by J. M. Nevins
He grinned and felt confident knowing she believed in him. “You’re damned right we will. By the way, Kit, what about your mom?”
She chuckled and shifted her gaze back to her drink. “What about her?”
He raised his eyebrows, watching her carefully. “You don’t get along with her either?”
She snorted and returned her gaze to him. “Bev, her name is Beverly, is worse than my father. She traded my brothers and me for a new, much wealthier, second husband and booze, her only real true love. She’s a raging drunk. She dumped us on my dad. He struggled as a single guy who worked sixteen hours a day to make it. He hired a nanny for us. Our nanny was fantastic. I loved her. And then he married Deanna and figured that the nanny wasn’t needed anymore. My mom moved back to Greenwich for husband number three when I was seventeen.
“The last time I talked to her was when I graduated from college. She called me to offer congratulations, then yelled at me for turning down a contract from Ford modeling agency in New York, and hung up on me. That was our last conversation and I don’t plan on having another one anytime soon. I think she wanted me to live her life for her. She married my dad young. She was very beautiful, a beauty queen actually. Miss Connecticut.”
He grinned. “So, that’s where your looks came from, huh? You don’t really look like your dad.”
She shook her head. “Not really, but I did get his green eyes. My older brother, James junior, looks like him with that unmistakeable light blonde hair, but Spence and I got my mom’s looks. Spence has our mom’s eyes.”
“She must be really beautiful.”
She let out a long sigh. “Maybe from afar, but I don’t really think there’s any such thing as a beautiful, drunk socialite. She’s your typical attractive, rich, spoiled, mean drunk, but a perfect lady in social circles, always. She met my dad in the Hamptons one summer shortly after she won her title at nineteen. She came from a well off Connecticut family. Men love her and she can flirt like the dickens. Used to drive my dad nuts. She loves attention. Loves it. Actually, come to think if it, she would probably love you if she met you.”
He raised his eyebrows, surprised. “Really? I don’t have her kind of money yet.”
Kit nodded and took a sip of her scotch. “In your case, it wouldn’t matter. She would probably hit on you and try to seduce you. Y’know, make you her boy toy. You’re just the kind of hot piece of ass she likes on the side.”
Sully burst out laughing. “What? You can’t be serious.”
She shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I was joking. Any boyfriend I brought around her from the time I was fifteen on was subject to her advances if she found them remotely attractive. I know for a fact that she hit on Joe more than once and he wasn’t even romantically linked with me. None of them were the caliber of you though, babe. If she caught even a glimpse of you, she’d go bonkers. She’d be brushing up against you, grabbing your knee under the table, and whispering inappropriate things into your ear.”
He rolled his eyes and took a swig of his scotch. “Kind of like your stepsister tonight?”
Kit laughed. “What? Serena was hitting on you at dinner?”
He laughed along with her. “Yep. It was surreal. I thought I was imagining it until she told me that she wanted me to meet her in one of the upstairs bathrooms so she could blow me and give me the opportunity to screw her.”
Kit laughed loudly. “All while her unsuspecting, attorney husband hung out downstairs with my dad enjoying the civilities of stuffy conversation about the workings of Illinois corporate law, while a backdrop of barely audible classical music gently drifted through the parlor.”
He laughed. “Exactly. I politely refused. I grinned at her and said ‘no thank you’ as kindly as I could without making a scene.”
Kit giggled. “So, that’s why she wasn’t talking to you and was glaring at you the rest of the night.”
He nodded and chuckled. “She was holding me in contempt.”
She continued to laugh and then finally composed herself. “Oh, Sull, you should be so grateful for your family. They’re wonderful. I can’t even imagine growing up in such a normal, loving environment. You guys probably even ate dinner at the same table regularly and ate home cooked meals. I love that. You genuinely hug and kiss each other rather than fake air kisses that mean nothing.”
He laughed. “I guess I have kind of taken that for granted. They are pretty great. You’re one of us now. That means when we come to visit you’ll be part of all that normalcy and family love.”
She laughed. “A part of your family now? Sully, are you indirectly proposing to me?”
He slammed down the remainder of his drink. “Nope.”
She giggled. “You aren’t?”
He gave her a mischievous grin. “No. I’ve still got work to do to get to the top. Plus, I have to dump my image building, lesbian lover back home too since that’s still hanging on. Can’t be too hasty. I told you I wanted to be able to take care of you and I meant it.”
Kit’s eyes widened as she smiled. She was surprised he had answered her previous question in such length and depth. Obviously he had been thinking about it and she was pleased he had a plan. She wanted to know more and decided to press him for a little more information. “What?”
He laughed, stood up to lean over the bar, and grabbed Stan’s attention, totally avoiding her question for the moment. “Stan, another round please.” He pushed two new drinks over to Sully. He took a sip of his new drink and then stared deeply into her eyes. “There are things I need to do to get on track with my career. I think we both understand that. Trust that when they do, it’ll happen. Be patient with me. Ok, Kitty-Kat?”
She giggled and squeezed his hand. She decided to play with him. “I gotcha, Pit-Pat.”
He laughed loudly. “What did you just call me?”
“You heard me. I called you Pit-Pat.”
He shook his head, grinning from ear to ear. “Where did you get that one?”
She grinned. “Your entire family calls you Pat, so I improvised.”
He nodded, still grinning. “Kitty-Kat and Pit-Pat. I like it.”
She gazed into his eyes. “Thanks, baby.”
He looked at her. “For what?”
“For being exactly who you are.”
He smiled and kissed her. He took her into his arms and held her. This trip had turned out better than he could have imagined. He had never felt closer to her.
* * *
Tears streamed down Kit’s cheeks uncontrollably as she ran out of the studio toward the parking lot, headed for her car. Sully and Jimmy ran after her. She leaned up against her car, attempting to wipe her tears hastily as she smoked a cigarette. She saw them approaching.
Instinctively, Jimmy hung back and let Sully take the lead. He walked up to her and hugged her. “You ok, baby?”
She started crying again in the comfort of his arms. Jimmy watched them, his arms folded in front of him. He took out a cigarette and lit up. She pulled back and looked at both of them. “Sorry to get all girly on you, guys. That really hurt.”
Jimmy nodded and exhaled the smoke from his cigarette while gently stroking her shoulder. “Sorry, sweetie. It was totally uncalled for. The guy’s an asshole.”
Sully nodded and wiped a tear from Kit’s cheek. “C’mon babe, it’s ok. You’re fine.” He hugged her again.
She stayed in Sully’s embrace for a moment, making sure not to get too comfortable in front of Jimmy. She pulled away and lit another cigarette, unleashing her anger. “Ed is a chauvinistic prick! He won’t listen to one suggestion of mine, but he’ll listen to you Sull, or he’ll listen to Jimmy. He shrugs off what I say and dismisses me like I’m nothing. He still calls me one of your groupies. I’m part of the creative force of this band, aren’t I? It’s in the recording contract!”
Jimmy nodded and reached to give her a hug. “Of course you are. You’re part of the reason why we’re here in the first place.”
She looked at Jimmy and then at Sully again. “If that’s the case, you guys gotta tell him. He listens to you. Unless, you don’t want me to get any kind of production credit on this album.”
Sully frowned and folded his arms in front of his chest. “Don’t get crazy, Kit-Kat. You’re getting credit. We’ll make sure. I’ll talk to Lew personally if I have to.”
She took a drag off her cigarette and slowly let the smoke out. “I’d have this jerk replaced, but Pete swore up and down he’s one of the best producers out there right now. I’m not so convinced. We’re already behind on our recording schedule because of him.”
Jimmy shrugged his shoulders. “He’s ok. He hasn’t really blown my socks off yet.”
Sully chimed in. “Me neither.”
Jimmy looked at her. “Maybe you should talk to Pete. Get Ed replaced?”
Kit shook her head. “No way. It’s January and we start mixing in two weeks. You guys are almost done tracking. It’s not a wise choice to switch producers this far along and we don’t want to get further behind. One of my other bands did that and it was disastrous. I vowed to never let any of my bands do something like that again. And especially not you guys. We’re on a tight schedule. This needs to release in May at the latest. We have got to be ahead of G ‘n’ R on your release. They’re releasing in July from what I hear from my contacts at Geffen. You guys need to build momentum going into the tour so that when they release you’re already out there and charting.”
Jimmy exchanged a look with Sully and stared at Kit. “Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll talk to him, Kit. We’ve got your back on this.”
Kit was a little frazzled when she walked through the door around six that evening. She had a half-day of meetings briefing her on the latest and greatest at her company, KMK Management. She was pleased that Dante had turned out to be such a great managing partner, affording her the time to remain dedicated to Gypsy Tango and school. With Sully out for the night, she opted to allow herself a good night’s sleep knowing what the next day held.
She promptly arrived with the band for their call time of eleven a.m. The rest of her day was spent at a video shoot for one of the songs on Gypsy Tango’s upcoming album. She did enjoy the fact that she got to see Sully in action, making love to the camera, and oozing tremendous sex appeal, charm, and virility. It was no wonder so many women went nuts over him. He knew how to please a woman just by smiling at her a certain way. There was no doubt that his onscreen presence was as vibrant and commanding as his stage presence. It turned Kit on to no avail. Times like these made her happy knowing he would end up in her bed at the end of the night. Sully was a performer extraordinaire in more ways than one.
When she arrived home early that evening, she opened one of the large front windows and admired the brilliant colors on display above through the screen. The sun was making its slow descent behind the hills, gradually shedding hues of orange, pink, and lavender throughout the sky. Kit then noticed the surrounding apartment buildings in close proximity and felt a melancholy pang.
She loved the apartment, but felt like it was time to let it go. Alexa was barely there; she was usually at Wes’s condo on the West Side while Kit split her time between the apartment and Sully’s condo on La Cienega. She realized they were outgrowing the small place. Their lives were expanding and it was time to explore other options.
Kit made her way over to the answering machine and listened to the various messages that were left during the course of the day. According to her message, Alexa was due home at any moment. Kit also knew that one of the new bands she was managing was going to be coming over with Dante to discuss business matters. Gypsy Tango would be there later too with their entourage that was now so large it needed to be managed on its own. Tonight certainly wasn’t going to be a restful evening, and she realized once again that the apartment was too small to be entertaining regularly on such a large scale.
One thing for sure, she was pleased knowing that Sully would step up and help her out. On nights like these, he always did. They were partners in every sense of the word. Their relationship was growing stronger every day and Kit was falling more deeply in love with him. The Sully and Scarlett publicity angle had run its course and had been abandoned mutually a few weeks before with Rock City News proclaiming Sully a hot commodity, back on the market.
By ten o’clock that night, their cluttered apartment was filled with about forty people, chatting away, and spilling out into the hallway and down the stairs. Kit abandoned her conversation with one of her neighbors to join up with a new band signed to KMK she had been unintentionally neglecting.
Alexa was sitting on the sofa talking with the new band. They were in awe that she worked at Diamond Records and were asking her the requisite twenty questions. Kit overheard one of them as she entered the circle of conversation. “What’s a bullet?”
Kit immediately jumped into the conversation. “The trades, for example Billboard Magazine, have their own charts that rate records. They base those rates upon sales and airplay for that record. A bullet is a dot or a star next to a record’s number on the chart and it typically means that the record is strongly moving up the charts. If a number doesn’t have a bullet, it means that the record is weakening or is on its way down the charts. So basically boys, what you want to aim for is number one with a bullet. You can’t do anything better than that.”
Alexa stared at her, grinning with admiration, while the awestruck new band stared at her like she was a human oracle chock full of answers to make their career the best it could be.
Kit frowned. “What? Why are you staring at me like that, Lex? Do I have something on my face?”
She giggled. “Come here, I want to tell you something.”
Kit walked over to the corner where Alexa stood, giggling. She triggered a round of giggling between them. “What?”
She smiled. “It’s you. Standing there explaining what a bullet is so eloquently to those little boys who are hanging on your every last word, desperately hoping you’re the one that will take them up the charts to have that bullet in the first place. The irony, Kit, is that you are the bullet. Do you see it? Do you get it yet?”
Sully overheard what Alexa was saying and stood next to Kit, smiling from ear to ear. “She’s right, you know. I’ve seen number one with a bullet written all over you from day one. You are that bullet now. Hit city, baby.”
Kit laughed. “Thank you. I appreciate the compliment from both of you. There may be some truth to your statement, but as all of us know when you get to the top it’s even tougher to stay there. I may be number one with a bullet today, but unless I’m number one with a bullet again next week it won’t mean shit. I have no desire to be a one-hit wonder. I’m determined to work my way into consistency.”
Sully laughed. “Babe, you never were and never will be a one-hit wonder. You’re gonna stay on top. I’ll make sure of it.”
She looked at him and grinned, getting lost in his eyes. She gave him a suggestive grin. “Mmm. Really?” She started leaning in to kiss him.
He giggled and leaned back so that he was out of reach for a kiss. “Watch yourself, babe. We’ve got an audience.” He giggled again, gave her a quick kiss on the cheek and disappeared into the crowd of people.
Alexa smiled. “He’s right. You’re no one-hit wonder. You’re number one with a bullet all the way. Stay at the top, babe. I know you can do it, star maker.” She playfully swatted her on the butt, winked, and walked away.
CHAPTER 20
Kit walked around surveying the property. She sighed and grinned, holding tears back. It was still as idyllic as she remembered from her childhood. Shortly after she contemplated talking to Alexa about moving, she received a call from her late grandfather’s attorney. He informed her the eight-bedroom, Hollywood Hills, beaux-arts styled mansion that had been in the family for decades had been willed to her. Her grandmother had done her best to push it through as quickly as possible.
The attorney had flown
out from Chicago and personally delivered the keys to her. She moved in right away and brought Alexa with her. They both encouraged Maxine to abandon her loft so all three of them could live there sensing this would probably be the last time they would be together. Their lives were changing rapidly and all of their futures held promising results.
Now that they had been settled for a few weeks, she felt comfortable enough to throw a party and the last minute details were in full swing. She made her way back to the guesthouse to check on Fred, a sound engineer that had been working on Gypsy Tango’s debut album. He was helping her convert the guesthouse into a professional recording studio. She was pleased his supervision of the workers was going smoothly. She kindly asked him to wrap up within the hour to keep noise at a minimum so there were no distractions during the party. She returned to the house to check on how things were fairing.
Alexa walked into the kitchen and put a large box down on one of the kitchen counters. Kit turned around and smiled. “Is that the last one? You should have waited for the guys to get here, Lex. Those boxes are heavy.”
“Oh, there are plenty more boxes. This is the last box of Stoli. I’ll let the guys bring in the other boxes of booze outside. What time are the caterer and servers arriving?”
Kit glanced at the clock. “Any minute now. I think we’ve got everything squared away. I just need the guys to arrive.”
As Kit finished her sentence she heard Sully’s voice echo in the foyer. “Kit? Kit-Kat, where are you?”
She laughed as she greeted him with a kiss. “Hi, babe. You’re reasonably on time.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, I guess. Valets tonight, babe? This is going to be quite a party.”
She smiled. “You better believe it. Are you okay with making sure that the caterer and servers arrive and get set up? The bartender and DJ should be arriving soon too.”
Sully nodded. “We’ve got it covered. Go do whatever you have to do.” He gave her a playful swat on the butt as she walked away.
Three hours later, the party was in full swing. Over two hundred guests had shown up including industry executives, publicists, and bands galore. Kit grinned and took a moment to admire her successful, A-list, music industry party that she had personally thrown to celebrate Gypsy Tango’s soon to be released and much anticipated debut album. Their official album release party was still forthcoming and would be hosted by Diamond Records in a week.