by Tonya Hurley
Cecilia stepped through the door to the backstage area as if she were entering a cathedral, a sacred space, which any club, no matter how seedy, had always felt like to her. She approached the security guard outside her dressing room and nodded. He was big and burly but there was a sweetness in his eyes that she locked on to. He opened the door for her, gently.
He reached out his hand, offering to take her guitar and bow and garment bag, but she declined. “I’m cool,” she said.
“You are,” he replied in a deep, resonant voice that rang out even above the pounding bass of the DJ opening act. “No visitors?”
“Oh, I’m expecting some friends. You can let them in,” Cecilia instructed, handing him a short, crumpled handwritten list.
The security guard nodded and closed the door.
She took the alone time to reflect. Mostly on her upcoming performance. What she would do. How the crowd would react. She visualized the entire show. The beginning. The middle. The end.
She flipped her laptop open and searched for her new album. Less had promised it would be released in time for her show, but she couldn’t find it on any of the sites. No streams, no downloads.
A few taps at the door broke her concentration and then it opened, letting in sounds of the backstage chatter along with Agnes and Jesse.
Cecilia beamed at both of them. Happy.
“I’m so glad you came. I’m so glad you remembered.”
“Are you kidding?” Agnes said, running into her arms.
Cecilia hugged her tight and then pulled back, looking deeply into her friend’s eyes and brushed her hands through her curls.
“You look beautiful.”
“You look ready,” Agnes replied.
“Better be,” Jesse grumbled under his breath. “People out there paid good money.”
“Hey,” Cecilia said, holding out her open arms. “Come here.”
Jesse was far less demonstrative than Agnes and shuffled slowly toward Cecilia. His head down. They embraced.
“You sure this is a good idea?”
“I’m sure.”
“Jesse’s apartment got ransacked,” Agnes added. “I don’t think they liked his film.”
“Well, then they’re really not gonna like my show. I’m using it.”
“Jesus, Cecilia. You remember what happened the last time. Why provoke these terrorists?”
“I could ask you the same thing, Jesse,” Cecilia countered.
Another knock at the dressing room door ended the discussion for the moment.
“Mr. Less to see you?”
“Let him in.”
Less strutted in sporting a big smile and made a beeline for his protégé.
“Hello, darling,” he gushed, planting kisses on both her cheeks. “The big night is finally here.”
“It is,” Cecilia agreed.
“Have you rehearsed the end of your show?”
“Nah. One take is all I need. It will be unforgettable, I promise.”
Less grinned and turned politely toward Agnes and Jesse to greet them.
“How rude of me. I’m Daniel Less.”
“Agnes,” she said, taking his outstretched hand.
“Jesse.”
“Oh, you are that infamous blogger we hear so much about. Good to see you here.”
“Good to be seen,” Jesse snarked.
“Yes, the papers said it was touch and go there for a while, but you are looking quite well.”
“Looks can be deceiving, sir,” Jesse replied, clearly unimpressed with the executive’s smarmy small talk.
“Very true, young man,” Less concurred somewhat uncomfortably. “Well, I hope you will support our budding superstar. Help us get the word out.”
“I’m not really in the gossip game anymore, but I’ll do anything to help Cecilia.”
“Then we’ll count on your support, Jesse. I’ll be off now. Back of the room, my usual spot.”
He blew a kiss toward Cecilia and prepared to depart.
“Daniel, can I talk to you for a second?” Cecilia approached him in the doorway, the way a suspicious retail clerk might approach a shoplifter.
“I thought you said my album would be live in time for the show?” she whispered.
“Oh, it’s just a technical glitch. I have the IT team in the office working on it as we speak.”
Cecilia nodded. “Okay,” she said warily.
“Don’t worry about anything, Cecilia. You have a job to do tonight. Do it.”
“I know my job tonight,” she assured him.
“See you at the end.”
Less stepped out and the door closed behind him.
“I know that guy helped you get out of the mental ward but he gives me the creeps,” Jesse admitted.
“He kind of reminds me of Frey,” Agnes added.
“From what I hear, they aren’t friends, to put it lightly,” Jesse said. “Because of you.”
“I thought you were out of the gossip game, Jesse,” Cecilia joked. “Frey. Less. All the same shit. Doesn’t matter anyway.”
“It wasn’t your apartment that was turned upside down,” Jesse reminded. “It should matter. Which brings me back to my original point. This is way too dangerous for you.”
“I know what I’m doing.”
“Well, I’m not taking any chances. Tony and some of his guys will be out there.”
Cecilia smiled. “Don’t be afraid, Jesse.”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“Well, we should probably let you have some alone time,” Agnes suggested. “Get your armor on in private.”
Cecilia knelt down before Agnes and kissed her stomach softly.
“What the hell?” Jesse blurted.
Cecilia stood and Agnes hugged her for a long time. “Take care of yourself,” CeCe said. “Both of you.”
“I love you,” Agnes whispered, her emotions overwhelming her as she stepped into the hallway.
“Be careful,” Jesse warned.
Cecilia reached into her back pocket and produced a thumb drive, which she handed over to him. The title of the album, Save Yourself, was handwritten in marker.
“Everything is on here. My album. Lyrics. Everything. Make sure it gets out there.”
Jesse was confused. “It’s about to be released? They’ve spent a fortune on you.”
“It won’t be, Jesse. Please do this for me. When you’re done with it, give it to my friend Catherine. Her address is in a file on there.”
“Okay.”
She kissed his cheek as he was leaving. “Thank you. And if anything happens out there, make sure Agnes is protected no matter what.”
“Listen, you’re freaking me out a little bit now.”
“Jesse,” she said firmly. “No. Matter. What.”
13 Daniel Less stood uncomfortably in the rear of the venue, back against the wall, watching the swelling crowd growing wilder and wilder with anticipation for Cecilia to hit the stage. He surveyed the crowd but saw no sign of Frey’s minions. Just a sea of black-clad rockers, Goths, punks, hipsters, metal heads, and ravers. A typical gathering at any Brooklyn musical happening, except for the sprinkling of neighborhood types, a little older and out of place, but nevertheless looking happy to be there. All waiting, just like him, but for completely different things. Less was not used to waiting.
An enviable cross-genre collection of trendsetters, he might have thought under other circumstances, but in this case it was alarming and the primary cause of his distress. These girls had made an impact. This was proof enough. He began wondering if it was already too late to stop or even contain, arguing with himself much as he had argued with Dr. Frey at their clandestine meeting in the shadow of Lucy’s portrait. As show time approached, his anxiety grew along with the crowd’s energy.
He stepped into the only semiquiet space he could find, under the mezzanine staircase next to the bar, and hit speed dial.
“Hello?”
“Alan, where are your men?”
“Aren’t they there?”
“No, and Cecilia is about to hit the fucking stage!”
The music executive was livid and more than a little annoyed with the doctor’s nonchalance.
“Calm down, Daniel. I told them . . .”
“I don’t care what you told them, Alan,” Less sniped contemptuously. “They aren’t here.”
“Maybe they got lost,” he taunted. “People lose their way.” It was obvious now to Less that the doctor had betrayed him.
“Don’t fuck with me, Doctor,” Less growled. “Whatever your issues with me, this is a much bigger problem.”
“As I recall, Daniel, this whole scheme was your idea. The problems are your own to solve. Not mine. You said yourself they are unreliable. Sadly, you are right.”
“There is a room full of people, Alan. What am I going to do?”
“Didn’t you tell me that sometimes you have to take matters into your own hands?”
Less was fuming, the doctor’s smug sarcasm barely masking his treachery. He was suddenly distracted, noticing Jesse and Agnes being guided to the side of the stage by a security guard holding a flashlight.
“Yes,” Less said calmly. “I’ll handle it myself.”
The line went dead and a loud roar went up.
Backstage, Cecilia stopped to put on her shoes. Dolce & Gabbana reliquary heels made of glass with silver ornamentation. She undid the little latch on the first heel, opened the intricate door, and placed a piece of Lucy’s blond hair inside. She closed it tight with the intricate silver handle. She opened the second heel and placed a chip of Sebastian’s bone. She closed the opening. She was ready.
The lights in The Temple went down. A heart-pounding bass loop was triggered from the sound board and began to reverberate throughout the venue, shaking walls and even bodies, forcing some fans to clutch their chests in fear of passing out. It was literally breathtaking. Smoke billowed from fog machines at either end of the stage, heralding Cecilia’s arrival. It was beyond dramatic.
The bloodred curtain rose and she appeared, alone, like a vision in the clouds, sacred heart guitar slung around her shoulder and cello bow in hand. There was a laptop and a tiny keyboard next to the mic stand. Lasers exploded like the big bang, thrusting outward, shining all around her like stars forming in empty space over and around her head and shoulders, through the gap between her legs, and into the crowd. The sheer snow-white chiffon minidress, emblazoned with music notes, that hung mid-thigh was illuminated, glistening in the spotlight. The beams danced and caressed her in a rainbow wash of color, like a hologram. No band, just her.
“Hello, Brooklyn!” she shouted and another roar, even bigger than the first, went up.
For a moment, even Daniel Less was lost in the spectacle, enjoying a certain pride in authorship. This was truly a superstar, he mused from the shadows. The kind that comes along only rarely. He witnessed firsthand the intense connection and a rawness of talent that he’d only heard about until now. He was struck by her presentation. It was majestic both in hue and in purpose. Jet-black hair streaked with purple. Raccoon mascara to match. A headpiece of metal and crystal spikes, entwined with lavender roses, armor plates fit like dinner gloves along her arms and hands, leaving her fingers uncovered. Part Joan of Arc. Part virgin bride.
A warrior. A messenger. A queen.
Then the spotlight rested on her guitar. Agnes was speechless—all three together on the stage. The crowd screamed at the sight of all of their milagros.
Cecilia strummed her instrument in a way that represented each of them perfectly—Agnes got a ballad, slow strum. Lucy got a pop strum. Sebastian got a sexy, rockabilly strum. And Cecilia, she gave herself a deafening, powerful strum, and then ripped into a blistering and seamless set of covers, going from her earliest days on the indie club scene to originals from her new album. Punk, rock, metal, EDM, even folk and the icy-cool No Wave Teutonic ballad “Janitor of Lunacy”—she touched all the bases. The new songs were deeply personal but catchy and sat comfortably next to the more familiar songs from the Cure, the Damned, Eno, Johnny Cash, the Velvet Underground, and more, inspiring singalongs from the crowd to songs that they’d never heard.
Midway through her set, she parked the guitar on its stand and settled in over the keyboard setup on the laptop stand. In an intense evening of theatrical moments, this was to be the most dramatic.
“This is not a love song,” she shouted into the mic and began.
The sound of a harmonium filled the room. A neoclassical and ominous atonal sequence of repeated phrases. Images of saints and sinners filled the screen behind her. Scenes of desire, tenderness, and violence. The music and pictures accompanied Cecilia as she sang:
Janitor of lunacy
Paralyze my infancy
Petrify the empty cradle
Bring hope to them and me
Janitor of tyranny
Testify my vanity
Mortalize my memory
Deceive the devil’s deed
The crowd was rapt. Swaying in time. Feeling her every word. The song, which was rarely heard outside of hardcore critics’ circles and lovers of musical obscurities, was delivered with uncompromising passion. Like a rock standard.
Tolerate my jealousy
Recognize the desperate need
Janitor of lunacy
Identify my destiny
Revive the living dream
Forgive their begging scream
Seal the giving of their seed
Disease the breathing grief
The choice of a Nico cover was lost on most of the apostles, but not on Less. Like that great, haunting, self-destructive beauty of Warhol Factory legend, that infamous Chelsea Girl, Cecilia was pouring out her innermost feelings in an echo-FX voice filled with fire and ice. She made this version her own, definitive, spot on. She inhabited each biting and despairing verse as if she’d written it. And true to her nature, there was a message in it. She knew the message, Less had instantly gasped, was for him.
Only him.
3 “You okay?” Jesse practically shouted in Agnes’s ear.
“I need to sit down for a second. Can we go back to the dressing room?”
“Sure,” Jesse said, a little confused. He tapped the security guard in front of him and pointed to Agnes and to the backstage exit. The guard nodded and led them out of the sweaty venue and into the cool dressing room. Agnes sat down awkwardly, which Jesse noted.
A closed-circuit broadcast of Cecilia’s performance was playing and they both looked up to watch. The sound was tinny and thin, nothing like the wall of noise Cecilia was bringing just beyond the soundproof walls. Nevertheless, Agnes was grateful for the diversion. She could sense a million questions running around in Jesse’s mind and she really didn’t feel like talking about it.
“That’s better,” she said and exhaled, taking off her coat and wiping some sweat from her face.
“Really? ’Cause you look awful.”
“How sweet,” Agnes replied, mildly irritated. “I’m not one of those plastic girls you write about, Jesse.”
“Used to write about, Agnes.” The irritation now evident in his voice as well. “What the hell is going on with you?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired of crowds, that’s all.”
“Bullshit. If you aren’t honest with me, I can’t help you.”
“I’m not asking for help, Jesse. Besides, no one could help me even if I wanted it.”
“Give it a try.”
“I’m pregnant, okay,” Agnes raged, grabbing his shirt and pulling his face to hers. “I’m pregnant,” she repeated softly.
Jesse was stunned, but the gossip blogger in him instantly understood the gravity and the urgency.
“Whose is it?”
“I don’t want to talk about it. You wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“Okay, so you tell me you’re pregnant and now you don’t want to talk about it. . . .”
“You won’t believe
me.”
“That’s not really the point, Agnes. Pregnancy isn’t something you can keep secret. Trust me, I know. And once those people who follow you around find out you’re knocked up, it isn’t going to sit well. You understand?”
“That’s what my mother said,” Agnes offered tearfully. “She thinks it’s like an hysterical pregnancy anyway. Like I’m insane or something.”
“Why would she think that?” Jesse prodded, almost afraid to hear her response. “Whose is it?”
Agnes took a deep breath. Gathered herself. And opened her eyes wide.
“Sebastian’s.”
Jesse’s face reddened and he threw his arms up in the air. He was apoplectic. “I think she’s right. You are batshit crazy!”
“I don’t care if you believe me. If anyone believes me, Jesse.”
“C’mon, Agnes. Getting pregnant by a dead dude? That’s a stretch even in this fucked-up nightmare we’re living.”
“It’s real. I’m having it, Jesse.”
Jesse rubbed at his forehead and paced the dressing room, running scenarios through his head like a military strategist or a crisis public relations manager, none of which had a good result as far as he could figure.
“So this is why Cecilia was more concerned about you than about herself,” he mumbled. “You need to leave here, Agnes. I’ll have Tony send some of his guys with you.”
“I’m not leaving Cecilia.”
“Frey is going to find out. He might already know, Agnes.”
“I’m staying until the end for her, Jesse.”
Jesse reluctantly relented. “Okay. Let’s go.”
As they left the dressing room backstage and returned to the venue he texted Tony.
Meet me near the stage. If anything goes down get Agnes out of here. Safe.
Tony replied, What about Cecilia?
Jesse didn’t reply.
13 Sweat poured down Cecilia’s face, purple and black streaks of mascara trailing along her cheeks to her chin. She was working hard. Giving her all for the crowd and for herself. She closed with blistering versions of Public Image Limited’s “Flowers of Romance,” a bitter mainstay from her first shows, and the title track from her album, “Save Yourself.”