Those Weekends In New England

Chapter One

The image a man creates isn't always the image he thinks he creates.

"Reporter's here, Denny." Al, his manager, stood in the doorway.

Denny sat in the dressing room after his Boston performance, bottle of soda in hand, damp towel around his neck, blond hair wet and uncombed as a result of a quick shower. He wore a black sweat suit, the unzipped jacket hanging open. "Thanks. Guess I'm ready. Bring him in, okay?"

A very rounded man entered. "Denny," Al made the introductions, "this is Jack Draper, from The Boston Herald."

"Nice to meet you, Jack. Have a seat." Denny stood and shook hands, indicating a nearby chair. His bare feet sank into the carpet. "Soda? Sorry, don't have any beer. I don't usually drink the stuff."

The man nodded as Denny reached into a small refrigerator to the left side of the door. Al departed as the singer turned around, still bent over, a frown on his slackened features. He hoped he didn't look as exhausted as he felt. "Coke okay? Everything else is gone."

"Sure." Draper plowed right into his interview. "Your show was powerful. Full of emotion." The reporter took the offered plastic bottle and unscrewed the top as Denny sat down again. "You really go to town up there, don't you?" With his other hand he took a recorder out of his pocket. "You mind if I use this?"

Denny shook his head at the last question and grinned at the first. "Yeah I do, as you say, go to town up there. I have to. That's what's expected of me." He took the edge of the towel and wiped at a few beads of moisture still on his forehead; they tickled as they slid down his cooling skin. Then he drained every last drop of his soda.

The interview continued and Denny answered everything asked of him. Questions were geared to his work, how he prepared for a show, what he thought of all the women who constantly chased after him.

First, two and a half hours straight of performing, he thought with a grimace he hoped he hid. Now this inane interview. The questions, no matter where he went, were always the same. He hardly felt like playing the cordial star, but, he kept reminding himself, this was a crucial part of his job. An important if not sincere part.

"Well, you're not what I expected," Draper concluded nearly an hour later.

"Oh?" Denny cocked an eyebrow. "Don't know how to take that."

Draper had the grace to look embarrassed. "I mean your show was... well, to be honest, slick. And you are not."

"I'm a private man." Denny's answer was soft. Nothing had gotten out of hand between them, as interviews often did, especially of late, and he decided this might be one reporter he could like. At the start of his career, years ago, when he'd been cocky and still unsure of his hold over a crowd, Denny made something of a bad name for himself. He'd been, as Al pegged him, full of "star-i-tis." A bastard, others had said bluntly. To his chagrin, the opinion was still widely held and people, like Draper here tonight, were surprised when they discovered that wasn't the real Denny Lorenzo. And more so now, ever since the accident.

Well, Denny knew he was suffering the consequences. Sometimes he didn't care. Tonight, with this reporter, the right impression, for some reason, meant something to him. "Personally, I'm private," he reiterated, "but on stage? No, I'm not the same man. How could anybody be so 'on' all the time?" He shrugged. "Yet everybody wants that outta me, right? That's what they pay good money to see. So I give them what they deserve, and hopefully more." He flashed a brief smile, one he knew was barely there, but he couldn't do any better. He was having a hard enough time keeping his eyes open.

"Don't you sometimes wish you could be yourself all the time, though? Your life doesn't really seem to be your own." Draper suddenly insisted on this line of questioning.