Opening Act Read online

  He sure as hell hoped not. He couldn’t imagine anything worse than Pernita being even more proprietary of him.

  “Am I okay to go?” he said, having examined himself and found no bandages or any sign of treatment.

  She nodded. “You’re fine. They just gave you a sedative, ’cause you were apparently raving a bit when they brought you in.”

  “I was?”

  “Yes. It’s silly. You kept going on about whether a forest is still a forest if it’s lying down. Or something. I think you must’ve bonked your head.”

  He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Probably.”

  As they made their way down the corridor toward the exit, he said, “Calling 911 is hardly the mark of a hero. It’s what any idiot in that situation would do.”

  She gently brushed the hair out of his face. “Don’t sell yourself short,” she said. Then she slipped her arm through his and added, in a breathy little whisper, “Hero.”

  It wasn’t till the next day that he figured out why she’d reacted the way she had. The news of Shay and Jonah’s accident was a big local story covered by all the newscasts. There was footage of the wrecked car, some concert clips of both Overlords and Jonah and the Wail, and there was an interview with Halbert Hasque, who said that Shay reacted “like an absolute hero” and probably saved Jonah’s life.

  It was ridiculous, of course. Jonah’s life hadn’t been in any danger; he’d just been banged up. The only reason he was even unconscious was probably from all the “party mix” he’d ingested. (And in truth, the only favor Shay had done him was to take that vial of poison and hurl it far, far away before the ambulance arrived.) But of course, that wouldn’t be a news story. The flat, unglamorous, messy truth of the matter—that Shay and Jonah had gotten exactly what they deserved for acting out the way they had—served no one. So why settle for the truth, when the razor-sharp mind of Halbert Hasque saw a way to make a fictionalized version profitable for everyone involved?

  That’s why Pernita hadn’t been angry, or accusatory, or even curious. The accident on the highway was a much, much bigger boost to Shay’s career than any dinner with record executives ever could have been.

  CHAPTER 19

  So, it turned out all those sappy songs about following your dream were just a load of bullshit.

  Loni lay on the couch, staring up at the ceiling, and actually found herself missing her crack—the hairline fissure in her room at Zee’s place, which had been the focus of so much of her scrutiny and analysis. If she’d had something like that still in her life, some proof of the inherent crappiness and shoddiness of everything, everywhere, then she’d never have fooled herself into thinking she could ever achieve anything, ever create anything lasting or beautiful.

  By rights, she should hate Shay Dayton, too, with his yammering on about “jumping the barricade.” But she couldn’t. He, at least, had admitted it was a risk. You jump the barricade, you might get shot. And Loni was certainly feeling bullet-riddled at the moment.

  She’d drawn a pretty fair crowd for her reading, standing room only, even. Props to social media. Mindlessly inviting everyone she knew—students, fellow faculty, friends from years gone by, not to mention a pretty good swath of people she didn’t know at all (any unfamiliar name that floated her way on Facebook or Twitter)—had really done the job.

  Too bad she couldn’t say the same about her poems.

  The reaction to them had been polite at best, bewildered at worst. Just the memory of all those blank faces staring at her whenever she looked up from her book—faces that seemed to ask, Is that it? Do we clap now? Or is there more?—made her want to pull the blanket up over her face and just hide there till the crack of doom or the zombie apocalypse or whatever.

  She’d managed to sell nineteen copies, which hadn’t sounded so bad till she factored in that she’d brought a box of fifty. Byron had told her she was nuts. “Fifty copies at a reading? Jesus, Loni, Seamus Heaney doesn’t sell that.”

  “Well, no, he wouldn’t,” Loni had replied as she packed up her unsold stock. “Being dead.”

  It was the kind of cheap shot she usually refrained from scoring off him, but she was angry at his never having supported her from the moment she’d told him what she was doing. “For God’s sake,” he’d said, “what does the world need with another twenty-something chick poet? Do you really think you’ve got anything to say that hasn’t been said countless times before by women significantly more gifted than you?” And when she’d accused him of cruelty, he’d gotten all shrill about it and said, “You stupid bitch, it’s kindness. I’m trying to save you from the critical lambasting you’re going to get when you go public with your little book of valentines.”

  And then, when she’d compiled the first manuscript, he—now contrite and so very, very sorry he’d ever said a thing to discourage her—asked to see it, and against her better judgment she’d let him. He’d immediately taken it to the kitchen table, sat down with it, and started reading while she did the dinner dishes. After five minutes, he’d taken out a red pencil and started marking it up.

  She’d thrown down the dish towel, whirled on him, and said, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  He’d looked up at her, completely astonished. “What? Do you want my help or not?”

  “Not. Jesus, Byron, you asked to read it. I agreed to let you. That’s all.”

  He’d looked down at the manuscript, then up at her again. “You’re awfully goddamn confident for someone who actually wrote, ‘the burthen of the insubstantial.’ ”

  So she’d taken it away from him, and he hadn’t read it again until it was printed in book form, at which time she could hardly stop him. His complete silence with regard to his opinion was deafeningly eloquent. And then, of course, he’d capped it all off by actually getting into some kind of fight at the actual reading. He had, in fact, actually physically punched someone. In a bookstore.

  Not just that, but he’d been all proud about it, strutted around afterward like he was waiting for her thanks or something. Was he out of his mind? After dumping all over her work in private, he thought she’d thank him for going off like an ape at someone who’d just been talking while she read? She hadn’t even been aware of any muttered conversation in the audience until Byron had drawn her attention by getting all High Noon over it.

  She’d managed to keep her composure and continued reading through the entire incident. She wanted to pretend it had never even happened, but afterwards it seemed like it was all anyone could talk about. Not Loni’s work—not the verses she’d slaved over, sometimes for years—but her Neanderthal boyfriend avenging her honor.

  There’d been a moment, too, when someone had mentioned the guy he’d confronted being a musician, someone who was currently in the news. Loni knew that Shay Dayton was in LA doing publicity and had immediately thought, Could it be? But then some young blond guy had said another name, Judah or Jonah or something, and Loni felt ridiculous that she’d ever thought it a possibility that Shay could tear himself away from his celebrity dream life to come and see her, even if he’d known she was doing a public reading, which of course he didn’t.

  And yet just that flickering thought of Shay Dayton, that momentarily conjured image of lean, leonine Shay, with his careless grin and his what-the-hell attitude, served to make preening, self-important Byron look all the more asinine. What was she doing with him? Why had she put herself under his protection—his control? Had she really been that afraid of living life on her own terms?

  She’d refused to speak to him on the drive back to campus, and when they got home she’d refused to sleep with him. So there she was on the couch, unable to get comfortable on its lumpy cushions and kept awake by contemplating the wreckage of her life. What she wanted, more than anything, was to get up and walk out. Leave all this behind and start over somewhere else.

  But she couldn’t.

  There was no place for her to go.

  She’d just managed to drift o
ff into a restless, fitful sleep when she became aware of someone in the room and sat up with a start.

  It was Byron, in his wrinkled cotton bathrobe.

  “This is stupid,” he said. “Come to bed.”

  And so she gathered up the blanket, got up, and followed him to bed.

  That was the way it had to be, apparently. The way it had been since she’d arrived here. The way she’d chosen for it to be.

  Byron would call the shots for her.

  Byron would tell her what to do.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 20

  Zee stamped the snow off her boots, then entered the apartment, fell into the first available chair, and pulled them off. She massaged her toes to warm them up, then padded into the kitchen and put the teapot on to boil. When her phone vibrated, she took it from her pocket, checked the screen to see who was calling, and smiled. She tapped Talk and said, “Hey, rock star.”

  “Hey, clerical-support star. What’s the weather there?”

  “Cold. What’s yours?”

  “Not bad. We’re in Portland. Forties here.”

  She grimaced as she got a cup down from the cabinet. “It should be colder there. That far north.”

  “Sorry. I’ll put in a complaint for you.”

  “Tour’s still kicking ass, though?”

  “Tour’s kicking major ass. We’ve built up what our esteemed manager likes to call ‘momentum.’ ”

  She took a teabag from a foil packet and dropped it into the cup. “Oooh, fancy talk. How’s everybody? Baby, Jimmy, Shay?”

  “All good. Trina, however…”

  She smiled, anticipating a good story. “Trina, however?”

  “Trina had the idea, at our last gig, to dive off the stage and do some crowd surfing.”

  “Ah?”

  “Alas, the crowd did not have the same idea.”

  She gasped, then laughed. “Oh, no! What happened?”

  “Fractured pelvis. Not serious enough for surgery, but she has to play tonight’s gig sitting on a stool.”

  “Oh, my God! Poor Kid Daredevil.”

  He groaned. “You are the only human being on the planet who calls her that.”

  “Well, someone has to.”

  “No, Zee. Please believe me. No one has to.”

  She leaned back against the counter to wait for the water to boil. “So next week is the Palladium, right?”

  “Next week is the Palladium. You are correct.”

  “You stoked for it? Mr. Headliner?”

  “I believe it is no exaggeration to say that I am stoked.”

  She sighed dreamily. “Wish I could be there.”

  “ ‘Wish’?” he said in a flutey voice. “Did somebody say ‘wish’?”

  She furrowed her brow. “Um. Yes? Me, just now?”

  “Well, then it’s your lucky day, young lady!”

  A beat. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, I am inviting you on an all-expenses-paid trip to beautiful Los Angeles, California, where you will be wined and dined by actual rock-and-roll musicians and probably later ravished by one of them. Certain conditions may apply.”

  She blinked. “Are…are you serious?”

  “Do I ever kid?” He paused. “Actually, yeah, I almost always kid. But not this time. Really, I’m serious. I’d love to have you there.”

  “But…can you afford it?”

  “Can I ever! Rock star here, remember.” He dropped his voice a little. “Seriously, we may have to eat mainly fast food when you get here. But beyond that, I’m totally good.”

  She felt as though she might cry. “This…this is really the sweetest thing anyone’s ever…” Her throat closed up and she couldn’t go on.

  “Aww, shut up,” he said. “Shut up or I’ll disinvite you.”

  She laughed a little but still found it hard to form words. When she was able, she managed to say, “Thank you. I accept.”

  “Ssssssweet!” he said. “Though I kinda knew you would. Me being a total fox in every conceivable way, and all.”

  “But…listen. Lockwood.”

  “I’m listening,” he said, sounding suddenly wary.

  “Yes, it’s true, I’d love to be there, I’d love to see you.”

  A terse pause. “So far no problem.”

  “But I have a condition of my own.”

  He sighed. “My momma warned me about women like you. What is it?”

  “If I’m flying to California, I want to go and spend a day with Loni first.”

  Another pause. “That’s it? That’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  He laughed. “Jesus. Of course. What the hell. Not a problem.”

  “It’s just…” The teapot began to whistle, so she took it from the burner and poured the boiling water into the cup. The teabag danced around the rim like it was being tickled. “She’s in kind of a bad place right now. She could use some cheering up.”

  “Seriously? But wasn’t she, like, publishing her poems and shit, and making this whole new career for herself?”

  “Well, yeah.” She stirred a couple of teaspoons of honey into the tea. “Only it didn’t go so well. Her book kind of tanked, and she had a reading where everyone just sort of sat there. They didn’t know what to make of her.”

  “In my experience, it’s only the really original talents who have that effect. She should keep at it till they catch up to where she’s at.”

  “Easier said than done. She told me it was awful. The only time she got any reaction out of them was during her patter between poems. Occasionally they’d laugh.”

  “Listen, she’s just being excessively sensitive. You ever hear what happened at the first Overlords gig? They threw bottles at us, man. Some of them not even empty. Jimmy got clipped by one.”

  She took a sip of the tea, then made a face and smacked her lips. Too hot. She set it down to cool a bit. “Yeah, but…she said they were ‘polite.’ Like they were just humoring her. For Loni, that’s worse than having a bottle thrown at you.

  He snorted. “Forgive me, sweet thang. But as someone who’s actually had a bottle thrown at him, I’m gonna say, that is oh so very bullshit.”

  She laughed. “Well. Maybe. Anyway, she’s been in a funk for months. She doesn’t really like teaching, she’s bored…and I’m picking up that she’s over her thing with Byron, too.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “Yeah. She never actually says so. But…I’ve talked to her a couple of times. And when she mentions him, there’s just this…deadness in her voice.”

  “Huh. That’s very…huh.”

  “And I just feel…I feel a little…responsible.” Her throat started to constrict again.

  “You?” he asked, obviously surprised. “How can you possibly be responsible for that?”

  And suddenly—without warning—something came right up from the depths of Zee’s core and started spilling from her lips. “Oh, Lockwood,” she said, “I’m such a lousy human being! The worst. I fucked it up for Loni and Shay. I did. I went behind her back and did completely vicious things. I was just…it was a craziness. A bad kind of…I…I thought I was doing the right thing. I mean—I guess I still would’ve done it anyway, but I really thought she was meant to be with Byron, and now I know she’s not, and I’m the one who pushed her into that—”

  “Now, wait,” he said. “You may have acted out, yeah, but she’s a grown woman, and her choices are her responsibility alone, and—”

  “She’s my best friend,” she said, and tears rolled down her cheeks and plummeted onto her stockinged feet. “I’m supposed to be the one who looks out for her, and instead I’m the one who shut down her thing with Shay, and she’s still totally into him. I mean, she almost never even mentions him, I’ve heard her say his name maybe twice, but both times it was like—like the sound of an open wound—I don’t even know how to describe—”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” he said. “Calm down!”

  “I went on her Facebook account, and
I blocked him,” she said. “At the very beginning. Right after they met. Then I pretended I was her to that Pernita woman and told her to keep Shay away from me. I did that. Me.”

  She paused to catch her breath, collect herself, and wait for his reaction. She knew what must be coming. He’d have to call it quits with her, take back the invitation to LA, hang up, and never speak to her again. Why had she lost control this way? Why had she told him everything, just out of the blue?

  Because, she realized, she loved him.

  And it was too late. Too late for that to matter.

  “Okay,” he said, in a very low voice. “Okay. So. You did that to her. Okay.” And he emitted a long, low whistle.

  “I know,” she said. “I can’t believe I ever…Oh, God, I wish I could just rewind and—and—”

  “Well, you can’t. You can only go forward. So.” He took a deep breath. “What are you going to do?”

  She sniffled, then wiped her nose on her sleeve. “What…what am I going to do?”

  “Yeah. Y’know. To make it right.”

  She shook her head. “I…I don’t know. How can I possibly? I…I don’t have even a single idea.”

  “It’s okay,” he said, and she was amazed to hear a smile in his voice. “I do.”

  CHAPTER 21

  “So, that’s the tour,” said Loni, leading Zee back down the commons toward the parking lot.

  Zee took a deep breath and then said, “Ooookay. This is really a bit more…everything than I imagined.”

  Loni blinked. “What did you imagine?”

  “That it would be…I don’t know. Like the college campuses in the movies. All ivy-covered and green, with middle-aged men in bow ties and long coats running around.” She looked around her. “This…this is like a whole town. I mean, it is a whole town. Traffic running through it and everything.”

  Loni sighed. “Spend a couple weeks here. You’ll learn how small it really is.”

  “And these students,” she said, as a pair of willowy, chattering blondes sauntered by. “They all look so…young. I mean, for God’s sake. I’m not even that much older than them. What is that?”