Fast Lane

by Ashley, Kristen

  [Off tape]

  Why do you feel this way?

  First, because Lyla didn’t put up with any shit from women.

  Not when it came to the band.

  And in some cases, it’s gotta be a woman who takes care a’ shit like that, you know what I’m sayin’?

  She could sniff out a loser or a user faster ’n snot, and she had no problem weeding them out.

  She also did not delay in doing that.

  And she got such a reputation with it, the vast majority of the time, women didn’t try to dick us over.

  But also, with that and with her around…

  You just don’t be a bitch or an asshole around a woman like that.

  I mean that both ways.

  The women we had, they looked up to Lyla and for the most part, she showed them the way.

  And us guys, we never wanted to disappoint her, so she showed us the way too.

  Second, Lyla has no interest in it, and I’ve noted repeatedly Preacher is protective as fuck, and you do a lot of press on tour. Every city, it’s more reporters or photo ops or radio shows.

  Tom set it up so if we did interviews, it was not in band space. No one ever had all access, and after the String thing, it was very rare they got close to the band in any area that was considered personal, like our dressing room.

  Tom made the label hire space or get another suite and that’s how we did interviews.

  This way, we could keep them far away from Lyla.

  And this meant, because everyone mostly wanted to talk to Preacher, okay, she was with the band, with him.

  Taking care of the band.

  Taking care of him.

  But Preach bogged down with reporters?

  That means she’s with the band.

  And Lyla has to be taking care of somebody.

  Lyla left to her own devices is not good.

  Taking care of somebody, she’s Audie’s, Lynie’s, her mom’s…

  That’s her heart.

  That’s her soul.

  We didn’t know it then, but she has to be stuck in, up to her neck, doing something she cares deeply about for someone she cares deeply about.

  Yeah, we didn’t know it then.

  [Quieter] But we know it now.

  I guess everyone knows that now.

  Once, once, a roadie pulls out some smack and suggests it to Dave.

  And Dave was Dave.

  He’d try anything.

  Preacher is off talking to some magazine, but Lyla sees that shit and she’s on getting Tommy there so fast, the world stopped spinning.

  That roadie was gone, and after that, I don’t know, but it could be Tom had everyone who came anywhere near us frisked so no heroin would get close to the band.

  [Chuckles]

  Now, Lyla also did her first toots of coke from Dave’s spoon when Preacher was somewhere else, and we’ll just say, when Preach found out, he was not a happy man.

  But we were all frosted half the time, including Preacher, so as much as it sucks to say, that was probably inevitable.

  Still…

  [Taps fingers restlessly on armchair]

  I think, as long as he could, Preach tried to stay true to what he promised Audie, taking care of her, looking out for her.

  Holding on, in the end, by his fingernails.

  And then he let go.

  Worse, she did too.

  But by then, she really had no choice.

  We get off that tour and we’re beat, but we gotta get into the studio.

  So, we do, and I remember us all sitting around Lyla and Preacher’s living room, shuffling through bits of paper that have lyrics or music written on them, trying to pick which ones we’re going to put on the next album.

  Lyla’s on the phone with Amber talking about how a gig she got working with a youth center went bust because she was found out and some reporters and paparazzi were sniffing around, and that very day, she had to quit.

  And she says, “I like yesterday better than today. But I can’t wait for tomorrow.”

  And that’s just Lyla.

  Her mom dies and within a few years her grandparents are dead.

  She’s deep in love with a man she barely sees.

  She’s twenty-five years old and the degree she earned is useless, her career is up in smoke, but her boyfriend and his band are nominated for more awards, they’re rich, they’re famous and she is too, for doing nothing but being Lyla.

  And she can’t wait for tomorrow and she’s not full of shit with that.

  That’s her.

  And she’s Lyla.

  [Flips out hand]

  An album is born.

  [Off tape]

  Some Like Yesterday Better Than Today, Wait for Tomorrow is definitely edgier than your former two albums, but still optimistic, and you just explained that.

  The Roadmasters didn’t tour to promote that album, but it still sold better than Audie and Lynie Live On, which sold better than Like a Desperation which sold better than Night Lies.

  Your next album is The Cycle.

  This shades dark again and included the single “Musk” which, like “Tulips,” though far less tender, is a raunchy, barely veiled narrative of McCade and Lyla’s sex life, particularly how much he enjoyed performing cunnilingus on her and receiving fellatio from her.

  If Lyla is struggling under the spotlight, and McCade doesn’t like it shining on her, why did he share such intimacies so publicly?

  [Sighs]

  Because you don’t tell a poet what poems to write.

  And anyway…

  The damage was already done.

  The thing is, we’d entered the fast lane.

  And once you’re there, you got two choices.

  You keep up.

  Or you crash.

  But just to say, that’s a kickass song. It’s sexy as fuck.

  And I think at that point, Preach was so fed up, he was feeling, if you couldn’t beat ’em…

  Give ’em something to really be jealous about.

  And last, Lyla fuckin’ loved that song, and at first, he wrote it for her and had no intention of including it on the album.

  He did it, we did it, because Lyla encouraged us to.

  Partly because she knew it was a hit.

  But mostly because, she had a lot of fuck yous to deliver.

  And that was one big, steamy, dirty, smutty, wicked-awesome fuck you.

  [Grins]

  And you know the fuck of it, to this day, that’s our highest grossing album.

  And that album…

  And that song…

  Won us our first awards.

  Listen, you never bitch about being rich and famous.

  You just don’t.

  Heard someone say once, I forget who, the only thing worse than someone interrupting you at dinner to ask for an autograph is no one interrupting you to ask for an autograph.

  And that is true.

  Would I rather have played the bar circuit until I got sick to death with it and ended up sitting in my armchair in my living room drinking a beer and wondering what if, instead of admitting I just wasn’t good enough, or didn’t work hard enough, and I should have moved on?

  Fuck no.

  What we built and what came with it, all of it, I’ll take it.

  I’d take more.

  I’d take less.

  [Grins]

  Though not much less.

  This all sounds like one huge bitch.

  But it isn’t.

  When you’re in the thick of it, it’s an everyday party, sister. It’s good times, and the pills you’re taking mask it, so you have no clue you’re run down and about to burn out. You’re just into what you’re doin’, and when it’s done, you’re rarin’ for what’s up next.

  And our music is out there, it’s getting heard and people love it. We’re onstage and they’re singing our words back to us in this wall of sound and that…

  Man, that…

  Exce
pt the love of a good woman and becoming a father, there is no better feeling than that, and seein’ as the love of a good woman and being a father is everything times about a million, that’s sayin’ something.

  My father would have been proud.

  And my mother was against it at first…

  But she died proud of me.

  What I’m saying is, even doing this right now with you, looking back at all of this under a microscope, I would do it again.

  I wouldn’t have to think for even a second about it.

  And I wouldn’t change a thing.

  The thing is, you’re in it. You went for it. You bought into the dream. Made your deal. Sold your soul. Whatever.

  You wanted it.

  And if you go for it and you have luck or talent or you work hard for it or all three, however you get there, you get it.

  The ones you love.

  That’s a different story.

  Lyla:

  It was, and still is, very sweet, even if it was, and still is, upsetting how the guys reacted to all that happened to me.

  But it didn’t really bother me.

  Honestly, although it was tough at first, you get used to it pretty fast, especially if why it’s coming at you is worth putting up with it.

  They had a mind to me, they always did. All of them.

  But that period of my life was not about any of that.

  I learned very quickly none of that mattered.

  It was about losing my mother, which is something you never get over.

  And since Mom moved us in with them when I was eight, my grandparents were really my parents too, so losing them was the same.

  They all went so fast, it felt like it was one after the other, and with everything else going on, I couldn’t cope.

  I don’t know what I would have done if I didn’t have Preacher and the band.

  My family was dying.

  And there I was, with a new family.

  I’m in school. I’m graduating from school. I’m trying to find a job. Discover who I am, what I’m about.

  And the only thing I’m sure of in all of that, the only thing that’s solid, is Preacher.

  I mean, think about this. Think about any twenty-something kid who’s starting their life.

  You get to an age you look back and think, “I wish I was that young again.”

  Well, I don’t.

  Because we wish we were that young again because we’re not, we’ve lived life and we’ve learned, and we want to go back because we know things we didn’t then.

  But going back is going back to not knowing those things.

  And we lay gild on those years because we were young, and we have our full life ahead of us but figuring out who you are and what you want out of life is tough work.

  We forget that part.

  We forget that really, there were chunks of it that just plain sucked.

  It’s the ones who figure out that they have to be in their now.

  That’s the meaning of life.

  Not only do we have no other choice, but where we are, we earned. We’ve lived that life and we’ve learned those lessons and we can take all those gifts and tragedies and build on them to have more.

  There’s always more.

  Every next second you’re breathing is more.

  Until you’re not breathing.

  And something I learned with my mother dying at age forty-three is to pack everything I got into every breath I take.

  I did that then without even knowing it.

  And I do it now.

  Lyla:

  [Off tape]

  Would you talk about the Young and Beautiful List?

  [For a moment, says nothing, then begins laughing before, suddenly, she stops]

  I was staring out my window in the back of the limousine when I felt Preacher, sitting beside me, move.

  I looked to him and saw he had his hand in his inside jacket pocket.

  He pulled out the vial and murmured, “Want a bump, baby?”

  I turned his way, scooted closer and said, “Set me up.”

  He filled the little spoon, held it out. I pressed one nostril, leaned into it and breathed the white powder in.

  Repeat with the other nostril.

  I tasted the bitter in the back of my throat.

  And I liked it.

  Preacher took his own, replaced the vial in his jacket, did a long sniff, set his head back on seat, closed his eyes and lifted his hand to pinch his nose.

  I watched him, falling in love with him that little bit more.

  So handsome, my man.

  I reached out and ran my fingers through the side of his hair to the ends that now curled around his ear.

  He dropped his hand, opened his eyes but didn’t lift his head when he turned to me.

  “You miss it,” he said.

  “It looks good shorter.”

  His lips twitched and he murmured, “You miss it.”

  I didn’t.

  And I did.

  I slid my finger along his smooth-shaven jaw, doing it wondering why he’d hidden that for so long.

  Angled perfectly, square, strong.

  “You miss the beard too.”

  I didn’t.

  And I did.

  My gaze lifted from my fingers at his jaw to his eyes.

  “I love you however you come.”

  His expression changed and then I was glad there was a deep slit in the front of my gown because he caught my hips and pulled me to straddling his lap.

  This as he slouched down in his seat.

  The coke was taking hold, but that wasn’t the only reason I felt the spike in my body.

  “You know, I’m quite pleased with myself,” I told him. “Being solely responsible for the band’s new look.”

  It was a joke on a variety of levels seeing as I was not.

  I’d like to see someone try to tell Dave what to wear, and Tim how to cut his hair.

  Actually, I wouldn’t because that wouldn’t be pretty.

  Though Dave could be blamed for my pierced ears.

  He got his way, somewhere in Canada, and I let him.

  Preacher did too, in the sense that it was him that held the ice and the needle.

  Dave’s idea—and so Preacher—he took over.

  Dave didn’t mind, he got to watch and hand Preacher the little gold studs Preacher slid in after he pierced me.

  And I definitely didn’t mind, because now, every time I put in a new pair of earrings, it reminded me of Preacher.

  And, well, Dave.

  Preacher started chuckling and through it said, “Yeah. It’s not that it’s 1994, and we maybe needed to haul our asses out of the seventies.”

  I grinned at him.

  He slid his hands under my skirt, up the backs of my thighs to my bottom, asking, “Why we goin’ to this thing again?”

  “Because Brad and Gwyneth will be there.”

  He burst out laughing, his fingers digging into my ass as he did.

  “They’re our only competition for prettiest couple alive,” I informed him. “We have to show them up.”

  He stopped laughing, sliding one hand over the top of my thigh.

  “Well, cher, lookin’ like you do, Gwyneth doesn’t stand a chance. But I ain’t pretty.”

  He was so wrong.

  She’d be gorgeous.

  And he was wrong times two, of a sort.

  Preacher wasn’t pretty, that was true, and Brad was hot.

  But Brad paled in comparison to Preacher.

  “It’s for the kids, Preacher,” I said softly.

  “Right, that’s why I paid fifteen hundred bucks a ticket.”

  I smiled at him.

  His hand shifted up over my belly. “They already got the money.” His fingers slid into the front of my panties. “We can ditch.”

  He found the perfect spot, rolled and my head fell back as my hips moved with his fingers.

  “Yeah,” he whispered and the
gravelly note to that word made me ride his fingers harder.

  “We…have to show. I…promised,” I forced out. “The charity needs the press.”

  “Mm,” Preacher hummed.

  I dropped my forehead to his and breathed, “God, Preacher.”

  “Keep ridin’, baby,” he encouraged. “Oh, yeah,” he growled when I did.

  I glided my hands down his shirt to his trousers.

  “Want you,” I panted.

  I heard a whirring noise that didn’t last long and Preach ordered, “Drive around awhile.”

  “Yeah, Preacher,” the chauffer said.

  The whirring noise came back just as I freed him from his pants.

  His fingers went out of my panties, and he pushed his slacks over his hips while I claimed his hard cock.

  Preacher tugged my panties aside, I positioned him, my eyes staring into his, and I bore down.

  He clamped onto my ass with both hands and groaned, “Fuck.”

  My forehead still to his, I took him, he let me, his fingers pulsing into my flesh with encouragement before he moved one hand around and found my clit with his thumb.

  I gasped, took him harder, and he pushed me over the edge right before he jumped off with me.

  I was sitting on his cock, my face in his neck, and Preacher was trailing his fingertips lightly on the skin of my ass and thighs when I came down.

  Then suddenly, skating my gown up my back, his arms clamped around me.

  “Ditch this shit,” he rumbled.

  “Honey—”

  I was about to remind him why we had to appear at this event when he interrupted me, sharing precisely what he wanted to ditch.

  “Take you to a mountain somewhere. Somewhere they can’t get to us. Build you a house. Fill you with babies. Make our lives about nothin’ but you and me and our family.”

  My man was tired of it.

  It had become a grind.

  Something he loved had become a grind.

  And it was all about him, all on him.

  The guys, they were great.

  But none of them carried the weight like Preacher.

  I had to get him to a place where he could breathe, remember how much he loved this, get him into a zone where he could just pick up his guitar and play because he wanted to.