Page 42 of Charm City Rocks
“Maybe,” said Margot. “Is it good?”
“I don’t think that’s the point with caviar,” said Anna, and they gave each other little upward nods that said,Can you believe this shit?Their first album had come out that summer and they were the hottest new band on the planet. They were rock stars.
“Okay, don’t be a total spaz and turn and look,” said Anna, “but, you know who Lawson Daniels is, right?”
“The actor?”
“Yeah, dum-dum, the actor. British. Scorching hot. He’s…well, he’s staring at you.”
“What? Where?”
Margot has never been good at the whole “don’t turn and look” thing, so, after turning and looking, she saw Lawson Daniels smiling at her from beneath a different glowing space heater.
Like Margot, Lawson was in his early twenties then—famous, but newly so. His first movie, a little British heist calledPiccadilly Hustle,had been an indie hit. He was a little too skinny. His teeth weren’t capped yet. He was dressed a notch too casually for the party, and his leather jacket was too big for him. But he was still handsome enough to make her swear aloud the first time she laid eyes on him. “Goddamn.”
“Uh-oh,” said Anna. “And now he’s coming over.”
Lawson was en route, his eyes locked on Margot as he weavedaround people. Anna made a quick exit. “I’m gonna ditch the fish eggs and get some of those little hot dogs. Good luck, babe.”
She had five seconds to prepare herself. She decided to feign obliviousness, as if she had no idea that a beautiful actor was beelining for her.
Lawson leaned against the railing, smiled. “Evening, love.”
No one had ever called Margot “love” before. The effect was like being on an airplane that suddenly loses altitude. “Hey,” she said.
“I’m Lawson.”
She’d recently discovered something odd about being famous. Even when everyone in the room knows exactly who everyone else is, you’re still expected to introduce yourself. So she played along and said her name, and they stood looking out over the terrace. A couple in an apartment across the street ate dinner. Lawson took a sip of his beer and smiled at the cold, blinking city. “Remember when we used to have to look up at all these fancy buildings?” he asked.
He didn’t know her, but he knew enough to know that a view like that was as new to her as it was to him. They were married six months later.
—
Billy asks now if he should draw the shade. “I should, right? Duh. The whole neighborhood can see in here.”
He gets up off the piano bench and pulls the gauzy thing down over the window, then he stands like he’s not sure what to do next. His anxiety is like moths fluttering around his head. Margot gets it. Years ago, late into the night on that Super Bowl Sunday, Margot was matter-of-fact about being in a cab with Lawson as they sped through the city toward his apartment. She was impossibly young, and his hands were on her body, and they felt amazing. He whispered sexy things into her hair and kissed her earlobe as thepoor driver looked at the road ahead. She slept with Lawson that night because she wanted to. That’s about as much thought as she gave it. Now, though, sex is a minefield, and she finds that she, too, is nervous.
“Sorry,” she says. “I don’t normally do things like that.”
“Like what?”
“Ask men to sleep with me via piano.”
Billy looks at the closed shade. He pokes the drawstring, watches it swing.
“And now that I have, I don’t know if I’m…”
“Yeah,” says Billy. “I understand.”
“Maybe we can wait?”
Billy tells her that they can definitely wait—that he isn’t going anywhere.
“I got carried away,” she says. “The kissing thing, at the game. That was really nice.”
“Can I…?” he asks.
She slides over, and he plays the intro she just played. He fumbles a few notes and plays it again. “In fairness, we don’t technically know if this song is about sex.”
