He knew I couldn’t pass up a surprise.But I had to be more careful. He was where all my bad decisions went to die.
Grace, don’t make come over there
I slid the curtain aside. Rory was on his knees on the bunk, with his shirt off. His waistband was pulled dangerously low to reveal a newly placed, still red and raw tattoo of what looked like a half-opened curtain just to the right of those sexy sculpted lines of his abdominal V. Written atop the curtain was my name in bright-pink ink: Grace Note.
35
RORY: WELCOME TO FAME
There are things they don’t tell you about fame. Things that could easily be jotted down and assembled into a handbook.Welcome to Fame: The Do’s and Don’ts.But no, they keep it a secret, forcing us newbies to figure it out through trial and error.
First, and probably the most important—don’tmake eye contact unless you plan to back it up with conversation. Second, and really, it goes hand in hand with the first—don’tstop walking, again unless you want to be surrounded and forced to have that conversation you were trying to avoid. Third, and I like this one,doabsolutely accept the perks that come with fame, because it’s fleeting, and you never know how long the back door entrance at popular restaurants will stay open for you.
The fourth rule? Well, I learned that one today on the bus when it was stopped in traffic through a narrow highway passageway on the 101 freeway in the Southern California area. We were on our way to Los Angeles for an extended weekend and two shows, before heading east and away on tour for months. I couldn’t wait. Every night I played was a good one. I even liked the traveling part, except when Grace was working, which was pretty much anytime I wasn’t. It made sense. She could only go so far on her own before she needed Quinn and his undivided attention. During those times, she swatted me away like a pesky fly. But I kept coming back because she was the only solid surface I wanted to land on.
I watched her now, guitar in hand, pencil in her mouth. Words and sounds were speaking to her and when they came, she jotted them down before returning the pencil to her teeth. Was it wrong that I wanted to be that pencil and the tough love it was receiving? Even bad attention was better than none at all. At night, the two of us in our separate bunks. Yeah. That was when my girl was friendly. All other times, not so much, making me wonder how Grace could so easily discard me when I could barely breathe when she was near.
I got it. She wasn’t traveling with the band to be my girlfriend. She was traveling to work and build a career outside of the connections that had gotten her on the bus. We spoke a lot about that in our nightly talks—her desire to make a name for herself through her own talent and drive.
Glancing over at her now, I could tell Grace was irritated. Quinn wasn’t digging a line in one of the songs they were working on, though according to her, it was perfect. They argued a lot. Not like throwing shit around the room, just bickering all day, every day. Was this what it was like having a sibling? With Nikki, she’d told me what to do and I just did it. No discussion. No arguing. The only time I made my stand was the last time we ever lived together.
“So, what you’re saying is this verse is dog shit?” she asked.
“No. There’s a halfway point between Grammy-worthy and dog shit. That’s where we’re at now.”
“Says the guy who wrote, ‘You are the sun in my life… now get ninety-three million miles away from me.’”
“I actually like that one,” Matty said.
Quinn bumped fists with him.
“Ah, Rory? I think you have an admirer,” Mike said, looking out the window.
I perked up from the other side of the bus. “It’s about fucking time.”
“She wrote your name across her breasts.”
He had me at breasts. “Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”
I crossed the aisle to his side and checked things out for myself. It had become a parking lot in the middle of the 101 freeway and would remain this way until they removed the overturned big rig up ahead and disposed of the thousands of pounds of newly harvested tomatoes that had spilled out onto the roadway. You knew it was bad when people started getting out of their cars and pissing on the guardrails. But the bachelorette party in the convertible limo beside us was in full swing. I had to hand it to them. If you have to be stuck in a standstill, this was the way to do it.
With the crew bus directly behind us, we took up the space of ten cars, and those around us began to notice. With our all-black coaches, sleek tinted windows, and no company identifiers on the exterior, our traffic neighbors seemed to understand the buses were carrying more than a group of foreign tourists. Leave it to the drunken girls in the limo to crack the code. They guessed correctly that we were a touring band, even coming around to knock on the door, asking to be let in to use the bathroom.
I would have let them in, being a newbie and all, but Tucker—on the bus for this short leg—said no. He was being a dick, and wouldn’t even let us open the windows for a little back and forth communication. He said they might try to get in, which was bullshit because the women would have to be World War Z zombies to scale the sides of these monster buses. Even with Tucker’s precautions, though, our identity didn’t stay a secret for long. Probably because the bus behind us didn’t have Tucker on it. Their door opened for the women—of course it did—and our buddies on the other bus poured out onto the freeway like ants. The women surrounded them, and in a few seconds they were screaming our names. “It’s Sketch Monsters!”
“Rory, get away from the window,” Tucker instructed, but I didn’t heed the warning. I had a fan waiting. A topless one. It would be rude not to respond. Sliding the window down as far as it would go, I propped my arms onto the rim and hung out like an overeager unpopular kid who’d suddenly become popular. A chorus of screams erupted, causing my ego to blast through the roof. The other guys didn’t get it. They were more accustomed to fame after having taken a sharp upward turn to notoriety. Although they’d barely been a band before the shooting, afterward they were one of the most recognizable names in the industry. They’d already learned the rules of fame that I was now unraveling.
“Who’s getting married?” I asked the ladies, hoping it wasn’t the woman with my name written in Sharpie on her chest.
“Karine,” they all yelled in unison. Yep, it was her. Good luck with the happily ever after.
“Congrats,” I said. “When’s the wedding?”
“Three weeks,” Karine said. “But I’ll dump him for you.”
Damn. I felt sorry for her dude.
“Let me in your bus and I’ll show you.”
