"You've fucked him up again, you know that?"
I looked up from applying more greasepaint to my brush, looking at Ace via the mirror. He was stretched out on the couch in the dressing room, makeup already on, lazily smoking a cigarette. As I watched, he exhaled slowly, sending smoke from his nostrils and mouth drifting up toward the ceiling.
"The hell are you talking about?" I asked, going back to my work.
"Paulie. He's gone all screwy again," he said, and I bit back a sigh.
"How so?" I asked, glancing at him in the mirror again, although I was desperate to focus mainly on just getting my makeup done.
"Two words, curly. Diet, and exercise. What else?" he asked in a languid voice, taking an infuriatingly careless puff on the cigarette dangling loosely between his fingers.
"Dammit," I said under my breath. "That's the last thing we need."
"He's right," Peter chimed in, putting the last few touches on his whiskers. "He's been on the fritz again ever since we landed in what, Kansas City?"
"No, Birmingham," Ace corrected, sitting up and squinting at me. "Also known as the city we went to after Nashville, which is where I saw Gene and Paul walking out of the hotel. So you better know what you did and fix it, we've got over a month left and if he keeps up he'll pass out onstage."
"I don't think he'll go that far. He's just got to attain the impossible beauty standard he pushes himself to achieve, no big deal," Peter said dryly, before rising to his feet and stretching with a wince. I could hear his shoulders crackling from where I was sitting, and his wince turned into a grimace.
"I'm going to find my wife. Good luck with Paul. Shit, he causes the same drama as a high school chick. This shit's ridiculous," he grumbled, shaking his head and walking out of the room, in no mood to put up with the rest of us, which was just about how he always felt. So at least he hadn't flipped out lately.
"You know he's high strung, Gene-o. So what wire did you twist just a little too much to make him snap, huh?" Ace asked, leaning back on the couch, flicking aside his cigarette and opting to reach for the flask in his pocket.
"I don't know," I said, finishing up my makeup and setting aside my brush. "I honestly don't know. We went to the Country Music Hall of Fame and the only thing we talked about was how the groupies had been this tour and how we were successful. That's it."
He squinted at me in the mirror, tilting his head back and most likely draining his flask entirely. "Well, you were the last one to talk to him before he started going off the rails again. So you get to figure things out."
I heaved a sigh, pulling off my shirt so I could slip into the skin tight leotard I wore under my armor. I had meant it when I said Paul could talk to me about things, but he had meant it too when he had reminded me I wasn't his therapist. I didn't want to encroach on Hilsen's territory, but I didn't want Paul to flip out and wreck the tour either.
"Where is he, anyway?" I asked, glancing at the costume rack. To no surprise, his outfit wasn't there.
"You know how he gets before the shows. We annoy him too much," Ace said with a bemused grin, as if he couldn't figure out what on earth Paul could possibly have found annoying.
"Imagine that," I said sarcastically, finding myself wishing for the umpteenth time that Bea was there. But it was still just a few more weeks until we saw each other again.
I didn't manage to catch Paul alone before the show, although I did catch a glimpse of him backstage. He kept chewing on his lip before cursing and reapplying his lipstick, and I sighed internally. Ace was right, Paul was definitely on edge, if not in the process of tipping over it.
But of course, as soon as the music started and the curtain dropped, he put his walls up again, wearing the makeup as a mask, letting Paul completely vanish into the Starchild. It always impressed me, but it scared me too, if I was honest. He was almost too good at becoming someone else.
The time passed in a blink like it always did and we finished our last bows before finally vanishing backstage. I caught Paul's wrist before he could walk off, pulling him to a halt. I pulled a little too hard, forgetting for a moment the fact we were in 6 inch platforms, and he stumbled, nearly falling. On instinct I caught him, arms going around him, and he leaned heavily on my chest.
There was a moment as we stared at each other, both of us as equally taken aback by the situation, before he straightened up, brushing my hands away.
"Sorry, you just caught me by surprise. Did you need something?" he asked.
"You," I said. "I need to talk to you."
"About?" he asked, raising an eyebrow, but he was already starting to suck on his teeth again, clearly just barely resisting the urge to bite his lips.
"What's going on? You've seemed off," I said, not bothering to be tactful about things. With Paul, sometimes it was best to just be blunt. Or at least that was my opinion on things.
"Off? How so? What's seemed wrong?" he asked, eyes going wide.
"You've just...been a little obsessed with fitting the stage," I said slowly, and to my surprise, his shoulders slumped with relief.
"That's it?" he asked, and I nodded.
"Yeah. I mean I it's not just it though, it's starting to get to be unhealthy and--"
"It's fine, really," he said, waving his hand dismissively. "I'll be fine. I'll just call Dr. Hilsen tomorrow, don't worry, really. You've got plenty to focus on, like how you're going to tell Beatrice about your fun with a groupie."
I flinched, swallowing the lump in my throat. "Yeah. I know," I mumbled. "But I'll figure that out."
We'd both figure out our own issues.
Wouldn't we?
