Rock Stars in Particular Order - 4

By Alana Nöel Voth

As a model, Ella does lingerie catalogs and posters for beer.

There’s a thing called Meet and Greet after concerts, backstage. You have to have the right credentials. Like a pretty face, big boobs, a pass. People with a pass get autographs. When those people can’t get to the band anymore they see Ella, and their eyes shine. "You’re with the band?" Actually, Kaye knows the band. Ella knows Kaye.

Ella has a modeling agent now.

No more postcards from Phil. Anyway, she hadn’t fucked him or anything like it.

Phil plays guitar. She keeps the postcards he sends her, including the one that says, "You’re special. You didn’t fuck me. We talked. Fantastic."

In Kort’s apartment, on a bed with tossed sheets and big pillows, she’s scared. Ella’s intimidated. She lies there shaking and waiting for him to bestow his magic on her body and soul. Kort rolls Ella on her back, spreads her thighs with his hand, and then fucks her—no serenade.

Kort puts Whitesnake on the tape deck and rolls down the car windows. Wind blows through her hair. He sings, "Here I Go Again." No idea where she’s headed next or what he’ll do with her.

     He says, "Why you here, doll?"

     Ella clasps her hands in her lap. "What do you mean?"

     Kort takes a corner at top speed. Butterflies in her stomach.

     He explains: "Shy girl alone with me. Aren’t you scared?"

Kort Black, singer for Well Known Cover Band, singles her out while he’s performing on stage in a nightclub. He says, "This one’s for you," and then sings a cover of "Heaven Isn’t Too Far Away."

Ella and her best friend Kaye drink Seagram’s Seven. Kaye passes the bottle. Ella drinks deeply. Then she jabs herself in the hand and watches the tiniest flowers of blood open between her life and love lines. Blood sisters. Ella and Kaye sit knee-to-knee in Ella’s studio apartment. Ella hasn’t got a TV, a car, or a phone. She has one box of clothes, three dozen cassette tapes, and a stereo.

Kaye shows Ella how to dress: Skirt, fishnet stockings, and stilettos. They have contests to see which of them can tease their hair highest. One night at a party, a guy Ella’s never seen before arrives with a guitar. He sings a song by Styx, and she flips.

Ella meets Kaye, who looks like Tawny Kitaen.

Danny breaks Ella’s heart. Anyway, he never started his band.

She removes her jeans; lies back on the carpet; opens her legs; wraps her arms around Danny’s neck; pushes her lips to his forehead and then tries not to scream when it hurts.

The Colorado sky is bone-cold blue; slivers of ice make the road shiny. Danny’s parents are gone for the weekend. Plumes of breath ring Ella’s head as she steps from the car and then locks it. She walks to the front door. Inside, she sits on the floor. Danny says, "Soon as I finish school I’m starting a band." Then he says, "You should be a model. Rock stars like models."

Sex dream. Water. Bret Michaels, lead singer for Poison, stands waist-deep in the surf, and Ella has her legs around him. She doesn’t fuck the rock star. They bob naked in the water instead. She kisses his fingers. Comes in her sleep.

Ella writes this in her notebook during History: "Like a Super Nova when a rock star takes the stage. He’s like Jesus. Powerful. Beautiful. Special. Not like me. I want to end up with a rock star who’s madly in love until we’re old and gray, even after, happily ever after."

Her new stepmother drives Ella to school in a Camero and plays bands she’s never heard before on the car stereo, Poison and Motley Crue. Ella plugs her ears. Stares at the road.

Ella’s dad has long hair to his shoulders; he smokes cigarettes and rides a motorcycle. On a wall in the garage, her dad has hung a poster of Christie Brinkley. Ella’s dad has girlfriends, curvaceous blondes. She hears him with one in the bedroom once. Her dad plays records: Journey, Cheap Trick, and Styx. She watches him from where she sits on the floor as he waters the plants that grow in pots all over the living room. A guy from Styx sings, "Babe, I’m leaving, must be on my way." She competes with her dad’s girlfriends for attention.

© Alana Nöel Voth 2006

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