Believe Me, It's You Read online

  “Okay,” he said. “I'll go slow. I don't mind. This is different, Eva. You and me. Don't you feel like it is?”

  “Yes,” she nodded and looked at his face, his eyes. He leaned over fast and kissed her on the lips, then he stood up and left her room.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  She slept well, snuggled up in the white sheets and the thick, fluffy comforter. No bad dreams, no tossing and turning, no racing thoughts. She didn't have the usual jarring feeling she normally had when she woke up in a new place. She must have been exhausted because when she looked at the digital clock on the table next to her bed, it was 12:30 in the afternoon. She rolled over and looked out at the ocean. It was spectacular, blue as the sky and choppy, with high waves. This is not Lake Michigan, she thought. Despite all its laid back attitude, everything in L.A. felt bigger, more important.

  She finally got up and went to the bathroom, turned on the shower and got in. How would she ever live with just one shower head again? How quickly could a person become completely spoiled rotten?

  When she finished dressing and combing out her hair, she opened her door and padded down the hallway, wondering if Dylan was up yet. She heard his voice.

  “Yeah, I know,” he was walking back and forth in the living room, talking on his phone. He looked up and smiled, motioning her to come in. She was planning on going back to her room and giving him some privacy, but instead she walked over and sat down on the sofa. She took her laptop from the cocktail table and logged on, trying not to be nosy.

  “Okay, I mean, I'm coming, but I'm not making an appearance with her. That's just stupid, Calvin,” he was standing at the window now, looking out at the ocean. He was wearing sweatpants and no shirt. The sun was making his brown hair look golden and he looked so beautiful for a moment Eva forgot he was talking to Calvin. She put her eyes back on her laptop screen.

  “Okay, sure, I'm going to go. I promise,” he said. “Okay, talk to you later.” He hung up and came over to sit next to her.

  “Good afternoon,” he said, leaning over to kiss her cheek. She looked up and smiled at him.

  “Good afternoon. I guess that was Calvin,” she said.

  “Yeah,” he sighed. “I have this party to go to next week. It's a publicity thing with the companies who're sponsoring my tour. He wanted me to go with Vanessa.”

  “Oh,” she said, her heart sinking a little.

  “But I told him no,” he said. “He thinks we'd get tons more publicity, you know, people speculating on whether we're together again. I don't want a lie to be the reason people write about me. I want them to write about my music.”

  “Oh! You know, I was so tired yesterday I forgot to tell you—your songs, they're so good. I really like them,” she meant it, too.

  “Really? You like them? What about the lyrics?” he asked.

  “They're really good, Dylan. Very poetic. They're not silly or trite. I can't wait to hear the rest of the album,” she said. “And the music is great, too.”

  “Thanks,” he said. He looked down. “I'm so nervous about this one. They're my own songs and—I'm so glad you like them. Really, it makes me feel better.”

  “You're welcome,” she said. “Do you have any coffee?”

  “Sure, I can make some. I just got up and Calvin called. I didn't have a chance to make it yet,” he went to the kitchen.

  “You don't have cooks to do that stuff for you?” she asked, only half joking.

  “No, I don't really need a cook,” he said from the kitchen. “I get take out a lot, or I'm just not home. I can cook for myself if I have to. I have someone come in and clean twice a week and gardeners, stuff like that. Wait 'til Calvin puts the publicity machine into high gear for the album. There'll be tons of people around then. This is the calm before the storm.”

  “When will that be?” she asked.

  “Right after Thanksgiving,” he came back in and sat down next to her.

  “Do you want to work on the book now?” she asked, “You reminded me we owe Calvin a book before Thanksgiving.”

  “Sure, what do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Do you want to talk about your mother and father? Your grandparents? What it was like growing up?” she asked.

  “Okay, well, like I said, my mom was pretty depressed after my dad left us. She drank a lot. I remember there were good times, too. She had tons of records and CD's and on Saturdays when she wasn't working we'd play them and sing together. That was really fun. We had a tv, but we couldn't afford cable, so it only got two channels. We didn't even turn it on that much. We liked to listen to music instead.

  She was good 'til after dinner. Then she'd put me to bed and drink, usually until Sunday afternoon. I guess she stopped so she could sober up before work on Monday morning. My mom's friend would babysit me while my mom worked. She was a secretary at a car dealership. It was cool, because we always had a nice car to drive.”

  “What was your babysitter like?” she asked.

  “She was okay,” he said. “She had three kids of her own, so we played together, but I always missed my mom. Her friend wasn't very loving towards me. I don't think she was that crazy about having another kid to watch, but my mom gave her some money to do it. She probably needed the money.”

  “How did you end up living with your grandparents?” she asked.

  “I don't know,” he leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling. She waited for him to talk. “I'm going to get our coffee. It's probably done now. What do you want in it?”

  “Cream is fine,” she said.

  He came back with two mugs of coffee and sat hers down in front of her.

  “My mom's drinking got worse, I guess. I mean, I was only six, but that's what my grandmother told me. I think she got scared she would get drunk and something bad would happen to me. Maybe she didn't want me to see her like that.

  “So one Friday she just said, 'Mommy's packed up all your toys and you get to stay with Grandma and Grandpa for awhile' and I remember being happy because I loved them and it was always fun visiting them. I remember asking my mom if she packed her stuff, too and she said she wasn't able to stay because she had to work. I never asked her when she was coming back, because I think I knew. She wasn't coming back to get me. And so I lived with them and she'd visit me maybe once a month or so. Then one day when I was nine, my grandma and grandpa sat me down and I could tell they'd been crying. They just said, 'Dylan, your mommy died last night',” he was sitting with his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He leaned back and turned to look at her and she could see he was crying.

  “We can stop if you want,” she said.

  “No, it's okay. It's ancient history. Anyhow, she died of a drug overdose. My grandparents figured she'd started using drugs at some point, but she took pain pills a doctor had prescribed for her back. She never took pills around me. I've thought about it a lot. I think she faked a back injury so the doctor would give her the pills. I think she killed herself. On purpose. She was depressed. She lost my dad. She lost me. She didn't have anything left.” He wiped his eyes and sat silent, thinking for a minute.

  “So that's how I came to live with my grandparents.” Eva felt her heart break for him. She didn't know what to say so she put her arms around him and hugged him. He hugged her back and put his head on her shoulder.

  “It's okay, Eva,” he said against her shoulder. “Look where I am now.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Dylan wanted to take her out to lunch, to a little Middle Eastern place where he knew the owner and rarely got bothered by people. She fixed her hair and put on a little mascara and lip gloss.

  “I'm ready when you are, Dylan,” she called outside his bedroom door.

  “Okay. Be out in a second,” he said. When he came out he was wearing a pair of dark jeans, low on his hips and a light blue shirt, unbuttoned with a white t shirt underneath. He smelled good-cologne and that unnameable scent she loved so much, that only he had.

 
; He grabbed a black motocross-style jacket out of the hall closet and handed her hers. She took it and put it on over her light sweater. They went downstairs to the garage and he walked around to the passenger door of the green Esperante and held it open for her.

  “No driver today, huh?” she asked, looking at him and smiling apprehensively.

  “Just me. Why, scared?” He smiled back. “I got you where you needed to go safely last time, didn't I?”

  “Hmm. Yeah,” she got in and quickly fastened her seat belt.

  “I love driving,” he said, backing out of the garage.

  He wound around the curvy highway, expertly accelerating and decelerating, with perfect timing. Her hair blew forward and all over her face. She was laughing and trying to hold it back.

  “Want the roof up or down?” he asked her, smiling.

  “Down!” she laughed and he went faster.

  He turned into a dirt parking lot with about two other cars, in front of a little pink building with a tile roof and turned off the engine. She turned his rear view mirror toward her so she could put her hair back in place.

  “Did you have fun?” he asked, watching her.

  “Yeah, I did have fun.” she put on lip gloss, aware of him watching her. She turned to look at him.

  “Better?” she asked.

  “Beautiful,” he said.

  “You make me feel good,” she smiled.

  “Likewise,” he said. He came around to her door, but she'd already opened it and gotten out. He looked around once, and then leaned in, trapping her between himself and the car and kissed her neck. He walked around to the trunk and threw his jacket in.

  “Hey Mahmoud,” he said when he walked in the door. “How's business?”

  “Ah, Mr. Moore and a pretty lady!” The man came from around the counter with two menus and led them to a table toward the back, with a window and a nice view of the ocean.

  “How have you been? I haven't seen you in a while.”

  “I've been pretty busy, recording and stuff,” Dylan looked at Eva. “This is Eva, Eva this is my friend Mahmoud.”

  “Hello! Pleasure to meet you. What can I get you?” he asked. “I'll bring you a falafel plate. It's the best.” He hurried off to the kitchen and they could hear him barking orders to his cook. They grinned.

  “He's nice. The food's good here. I usually just let him bring me whatever he wants,” Dylan said. In minutes, their food was in front of them. Dylan was right. It was good.

  “I've got to be at the studio by 5 tonight and I'm gonna try to get done by midnight,” he said. “You can come if you want, but if you think you'll get bored, you can stay home. It's up to you.”

  “What about the book? Don't you feel like working on it?” she asked.

  “I need to think about the songs I have to sing tonight,” he said. “You know, they're not sad songs. They're happy songs and I don't want to be sad when I sing them.”

  “I understand, we can work more tomorrow,” she said.

  “What are you going to record tonight?” she asked.

  “Well, one song is called 'Been Nowhere Without You' and it's about.... you know, waking up in love and realizing you've been sleepwalking through you're life,” he said, looking at his plate. “And the second one is called 'Chaos Around Me' and it's about the business, and all the bullshit. And finding a calm in the middle of it all. Like a tornado. It's written around a metaphor.”

  “Dylan, I don't want you to take this the wrong way or anything, but you're way smarter than I thought you'd be before I got to know you,” she smiled, hoping he'd take it as the compliment it was meant to be.

  “Thanks,” he laughed. “Yeah, I'm not so stupid.”

  After lunch, Dylan took her home and called up a grocery store and had some things delivered before he left, and showed her the only tv in the house-a large flat screen that emerged from behind the footboard of his bed.

  “Wow, it's like being in Vegas,” she laughed.

  “Well, when I take out my contact lenses, it's awesome because I can still see the tv without my glasses,” he said.

  “I didn't know you wore glasses,” she said. She was amazed at how he could feel like a long lost friend one minute and a stranger the next.

  “That's why it's so cool, you being here,” he said. “We're getting to know each other.”

  She immediately felt lost in the big house the moment he left. She made herself a sandwich from the groceries he'd bought and then puttered around the house looking at pictures on tables, in frames and on the walls of the hallway. There was Dylan with an older couple, who she assumed were his grandparents. There were a couple with Calvin and one with Vanessa Ackers, which looked like some awards show. There was one of Dylan she couldn't stop looking at. He looked to be about 14 and he was smiling and hugging a big yellow dog. The dog looked like he was smiling, too. He was sitting cross-legged on the ground and his face looked more boyish. His brown eyes were enormous, wide and bright. She wondered how he could look so hopeful five years after his mother left him for good.

  She sat down on the sofa and opened her laptop. She reviewed some of the notes she'd typed up from that morning and wrote a few narrative paragraphs in the first person, trying to capture Dylan's voice. It was difficult this time. He was still a mystery to her in so many ways. Cap had been so easy. Everyone had been amazed at how she captured his voice and recreated it. Dylan was different. He was outside her, separate. She couldn't mimic him and it felt wrong to try.

  She eventually put the laptop away and wandered into his room to watch tv. She turned it on and tried to watch a reality show about men whose mothers interfered in their love lives. It was so bad, she eventually drifted off to sleep.

  “Hey!” Dylan said, sitting down next to her on the bed. She woke up and rubbed her eyes, looking over at him, confused for a second.

  “Hey,” she said, yawning. “How'd it go? What time is it?” He kicked his shoes off and took off the black jacket, throwing it over the foot board. He stretched out next to her with his hands behind his head.

  “It's 11:30. I'm done early,” he looked over at her. “It went really, really well tonight. I was amazed.”

  “Yeah? That's great,” she said, turning to look at him.

  “We got three songs down,” he said. “Roscoe brings out the best in me. I should have worked with him from the beginning. He's teaching me so much.”

  “Really? I remember Cap fighting with him constantly. It got to the point where I didn't go to the studio anymore,” she said, remembering all the tension.

  “That's because Cap wants to put it down and leave,” he said. “There's always a party in L.A. waiting for Cap to show up. Don't get me wrong, I like Cap and all. We're close, but I want more out of music than he does. It's my life. It's not his life, it's just his income.”

  “Don't you like to go out and have a good time, too?” she asked.

  “Sure, but I feel like this is my workweek and I don't go out during the workweek. Maybe if my friends are in town, or whatever I'll go on Friday night or Saturday. But the rest of the time's for work. And I don't mind because music is my work, and I love my work,” he looked over at her. “L.A.'s so crazy, anyhow. Things can go from fun to ugly in a heartbeat. I mean, I've had my share of good times here, but some of the people are real assholes.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she said. “Some of the parties I went to with Cap were pretty obnoxious.” Dylan laughed.

  “Yeah, I guess that's one word for it,” he said.

  “Dylan?” she said, hesitant.

  “Hmm?” he looked at her, tired.

  “I was just wondering if you miss Vanessa,” she said, trying not to sound jealous.

  “No,” he said. “We're still friends. We see each other around, you know. But I don't miss her.”

  “No?” she asked.

  “Vanessa was my friend from way back when Calvin used to manage her. We used to hang out when we were both in L.A. I guess at some point
Calvin thought it'd be good for us, well her especially, if we went out, you know, with plenty of press around. And we got a lot of attention, so we did it again. We were both 17 and you know, what do you expect to happen when you throw two hardworking, lonely teenagers together?”

  “So what went wrong?” Eva asked.

  “Well,” he sighed, looking at the ceiling. “For one thing we were young. For another, we weren't really in love, or anything. We were just teenagers playing at being what we thought was 'in love.' And when her acting career blew up, she didn't need me anymore to get attention. So I cheated on her with a girl I met on tour, and she used it as a really solid reason to break up with me and still look good. But whatever, I deserved it.”

  “You cheated on her? But you didn't love her,” she was sorting it all out in her head.

  “No, I didn't love her. And yeah, I did cheat on her. Once, and it was stupid. It was meaningless and it made me look like a jerk. I guess I was a jerk,” he turned to look at her. “I would never do that again. It was a stupid mistake.”

  “I get it,” she said.

  “I don't want you to think I'm like your—Paul, or anything,” he said. “I don't do that anymore.”

  “I know,” she said. “I believe you. Paul never loved me, anyway.”

  “He's an asshole,” he said. “I guess you're not going to sleep in here tonight, huh.”

  “No...” she smiled.

  “Okay,” he said. “Maybe tomorrow.” She got up and picked up his jacket which had fallen to the floor. She laid it on his chest.

  “Maybe someday,” she smiled at him and went to her room, changed and went to bed, amazed by her own resolve. She really couldn't think of anything in the world she would have liked more than staying with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Eva spent the next few days hanging out at the house, working with Dylan on the book in the early part of the day. He told her about singing all over the Midwest, in any talent show his grandpa could afford to take him to. They didn't have a lot of money, so anything Dylan won, was converted to cash and put back into the fund they used to travel to more shows. By the time Calvin encountered the 15 year old in Detroit, he'd been in over 90 talent shows. He sang whatever was popular at the time, and occasionally one of the classic soul or R&B songs he used to listen to with his mother. Eva loved watching his face as he told her all about the wins and the losses. She could see every victory and every defeat reflected in his eyes.