Deception

Tre Cool shivered in spite of his heavy black overcoat and wrapped his arm tighter around his girlfriend’s waist. His band was on yet another world tour and they were currently in New York, having just finished up at the MTV Video Music Awards that evening. The cold snap they were having had not let up for a second, it seemed, in the two days they had been there so far.

“I’m freezing, Cassandra! I don’t know how you aren’t an icicle by now.” Tre commented to his strangely silent girlfriend.

“I guess I’m just used to the cold. I lived in Seattle for a while, remember.” Cassandra simply replied.

Tre shrugged and used his free hand to pull his coat tighter around himself.

He didn’t know why his normally exuberant partner of almost a year was acting so strange. Ever since the band had begun their tour two months before Cassie had been acting strange, like she was constantly deep in thought.

Cassie gently extracted herself from Tre’s grasp and pulled her mobile phone from her pocket.

“Hon, I have to make a call.” Cassie strode a few paces ahead of him and began tapping at her phone.

Tre sighed, wondering when Cassandra would get back to being her normal self.

Just then, his own phone began to vibrate from inside his jeans pocket.

“Hey, Billie Joe!” Tre said brightly into the receiver.

Billie Joe Armstrong was the front man and guitarist of their band, Green Day, while Tre was the drummer and their other close friend Mike Dirnt played the bass.

“Hey, I was just reminding you about the interview we have to do in an hour.”

“Thanks, yeah I know. Cassie and I were just going for a walk when it started pouring so now we have to keep under cover. We were just on our way back to the hotel.” Tre answered.

“Oh…That sucks. Um, there’s something else,” Billie began, a weird edge to his voice that Tre could not quite place.

“Shoot.”

“Ah,” Billie hesitated “ It can wait. Just don’t forget about the interview in your old age!” He joked, his voice back to its regular tone.

Tre chuckled “I’m younger than you by ten months I’m still thirty-six unlike some people!”

Billie laughed now too and hung up his end of the phone. Tre now looked around for Cassie who was evidently still having her private call. He saw her huddled in the doorway of one of the shops they had been looking at, staring at Tre.

He couldn’t help admiring her beauty. Even then, standing there in jeans and a rain jacket, with her hair still wet from the rain they had been caught in before, he still thought she was the most beautiful girl on the planet. She was twenty-one, average height and slender with a heart shaped face framed by white blonde hair. Tre’s favourite feature about her, though, were her pale blue, almost grey eyes which were outlined by thick feathery dark lashes.

Tre also thought her personality was amazing too; with the exception of the last two months. Normally Cassie Walker was an eternally happy person who carried that happiness around like an aura, cheering up everyone she came across.

These last days, however, Cassie had been quiet and brooding. Tre wanted to put it down to the tiring travel of Green Day’s latest tour but he feared something more.

“Cassie?” Tre called to her as she had not made any attempt to rejoin his side.

She shook her head as if she had been shaken out of a daze and made her way slowly over to Tre.

“Your hair’s gone all funny.” Cassie smiled as she reached out to mess up Tre’s damp medium brown hair.

Tre was a little taken aback at first at Cassie’s unexpected burst of affection but quickly regained his composure and began bantering back and forth with his girlfriend.

***

Back at the hotel, Billie and Mike were sitting in their room having a cigarette and talking about some changes Billie wanted to make to their set list for the shows they were rehearsing for the European leg of their tour beginning in a few days.

“Everyone loves to hear our old stuff as well as the new. I mean, we have a catalogue of over twenty years to choose from.” Billie argued as he took a long drag of smoke.

“But, everyone is already practiced to the list we had originally. It’s too hard to change.” Mike argued back.

Billie Joe ran a hand through his tousled black hair and sighed, sometimes Mike just didn’t seem to want to listen to all the good ideas he had. He would have to wait for Tre, who was always more open to suggestion.

Speak of the devil.

Just as Billie finished his thought, Tre and Cassie walked though the door, smiling. Billie managed a weak smile in their direction but never looked them in the eye. He couldn’t after hearing what he had back in July at the very beginning of their tour.

Tre and Cassie announced that they were going to freshen up and change out of their wet clothes and Billie was grateful they were not in the room. The only time he could stand to be with Tre was when Cassie wasn’t there.

He couldn’t even think about the unspeakable thing he had been told. Once Cassie had said it, she decided not to accompany them for the rest of the first leg of the tour, which lasted two months, and go home.

This was the first time he had seen her since that day. Oh, besides the time at the beginning of the month that he ran into her the night the stage how made after one of their albums opened in Berkeley.

So far so good, he hadn’t been in any position to have to speak with her and she seemed fine with ignoring him as well. Hopefully she wouldn’t want to talk about it further…

“Bill, what are you doing, you’re spaced out like a zombie!” Tre’s cackling voice was suddenly behind him and his powerful hand slapped him playfully on the back, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“I was just thinking about how it sucks I have to leave Adrienne and the boys at home while I go overseas at the end of the month and Mike has to leave Brittney and his kids at home.” Billie half lied as he referred to his wife and sons and Mike’s wife, daughter and son.

“And I get to have Cassie here? I know it must make you miss Adrienne so much more,” Tre sympathised, his normally animated face and impish grin now set in a serious mask, “That’s what you get for not being with someone who’s just out of college and has no kids and no ties!” Tre grinned, unable to hold his straight face any longer.

“Yeah, silly me.” Was all Billie could manage to say.

“All this talk about our loved ones makes me want to call Brittney, Brixton and Estelle.” Mike said sadly of his new wife, eleven month old son and twelve year old daughter from a previous marriage.

“I’m sorry. I miss Ramona and Frankito, too.” Tre said of his own children from previous marriages, who were safely at home back in Oakland, California where all three men lived.

“I’ll bet Joey and Jake won’t even remember me.” Billie lamented as he flipped open his wallet and pulled out a picture of his family.

His family.

His world.

He fiddled with the picture absently as he tried not to think of what his life would be if Adrienne ever left him and took his fourteen and eleven year old sons away. He shuddered.

“Okay, well since we can’t see them until tomorrow, let’s dull the pain by getting really drunk, interview has been cancelled, you know.” Mike said happily.

“Oh, I didn’t know that, why was it cancelled?” Tre asked.

“Interviewer was in a car accident, poor guy, and the magazine couldn’t send someone out until tomorrow afternoon and we leave in the morning so they’re going to do it by phone in a couple days.” Mike filled him in.

“Okay, so drunk it is!” Tre clapped his hands gleefully.

“Who wants to make the grog run?” Billie wondered.

“Me and Mike will go, unless you don’t want to be alone with Cassie.” Tre said teasingly, not knowing how true his words actually were.

“Well, I would like to go…” Billie trailed off, not wanting to arouse suspicion.

“But you know how I love grog runs and Mike is already halfway out the door.” Tre reasoned as he gestured over to Mike who was never one to argue over stupid things.

“Where is Cassie, anyway?” Mike called over his shoulder as he headed out into the hallway.

“She’s lying down, she doesn’t feel well. I bet she’s asleep by now.” Tre said to Billie as Mike had now disappeared from sight.

“Okay, you guys go, see you in a little while.” Billie conceded. Just like the excitable puppy he was, Tre loved car trips and going outside and was not going to give up.

“Bye!” was his answering reply as he shot out the door.

The hotel room was eerily quiet as Billie walked into the lounge room, still clutching the picture of his family.

The quiet didn’t last quite as long as Billie was hoping. He was soon joined by the supposedly ill Cassie.

“Billie Joe,” Cassie said softly as she closed the distance between them cautiously.