Tiffanie Debartolo by How to Kill a Rock Star

Author:How to Kill a Rock Star
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-10-24T14:26:46+00:00

Both horrifying events pointed to an unpredictable world where terrible things are completely out of a person’s control, How to Kill_internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 208

208 tiffanie debartolo

and I didn’t know how to surrender to that.

Paul must have seen what the conversation was doing to the little equanimity I had. He pulled me up from the floor, held me, and said, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” kissing the crown of my head in between each apology. “I just want us to be together. You know that, right?” Sure, I knew. But I didn’t think Paul understood fear.

Fear, to Paul, was an occasional lapse of cocky-bastard confidence—it was subway grates and selling out. For me, fear was fettering, but it also afforded a strange, almost placid consolation, and a belief that the trauma was too deep to ever have to be faced, which, at times, created a zone of comfort around me, one I obviously didn’t have the power or the guts to relinquish.

“Drugs!” Paul cried. “Just this once, Eliza. A couple of pills and a Bloody Mary and I swear to God you won’t know the difference between flying on a plane and riding the merry-go-round in Central Park.”

I felt trapped by the bus, by Paul, and by my anxiety. I couldn’t catch a good breath and was afraid that if I didn’t get outside I was going to start hyperventilating.

This is what it would feel like to be inside a 737, I thought. My hands were shaking as I hurried to put on my shoes.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Paul snapped.

I grabbed my coat and Paul, in turn, pushed past me as if we were in a race to see who could get off the bus the quickest. He split the curtain in half and made his way down the aisle, muttering, “goddamn this” and “goddamn that” and “goddamn” something about his pancreas.

“Let’s go celebrate,” he barked at the Michaels, both of whom got up and followed him like disciples. By the time I limped down the steps on my still-sore ankle, the three of them were halfway across the parking lot.

How to Kill_internals.rev 2/22/08 5:00 PM Page 209

HOW TO KILL A ROCK STAR 209

Outside, the cold air was a relief. Thinking I should stay close to the bus, I sat about ten yards away, on the hood of a dirty Camaro, and watched a man in the window of the hotel across the street. For distraction I invented a life for the stranger: He worked in banking, had a wife and two kids at home, drank scotch, liked to watch dirty movies when he was out of town but lied and told his wife he didn’t, and he’d read every book Tom Clancy had ever written.

Eventually the man’s failure to do anything but remove his tie caused me to lose interest, and for diversion I turned to the soggy Chinese takeout menu someone had left on the Camaro’s windshield, but that only made me hungry, so

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