King of Her Desire

51

So imagine you were watching this show on TV, and the first thing you see when the show comes back from a commercial break is the host ducked down, covering his face with his arms and yelling, "When did I lose control?"

Viral video of the week, that was. Because our table had started a full-on food fight that spread to almost all the tables in the hall.

Started with Remy. See, Zeke's dad was a friend of one of the honorees and they were at the table right beside us. And she kept randomly tossing these tiny red grapes over her shoulder at me and then turning to give me the "tee hee hee" like some sort of cartoon character.

So I finally lobbed a giant olive out of Gerri's martini, which hit Zeke, who retaliated with...I'm not even sure. But it hit Tommy, who went into 70s rock star "hotel room destroyer" mode and by the time the break ended there was food flying everywhere.

And the producers and Matt types were grinning from ear to ear, knowing how much killer press this would get. The show had been advertised as the "antidote" to other awards shows. Something wild and loose where the musicians could really be themselves.

People had voted to see these bands. Bands they really missed and wanted to honor in some meaningful way. Some had won lots of awards, some hadn't gotten the respect they deserved but the point was to let the people choose, not some select group of judges. And they got millions of requests. Enough to keep this thing going for ages even if they never took another vote.

The invitations said, "Come As You Are," with this picture of that Nirvana dude on it—you know the song, right? But the idea was to be as real as possible, even though they still slathered us in makeup and stuff.

And as we were reverting to our realest selves, Abra sat there grinning like a lunatic—agency reps get extra points for being in the actual photos and videos, I guess.

But poor Sochi just sat there gaping at us. She had no idea what the hell was happening. So after the madness died down some, Elliott gave her a little squeeze. And this guy from the table behind us went up to talk about the last band before hers.

Our girl was last because she was the best. And also the most interesting of the bunch, having started out as a child star and all. She had TV friends who were going to speak—it was going to be a real nostalgia trip for people who grew up with that show, too, not just the ones who loved her music.

And she looked at Tommy and said, "Are you guys--guys..." And then she paused and frowned and said, "First my eyes, now my tongue! Jeezus!"

"What is it, love?" Tommy asked her. I think we'd all heard the little "lisp" at the end of "guys," but it didn't bother me until she said something about it.

"You okay?" Carol asked her.

And Elliott chuckled and said, "I've become Castilian all of a sudden, but otherwise..."

Everyone laughed including me because I knew what she meant by that. My high school Spanish teacher taught us the Castilian "lisp." And all my Mexican friends still gave me shit about it when I slipped and pronounced an "s" that way.

She pronounced "Castilian" right, though, so I decided not to worry.

And then Gerri sent me a link to this "Breaking News" thing online and there they were: Espy and Yoli in this sick lowrider, in front of a whole line of cars from Cali and home, both.