Crocodile Tears: A Boy Meets Girl Story Read online

  Zane

  “We’re pleased to have you on board,” Tom Stanton says, taking my hand.

  His handshake is firm and he’s smiling from ear to ear, flashing me his mouthful of pearly white caps.

  Tom Stanton is around sixty-something, I guestimate. He has a lot of silver in his dark hair but his beard is fully black, courtesy likely of Just for Men. It surprises me that he has a daughter so young. I give Stanton a disinterested nod, while Barry, our manager, clenches his jaw, watching me. He’s afraid. He should be. I can be an asshole. I tend to say what I think and that usually creates problems, but tonight, I’m in a good mood.

  I light another cigarette and head down the stairs to the limo that’s waiting. I couldn’t tell you what we signed for. Or, for how long or how much of my soul Barry decided to sell. But I was certain the deal was golden enough to make sure Barry’s able to buy his castle by the sea in the Caribbean. I would find out tomorrow, after I blitzed out tonight.

  Liv told me that tomorrow is her birthday and for some reason, I care.

  I stare up to the third floor and find her leaning against a window, watching everyone outside. She’s changed out of her dress and is wearing a simple T-shirt and jeans. Her wavy hair falls over her shoulders. She gives me a small wave but her eyes look sad. I hold my cellphone up, giving her a nod and she nods back. I run a hand through my hair and dip my head down, before sliding into the car.

  David Bowie’s Fame blares from the speakers around us.

  Cash, Dexter, and Rose are already inside. Including me, the four of us make up The Vigilantes. Cash was our lead singer. Dexter was on bass and Rose was on drums. The four of us started the band three years ago, while at Antioch High School. We were just four kids. Three out of the four of us were living just above the poverty level and were going nowhere. Cash, Dexter, and I spent our time scavenging for instruments to play with and scoring gigs that paid the four of us nothing on the Nashville, Tennessee music scene. Fuck, I miss that place.

  I wrote one song and within six months, we were superstars. I was twenty-one now but I felt like I was fucking sixty. Late nights, crazy groupies, endless booze, and the coke habit I’d picked up along the way, were beginning to make me really wonder about what The Vigilantes had become. We’d been touring nonstop since we started and I never stopped writing music. The demands on us were exponential. We put out two albums a year, in between touring. I can’t say I hate this life, considering where I came from. It was music or jail.

  “A hundred fifty million a year for three years, not including royalties and all the extras,” Cash says, popping a bottle of champagne.

  The limo pulls out of the estate. His voice is distant in my mind. The only thing I can think about, is the girl I met tonight.

  “Z, do you hear me?” Cash asks raising his voice.

  “Yeah, yeah. I hear you.”

  Cash and our manager, Barry, clink champagne glasses. I shift my gaze back to the window, watching the rough sea crash against the cliffs as we drive away from them.

  Rose kicks my boot. His eyes are half-shut and he’s covered in sweat. “Where’d you go, man? That Stanton guy has the best tequila I’ve ever had. I’m completely fucked right now from drinking so much of it. He said he has it flown in every month, right from fucking Mexico.”

  “I bet he does,” I mumble to myself.

  “Where’d you go?” Rose repeats.

  “I went for a walk,” I tell him. “I needed some air.”

  Rose bobs his head a few times and nudges Dexter in the side. Dexter takes a long chug of the champagne in his hand, empties the glass and sets it back down.

  “You okay, man?” Dexter asks squinting at me.

  “Yeah, yeah,” I say slipping further down into the leather seat.

  Dexter pops open another bottle, refills his glass, then passes me one. I put it to my lips, feeling the bubbles burst against my nose. It’s crisp and fruity. I take a sip, then pour the entire thing down my throat.

  Liv

  The view of the Hollywood sign comes into view, just beyond the twinkling city lights. California is my home. I loved this place. Perfect in the winter and hot in the summer, with the most pristine beaches. We had homes all over the place here but the one in the Hollywood Hills is where we lived. I was eighteen years old. I’d spent most of my life at boarding schools I hated, only coming home during the summers. I didn’t have many friends—only a few. I should’ve been on my way to college but I’d no fucking clue what I would do with my life. I wasn’t built for college. I wasn’t really that book smart either. When I told my parents I wasn’t sure if I’d go, they only shrugged. I had my art—that was all I needed.

  I rest my head against the side panel, listening to the distant rumble of the helo. It’s picturesque and I can see my house that sits perched all by its lonesome. I stare at Stanton, who has his head buried in paperwork. He’s chatting to our lawyer, Ben Berg. Or rather I should say, shouting over the noise of the rotors.

  I could’ve fallen out of the helicopter and I didn’t think anyone would’ve noticed. I fiddle with the bracelet around my wrist, spinning it a few times, feeling the cool metal touch my skin. It’s engraved with script writing in Latin but I don’t know what it means. It doesn’t technically belong to me, so why should I? I bang my head into the side window a few times, blinking slowly. I’m tired. I feel even more tired than before. In the past week, I’ve accompanied Stanton on meeting after meeting, with potential bands and existing ones. He’s promised me that we’d do something meaningful together, but if I expected that to happen, I might as well have shit in my own hand. I could take the smell of my own BS but the scent of his was unbearable.

  Our pilot flicks two thumbs up, signaling he’s getting ready to descend. My father and Ben are so busy blabbering, they don’t even see the gesture. I roll my eyes and stare back out the window.

  I shut them and think about the hottie I met tonight. I had all his numbers. He said we could be friends. Usually, I would laugh if a random guy told me that but I think in this case, Zane meant it. I place my hand over my wrist and take a deep breath. The scent of Zane’s skin is still all over mine. I place my hand to my mouth, inhaling him a little more. The way he held me. The warmth that came from him. If I knew anything about The Vigilantes and their heavy metal music—warmth wasn’t a word I would associate with it, or them.

  I don’t know anything about Zane but I’m curious about the Grammy award-winning song writer and guitarist. He was young. He was gritty. He was different.

  Zane

  It’s five in the morning. I stand and walk outside, taking in the view of the beach just steps below where I stand. The sun is rising. I run a hand through my hair and take a seat in one of the plush lounge chairs. I’m shirtless and barefoot, enjoying the cool Malibu breeze that dusts my skin. Slipping a pair of Ray-bans on, I pop the top to the Heineken in my hand and look at the stack of papers in front of me.

  Yandi steps through the doors that lead out to the deck where I am. “Zane,” she says. “Have you looked the touring schedule over?”

  I put the cool green bottle to my lips and lift the folio, shaking it a few times in response.

  “Good,” she breathes out.

  Yandi has been my personal assistant for the last three years. She was good at doing everything I didn’t give a shit about. She kept me organized and she respected my privacy.

  “Tarver said that you’ve asked him to take you to the Hollywood Hills this morning?” she asks, narrowing her brown eyes at me.

  I can tell she’s pissed but she tries her best to be polite.

  “Yeah, I did.”

  “For?”

  “I have something I need to do.”

  Yandi straightens and I swear her brown cheeks go fifty shades darker. I try my best to keep in my laughter.

  “This is the last day we have to prepare, pretty much. We have meetings today and a schedule to keep. You’re supposed to be on a Boeing 747. In
the morning. At seven a.m. sharp,” she snaps, accentuating the p.

  “I’ll be there but this morning I have something I have to do.”

  Yandi lets out a loud exhale and shifts where she stands again. “What do you want me to do with Rachel’s stuff?”

  “Who?”

  “Zane,” Yandi says raising her voice that catches with the wind.

  I shut my eyes and inhale. When I open them, I spot a pod of bottlenose dolphins jumping and flipping in the blue water. This view is incredible. It was why I bought this place.

  I laugh a little. “I don’t know, set it on fire. It didn’t belong here in the first fucking place. I don’t even know how it got here.”

  Taking a few more swigs of the beer, I hold the page up. “New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, bla bla bla.”

  I slam the paper back down and place the empty beer bottle on top of it.

  Yandi opens her mouth to speak but I do before she gets a word in.

  “I’ll be there, in the morning on the tarmac. At seven,” I say with a nod and stand, starting past her.

  “And what about the meetings?”

  “I don’t know. Cancel them,” I sing out, heading back inside.

  Liv

  I open my eyes and stare at the peach vaulted ceiling above me. I was too old to still have a bedroom with shades of pastel in it but after Olga and I painted it for me when I was seven, I couldn’t bear to see it go away. I had so many great memories under this peach ceiling. I roll over and stare at the clock on my nightstand. It’s nearly nine in the morning. I pick up my iPhone from the table and hit the faceplate. A colorful picture of a birthday cake with lit candles pops up in the text message from “Z,” it reads.

  He remembered.

  I sit up in bed and brush my hair away from my face. I smile and slip out of bed, padding across the bedroom. I shower quickly and put on something casual—a simple PINK loungewear top and pants. I pull my hair up into a messy bun and dab some gloss of my lips. Leaving my bedroom, I stop by my mother’s suite. It’s on a different floor from my father’s. Hell if I know why. It’s just always been this way.

  Knocking on the door that’s already ajar, I can hear a pretty voice singing a tune. It’s soft and light and then it hums. Our maid, Olga, peeks around the corner and ushers me inside. She gives me a smile as I head deeper into the large apartment-sized area.

  “Liv,” Audrey calls out.

  I give Audrey a smile, while she rushes around her bedroom in a white slip. I take a seat out of the way. Her hair is up in rollers and her feet are covered by furry black slippers with four-inch kitten heels. I jerk my attention back to Olga, who is holding up three designer dresses in her hands.

  Audrey takes a seat at the vanity again and stares in the mirror ahead. She gestures in Olga’s direction with the makeup brush in her hand. “I don’t like that one. That one. Or that one,” she says.

  Olga suppresses a loud exhale and heads back to the closet.

  My mother looks me over. “Why are you dressed like that, Liv?”

  I look down, taking in my outfit. “It’s loungewear.”

  Audrey’s lip turns up into a snarl. “I don’t like it on you.”

  I shrug. “I’m not changing.”

  Audrey mumbles something and shifts in front of the vanity. She applies bright red to her lips, slowly with her mouth parted, when she meets my reflection in the mirror in front of her. When she’s finished, she puckers her lips seductively.

  All my life I watched Audrey pamper herself. She shopped like she was afraid the stores would go out of business. She bought the most expensive clothes, makeup, shoes, and designer dresses money could buy. I believe my mother thought she was in her twenties. She was a bombshell then.

  Audrey won the Miss World competition twenty years ago, twice. She had a killer figure even for her age now. She’d been touched up in so many places, that now, her breasts were harder than the marble floors beneath our feet. Audrey kept herself up, by hitting the gym regularly, injecting the right amount of collagen into her lips and the exact measure of Botox into the lines and wrinkles on her face. Someone really needed to tell my mother that nothing could stop age and the reality was, she was getting old.

  I keep my eyes trained on her. It brings back memories from when I was a little girl, watching my mother dress for a show or a big event, or simply just for dinner. I would find a corner, while she paraded around in her pretty underwear, bossing either our nanny or the maid around, who would help her dress. By the time she was done, she looked like a million bucks. She looked like everything Tom Stanton expected her to be—everything he paid for.

  After a half hour, Audrey is still applying lipstick. I fiddle with the hem of the black satin dress in my hands that drapes over the arm of the loveseat I’m sitting in. It’s smooth and light and pretty under my fingertips but for some reason, I just want to rip it to shreds.

  “It’s early in the morning. Why are you doing this now?” I ask.

  Audrey drops her hand on the vanity table loud and meets my eyes in the mirror in front of her. “One can never start too early. Plus, your father and I have a photo shoot at lunch time, first. Then lunch. A cocktail party and then a dinner in Beverly Hills. I’m in for a long day.” She takes an exhausted breath that amuses me.

  “Oh,” I whisper.

  Audrey flashes me a brilliant smile, just as Olga sidles up to her showing her another dress. This one is red. My mother shakes her head vigorously. “It’s whore red,” she says. “Do I look like a whore, Olga?”

  Yes.

  “No, Mrs. Stanton. I-I don’t know. You must have bought it,” Olga says in her thick Ukrainian accent.

  I stifle a laugh that threatens to split my face.

  “I didn’t buy it,” my mother says raising her voice.

  Olga stiffens. I roll my eyes and shoot up from where I’m sitting.

  “You should put on a dress, Liv. You look better in dresses,” Audrey sings out.

  “Okay, Mom.”

  Liv

  I make my way slowly down the wide hallway, admiring the original artwork that decorates the walls. This house is opulent, gaudy, and way too much for only the three people that live in it most of the time. I had no siblings. It’s always been just Stanton, Audrey, and me. Reaching the end of the hallway, I push open the door to my father’s office. He’s on the phone. He spins his chair around to face me and gives me a dismissive wave.

  I thread my fingers together and make my way to the far window and take a seat. A small teddy that belongs to me leans against the glass. I pick it up and fiddle with the cluster of hearts stitched to its hands. It’s adorable. I squeeze it tight, the same way I need to be.

  “The deal was for fifty million. I don’t know how much clearer I need to make that. Tell those assholes, take it or leave it,” Stanton barks out, then lowers his voice in a whisper. “That’s the final offer.” The phone slams down so hard, I think he’s shattered the receiver.

  Stanton lets out a long sigh and scrubs his face with his hands.

  I admire my father. He’s built Rogue Records up to what it is now. A multi-billion-dollar company, that represents nearly every facet of musical talent out there. My father had an eye for genius and for what the masses wanted. Rogue Records was his baby and he nurtured it. He cared for it. He loved it.

  He takes another breath. Then, it’s quiet.

  So, I start to sing, loud. I belt out Misunderstood by Motley Crue. I don’t have the best voice but I don’t care. Stanton lets out a groan and flips through some papers. I’m on the second verse by the time he demands I “be quiet.” I stare out the window, still pretending not to hear him and just sing.

  “Olivia, please!” Stanton yells, massaging his temples. “Goddamn it! Why do you always have to do this shit?”

  Instantly, I shut my mouth and decide to inwardly seethe.

  I’d been around music all my life and had met nearly every superstar in the recording ind
ustry out there from Prince, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez to Rihanna. I’d met tons of rock bands—the legends and the new ones, such as Aerosmith, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Maroon 5—all only because of Stanton, of course. I loved what my father did, only he seemed to care more about the talent he represented, than he did about me.

  Stanton stands and shrugs into his suit jacket.

  Ben Berg, my father’s attorney and righthand man, knocks on the door. “Good morning, Liv,” he greets.

  “Good morning,” I murmur, still stroking the teddy in my hands, while tears stream down my cheeks.

  Stanton observes them and shakes his head. “Liv, I don’t have time for one of your performances today. I really don’t.”

  I sniffle loud and keep my eyes trained on the window ahead.

  “I have a busy day, Berg. What is it?” Stanton babbles.

  “Contracts.”

  Stanton sighs loudly and moves about the room.

  Ben drops the stack of papers on the edge of my father’s desk. Stanton grabs a pen and eyeballs Ben, before he puts it to the pages. “I don’t need to look these over, do I?”

  “No,” Ben responds, shaking his head vigorously. “No, of course not.”

  I laugh at Ben’s comical reaction. Tom Stanton was usually a nice guy but he was domineering, demanding, and sometimes just plain rude. Everyone respected him, especially in the music industry. They groveled at his presence like he was the fucking Pope, half the time. To me, he was usually just an absentminded asshole but I loved him, still.

  “Good. I don’t have time to read over everything that’s shoved in my face on a daily basis,” Stanton grumbles, scribbling his signature on each of the pages in front of him. The tip of the pen makes a grating sound against the surface of the desk, each time he accentuates the n at the end of his signature.