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“What about Nessie? Did you hunt her for sport?”
“No! I’m not fucking Moby Dick.”
“You realize that’s the name of the whale, right?”
“No fucking way.”
“Yes, way.”
“Strange. However, I never got past the first page. Speaking of,” Vince leads me up the spiral staircase down a narrow hallway to an unassuming yellow wall.
“Pull that sconce,” Vince instructs, pointing to the elaborate sconce shaped like a vine. I tug at it, and the wall swings back to reveal a room full of floor-to-ceiling books sitting on polished oak bookshelves.
“No fucking way! A secret library? I’ve always wanted one!” I can’t help myself; I speed walk into the room, taking in the cozy nook near the window, a perfect reading spot. I run my fingers along the spines of the books. Vince has them organized by genre: Poetry and plays on one shelf, fiction on the next.
“Sociology’s to your left,” Vince adds.
“Since when do you read sociology?”
“When I have time to think! Which isn’t often when I’m on tour. I like when reading occupies a solid hunk of my time and my brain; it sways me away from some of my less aesthetically pleasing vices, like whiskey and narcotics.”
We walk through the library hand-in-hand, and he swings open a door on the East-facing wall. It’s a room full of soft silk cushions and cozy lamps. There’s an incense holder shaped like a snake and a tiny ceramic cup full of different types of tea sitting on a small, round wooden table in the center of the room.
“This is my meditation room. I also use it to do yoga sometimes; that, or I go outside.”
“I’ll do yoga with you,” I say.
“Really?” Vince beams.
“Yeah, that sounds great. I love doing yoga in the morning when I’m home.”
“Me too!”
Vince looks at me like I told him I could fly, and the anxious knot in my gut settles. Maybe this week will prove what I already suspect: Vince and I work. If we can get along on tour, which is an understandably strange environment, we can play ‘house’ for a week.
Vince shuttles me through the rest of the house. There’s a pool in the back as well as a state-of-the-art recording studio. His closet is the size of my bedroom, and his collection of leather pants forms a pleather rainbow on the back wall, as well as an army of backlit combat boots, each sitting on their plastic shelf.
I thumb the seams of his collection of vintage band T-shirts and a few statement button-ups by avant-garde British designers. I contemplate snapping a photo for Allison. The carpet in the closet is so soft it feels like I’m walking on a cloud.
And his bedroom …
“Are those silk leopard print sheets?!” I exclaim.
I’m standing before a massive four-poster California-king-sized bed outfitted in leopard print sheets and a plush burgundy comforter. I press my palm against the mattress to confirm that it isn’t a fucking waterbed. At this point, I wouldn’t put it past him.
In a way, Vince’s bedroom feels like every other musician’s bedroom. There’s a Les Paul propped up against the dresser, which is littered with bottles of cologne, spare hair ties, and a tattered copy ofZen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
The only thing that separates this bedroom, other than the pristine French doors that lead out to a small balcony overlooking the pool, from my exes is the Grammy that’s casually sitting on the dresser.
“You don’t have a room for that?” I ask. Vince and the band have won plenty of awards, probably enough to necessitate a room or at least a dedicated mantle.
“I ran out of room on the mantle. Besides, this one’s my favorite because it’s just for me,” He hands it to me. It’s dense, way heavier than I expected. My wrist jerks to accommodate the weight. I squint at the inscription: “VINCE EXTER. BEST ORIGINAL SCORE”
“It’s for a documentary I did the soundtrack for a few years back when we were on hiatus. It was the first time I felt like I could be someone outside of the band.” He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and studies the floor.
“Well, you’re a person outside of the Imposters, right?”
I try to be encouraging but I’m still shell-shocked that I’m holding a Grammy on a Saturday night. And that it belongs to my boyfriend. My last boyfriend played bass in a hardcore band. His prized possession was an ancient jean jacket he never washed, which he claimed belonged to Sid Viscous. I’m pretty sure Sid Viscous was a crust punk who lived near the boardwalk where he worked, seeing as the godfather of punk had been dead for the better part of two decades.
