give her the message, but it was several weeks before they heard from her, although she had promised to call them frequently. She said the band’s engagement at the nightclub where they were playing had been extended, and they were working on the album now. She told them she was fine, and didn’t mention the tour. They were relieved. All they could do was wait it out, and hope for news.
Camille came back to San Francisco in September. She just appeared one night, in tight blue jeans, a tight white satin top with a plunging neckline, looking sexy and infinitely more grown up than when she’d left. Eleanor noticed that she slurred some of her words and wondered if she was drunk. She stayed with them, in her old room.
She said they had been booked for a tour as the opening band for the group they were working with, and they were leaving in a week. She seemed suddenly more womanly, and not like a young girl anymore. Any semblance of innocence was gone. It was obvious from the way she referred to Flash that they were lovers now. Her parents were sick about it, and her mother asked her point-blank if she was on drugs. Camille laughed, and didn’t answer her. Eleanor was almost sure she was.
She slept most of the time, and was euphoric and rambling when she was awake. She talked about what a big star Flash was going to be, and he was going to take her all the way with him. She mentioned several big singers at the time, and said that Flash said they were going to be bigger than they were. She said he was hotter than Elvis Presley and more talented. She had a million dreams and illusions and was on a high. Flash had promised to make a single featuring her which would make her a star in her own right.
Alex and Eleanor could feel her slipping through their fingers whenever they talked to her. They couldn’t stop her. Flash was paying her, which gave her some independence, and they knew that if they tried to hold her back now, she’d be gone in an instant. They watched her leave for the tour with tears in their eyes.
“Please take care,” Eleanor begged her fervently, and Camille laughed at her.
“I’ll call you from the road,” she said vaguely and got in the cab. She was meeting Flash at the airport, and they were flying to L.A. to start the tour. They would be heading east from there, into the South, through the Midwest, and end up in New York at the end of the year in December. It sounded grueling, but it was what she wanted desperately, and Flash had become her hero. He had made it all happen for her, or said he would.
They heard from her sporadically after that, sometimes once a week, sometimes not for a few weeks. They were playing almost every night, and driving from one town to the next in a bus with the other band they were opening for. They played a venue in Coney Island, in New York in December for the last night of the tour, and she said she’d be home after that for Christmas, but they didn’t hear from her and she didn’t show up until New Year’s Day. She just walked in, and stood staring at them as they ate dinner in the kitchen. She looked jaded and tired. She was scantily clad, and had dark circles under her eyes. This time, there was no doubt in their minds. She was on drugs. There was no sign of Flash. She said he was visiting his mother in New Jersey.
“We signed up for another tour,” she said, “opening for a bigger band. We go back on the road in two weeks.” She had signed on for a hard life, and they were frightened by the destruction they were afraid Flash was leading her to. But she was on an express train they couldn’t stop. They tried talking to her about it while she was there, but she had no interest in what they said, and she was an adult and they couldn’t lock her up. She was gone in a few days, and they didn’t hear from her for two months after that. Thinking about her was an agony for her parents. They never knew where she was or what she was doing. All they knew was that she