Best Of Everything

by R. E. Blake

  We chat for another minute and then he has to get back to work. He’s on a job, and I can hear his boss calling for him. We hang up and I stare at the phone. The last thing I want to do is read my mom’s diary. I’ve spent the last half year trying to forget my life with her and Ralph – the fights, the abuse, the binges. Reading about it would be…I don’t know, but nothing pleasant comes to mind.

  Ruby is waiting for me when I arrive, along with a designer, who’s eager to make me into the next Cher. I listen to her ideas for a half hour, page through her drawings, and politely tell her I’m going to try a different direction. She seems confused, as though I’m not speaking English, and I patiently explain that my vision of how I plan to present myself to the audience has little to do with looking like something out of a science fiction film. The woman takes it in stride, but I can tell she’s annoyed.

  Next up is the photographer with the latest set of shots from my photo session. As I feared when they were doing it, I had on way too much makeup. I explain to the photographer that’s not what I’m all about, and suggest we schedule another shoot. He counters that he’ll need to get the label’s permission, and I nod. Whatever. But I’m not going to have my publicity stills going out with me looking like a hooker.

  Ruby calls Terry and proposes a summit, and we break for lunch as we wait for Terry to arrive. There’s a pretty decent Japanese restaurant a block down, and I walk there and order the teriyaki chicken bowl and a Coke. My book’s getting good, and the hour passes quickly.

  When I return, Terry has just arrived, and Ruby invites us into a conference room. The creative director, a smiling forty-something man with bleached white hair and a pomegranate silk shirt, enters and sits across from us. He starts off by complimenting me on the record and telling me how excited he is to be working with me, and then he leans forward with his hands folded.

  “Now, Sage, we have a very marketable vision for you. It’s edgy, hip, and has tested well. A lot of folks have gone to a great deal of trouble thinking this through, and the result is our proposals for your look.”

  He pushes the photographs over to us and I glance at them. I so don’t want to get adversarial, but as with the songs, Sebastian’s advice is either right or not – so I match the director’s intensity as I lean forward too.

  “I completely appreciate all the hard work you’ve put in, and I have to apologize.” He smiles, sensing surrender. He’s not a very good judge of character. “I haven’t adequately communicated what I’m all about to you, so it’s easy to get the signals wrong. Think flower child. Hippie street fashion ethic. Natural. What you’ve got is something borderline kiddy porn. The cover photo is perfect, but it’s the only one. The rest of these are off base, and we need to do them over. And I’m not wearing any outfits that look like leftovers from Underworld. I like peasant blouses and distressed jeans and Converse, so that’s my wardrobe.”

  “But our focus groups–”

  I cut him off. “Your focus groups are telling you what would work great for someone else. But this is my record, my music, and the image I want to project is an integral part of that. I’m a busker. A street musician. That’s what won the contest, that’s what got me the record deal, and that’s at the heart of my music. It makes no sense to do some bratty Eurotrash look. It’s bullshit.”

  Terry gives me a long, hard stare and then turns her attention to the creative director. “You heard the lady. She’s got a very definite vision. I’ve seen her act in rehearsal, and she’s right. Schedule a new photo session, and let’s get on with it.”

  I could hug her.

  The creative director doesn’t look happy, but I don’t exist to make him happy. I’ve bent over backwards to accommodate the label, but I have to own my image and be comfortable with it or it affects my music, and nothing about what they came up with has anything to do with what I’m about. I don’t want to go to war and have another one of my “You’ll do what we say” talks with Saul, but if I have to, I will. In the end, it’s my career, and this is plain wrong.

  The director winces a pained half smile at us and says he’ll be right back, and leaves Terry and me to our own devices in the room.

  “I hope this is worth it, Sage. I’ll back you, but these types don’t like being told no.”

  “I get it, Terry. But I need this to be something I can back. My set’s going to wind up being half acoustic. I’m a folk-based acoustic musician. I can compromise, but these” – I gesture to the photos spread out before us on the table – “are ridiculous. I mean, I don’t look anything like myself. If I saw this after watching me on TV, I’d roll my eyes and walk away.”

  “Point taken. But don’t expect them to go down without a fight.”

  “Nothing worth doing is ever easy,” I say with a smile.

  Saul’s not in the office today, but his second in command, Rupert Gauge, is, and when he enters I can feel the electric crackle of power in his presence. The creative director follows him in, and we go through the entire discussion again, everyone quiet as I make my case. I finish with what I think is my best pitch.

  “I won the contest because people liked me. They liked my simple street musician look. My producer said the same thing – that he was surprised such a big voice could come out of such a little girl. That’s a big part of my appeal, and I think it’s a mistake to try to present me as something different.”

  Terry nods. “The unpretentious, uncomplicated image reaches across a lot of different demographics. Young girls will identify because she looks like them. Teens will because she could be sitting next to them in class. Parents won’t object to their kids buying and listening to the music because she’s not trashy-looking. Young adults will respond because she’s what they wish they could be instead of having to conform to get a job. You guys have a perfect package here, but you’re trying to modify it to suit an artificial image you created. As in manufactured. Sage is Sage because she’s genuine. Let her be herself.”

  Gauge eyes me for a long time and then rises. “Saul’s going to be pissed. You know he hates paying for something twice.”

  Terry nods. “Have him call me. I’ll talk him down.”

  Gauge nods to me. “Nice to meet you.” He leaves with the creative director, and Terry and I are alone again.

  “How did that go?” I ask.

  “I think we sold it.”

  “Really?”

  She winks at me. “They’re too pregnant now to go to war. We all know it. And it helps that you’re right.” She eyes me for several long beats. “You are right, aren’t you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Then we’ll go to the mat.”

  Ruby returns, all smiles and energy, and offers me a ride home. Terry checks her watch. “I can give you a lift.”

  “That would be great,” I say, anxious to end my day of schmoozing. I like Ruby, but she works for Saul, and in the end she’s on the record company’s side, not mine.

  Traffic is light on the way to the apartment, and I ask if we can stop at Starbucks. Terry agrees and treats us both to a vente drip, which we slurp in the car. As we coast to a stop at my building, she turns to face me.

  “Don’t sweat it, kid. Just get the music sounding right. I’ll take care of the rest. I won’t let them walk all over you on this one. But remember – a good negotiator always keeps something in reserve to trade for what they really want. You have to give me something.”

  I smile. “I can go with leather pants and a little more glitzy wardrobe, but I’m going to trash them day one of the tour.”

  She smiles back. “You’re a quick learner, aren’t you?”

  “Four months on the street teaches you that.”

  Chapter 13

  Rehearsal goes well. I have a sensation of making real progress this time, like it’s all coming together. Whereas before it seemed like work, now it feels fun, and I have to believe that if it’s fun for us, it’ll be fun for the audience. Some acts are all about impressing the crowd,
some are about entertaining them, but I want the audience to walk out of my show going, “Man, that was fun.” Now I’ve figured out that’s my big objective, the rest falls into place, and I’m beginning to think this might all turn out okay after all.

  I get home and pour myself a bowl of cereal for dinner and cruise the web on my tablet. I’m slurping the last of the milk from the bowl, feeling like a complete slob, when my phone trills. I jump up from the table and ferret in my jacket for it, and my heart leaps when I see the number – it’s Derek.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “You sound out of breath. Out jogging or something?”

  “Eating dinner. It’s a long story.”

  “Huh. Well, I have some interesting news. She agreed to the test. We’ll have the results back tomorrow.”

  “They can’t do it the same day?”

  “Not this lab. Besides, I had to go to rehearsal and deal with some crap. But we’ll know for sure tomorrow.”

  “And this is, like, a hundred percent?”

  “That’s what they tell me.”

  I sit down and stare at the dregs in my bowl. “How do you feel?”

  “Weird. I mean, in a way it’s the biggest piece of news I’ll ever get. One answer changes my life one way, the other…let’s just say I’m probably not going to sleep much tonight.”

  “I wish you were here. I can think of a few things we could do to pass the time.”

  He groans and I smile at the sound. Seems like we’re on the same wavelength.

  “You’re all I think about, Sage. Every minute.”

  “Not every second?”

  “Seriously. I’ve never felt this way about anyone before.”

  My voice sounds hoarse when I answer. “Me neither.”

  When I slip under the blanket after finishing my book, my heart is beating so hard I can feel it hammering in my ears, and I toss and turn until finally falling asleep in the early hours of the morning.

  The next morning the apartment intercom rings at 9:30, startling me. I never get visitors, and it takes me a second to remember where the control box is. I press the button and ask who’s there. It’s FedEx.

  Crap. My dad’s shipment. I completely spaced that little box of joy.

  After signing for the delivery, I lock the door behind me and toss the package on the dining room table. I tell myself I have no interest in it as I go about my errands, but after ten minutes of puttering around I’m back with a steak knife in hand.

  The diary itself is the size of an airport gift shop paperback book, fake red leather, maybe half an inch thick. Very anticlimactic, I think. I glance at my watch – I don’t have anything until a lunch interview with a web journalist for one of the music sites that’s taken to following me, which should be a piece of cake.

  Against my better judgment, I open the book at a random entry and quickly scan it. As I read, a lump forms in my throat.

  Today, like yesterday and the day before, I’m hungover. I have to stop this. I know it. It can’t continue. I’m always either drunk or trying to make the pain from being hungover go away by drinking. It’s a cycle, and I have to break it. I’ve tried, God knows, I’ve tried, and I managed to go three hours before having just one drink to make the shakes go away. That was after Sage went to school. At least I wait until she’s out of the house, but I know it’s just a matter of time until I can’t, and then what?

  I hate myself. I hate my chemical dependence. I hate everything and everyone. My life is pain. I wish I was dead. Everyone would be better off. I’m a waste of oxygen. I should have the guts to stick my head in the oven or swallow a bottle of pills.

  I slept for four hours after drinking half a bottle of gin. I can’t keep food down. I’m out of alcohol. Sage will be home soon. I need to get to the store for another bottle, but I don’t have any money.

  I close the diary. I don’t want to allow this poison into my soul. Why would she chronicle her descent into self-inflicted hell? And why would my father send this to me?

  I throw the book across the room. If I could light it on fire just by glaring at it, there’d be nothing left but ashes. I realize I’m shaking, and I close my eyes and take deep breaths while I talk myself down. This is not my reality. This was a very sick woman’s reality. Mine is about endless possibility, my whole life ahead of me, the man of my dreams in my arms.

  Half an hour later I’m reading it again. I have to force myself away from the sofa as my interview draws near. My mind is whirling. My mom was sick, but she was self-aware enough to despise herself, hate what she was doing to our family, and was sickened by her weakness. She thought Ralph was a despicable piece of shit, but she believed that was all she deserved. That she was so badly damaged the only person she could be with was another casualty.

  Page after page, worrying about the effect it was having on me. Declarations of how much she loved me scrawled in a drunken hand, her increasingly rare sober moments documented in neat cursive.

  Ruby is downstairs, and I grab my jacket and put the diary out of my mind. I’m not my mother. If anything, the damage she did to me made me stronger. It sure as hell gave me an example of what I never will allow myself to become. Whoever said that parents have to serve as good examples never saw the power of a really bad one.

  But in spite of all the positive self-talk, I’m distracted, and Ruby can tell. She doesn’t say anything, but I can see it in her eyes during the interview. I answer all the questions with the pat answers I know by heart, but the life’s not there, and when we leave the restaurant she leans into me as we wait for the valet to bring her car.

  “Are you okay?” she asks.

  “Oh, um, yeah. Sorry. I had a rough morning. Since the accident, you know, some days are better than others.” I feel low for using the accident as my excuse, but it’s not a bad one.

  She nods understandingly. “I imagine you’ll take a while to fully recover.”

  “Yeah, the doctors warned me about that. I’ll just take some aspirin and chill. No biggie.”

  “Well, we don’t have anything else on the agenda for today other than rehearsal tonight, so maybe a nap…”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  But I don’t sleep. The damned diary has the pull of a powerful magnet, and I spend the entire afternoon reading it. When I come to the last entry, a week before she went into the hospital for her final time, I feel sick. She’s watched me on TV every episode and claims to be bursting with pride for me at escaping the hellhole she lived in and making something out of myself.

  None of which matches up with the hateful drunk in the hospital bed.

  I realize as I wander around the apartment in a daze that she was as bad at showing her feelings as I am. And that inability to express herself not only destroyed her relationships, but wound up with her numbing herself with booze instead of taking the more difficult steps of telling people how she really felt about them.

  The most troubling part of all of it being that many entries are like looking in a mirror. I recognize her in how I react to things, which isn’t surprising, I suppose. Kids are little sponges and sop up whatever’s around. My model for adulthood, like Derek’s broken one, sucked. But maybe by understanding that, I can create a different future. That’s my hope. My present is already way different.

  I resolve to be open with Derek about everything. If something’s bothering me, I won’t bottle it up and let the negative voice work at me, pumping venom into my veins, ruining the good. The diary is a manual for how not to live, and I realize why my dad gave it to me. He wanted me to see that my mom really did love me, and understand the distortions in her thinking.

  Because I’m really good at distorting things, too.

  I’m running out the door when my phone vibrates in my pocket. I fumble it out. It’s Derek.

  “Well? What’s the word?” I ask.

  “It was negative.”

  I stop, frozen in place. I feel light-headed, like I could float into the sky and keep goi
ng until I reach the moon.

  “They’re sure?”

  “Absolutely. He’s not my son.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Honestly? Relieved. But sad, too.”

  “Sad?”

  “Yeah. For Jason. And a little bit for Lisa. I mean, now he doesn’t have a father, and she’s out of luck. It’s a lousy situation for them.”

  My heart swells as he speaks. I don’t point out that she’s a lying whore who tried to trap him. I don’t have to. Fight the battles that need to be fought, not the ones you’ve won.

  “It is lousy. But what’s most important is that you know the truth and can have your life back.”

  “That’s the relief part.”

  “How did she react?”

  “How do you think?”

  We’re both quiet. Eventually he exhales, and I hear his footsteps in the background. “Where are you?” I ask.

  “Oh. Walking back to my place. I blew off rehearsal tonight. My throat’s a little raspy. I think I may be coming down with something.”

  “That blows. What’s Lisa going to do now that her meal ticket’s gone?”

  His voice is soft when he speaks, and I can hear the tension in it. “Promise you’re not going to be pissed.”

  “You know that almost guarantees I’ll have a right to be…”

  “Yeah, I know. I gave her some money to get back to California. And I promised I’d pay for a private detective to find Jason’s father, if that’s what she wants.”

  I blink a few times in confusion. “Why would you do that?”

  “Because Jason deserves to have a father. Or at least to have a chance to have one – there’s no guarantee that whoever the guy is will want to have anything to do with him.”

  I don’t say anything, remembering Derek’s background. For some reason a hokey sign I used to see every day at Peaches & Cream springs to mind, about walking a mile in another man’s shoes. It’s his money. If he wants to be generous with it and try to help another fatherless kid, I should be happy he’s a good man, not angry.