The Complete Groupie Trilogy (10 page)

Iris called to invite me to the world premiere of the video for “Wanting Her,” which I initially wanted to skip entirely due to the lingering resentment and disappointment I had regarding the song. But then she dangled a paying gig over my head. Jasper was so pleased with everything I had done, especially (and ironically) the piece I wrote on Lourdes and Vanni. It ran in several different gossip “lifestyle” magazines and was even featured on a prominent entertainment website. So he had requested me specifically for the assignment, and was giving me an all-expense-paid trip to New York as a perk. This was my chance at another byline in a major music publication – Jasper’s of course – and a fairly nice paycheck to boot.

For my portfolio’s sake alone I couldn’t say no.

After four months to gain some perspective and heal my wounded pride, I figured that I could go to New York, be around the band and most importantly Giovanni and Lourdes, and not be tempted by an old pipe dream that deep down I knew was too good to be true.

This was just business.

At least that’s what I told myself when I checked into my hotel. Again there was a huge bouquet waiting for me but I didn’t even check the envelope. I already knew only Jasper would think to send a spread like that.

Iris met me that afternoon and insisted we go on a major shopping spree. It was as if she didn’t trust me to pick out my own clothes for the soiree she and Jacob had toiled for two months to organize. They had opened it to the fans that would get a special sneak preview, with an after party that would cater mostly to the elite music professionals.

And, of course, me.

I didn’t bother packing anything special for the trip because I had already made peace with the idea Iris was going to dress me. Jacob threatened to overhaul my wardrobe too when he listened in horror at what I had in my closet to bring.

My comment, “It’s not like I’m a supermodel,” did not warrant a response from the man who really became the closest thing I had to a confidante in my immediate circle of friends.

He had asked about my night with Vanni but I lied my ass off. Somehow I got the feeling he didn’t buy a word I said, especially since I made a beeline for home the very next day. So far, though, he let it go by unchallenged.

Neither of us spoke of Vanni or Lourdes, but it felt a bit like the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Sometimes I wondered if he had a few secrets of his own.

As a present to myself after I returned home in December I dyed my hair platinum blond with an intense blue streak along the front. I needed a change, and you really can’t get more drastic than that. Iris squealed when she saw it, and then proceeded to pick out a wardrobe that fit the theme: Dreaming in Blue.

I groaned when she made the connection, be
cause that wasn’t why I did it.

At least not intentionally.

She insisted I get a two-toned halter dress with an empire waist. The top was in a deep sapphire blue, the bottom was a flattering black. With nearly platform height black pumps it made me look sophisticated and sexy, which boosted my confidence for the task ahead.

It had been easy to put Vanni in the mental rearview mirror while he was nearly a thousand miles away. I traveled even further, to the west coast and even out of the country to put as much distance as necessary between us until memories
of the debacle no longer stung.

It felt so good – or at least safe – to cleanse him right out of my system, but the thought I would soon see him again had me slightly concerned. My heart raced. My blood pumped. Little butterflies all wore wooden shoes and happily clog-danced in the pit of my stomach.

Was Vanni like some sort of drug? Did I only need one hit to be addicted again, unsatisfied until he once again threw my heart in a blender?

Maybe distance had cooled him off the hunt as well. He’d been feasting at the table that was Lourdes for four blissful months already, and from what I understood things were going along very well. The video was “beautiful” and “romantic” and sure to make him a hit with all the ladies.

All but one, anyway.

I flew in the day of the event, to avoid the temptation of hanging out with the band at Iris’s behest. That night would be the concert along with the video premiere, then the after-party. I could spend the rest of the weekend sequestered in my hotel room writing, using that as an excuse to avoid any kind of socializing at all should the experience prov
e too painful or discomforting.

Or so I kept telling myself. I had a sneaking suspicion that neither Iris nor Jacob were too keen to let that happen.

Only Alana seemed content to see me away from the gigs. I somehow sensed she knew more than she let on but had so far decided not to call me on my bullshit that nothing had gone on with Vanni in New York.

But Alana was also one with experience with fickle musicians so maybe she didn’t need a whole lot of writing on the wall to see what was going on. Whenever we talked there was an underlying tone of understanding for things that weren’t being said. Maybe she instinctively knew I learned my lesson and I had decided to quit my rock star habit cold turkey. Maybe her silence was just giving me the space I needed to heal, with the silent permission that it was okay no matter what I had, or hadn’t, done.

I loved her for that.

She also wasn’t a big fan of Lourdes. During one of our epic, five-hour conversations that ended solely because one or both of our cell phones died, she confided that Lourdes treated the rest of the “girlfriends” as though she were better than anyone else. She knew Jasper first and well, and it was her friendship with him that helped the band get so many perks.

Either way, it didn’t involve me. I wasn’t one of the “girlfriends” and I was really only the low end of the totem pole: the writer who showed up every few months when something major happened with the band.

I wasn’t even a fan anymore, even though I had once loved their music enough to listen to it every day. There was no question that even now I believed in their talent. But when I go cold turkey, I go cold turkey, by God.

These were the bold declarations I could make when temptation wasn’t figuratively or literally knocking at my door.

I think there was a part of me very deep down that understood that ignoring Vanni was really my best defense to keep my resolve. I didn’t know how that was going to work after the video premiered and “Wanting Her” started to play in heavy rotation both on the
radio and on music television.

I’d just have to cross that bridge when I came to it. I hadn’t really researched the Amish yet but it was certainly as viable an option as any.

By six o’clock that evening I settled in the limo with Iris and Jacob as we headed toward the concert hall that was hosting our concert/premiere. Iris got us seats right down in front in the reserved section that included Lourdes, Jasper, his wife Athena and a handful of other moguls, the girlfriends – which included Alana – and the grunts of the operation, the two of us.

Some fans won their chance to sit in the front row, and they were easy to spot by their giggly exuberance. I overheard their whispers about Vanni, how hot he was, how they couldn’t wait to see him, if he touched them they’d just die. I had to smile to myself.

You could live through being touched by Giovanni. You’d just be mortally wounded for about four months.

The roar of the excited crowd grew louder as the clock ticked down to the eight o’clock concert, which was to begin with the video footage broadcast over the stage on a huge screen that could be seen from the very last person in the nosebleed section. The audience grew antsy as the lights beat down on an empty stage full of equipment just ready to be played.

Despite all my intentions otherwise I grew a little nervous myself. I was almost right dead center of the front row, there’s no way he’d miss me or I him. I hadn’t seen him since that disastrous interview in December, and if I was really, truly honest with myself (and let’s face it, who really is?) I had just gotten over the look in his eyes or the curve of his full mouth about two weeks ago.

He was a hard man to forget, and an even harder man to ignore. My thousand-mile buffer zone had just shrunk to twenty-five feet. The longer I sat there waiting for him to jump out on that stage right in front of me the more I knew that despite all my bluster otherwise I hadn’t gotten as far pa
st my addiction as I had hoped.

I just closed my eyes and prayed for strength.

I glanced down the row at Lourdes where she sat next to Jasper and Athena. Seeing her would fortify my resolve. No matter what I thought of her personally it wasn’t fair to indulge any fantasies of her man. That’s not the kind of woman I was.

But that didn’t stop my heart from beating like a wild animal against my chest when the lights dimmed and the video started to roll on the big screen.

Vanni was walking on the beach at sunset, his feet bare, wearing only loose fitting white pants and an open shirt. His hair tousled around his head with the wind and he ran a hand through his scalp to brush it away. That same big strong hand with long fingers adorned with silver rings that had once caressed the smooth, full curve of my breast…

I shook
my head free of such thoughts.

The song started as soon as he saw Lourdes running down the beach in a tiny bikini. Shrewd, I thought. Eye candy for the girls, and some good ol’ fashioned T&A for the boys. Jasper hadn’t missed a trick.

“
The curve of her face, a wisp of her hair, I knew when I saw her standing there, I wanted her
,” he crooned, and I heard the fans giggle close by. No doubt they pretended he sang those lyrics about them.

I did that once upon a time.

On film Lourdes glanced at him with a coy smile, which he returned with that damnable smirk that still made my heart race. It was much more potent, however, when I was the recipient, so I figured I could be thankful that those days were over.

He began to run after her on the beach, and then the film cut to shots of them falling in love in a tropical paradise. They were on a boat, they were on a blanket in the sand; they were in the clear waters of the sea wrapped in each other’s arms as he brushed her wet hair out of her face so that they c
ould kiss.

“
Seeing her, wanting her
,
what I’d give for just one kiss
.”

With that line lights rose on the stage and the band was in place. Vanni stood there in the same white pants and open shirt from the video. He was barefoot, with his long hair falling in unr
uly curls around his shoulders.

“
Does she know how I feel
,” he crooned to the fans in the front row, and I could have sworn at least one of them swooned. “
How much I want this to be real
,” he sang to the next girl down. “
An angel from a dream
I can’t claim
,” he said as his eyes landed on me, and for a moment I wondered if he even knew who I was before he went on down the line to someone else.

I let out a breath I didn’t even know I was holding. My palms were sweaty and my hands trembled as I lifted my hand into my hair. Maybe he didn’t recognize me. Maybe he
thought I was just another fan.

It meant nothing, just like everything else that passed between us.

I watched his interaction with everyone else, even Lourdes, as he sang. He didn’t pull her out of the crowd, which I semi-expected. Instead he casually strolled back to center stage and finished the song. “
Someday I’ll wake from this dream and hold my angel in my arms. And she’ll know all along I’ve wanted her
.”

He let the music softly play out as he put his head against the mike stand, and when he lifted up and scanned the crowd there
were actual tears in his eyes.

That was when our eyes met again, and as the lights went down he blew a slight, imperceptive kiss in my direction.

What nerve
, I thought to myself. If he didn’t know me then he’s just playing with a random fan in a way that could make her think there was some connection when there wasn’t.

And if he did know who I was then he was just playing with
me
, and that’s just wrong. He hadn’t contacted me since I left in December. He had been perfectly willing to leave things as they were.

If he thought that I was going to fall back into my arms like a lovesick groupie then he had another thing coming.

My mood soured after a quick costume change. He reemerged in his leather pants and abandoned any shirt entirely. The band brought out their heavier, sexier material which had him playing the audience like a finely tuned instrument. Girls squealed and screamed from all around me every time he stalked to the edge of the stage like a sexy, muscular cheetah on the hunt.

If only they knew he belonged to someone else.

But why didn’t they know? I certainly made that information accessible to anyone with an Internet connection.

Maybe they knew they just didn
’t care.

It didn’t seem to matter while he was on that stage. Onstage he belonged to all of us, not just one person. He thrust his groin suggestively with the music and winked and smirked at the women who responded enthusiastically to his primal movements and salacious lyrics.