“Are you looking at all the bottles?” Esperanza asked.
“Um, close.”
Esperanza nodded, smiled at a particularly well-endowed hostess in a black corset. “Hmm . . . Could do with a little bottle service myself, if you know what I’m saying.”
Myron thought about it. Then: “Actually, I don’t. You’re both women, right? So I’m not sure I get the bottle reference.”
“God, you’re literal.”
“You asked if I was looking at all the bottles. Why?”
“Because they’re serving Cristal champagne,” Esperanza said.
“So?”
“How many bottles do you see?”
Myron glanced around. “I don’t know, nine, maybe ten.”
“They go for eight grand a pop here, plus tip.”
Myron put his hand to his chest, feigning heart palpitations. He spotted Lex Ryder sprawled on a couch with a colorful assortment of lovelies. The other men in the room all shouted aging musician/ roadie—long hair weaves, bandanas, facial hair, wiry arms, soft guts. Myron made his way through them.
“Hello, Lex.”
Lex’s head lolled to the side. He looked up and shouted with too much gusto, “Myron!”
Lex tried to get up, couldn’t, so Myron offered him a hand. Lex used it, managed to get to his feet, and hugged Myron with the slobbering enthusiasm men save for too much drink. “Oh man, it’s so good to see you.”
HorsePower had started off as a house band in Lex and Gabriel’s hometown of Melbourne, Australia. The name had come from Lex’s last name Ryder (Horse-Ryder) and Gabriel’s last name Wire (Power-Wire), but from the moment they started together, it was all about Gabriel. Gabriel Wire had a wonderful voice, sure, and he was ridiculously handsome with nearly supernatural charisma—but he also had that elusive, intangible, the “you know it when you see it” quality that raises the greats to the status of legendary.
Must be hard, Myron often thought, for Lex—or anyone—to live in that shadow. Sure, Lex was famous and rich and technically speaking, all songs were Wire-Ryder productions, though Myron, being the one who handled his finances, knew Lex’s cut was 25 percent to Gabriel’s 75. And sure, women still hit on him, men still wanted to be his friend, but Lex was also the ultimate late-night punch line, the butt of all jokes involving second-to-the-point-of-irrelevancy bananas.
HorsePower was still huge, maybe bigger than ever, even though Gabriel Wire had gone completely underground after a tragic scandal more than fifteen years ago. With the exception of a few paparazzi shots and a lot of rumors, there had been pretty much no sign of Gabriel Wire in all that time—no touring, no interviews, no press, no public appearances. All that secrecy just made the public hunger for Wire all the more.
“I think it’s time to go home, Lex.”
“Nah, Myron,” he said, voice thick with what Myron hoped was just drink. “Come on now. We’re having fun. Aren’t we having fun, gang?”
Various vocalizations of agreement. Myron looked around. He may have met one or two of the guys before, but the only one he knew for certain was Buzz, Lex’s longtime bodyguard/personal assistant. Buzz met Myron’s eye and shrugged as if to say, what can you do?
Lex threw his arm around Myron, draping it over his neck like a camera strap. “Sit, old friend. Let’s have a drink, relax, unwind.”
“Suzze is worried about you.”
“Is she now?” Lex arched an eyebrow. “And so she sent her old errand boy to come fetch me?”
“Technically speaking, I’m your errand boy too, Lex.”
“Ah, agents. That most mercenary of occupations.”
Lex wore black pants and a black leather vest, and it looked like he’d just gone clothes shopping at Rockers R Us. His hair was gray now, cut very short. Collapsing back on the couch, he said, “Sit, Myron.”
“Why don’t we take a walk, Lex?”
“You’re my errand boy too, right? I said, sit.”
He had a point. Myron found a spot and sank deep and slow into the cushions. Lex turned a knob to his right and the music lowered. Someone handed Myron a glass of champagne, spilling a bit as they did. Most of the tight-corset ladies—and let’s face it, in any era, that’s a look that works—were gone now, without much notice, as though they’d faded into the walls. Esperanza was chatting up the one she’d been checking out when they entered the room. The other men in the room watched the two women flirt with the fascination of cavemen first seeing fire.
Buzz was smoking a cigarette that smelled, uh, funny. He looked to pass it off to Myron. Myron shook his head and turned toward Lex. Lex lounged back as though someone had given him a muscle relaxant.
“Suzze showed you the post?” Lex asked.
“Yes.”
“So what’s your take, Myron?”
“A random lunatic playing head games.”
Lex took a deep sip of champagne. “You really think so?”
“I do,” Myron said, “but either way it’s the twenty-first century.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning it’s not that big a deal. You can get a DNA test, if you’re so concerned about it—establish paternity for certain.”
Lex nodded slowly, took another deep sip. Myron tried to stay out of agent mode, but the bottle held 750 ml, which is approximately 25 ounces, divided by $8,000 dollars, equaled $320 per ounce.
“I hear you’re engaged,” Lex said.
“Yup.”
“Let’s drink to that.”
“Or sip. Sipping is cheaper.”
“Relax, Myron. I’m filthy rich.”
True enough. They drank.
“So what’s bothering you, Lex?”
Lex ignored the question. “So how come I haven’t met your new bride-to-be?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Where is she now?”
Myron kept it vague. “Overseas.”
“May I give you some advice on marriage?”
“How about, ‘Don’t believe stupid Internet rumors about paternity’?”
Lex grinned. “Good one.”
Myron said, “Meh.”
“But here’s the advice: Be open with each other. Totally open.”
Myron waited. When Lex didn’t follow up, Myron said, “That’s it?”
“You expected something deeper?”
Myron shrugged. “Kinda.”
“There’s this song I love,” Lex said. “The lyric says, ‘Your heart is like a parachute.’ Do you know why?”
“I think the line is about a mind being like a parachute—it only functions when it’s open.”
“No, I know that line. This one is a better, ‘Your heart is like a parachute—it only opens when you fall.’ ” He smiled. “Good, right?”
“I guess.”
“We all have friends in our lives, like, well, take my mates in here. I love them, I party with them, we talk about weather and sports and hot pieces of ass, but if I didn’t see them for a year—or really, ever again—it wouldn’t make much difference in my life. That’s how it is with most people we know.”
He took another sip. The door behind them opened. A bunch of giggling women entered. Lex shook his head, and they vanished back out the door. “And then,” he went on, “every once in a while, you have a real friend. Like Buzz over there. We talk about everything. We know the truth about each other—every sick, depraved flaw. Do you have friends like that?”
“Esperanza knows I have a shy bladder,” Myron said.
“What?”
“Never mind. Go on. I know what you’re saying.”
“Right, so anyway, real friends. You let them see the sick crap that goes on in your brain. The ugly.” He sat up, getting into it now. “And you know what’s odd about that kind of thing? You know what happens when you’re totally open and let the other person see that you’re a total degenerate?”
Myron shook his head.
“Your friend loves you even more. With everyone else, you put up this façade so you can hide the crud and make them like you. But with real friends, you show them the crud—and that makes them care. When we get rid of the façade, we connect more. So why don’t we do that with everyone, Myron? I ask you.”
“I guess you’re going to tell me.”
“Damned if I know.” Lex sat back, took a deep sip, tilted his head in thought. “But here’s the thing: The façade is, by nature, a lie. That’s okay for the most part. But if you don’t open up to the one you love most—if you don’t show the flaws—you can’t connect. You are, in fact, keeping secrets. And those secrets fester and destroy.”
The door opened again. Four women and two men stumbled in, giggling and smiling and holding obscenely overpriced champagne in their hands.
“So what secrets are you keeping from Suzze?” Myron asked.
He just shook his head. “It’s a two-way street, mate.”
“So what secrets is Suzze keeping from you?”
Lex did not reply. He was looking across the room. Myron turned to follow his gaze.
And then he saw her.
Or at least he thought that he did. A blink of an eye across the VIP lounge, candlelit and smoky. Myron hadn’t seen her since that snowy night sixteen years ago, her belly swollen, the tears running down her cheeks, the blood flowing through her fingers. He hadn’t even kept tabs on them, but the last he had heard they were living somewhere in South America.
Their eyes met across the room for a second, no more. And as impossible as it seemed, Myron knew.
“Kitty?”
His voice was drowned out by the music, but Kitty did not hesitate. Her eyes widened a bit—fear maybe?—and then she spun. She ran for the door. Myron tried to get up fast, but the cushion-sucking sofa slowed him down. By the time he got to his feet, Kitty Bolitar—Myron’s sister-in-law, the woman who had taken away so much from him—was out the door.
5
M
yron ran after her.
As he reached the VIP lounge exit, here was the image that flashed across his brain: Myron age eleven, his brother, Brad, age six with the crazy curly hair, in the bedroom they shared, playing Nerf basketball. The backboard was flimsy cardboard, the ball basically a round sponge. The rim was attached to the top of the closet door by two orange suction cups you had to lick to make stick. The two brothers played for hours, inventing teams and giving themselves nicknames and personas. There was Shooting Sam and Jumping Jim and Leaping Lenny, and Myron, being the older brother, would control the action, making up a fake universe with good-guy players and bad-guy players and high drama and close games with buzzer beaters. But most of the time, in the end, he let Brad win. At night, when they got into their bunk beds—Myron on top, Brad beneath him—they would recap the games in the dark like TV sportscasters doing postgame analysis.
The memory cleaved his heart anew.
Esperanza spotted him sprinting. “What?”
“Kitty.”
“What?”
No time to explain. He hit the door and pushed through it. He was back in the club now with the deafening music. The old man in him wondered who enjoyed socializing when you could not hear anyone speak. But really, now, his thoughts were totally focused on reaching Kitty.
Myron was tall, six-four, and standing on his toes, he could look over most of the crowd. No sign of the Maybe-Kitty. What had she been wearing? Turquoise top. He looked for flashes of turquoise.
There. Her back to him. Heading toward the club exit.
Myron had to move. He shouted excuse-me’s as he tried to swim through the bodies, but there were too many of them. The strobe lights and quasi-laser show weren’t helping either. Kitty. What the hell was Kitty doing here? Years ago, Kitty had been a tennis wunderkind too, training with Suzze. That was how they first met. It could be that the two old friends were back in touch, of course, but did that really answer why Kitty was here, in this club, without his brother, tonight?
Or was Brad here too?
He started moving faster. He tried not to knock into anyone, but of course that was impossible. There were dirty looks and cries of “Hey!” or “Where’s the fire?” but Myron ignored them, pressed on, the whole exercise beginning to take on a dream quality, one of those where you’re running and not going anywhere, where your feet are suddenly heavy or you’re trudging through deep snow.
“Ouch!” a girl shrieked. “Dumbass, you stepped on my toe!”
“Sorry,” Myron said, still trying to get through.
A big hand landed on Myron’s shoulder and spun him around. Someone pushed him hard from behind, nearly knocking him off his feet. Myron got his balance and faced what might have been an open audition for
Jersey Shore: The Ten-Year Reunion
show. There was a blend of hair mousse and faux tans and plucked eyebrows and waxed chests and poser muscles. They had the tough-guy sneers, a strange look on those who primp and manscape to within an inch of their lives. Punching them in the face would hurt; messing up their hair would hurt even more.
There were four or five or maybe six of them—they tended to blur together into a mass of slippery unpleasantness and overbearing Axe cologne—and they were excited about the possibility of proving what men they were in defending the honor of some girl’s toe.
Still Myron was nothing if not diplomatic. “I’m sorry, guys,” he said. “But this is an emergency.”
One douchebag said, “Whoa, where’s the fire? You see a fire here, Vinny?”
Vinny: “Yeah, where’s the fire? Because I don’t see one. You see one, Slap?”
Before Slap could speak, Myron said, “Yeah, I get it. No fire. Look, again, I’m really sorry, but I’m in big hurry.”
Still Slap had to get involved: “Nope, I don’t see no fire either.”
No time for this. Myron started to move—damn, no sign of Kitty—but the men closed ranks. Douchebag, with his hand still on Myron’s shoulder, went for the vise grip. “Say you’re sorry to Sandra.”
“Uh, what part of ‘I’m really sorry’ confused you?”
“To Sandra,” he said again.
Myron turned to the girl who, judging by her dress and the company she kept, never got enough attention from her daddy. He shook his shoulder to dislodge the annoying hand. “I’m really sorry, Sandra.”