She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel (13 page)

“See the family then?”

“Yeah, and Gia wanted me thank you for the job at EMI.”

“What job at EMI?”

“The classical job, for cataloging—is this Ian Clarke?”

“No. It’s Todd.”

“Todd . . . As in Todd Rivers, Todd?”

“Ding, ding, ding
.
”

“Sorry, I thought you were somebody else. What’s up?”

“Slade’s giving a New Year’s Eve party tomorrow night and I was just wondering if you’d like to go?”

“With you?”

“Yes, with me. Is that a problem?”

“No, no it’s no problem, I didn’t mean—sorry, I—”

Having turned the tables, he cut in saying “Good, I’ll pick you up at nine-thirty tomorrow night,” and hung up.

She started the engine, then remarked to her luggage, “That was odd.”

Eddie pulled her bag through the front door where she caught Ginger in her underwear. “Hi Ging...”

“Hey,” she called, “We weren’t expecting you till the day after New Years.”

“Huh?”

“Got big plans then?”

“No, not really,” Eddie lied, not wanting G-Force to know her plans with Todd.

“You’re just going to hang around here?” Ginger asked.

“I don’t know yet. I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Gonna stay home and practice up for the studio?”

“Probably,” Eddie replied.

Downstairs, Raven’s door was open a crack and the light on. Eddie dumped her suitcase in her own room and saw the pile of mail. She picked it up and saw her name and address on every piece. All of it had the Briarcliff address with no markings of any kind indicating that it had gone to an incorrect address. There were envelopes from her mother, T.J., and Allied Artists. She ripped them open, read their contents and found checks in almost every one, making a grand total of $875.00. Glad as she was to receive the much needed funds, she was far more curious how they ended up in her room.

Eddie tapped on Raven’s door. “Are you in there?”

“C’mon in,” Raven shouted. Lying on the bed, Raven lifted her arm off her face and said, “You’re back.”

“Was it as weird for you to go back home as it was for me?”

“Weird? No, it was exhausting. I’m too tired to unpack. My mother helps out with a few charities, and she needed help shopping for gifts, wrapping them, setting up tables for a raffle that we did at a church and collecting the funds. She made me sing and play my guitar a few times. I’m glad I’m back, out of the snow.”

“Do you know who put all that mail on my bed?”

“What are you talking about?”

“There’s a whole pile of mail on my bed. I hadn’t been getting my mail and when I got back, there’s a huge stack of it on my bed. It’s kind of freaky.”

“Is that what you were talking about at the band meeting?”

“Yeah, do you know anything about it?”

“Not a thing, but the good news is, now you have it. So, what are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Ginger asked me the same thing when I walked in the door, but I told her I didn’t have any plans.”

Sitting up on her elbows, Raven asked, “Do you?”

“In a way, I guess.”

“In a way, you guess? Spill it, Eddie.”

“First tell me what you’ve got planned.”

“I was kind of hoping I could tag along with Ginger and Gretchen. Last year we all went to Spin Magazine’s blow out at the Pantages. But if you’ve got something better, I’m in.”

“Do you want to go with me and Todd Rivers to Slade’s New Year’s Eve party?”

“Are you kidding? Hella, yeah, I wanna go,” she cried, all exhaustion gone.

“Todd called me while I was at the airport. He’s picking me up at nine-thirty tomorrow night.”

“Wait—is this a date?”

“I don’t think so, he said it real casual-like, and besides, it’s a tour kick off for Slade. That isn’t exactly where you take a date to get intimate. It’ll be a major ego boost for him to show up with two girls on his arm,
and
it will help the band, so go you must.”

“Does G-force know about this?”

“No and if you want to go with me, you won’t tell them. Ginger thinks I’m staying home to practice for our studio gig.”

Raven laughed. “On New Year’s Eve? She believed that?”

“That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.”

“Eddie, when are you going to get along with the other two?”

“When rock stars quit practicing on groupies and marrying supermodels, that’s when.”

December 31, 2006, 12:00 Noon

“I know sweetie, I feel awful. My brother had this back home the whole time over Christmas. He was really sick (
cough, cough, cough)
. I must have picked it up from him,” Gretchen croaked out, over the phone. She was standing in the master bathroom, having donned a terry robe and slippers, and waded up a ball of tissue into her fist. She was in the zone. “No, that’s okay. You don’t have to come over. Ginger is going to stay and take care of me because I have to get better before we go into the recording studio and we can’t afford to have you sick,” Gretchen sniffled, her voice scratchy.

She stopped to convincingly blow her nose. “Go ahead and have a good time at the “House of Blues.” It should be really fun and you already have the tickets . . . I’m going to
(cough, cough, sniffle)
miss the whole thing,” she whined. “Okay, baby,” she said, and flipped her phone shut. Gretchen threw her tissue onto the bathroom counter, tore off the robe, and announced, “Houston all systems are go! We’re ready for lift-off.”

Ginger, clapping like a three-year-old, cheered, “Time to get us some prime rocker real estate.”

Gretchen turned serious. “We need to be careful. Slade is used to women falling at his feet and doing things they wouldn’t otherwise do. But us,” she lifted her hair off her head and looked at her reflection in the mirror, “we aren’t in that category. We can get it just as easy as he can. We have to be a little more reserved, play hard to get.”

“You want to play
hard to get
with Slade?
Are you kidding me? He can have anybody he wants!”

“That’s only partially true. We, dear sister, are members of a most exclusive club. We are the un-gettable get. We’re blonde, thin, beautiful, sisters, musicians and models. Everybody wants us. And so will he, he just doesn’t know it yet. Guys like Slade are always searching for the next big thing and that would be us, so, let’s get ready to do some damage.”

December 31, 2006, 9:35 p.m.

The last bobby pin was in place. It had taken Eddie a while to get all her hair pinned up, but it was done. She took the immaculate white satin dress off its hanger, put it on, and realized that she didn’t own any appropriate jewelry. She went to borrow something suitable from Raven who was in front of her closet mirror, wearing a pink vintage Herve Leger bandage dress, black open-toed stilettos. She was trying to hook a diamond encrusted choker around her neck.

“Help me with this clasp,” she begged.

Eddie came from behind, grabbed the tiny metal hinges, and snapping them into place, asked, “You got any earrings I could borrow?”

“Sure, try the ones that go with this necklace,” Raven said, looking in the mirror.

“You aren’t going to wear them?”

“Nope, they’re in that box on the dresser.”

Eddie went to retrieve the earrings. She put them on and gazed at her reflection. She liked the long glam earrings that swung around her face. “These aren’t real are they?”

“Yeah, Eddie, I own a fifty thousand dollar pair of diamond earrings to go with my vintage dress, which I bought secondhand only after I jerked the nice sales lady down from her original asking price.”

“Is G-force still here?”

“No, they left an hour ago.”

The doorbell rang. Eddie asked, “Are we ready?”

Clutch in hand, she met Raven at the front entry. They weren’t met by Todd, but his driver, who tipped his cap and bid, “Good evening, ladies, I am here to pick up a Miss Von Drake for Todd Rivers.”

“That’s us,” Eddie sang.

The driver opened the door and Eddie asked, “Do we have room for one more, this evening? I couldn’t leave Raven home alone.”

Todd, bending forward, genially said, “Raven, we couldn’t let you stay home when you’ve got such a gorgeous dress on.” Opening the opposite car door, he instructed, “Come and get in on this side.”

After a smooth ride to the middle of Hollywood, the glass partition slid down and the driver informed Todd they had arrived.

Getting out of the limo, Eddie took in her first close up view of the famous Chateau Marmot. She had driven past it on Sunset, but now, she was a guest at the impressive hotel dubbed “The Castle on the Hill.”

At the security checkpoint, one of the four very big men greeted, “Good evening sir. May I have your name?”

“Todd Rivers.”

Flipping over the pages, he checked off the name and said, “Enjoy your evening.”

As they entered the lobby, Eddie could hear the commotion coming from the hotel bar. As Todd pulled open the heavy door, the muffled chaos hit them in the face. Pushing through the crowd, Eddie caught glimpses of a rock star here, an actress there. Bodies were packed to the walls. They walked outside into the cold night air where fire torches lit up the grounds casting orange reflections off the pool. The surroundings were hip and glamorous. Females were all dressed to kill and the men were all in stealth mode. Even the waitresses pedaling champagne on silver trays were knockouts. One approached Todd. “Good evening, Mr. Rivers. Care for any champagne this evening?”

Todd took two glasses and handed one each to Eddie and Raven. Then he took one for himself. “I believe we could use a little of this.”

Making the rounds, Todd introduced Eddie and Raven to lots of very important industry “lesser—knowns.” Eddie did her best to try and remember who was who in this zoo, knowing contacts like these could prove to be very useful one day.

Thick in the jungle of the music biz, a man with short white-blonde hair came up from behind Todd, and even though Todd was deep in conversation with someone else, he immediately stopped his chatting and with a lively voice said, “
Dante
, you’re back! How was Beijing?”

“It was crazy, man. One of the weirdest situations I ever had to deal with. Do you know how hard it is to work with people who can’t speak English? We used a lot of hand gestures,” the man pantomimed, sending them into laughter.