“Do you know this from experience?”
He nods. “Yeah. We had heard the thing about no large parties, so we split into two groups. But then dumbass Cash tried to pull a chair up to our table because he was pissed at Reed about something and didn’t want to eat with him.”
“Did you guys get kicked out?”
“Cash did. We told the waiter we had no idea who he was.”
I burst into laughter. “He had to leave? All by himself?”
Daltrey grins. “Yup. The rest of us enjoyed our food and let him wait outside for us.”
“You’re mean,” I say, laughing.
He shrugs. “It was good for him. He thinks he can get away with whatever he wants just because girls think he’s hot.”
“Well, to be fair, he usually can.”
Daltrey shakes his head. “Yeah, when we went out to meet him, he was totally hitting on some girl in the parking lot. So he still got a number out of it.”
We get to the restaurant and manage not to break any of the rules. Daltrey was absolutely right about the food. It’s incredible.
“There needs to be a way for me to eat this every day,” I say.
“I don’t think your cholesterol levels would like that much.”
Afterward, Benny drives us back uptown so we can see Central Park. We wander down the paths, pausing to look up the buildings that surround the vast green spaces.
“It’s so weird. When I turn my back and just look out over this”—I wave my hands to encompass the lawns and stones around us—”it feels like we’re a million miles away from the city. But then you turn around and it’s all around us.”
“That’s the beauty of Central Park.”
We make our way around to Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon memorial. There’s a small crowd taking pictures and milling around the Imagine mosaic. A man sits on a bench, playing “In My Life” on his guitar. We pause to listen; he’s very good. When the guy finishes the song, Daltrey pulls two twenties from his pocket and tosses them into the open case. Their eyes meet, and I get the sense the man recognizes him. Guitar man nods slightly in thanks, and we move on.
“You sure like throwing your money around,” I tease.
“That’s the most fun part,” he says, his tone serious, “being able to brighten someone’s day a little bit. To leave a nice tip just for the hell of it. To pay someone’s bill without telling them. It’s seriously the best perk of this entire experience.”
I shake my head, marveling at this boy. He just spent the night in one of the swankiest, most expensive hotels in New York City. He drives from city to city on a luxurious tour bus that puts most middle-class houses to shame. He spends the day sightseeing with a private driver. But tipping a busker in Central Park is the highlight of his day.
I love him so much.
I’ve had to push those feelings down for such a long time. When we were teenagers, Daltrey always had a girlfriend. Few of them were ever serious, horrid Joanie lasting longer than most, but there was generally always someone. After the band recorded their first demo in a local studio the summer before our junior year, he seemed to get a lot more serious about things in his life. He stopped flirting and going through girlfriends as if they were candy and started focusing more on the band and where they were headed.
But still, even with the endless string of girls out of the picture, I couldn’t tell him. A lot of it was cowardice, pure and simple. The idea of laying my heart bare to him scared the hell out of me. But I also didn’t want to do anything that would mess up the opportunities that were starting to come his way. The band was getting interest from record producers and managers. He didn’t need complications.
So holding in my feelings has become second nature. I’m used to being around Daltrey and wishing we were more, wishing we were holding hands instead of walking side by side, wishing I could brush his hair from his face, touch his lips, bury my head into the little dip of his shoulder. I’m used to wanting those things, but doing nothing about it. I’ve had years of practice.
So why is it getting so much harder all of a sudden?
Maybe it’s the absence, the being without him, that has dulled my abilities to cover my desire. My heart feels like a desperate thing. I’m like a person who has been denied water so long that her thirst has become overwhelming.
We eat lunch in a Midtown deli, a little place Daltrey heard about from one of the venue staff before the first show. Walking around all morning has made me ravenously hungry, and the thick cuts of turkey and ham on soft-baked white bread are heavenly.
“What now?” I ask, wiping my hands on my napkin.