The Rock Star in Seat 3A: A Novel

by Jill Kargman

  “It’s great,” he said, taking my hand in his and giving it a squeeze. He raised it to his lips and kissed my fingers as a fuzzy rush surged through my entire body. He was so big and cozy and delicious, and while my stomach had unleashed a full-on Lepidoptera convention in my belly, I’d never felt more alive. No guts, no glory, I thought. Here I was, taking a massive leap. I was basically a roadie. Kate Hudson groupie style, minus the smack.

  As the passengers streamed into the plane, girl after girl drooled as guy after guy looked away, as if too cool to acknowledge the artist who resided on many of their iPods. I took a deep breath as the door closed and yawnsville announcements began with the cheesy steps to save your life should shit go down. I thought of the JetBlue dude who went shithouse and popped the life raft slides and popped a beer while shooting down. Somehow stories I blow off about various air travel snafus all come flooding to the forefront of my brain when I’m actually in Airbus mode.

  “Hazel, this is going to be unforgettable.”

  “I know. I’m just—”

  “Everything is going to be okay. You’re going to love it.”

  The stewardess—oh fuck, sorry—flight attendant, came around with a tray of champagne or orange juice. I took one of each and poured them back and forth, creating a makeshift plastic-cupped mimosa, double fist, no less. “You’re afuckingdorable.” Finn smiled beholding my ghetto concoction.

  “You are,” I countered, handing him one. We clinked cheapo barware and took sips with locked eyes. It was the best drink I’d ever sampled.

  “How is it?” he asked.

  I smiled, swallowing another citrusy bubbly gulp.

  “Tastes like adventure.”

  He put down his drink, and I could hear the familiar sound of his leather jacket scrunching as he leaned into me, a personal machine of worn-in motorcycle garb and zippers and pure man. He softly reached for my face and held my cheek in his hand. I looked at his blue eyes and swore I could feel a tachycardia. Someone pull out the defibrillators. We kissed over the armrest and while midkiss I thought of countless tabloid headlines stalking celebrity tonsil hockey. (“Get a Room, You Two!”) I was touched that he didn’t even give a shit even as sports jersey–clad buffoons did double takes as they turned sideways to shove down the aisle ’cause they were too obe to do so facing forward. Passenger after passenger including MANY cute girls way younger and cuter than me all stopped to look at Finn . . . then me.

  For liftoff we held hands and smiled at each other when the plane had a perfectly smooth glide into the clouds and the pilot assured the cabin we would appear to have smooth skies all the way to Spain.

  “Oh good,” he said jokingly. “I was afraid you were a bad-luck charm.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I huffed. “I’ve never had a flight like that before. You brought the tempest with all your fame. You’d have made it a headline and I would have been a sad footnote, like oh, she died on that Void crash.”

  “Come on, angel, you know you’re pure good luck to me,” Finn whispered, kissing my cheek.

  “Right now I feel like the luckiest girl on the fucking planet. I’m in a Mena Suvari–style bath with four-leaf clovers instead of rose petals.”

  “You know, Hazel,” Finn said, tracing each of my long fingers with his pointer. “The middle four letters of clover are love.”

  “Yes they are!” I marveled. I rarely picked up on the shit that was right in front of my fucking face. I looked at his angular perfect face and suddenly felt like I had a Hannibal Lecter mask to prevent me from blurting it out. I LOVE YOU, FINN! I FUCKING LOVE YOU AND I THINK YOU’RE A FUCKING GENIUS AND I WANT TO FUCK YOU FOREVER AND HAVE YOUR BABIES AND DIE IN YOUR ARMS!

  But I didn’t. Hey, I have some self-control!

  “What are you thinking about, sweet girl?” he asked, obviously seeing the Apple computer rainbow wheels a-turnin’ in my pupils.

  “Huh? Oh, nothing.”

  Oh, Hazel, you shitty liar.

  “Oh really,” he pried. “I could’ve sworn I spied a flicker in there.”

  I looked out at the cirrus streaks of tire-track clouds outside the window.

  I wanted to throw caution to the wind but I also didn’t want to sound like a complete psycho. What was I gonna say? Oh, hi, platinum recording artist, I know this sounds totally cheeseball and SO tacky Pamela Andersony slash Carmen Electra and Dennis Rodman, but . . . Finn, I love you? No way!

  “I just . . . I’m crazy about you—”

  Finn put his finger on my mouth to shush me. “Hazel babe, I’m mad about you, sweet girl.”

  And with that, I lost my Mile High Virginity.

  Okay, I won’t glaze over the gory deets, Twilight-style. Basically, we kissed so deeply and so intensely that I pulled back, a spark lighting my eye like a tiny cartoon lightbulb connoting a naughty idea. There was a little devil on my shoulder. And over my other shoulder, another devil.

  “Finn, I’ve never done it on a plane.”

  A huge grin covered his entire face.

  “I mean, I’m sure you have, being a rock star and tour constantly and all that shit with countless whores going down on you in lavatories like those red-dotted lines that demonstrate travel across longitudes and latitudes covering all the Rand McNally maps, but—”

  “Hazel, I have never done it on a plane.”

  Huh?

  “What? Are you serious?” I guffawed. I didn’t know what to say. “I’m sorry, but what kind of fucking rock star are you, anyway?”

  He laughed and kissed my hand. “Angel, I am often exhausted, usually with these assholes behind us, and occasionally subject to some journalists’ stupid line of questioning.”

  Without a word, I stood up and walked to the bathroom. No one said a word as Finn casually looked both ways and followed me. Not that anyone noticed or cared, but I stood by the door and said loud enough for no one in particular to overhear, “I don’t feel so great. I think I might barf. Finn, can you help me?” I even emitted a little-girl whiney sound I’d never uttered but personally found it Oscar-worthy.

  He followed me in, and after we locked the door, which triggered the less-than-flattering fluorescent lights, my two mimosas kicked in and I found myself sitting on the tilted seat cover. I unbuttoned the fly of Finn’s jet-black jeans and found him hard and breathless as I took him in my mouth. He was over me, his hands against the plastic panel above me. He groaned and said my name over and over as I felt him harder in my mouth.

  “Hazel, I need you,” he said, stopping me. He picked me up and bent me over the (tiny) sink and took me. I screamed then giggled as he moved inside me. I tried not to look in the mirror for fear of pores bigger than the cockpit, but I folded my arms over the Lilliputian faucet, so hot for Finn I thought I would explode. He was so amazing, so sexy, so perfect a fit for my body, I almost came when he put his arm around my waist and whispered “Hazel” in my ear as he moved.

  As he had me on that sink, at thirty thousand feet, somewhere above the Atlantic, high above the waves and sea creatures and Titanic-bow-piercing icebergs and miscellaneous vessels transporting plastic toys or Whac-A-Mole amusement park games or containers of art, I saw stars. To paraphrase Steve Wright, I came like a wildcat.

  “Oh my god, oh my god . . . FINN!” I shuddered. I heard him breathless as he turned me around and kissed me almost violently. Our faces were melded as I felt him reach for a paper towel, which he deftly put between my legs to stop drippage.

  “I don’t want love juice on those hot panties for the rest of the flight,” he said. Sexy and practical. How nice. I suddenly got a sad pang, thinking about how Wylie would leap for the tissue box on the bedside table and serve as speediest cum-rag butler on earth. But it passed quickly as I basked in the afterglow of postcoital sky-high euphoria. Me. Finn Schiller. Heaven. Not heaven on earth. Heaven in heaven.

  Chapter 32
<
br />   There are some people who live in a dream world, and there are some who can face reality.

  And then there are those who can turn one into the other.

  —James Arthur Baldwin

  I couldn’t believe I was in Europe with Finn Schiller. We had passports stamped together. We were traveling together, a unit, a duo. His tour managers Jim and Rob were with us, too, of course, but still. I was in the posse. It was the ultimate I’m with the band. But not in a slutass follower way. In a he-loves-me way.

  We landed in the Madrid airport and Finn’s arm was around me as the wheels skidded on the tarmac. We deplaned and walked through the surreal new surroundings. I felt like a poseur with my sunglasses, walking beside the real rock star, but it was bright and I was puffy. So the Wayfarers came out and along with his peeps, we were greeted by some weird special fleet of handlers who took my rolling bag from me and insisted on carrying even my shoulder satchel.

  I knew the world was a bunch of fame fuckers but I had no idea it was at this level. I thought there were certain things in life that leveled the playing field—poo, fatigue, customs—but no—everything was expedited. We waited in line for 0.00 seconds as the special airport forces beamed us through. You wanna smuggle a brick of crack? Travel with a celeb. Smuggle that stolen diamond up your ass? Be Finn Schiller’s girl. I swear, I could’v’e been wheeling six severed heads in my designer suitcase and I’d’ve gotten off scot-free.

  When we got to baggage claim, we were whisked away in a fleet of SUVs while his “people” stuck around to await the conveyor belt action. I popped a piece of Trident and kissed Finn between wide-eyed visual gulps of the foreign vista spread around me. The greens were different, the signage, the gas stains. Everything was new. And amazing. I could tell when the Queens of Madrid morphed into the Manhattan of Madrid, and soon enough we pulled up to the Ritz Hotel. We didn’t even have to check in—a local tour manager met us the moment we revolved through the gilded door, and we were immediately escorted to our massive suite.

  “Your crew has the whole floor,” we were told as I walked into the room overlooking the entire city. I was in awe.

  “Thank god, ’cause that crying baby in the lobby would not have made for a fun neighbor,” Finn scoffed.

  I drank in the Old World skyline, high on the surreal, pinch-me emotional kaleidoscope I seemed to be looking at life through.

  But in the postcardlike vista I started seeing tracers. A tsunami of extreme tiredness engulfed me, and Finn seemed to have read my mind as he pulled me down to him. We kissed and flopped into the majestic four-poster bed. Finn stood up, barely noticing the explosion of flowers, the note from the manager, or the chilled bottle of champagne. He unzipped his jacket and tossed it on a chair next to a huge fruit basket, diving onto the bed. He climbed on top of me, as if he were about to do a push-up over me, and then kissed me before sitting up and looking at his watch.

  “I have an interview in a half hour. Rolling Stone. I’ve actually met this journalist before and he’s pretty cool, unlike the raging asshole I had grill me last week. These fucking douche bags take everything out of context. Dickholes. They have their agendas, always. But anyway, babe, you nap, sleep tight, I’ll be in the living room.”

  “Are you sure? I feel bad, like, snoozing while you have to work.” He seemed stressed-out. Angry. Not at me, just . . . the world. Or something.

  “Why? No, fuck no, you rest up, little witch. It’s España and we have the show and then a table at midnight. It’s okay, I’ll nap before we head out for sound check.”

  Normally when Wylie wanted me to stay up and meet him for one of his chefs’ dinners at Blue Ribbon I would moan and groan with forecasted fatigue at the thought of breaking bread in what would technically be the next calendar day, but this time somehow it seemed edgy and exhilarating. As Finn opened his Mac Air and went into the next room, I slid off my jeans and crawled under the covers into luxurious sheets with my T-shirt, pulling my bra out of the sleeve Flashdance style.

  Holy. Fucking. Shit. I was in Finn’s bed. At the Ritz. In Spain. While he spoke to Rolling Stone in the next room.

  Chapter 33

  Too much sanity may be madness.

  But maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.

  —Miguel de Cervantes

  I dozed off for probably a solid hour and awoke in that surreal state of Where the Hell Am I, body tenses, brain confused, only to blissfully recall and slowly melt back into the pillow-topped mattress. Hot fuzzies crept up my groggy spine as I surveyed the surroundings, which looked even more breathtaking than before. Paradise.

  I got out of bed and went to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and walked back out and stood by the enormous wall of windows, quietly absorbing the rooftops. Across the massive bedroom I heard the muted discussion of Finn with Rolling Stone through the door. I tiptoed across the carpet and stood by the carved mahogany portal, which was ever-so-slightly ajar. Finn sat on a couch, speaking to the reporter, who sat on an adjacent chaise. I saw the tiny red light of his running recorder, sucking in Finn’s words to his devoted masses like a dark gospel of process and song.

  “The way I build an album is still rooted in my kind of old-school method where I’m creating the cassette with an A side and B side, a story, really. It’s a journey that weaves together as one whole record rather than a ninety-nine-cent single. Even though it won’t be consumed like that by most of the fans, there are still some who do kind of absorb it the way I intended, which is cool.”

  “Interesting. So do you ever hear a single, or the label—”

  “Sure, the label always has its ear out for the single, you know, the marketing, whatever. I hear that, I get that it’s a machine, I’m not some artist off in fairyland. But I really try to work through the process and yield maybe two albums’ worth of songs and then cut and tweak and fix and burn and rebuild so that the net is a solid group of tracks that are thematically interrelated, lyrically, musically, a whole. Like jigsaw pieces.”

  I had chills. He was so much more interesting and eloquent that any cheesy artist I’d read interviews about. So much more raw and honest. I leaned against the wall to catch a glimpse of him reclining through the sliver the tiny opening offered me.

  “To me, an album is only as strong as its weakest track. And I didn’t want any of those on Beggars’ Feast. With this record, I was kind of wresting with the erosion of what I was starting to feel was my youth, you know, being behind me, leaving my thirties, and um, I sensed this time in my life was actually fertile ground for some digging, beyond the pages of my journal—”

  “You keep a journal?” the dude asked.

  “Oh, yeah, yeah, for years and years. Most of my lyrics, the writing you know, come from in there, I adapt it into rhyming couplets or some other scheme, but um, yeah I write snippets, pieces, kind of seeds of what will inspire me. I tape in images, old postcards. Tons of Polaroids, I hoard all the film I could get my mitts on. I scribble in little notes in the margins. Lately, it’s been . . . pretty amazing. We’ve been recording in a German monastery and it’s been one of the most prolific times in my career, actually.”

  “Really. To what do you attribute that creative spark?”

  “Oh god, lots of things. The break from touring, for one. I hung out in California, after touring incessantly and I guess laying low, searching for my next laser-sharp moment kind of fell upon me. I’m kind of in this reckoning phase, growing up, I guess. Also, I uh, I met a girl who blew my socks off.”

  OH MY GOD. I stepped back from the crack in the doorway. Did he mean ME?! Holyshitholyshitholyshit. I thought I would pass the hell out. Right there on the floor. Someone needed to produce defibrillators. Moi? DYYYYYING!

  “Oh yeah?” the journalist probed. “Who is she?”

  “She’s great, we met recently and you know, my life is really kind of a revolving door and peopl
e spin in and they spin out and some leave marks on me, some don’t. But this one is a fun spin.”

  Oh.

  A spin?! That’s it? I dropped my life in New York like a flaming paper bag of doody for a SPIN? I darted back to the bed and crawled in. I was in fetal position under the downy comforter, which still didn’t comfort me as my head spun like a rainbow Mac wheel. Maybe it was for show for the guy? To seem mysterious? To sound cool? It didn’t sound cool to me.

  I closed my eyes and pretended to be asleep when Finn came back about fifteen minutes later. He quietly undressed and slid under the covers on the other side of the huge bed, and soon enough my feigned slumber became real as I dozed off next to him.

  The shrill foreign phone chirp pierced my reverie.

  Finn rolled over and groggily answered, looking at his watch. “Fuck, man. Yeah, we’re coming. Shit we’re going to need sleeping pills tonight, we slept too long . . . yeah man. Thanks.”

  He rolled over to find my wide eyes staring at him.

  “Hi little witch Hazel—” he said.

  “Hi.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I responded robotically. “Just tired.”

  “Let’s take a shower together and wake the hell up,” he said, leaning on me. I felt so vulnerable there, wondering how many other girls had come along for the ride. Showered with him. Flipped on their backs when he snapped. Catered to his moods when someone was a “dickhole.” How many others jumped excitedly on his beds, pinched themselves beneath the covers, and fell giddily asleep beside him. Fuck it: I was not a weak link in his chain of fools.

  And then I figured: fuck it, I was thirty. Why play games? It was all or nothing at this point in myself and I refused to coyly step through the minefield of his deified stature and the statistics of all who came before me.

  “Finn, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop,” I began with mild trepidation. I took a deep breath and my resolve crystallized. “But I was coming out of the bathroom and . . . I heard what you said about my being a little ‘spin’ in your Macy’s door. It didn’t make me feel that great, to be honest. I know I sound foolish and have zero claim to your affections beyond . . . the spin, or whatever this is, but somehow it made me feel really stupid and insignificant.”