Oh, that’s right. I read he got kicked out of Eton.
That was years ago,I want to tell them. Since then, I’ve also been kicked out of Columbia.
Did they kick me out, or did I drop out? My leg hurts so much that I can’t concentrate enough to recall. It doesn’t matter. The result is the same. Lady Anne’s good-for-nothing, undereducated baby brother, well into his twenties now, and utterly useless.
Anne studies the menu like it’s a thousand-page novel, though she would never waste time reading fiction.Frivolous,I can hear her say, voice dripping with disapproval. Our mother’s favorite book wasWuthering Heights, one of the few facts I know about her, and that only because it’s a running joke between Anne and our father, who took it as proof of the former duchess’s foolish romanticism. When I was a teenager, curious what all the fuss wasabout, I tried reading the novel myself. It didn’t strike me as a romance so much as a cautionary tale.
Anne taps her fingers against the table, a subtle but sure sign that she’s furious. Outside, I crumple to the ground, right in the middle of East Fifty-Seventh Street, but no one offers to help. Everyone is looking at me and I want to scream at them to fuck right off. They have their phones out, they’re taking photos, recording videos. There’s the sound of brakes screeching in the distance, and everyone starts to run, leaving me in a heap on the sidewalk, an out-of-control car coming straight toward me. I hear the crowd screaming for the car to stop, but it only moves faster, as though the driver mistook the accelerator for the brake pedal.
“Please fasten your seat belt, sir. The plane will be landing soon.”
I open my eyes, shaking myself awake. I’m not in Midtown. I’m not in New York City. I’m not on the earth at all. I left London this morning, flew to JFK, then boarded a small private plane to East Hampton. Anne wouldn’t let me go back to my apartment in Tribeca. She said everything I need will be waiting for me when I arrive. Anne believes she knows what I need, whether or not it’s what I want.
I rub my left leg, digging the heel of my palm into my thigh until it aches.
Achesmore. It already hurt. It always hurts.
“I have to use the bathroom first,” I say, and the attendant nods obligingly, walking away briskly in high heels, her gait easy and sure. She tucks an absent strand of blond hair behind her right ear.
I make my way to the back of the plane. Bringing a water bottle would’ve been too obvious, so I use water from the tap; it tastes sour. I wait a few moments and then flush, in case the attendant is listening.
It’s not true that painkillers eliminate pain. They only make it seem far away, as if it’s happening to someone else and you have no choice but to watch.
3Florence
My ears hurt like they’re gonna explode. I chew the gum Callie gave me before she left me at the airport—like a care package is enough to make up for sending me to the middle of nowhere—until my teeth ache, but it makes no difference. The plane dips, and I clutch the armrest, the guitar-string scars on my fingers turning even whiter than usual.
It’s for your own good,Callie said. Like she’s the authority on good versus bad. Really, she knew I couldn’t argue, because she’s the only person who hasn’t abandoned me. Sometimes I want to remind her thatsheworks forme, not the other way around. But then, everyone else who worked for me left no matter what I promised them, and not always peacefully. An old assistant threatened to leak stories to the press if I didn’t agree to his exorbitant demands, which he called a “severance package.” Callie said it was my fault for not making him sign an NDA before I hired him.
I make a mental list of my heroes: Janis Joplin, Stevie Nicks, Carrie Fisher, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Scott Harris. Stars and geniuses, every one of them. Every single one of them a troublemaker. And yes, every single one of them used drugs.
Only some of them died from it. For the rest, it was a rite of passage, just part of being a star.
That could be a song. “Rite of Passage.” Angry guitar riff over a pretty melody. My voice, the oneRolling Stoneonce called “almost as shrill as Yoko Ono’s,” screaming the lyrics. They panned our first album, but I had the review framed.
Call me shrill?
On the second album, I went even higher-pitched.
Rite of passage.
What’s your damage?
Everybody’s going to rehab.
I’m gonna be a star.
Fuck that. I alreadyama star.
Carly Simon came up with her “clouds in my coffee” lyric on a plane, though I don’t think she used drugs, at least not enough to make headlines. I release the armrest long enough to scribble the words into my notebook. I could sing it like it rhymes even though it doesn’t.
Lazy,the Janis Joplin in my head accuses.
You need to do better,my mental Scott Harris agrees.
I’ve been hearing their voices for as long as I can remember. Every time someone died, they were added to the chorus. Not sure if I’m haunted, clairvoyant, or crazy.
I toss my notebook onto the empty seat beside me. Callie booked two seats. She knows I like to spread out. Plus the only way to avoid checking my guitar is to buy it a seat.
