Got To Be Good-looking ('cause he's so hard to see)

~51~

John

"Did you hear" Harry Nilsson walked toward me as I lazed in the sun, sunglasses misplaced yet again. Grimacing I popped an eye open to see what he was banging on about.

Finally rid of my baggage – wife and secretary I returned to the enclave in LA to escape the press. Harry, Ringo, Keith Moon, Alice Cooper my posse as I turned over a new single leaf to try and escape the past, but I was drowning in the present too.

Macca and George were to drop by sometime this month but I was yet to tee up the dates, they always just loved to drop in on me at the last minute -convenient or not.

"What did I hear?"

"Here" Harry tossed me the paper.

The picture was on the front page, whether her family- Clare- wanted it to be splashed there or not.

Mama Cass Elliot dead at 32.

I sat up as a small picture of a tortured soul and a young girl stared back at me as it sat tacked to the corner of the page. My heart slamming in my chest for Clare.

"Sad news, that's my flat Cass lived in, had it years. Clare sent a telegram too" Harry tossed it over. The Stop. Stop. Stop. Intermitting the words she sent:

Cass passed away. STOP. Will keep flat for now. STOP. See you LA. STOP. Clare Elliot. Stop.

"When did she send this?!" I stood and Harry watched the rest of the paper fall to the ground, all the pages except the page with the girls on it.

"On the morning of..." Harry mumbled and paused in thought about when he got the news " oh, three days ago when the-"

"And you're only showing me now!?!"

"The telegram was at the studio, no one knew what it was about" Harry cocked an eyebrow "What are you fired up about? Shouldn't you be just upset like an acquaintance of Cass Elliot's? Not going off your tits like a man scorned?"

No one knew bar Clare, Paul, Linda and Cass, I suppose. We had gone our separate ways and a few weeks, led into a few months, then six, then Clare headed back to England and here we are today almost a year later.

My messy divorce began, and finalised, in that time. I lost myself in a sea of lawyers and nagging during it all.

We spoke on the phone but she kept away, stating we both needed space to 'think' I only spoke to Clare a week and a half ago, must have been just a day before Cass.....

"I am upset but.... Have you got the apartments phone number?!" Harry handed it over and I rang and rang over the next three or four hours til a cleaner finally answered and told me Clare was on a flight home back to LA.

I'll give her another day and call her place. That's all I can do.