Come Dancing (14 page)

On the way home I stopped by the Strand, my favorite used bookstore. Since Jack had seemed to like
Wise Blood
so much, I thought I’d get him a copy of his own. Just as I had put the package on my table and was locking the deadbolts, the phone rang.

“I have some news,” Dot announced.

“Erwin gave you the raise?”

“I’m finally coming to the Big Apple.”

She went on to say that her trucker friend Darrell had to make a trip to New Jersey the following Thursday. She was going to ride with him, take the bus to 42nd Street and stay until Saturday. I told her I’d pick her up at the terminal, and we said goodbye. I was so elated about seeing Jack that even my mother’s visit couldn’t puncture my mood.

Love is the Drug

I stood staring at my wall of outfits. My leather skirt was too tattered for a fancy gallery opening, and my work clothes were too sedate. I decided to wear my favorite long-sleeved purple shirt and black pants from Alice Underground, along with the lavender suede heels I’d found on the street one night, disbelieving someone had discarded such nice footwear. They were two sizes too big, but I stuffed them with tissues so they just about fit. I added more padding in each toe and tried to work off my excess energy by shimmying around to the Floor’s next-to-last album, which had some fantastic dance tunes. It was unreal to hear Jack’s voice chiming in on the choruses, knowing that I would see him tonight.

Finally I decided to wait on the street rather than wear out my frayed rug. The black car turned onto my block; I felt a flicker of anticipation. The door opened and Jack’s long legs swung out. God, he looked gorgeous with his snapping dark eyes and tousled hair, a big smile on his face as he came toward me in a half-undone white shirt and red dinner jacket.

“Hello sweetheart, d’you need a ride somewhere?” He leaned in to kiss me; I put my arms around his neck and kissed him back.
It’ll be pretty much impossible not to go to bed with him tonight
, I realized. Breathlessly I pulled away. “We’d better get in before you stop traffic.”

I said hi to Rick, and then Jack’s hands were on me as he slid his lips down my neck. “I almost came by on the way home late last night,” he murmured. “But I figured you had to wake up early.”

So he’d thought about me at least once—if not enough to bother calling. “That would have been okay. I’d better not get too rumpled now, though, before we meet your friends.” I was sufficiently anxious about meeting another bandmate and his wife without looking like I’d been mauled.

“All right, but later I’m gonna be on you like white on rice. Hey, I like these purple shoes,” he said, reaching down to lift my calf.

“They were a great find. They’re not the perfect size, but I just stuff them with tissue.”

“Why’d you buy them so big?” He released my leg.

“I found them on the street. On garbage night.” Jack gave me a blank look.

“That’s when everybody puts big items out for pickup, and anything else they don’t want anymore. I got all my furniture that way. Except the futon,” I said, laughing at his concerned expression. “I did buy that new.”

“Good to know.” He rolled his eyes. “I got bedbugs once in Madrid, and I’d rather not repeat the experience. How’d work go this week?”

“Kind of a mix. Harvey’s hired this assistant editor that he’s grooming for promotion, so I really need to buy a book fast. The good thing is, I got in touch with an actress who’s doing her memoir; Isabel Reed.”

“That’s great, Julia. But what’s this about a new person?”

“I’m just hoping she won’t replace me in the lineup. Anyway, those flowers you sent were the bright spot in my week. Practically everyone in the company made an excuse to stop by. I think my friend Edgar told people to come take a look.”

“Who’s Edgar?”

“A lovely editor in his fifties. He explained a lot about book production to me when I first started, like what a signature is.”

“And what’s a signature?” Jack asked. “Not …?” He made a scribbling gesture as if autographing something.

“A hardcover is glued into batches of sixteen pages called a signature. So it could have 208 pages, or 256. The last page
number
might be 202, but with the front matter, the page count always comes out to a multiple of sixteen.”

“Cool, you’re teaching me all kinds of things. I like all this book stuff. Come to think of it, I …” He took my hand and placed it over his bulging zipper. “… know some things I’d like to teach you. But I can’t do it in the car.” He raised his eyebrow lasciviously, making my belly flip.

“Here we are.” We had stopped at Mary Boone on West Broadway. I’d been there before, and to Castelli and the other SoHo galleries, but never to an actual opening. Several people with large cameras were staked out in front.

“Looks like the buggers are here.” Jack unfolded his sunglasses and put them on. He took the droopy hat from the door’s side pocket. “You can wear that if you want. There, incognito,” he said, putting it on my head.

I held back as the cameramen started aiming our way. “Just keep moving.” He took my arm and drew me along with him.

“Jack! Jack!” voices on all sides cried out. “You a friend of the artist? Who’s the girl?”

I pulled down the outer edge of the hat, half-blinded by the flashes. One of the men stuck his camera right in Jack’s eyes and fired it.

“Out of my way,” Jack said, making a fist.

“Watch out, he hits!” another man shouted.

Jack shoved past and I followed him inside the gallery, thankful we’d avoided a tussle. He lifted the hat off my head, rolled it up and stuck it in his back pocket, then removed his shades. People were milling around holding plastic wineglasses and talking loudly over one another. Several noticed Jack right away, creating a sizzle of excitement that popped around the crowded room.

“One of the artists is a friend of Suzanne’s,” Jack said. “Oh, there they are.”

He wove through chattering groups of people, ignoring the gasps and eyeballing. Up ahead I recognized Mark, standing with an extremely thin redhead who topped him by several inches. Given the way Patrick had behaved, I dreaded meeting another member of his group, but hopefully their drummer wouldn’t be quite as obnoxious. Mark was shorter and slighter than he looked in pictures, and his nose was more prominent. His straggly shoulder-length hair was streaked blond with purple and green highlights, the front sticking up in a roosterish fashion. His expression turned gleeful when he saw us. “Hello, luv. I’m Mark.”

“Julia. It’s good to meet you.”

“This is my wife, Suzanne.”

Suzanne smiled, showing upper gum that made her look appealingly childlike. “Nice to meet you, Julia.”

So she was also British. “Jack said you’re friends with one of the artists?” I asked her. Mark said something in Jack’s ear, and Jack nodded, grinning.

“Yes, that’s Ariel. She did these big ones.” Suzanne indicated the abstracts. “We share a studio; I do paintings too.”

“She uses feathers with the paint,” Mark said. “Our house was starting to look like a chicken shack; I couldn’t breathe without getting them down my throat. So now she’s got a studio to keep the fluff out of our place.”

“Do you want something?” Jack asked me. “I’m gonna get a glass of this gallery swill.”

“White wine would be great.”

Jack went toward a second room. Before he’d gotten halfway there, three women swarmed him. He seemed to respond to what they were saying, but kept moving despite being surrounded. He was probably so used to being the center of attention that it seemed like no big deal.

“And what do you do, Julia?” Suzanne asked. “I know you have a job; I got that much out of Jack.”

“Yes, I work in book publishing. For about a year now.”
Although maybe not for much longer
.

Jack returned holding two glasses up high so the crowd wouldn’t jostle them. He handed one to me. “Those women were telling me we should go in the back where there’s a happening. Some chick’s having people cover her in goo.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Might be interesting.”

“Now, don’t you start,” Suzanne said. “That’s Ariel’s friend Fricka. She’s an action artist.”

“Then let’s go check out the action,” Mark said.

We squeezed through the crowd to the next room. On a raised dais sprawled a stocky woman, entirely naked except for a pair of combat boots. People were taking spackling tools from a bucket and dipping them into a barrel of sticky gray material, then spreading it on the artist’s body. Globs of it were daubed into the bushy hair below each armpit and between her legs.

Suzanne read a plaque on the wall. “It’s a protest about the treatment of women,” she said, taking a sip of her wine. “The spackling represents the way we’ve been held back by a false coat of femininity.”

“I agree,” Mark said, lifting his drink. “Free the women!” He took Suzanne’s hand and went to get a spreader.

Jack grinned at me. “I’m tempted to do a little spackling myself. I see a few spots they’ve missed.” He took a gulp of wine. “Actually I’m not tempted in the least. Have you ever seen anything so ridiculous?”

“It does seem kind of silly. Ariel’s paintings looked interesting though. Suzanne said she shares a studio with her.”

“’Share’ is open to interpretation,” Jack said as we watched Suzanne gingerly spread a gray blob on the artist’s knee. Mark went right for the woman’s sizeable breasts, where he gave a few more deliberate swipes than necessary. He winked at Jack, then went back for another scoop. “Suzanne and Mark made a deal where they pay the rent in exchange for Ariel supposedly helping her break into the art world. So far nothing’s happened, but at least they’ve got the feathers out of their place.”

“Mark said she puts them on canvas.”

“Whatever it is, it isn’t art, in my opinion,” Jack commented. “But it keeps her happy. Here they come; they’re done with their feminist protest.” They approached us, Mark with a smear of gray across his cheek. “Looks like you really got into it,” Jack said, licking his finger and wiping off the smudge.

“I think it’s great,” Suzanne said. “Very brave of Fricka to do this.”

“Nothing wrong with her that a good shower and a shave couldn’t fix,” Jack said. “I could loan her my razor, clean her right up.”

Suzanne tsk’ed and suggested we get dinner. We darted past the flashing cameras and into the car. “Puffy’s,” Jack said, and Rick drove west. I was happy we were going somewhere low-key. As the others talked about mutual acquaintances, I sat back and relaxed.

For a change, no one turned their heads as we entered the tavern. I had come here with friends a few times myself; it was a great place with a mix of bikers, artists, and other downtown types too jaded to gawk at a couple of musicians. We pushed two small tables together and ordered a couple of pizzas, Suzanne requesting a salad since she was on something called “macrobiotic.”

“I thought the new track went well today,” Mark said.

“It would go even better if Patrick didn’t keep interrupting the flow,” Jack commented. “Always got to be the brightest boy in the room.”

“Patrick said he wants you to go to therapy with him.” Mark took a sip of his vodka.

“I know. He wants to go to a
couples
therapist,” Jack said with a smirk. “He keeps harping on our issues.”

“I went with him once.” Mark gazed down into his drink. “It was kind of interesting to be psychoanalyzed.”

“I know I’m psycho; I don’t need to be analyzed. That’s just another one of his thick ideas,” Jack said in a disgusted tone.

“You have to admit, you two do have some issues,” Suzanne said, putting her hand on his arm.

“I don’t have any issues with him. I just want to play music. Anyway, we aren’t a couple.”

“But you argue like an old married couple.”

“Well, too bad. I ain’t gonna be anyone’s bitch.”

“Isn’t it nice that he’s such a sensitive type?” Suzanne said to me.

“Sometimes sensitive is overrated,” I said, making Jack smile. “I liked Ariel’s paintings. Do you have a show coming up?” I asked Suzanne.

“I think I might be in a group show this fall.” She flicked her lighter at a cigarette. “I’m waiting to hear back from a couple of places.”

“She’ll definitely be showing in the fall,” Mark said. “Whatever it takes.”

“I don’t want you to set it up for me. Then it isn’t real. I want to get into a gallery all by myself.” Suzanne exhaled a stream of smoke. Obviously this was ground they’d covered before.

“I’d like to see your work sometime. How did you get into that medium?” I asked.

“I’ve always had a thing for birds. For a while I was designing clothes, and I used feathers on the fabric. So when I started doing canvases, it was a natural outgrowth.”

“What she means is, she had so many bags of feathers left over from the designin’ that she needed to use them for something,” Mark said. “There’s that art dealer in L.A. who liked your stuff,” he said to Suzanne. “We should go see him while we’re there mixing the tracks.”

I wondered when they were going. We dug into the pizzas and Mark paid the bill. “So nice to meet you, Julia,” Suzanne said, touching my arm. “I hope we’ll see you again soon.” She kissed Jack on the cheek and they went toward a limo; their driver must have followed us from the gallery.

Jack and I got into his car, and Rick peeled out.

“I like Puffy’s,” I said. “It’s nice they don’t make such a fuss about you.”

“You mean it’s good for my ego to be treated like nothing special once in a while,” Jack said with a grin.

“Probably is. Do you ever feel like it’s a hassle not being able to go out to dinner without having to hide in the back?”

Jack gave me a contemplative look. “It’s been so long since I could, I don’t really remember what it was like.” He thought for a second. “When we first caught on, it got a bit rough before we figured out we needed protection from the fans. The record company would set up an appearance and we’d think we’d just be answering questions, you know, but it would turn into a free-for-all. Patrick almost got lynched a time or two. Finally we realized we’d better keep out of grabbing range.”