“Wow,” my wife Jodie said as she broke off our kiss. “They’re right about Paris. It is a romantic city.
We were on the last night of our holiday, sat canoodling in a dark alcove of a dimly lit bar. We had been acting like newlyweds all week, even though we were in our sixth year of marriage. We couldn’t keep our hands off each other. At home I was never comfortable with kissing and petting in public but here it seemed totally right. There seemed to be a staff shortage with no waitresses around so we were left alone anyway. Nobody could see us without walking directly up to the booth.
Jodie was thirty two years old at this time but she looked years younger. She had always worked hard at keeping her body in trim as well as keeping an eye on her vitamin and mineral intake. It certainly did the trick. She had hardly aged at all in the eight years I had known her. She had a very curvaceous body but with a flat tummy and long slender legs. The perfect combination. Her complexion was smooth, her hair long and dark and her cheekbones high. Even in Paris she looked classier than all the other women in the street. Tonight she was wearing a simple but stylish low cut dress, which showed off her ample cleavage and lovely long legs.
The holiday had really livened up our spirits and tonight, as we were getting a flight home the next day, we decided to push the boat out and get roaring drunk. We had been sat in the bar drinking beer for about an hour when Jodie suddenly gasped.
“Oh my God. Glenn, look over there,” she said, pointing over to a man ambling slowly by on his way to the bar.
“What? What’s he doing?” I asked.
“It’s not what he’s doing. It’s who he is,” she said, excitement rising in her voice.
I strained my eyes to look at him more carefully. He was in his late thirties, with long dishevelled hair and a tatty old suit. He looked like the type who’s always at war with the world and only finds comfort in the bottom of a whiskey glass.
“Who is he then? He just looks like some old drunk.”
“Old? He’s younger than you, just. He’s thirty six years old, born in Oakland, California on November 8th 1966, a Scorpio, like me.”
Her eyes were shining and she was grinning from ear to ear. Whoever he was, she was very happy to see him.
“So who is he then?” I asked again.
“It’s Tommy Garrett!”
“Oh,” I said, slapping my palm against my forehead. “Of course. Tommy Garrett! Who’s he?”
“You don’t know?” she asked, her mouth open in disbelief.
“Should I?”
“Remember this? Sha na na – nah nah nah – na na.”
“Oh right,” I said, catching on. “The singer. I thought he was dead.”
“Not to the President of his fan club at St Ursula’s school for girls.”
“You were the President of his fan club?”
“Well, a small local chapter of it, shall we say. There was about twenty of us. We used to follow him everywhere, go to all his concerts, camp outside his hotel, that sort of thing. God, I had such a crush on him.”
“Yeah, well, you were just a kid then. His career must have dried up completely by the time you were seventeen.”
“Well, kind of. He stopped getting hit records, but he still did a few concerts for a few years after that. He was gorgeous.”
“He doesn’t look so hot now,” I said.
“I don’t know. He just looks more lived in, experienced.”
“A man of the world? Wasn’t he supposed to be a virgin? One of those sweet innocent non-threatening pop stars you could take home to mother.”
“No. His record company made out he was like that, but he wasn’t really.”
“How do you know? Were you a notch on his bedpost then?”
“No,” she flushed angrily. “But I know someone who was. One of my friends at school.”
“You sound jealous.”
“Yeah,” she laughed. “I guess I was at the time.”
“Why don’t you go over and say hello or something?”
“No. I’d be too embarrassed. He probably gets women doing that all the time.”
“I doubt it. Most people probably don’t recognise him anymore, except those who’ve had a lifelong crush on him.”
“I haven’t got a crush on him.”
“No? So when did you get over him?”
“Nobody gets over their first love,” she said in a pompous voice then laughed again. “Oh, I don’t know. I do remember with my first serious boyfriend, Simon. He fancied the ass off this model, I can’t even remember her name now. Anyway, so we had this agreement that we could only two-time each other if we ended up with one of these two. The model for him and Tommy Garrett for me. He called it playing the Fantasy Fuck game.”
“So did either of you ever get the chance to play the game, then?”
“No. Of course not. Even if we had met them they wouldn’t have looked twice at us.”
“Well,” I said. “I can’t speak for Simon but I’m sure you would have been given at least a second look, if not a whole lot more.”
“Oh, you’re so sweet.”
“Yep,” I said and we went back to kissing each other.
When we had finished our bottle of champagne I left Jodie in the booth and walked up to the bar to order us a couple of beers. As I ordered to the barman in broken French I looked over at Garrett. Close up he looked much smarter and better looking than I had first thought. His was a studied inelegance, probably calculated to make women find him even more attractive. I guessed that he was trying to get away from that sweet pin-up image he’d had as a young man. He was eyeing up two girls in short skirts. I could see that he was weighing up in his mind whether to go over and approach them, but the girls were sat with a group of guys and he must have thought better of muscling in on their territory. He looked a pretty lonely figure and I felt kind of sorry for him.
“Hey,” I said, stepping towards him. “Aren’t you Tommy Garrett?”
“Who wants to know?” he growled suspiciously.
“My wife’s a fan of yours. I just wanted an autograph,” I said.
“Oh right. Hey, I’m sorry. Most guys who come up to me just take the piss, you know, or want to start a fight.”
He spoke in a trans-Atlantic drawl, which he must have acquired from years of travelling. As I recall he was much more popular in Europe than his home country.
“Let me buy you a beer,” he said.
“No. It’s okay. I just ordered. Here, I’ll buy you one,” I said as the barman returned with two bottles. “Uh, et un autre, s’il vous plait. Is that right?”
“Close enough,” Garrett said and thanked me when the waiter handed him a bottle.
“Well, good luck,” I said to him and turned back towards the booth.
“Hey, wait,” Garret said, catching up with me. “What about the autograph? Don’t you want it?”
“Uhm, well, why don’t you come over and say hello. I think she’s probably got a copy of your autograph anyway.”
“Sure. Fine by me,” he said, taking his bottle of beer and following me over to the booth.
I could see Jodie’s eyes light up when she saw who I had brought back with me.
“Oh my God,” she said, fluttering her hand in front of her face.
“Mr Garrett,” I said. “This is Jodie.”
Jodie leaned forward to give him her hand, which he duly kissed.
“Please, call me Tommy,” he said and sat himself down next to my wife. “You’re a lucky man…”
“Glenn,” I said.
“Glenn. A lucky man indeed. Your wife is very beautiful.”
