Opening Act Read online

  He understood her meaning. She was pretending to ask where he’d be now, without everything she’d done for him, but in reality she was threatening him. Where would you be, she was saying, if I dumped you now? Where would you be if I walked away and took Daddy with me?

  Shay wasn’t stupid. He knew he was trapped. And he knew she knew it, too. That’s why she’d agreed to his, in retrospect, ridiculous no-strings-attached rule before their first roll in the hay. She knew he wouldn’t be able to cry foul when she quietly changed the rules to hers. Which is exactly what she’d done. She knew that nothing in his life meant more to him than Overlords of Loneliness, and she’d given him the means to take them right to the pinnacle of commercial success. “Daddy,” after all, was the near-legendary Halbert Hasque, whose string of clients weren’t just pop-idol gods, they were millionaires to a man. He could do the same for Shay.

  And all Shay had to do was let Pernita invade and lay claim to every single corner of his life. To own him entirely. To run him exclusively. Well…let her try. She obviously thought she had him where she wanted him. But he had his own ideas. There were still some small corners of his life that were safe from her, and he meant to keep them that way.

  She’d turned up her nose, for instance, at attending the concert’s after-party. She was far too self-important to allow herself to mingle with mere fans. So that meant last night had belonged to Shay alone, and he had every intention of building on it. But not right away. Pernita—appeased by his obedience and rendered sweet by the sugar of the cinnamon buns—came over, sat in his lap, and put her arms around his neck.

  He knew exactly what that was prelude to. So he went there, without a grumble, and hey, why shouldn’t he? Pernita was a lot of fun when she finally let him take charge.

  And he did take charge. In the bedroom, with her sprawled out beneath him, naked but for her designer scent, she looked like a fragile little china doll. He could almost believe her to be vulnerable, breakable.

  But then he pressed into her, and her hip bones, which jutted out from her taut, smooth stomach, stabbed into his thighs; they were sharp as hatchets. And the nipples of her pert, creamy breasts scraped across his chest like sandpaper. Pernita only looked soft and frail—all you had to do was touch her to realize she was a woman of wire and glass.

  So he felt no hesitation in going at her like a locomotive. He knew she could take it. And when she wrapped her legs around him and urged him on, faster, harder—well, he was only too happy to oblige.

  To oblige her, that is. He skillfully, energetically brought her close—closer—to the convulsive brink of a tantric Niagara Falls, and then pushed her over, and watched her fall, flailing and howling in wild ecstasy.

  But he didn’t follow her. As soon as she fell limp, he reined himself in and declined to finish. This was one more thing he refused to give up to her, if possible. He’d choose when, and with whom, he’d ride the joy train. This took a degree of willpower he didn’t usually have at his command; but at least today, his killer hangover made it easier.

  Did she have any idea? If she did, she pretended otherwise. But then everything about their love-making was pretense. For example, the way, at the height of their thrashing across the sheets, she accused him of “punishing” her. But it was never really punishment. It was a charade of punishment, her little gift to him so he could exorcize his anger and give him the illusion of power. Yes, he took control of their sex life, but only because she let him. That was Pernita in a nutshell. For her, submission wasn’t even submission. For her, it was just another tactic.

  Afterwards, while she was in the shower, he crept back to the kitchen table and opened his laptop again. He went to Zee Gleason’s Facebook page, pulled up her friends list, and searched it for William Blake.

  And there he—or rather she—was.

  There was no photo of Loni. Instead the profile picture was an image of one of Blake’s paintings, of a muscular angel. On the ABOUT page, there was no information on birth date or current city or anything else remotely personal. There was only this passage:

  He who binds to himself a joy

  Does the wingèd life destroy;

  But he who kisses the joy as it flies

  Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

  He grinned. There was no doubt in his mind. There might be other people, other Blake devotees, who had Facebook pages like this, but there was no way that Zee Gleason, of all people, could know more than one.

  He clicked ADD FRIEND and put in a simple message:

  Tell me more.

  CHAPTER 6

  The alarm on Loni’s phone bugled to life. She snapped out of a sound sleep, groped around her nightstand for it, and, when she found it, tapped Snooze, again wishing for a tangible object she could slam down on.

  As she lay in the warmth of her bed, enjoying the act of putting off her day, she wondered why she had bothered to set her alarm at all. Force of habit, probably. It wasn’t as if she had anything she had to get up for…any place to go, anyone to see, anything to do. And something about that utter emptiness caused a little wriggle of discontent in her breast that wouldn’t let her go back to sleep. It was a paradox: the pointlessness of getting up was upsetting her so much that she might as well get up.

  She sat on the side of her bed and looked at her phone. She had the urge to check her text messages and e-mails but was afraid there would be something from Byron, and she wasn’t sure what she’d say to him. She wasn’t even sure how she felt toward him. Was she still mad at him? Had she even been mad at him? Everything about last night was sort of hazy. That brain-scraping concert. That absurd party…

  She felt a sudden need to use the bathroom. She got up, opened her bedroom door, and went out into the apartment wearing just the oversize T-shirt she always slept in. She was just passing the couch when something on it moved, and she nearly leapt through the roof. She backed away and gave a startled shout.

  There was a man lying there. A big man. He was curled up with his face against the cushions, so she had no idea who it was. She was pretty sure she didn’t know anyone this beefy. Was he an intruder? It seemed unlikely. Why would anyone break in just to crash out on the sofa? Also, he was fully dressed, but he’d removed his shoes and set them by one of the couch legs. So, obviously no marauding thug.

  He’d stirred at the sound of her voice and now quarter-turned his head and looked at her.

  “Oh, hi,” he said.

  And she did recognize him. That is, she realized she’d seen him before. And very recently. She just couldn’t remember where.

  “You scared the hell out of me,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he said, rolling all the way over with a grunt of effort. He sat up and scratched his head.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  He looked at her and sighed, as if tired of being the guy no one ever remembers. “Lockwood Mott,” he said. “You’re Loni, right? We met last night.”

  “Oh,” she said, as it all came back to her. “Right. Sorry! What are you doing here?”

  “I just wanted to make sure your friend was okay. She was a little…shaky last night. I figured I’d stick around just in case.”

  “Zee? Is she all right?” Before he could answer, she said, “Wait, wait…I really have to pee. Just hold that thought.” She hopped over to the bathroom and tried to turn the doorknob, but it had been locked. She rapped on the door. “Zee? You in there?”

  “Uh-huh,” came the reply. “Getting ready for my follow-up interview.”

  “You be out soon?”

  “Couple minutes.”

  “Just, kind of a pee emergency here, is all.”

  “I said, a couple minutes,” she snapped through the door—and Loni was taken aback. She’d never heard Zee sound so abrasive before.

  She went back to the living room, where Lockwood Mott was slipping on his shoes. “I heard that,” he said. “She’s obviously fine. I’ll just head out.”

  “No, wait,” she said,
gesturing for him to stay. “I’m sure she wants to thank you.”

  He smiled at her like she was naive or something. “You’re sure of that, huh?”

  Loni glanced back at the bathroom door, then looked back at him. “What happened last night?”

  “Nothing,” he said, finishing tying his laces.

  She blinked. “Nothing? She got upset over nothing?”

  “The worst kind of nothing,” he said, sitting up again.

  Loni sat down in the chair across the coffee table from him. “Oh,” she said. “Didn’t work out with…what’s his name. Shay Dayton. That it?”

  “Got it in one,” he said, sitting back and yawning.

  “Well.” She gave a little sigh of admiration. “You’re one hell of a stand-up guy, aren’t you? Considering how you must’ve imagined the night would go.”

  “Hey.” He shrugged. “I invited her. I was responsible for what happened to her while she was there. Just doing the gentlemanly thing.”

  “That’s what I mean.” She beamed a smile at him.

  He shook his head. “No one should be thanked for being a gentleman. It should be, like, every guy’s default setting.”

  “Well, there are a lot of should-be’s in the world.”

  He nodded. “Got it in one again.”

  There was a small silence. Loni opened her laptop, which was on the coffee table between them, figuring she might as well check her mail while Zee was finishing. Then she remembered her manners, looked back up at Lockwood, and said, “Get you a coffee or something?”

  He made as though to get up. “Nah. I should head out.”

  “No, really. Just wait to say good-bye.” She looked over her shoulder and called out, “Zee?”

  “ONE. MINUTE.” was the snarled reply.

  Loni looked at Lockwood in surprise. “What exactly happened to her?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Not really my place to say. But I gotta wish you good luck with her.”

  “Me? Why me?”

  He rose to his feet. “Forget I said anything.”

  Zee came out of the bathroom, fully made up and dressed except for her stockinged feet. She saw Loni and Lockwood and came to a halt. “All yours,” she said to Loni, while looking at Lockwood.

  “Nice to see you again,” Loni said, and she scurried to the bathroom.

  After Loni had entered the bathroom and shut the door, Zee turned to Lockwood. “Thanks. It was sweet of you to stay. You didn’t have to.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  She gave him a look that made it clear that would be her preference, too. “Sorry I was such a mess.”

  He dismissed this with a wave of his hand.

  “You didn’t tell her anything, did you?” she asked, nodding toward the bathroom.

  He looked shocked at the idea. “Not my story to tell.”

  She grinned in thanks. “You want some coffee?”

  “No, no,” he said. “Gotta run. But…” He half turned, and gave her a sly look. “Check on you later?”

  She shook her head. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. But can I?”

  “Really. It’s not necessary.”

  “Right. But can I?”

  She wanted to be angry, but somehow found herself laughing instead. “You can try,” she said. “I can’t guarantee I’ll be here.”

  He winked. “Chance I’ll have to take.”

  Then he gave her a courtly little bow and left the apartment.

  Zee sat down in the chair Loni had just vacated and pulled her boots from under the coffee table. When she looked up, she noticed that Loni’s laptop was open and that her Facebook page was up. As she pulled on her boots, she noticed that there was a new Friend Request. She suddenly went very still—her boot still only halfway on her foot. She had a gut feeling about that Friend Request…a very bad gut feeling. She looked up at the bathroom door. Still shut. And then something came over her…a kind of willful evil. She reached over and clicked on the Friend Request icon.

  And yes. She was right.

  There he was.

  Shay Dayton.

  And there was a message from him.

  “Tell me more.”

  A sort of red haze blinded her for a moment. Her fingers seemed to dart across the keyboard of their own volition. Before her mind had caught up with them, they’d denied the Friend Request, erased the message, and blocked Loni’s—or rather “William Blake’s”—page from any further incursions by Shay Dayton.

  She heard the toilet flush and then the faucet turn on. She sat back and finished pulling on her boot. A moment later Loni reappeared.

  Loni wasn’t surprised to find Lockwood had left, but she was a little perplexed by the strange look on Zee’s face: wide-eyed, like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “Everything okay?” she asked, drying her hands on the back of the T-shirt, where it hung over her derriere.

  Zee got to her feet and crossed the apartment to fetch her purse. “Mm-hm!” she said brightly. “Just running late for my interview!”

  Loni looked at the rooster clock that hung in the kitchen. “You have half an hour. And you said it’s only fifteen minutes from here.”

  A little spasm of what looked like guilt distorted Zee’s face. “Have to stop at the pharmacy first. Pick up a prescription.” She laughed—a brittle, nervous laugh. “You know how slow they are.”

  Loni had no idea what was going on, but she was willing to take Zee at face value. “Okay. I thought for a minute you were mad at me or something.”

  The weird laugh again. “No, no.” Then she looked toward the door, the way a prisoner might look at an escape hatch.

  “Lockwood’s nice,” Loni offered, trying to be casual.

  “Mm-hm.” Zee looked back at her, and her eyes looked almost desperate. “Late,” she said again.

  Loni shrugged. “Okay. See you later.” She felt that something was definitely wrong and was anxious to set it right before Zee left. “Want me to whip up something for lunch?” she asked as Zee headed for the door. “Ramen noodles with my special sauce?”

  Zee shook her head. “Lunch date in town,” she said with a brief, apologetic smile. And with that, she was out the door like a shot.

  Loni looked after her for a while, as though she might pick up some clues in the aura she left behind, but ultimately it was useless. Something had traumatized Zee last night, and she meant to keep it a secret from her. Well, as long as Zee wasn’t mad at her…Loni must have just imagined that.

  She sat down in front of her laptop. Her Facebook news feed stared her in the face, but it couldn’t really rouse her interest. She knew it would only depress her to see updates from all her friends about the vital, purposeful lives they were leading, while she lingered on in a state of something like inertia.

  The whole day was spread out before her. The only thing that might possibly fill even a little part of it was Byron. Should she see him or not? She decided to think about it while showering. Afterward, feeling refreshed, she stood before the mirror and buffed her hair dry, and decided, not.

  It was shaping up to be a nice day; a little overcast, but the yellowish tinge to the otherwise gray clouds seemed to deepen the green of the lawns and trees outside her window. She’d spend the day just walking and thinking and taking in whatever life she could. It was like that Blake line: “To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.” It had been a long time since she simply looked around and marveled at the simplicity of everything, and its wonderful connectedness.

  When she picked up her phone, she saw there was a voice mail from Byron. She chose to not even listen to it. She had picked out her mood for the day the same way she’d picked out her clothes—a summery halter top and old, comfortable jeans. She wasn’t changing either one, or allowing anyone to change them for her. She popped the phone in her backpack, then swung the backpack over one shoulder and left the a
partment.

  In the vestibule she found the landlady, who was picking up the advertising circulars that had collected on the floor by the mailboxes.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Milliken,” Loni said, very deliberately using the woman’s name in the hopes that it might prompt Mrs. Milliken to return the favor. But no go. She just looked up at Loni with her bizarre two-toned face and said, “Oh. I thought it was somebody.”

  “No, nobody at all. Just me. One of the people who actually, y’know…lives here.”

  “If it was somebody, I’d have to speak to them about these flyers,” Mrs. Milliken said. “Just because people don’t want them is no excuse for throwing them on the floor this way.”

  “I agree.”

  “I do not run a barnyard. This is a respectable residence. People who rent here need to show some respect.”

  “You are so right.”

  “Also, the discarded rubber bands. This is not to be tolerated. The people who do take the advertising circulars are in the habit of removing the rubber bands and looping them around the inside doorknob.” She reached into the pocket of her housecoat and produced a wiggling mass of colorful rubber strands. “Look at how many I found. You could barely turn the knob. In an emergency situation, that could mean life or death. Life or death,” she repeated, for emphasis. “Plus, these things carry germs. Fortunately I’m well stocked on antibacterial soap. I’ll need it after I discard these. Filthy.” She put them back in her pocket.

  “Well…there it is,” Loni said, growing a little weary of the conversation now.

  “I will have quite an earful to deliver, the next time I see any of my residents,” she said, and the clear implication was that Loni was not a resident, was not even here, did not actually exist. She was basically just talking to thin air.

  Loni reshouldered her backpack strap, which had slipped a little while Mrs. Milliken was droning on. She smiled and said, “Have a really great day,” and scooted by the landlady out into the warm, humid summer air.

  For a little while she was almost envious of Mrs. Milliken. Imagine a life in which the biggest problems you faced were discarded flyers and rubber bands. Or laundry room etiquette, which had been her ax to grind last week after someone complained about having her things moved from washer to dryer by someone else who wanted to use the former. Mrs. Milliken had gone right to work putting together a list of rules for residents who used the laundry room, which she had managed to tell Loni about while at the same time implying that the news didn’t apply to Loni, because Loni was not a real human being on the face of the earth.