“You’re gonna knock ‘em dead. By the time you wake up tomorrow there won’t be a person in the country who doesn’t know your name.”
“Thanks,” I say, “that thought’s gonna do wonders for my nerves.”
Brando chuckles softly, gently brushing the back of his rough hand against my cheek.
“You’re not really nervous,” he smiles. “I can tell. You’re growing, Haley, coming into your own, turning into something amazing.”
The muscles in my face soften as I gaze at him.
“Brando Nash?!”
The voice comes from a weedy guy in the doorway. It takes a second call and another moment for Brando to turn and see him.
“What?” Brando says, curtly.
The weedy guy walks up to us and jabs his thumb at the door.
“You need to come with me, now!”
“What’s going on?” Brando says, instinctively resisting.
Weedy guy sighs before speaking.
“I’ve got a fifty-six page document covering your song’s copyright, usage rights, liability for the performance, and about a thousand other legal technicalities sitting unsigned on my desk. It should have been signed before today, but right this second will have to do. It also should have been signed by the artist herself, but she’s going out in a minute, so you’ll have to do it on her behalf.”
Brando waves him away, unconcerned. “Relax. I’ll sign it. Just give me a second with my client.”
“This is network television, Mr. Nash, not karaoke night at the surf n’ turf. If I don’t get ink on those papers in the next thirty seconds your girlfriend doesn’t play and we have to do an unrehearsed skit with one of the d-list guests – and nobody wants to see that.”
I press a hand on Brando’s shoulder and he looks at me.
“Go,” I say. “I’ll be fine. I’ll see you after the show.”
Brando smiles at me and then follows weedy guy out of the green room. I watch him go, the feeling of something amazing about to happen between us hanging in the air like swirls of smoke. I smile and wonder if he’ll be there in the audience, right in my eye line once again.
Then someone walks into my eye line who is almost the polar opposite of Brando.
“There she is! The girl of the moment!”
He’s short and squat, with the kind of paunch even pregnancy clothes would struggle to hide. His face looks like it was constructed out of play-doh by a team of soda-injected toddlers, and his hairpiece looks like it was fished out of a plughole at a Turkish bath. Despite all this, he’s wearing the loudest, shiniest, most eye-catching Hawaiian shirt I think I’ve ever seen.
Still, I try not to judge on appearances – so I decide it’s the way his voice sounds like slime oozing down a gutter that creeps me out about him.
“Who are you?”
“Davis Crawford,” he says, offering me a hand with the texture of cold fish, “I’m a friend of Brando’s. Where is he?”
I narrow my eyes. This guy is way too sleazy to be friends with Brando. “He had to go do some business.”
“Ah,” Davis says, lopsided lips forming what I assume is a grin. “That sounds just like him. Always doing some kind of ‘business.’ Always neglecting the talent.”
I offer an unconvincing laugh in response, hoping it’ll bring the conversation to a close.
“Just look at you! You’ve come a long way from that open mic, that’s for sure! Who would have thought the mousy little girl down there would have made it all the way up here, am I right?”
“You saw me at the open mic?” I say, a second before I remember his face, the first time I ever met Brando.
“But of course! I’m the one who chose you!” Davis rasps out a sound that’s almost but not quite a laugh. “Needless to say, you can tell Brando he won the bet.”
“What bet?” I say, beginning to get frustrated with Davis’ condescending tone.
Realization, smugness, and mischief combine on Davis’ face to bring it to a whole new level of disgusting.
“He didn’t tell you?”
“What. Bet,” I repeat with venom, suddenly feeling irrationally angry. I need to go onstage in five minutes and this guy is standing here talking as if he knows something I don’t about the only two things I care about – Brando and my career.
“Oh my! You didn’t know? Haha! This is too delicious!” Davis pauses for effect before continuing. “You were the bet, my dear. You! Or rather, the pitiful little thing that was trying to sing up onstage at the open mic was. All he had to do was get you into the charts in a single month. And by God, he did it!”
I shake my head, rolling my eyes, wondering why in the hell this guy thinks I’d trust in a man who looks like he’s wearing somebody else’s face. “Bullshit. Why would Brando take a bet like that? He’s not stupid. What would he get out of it?”
Davis’ smile gets so wide that I can see the lines of his face lift. I feel somebody tug my arm.
“Haley, you need to get moving, like, now!” I glance in the direction of the voice, a nervous-looking runner standing to the side. I shake his arm off and glare back at Davis.
“You’re right, he’s certainly not stupid. Not at all. But every man has his price. Brando’s was ten grand and the pick of my acts – or, to be more specific, as it is rather obvious, don’t you think? – Lexi Dark.”
The words hit like a punch, knocking me out of my body. I freeze and stare, grasping for some sense of reality.
“Rather a bizarre proposition, when you think about it,” Davis continues. “To build up an entirely new star just to get his old one back – but then again, it was never about the business with Brando. A man like that will do anything for love. Anyway, I’ve got to go grab my seat. I’m looking forward very much to your performance!”
He backs away slowly.
“Make it a good one, Haley! You’ll have some competition from this point on! Hah!”
He disappears. A man says something about taking our spots. I feel hands pressing my shoulders, voices calling me, and I close my eyes, wet and misted. When I open them Brando is standing in front of me, my bandmates standing around him.
“Haley! You okay? What’s the matter?”
I stare up at him, his eyes so trustworthy, his voice so calming – I could almost believe he actually cares.
“Commercial’s over in sixty seconds,” the runner says pleadingly to my left, “we’ve got to get going.”
“Are you okay?” he asks again, big and strong, a liar and a fraud.
“I was just a bet,” I mumble through a gurgling throat. “That’s all I was. A game you played.”
Brando’s eyes widen when he realizes I know, realizes he’s been found out.
“What? You… Wait, Haley. It’s not like that – I mean, it was, but it turned out different. Please Haley, don’t—”
I narrow my eyes, hurt and anger roiling inside me. “Just a way for you to get Lexi back.”
“Haley, no…”
“It’s time for us to take our spots, Haley, can’t you guys talk about this after?”
Brando nods at the band members to leave us and they go, leaving us alone – the last place I want to be, with the last person I want to be there with.
“What else was a lie?” I snarl through gritted teeth. “The story of your childhood? It being ‘all about the music’?”
“No, I didn’t lie. It was all true. Please Haley, you know it was. Surely you can feel that it was all tr—”
I smack him. Hard and fast. The tight, boiling pressure inside of me spiking so much I can’t hold it in anymore. He brings his hand to his cheek and turns back to face me, his face vulnerable. Another lie.
“You were right about one thing,” I say, raising my head and setting my shoulders back. “I am growing. And I’ve just outgrown you.”
I shove him aside, grab my guitar from the couch and march out to set. Full of determination, full of bravado, full of pain and fury and an unbreakable resolution to
trust myself, and only myself, from this moment on.
17
Brando
NOBODY TELLS you that girls hit the hardest, but they do. A good hit from a guy will knock you out, leave a nasty bruise, a black eye – but you’ll wake up, heal up. A girl can cleave your heart in two forever with a slap you barely feel, rip shreds out of your soul and leave you a walking zombie. Lexi was the first girl to teach me that.
Shit. This is familiar.
Then the show starts. First the announcer, then the audience, then the music. All muffled through the walls of the green room, but still impossible to ignore. Haley’s music is louder, harder, more exciting than I’ve ever heard her deliver before.
In a trance I leave the green room, passing through the backstage area slowly, the music getting clearer and louder. I remember the time I walked into the studio to find her singing her heart out, a revelation, a turning point. A realization that she was the one, that she’d save me. When I turn the corner to see her from the side stage, the revelation’s different this time. She’s still the one, but she won’t save me.
I feel a hand press on my shoulder with eerie gentleness. It’s Rowland.
“You were right, Brando. She’s going to be big.”
I try to speak, but all I can manage it a short, sharp sigh.
“Forget about our little disagreement,” he says, “I should have trusted you. You’ve worked wonders for Majestic Records tonight.”
I glare at him. “What are you talking about?”
Rowland looks at me, amused and patronizing – or trying to be.
“Lexi’s back in the fold. And now we’ve got another superstar to join her. You’ve just brought in two of the biggest acts this label’s seen in years. I’m thinking that’s at least deserving of a little compensation on my behalf. You can forget about being fired – I’m giving you your own label, under the company umbrella of course, and all the freedom to sign, blow cash, and do whatever you want with it. How does that sound?”
“Haley’s not a Majestic artist. She might not even be mine anymore.”
The words seem to slice me as I say them. I watch her on stage, singing with a passion that seems to infect the whole audience. The most talented person I know expressing herself, it used to fill me with pride seeing her do this – but that was before the fall.
“No?” Rowland says, in a way that makes me look back at him. This time there’s no mistake, the amused and patronizing look is real for once.
“She didn’t sign anything,” I say, an explanation that only seems to make Rowland smile even more. “Our agreement was verbal. Not on paper.”
He looks out at Haley again, who’s reaching the crescendo of the song, wailing melodically, the audience moving to her rhythm.
“Who paid for her studio time?” Rowland says, smugly. “Who paid her musicians to play with her, or Josh for producing her songs? You even used the Majestic account to fast-track her single onto services online. I’ve got my fingers all over Haley’s music. There’s more than enough for my lawyers to work with.”
I look at him incredulously, unable to believe what I’m hearing.
He chuckles and pats my shoulder. “Signing artists is the easy part, Brando. Tying them up, forcing them to depend on you, work in your structure – that’s what being a record label is all about. Haley’s perfectly within her rights to try and be independent, but she’ll have to pay back every penny I spent on her, and fight a long legal battle over what my fair share is. Of course, she won’t be making much music while she does that – court proceedings do tend to drag on and get awfully exhausting.”
Haley finishes the song and as the studio audience goes crazy I stand there, my body still feeling like it’s caked in concrete, while Rowland applauds enthusiastically along with the rest of the crowd. Haley leaves the stage on the other side, waving at the audience.
“It’s going to be a hell of a ride,” Rowland says, leaning in far too closely, “managing two incredible acts. But I know you’ll do me proud.”
He gives me one last smack on the back before walking away. I drop my head and remember to breathe.
Four minutes. That’s how long Haley’s song is. Four minutes that made me forget Lexi. Four minutes that made me see Haley was special. Four minutes that connected us.
Four minutes in which I lost it all.
18
Brando
“YOU DID THIS TO YOURSELF,” I say to the bare-chested, unshaven, scruffy-haired mess of a man looking back at me with pain in his eyes. “You tried to have it all, and you ended up with nothing.”
I raise my whiskey glass and he does the same.
“Here’s to being a complete asshole.”
I drain the glass and look at the sorry motherfucker. He’s good-looking, even though he needs a shave and a shower. A strong jawline and dark eyes, but he’s got the expression of someone watching his pet being put down. His eyes are lidded and blank, as if all he wants to do is creep back into bed, and his lips look like they’re incapable of saying anything nice. It breaks your heart just to look at him.
“Shit. You look as bad as I feel,” I growl, stepping away from the mirror with a grim smile.
I put my glass down on the counter and stop myself just before I fill it up again – who am I kidding? I’m beyond glasses. I take the whole bottle with me as I cross the messy room, stepping on dirty clothes and other junk as I make my way to the record shelf. The place looks like a bomb hit it, a bomb filled with men’s underwear, beer bottles, and empty pizza boxes.
“Time to bring out the big guns,” I mumble, as I angle my head to flick through the very last records on the shelf – the ones I hoped I’d never need again.
Johnny Cash, Otis Redding, Sam Cooke, Bruce Springsteen – the old, smoky voices of men who knew too much and still had the scars from learning it the hard way.
I pick a record and bring it over to the player, taking my time as I put it on the platter. With slow anticipation, I lift the needle with my finger and drop it carefully on the groove. The comforting crackles and pops sound out from the speakers all over my apartment, and I swing the bottle to my lips as I stumble back over to the sofa and drop my heavy body onto it.
With the drink dulling my senses, I let the song take me out of myself. Guitars and drums swirling and beating like my bad thoughts, that sympathetic voice like an old friend…
Then the record scratches to a stop.
I open my eyes and look toward the player.
It’s Jax. He raises his hands out wide, looks at me incredulously, and says, “What the fuck, dude?”
“Ugh,” is all I can manage as I pull myself into an upright sitting position on the couch. I don’t need to ask how Jax got in; I gave him a spare key a long time ago – I sometimes have a habit of losing my own set in the apartments of particularly passionate women.
He steps through the room purposefully, scanning the wreckage of my apartment like he’s looking for something. With his crisp, tailored blue shirt and tight-fitting jeans he should look ridiculous in this pig-sty of an apartment, but he has a habit of making his surroundings look like they don’t fit him, rather than the other way around.
“So you had your heart broken, huh?”
“How do you know that?” I say, struggling to follow his movements as he paces around.
Jax shoots me a look. “’Cause this place looks like a crime scene – and you look like the corpse. Don’t need a detective.”
“I’m alright,” I insist.
“Alright? Dude. I haven’t seen you in nearly a month. I’ve called you—” he pauses to grab my phone from the coffee table, and yanks my finger onto it in order to unlock it, “twenty-four times,” he says, flicking through the call list on my phone. “And you ignored every single one. That’s kind of impressive, in a weird way. Looks like your boss called a bunch of times…your massage therapist…your yoga instructor…?”
I manage a little smile as I bring the bottle to my l
ips, but Jax snatches it away just as it reaches them.
“Hey!” I say, finding my hand suddenly empty.
“You even eating anything?” Jax says as he brings the bottle with him on his march to the kitchen.
“What are you, now? My mother?”
“Just a friend,” he says as he opens and closes cabinets looking for food. “If I was your mother I’d be hosing you down in the shower and spraying this place with Lysol.”
“We can just order a pizza,” I groan, as I drop back onto the sofa.
“I’ll take you to the salad place down the road. My shout,” he says, walking back to stand in front of me. “You seriously look like you could use a bucket of kale or some shit.”
“That sounds good,” I mumble sarcastically. “Or, we could just order a pizza.”
“Bro!” Jax shouts, gesturing around him. “You need to get out of this place. You’re a couple of video games and a superhero poster away from regressing into a reclusive teenager.”
I look up at him feebly. “I used to like video games.”
“So did I,” he says, “but even then, I never looked as bad as you do right now.”
He slows down for a second, staring at me with more pity than I’ve ever seen him use before – and this is a guy who stops to feed stray dogs. He steps in front of the coffee table and sits down on it, straight in front of me. Finally, he nods.
“So what happened with Haley?” he asks. “No bullshit this time.”
I push a hand back through my hair – the most grooming I’ve done in a week. As much as I hate to admit any of this, it’s time to come clean.
“That night, the one where you and I bumped into Lexi, that scumbag Davis made a bet with me. If I made a hit with Haley in one month, he’d give me Lexi back.”
Jax cocks an eyebrow. “And you won.”
“I won.”
He nods slowly, finally understanding. “But you don’t want Lexi anymore. Do you.”
I sigh— this is way too much to think about on just two quarts of whiskey.
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