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Q: And have you figured it out now?
A: Are you kidding? Not even close.
Q: Are you in a band right now?
A: No, I’m not. I’m between gigs. That’s how I like it. Being in a band is too much like being married, and I’m not interested in being married. I like being single and getting around. Musically, I mean. I’m not going to talk about my dating life. But musically, I’m definitely a slut.
Q: Do you ever talk to your former bandmates?
A: Only now and then. We really are like exes, except those girls aren’t dirtbags. My real-life exes are dirtbags.
Q: Oh. Care to spill the tea?
A: I’d rather die, thanks.
ONE
Thirteen Years Ago
Finn
The plane landed at midnight, as sleet came down in the darkness over Seattle. The flight from Tokyo had been nearly ten hours, and I didn’t remember most of it, though I had barely slept. I had existed in nothingness, high in the sky above the rest of the world, inescapable. Plenty of time to think about being a failure at nineteen.
Only four thousand fans had come to my Tokyo show, in a venue built for three times that many. And the numbers for the rest of the tour looked worse.
There were no press to see me off the plane, because the paparazzi doesn’t care to stay up all night to see a tired nineteen-year-old pop star walk down a set of steps and into a waiting car. Still, I made sure to look presentable: moisture drops in my eyes, hair combed, and most importantly I relaxed my facial muscles so I didn’t look like I was angry or frowning. Anyone can snap a photo where you look like a mean asshole, when really you were just exhausted and your face was tilted the wrong way under the light.
One of the security guys walked me to the car, and another got in the front passenger seat next to the driver. The security guys worked a rotation, because no one guy could be expected to work my full schedule, with the flights, the jet lag, and the crazy hours. No one questioned that I could do it, though. I didn’t question it, either.
There was no small talk as the car took me to the Seattle outskirts. It was late. I sat back in the seat, tilting my head back and closing my eyes, though once again I didn’t sleep. A headache pressed my temples. Someone was handling my luggage somewhere, transporting it. If I said I was hungry, I’d be instantly fed. The house where I was going was already clean and perfect, waiting for my arrival. Everything was taken care of. I should be sleeping like a baby.
Four thousand tickets, though. It was bad.
My biggest crowd was thirty-five thousand, at a festival four months after “Ice Cream Girlfriend” released. The crowds were getting smaller, and everyone noticed.
The people around me were trying to reverse the fall. My agent had set me up to be seen with a lingerie model while I was in L.A. tomorrow, which he said was okay because she was eighteen. “She’s an inch taller than you, but she’s agreed not to wear heels,” he’d said. “People will eat it up. Make sure to hold her hand. We’re in negotiations for her to be your Grammy date.”
When I was dating someone, I got talked about. This wasn’t the first model I’d been set up with. I barely spoke to the girls, and most models did coke, which meant I took plenty. It kept my energy up, but I had been told that I’d get in trouble if I did too much, because being an addict would be bad press. I was also told that it would be more believable if my fake girlfriend and I fucked, so we did.
I didn’t want to do the dating, really, but my second album hadn’t sold as well as my first, and my third album—my favorite by far, the one I’d put my heart and soul into—had sold much worse than either of them. It had barely cracked the top 100 before sinking again, and considering “Ice Cream Girlfriend” had spent thirty weeks in the top ten, it was embarrassing. The album had been out for four weeks, and it was clear that my career needed emergency resuscitation, like a patient in cardiac arrest. I was getting scheduled to every talk show that would take me, and to keep my name out there, I was going to get another beautiful girlfriend and get caught holding her hand before I brought her to the Grammys.
I hadn’t written a song in months.
The car pulled up the driveway, and without a word, the security guy got out and opened my door for me. I unfolded my legs and stood up, taking in the cold, wet air of my hometown and not minding the shiver it sent down the collar of my shirt. “Thanks, man,” I said, since I didn’t know the guy’s name.
“Sure,” he replied. “Good night.”
I walked up to the house I’d bought a year ago. I hadn’t spent much time here, and when I bought it, I picked it from a set of photos, like a police lineup.
It was huge, but I wanted someplace big enough for Dad to live in, with his own living space. I also needed rooms for my older brother, Alistair, even though Alistair was twenty-one and should be living on his own by now. Alistair had dropped out of college and now waited tables at a restaurant downtown. We didn’t see each other much, and when we did, we had nothing to say to each other. I’d been away from home so much that we were more like distant cousins than brothers.
But Alistair needed somewhere to live, so here he was. And he needed room in one of the garages for his car. And there should be a pool, because even though I was never home to use it, one of the other people living here might want to use it. And a pool needed pool staff, so I had those, too. And no one wanted to mow the lawn, which was huge, so I made sure there were staff for that. And who was supposed to cook and clean? It wouldn’t be Dad, who was busy working for me, and it wouldn’t be Alistair. So cooking and cleaning staff were added to the list.
I had to keep all of this straight in my head, make sure it was taken care of. No one cared that I was nineteen.
I keyed the code in the front door and opened it. I paused in the hallway, listening. There was loud, grinding music coming from the direction of Alistair’s rooms. And wafting through the air, as if carrying the terrible sound, was the smell of pot smoke.
I kicked off my sneakers and climbed the stairs, bypassing the party. I hoped the sound wouldn’t carry all the way to my bedroom. I desperately needed sleep.
