Opening Act Read online

  “Not so much a band,” she said. “It’s a small ensemble—more urban folk–type stuff. But really beautiful. It’s just him, a pianist, and a bass player. They’re called Agency of Record.”

  Loni smiled. “I like it.” She raised her glass. “To Agency of Record.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Zee said, touching her glass to Loni’s.

  “So, no vocals, then?” Loni asked after she’d taken a swallow.

  “Oh, the piano player sings,” Zee said, as she reached for the bottle to refill the now nearly empty glasses. “Really well, in fact.”

  “I’d love to hear them sometime.”

  “You can,” she said, reaching over to top Loni off. “Tonight, in fact. They’re doing a set at Jehoshaphat’s.”

  “The coffee bar?” Loni said, holding the glass steady. “That’s going to be interesting. Slugging down some java after a bottle of wine.”

  “They serve alcohol after six,” she said, replacing the bottle in the ice bucket. “And Agency doesn’t go on till nine. We can have dinner first.”

  Loni ran her finger around the rim of the glass. “So…no hope of an Overlords reunion then, huh?”

  Zee sighed. “No. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much dead. As I think I told you, when their manager stranded them in LA, Baby, Jimmy, and Trina just decided, okay, this is where we live now. So they started up a new band, hired a few new members, and now they’re kind of a thing out there.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Loni said, crossing her legs on the cushions. “What did you tell me their name was?”

  “Kid Daredevil,” said Zee. “Trina’s the front man. Front woman.” She waved her hand. “Front person. Take your pick.”

  Loni laughed. “She sings?”

  “Kind of talk-sings, apparently. But well enough for it to work. She’s more of an all-around stage animal than a singer.”

  “Well, good for them. And…they didn’t ask Lockwood?”

  “They did ask Lockwood,” she said with a coy grin. “But he had better things to do.”

  Loni tried to modulate her voice to be as casual as possible. “And Shay?”

  Zee shrugged. “Ask Lockwood. He’ll know better than me.”

  She furrowed her brow. “Saying he’ll know ‘better’ means you must know something.”

  Zee raised her glass to her lips, repeated “Ask Lockwood,” and downed a mouthful of wine.

  Loni was, of course, wildly curious to find out what Shay was up to. She’d Googled him intermittently over the past few months, but after the Palladium gig and a few solo sightings in LA, he seemed to have disappeared off the face of the planet.

  But as eager as she was for news of him, she didn’t want to seem that way to Zee. So she quietly finished her wine and counted the minutes till she could, in fact, ask Lockwood.

  By the time they sat down at a table in Jehoshaphat’s, Loni was mindful of having already drunk a half-bottle of chardonnay, so she ordered a sparkling water for the show. But the slight wooziness she was feeling seemed to swell into sudden hallucinatory intoxication when the musicians came onto the stage—and Shay Dayton was one of them. Shay Dayton, in a white collarless shirt and skinny black jeans, with his hair pulled back and knotted at his nape. Shay Dayton, who then sat down at the piano.

  Shay Dayton sat down at the piano.

  Loni turned to shoot an inquiring look at Zee, but instead caught her exchanging a thumbs-up with Lockwood, who sat grinning behind his drum set.

  “Hi,” said Shay into a mic that angled over the center of the keyboard. “We’re Agency of Record, and this is our second Thursday night at Jehoshaphat’s. Thanks for coming out. Tell your friends.” A light dusting of applause.

  Shay adjusted the mic a little, then said, “This first tune is kind of special to me.” And he cleared his throat and played a few mournful yet achingly lovely opening bars. The bass player—an angular, dark-haired woman Loni didn’t recognize—joined in, and then, very subtly, so did Lockwood on snares.

  And then Shay sang.

  I live in a glass house, and it’s not thrown stones I fear

  But the hurled glances of passersby

  My feet are its foundation, and its hearth becomes my heart

  Casting light on my folly in every part

  I live here alone, bathed by moon and burned by sun

  Exposed to the world, yet truly seen by none,

  Exposed to the world, yet truly seen by none.

  The words, which cascaded into the room, propelled by his rich, creamy tenor, burned Loni from the inside out. How…how was this even possible? The bass player took an extended, gorgeously resonant solo, and then Shay came back in to repeat the lyrics. He held the last note as the bass line spiraled away from him, and Lockwood’s percussion retreated like the flap of a swallow’s wings heading for the horizon line.

  Loni realized she hadn’t breathed for the entirety of the song. She exhaled now and felt light-headed, like she might float away.

  After the applause died down, Shay said, “Those lyrics were a collaboration between myself and someone who is—who has been for some time—my muse, my inspiration, my…well, my anything else she wants to be. No terms, no conditions. All she has to do is ask.”

  And with that, he turned and looked right at Loni.

  She felt her heart galumph around her chest, like a pony loping the perimeter of a corral. Her face felt scorched. Moments passed, and other people began to turn and look her way. Finally, Zee nudged her and whispered, “Say something.”

  Loni, panicking—but in the happiest way imaginable—said, just loud enough to be heard, “I’ll consider the offer.”

  He smiled—sweet Lord baby Jesus on a Vespa, that smile!—and said, “Good enough for now.” He turned back to the piano.

  And the songs that followed! Brilliantly constructed, ingenious without being showy—the word that kept coming to Loni’s mind was athletic. Shay’s playing was spare but bold, and ravishingly masculine. His singing was shatteringly beautiful.

  But it was the words! The lava flow of lyrics, all so wonderfully textured, so evocative, so arresting. Loni was thrilled down to the core. Each song was like listening to the pages of a diary, condensed into a few brief lines—reduced like a sauce till what was left was the most concentrated, most potent flavor possible.

  She lost track of time. She lost track of herself. The room around her—the context of time and place, her orientation in the universe—all melted away like mist. There was only Shay, and his voice, and his melodies, and his words.

  And then, “Thanks, you’ve been great. We really appreciate your enthusiasm.” They were ending! “We’re Agency of Record—Senga Florin on bass, Lockwood Mott on drums, and I’m Shay Dayton. We’re here every Thursday. Stick around for Joanna Kehr.”

  And in the next moment, he was coming down from the stage and heading her way.

  Zee got up and said, “Excuse me. I’m going to go give a smooch to Lockwood. I won’t be long.” As she stepped away she added, “Just thirty, forty minutes tops.”

  And then Shay was right there at the table. “Mind?” he said, gesturing at the chair Zee had vacated.

  “Oh, I’m going to insist on it,” Loni replied. When he sat down, she turned to him and said, “That first tune…what the hell?”

  He grinned. “You remembered?”

  “Clearly not as well as you did.”

  He shook his head and reached for his back pocket. “I didn’t have to remember.” He pulled out his wallet, opened it, and extracted a tattered paper napkin, which he gently opened on the table between them.

  It was the very napkin on which they’d scribbled those lyrics, over tea and espresso that afternoon, nearly ten months before.

  “You kept it?”

  “Hell yeah,” he said, folding it back up and replacing it. “Didn’t think I’d let a document like that just get thrown out, did you? Future generations would never forgive me.”

  She rolled her eyes. “
You haven’t changed,” she said—but affectionately, radiantly. “What makes you think future generations will care?”

  He cocked an eyebrow. “One way to make sure they do.”

  She smiled. She didn’t know what was coming, but she could tell by his impish expression that it would make her laugh. “What’s that?”

  “By producing them ourselves.”

  She was only half right; it made her laugh and cry.

  Hours later—after so much talk, and so much hand-holding and soul-baring, and a few moments in the parking lot where she thought she might go mad from happiness and just crawl inside his skin and live there forever—she was back at Zee’s place, in her old room, in her old bed. This was at her insistence. She told Shay, slowly this time. Nice and easy. This voyage is a long one, and she wasn’t missing any of the stops along the way.

  She lay on her back and stared at the crack in the ceiling. Still there, still taunting her.

  But no…not taunting her. Teaching her. Trying to wake her up.

  Yes, it was a crack. It was still a crack. It would always be a crack.

  But it was also still a ceiling. One ceiling. A crack couldn’t change that. A crack couldn’t even come close. All the crack did was lend it character. Depth. Interest.

  She felt a jolt of inspiration, like her brain had been stung by a joy buzzer. She reached over to her nightstand, where she’d placed a copy of Venus in Retrograde, and grabbed the book, turning to the page on which “Fracture” was printed. She read it anew:

  A hairsbreadth divide that does not divine—meaning

  gutters when division uncouples a nullity—

  Constant ever, yet aspect alters:

  Your face in starlight—enchantment—

  Your face in daylight—error

  No, no. This was all wrong. She could see it now. She searched the nightstand drawer and found a pen, then began marking up the page, making changes. When she was finished, she sat back and read the result.

  A hairsbreadth divide that does not define—meaning

  lingers when division uncouples a duality

  Constant ever, yet aspect alters:

  Your face in starlight—hope

  Your face in daylight—home

  She smiled in satisfaction. Time for a second edition, she thought.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Dish Tillman is a writer and musician living in Chicago who, under another name, has published several novels and fronts a progressive alt-rock band.