True North

by Liora Blake

  I’m powerless to stop from arching up toward his hands, grazing my nipples with his fingers. When his lips brush the stiff peaks, I cast the pillow away and take his head in my hands, grasping so he knows it feels just right. Before I can use my body to convince him otherwise, he pulls up from me and rolls off the bed, standing stiffly with his arms crossed over his chest.

  “I’m going to order you some breakfast and then get as far away from you as possible. Do not sneak into the shower with me. Do not eat any fruit in front of me, specifically strawberries. Above all, do not get anywhere near that dining table out there. I’m not strong enough to resist remembering you spread out on it or bent over it.”

  Trevor heads out into the suite and I hear him call room service, ordering everything exactly the way I like it. Black coffee, a veggie omelet, bacon, and sourdough toast with extra butter. When he saunters back in, he starts to strip out of his clothes and shoots a serious look to stay away, pointing his finger at me. I stay put and shuffle under the bedsheets.

  “Why was Damien here?”

  Trevor calls back to me from the bathroom, over the shower water heating up.

  “He was just bitching at me about some PR crap. I really haven’t gone a day since I was nineteen without him riding my ass about something. Nothing new.”

  “Were you talking about me?”

  Stepping back into the opening between the rooms, he stretches his arms wide across the door frame, making it difficult to concentrate because he’s naked.

  “Yeah, but don’t worry about it. He’s freaking out over nothing.”

  “I don’t want to be a problem for you.”

  His face falls and he walks back to the bed, kneels over me, and takes my face in his hands.

  “Listen carefully, Mosely. Are you listening?” I nod my head. “You are not a problem for me. Ever. At all. You’re the best fucking thing that ever happened to me, got it?” He smiles and rubs his thumbs across my cheeks. “Say it back, so I know you heard me.”

  “What?”

  “Say, ‘I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.’ ”

  “No. That’s weird.” I shake my head back and forth in protest.

  “Say it.”

  I roll my eyes. “I’m the best thing that ever happened to you.”

  Kissing the tip of my nose, he leans back a few inches from my face and whispers, “Yes, you are.”

  He jumps up off the bed and trots back into the shower. I slump back under the covers, waiting for my heart to stop pounding so hard.

  When he kisses me good-bye, I’m eating breakfast in bed and feeling like the ditzy trophy wife of some billionaire. If he had been wearing a business suit instead of a threadbare Rollins Band T-shirt, I might be considering which Chanel ensemble to wear to some junior league charity event later. Just as bad, the only thing I actually have planned is wandering down to the hotel spa at some point. Unless there’s a trunk show at Bergdorf’s or I need to get my Botox retouched. Then I would simply have to rearrange my very busy schedule and get those important things handled.

  I start to flip through the local paper, catching up on world news, thinking if I fill my head with details about the latest political crisis in the Middle East or the debate over fracking, perhaps it will counteract the trivial things I’ve recently been consumed with. Scanning the stock market numbers, I skim through the rest of the pages, reading the comics and laughing aloud at Dilbert. Twice. I’m a complete geek. Why Trevor wants me is beyond what I can comprehend.

  Nestled in the middle of the lifestyle section is a review of his concert last night. Without thinking, I square up the pages and fold it over so I can read it. The reviewer gives the show four out of five stars and immediately I consider dashing off an angry e-mail to him. Is he blind? Deaf? Did he not see my amazing man being completely amazing up there? Really, it’s an outrage. I start to read so I have all the facts before stomping down to their offices and demanding to see the editor-in-chief.

  When concertgoers buy a ticket to see Trax live, they only want one thing: Trax. Last night at the Seattle Sound Center, that is exactly what they got. Thankfully, Trax seems well equipped to amaze his fan-base every night. With a string of hits to draw from, his energy and power are astounding, as is his voice, which seems stronger than ever. In the age of Auto-Tune, he relies very little on studio magic and it shows when he hits the road.

  The sole reason the show didn’t earn five stars was only that it felt like a repeat of his last tour. Very little has changed, although that may be exactly what his fans really want. Nevertheless, there was one standout moment. In a complete departure from everything he has done in the past, Trax mesmerized the crowd with a stirring rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Secret Garden.” Already, videos of the performance have torn up the web and downloads of the original song sent it to number one—nearly eighteen years after its release. The performance was visceral and unexpected.

  While some of his fans may wonder if Trax is going soft, those of us who have a few years under our belts may suspect differently about what we heard. There is usually only one thing that makes a grown man turn his work, his life, or his world upside down.

  Could it be that the perennial bad boy has been tamed? If so, perhaps we can look forward to new material that brings a depth to his work that we haven’t heard before. Maybe he’ll find renewed musical purpose under a big sky and hit us with the kind of textured, nuanced work normally reserved for singer-songwriters who strum acoustic guitars. Given the raw, stripped-down voice we heard last night, this reviewer, for one, looks forward to that possibility.

  Ruh-roh. Folding the paper and casting it aside on the bed, I see what Damien was going on about. Whether Trevor understands it or not, his fans probably know more than he thinks. They won’t overlook what happened. They will figure out what the “big sky” reference means. They will ferret out whatever they can, dissect the performance, troll the web for tidbits, and when they find me I’ll be toast. Probably a Yoko Ono kind of toast, burnt to a crisp and covered in arsenic.

  Just one song, blasted into the endless infinity that is the web, may burst the bubble we’ve managed to cavort around in for the last few months. What’s worse, I don’t want to share any little moment of last night with any of them. The song should be mine, but I know it won’t stay that way.

  21

  I flew home from Seattle in a veritable daze. Between all the naked shenanigans, the champagne, and the lack of sleep, when Trevor saw me off at the airport, I was halfway between a fainting spell and a delirious kind of insomnia. But when I settled in at the gate to wait for my flight, my brain kicked on. Even though I had drafted a few concepts for my next novel, they inevitably fell flat when I tried to flesh them out into something more. Still, I had refused to allow the phrase “writer’s block” to enter my lexicon. Maybe it was the delirium, or perhaps seeing Trevor do his thing so well was creatively inspiring, but after sitting at the gate for ten minutes with nothing but scenes and character tics looping through my mind, I finally got up and bought a notebook in one of the gift shops. Without my laptop, it was the best I could do.

  By the time we landed in Denver, there were twenty pages of longhand scribblings in the notebook, my hand was cramped, and I still felt like there was more left to get down. The draft of my first novel came in much the same way: fierce and vast and consuming. Except then I was drowning in grief, and now I’m swimming in possibility. This work reflects the shift; there is light in the language, hope behind every conflict, and if I’m not careful, I’ll lose my literary fiction street cred, because my protagonist wants nothing more than her own happily ever after. And I’m dead set on trying to give it to her.

  So home now merely functions as a place for me to throw clothes on the floor and scrape the last vestiges of blackberry jam onto crackers while I write, in between my momentary indulgences of Trevor-inspired distraction, be it on the phone or in a text. After a few weeks of this, the disarray has become
overwhelming. Between oversized loads of unaddressed dirty laundry and empty suitcases strewn in the bedroom, I’m committed to cleaning up this transit station and making it livable again.

  The washing machine is chugging away on the third load of the day, pure necessity since I’ve started to run out of clean clothes. I hear the phone ring and run from the laundry room, clearing one empty suitcase with a jump but misjudging the second, stubbing my toe before grabbing the phone and falling ungracefully over the side of the couch.

  “Hello?” My voice sounds loud even through clenched teeth.

  “Are you OK?”

  “I stubbed my toe on the way to the phone.”

  “Miss me?”

  “Not at all. Is that why you called?”

  “Kind of. I’m home now, thank God. I think I hit my limit a week ago for sleeping on a rank-ass tour bus.”

  “Are you happy to sleep in your own bed again?”

  “Yeah. One problem, though.”

  “What?”

  He lowers his voice into a near whisper. “The bed’s too big for just me, too empty.”

  Despite what his little growling whisper does to me, I keep my voice steady. “I know where you’re heading with this. I’m just now getting my laundry done, my house is a disaster, Herm is probably considering firing me, and people in town may think I moved away. Don’t ask me to go anywhere. You know I won’t be able to say no and I can’t.”

  “Not just anywhere: come stay with me, at my place. No hotels, no entourage, just us.”

  “I can’t. Knock it off.”

  Successfully, I put him off for a while. Even when he cajoles me into some surprisingly hot phone sex, telling me what he would do if I were there, I’m able to stay tough. Even when I think about how awful it feels to be away from him knowing he’s all alone in his bed, I don’t cave.

  In truth, I’m just buying some time to figure out how to make it work. How long I can spend in California, how to still do some work, how to act like a sensible grown-up instead of a love-struck teenager.

  A few nights later, Sharon and I are sitting on the couch at the farmhouse, Tom lounging in his recliner, watching a tacky music awards show. I wanted a glimpse of Trevor and this might be one way to get my fix. I still haven’t totally figured out how quickly I can bail on my regular life and get to him, so this will have to do for the moment.

  Standing in the kitchen, I’m studiously watching over the microwave popcorn as it rotates around and around, when Sharon hollers at me from the couch.

  “Kate, get in here! Your sweetie’s going to be on!”

  “But the popcorn will burn!”

  “Just get out here!”

  I grab the bag out of the microwave, hearing the unpopped kernels rattle around in the bottom of the bag, deciding that’s better than burning it. The smell of scorched popcorn would have lingered in the room for hours.

  Scampering back out to the living room in my stocking feet, I crawl over the back of the couch. They’re announcing the nominees just as I open the bag, pouring it into a bowl on the coffee table.

  “See Tom, there he is. That’s him, with the red T-shirt.”

  Sharon points at the screen and grins without moving her gaze. Tom sits forward in his chair and squints at the TV. When they announce Trevor as the winner, I watch him walk up to the stage with Simon, Phil, and the rest of the guys following behind him like good soldiers.

  “Is that his posse?” Tom asks. I’m not sure if he is trying to be funny or not. I start to name each guy, explaining who they are.

  “Shhhh!” Sharon hisses at us and then swats Tom’s arm to encourage him to be quiet.

  On the tiny screen, Trevor takes the glistening statuette from the beautiful twin actresses who are presenting the award, obliging their standard kiss-kiss routine on both cheeks. A quick stab of irritation runs through me and I consider how much harder it probably is to get rid of two bodies instead of one.

  “I’ve got to thank my agent, my manager, all the crew guys that busted ass on the last tour, and of course, you guys.” Trevor stops and points to the crowd as they erupt in bellowing cheers. “Also, my family, especially my mom who put up with a lot of crap over the years. Thanks.”

  For a second after that, Trevor grimaces and does something with his mouth that looks like he is deliberately pursing his lips together for some reason, then he puts out a small wave to the crowd and turns to walk off. He has moved only five steps away from the podium when he stops and turns back, but they have already cued the music to move to the next segment. Before the twin actresses and the band figure it out, he’s back at the podium.

  “Hey, cut that fucking music for a second.” The entire world only hears a bleep because this man is exactly whom the thirty-second delay has been designed for. Some poor sap in a control booth somewhere is probably holding their breath for dear life as the music fades out.

  “One more person. Katie, if you’re watching, thanks for everything the last few months, baby. I love you.”

  He holds his index and middle fingers together on one hand, brings them up and kisses the tips, then thrusts them back out toward the camera with a wink.

  Shit. For the love of God, did he just do what I think he did?

  I’ve just thrown a handful of popcorn into my mouth when he says it. When I comprehend the words, I suck a breath in and inhale a mouthful of half-chewed popcorn pieces into my throat, which causes me to choke loudly.

  The coughing seems to go on for eons while Sharon laughs and smacks me on the back, cackling. “Calm down, honey.” Tom rolls his eyes and gets up to refill his ice cream bowl.

  When over the next few days I have to call the local sheriff three times to have a couple of persistent reporters escorted from my driveway, I realize it’s probably a sign that someone finally put two and two together. That I’m the big-sky-Yoko-Ono-Katie-I-love-you girl.

  The city slicker reporters are confused that my driveway isn’t public property, misunderstanding that I own everything from the house down to the main road. Evidently, in LA where they are used to working, there’s an iron gate to make it clear where the property line is. I actually pray for Brad and Angelina to elope so they would have a new blood trail to follow.

  Probably a very pathetic assignment for money-hungry gossip reporters: sent to the middle of nowhere to track down a woman who never does anything remotely interesting. There are only a couple of reporters but they stick out like clown acts in town, even without their huge cameras around their necks. The clothes, the hair, and the constant requests for town maps make them easy to pick out.

  There’s one, the worst of them all, who we’ve taken to calling Geraldo. He spits loogies on the sidewalk while waiting for me to come out of the paper. He even digs through my trash a few times. When the city clerk’s office told him they wouldn’t give him access to public records (the authorities in Crowell have a tendency to ignore certain laws if they feel like it), he stormed out shouting about freedom of information acts in hick towns.

  Then it seems to stop, almost as suddenly as it began. It really only lasted a week, but I spend another week apologizing to everyone in town. The reporters probably disappeared because they couldn’t find any real dirt on me. I’m practically squeaky clean. Except for the things Trevor does to me behind closed doors.

  Once I’m sure it’s safe for the fine people of Crowell to walk the streets again, unaccosted by pseudojournalists, I pack my things and head off to play house in California.

  When I see Damien waiting for me in the baggage claim area, I swallow my fear and offer him the warmest smile I can. He shakes my hand like a business rival and politely loads my bags into his vehicle.

  “I have Trevor chained to the mixing board right now, finishing up some stuff. I knew he would be worthless once you got here, so I came to get you. Just wanted to buy an extra hour of him focusing on work.”

  I’m not sure if he expects me to apologize for being such a distraction or what. Ho
pefully he isn’t holding his breath for that, because he’ll turn blue.

  “How was your flight?” Damien has his head turned away from me, putting the car in gear, waiting to pull out from the curb, trying to avoid an altercation with the constant line of taxis and shuttle buses.

  “Fine. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever had a truly bad flight. Lucky, I guess.”

  Damien watches the traffic in his rear and side mirrors. “First class helps. Makes everything more bearable, right?”

  “I don’t fly first class. I’m a coach kind of girl.”

  “What? Trev don’t even spring for first class? Cheap bastard.”

  I turn from the window to face him. “Trevor doesn’t pay for my tickets. I can take care of myself.”

  Damien raises his eyebrows, with no effort to conceal his surprise. The car becomes hushed, broken up only by Damien tapping the steering wheel with his fingers and clearing his throat a few times. In the spirit of peacemaking, I brush off my defensive instincts and give in a little. I ask polite questions about the weather, the tour, Damien’s family, trying to let small talk clear the air.

  “So, what are your plans while you’re here? You guys going to pick out a china pattern or anything?” Damien smiles but the loathing in his voice shines through.

  “Not that I’m aware of.” I turn my body to face him as directly as possible. “Damien, why don’t you just say whatever you’re dying to say? Your thinly veiled sarcasm is kind of pissing me off.”

  I raise my eyebrows, using my expression to needle him even more. He looks over at me, his face full of irritation. Turning back to face the road, he lets out a snort.

  “He said you were a zero-bullshit kind of chick.”

  Adjusting his body in the seat, he looks like he’s trying to get comfortable before giving me the wallop he thinks I deserve.

  “I just don’t get you. I’ve known this kid since we were twelve. This is the first time he’s been like this about anyone. Ever. People don’t know that he’s not as tough as he seems. He is in some ways, but not when it comes to people he lets into his life. The problem is I get the feeling you’re not really into it as much as he is. There’s been plenty of chicks after him for the money or because he’s Trax. Those ones are obvious. But you? You’re not into him for his money, he’s bat-shit crazy over you, and you’re still living in fucking Montana or wherever, no plans to be with him. If you’re playing him, it will break him, know that. Trust me, I’ve seen that kid broken, and it’s not a pretty sight.”