Oreos for Breakfast: Chapter 38

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 38
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

I was trying to stop smiling and act like Rachel was just a friend coming to my show, but… I was grinning like an idiot. I grinned while we fought over who got to pay the bill, and I laughed with her when the waitress gave us our glasses to take with us. I smiled more on the elevator down to the lobby even though Rachel made me look at the view. Usually I hated heights, but not with her beside me.

My car was waiting for us, and I stepped in front of her to open the door. “This is not a limo, Nick,” she said, and I smiled. More. Again. Something.

“I’m paying for the tour out of my own pocket, remember?”

“If I had known that you were so hard up, I would have sent a limo. Or we could have met somewhere closer to the venue.”

“No, you picked the Bonaventure. And it was cool. I’m glad we went there.” Not that I had been paying attention to the revolving restaurant. Once or twice I’d noticed the view had changed, but I was mostly looking at her or trying not to. But the drinks were good, and the glasses were really cool. A memento of tonight.

“It was just… the first place that popped into my head,” she said, and I think both of us were trying not to think too much about when and why she had to pick it. “It didn’t have to be there.”

“It was fine, Rache. I don’t mind that I had to drive. Everything in LA is an hour away from anything else.”

She always used to say that when they were in LA recording the album. She remembered that, too, smiling down at me from her seat, and I shut the door for her.

I ran around the car, jumping into my seat and popping the GPS up, as she looked around. “Is this your car?” she asked, and I glanced over at her.

“Yeah.”

“I mean… it’s not a rental. It’s your regular Escalade.”

“Yep,” I said, pulling out of the hotel driveway and into traffic. “I’ve been too busy to buy a new car.”

“How did it get here?”

“Anna drove it out after the holidays, before we started rehearsals.”

“Why didn’t you just rent something?” she asked.

I sometimes wondered that myself. Once Anna had gotten here, I’d rented a car for her. I could have rented two.

We were at a light, and I looked over at Rachel with a shrug. “It seemed like a good idea at the time? I thought… I still might… I thought I’d stay.”

Because of Paris. But now… Ken was here, and the record company, and LA made as much sense as anywhere else.

“In LA?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

I never could have thought about living in LA while I was still with Rachel. She hated it here. She was New York girl, through and through.

Another good reason not to be with her. I could live wherever I wanted.

“I like it here. The business is out here, and I like the people. And the weather. It’s like Florida, only I can work here, not just vacation.”

“Plenty of palm trees,” she mused, looking out the window as we pulled onto the freeway.

I fucking hated LA traffic, though.

“Did you really get rid of everything from when you were recording here?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she said. “We all tried to pretend that it was okay, but it wasn’t. One night on the No Doubt tour, Darien freaked out and told us that we had to start acting like friends again…”

“What happened?” That was the great thing about Sudden Silence. They were friends more than anything else.

She shrugged. “The pressures of fame? I don’t know. We were just… all doing our own things. Even Darien, even though he tried to make it sound like it was us, not him. But, he went out and stocked the fridge…”

“Was he not stocking the bus with food?” But that was Darien’s job! He bought all the snacks and stuff.

She smirked. “See? He wasn’t doing his Sudden Silence friend duties, either! But, that day he did, and he freaked out on the rest of us when we tried to sneak off and do our own things. Like, oh, sleep. But, we started talking, and Jeremy finally showed us some songs he’d been working on.”

“Was he working on them in secret?”

She gave me a knowing look. “He was thinking of a solo album. It is the inevitable next step. Band is successful, someone makes a solo album,” she said pointedly, and I glanced over to scowl at her. Backstreet was on a break! I could make a solo album.

Rachel smiled at my scowl, going on with her story. “But we stole the songs back from him and recorded in New York in December, and it’s a much better album. EMI doesn’t really think so, but we do.”

“That’s what matters,” I said like a seasoned solo performer. If the last six months had taught me anything, it was that success was fleeting, so I’d better just do what made me happy.

“Exactly. Are you working on new stuff?”

“Yeah,” I told her. “Some. I don’t know if they’re for Backstreet or me, but I’ve got a couple of things. Anna’s really good to write with.”

“I’m sure she is. I’d like to hear them.”

“I want to hear the AJ song.” I countered. Did that mean we’d see each other again after tonight? Friends did that. They could just get together to talk and listen to each other’s new CDs.

She smiled. “Just the AJ song? Or would you prefer the whole album?” She pulled a CD out of her purse, and I looked at it.

“Is that it?” I asked.

“I wasn’t sure you’d want it.”

“Of course I do!” He glanced around, and I could tell he was trying to gauge if he should put it in or not. Traffic was moving okay, so we probably only had time for a few songs.

I smiled at him. Maybe… maybe friends would be okay. Things were a little weird, but we still had plenty to talk about.

“This is just the new album. ‘Sober’s not on there. The album was done I wrote that and… it doesn’t really fit.” Most of the CD was upbeat, even the ballads, and “Sober”… wasn’t.

“I’ll make AJ give it to me. I have my ways,” he joked. I liked it when he joked. It made me feel like we were okay again.

I didn’t know if I wanted Nick to have “Sober”. I mean, he could always download it. It was floating around on a few fan sites. But I’d purposely just brought one of the advance copies of the album, not the collection of extra tracks and demos that I’d thought about making, because… although AJ called “Sober” his song, it was mine, too.

Everything I’d written lately was about Nick. I was still too raw to write about him for the album, so those songs were okay. I could share them with Nick, and the world. But not “Sober”. I was dumb to think it could just be a one-off performance. Not in the age of the internet.

“What do you mean when you say it’s AJ’s song?” he asked, looking at his mirrors as he switched lanes. Of course Nick was good in LA traffic. It just made me crazy.

“I never really said it was AJ’s song,” I corrected. “AJ says it’s AJ’s song.”

Nick smiled at my tone. “So he didn’t write it?”

“No. He inspired it, completely. And another one, too. And he sang backing on ‘Sober’, when we recorded it on JC’s four track. Have I told you that JC is my neighbor?”

“Anna told me that ages ago,” he said, like it was old news.

“Oh, yeah. The strip club night,” I said, watching as he pretended great concentration on his mirrors.

“JC told you?” he asked, his voice a little nervous.

“Yes. He said if he was going to be not gay, it would be with someone like Anna.”

“I told them they should date!” he insisted, and I giggled.

“JC’s gay.”

“But if he wasn’t! Anna needs a nice guy.” Apparently Nick wasn’t that nice guy for Anna? I filed that away to think about later when I was alone and my paranoia got to me.

“So did JC. And he got James.”

“Then get me someone else for Anna,” Nick said.

“What am I, a matchmaking service? If I find a nice guy, I get him first!”

“How about Ben?” Nick asked. “He was nice, right?”

“Too old for Anna.”

“Darn. So, how did AJ inspire songs?” he asked, and I realized it might easier to have this conversation when he had to keep paying attention to something besides me. Would my face give me away as I talked about AJ?

“He just…” I shook my head. It was a long story, and I wasn’t sure how much Nick knew already from AJ. Probably nothing about AJ kissing me. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be sitting next to me if he knew that part. There was probably some secret guy code that said you couldn’t kiss your friend’s ex-girlfriend, even if she was an ex.

Yeah, that was part of the secret girl code, too. AJ and I had fucked that one up.

I was completely sure that fucking your ex-boyfriend’s biggest pop star rival broke all the codes in the book, but we didn’t need to talk about that. We were just friends. No need to discuss all of our conquests.

“What did AJ say about it?” I asked, trying to stop thinking about Justin.

“That you wrote him a song, and it’s the best song ever, of course.”

“It is good,” I admitted, making Nick smile over at me.

“You wrote it. Your songs are usually good.” He just sounded sweet and affirming about that. Not jealous. I had figured he’d be jealous that I’d been writing songs for AJ. He knew I usually only wrote songs about boyfriends, so I wasn’t sure how he’d feel about me writing songs for AJ.

“And AJ and Ben can fight it out over the best song ever title. Not that either song will ever make it on a Sudden Silence album.”

“Ben and AJ?” he asked, then stopped himself.

Okay. Maybe a little jealous over the AJ thing. Good to know.

“Tell me about your new apartment,” he said instead, and I smiled.

“It’s awesome. JC was looking, and I ended up buying the one next door. JC’s is bigger, but we share the courtyard.”

“Where is it?”

“Overlooking Central Park. Fiftieth floor of a new Trump building. We have the penthouse floor.”

“Nice…” he said, smiling at me. “James give up that place on Washington Square yet?”

“His stuff is getting moved into JC’s as we speak, probably. He was there all the time anyway, and now that JC’s out, there’s no reason to pretend to live somewhere else.”

“You and James are finally neighbors. Does he come in and feed the cat when you’re away? Did you bring Bates down from home?”

Ow. I’d been doing really well at not thinking about Bates for a bit.

She didn’t answer me, and I looked over at her quickly. She was looking out the window, and I was about to repeat my question about Bates until I heard her take a shakey breath.

“Oh… I’m sorry, Rache. What happened?”

“Cancer,” she said, her voice quiet. “It was really quick at the end. One day he wouldn’t get off my bed, and he ended up at the hospital for three days of incredibly expensive tests. Nothing they could do, so I brought him home and fed him pastrami for every meal for the next week and a half.”

I reached over, taking her hand. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, her voice sad. “He had a good life. And I know he was really happy at the end. He loved having me all to himself in the new place. We had a couple of really nice months. I just… I miss him. I know he was just a cat, but I miss him. He was in the apartment from the beginning, so I’m looking for him around every corner. It’s good that we’re going on tour. Maybe when I go back, it’ll be okay there.”

“When did this happen?” I asked, kicking myself for bringing up something sad. Then again, how was I supposed to know commenting about her cat was going to make her sad?

“Oh, just last week. A week ago yesterday is when James and I took him to the vet for… you know. The last time.”

“I’m sorry,” I said again.

“It was really horrible night,” she said, obviously just wanting to talk about it. “I mean… not like Dad or anything. Or maybe worse. I don’t know. I wasn’t there for Dad, it was just… over. But Bates started acting weird as I was getting ready for bed, looking for somewhere to hide, and I just knew it was the end. It was like midnight on a Saturday, and my regular vet had said she’d come over and… euthanasize him when it was time, but she was out of town for the weekend. Little bastard couldn’t wait another day so that he could go at home, could he? So I got him to come on the bed with me, and I sat with him for… I don’t know. A long time. He’d cry, and twitch, and I talked to him, and I could see him just slipping away. I wanted him to just go naturally, but I couldn’t watch him suffer anymore. Finally I called James and just cried. He was so good- he called the animal hospital, and got us a cab and took care of everything while I cried. I wrapped him up in a blanket and held him on my lap in the cab and… I’ll never forget what his little body felt like.”

She crossed her arms over herself, sighing.

“Sorry,” she said, and I could see her wipe away a tear. “I know he was just a cat.”

“He wasn’t just a cat. He was Bates. And you loved him.”

She was crazy about that cat. He was cranky and hated everyone but her, and she adored him.

“I did,” she said sadly. “I really did. It was so tough, those few days. I spoiled him rotten. Fed him pastrami, and chicken from this great street cart a few blocks away, whatever he wanted.”

“Pastrami and chicken from a cart. What a New York cat.”

She laughed a little at that. “He loved being in the city. He’d sit in the window for hours. I’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’d be sitting in my bedroom window, just looking down at the city. He was a good cat.”

“And you were a good mom.”

“When I was around, yes. And when I wasn’t, he had Mom. He loved her, too.”

“Just not as much as you,” I reminded her, remembering the times he’d tried to kill me when we were first together. No one would ever love her more than Bates.

She smiled. “No. He did always love me best. Anyway. Bet you’re sorry you asked now, huh?”

“Nah,” I said, smiling over at her. “Glad you told me.”

“It’s probably going to be all over the press. I was late to an interview last week because I couldn’t get him to eat, and I was all filled with rage, but the interviewer was a cat person. We ended up trading cat stories for a while. Either she’s going to use it, or it will be the most boring interview ever. Rachel Conner, crazy cat lady.”

I laughed. “Now that’s a headline."

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