Last Night at Chateau Marmont (26 page)

“What’s the point? Don’t we have to be there any minute?”

Brooke glanced at the clock on the DVD player. Three thirty-five. “We can sleep for another, oh, let’s say fifty minutes before we have to start getting ready. They’re sending a car at five fifteen.”

“Jesus Christ. This is inhumane.”

“Scratch that. I think we can only do forty-five minutes. Don’t think because you’re some celebrity now you don’t have to walk your own dog.”

Julian groaned. Walter woofed.

“Come on, you’ll be better off if you lie down, even if you can’t sleep,” Brooke said, standing and tugging on his arm.

Julian stood and kissed her on the cheek. “Go ahead, I’ll be right in.”

“Julian . . .”

He flashed another smile, this one real. “Don’t be a tyrant, woman. Do I need permission to go to the bathroom? I’ll be right in.”

Brooke feigned irritation. “‘Tyrant’? Come on, Walter, let’s go back to bed and leave Daddy in peace to sit on the toilet and download iPhone apps.” She pecked Julian on the lips and made a kissing noise so Walter would follow her.

The next thing Brooke knew, the clock radio was blaring “All the Single Ladies,” and she bolted upright in bed, convinced they’d somehow missed the whole thing. She was relieved when the clock read four fifteen
A.M.
and leaned over to shake Julian, but on his side of the bed she found only a tangle of blanket and a sprawled-out spaniel. Walter was stretched out on his back, all four paws straight in the air, head on Julian’s pillow like a human. He looked at her with one eye that seemed to say,
I could get used to this,
before closing it again and letting out a contented sigh. Brooke buried her face in his neck and then tiptoed into the living room, certain she’d find Julian right where she’d left him. Instead, she saw a crack of light under the door of the guest half bathroom, and when she moved closer to ask if he was all right, she heard the unmistakable sound of retching.
Poor thing’s a wreck,
she thought with a combination of sympathy for Julian and relief that she wasn’t the one who had to give this interview right now. If the situation were reversed, she had no doubt she’d be right there in that bathroom, puking and praying for some divine intervention.

She heard the water run for a moment and then the door opened, revealing a pale, sweaty version of her husband. He ran the back of his hand along his mouth and offered her an expression that toed the line between nauseated and mildly amused.

“How are you feeling, baby? Can I get you anything? Some ginger ale maybe?”

Julian slumped into a seat at their two-person kitchenette table and raked his fingers through his hair. Brooke noticed that his hair was looking fuller lately, almost like he wasn’t thinning on top as much as he had been in the last year. It was probably the great haircuts he’d been getting from the hair and makeup people, who must have discovered a way to somehow conceal or camouflage it. Whatever they were doing, it was working. Without the distraction of the small bald spot, your eyes were immediately drawn to those ridiculous dimples.

“I feel like shit,” he announced. “I don’t think I can do this.”

Brooke knelt beside him, kissed him on the cheek, and took both his hands in hers. “You’re going to be great, baby. This is going to help you and your album so tremendously.”

For a second Brooke thought he might cry. Thankfully, he plucked a banana from the centerpiece bowl, peeled it, and began taking long, slow chews.

“And I really think the interview part is going to be a breeze. Everyone knows you’re there to
perform.
You’ll do ‘For the Lost,’ the crowd will go crazy, you’ll forget the cameras are even there, and then they’ll come up to you on the stage and ask how it feels to be a sudden star or something like that. You’ll give your bit about how much you love and adore all your fans, and then straight to Al for the weather. It’ll be a cakewalk, I promise!”

“You think?”

His imploring eyes reminded Brooke how long it had been since she had to soothe him like this, how much she missed doing it. Her husband the rock star could still be her husband the nervous guy.

“I know! Come on, let’s get you in the shower and I’ll make you some eggs and toast. The car will be here in a half hour and we can’t be late. Okay?”

Julian nodded. He rumpled her hair as he stood and took off for their bathroom without another word. He got nervous before every performance, regardless of whether it was a routine gig at a college
bar or a small showcase in an intimate venue or a huge crowd in a Midwestern stadium, but Brooke couldn’t remember ever seeing him like this.

She jumped in the shower as he was climbing out, and she thought about offering a few more words of encouragement but decided maybe a little silence would be better. By the time she finished, Julian had left with Walter for a walk, and she raced to pull on the easiest outfit she could find that was guaranteed comfortable without being hideous: a tunic-style sweater over black leggings paired with low-heel ankle boots. She had been a late adopter of the legging, but once she caved and bought her first gloriously stretchy and forgiving pair, Brooke had never looked back. After so many years of fighting to pour herself into skintight, low-rise jeans and binding pencil skirts and slacks that always felt like a vise around her waist, she found leggings were God’s apology to women everywhere. For the first time, something that was in style actually flattered her figure perfectly by hiding her less-than-stellar mid- and rear section while accentuating her reasonably shapely legs. Every day she pulled a pair on she offered a silent thank-you to their inventor and a quiet prayer that they’d remain in fashion just a little bit longer.

The drive from their apartment to Rockefeller Center went quickly. There was no traffic that early in the morning, and the only sound came from Julian’s fingers tap-tap-tapping against the wood grain of the armrest. Leo called to say he was waiting for them at the studio, but otherwise no one spoke. It wasn’t until the car pulled up alongside the talent entrance that Julian gripped Brooke’s hand so tightly she had to clamp her mouth shut to keep from calling out.

“You’re going to be great,” she whispered to him as a young man in a page uniform and a headset led them to the greenroom.

“It’s live and it’s national,” Julian replied, his eyes fixed straight ahead. He looked even paler than he had this morning, and Brooke prayed he wouldn’t throw up again.

She pulled a packet of chewable Pepto tablets from her purse, dis
creetly removed two from the wrapper, and pressed them into Julian’s palm. “Chew those,” she said quietly.

They passed a couple of studios, each emanating the telltale freezing cold air that kept the anchors cool under the blazing stage lights, and Julian tightened his grip. They rounded a corner, walked past a space that looked like a makeshift salon where three women were setting up hair and makeup supplies, and were deposited in a room with a few armchairs, two love seats, and a small breakfast buffet. Brooke had never been in an official greenroom of any kind before, and although this one said as much on the door, everything was done in shades of beige and mauve. Only Julian was tinted green.

“There he is!” Leo boomed, his voice sounding at least thirty decibels louder than necessary.

“I’ll, uh, be back to take you into hair and makeup as soon as the rest of the band is here,” the page said, looking uncomfortable. “Just, um, have some coffee or something.” He quickly ducked out.

“Julian! How we doing this morning? You ready? You’re not looking ready, man. You okay?”

Julian nodded, looking every bit as unhappy to see Leo as Brooke felt. “Fine,” he murmured.

Leo clapped Julian’s back and then pulled him into the hallway for some sort of pep talk. Brooke fixed herself a cup of coffee and took a seat in the corner farthest from everyone. She surveyed the room and took her best guess on the other guests that morning: a little girl who, judging from both the violin she clutched and her snotty attitude, was most likely a musical prodigy; the editor of a men’s magazine who was rehearsing with his publicist the ten weight-loss tips he planned to discuss; a well-known chick-lit author holding her most recent novel in one hand and her cell phone in the other, looking supremely bored as she scrolled through her call list.

The other band members straggled in over the next fifteen minutes, each managing to appear exhausted and excited at the same time. They slurped coffee and took turns in the hair and makeup
room, and before Brooke had another opportunity to gauge how Julian was holding up, they were whisked out to the promenade to greet the fans and do a final sound check. It was a crisp fall morning and the crowd was huge. By the time they began their performance, right around eight, the audience had swelled to hundreds of people, almost all female between the ages of twelve and fifty, and it seemed like nearly every one of them was screaming Julian’s name. Brooke stared at the monitor in the greenroom, trying to remind herself that Julian was—at that very moment—on televisions across America, when the page came by and asked if she’d like to watch the interview portion from inside the studio itself.

Brooke jumped up and followed the boy down a flight of stairs and onto the familiar set she recognized from years of watching the show. The icy air hit her immediately.

“Wow, it’s a beautiful set. For some reason I just figured they’d interview him outside in front of the crowd.”

The page held a couple fingertips up to his earpiece, listened, and nodded. He turned back to Brooke but didn’t seem to really see her. “Normally they would, but the wind today is wreaking havoc with the mics.”

“Got it,” Brooke said.

“You can sit right here,” he said, motioning to a folding chair between two of the massive cameras. “They’ll be coming inside any second and will be on air”—he checked a stopwatch hanging from a lanyard around his neck—“in just under two minutes. Your cell phone’s off, right?”

“Yeah, I left it upstairs. Oh, this is just so cool!” Brooke said. She’d never been on a television set before, never mind one so famous. It was almost overwhelming just to sit there and watch all the camera guys and sound technicians and producers in headsets scurry around in preparation. She was watching as a man swapped out overstuffed couch cushions for smaller, tighter ones when there was a rush of outside air and a lot of commotion. About a dozen people walked
through the studio door and Brooke saw Julian was flanked on either side by Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira. He looked a bit dazed and had a thin bead of sweat on his upper lip, but he was laughing at something and shaking his head.

“One minute thirty seconds!” a female voice boomed over the loudspeaker.

The group walked right in front of her, and for a moment Brooke could only stare at the anchors’ familiar faces. But then Julian caught her eye and gave her a nervous smile. He mouthed something to her, although Brooke couldn’t tell what. She sat in the chair the page had pointed out. Immediately two more people descended on him, one showing him how to weave the microphone up the back of his shirt and clip it onto his collar, and the other applying pressed powder to his shiny face. Matt Lauer leaned in to whisper something to Julian, who laughed, and then walked off the stage. Meredith took the seat opposite Julian and although Brooke couldn’t hear what they were saying, it looked like Julian was quite comfortable with her. She tried to imagine how nervous he must be right then, how utterly terrifying and surreal the whole thing must feel, and just the thought of it was enough to make her queasy. She dug her fingernails into her palms and prayed it would go well.

“Forty-five seconds to live!”

It only felt like ten seconds had passed, but a deep quiet settled over the set and Brooke saw a Tylenol commercial on the monitors in front of her. It was probably on for about thirty seconds when the opening chords of the
Today
show song began to play, and the voice over the loudspeaker began to count down. Immediately, the entire room stood still, except for Meredith, who scanned her notes and ran her tongue over her front teeth to check for lipstick.

“Five. Four. Three. Two. And live!” At the exact moment the voice called out the word “and,” someone flipped on the massive overhead studio lights and immediately the entire set was bathed in intense, hot light. At that same moment, Meredith smiled broadly,
turned toward the camera with the blinking green light, and read from the teleprompter.

“Welcome back, everyone! For those of you who are just joining us, we are lucky to have one of the hottest young stars on the musical scene today, singer-songwriter Julian Alter. He has already toured with Maroon 5 before embarking on his very own tour, and his first album debuted at number four on the
Billboard
chart.” She turned to Julian and her smile grew. “And he just gave us a terrific performance of his song ‘For the Lost.’ You were great, Julian! Thanks for joining us today.”

He grinned, but Brooke could see the tightness in the lips and the way his left hand death-gripped the arm of the chair. “Thanks for having me. I’m thrilled to be here.”

“I have to say, I really enjoyed that song,” Meredith said with lots of enthusiasm. Brooke was fascinated by the way the anchor’s makeup looked spackled and fake in person but flawless and beautiful on the monitor. “Can you tell us a little bit about how you came to write it?”

Julian’s face instantly came alive and he leaned forward in his chair. His entire body seemed to relax as he described his inspiration for “For the Lost.”

The next four minutes elapsed in a flash. Julian sailed through questions about how he got discovered, how long it took him to record the album, if he could believe all the incredible feedback and attention. The media training had definitely paid off: his answers were funny and charmingly self-deprecating without sounding like each had been scripted by a team of people (which they absolutely had). He maintained good eye contact, looked relaxed without being disrespectful, and at one point smiled so winningly for Meredith Vieira that she herself nearly giggled and said, “I can see why you’re such a big hit with your younger female fans.” It wasn’t until Meredith picked up a copy of an unidentifiable celeb magazine that must have been facedown on the table between them, and flipped to a bookmarked page, that Julian stopped smiling.