Page 26 of Malibu Rising

“You have a third child,” June said. “Your girlfriend dropped him off here with us. Apparently, she’s not ready to be a mother.”

Mick remained silent and June found herself desperate for him to say something.

“Oh, Junie,” he said, finally. June could hear his voice give, as if he were about to cry.

Mick fell to the ground, shaking his head and then burying it in his hands.Jesus,he thought.How did it come to this?

• • •

It had all felt so simple to him before Carol.

He could have the beautiful house with the beautiful wife and the beautiful children. He could love them with all of his heart. He could be a good man. He hadmeantto be a good man.

But women were flocking to him! Good God, you’d have had to see it to believe it. Backstage at his shows, especially when he was appearing on a bill with guys like Freddie Harp and Wilks Topper, it was like Sodom and Gomorrah.

June never understood that. The way the young girls looked up at him from below the stage, with their big, bright eyes and knowing smiles. The way young women would sneak into his dressing room, their dresses open two buttons too far.

He said no. He said noso many times. He’d let them get close or touch him. Once or twice, he’d even tasted the schnapps on their lips. And then he always said no.

He would push their hands away. He would turn his head. He’d say, “You should go. I’ve got a wife at home.”

But every time he said no, he worried he was that much closer to the one day when he would say yes. And he wasn’t sure quite when it had been, but sometime when Nina was still just a tiny little something, he realized he was saying no the way you decline a second helping of dessert. You say no while knowing that if it’s offered one more time, you’re going to say yes.

That yes finally came in the parking lot of the recording studio during his first album. Her name was Diana. She was a twenty-year-old redhead backup singer with a beauty mark drawn above her eyebrow and a smile that made you think she could see you naked through your suit.

Heading home one night, Mick ran into her by his car and she met and held his glance just a second too long. Before he caught himself, he was kissing her against the side of the building, pushing her up against the stucco, pushing his body against hers as if it would save them both.

Seven minutes later, he was done. He pulled away from her, fixed his hair, and said, “Thanks.” She smiled and said, “Anytime,” and he knew, in his bones, he was going to do it again.

The thing with Diana lasted for two whole weeks and then he got bored. But he found that once it was over with Diana, the guilt madehim want June more. He needed her love the same way he’d needed it when he first met her. He craved her acceptance, couldn’t get enough of her big brown eyes.

It was that much easier to cross the line a little while later with Betsy, the waitress at the bar across from his producer’s office.

And then there was Daniella, a cigarette girl in Reno. Just a onetime thing. It meant nothing.

And what did it matter?

He could still be a good husband to June. He could show up on time to every recording session. He could sell out crowds. He could charm the young and the old, wink at the old ladies who showed up with their husbands to have a good time listening to the hip young man. He was giving June everything they had dreamed of for themselves. They had their two sinks and they were starting a great family. And anything June could think of, he would give her.

He just had this one thing for himself.

But then he met Carol. It was the Carols that ruined everything. And he’d known that. That’s what was so maddening about it. He’d learned this all already, watching his father.

He’d met Carol at a show at the Hollywood Bowl. She’d been there with a studio executive. She was so tiny but her attitude filled the room. She didn’t want to be there, didn’t even know who Mick was—a distinction that was becoming more and more rare. She shook his hand politely and he smiled at her, his very best smile, and he watched the edges of her thin pink lips start to curl up ever so slightly, like she was trying hard to dislike him but couldn’t quite muster it.

Forty minutes later, he had her right there in an unlocked limo they found behind the venue that night. Just before they both finished, she screamed his name.

When they were done, she got up and left with little more than a “see you around.” And ten minutes later, she was back on the arm of the exec she came with, not giving him a second look.

Mick was sunk. He needed to see her again. And again. He would call her agent’s office. He showed up at her apartment. He could notget enough of her, could not help but be enchanted with her passive charm, her indifference to almost everything—including him. He could not get enough of the way she could talk to anyone about anything but did not hang on a single person’s word. Even his.

Oh, God,he thought a few weeks into it.I’m falling.

They had been seeing each other during late nights and long lunches for three months when Carol told Mick she was pregnant.

They had run into each other at Ciro’s. Mick had been having dinner with his producer. Carol was there with another man.

Mick had lured her into the men’s bathroom and taken her right there in the stall, so overcome with jealousy seeing her with someone else that he needed to own her.

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