Last Night at Chateau Marmont (9 page)

“Julian Alter,” the girl said, waving toward the piano. “I’ve heard him a couple times in different venues around the city. He has a few regular gigs. And I’m telling you, he’s ridiculously good. Makes John Mayer look like amateur hour.”

Julian had begun to play “For the Lost,” a soulful song about a young boy who loses his older brother, and she felt Trent glance in her direction—he was probably the only other person in the entire room who knew what truly inspired that song. Julian himself was an only child, but Brooke knew he often thought of the brother who had died of SIDS before Julian was born. To this day the Alters never discussed James, but Julian had gone through a stage where he wondered, sometimes obsessively, what James would’ve been like today, how different life might have been with an older brother.

His hands moved across the piano keys, producing the first haunting notes that would eventually build to a powerful crescendo, but Brooke couldn’t focus on anything but the girl beside her. She wanted
to hug her and slap her all at the same time. It was disconcerting to hear this perfectly attractive girl rave about Julian’s sexiness—no matter how long they’d been together, she never got used to that aspect—but it was so rare to hear a totally honest and unfiltered opinion.

“You think so?” Brooke asked, suddenly desperate for the girl to agree.

“Oh, definitely. I tried to tell my boss, like, a dozen times, but Sony got him first.” The girl’s attention to Brooke started to wane as Julian’s volume increased, and by the time he tilted his head and sang out the raw, emotional chorus, she was fixated only on him. Brooke wondered if she noticed Julian’s wedding band through the haze of worship.

Brooke turned to watch, and it was all she could do not to sing along. She knew every word by heart.

They say Texas is the promised land
In the highway’s dust you become a man
Blind and blue, lonely in love
Scars on your hands, broken above

He was a mother’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost

The woman sits alone in a room
Alone in a house like a silent tomb
The man counts every jewel in his crown
What can’t be saved is measured in pounds

He was a father’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost

In my dreams the voices from beyond the door
I remember them saying you weren’t coming no more
You wouldn’t believe how quiet it’s become
The heart obscure fills with shame

He was a brother’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost

He finished the song to rousing applause—genuine, enthusiastic applause—and moved effortlessly into the second. He had hit his stride, and there wasn’t a single sign of any anxiety. Just that familiar sheen across his forearms and the furrowed brow of concentration as he sang the words he had spent months, sometimes years, perfecting. The second song was over in a flash, and then the third, and before she realized what was happening, the crowd was ecstatically cheering and calling for an encore. Julian looked pleased and a little confused—his instructions to play three songs in under twelve minutes couldn’t have been clearer—but he must’ve gotten the green light from someone offstage, because he smiled and nodded and eased right into one of his more upbeat songs. The crowd roared their approval.

By the time he pushed back the piano bench and took a modest bow, the air in the room had changed. More than the loud cheering and clapping and whistles, there was that electrified feeling of having been part of something important. Brooke stood, hemmed in on all sides by her husband’s admirers, when Leo approached. He gruffly greeted the hair-tie girl by name—Umi—but she im
mediately rolled her eyes and walked away. Before Brooke could process that, Leo grabbed her arm a little too tightly and leaned in so close she wondered for the briefest second if he was going to kiss her.

“Get ready, Brooke. Get ready for one fucking crazy ride. Tonight is only the start, and it’s going to be insane.”

“K
AYLIE
, sweetheart, I don’t know how else to say it: you do not need to lose weight. Look at your statistics; look at this chart. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are.”

“No one else here looks like me,” Kaylie said, lowering her eyes. The girl absently twisted her limp brown hair in circles around her forefinger, methodically wrapping and turning, wrapping and turning. Her face was filled with anxiety.

“What do you mean?” Brooke asked, although she knew exactly what Kaylie meant.

“I just . . . I never felt fat until I came here. At public school, I was totally normal, maybe even on the skinny side! And then this year rolls around and they stick me in this weird place because it’s supposed to be so fancy and special, and suddenly I’m obese.” The girl’s voice cracked at the last word, and it was all Brooke could do not to hug her.

“Oh, sweetheart, you’re no such thing! Come here, look at this chart. One hundred twenty-five pounds at five-one is well within the healthy range.” Brooke held out her laminated chart showing the huge range of normal weights, but Kaylie barely glanced at it.

She knew it wasn’t particularly comforting in light of all the as
tonishingly thin girls in Kaylie’s ninth-grade class. Kaylie was a scholarship student from the Bronx, the daughter of an air-conditioning repairman who raised her alone after her mother was killed in a car accident. Her father was clearly doing something right, considering the girl’s straight-A record in middle school, success on the field hockey team, and, according to what Brooke heard from other teachers, an ability to play the violin that far surpassed that of her peers, and yet here was his lovely, accomplished daughter, and all she could see was that she didn’t fit in.

Kaylie tugged at the hem of her plaid skirt, which rested across thighs that were strong and muscular, but nowhere near fat, and said, “I guess I just have bad genes. My mom was really overweight, too.”

“Do you miss her?” Brooke asked, and Kaylie could only nod, the tears welling in her eyes.

“She always told me I was perfect just the way I am, but I wonder what she would’ve said if she could see the girls here.
They’re
perfect. Their hair is perfect and their makeup is perfect and their bodies are perfect, and even though we all have the same exact uniform, even the way they
wear
it is perfect.”

It was one aspect of the job she had least expected but had grown to appreciate more than she could express, this crossover between nutritionist and confidante. They’d learned in grad school that anyone who came into regular contact with teenagers and was merely willing to listen could play an important role as a caring, involved adult, but Brooke hadn’t known what they meant until she started at Huntley.

Brooke spent a few more minutes explaining that although it might not have felt that way, Kaylie was well within a healthy weight limit. It was a hard argument, especially considering the girl’s muscular, athletic body was broader than most of her classmates’, but she tried.
If only I could fast-forward her through four years of high school and send her straight to college,
Brooke thought.
She’d realize then that none of this ninth-grade nonsense means anything in the long run.

But Brooke knew from experience that this was impossible. She,
too, had self-consciously been on the larger end of normal all through high school and Cornell, straight up until grad school, when she went on a drastic diet and lost almost twenty pounds. She couldn’t keep it off, though, and gained fifteen of it back almost immediately. Now, despite mostly healthful eating and a dedicated running program, Brooke was also on the outer limits of the healthy range for her height and, just like Kaylie, was acutely aware of that fact. She felt hypocritical even trying to tell Kaylie not to worry when she herself thought about it every day.

“You
are
perfect, Kaylie. I know it doesn’t always feel that way, especially surrounded by girls with so many advantages, but believe me when I tell you that you’re absolutely beautiful. You’re going to make friends here, find the girls you connect with, and feel more at home. And then before you know it, you’ll kiss the SATs and prom and some dumb boyfriend from Dalton good-bye, and you’ll run off to a fantastic college where everyone’s perfect in their
own
way, in exactly the way
they
choose. And you’ll love it. I can honestly promise you that.”

Brooke’s phone rang, the special piano-sounding ring that she’d attached only to Julian’s number. He never called when she was at work, knowing she wouldn’t be able to answer, and even kept his texts to a minimum. She knew in an instant something was wrong.

“Excuse me, Kaylie. This will just be a minute.” She swiveled in her chair the best she could to get some privacy in the small office. “Hi. Is everything okay? I’m with a patient right now.”

“Brooke, you are not going to believe this, but—” He stopped and breathed in deeply, dramatically.

“Julian, seriously, if this is not an emergency, I need to call you back.”

“Leo just called. One of the main bookers from
Leno
was at the showcase last week. They want me to perform on the show!”

“No!”

“It’s true! It’s a hundred percent guaranteed done deal. Next week,
Tuesday night. Taping at five. I’ll be the musical performance on the show, probably right after the interviews. Do you believe it?”

“Ohmigod!”

“Brooke, say something else.”

She forgot where she was for a moment. “I can’t believe it. I mean, of course I can believe it, but it’s just so incredible.” She heard Julian laughing and thought how long it’d been. “When are you home tonight? We
must
celebrate. I have something in mind. . . .”

“Does it involve my favorite mesh thingy?”

Brooke smiled into the phone. “I was thinking more along the lines of that Dom Pérignon we got as a gift and can never justify opening.”

“Mesh. Tonight deserves champagne
and
mesh. Meet you home at eight? I’ll take care of dinner.”

“You don’t have to deal with dinner. Let me pick something up. Or we can go out! Why don’t we go somewhere and really celebrate?”

“Let me handle it,” Julian said. “Please? I have something in mind.”

Brooke’s heart surged. Maybe now he’d be able to ease up on his time at the studio and spend more time at home. She felt the familiar pangs of excitement and anticipation she’d felt earlier in their marriage, before anything had become routine. “Absolutely. I’ll see you at eight. And, Julian? I can’t wait.”

“Me neither.” He made a kissing sound into the phone—something he hadn’t done in years—and hung up. For the first time in five full minutes, Brooke remembered where she was.

“Wow, sounds like some hot stuff,” Kaylie said with a grin. “Big date tonight?”

It never failed to amaze Brooke how young these girls really were, despite all the confident backtalk and a distressing familiarity with everything from extreme dieting to the best blow-job techniques. (Brooke had read a highly detailed how-to list when one of the girls
left behind a notebook—so detailed, in fact, she briefly considered making a few notes for herself before realizing that taking sex tips from a high school freshman was horrifying on too many levels.)

“Big date with my
husband.”
Brooke corrected her, trying to salvage at least a little professionalism. “I’m so sorry for the interruption. Now, back to what—”

“Sounded pretty exciting,” Kaylie said. She loosened her grip on her hair just long enough to gnaw a hangnail on her right index finger. “What happened?”

Brooke was so relieved to see the girl smile that she said, “Yeah, actually it is really exciting. My husband is a musician. He just got a call from Leno’s people inviting him to be on the show.” Brooke could hear her voice surge with pride, and although she knew it was both unprofessional and even silly to be sharing the news with her teenage patient, she was too happy to care.

Kaylie’s head snapped to full attention. “He’s going to be on
Leno
?”

Brooke nodded and shuffled some papers around on her desk in an unsuccessful attempt to hide her pleasure.

“That is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!” the girl exclaimed, her ponytail bobbing as if to underscore her point.

“Kaylie!”

“Sorry, but it is! What’s his name and when’s he on? I want to make sure I see it.”

“Next Tuesday night. His name is Julian Alter.”

“That is so fuck—freaking cool. Congratulations, Mrs. A. Your husband must be pretty awesome if Leno wants him. You’re going to go to L.A. with him, right?”

“What?” Brooke asked. She hadn’t had a second to think about the logistics, but Julian hadn’t mentioned them either.

“Isn’t
Leno
in L.A.? You, like,
have
to go with him.”

“Of course I’ll go with him,” Brooke replied automatically, although she had a nagging, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her
stomach that Julian’s omission of an invitation wasn’t just a detail that got lost in all the excitement.

Brooke still had another ten minutes with Kaylie, then a full hour afterward with a Huntley gymnast whose coach’s weigh-ins were having disastrous effects on the girl’s self-esteem, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate for one more second. Figuring she’d already acted inappropriately by oversharing and using their session time to talk about her personal life, Brooke turned back to Kaylie.

“I’m sorry to do this, sweetheart, but I need to cut our session short this afternoon. I’ll be back on Friday, and I’ll notify your sixth-period teacher that we didn’t get a chance to finish so we can reschedule another full session for then. Is that okay?”