and, in the mirror, saw Ace uncross her legs and then cross them again on the sofa, in impatience. She was not amused by him, nor impressed. He was not a world-famous rock star. He was a mess.
He had had a sponsor on this trip, a sponsor who was supposed to stay by his side every second of the day, except when Matthew was onstage, and even then, Jerry Camel lurked in the dim wings. Jerry was a good guy, he was good company; Matthew had no complaints about Jerry or the ardent way that Jerry loved Jesus. Jerry Camel was a childhood friend of Bruce Mandalay’s; he was being paid by Bruce to keep Max West sober!
Jerry Camel, however, contracted a near-fatal stomach virus while they were hiking up to see the mystical jewel-colored volcanic pools on the Indonesian island of Flores. There was no hospital on Flores, and so Jerry was helicoptered to Denpasar in Bali and then to Singapore. Matthew, who had been sneaking long pulls off the native guide’s flask of hooch, did not catch the near-fatal stomach bug. Alcohol had saved his life!
But it was killing him, too, he acknowledged as he popped open both bottles of champagne, handed one to his Thai co-ed, and drank from the other one himself. Why insist on formalities like glasses? Ace didn’t seem to mind. She chugged from her bottle. Matthew would be found dead in a hotel room not unlike this one, he was sure of it, especially with Bess now gone. He would die alone, the unintentional victim of his own hand, just like Hendrix, Morrison, Joplin, Keith Moon. Addictions were an occupational hazard, Max West liked to say, though Bess called this the ultimate cop-out.
Matthew rolled a joint and was freshly pleased that he had company. The rest of his band—Terry, Alfonso, the good family men that Bruce had insisted he surround himself with long ago—were on an all-day tour of Bangkok: the floating markets, the palace that held the Emerald Buddha, the temple called Wat Po with a hundred-foot-long reclining Buddha, and a famous silk merchant’s house that was filled with the finest antiques in Southeast Asia. The rest of his band tolerated a toke or two of delightful bud, but they would lynch him if they knew he was drinking.
So, Ace. Matthew smiled at her as he lit up the joint, but he suddenly didn’t have the energy for small talk—where she was from, what she was about. He wanted to know these things but couldn’t bring himself to ask. A deep-seated unhappiness. Matthew tried to imagine the unhappiness residing in him. Was it thriving somewhere in his dark recesses, growing, mushrooming? Was it really due to his father’s leaving? Matthew didn’t remember his father and never wondered about him. In his mind, his childhood had been fine; he’d been loved by his mother and doted on by his four older siblings. His adulthood had been a fantasy, every wish—material and nonmaterial—fulfilled. He wrote songs, he sang, he played the guitar. He regarded Ace, the smooth, brown suede of her skin, the silky line of her black hair, the tender, pale inside of her wrist. She was beautiful and indifferent (he appreciated the indifference more than the beauty), but Matthew knew he wouldn’t sleep with her. It was what he’d expected to do when he let her in, it was what she expected, but Matthew was all done with empty relationships and with touching beautiful girls who meant nothing to him.
A deep-seated unhappiness. Matthew let the champagne flow down his throat, stinging him, nearly choking him. While Max was in Brunei, the strangest thing had happened. Bruce had called to tell Max he would be going to Nantucket Island in August to sing for Claire Danner.
Claire Danner? Max had said.
I thought you would want to do it, Bruce said. I wasn’t wrong, was I?
No, Max said. Not wrong. Of course I want to do it.
It was weird the way things happened, the way the world worked, so bizarre and unpredictable that Max could barely handle it sober. No sooner had Bruce said the name Claire Danner than Max was suffused with tender, painful memories of himself as a teenager. And Claire. God, the two of them had been so unformed, but somehow perfect. In Matthew’s mind, Claire Danner wasn’t even a person anymore, she was an idea: hand-holding, falling asleep on the beach wrapped together in a blanket; she was his innocence, his