Lean On Me

The Purple Tart

 "Why are we doing this again?" I asked, puffing my cigarette, sorting records into piles of ten and folding promotional posters to stuff into the sleeves.

 "Because we are good wives!" Chrissie said happily.

 "I'm perfectly fine with being mediocre...sub-par in fact. Can I go now?" The four of us were sitting in Mary and Freddie's gorgeous suite that I was drooling like mad over. Copies of the record had been delivered to the suite and now someone had the job of tearing off the plastic covers, then folding, stuffing the liner with a promotional poster from Elektra and sorting these things into stacks of ten...guess who those someone's were?

 “I’m not a wife can I stop?” Mary asked of Chrissie as she lit her own cigarette. The thing about jet lag is that just when you think you’ve conquered it; it sneaks up on you and reminds you of the eight hour time difference. That moment was happening right now. My god, there was a fucking premiere in six hours! If we were this tired, I could only imagine how the boys must be feeling about now. Veronica’s demeanor had completely changed from the morning. She had hardly said a word as we folded and stuffed away. She had a rather removed look on her face. I could only figure she was as in dire need of a nap as I.  It was my conclusion that there was no way in hell I was going to arrive downstairs to this premiere only to want to go to bed two hours later. I kept glancing to her as we worked, a little over halfway through this project.

 “We only have one hour to go before the massage so we have to finish this by then!” She said. God, Chrissie was different in LA. She wanted to do it all and she clearly wasn’t holding back her excitement. Of course, I knew her two well. She’d clam up come time for the premiere and hardly speak to anyone in attendance that she didn’t know. It was her who volunteered us for this little stunt right here. Mary groaned.

 “Freddie’s gonna’ need that massage to calm him down after that record signing this afternoon. He gets so worked up for the fans. I bet you he’ll sign a few breasts and three or four arses today. Do any of you want champagne?” she sighed again and took a puff of her cigarette.

 “NO!” the three of us answered emphatically, knowing champagne would do nothing but put us to sleep in the state in which we already were.

 "Here’s an idea can't we hire someone to do this?" I complained further

 "No! Come on now we're almost done." Chrissie said. Mary and I sighed almost nearly in unison as our piles began to dwindle and our pile of plastic began to grow.

 "Well you know what? I better fuck Steven Tyler tonight for all this work!” I warned giving Mary a smile. “Roger told me Aerosmith would be here for the premiere!" I gushed a little because truth was; I had a most horrible crush on Steven Tyler. I couldn't believe he would actually be at the premiere tonight and furthermore, that I would have an opportunity to meet him.

 "Hey, you say jokingly but you have a tendency to attract a lot of attention in a room. If you wanted to, I bet you could." Mary said, tearing a piece of plastic off another record.

 “Who said anything about joking?” I gave Mary a wink. It was Chrissie’s intense and judgmental look I could feel on me first, followed immediately by Veronica’s more questioning stare.

 “Relax! Keep ya’ pants on. I’m not going to sleep with Steven Tyler. God.” I rolled my eyes. I could still feel Veronica’s gaze on me.

 “No, of course you wouldn’t actually do it. But…that’s not the point. The point is, you could. None of us could.” Veronica said, referring to Mary, Chrissie and herself. We all looked at her a bit peculiarly. Not because of what she said, but her tone in how she said it.