"Bennett, Cherie - Sunset Island 005 - Sunset Reunion (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Bennett Cherie)

"Wait till I tell the kids I saw you," Claudia said as she sat down next to Graham in a small grouping of comfortable-looking leather chairs. *0h, can I order anybody anything?" she asked. "Soft drinks? Real drinks?"
"A Diet Coke would be great," Faith said.
"Me, too," Carrie said with a smile. It seemed very strange to be giving Claudia a beverage order, instead of having Claudia give it to her.
"I'll have a scotch and water," Graham called out to Claudia as she went to pick up the phone.
"Graham," she said warningly.
-Just kidding," Graham said with a grin. He looked at Faith and Carrie. "My wife thinks one drink means certain death and destruction."
"Really?" said Faith, casually getting out her notepad. She knew juicy info when it fell into her lap. Years ago Graham had been both an alcoholic and a cocaine addict, but he'd been completely clean and sober for years now. In fact, he was well known for the antidrinking and antidrug rock videos he made as a public service.
"I'm not drinking, if that's the question your poised pen means you're about to ask," Graham said, raising his eyebrows coolly at Faith. "It was a joke."
"Okay," she said easily.
Carrie took the lens caps off her cameras and wandered around the room. She couldn't help but wonder why Graham had even brought it up if he really wasn't drinking.
"I hope you ordered me a double," Graham said after Claudia had hung up.
"Oh, Graham," Claudia sighed. "He's kidding," she said to Faith. "I hope you know he's kidding."
"Sure," Faith said easily. It wasn't apparent what she really thought.
"I'm going into the bedroom to call the kids," Claudia said. "Maybe if you're not too busy you can say hello, Carrie."
Faith shot Carrie another look, but Carrie just busied herself with her camera.
"I'd like to ask you about 'Dream to Die By,'" Faith asked Graham. "Dream to Die By" was a song on Graham's new album. "I listened to it over and over last night. It's very dark."
"Very," Graham agreed.
"It seems to be about self-destruction," Faith said. "Is it your own you're talking about?"
Graham stared pensively out the window, as if he could see all the way to wherever the endless ocean led. Carrie snapped off some photos. "Could be, I suppose," Graham agreed, "but it's not."
"Who then?" Faith pressed.
"Anyone's, everyone's," Graham said evasively.
"Your first wife?" Faith asked.
Everyone knew that Graham's first wife had died of a drug overdose. Shortly after that Graham had gone to the Betty Ford Center to kick those habits himself.
Graham shrugged. "Who knows, who knows?" he said.
"But you did write it on the tenth anniversary of her death," Faith prompted Graham.
Graham smiled at her sardonically. "Well, I see we've done our research."
Carrie moved unobtrusively to the side of the room and clicked away at Graham, catching him with his face turned pensively to the ocean. He had never been like this on Sunset Island. Sometimes he'd gotten mad, and he had a pretty volatile temper, but she'd never seen him morose before.
The interview continued and Carrie kept snapping photos, but in her opinion it really didn't seem to be going well. Graham seemed terribly depressed.
"Graham? Chloe's on the phone. She wants to say hello," Claudia said from the doorway to the bedroom.
Graham excused himself and went into the bedroom.
"Not a happy guy," Faith murmured.
"He's not usually like this," Carrie felt compelled to explain. "He's just ... I don't know, in a bad mood or something."
Faith raised her eyebrows at Carrie. "How is it you happen to know so much about him?"
"I ... I took shots of him before, you know that," Carrie said.
Faith and Carrie could hear the couple's voices from the bedroom, but couldn't make out what they were saying. It sounded like they were arguing about something.
"Maybe we should come back later," Carrie suggested.
Faith looked at her like she was out of her mind. "Are you kidding? We may be getting a great scoop here. It's not nearly as interesting if everything is all sweetness and light."
"Graham, no," they heard Claudia say.
Soon Graham came out of the bedroom.
"Sorry," he said, briskly slipping into the chair. "So, ask away!"
"We were talking about 'Dream to Die By,'" Faith reminded him.
"Right," Graham said. He seemed much
more alert now, and completely focused on the interview. "Well, it was a way to deal with demons, past and present," he began.
Carrie could hardly believe it. It was as if a different person had come out of the bedroom. Graham was eloquent, charming, and full of energy and intensityЧeverything you would expect from a superstar.
Claudia got the door when room service arrived, but Graham was deep into his conversation and barely noticed. Claudia just left them then* drinks and went back into the bedroom, shutting the door quietly.
Carrie kept moving to different angles in the room, snapping shots of Graham. He was animated now, leaning forward in his chair to make a point, laughing at himself in a charmingly self-effacing fashion. Even as she concentrated on getting the angles and the lighting right, a thought kept coming back into her mind.
Graham really was drinking again.
That's what he had been doing in the bedroom.
And Faith had guessed, too, and would undoubtedly put it in her article.
Halfway through the interview Graham