Page 15 of For The Record

The only good thing I can say about lunch is that the food is good, and the company is paying.

Ryder sits next to Alina, the other artists facing them but engrossed in their own conversation, probably because they’re in the same band. Kira and Sonia Amani, part of the four-sister singing group put together on some talent show or another, sit on my left, dark heads bent close together as they talk. I’ve already made small talk with them about where the other two sisters are—on vacation, apparently—and asked who will be supporting them on tour this year.

I’m seated at the head of the table, some dishes of raw meat already laid out next to the barbecue and a few slices sizzling on the grill. Annabelle assured me she’d already ordered the lamb chops when she made the reservation since apparently, they’re an order-ahead specialty.

That was also when I realized there was no alcohol on the menu. It might have been nice to take advantage of having a driver for once, not to mention get through the ordeal of dining with the present company.

Sonia Amani lifts the pitcher, pouring water for everyone. Her sunny smile and pink sundress contrast the goth makeup and dark clothes of her twin, Kira. “So, how have everyone’s weeks been?”

“Ryder and I just recorded a new song,” Alina says. “Well, not new, new, but… pretty new. It’s a remix of his single, with new lyrics.”

Kira’s brown eyes light up. “I always like remixes better than the original.”

Ryder leans back in his seat. “Not a lot of people do.”

A fiery debate about remixes and original music launches, the flames possibly heated as the food on the grill. I watch, surprised to find myself somewhat enjoying the conversation. “So, Ryder, you and Alina came here from the recording studio in Burbank?”

“Yep.”

I wait for a more substantive answer. Nothing. “Did you get any writing done?”

Alina puts me out of my misery. I don’t know whether to be grateful or resentful. I resolve to feel nothing at all, which only leaves me more conflicted. “Yes, we collaborated on a song together. Like I said before.”

Okay, then. Our relationship fell apart in the way that a bouquet of roses dies. No matter how much you put it into it, it was doomed from the beginning. We had fatally different worldviews and I’m about thirty percent sure she only dated me when her agent said it was good publicity. I didn’t mind going along with the scheme for a few months, but eventually… I got used to her. I even grew accustomed to the things about her that rankled me, the parts of her that always rubbed me the wrong way. And familiarity isn’t love, not even a poor substitute, but to me, it was close enough until it wasn’t.

“That’s great to hear,” I say. “Speaking of recording, how’s your album going, Alina?”

Alina Rostova’s career began two years ago with three Billboard top ten singles, none of which were written by her. She has put out a grand total of three songs since her first seven-song EP. Two years is a short time to become irrelevant and a long time to get your name back on the pages of gossip mags. Or, I guess, the Tweets of celebrity-obsessed stans.

“Fantastic. I have two songs.”

“Any singles?”

“I’m featuring on Ryder’s. What’s with all the pressure, Leo?”

Ryder’s gaze passes between me and Alina like he’s a radio antenna trying to pick up a signal. He waves the waiter over. “Can I get a beer?”

He’s promptly turned down. I decide that no matter how good the food is, next time I’m only letting Annabelle make reservations at restaurants that serve alcohol. The lack of liquor is making the air tense, caustic, because the next thing that comes out of Ryder’s mouth is “Crap,” as he glances down at his phone. “I have to take this.”

On my left, Sonia excuses herself to use the bathroom, her sister following her a moment later. Alina eyes them like she’s sizing up her competition, which I suppose could be the truth. If someone had told me that Alina Rostova had been the one to hunt the food on our table and butcher it with her bare hands, I would believe them. Her predatory disposition is just that animalistic. Primal. Deadly. I think there have always been those moments, showcasing something shadowy and dark and hollow lurking beneath that sunny, platinum blonde surface. Maybe I just saw what I wanted to see in her.

“I just want what’s best for your career.” I pick up a piece of beef tongue with my chopsticks, trying to walk the line between professionalism and friendly warmth while shoving past the bitterness that threatens to well up inside me and destroy what’s left of this civility. “You know that, right?”

“Sure.” She adds more sauce to her plate, not looking at me. Alina has never been afraid to go head to head with me. Board members or higher-ups maybe, but never me. So her avoidance of my gaze has me uneasy. “I know that.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

“Of course,” Alina says, clipping a piece of lamb with her tongs and holding it over the fire. At that moment, the meat sizzling over the searing metal, our words poised, arrows ready to release, we eye one another. Enemies. Lovers with no love lost between them. All the harsh emotions dissolve into nothing more than ash. “Anyway… Do you think we can get Skrillex on my album?”

The conversation thankfully takes a somewhat better turn. Alina’s enthusiasm for Skrillex and David Guetta overflows into a wild, hand-waving discussion that her available budget cannot recompense.

As she talks, I try to figure out how I could have ever thought myself in love with her. She’s pretty enough, sure, and accomplished, and cunning. And some part of me—some leftover remnant of my childhood that still emulated Antonio Perez like he could ever be a proper father to me—believed we could turn the fake into real. But I was lying to myself, blinded by my desire to look successful, to be a millionaire with a model on my arm and my name in the papers. To easily slot her into my life like a Barbie in a dollhouse. To slot myself into a life that I told myself I needed.

We never really knew each other. We only saw what we wanted to become, dreams that would never become reality. How foolish of me. How impossibly childish.

As Ryder makes his way back to our table, Alina casts a slow, deliberate glance between him and me. “Does he know you’re dating his ex-girlfriend?”

I would ask her how she knows, but she reads gossip magazines like most people breathe, claiming that it fuels her music. My guess is that it fuels her narcissism. “He doesn’t know anything because there’s nothing to know.”

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