Rock N Soul (13 page)

He shrugged. “I’m adventurous. I’ll try anything once.”

I paused. “I want it on the record that you just gave me a perfect opening to continue talking about your drug abuse and I didn’t do it.”

“And
I
want it on the record that I haven’t called you poor or mocked your proletariat lifestyle in like ten whole minutes.” He smiled. “So we’re both making progress.”

“Go us,” I said. “Hooray.” I went back to watching C-SPAN.

After a few seconds, Chris let out an exasperated sigh. “Can we watch something less dull than this? Have you made your point yet?”

“Fine,” I said, reaching for the remote and holding back a sigh of relief. “But I’m picking what we watch this time.”

“How much did he give you?” Chris craned his neck as if that would let him see into my pocket.

“You know, it’s really rude to keep asking me how much I’m making in tips,” I said. “But it was a five.”

“That brings us up to . . .” He tilted his head while he calculated. “Twenty-three dollars for tonight.”

“The night is young,” I told him. “People get more generous as it gets later.”

“Because they’re drunk?”

“Not usually,” I said. “Well, some of them are. But most of them are just tired and so they’re at that stage where they’ll shove whatever bills they have at you just to get to their room faster.”

“And you take advantage of people when they’re tired?”

“Yes. And I feel zero shame for that.”

“Well, you need to make like a hundred more dollars tonight so you don’t have to dumpster-dive for food in LA,” he told me. “So hop to it.”

“Um, your math is faulty, man,” I said. “Because sure, the food will be about that much, but I have to make that much
on top
of what I need for my rent and my bills before I can go to Los Angeles on a whim.”

“It’s not a whim,” he insisted. “It’s a necessary trip.”

“So you can tell Eric Painter to go fuck himself and then go see Jerri What’s-Her-Name for your mysterious reasons that you won’t tell me about?”

“Yes. And we’re going to see Jerri
before
Eric. Not after.”

“Why does it matter?” I asked. “You need to see them both, don’t you?”

“Yeah, but if I see Eric first he’ll tell me not to go see Jerri.” He paused, then wrinkled his nose. “Well, honestly, if I go see Jerri first she’ll tell me not to go see Eric, too. But Jerri I can ignore.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “When do I get to find out who Jerri is and why you have unfinished business with her?”

“I’m planning for never. I was just going to have you stand twenty feet away and wear headphones while I talk to her.”

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen,” I said, crossing my arms. “If I’m flying across the country for you, I at least get to hear the juicy gossip. And besides, you can’t even talk to her without using me as a translator, so you’ll just have to live with me hearing the conversation.”

He grimaced. “Fine. But you’ll disapprove.”

“Yeah, man. I mean, probably. If you’re not telling me who she is, that probably means I wouldn’t like it.”

“You don’t like a lot of things,” he said, but he gave a little half smile so I didn’t take it as an insult.

“Well, what you see is what you get,” I agreed. “Anyway, this is a lot of trouble, going all the way out there. Are you sure it’s necessary to go in person? Can’t I just call them and tell them what you want them to know?”

“I won’t be able to convince them I’m real over the phone. And besides . . . I kind of want to see them. Even if they can’t see me, I want to see them one more time.”

I could understand that. I mean, if I was dead I’d want to see my grandma again before I left. And if we were going to do this whole unfinished-business thing, we might as well do it right. I really did want to see LA, and I wasn’t likely to ever have a good enough excuse to justify the trip again, so it was worth it.

“We’ll figure something out,” I said. “But seriously, it’s going to take me some time to get the money. So you’ll just have to stay with me and try to entertain yourself while I work for a while.”

Chris huffed out a sigh. “Well, I guess I can wait.”

“So are any of the people you want to see nearby? So we can start with them, maybe?”

“My sister lives in upstate New York,” he said, “but I don’t want to see her yet.”

“Why not? Save the best for last?”

He shook his head. “Save the worst for last. Save the most awkward for last. She hates me. We haven’t spoken in years.”

I don’t have siblings, so I couldn’t
really
understand, but that still seemed pretty shitty. “I’m sorry, man. So you just need to, what? Tell her you love her?”

“Something like that,” he said. “Honestly, I have no idea what to say to her. She hates everything about me. The drugs and shit, yeah, I get those. But she also hates that I’m a musician. She thought I should have done what Dad did and kept planting churches.”

“She wanted you to be a traveling preacher?” I asked, then paused for a moment to think. “That makes sense, actually.”

He laughed. “You can see
me
, a drug-addicted screwup who films himself having sex, being a
preacher
?”

“Well, preachers and musicians have similar skill sets.”

He didn’t look terribly convinced. “Do explain.”

I stepped into the service elevator and pressed the button for the lobby. “Well, both callings require you to be really charismatic and to connect with an audience from a stage. And they both gather followers and inspire people to convert to their way of seeing and doing things.” I shrugged. “And I’d imagine they both get tons of chicks. Maybe pastors don’t take the chicks up on their offers, but they probably have lots of women who want to bump uglies with them.”

“My father would have had an apoplectic fit if he’d heard you say that,” Chris said, smiling slightly.

I smiled back. “Well, I guess the end goals of the women are different. The pastors get women who want to marry them and have godly lives and raise little godly children with them.”

“Whereas the bass player just wants to bone them,” he finished for me.

I shrugged again. “I don’t know what you want from your chicks, man. I assume it’s boning, but maybe there’s a romantic down in there somewhere.”

He didn’t say anything, and that was surprising enough that I looked over to make sure he hadn’t spontaneously moved on, but he was just standing beside me watching the numbers on the elevator move slowly down to one.

When the elevator made its dinging sound letting us know we’d arrived at the lobby, he spoke up. “I can be a romantic. I just have to be with somebody who’s worth the effort.”

“Like your girlfriend Jerri?” I asked, smirking.

“Jerri isn’t my girlfriend, you fucker.”

I smiled again, and when the doors opened I walked back out into the lobby.

“She’s
not
my girlfriend,” he said, louder this time.

There were guests around, so I didn’t answer him. I kept smiling, though, enough that Richard gave me a funny look. I headed for the front door to see if Mark had any new guests arriving who might need my help.

A woman was climbing out of her cab and shoving a largish suitcase to Mark, so I hurried over to grab it. She handed it to me and took a moment to brush a nonexistent crumb off of her ample bosom. I didn’t take the bait and instead kept my eyes safely above the neck.

“I’ll take your bags up to your room, ma’am,” I said, warmly enough to give her the impression that I was a nice guy but not
so
warmly that she would expect me to show up at her room door later wearing a Speedo and carrying a bottle of wine.

The woman smiled back at me, but her smile was substantially less innocent than mine had been. “Well, aren’t you just the helpful one,” she purred.

Chris laughed out loud. “She’s hitting on you.”

I flicked my eyes to him while Mark was opening the door for the woman and directing her to the front desk for check in. “Yeah,” I mumbled, trying to move my lips as little as possible in case somebody was watching. “It happens.”

Mark told me the room number, and I started dragging the suitcase inside.

“Do you bone guests ever?” Chris asked.

“No,” I said. “Shut up.”

“She’d probably tip you better if you boned her.”

“I’m sure she would,” I muttered. “But I’m not going to do it. I’m not a whore.”

“Which is good,” he said. “I don’t know if I’d want to watch you having sex.”

I hauled the suitcase into the service elevator and headed up to the floor the lady would be staying on. “Well, you might have to get over that at some point,” I told him. “Because if you’re stuck with me forever, I’m not staying celibate just to avoid offending your delicate sensibilities.”

“Ugh,” he said, making a disgusted face. “I guess I can just sit out in the hallway of the apartment.”

“I’ll hang a sock on the door,” I offered. “But you said I was pretty, so maybe you’d like to watch.” I gave him an exaggerated ‘come hither’ eyebrow waggle for comedy’s sake.

He rolled his eyes. “I’ve never been much of a voyeur. I’ve always wanted to be in on the action.”

I shrugged. “Beggar ghosts can’t be chooser ghosts.”

“That’s probably true,” he admitted. “But I don’t know if Gemma would be okay with it, seeing as she already knows I’m here.”

“Dude, Gemma is totally not into me.”

“She is,” he argued. “But whatever. There’s no accounting for poor taste.”

I shot him a look and pulled the suitcase out into the hallway and carried it to the lady’s room. She wasn’t there yet, so I took the suitcase inside and put it down next to the dresser, then went back outside to wait for her.

“So you’re just going to stand here?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean, for a few minutes. To see if she needs anything else. And to give her a chance to be a decent human being and tip me.”

“I think she’s expecting
you
to tip
her
,” he said, then leaned in closer. “With your cock.”

“Yes, thank you for clearing up that completely subtle innuendo,” I snapped. “I never would have figured it out otherwise.”

“Always glad to help,” he said, bracing his shoulder against the wall and smiling.

“For my own personal information,” I said after a moment, “if I’d let Carmen in your room, would you have done her? Or would you have just called security and gotten me fired?”

“Probably both,” he said. “Well, that’s not true. I wasn’t very picky there at the end. Tori was pissing me off and Eric was pissing me off and . . . well, everybody was pissing me off, is what I’m saying. I was spending my life with both middle fingers in the air because . . .” He closed his eyes and wrinkled his forehead, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “I don’t know. Whatever. Let’s talk about other stuff.”

“Okay.” I glanced away for a second to give him a tiny bit of privacy and then turned back. “Sorry.”

“No problem.” He opened his eyes again and relaxed his face. “I just . . . I shouldn’t have died. You know?”

“Nobody should die as young as you.”

“Yeah. And nobody should have to wait around afterwards. I mean, if ghosts were super common we’d have more evidence that they existed. So why don’t we?”

“I don’t know, man.” I put my hands in my suit pockets and focused on the floor. “I guess it’s just one of those things.”

“You’re not even curious about it?”

“I’m not
not
curious about it,” I answered. “I just doubt there’s any way to really know for sure and so I don’t think about it too much.”

“Is that your stance on religion too?”

I shrugged. It seemed like a nuanced enough answer for such a broad question.

“I guess I would agree with that.” He opened his mouth like he was going to continue, but then he closed it again.

“What?” I prompted. The conversation was still weird from the Carmen question, and it felt like we were skirting up against some kind of edge and I couldn’t stop myself from tiptoeing a little closer to it.

He sighed, then sniffed like it wasn’t a big deal. “I was just going to say . . . that Allison would love me more if I was religious.” He paused again. “Not that I’m
not
religious. I’m just not . . . actively religious. Whatever.”

“I’m sure she loves you,” I said. “She’s your sister.”

Chris snorted. “Yeah, talk to me about that again when you meet her.” He looked past me down the hall. “Your girlfriend’s coming. Act cool.”

I followed his gaze to the main elevators. The flirty lady was walking toward me, swaying her hips a little too much and giving me eyes.

“Oh, my, you’re still here,” she breathed when she got close to me.

Chris laughed at that and then started whistling and making catcalls. I did an Oscar-worthy job of pretending I didn’t hear him while I smiled at the woman. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t need anything else, ma’am.”

“Hmm,” she said, giving me an up-and-down appraisal that was even less subtle than the one outside the cab had been. “Well, that depends on what services you provide.”

Chris stage-whispered, “She wants to know if she can ride you like a bronco.”