“…Sugar sweet sitcoms
That leave us with a bad actor taste while
Pop stars metamorphosize into soda pop stars
You saw the video
You heard the soundtrack
Well now go buy the soft drink…”
– The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
____________________
Dinner with the band, Maggie, my grandmother, and aunt is a boisterous affair with lots of delicious food, wine for everyone but Owen and me, several embarrassing stories of me as a geeky kid, and some very serious, albeit adorable, flirting between my grandmother and fiancé before we all finally bid each other goodbye for the evening and head back to our respective domiciles for the night. And while it probably should surprise me when Max follows Owen and me back to our suite, rather than going to his own, it doesn’t. We hang out in the sitting room and giggle like schoolgirls over the events of the evening while I feed Julia before putting her in her portable crib tucked into the corner of our bedroom for the night.
We chat for a while longer before I finally give into the day’s exhaustion and retreat back into the bedroom to wash my face and get ready for bed, Owen follows soon after with an explanation that Max was going to finish watching some show he’d managed to find before letting himself out of our room and heading back to his own villa, and his family, for the night.
It starts out as a civil conversation, I think. At the very least there are no raised voices for the first several minutes of the phone call that Max seems to be having from our sitting room. And so I’m startled when Max abruptly hollers angrily over the phone and from then on, I can clearly hear every word through the closed door between the sitting room and bedroom as Owen and I are pinned to our respective spots on each side of the bed and watch each other in silence, communicating our concern without words. Thank goodness the elevated level of conversation doesn’t seem to be bothering Julia as her periodic little baby sighs drift across the room as she dreams, but there is no other indication that she’s bothered by what’s happening in the other room.
The argument digresses further and further into angry insults delivered with deepening levels of disgust as the minutes tick slowly by before Max shouts one final, brutal comment into the phone and slams the receiver back into its cradle. And I resign myself to the fact that we will have an additional houseguest for the night.
“I know that it’s none of our business…” I begin.
I don’t have to verbalize the rest of my thoughts though. Owen knows clearly what I’m thinking. The worry for Max’s mental well-being is clearly etched on my face. Owen is already pulling on a pair of pajama bottoms and his glasses with a quiet declaration that he is going to go talk to his friend. He brushes a sweet kiss to my forehead before easing quietly out of the room.
He is gone for a good half-hour, before he finally returns to the bedroom looking as spent as I feel. While I’m stretched across the bed, staring at the ceiling and trying not to pull on the scar that is still tender when I move just the wrong way. I manage to crawl carefully off the mattress without pain before we both slide under the covers on our respective sides of the bed before Owen pulls me to him, molding my body to his. His hands caress my skin gently, as I sigh happily and settle into his warm body.
“Max is spending the night.” Owen says, nuzzling into my neck.
“I figured as much.” I reply and ask if Max is okay.
“He will be.” Owen says. There is a slight catch in his voice before he collects his thoughts and attempts to reassure us both. “This isn’t the first time this has happened. They always figure it out and find their way back together.”
“What if that can’t happen this time? What if they don’t get back together?” I ask seriously.
“I don’t know…” Owen admits. “But I will be there for him either way, you know? I have to be. He’s been there too many times for my bullshit not to, you know?”
“I know.” I smile and stretch up to his face to kiss him goodnight before settling back into the nook of his body.
“I’m scared.” I hear a surprisingly timid voice whisper next to me. I blink, and look at the clock.
2:00 AM
“Max?” I whisper in return as I look to the edge of the bed to see the singer kneeling on the floor while his chin rests on the edge of the mattress. I have no idea how long he’s been here trying or not trying to wake me up. “Are you okay?”
“Can I ask you something?” He deflects and pointedly ignores my question for now.
“Of course,” I smile as brightly as I can, trying to reassure the fragile ego that I know burrows deep within the psyche of this particular friend, before I elaborate; “But why don’t I meet you out in the other room, so we don’t wake sleeping beauty.”
“Which one?” Max giggles.
“That one.” I snicker and gesture to Owen sleeping behind me. “The smaller one will be up in a couple of hours for her feeding.”
“Hurry?” Max asks, the desperation clear in his voice as he gets up and heads for the door back to the sitting room.
“I’ll be right out,” I reassure him with a sad smile as I gently remove Owen’s hand from my middle, where he’s possessively holding me against his warm body, before I sit up and clutch the sheets to my nearly naked skin while Max sneaks back out the door.
“Thank you, Love.” Owen says, sleepily rubbing the sandpapery stubble of his cheek against my arm.
“What for?” I ask, sliding out of the bed before shrugging on a pilfered hotel robe and a pair of underpants for modesty’s sake.
“You can probably give him a better perspective than anyone,” he begins.
“What, because of my parents?”
“Yeah.” Owen sits up while the bed sheet slides smoothly down his body, before settling at his hips. My eyes follow it as his words ring through me, bringing me quickly back to the present issue at hand. “You’ve been through it. So you can give him the perspective that none of the rest of us can. I think he just needs to know that we won’t think any less of him. That’s what’s got him all freaked out, you know? Not what Aileen will think of him, but what we will, what Regan will. In the end.”
“I’ll do whatever I can. He’s my friend too, Owen.” I reply somewhat defensively, before I lean back into the massive bed and kiss him full on the lips. “Now try to get some sleep, I promise that we’re not going to have a Vegas replay.”
“I know,” he smiles. “But hurry back anyway, I’ve missed sleeping with you.”
“As if I needed any more incentive,” I smile and kiss him deeply one more time before quietly slinking out of the room.
Max is staring blankly at the television screen when I close the bedroom door quietly behind me. He looks up when he hears my footsteps across the tiles.
“I’m sorry that I woke Owen.” Max says as I sit down next to him on the sofa.
“It’s okay.” I smile. “He says he’s been sleeping really lightly since he quit drinking. It’s like his whole body is reprogramming itself. Though I’m not sure the anxiety of the tour is helping matters much.”
“Did you see him tonight at dinner?” Max curls up into the corner. “He wanted a drink so badly.”
“I know.” I say. “It was really hard tonight. Sometimes it’s easier. He can say no without even a blink, but then he has his moments.”
“I’m glad that you’re here for him, keeping him sane.” He grabs my hand. “I don’t know if he’d still be sober if you’d stayed away much longer.”
“I don’t even want to think about it.”
Max is silent for several long minutes as he tries to build up the nerve to talk to me about his relationship with Aileen. I don’t know if it’s from embarrassment about the place he finds the state of his relationship, or if he’s just trying to formulate how to articulate how he got to this place with her, before he feels comfortable letting me in on the conversation he’s clearly having inside his head. So, I guess it shouldn’t surprise me when he fully shifts gears in an attempt to tuck the unpleasantness of the discussion he knows we must have, in order to cathartically rid himself of the poison of bottling up the state of his marriage with Aileen, by announcing that he’s hungry and that he’s going to order room service. I nod in acceptance, knowing that I must allow him to open up only when he’s clearly ready to do so.
I hand him the room service menu from the coffee table as Max scans it intensely before deciding on a double order of rosemary and sea salt seasoned fries, chocolate cake, and a beer for himself while I ask him to order a sparkling water and a small plate of chocolate-dipped strawberries for me.
We sit in comfortable silence for a little while, before the food arrives, but once it does, we spread our bounty on a blanket on the floor, picnic-style. Max doesn’t object when I steal a few of his fries, which are surprisingly delicious, while we watch some awful 80’s movie on HBO. It’s one of those formulaic ‘boy-meets-girl, who’s so far out of his league that the protagonist has to employ the assistance of the best-friend who’s clearly in love with protagonist, but he’s too stupid to see what’s right in front of him’, kind of movie – In other words, a total John Hughes rip-off, with a second-rate cast. When the Muzak equivalent of “Don’t You Forget About Me”, comes on about twenty minutes in, I can take no more and demand that Max change the channel.
He happily commandeers the remote control, flipping through channels at lightning speed. Twenty channel flips in, Max comes across a full on, real-deal, porn movie. And not just the Cinemax equivalent, either! And either to gauge my comfort level with something so graphic in his presence or for a general laugh, I’m not entirely sure which. He stalls the search on the naked people doing all sorts of explicit things to one another and glances between my face and the screen a few times before getting sucked into the action…no pun intended.
An actor, actually I refuse to call what he’s doing, acting in any way, shape, or form, demands that the woman he’s presently giving it to “so hard” to reach her climax faster, presumably, so he can move on to the next girl, waiting off-camera. And while he growls out his dialogue with what I’m sure he believes is an Oscar-worthy performance, I’d maybe be so generous to say that he’s probably dispensing scripted lines. But the delivery is so monotone and lacking in any inflection of any kind, that all I can do is to try not to choke on my fizzy water as I laugh uncontrollably at the ridiculousness of it all. While his “partner“ for this scene responds by making this horrifying caterwauling noise as he pounds into her so relentlessly, that she neither sounds like she’s enjoying herself or fully of the human persuasion, for that matter.
“Do you find this sort of thing, um, inspirational?” I ask Max after I calm my laughter for a moment.
“Not really.” He smiles, that mischievous little grin of his. “I think they’re kind of funny, actually.”
“They don’t really turn me on,” I admit as I notice Max trying to discreetly adjust himself in the corner. “But I guess that having man-parts changes the game a little.” I giggle as Max turns two-hundred-and-three shades of red at being caught in the act of being a male.
“It doesn’t offend you?” He asks, a little incredulous for my not immediately demanding that he change the channel.
“Only their acting skills, if I can call it that.” I snicker. “But no. Not especially. I don’t really give them much thought.”
“Aileen hates them. She thinks they’re ‘degrading to women.'”
Ah, and there’s our segue, people…
“I don’t know,” I say. “I just don’t think that in all instances it’s being forced upon them; Certainly, in some cases there are girls who were pushed into it unwillingly by unscrupulous circumstances, but I do also think that there are some women who actually think this is a gateway to a real acting career or something. But nobody has the heart to tell them that Traci Lords was the exception, not the rule.” Max can’t help a surprised chuckle from bubbling over as I continue. “You know, if they got some decent music and killed the dialogue, they would be much better.” I offer.
“’A Wolf at the Door’,” Max offers up one of the band’s tracks from the new album as a porn soundtrack sacrifice.
“Am I sensing a video is being born here tonight?” I chuckle in response to how fast he pulled that one out of the bin.
“MTV would kill us if we ever did something like that.” He confesses with a sly smile.
“You know, it didn’t sure hurt Madonna any…” I giggle in response.
“What didn’t?” Max asks.
“Fucking someone in a video.”
“It got her banned.” He points out.
“Yeah, and it also got her one hell of a lot of publicity. Do you think that “Justify My Love” would have done half as well without that video. And all the controversy surrounding it?”
“I don’t know…” Max grows quiet as he contemplates the consequences of Omicron behaving like Madonna for MTV, his brow furrowing when he doesn’t come to the conclusion that he initially hoped for.
“Or you could go the supermodel route for the next video. Pull a Carolyn and paint yourselves in leopard-print to strategically hide your junk, without really hiding it at all, and then crawl all over each other!”
“Huh?”
“That video she and her model friends did for that terrible band from Canada. It was pretty much porn, too.”
Max starts to laugh.
“I’m just trying to rationalize the whole fucking Carolyn thing,” I pout.
“Does it bother you?”
“Carolyn?”
“Yeah.”
“Not so long as I can continue to take the piss out of Owen about it for the next half-century.” I smile
“Seriously.” He doesn’t buy my nonchalance for a second.
“Seriously?” I lock eyes with Max and try to explain without sounding like an insane person. “I’d had a crush on the man forever, right?”
“Right.” Max says.
“It bothered me.” I admit. “I really thought that he was going to go through with it. I was kind of freaked out about it.”
“Why?”
“I’d just been gaga over that man for so long that I was having a tough go at the thought of him with another woman, especially one with such a universally reported personality of being such a huge bitch to everyone she comes across…not that I’d have done anything about it, other than mope around my house like a wounded puppy, which I did when I read that they were engaged.”
“I had no idea,” Max says with a surprised sigh.
“Though If I ever see her in person, I may just have to rip those fucking synthetic hair extensions out of her head, for what she did to him…so publicly and unabashedly cheating on him like that. No remorse on her part, whatsoever.”
“Oh, my.” Max smiles, content that I’m in the band’s corner when it comes to the not-so-supermodel. Over the course of the last several months, each of Owen’s bandmates and much of the crew I’ve met has expressed similar sentiments about Carolyn Bell.
“Sorry…” I say, sheepishly. “I shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because it gives people the impression that I’m not playing with a complete deck.”
“You are definitely playing with a full deck, baby.”
“Well, I know that, but others may not — especially people who don’t know me.” I smile.
“Don’t worry about it with me. I like the fact that you don’t mince words.”
“Yeah?” I ask. “It usually offends people.”
“It’s refreshing. You’re honest and if that offends people then that’s just too fucking bad. Don’t change that about yourself, because I know that’s one of the things Owen loves about you most. It’s one of the things I love most, too.”
Am I blushing?
“I love this video…” I say once we’ve finally moved away from porn and back to the safer ground of music videos. Omicron’s latest single is in heavy rotation and while I know that Max isn’t particularly fond of watching himself gesticulate dramatically while lip-synching for the camera, this video, in particular, is stunning. I can’t get over the effect of the wild flashes of colored light that radiates off their faces in different hues, while the boys emote full-on sexy rock star confidence into the camera.
“I wish I could have been there while you guys were filming.” I sigh, lamenting that I always seem to miss the fun stuff.
“It was a fucking boring shoot,” Max replies, putting me off my lament. “A really long couple of days.”
“I remember. Owen was calling me in between all his scenes. He was reading the Times over the phone to my belly.” I snicker.
“Well we’re doing a new one in about a week and a half.”
“Yeah? What song?”
“’Back From the Ground’.” He says, stuffing a French fry in his mouth. “We’re doing an alien X-Files, Mulder and Scully save the world, kind of thing. We were hoping to actually get them to be in it, but they’re on hiatus and not available.”
“Who gets to dress in drag for this one?” I chuckle. “Someone’s got to be the Scully, after all.” Max giggles at the thought, probably picturing Evan in drag, given he’s the most likely to vocally protest to the gig.
“Not sure yet, but I’m sure we’ll find someone.” He finally collects himself enough to reply.
“That sounds like that one will be cool. Where are you filming this one?”
“We’re looking at New Mexico or West Texas or something, I think.” He replies. “Middle of nowhere and a massive logistical nightmare to get the cameras in and out unharmed right now, so I don’t know if it’s going to happen.”
“What will you do if you can’t get the clearance to shoot?”
“Don’t know.” Max says his mouth full. “But you want to be in it anyway? Hell, you’d make a good Scully and I wouldn’t feel so odd volunteering to be the Mulder!”
“I’ve never been a video vixen before, it could be fun. But maybe just as an extra.” I smile, ignoring the deeper implications of Max’s offer, given the well-documented unrequited angst between the two characters. We sit in comfortable silence for several minutes, giving me an opportunity to steal a couple more of Max’s fries before he dives in head-first into the reason he’s here, in our room, instead of with his wife, where he should be.
“What was it like when it happened to you?” Max asks quietly.
“The divorce?” I ask, clarifying the subject.
“Yeah.”
“I really don’t remember it. My mother kept most of it from me. I went to school one morning, and when I came home I sat in his chair and waited for him to come home from work. I’d always be there when he’d get home and he’d make himself a martini before he’d come and play with me for a few minutes. But I vaguely remember that he didn’t come home first for one night, then another and another.” Max looks at me with such emotion beneath his eyes, it almost frightens me. But then I see the familiar warmth and I continue. “I think I was more upset with my mother, because I thought that she’d kicked him out after a fight. That’s the one memory I have of my parents together, laying in my bed at night and listening to them yell at each other. So, I used to fake nightmares to get them to come into my room and stop fighting for ten minutes. Anyway, I don’t even remember my mother telling me what was going on, I just kind of knew.”
“That your Dad wasn’t coming home.”
“Yeah.”
“Were you pissed at him or her?”
“Both, but mostly her for a while, at least. I figured that she drove him out.” I let out a deep sigh and quickly push back down any pent-up emotion trying to sneak out after nearly twenty years of trying not to dwell on it. “But then I kind of buried it, stopped thinking about it and moved on, since there was nothing I could do about it.”
“And now?”
“Now?” I think on it for a minute. “Looking back on how the two of them were together when nobody else was in the house, ending it was the right call on her part. Their relationship wasn’t a healthy one since it seemed like they used to fight all the time. It wasn’t good for her and it definitely wasn’t a good situation for Susanne and me. It was just…toxic.”
“And now you’ve got Dean…” Max points out.
“That’s true.”
“Do you love him?” He asks.
“Of course.” I admit. “He’s good to my mother, he treats her very well and he’s always been kind to us and really stepped up when others didn’t.”
“Your dad?”
“You caught that?” Max nods. “Yeah. My father is one of those people who shouldn’t be married. It’s like betting your entire bankroll on double zeros. It’s a bad investment.”
“But he keeps doing it.”
“The eternal optimist. He figures that one of these is gonna take, you know. I guess I should admire his spirit.” I think for a moment before admitting; “You know I’d never even talked to number five before he married her?”
“You hadn’t met her before they got married?”
“Nope.” I sigh. “That hurt me the most. He called and said something to the effect of; “I’m marrying this woman and I don’t really care if you approve or not. I’m just letting you know it’s happening.” It pissed me off that he didn’t even have the fucking courtesy to introduce me to her before he went off and married her. Then again, I’m sure my bullshit meter would have rung completely off the charts had I met her beforehand, and I would have told him to run as far away as fast as possible from that one.”
“Isn’t family fun?” Max leans against the front of the couch, taking my hand in his and gently rubbing the back of my knuckles.
“You know, unless I was in California for my court-appointed time-with-dad holiday thing, I didn’t talk to him that much. He was always too busy with the business and his women. So in a way it was like he was just totally gone. Still is. He’s not so much a dad as he’s a drinking buddy and now that I’m not drinking we don’t have much in common, and that’s sad. Though maybe now that number five is out of the picture, we can finally connect on a better level, but I’m reluctant to be too hopeful.”
Max looks at me, understanding. “I know that I need to try and work things out with Aileen, but I just don’t want to fight anymore. It’s exhausting.”
“What would you do right now if she asked you to make a decision about the future?” I ask.
“I would let her go.” Max says without hesitation.
“For you or for her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Would you give her up for her freedom or yours?”
He thinks on it for a minute, looking at me but beyond me, almost trying to get the answers from some unseen source. “Both, I guess? We’re pretty toxic around each other too. It’s not healthy. And it’s no good for Regan.” And I’m hopeful for his being okay if it does happen, since his response is about the most mature view on divorce one can have, given the inevitable emotional toll it takes on those involved. He’s not thinking just of himself, but rather the collective sanity of all three of them.
“You know, I have a theory. You want to hear it?”
“Sure.”
“I think that everyone has a destiny. Everyone has a path that’s predetermined. We can make choices, but God or whatever is up there already knows what those choices will be so they never really affect the final outcome — at least in the major things.” I look at him to see if he’s buying it so far.
“Go on…” He urges, looking only mildly skeptical.
“Anyway. I think in the case of my parents, they were supposed to get together to have my sister and me. But that’s all they were supposed to do. They weren’t supposed to spend the rest of their lives together or they would have worked everything out. So maybe that’s what’s going on with you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe destiny brought you and Aileen together so there was some stability in your life to keep your head a little grounded and your massive ego in check while your career took off. But that’s all you were supposed to do together. Regan was a bonus for you growing up and being a man, finally. But now you’ve settled in and figured out how to be a rockstar and a good man, while not going insane, so now it’s time for you both to move on.”
“I worry about Regan. And Aileen.” He admits quietly.
“Of course you do. Regan’s your little girl and your responsibility for the time being. She needs her daddy to be there for her no matter what. And when it comes to Aileen it would be hard not to worry a little, given everything you’ve been through together.” I smile slightly. “But she’s a lot stronger than you think. She’s independent and she doesn’t really need you anymore. At the same time, she’s beyond being your crutch and is ready for you to man up and stand on your own.”
“I don’t want Regan to think that I just fucked off on my marriage.” Max reasons.
“Listen, so long as you give her the time of day and do everything you can to make time for her, she will not think you just fucked off on your relationship, Max. That was the whole crux of my issues with my dad. He just didn’t seem to want to make time for me and my sister. You just need to stop for a minute and listen to Regan when she’s trying to communicate with you, both verbally and nonverbally. Really listen to her. So long as you don’t marginalize your kid, she’ll have your corner. As far as Aileen is concerned, you need to listen to her, too. What she’s really trying to tell you, even if she’s skirting the issue to try to smooth over your immense rock-star ego. There is always truth in those semi-truthful messages. You may just have to look under the trash to get to it. And you may have to suck it up and be the adult in the situation. You may just have to be the one to put a stop to the madness before you both get thrown off the carousel and knocked on your ass.”
“I never knew…” Max says, a little awe in his voice.
“What?”
“You’re a lot deeper than you let on. You’re a closet philosopher!” he chuckles quietly and I just shrug before formulating a more coherent response.
“I just don’t want to see you make the same mistakes that my parents did.”
Max smiles slightly, trying to put the conversation in perspective before finally looking back at the television and blankly soaking in the images on the screen. I hear Julia’s faint cry from the other room followed by Owen’s soothing, warm-as-honey voice that calms her instantly. He emerges with her cradled in his arms a couple of minutes later. He’s got his pajama bottoms on again, no shirt, and Julia swaddled in a thin blanket and a onesie that the wardrobe mistress made for her that has the band’s logo in sparkly ink across the front and a crown in the same ink just under the back collar.
“The Princess Julia requests an audience and a feeding.” Owen smiles groggily, as he brings her over to me. “She’s all changed and powdered and everything!”
“You changed her?” I ask, incredulous. “When did you learn to do that?”
“A couple of the staffers walked me through it again after you showed me.” He beams, handing me my yawning infant. I remove her blanket and position it over my shoulder to cover myself a bit. While I definitely don’t mind Owen watching me feeding her in the open, I’m not sure I’m all that comfortable with Max doing so as well. So once I’m somewhat covered, I let Julia at her meal while Max and Owen watch in fascination.
“It never ceases to amaze me…” Max says a little dreamily.
“What does?” Owen asks.
“Motherhood.” Max says. “The whole act of providing for an infant.”
“I’m sorry she woke you,” I say to Owen. “I forgot to bring the monitor out here.”
“It’s okay. I wasn’t really sleeping.” He says.
“Why didn’t you come out here, then?” Max asks.
“Didn’t want to disturb you.” Owen says.
“You wouldn’t have, Owen.” Max replies. “You’re my best friend. I have no secrets from you.”
“I thought that you and Katherine would just want to have an unfettered discussion without crummy interjections.” He smiles. “Did you get room service?” he asks, eying the tray, with the vigilance of a hawk about to swoop in on its prey.
“Yeah, man.” Max says. “You want some fries?” He asks when Owen begins to openly drool over the potatoes. Owen walks over to the wet bar to retrieve a soda, then joins Max on the floor.
“I know that letting her go is for the best, but I can’t help but think that I’m giving up too easily. Or giving in to what she wants.” He says, as Owen dives into the fries.
“Would that be so bad, giving her what she wants?” I ask.
“I don’t like him.”
Boom! There it is. What I’d suspected all along. Aileen’s got a side project, as they say in the business…
“Of course you don’t. He’s another dominant male in the lion’s den. He’s threatening your reign as king.” Owen interjects with a full mouth, clearly and previously aware of this news.
“See food?” I giggle a little. He opens his mouth wider to show me the contents as I wrinkle my nose in feigned disgust.
“Interesting analogy,” Max thinks on this deduction for a moment before continuing. “But I still can’t help but think that my career has been a major factor in all of this.”
“You can’t know that.” I defend his choice in careers. “If it wasn’t Omicron, then it would be something else. Your natural ambitious personality would translate into whatever you’d decided to do for a living.”
“I’m never with her. This is her primary argument about the whole thing.”
“Your career has made it possible for you to give her everything she could ever want.” Owen counters.
“Except my time, apparently.”
“That’s not your fault, Max.” I say a little too snidely. “You have the means by which to bring her with you wherever you go. It’s Aileen who chooses not to go with you. It is Aileen who chooses to go to the Spanish Riviera. It is Aileen who chooses to run off to the far reaches of the earth to go have lunch with her girlfriends. She leaves you as much as you leave her.”
I’m getting angry on his behalf and I’m not too sure why. He is a big boy for god’s sake, so why do I feel like I need to pull him to me and mother him. Shelter him from the inevitable. I grab his hand and study the lines and deep grooves of his palm.
“So what were you fighting about on the phone?” I ask.
“She’s pissed that I went to dinner with you guys. Pissed that I went swimming with Regan. Pissed that I didn’t want to sit in the hotel tonight. She’s pissed that I didn’t beg off as well. She’s pissed that I’m hanging with you…” Max looks sheepishly at me before quickly covering it up. I know that look and I cannot allow the line of conversation to continue any longer or we will be headed down a very, very bad road. Thank goodness Owen doesn’t seem to notice and I can beg off by busying myself as I switch sides to allow Julia to dive in for supper part two.
Max is silent for a few minutes, shoveling in his cake and thinking about what we’ve been talking about. I can see his brain registering and cataloging the discussion. Julia finishes her meal, and I lay her across the sofa pillow to burp her. Owen asks if he can do it and I oblige him. I’m impressed that he not only wants to do it, but that he’s pretty damn good at it, too. After all the information is stored, Max looks at me again.
“She’s pissed that my lyrics are more autobiographical than they used to be.” He confesses.
“Are they?” I ask.
“Not really,” he admits. “A little more blatant, maybe.”
“So basically, in her eyes, you’re taking personal experiences, that unfortunately includes things from your private life, and exposing it for the world to see.” I surmise. Owen listens intently as he rubs Julia’s back, patting it gently to coax the bubbles out of her tummy.
“I’ve always done that.” He reasons.
“Yes, but before, things were good. Now they’re not. She doesn’t want you to make her look like the bad one.”
“So her complaint is all about ego?” Owen asks.
“Basically,” I say. “But on the flipside, your songs have always been vague enough to be applied to the listener’s own life experience.”
“Aileen doesn’t see it that way.” Max replies.
“Of course she doesn’t, because she’s applying the lyrics to her own life and she’s seeing the same thing that you were when you put it down on tape.”
“Yeah.” Max considers this as I continue.
“You can’t let that get in the way of what you do, though. You can’t let the art suffer because some people don’t agree with what you write. I mean what would you say if I told you that I don’t ever want to hear you play Furious Seasons ever again, because it’s too personal to me and I can’t deal with it.”
“I’d tell you to fuck off,” He says honestly.
“Of course you would. And so just because Aileen is your wife, at least on paper, you’re telling me that you let her dictate how you produce your art?”
“That’s the problem, I don’t.”
“Exactly.”
Max sighs deep and long and I can tell that he is just as torn as he was earlier. I just hope that he’s able to take these outside observances and use them to gain some clarity about the situation he seems to be craving so desperately.
The four of us sit in a companionable silence, watching television, but not really paying attention to what is on the screen. Max returns to the couch and snuggles up next to me, needing the contact, protective arms around him. Owen watches us from the plush club chair, with a sleeping Julia in his arms. And while I’m pretty sure that Owen’s not truly jealous, I can tell that he’s not altogether excited to see us snuggling, either. But he says nothing about it, choosing to defer to the needs of his bandmate, instead.
“Come on, let’s go to bed.” I say to both men a short while later. I’m barely keeping my eyes open and I don’t fancy falling asleep on the sofa.
“I’m going to crash here.” He says pointing to where he and I are sitting.
“Don’t be ridiculous Max, we have a bed the size of Cleveland. I know that you won’t try anything…”
“I shouldn’t. Owen here will kill me while I sleep.” I look at Owen with a slightly pleading look and thankfully, he doesn’t object tonight, either out of sheer exhaustion or true care for his best friend, I don’t care which, since my concern at the moment is that Max isn’t left alone to do something utterly stupid while we sleep it off in our room.
“It’s okay by me,” Owen says, surprising me. “Just don’t expect me to sleep next to you, Max. I like my bedmates to be a little less hairy.”
Max smiles, his eyes lighting up like a child. And he is happy that there is harmony in his world, at least at the moment.
“So you’d prefer Joseph, then?” I tease.
“Well, he is a fine specimen of manhood, isn’t he?” Owen grins, mischievously. “But, you’ll do.” He pulls me to him, while Julia sleeps soundly in his other arm.
“Are you coming, son?” Owen asks Max playfully.
“Thanks dad.” Max returns the endearment before skipping into the room after us.