Page 15 of Charm City Rocks
“I know, andagain,I’m sorry. I’ll buy you and Mr. Camera Guy a beer, too, to make up for it. What do you say? I just feel like if you drive off without me asking, I’ll regret it.”
“Damn,” whispers Todd. “That’s a decent line.”
“Todd, it’s time to cut, seriously,” says Rebecca. “Margot, are you ready? You shouldn’t have to deal with this.”
Margot looks over at a bar across the street: the Horse You Came In On. A neon Orioles sign blinks. A few twenty-somethings with beards smoke outside. It’s just some bar, like any one of a million in any city anywhere. Since the band broke up, she’s avoided places like it, instead opting mostly for her apartment. There’s a whole generation of people who have no idea who she is. People her age, though, remember what a mess everything was at the end. It’d be nice, she thinks, if she could just step out of being Margot Hammer, like a kid stepping out of a Halloween costume. No one would give a shit who she once was or who she used to be married to or how she had a high-profile meltdown at the MTV Video Music Awards.
Margot looks at Billy’s vintage T-shirt and wonders what his favorite Neil Diamond song is. Hopefully not “Sweet Caroline,” but probably, because people usually don’t surprise you.
“Margot?” says Rebecca. “You ready?”
Margot opens the car door. “Maybe next time,” she says.
Chapter8
It’s a surprisingly small city, Baltimore—another thing Billy loves about it—and there’s nothing special going on, like a festival or an Orioles home game. So, in the few minutes it takes Billy, Caleb, and Grady to order pretzels at Hot Twist and tell Gustavo about the craziest thing that’s just happened, the black SUV carrying Margot Hammer and her crew makes it across town to the Ivy Hotel in Mt. Vernon.
Gustavo doesn’t believe them at first, obviously. Now, though, he points up the street with a pretzel stick, devastated that he missed it. “This all happened right…there?”
“Yeah,” says Grady. “At Charm City, then up by where Daquan’s playing.”
Gustavo looks up the street at the busking drummer. “You atehowmany gummies, Cay? Three?”
“Might’ve been four,” says Caleb.
Gustavo shakes his head. Out of respect for the situation, he’s muted the volume on his soccer game. “I’m impressed you could even type.”
“That’s what I said,” says Grady. “Remember, you gave me twolast year at the store’s anniversary party? I almost fell into the harbor. I would’ve had to get a tetanus shot.”
“Didn’t realize you guys had a legit cartel going on down here,” says Caleb. “I’ll be more careful next time I’m looking for snacks.”
“Stop it,” says Billy. “No more drugs. Or at least, not until you’re…I don’t know, older.” Billy grew up on “Just Say No” and “This Is Your Brain on Drugs,” so he’s torn here between his liberal stance on drug laws and feeling like a horrible father. He hands Caleb the second half of his pretzel to eat. “Maybe we don’t mention this to your mom, though,” he says. “Or to anyone else, ever.”
Gustavo serves pretzels to an older couple. When they’re gone, he smacks the countertop. “So, what was she like? Was she nice? Did she look good? I need details.”
Billy doesn’t know where to start. Margot’s outfit was so effortlessly cool. And those eyes. He’d seen them in pictures and on TV hundreds of times, but in real life they were so startlingly blue beneath her wild brown hair that he’d only been able to maintain eye contact for small allotments of seconds. “She was beautiful,” he says.
Gustavo touches his chest. “Really?”
“Her boots were cool,” says Grady. “Very rock and roll. She’s shorter than you’d think, though.”
“When I was a kid, I was in love with Alyssa Milano,” says Gustavo. “I wanted to build a fort for her in the basement and have her live in it with me.”
Caleb chews his pretzel. “Yeah, Gustavo, that sounds like kidnapping.”
Gustavo sneaks a glance at his soccer game. “Fair. I won’t mention it to her if she ever swings by for pretzels.”
“Paula Abdul,” says Grady. “She was my crush. I wanted to be the cartoon cat from that ‘Opposites Attract’ video and synchronize dance with her.”
“Oh, right,” says Gustavo. “I would’ve built a fort for Paula, too.”
“Are these, like,celebritiesyou’re talking about?” asks Caleb, but they ignore the question.
“And then what?” says Gustavo. “You just asked her out for a beer? Like it was nothing? Like you’re Richard Gere or something?”
“Thatwaspretty money, Dad,” says Caleb. “But who’s Richard Gere?”
They ignore this one, too.
