Opening Act (25 page)

“Hi,” she said, sounding equally quailed.

There was an awkward pause. Then she said, “I just called to say, you were right. Not about everything, but about the job. I should've taken it. I should've gone with you. I'm sorry I let it go.” She let a beat pass. “If it means anything to you.”

He chuckled. “Well, there it is. You did it again.”

“Did what again?” she asked, growing suddenly wary.

“Beat me to the punch. Did the right thing before I did. With even less cause. I mean, it just goes to show, you're a better man than I am.”

“Oh, that,” she said, relaxing again.

“Listen, you
know
me,” he went on with a sudden tinge of urgency in his voice. “You know the way I fly off the handle. I mean, that's no excuse. But my point is, you know how little it really means. How afterward, when I get the demon out of me, it's all over. Just a lot of hot air and screaming. Sound and fury, signifying nothing. Like a really long fit of Tourette's, or something.”

She laughed. “Yeah. I do know that.”

“Right, then. I'd like for us to be friends. I'd like for us to stay in each other's lives.”

“Me, too,” she said, and she felt a little constriction in her throat. She commanded herself not to cry. Grown women did not cry. Not in front of men, anyway.

“Maybe we could meet for lunch or something. Before I head out west.”

She was taken aback by the offer. She pushed the swing back a little, a nervous tic.

“Ye gods,” he cried, “never mind! I'm sorry I asked!”

“What?” she said. “I haven't answered you yet!”

“Didn't you just scream bloody murder at the idea?”

She laughed. “No, that's the swing I'm sitting on. On the porch at my place. It's really, really rusted.”

“For Christ's sake! I think my hair actually turned white.”

“It
is
pretty unnerving,” she said, moving the swing back to its resting position.

“
Stop
it,
Jesus
,” he said. “It's like hearing baby seals get clubbed!”

She made an effort to keep the swing still. “That better?”

“Much. Bloody hell. You should hear my heart pounding.” Another beat. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Well, lunch or something?”

“Oh!” She laughed. “Yes. Sure. Love it.”

“Wonderful,” he said, sunlight flooding back into his voice. “Now, do me a favor. Tell me, ‘Byron, you're a contemptible asshole and I never want to see you again.' ”

She knit her brow. “You
want
me to say that?”

“Yes. Because it's what I deserve. I
need
to hear it. It's my punishment. But I couldn't bear to hear it if I knew you actually meant it.”

She laughed. “Byron, you're a contemptible asshole and I never want to see you again.”

“Thank you,” he said. “You're an angel.”

Byron called again that night, as she and Zee were flopped on the couch, watching the last bit of TV they could manage before dropping off to sleep.

“Hello?” Loni said, as she got up and shambled off to the quiet of her room, ignoring Zee, who was hugely mouthing the words,
Is that him? Is that him?

“Hey, it's me,” he said, rather adorably—as if she wouldn't know it was him from his picture smiling out from her phone. “I'm not waking you, am I?”

“No, still up,” she said numbly. Though in fact she felt about two-thirds comatose.

“I just want to tell you, the job's still yours, if you want it.”

Her eyes sprang suddenly open. “What?”

“I fixed it with Tammi. It wasn't easy, but I managed it.”

“You didn't!” she cried, now fully awake and horrified. She sat on her bed. “Oh, Byron, you shouldn't have! That poor woman! What must she think of me?”

“Don't worry about that. It's all smoothed over. She's fine. We're both fine.”

“But…Jesus, Byron! How the hell can you do that to someone? What did you even say to her?”

“I just told her the truth. Which is that, in this matter—in
everything
, really—everything to do with me, in every area of my life—it's you. It's always been you.”

Loni was so stunned, she didn't know what else to do.

So she said yes.

PART TWO

CHAPTER 13

“Just one more,” said Shay, as Paul poured him another tumbler of bourbon. It was what he'd said when Paul had poured him the last two…or was it three? It was, in fact, what he said most often to Paul, since they'd started their tradition of drinking after dinner.

It was surprising, this friendship. No one in Overlords of Loneliness had thought they would actually
hang out
with Strafer Nation. After all, Strafer Nation had been together and touring since the early nineties, and Overlords was only their opening act—one of dozens they'd seen come and go during their careers. Yet Strafer was a really friendly bunch. Shay had expected them to look down their noses at their tagalongs, but apparently they'd been on the road long enough, and racked up enough gold records and TV appearances and fan pages and whatever, to have the luxury of slumming with the kids nipping at their heels. Strafer Nation had nothing left to prove. Quite the opposite; they had plenty to share.

Case in point, Shay Dayton and Paul Di Santangelo. Paul was the Strafer front man and had been since dinosaurs roamed the earth. He'd also, in his time, been the kind of sexually turbocharged icon who'd inspired women to hurl their bras and panties onto the stage. He was in his forties now and still pretty hot, but noticeably less lithe than in his prime. When he got offstage after a full night of working, he groaned and winced and complained about his knees.

You'd think such a guy would be threatened by Shay Dayton, who warmed up the crowd for him with the kind of Lizard King moves Paul himself could no longer pull off without pulling a muscle. (And boy did it take some warming. Most audiences didn't know Overlords from Adam and greeted the opening set with impatience at best and outright hostility at worst.) Yet Paul and Shay had bonded.

Shay had arrived in Pittsburgh for the first gig of the tour looking vacant-eyed and shell-shocked from his ten days in New York. In the Big Apple, he had been alternately shoved into rooms filled with media people swilling cocktails and told to charm them, and brusquely escorted into back alleys where idling cars waited to speed him off to dinner at some unspecified locale while paparazzi—having caught the scent of the Next Big Thing—circled the block of Halbert Hasque's penthouse like hound dogs in heat. Shay quite literally never knew whether he was coming or going, whether his goal was to seduce or stand off, whether his next dinner companion would be a movie star at an awards ceremony or his chauffeur parked outside a fast-food joint.

Paul Di Santangelo had been through it all before, and often. So the older man had taken Shay under his wing and shared with him his wisdom…and the other benefits afforded to rock legends. Benefits like the way to get any mind-altering substance known to man (“You don't even have to ask,” Paul had said. “Just think about it hard enough. People will
know.
”) and a stream of eager young women who only wanted one brush with fame to hold onto (well, technically, a bit more than a brush) before disappearing into lives of drab anonymity.

And it wasn't long—Kansas City, to be exact—before Shay had extracted from Paul something more valuable than all of that.

“All right,” Paul said as he set down the bottle of Woodford Reserve, which he had sent by the case to every hotel room booked for him in every city on the tour. “Let's have another go. Play a G major 7 chord.”

Shay tossed back a mouthful of bourbon, then plonked the tumbler atop the Yamaha digital piano Paul traveled with for practicing and composing. Lately he had, almost casually, begun giving Shay lessons. Teaching him scales, basic chord structure, the circle of fifths, and certain chord progressions, like the 2-5-1 turnaround vital to so many standards and pop songs. Shay found it to be uphill work, but he was committed to mastering the instrument. He was also committed to hiding the ferocity of his ambition from Paul—he didn't want to look desperate.

Shay obediently played a G major 7 chord: G-B-D-F#.

“Now play a D7.”

Shay slid his hand down the keyboard: D-F#-A-C.

Paul cocked his head and grimaced. “Remember what we were talking about earlier,” he said. “You don't want your hand to be jumping around like that. You want to keep it as still as possible.”

“Right, right,” Shay said, going back and playing the G major 7 again.

“Now, play a D7,
without moving your wrist
,” Paul told him, then had another swig from his own glass.

Shay thought for a moment, then moved his thumb up a whole step and his index finger a half step: A-C-D-F#.

“Exactly,” said Paul. “You just take the A and C from the top of the chord and move them to the bottom. The tones are exactly the same, and your hand doesn't move.”

“Right, right, I remember now,” Shay said, feeling stupid he'd ever forgotten.

“Toast yourself, then,” Paul said, lifting his glass.

Shay raised his tumbler. “Here's to me,” he said, and he had another swig.

“Okay,” said Paul, wiping his lips on the back of his hand. “Play that G major 7 again.”

Shay did so.

“Now play a C minor 7 with a flatted 5.”

Shay stared at the keyboard.

“It's the same principle,” Paul said, encouraging him.

“I know, I know. This is just…trickier.” In fact, he was completely blanking. He looked at the keyboard and tried to visualize the chord in question before reshuffling the notes to accommodate the G major 7 hand position, but he couldn't even see it. He wasn't sure whether it was too much bourbon or the pressure of being put on the spot by Paul Di Fucking Santangelo.

Finally he had to turn and say, “Sorry…stumped.”

Paul chuckled and said, “No worries, that one's kind of a killer. Here.” He came over, sat on the bench beside him, and played the G major 7 chord: G-B-D-F#. Then, just by moving his thumb, index, and third fingers slightly, he played the new chord: B
, C, E
, G
.