by W E DeVore
The day finally came, and she made her way downtown through the oppressive August heat, made more oppressive by the traffic congestion of morning rush hour. She stood in front of the Roosevelt Hotel and admired the gilded doors of the Orpheum Theatre while she waited for a break in traffic to jaywalk across the street. When that moment finally arrived, she jogged across the pavement to the brick sidewalk in front of the theatre and took a deep breath, filling her body with false confidence and exhaust fumes from a passing delivery truck.
She yanked on the door before her, only to discover it wouldn’t budge. Finding all the front doors locked tight, she made her way into the adjacent parking lot and walked around to the back the building. When she found the back door, she stood and stared at the graffiti spray-painted on it, trying to settle her nerves, listening to the busy noises of the CBD reverberate off the buildings that surrounded her in the small concrete silo that was formed by the open parking lot around her.
After spending so much time with Derek, she had to admit that she was more than just a little nervous being around the rest the band. She tried to tell herself it was just first-time jitters. Playing with a completely new set of musicians was something akin to having sex with someone for the first time. A little awkward and strange at first but eventually a whole lot of fun, if not always completely satisfying. She’d barely begun to feel her way into the spaces made available to her by the members of Dark Harm, when Paul had announced that they were moving to stage rehearsals the next day.
The back door of the Orpheum Theatre opened to reveal a lithe, blond man with hoops through both nostrils. The black diamond stud he once wore in his ear had been replaced with a shining silver arrow that pierced both the lobe and the upper tip of his ear.
“You got rid of Niko’s earring,” Q said, gesturing to his ear.
Michael Lopez smiled. “The last time I ran sound for you, one of your scarier friends gave me what for. I was hoping he was flirting, but alas...”
“Let me guess. About five-ten, five-eleven and built like a brick shithouse?”
“I never did understand that expression, but if you mean he looked like one of those ancient Greek statues, yes, yes he did. What’s with you and Greeks?”
“He’s not Greek. He’s Israeli.”
“Same difference. They don’t call y’all the chosen people for nothing, in my experience.” Michael winked at her and shimmied his shoulders. “Anyway, your friend told me that wearing a murderer’s jewelry was disrespectful to the woman that was employing me.”
“I already told you I didn’t mind. Keep your black diamonds. It’s fine.”
“Too late,” he said. “I sold it. I needed a new measurement mic more than I need Niko Perakis’s studs in my ears.”
Despite being the ex-lover of the man that had tried to kill Q several years earlier, Michael Lopez had become one of Q’s favorite live audio engineers to work with, a fact that Sanger still hadn’t accepted. In Q’s mind, business was business and talented audio personnel were hard to come by, so any unfortunate romantic entanglements couldn’t be held against a man who showed up on time and knew the proper function of an equalizer.
Q turned her cheek as he leaned over to kiss it. “It’s good to see you, Michael.”
“Likewise,” he said. “I have to ask. Are you the reason I’m on this gig?”
“Derek asked me last week if I thought you could handle it. I told him I thought you could. But this is just an audition. Their regular guy had to go back out for some one-offs with some pop diva, and I needed a monitor engineer I could trust not to blow my ears out when I’m thirty feet in the air. I’m relying on you to understand my sign language, don’t let me down.”
“You’ve got it.” He offered her his arm and whispered, “Just between you and me, how nervous are you? Because I could piss my pants right now if someone yelled ‘boo.’”
She laughed and admitted, “I’m terrified.”
As they walked back stage, they threaded through several members of the crew prepping the gear that Dark Harm would need to start rehearsals. Q spun around, taking it all in, while trying to maintain her cool, and failing miserably. Derek called to her from the center of the stage where he was berating an older man who looked like he’d lost his way from a surfing competition.
“... I told you not to let him pack my Gretsch. Why would you do that?” he yelled.
“He’s just a kid, Derek. It was a huge deal for him.”
“Well, now it’s not holding its tuning because you can’t say ‘no’ to a fifteen-year-old brat.”
The surfer dude gave Q an apologetic smile. “Hi. I’m Austin. Derek’s guitar tech. You must be Q.”
She nodded.
Derek spoke up, “Austin, who now has to repeg my guitar because he didn’t make sure some kid in Germany loosened the strings when we were packing up.”
“He’s my friend’s son. He’s autistic and obsessed with Dark Harm,” Austin explained. “I let him shadow me in Berlin. I should have watched him better.”
Q winked at him and said, “Well, if you’re asking me, misleading some poor kid into thinking his idol over there isn’t, in fact, an asshole, is child abuse, but whatever.”
Austin’s mouth fell open and he waited for Derek to explode. He didn’t. Derek threw his arm over Q’s shoulders and said, “Told you you’d like her. Get that guitar fixed, please. He have a good time, your friend’s kid?”
Austin smiled. “He was in heaven.”
“Good. It’s worth it then.”
◆◆◆
Hours later, Q tilted her head from side-to-side to stretch out the tension in her neck. Used to sitting behind a piano for most performances, she was discovering that standing behind a mic stand was more exhausting than she’d remembered.
Derek let out a piercing whistle into his mic and the band abruptly stopped playing. Q pulled out one of her in-ear monitors to better hear him reprimand her about everything she was doing wrong.
“Sex noises, angel,” Derek shouted. “I said, I wanted sex noises.”
“Yeah, I bet, Cincinnati.” Q glared at him. “Take what you can get.”
“You don’t hear Fiona complaining,” he replied with a leering grin. “I love those noises, Fi.”
Fiona called out, “Thought you would have gotten tired of those by now, Derek.”
He flashed his crocodile grin and said, “Two things I will never tire of, Fi, one of them is the noises women make in bed.”
“And the other?” Q asked, already knowing she was going to regret inquiring.
“Making women make those noises.” He clapped his hands. “‘Hunger Pains.’ From the top.”
Nick’s bass growled to life and began thumping out a funk groove against Fiona’s constant kick drum beat. The synth line filled in the void with insect noises that made Q’s skin crawl.
Q wordlessly moaned into the mic in a descending melody that Fiona countered with her own sighs. Derek’s fingers slid down the fretboard of his guitar and he tapped a simple chord progression while he sang:
Whispers at the door promising salvation
Rings of fire burning through starvation
All fucked up except the one who’s hiding in the dark
Try to hold the cuts together to keep from falling apart
Hiding all the cuts and the bruises and the scratches
It’s like hiding gasoline from a stack of lit matches
The sun never shines, and this room is always cold and dark
Try to hold the cuts together to keep from falling apart
He slid into a guitar solo that stunned Q, having never heard it before. The world seemed to tilt around her as the sound pressure filled her ears.
As Derek began to sing the chorus again, Q echoed him in a round, singing:
Try to hold the cuts together to keep from falling apart
They repeated the line over and over until words had almost no meaning, playing with the syncopation the consonan
ts made between the drumbeat and the bassline.
When the song finally ended, Derek nodded to himself in satisfaction. “Ok, everyone. Let’s break for dinner. I’m starved.”
Q pulled out her phone and glanced at the time, mentally calculating how long it would take her to get from downtown to home. “How long do we have?”
“For what, angel?” Derek asked.
“Dinner,” she said. “I’d like to go home and see Ben.”
“And I’d like to spend one night as the meat in a Q and Fi sandwich, but that’s not happening…” He closed one eye and considered her for a moment before he asked, “It’s not, is it?”
She gave him an annoyed scowl.
“Just checking,” he replied. “Look, meals are on campus. Paul’s orders. We bring in catering. Ben can meet you here if you like.”
“How is he going to know when we’re eating?”
Derek snapped his fingers and a young man with a long ponytail came out from backstage, pulling out his earplugs.
“Damnit, Troy, get her a schedule, will you?” He turned back to Q. “Your schedule. Troy should have gotten you one already. We have an hour before we start back up. Let’s go eat.”
She walked ahead of him, following the rest the band backstage and down the stairs to the greenroom. The caterer had already set up and Q’s stomach glowered at her from within.
“Great. Wedding banquet food,” she grumbled.
The woman managing the food looked up at her in surprise as Q grabbed a paper plate and deposited a piece of dry, grilled chicken on it. Q instantly recognized her as her least favorite caterer on the wedding circuit. The Beasts had nicknamed her Bland Bonnie because of her extreme aversion to both salt and spice.
“Hey, I know you,” she said when she saw Q standing before her.
“Hi, it’s Bonnie, right?” Q asked.
“Last time I checked.” She smiled congenially. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m sitting in for a few weeks,” Q replied.
“Well, lucky you, I’ll be cooking for you all week.”
Q managed a polite grin that she hoped hid her stomach’s distress.
“How’s Charlie?” Bonnie asked.
“He’s good.” Q tried to remember if Bonnie was on the list of caterers that had added a notch in Charlie’s headboard. Judging from the large breasts that were barely contained by Bonnie’s chef’s jacket, Q figured she most definitely was on that list.
After a brief, awkward pause, Bonnie said, “Have him call me. Tell him no strings this time.”
“I’ll pass along the message after gym class.” Q took her plate and walked over to join Kyle sitting at the far table, picking disinterestedly at his plate of pasta.
She sat next to him and said, “Please tell me one of you is a hot sauce junkie.”
“Nope. But this food could change my mind. What is this?”
“Bland Bonnie’s flavorless pasta Florentine. She’s a regular on the wedding circuit.” Q cut a piece of chicken and decided she’d rather be hungry. “I have no idea how she still gets gigs.”
Kyle turned and glimpsed over his shoulder at the caterer. “I think I could figure that out. I’m guessing the grooms and the fathers of the brides have something to do with it.” He turned back and gave Q a sidelong grin. “You get married a lot?”
“I used to play weddings a lot,” she corrected. “My band was booked solid every wedding season before we played that record for Stanley Gerard and hit the road.”
He let out a long whistle. “I always figured being in a cover band playing weddings was the hell they always promised musicians.”
She shrugged. “Beats working a desk job, if you’re asking me. Is this your first time in New Orleans?”
Kyle’s expression made it evident that he thought she was playing Country Mouse to his metropolitan rodent. “Of course, not. Derek’s lived here for twelve years. I even have a place here now. My sister does, too.”
“Where are you from?”
“Seattle. If you ask me, this city’s rep as a food Mecca isn’t well-deserved.” He poked at his food in disgust. “Too much salt, not enough skill.”
She winked at him. “Or, in the case of our dinner, not enough salt, and no skill.”
He softened somewhat.
“Where’s your place?” she asked.
“The Marigny. When my sister and her husband relocated here, we tried to get them to buy a place in the Bywater, but they fell in love with this house way the fuck uptown, next to some fancy whiskey tasting joint.”
“Lafitte’s Cove?” Q guessed, inwardly cringing as she uncovered another justification for Kyle to dislike her.
“Leave it to Derek to fuck things up for everyone.”
“Well, not everyone,” she replied. “We were going to have to close up before Derek started playing the Thursday Night Fish Fries with me. He saved our asses.”
“And ruined the neighborhood. That’s why Julie and Chris bought a place so close to a bar. They thought it was a quiet, little neighborhood jazz joint.”
“Times change. They do have clubs in Seattle, right?”
Kyle rolled his eyes at her perceived naivety and said, “Of course. New Orleans isn’t the only place with a music scene.”
“It’s the only place with a good music scene, though,” she said, winking at him.
He smirked, trying not to laugh. “Tell that to Chris, my brother-in-law. I think he’d disagree.”
“Tell your brother-in-law, he’s lucky his nose isn’t broken right now.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Kyle asked.
“Your brother-in-law, Chris What’s-his-butt, from Seattle, Washington marched into my husband’s place of business and called me a slut and had some choice words about our mutual employer. Ben almost took his head off,” Q explained.
Before Kyle could respond, said employer sat down across from them and took both their plates away. “Don’t eat this shit. You’ll get food poisoning. I’ve got one of the runners going for po’ boys. Should have known better than to let Paul pick the caterer.”
“Why?” Q asked.
“He’s got Crohn’s. Eats the blandest food.” He shoved the plates away. “He also wasn’t breastfed enough. That woman probably didn’t even need to cook for him, just wear something cut low enough for Paul to get a glimpse of what his mother should have given him.” Derek looked from Q to Kyle and said in a gossipy tone, “So, what are we talking about?”
“Nothing,” Kyle muttered.
“Oh, no,” Q replied. “I disagree. This shit has cost Ben and me five thousand dollars. I think it’s something.”
She folded her hands on the table and leaned forward conspiratorially towards Derek, who mimicked her posture with glee. In a loud stage whisper, she said, “Kyle’s sister and her husband bought a house right next to Lafitte’s Cove when it was having all that trouble last year. Once you started playing there, they discovered they didn’t like loud music and drunk people making out in the neutral ground. They are none too pleased with you and my sweet husband. Me, either.”
Derek got a delighted grin on his face and smirked at Kyle. “Kyle, you didn’t tell me Julie moved to New Orleans. When did your sister move here? I should look her up. It’s been a while.”
“Stop it, Derek,” Kyle replied firmly. “He still doesn’t know. He can’t know.”
Q pulled back and turned her head from one man to the other. “He still doesn’t know, he can’t know, what?”
“Nothing,” Kyle said. He pulled out his phone for a moment before putting it back into his pocket.
She leaned forward towards Derek again. “It’s something, isn’t it?”
He licked his lips and glanced down at his crotch. “So, I’ve been told, angel. Magnificent, actually. Actually, by his sister, now that you mention it.”
“You fucked his sister?” Q exclaimed.
Kyle elbowed her hard. “Say it a little louder. I’m not sure the crew up
stairs heard you.”
Derek nonchalantly crossed his legs and leaned back in his chair. “It was her idea, angel. I was just along for the ride. Far be it from me to stop any woman who wants to use my face as a saddle.”
Q’s entire body shook as she was seized with a fit of adolescent giggles. After the wave subsided, she tilted her face towards Kyle and said, “Well, if you’re asking me…”