Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
June 2024
J ames was backstage at Madison Square Garden. Security was tight, and a lot of men in black clothing were checking his laptop bag and going through the pockets where he kept his pads of paper and pens. He gave them stern hellos and made his way to the dressing room, where he was to meet Frank Baxter for the interview. Jet lag made his vision blurry and his head pound.
Pull yourself together. This is your one shot for the interview. It has to be good.
When he entered Frank’s dressing room, he launched himself back into professionalism with the click of his pen.
Frank got up from a swivel chair to shake his hand. He wore Levi's jeans and a black T-shirt, and his rocker-like black hair was tousled. The first thing he said was, “Great to see you again, man,” because Frank was the kind of professional who never forgot a face. And then he said, “My daughter loves your daughter, by the way. Taylor Atkinson. She’s a great role model for girls looking to get into the music scene.”
James was taken aback. He hadn’t imagined his daughter’s name coming out of Frank Baxter’s mouth. “Thanks for saying that. I’ll pass it along.”
“Seriously, though. It took ages for me to get Annie into music,” Frank said, pulling his fingers through his hair. “But she follows Taylor on TikTok or Instagram or one or both, and she practices her guitar, like, two to three hours a day. She even showed me a song she had written the previous night. It was cool. It sounded like early Sonic Youth.”
“Is she a Bad Habit fan?” James asked.
“She likes them. But not as much as I do,” Frank said. “Man, they’re hard and ragged, but they’re alive, you know? It reminds me of writing songs as a twentysomething.”
James had already started his recorder on his phone—which pleased him. Frank had already given him some great quotes for the article.
Frank and James had an easy conversation over the next two hours. They spoke about Frank’s new album, his theories about songwriting, raising their daughters to love music, and Frank’s fears and anxieties about playing Madison Square Garden. After a while, Frank turned the interview on its head and asked James about his time in New York versus his time in London.
Suddenly bleary with jet lag, James admitted, “I’ve been away for six months. I just got back.” He took a sip from a water bottle on the table. “I’m supposed to get dinner with my ex tonight before the gig.”
Frank’s eyes lit up. “Wow. That’s heavy.”
“It is.” James tilted his head. He suddenly felt as though he could spill all his secrets to this genius rock star. He’d spent months listening to his music, tapping into Frank Baxter’s innermost life. Maybe Frank could take a little of James’s. “She told me there’s something she wants to talk about. Something big.”
“Any guesses about what it is?” Frank asked.
James’s tongue went dry. “Man, I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in five or six months. I have this hunch.”
That it’s a baby.
That she’s pregnant with our baby.
“But I don’t know for sure,” he finished.
Frank puffed out his cheeks.
“Are you with anyone?” James asked.
“Off the record? I don’t like talking about my romantic life with journalists,” Frank said.
James cut the recorder and agreed.
“I split up with my daughter’s mom about ten years ago, and I miss her every single day,” Frank said. “She’s the reason I wrote this record.”
James was surprised. Through the lyrics, he’d speculated that Frank was newly in love with someone. But it turned out that his love was the same as it had been for years. It grew day by day. And he didn’t have any outlet for it, save for his music.
After the interview, Frank and James shook hands and agreed to keep in touch. Usually, musicians promise this to James but don’t have the time, energy, or organization to keep the friendship going. That was okay with James.
James left Madison Square Garden the way he’d come, heading to a little coffee shop nearby to make notes about the interview while it was still fresh. He had dinner with Kinsey at seven at a French restaurant that had excellent foie gras and unpasteurized cheese. If Kinsey ordered something like that, he’d know she wasn’t pregnant. He would breathe a sigh of relief.
Or he’d be disappointed.
He wasn’t yet sure.
Kinsey was already at the restaurant when James got there at seven o’clock. She was prettier than ever in a sleek dark green dress and a pair of very cool earrings that hung down her neck and glinted with gold. She remained seated when he got there, which meant that he couldn’t see if she was pregnant or not. She’d be, what, five months? That would be visible. Her face was calm although he knew she was probably panicking on the inside. Or was he the one who was panicking? Maybe she was fine.
Sitting with her felt cozy. Simple. It felt like he belonged somewhere.
“How was your flight?” Kinsey asked as they sat.
James said it was good. He had an entire row to himself, and he watched movies with music themes, like Almost Famous and a documentary about Aretha Franklin. They’d once joked that they both liked to watch movies about their fields. She was borderline obsessed with movies about women writers or editors. The publishing field was rife with drama and easily put to screen.
The server came over to take their order. Kinsey stuck with water, and James’s ears rang. Pregnant! She’s pregnant! He decided to order a glass of red wine. He gave her a knowing look, wondering how she’d tell him. What words would she use? She was so brilliant with language.
“And your interview?” she asked. “How was Frank Baxter?”
“Iconic,” James said. “And down to earth at the same time. We had a great chat. Oh, and his daughter is a big fan of Taylor’s, apparently.”
“Who isn’t? There’s been talk of asking her to write a novel for the publishing house,” Kinsey said.
James laughed. “It’s hard to imagine Taylor sitting down long enough to write an entire book.”
“She can surprise you,” Kinsey said.
“She already has. Over and over again.” He tilted his head. “That’s what having a kid is like, I guess. Nonstop surprises.”
Kinsey sipped her water.
“And you? How is the publishing house?”
“Just fine.” Kinsey went under the table to retrieve something from her bag. James imagined a pregnancy test wrapped in plastic. But instead, she pulled out a blue book and set it on the table between them.
James hardly glanced at it. “What’s that?”
“My colleague has been editing this book this year,” she explained. “She’s been gushing about it, in fact. Couldn’t get enough of it. It just went to print and will be released later this summer. I cracked it about a week ago.”
“Cool,” James said. He wasn’t sure why she was telling him this. But maybe she just wanted to have an easy, everyday discussion as though they’d never broken up. “You know I only ever read music biographies.”
Kinsey’s eyes shifted. Were those tears? She leaned across the table. “You’ll never believe the premise.”
James remained quiet. Something was going on that he couldn’t figure out.
“Athens 2001. American woman. British man from London. They meet, and it’s fireworks.” Her hands opened on either side of her face. “They travel all over together, island-hopping. They fall head over heels. The man, this British man in the book, is something of a wild card. He’s music-obsessed, always taking his guitar to Greek tavernas to play his favorite songs. He just lost his mother in a terrible accident, and he’s trying to escape his sorrow. The British guy and this woman, the narrator, pledge to spend their lives together. And then…”
James erupted from the table. He felt like he was going to faint. His eyes fell onto the book, where he read The Athens Affair by Stella Sutton.
Stella.
Tears streamed down Kinsey’s face. He couldn’t figure it out. Hands shaking, he sat back down and took the book. “I don’t know what to say.” He tried to laugh, but it came out false and wrong.
James flipped through the pages, searching for his name. But it looked like Stella had written only “J” whenever he appeared. Maybe she wanted to protect his privacy.
But Kinsey knew so much about his past. She knew about his mother. She knew about his ragtag adventures across the world. She’d seen all the way through the “J.”
She looked at him now as though she’d never seen him before.
“I just didn’t know you could be like that,” she breathed.
James’s eyes filled with tears. “I don’t know what you mean.”
Kinsey raised her glass of water. “So tender. So loving. I always told my friends you were hard as stone. That you weren’t really capable of romantic love. But I told them that was okay because you were dependable. You were always there when you said you would be.”
“How boring,” James said.
Kinsey flared her nostrils. “But now I see it for what it really is. You don’t know how to love anyone else because you’re still in love with her.” She tapped her fingers on the front cover of the book that remained in his hands.
“I haven’t seen Stella in more than twenty years,” he said.
“She spent years writing this book,” Kinsey said. “And she’s about to have a whole press junket about it. She’ll give interviews. She’ll talk and talk about you.”
“You know as well as I do that memoir is basically fancy fiction,” he said. “She probably made a lot of this up.”
Kinsey sighed. He could see it written across her face. She didn’t believe him.
And he didn’t know what to think.
But a few minutes later, when Kinsey got up to use the bathroom, he saw for sure that she wasn’t pregnant. Maybe he was a fool.