moment walking into the revolving doors just as the rain picked up and the drops thickened. I’d have just a bit of time to lie down for a half hour then change for the concert.

  Once again the crowd was deafening. The whole experience was so surreal and yet somehow still felt intimate, since Finn would often turn to his left and s
mile at me. During his break before the encore, he took me sweaty in his arms and kissed me, but then was grabbed by handlers and roadies the second he got offstage.

  I didn’t see him for an hour as he was whisked away to greet Charlotte Gainsbourg and her lover, plus some other French bigwigs—the children of an ambassador, some Légion d’honneur dude, and some big deal actress there. I was on the side, and was warmly greeted by Johnny and Vanessa, which was my only source of comfort, as I felt slightly invisible in the backstage throng of well-wishers, all of whom had credentials and seemed to know Finn quite well, judging by the bear hugs aplenty.

  Finally the last of the contest winners, record execs, and local MTV peeps petered out with the main promoter, and we were told the car was outside. We piled in, exhausted. Boy was I ready to pass out.

  “The after party is in the marvelous old titty bar in the Bastille!” Rob exclaimed.

  After party? Oy to the vey.

  “We’ll just stop by,” Finn whispered, holding my hand in the backseat, sensing my reluctance somehow in my pulse

  The joint was packed with beautiful people, fashionistas, designers, some famous poet, not that I knew poets could be famous these days, but I guess if not in France then where? I sat and talked with Jim for a bit about the Asian leg, which was coming together, and glanced at my watch. 3:00 A.M. Oh, brother.

  Finally Finn was fading a bit and we were off to London the next morning, so we headed back to the Ritz.

  As I walked inside toward the elevators I saw a twenty-something couple emerge from the Ritz bar in blue jeans, holding hands, giggling. I wondered if they had splurged on a drink. Or were playing a game of what’s their story, or were ogling Finn. I watched them leave until they exited, as the guy put his arm around his girl and kissed her temple.

  “Hazel?”

  I turned when I heard Finn calling me from the open elevator and I quickly followed his voice.

  Chapter 36

  In fantasy, you can make a complete break, and you can put people in a situation where they are confronted with things that they would not confront in the real world.

  —Elizabeth Moon

  In the rainy thick mist of the shadowy London streets, Finn Schiller and I held hands. He felt even warmer in the damp air. We roamed tiny alleyways and stepped over puddles, with chilled cheeks and a natural cerulean light that was exactly like the look in his haunting, romantic videos. The twilight electric blue sky was so atmospheric it was as if we were underwater but breathing oxygen, blue and moody, cooling and crisp.

  “I mean, don’t you feel like we are on the set of Sweeney Todd?” I asked him. “Hopefully we won’t be churned into mincemeat pies.”

  “Tim Burton’s a great friend.”

  Pause. Throat clearage. “You know him?”

  “Yeah, yeah, he digs the music. We’ll have dinner with him and Helena when we get to New York.”

  My fave director. The heart stops.

  Then it sank a bit, thinking of facing New York, my home. I had just been pretending it wasn’t there for the time being.

  Finn put his arm around me and kissed my forehead as we walked down a pathway lined with gaslit lanterns, glowing orange in the quick-ebbing remains of daylight.

  “What’s that?” I asked, noticing a glowing square of window in a small stone carriage house with intriguing signage. It was a white painted wooden carving of an open book with German black-letter font hand-painted on it: Ex Libris.

  “Let’s check it out,” Finn said. As we crossed the damp cobblestones, we passed a couple of London hipsters who did a whiplashing double take when they spotted who he was. He didn’t even notice or at least didn’t acknowledge their points and whispers as he opened the door to the store, put his hand on the small of my back, and guided me inside. The cozy Hogwartsian set piece I discovered inside was perfection. A hundred-year-old shop, complete with stone mantel and wood-burning fireplace, was out of a dream. And books, books, books, old, new, piled high. There was almost a whiff of magic, though nothing sinister, just charmed. I inhaled the aroma of crackling burned wood and musty pages to the ceiling’s ancient mahogany rafters, lined with sliding ladders.

  “This place is incredible,” I marveled to the bespectacled guy reading behind the counter.

  “Thank you ever so much,” he said in a crisp British accent as he put down the tattered tome he was reading. “It’s been my family’s business for over a hundred years.”

  “I can tell,” I said, exploring little nooks and crannies, each divvied into makeshift sections, cooking, fiction, painting, photography, poetry.

  “Oh my gosh!” I exclaimed, noticing a section of first edition children’s picture books. “You have first editions of all these Shel Silverstein books?!”

  “He’s the best. Best there ever was,” the owner said.

  “Who’s that?” Finn asked.

  “Wait . . . are you serious? You don’t know Shel Silverstein?”

  “No. I didn’t exactly get read to as a kid.”

  “I love these books. I lived for them as a child.”

  “Let me get them for you then,” Finn said.

  “No, no, really. I’m going to buy these two, The Missing Piece and The Giving Tree, my two favorites. I loved the poems as well, but somehow I kept returning to the narratives and haven’t read them in ages.”

  “We’ll take these two,” Finn said, taking the copies from my hand and placing them on the counter with his credit card.

  “Really?” I said, feeling slightly odd.

  “H, it is my pleasure.” His eyes flashed and his black hair shone in the firelight.

  “Thank you. So much. I really love these and will cherish them always.”

  We got my wrapped-up package tied with twine (worship!) and walked back outside to find in the minutes we wandered the store it had become night. We headed back to the hotel, where hordes of people roamed the pristine lobby, all craning when they noticed Finn.

  “Finn! I need you,” Steve, his manager, said, closing his cell and bolting over. “I have the promoters of the Australian leg of the tour in the bar. Can I steal him for a sec?” he asked me.

  “Of course, sure,” I said, surprised he would even ask me.

  “I’ll see you upstairs,” Finn said over the shoulder of his leather jacket as he was led off by Todd.

  I went up to the massive suite, not believing people actually traveled this way. I took off my clothes, put on the deliciously cozy Pratesi robe hanging in the bathroom, and climbed into the downy cloud that was the linen-sheeted bed from heaven.

  At the foot of the bed, I noticed my brown-paper-wrapped books. Summoning what energy I had left from our long walk, I leaned forward to retrieve it and leaned back on my bevy of fluffy pillows as I delicately unwrapped the paper. The Missing Piece was on top.

  I flipped through the pages, loving the simple black ink images that were still familiar to me after twenty-five years. That’s when you know you’re old, when a memory triggered seems like yesterday when it was, in fact, decades old. The protagonist, a large proto-Pac-Man with one slice of pie missing, is rolling around, searching for the sliver with just the right fit. One is too big, another is too small. Some are misshapen, some don’t fit at all. And then he finds the One. The one that fits perfectly. They click, they fit, they roll. They explore the world together.

  And then . . . I realized as I kept turning the pages my memory had failed me. It was twenty-five years ago, and not yesterday.

  In my weathered recollections of the story, worn by the pumice of years and years, I somehow had thought they rolled off into the sunset. Wrong.

  He gently sat the piece down. Then rolled off alone, singing, “I’m looking for my missing piece . . .”

  Huh. Kira was right . . . the ending was kind of sad. Bizarre! I mean, why did I love that so much? I suppose as an innocent child there weren’t any romance-tinged metaphors associated with the plain, simple story, so it never would have occurred to me
that it was even remotely laced with wistful melancholy. But he moves on. Looking for that next piece. Searching in the first page, searching in the last page.

  Hmm. I closed the book and pulled out the one that was lying beneath it. The Giving Tree. Another simple black-pen-on-white-paper illustrated book about a tree and a little boy. The tree loved nothing more than giving. When the boy is little it gives him its branches to climb on, its apples to eat. Later in his adulthood, the tree gives him its wood to make a house.

  As I got to the end, where the boy is now an old man, needing a place to sit, I welled up a little reading how the tree, now just a stump, offers itself as a seat.

  “And the tree was happy.”

  I closed the book as I leaned back for a nap, and when I shut my eyes, two tears spilled out.

  Chapter 37

  Fantasy is the only canvas large enough for me to paint on.

  —Terry Brooks

  When I woke up, it was time for a quick supper before what would be the biggest concert of the tour. Finn dove on the bed and tickled me awake, and I warmed to his embrace as he kissed me into consciousness. I had to get up, but before I headed to the bathroom I lay down on top of him, somehow trying to replicate human blanket.

  “Ow!” he said, when I smashed him.

  “Oh my god, I’m so sorry, did I crush you?”

  He winced. “No, no, it’s fine. Just didn’t see that coming.”

  I felt a surge of embarrassment. “I’m so sorry—”

  “No, no—” He put a hand on my bashful cheek. “Come here.”

  He leaned in and kissed me. I felt a strange fear, like I was in such unchartered territory, making my own history on the voyage, experiencing it all alone in my head.

  I showered and dressed, heading downstairs to an awaiting car, which whisked us to Daphne, one of his favorite restaurants. We drank a sumptuous bottle of Bordeaux and chowed, sharing each other’s dishes, when his phone rang. It was one of his reps in L.A.