And had it all come down to something missing in her life? I knew she loved my dad, and he’d provided for us, but as a claims adjuster, he didn’t give my mom whatever she thought I’d find with a wealthier man. Maybe all she really needed was a kitchen remodel and a new bedroom suite, and she’d leave me alone.
Micah was right all along. I’d been a jackass.
Going to work the next morning should have given me something to do to keep my mind occupied. All the publicity from the week before had died down, and so I couldn’t even pass the time by reading the forum to find out which of the competing theories about my continued existence was in the lead.
I walked into the lab, expecting to attempt to bury myself in mundane analysis, but both Thanh and Keith were waiting for me.
Keith’s mustache said, “A reporter came around this morning asking questions about you.”
The blood drained from my face. I felt light-headed. “A reporter? Here?”
He scowled. “That’s not good, Eden. Not for you and not for us. Fortunately, he approached Thanh first thing, and Thanh called security.”
I rested my weight against the stool. “What would he hope to find out about me? This is where I work.”
He laid a hand on my arm. “This is what I meant before. With you gallivanting about with celebrities, it’s bound to come back to us here. We’re just hoping you don’t bring further scrutiny to our research. Prying eyes could lend an advantage to our competitors, Eden.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and when he looked back at me, the lines on his face and the red in his eyes told me he hadn’t been getting his beauty sleep. I’d had no idea there was so much pressure over this project. “You haven’t left anything in your trash at home, have you?”
“What? You think they’re going through my trash?” Oh, my God. Adam had warned me. I couldn’t get a full breath. “But. No. Nothing.” I watched Keith rub his thumb and forefinger together, a nervous tic. What was he so afraid of? An idea struck me, so beautiful in its simple genius, I had to refrain from blowing the execution with enthusiasm. “Would it be helpful if I took some time off? I’ve been thinking of traveling.”
His breath released from his lungs in an explosion of relief. “That’s not a bad idea.”
Thanh frowned. “I’m sorry, Eden. But thanks for all the help on my project.” Then he turned his head. “Kelly, can you come with me?” And just like that he had a new lab assistant. Glenn was going to love this change in circumstances.
Once they’d left the lab, I placed a call to Jane, who didn’t seem surprised to hear from me. “You held out longer than I expected.”
A knot formed in my stomach. “Why? Has Adam done this before?”
“Oh, no. Call it intuition. When can you leave?”
“Immediately.”
She said she could get me to the London show on Thursday, but suggested I aim for the Friday night in Paris. “Travel can be disrupted. It would be easier to catch you up to the tour from there if things go wrong. I’ll try to get you out on Wednesday, okay?”
I trusted her with the logistics, but the extra day worked out in my favor. Tobin texted me on Tuesday morning, asking if I could fill in for a late cancellation that night. I didn’t need to be asked twice. Normally a Tuesday night was completely out of the question, but I would be flying out of JFK the next morning, and I could stay at Micah’s.
Sure. Opening act? I could get out of there by ten.
Main. 10-12. Will feed you. Please?
My stomach flipped. I’d never be able to do two hours of my own material, but . . . Can I do covers? Can I sing Micah’s songs?
You can sing “Wheels on the Bus,” for all I care. Just need a body.
Flattering. But it sounded like fun and would help burn away the hours that seemed to have come to a crawl since Adam had left.
Sure. See you there.
I couldn’t believe I had my very own show to prepare for. The butterflies were waiting in the wings to tear my stomach apart, but I immediately set about creating a possible set list. I knew I could handle it. Ignoring the fan sites, the gossip columns, and the Internet in general helped me sustain my optimism throughout the day. I left work a little early so I could practice playing every song I thought might get me through two hours.
Then I packed my suitcase for every contingency—T-shirts, jeans, sweaters, skirts, makeup, hairspray. When I opened the drawer in my bathroom and saw the vial of perfume, I stopped short. Should I leave it there? I couldn’t throw it away, not after Keith’s panic attack. But then again, what if someone broke in while I was away? Unlikely, but I didn’t need to be stressing about the possibility from three thousand miles away.
I threw the tube into my purse and drove over to the lab. I knocked on Thanh’s office door, then tried the knob. He must’ve gone to lunch and locked up, so I went down to find Stacy. From the hallway, I could hear her and Kelly arguing and listened for a minute before opening the door.
Kelly said, “I doubt someone like Adam Copeland would consider Eden over Adrianna. Don’t you even read the papers?”
My hands clenched. But then Stacy rose to my defense. “You haven’t seen them together. He’s completely smitten. It’s totes adorable.”
“You know he’s slumming.”
I shouldered the door open hard enough for it to bounce against the wall. “Stacy, you got a minute?” I shot a glance at Kelly to shame her, but she made duck lips and turned back to her microscope.
Stacy hopped off her stool. “I thought you’d be gone by now.”
“I was packing, but I came across something that belongs to Thanh.” I reached into my purse and found the vial. I grabbed her wrist, thrust the perfume into her hand, and closed her fist over it tight. “Could you please return this to him?”
She unfurled her fingers and looked at her palm. “What is this?”
“Something he lent me. I forgot I had it. He’ll know what it is.”
Kelly didn’t bother to look over. “I bet I can guess what it is.”
Stacy eyed me. “You want to tell me what’s going on?”
I grabbed her elbow and pulled her out into the hall. “Look. Thanh gave me this perfume without telling me what it does.”
“What does it do?”
“I’m not sure it does anything. But it’s supposed to amp up pheromone reception. Like a love potion.”
Her eyes went wide. “You’ve been wearing this around Adam?”
“Only a little. I didn’t know what it did. What it’s supposed to do.”
She whispered, “Maybe you should keep it. I mean, until—”
“Until what?”
“Does Adam know?”
My stomach twisted in a knot. “No.”
“Oh. Wow.” She wouldn’t meet my eyes.
“What?”
“I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Her reaction troubled me, but she’d only gotten the brochure version of my all-expense-paid excursion into moral ambiguity. How could she understand? “If you give me a ride out to Micah’s, I’ll tell you all about it.”
She followed me home so I could drop off my car and transfer my bags to her trunk. On our way to Brooklyn, I filled her in on how I’d accidentally worn the perfume twice, and how I’d worried about it. “What if it hasn’t worn off yet? What if it has?”
She promised me it would sort itself out. “There’s no way a drug is coercing him to want to be with you, Eden. But I still think you should tell him. I’m sure he’d understand.”
“Maybe.” I wasn’t so sure. “I’ll see how things go when I get there.”
We said our good-byes on the sidewalk, and then I dropped my things off at Micah’s and took a subway to Lower Manhattan.
When I arrived, the familiarity of the club made the prospect of performing less daunting. That didn’t stop my nerves from turning my heart into a battering ram, but I knew I could conquer that fear. I’d been on that stage many times. I could pretend Micah was t
here with me. The crowd promised to be small in any case.
I’d seen the guy who was opening for me around before. Ricky Levine or something. He slipped in late, so I didn’t have a chance to run into him preshow. He’d missed the sound check. He had no merch. No wonder he hadn’t been promoted to the main act. The original main act had to cancel due to a motorcycle accident. The audience was fairly sparse as it was. I’d be lucky if I made enough money to pay my subway fare.
After about ten songs, Ricky packed it in. He had virtually no stage presence, hadn’t interacted with the audience at all, and all of his songs had been about beer or sports. I came to understand the Tuesday night lineup wasn’t a gig anyone should aspire to.
Tobin climbed up on the stage and requested some applause for Ricky but was met with halfhearted clapping. I scanned the crowd. Why were these people here anyway? Were they just that bored?
The microphone popped as Tobin said my name. He located me near the side of the stage and stretched his hand out my way. The people sitting nearest me craned their necks as they watched me climb up the stairs. The awkwardness of performing for people who had paid the cover to hear another musician intensified. But I was committed now.
I grabbed my guitar and pulled the strap over my shoulder. Then I stood before the mic and said, “Hello. I’m Eden Sinclair. I’m filling in for Raven Crowe.” The high pitch of feedback squealed momentarily.
I coughed nervously and then launched into one of the songs I’d written. The song I’d played for Adam a couple of weeks before.
My eyes closed as I drifted into the music. My fingers instinctively picked out the chords, strummed, plucked, carried the song from the guitar, which had become a part of my body. When the song ended and I came back to myself, I remembered the crowd and watched for their reaction, always a secondary motivation for my music. But the performance was why I’d been hired, and I needed to check in with my audience.
Sometime during the song, the front row had filled with women ranging in age from young twenties to possibly forty-something. They beamed and clapped. A phone camera flashed as I leaned into the microphone, and I was effectively blind for the next few minutes.
“Thank you very much. This next song is one my brother Micah wrote. If you’ve come to see him perform, you may know it. Feel free to sing along.”
The upbeat song encouraged the women to stand and clap along. Some did sing, so I knew at least a few of them were his fans. Maybe they’d heard I was playing and came here to get closer to Micah or to support his sister. It didn’t disappoint me. How would I have any fans of my own?
I hooted the nonverbal parts of the song—the crowd-pleasing oohs and aahs everyone could join along with. Micah had a genius for building those hooks into his music, and they paid off. By the time the song ended, the people who’d been hanging back in the bar had moved closer to the stage. They swayed and bobbed their heads in time.
“Thank you. I’m glad to see some of Micah’s fans out here tonight. If there’s anything you’d like to hear, I’d be happy to give it a try.” I knew his whole catalog. It was unlikely they’d stump me.
I finished the night mostly singing requests along with a few other songs I happened to know. Some standards. Some old folk songs. It was an erratic set, but I got through it. Eventually, I set my guitar down, said good-night to the crowd, and exited stage right. Finally in the green room, I dropped onto that nasty sofa and heaved a huge sigh of relief.
Tobin knocked on the door and stuck his head in. “Do you think you could come back up front? There’s a crowd of people waiting to talk to you at the merch area.”
“Me?”
Five people stood by the nonexistent merchandise. Hardly a crowd, barely a line. The first person to talk to me was a younger girl, college age by my guess. She wore a gray sweatshirt and jeans, with her hair secured in a tight ponytail. A girl after my own fashion.
“Hi, I’m Amanda.” She glowed as she babbled a mile a minute. “I saw your video online and loved it. Will you be performing here again? Do you have a CD for sale?”
I swallowed a guffaw. I’d learned once if you want to make someone talk quieter, you talk quieter. I wondered if that might work with fast talkers. Calmly and deliberately, I told her, “No. I haven’t recorded anything just yet. Other than that YouTube video you saw.”
It didn’t work. “Oh, my God. What was it like to perform with Adam Copeland? Do you, like, know him?”
I was thinking, Biblically. But I said, “We’re colleagues. I’d love to work with him again.” In the backseat of a car. In the green room. In his parents’ bedroom. How could I miss him so badly already?
The man behind Amanda coughed, and she had a moment of self-awareness. “Would you mind if we got a picture together?”
Amanda handed her camera to the man. I hadn’t practiced that perfect smile, so right when the camera flashed, I had visions of grabbing her phone and smashing it into a million pieces before she could upload the picture to Instagram. No wonder Adam had practiced the perfect pose. But this was part of the job. As an entertainer, I had to build a connection, a rapport with the audience. That connection ended for me when I stepped off the stage, but not for them. I understood it completely. It just felt surreal to be on the receiving end.
I pasted on a smile to greet the next total stranger. He put his hand out, strong, confident, and we shook, businesslike.
“Hi, my name is Brian Hawkins.” He held out a card to me. I scanned it without seeing it. “I represent several musical acts and would be interested in talking to you about representation. Have you considered working with an agent?”
My throat had dried up. I caught Tobin’s eye and made the universal gesture for get me a drink. I gave Brian my attention and frowned. “Mr. Hawkins—”
“Brian.”
“You must be under the impression I’m a professional musician. I’m just filling in here for the night.”
“Did you get paid?”
I’d get paid, but it would be peanuts. If I got a percentage of the door, it might come out to fifty dollars at most. Plus dinner. And drinks. Nothing compared to working the same amount of time at a lab.
“Look. I’m flattered. Let me take your card, and if I change my mind, I’ll know where to find you.”
He nodded. “Understood. But call me before you call anyone else. Do some research, and you’ll find I’m very reputable. I have a number of clients you may have heard of.”
My brother had an agent. If I needed one, I could work with her. But why would I need one?
Brian left me, and I faced two eager women and a fidgety blond guy. The women just wanted to tell me they were fans of Micah and that I’d done a great job, and the guy wanted permission to upload video he’d shot of the show to YouTube. I didn’t know people asked permission for that sort of thing.
I shrugged. “Sure. Go ahead.” It could disappear into the millions of other live performances uploaded every minute.
“Could I ask you the name of that first song?”
“ ‘Midnight in the Garden.’”
“Oh, that’s great. Nice song.”
“Thanks.”
I’d written that song in college. A friend of mine had been through a terrible experience with a bully of a guy. The song wasn’t exactly about that, but it was about taking control, being strong. It was filled with platitudes. Still, for some reason, I liked to sing it, mainly because the chords came so comfortably to me, and that allowed me to make variations and intricate little flourishes as I performed it. It was a good song for me to start with to warm up.
He jotted the name down on a slip of paper in his hand. I leaned in to read what else he’d written. “Is that a set list?”
“Yeah.” He didn’t lift his head until he’d finished writing. When he did, he locked eyes with me. He had cornflower-blue eyes. “I’d planned to shoot Raven’s set, but when he didn’t show, I figured I’d stick around and record yours anyway. I’m glad I did. You we
re phenomenal.”
He glanced over at the bar. “Could I buy you a drink? I’d love to talk to you about this more.”
It was late, and as a performer, my drinks were free anyway. And this guy looked like he was pushing twenty-one. His offer flattered me, but no. “Thanks, but I’m going to head out now.”
His head dipped, but his eyes stayed on me. If he dug his toe into the ground and wrung his hands together, he’d be the picture-perfect image of a Precious Moments figurine. “Maybe next time then?”
“Okay,” I laughed. “Next time.”
As if there would be a next time. Although, I wouldn’t turn Tobin down if he needed another substitute. I’d had a surprisingly great time.
“By the way, my name’s Jacob.” He wrote something down, ripped off the corner of his paper, and handed it to me. I expected a phone number, but it was a nonsense word.
I held it up and looked at him quizzically.
“My YouTube username. It might take me a couple of hours to upload these, but watch for them tomorrow.”
“Thanks. I’ll do that.”
Before heading out, I took a mental image of my night. For once, I’d gotten to taste what it was like to be Micah, in the spotlight, center stage. As much as I’d loved it, that momentary glimpse into the world of a full-time musician would have to hold me. Unless I was prepared to throw away everything I’d worked toward, my path didn’t include that fork in the road, except as a temporary diversion.
Chapter 15
Jane got me a first-class ticket to Paris, arriving Wednesday night. A limo met me at the airport and delivered me to an opulent hotel next to the stadium. The long thin building looked like a silver ship sailing through the city. The mirrors on the modern structure reflected the older architecture in the surrounding area.
Some Kind of Magic Page 17