In Her Eyes

by Renée J. Lukas

  I drove all around Boston, not sure where I was going. Robin’s ideas were sharp knives, jutting up against my conscience. I thought about all the heavy metal videos I’d seen in college. I wasn’t going to do a video of “Hot Silk” with my hands outlining my crotch in some skimpy outfit. With few exceptions, these days, the only way female artists or female-fronted bands got noticed were by hitting you over the head with their sexuality. I cranked up Joan Jett and swore I wouldn’t become a sex slave for the industry I’d hoped to own someday. Women who owned their art didn’t play by the boys’ rules. I had to be one of them.

  It was so ironic, I thought, with a bittersweet smile. How did the year with Robin inflate my conscience and make her lose hers?

  Cory

  Adrienne Austen seemed to be so candid, telling me things I never thought she would. At the same time, I had to think she was withholding some really juicy parts. One side of me said to shut up and be grateful that I was getting this much. The other side hoped I could crack one of the biggest mysteries of my lifetime. If I appeared too eager, she might shut down. I had to be careful.

  Adrienne flashed me a wicked smile. “Since you’ve never heard of ‘Hot Silk,’ she said, “you know how that part of the story ends.”

  “Actually, I have,” I told her meekly. “On the B Sides you released, on your twentieth anniversary.”

  “Damn,” she laughed. “You are a fan. What was your name again?”

  I laughed nervously, hoping she was joking. She offered me something to eat, but I wasn’t hungry. Neither was she, as it turned out. We pressed on, and I honestly lost track of time. The only evidence of the minutes ticking by was the changing light in the sky. It had been an overcast afternoon, but I could tell that late afternoon was pushing its way onto the scene, and rush hour traffic would soon be crowding the streets.

  For me, of course, the hours flew by so fast…Adrienne Austen was giving me an exclusive interview!

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Adrienne

  Since I had to have my damn principles, the band quickly ran out of money, especially when a few of our gigs dried up. Some business owners said they weren’t doing live music anymore and not to take it personally. For me, it was personal. I was desperate to find work for the band that we could count on.

  In the meantime, I worked extra jobs, but they were all disasters. Some people, it seems, aren’t meant to do anything but what they’re good at and they fail miserably at everything else. I was Exhibit A. As a waiter, I couldn’t balance drink glasses on a tray very well. If you’ve never done it, it’s fucking hard. Walking while balancing champagne flutes made me feel like I was in Cirque du Soleil. My boss said my balance was “spectacularly disastrous” or that I must have had an inner ear problem. Then came a data entry job, which hurt my fingers after a while since I played guitar every night. I drove a van for senior citizens, but since driving in the city stressed me out, I swore a lot. I nearly gave them heart attacks with the number of “fucks” that flew out of my mouth. Two elderly ladies with blue hair, who always sat in the back, whispered disapprovingly about me. I could tell I wasn’t their idea of a dream driver. One of the blue hairs eventually told me: “If I talked like that in front of my mother, she would’ve slapped me.” To which I responded, “I didn’t have a mother.” That quieted them for a little while. But shortly after, I think they’d decided among themselves that I was their new project and I needed saving.

  “Do you go to church?” Blue Hair Number One asked.

  “Jesus Christ, no.” I turned the wheel, raced up a side street. Then I caught myself. “Oh, sorry.”

  “You should go to church with us,” Blue Hair Number Two said.

  “I don’t need to be born again,” I said. “I think I did it right the first time.”

  Blue Hair Number One actually laughed. Then she said, “You could meet a nice young man.”

  “Any chance I’d meet a nice young woman?” I asked.

  Crickets in the backseat.

  I didn’t last long as their van driver.

  Things were rocky with the band, to say the least. I could feel the chilly reception from them, still holding a grudge against me for being the dissenting voice standing in the way of a record deal. Heck, I myself might’ve been pissed at them if I didn’t understand what doing a certain song meant to them. I hated to generalize, but I guessed because they were guys, they’d never fully grasp what it meant to sell your soul that way. To them, it was one sexy song and video. No big deal. I walked into the studio once while Tony and Marty were talking. I caught the tail end of the conversation: “That’s what we get for having a girl call the shots.” I almost went ballistic on them both but decided not to stoke the fire. I hoped they’d eventually get over it. Even more, I hoped we’d get another, better, chance.

  Eventually, our band met up with a guy who seemed to be our savior. He liked our work and wanted to help us out. His name was Ronnie Lansing, a crazy-rich dude who had slicked-back hair and more rings on his fingers than guys who aren’t Liberace typically have. He could’ve been in the mafia but luckily wasn’t.

  Ronnie’s parents owned all these paving companies throughout the Northeast. So he let us use this sweet space that looked like a giant warehouse in Swampscott to practice. We could play there and no one would call the police about the noise—although that was my favorite thing about practice sessions.

  There weren’t many windows, and it had excellent acoustics. So we practiced day and night there. We had to take a train back to the city, but it was worth it. After a couple of weeks, though, there was a big change.

  Sometimes you get a feeling about something in the pit of your stomach before it happens, even though there’s no obvious sign. I had that feeling. Something was going to screw us up right before we were about to make a name for ourselves. At least that was my fear. After all, I was good at self-sabotage anyway.

  Apparently, access to Ronnie’s warehouse came with a condition—a guy named Keith Biles. His last name, like the bile that rises up in your throat when you feel sick, was fitting. Keith was Ronnie’s best friend from college. He kept talking about him moving back east and how we had to meet him. The day we met him, I knew that Ronnie wanted him in the band.

  Keith had curly reddish-blond hair, and he obviously worked out enough to carry equipment with one hand. He played more than one type of guitar, which I’ll admit was useful. But there was something about his swagger—he acted as if he owned the band before he was even part of it.

  We went out for a few beers at a local bar to get to know him. It was obvious he was a strong personality, so I expected Jerry and I would be the resistance.

  “Ron tells me you need a hit.” Keith tapped his ashes into an empty beer bottle.

  “Yeah,” Jerry said, much to my surprise.

  “No,” I said firmly. “We have hits. We just need to get them played.”

  “Boston radio stations,” Keith said. “Do like Loretta Lynn. You see that movie, Coal Miner’s Daughter? They shoved the record at the DJ and made him play it.”

  I looked around the table incredulously. “Is this guy for real?” I asked.

  “We could bug the hell out of ’em ’til they play us,” Jerry said.

  It was weird. I’d expected Jerry to fight this guy, fight for our band, the band we started. But in this guy’s presence, he was rolling over like a dog.

  “C’mon, Jerry,” I growled. “You worked at a station in St. Pete. You know that’s not how they do it anymore. You have to have a record label.”

  “So it’s you.” Keith leaned back in the booth, scratching the curly mop on his head. “Every band’s got to have one, the pain in the ass.”

  The guys, who I’d come to think of as brothers, laughed in agreement. They’d turned on me like a pack of wolves who were now getting in line behind the alpha. What the hell was I doing here? What did I want anymore? I’d begun asking myself.

  Joey, the professional drummer an
d usually the quiet one, suddenly piped up. “She may be,” he said, “but it’s her attitude that gives the band a special something.”

  The other guys shoved him and teased him for “sounding queer.”

  “Thanks, Joe,” I said, raising my bottle to him. Finally, some loyalty.

  “Yeah.” Keith laughed. “Well, that special something is what cost you a hit. Linda said you wouldn’t record ‘Hot Silk.’”

  “I’m not talking about that again!” I crushed the last of my Marlboro in the ashtray and stared him down. Only one of us was going to be alpha and it wasn’t going to be him.

  That night, Jerry walked with me back to my apartment.

  “Oh, look,” I hollered. “There’s your spine. Right there on the sidewalk!”

  “What’re you talking about?” He kicked at the uneven cement.

  “You meet this total stranger and go along with everything he says. And you totally sold me out.”

  “Quit bein’ a diva,” he said. “It’s been a few years now since we came to Boston. We’ve made some headway, but not enough. It’s not a bad thing to be open-minded. We could use some new ideas.”

  “Linda has been in the business for twenty years.”

  “And Linda’s getting a little rusty.” He stopped and faced me. “The guys are still pissed that you wouldn’t do ‘Hot Silk.’”

  “Oh, Jesus, give it a rest.”

  “No, I’m serious, Drew. Some of them are mad about it still. They think we had a real chance, and it might have been our last one. They…”

  “What, Jerry?”

  “They even talked about dumping you.”

  I folded my arms. “Really? They were going to go off on their own? Tell me, Jerry. Who the hell was going to sing?”

  He wouldn’t look me in the eye.

  “Were you part of this discussion?” I could hardly get out the words. “Oh God, please tell me you weren’t.”

  “I never said I wanted you to leave.”

  “But you said nothing, right?”

  “Now stop with the flaring nostrils.” He pointed at my face. “Don’t do that.”

  “You didn’t stick up for me, did you?” I pressed.

  There was a silence, as he tried to look everywhere but at me.

  “Wow,” I said. “I never knew what a coward you were.”

  “You better cut that shit out!” he yelled.

  “Or what? You gonna kick me out of the band?” I was hoarse from shouting in the loud bar, but mostly hurt that it had come to this, that I couldn’t count on my best friend anymore. It felt like I was grieving a death.

  He shook his head as if the idea was crazy.

  “Well, I don’t know,” I continued. “Seems you and Keith are already so chummy. And he’s just gonna take over on bass now? We got enough bass!”

  He winced; I could tell he was holding back a flurry of curse words, stockpiling them just for me.

  “Fuck it.” He turned and shuffled back toward his place.

  I watched his figure get smaller down the sidewalk, under fading streetlights. I wondered how long our alliance would last. Most friendships, heck, any relationship, never seemed to last.

  * * *

  The day Linda didn’t show up at a major gig, I knew something was wrong.

  “Hey.” Tony ambled over to me before we got started. His eyes were kind; I could tell he didn’t want to rock the boat. “Linda quit.”

  “Why?” I was consumed with a creeping heat all over my skin. I knew something like that was about to happen. All the signs had been there. Even after Keith pretended to play nice and do lead guitar with Jerry, there were still forces working behind my back. I could feel it.

  “She said she doesn’t like the direction Keith’s taking us.”

  “Why is Keith Biles taking us in any direction?” I demanded. “He’s not our manager.”

  Tony nodded, as if in surrender. “He is now.”

  It was all about economics. We needed someone to invest in us, and Ronnie Lansing was willing to throw money at us as long as his buddy was calling the shots.

  That night, I sang in an extra pissed-off way that started a chain reaction. We were getting more fans because people were talking about me. I even made the cover of a city magazine, the headline something like “The Angry Woman of Rock.” Whatever Keith’s strategy was, I knew I was the linchpin that held us together. They needed me, and that gave me some leverage.

  * * *

  After the show, I ran outside, rushing to get home. I didn’t stick around for the usual beer that someone would buy me. I had to get out of there. I especially didn’t want to talk to any of my “bandmates,” because they didn’t feel like my friends anymore. I wanted to cut them all loose, I thought, hustling down the street.

  “Hey, wait up!” Keith called.

  I stopped and turned around, tilting my head in that “you must be joking” sort of way.

  “I wanna talk to you,” he said.

  “Yeah? Well, I don’t like hearing I’ve lost my manager from someone else. This used to be mine and Jerry’s band.”

  “Jerry was cool with it,” Keith said.

  “Of course he was,” I muttered. “Asshole.”

  “You’ve gotta show some skin,” he said.

  I tilted my head even more to the side. Was he really going there with me?

  “You got a problem with my leather pants?” I asked.

  “Oh, no. Hell, no. They’re great.”

  “Keith, if our band is only as good as me prostituting myself, then it’s no good at all.” I resumed my pace. He followed.

  “It gets attention!” He seemed surprised at how hard it was to persuade me. This was clearly a guy who had gotten his way a lot. “C’mon,” he said, stopping to rest, trying to catch his breath. “They’re coming to see you. It’s obvious you’re the main attraction.”

  I stopped again. “I’m surprised you’d admit that.” Showing his hand? A strange move for a power-hungry asshole.

  “It’s true,” he said. “Only an idiot would say it’s anything else. But that’s why you’ve gotta give ’em more.”

  “I want us to be artists, not sell-out jokes.” Seeing his face fall, I added, “Billy Joel doesn’t have to get naked to sell records.”

  “No one would pay to see that.” He laughed to himself.

  Actually, a former co-worker of mine at the bank would have paid to see Billy Joel naked. But it wasn’t relevant to my case, so I kept it to myself.

  “What do you want?” he asked.

  I could tell he wanted my respect more than anything. “I want you to show me you’re more creative than this,” I said, and walked away.

  Unfortunately, I learned that Keith wasn’t more creative. In fact, he was sadly a cliché who almost cost us the band’s future…

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Adrienne

  I’ll admit I was naïve for a rock singer. Yeah, we had our excesses. But there were certain things we never did. Jerry and I had made a pact that we weren’t going to be some cliché band that falls apart over drugs.

  I’ll also admit that it took me a while to see why Keith Biles was the new golden boy, why everybody loved him, why Tony’s eyes were always bloodshot and why Joey, whose upright posture usually resembled that of a ballet teacher, was now slumped over his drums most days.

  It took me a while, I guess, because I’d had such faith in Jerry. But lately, as far as I was concerned, he’d begun to weaken our bond, if not break it completely.

  Live shows around this time were terrible. We’d get on stage and the guys would be a bar behind or delayed just enough for me to notice. Usually I didn’t mind if we improvised, but Marty was doing things with the bass line that just didn’t make any sense, going off on his own unrehearsed tangent. I’d give him a look during the show, but he was in his own world. They all seemed to be. It took the worst night on stage for me to realize what was going on.

  * * *

  After t
he gig, I went back to the guys’ dressing room, something I hardly ever did. The smell would’ve made anyone pass out.

  As I came around the dingy curtain, I saw Jerry snorting like a horse, with long, drippy strands of blond hair obscuring his face. I knew immediately who the supplier was, but Keith was nowhere to be found.

  “Hey!” I was sharp.

  “Checkin’ out what you been missing?” Marty teased, making a pelvic thrust, a gesture very unlike him.

  “I’ve seen ’em all before,” I said, glancing at our drummer, Joey, who, sensing there was going to be a fight, made a fast exit.

  “Whatever you’re doing,” I said. “Cut it out.”

  Jerry lifted his head, his half smile barely hanging on, like the rest of him.

  “What am I doin’?” he mocked.

  I grabbed him by the sweaty silk shirt that had stuck to his skin.

  “I’m not gonna be one of those bands on Behind the Music,” I growled. “Don’t you blow it for us.”

  He knew exactly what I meant. We stayed up watching those pathetic stories on VH-1 every Saturday morning. It was always the same story—a band rose to fame then fucked it up with addictions that became more important than what their original dreams were.

  I tore around, looking for the rest of his stash, but concluded it had all gone up his nose.