I had to do it, but that didn’t mean I had to let Amelia off the hook easily. I enjoyed seeing my sister squirm, sue me. If I had to spend the next six weeks doing my best not to drool over the sexiest man alive, I may as well use it to my advantage.
“If I do this, you’re going to stop pressuring me to perform.”
Amelia groaned. “Elsie, that’s a totally separate deal. You’re so talented, you have a huge backlog of songs you haven’t released, made just for your voice. Getting out there on stage and showing yourself would be an enormous step for you. Not just professionally—but personally.”
My sister had been pressuring me to go on stage for years. Every time she brought it up, I nixed it. If I couldn’t handle a little criticism on YouTube, how the hell was I supposed to stand in front of real living people? I knew the pressure from Amelia only partially came from a business viewpoint. She really cared about me and wanted to see me out in the world more.
Only I wasn’t sure the world wanted to see me.
“Amelia, it’s my choice. I’ve decided. It will not happen. I want you to acknowledge it, and accept it.”
“That’s how you feel right now. I get it. Promise me you’ll think about it. Not just pretend to think about it as you have been. And, if you do this thing for me, I’ll back off. For, say, a year. But, I reserve the right to revisit in case something changes.” Always the deal maker, my sister.
“In case something changes? You think the skin fairy is going to visit?” I knew Amelia wasn’t talking about surgery, as much as my step-mother encouraged it. Surgery would be painful and might backfire. I wasn’t sure anything could change my mind. So, though I wasn’t happy with my sister’s incessant nagging, I’d parlay. For now.
“Yeah. Like you fall in love with Skyler Dalton, and travel around the world singing with him and having his babies, sort of something.” Amelia was singsonging again.
“You need to sell that shit you’re smoking.” I laughed. She was so ridiculous. “Okay, we’ll revisit it, but if I say no again, you promise me you’ll let it rest?”
“Deal. But I’m sending Skyler to you with his team. I don’t want him in LA with all the distractions. Plus, he popped a pap recently, and who knows what other kind of trouble he could get into.”
“He what?”
“Don’t worry about it. The guy deserved it. Skyler will be there tomorrow, okay?”
Amelia didn’t wait for me to acknowledge her before hanging up.
Putting down my phone, I leaned back on my couch and sighed. I decided my sister was a terrorist because talking with her was a hostage negotiation.
Washed Up
Skyler
“The album sucked, Skyler. And what I really mean is it bombed like a five-year-old doing a belly flop from the high dive.” Camille plopped into a quilted leather chair behind her desk, frustration flooding her face.
Camille Hart has been my manager from day one of MD. Back then, she was a hungry twenty-four-year-old who did the best she could with a new band of young men not old enough to drink.
“It can’t be that bad. They’re just pissed it isn’t doing as well as an MD album right out the door.” I leaned back on the brocade sofa on the other side of her office. I always liked this sofa because if I was hungover I could lie down without scrunching my large 6’5” frame. Before I got sober, that happened a lot more than I’d care to admit.
I knew the album, Back to Life, didn’t live up to the label’s standards. My heart hadn’t been in it. It was hard to put my heart into something when I had no heart left to give. My ego convinced me my name and notoriety alone would make money if I put a few songs together and slapped a name on them.
What a kick in the balls.
“The label is making threats, Sky. They’re not willing to produce a new album unless we can guarantee it’ll compensate them for the losses they’ve incurred.” Camille stood over me, her hands on her hips. Her thin lips puckered even tighter, making her look like she’d eaten a lemon.
“How bad could it possibly be?” Much to my chagrin, I’d had to cut the tour short. Ticket sales were way down; but the album had to have sold, right?
“One million.”
“That’s not bad! We can do that!” I scoffed. One million. I could pull that out of my savings account.
“That’s on top of the cost of producing the new album and future tour costs.”
My teeth clenched. That was a whole different scenario. I could make some money off a new album, but I wasn’t sure I could climb out of a hole that deep. Especially since I still wasn’t rowing with all oars.
I admitted it. I haven’t adjusted to life without the old band. Especially Benny. I felt like Simon without his Garfunkel.
“Can they do that? Legally?” Maybe the lawyers could get us out of this.
“I looked at your contract. Clarke Records reserves the right to put conditions on future albums dependent on previous sales.”
“How the fuck did we not see that clause before I signed the thing?” This really pinched my ass.
Camille sighed. “Sky, when we read through it, you were coming off a multi-city tour and a double-platinum album with MD. We didn’t expect shit to go sideways.”
I felt a little better knowing I wasn’t the only one who’d missed it. I wish I could be upset that she didn’t warn me, but the last MD tour was enough to shake anyone. We sold out stadiums around the world. Money was coming out of our ears. Then Benny died.
We walked into this mess thinking Back to Life would soar up the charts. The last eighteen years held one success after another for me and the band. In fact, our first album, Underwater, hit platinum three months after we released it. I’d felt like Midas. Everything I touched turned to gold.
What if the magic died with Benny?
“You know, I might’ve been able to negotiate a workaround if you hadn’t gone and punched a photographer. What kind of dipshit move was that?” Camille’s voice lifted in anger, making me sit up straight.
“He was getting in my face, Cam.” I waved off the event like a fly hovering around my food.
“Yeah, people get in your face in this industry, Skyler. They all want a piece of you. But you get paid big money to keep your cool, not assault a motherfucker for doing his job.” Cam was screaming by the time she finished.
“It’s not like he pressed charges. No harm, no foul. Right?” I tried to deflate her anger, pointing out the good news. Truthfully, I wasn’t proud of how I’d behaved. It’d been years since I allowed myself to get upset with the paparazzi. I never saw myself as a violent person. But they’d asked me about Benny, making wild accusations. I snapped.
“Only in fantasy land, not here in the real world.” Cam stopped and took a deep breath. “Level with me, Skyler. What really happened?”
“They said some shit about Benny. Used some derogatory language…implied he and I were lovers and our breakup led him to commit suicide.” I couldn’t look Cam in the face. Reliving the encounter was painful.
“Motherfuckers.” Cam’s face turned bright red. She’d had a good relationship with Benny. Most people had had a good relationship with Benny. He was an amazingly likable guy. Demeaning his character—to us—was sacrilege. “He deserved more than just a pop on the jaw.”
I nodded. “Yeah.” That was all I could say.
I rubbed my face, trying to shake off the impending headache. Writing without Benny and the guys wasn’t as easy as I’d expected. When it came down to the wire, I’d sat down, pulped out some content, and fiddled with my guitar. The studio musicians added some sound, and the producer smiled and nodded.
No one said it sucked. No one argued with me about the lyrics or melody. The producers danced around me, kissing my ass.
Before, it was always Benny who pushed me to make things better. The man never hesitated to tell me I sucked. I never impressed him, no matter how much I tried and the result was magic.
“It’s just not the same withou
t him.” My voice croaked.
Camille’s face softened, her eyes welled with tears. We sat for a moment, both of us thinking about our lost friend. It was all I thought about anymore. Working with him. Being his friend. Losing him.
“I miss him, too.”
“I didn’t know, Cam. I didn’t realize…” I sat up from the couch and braced my elbows on my knees, taking my head in my hands. It took all I had not to break into tears in my manager’s office.
At the beginning of this adventure, Benny and I had been on the same path—to make music or die trying. The perks of the lifestyle took Benny down the wrong path. At first, it was booze and sex; it evolved to cocaine and orgies. Eventually, he landed on heroin and crack houses. Benny went to rehab twice; both times he came back better than ever, but it only lasted a few years.
The downward spiral started when my mother died. It hit me like a Mack Truck but I hadn’t realized how hard Benny took it. I should’ve known. The Copeland family didn’t take nicely to their son when he came out of the closet, but it was Midge Dalton’s arms where Benny found refuge. I couldn’t blame him. Mom was just that—a mom—to whoever landed at her doorstep. From the day I brought him home that first Thanksgiving in college, Ben was as good as my blood brother. He needed me, but I’d been sucked into my own grief.
Now Benny was gone. The last of his life snuffed out on the dirty floor of a prostitute’s apartment in South Central, LA.
If Benny were here, all this shit wouldn’t be going down. Jake and Zeke, MD’s bassist and drummer, would still be with me. We’d still be Mechanical Disturbance, not Dalton, the failed solo act.
Jake and Zeke decided they needed time off after he died. It’s true we’d been going balls to the wall for a long time, but the work was the only thing keeping me going. Jake and Zeke had parents and girlfriends to go home to. I had nothing but MD.
I knew nothing but MD.
Zeke tried to convince me to go home with him, but seeing him in the loving arms of his family sounded too painful. Thus. my solo act was born.
I’d come to the uncomfortable realization a month after we signed the new contract that I was a self-centered asshole. It hadn’t occurred to me that songwriting would be different without Benny. I wasn’t unaware of Benny’s talent, but as the lead singer and frontman, I assumed I brought enough to the table. Apparently not enough. It was a real kick in the nuts.
Had all my talent dried up when Benny died or was there never any to begin with?
It broke my heart thinking Benny went to the grave not knowing how talented he was. Had I given him the credit he truly deserved? Maybe if I’d told him how good he was more often, he wouldn’t have gone so deep into the drugs.
“I’ll deal with the paparazzi situation, don’t give it another thought.” Cam nodded. Her defending me implicitly defended my actions. As much of a bitch as Cam was, she’d loved Benny.
“As for your future career, there’s only one solution, Skyler. It’s a risk. We need to find a new sound. Something uniquely yours. Reviews of the album were calling it a droll rehash of old MD. The key today is we need to be different. Move past what you were into something new.” Camille sat next to me on the couch and rubbed my back. I’d gone into the solo album thinking I had created a new sound.
I closed my eyes and sighed heavily.
A new sound? That was a tall order.
“And how do you propose I do that? Order it from Amazon?” I laughed, trying to lighten the mood.
“Well, smart ass, on that count we are in luck.” Cam’s smile blinded me. She was back on confident ground.
“Oh, there’s good news?” I grinned. “Why didn’t you start with that?”
“Clarke Records is under new management as of two months ago. The old man retired and left it to his daughter.”
“I thought this was good news, Cam?” I rolled my eyes. A new CEO meant a different experience, different expectations, and very different allocations of resources.
“We can use this to our advantage, Sky. Amelia Clarke is highly motivated for our second album to work, otherwise, daddy is gonna come back from his yacht on Lake Como none too happy.”
I closed my eyes and groaned. This kept getting better and better.
“They’re offering their best songwriter to guarantee a fresh sound.” Cam smiled like. “They want me to work with a stranger? I don’t know if you realize this Cam, but I don’t play well with others.” I wasn’t known for getting into physical altercations—outside the occasional asshole reporter—but I was a mean trash talker. It kept people at a distance.
“Yeah, yeah. No one likes to share their toys. You’re gonna have to put on your big boy underoos and buckle down, buddy. I’d give my left tit to work with Elsie Clarke. She’s won ten Grammys for songwriting with the music she’s churned out. Her first award was when she was seventeen. She’s no new music school graduate. The girl’s a freakin’ prodigy.”
That sounded better. The woman clearly had experience and knew how to put together an album that’d sell if she was getting Grammys. Wait…
“Clarke? As in…”
“Yup. They’re keeping it in the family. Those people got a freakin’ dynasty. Her mother was Hannah Clarke, you know that seventies singer who gave Cher a run for her money? She and Ellis built the label.”
“Well, ain’t that just precious. Doin’ daddy proud.” I snorted. Not only did she have a family, but each one of them was successful in music. My dad was around somewhere. The infamous Justin Dalton, half-baked western singer. He was probably playing some run-down supper club in West Texas. Thank God he hadn’t come chasing me for money or an ‘in’ to the business.
If he remembered I existed.
“My advice, Sky? Play nice and kiss ass. But not literally…in fact, do not involve ass of any kind, you hear me?” Camille shoved her finger in my face, warning me to behave.
“Jesus, Cam. You make me sound like I’m led around by my dick,” I scoffed. I hadn’t had sex in over a year, not that I told Cam that. The Lothario image was good for business, so I never defended myself in the press.
“I’m just saying they’re under pressure, too. It’s a big job taking over a label. Amelia is feeling it, thus she’s incredibly motivated. I’d expect some micromanaging.”
I groaned. “Is this one of those situations where I just smile and do as I’m told? I’m getting too old for this shit, Cam.”
“Would you rather have someone eager to please? Their nose jammed so far up your ass it’s impossible to tell a fart from a sneeze? You need a challenge, Sky. This could be good for you. Get your head out of the ground and into something new.”
Camille was right, but there had to be another way. Another label to buy out the contract, maybe buying myself out of the contract and starting my own label. Something where I didn’t have to make nice with the Clarke golden goose.
“Is this my only option?” I asked, desperate.
“No. You can step back and wait for Jake and Zeke to have their siesta. It’d be a retreat but a strategic one.”
I’d considered this option. Jake and Zeke didn’t give a timeline on when they’d return. A year minimum, Zeke said the last I talked to him. That was six months ago. So at a minimum, I’d be sitting on my hands for six months with no guarantee they’d be ready to start back up. Then there would be the embarrassment of tucking my solo career under the mat, trying to pretend it didn’t happen.
God, the whole thing made me feel like a failure.
“Of course, there’s always stepping back completely and fading into obscurity. The legend of Mechanical Disturbance ends with Benny’s death and your failed solo album. The only hope of return would be a revival tour when you hit fifty-five and run out of royalties,” Amelia said like it was actually an option.
I grabbed my temples and shouted in frustration.
“Well. Isn’t today just a one-star shit parade?” I grumbled.
Hard place, meet rock.
&nbs
p; “You’re going to be unhappy and uncomfortable no matter what you do, Sky. Just pick one. I’ll support you no matter what.” Cam laid her hand on my knee and squeezed. “Of course, I’d prefer you at least try to make another album. I’m a rather big fan of money.”
I closed my eyes and laid back on the couch, tilted my head back, and laughed.
“If I do this? Work with Elsie Clarke…what will they do if the album flops again? They won’t be able to pin it entirely on me.”
Camille sighed. “Skyler, what would you do? Keep an artist around who’s not making money even after working with the Einstein of music?”
I stared at my feet and contemplated my fate. Giving up on music would be suicide; I couldn’t survive without it–I had to sing. I could pretend all I wanted, but there was only one option.
“Make the arrangements.”
Twentynine Palms
Elsie
My nerves were jacked up so badly I couldn’t stop pacing in front of the front door. I needed to get this initial meeting over so I could put together proper thoughts again.
It’d been a week since Amelia called and dropped the bomb. I’m writing for Skyler Dalton. The one man who’d ever taken my attention from the music. The only man I’d ever thought about while masturbating.
I probably shouldn’t tell him that.
I pulled the drapes back and scanned the roundabout driveway. My father bought me this house when I turned eighteen, calling it a business investment. He was always looking for ways to write stuff off on his taxes.
It was our compromise. I’d work for him if he’d provide studio space outside of LA. I hated LA. With a passion. The city was infested with nasty people and covered in smog. How could people rationalize actually living there?
The property was in Twentynine Palms, close to Palm Springs and next to Joshua Tree National Park, about two hours from the city, depending on traffic.I referred to it as ‘The Ranch’ because my father insisted we properly watered the lands surrounding it, making a lawn. There were cabins or small houses for guests and a series of swimming pools on the patio. It came equipped with stables for horses and other animals, but they never interested me. Animals were supposedly fabulous for people with autism, like me. Not that I presented as autistic. I was on such a low end of the spectrum I almost passed for a normie.
Scarred Melody: A Rockstar Romance: Bold Melodies Book One Page 2