Opening Act (29 page)

There were some links to reviews of the tour so far, some concert shots, photos of events backstage and of the band members touring famous sites in the cities they visited. There were also a few videos. Loni found herself playing one.

It was for a tune called “Come Down Hard or Die Easy,” which must have been new because she didn't recall it from Zee's constant playing of
Grief Bacon
. The video was a little grainy and the screen very small, but it seemed to her Shay had grown in gravitas since she'd last seen him. He seemed to have tremendous focus. He wasn't strutting or preening or throwing his body around provocatively. He used it like a whip, jerking or snapping his head to accent the musical phrases. She listened closely to make out the lyrics:

       
Only one way to play it

       
'Cause it isn't really play

       
Only one way to work it

       
If it's what you've got to say

       
You won't make friends

       
You'll only make foes

       
But if you wanna be remembered, baby

       
Everybody knows

       
Come down hard or die easy

       
Jump the barricade or quit the race

       
Come down hard or die easy

       
Live forever or leave no trace

The video ended with an exultant Shay reaching out his arms to take in the rest of the band—God, that
smile
of his—while the audience applauded appreciatively (though in Loni's opinion, not appreciatively enough).

She blinked a few times, then considered replaying the video. But once was sufficient.

More than sufficient, in fact.

It was uncanny. It was as though Shay had somehow been attuned to her, been riding her wavelength. This song was exactly in accord with everything she'd been thinking about all day, and that had maybe, perhaps likely, been simmering beneath her skin for months now. It was about risk, about taking a chance, making a roll of the dice. Like Charlotte Dacre did. And William Blake. And Simone de Beauvoir. And Michel Foucault. And David Bowie. And Shay Dayton. Shay Dayton was jumping the barricade every goddamn day on this tour.

While she hid. While she kept herself confined in this little rabbit warren where pale people like her pored diligently over the receding echoes of Charlotte Dacre and William Blake and Simone de Beauvoir and Michel Foucault. And, probably somewhere, David Bowie. As if that made for some kind of affinity. As if it made for some kind of equivalency.

She felt a sudden surge of boldness—a willingness to throw the dice, to take a chance, to
risk
. And so she did something she hadn't yet had the nerve to do. She went to the top of the Overlords Facebook page and pressed the Like button.

She sat back in her chair, feeling the thrill of the moment stir her.

And then…

And then she laughed.

If that was her idea of risk, she realized, it was the most pathetic thing she'd ever done. She closed her laptop, went into the next room, and flopped down before the TV where she half watched some documentary about the rise of Sinn Féin. There were lots of talking heads channeling intensity at the camera and occasional footage of explosions—enough to keep her from entirely disappearing into her own mind.

Something about the scenes of violence triggered more resolve in her.
Just look at the world
, it seemed to be saying. The world where people believe that things—abstractions, even—are worth dying for. Where the phrase “life and death” actually
means
life and death.

Was she so reduced, so benumbed by safety and security and the road ahead being paved and well-lit, that she was willing to go through her entire life without ever stepping out of line and grabbing for something she wanted—
jumping the barricade
?

She bit her fingernail, bit it down to the quick, until it started to bleed.

She got up to get a bandage, and as she was applying it to her fingertip, it hit her. The answer. The solution. It hit her just like that, the way the most audacious plans sometimes form during the most mundane moments of our lives.

She looked up into the mirror over the sink, and she saw her new self looking back.

CHAPTER 15

Shay found Pernita already talking when he reached their hotel room on Michigan Avenue, and she didn't slow down a beat when he entered. He thought she must be on her Bluetooth, so he ignored her and busied himself with hefting his suitcase onto the bed and starting to unpack. It was a full three minutes before he realized she was talking to
him
. What the hell? She must have started when he get off the elevator. Had she
smelled
him coming down the hall?

He snapped to attention and tried to pick up the thread of what she was saying. By close listening and some speculative leaps, he managed to put together that she was
extremely
put out by an incident that had occurred in New York, where she'd thrown a small dinner party for a highly prized video artist, Monsieur Désastre, only to have him beg off at the last minute, claiming an illness.

“…but I've just heard from Portia Brookington that she saw him out that night—
out on the town
, Shay. At Gisellina's, in fact,
dancing
with Mitzi Planck-Overton, who of course wasn't invited to my dinner party because of that stunt she pulled at Gstaad last year with the K-Y Jelly on my DPS Spoons. I almost broke my leg on the slopes! Can you
imagine
the gall it took to
lure
Monsieur away from my party
in his honor
? To induce him to
lie
to me out of petty jealousy and a desire for revenge? Because
of course
she'd have known the news would get back to me. You don't go dancing at Gisellina's if you don't want to be seen and talked about. No, my finding out about it is the whole
point
. She's throwing down a
gauntlet
, and all I can say is, fine, if she wants Monsieur Désastre that much, she can have him, and good riddance. I only put up with him for the cachet. I still haven't forgotten the way he left Chloe Vassar's powder room at her fund-raiser for ruptured silicon implants. I think the cleaning staff needed hazmat suits. Still, the
insult
, Shay. And the sense of
betrayal
. God only
knows
what Mitzi promised him to convince him to renege on me, though I can guess. And I'm reasonably confident her punishment will be a full course of industrial-strength antibiotics. But listen to me go on! This is no way to greet you after so long a separation, I know. I'm sorry, it's just on my mind because I only got off the phone with Portia minutes ago. But how are you, sugar-pie? You look so wonderfully
emaciated
. I wish we could do that fashion spread all over again.”

“I'm fine,” Shay said, willing himself not to go rigid as she closed in on him to give him a kiss. After she'd done so, she held him for a few moments, till he felt the need to break the silence—preferably not with a term of endearment. Finally, he settled on, “I
have
been eating.”

She responded by squeezing his sides, which made him jump. “You're skin and bone,” she said merrily. “But never mind, it's a look that works. Very heroin chic, and you managed to achieve it without heroin.” She leaned back and gave him a searching look. “Right?”

He rolled his eyes. “For Christ's sake, Pernita. No. No heroin. Just a lot of traveling and performing and late nights.” He realized that last bit was possibly incriminating, so he added, “Burning the midnight oil, rewriting parts, changing lyrics.”

She shook her head, as if in awe at his dedication. “Well, all that ends now. It's the wrap-up to the first leg of your ascension to immortality, and I've got lots and lots planned for you, beginning with a major media cocktail party after the gig tonight.”

“
After
the gig?” he said. “But we don't even go on till, what—nine o'clock? It may be well after midnight when Strafer finishes.”

She smiled indulgently at his innocence. “Poor baby. You've been on the rural back roads so long, you've forgotten that not
everywhere
in America shutters the windows and rolls up the streets at ten thirty. This is
Chicago
. There's a whole stratum of nightlife here that doesn't even get going until one o'clock.”

“Hooray,” he said despondently.

“But you should get some rest,” she said, breaking her grip on him with a final pat on his rump. “Long night for you, as you say. I'll be happy to unpack for you.”

“No, it's okay, it'll only take a moment.” The idea of her handling his things bothered him. She already had her fingers in too much of his business. Also, it was terribly transparent that she only wanted to snoop. This was a woman who never unpacked her
own
bags. Or packed them in the first place, for that matter.

“It's no trouble,” she said.

“My point exactly,” he countered, and turned to begin the task.

She stood behind him, hands on her hips—defeated, yet unwilling to give up entirely. Finally she said, “Well, as long as you're going to be up a few minutes more, I'll tell Daddy. He wants to have a word with you.”

He whirled. “Your father's here?”

“Of course. Wouldn't miss it. Excuse me.” She was already dialing her phone. “Daddy?” she said, as she walked into the next room. “Yes, he just got here…he's unpacking…”

Shay felt a sudden jolt of wariness. He'd met the elusive Halbert Hasque only three times before. Once during their initial negotiation, then at a small cocktail party Pernita threw when the contract was signed, and the last time at a reception in New York before the tour began. Never on any of those occasions had he impressed Shay as particularly genial. He seemed always to be multitasking. In fact, at the reception in New York, which was ostensibly in honor of Overlords and Strafer Nation (who were also Hasque clients), he'd been preoccupied with trying to woo a legendary theatre actor to his stable. (The actor's new play was tanking, and he reportedly blamed his management. Halbert, ever on the alert, had smelled blood in the water.)

The idea that Halbert Hasque actually wanted to
see
him—had expressed an interest in actually addressing him face-to-face on some matter—was disconcerting, to say the least. He steeled himself for the encounter and forced himself to continue unpacking.

At the bottom of his bag he found
The Complete Poems of William Blake
. Or, as he had taken to calling it in his head,
The Complete Poems of Will-my-arm Break
, because of its tremendous weight. He'd several times considered just jettisoning the book, but it seemed to be his only tether to Loni. And he felt the need for
some
connection with her, however slight or foolish. He flipped it open and sought out a shorter poem, one he could read before Pernita came back into the room. He settled on “The Lily.”

       
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,

       
The humble sheep a threat'ning horn:

       
While the Lily white shall in love delight,

       
Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

Whoa.
That
was a little uncanny. It was pretty close to how he regarded both Pernita—beautiful, alluring, inviting, but with jagged edges you had to watch out for if you got too close—and Loni—all openness, brightness, receptivity. Pernita was shields-up, all the time. Loni was a lowered drawbridge.

He dropped the book and wondered if he was being a little too easy on Loni. After all, when he'd first met her in Baby's kitchen she'd certainly been shields-up. She'd exhibited a “threat'ning horn.” But somehow he'd been able to see that for what it was: a rather endearing insecurity. Pernita's shields were all about keeping you away until you proved your worth. Loni's were about buying herself time to judge the risk to herself. Certainly once she'd gotten to know him, she'd relaxed, become all sweetness, all candor.

And yet she'd been playing him, hadn't she? She'd had another guy in the background the whole time. A guy she must've known she'd be moving to California with. She'd just been using Shay as one last no-strings-attached romp before she settled down to domestic life.

Except…that had been what Loni was supposed to be for
him
, too, one final fling before the tour. But she
hadn't
been that. Well, she had, but she'd also been so much more. He still had no idea how she'd managed to get so deeply into his head. But she had. She'd planted herself there like a seed, and her roots had been growing deeper inside him ever since.

Was it so impossible that she might be feeling the same about him? Yeah, sure, she ended up going to California, but
he'd
ended up going on tour. If he'd done so only out of confusion about what else he could do, hell, maybe it was the same with her. In any case, he was just a couple of days from being able to find out. Back in Haver City he'd have more than a week to coach Lockwood on how to draw the info he needed out of Zee: whether Loni was happy out west, whether she was in love, whether this was a permanent thing, or whether she was already restless and trying to get out.