“RILEY.”
“What?”
“I SAID A REAL INTERVIEW.”
“That’s what I’m givin’ ya, Blondie.”
“No you’re not. You’re just talking about your favorite subject, is all.”
“After pussy. Favorite subject, after pussy. We could talk about that instead, if you want. Maybe, say… your pussy? My pussy? Bumpin’ pussies?”
I just scowled at her.
She gave me an impish little smile, then stopped drinking long enough to fish a cigarette out of a pack, light it up, and take a drag. “You fucked Derek.”
I scowled at her harder. “That’s none of your goddamn business.”
“Ooooh, Blondie gettin’ a backbone! Hawt! But that’s not what I’m talkin’ about.”
I stayed silent, waiting to see where this went.
“You fucked Derek, and he gave it up. His story, I mean. That’s all I want.”
Now I wasn’t scowling, I was frowning in confusion. “…what?”
She gestured with her cigarette, as though pointing to a series of invisible blocks in a logical arrangement. “You fucked Derek… you got his story. You want my story… you fuck me. That’s the deal.”
She settled back in her chair and grinned with glee as shock and revulsion washed over my face.
“I am NOT sleeping with you for a fucking interview!” I shouted.
“It doesn’t have to be a fuckin’ interview. We can do it after we’re done fuckin’.”
“I didn’t sleep with Ryan or Killian for an interview!”
“If you haven’t figured it out yet, Killian doesn’t really give a damn about fuckin’ you – or anybody else. And we both know Ry wants to fuck you, he’s just too nice to put it out there. Plus he knows he’d lose out to D.”
My stomach turned when she said that.
Mostly because I knew she was right.
Furious, I got up from my chair to go.
“C’mon – think of it as… what’s that Hannibal dude say? ‘Lend me a quid, Clair-eeeeeeeese…’”
I narrowed my eyes. “I think you mean ‘quid pro quo.’”
“Oh yeah. ‘Quid pro quo.’ Just think of it as… ‘quid pro coochie,’” she said, and snorted like a three-year-old hearing her favorite poop joke.
I sighed in disgust and walked out of the room.
“Quid pro coochie, Clair-eeeeeese!” she yelled after me, then started laughing maniacally again.
90
Poor Ryan.
I wound up discussing the Riley situation with him. Actually, venting to him is a more accurate description.
Derek was no good for that; he was more of a ‘Bulldoze through it or quit bitching’ kind of a guy, so trying to get any sympathy from him was like extracting water from a stone.
I’d already had one bad experience with Killian’s weird, so-not-comforting take on Aesop’s fables.
Miles? I’m laughing right now as I type this.
And Riley was the source of the problem.
Which left poor, longsuffering Ryan to listen to me rant. On several occasions.
He was sympathetic every time, and very kindly never pointed out the obvious – that I was just using Riley’s obstinacy as an excuse to procrastinate.
After I complained to him for fifteen minutes, I would usually feel a little better, after which I would go along my way and find other reasons to avoid writing the article.
After a half-dozen encounters with Riley, ranging from annoying to infuriating, I had written off ever getting any sort of a real interview from her.
Until I heard her talking to Ryan.
I didn’t think anyone had that kind of influence over her.
I was wrong.
91
It all happened during the band’s stay in Seattle. Ryan and Riley were in the kitchen together, which was separated from the rest of the penthouse. Anybody inside the kitchen couldn’t see much of the rest of the suite, which is why they didn’t know I was there.
And no, I wasn’t intentionally eavesdropping.
Although I didn’t exactly announce my presence, either.
Derek was in his room writing lyrics, and Killian was off in his getting baked or taking a nap or God knows what. I was attempting to avoid writing the article when I walked in and heard their voices over the sound of pouring drinks – ice clinking against glass, the glug glug of liquid.
“Riley, I need you to do me a favor.”
She sighed theatrically. “Alright, fuck it. Whip it out, I know it ain’t been sucked in awhile.”
“UGH. Gross,” Ryan groaned, mirroring my own thoughts exactly.
Riley cackled. “Just kiddin’, Ry. I love you man, but you got one part too many, dude.”
“Well, we can both be glad about that, then. But I need your help.”
“Need me to get some chicks for you? Tired of moonin’ over Blondie?”
As soon as I heard my nickname, I froze in my tracks – still out of sight. More than anything, I didn’t want to see the look on Ryan’s face if he found out I had heard that comment.
“I’m serious.”
“So’m I. You need to get the fuck over that shit, man. You’re too fuckin’ good for her, anyway.”
My heart alternately swelled a little at her sweetness towards Ryan – and prickled at her bitchiness towards me.
Ryan used his ‘stern dad’ voice. “Riley…”
She huffed in annoyance. “Fine. What.”
“I need you to do the interview with Kaitlyn. A real interview, not some cutesy crap.”
I frowned in surprise.
What?
“Hahaha! That’s a good one, Ry.”
There was a long silence from the kitchen. I could almost see Ryan’s look in my mind’s eye: head tilted down, the I’m not kidding expression.
Judging from Riley’s reaction, my imagination was spot on.
“Aw, man – seriously? Come ON.”
“I really need you to do this for me.”
“Bullshit – this isn’t for you!”
“It is for me. You’d be doing this for me, not her.”
“Fuck that! This isn’t gonna make her fall in love with you, or whatever the fuck you want!”
“I know that. I’m not asking because of that.”
“You’re askin’ cuz you’re totally fuckin’ in love with that bitch, and she goes after the fuckin’ moron instead of you! Seriously, man, why do you do this to yourself?”
Again, mixed emotions: my heart broke for Ryan, while my stomach raged on Derek’s behalf… and a little bit on my own, too.
“Riley… please? For me?”
“God dammit…” she grumbled. “…quit lookin’ at me like that…”
“Thank you.”
There were a couple of seconds of silence. Somehow I knew instinctively that Ryan was hugging her, and it made my heart hurt even more.
I must have been right, because after a couple of seconds, Riley started groaning again. “Aw, cut it out, don’t get all fuckin’ mushy on me…”
“And don’t hit on her, okay? Don’t get her drunk and make passes at her, alright?”
“Maaaaan – ”
“Riley, I’m serious.”
“Does this chick even know how much you’re into her?”
Now I do, I thought, and I felt sick to my stomach that I was listening in on something so achingly private.
“And don’t tell her that, either, okay? …okay?”
“Okay, OKAY! Why are you doing this, anyway? Is it cause you want her to get the hell out of Dodge so you don’t have to watch Derek banging her? That would be a halfway decent reason.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
“Because I want her to succeed. It’s important to me.”
My heart broke a little more, and for the first time ever, I wished that maybe I hadn’t met Derek first.
Riley sighed heavily. “For you. Only for you.”
“Thanks. I owe you one.”
“Hell yeah you owe me one.”
Before they could come out of the kitchen and discover me, I silently slipped out of the suite and back into the hallway.
When I came in five minutes later, I pretended I didn’t know anything.
Out of the blue, Riley told me – in a very annoyed voice – that she’d had a change of heart, and that maybe we should actually go ahead and do the interview for real.
I acted shocked, then suspicious, then warily happy – after extracting numerous promises of no ‘quid pro coochie.’
She grumpily agreed, and threw a couple of not-so-subtle scowls at Ryan.
He just smiled mysteriously over in the corner.
I avoided looking at him too much, for fear of giving myself away.
It was one of the toughest lies I’d ever pulled off, but I did it.
I felt terrible about it.
But I still should have been nominated for an Oscar.
92
After the show at the KeyArena, the band had a break for about 36 hours before they had to hit the road again. Riley took me out the next night after the show, grumpily insisting that she wanted ‘to get this over with.’
That was how I ended up drinking with Riley in a lesbian dive bar in Seattle.
It didn’t start off promisingly.
I was getting out the Zoom digital recorder when she barked, “If we’re gonna do this, I gotta be drunker’n a motherfucker. So I’m doin’ shots.”
I already had my reporter hat on. “Do you think maybe that’s just a way of numbing yourself to the – ”