Public Secrets

haven’t broken the news to Da yet, so keep mum, will you? Spring break’s just nine days off, and that should be soon enough for him to see the damage himself . Da says we’ll spend Easter on Martinique. Please come, Johnno. Please .
I love you,
Emma
And what was he supposed to do about Emma? Johnno wondered. He could show the letter to Brian and say “Look, read this and straighten your ass up. Your daughter needs you.” And if he did, neither Brian nor Emma would forgive him.
She was growing up, and growing up fast. Pierced ears, training bras, and philosophy. Brian wouldn’t be able to keep her in a bubble much longer.
Well, he would try to be there when the blow came, for both of them. Tilting back his glass, he drained the wine. And it looked as though he’d be spending a few days in Martinique.

W ITH THE WHITE sand heating under him, and his rum growing warm, Brian watched his daughter cut through the surf. What was she racing against? he wondered. Why did she always seem to be in a hurry to get from one point to the next? He could have told her that once she reached the finish line the glory was only momentary. But she wouldn’t have listened.
A teenager. Sweet Jesus, how had she come to be a teenager? And how had he come to be a thirty-three-year-old icon?
At thirteen it had all seemed very simple to him. His goals had been perfectly defined. To get out of the slums, to play his music, to be someone. He’d accomplished all of that. So where was the thrill? He picked up his glass and drank deeply. Where the hell was the thrill?
He watched Emma dive under a wave, then come up, sleek as an otter, on the other side. He wished she wouldn’t swim out so far. It was so much easier to worry when he could see her. The months when she was tucked away in school, he never worried. She was a good student, well mannered, quietly obedient. Then the holidays would come, and she would pop back into his life. That much more grown-up, that much more beautiful. He would see that look in her eyes, that dark, determined look he recognized as his own. It frightened him.
“God, what energy.” Johnno dropped down beside him. “She doesn’t slow down much, does she?”

“No. We getting old, Johnno?”
“Shit.” Johnno adjusted his panama and tried a sip of Brian’s rum. “Rock stars don’t get old, son. They play Vegas.” Grimacing, he screwed the glass back into the sand. “We ain’t there yet.” He settled back on his elbows. “Of course, we ain’t Shaun Cassidy, either.”
“Thank Christ.”
“Keep that up and you’ll never get your picture in Tiger Beat .” They sat in silence a moment, listening to the whoosh of the waves. Johnno was glad he’d come. The quiet of the private villa and beach was the perfect contrast to the crowded rush of New York, or the rainy spring in London. The villa behind them was three stories, with terraces jutting out over the sea—high walls and hedges on three sides and the white curve of beach on the fourth. The pretty pastel stones glinted in the sunlight, and there was the scent of water and hot flowers everywhere.
Yes, he was glad he’d come, not just because of the sunshine, but because of the time it had given him, the quiet time, with Brian and with Emma. The time he knew would come all too quickly to an end.
“Pete rang up a little while ago.”
Brian watched Emma stand in thigh-high water, lift her face to the sun. Her skin had warmed—not tanned, he thought, not browned, but warmed. The color of apricots. He worried about how soon some hungry young boy would want a taste. “And?”
“Things are set for next month. We can start recording.”
“And Stevie?”
“They’re going to put him on some kind of outpatient program. He’s a registered junkie now.” Johnno shrugged. “Methadone program. If you can’t get drugs from the street, you get them from the government. Anyhow, he’ll be ready. Will you?”
Brian picked up his glass, drained it. The rum had been heated by the sun and ran mellow down his throat. “I’ve been ready.”
“Glad to hear it. You don’t intend to take a punch at P.M., do you?”
“Give me a break, Johnno.”
“I’d rather see you smash his nose than spend the next months freezing him out, or working up to killing him in his sleep.”

“I’ve got no problem with P.M.,” Brian said carefully. “It’s his life.”
“And your wife.”
Brian shot Johnno a vicious look, but he managed, barely, to control the ugly