The Last Dreamer

by Barbara Solomon Josselsohn

  “It’s okay,” Terry said. “Pays some bills, you know what it’s like. But then”—his tiny eyebrows lifted onto that huge forehead, his tiny blue eyes lit up, and his speech became more normal—“then I got your call, Basketball. And I can’t think of anything else. I see it all happening. A whole new start.”

  “Exactly,” Jeff said, leaning forward.

  “Yeah, baby!” Terry exclaimed, banging his leg into the table so the glasses and plates made a sudden, loud clank. Iliana instinctively reached out her hands to catch any glass that might tip over. Neither Terry nor Jeff even acknowledged the noise. “You know, man—a comeback,” he continued. “Iliana’s book comes out, and boom! We’re a hit! Pull Peter off the farm, find Bruce wherever the hell he landed, launch a reunion album, a tour. We’re back on top, man. Back on top!”

  “That’s just what I’m thinking,” Jeff said. Iliana could imagine the same relationship between the two men years ago: “We’ll take all the newspapers from all the machines!” “That’s just what I’m thinking!” But this time it wasn’t just all in fun. Terry was really counting on her to publish a book about them. And now it seemed even more unlikely to happen than ever. Terry’s life was a mess, and he looked terrible, too. How did he expect to actually make a comeback, let alone have a book written about it? How did Jeff not see that this was all so unrealistic?

  “Yeah,” Terry said, pounding on the table with one fist to emphasize his words: “Because. It. All. Starts. With. The. Book! The book, man! I mean, look, Iliana works for the Times. The fuckin’ New York Times!” He turned to Iliana. “A bestseller, right? Could you get us on Jimmy Fallon?”

  Iliana felt her breath speeding up. Her cheeks were hot, and not from the wine. She felt as frantic as a trapped animal, which she sort of was, her chair pressed against the wall in this crowded restaurant, the two men blocking her path to the door. Now she was supposed to book them on late-night TV? “Hang on, Terry,” she said, trying to let out a casual-sounding laugh. “As I’m sure Jeff told you, it’s just a book idea at this point—”

  “I even wrote a reunion song for us!” Terry said, tossing an unlit votive candle in the air.

  “A song?” she said, trying to sound like this was a happy surprise. And what did he expect her to do about that—get someone to sing it on The Voice? Terry was on another planet. This was getting out of hand.

  Jeff laughed, a big, sudden “Ha!” then turned to Iliana. “If there’s a way to get attention, leave it to Terry to find it.” He shook his head and chuckled, but Iliana thought he actually sounded a little annoyed.

  “It’s not just attention, man! Jeff! It’s a real song!” Iliana noticed that he used Jeff’s real name, for the first time that evening. “I worked on it ’round the clock. Collaborated, you know? With one of my students. So it’s more now.”

  Terry grasped Jeff’s arm on the table. “And get this. This kid once worked for a music producer here in LA. And when he tells the guy about the song, the book, the guy says, ‘Stop by!’ We got an appointment, all three of us! Tomorrow morning! Nine o’clock!”

  “No!” Iliana said. “I mean I can’t . . . I have a plane . . .”

  “Not until the afternoon,” Jeff said. “Don’t worry, there’s time.”

  Terry raised his wineglass and exclaimed so loudly that two couples from a nearby table exchanged amused glances, as though they thought he was drunk. “Here’s to Iliana, for making dreams come true!”

  Jeff lifted his glass, too, and they waited, expectantly, for her to raise hers. She reached past her plate and somehow missed the stem of her glass, nearly knocking it over with the back of her hand before she caught it. Then she lifted it and clinked it with theirs, not knowing what else she could possibly do at the moment.

  “Here’s to Iliana,” Terry repeated.

  She nodded and tried to muster a smile, but could only produce a small lengthening of her lips. “Thanks, you guys,” she said. “I’m glad you’re happy.”

  Chapter 18

  And then they were in a taxi on the way back to the hotel. Jeff had decided not to drive so he wouldn’t have to worry about directions or parking, and Iliana had thought it was a good idea when they left for the restaurant. But now things were different. Relaxed and somewhat drunk, Terry took up far too much room in the backseat of the cab, spreading his legs and gesturing grandly with his arms as he emphasized how excited he was. Iliana leaned against the backseat door, but Jeff—who had politely offered to sit in the middle—was nevertheless pressed against her.

  Iliana nervously flexed her feet.

  “You okay?” Jeff asked.

  “I just get carsick in cabs,” she said. She had to get out of the meeting tomorrow. There was no way she was going to continue with this charade in front of yet another person. Who would Terry want her to see next? She was a good writer, and she would give this book a shot, but she wasn’t some magician who could make old dreams new again. She was mad at herself for carrying this whole situation way too far. She thought about calling Jeff’s room in the morning to say she didn’t feel well. Or she could tell him something had come up at home and she had to get right back to New York. But she’d still have to deal with him at some point; she was in too deep to disappear now. The bottom line, she knew, was that it was time to tell him the truth. She needed to tell him that she wasn’t a Times reporter and she was very sorry for leading him on all these weeks. And she had to step back for a moment and figure out the best way to do it, so maybe he would understand and forgive.

  She was still trying to decide how to proceed when they arrived at the hotel. “Anyone for a nightcap?” Terry asked.

  “I can’t, you guys,” she said. “I’m exhausted.”

  “Just come to my room,” Terry said. “A minute! Just hear my song.”

  Jeff looked at Iliana hopefully. “How ’bout it?”

  She shook her head. “No. You go ahead.”

  “Come on, isn’t this the kind of material you need?” Jeff teased. “Don’t you want to be there when Terry plays the song for me? Where’s that reporter’s instinct?”

  “Please, Iliana,” Terry said. “I came all this way. Just for a minute.”

  They weren’t going to take no for an answer. She smiled and threw up her hands in submission. “Just got my second wind,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  They got on the elevator. Iliana watched the numbers light up, looking longingly as they passed her floor. She knew that with every moment that she spent withholding the truth, she was digging a bigger and bigger hole for herself. She wished she had the courage to fess up right then and there. She was sure that if they accepted her for who she was, she could go on to craft a great story about them: Terry Brice gripped Jeff Downs’s arm, where it was resting on the table at the dark Italian restaurant, searching for a connection that once was there. It had been years since the two men had seen each other. They had parted ways without even saying good-bye, too desperate to save their own skins to worry about one another’s. But their youthful optimism never faded, and here they were, about to become Dreamers once again . . .

  Terry slipped his key card into the lock and opened the door. He walked in, and Jeff moved aside and gestured for her to enter. She hesitated. She felt like she was in one of those dreams in which she was wandering inside a building, trying to find the exit but only getting farther and farther away from it. All the years she had traveled for Business Times, she had never gone into a man’s hotel room. She would always meet up with people or say goodnight in the lobby. Finally she stepped inside, breathing through her mouth so she wouldn’t smell anything. This was way too personal a space. She didn’t know how she’d be able to look at Jeff if she realized that they both were recognizing the scent of Lectric Shave or Right Guard.

  Terry hurried across the room and tenderly picked up his guitar. It was resting on an armchair by the beige-draped window.
He bent his knees and squinted under the shade of a thin standing lamp until he finally found the switch. On the small table next to him was some sheet music with handwritten notes, and he sat down on the chair and began to strum. Jeff sat down near him, on the foot of the bed, and because there was nowhere else to go, Iliana sat next to him. Then Terry began to sing:

  Ohhhhhh, it feels like long ago,

  But in some ways more like yesterday.

  Yesterday . . . yesterday,

  Yesterday when it all began. Where did it all go?

  And can we get it back?

  Get it back . . . get it back,

  Oh, yeah, get it back.

  Back to where it all began.

  Terry looked at them as he sang, and Iliana nodded and smiled encouragingly. It was a nice sentiment, the idea of going back to where it all began. That was surely a theme people could relate to. And his use of repetition, that was good, too. The way he sang “get it back” three, even four times, one right after the other? It was good that the repetition happened all at once, right in the beginning of the song. That would get the theme of the song out really quick.

  Yeah, right, she thought. Who was she kidding? She was no music expert, but even she knew Terry’s song was like a bad poem someone wrote in high school. Amateurish. Embarrassing. And Terry’s voice didn’t help much. The resonant, slightly gravelly quality that had sounded romantic and a little dangerous so many years back now came across as hoarse and old. His range had decreased as well, so his voice was weak, even squeaky, when he tried to hit the higher notes, and fell off-key when he held any note for more than a beat.

  Iliana looked at Jeff, assuming they would exchange unimpressed glances. But to her surprise, he seemed to like it. He was nodding his head with the rhythm and said a quiet “Yeah!” after the first verse. He actually liked the song.

  As Terry started the next verse—filled with so many repeats of “get it back” that Iliana was sure she’d be hearing it in her sleep for nights to come—he motioned to Jeff to join him. Jeff looked at him questioningly, pointing at himself, as though the room was crowded with fans and he couldn’t believe he’d been singled out. Terry nodded and even called out a quick “Come on!” as though he were ad-libbing in the middle of a concert. Jeff popped up and leaned over Terry’s chair, and Terry helpfully pointed to the right spot on the sheet music. When the next line started, Jeff began to sing along, rocking his hips in time to the beat. He looked at Iliana and gave her a thumbs-up.

  Iliana reached in her bag for a pad and pen, thinking Jeff would expect her to take some notes. But she could only bring herself to write a few words: “new song,” “singing,” “guitar.” She didn’t want to write what she was really feeling, because she didn’t want to insult them in case they wanted to see it. But the truth was, the whole scene reminded her of a Saturday Night Live spoof, or a bar mitzvah where the grown-ups have had too much to drink. Jeff’s singing voice was thin and consistently off-key, with none of the richness of his speaking voice. It reminded Iliana of watery coffee. The few notes of “The Best of Times” she had heard Jeff hum back in his office had given her no clue as to how little singing talent or rhythm he had. Had he lost it, or had he never really had it to begin with? Had the marketing machine that created him been able to fool a whole generation of girls into thinking that this cute guy with the great smile really had talent?

  Terry was swaying now as he played, his eyes closed, and Jeff was biting his bottom lip in concentration as he tapped a kind of drum accompaniment on the small table. When Terry got to the end of the song, he strummed more chords as he called, “Let’s try it again now, a touch faster. Let’s not lose it, man.”

  “Got it, faster,” Jeff answered, still swinging his hips.

  Iliana continued to watch, holding back the groan she felt building in her throat. She saw clearly now that Jeff had been picked for stardom not because he was especially talented, but because he was lucky. He had a certain smile that appealed to a generation of girls at a particular moment in time. It was something she never would have been able to see back when she was eleven or twelve. She was just supposed to enjoy her first experience falling in love. No wonder Catherine wasn’t thrilled that Iliana wanted to write about his Guitar Dreams days. Catherine had known for years that Jeff Downs was infinitely better off as a mature, self-sufficient businessman than as an aging heartthrob chasing a teenager’s dream. And Jeff had pretty much accepted that, too. That is, until she came into his life.

  But why did you change your mind? Iliana wanted to shout at him. Why had he come to respond so completely to her interest in his celebrity? She hadn’t expected the maturity and judgment he’d shown when they first met to be so fragile. She hadn’t realized how close to the edge he was, how easily he could be drawn to the glamour, the youth he had put behind him. How it would take just a few meetings with a reporter to undo all he had worked on since Guitar Dreams went off the air. But then again, maybe what had happened to him wasn’t so hard to understand. After all, she, too, had let herself be seduced these last several weeks by the power of her own youthful dreams. She had remembered what it was like to be whisked away from the real world by the TV image of a guy with a cute smile, and to believe she was special—the most special of all!—because that fantasy guy in her head said that she was. She had withdrawn from reality and embraced a fantasy world these many weeks, instead of finding a way to fix what was wrong in her life. But she was an adult, and her fantasies had hurt others. She should have known better.

  And no, it wasn’t entirely her fault that there were now two middle-aged men in this hotel room, singing off-key to a practically tuneless song. They were adults, too, and they were responsible for their own choices. What was her fault was that she let herself get caught up in Jeff’s plans for a comeback that day at the coffee shop, not because she actually thought it was a good idea, but because she had co-opted his fantasy. She had immediately linked the Dreamers idea with the book idea she had thought about for years but had never gotten around to writing. It had been easy to grasp onto Jeff’s idea, much easier than developing her own. But that wasn’t the kind of writer she wanted to be. She wanted to embrace stories because she had uncovered them herself, and they had value; not because some cute guy dropped one into her lap and flattered her with an invitation to LA.

  Jeff turned to her and raised his eyebrows: You okay? She nodded and waved her hand. Nevertheless, he tapped Terry on the shoulder. “You know, Iliana’s still basically on New York time. And you look tired, too, Terry.”

  He was right, Terry looked pale and winded. “It’s been a long day,” he agreed. “How about we meet downstairs for breakfast? Like, seven?”

  Iliana grabbed her blazer and bag, and Terry walked them to the door. As he opened it, he kissed Iliana’s hand. “So great,” he said, his voice trembling with emotion. “Thanks, Iliana.”

  Across the room, Iliana could see the night sky through the window, black and vast, behind the light of the hotel lamp next to Terry’s guitar.

  Chapter 19

  She stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor, with Jeff right behind her. They both turned to face the doors. She could feel Jeff’s eyes looking sideways at her. Did he know she was upset? Was he waiting for her to talk? She didn’t know what to say, she didn’t even know how to go about thinking up something she should say. She just felt sad and drained.

  The doors opened, and Jeff followed her down the hall. She had been hoping he’d stay inside and wave as he went on to his room. She needed to take stock of everything that had happened and figure out what to do next. She was too tired to deal with any of it tonight, but she didn’t want to just proceed with the plans and go with Jeff and Terry to the record producer’s office tomorrow. What was the alternative? Next to her, Jeff began singing a few bars of Terry’s song, dipping his chin in an exaggerated, teasing motion. She smiled a little an
d nodded.

  They stopped at her room, both of them facing her door. She stood still, hoping he would just leave.

  “What’s up—don’t you have your key?” he finally said.

  She nodded and reached into her bag. She knew he was right to expect to come into her room. She had been leading him to this moment from the day she agreed to come to California, or even earlier—from that morning she first came to his office and didn’t correct him about the New York Times. She wished she could go back and relive everything, undo all her smiles and flirty glances, correct all the irresponsible conversations that had led them to this moment. But that was still fantasy thinking. Now was the time to face him and own what she had done.

  Inside, the bathroom caught her eye. The fluorescent light over the sink was on, and a stick of deodorant and white cotton bra were visible on the countertop. If this had been a TV movie, or even just a fantasy in her head, the deodorant would be a bottle of perfume, and the white bra would be black lace. But reality kept intruding. Even now, she couldn’t stop thinking about how foolish Jeff had looked, swaying his hips like some Elvis wannabe and singing off-key to Terry’s awful song.

  She pulled the bathroom door closed and backed up against it. The king-size bed in the center of the room seemed lit up, the way the correct vowels flickered hot pink on the computer screen when Dara studied her Spanish words. The rest of the room was now dim, lit only by a table lamp, which gave the ice bucket and glasses next to it a golden glow. Spots of light were also reflected in the blank screen of the TV, which sat in a wall unit nearby. The drapes were closed. Iliana braced herself, expecting Jeff to walk over and put his arms around her, getting ready to tell him to stop.