Home Again
She pointed down the street. “At the high thchool … the gym.”
Before he had time to think about it, he grabbed the girl’s hand and led her down the street. The crowd hushed, then parted for them.
“Angel!”
He heard his name and paused, turning around. Val Lightner, his agent and friend, was standing alongside Rubber Dress. They were both waving at him. “Where are you going?” Val yelled, flicking his cigarette into the street. “They’re waiting for you inside.”
Angel grinned. That was the greatest thing about fame—they always waited. “Be right back.” Still smiling, he led the awestruck girl across the street. Together they slipped into the gymnasium. The place was decorated with what must have been ten reams of toilet paper. Up onstage, the band was pounding out a horrible rendition of Madonna’s “Crazy for You.”
He heard people gasp as he led the girl onto the dance floor. Fingers pointed, drinks fell, giggling stopped. But he didn’t look around. He looked at the girl, only the girl. “May I have this dance?”
She opened her mouth to answer, but nothing came out except a high-pitched squeak.
He took her in his arms and danced with her for the last thirty seconds of the song, and when it was over, he drew back.
Feeling surprisingly good, he strode from the auditorium. The kids were swarming their new queen.
“How very touching,” drawled a voice from outside.
Angel forced a grin. “Eleven to seventeen,” he said harshly. “It’s my audience.”
Val clapped Angel on the back and pulled him out into the rainy night. “You’ll have women sobbing on “Hard Copy,” for God’s sake, and teenaged girls sending you invitations to the prom.”
“Yeah, yeah. I know. Now, let’s get to the goddamn party. I need a drink.”
They raced back across the street. Angel’s date was standing exactly where he’d left her, in the rain. For a split second he wished he’d brought someone else—someone who mattered—but he couldn’t think who the hell that would be.
Irritated by the thought, he grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her toward the Elks Hall. Together, ducking from the rain, they surged into the building and climbed the rickety stairs to the huge lobby. Weak overhead lighting pushed through the murky interior, creating pockets of marshy gold amidst the shadows. Upstairs, a heavy metal band rocked the floorboards. Dust filtered from the cracks. Along the far wall, a makeshift bar had been set up, and dozens of celebrities mingled with wannabes and slurped up booze.
Angel felt as if he’d come home. He drew in a deep, satisfied breath, loving everything about this moment—the raucousness of the music, the sickly sweet scent of marijuana, the humid odor of too many bodies in too small a space. Val muttered a quick good-bye—something about getting laid—and disappeared into the crowd.
“You thirsty?” his date asked prettily.
Angel started to answer, but before he could get the word out, he felt a tightening in his chest. He winced, rotated his shoulder to work out the kink.
She frowned. “You okay?”
The pain eased, and he smiled at what’s-her-name. “My body’s reacting to a lack of alcohol,” he said easily, slipping his hand down the rubber-coated curve of her waist, settling on her hip with a familiarity he didn’t have, didn’t need with a woman like her.
She flashed him a bright, cap-toothed smile. “Tequila?”
He grinned. “You’ve been reading the Enquirer. Naughty girl.” He pulled her close. The gardenia scent of her perfume filled his nostrils. “Have you heard what I do to naughty girls?”
She wet her lips and all but purred. “I’ve heard.”
He stared into her eyes, heavily mascaraed, blue-shadowed, and saw his own reflection. For a second he was disappointed that she was so easy, that it was all so easy, and then the moment was gone. He was too sober, that was the trouble. He thought too much when he was sober, wanted too much. When he was drunk or high, he was Angel DeMarco, Academy Award-nominated actor. He was somebody, and he needed that feeling like air.
“Get me that drink, willya, darlin’?”
She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and wiggled away from him, oozing across the room, toward the bar. Her surgically enhanced body was perfect—all dips and swells coated in pink rubber. His heartbeat sped up, his throat went dry. He leaned against the splintered wooden wall and started to think of ways to use that delicious body of hers, thought of them tangled together, buck naked and stoned and going at it like …
Nausea prickled his stomach. At first he thought it was nothing—a lack of booze—then his vision blurred, his stomach lurched, and he knew what was happening.
“Oh, God …” He pulled away from the wooden wall, and felt it—the invisible fist squeezing his chest.
Warning bells sounded in his head, loud enough to drown out the throb of the music. He sucked greedily at the smoky air, gulping, gasping, trying to fill his lungs. Pain chewed across his chest, bled down his left arm until his fingers were tingling and hot. He clutched the slick wooden handrail, but it was as loose as an old tooth and wobbled in his grasp.
“Oh, Christ…” Not now, not here …