“You don’t even know if she’s there.”
“Right.”
“It’s not like you’re going to run into her.”
“I never said-”
“You didn’t have to.”
“I wasn’t even thinking it.”
“There’s a reason why I’m not sending you guys to Lithuania,” Paula said, and squeezed my hand. “Come on. I’m cold. Let’s walk.”
2. “Ever Fallen in Love” — Buzzcocks
Paula and I had met back in the beginning of August, at a party in Park Slope, not long after I’d seen Gobi for the last time on the steps at Columbia. It turned out that I didn’t really know a lot of people at the party, one of those friend-of-a-friend-who-wasn’t-really-a-friend type of things. Someone kept playing old Elton John tracks on the iPod docking station, and I was in the process of saying my goodbyes when a voice I’d never heard before said, “Hey.”
That was how she’d started out, as a voice over my shoulder, sounding raspy and unfamiliar and amused. “You’re that guy,” the voice said.
I turned around to look at her, my brain immediately struggling to crunch the numbers. Laid out on the chalkboard, it would’ve gone something like this:
Yet here was this woman, a little older than I was and a whole lot hotter, not only looking at me but actually seeming interested.
“I’m sorry?”
“I saw your picture in the
“Yeah.”
“You’re the guy whose house got blown up.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That was insane.”
“Yes,” I said, because I never know what to say in these situations. She was referring to what happened on the night of my senior prom, three months before, when the Lithuanian foreign exchange that had been living in our house-a girl named Gobija Zaksauskas-turned out to be an assassin with a hit list of names. With Gobi’s gun to my head, we’d spent the night careening around New York City in my father’s Jaguar while she killed her targets one by one, ending with my house getting blown up. Describing the night as “insane” could arguably be considered an insult to the mentally ill.
“Your family was all right?”
“Yes.”
“And they never found that woman’s body?”
“Destroyed in the fire,” I said. “That’s what they think, anyway.”
“Wow.” We stood there for a moment, and she seemed to realize that she hadn’t introduced herself. “I’m Paula Daniels.”
She held out her hand, and I shook it in that smiling, somewhat awkward way that people shake hands when they’re flirting, and it occurred to me that that’s what we were doing. When a couple of people stepped past us on their way through the door, Paula edged a little closer, her bare shoulder brushing against my arm, and the party noise seemed to fade way down in the mix so it was as if just the two of us were standing there talking to each other. Something happened right then. It was that weightless moment when you stop worrying about riding the bike and just starting riding it.
“Can I ask you a personal question?” she said.
“Sure.”
“Was it all true?”
“Are you kidding?” I said. “I couldn’t have made that stuff up.”
“I had a feeling.” A tiny smile touched the corner of her lips and echoed in her eyes with a shimmer that I could almost hear, like the soft chime of an incoming text message. “I pride myself on my ability to separate truth and bullshit.”
“That’s a rare talent,” I said.
“Not as marketable as it used to be.”
“Maybe you should be a detective.”
She laughed an easy, natural laugh. “I bet you get asked that a lot.”
“What?”
“You know-fact or fiction.”
“Actually, no,” I said. “It’s weird, but most people don’t really seem to care.”
And it was true. They had read about what happened with me and Gobi on prom night in New York in the newspapers and seen it on TV, posted about it on their blogs, forwarded it and “liked” it on Facebook and tweeted about it to their friends. As far as the American public was concerned, what happened to us that night was the truth, yet another improbable chunk of “reality” gone viral in a post-MTV world, and everybody had just kind of accepted it and moved on.
“So you’re not a detective,” I said.
“No.”
“What do you do besides read the
She smiled, cocked an eyebrow. “There’s more to life?”
“Depends who you ask, I guess.”
“Fair enough. The truth is, I work in the music industry.”
I felt my heart do a little stumble-step in my chest, because this conversation really did seem to be entering the department of Too Good to Be True. “Really.”
“Yes.”
“You know,” I said, “that’s funny, because I sort of play in a band.”
“Inchworm.” Paula nodded. “I remember from the story.”
“Yeah.” I was starting to think I could really fall in love with this girl. “Well, ah, anyway… we all decided to take a year off before college, just to see if we can make something happen. If not…” I shrugged.
“If you don’t try, you’ll always wonder.”
I nodded. “Exactly.”
“You should slip me your demo.”
“Seriously?”
“Absolutely. I work for this European promoter, George Armitage-”
“Wait a second,” I said. “
“That’s him.”
“Are you kidding? Armitage is, like, the hottest promoter in the world right now. Ever since the Enigma festival in the U.K. last summer, plus he owns his own airline… You actually work for that guy?”
Paula smiled. “Well, I’m sort of the liaison between him and the labels. Technically I’m on Armitage’s payroll, but I spend about half my time in L.A., working with new bands in the studio. It’s kind of a position that I created for myself.”
“That sounds amazing.”
“I grew up in Laurel Canyon.” Paula reached up, tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “My father was an A amp;R guy back in the day, worked with all the legends-Fleetwood Mac, Steely Dan, the Eagles. Madonna and Sean Penn practically got a divorce in our pool. It’s in my blood.”
