Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 37

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 37
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

We were on a break, because Anna wanted to get a different bass to try something, so I called Paris. Because that’s what I did. I talked to Paris like a dozen times a day, or she wondered what I was doing. Not that I was doing anything wrong. Not that she ever knew what had happened in Japan. Even her gossip sources didn’t stretch to Tokyo.

It might have been easier if she had found out. But instead, I got off the plane in LA and she was waiting for me. With a couple of photographers, but there she was, and I just smiled and kissed her, because it was easier than fighting with her in the middle of LAX and by the time we’d gotten home, I’d forgotten what we’d fought about in the first place. I wasn’t sure that I ever knew what we’d fought about, actually.

“Yeah, I’ll be out of here around six or so and I’ll head over.”

I heard a weird noise behind me and turned around. Was Anna… crying?

“Yeah, I gotta go, princess. Talk to you soon.”

I flipped my phone closed, and went over to Anna, who was kneeling next to her bass case, just looking at it.

“What’s wrong, Anna?”

She looked up at me, tears in her eyes. “It’s broken.”

“What?”

She held the bass up to me, and the neck wasn’t attached to the body.

“How did that happen?”

“I don’t know,” she said, and she sounded so sad, I knelt across from her, putting my hands on her shoulders.

“It’s okay. We’ll get it fixed.”

She didn’t look at me, settling the bass back into its case. “You got me this bass.”

“I know,” I said. I remembered it.

“For my eighteenth birthday. It was my first real bass. You flew me and Tony out here, and took me to Stein on Vine and told me to pick out whatever I wanted.”

“That’s why we filmed the video there.” The video for ‘Help Me’ was just us wandering around Los Angeles, and Stein on Vine was Anna’s idea. They really did jazz stuff, but our bass player on the ’99 tour had recommended it, so that’s why I took Anna there.

She just nodded, stroking the bass. “That weekend was the first time I ever felt like a rock star. Or felt like you were. You flew us out first class, and got me this bass, and we went a fancy dinner, and some industry party afterwards.”

“We got so drunk,” I said, remembering. That was a fun weekend. In the complete insanity of my life in 1999, that was a great weekend.

She smiled, but still didn’t look up at me. “My first time for getting that drunk,” she said. “It was just… a great birthday. Probably my best birthday. And every time I played this guitar, I remembered that weekend.”

“We’ll fix it. We’ll go right now. Stein on Vine isn’t far, we’ll jump in my car and it’ll be fixed by the end of the day.”

She shook her head. “I don’t think we can.”

“Sure we can. Everyone can go home now, and we’ll go out together.”

She was quiet for a second, and then looked up at me. I knew that look.

“I’m not going.”

“Why not?”

“Not to fix the guitar. That’s a symbol, and it’s trying to tell me something. I’m not going on the tour.”

I knew that look. She was leaving me. I’d never seen that look from Anna, but it was the look that girls gave me when they left. It was a Rachel look, and it broke my heart.

“I’ll buy you a new bass, Anna.”

She stood up, away from me. “It’s not the bass. Or it is. This bass was a symbol of our friendship. Even when you were the most famous guy in the world, you remembered my birthday and you bought me this present that meant the world to me. But now? You asked me to be in your band, and I see you every day, and we could not be further apart. I thought I knew you. I thought you were my best friend, and I knew everything about you, but I don’t know you at all.”

I scrambled to my feet, reaching out for her again, but she stepped away. “Anna, you’re just upset. You do know me, better than anyone.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. Because I don’t understand what you’re doing with your life. I don’t understand why you’re with Paris. I don’t know the guy you are with her.”

“Anna…” I started, but she just went on.

“I didn’t expect you to spend every minute with me this month. And before you say it, this is not about what I told you about when… when we were in Miami with JC. I’m not jealous. I’m just… confused. I thought I was coming here to LA to be in your band and hang out with you. I didn’t expect you not to hook up with girls. But… Paris? You’re with her every minute, calling her all the time and going out to the clubs every night, and I didn’t think you were that guy.”

“She’s really nice once you get to know her,” I said, but it sounded like a lame excuse, even to me.

Anna raised an eyebrow at me. “Do you really think that Paris freaking Hilton would be friends with me? Fuck, she can’t even remember my name, and I’ve met her about a dozen times.”

I started to argue, but she was right.

“I’m right. You can’t even deny it. I’m not saying that I have to like every woman you go out with. But this is who you pick after Rachel? And it’s not just a fling. It’s been like a month now. You’re dressing up for her, and posing for pictures with her, and doing drugs with her. Not that I think you never do drugs. But in front of AJ?”

“I didn’t do anything in front of AJ!” I wasn’t that horrible of a friend.

“In front of. But I’m sure you did after we left.”

“I can do what I want. It was my fucking birthday!”

She took a step back when I yelled at her. “You’re right. You can do whatever you want. But I don’t have to watch it.”

“Anna, it’s not like I’ve become a vapid cokehead.”

“You just hang out with them,” she bit out and I just stared at her. How dare she be mad at me for this? She sounded like… Rachel.

“So what if I do? I’m twenty three-fucking years old and I’m allowed to have a little fun.” That’s what this six months was about!

“I’m not telling you not to. I’m just saying I don’t want to be around that sort of fun, and I don’t want to go on this tour.”

“The tour will be different. No Paris during the tour, she has her career…” I said and she shook her head, glancing back at her broken bass. The symbol now of our friendship?

“Maybe it will and maybe it won’t. I don’t want to take that chance.”

I didn’t know what to say. I was angry and hurt and sad all at once. I didn’t know what to say. I wanted to just be mad at her. Then I could tell her to just leave and I wouldn’t care, but…

I cared. She was Anna, and I’d known her forever and she was my best friend, and I knew if she left now, that was it.

“It’s not the end, Nick,” she said softly, making me look at her. “I’m not walking away from you forever. I just thought that after you broke up with Rachel, it was a chance for you to work on things, to grow up a little and figure out what you wanted, and I really wanted to help you with that.”

“You did. You do.”

She smiled a little at that. “I haven’t for a while. That’s fine. Maybe this is what you need to do now. But I don’t need to be here watching it. When you’re over the wild and crazy living stage, give me a call and I’ll be there. But I don’t need to be here watching it. I’m watching how you’re acting now and the tour scares me. I don’t want to take the Paris and Nick show on the road.”

“We’re not. She’s not coming with me.”

Paris had stuff to do in LA, she said. She had lots of projects that were going on, none of which ever seemed to pan out into anything real, but whatever. Paris would just join me on the road sometimes, in the big cities, and the nice hotels. We were playing some pretty small venues, and since I was paying for the whole thing, we were planning on spending a lot of nights on the bus.

I wanted Anna on the bus. She was the only girl in the band, and I knew she’d keep the bus nice. She’d make sure we ate our vegetables and picked up our smelly socks.

“She’ll be around enough. And you’ll be on the phone with her, and I hate watching that.” She made a disgusted face, and I had to laugh. “You’re very… weird with her. I don’t know what it is. You’re not Nick. Not my Nick. Whatever. I’m gonna go get a real job, and you’ll find a great bass player, and it’ll be okay.”

“No,” I said. “Give me…tonight. We’re going to go out to dinner tonight.”

“Did you just tell Paris you’d go out with her?”

“Whatever. This is more important. Where do you want to go?”

“Roscoe’s.”

I grinned. I loved Anna. “Roscoe’s it is. Take the afternoon off- everyone take the afternoon off- and I’ll see you back at the apartment at six or something. And I’ll get this fixed.”

I bent down and closed the case on her broken bass.

“You don’t have to fix it, Nick. I hardly use it any more,” she said, but I ignored her, picking up the case carefully and wincing with her as we heard the pieces move inside.

“No. This one is special. I’ll see you later.” Rachel still had her first guitar, even though she didn’t use it. It was in the corner of her music room at the Point house.

I wanted this guitar to be like that for Anna.

I ran out, telling everyone that we were done for the day.

“ Meet me at Roscoe’s,” I said, and Anna laughed.

It had been a while since I’d made Anna laugh, I realized.

“You know you said you’d meet me at six, right? And now it’s almost seven?”

“I was doing… stuff. I’ll show you when you get to Roscoe’s.”

“Okay,” she said. “I’m leaving now. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

I hung up with her and my phone rang immediately. Paris.

“Hey, princess,” I said in my Paris voice. Shit! Anna was right! I had a “Paris voice.” How fucked up was that?

“Where are you, baby?”

Why could she call me ‘baby,’ but I couldn’t call her that? Wasn’t that a double standard?

Shit. I hadn’t told Paris about the change in plans. I knew there was something I was forgetting.

“Sorry. Something… came up at rehearsal, and I need to take care of it now.”

That wasn’t a lie at all. I just wasn’t telling her that the ‘something’ was Anna.

“Now? But we’re going out tonight.”

“Let me know where you are. I might not be able to get to my phone, but if I’m done early enough, I’ll come join you.”

Paris rarely left the house before eleven. I had tons of time. I could have dinner with Anna and still meet up with Paris tonight.

“I miss you, Nicky. You always help me pick out the best outfits.”

She did always wear what I wanted her to.

“You know what I like, P. Surprise me with something. I’ll see you in a few hours.”

“Okay. Bye bye, Nicky. Love you.”

“Bye, princess, see you soon.”

That was shockingly easy. I had expected a lot more grief about not being at her place by now.

But fuck that. Every night was the same. I left rehearsal and went to her house while she spent hours getting ready to go out. I watched a lot of TV while she was in her bedroom with her makeup artist and hairstylist.

She had people to help her get ready every night. Was it bad that I couldn’t tell the difference when they made her up and she did it herself? I actually preferred her without her extensions and makeup, but whenever I told her that, she just laughed at me and called me a ‘stupid boy’ who didn’t understand fashion.

Was I really getting used to a lot of weird stuff with Paris? She had a big life, and it was easy to get caught up in it. I went to her parties and wore the clothes she picked out for me and bought her lots of presents.

I’d bought stuff for Anna this afternoon and actually had to think about what she might like. Not just shiny and pretty and pink, but something that meant something to Anna. To us. It was fun, to think about things a little more.

I probably should have gotten something for Paris while I was out shopping. I was blowing her off tonight, and she’d expect me to be sorry and apologetic about that.

What the hell was I doing? Fuck that. I had a life, too, and Paris had to get used to that. I couldn’t always just do what she wanted to do. Sometimes I wanted to see Anna, or have lunch with AJ, and not have to explain it all to my girlfriend.

Rachel never made me explain things like this. Then again, Rachel liked Anna and encouraged me to hang out with her. Paris couldn’t remember Anna’s name.

I really needed to break up with Paris. I didn’t love her. I had fun with her, and she made me feel important and really hot when she was paying attention to me, but sometimes when we were out with her friends, she was laughing and talking with them and I felt completely ignored. Then I’d drink more, and get jealous. Then we’d end up in one of those screaming fights that I hated, because they reminded me of my parents. I did not want to end up like my parents. Did Pops get splitting headaches after fighting with my mom? Because fighting with Paris sometimes made me sick.

Okay, maybe that was the drugs. I had to stop doing so much coke.

Paris could go out with her friends tonight, and I’d hang with Anna. That was normal. Healthy, even, for couples to have some time apart. Anna and I would have a great dinner at Roscoe’s, then go back to our apartment and play video games or watch TV or something. That sounded like way more fun than going out to the clubs. Again.

My phone rang with a text message, and I picked it up, one eye on the road. It’s not like we were going over twenty miles an hour on the freeway. I could be on the phone.

Sometimes I wondered if that’s all LA traffic was. Everyone was on their phone, so they were distracted and not going very fast.

Nah. I’d seen plenty of people in LA driving eighty miles an hour while talking on their cell. I did it all the time.

It was from Paris. “Which one?” it asked, and I looked at the pictures. The blue thong or the red one? She was wearing them in the photos.

There was a reason I stayed with her.

“Neither,” I texted back.

I got the picture I expected in return. She loved to pose for pictures.

She grinned and picked it up, turning it over. “They fixed it that quick?”

“Said it wasn’t a big deal. They had to replace a bit on the back and reinforce it, and it’s fine. Said it was a common defect in this make that year, and sometimes it takes a while for the stress of playing to make it snap.”

It sorta was. I’d taken it in to the store and had to convince the guy that it was a matter of life or death to have it repaired today. I paid like triple the going rate for the repair, but he’d had it done by six.

I picked up the blue Tiffany’s bag in the trunk, and I caught her glancing at it. I smiled to myself and led her towards the restaurant.

I made her wait until we ordered until I pushed the bag across the table. “That’s for me?” she asked, just looking at it.

“I… figured it was for Paris, and you didn’t want to leave it in the car.”

She did, giving me a shy little smile, and then pulling out two boxes tied with satin bows. “Two boxes?”

“You’ll see. Open… this one first.” I pushed the long box closer to her, and she untied the ribbon, giving me little confused but happy looks.

It was a charm bracelet, with three charms: an “A”, an “N”, and a tiny little box. “Open the box,” I told her reaching across the table and helping her flip open the lid on it.

“Give me a minute,” she answered, fingering the charms. “This is really sweet.”

“We can get charms in every city this tour. I know you don’t really wear bracelets, but…”

I smiled back at her when she looked up at me. “The other one is better,” I said, and she laughed.

“Okay, then. I can’t believe you got me two things from Tiffany’s!”

She undid the ribbon on the little necklace box, and just stared at it, covering her mouth with her hand. I leaned across the table, explaining it to her. “It’s your bass,” I said.

“I know,” she responded, her voice quiet.

Her bass had luckily been already been a really sparkly black. So it was easy to take the piece, and have the jeweler cut it into a star, and put a diamond in the middle. It had only taken about forty-five minutes and my AmEx Black.

“It’s a star, because you’re always a rock star. You don’t need to be on tour with me to prove that.”

She got up and came around the table to hug me. “I love it,” she whispered. “And I love that you just said that even more.”

“I love you, Anna,” I whispered to her as I pulled her down next to me. I didn’t care if people were staring or someone took our picture and Paris heard about it later. I hugged her for a long moment. “I really, really do.”

“I know.” She kissed me gently, and then reached over for the box. “I’m never going to take it off.”

I helped her fasten it on, and she went back to her seat, holding the necklace and looking down at it. “This is a perfect present.”

“The people at Tiffany’s are really nice,” I said. “When the guy popped out the piece of the bass, and said that would need to be replaced, I had him give it to me, and I took it over there. So, I told the nice lady the whole story…”

“That’s a pretty necklace, baby,” the waitress said, noticing Anna playing with it. “What did he do?”

We laughed, and Anna shook her head. “He might have fixed it. We’ll see how I feel at the end of dinner.”

The waitress winked at me. “I’m gonna make her an extra-special waffle, don’t you worry. Because waffles make everyone happy.”

She left as we laughed, and I smiled at Anna. “Okay, I didn’t tell the lady at Tiffany’s the whole story. I told her that this was a piece of a guitar I’d gotten for my best friend, and the guitar was being fixed, and I wanted something really special. So, she brought the actual jeweler out from the back- like, the guy that makes all the actual stuff…”

“Cool,” Anna said, nodding along to my story, her fingers never leaving her necklace. I liked seeing her playing with it and knowing that I put that smile on her face. I’d realized today just how much I’d been hurting her lately and… I didn’t want to keep doing that. I’d done that with Rachel because I was stubborn and stupid. I didn’t want to be that guy anymore.

“And the three of us looked at it, and he said he could make a heart, or a circle, and put a stone in the middle. I thought of a star, since you love feeling like a rock star.”

Anna gave me a teasing, doubtful look, and I pretended to be hurt. “I did! I can be thoughtful.”

I grinned. I loved giving good presents. “I’m glad. I know you don’t play that guitar that much, but now you have something you can wear all the time to remind you of when I gave it to you.”

“And now I can remember… this, too. How you really proved that you love me.”

I took her hands. “I really do, Anna. I know it’s not how you want me to love you, but…”

“That’s not…” Her voice was soft and she couldn’t look me in the eye. “Damnit!” She chastised herself and took her hands out of mine, wiping her eyes. I just sat there like the stupid boy I was. “I don’t want to do this, Nick. I don’t want to be this girl. I’m not pining for you… that’s not it… it’s just…”

“I take you for granted, Anna, and that’s not fair. You are my best friend. Fuck Tony and Vinnie. You’re the one that I want to be friends with when I’m seventy years old. You are the one that understands me and doesn’t just see me as a chick magnet or open wallet. You get me.”

“She’s not Rachel. She’s everything Rachel wasn’t. She’s easy.” I surprised myself with the quick comparison and when I looked up at Anna, her expression matched mine.

I nodded. “Not… you know, like that. Just… when Rachel and I broke up, she said something about being sorry that being in a relationship with her was so hard and I told her that it was. Being with her was the hardest I’ve ever worked at any relationship. She was the first girl I was with that I couldn’t just placate with gifts and stuff. Hell, I can even get my mom to forgive me with a good gift.”

“No! If I can fix something, shouldn’t I want to? I want you to stay in my life, Anna, and if you don’t do this tour then you won’t do that. I’ll lose you.”

I shook my head, biting my tongue as the waitress sat our plates down on the table.

“Extra special waffle for the lady,” she said, and then winked at Anna. “His isn’t so good. He needs to pay for something, I can tell.”

“What? That you don’t deserve good waffles?” Anna asked, buttering her waffle carefully. She liked lots of butter and drowned it in syrup. Rachel didn’t even use syrup on her waffles. She liked the unadulterated waffle experience, she said.

“Everything can’t be about her, you know. What’s going to happen if she doesn’t show in March?”

Guess I shouldn’t share that unadulterated waffle story with Anna, then.

My heart skipped a beat just like it did every time I thought of meeting Rachel in March. I’d gotten good at not pining for Rachel- Paris made that easy, too- but I was still scared that she wouldn’t show. That in her time away she’d figured out that she was better off without me. Maybe we were all about the sex and drama for her and that’s not a relationship. Why would she want to work on that after she’d had that lawyer guy? He had more money than me and she didn’t need the fame or the complications.

But I still couldn’t vocalize any of those things. These were the thoughts that gave me nightmares.

“She promised she’d be there. We promised we’d give each other a chance,” I said as I dug into my waffle.

“She told me to get it out of my system! She just… couldn’t watch. Damnit! I’m so stupid, Anna. I’m sorry.”

We both laughed at that and for a moment the tension was broken. “And you don’t want to watch, either.”

“Maybe it is, though. Maybe I’m not the guy that you and Rachel want me to be. Maybe I’m just a vapid cokehead like the rest of them,” I reasoned.

Anna didn’t even let the last word linger between us. “No. You’re better than that, Nick.”

Anna took a moment to answer, staring intently as she stirred her iced tea with her straw. “No. That’s just you, Nick. You want everyone to be happy, but sometimes that isn’t what’s best for you.”

I looked at her for a moment. Did I make the wrong decision? Anna understood me in ways that Rachel didn’t – or wouldn’t or something.

There were reasons for that. Fucking Anna would mess up everything. We’d break up eventually, everyone did. And then I’d have no friends when I was seventy.

“I know,” I said. “You were first, and I always want you to be my friend.” I took her hand across the table, and she let me this time.

“Because you keep me sane. Ever since Rachel left, you’re the only thing that keeps me grounded.”

“You call going out every night with the heiress and her vapid friends grounded?” She had a point.

I took her hand in both of mine, kissing it. “Please,” I begged, and she smiled at me, but she wasn’t convinced. I could read it in her eyes.

“Because… it’s a tour. I know it’s not a Backstreet tour, with great hotels and someone else taking care of all the details, but… it’s still fans and being on stage and… I can be a real asshole on tour. I even got that way when Rachel wasn’t around, sometimes.”

“You can, though. I get stupid and I hate myself in the morning. You’ll be able to remind me of that.”

“Sometimes,” I admitted. “We… I… yeah,” I finally said. “Sometimes I hate myself in the mornings.”

“I can’t stop you from doing stupid things with her, and I can’t stop you from doing stupid things on tour, Nick.”

“If you’re there, I can try to be a better guy. But if you’re not…”

“Why can’t you just be a better guy to be a better guy? Why does it have to be for me? Or even for Rachel?”

Shit. I was crying in the middle of Roscoe’s. And I had barely even touched my food yet.

“This is probably not the time or place for psychoanalysis, but you can be a better guy, Nick. You are a better guy. You don’t have to live down to everyone’s low expectations of you.”

She came around the table to hug me again. “Rachel, too,” she whispered. “Rachel knows the guy I do.”

“We can. You just…” she pulled away, making me look at her. “You gotta get it together, superstar. Not just crying at Roscoe’s, you gotta stop taking the fucking easy road.”

“If you want to be with Paris, fine. If you see things in her that I don’t, that’s…” I snorted, making her laugh. “Okay, there’s nothing to see there. Then you have to break up with her, and spend some time on the tour figuring out what you want. That might be Rachel, it might not. But if you keep going like you are, it’s going to be March and Rachel’s going to say it was nice knowing you.”

“I know you don’t. I know you better than you know yourself, remember?”

“Did you make the boy cry?” our waitress asked, and we turned to look at her. “After he gave you that pretty necklace and everything? Can’t you see he’s sorry?”

“The power of waffles,” the waitress said. “I’m bringing you two some more chicken. Looks like you need it.”

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