Playing the Pauses

by Michelle Hazen

  “Can you hear us okay, Hank?”

  “Give me some credit,” he teases. “I’m not that old yet.”

  I start to make a joke, but Danny’s giving me one of his piercingly level looks again, so I just lay it out. “Your old tour manager screwed the pooch.”

  There’s a quiet sound from my phone’s speaker that might have been a four-letter word, and then Hank asks, “What’s wrong, how long do we have to fix it, and do you need me to fly out?”

  The last thing I need is him peeking over my shoulder and making me explain every move I make. “Your tour budget is deep into the red. I can take care of it from this end if you authorize me to make some changes. Big ones. If we leave it as is, you’re going to be hitting up payday loans in strip malls before the end of this tour.”

  Danny doesn’t twitch, but Jax’s face falls. “What? How can that be? I thought sales were good?”

  “No, absolutely,” I reassure him. “Your first tour did amazing, but you were riding on the opener’s share of profits and you still hadn’t entirely paid back your advance when they started planning this round. Besides, everybody including the janitor gets paid before the artists do.”

  Jera looks a touch pale, but Jax’s anxiety is palpable, so it’s his eyes I meet.

  “You booked some really big venues, and so far, the ticket sales are only okay. You could make up the difference with record sales, except that royalties add up slowly and tour expenses do exactly the opposite.”

  I click my tablet on, because I know the numbers will be more convincing than my face.

  “With a three-person band, after manager’s share, you need to sell 33,500 mp3s every month just to pay the rent on a crap one-bedroom in Portland. And most people just don’t buy any more. They pirate or use Pandora—which pays peanuts—or at best, they listen to Spotify. With them you need seven million downloads a month just to keep the landlord happy.”

  Danny’s phone vibrates from its spot in front of him, and Jera glances over as he silences it. His leg starts to jiggle audibly beneath the table.

  I put down the tablet. Time for a touch of sugar before I shovel the vegetables down the kiddies’ throats. “But that’s just the way the game is played these days,” I say. “It’s a great big world out there, and there are enough listeners to make even tiny royalties start to count. Look, you’re top-notch musicians. If I didn’t think you were headed for a life of private islands, I wouldn’t even be here.” It can’t hurt to spin it so they think I’m doing them a favor with this job instead of vice versa.

  Jax straightens a little in his seat, but his brow is still furrowed.

  “So?” Danny says, his voice dangerously gentle.

  I stiffen at his tone, but don’t waver. “So, your record sales are solid, but this is your first time as headliners and Bill planned it like you had four platinum albums behind a credit card of the same color.”

  “Listen, let me get my wife on the phone,” Hank says. “She helped work up the budget and—”

  “I’m sure she did a very careful job,” I interrupt soothingly. “But the budget as written was missing some pretty serious considerations. It’s not your wife’s fault—unless she’s used to doing the books for musical acts, there’s no way she would have caught the difference.”

  “Hey, it is what it is and we can roll with that,” Jax says. “I guess I just thought if we ever got to play the big stages, we wouldn’t have to worry about money anymore.”

  “If you can fill these venues, the ticket revenues will be huge,” I say, “but making a tour profitable takes not just sales, but some serious budget alchemy. A person can live comfortably for a year on forty grand, but with a crew this size you can blow that in less than a week just on hotels.”

  “So wait, is it too late to fix this stuff?” Jera’s lips compress. “We have all the tour dates booked and we’re kind of locked in now. Can we do more publicity? Push the merch sales a little harder to try to make up the difference?”

  Ah, that’s right. Her degree had Finance tacked on: whether a double major or a minor I can’t remember, but it’s something I wish all my musicians had.

  “Actually, I have a plan.” Just as I get to the part of the presentation where I switch from villain to hero, Danny’s phone buzzes again and ruins the moment.

  I swallow and move forward before I lose their attention, switching screens on my tablet to show the current concert schedule.

  “First, we need to add tour dates. Going overseas to play two dates is ridiculous because you’re taking the hit of the upfront travel costs, European equipment rental, and foreign artist tax, and then not sticking around long enough to make it worth your while. Second, airplanes between every show for the whole crew and premium shipping for full sound and light production...” I shake my head. “Maybe for the Rolling Stones, but you guys need a couple of tour buses with trailers.”

  Danny’s phone buzzes again and he slaps the button silent.

  Jera takes a breath. “Okay. How many more dates are we talking?”

  “Your family can visit, you know.” I give her a sympathetic smile. “And I’ll keep it as compact as I can. You want as little time on the road and as many shows as you can to get the biggest bang for your buck.”

  “How can we add tour dates at this point? All the big venues are probably already booked,” my iPhone pipes up with Hank’s skeptical voice.

  “Your booking agent owes me some favors.” That is a serious understatement. I brokered a sublet on her penthouse apartment to help her pay for her last stint in rehab and found a cat sitter for the whole sixty days, which is not the easiest thing to do in the Bay area. “I think I can wrangle us at least a minor miracle, especially if we can get you guys in the news a bit more so the shows you already have will start selling out.”

  “So that’s it?” Jax narrows his eyes. “Just play a few more shows and pose for the paparazzi?”

  “Well, we need to talk cuts, too,” I say carefully. “Staff reductions. Unskilled stagehands can be replaced with free interns but unfortunately, we’re also going to have to reduce the production we’re carrying. Lights and pyrotechnics mostly, but a little of the sound equipment as well.”

  Danny’s phone vibrates and he reaches for it, but Jera’s hand claps down over the top of his. “Don’t,” she hisses. “Your life is important, too. Whatever she needs, it’s a direct result of choices she made.” She takes her hand away, but her gaze is unrelenting. “Let her be an adult, Danny, and pay attention to your own shit.”

  I busy myself looking at the lighting budget. The freeloader blowing up Danny’s phone is not my business, though it’s far from unexpected. With overnight fame like these guys have experienced, every deadbeat playground buddy they’ve ever had will start wanting a piece of it.

  “She’s my sister. By definition, that is my shit, Jera.” Danny gestures to me with a near-violent flick of his fingers. “You want me to pay attention to this instead? Fine.”

  He leans forward, his eyes burning so brightly I flinch, forgetting every scrupulous calculation behind my argument.

  “How much of our tour do you need to trash to make the bean counters happy, huh? There were thousands of people there last night. You want me to play to them with just a trunk-load of dusty Marshalls and your cousin Vinny on the soundboard? Whatever.” His phone buzzes again and he shoves away from the table. “Just remember it was you who wanted to butcher the show to pad the bottom line, not me.”

  “Danny!” Hank’s voice whips out of my iPhone’s speaker.

  “Excuse me,” is all the bassist says. He swipes his phone off the table and strides out of the room.

  Well, that went stupendously.

  I raise my hands in the uneasy quiet that follows his exit. “Look, I know you don’t know me, and I know you don’t want to hear any of this. You can fire me if it would make you feel better, but it won’t change the numbers. There are a lot of bands out there making a million who are spending mo
re like two and three. Let me run your shows smarter so you don’t have to count pennies when you should be writing songs, and I promise you won’t regret it.”

  Except they only have my word for it that there’s a problem at all.

  I hold my breath, waiting for the verdict and half-wishing I’d have told them happy lies and let them deal with the debts after I was already riding their name to a bigger tour circuit.

  Maybe in another five years, I can afford to have integrity. Right now, I should be happy just to work for a band rich enough to get me a bi-monthly shower and vegetables I don’t have to pick off a pizza.

  Jera exhales. “Do you have some extra time this morning? We obviously need to take a look at our current cash flow. If we can negotiate a Net 30 on a couple of the bigger accounts receivable, that might take some of the pressure off and give us time for the show guarantees to catch up.”

  “You mentioned premium shipping,” Jax says. “How are we moving the equipment from show to show right now? I bet I can save some there so we don’t have to lay off as many people.”

  Holy shit. I blink a couple times to process this new development. I was expecting some yelling, and if not a pink slip, at least a few days of pouting and passive aggressive bullshit. Instead, they want to help?

  But there’s still another vote out. I may get my repeat customers from the labels, but the band manager is the one whose opinion really puts the ink to my job performance evaluation.

  “Hank?” I prompt.

  “This is a terrible thing to say,” he admits, “but I’m almost glad Bill got sick, because I don’t think any of us would have realized how much trouble we were in until the tour was already done. Thank you, Ms. Madsen, for sorting this out so quickly and being willing to give it to us straight.”

  I can’t help the smile spreading across my face. “It’s Kate, to you guys. Now, let’s get to work.”

  Except as I prop up my tablet so everyone can see the spreadsheets, the empty chair on the other side of the table glares at me.

  I like this band, a lot. But not all of this band likes me.

  Chapter 3: Raw

  I can handle this calmly because I am a mature adult, and I am not pissed off.

  Standing in the hallway outside Danny’s hotel room, I wonder if I need to walk another lap or two of this floor before I believe either of those things. But we don’t have a show until tomorrow night—thanks to my dipshit predecessor’s inability to see the dollars and cents behind his scheduling choices—so I have no excuse to put this confrontation off.

  I changed twice before I came here. Normally, living out of my suitcase forces me to dress up my skinny jeans and ankle boots with a small rotation of trendy shirts, finished with a slim leather jacket for a classic backstage-to-boardroom look. For tonight’s mission, I wasn’t sure how to play it.

  At first, I shot for more casual clothes like one of his garage-band buddies. At the last minute, I switched to a pencil skirt, heels, and a silky button-front because I’m not asking him to like me. I’m asking him to respect my professional judgment. However, the façade is doing nothing for my attitude.

  I jerk my hand up, scowling at myself, and knock. Probably he won’t even be in there; second night of the tour and he has it off? The guy is probably getting crazy somewhere downtown and rightfully so. He’ll be exhausted soon enough.

  The door opens and Danny is right there, wearing a long-sleeved black thermal that hugs the cut of his tricep when he leans his forearm against the door. His eyes change subtly when they catch on my face, but I can’t translate the shift.

  “Can I come in?” I ask when I realize the pause has stretched a beat too long.

  His eyebrows lift and he holds the door for me as I cross the threshold, relegating both hands to the safety of my purse strap.

  His suite lacks the TV chatter I’ve come to expect, as if he doesn’t need the noise to drown out the sterility of the setting. On the brocade couch, clothes erupt out of a suitcase onto the floor, and a beer bottle sits on the marble bathroom sink next to a disposable razor. He leads me past the door to his bedroom, through which I glimpse a wrinkled bedspread with a closed sketchpad tossed onto it.

  “Beer?” he offers.

  “Sure.” I steal a glance, trying to gauge how much his mood has changed since the meeting this morning. Offering drinks seems like a good sign, though giving angry rock stars bottles to throw sometimes doesn’t work out for the best.

  Danny pulls a Heineken from the fridge and cracks the top off for me before he passes it over, nodding toward the sliding door that opens onto an unlit balcony. I take a sip as I step outside, enjoying the sweep of lights from the city below, because this hotel is the highest thing around. We’re going to be downgrading our reservations by the next stop but for now, I have to admit the top floor view is gorgeous.

  There’s a half-drunk beer already on the table, and Danny grabs the seat behind it. I take the other chair, slipping my purse off. The silence should be ratcheting my nerves but weirdly, it’s doing the opposite.

  “I was an asshole.” His statement distracts me before I can launch into my bridge-mending speech. Danny leans forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. “Look, I don’t pay much attention to the paperwork end, so I don’t know how this all works, but I’d be happy to sleep in a Motel 6 or a van or whatever if we need to save a few bucks. I’d just rather not cut the sound production. I’ve played in a lot of bars with crappy equipment and people really shell out for these tickets, you know? I don’t want to send them home disappointed.”

  I glance down at my beer, squeezing the unyielding glass between my hands as I take an extra second before I respond. “You don’t know me, so I don’t take offense. But I want you to know I would never sacrifice your sound to balance the budget. I’d tell you to fly home before I’d let you play a show where we couldn’t patch together a decent PA.”

  Shit, that came out pretty soapboxy. It’s just that there is nothing in my life more important than the music I help bring to the public. I swallow and force a smile to lighten the moment.

  “I get it, I absolutely do,” I say. “I’m a stranger and I barged in this morning telling you how you’re going to run your show. No wonder you were pissed. But I promise there are good ways to do this. I know a guy—”

  Danny holds up a hand to stop me. “No, hey. I admit that at first, I kinda thought the label sent you to keep us in check, but you didn’t have to help us with all that stuff this morning. You could have just taken your paycheck, shipped the band from show to show and let the tour finish in the hole. I appreciate that you’re looking out for us instead. And it seems like you really know your stuff. It’s mostly that you stepped right in the middle of a couple of old arguments between Jera and me, and then with my sister calling...” He scrubs a hand over his face and sits back. “I sparked off at the wrong person, and I apologize for that.”

  I put on a diplomatic smile. “It’s okay. I just wanted to make sure you were all good about the changes. Like I said, no offense taken.”

  “Bullshit.”

  It takes a moment for me to be sure I heard him right, and then I burst out laughing. Because yeah, I’m pissed. And clearly while I was congratulating myself on my poker face, he was seeing right through me.

  “You should be offended that I questioned your professionalism.” He kicks a foot up across his knee. “If somebody accused me of half-assing a tattoo design just because it was for something small, I’d walk out.”

  I pick up my beer and settle a little deeper into my chair, taking the opening he’s giving me. I may never get a better chance for him to talk to me like a person instead of an unwanted babysitter. “So, you’re a tattoo artist?”

  “Yup.” His eyes flare slightly in the dim light from the glass doors and he takes a long drink like he doesn’t care to watch my reaction.

  I wonder if he sketched the tree that’s tattooed on his back. I also wonder if I can bribe him to paint it acro
ss a whole wall of my living room.

  “Did you design your back piece?”

  “Nah. I’m more of a hearts and fairies kind of guy.”

  I smirk. “Oh yeah? Super, because I’ve really been wanting Hello Kitty on my ass.”

  The outer corners of his eyes crinkle in what I’m coming to recognize as his low-key version of a smile. He leans forward, thumbnail flicking at the label on his beer bottle as his gaze settles onto me. “You have ink?”

  I tell myself the surge of my pulse has everything to do with the sound of his voice and nothing to do with him. It’s just that his voice is so like his instrument: vibrating a couple levels below the rest of the world and hitting all the harder for how little you hear of it. And I have a purely dirty addiction to beautiful sounds.

  I cool my throat with the slide of imported beer, enough that I can toss off a little smile and my customary dodge. “None you get to see.”

  Danny’s head tilts, slight and quick like a bird spotting something of interest. “Can I guess?”

  “Guess my um, tattoo?” My mouth has gone dry again.

  This balcony is too dark and the way he’s looking at me is too...everything. I remember looks like that, because they only come from a certain kind of man. The kind whose eyes hit me like they’re tapping straight into a vein.

  The kind I swore off two infinite years ago, when I realized that who I am is more important than what I want.

  He sets down his beer and pushes it gently to the side, glass scraping over the wrought iron of the table. My heart punches me in the base of the throat and Jesus he can see what I want all over my face. Of course he can. I should have recognized what he was the second he opened his eyes in the airport.

  Danny O’Neil is both kinds of my kryptonite—Dominant and musician and everything I never let myself have.