I exhale a long breath, not knowing what to reply to that. As I ponder my response, my eyes drift to the TV as Hugh Delaney, the crusty old country star who’s been a judge on Sing Your Heart Out since its inception, tells a wide-eyed contestant what he thought of her second of three performances in the finale show. Shaking his head, Hugh says, “Honestly, Deanna, I was expecting more from you tonight. This is the finale! And yet, I didn’t see your usual sparkle. Hopefully, you’ll pull a rabbit out of your hat for your final song.”
The audience boos, as Aloha leans into her microphone. “I couldn’t disagree with you more, Hugh,” she says, eliciting rousing applause from the crowd. “Deanna’s performance was far more subtle than her prior ones. But that’s what made it so moving to me. Sometimes, less is more, Hugh.” Aloha looks straight at him. “Try it sometime.”
The audience roars its approval of Aloha’s assessment—and, even more, her zinger to Hugh. The man everyone loves to hate.
My cousin, Sasha, yells from her end of the couch, “You tell him, Aloha! Boom!”
Chuckling, I look at our grandmother between us to see her reaction to Aloha’s zinger, as well as Sasha’s effusive support of it, and discover our little hummingbird is fast asleep, her tiny body looking peaceful and painless in repose.
“Aw, Mimi,” I murmur. “Sweetheart.” With a little wink to Sasha, I get up and scoop our grandmother into my arms, bring her into her bedroom, and carefully lay her down. I tuck her in and head to the kitchen, where her regular nighttime caregiver, Stuart, is sitting at the table, eating a bowl of soup. I tell him Mimi is down for the count, and Stuart says he’ll take it from here.
I head back into the family room and sit back down next to Sasha, just as my phone buzzes in my pocket. It’s another text from Kendrick.
Kendrick: JESUS CHRIST!!!! I just researched Malik Wallace. He’s total trash to women, dude. Look him up. Reddit is full of women who say he’s a DOG. Which means I’m back in the hunt with Laila, baby! I’m gonna build the friendship during the tour. Become her bestie. Her confidante. Her soulmate. And when her asshole boyfriend fucks it up—which he WILL, mark my words—and she’s looking for a broad shoulder to cry on, I’ll be the one she turns to. Genius, right?
Seriously? Goddammit. I tap out my reply:
Me: I’d think Ruby would be her shoulder to cry on, don’t you? Ruby’s great at that.
Kendrick: FUCK RUBY!!!! LOL. Laila’s all mine. Ha!
Well, there’s no way out. I can’t keep this up. Obviously, Kendrick wants Laila and he’s willing to play the long game to get her. It’s time for me to step aside and forget this stupid fantasy. Because that’s all it is. A stupid fantasy. When I actually meet the woman, I bet she’ll quickly bore me to tears.
Me: You’re a genius, KC. Go get her, tiger. See you tomorrow.
Kendrick: Try really hard not to be late, okay? Opening shows are always extra crazy. First soundchecks always take twice as long to get everything dialed in.
Me: I’m insulted. When am I not on time? Haha! Gotta go. Sleep tight.
“Who are you rooting for?” Sasha says.
I look up from my phone.
Sasha points to the TV. “Are you rooting for the woman or the man to win tomorrow night?”
“I’m rooting for an asteroid to crash into the studio and kill everyone associated with the show, except Aloha.”
“Lovely.”
Sasha picks up the remote and turns off the TV. “Well, I’m rooting for Deanna. She’s improved, week after week, and she’s sweet as can be.”
“Good luck to her. I don’t care. You wanna smoke a joint on the porch?”
“Hell yeah.”
I sit on the porch with my cousin, smoking and shooting the shit. Sasha’s a massage therapist, so she tells me a couple stories about her recent interactions with clients at the spa where she works, including a recent story of a guy who wrongly assumed he’d be getting a happy ending from my cousin. We’re having a normal, amusing conversation. Nothing earth-shattering. But comfortable and calm. And that’s exactly what I want. I know I’m about to re-enter the Twilight Zone for three months, beginning tomorrow—a world where I’m a god among men and nobody but my band ever treats me like a normal human. So, I sit and listen and smoke and enjoy the peaceful moment with someone I trust completely.
After a bit, Sasha does what she always does at times like this. She stands and says, with a gleam in her eye, “Now, let me at that famous body.”
It’s an inside joke. She’s mocking the fact that my body is now a hot commodity around the world. That I’ve become a product, as much as the music. A piece of meat half the world would die, cheat, or kill to get with. I’m not complaining about it, by the way. This strategy has served me and my band well. But, still, it’s a weird thing to think about, and particularly hilarious to Sasha, who still thinks of me as the dorky and angry twelve-year-old who, out of the blue one day about thirteen years ago, showed up on our grandma’s doorstep, needing a place to live.
And, of course, as a massage therapist, Sasha is always bizarrely excited to get to work on the ever-present knots clustered stubbornly in my shoulders and neck. Sasha’s weird like that. Her favorite thing in the world, literally, is massaging muscles that are especially knotted and stubborn, and to get to experience the satisfaction of coaxing them into a state of smoothness and relaxation, however temporary. Apparently, from what my cousin has told me, my knotted muscles are among her favorites to knead and coax into serenity, because they’re almost always in a state of extreme tightness.
It’s funny. The world thinks I’m a rockstar with zero fucks to give at all times. A guy who floats through life, carefree and light as a feather. And I think that way about myself, too, in certain situations. And yet, at least according to Sasha, my muscles tell a very different tale about what’s hiding underneath my apparently relaxed exterior.
“Knock yourself out, Sasha,” I say. It’s the same thing I always say to my cousin when she gets that crazy gleam in her eyes about unleashing her magic hands on me.
Gleefully, Sasha comes around to the back of my chair and gets to work on the mountains of knots and clusters in my shoulders and neck. And as she works miracles on my body, we talk about nothing particularly important for another fifteen minutes or so. But with the weed in my system, that’s all the time I can handle of Sasha’s magic hands before I’m too relaxed to remain upright in my chair.
“I gotta get to bed,” I say. “Big day tomorrow.”
“I can give you a full-body massage while you’re lying down, if you need some help drifting off to sleep,” she offers. “You’re pretty tense, Adrian.”
“Nah. I’m good. Go finish your book. I’m just gonna knot right back up again on the plane tomorrow, anyway.”
I thank my cousin for everything she does for me and Mimi, kiss her on the cheek, and head off to my room. First off, I hop into a hot shower and jack off, thinking, yet again, about Laila. It’s the last time I’m going to fantasize about Laila, I decide. Starting tomorrow, she’s off-limits to me, even in my mind. Kendrick is obviously really into her. And he’s the one, unlike me, who actually knows the woman. I’ve never even said two words to her, for fuck’s sake! So, that’s it. I’m moving on.