Daron's Guitar Chronicles Vol. 13 (contd)

Epilogue

Epilogue

Picture a hotel suite, with real potted palms in the corners, and champagne on ice, crowded with people in various forms of finery–you know, some dressed up, some dressed down, because it's all about establishing cred. It looks like a hundred other music biz after parties, and when Sarah stumbles into me as if she's drunk–but isn't–and hooks Ziggy with the other arm to say into both our ears "Run interference for me, will you? The tall one with the chain."–it isn't even the first time we've done this for her.

Just the first time tonight. Ziggy pulls her against the wall between us and pretends to give her a hickey–her laugh is high and piercing, because Ziggy's pretend-hickeys tickle like a motherfucker. My hand is on her stomach, then her hip–trying to look possessive–but all I can think is how rough the rhinestones embedded in her clothes feel under my palm.

"Let's get her out of here," I say into his ear.

"Good idea," he agrees, and we start to maneuver her deeper into the room. Yes, deeper in, because we know we can go through the connecting room, around the corner, and out into the hallway without having to pass Mr. Tall and Chain. Because we've been here before.

Ziggy, as usual, is the one who'll actually say the things that I'm only thinking. After we've tiptoed through one of the bedrooms (where the bed was in vigorous use–no I didn't see who) and out another doorway, though. "This isn't the first time we've snuck out the side door to that suite." He sails down the hallway and pushes the elevator button.

"It isn't?" Sarah asks. She ducks behind the two of us so people spilling out in the hall from the party can't see her. "Shit, every other elevator alcove has, like, a giant urn to hide behind or something, but not this one."

Ziggy laughs suddenly. "That might be my fault."

"How is that your fault?"

"Once upon a time, a long long time ago, the band stayed here."

"Our very first trip to LA, actually," I feel compelled to add.

"And I," Ziggy says, with a gesture toward the blank section of wall as if its a newly finished masterpiece. Come to think of it, the wallpaper doesn't align properly there. "I had a fucking rock star tantrum, and Daron here had to..." He changes what he was going to say. Talk me down, probably. We don't invoke suicide lightly, even now. "Daron was there when I needed him."

I've never heard him describe that night like that before. The elevator comes and Sarah darts in, the two of us hurrying after her. Ziggy pushes the button for the mezzanine but doesn't explain that he's got grander ideas than just sneaking her back to our room to watch cable and eat room service–because Ziggy's always got grander ideas. He's busy explaining something else. "And I fell in love with him."

"No shit," Sarah says. "I thought you said it was love at first sight, though?"

"If you only fall in love with a person once, it's not going to last," Ziggy says sagely. "The big, long-term, forever-and-ever ones, you fall for them over and over."

"Mm-hm." She leans against the wall of the elevator, and despite the fact most of what she's wearing is made of suede and has fringe and even those rhinestones I mentioned, she looks much more like she just walked off a fashion runway in Milan than off a cowgirl ranch. She's flush with success–a show at the Hollywood Bowl, I think? Somewhere big. (We didn't actually go to the show, just swooped into town for some other business. Sarah's party is a bonus.)

Ziggy sends a quick page as the elevator descends, and then we get out onto a quiet floor of meeting rooms. Sarah finally asks, "Where are you taking me?"