Chapter Twenty-eight
I clear my throat and adopt a British accent. I hold the latest copy of Beat magazine in front of me. The waiter at The Tavern, a neighborhood bar on the Upper East Side, has just brought our drinks. This is the third time we’ve been out as a foursome in the last three months and I like Taryn quite a bit. I never met the infamous Kacea so I don’t know how the two compare, other than favorably for Taryn because she’s S-I-N-G-L-E. But Taryn’s also quite pretty, with straight and neat, light brown hair, green eyes, and a trim figure. And she’s funny, witty, and totally taken with Owen.
“Ahem,” I begin, holding up my index finger in the air and assuming a rather proper tone of voice. “Editor’s Note: During the course of reporting this article, Beat journalist Matthew Harrigan began dating Jane Black. The two are still together.”
I lower the magazine. “God, it’s so adult, isn’t it? It’s almost like when they say ‘The role of Dr. Marcus Larrington will be played today by John Smith.’”
“Just read,” Owen commands. I catch Matthew’s eyes across the table, slip my foot from its flip-flop and covertly rub my toes against his bare leg. I still get a wicked thrill out of having someone to play footsie with. It’s July, my album just came out four days ago and it’s hot as hell in New York City, so we’re all wearing shorts and sandals tonight.
I read more. “Creativity is a funny thing. Some days you have it, some days you don’t.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Owen chimes in, sharing a knowing smile with Taryn. Both have suffered through writer’s block.
I give my younger brother a pointed look. “Can we have a little quiet from the peanut gallery?”
He shakes his head. “Not likely.”
I soldier on, raising my voice, but still maintaining the same faux English accent I used when I read all seven Harry Potter books to Ethan.
“Creativity is not a nine-to-five proposition, as indie rock singer and Grammy-winner Jane Black learned while crafting her newly released follow-up, Lucky Deck. Imagination, ingenuity, inventiveness—”
“Were you having a love affair with your thesaurus when you wrote that sentence?” Owen interrupts to ask Matthew.
Matthew lifts his glass. “You know it, mate.”
Taryn elbows Owen. “Hey there, sport. I’ve seen you curled up with yours, clutching it in your sleep.”
“The truth comes out,” Matthew interjects.
“Okay, kids. Does anyone actually want to hear Matthew’s article?”
Matthew jacks his hand high up in the air. “Other reporters’ articles get old. But mine I can read over and over.”
Owen laughs. “Didn’t we live it?”
I push through, picking up where I left off. “Imagination, ingenuity, and inventiveness are capricious. They come in waves and you have to know when yours is coming in.”
“Have you ever even gone surfing?” Owen asks.
Matthew shakes his head. “Nope and it’s not like you’re from California, so don’t tell me you have either,” Matthew fires back. Owen holds his hands up, knowing he’s been caught red-handed.
“That is the mark of the artist. They have heightened senses and know when that wave is breaking. Rather than let it pass by, they catch it and ride that sucker all the way to the shore.”
I turn to Matthew and mouth “nice.” I return to the magazine. “The story of Lucky Deck, whose first single ‘I’ll Objectify You’ hit No. 1 on iTunes, began in a state-of-the-art recording studio in the heart of the garment district when the notoriously late Jane Black actually arrived on time, but with only three songs ready to go.”
I read the rest of the article out loud. The article is pure Matthew—accurate, witty, clever, and full of rich details that make the reader feel as if he or she was there. He brings readers behind the scenes as he promised, detailing my writer’s block, and finally how I pulled it off in the end and learned that I didn’t have to be a sad-song writer, that I could do more than that.
When I finish, I offer a toast. “To Oz behind the curtain.”
“To inspiration,” Matthew adds.
“To the two of you for getting agents.” I point my beer at Taryn and Owen.
“To being the writer and to being the written,” Taryn adds.
“To my divorce being final!” I add.
Matthew lifts his glass and clinks mine. “Thank God I’m no longer her mistress. I’m on the up and up now.”
I push away, whipping out a pair of twenties and leaving them on the table. “Drinks are on me. I have a poker game to go to.”
I lean down to kiss Matthew on the cheek. “I’ll see you later,” I tell him. Then I say good-bye to Taryn and Owen and walk the few blocks to Kelly’s apartment.
My divorce was final two weeks ago. We both signed the paperwork without drama or fanfare, just two simple signatures. Then a hug, and a “good luck” from both of us to the other. We get along. We have a great kid.
I did decide to use the publicist Natalie found for me. Life has been busier and she helps immensely. She and Natalie get along swimmingly, which really helps, since Natalie is officially my manager now. My sister can find time for anything, so she simply found a way to shoehorn this into her day too. Besides, she was, for all intents and purposes, my manager for the last year anyway. Now she gets paid for it, though she insists she’s not doing it for the money, so she donates the entire check every month to environmental charities.
As for Owen, Alicia is his agent. She fell in love with Tell Me a Ghost Story, though she did suggest he change the title to The Ghost in the Museum. She submitted the manuscript to publishers two months ago and he received a few rejections, but she believes it’s only a matter of time before someone falls in love with it. I do too.
After we returned from Maine I told Matthew that if he wanted to write the book on the music industry, I would be fine with it. I trusted him with whatever he wanted to write. It’s a good feeling to trust someone, to let yourself trust someone. But Matthew said he wasn’t interested in the book.
“Fact is, I’m just not that wild about non-fiction, as you know. I spend all day writing real stories. And at night, the last thing I want to do is get into bed with Sony or Universal Music Group, know what I mean? I don’t read nonfiction at night, why would I want to write it?” he said. “Besides, if I wanted to write, I’d write a novel…maybe something about a rock star who falls for this devilishly handsome critic and then tries to dispatch him to no avail.”
As has become my custom, I swatted him with a pillow.
…
“The morning sex only lasted for a few weeks,” Gretchen announces, as she collects a pile of $1 chips from the table, having just won the latest round of Texas Hold ’Em.
“Wait, is this the morning sex you were having a year and a half ago?” Natalie asks Gretchen.
“Yeah,” Gretchen admits, then leans across the table, a little tipsier than the rest of us, tapping Natalie’s hand. “Well, what about you, Cab Sex Girl? C’mon, give us your latest tale.”
“No more cab incidents. But we did do it in the kitchen last week.” Natalie pretends to look sheepish, but I can tell she’s secretly proud.
“Remind me not to eat at your house anytime soon,” Kelly jokes.
“What about you, Kel?” Gretchen swivels around to face Kelly, reaching into the blue bowl nearest her to grab a handful of cherry-flavored jelly beans. She pops one into her mouth, then rests her chin in her hands, waiting for Kelly’s answer.
I start dealing the next hand, doling out two cards apiece before I lay down the flop.
“It’s pretty good,” Kelly says, back to the bright and peppy persona that defines her. “We had this one epic fight, and then agreed we needed to do a better job communicating. Which I know sounds totally cheesy, but it’s true. So we talk more, and we also have sex more.”
Gretchen pumps a fist, then glances at her cards. I do the same, and am pleased with my hand. Not only do I have three jacks, a gorgeous man is waiting at home for me. I go all in, pushing my red, white, and blue chips into the center pile, exaggeratedly, for effect, not caring to act cool or put on a poker face. I have a winning hand.
“So, Jane,” Gretchen slurs, the fourth glass of champagne hitting her full blast as she reveals she’s only holding a queen high, “you haven’t told us any sex stories and you’re the one with the new man. You have the good stuff.”
I wait for Natalie, the last one left. Kelly has folded. My sister shows her cards, two aces, two queens. I lay down my three jacks. There’s a moment at the table when we all sort of look to each other, as if to ask who won. After all, we’ve never pretended we could take down anyone in a tournament. Gretchen whips out her cheat sheet, a list of all the poker hands.
“And the pot goes to the brunette!”
I wrap my arms around the chips, pulling them all toward me, knowing Ethan will be thrilled that I’ve won and that I’ll take him out for pad thai tomorrow night when it’s my time with him. As I count my chips to cash them in, Gretchen tries again. “C’mon, Jane. Give us something. Tell us a story.”
Part of me wants to tell them everything—that Matthew is the most incredible lover in the solar system, galaxy, universe. And that I get to have him. But is that fair? I’ve already won $103 tonight and I get to have him too. An embarrassment of riches, indeed.
But you have to give the audience something. “I don’t like to kiss and tell,” I say coyly, twirling a strand of hair with my index finger for effect. “But I’ll leave you with this thought.”
Then I add in a dramatic pause. I remove my lip liner from my blue shoulder bag, apply it, then add the lipstick. I sling the bag over my shoulder and stand up, placing both of my hands flat on the table. “Every night, my friends. Every single solitary night.”
…
I take a cab to my home in Murray Hill, eager to see my man. He has a key now, so he texted me to tell me he was already there, that he’d be patiently waiting for me. Matthew knows how to keep himself busy. He’s perfectly content with whatever paperback he is onto now. He eats up books.
But he’ll be there when I get home in a few minutes. He’ll smile when I come in and keep reading as I brush my teeth, wash my face, and join him in the bedroom. He’ll watch me as I undress and slide into bed next to him. Then he’ll place his book on the nightstand, the same nightstand where I keep the review he wrote just for me in the drawer.
He’s no longer able to review my albums for Beat, due to conflict of interest. But the day my album was released, he gave me a handwritten review, in his choppy, slanted penmanship and said, “This is what I would have written.”
I once said that the best songs come from broken hearts. I’m going to need to issue an addendum to that statement. I still believe that’s true, but there are also great songs that have nothing to do with love at all—witness The Clash’s “London Calling,” Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” John Lennon’s “Imagine”—and then there are great songs that are all about love, full-bore, head-on, crazy-about-you love. Think about Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line,” The Beatles’s “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On.” Oh, wait, that’s about sex. Well, there are some pretty good songs about that too. And Jane Black has now added to the canon of shtupping songs with a few heady numbers of her own on her new album.
I didn’t frame that review. But after I read it, we decided to make a list of all the great sexy songs. That’s in the nightstand drawer too and several tunes are already crossed off. Because we made a vow to make love to every shtupping song ever written. Turns out there are a hell of a lot of those too.
I unlock the door and find him lounging on my couch, reading a book. He tosses it on the coffee table, stands up, and walks over to me.
Okay, so maybe he can’t wait till I brush my teeth and get in bed, and that’s fine with me.
“Please tell me you won enough for me to retire and live the life of the arm candy of the sexiest rock star I’ve ever known,” he says, pressing his palms together in a plaintive prayer.
I smile broadly. “As if you could be content to be arm candy.”
“I’d be willing to try,” he teases, then pulls me in for a kiss. As soon as his lips touch mine, I am warm all over, my skin tingling. I angle my body against his, signaling that I can’t wait much longer either.
“I want more,” I tell him.
“You will always have more with me, Jane. Don’t you realize that now? I have an absolutely insatiable appetite when it comes to you.” He takes my hand and leads me to the bedroom, opens the nightstand drawer, and considers the list. He taps the list with a pencil. “Oh, look what’s on it. ‘Physical.’”
I laugh as he tosses the paper on the nightstand and pulls me down onto the bed. “We’re not doing it to my song.”
“Why not?”
“That’s weird, don’t you think?”
“So you want to use Olivia Newton-John’s version?”
“I’d have to break out my leg warmers then.”
“Oddly enough, I’d still find you fetching even in leg warmers,” he says, then pins me down and rains kisses all along my neck, then from my jawline to my earlobe. “Or we could just use any of those songs you wrote about the English Sex God you’re madly in love with.”
“Hmm,” I say as if I’m deep in thought. “I did write some songs about you. Some songs about how much I want you, and how much I love you,” I say, wrapping my legs around his waist.
“I intend to give you inspiration on both counts for a very long time. For always, in fact.”
“Always?”
He nods resolutely. “Always. Because that’s how long I’ll want you, and that’s how long I’ll love you.”
I like the sound of that. I like it a lot.