Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by Jenna Galicki

  Angel nodded his approval and Damien followed Jimmy’s lead with a gripping bassline to develop the fundamental rhythm of a new song.

  Tommy listened to them play it over a few times, mentally composing a melody in his head, while Angel tapped out the rhythm on his leg. Tommy straightened his guitar strap on his shoulder and pushed his hair behind his ears. “Take it from the top again.”

  This time when Jimmy and Damien played, Tommy added a guitar riff and elaborated on the melody. Angel hummed along adding a potential lyric and they had the start of a halfway decent song underway.

  After several hours of working on the same tune, it didn’t seem like they had made much progress. It wasn’t finished and the lyrics needed a lot of work, but it was a damn good start. They played it through again and this time Jimmy added a little drum solo. They all stopped and watched Jimmy’s sticks fly across his tom and snare and his bass pound out a beat.

  “Well done.” Angus had snuck in the studio while they were preoccupied with Jimmy. “Great song. Catchy. Different. That little thing you did there on the drums, brilliant. Just brilliant. The lyrics could use a bit of a polish.” He pointed a finger at Angel. “Work on that tonight. Now, what else do you have?”

  No one answered and Tommy caught Angel’s eye. Today’s incomplete song was the only new material they had.

  Angel played it off well. “We want to put the finishing touches on the last few songs before we let you hear them. This way you can appreciate their full potential.”

  Angus screwed his face up like a prune. “You should be bloody finished by now. What the fuck have you been doing? We have an album to push out. Quit fucking off.” He turned and stomped out the door.

  Damien took his bass off his shoulder. “What the fuck are we supposed to do? We got nothin’.”

  Sweat made Tommy’s hair stick to the back of his neck. He was responsible for the mess the band was in. He was the one holding everyone back with his less than extraordinary riffs and solos. He needed to find a solution. He needed to find a way to pull a rabbit out of his ass. He pulled his hair back into a ponytail and fanned himself with it. “Let’s run through this song once more. Angel, you can work on the lyrics tonight, like Angus said, and I’ll come up with a bad-ass guitar solo.”

  Angel nodded. “Good idea.”

  Jimmy tapped softly on the cymbals. “We weren’t in the flow. We got it now, man. We just need to finish this song and then come up with three or four more.”

  “Just three or four more songs?” Damien huffed. “You make it sound real fuckin’ easy.”

  Angel was pensive with his lips pursed in thought. “I think Jimmy’s right. We can knock out a couple of halfway decent songs if we stay in the studio all day and night for the next couple of days.”

  He was optimistic and had so much faith in everyone. He constantly kept the band’s spirits up and would never let anyone accept defeat. Angel caught Tommy staring at him with a loving smile.

  “What is that look about, my prince? We’re writing music. Don’t distract me with that provocative smile of yours.”

  Tommy shrugged his shoulders, placed his hand on his chest and proclaimed his innocence. “Far be it from me to distract you.”

  “Can you two fuckin’ knock it off?” Damien snapped at the both of them. “We got a problem here.”

  Damien was right. No matter how optimistic Angel was or how determined Jimmy was, there was no way they could come up with four songs that were up to snuff for Angus’ standards. They had big fuckin’ problems.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Jessi jumped in a cab as soon as the plane landed and battled rush hour traffic through Brooklyn to get to the store. She didn’t warn anyone she was coming, not even her sisters. She wanted the element of surprise so she could see exactly what was going on.

  The sight of her name in hot pink lights greeted her as soon as the cab turned the corner. It calmed her nerves and made her smile. She still wasn’t used to the idea that she had her very own retail store. She paid the driver, stepped out of the cab and stood on the sidewalk staring up at her name written in fluorescent letters three feet high. It was a decade in the making . . . and someone was fucking with her dream. The smile that crept onto her face disappeared and the scowl of frustration returned.

  A chime tinkled and announced her arrival. The store was bustling with shoppers. Rachel and Ella told her they were busy, but she hadn’t received an accounting ledger on sales yet. She had no idea the store was so successful.

  Heads turned in her direction and whispers traveled through the store, murmuring her name.

  Rachel was near the counter in the front of the store, exactly where she was supposed to be. “Jessi, what a nice surprise! What are you doing back in New York?”

  “Business.” Jessi was polite and pretended nothing was wrong in front of the customers. Several of them greeted her and asked for a photo and an autograph. It took fifteen minutes to get to the back of the store and into the production room. The whir of sewing machines was as soothing as the most beautiful sonata. They were her dressmakers, sewing her designs. Like the heads of the customers when she first entered the store, one by one the machines slowly wound down and stopped. The operators’ hands paused as they fed fabric under the arms of the machines. They all looked at her, but she was only looking at one person – Martha, the head dressmaker, and her face was cherry red.

  Jessi pulled the garment in question out of her shoulder bag and presented it to her. “Can you explain this to me, please?”

  Martha stumbled over her words and gave an incoherent answer.

  Jessi threw the dress on her workstation. “Just tell me why.”

  “I thought it looked better. I didn’t mean any harm. I was trying to promote sales.”

  “I’m the designer. My name is on the label, not yours. If you had any suggestions or thoughts or questions about construction, you should have asked me. You had no right to alter my designs.” It was infuriating. How could this woman possibly think she was doing something right? It was a direct violation of trust. “I’m sorry. This is inexcusable. I can’t have you working in my design studio. Please clear your things out and leave immediately. I’ll have my accountant cut you a generous severance check.”

  Martha grabbed her belongings and scurried out the door without protest. It seemed odd that she didn’t argue to save her job. Jessi held up the dress and addressed the other dressmakers. “Does anyone know anything about this?”

  All of them sat quietly in their seat and barely made eye contact with Jessi. After a few seconds, one woman slowly stood up. “I saw something.”

  The woman was meek and hesitant about continuing. “What’s your name?” Jessi asked.

  “Isabella.”

  “If you saw something, Isabella, please tell me what it was.”

  “I saw Martha put fabric in her bag. She said it was scraps, but it was too big for scraps. I was afraid to say anything because I didn’t want her to get me fired. I’m a single mother. I have a family to support.”

  Martha was stealing, too. Jessi was enraged, but she was more concerned about the reasoning behind the woman’s actions. None of it made sense. Why would Martha steal fabric and alter the design of the dress? What was her motive? “Is that it? Did you see or hear anything else?”

  Isabella shook her head and sat back down.

  “Thank you for your honesty, Isabella. Please don’t be afraid to talk to me, or Rachel, or my sister Ella.”

  Jessi looked around the room at her dressmakers, minus one. She never thought she would have the nerve to fire anyone, but the words flew out of her mouth without the slightest bit of hesitation. She had no other choice, but now she was without a head dressmaker.

  Jessi dropped her suitcases by the front door and put the small bag of groceries away in the kitchen. She leaned the palms of her hands on the counter and looked out the front bay window overlooking the ocean. She let out a deep contented sigh. Part of
her wished that she, Tommy and Angel could live here together full time, without the need to leave for weeks or months at a time. The setting sun reminded her that it was very late in Europe and she hadn’t spoken to Tommy since this morning. He was probably worried. She recalled his shocked face when she told him she was leaving. The only thing that saddened her more was the look on Angel’s face.

  She didn’t care how late it was, she needed to call them.

  Tommy answered on the first ring. “Hi, hon. I’ve been waiting for your call.”

  “Why weren’t you asleep? It’s late.”

  “I was. I slept with the phone next to my pillow so I would hear it if you called.” Tommy sounded weary, and she knew it was from more than just the disruption of sleep. His voice was strained.

  “I’m sorry. You should get back to sleep. Call me back in the morning.”

  “No.” His voice was louder, stronger. “What happened at the store? Did you straighten everything out?”

  “A lot happened, but it’s a long story.” She didn’t want to rehash all the details. She was still fuming inside about Martha’s sabotage, and she didn’t want it to ruin her call with Tommy. “Let’s just say that I don’t have a head dressmaker anymore. Until I find someone I can trust and until I’m certain things are under control, I need to be here.”

  “I understand, but . . . we were just working things out. I don’t want to be away from you again. I don’t want things to backslide.”

  The remorse in his voice tugged at her heart. “I don’t want to be away from you either, but I have no choice. We’ll be OK.”

  “I feel helpless all the way over here in Europe. What can I do to help you?”

  “Thank you, baby, but there’s really nothing you can do. My sisters are on their way over. Ella’s going to fill me in on all the details. Luckily, my store manager is dependable and I trust her completely.”

  Tommy was silent for a few seconds. She heard his breath puff into the phone, and Angel asking a series of questions in the background.

  “Put Angel on the phone.”

  “Hi, sweetheart. Is everything OK?”

  “Not really, but I’m handling it.”

  “You had us very worried about the way you ran out of here.”

  “I’m sorry. It was hard for me to leave, and I had to go before I changed my mind.”

  “Please, call my dad if you need anything.”

  “I will. I’m going to stop by the restaurant tomorrow and surprise him.” She smiled at the thought of dining at Garcia’s and visiting Angel’s wonderful family. “It’s so good to be home.”

  “Are you sure everything’s OK between us? You know it breaks my heart when you have ill feelings toward me.”

  “We’re good, Angel.” It was the truth. She was happy with the way things turned out. They communicated their fears and shared their feelings. She was done with the rivalry. Angel wasn’t the enemy. He was her equal, her comrade and her partner.

  “I love you, sweetheart. Here’s Tommy again. He’s practically pulling the phone out of my hand.”

  “Hon, if you want me to come home, we have two days off after the show tomorrow night. I can catch a plane as soon as it’s over.”

  “You have an album to write, remember?” It meant a lot to her that he offered, but she really didn’t need him here, and he needed to finish the album.

  “I don’t care about that. I care about you.”

  “I know, but you’re almost done, and then we can spend time together.”

  More deep breaths into the phone conveyed Tommy’s dismay. “I love you, Jessi.”

  “I love you, too, baby. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “OK. Good luck with everything, hon. Bye.”

  “Bye, baby.”

  The doorbell rang as soon as she put the phone down. She hugged her sisters like she hadn’t seen them in a year and brought a bottle of wine onto the deck so they could talk under the pastel sky.

  “I had a bad feeling about that dressmaker right away,” Ella said. “She never wanted me to go in the back. I thought she was hiding something, or stealing, so I asked Rachel to keep an eye on her. That other dressmaker who sits near the door, Isabella, she’s very nice. She made some comments about that woman too, but I think she was afraid to cross her.”

  “Well, you were right about that. I spoke to Isabella today and she confessed that she caught Martha stealing fabric but was afraid the woman would get her fired. She seemed very sincere. I just can’t understand what Martha was up to.” Jessi put her chin in her hand and stared off into the distance. If Martha had an ulterior motive, eventually it would surface. In the meantime, she had a business to run. “I guess it’s all in hindsight. I’m just glad that you and Rachel noticed that something was wrong with the construction of that dress.”

  “I’m sorry you had to come back and miss the tour.”

  Jessi refilled their glasses with wine and took in the tranquility of the night. “I’m sorry I left, too. Even though Tommy and Angel were busy, and we didn’t get to spend a lot of time together, I enjoyed the little sightseeing we were able to do.” The enthusiasm and energy showed in her voice. “London was fun. Germany was beautiful. I was looking forward to Prague, but,” she spread her arms out to the side, “here I am, missing it.” She took her wine and moved to the railing. “I’m happy to be home, though. I didn’t realize how much I missed this place until I walked through the front door.”

  Maggie leaned on the railing next to Jessi and looked back at the house. “I still can’t believe how far you came in such a short time. You made it.” Maggie clinked her glass against Jessi’s. “You live in this mansion. Tommy’s band is on a world tour, you opened a store, and you’re famous.”

  “I’m not famous. People know me because of the band, that’s all.”

  “No.” Ella joined her two sisters, so the three of them gazed at the painted horizon together. “I was at the store every day. People know you for your clothing. I overheard quite a few people, who never heard of Immortal Angel, inquiring about the band merchandise.”

  Jessi laughed, genuine happy laughter. Her life, albeit a gritty, bumpy ride at times, was full of excitement and tremendous highs. “I can’t believe it myself. Sometimes I have to stand back and remind myself it’s not a dream.”

  “We’re not surprised. You accomplish anything you put your mind to.” Maggie set her wine glass down on the railing and her brows inched together in serious consternation. “Mom has been talking about you a lot lately. Ever since she saw an article about your store opening in the newspaper, she’s been saying how happy she is that you finally got the recognition that you deserve. I think she passed the store too, but she won’t admit it. She’s very proud of you, Jessi. So is Dad.”

  All of Jessi’s feelings of joy and satisfaction disappeared at the mention of her parents. Sharp, twisted shards stabbed her in the chest and sent her head reeling. “I can’t handle their drama right now, Maggie. I’ve been through enough lately.” Maggie and Ella both tried to say something, but she brushed them off and walked inside the house. How much could one person take? She just got through a wrestling match with her emotions over Angel, she was still dealing with life away from Tommy and the store was missing a key employee. She couldn’t deal with any more stress.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Writing music was tedious enough without the added pressure of a time constraint and Angus breathing down their necks every time they turned around. They were under the gun and it hampered their progress. Watching Tommy was painful. He wasn’t present. He was lost in a world behind his mournful blue eyes. Angel wasn’t faring much better, but he was able to function normally. Tommy was lost without Jessi. It was different when she stayed behind during the first leg of the tour, because he knew that Jessi was eager to return. There was a predetermined date, a definitive plan. Now, with each passing day, Jessi’s return became more of an enigma and she seemed happy. When Angel spoke to her on the
phone earlier, she had an excitement in her voice that she didn’t have before. He knew she missed him and Tommy, that was apparent and unquestionable, but she didn’t seem to miss the band, the tour or the rock and roll lifestyle that he thought was ingrained in her blood just as much as it was in his.

  Angel could deal with his own loss and heartache, but watching Tommy withdraw and suffer was a pain Angel couldn’t bear. The guitar was always in his hand but Angel never knew what Tommy was playing. It was bits and pieces of music and he never played more than a few measures at once, never a piece in its entirety.

  Tommy was in the corner of the studio playing one of his vignettes again, instead of collaborating with the rest of the band.

  “What the fuck, man?” Jimmy jumped up from behind his drum kit. “How are we supposed to write a song without our lead guitarist?”

  Tommy ignored him and kept his head down.

  “Snap out of it, man. We got a deadline and we need you.”

  This time Tommy nodded his head and slowly looked up at Jimmy. “I’ll be right there. I’m just working on something.” His gaze shifted to Angel and rested there.

  The sight of Tommy, detached from his bandmates, stricken into a world of solitude, was heart wrenching to watch. Angel knelt down in front of Tommy and placed his hands on Tommy’s knees. “MI Corazon se romped a vertex tan triste.”

  Tommy smiled for the first time in days and a small glimmer of light reflected in his eyes. “What did you just say?”

  “I said it breaks my heart to see you so sad.”

  “I forgot how sexy it is when your mouth makes those little rolling Rs.” Tommy’s smile widened and he tilted his head to the side, causing his gorgeous tresses to fall over his shoulder.

  Angel put his finger through Tommy’s hair and smoothed it back behind his ear. “I missed your smile.” He motioned toward the guitar with his chin “What are you working on?”