Homebody: a Flash Fiction Story
This is a silly one from earlier this year. I feel like there ought to be an 80’s song called “Our Love Is a Cold War.” Maybe one day I’ll write it.
Kandace staggered to the Seven-Eleven counter to pay for her four-pack of wine cooler when she spotted the copy of People on the magazine rack.
Marie was in a sidebar on the cover: “Tubular’s Marie Stone: Just a Homebody At Heart.”
Kandace snatched the rag and removed her Wayfarers. Ooh, the brightness of the fluorescent lights made her squint. She shook off her hangover and flipped through the pages until she found the article.
Christ, Marie spilled it all: her gardening, her Murder She Wrote fixation, even her Pomeranians. She came across like… a housewife.
Kandace tossed the clerk a twenty and stormed out without her change. She climbed into her double-parked Lamborghini and sped off. Something had to be done about Marie.
This was no way for a rock star to live.
***
Tubular had been one more new wave band for the past four years. Their upcoming single, “Empty Chair,” for a movie soundtrack, would establish their new, edgier sound and make them the next REM. No keytar. No drum tracks. And no DayGlo wardrobe. Electric guitars and black leather all the way!
Marie sang backup to Kandace and got the cutest boys in Tubular’s videos. She treated the roadies like equals. She left her hotel rooms as she found them. She tipped big at diners. How could Kandace score with the hotter guys when she was associated with someone like this?
Marie agreed to the single, and the new look, only because Kandace had convinced her new wave was out. She would’ve continued dressing like Cyndi Lauper till she was fifty.
By the end of the month, all the dealers in town stopped returning Kandace‘s pages. Mrs. MacGillicuddy from next door invited Kandace to join her bridge club. And a producer from the Sally Jessy Raphael show wanted an interview. What the hell?
Kandace had to drop Marie from the band before the movie’s release. What good was rock and roll without the sex and drugs?
But… Marie was also the face of Tubular. Kandace got the Spin and NME interviews, which was great, but MTV played the video for their hit single, “Our Love Is a Cold War,” because of Marie.
And watching her play with her Poms melted Kandace’s heart.
Time was running out. She had to decide fast.
***
The solution clicked in her head. The deal she struck with the label solidified it.
They released the single under her name. Planning a solo album gave Kandace the freedom to change her look and sound and indulge in the lifestyle she wanted.
Tubular, with Marie as the new lead singer, made a new record. Next Tuesday was its release day, though Marie may find the public had grown tired of new wave too. The rest of the band was just glad the fight ended.
At Vince’s birthday party for Tommy, Kandace took a Jordache model with wavy hair and a kissable cleft chin upstairs. She’d have to give Marie a call when the new album came out.