She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel (11 page)

“You’re the cream in my coffee?”

“I’m engaged!’” Sounding deflated, he said, “All I want from a girl is genuine sweetness. Not mind games, not competition—I want a girl to be a girl. Real men—we enjoy women’s differences. It’s what turns us on—the lace, the high heels . . . all that mind blowing anatomy.”

“Does this have anything to do with Leah Campbell?”

“T.J. told you about Leah?”

“T.J. told you about Slade. However, she did mention that Leah was ‘wack’.”

Taking a deep breath, Kai said, “Leah wanted nothing more than to be the next Deborah Norville and do news broadcasting. Her first big goal after graduation was to land a job at Channel Four, in San Francisco, but she was hiding an amphetamine problem and an eating disorder on top of it.” Kai paused, before he remarked, “I didn’t realize it at the time. She hid it—always on some diet and paranoid about gaining weight—telling everybody how the camera added ten pounds. She would study for hours into the night and I just assumed she was an academic like me, but the truth was, she was higher than a vendor at Woodstock.”

“And?”

“One afternoon, I got a call her roommate. She told me that Leah’s heart stopped and that she called an ambulance—found her on the bathroom floor.”

“Wow,” Eddie whispered.

“Yeah,” Kai retorted. “And there’s a reason for this purging moment of mine.
Now,
I’ve got this other girl that I really like. And she wants to be Miss Thing,
like the last one. But I don’t want the same problem.”

“Are you referring to
me as Miss Thing
? Is that why you say the word ‘musician’ as if it were synonymous with ‘porn star’?”

“Kind of
.
”

“Kai, at the end of the day, we both have to be who we are—you a doctor and me a lounge lizard. Clearly, we have both chosen our brides.”

“How do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Make an overachiever sound pathetic?”

Christmas Eve, 2006

It was late morning and T.J. had toothbrush in mouth. Leaning over to spit, she came back up hearing Kai.

“I’m in here,” she yelled, over the water.

“I need your help,” he said, uneasy.

“Sure
.
”

“I need to get Eddie something for Christmas.”

“You
need
to get Eddie a gift or you
want
to?”

“I’d
like
to get her a gift.”

“Okay—something special or something practical?”

“I don’t care. Use your best judgment.”

“Oh, no—you’re going with me, because trying to guess where this semi-plantonic line is drawn puts me at the mall all day.”

“I hate the mall.”

“Kai, don’t jerk Eddie around. You’ve got plenty of others you can toy with. Don’t do it to her.”

“It’s not that. It’s just—if she goes back down to L.A., and I don’t do something about it, well, the next thing I know she’ll be—”

“She’ll be hanging around hot rockers, going to parties, hob-knobbing with their entourage, living a fabulous life in L. A. while you’re stuck in a lab.”

“Something like that,” he said.

“Are you sure it’s not that you don’t want
other
people to want her? I saw how you got when she played. You were all over her at the gig and then come Tuesday night it was somebody else.”

Kai hung his head. “Yeah, I know. I’ve been asking myself the same thing for the past two days. The Eddie that left is not the one who came back. I can’t shake this, whatever it is. Are we exchanging gifts?”

“I doubt it. She has no money at all, Kai. She is struggling down there. I shouldn’t even tell you, but she called me one night and asked for money. I mailed her a check, but she never cashed it. And don’t tell her I told you.”

T.J. put the cap back on her mascara and said, “It’s undoubtedly the worst, most crowded, obnoxious time to go shopping. Still want to go?”

After fighting traffic at the Stanford Shopping Center, T.J. suggested they hit Tiffany’s.

The jewelry was lit up in their cases, and while gazing in, a salesman came over to and asked, “May I show you anything, Miss?”

“Yes,” she brightened, “we are looking for a Christmas gift.”

The man looked up and saw Kai approaching. “Is this for your mother or a friend, perhaps?”

T.J. deferred to Kai, saying, “Well, maybe you ought to ask my brother. He’s the giver.”

Stepping up to the plate, Kai hemmed, “I need to get a gift for, well, I don’t know if I can call her my girlfriend yet. You got something that isn’t too . . . amorous?”

“We get everything in here from cheating husband to death of a pet.”

Touching the salesman’s sleeve, T.J. declared, “You see this guy right here?”

“Yes,” he answered in a humble tone.

“He plans on being the maddest of all scientists, but Genius here has a problem. He
really
likes my best friend, who is going to music school in L.A. This girl, my best friend, she’s a mad-hatter musician, when translated means these two are running in different circles and going to be apart from each other for a while. So, he’s in desperate need of getting her a Christmas gift that says, ‘Please wait for me to finish school and don’t leave me for a fabulous rock god whose got better hair than Fabio.’ You got anything that says that?”

“I believe we do. This is Tiffany’s after all. Right this way.”

He took them over to another counter and pulled out a velvet tray of silver dog tags. Some were lined with diamonds, others plain. He uttered, “I have found that getting something like this accomplishes just enough. It’s not a proposal of marriage, but more a gesture of devotion, shall we say. Not too much, not too little, just right. We’ve had great luck with them and something like this, I believe, would appeal to a musician. They work like a charm, no pun intended.”

As T.J. and Kai looked over the shiny silver tags, the salesman leaned closer to Kai, and said, “But, if you really like this girl . . . get something engraved on the back and I swear to you she won’t go anywhere.” Seeing Kai’s eyes light up, the man handed over a pen, directing, “Just put down on this card what you want it to say, and it’ll be a done deal.”

Kai thought for a while, wrote his message, turned the card back over and hoped he got it right. The salesman said, “Very good, sir.”

Christmas Morning, 2006

As she lay in bed, Eddie spied an envelope on her dresser. Inside was a sheet of her aunt’s personal stationary with the name ‘Ian Clarke—EMI’—and a phone number.

She raced down the stairs and accosted Gia. “What is this?”

“Ah, yes,” Gia said, setting down her plate. “Now, you are to call this gentleman at EMI’s Los Angeles office. He will be expecting your call the first of the year. I told him that you have a very strong background in classical music and are attending this ‘M.I.,’ and can he use someone like you in his catalog department. Apparently, Los Angeles doesn’t have many kids that can tell the difference between a concerti and a stringed quartet, but I assured him that not only can you tell the difference, but you can also sub-catalog by key, composer, opus, instrument or recording artist.”

Hugging Gia, she whispered, “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

Eddie hit the buzzer at the Hildebrandt’s from gate. As she walked up the long driveway, she saw Kai walking down to meet her. He had a scarf wrapped around his neck. He was smiling.

“Merry Christmas,” he cooed, kissing her lips.

His arms and body warmed her against the winter fog “We’re getting there.”

“You look ravishing,” he said.

They walked to the house holding hands. Inside, Mrs. Hildebrandt, seeing Kai’s hands wrapped up with Eddie’s, offered a stilted Merry Christmas.

“Merry Christmas,” Eddie said.

Inga asked, “Kai, vould you like to offer your girl some strudel?”

T.J. saw the two, their arms around each other. “Breakfast?” she asked.

“That would be awesome.” Eddie and Kai each took seats at the kitchen counter.

“Then we have to go upstairs,” T.J. ordered.

“What for?”

“Your gift
.
”

“Hey, I thought we decided that gifts weren’t in the cards this year?” Eddie said.

“I didn’t
buy
anything,” she countered, “I made it at school.” She picked up her plate. “Come on, let’s go.”

Kai followed them to T.J.’s room and while sitting on the circular bed, T.J. went in search of her project.

“Your sister feels the need to keep me looking star-worthy sans record deal.”

“I like how you are now—clean, unspoiled.” Kai slowly ran his finger along the bone of her jaw. “You’re perfect just the way you are. Hollywood doesn’t need to desecrate another female, and especially not you.”

T.J. walked out of the closet. “Okay, put this on. You will repay me in the future.”

“And how’s that?” Eddie asked.

“When you get your big recording contract and go on tour. I’ll be your personal stylist when I graduate.”

She unzipped the garment bag and pulled out her creation of white satin. It was a very short dress that closed double breasted in the front like a man’s suit coat, with a very pointed, exaggerated collar. But the real exclamation was the sleeves. They were snug from the shoulder to the elbow, but at the elbow the fabric split up from the wrist as the sleeves fell in long points resembling calla lilies hanging long and dramatic. She took it off the hanger and held it up to Eddie, and with the energy of a drag queen, said “This is so smashing I can hardly stand it. Get in there.” She pointed to the bathroom like a drill sergeant.

Eddie did as she was told. Hearing the rustle, T.J. pushed, “Are you done yet?”

Through the door, Eddie whined, “Tara June, this dress is . . . it’s . . . oh, man, I can’t wear this.”

“You always say that,” T.J. grumbled, going in the bathroom to help. “
What are you talking about, you look amazing! Oh
—
my
—
gosh
—
”
She headed back to her closet and yelled, “I’m getting you some shoes, just a second.” She came out with a pair of white stilettos. “Here, put these on.” Not wanting to shatter the fashion fantasy, Eddie put them on. “Go show Kai,” T.J. ordered.