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Julian gnawed uneasily on his fingernail and watched feet tapping in and out of the linoleum-tiled bathroom. He hugged his knees closer to himself and raked a hand through his stringy, wild hair. It was long now, nearly down to his shoulders. His father called him once to tell him to cut his hair, the first time he had called in months and months.
"I saw the Rolling Stone article," John Casablancas said shortly, without a hint of pride or pleasantries, referring to the cover story his son's band had done a few weeks ago. "Cut your hair."
"No," his son told him stubbornly.
Time may have passed between them but the two of them were just the same. John hung up. Of course, they hadn't spoken since.
Two red, ratty Chucks kicked the bathroom door open with a shrill squeal. It swung shut with a whooshing sound. Julian recognized the Chucks and the white socks with red stripes and the tattered stovepipe jeans.
"Jules?" Albert murmured cautiously.
Julian watched silently as the red Chucks stopped in the stall two doors down his left. It was empty. Albert sighed. He peered in the next one, a door closer to Julian's own hiding spot. "Julian, come on, man, where the hell are you?"
Julian spat out a splinter of chewed fingernail and leaned his head against the cool metal of the stall door. Albert knocked twice on the door, hard, making Julian's teeth click and his ears ring. Julian didn't move or try to open the door, so Albert got down on one knee and peered beneath it.
"I see you," he said solemnly.
Julian felt like a lost child, suddenly found. Only he didn't want to be found; he preferred staying lost. He preferred being the loner. Girls found it sexy, boys found it appealing. Easier to make friends if they thought you didn't really care what they did or said.
"Go away," Julian mumbled, leaning back and exhaling loudly.
"No." Albert sat down outside Julian's door, crossing his legs and waiting. Julian couldn't see his face, but he knew there was a look of world-weary patience upon it. Albert always adopted this look whenever he dealt with Fab's childishness, Nick's vulnerability, Nikolai's profound silences, and Julian's drunken temper tantrums. Julian didn't particularly feel like being patiently waited for. He struck at Albert with his foot under the door.
Albert caught it and pulled, hard, until Julian toppled backward and half of his lower body had slid across the floor and out into the open.
"Gotcha."
Julian grabbed the bottom of the stall door and tried to pull himself away, back to safety, back behind the flimsy walls of the little cubicle, but Albert held fast.
"Lemme go!" Julian whined urgently, struggling. But alcohol and weighty emotions had ravaged his body, so finally he released his stronghold and let Albert pull him close. Julian's cheek rested against Albert's denim clad thigh. It was warm; the floor was cold. His stomach hurt, his eyes stung, his chest ached.
Albert looked down at poor Julian, a nearly grown man who, not an hour before, had been strutting and spitting and swearing onstage. Now he was a quiet, sleepy, harmless child who wanted nothing more than someplace to stay and someone to love.
"What's wrong with you?" he asked.
Julian remembered the phone call from his father. "I should cut my hair."
Albert choked on his disbelief. "Is THAT what's wrong with you?"
On the floor, Julian shrugged. "I don't know. My father thinks so."
"Does he, really?"
"Called and told me so.."
"He called you?" Albert asked, incredulous and concerned. John Casablancas certainly had earned the title of the World's Worst Dad years ago, and each member of the band - even those who didn't know him, like Albert, or those who knew him only by name, like Fab - hated him with a passion. Whenever his name was mentioned in an interview, immediately the air tightened, gazes hardened, lips pursed, shoulders hunched. He was an outlaw, a mortal enemy.
Julian nodded. "He called me."
"What did he say?"
"To cut my hair."
Albert frowned. "I like it."
"He probably thinks I look like a girl."
"Well, at least it means he's been following the band a little," Albert told him hopefully, wanting to at least coax a smile from the pale, doe- eyed singer that was lying on the floor next to him with his face pressed into Albert's leg. Bitter smile, perhaps, but a smile nonetheless. Anything but the pasty-faced expressionless lament.
Julian sat up quickly, taut and tense with anger, nearly knocking his head on the bathroom stall door. "I don't fucking care! I don't care at all! He's no kind of father. He hates me and I hate him."
It was safe to say the elder Casablancas and his only son did not see eye to eye on most things.
Albert resisted the urge to pet Julian like he was a spooked animal. Instead, he tried to bring him into an awkward, one-armed hug. Julian resisted at first; not pulling away but not allowing himself to be pulled either. When finally the embrace became mutual and the tension and passion and terror and bitterness seeped out of Julian, the bathroom door swung open once again.
Fab stood in the darkened doorway, apparently not surprised to find Albert and Julian hugging on the dank floor of a public bathroom in San Francisco. "Ryan's gonna have a bird if we don't go soon," Fab announced. "Most of the groupies have left by now, but you guys should really get going before they find out you're in here."
He left.
"He's right."
Albert looked at Julian and nodded. "Yeah." He held on a second longer.
Julian leaned away until he finally let go. Albert lifted up the cape of hair that spilled down Julian's neck, leaned forward and planted a kiss on the unveiled skin.