Nine Volt Heart (33 page)

JASON

“M
Y BROTHER INSISTS ON
anchovies.”

“I’ll pass unless you want some.”

“No anchovies then. The red chilies hurt my throat, so I’ll
take out part for me and then add the chilies for you.”

After we returned to her house, Susi put us both to work
making an early supper. The homely tasks of chopping garlic and pitting kalamata
olives seemed to restore peace between us. We were making puttanesca, and Susi
forced us to take a long time, since the bread had to bake first. It beats me
when she found time to make the dough, leaving it to rise while we walked.
While I was in the shower? After she had worn me into a half-conscious pile of
humanoid flesh and left me to simper in her bed?

When I finished chopping the olives, she added them to the
garlic and capers simmering in olive oil and butter.

“Where’s a can of tomatoes, Susi? I’ll open it for you.”

She frowned. “If I used canned tomatoes, then it would truly
be whore’s spaghetti.”

“Susi, such talk.”

“That’s what puttanesca means. It’s a working girl’s quick
meal.”

“Then why isn’t it quick when you cook it? I’m starving.”

“I’ll chop the tomatoes. There’s fresh parsley in the
garden. Do you think you can recognize what to harvest?” She handed me kitchen
shears and sent me out back to her garden, where I proved so adept at the
hunter-gather role that I got a kiss when I returned. I did such a good job of
that, and pretended to be so patient while waiting for the bread to bake, that
she let me make love to her on the Mission sofa.

“She let me” is a figure of speech.

I get so lost with her in these situations that I can’t keep
track of who is in control. I think she trusts me enough now that she lets me
start. After we quarreled on the walk—was it a quarrel?—it had taken some time
to be comfortable with each other again, but I think it was me who first had
the courage to touch more than fingertips. I was kissing her, and I think my
tongue found hers first. When her tongue responded, I pulled her closer and let
my hands glide over her shoulder blades. Under her shirt. It was my thigh that
nudged between her knees, allowing me to press up against where she had been so
silky and hot that morning. She didn’t resist, and I carried her over to the
sofa and—I can’t remember the part where her jeans came off. I was so hungry
that my teeth might have played a part. She was being helpful and cooperative
by unzipping my jeans, though I was still in control at that point. Between
tearing open the condom and the timer announcing the baked bread, she made that
move again and I wasn’t in charge at all. I’m losing any faith I have that it’s
me who knows how to make her come five times. By the time we’re done, it’s me
who is desperate, begging, ready to scream.

She loves me. I know she does. I can feel it in how her
heart beats when my hand rests on her breast.

I just don’t get it. How can she not want it to be like this
every day?

JASON

W
E WERE WASHING THE dishes and
seeing if there was any garlic and olive oil left on each other’s lips, and I
was asking whether there might be chocolate hidden anywhere in her kitchen when
Ian called.

On Susi’s land line. Asking for me.

“Perry Webb thinks he has your stolen guitar, Jason. He’s
been out of town, but tonight he was in his store looking over what his guys
picked up the last couple of weeks.”

“Can we get it first thing tomorrow?”

“Tonight. He invited us to come over right away.”

“Is he at the shop on Roosevelt?”

“Yeah—come get me so I can ride along. Cynthia has one car
and Arlo has the other.”

I hung up excited, and then realized that I expected Susi
would drive me over there, which brought on a severe attack of embarrassment
and self-condemnation.

“What is it, Jason? You sounded so excited on the phone, but
now you look confused.”

“Some creep stole my Uncle Beau’s guitar a month ago, but a
friend maybe found it. He said we could pick it up tonight.”

“What fantastic news. Let’s go.”

“You don’t mind? I don’t want to take advantage of our
friendship.”

“We’ll both fall asleep from too much food and sun if we just
hang around here.”

“We have to pick up Ian on the way. When are you ever going
to get your own car back, Susi? This one just doesn’t look like you.”

“You can’t be half as frustrated about how long it’s taking
as I am.”

It turns out we had to pick up Ian because Perry told him
about a couple of other interesting instruments he had.

“Don’t let Cynthia know about this,” Ian said when we
entered Perry’s shop. “A man has to have at least one vice.”

“What is Jason’s vice?” Susi asked.

“Washing his hands too often and being more perfect than
other people can abide.”

I’m not so perfect that I can hide disappointment.

It wasn’t Beau’s guitar.

“Although it is a beautiful instrument,” I said, when I saw
my disappointment mirrored on Perry’s face. I wanted to do the right thing by
him, since he’d tried to be helpful. “I’ll buy it from you as a replacement. I’ve
been playing Ian’s, but he is so cheap, he’s charging me rent. By the note.”

Ian had already settled into making love to a twelve-string
Rickenbacker Deluxe someone famous played, supposedly. I won’t name names; it
wasn’t either George Harrison or Roger McGuinn. Else, the price would have had
three more zeroes beyond what Perry was asking.

“I really want this,” Ian said.

“Get it.”

“Cynthia will kill me.”

“I’ll buy it and you can pay me over time.”

“She’d find out.”

“Geez, Ian. Tell her it’s a tax-deductible business
expense.”

“That didn’t work the last three times.”

I shook my head. “Perry, you always have great mics. I want
to find one for Susi. Everything we have is for male voices. Do you have
something that can handle a woman’s sibilance with more grace than my gear?”

“I don’t need a microphone,” Susi said.

“You were uncomfortable last night with the stand-up mic at
the hotel and the handheld at the club. You use your entire body to sing. So
let’s find something hands-free that you’ll be comfortable with.”

“I’m like Ian. I can’t afford to spend money I don’t have.”

“Please let me give you a present.” I could see obstinacy
settling over her. “All right, Susi. I’m buying one for my own gear collection
tonight. I’ll have it available for any woman who comes to sing with us. Why
don’t you work with Perry to help make the selection? My singing isn’t the best
test, is it? Sibilance isn’t a problem for my voice.”

“It isn’t for mine either,” she said, with great
indignation. In the end she went off with Perry to his sound room.

Ian was putting the twelve-string back on its stand, wiping
away any fingerprints with a soft cloth.

“I know you need money to take care of your people, Ian.” I
had put off for a week talking to him about business.

“Oh crap. It better not be Karl who said anything. There is
such a thing as attorney-client privilege, isn’t there?”

“Why didn’t you say something? When I ask whether people
want to tour or go into the studio with Dominique, you just say, ‘Whatever you
want.’ I’ve been too focused on my hassles.”

“It’s my own problem. I mean, you’re the one stuck married
to the Dragon Woman. I was lucky enough to cash in on the sales. I played the same
as I would if she wasn’t there. Which she wouldn’t have been if you had
listened to me.”

“You and Beau were both right,” I said. “Though I don’t know
how you could recognize a poison lover when I couldn’t. You’ve been with one
woman forever. Do you have warnings about Susi?”

“Yeah. If you lose her, we will all be dicked. Don’t screw
up this time, jerk-face. We need her as much as you do.”

“Yikes, Ephraim is in the sound room with Susi.”

Ian looked down, not at the sound room. “You should talk to
him.”

“You knew he’d be here? You are my effing best friend. How—”

“Talk to him. I don’t know the business, Jason. I always
just did whatever Beau told us to do. We need someone to take Beau’s place.”

“Frickin’ hell, Ian—”

“I’ll help Susi choose a mic. Though I don’t think she was
even using one more than half the time on Saturday. Still, I’ll help.”

“Thanks. You are such a swell friend.”

~

“I have been blind, Jason. I
didn’t see it until last night.”

I scowled. Ephraim in his black leather trench coat stood in
my personal space. He didn’t shake my hand, though. He said, “I thought the
whole problem between us came from you being pissed at Dominique, which she
earned. But you’re pissed at me personally, aren’t you?”

“I thought you understood where I was going with
Woman at the Well
. Then you dampened Beau’s bass line and
Toby’s mandolin. You took out the fuzz and twang. Because Dominique wanted to
be mainstream. You knew better. You knew what I was trying to do.”

“You left. You abandoned the project, Jason. Dominique
stayed. I had to choose between you, and that time Dominique won. It’s your
turn this time, if you’re staying and buckling down to do the work.”

“What makes you think I don’t have a work ethic?”

“I’ve heard about it. In fact, that’s why I first sought you
out. However, my experience to date is that you abandoned a project. I did what
was right for those who stayed behind.”

“I thought you were my friend.” Geez, I couldn’t believe I
said that.

“Jason, you’ve been in this business a long time. You need
friends, and you need people to do business for you. Don’t confuse the two.” He
kept on me, the way Beau used to, and that ticked me off even more.

“I refuse to believe that. We did fine with Beau and other
friends tending to business. The hurt didn’t come until Dominique pulled us
into the pool with sharks like you.”

“Until two years ago, you were all broke. You had to beg
radio stations to play your little homemade EPs. You had to perform three
hundred nights out of each year just to buy food.”

“We made enough to pay taxes and buy guitars.”

“Now there’s a real hallmark of success.”

“It’s more confusing to argue with you each time we meet,
Ephraim. You say you want to help me to succeed, and then insult me at every
turn. Can I go now, or do you want to explain some more about how you screwed
up my music to help me?”

“Jason, I’ve gone to the line for you. I have other things
to do, but I committed to Albion Records to stay with you through this second
album, since you signed on the condition that I remain as your key man.”

“You mean, I can leave Albion if you do? Screw it, Ephraim.
Go do what you want and leave me free.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I have a commitment to the label
that I must fulfill. In fact, I spent the winter arguing with my bosses that
you were sunk in grief over a death in the family. I pushed out deadlines for
you. I rearranged public appearances or fixed it so you could phone in
interviews from Europe. I kept the whole story out of the papers as much as
possible. I got everyone to buy the excuses I made without ever explaining that
Beau was your last relative in the world.”

“Explained to your bosses? Your boss is your father.”

“Who needs artists to live up to their contracts in order to
stay in business. Now, how do you and I do business together without Beau and
Dominique coming between us?”

“Make her stop hassling with Karl so the divorce closes.”

“All right, as much as I can make her do anything. Karl
scheduled a conference for Thursday. Finish the music for her part of the new
album by then. Have the complete recording masters ready by June second. We
need the new CD on shelves when Stoneway goes on the road.”

“And then you’ll stop popping up like a gremlin everywhere I
go, because we’ll have no further business with each other.”

“If you choose to do it that way, yes. However, I’m begging
you to stay in business with me. Wherever you want to go next, I can help you
succeed.”