Page 61 of One-Hit Wonder

“Yeah,” she said as he turned to leave, and she listened to his squeaky footsteps on the vinyl-floored corridor until the sound disappeared.

She turned back to the railing and stared across the landscaped grounds and out toward the countryside for a while. Ashford town center was a small clump of gray and brown buildings in the furthest distance. She watched a Eurostar train speeding toward the station while she smoked her cigarette deeply and slowly, savoring every moment of not having to go back to Zander’s room. Yes, she’d been warned in advance. Yes, she’d been told he was difficult, precocious, and angry. But still she hadn’t been prepared for that. She’d fantasized about this moment for so long that it had become almost romantic. She’d been expecting to get inside his angry shell, to break down his defenses. She’d been expecting tenderness, deep emotion, tears maybe. She’d been expecting one of the most moving, monumental days of her life. She most certainly had not been expecting to feel this—this annoyance and plain old-fashioned dislike.

She wasn’t going to give up, though—no way. She was going to see this through to its conclusion—whatever that might be. She stubbed out her cigarette on the metal railing and straightened herself up. She was going to deal with this little boy. She wasn’t going to let him—excuse the expression—walk all over her. Although it often didn’t feel like it, she was an adult. And Zander was a child. She could do this.

She walked back to his room, took a deep, deep breath, and opened the door.

chapter twenty-four

Zander was sitting at his computer, and spun around in his chair when he heard the door open. He grinned at her. He looked quite sweet when he smiled.

“This is getting better and better,” he said happily.

“What on earth was all that about?” she asked angrily. “How dare you go around telling people I’m your mother?”

“Well,” said Zander, “how dare you go around telling people you’re my aunt?”

“I am…”

“No you’re not. And I’ve got the evidence to back it up now, thanks to our smarmy TV producer friend.”

“What do you mean?” Bee perched on the arm of a chair.

“Recognize this?” he turned back to his computer and hit a button.

Nothing happened for a while, and then some music started playing. Zander shut his eyes and swayed his head as the intro began. Bee recognized it immediately. Of course. It was her song. It was “Groovin’ for London.” It was Groovin’ for fucking London.

“Where the fuck…?”

“Aah,” said Zander, “the wonders of modern technology.” He turned and fiddled with his mouse for a while. “Recognize this, too?”

It was “Space Girl,” her shockingly bad second single.

“But where…?”

“WAV files. I just downloaded them from the net.”

Bee looked at him blankly. She knew absolutely nothing about computers.

“Techno bimbo?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You? Are you a techno bimbo? I.e., is your experience of digital communication limited to thumbing through the Yellow Pages for dress shops?”

She looked at him blankly again.

“Look,” he said, moving slightly so that she could share his view of the monitor. “I ran a search for Bee Bearhorn and it brought up all these results.”

“And what are all these?”

“They’re websites.” Zander clicked on his mouse twice, and the screen changed. Slowly, line by line, a picture emerged. It was Bee. A publicity picture taken at the height of the campaign for “Groovin’.” Some graphics popped up underneath, “The Unofficial Bee Bearhorn Site” in huge sparkly disco letters.

“Hmmm,” said Zander, rubbing at his chin and turning from the screen to Bee and back again. “Looks a lot like you, wouldn’t you say? Except obviously, you look a lot older than her.”

Bee slanted her eyes at him—he really did know exactly how to get to her.

“Yes, in the time it took you to smoke a cigarette…”