Seven Minutes 'til Midnight

by Sunniva Dee

  “And what are those?” I lower my lashes at him, flirting even now. His smile broadens into straight, ivory contentment.

  “He’s a sucker for Z sticks!” Emil butts in.

  “Z sticks, huh?”

  “Yep, and he breaks the shit out of everything you put into his hands. That’s why Rob’s always busy.” Emil fist-bumps Troy’s drum tech. “That and whenever shit happens to one of Troy’s bass drums and Rob has to crawl onstage and exchange the pedal in the middle of a song. Remember London?”

  Elias cackles out loud.

  “Yeah, he’s an animal,” Troy admits, jutting his chin at Rob, whose ears have gone pink from all the attention. “And Z sticks are awesome, because they’re a hundred percent straight. The feel of the maple variety in your hands is awesome, and the coating at the tip takes the shock out of your stroke.”

  I narrow my eyes like I’m in doubt. “Takes the shock out of your stroke, huh?”

  Troy leans in and puts his lips against my ear. “Only with my drumsticks.”

  Zoe, Nadia, and I head back to the hotel for a break, while Waris remains with her man. There’s never been a better bed in the world than the one I crawl into twenty-five minutes later.

  My scent might be here too, but it’s Troy’s I smell when I, in a bubble of euphoria, throw the sheets over my head and giggle to myself. How did life come to this? I’ve never been happier!

  I’m enveloped by barely-there traces of tarragon and Artemisia, thyme and cinnamon. I’ve never asked him where his spices come from. It’s like he exudes them, and I’m not ready for that fantasy to burst.

  As I close my eyes, I let myself drift off into cinnamon kisses.

  A knock on the door.

  Another knock. Harder.

  “Aishe! Are you there?” Zoe.

  Oh boy, what time is it?

  I get up, wobble to the door on sleepy feet and open. “What, are we leaving already?”

  “Yeah, you didn’t pick up the phone. The cab’s downstairs. Or you wanna skip the dress rehearsal and go straight to the recording?”

  The abrupt wakeup makes me queasy. “What time do I have to be there for the live recording, you think?”

  “No idea. I can have Troll text you. We gotta run, though, if you want to come now?”

  “No, no, go. I’ll be there eventually, at least for the actual show. Break a leg.”

  “Thanks!”

  I lean against the door, groaning to myself as she leaves. A glance at my watch verifies that I’ve slept for two hours. That’s so crazy.

  I get my cell. Four missed calls and a text message. The ringer is off, so no wonder there, but what about the hotel phone? A big, square, blinking light lets me know there’s at least one message waiting.

  I call Troy while I get to my knees in front of the fridge. I pull out a diet Coke and crack it open as he gets on.

  “Hey, what’re you doing?” I start preemptively. I’m not sure why I feel embarrassed for having overslept when I don’t even have a job to do tonight.

  “Hey, my moixcha! We’re back at the set. I’m about to start doing my lines with the chick who’s standing in for the chick who’s gonna be you.” There’s a smile in his voice. I instantly want to kiss him again. Ah the Drago Fuoc being all nice. Who’d have guessed this could happen to me?

  “What’s with all the chicks?” I ask.

  “The actress who plays you is having scheduling issues, so someone else is stepping in with me. She’ll be there for the recording, though, Janet says. I don’t really care either way. The girl I’m working with is cool.”

  “Hot?” I ask, but really, there’s no stir of jealousy at the base of my stomach.

  “Not even. But she’s nice. Are you on your way?” he asks.

  “Mmm. About that: I overslept.” I sound as embarrassed as I feel.

  Troy lets out a warm laugh in my ear. I close my eyes to really enjoy it. Flop to the bed again, burying in Troy spices and the freshness of our morning love.

  “My girl was exhausted,” he murmurs. “It’s okay! You’ve had a lot going on lately. I’m glad you slept. Why don’t you just take a bath, grab a little bottle of champagne, and relax. Then, I’ll let people know you’ll be here for the recording?”

  I want to be there for him, but this sounds a whole lot like Heaven. “You’ll be busy anyway, right?”

  “I will. It’ll just be running in and out for my parts, retakes and such, until the actual dress rehearsal begins. After that, we get a quick breather before it’s showtime.”

  “Yesss,” I whisper. “And I’ll be nice and clean for after.”

  “Mm-hmm. Although I don’t mind you dirty.”

  “Unless it’s soles of people's feet and love-infested hands?” I suggest.

  “Now, that’s different, of course. In such cases, I have to wash you myself. Thoroughly. Everywhere. Come to think of it, I might have to do that after the show, just to be on the safe side.”

  “Of course.”

  The audience is buzzing with excitement. It wasn’t a problem to get in here—Troll sent security down to fetch me, and now, I’m seated next to him. He’s focused but tired after a long shift with the guys.

  Clown Irruption’s most dance-worthy songs merge into each other over the speakers in a unique FNL playlist. People wiggle in their seats, happy. I couldn’t have been in a better spot, front and center, just like I’d been promised.

  I have jitters for my friends. They’re about to go onstage for a live recording going out to millions of viewers. When the spotlights are turned up and the music fades off, I forget to breathe… until Axton Rush comes onstage!

  “Hello my fellow Clown Irruption fans,” today’s number one action film hero murmurs into his microphone. His eyes glide slowly over the front line until they fleetingly still on me.

  People around us giggle, because sure, Clown Irruption has shot to fame, but Axton Rush? After five years starring exclusively in big budget films, he’s the new, sexier Chris Hemsworth.

  “Yeah!” some guy hollers behind me, and Axton breaks out the panty-dropping grin he’s famous for.

  “That’s right. You know what I’m talking about.” The spotlights lead him to the right, seemingly offstage, but then he’s suddenly at a set that looks like a rustic rehearsal room.

  “Oh my God—look!” I hiss to Troll. “There they are!” The four of them are tinkering with their instruments, Troy supposedly adjusting his cymbals.

  “Du-u-ude,” Axton says, sliding into character. Suddenly, he’s the perfect copy of a stuttering teenaged boy, asking ridiculous questions, wanting to touch Troy’s drumsticks and get Emil to sign a tramp stamp on his lower back with permanent marker. He promises to never wash that part of his body again.

  Axton Rush losing his shit over my friends? I’m cracking up.

  “Oh man,” I whisper to Troll during the set change. “I didn’t know Axton could be so funny.”

  “I know. He killed it. And the guys kept a straight face the whole way. I’m sure they slayed it out there too, with all of America laughing their asses off.”

  The production is flawless. Between each take, there’s a frenzy of activity, with all sorts of crew running around, moving lights and microphones, then finally a girl with a film clapper, holding it up and smacking it closed in front of each of the cameras in on the shoot. This is a world I’ve never been a part of, and it’s electrifying.

  Clown Irruption skits are wound in throughout the show, with Nadia and Bo enacting “being discovered” by a porn film director. He’s a super-sleezy version of Isaias di Nascimbeni played by Axton Rush. They were right about not having to say much. For the most part, their jobs are to look at each other with incredulous expressions over the director’s colorful suggestions.

  At one point, he takes over the restaurant table
where they’re supposedly having breakfast, and dry-humps the air in different ways, showing his interpretations of “antelope sex” versus “tiger sex.” By the time he’s done, Bo is laughing in earnest, and it makes the audience roll with laughter.

  But midway through the second set, as my moixcho’s skit begins, everything changes.

  AISHE

  I knew they were using the 7-Eleven incident for this skit. I knew they were going to have some harmless fun with us. But the world doesn’t know about my doppelganger, and they have no idea I’m not the one in those photos.

  He said he’d been practicing with a different actress for the dress rehearsal. I didn’t care who he’d work with as long as I didn’t have to be the one. But what I’m seeing now is way past anything I could have dreamed up.

  Troy’s browsing the shelves at 7-Eleven. In the background, FNL actors open and close fridge doors. They hold up chocolate milk and cans of Coke, discussing their choices under their breaths. Then, there I am, swaying toward him in my typical form. The network has been shopping for the right actress, it seems.

  She’s in a flowing red Gypsy skirt that reaches down to her ankles. It’s tight at the waist and topped off with a shiny black bodice that pushes small boobs upward. The actress steps forward in my favorite type of flamenco shoes, high-heeled, black, and with a small band over the top of the foot.

  With fluid moves, she approaches him. Hips forward, she clatters layers upon layers of my bangles around her wrists. They go all the way up to her elbows on both hands, just the way I prefer it.

  Long and thick, her hair runs to her waist in waves of black and red. The peacock pendants in her ears and as a necklace between her breasts, are offset by matching feathers throughout her mane.

  Though I can’t see her face at first, there’s a sensation of doom in my stomach. I can’t imagine anyone knowing me as well as this without having studied me day in and day out. It’s perfect, down to her turquoise fingernails, down to the way she breezily pushes a section of hair over her shoulder and lets it trail down with the rest of it.

  “Hey, my darling,” she murmurs, voice lighter than mine. She adds husk to it, and the jitters in my stomach increase.

  I send a side-glance to Troll. Does he see what I’m suspecting? What does he know about this person? At my side, he lets bushy eyebrows sink over a steely stare. Suspicion is thick around him too, and somehow that makes me feel better.

  “What’s up, Aishe?” Troy murmurs, crinkling a chocolate wrapper in his hand.

  She embraces him from behind, and the way she drags her arms up his body is more real than I’d expect from FNL. Isn’t she supposed to exaggerate the moves, clown-style, making people laugh at some superimposed passion?

  His back tenses. It’s only slightly, but I see it. That’s not acting. That’s Troy being genuinely surprised. For a second, he hesitates. Then he forms his hand over hers and pulls her close to his back in a dramatic Romeo-and-Juliet move.

  “Finally, we’ve found our secret sanctuary in all of Japan. Thank goodness for 7-Eleven,” Fake Aishe murmurs in her husky yet squealy voice. “It’s so important to us for no reason that no one knows we’re together. Imagine what would’ve happened if people knew?”

  “I know, my darling. We’re consenting adults. The world would’ve had a heart attack.”

  “Come to me, my darling,” Fake Aishe whispers. “Kiss me like you mean it. Kiss me, secret love of my life that no one can ever know about.”

  Troy swings around, and she instantly grabs his face and gets up on her toes. Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello” suddenly blasts from the speakers while Troy makes a show of surreptitiously looking around them, making sure no one is watching.

  Pastel-colored confetti begins to swirl in the air. Fake Aishe’s mane blows in a sudden breeze, as if in an eighties’ music video. A few doves flap over them and land awkwardly on top of the shelves.

  Slowly, they rotate in their embrace, another music video spoof, and her face comes into full view as she swings toward the audience. Eyes wide and painted like mine, lips cherry-red like mine, she stares at Troy with so much love in her eyes, they might as well have been in bed.

  My heart stops as she leans against him and pulls his face down toward her. Another half-turn on their podium, and Troy’s eyes, naked with unease, see what I see.

  Here she is again, his stalker, my crazy doppelganger, the woman who’s been messing with our lives for weeks straight. She was fired, and yet she’s here. She’s the one playing my role.

  I gave up my role to Hailey?

  Around me, the audience is laughing.

  I twist toward Troll, staring. He turns to me and shakes his head. “I have no idea where she came from. This is fucked up.”

  Behind them, three paparazzi dressed as dirty alley cats prowl toward them with their cameras. They’re wearing bandit masks, but I don’t care what’ll happen next. All I care about is the second of hesitation in Troy’s eyes while he makes his choice: should he break character on live TV and not accept her kiss in front of millions of viewers, or should he go through with it?

  My heart works again, and it’s pounding, pounding, pounding. It cascades blood through me, filtering my vision until all I can see is red.

  I can take crazy fangirls. I’ve been there. I’ve seen them. Fan letters. Stalker calls. Nude photos and promises of having the guys’ babies. It’s what the girlfriend of a rock star has to deal with. But this isn’t something I can take.

  The woman who stole my look, who outed me to the mob in Boston. Who repeatedly tried to get between Troy and me, inventing and reinventing a faux relationship with him. She’s here, now, and when she efficiently steals Troy in front of all of America, then it’s finally too much for me.

  I sit frozen, staring at them until Troy’s fight vanishes from his eyes. Safari-greens settle into acceptance, and there it is, how he leans down to her, holds her face too, fingers burying into her locks like they do to me.

  It’s the same, so, so the same, when his beautiful mouth shapes a cinnamon kiss and meets her cherry-red lips.

  I watch while she licks the seam of his mouth until it opens enough for her to tip her tongue inside and he doesn’t pull away. The trance I’m in claps together like cards when the paparazzi assault them.

  “Aishe. I didn’t know Hailey would be here. I’m going to find out exactly what happened, and—” Troll’s words disappear as I stand and run down the aisle toward the back exit. People howl with laughter at a punchline, but I don’t care anymore.

  My heart is aflame under my ribs. It doesn’t stop swelling, and I know it’s infected. It’s going to burn up. I’ll be my great aunt. I’ll be locked away forever with a lovesickness too big for anyone to survive.

  It’s not a big deal. Not yet, it isn’t.

  My feet find the way out, past checkpoints, through elevators that aren’t for me. It’s okay, though. It’s okay.

  Everything will be okay.

  TROY

  I kissed Hailey on live TV.

  Hailey.

  My stare goes to the empty seat next to Troll. Troll is getting up too. Moves to the center aisle, and from the shadows, I see him whip out his phone with his healthy hand. He pushes buttons with the one in a sling and glues it to his ear. He talks fast and low into the receiver as the applause erupts and the set goes dark.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” I growl to Hailey. It’s no surprise to me when her stare goes wide and innocent in that fake, fake way she has. Where did the concrete color of her eyes go? They’re as dark as Aishe’s now.

  “What are you talking about, Troy? I’d do anything for you, and that’s what I’m doing right now. You knew this was the plan, right? Since Aishe turned down FNL, your management office accepted the sacrifice of my anonymity in favor of your fame.”

  “Horse. Shit. Who told you
to say that? You don’t even talk like that. Is there ever an end to you destroying our lives?”

  “What lives, Troy?” She blinks at me, whipping fake eyelashes up and down in rapid succession. “All I do is fix lives. I’m here for you. I will never let you down like she does. What kind of a person would leave her man hanging like that? All the others girls came, but no-o, Aishe is so special, she couldn’t even do this tiny little thing for you.”

  “Just leave me the fuck alone. That’s the biggest favor you can do for me.”

  “Troy. Sir? The band’s waiting for you on stage four.”

  “Thanks,” I clip out to the producer.

  “See you after, Troy Armstrong,” Hailey says. “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  “No, you won’t. You’ll be leaving right now.”

  On stage four, I get behind my drums on autopilot. Rob hands me my drumsticks. “I’ve got a couple of extras, just in case, even if it’s just one song.”

  My response is unintelligible. I slam my foot down on the drum pedal, making sure it agrees we’re about to raise hell. It does.

  Dude, what the hell was that? Elias mouths over his shoulder as the set turns and faces the audience.

  I have no idea, I mouth back.

  Fucking fucked up. She’s pissed, huh?

  Yeah.

  I count them in. Then, Emil opens “Deep in You” in a soft, suave pitch. We build this song. It’s what makes it explode in the end, ripping emotions into pieces and making people stand in ovation from their seats.

  There are two types of drummers. The finesse player who focuses on technique. Then, there’s the caveman drummer, who needs no further introduction. Caveman-style is why I typically have to ice my arms down after hard sets. Caveman is how I am, and tonight, my drums are right where I need them and the drumsticks my weapon of choice.