“His face looked like a tomato.”
“Stop it, Marcy. Just because he got a bit of a sunburn.”
“Oh, come on, Sally, I’m not talking about the sunburn. I’m talking about the fat.”
“Yeah, Sally,” chimed in the third girl. “He’s put on a ton of weight. I guess not being on tour really takes a toll.”
Abby had a sneaking suspicion she knew who they were talking about.
“I don’t care,” said Sally. “So he’s put on a few pounds. Who here is perfect? And he’s still my…my Nick.” She blushed when she said it and lowered her voice, glancing over at Abby to see if she was listening.
“Yeah, well he hasn’t been ‘my Nick’ since he broke up the group,” said Marcy.
“He didn’t break up the group,” insisted Sally. The other two rolled their eyes. Abby could see that this discussion had happened before.
“They’re done, finished, kaput,” said the third girl.
“No, they’re not, they’re going to record again.” Abby was quite surprised to discover that the person who had spoken was herself. The three aestheticians looked over at her.
“Do you know something we don’t know?” asked Marcy.
Abby shook her head. Damn! She had almost spilled the secret. “But you gotta have faith, right?”
Sally beamed at her. Another fan! They were everywhere! She opened her mouth to ask the woman who had spoken if she knew that Nick was staying right here at Brookhaven Lodge, but Gail took the woman’s attention away. The woman signed the bill and was gone before Sally had a chance to say anything else. Just as well. She might get in trouble for gossiping about the guests.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nick wandered back to Rose Cottage. Its big attraction at the moment was the air conditioning. His face felt so hot, he thought he might just drag a chair over to the vent and ice himself down.
So he was staying here for the week, was he? he mused to himself. It had seemed like a good idea when he had said it to the waiter, but that meant a lot of hours to put in between now and Friday. It was hard to put in time on your own and he didn’t know anybody here. Well, he knew Abby…sort of… Did he want to spend time with Abby? He thought about that. He certainly didn’t want to spend the time wondering if she were about to harm herself in some way.
He started to giggle as he pictured them walking on the beach, he at the ready, in case she plunged into the waves…or strolling down the street of whatever the little town was called, his arms outstretched as they walked to stop her from leaping in front of a truck. A little voice in the back of his head told him that he was being mean and he stopped laughing. He guessed her pain was as real as his pain.
His pain.
Ronni. His pain.
Yeah, his big pain in the butt, he told himself with bravado. Over it, done, all sucked up and moving on, he told himself. And he looked over at the door and wished with all his heart that she would walk through it.
He went and stretched out on the bed. He didn’t have a book to read, not that he was a big reader at the best of times; he didn’t have Nintendo - it didn’t come with the cottage and he hadn’t planned on having a lot of alone time. There was a television, but it was soap opera time and he wasn’t into that. He spent twenty minutes surfing through the channels anyway, before he figured out that there was nothing of interest. He didn’t want a nap, he’d already done that, thank you very much, and look at the price he was paying for that. He turned his head and looked at the guitar case sitting in the corner.
He’d brought it along with some half-assed idea about serenading Ronni or something. He’d carefully planned the whole week with her. The only part he’d been a bit fuzzy on was the actual proposal. He hadn’t wanted to plan it out word by word because if something screwed up and they didn’t stick to the script, he would have been flustered. So he developed a couple of scenarios in his head, figuring he could go with the flow, but have some idea of where the flow was going.
And one of the scenarios had included the guitar. Pretty cheesy idea, he thought now. Like one of those old musicals, where everything is going along fine and suddenly, someone bursts into song. What did he think he was going to do? Stop in the middle of dinner and grab the guitar? A musical interlude and a proposal between the shrimp and the linguini? Ronni would have thought he was nuts.
He got off the bed and got out the guitar. He took it out into the living room and sat in the armchair. But it wasn’t comfortable. He tried the loveseat. Nope, that wasn’t it. Damn good thing he hadn’t had to serenade Ronni. He would have looked like an idiot moving from chair to chair.
Finally, he went back into the bedroom and piled up all the pillows on the bed. He went into the second bedroom and got the pillows from there. He built himself a nest, shifting the pillows around until he was comfortable. Then he began to play, idle notes at first, just warming up his fingers, then familiar tunes. He didn’t sing, but hummed a few of the sections.
After awhile, he started experimenting with notes, different combinations. His fingers seemed to be working of their own accord. His brain was focused elsewhere, accepting the calming music as a backdrop for other thoughts. Like how heartache really did hurt…physically, it was real pain…people talked about broken hearts and the pain of loving, but they meant it metaphorically. You didn’t hear songs about how you doubled up in agony as the pain sliced through you, how you gasped for breath and used all your will power to keep your stomach where it was, how the salty tears that pricked at your eyes just before you cried felt like needles…people didn’t write songs about that.
And suddenly, he leapt off the bed and raced into the living room. He rummaged through the drawer in the sideboard looking for paper. All he could find was a couple of the small hotel notepads and two sheets of 5 x 7 stationery. It would have to do. He grabbed the pen and headed back to the bedroom.
And now his brain focused on the music. He played and he thought and he hummed and he sang. And he wrote. He wrote it down. Then he crossed it out. Then he wrote some more.
He only stopped once, when his face started to hurt. He applied some of the lotion Sally had given him and it took the sting out of the sunburn. He looked stupid, he thought, but he knew that it would fade to a tan in a day or so. He hoped it didn’t peel. That would be too gross. He washed the lotion off his hands and went back to the song.
When he looked up from it, satisfied that it was indeed a song, he saw that the light was fading. He looked at his watch. Cripes! It was nearly eight o’clock. He knew what he had to do now with his song. He had to walk away from it. Physically. Set down the guitar, get up and walk away. Otherwise, he would just keep picking at the song until he wrecked it. He’d learned that early on. Walk away, do something else, come back later. You might come back to find that you’d wasted your time and had nothing. Or you might come back to find that you had Do I Have to Cry for You?
Dinner. He was hungry. That’s what he would do. He would walk up to the lodge and have some dinner. He didn’t like eating alone, but the alternative was to have something delivered to the cottage. And he didn’t want that. The memory of last night’s dinner would haunt him for a while yet. He wasn’t about to do it again. Maybe Abby would be in the dining room.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Abby looked at her watch. Eight o’clock. She looked around the dining room. She hated eating alone. This hadn’t been too bad, though. It was a Monday, there weren’t many people here. The weekenders were gone and the corporate types didn’t usually arrive until Wednesday. There were a couple of families with kids, but they had been finishing as Abby arrived. She sat in a quiet corner, enjoying her meal and reading a book and trying not to be disappointed that Nick wasn’t there. She wasn’t sure that she would have enjoyed watching him eat; breakfast had been interesting enough, but it would have been someone to talk to.
Someone to talk to. Yeah, I guess. International singing sensation. And she had thought he was a loser like her! He wouldn’t have to worry about having a broken heart for long, that was for sure. Still, it would have been nice to have someone to talk to.
Oh well, too bad. She dropped her napkin on her plate and stood up. She nodded her thanks to the waiter and left the room. She guessed she’d go watch a movie. Ocean’s Eleven was playing at nine o’clock. George Clooney, Brad Pitt and a complicated heist plot. Boy, if that couldn’t take your mind off things, what could?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Nick looked around the dining room. It was almost deserted. And no Abby. Too bad. It would have been nice to have someone to talk to. Oh well, he’d just grab something quick from the buffet and go back to the cottage. There was a good movie coming on at nine o’clock.
He stood at the buffet table. Salad! He’d have salad. He’d put something nutritious in his stomach for once. He’d have a nice big plate of salad and that would be it. He filled his plate with lettuce and all the toppings. He slipped a couple of deviled eggs onto the side of the plate. He added a small scoop of potato salad and one of macaroni salad. There! He grabbed a roll from a basket at the end of the table and headed back to his place.
He was going to stick with water as a beverage, but the waiter informed him that the dining room was featuring German beer on tap this week. Nick said he’d try one of those. By the time the waiter got back with the beer, Nick was half-finished the salad. It was really good, the ingredients fresh and crisp.
Nick finished off the salad and sipped the beer. It was good beer. He thought he’d ask the waiter what the name was. He’d have to write it down, otherwise he wouldn’t remember. Mmm, that roast beef smelled good. He wandered over to the buffet table where a lonely chef stood by a roast of beef, carving tools at the ready. Nick held out his plate and the chef dropped a large slice on it.
“Thanks,” said Nick, prepared to move on. The chef held up another slice. “Sure,” said Nick, and watched the second piece of meat drop onto his plate.
“Roast potatoes or mashed?” The chef moved down the table with him to a series of metal dishes sitting over hot water and under lights. Nick chose roasted potatoes and peas. He shook his head at the cauliflower.
“Gravy?”
What the hell, thought Nick, holding out his plate. He grabbed another roll from the basket and headed back. All-inclusive joints don’t make much profit off me, he thought ruefully, as he looked down at his plate. Then he picked up his knife and fork and ate the entire meal, sopping up the remaining gravy with his roll.
He leaned back in his chair. I ate too much, he thought. Again. I should go for a jog along the beach. He looked at his watch. No, he wouldn’t have time for that. The movie would be starting soon. But tomorrow morning, he would do that. Tomorrow morning, he was going to start getting in shape.
