He shot her a grateful look but couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Leo led him off, and before she could finish her wine, one of the A&R guys announced Julian over the microphone.
Brooke looked around again for Nola and spotted her talking to a group of people in front of the bar. That girl knew everyone. Happy to have Trent there, Brooke let him lead her to a little sliver of couch space, where he motioned for her to take a seat. She perched herself on the end of a velvet sofa and nervously gathered her hair into a knot. She rooted around in her bag for a hair tie but couldn’t find one.
‘Here,’ said the beautiful Asian girl Leo had winked at earlier. She pulled a brown elastic off her wrist and handed it to Brooke. ‘I have a million.’
Brooke paused for a minute, unsure what to do, and the girl smiled. ‘Really, it’s fine. There’s nothing more annoying than not being able to get hair off your face. Although if I had your hair, I’d never tie it back.’
‘Thanks,’ Brooke said, accepting the tie and immediately twisting it into her ponytail. She was going to say something more, maybe something self-deprecating about how she wouldn’t wish being a redhead on anyone, but at that moment Julian took his seat at the piano, and she heard his voice, a little shaky, thanking everyone for coming.
The girl took a swig from the bottle of beer she was holding and asked, ‘Have you ever heard him before?’
Brooke could only nod and pray the girl would stop talking. She didn’t want to miss a single moment, and she was totally preoccupied wondering if anyone else could hear the slight wobble in Julian’s voice.
‘Because if not, you’re really in for something. He is the sexiest singer I’ve ever seen.’
This caught her attention. ‘What?’ she asked, turning to the girl.
‘Julian Alter,’ the girl said, waving toward the piano. ‘I’ve heard him a couple times in different venues around the city. He has a few regular gigs. And I’m telling you, he’s ridiculously good. Makes John Mayer look like amateur hour.’
Julian had begun to play ‘For the Lost,’ a soulful song about a young boy who loses his older brother, and she felt Trent glance in her direction – he was probably the only other person in the entire room who knew what truly inspired that song. Julian himself was an only child, but Brooke knew he often thought of the brother who had died of SIDS before Julian was born. To this day the Alters never discussed James, but Julian had gone through a stage where he wondered, sometimes obsessively, what James would’ve been like today, how different life might have been with an older brother.
His hands moved across the piano keys, producing the first haunting notes that would eventually build to a powerful crescendo, but Brooke couldn’t focus on anything but the girl beside her. She wanted to hug her and slap her all at the same time. It was disconcerting to hear this perfectly attractive girl rave about Julian’s sexiness – no matter how long they’d been together, she never got used to that aspect – but it was so rare to hear a totally honest and unfiltered opinion.
‘You think so?’ Brooke asked, suddenly desperate for the girl to agree.
‘Oh, definitely. I tried to tell my boss, like, a dozen times, but Sony got him first.’ The girl’s attention to Brooke started to wane as Julian’s volume increased, and by the time he tilted his head and sang out the raw, emotional chorus, she was fixated only on him. Brooke wondered if she noticed Julian’s wedding band through the haze of worship.
Brooke turned to watch, and it was all she could do not to sing along. She knew every word by heart.
They say Texas is the promised land
In the highway’s dust you become a man
Blind and blue, lonely in love
Scars on your hands, broken above
He was a mother’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost
The woman sits alone in a room
Alone in a house like a silent tomb
The man counts every jewel in his crown
What can’t be saved is measured in pounds
He was a father’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost
In my dreams the voices from beyond the door
I remember them saying you weren’t coming no more
You wouldn’t believe how quiet it’s become
The heart obscure fills with shame
He was a brother’s dream, he was a fist of sand
My brother, you slipped away with the second hand
Like parallel lines that never cross
For the lost, for the lost
He finished the song to rousing applause – genuine, enthusiastic applause – and moved effortlessly into the second. He had hit his stride, and there wasn’t a single sign of any anxiety. Just that familiar sheen across his forearms and the furrowed brow of concentration as he sang the words he had spent months, sometimes years, perfecting. The second song was over in a flash, and then the third, and before she realized what was happening, the crowd was ecstatically cheering and calling for an encore. Julian looked pleased and a little confused – his instructions to play three songs in under twelve minutes couldn’t have been clearer – but he must’ve gotten the green light from someone offstage, because he smiled and nodded and eased right into one of his more upbeat songs. The crowd roared their approval.
By the time he pushed back the piano bench and took a modest bow, the air in the room had changed. More than the loud cheering and clapping and whistles, there was that electrified feeling of having been part of something important. Brooke stood, hemmed in on all sides by her husband’s admirers, when Leo approached. He gruffly greeted the hair-tie girl by name – Umi – but she immediately rolled her eyes and walked away. Before Brooke could process that, Leo grabbed her arm a little too tightly and leaned in so close she wondered for the briefest second if he was going to kiss her.
‘Get ready, Brooke. Get ready for one fucking crazy ride. Tonight is only the start, and it’s going to be insane.’
Four
A Toast to Hot Redheads
‘Kaylie, sweetheart, I don’t know how else to say it: you do not need to lose weight. Look at your statistics; look at this chart. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are.’
‘No one else here looks like me,’ Kaylie said, lowering her eyes. The girl absently twisted her limp brown hair in circles around her forefinger, methodically wrapping and turning, wrapping and turning. Her face was filled with anxiety.
‘What do you mean?’ Brooke asked, although she knew what Kaylie meant.
‘I just … I never felt fat until I came here. At public school, I was totally normal, maybe even on the skinny side! And then this year rolls around and they stick me in this weird place because it’s supposed to be so fancy and special, and suddenly I’m obese.’ The girl’s voice cracked at the last word, and it was all Brooke could do not to hug her.
‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re no such thing! Come here, look at this chart. One hundred twenty-five pounds at five-one is well within the healthy range.’ Brooke held out her laminated chart showing the huge range of normal weights, but Kaylie barely glanced at it.
She knew it wasn’t particularly comforting in light of all the astonishingly thin girls in Kaylie’s ninth-grade class. Kaylie was a scholarship student from the Bronx, the daughter of an air-conditioning repairman who raised her alone after her mother was killed in a car accident. Her father was clearly doing something right, considering the girl’s straight-A record in middle school, success on the field hockey team, and, according to what Brooke heard from other teachers, an ability to play the violin that far surpassed that of her peers, and yet here was his lovely, accomplished daughter, and all she could see was that she didn’t fit in.
Kaylie tugged at the hem of her plaid skirt, which rested across thighs that were strong and muscular, but nowhere near fat, and said, ‘I guess I just have bad genes. My mom was really overweight, too.’
‘Do you miss her?’ Brooke asked, and Kaylie could only nod, the tears welling in her eyes.
‘She always told me I was perfect just the way I am, but I wonder what she would’ve said if she could see the girls here. They’re perfect. Their hair is perfect and their makeup is perfect and their bodies are perfect, and even though we all have the same exact uniform, even the way they wear it is perfect.’
It was one aspect of the job she had least expected but had grown to appreciate more than she could express, this crossover between nutritionist and confidante. They’d learned in grad school that anyone who came into regular contact with teenagers and was merely willing to listen could play an important role as a caring, involved adult, but Brooke hadn’t known what they meant until she started at Huntley.
Brooke spent a few more minutes explaining that although it might not have felt that way, Kaylie was well within a healthy weight limit. It was a hard argument, especially considering the girl’s muscular, athletic body was broader than most of her classmates’, but she tried. If only I could fast-forward her through four years of high school and send her straight to college, Brooke thought. She’d realize then that none of this ninth-grade nonsense means anything in the long run.
But Brooke knew from experience that this was impossible. She, too, had self-consciously been on the larger end of normal all through high school and Cornell, straight up until grad school, when she went on a drastic diet and lost almost twenty pounds. She couldn’t keep it off, though, and gained fifteen of it back almost immediately. Now, despite mostly healthful eating and a dedicated running program, Brooke was also on the outer limits of the healthy range for her height and, just like Kaylie, was acutely aware of that fact. She felt hypocritical even trying to tell Kaylie not to worry about it when she herself thought about it every day.
‘You are perfect, Kaylie. I know it doesn’t always feel that way, especially surrounded by girls with so many advantages, but believe me when I tell you that you’re absolutely beautiful. You’re going to make friends here, find the girls you connect with, and feel more at home. And then before you know it, you’ll kiss the SATs and prom and some dumb boyfriend from Dalton good-bye, and you’ll run off to a fantastic college where everyone’s perfect in their own way, in exactly the way they choose. And you’ll love it. I can honestly promise you that.’
Brooke’s phone rang, the special piano-sounding ring that she’d attached only to Julian’s number. He never called when she was at work, knowing she wouldn’t be able to answer, and even kept his texts to a minimum. She knew in an instant something was wrong.
‘Excuse me, Kaylie. This will just be a minute.’ She swiveled in her chair the best she could to get some privacy in the small office. ‘Hi. Is everything okay? I’m with a patient right now.’
‘Brooke, you are not going to believe this, but—’ He stopped and breathed in deeply, dramatically.
‘Julian, seriously, if this is not an emergency, I need to call you back.’
‘Leo just called. One of the main bookers from Leno was at the showcase last week. They want me to perform on the show!’
‘No!’
‘It’s true! It’s a hundred percent guaranteed done deal. Next week, Tuesday night. Taping at five. I’ll be the musical performance on the show, probably right after the interviews. Do you believe it?’
‘Ohmigod!’
‘Brooke, say something else.’
She forgot where she was for a moment. ‘I can’t believe it. I mean, of course I can believe it, but it’s just so incredible.’ She heard Julian laughing and thought how long it’d been. ‘When are you home tonight? We must celebrate. I have something in mind …’
‘Does it involve my favorite mesh thingy?’
Brooke smiled into the phone. ‘I was thinking more along the lines of that Dom Pérignon we got as a gift and can never justify opening.’
‘Mesh. Tonight deserves champagne and mesh. Meet you home at eight? I’ll take care of dinner.’
‘You don’t have to deal with dinner. Let me pick something up. Or we can go out! Why don’t we go somewhere and really celebrate?’
‘Let me handle it,’ Julian said. ‘Please? I have something in mind.’
Brooke’s heart surged. Maybe now he’d be able to ease up on his time at the studio and spend more time at home. She felt the familiar pangs of excitement and anticipation she’d felt earlier in their marriage, before anything had become routine. ‘Absolutely. I’ll see you at eight. And, Julian? I can’t wait.’
‘Me neither.’ He made a kissing sound into the phone – something he hadn’t done in years – and hung up. For the first time in five full minutes, Brooke remembered where she was.
‘Wow, sounds like some hot stuff,’ Kaylie said with a grin. ‘Big date tonight?’
It never failed to amaze Brooke how young these girls really were, despite all the confident backtalk and a distressing familiarity with everything from extreme dieting to the best blow-job techniques. (Brooke had read a highly detailed how-to list when one of the girls left behind a notebook – so detailed, in fact, she briefly considered making a few notes for herself before realizing that taking sex tips from a high school freshman was horrifying on too many levels.)
‘Big date with my husband.’ Brooke corrected her, trying to salvage at least a little professionalism. ‘I’m so sorry for the interruption. Now, back to what—’
‘Sounded pretty exciting,’ Kaylie said. She loosened her grip on her hair just long enough to gnaw a hangnail on her right index finger. ‘What happened?’
Brooke was so relieved to see the girl smile that she said, ‘Yeah, actually it is really exciting. My husband is a musician. He just got a call from Leno’s people inviting him to be on the show.’ Brooke could hear her voice surge with pride, and although she knew it was both unprofessional and even silly to be sharing the news with her teenage patient, she was too happy to care.
Kaylie’s head snapped to full attention. ‘He’s going to be on Leno?’
Brooke nodded and shuffled some papers around on her desk in an unsuccessful attempt to hide her pleasure.
‘That is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever heard!’ the girl exclaimed, her ponytail bobbing as if to underscore her point.
‘Kaylie!’
‘Sorry, but it is! What’s his name and when’s he on? I want to make sure I see it.’
‘Next Tuesday night. His name is Julian Alter.’
‘That is so fuck – freaking cool. Congratulations, Mrs. A. Your husband must be pretty awesome if Leno wants him. You’re going to go to L.A. with him, right?’
‘What?’ Brooke asked. She hadn’t had a second to think about the logistics, but Julian hadn’t mentioned them either.
‘Isn’t Leno in L.A.? You, like, have to go with him.’
‘Of course I’ll go with him,’ Brooke replied automatically, although she had a nagging, uncomfortable feeling in the pit of her stomach that Julian’s omission of an invitation wasn’t just a detail that got lost in all the excitement.
Brooke still had another ten minutes with Kaylie, then a full hour afterwards with a Huntley gymnast whose coach’s weigh-ins were having disastrous effects on the girl’s self-esteem, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to concentrate for one more second. Figuring she’d already acted inappropriately by oversharing and using their session time to talk about her personal life, Brooke turned back to Kaylie.
‘I’m sorry to do this, sweetheart, but I need to cut our session short this afternoon. I’ll be back on Friday; and I’ll notify your sixth-period teacher that we didn’t get a chance to finish so we can reschedule another full session for then. Is that okay?’
Kaylie nodded. ‘Hell, yeah, Mrs. A. This is big news for you. Say congratulations to your husband f
or me, okay?’
Brooke smiled at her. ‘Thanks, I will. And, Kaylie? We’re going to continue talking about this. I can’t condone you losing weight, but if you want to talk about eating more healthfully, I’m happy to advise you. Does that sound good?’
Kaylie nodded and Brooke thought she may have even detected a small smile before the girl walked out of her office. Although she didn’t look the least bit fazed about cutting their session short, Brooke was overcome with guilt. It wasn’t easy to get these girls to open up, and she actually felt like she was starting to get somewhere with Kaylie.
Pledging to set things right with everyone on Thursday, Brooke sent a quick e-mail to Rhonda, her principal, claiming sudden sickness, threw all her stuff in a canvas tote bag, and jumped directly into the backseat of an idling taxi. Hell, if Leno wasn’t sufficient reason to splurge, nothing was.
Despite the fact that it was rush hour, the park crossing at Eighty-sixth Street wasn’t unbearable and the West Side Highway was moving at a brisk twenty miles an hour (downright dreamy for that time of night), and Brooke was delighted to find herself standing in her apartment by six thirty. She got down on the floor and let Walter lick her face for a few minutes and then gently replaced herself with a thickly braided, extra-smelly bully stick – Walter’s favorite. After pouring herself a glass of pinot grigio from an open bottle in the fridge and taking a long, deep swallow, Brooke toyed with the idea of posting Julian’s news as a Facebook status update but quickly dismissed it; she didn’t want to announce anything without running it by him first.
The first status update on her homepage was, unpleasantly, from Leo. Apparently, he had just linked his Twitter account to his Facebook page, and despite the fact he usually had not one redeeming tidbit to share, he was taking full advantage of the constant-update feature.
Leo Moretti … PUMPED JULIAN ALTER WILL BE ROCKING THE LENO SHOW NEXT TUESDAY. L.A., HERE WE COME …