Dead Rockstar (The Dead Rockstar Trilogy Book 1)

Chapter 4

“Stormy,you’ve lost your goddamn mind.” Sloan dipped a chip into the guacamole and grimaced as it broke. “Fuck, man overboard.” She grabbed another chip, rescuing the first one, and popped it all in her mouth. “You are batshit, woman.”

“Don”t talk with your mouth full,” I said irritably, but I was laughing. “I”m telling you, it happened. I did the spell, and the lights went out, like, immediately. And the video that I know I took, wasn”t in my gallery.”

“You probably deleted it by accident when you turned it off,” she said in a logical voice that I loathed. She broke a chip in half and dipped it. “And that storm was a doozy last night. I heard there was a tornado in Glynn Haven and that”s not far from here. The lights actually flickered at the bar where Dan and I were-”

“I noticed the storm,” I interjected. “I”m just saying it”s weird, that”s all.”

“Well, anyway, point being, your little spell didn”t work.” She gestured around my tiny trailer. “I see no middle-aged rock stars lurking around.”

“Yeah, too bad.” I”d been getting ready to tell her about the man I”d seen watching me at the farmers market and changed my mind. Sloan had an edge to her tonight, more than usual. I decided she wouldn”t find it funny. Instead, she might give me a lecture, or worse, bring up Tess. “So what about the death card turning up everywhere?”

“It”s an old deck. The box won”t even shut properly. See?” She grabbed the little cardboard box off the table and demonstrated how the top wouldn”t stay folded down. “You said you pulled the death card last night, right? When you put it back, it probably didn”t go all the way in the box. It just fell out. And we both know how bad you are about throwing away your gum without wrapping it in paper first.”

“That doesn”t explain-”

“It does, though,” she cut me off.

I poured a glass of Merlot and held it out to her. She waved it away.

“You seem bitchy,” I remarked, taking the glass for myself despite my vows from before. I hadn”t yet eaten anything. With the way Sloan was murdering my guacamole I might not get to. I had, at least, managed to down a ton of water. I”d been peeing all evening. “You know, more so than usual.” She gave me a sharp look, then laughed.

“You know me too well.” She grimaced. “I guess I am kinda salty.”

“Date not go well?”

“Oh, that. No, it went great, actually. Jeez, Stormy, you wouldn”t guess it from looking at him – he”s so cute, but he”s got this pinched up expression he does, like he”s wound up so tight a fart couldn”t escape – but once I got his clothes off, he warmed up rather nicely. And hung like a-”

“Stop!” I protested, laughing.

“The date was fine,” she went on. “I had fun, actually. But I probably won”t see him again.”

“Why not?”

The doorbell rang.

“Saved by the bell. I”ll get it.” Sloan stood up. “You stay there and have another drink. I”ll need you to figure out my life when I get back.”

I did as I was told. So much for not drinking tonight. Sloan had shown up with a bottle of my favorite wine and I”d barely even resisted. I drained the glass as she reached the front door, peered through the peephole, muttered, and opened it. “Weird.” I could see her from my vantage point at the table as she poked her head out, then walked out onto the porch, her hand over her eyes. It was after seven and already dark. “Weird,” she said again, walking down the steps and into the yard.

“Nobody there?” I asked when she returned.

“Not a soul.” She came back inside, shut the door and locked both the deadbolt and the lock on the handle. “I heard that knock as clear as day, didn”t you?”

“Yeah, definitely.”

“Probably some stupid kid overeager for Halloween,” she said, sitting down and digging into the guac again.

“Out here? I”ve only got the one neighbor and he”s old as dust. No kids.”

“Teenagers roam,” she said. “But I”ll stay over, just in case. You need looking after. You”ve been a hot mess lately.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up.” I laughed. “I have not. And Blinken could take better care of me than you could.” The cat, sleeping in his kitty bed in the corner, gave one sassy swish of his tail. “So-you were starting to tell me why you”re salty.”

“Oh, it”s nothing. Nothing good, anyway,” she said with a grin. “No gossip. I”m just...I dunno. I guess I keep wondering how long I”m going to do this.”

“Do what?”

She looked at me, one eyebrow raised.

“Oh, no, Sloan.” I groaned. “Don”t tell me you”ve gone back to him.”

For the past two years, Sloan had been having an on-and-off-again, very casual affair with a guy who was quite a bit her senior. I didn”t know how much older, but I figured it must be a lot, judging by how cagey Sloan was about him. One thing I did know: he was married. From what little Sloan had told me, they”d met when she”d taken a second job tending bar at Beachy Keen, one of our local crawls. He”d flirted and she was unimpressed, telling him he was far too old for her. Then he”d tipped her a hundred bucks for one Miller Lite and she”d reconsidered. I didn”t even know his real name – she called him Gus, but it was a nickname, I knew, taken from Disney”s Cinderella – when I asked her, she laughed and said it was because he wore t-shirts to bed, but no pants. As disgusting a mental image as that was (and I suspected she was trolling me, hoping to gross me out so I wouldn”t ask more questions), I”d never pressed her further.

She was my best friend and we shared everything, but she would not budge one inch when it came to Gus. She was ashamed of the affair, ashamed that she couldn”t break it off. All I knew was that they”d go weeks or even months without speaking, and then, out of the blue, she”d be seeing him again every night, hot and heavy, until he inevitably got cold feet again and ended things. Any time I brought him up, Sloan started fidgeting and curling into herself and acting uncharacteristically shamed, and I didn”t enjoy seeing her like that. Like a snail without a shell, covered in salt.

As funny as it was to think of my best friend as a slug, the entire situation left me with a case of the squicks, and I didn”t like it one bit. Surely Sloan didn”t love him, but even so, it messed with her head. Nobody”s self-esteem could weather such hot-and-cold head games. And whatever money he threw her way wasn”t enough to get her out of poverty, so to my thinking, he just wasn”t fucking worth it.

Sloan told me everything and always had, so her silence on Gus told me all I needed to know.

“It”s only been a couple of times lately,” she said, peering into her wine glass like she”d lost something in it. “And now that I”m seeing Dan, I”m really tempted to just end it for good.”

“You should.”

“I know.”

I had another sip of wine and wisely said nothing.

“I”ll do that,” she said with finality, looking up at me with a smile. But I could tell by the way her eyes shifted to the right that she was full of shit.

When I gotup the next morning, Sloan had made coffee and was sitting at the kitchen table, holding a cigarette in her hand. “I”m not smoking it,” she rushed to explain when she saw me. “I know the rule. I”ll go outside.”

“I wish you wouldn”t smoke at all,” I lectured her.

“Yeah, yeah. One of these days I”ll quit.”

“Good,” I said, walking over to the fridge to grab the creamer. “What time is it?”

“8:30. Shit, Stormy, you look like hell.”

“Well, thanks, and fuck you very much, too.”

“How much did you drink last night?”

“I dunno, a couple. You”re the one who kept pushing glasses into my hand.” I poured myself a cup and added two heaping teaspoons of sugar. “I haven”t been sleeping well.”

“Tess?”

No point in lying. “Yeah,” I confessed. “Ever since you told me he”s back I can”t seem to stop thinking about him. I wonder if he”s going to come back here.”

“Don”t take him back, Storm.”

“I won”t!” I said, irritated. “Anyway, he has Roberta.”

She leveled her eyes at me. “I”m serious, dude. You”ve been all over the place lately. Drinking too much, this weird spell shit...” I opened my mouth to protest and she cut me off. “I think you”re allowed a little crisis after all that fucker put you through, but I”m just saying, you”re vulnerable right now and people like him prey on weakness.”

I sipped my coffee and said nothing. It chafed that she was talking as though she knew him better than I did. Like she knew me better than I knew myself. Like she didn”t have her own giant turd of a situation to navigate. People like him, she’d said. Something about the judgement in that turn of phrase bothered me. “It”s only been a few months,” I said finally. “I”m doing the best I can.”

“It”s been the better part of a year,” she argued. “Just don”t leave yourself open. You know?” She looked at me thoughtfully. “Don”t let bad stuff in.”

I smiled at that and she brightened.

“So, what are we doing today, Brain? Trying to take over the world?”

“I hadn”t got that far,” I said, still drinking my coffee. “I”m barely awake.”

She looked me up and down, taking in my rat”s nest hair and worn, faded Motley Crue t-shirt. “Throw on some pants and let”s head over to my booth,” she said. “What you need is a makeover. It”ll perk you right up. Cut and color, and I”ll thread your brows, because they are a total mess-”

“No, no, Sloan,” I protested. “Not the fucking brows again. For the last time, I don”t want them threaded. You know I don”t care about that stuff. And anyway, I can”t afford you.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up,” she said. “You feed me every other day. It”s free, dipshit.”

“Sloan-”

“Fine, I won”t thread the brows. Just let me pluck them a little. I swear, it”s like you”re a cave person. I can”t keep looking at them like that, I”m sorry.” It was true, I never did anything to them. Didn”t have the slightest notion how to use a brow brush or pencil and only plucked them once in a blue moon. They were thick and unkempt, and I really didn”t give the first shit, which made Sloan crazy, since beauty was her business. Her own brows were perfectly arched and filled in with a specific shade of brown-black that she bought in bulk from the beauty store just in case it was ever discontinued.

I sighed. “Maybe just a little haircut. Just a trim.” If I was going to ask out the avocado guy, I should spiff myself up some.

She nodded excitedly. “A trim, maybe some bangs? Add a few low-lights? And I”ve got this new gloss-”

I groaned. There wasn”t enough coffee in the world.

Hours later,I let myself back into the house and sighed, slumping down on the couch with my newly shaped brows, trimmed hair, bangs and violet low-lights, and a foundation on my face that seemed a shade too light for my skin, but Sloan insisted made me look “fresher.” As much as I loved her, I was glad that she hadn”t come back with me, instead opting to go out with Dan again (so much for her “I probably won”t see him again”). I was tired, and more than a little down in the dumps. All my mantras from the day before had gone right down the drain. I”d never even made it back to the farmers market to flirt with avocado guy.

The entire time she”d been making me over I”d been thinking about Tess. What would he think of my hair, would he like the winged eyeliner, would he...? And hating myself for it. Who cared what he thought? He was a cheating, drugged-out bastard. And anyway, he had a girlfriend, and if he had brought her back to our hometown, he obviously was serious about her. I needed to just let go.

So why couldn”t I?

I rarely allowed myself to think back to the time Tess and I met. I”d been a total mess then, having just emancipated myself from my parents’ home (they would divorce less than a year later; turns out I had been the glue holding their dysfunction together), staying with Sloan and her parents and trying to figure out what to do with myself. Seventeen and newly homeless, I was vulnerable and scared.

When I”d seen the pool guy, shirtless and grinning, one afternoon at Sloan”s house, his brown hair falling over one eye as he bent over to skim leaves from the water, it had been love at first sight. For me, anyway. It had taken a few weeks for Tess, who was nineteen at the time, to work up the nerve to ask me out. Once he did, we were inseparable. I”d never forget that summer, newly independent and full of possibility, cruising with Tess in his pickup to go bowling, play pool, frolic on the beach...he”d taken me to shows, out to dinner, and we”d spent more nights than most making out in the bed of his truck, parked in the pine trees, with only the stars to keep us company.

Only Tess and Sloan knew about my past, about my horrible, abusive parents and the abject poverty I”d grown up in. Only the two of them knew my darkest secrets and had loved me anyway. I’d never forget the first time I’d brought Tess home – first I’d taken him to my mom, who still lived in the trailer park where I’d spent most of my childhood, and he’d sat dutifully on her threadbare couch while she’d chain-smoked, chugged Natty Lights and regaled him with stories of my childhood. I’d been red-faced and embarrassed as she related how, at eight years old, I’d peed my pants from fright at a school assembly when I had to get up and speak. Tess had held my hand, laughing kindly, and leaned over to kiss my cheek. He’d drank several beers with Mom, let her bum smokes all afternoon, and left with her red-lipsticked seal of approval on his cheek. Shortly after, I’d taken him to Dad’s to meet my glossy, born-again new stepmom, Dee, and the baby girl that had arrived two and half months before their wedding. Dad now lived with Dee and Shably (that poor kid, she’d spend her whole life telling folks that her name was not Shelby, but that she was named after a misspelled, cheap wine) in Panama City Beach, where they had an apartment just one street up from the water. Tess had been a good sport when I’d complained the whole time, mocking the clean white beaches and clear, blue expanse of ocean, preferring the murky, swamp-like seas of Jekyll, and insulting the tourists. He’d been well-behaved, respectful and engaging when Dad had taken us all to a fancy steakhouse for dinner, trying to show off his newfound money, and he’d hugged Dee goodbye when we left. They’d loved him, too. Even Sloan had loved him, and she didn’t love much of anybody.

Tess had come into my life at a time when I”d needed him. He had embraced my family, my issues and quirks, and I”d loved him with my whole heart for over a decade. I thought back over those years, unable to make sense of how he”d become such a totally different person, and how on earth I hadn”t noticed my husband slowly becoming another version of the past I”d run away from.

I shook my head, determined not to do this now. I wouldn”t spend one more night in a shitty slump, brooding over my pain. I had a new ”do, my house was freshly cleaned, and I had a Sunday evening free with no plans. I”d make the most of it. I”d put on some music and do yoga. Improving myself starts now.

I threw on a pair of tight-fitting yoga capris and left on my faded, baggy Motley Crue shirt. I pulled my hair up in a loose ponytail, careful not to mess up Sloan”s hard work. I always waited a day after a new hair-do before washing it, just to get some extra enjoyment out of it. I passed by my little makeshift altar on the way to the stereo and made a mental note to clear all of it away; my failed attempt at a spell. I felt mild shame that I”d even done it in the first place. I really had to get my shit together.

What to listen to...Outkast? Too upbeat for yoga. The Cure? Too depressing. Ah, I knew. Siousxie and the Banshees. But as I turned on the stereo and clicked through the changer, it was the Bloomer Demons I settled on, as usual.

Fire, Blood, and Candy was their third album, released after they”d started to wane a little in popularity, and while the lyrics were full of deep-seated angst, the melodies added a sort of pop-ambiance to their normal doom metal sound. A lot of their fans hated it, but I didn”t. Didn”t matter to me what direction they took – you can”t fight true love.

I lay down on the rubber mat, which was gnawed a little on one side thanks to Blinken, and relaxed into corpse pose, controlling my breathing to the beat of the music. How Sloan would laugh at me if she saw me doing yoga. It was another thing – along with tarot reading and spells – that I”d always scoffed at. I”m not a very spiritual person. I”m pragmatic, logical. I believe in science. I”m that annoying person that retweets videos from Scientist Twitter and goes on drunken rants about the evils of organized religion. Just after my divorce, Sloan had set me up with a guy who had raved half the night about the Illuminati. He”d been surprised when I got up in the middle of dinner and left.

Why, I wondered as I settled down onto the mat, feeling my bones relax, did I feel the need to hide parts of myself? Despite my snark, I”d been secretly doing yoga for years. It relaxed me, made me feel less on edge. I”d been dabbling with tarot cards for a few months now, and I could feel part of me blossoming, taking to the new age, “woo” side of me like a parched plant to water. Why had I never told Sloan? Or anyone else, for that matter?

Tess left and I lost myself. I didn”t know who I was anymore. The truth was, I had already begun to change long before he left, but the end of my marriage had pushed me over the edge. Whatever I was becoming had the feeling of something big. I didn”t know if I was about to have a mid-life crisis of my own or if it was my new emancipation, but I could feel it coming, calling me, just on the edge of my awareness, in my peripheral vision.

I shifted into the snake pose and focused on stretching each muscle one by one. Next, downward dog. My shirt billowed down, exposing my belly, and I stretched my neck out, not looking, determined not to be critical of the softness around my waist band.

I went through some semblance of a routine, and by the time I was back in corpse pose, I was panting heavily, sweat running down my face and neck in rivulets. I was so out of shape. I”d been living on nothing but fried food, coffee and wine for weeks. It seemed like eons since I”d run on Driftwood Beach. My normal ritual was to do that every other day, riding my bike on the weekends. I had saved for two years to buy a beach-ready road bike. Now it sat out under the shed, collecting rust.

I grabbed a hoodie from the couch and mopped at my face – after all, there was nobody there to see me – and was standing up and reaching for my glass of water when I heard the doorbell. I stood there, wondering if I should even answer it. It was after dark, I was home alone, and after the night before with the pranksters, I was a little concerned.

“Who is it?” I asked, grabbing my phone and pushing it down into the waistband of my yoga pants. As if I”d have time to dial 911 if it was really someone intent on doing me harm. I craned my neck, listening for the answer.

“It”s me.”

It was a male voice, one I didn”t immediately recognize. But “it”s me” implied that I knew them. Against my better judgment, I went to the door, unlocked the deadbolt, turned the door handle, and pulled it open.

I stood there for a moment in the darkness, staring up at the man on my doorstep. He was so tall the door frame was almost level with his dark green eyes, which flashed in the dim light of the porch. He repeated, again, the voice soft but deep as a well, “It”s me. Phillip.”

The next thing I knew I was traveling downward toward the floor, which I hit with a loud thud.