Wild Open

by Bec Linder

  Maybe literally.

  Andrew didn’t miss a beat. “Songwriters are a dime a dozen. Let’s hold an audition for a new songwriter while we’re at it. Then O’Connor can go back to Middle America in a self-righteous huff.”

  “Shut up, Andrew,” James said, and turned to Rushani, eyebrows drawn together. “Why is he even here? Can we ban him from band meetings?”

  “You fucking wish,” Andrew said. “You need me. You can’t do this without me.”

  Rushani lay one hand flat on the table, her shoulders pulled up toward her ears, ready—O’Connor hoped—to flay Andrew to the bone with the sharp edge of her tongue. But their waitress approached, notebook in hand, to take their orders, and Andrew immediately turned on the charm, smiling brightly and telling her how pretty her earrings were, and could she tell him where she got them, because his sister’s birthday was soon and she would really love a pair of her own.

  James gave O’Connor a meaningful look, mouth twisted to one side. O’Connor shrugged and drank his coffee. There was nothing he could do, and nothing he wanted to. Andrew’s good looks and charisma were a large part of the reason they had sold close to three million albums in the last fifteen months. Andrew hadn’t lost that, at least. He still knew how to turn it on for the fans.

  But the funny, easy-going guy O’Connor had first met five years ago was gone. Possibly for good. All that remained of him was this cynical, ruthless husk, a sad simulacrum that looked like Andrew and sounded like Andrew but wasn’t really him at all.

  “Here’s to us,” O’Connor said, raising his coffee mug. “The Saving Graces.”

  They all looked at him. Nobody else raised their mug.

  O’Connor drank.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Leah groaned and rolled over in bed. Her eyes felt like they were glued shut. Tiny gnomes were drilling holes into her frontal lobe. She knew she’d done something crazy last night, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was.

  She peeled one eye open and looked at the clock on her nightstand. 11:21. Great.

  Not that she had anything she needed to do. It was the principle of the thing. She was an adult now, or—at least technically. She didn’t feel much like an adult. When she was younger, she’d always thought that grown-ups had all the answers and were never confused or uncertain about anything, and that she too would magically become all-knowing and wise, but it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe it never would. Maybe everyone was just as scared and lost as she was.

  What a depressing thought.

  She staggered out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d been too drunk to take off her makeup before she passed out the night before, and her mascara was smeared halfway down her face. Her hair looked like rats had been nesting in it. There was some sort of bruise on her neck, and she leaned closer to get a better look at it, probing it gently with her fingertips.

  Not a bruise—a spectacular love bite.

  Right: the bar, the guy, the ridiculously incendiary kissing in the alleyway.

  Did functioning grown-ups have ill-advised make-out sessions with strangers they had just met? Probably not.

  At least she hadn’t fucked him.

  She needed at least a gallon of coffee before she was prepared to cope with life. She went out into the kitchen and found half a pot of coffee waiting for her, still hot. God bless Luka. It was probably several hours old by now, but she would drink engine sludge at this point as long as it had caffeine. She poured herself a huge mug and leaned against the counter to chug it. Definitely old. It tasted better than the inside of her mouth did, though.

  As the caffeine worked its way through her veins, Leah noticed a piece of paper sitting beside the coffee maker, covered in Luka’s sloppy handwriting. She picked it up and squinted at it.

  Drink ALL of the coffee, the note read—ALL was underlined several times—and then give me a call. I think I found you a gig.

  Great. More meddling. But she would have to call him, or he’d give her hell later.

  She wasn’t sure where her phone was.

  After fifteen minutes of searching, she finally found it in the top drawer of the bathroom vanity. Good thinking, drunk Leah. Definitely an appropriate place to stash your phone: right next to Luka’s shaving cream.

  She’d finished the second cup of coffee by then. Good enough. She dialed Luka’s number and waited for him to answer.

  He picked up on the third ring. “Still alive, I take it?”

  “Yeah, because I party so hearty,” Leah said. Luka acted like it was time to call Alcoholics Anonymous every time she had more to drink than a beer or two. She got it, but it was still really irritating. “This was the first time I’ve been out in a month! Just because you’re old and domesticated now—”

  “Right, okay, not the point,” Luka said. “You got my note?”

  “Yeah,” Leah said. “What’s this alleged gig?”

  “Hardly alleged,” Luka said. “Straight from the horse’s mouth. Sean told me about it this morning. He’s got that friend in that band, you know, the guys who made it big—”

  “Crayola Markers or something,” Leah said. “Colored Pencils.”

  “No, that’s Mika’s band,” Luka said. “I’m talking about the Saving Graces. Anyway, so Sean told me their bassist just quit, mid-tour, and they’re in L.A. for like two days and they need a replacement. So they’re doing auditions today. I really think you should go.”

  “I don’t want to be in another band,” Leah said. The first time had worked out just great. She wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to go down that road again.

  “That’s stupid,” Luka said. “You’re good at it, and you love it, and if you spend the rest of your life just working bullshit office jobs it will be a complete fucking waste. Look, I know that what happened with us was horrible, but that’s not, like—that was just Corey, okay? Not every situation is going to be like that. And I’m tired of you moping around the apartment.”

  “I don’t mope,” Leah said, which was a blatant lie. “And it wasn’t just Corey, it was everything, it was the shitty van with the heater that never worked, and the shitty truck stop food, and the shitty shows where the crowd hated us, and the like—not showering, and—”

  “These guys have buses, and I think they can afford to feed you,” Luka said. “I’m done talking to you about this. The audition starts at 3:00. Get a pen and write down the address.”

  Leah did it, so conditioned by a lifetime of being bossed around by Luka that she was completely unable to disobey a direct command. After Luka hung up, she stood there for a minute staring at the address.

  The Saving Graces. Right.

  What a stupid name for a band.

  That settled it. Leah couldn’t play for a band with a name that dumb. She wasn’t going to let Luka bully her into it.

  Fuck Luka, anyway. Leah liked her office job. It was uncomplicated and easy. She showed up at 8:30 and left at 5:00, and she didn’t have to talk to anyone except the nice lady in the next cubicle over, Irene, who had pictures of her grandkids on her desk and always gave Leah those little hard candies in the gold wrappers. Nobody yelled at her, or got high and puked in the back of the van, or spent all of their food money on weed. It was fine.

  She turned on the television and drank the rest of the coffee while she watched Nancy Grace yell about something. Nancy’s hair was so round and shiny. Leah wondered if she could make hers do that. Probably with a lot of hair spray.

  She looked at the clock on the wall. 12:53.

  Still plenty of time to get in the shower and make it to the audition.

  Not that she was going. Just hypothetically.

  She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the couch, trying to force her mind to go blank as the TV blathered on. She didn’t want to think about anything. Her brain didn’t cooperate with her, though. It presented her with an image of the guy from last night, smiling at her, hiking her skirt up around her waist and saying, I don’t
usually do things like this. Leah had smiled back and said, Neither do I.

  God, what a crazy night. She hadn’t hooked up with a random stranger like that since her failed stint in community college. It wasn’t that she was opposed to the idea; she’d just lacked the opportunity. She’d spent most of the last three years touring. Fooling around with fans was a bad idea; fooling around with her band-mates, even worse.

  She hadn’t even learned the guy’s name.

  Her phone buzzed. She opened her eyes and glanced down at the screen. Luka, of course. If I come home and you’re still there I will kick your ass.

  That was an empty threat if Leah had ever heard one. Luka wasn’t going to do a thing to her. Whine a lot, maybe. He could be pretty irritating.

  She would be a lot more willing to go if the audition weren’t in fucking Burbank. Traffic on the Five was always a nightmare.

  Her phone buzzed again. Scared?

  The most irritating thing about Luka was that even though she knew when he was trying to manipulate her, it usually still worked.

  She turned off her phone and tossed it on the coffee table, and turned up the volume on the television. She planned to still be sitting there, greasy, unbathed, and disgusting, when Luka got home. It served him right. It was none of his business what she did or didn’t do, as long as she paid her half of the rent, and she did, every month, on time.

  That was the problem with family: they never quit meddling.

  She looked at the clock. 1:07.

  Heaving a sigh, Leah got up and headed for the shower.

  * * *

  She made it to the audition ten minutes early, which ended up being a terrible idea, because there was nothing to do but sit around in the lobby and stare at the competition. There had to be twenty people waiting in the cramped room, mostly men, clutching their instruments and giving each other the evil eye. They were all dressed to the nines in the latest hipster attire of choice. Leah looked down at her old band T-shirt and baggy Levi’s. Probably not cool enough. Whatever.

  She found a seat in the corner of the room and waited. Ordinarily this was when she would be getting nervous, but since she didn’t actually want the job, she felt oddly calm. Everyone else in the room was clearly sweating bullets, but Leah was just there to check things out. Stay in the loop, or whatever. Gawk at these Saving Graces guys. She wondered if Making It Big left a visible sign on a person, like a tattoo or a scar.

  The door opened. A woman wearing thick-framed glasses emerged, carrying a clipboard. Probably a PA of some sort. She was small, round, and brown-skinned, and she had lovely, glossy black hair hanging loose over her shoulders, the kind of hair Leah always envied and wished she could somehow steal and implant onto her own head. “Okay, everyone, thanks for coming today,” she said. “We’ll get through this as quickly as possible. I’m sure you all have other things to do. Please write your name on this sheet of paper. We’ll go in alphabetical order.”

  There was some irritated muttering. “But I’ve been here for two hours!” one man said.

  The woman shrugged. “Not my problem. This is how we’re doing it.” She handed the clipboard to the closest person and went back into the other room.

  “It’s not fair,” said the man who’d protested. He was tall and skinny, and was wearing even skinnier jeans.

  Leah rolled her eyes. With a last name like Zielinski, she was going to be there longer than anyone else. That guy was just a whiner.

  She wrote her name on the sheet when the clipboard came around, and then she settled in to wait. She should have brought a book or something. At least she had her ancient MP3 player. Everyone else was busy with their smartphones, and for once Leah regretted being such a cheap bastard. Her phone could make calls and send text messages and that was about it. She hadn’t paid a dime for it, though.

  The clipboard woman came in and out, calling people’s names and ushering them into the next room. Leah watched people’s face as they emerged after their auditions. Nobody was in there for more than five minutes. Nobody looked happy. A few guys looked like they wanted to cry. The only other woman who’d showed up actually did cry.

  It didn’t bode well.

  Finally, after more than an hour and a half, the clipboard woman came to the door and said, “Zielinski.”

  Leah stood up. She was the last person in the waiting room. Her butt had long since gone numb from sitting on the hard chair. She picked up her bass and followed the woman into the room.

  Amps and cables littered the large room, with an open space in the middle facing a long table where three men sat in various poses of boredom. Leah tried not to look too closely at any of them; seeing people’s faces just made her nervous when she performed. She walked into the middle of the room and crouched down to open up her case. The room was cold, the air conditioning cranked up too high. Her bare arms prickled.

  “This is Leah Zielinski,” the PA woman said. “Last one of the day.”

  “Thank God,” one of the men said. Leah didn’t look up, busy plugging in to a nearby amp.

  “Shut up, Andrew,” another one said. “We’ll talk about this later.”

  Leah took her guitar out of the case and stood up, slinging the strap around her neck. “Okay,” she said.

  She looked toward the table, at the men sitting there, waiting for her to play.

  And there he was, sitting at one end, chin propped on his fist, wearing a cardigan he could have borrowed from Leah’s grandfather: the guy she’d hooked up with at the club the night before.

  Their eyes met, and the bottom dropped out of her stomach, a sudden dive like going down a roller coaster. It was totally him—there was no mistaking it. She’d felt that stubble scraping along her collarbone, and seen that full mouth breaking into a helpless grin.

  God. Didn’t it just figure. Out of all the bars in all the cities, he’d walked into hers, her favorite dive bar on the night her favorite band was playing, and now here she was, turning bright red while the entire lineup of the Saving Graces sat there and stared at her.

  Talk about stage fright.

  Her first impulse was to throw her guitar back in the case and walk out. She didn’t owe them anything, and she’d already done more than Luka had asked. He’d just told her to show up; he hadn’t said anything about actually auditioning. And even if they wanted her—even if she played well enough that they asked her to go on tour with them—she’d learned a long time ago not to shit where she ate. No way was she mixing business with pleasure. The pleasure had already taken precedence, and it was too late for business at this point.

  She wouldn’t ever be able to forget the way he looked at her right after she kissed him, her arm pressed against the bar, her hands fisted in his T-shirt.

  Her second impulse was to stay, and see if she could convince him to kiss her again.

  In the end, she didn’t get to decide. The guy sitting in the middle said, “We’re waiting,” and Leah’s reflexes took over. She started to play.

  She started with the bassline for one of their own songs, their biggest hit, “Wild Open.” She’d listened to the entire album while she was waiting, and it was actually pretty good. She was a huge snob, of the “I liked them before they were popular” kind, and she never listened to the type of radio station that would play their music; but they weren’t bad. Catchy. Good melodies. The lyrics were the best part, though. They sounded like poetry.

  Halfway through, she started improvising, directing the bassline away from the album version and adding her own flourishes. She glanced up to see the reactions she was getting. The guy in the middle was frowning, but the one on his left was nodding his head slightly, bobbing along with the beat. And her guy—hers, even if he didn’t know it, even though she didn’t know his name—was still staring at her, an expression on his face that she couldn’t read.

  She came to the end of the song and stopped. The amp let out a squeal of feedback. She winced. Not really ending things on a high note, there.
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  The guy in the middle said, “Do some Motown.”

  Leah shrugged and launched into “Bernadette,” and segued from that into “What’s Going On.” Standard audition fare. These guys didn’t know much about music. If they’d really wanted to trip her up, they should have asked for some Bhangra, like the last audition she’d been on. God, L.A. was chock full of hipster assholes.

  She played the last note and stopped again. The guy on the left, slumped in his chair with a knit cap hiding his hair, said, “Fretless bass.”

  “Yeah,” Leah said. “It gives me more options.”

  The one in the middle said, “Thanks. Someone will be in touch.”

  Leah stood there, staring at them dumbly. They stared back. All of them, even the one she had—well, it obviously hadn’t been a big deal to him. He probably hooked up with a different girl every night of the week. Just because it had been—just because Leah had been stupid enough to think it was something special, that they’d had a connection, didn’t mean it was true. Didn’t mean he’d felt the same way.

  She swallowed her humiliation. “Thanks for your time,” she said, and knelt to put away her bass, face burning.

  Some small, idiotically hopeful part of her still thought that he would run after her, that as she walked out of the building she would hear him call out to her, and she’d turn and he’d be there, jogging through the parking lot, and he’d give her his number and say, Call me, let’s have dinner, and she would let her bangs fall in her face and look up at him, all mysterious, and tell him she’d think about it.

  But of course that didn’t happen. She walked out to her car and got in and drove home, hands wrapped tight around the steering wheel.

  Things like that didn’t happen in real life.

  She probably wouldn’t get the job, either.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “We’ve got to hire her,” James said.

  O’Connor fiddled with the lowest button on his cardigan, slipping it into and out of its hole. “Who?”