All Shook Up (2 page)

I have to use Hondo's damp, chilly towel because the rest of the towels are wadded up in the laundry room, probably growing a large population of mutant mold people.

I put the towel over the shower door for the next person and pull on the wrinkled dress Hondo left on the hook next to the shower. I'm sure he had to dig deep to find this one clean item of clothing. I decide not to complain about having to wear a mini-dress, circa 1982.

In my closet, I jam my bare feet into a pair of silver tennies, and then finally look at myself in the mirror. Not quite as frightening as I thought. The day-old eyeliner is gone, and my cheeks actually have some color to them. My skin stays pale nine months out of the year and slightly tinted during the summer. I must be the only natural blonde in Texas without a bronze tan. It doesn't bother me, though. No more than my crooked bottom teeth or the small birthmark under my left eye. I never pretended to be perfect.

After all, I come from a long line of imperfect people.

Hondo and I shoo the last few people from the house, telling them not to come back until we call them. When we're alone, with Mary and Mark wandering in a hallway somewhere, we tackle the main living room, tossing bottle after bottle in the recycle bin. It takes two bins to hold all of the bottles. We wipe down the tables and black leather couches. I use six mop pads to clean the tile floor.

"So, why do you think he came in person?" Hondo asks me as we move to the kitchen to continue cleaning. With his thumb and forefinger, he picks up a black lace bra from the floor in front of the fridge and tosses it into the trash.

"That could have been mine," I say.

"In your dreams," he says. "You would drown in those D cups."

"That is weird, isn't it? For a celebrity to fly in for a real estate deal?" I rinse a rag in hot water and scrub the stone top of the kitchen island. "He knew who I was."

"That's not hard to deduce."

My father comes to mind in a series of pictures. Lang and two-year-old Sophie at the zoo. Lang and five-year-old Sophie on the first day of kindergarten. Lang and seven-year old Sophie at Six Flags. Lang and twelve-year-old Sophie backstage in a dingy dressing room with grey fluorescent lights. Lang and Sophie posing together for a quick second before separating for the rest of the sweet sixteen party. Our relationship is unmistakable. I'm his female clone. And that fact makes my stomach twist up. I rummage in the pantry for some crackers. I find more liquor bottles than food. Finally, I see a box of crackers on a shelf in the back. The "sell by" date is two years old.

"Well, I don't really care why Mark's here, as long as he leaves a fat check on the way out." I munch on the stale crackers and wash them down with sips of water.

"That's my girl. Heart of gold."

I slap Hondo's arm. "Hey, this is just business, right?"

"Yep, business."

In the moment of dead air that follows, I wonder if Hondo is thinking the same thing I am:
What happens to us if Mark buys the mansion?

As if he knows I'm thinking about him, Mark appears, with Mary three hurried steps behind. She sweeps the kitchen with her real estate agent super eyes, and then gives me a quick nod. I fight back the urge to stick out my tongue at her. I look at Mark instead. And, unexpectedly, he focuses on me.

"I want the house," he says. "As is. I'll pay the asking price."

Mary has a spontaneous orgasm at his words. She stutters as she tries to regain her composure. "We, um, we can go to my office and complete the paperwork."

Mark ignores her. He looks at me with an expression I can't name. Wonder? Pity? Disgust?

"I'll pay your asking price," he says. "But I have one condition."

I groan to myself and slump over. Here it comes. Hondo pokes me in the ribs to make me stand up straight.

"I'll buy the house, as long as you stay here and help me learn to play guitar like your father."

"I'm sorry, what?" Hondo says with a laugh that's more of a bark. I poke him in the ribs, hard. He snaps his mouth shut.

"I think you already know how to play guitar," I say. "Pretty well, I've heard."

I look at Mary, who is probably praying fervently that I don't ruin this deal for her.

"I want to play like Lang Winter," Mark says. "You're the only one alive who can make that happen."

I look into Mark's aqua pools, and for a brief moment, I believe that I can channel my father's pure, undeserved gift long enough to give Mark what he wants. Long enough to put my life back together.

But that moment passes, and my reality comes crawling back.

"I'm sorry," I say, stepping back from the kitchen island we're gathered around. "No deal."

Scene 2 ~ Sophie

"Are you insane?"

Before Mary can get her hands around my neck, Hondo sweeps me away to the closet and locks the door behind us. I've never seen his face so animated. I look down at my silver shoes like a naughty kid.

"Four million dollars," he says in slow motion. "Four point two million dollars, which is a crazy huge amount of money, which is your asking price, which means you asked and he accepted, and then it all fell apart because for a reason that is not yet apparent, you said no."

Hondo takes a breath. "And we haven't even gotten to the part where you would still have a home."

"Are you almost done?" I say.

"No," he says, pacing back and forth in front of me. "I've given you space to be a little wild the past six months. But this, this is not good at all."

"What do you mean, you've given me space? And what the hell does space have to do with anything?"

Hondo puts his gigantic hands over his face for a few seconds before answering. "Sophie, honey, this guy is offering to save your ass in a way none of your friends can, including me. Please let him."

"You know what?" I say. "He's nothing special. He doesn't get to own me. He's not the only rich dick on the planet who needs a house. Someone else will make an offer."

"When? You've waited four months for this offer."

"When-the-fuck-ever," I say. "It's going to work out."

My voice wavers on the last few words. Hondo pulls me to my feet, wraps me into his arms, and kisses the top of my head. I relax into his body. What would I do without him? No matter what he says, he was the one who saved my ass. I owe him everything. He just won't talk about that.

"It's going to work out, it's going to work out," I say, like a mantra. "It's going to—"

A sudden sob cut off my words. I cling to Hondo, burying my face in his chest to muffle the worst of my crying. He rubs my back in slow, little circles until the sobs clear out, and I'm left with an annoying case of hiccups.

"I love you, Ho," I whisper.

"I love you, too, sweetness."

"Please don't let my real estate agent murder me in my sleep."

"I'll do my best."

Scene 3 ~ Mark

Lang Winter's daughter. I had no idea I was going to offer her that deal. No one can ask me to pass up something like this, though. It's not like I'm going back on my resolution. I'm not here to sleep with her. Hell, she and that Hondo guy are all over each other. I don't need to be in the middle of that drama.

For me, this is all about craft and business. Never More Alone is falling apart. Braun and the guys are blaming it on me publicly in all the rags. Yeah, it pisses me off. Especially after I spent more than sixty days in rehab. I usually don't drink more than a few beers at a time. My coke habit wasn't that bad, either, mostly a weekend and party thing, and I'm not sure I believe all that sex addiction bullshit. Either way, sixty-three days was plenty of time to regain my focus. Whether alcohol, drugs, and women had that much of a grip on me or not, I can't deny that the partying was wasting time I needed to pour into my music. And what better way to focus than to work in Lang Winter's own house?

Fuck. I can't believe Sophie turned down my deal. Given the financial problems Lang had before he died, she has to be hurting financially. Why else would the house be up for sale? I thought offering her the asking price would make it an instant deal. And it's not like I'm asking anything illicit of her. I just want her to share some of that Lang Winter magic with me. Surely, that is worth four million dollars.

Feeling defeated and irritated, I go back to my hotel room. I turn on the TV and mute the sound. The lights and colors keep me from feeling too numb inside. Especially since my last taste of coke was more than two months ago. Even worse, the rehab counselors challenged me to make it the whole ninety days of treatment without masturbating. It was obvious they thought I couldn't do it, so I took it as a personal challenge. With nothing better to do tonight, though, I deserve a little relief.

I pull off my shoes, and then my t-shirt and jeans. I'm wearing a ridiculous pair of boxers with lipstick kisses all over them. The girls love them, so it's worth the potential embarrassment. Almost instantly, my erection stands straight out. I don't even have to think about one woman. Just thinking of the female gender in general turns me on.

Shit, it's been way too long.

I pick up the remote and search for a so-called adult channel. With my other hand, I stroke myself to a full erection. I don't need porn to get me off, but it gives me something to look at in this depressing room. I find a movie with a threesome of one guy and twin sisters. Kind of a stupid premise, but porn movies are not known for their complex storytelling. In the first two minutes of the movie, the twins are already asses up, with the lucky guy pounding them one after the other.

Whatever.

I close my eyes and let my mind wander as I touch myself. I think about Sophie. She's tiny, no more than five feet tall. Her blonde curls reach almost to her ass. I haven't seen that much hair on someone in a long time. Her eyelids don't really open all of the way. I didn't know if that's just her, or if the constant stream of alcohol gives her permanent bedroom eyes.

When she opened the door for Mary and me earlier, she was wearing only a t-shirt and a scrap of underwear. Right away, I could see the natural lines of her breasts under her thin shirt, still held high by her youth.

I keep stroking myself, knowing I won't last long. I lie flat on my back on the bed. I picture Sophie straddling my legs, preparing to go down on me. Which one would she choose? Would she start with oral or go straight for the main event? I moan as my body catches fire. How the hell did I go two months without this? Those damn counselors brainwashed me.

My breathing speeds up as I push up hard into my fist. I stopped for a second to spit on my hand for lube. After that, I'm beyond the point of no return. I shout as I come, covering my chest and belly in my pearlescent white liquid. I stare at it for a while, wishing I wasn't alone in the bed.

No, it's not like I'm going back on my resolution. Outside of my fantasies, I'm not going to have sex with Sophie. I'm not going to have sex with anyone. Not yet.

I clean up and crawl back in bed, trying like hell to keep Sophie's face from being the last thing I see before I crash.

Scene 4 ~ Sophie

Lang Winter. My father. A legend of the guitar world, then and now.

It's strange how everyone has simply forgotten who he really was and replaced their true image of him with an odd, misinformed nostalgia. Bandmates, fans, managers—they all seem to suffer from the same Lang amnesia. I stopped counting the number of remembrance web sites that popped up in the last six months, but not one of them wrote about the sudden rages that made a major hotel chain ban him for life. I have no idea how much money he spent on property damage to keep the claims out of court. His arrest record for public disturbance has at least fifteen hits here in Dallas alone. I don't want to think about the rest of the country. Hell, the rest of the world. For some reason, despite his animalistic behavior, he was allowed to stray anywhere he wanted.

Maybe I should feel bad for hating him. I'm sure it makes me an ugly, ungrateful daughter. But he didn't help his own cause by leaving me with a double-mortgaged mansion, two years of unpaid taxes, and a bank account that supported me for about two months after his death. And I wasn't blowing it on parties, either. The parties came later, when I resorted to living on credit cards. No, good ol' Lang didn't even blink an eye when he sold the rights to all of his songs. Every single one. I will never receive a dime in royalties from them. The best part? I didn't know this until the reading of his will.

Maybe I should feel good about receiving his guitar collection in the will. It's worth a nice chunk of change. But it's hard to put a definitive value on something when you can't bring yourself to unlock the door to the room.

Of course, I could find a job like a normal person. Anything I'm qualified for can't touch the bills I have coming in, though. I was three years into earning my bachelor's degree in music when Lang overdosed on hydrocodone. When you're twenty-one and your parents are gone and you can't comprehend the number of zeroes on the credit card statements, the liquor store becomes your sanctuary. Well, it became
my
sanctuary. Other girls in my position might have sailed right on through that ugly storm.

Not Sophie Winter. Lang Winter's only confirmed child. College drop-out. Soon-to-be homeless person.

If Lang is looking down on me from some invisible kingdom in the sky, I hope he sees what a fucked-up mess he left behind on earth.

Scene 3 ~ Mark

Braun calls me around one in the morning. He's the only one in the band who stayed in touch with me when I went to rehab. I wish he hadn't bothered. Lead singers can be so fucking arrogant.

"So, are you out of rehab for good, or what?" he says. The slur of his words pisses me off. Why did everyone have to be such damned hypocrites?

"Maybe," I say through clenched teeth. "Not your business."

"Hell, yeah, it's my business," Braun says, his bass voice blasting through the phone's tiny speaker. "Where the hell are you, anyway?"

"Hotel," I say.

"Fuck you, man. You know we held auditions tonight, right? We can't wait for you."