Opening Act (8 page)

Baby thought a moment, then said, “I think I got some pickled eggs somewhere. Probably way past code. I think I bought them in, like, 2008.”

Shay looked at Loni, who looked back. Then she laughed and said, “Don't you dare.”

He shrugged. “She's just going to throw them up anyway.”

“I want no part of this.”

By this time Baby was on a stool, rummaging around in a cabinet above his stove. “Here they are,” he said, taking down a glass jar from deep within. He stepped down and looked at it, then scowled. “I don't like their color.”

Shay looked at Loni, and laughed. “All right, you win. I can't.”

“I'll take them to her,” Baby said. “She should at least do the sniff test first.”

He left the kitchen, leaving Shay and Loni alone together. Shay reopened the refrigerator, took out a beer, and pried off its cap.

“Cheers,” he said.

“Cheers right back,” she replied, clunking her bottle against his. She considered adding,
And best of luck on your tour
, but decided against it. She didn't want to appear to be an Underling.

“Were you at the show tonight?” he asked, as if reading her mind.

“What show?” she asked, casually tossing back her hair.

He smiled at this, and she realized she was trying
too
hard to be nonchalant.

“The Bolshoi Ballet at the Civic Center,” he said. “Heard they were
phenom
.”

She pursed her lips to keep from smiling. “Very droll. Yes, I was at your show.” Then she added, “A friend took me,” to make it clear it hadn't been her idea.

“Oh, good,” he said. “This party's kind of a thank-you for our local fans. Just want to make sure we don't have any freeloaders crashing.”

She almost gasped. “Do I
look
like a freeloader?”

“The best freeloaders don't,” he said, smiling.

She put down her beer and slung her purse higher up on her shoulder. “Well, if you have any doubt, I can always put your mind at rest by leaving.”

He raised a hand to calm her. “No, no. I don't want that. I was just joking.”

The tension had ratcheted up rather suddenly, and Loni was aware that she was
pretending
to be offended more than she felt any actual offense. She had to wonder why she was doing that—and how she could manage to scale it back without looking like some kind of idiot.

Fortunately, at that moment Trina, the rhythm guitarist, ran past the kitchen, clutching her mouth, followed by a quartet of whooping guys. Baby entered the kitchen a moment later, screwing the top back on the pickled eggs, and said, in a completely casual voice, “Yeah, turns out these are no good,” before dropping the jar in the garbage.

When he turned around and left again, the tension was broken. Shay and Loni laughed together, long and hard.

When the moment subsided, each took a swig of beer. Then Shay said, “So you're not a fan, then.”

She blushed again. “I didn't say that.”

“You didn't say
anything
. That's how I can tell.” He smiled again, and she felt it harder and harder to resist that smile. Its complete unself-consciousness was winning her over. “Most fans make fools of themselves when I walk in a room. They gush and babble on and on and keep
touching
me. It can be very embarrassing.” He gave her a brief, appreciative nod. “This is kinda cool.”

She tossed back her hair again, like it was a whip she was using to keep him at arm's length. She didn't like the way he was forging a little society of two with her. She suspected this was a trick he pulled on a lot of people—he was simply too smooth at it.

“Well, you won't get that from me,” she said boldly, determined not to let him think he had any power over her. “I mean, you sing well enough, but that's all you do. Any good rock-and-roll front man plays an instrument, too.”

“Mick Jagger,” he said with a grin. “Robert Plant. Roger Daltrey. Jim Morrison.”

Apparently he'd been hit with
that
criticism before. “The exceptions that prove the rule,” she said, and she knew it was lame even as it came out of her mouth. “And your lyrics,” she added, eager to change the subject.

“What about my lyrics?” he said, a touch defensively.

Loni had said, “your lyrics,” meaning
the band's
lyrics; but by the way he responded, it was clear they were really
his
lyrics.

“Well,” she said, not quite as eager to press her point now but too far in to withdraw, “they're a little…conventional. First love, lost love, unrequited love, blah blah blah.” She made a face.

“What's wrong with love?” he asked, utterly sincere.

She blushed again and wished she could stop doing that. “Nothing's wrong with love. It's the way you position it. It's so…shopping mall.”

He scowled. “I think you're being a little hard on me. I have to keep the market in mind, you know. I have to sell CDs, you know. I have to sell downloads.”

“But that's not rock-and-roll! Rock isn't about
the market
. You should be ashamed, selling out your talent that way.”

It was his turn to go red in the face—though seemingly from anger, not embarrassment. “That's an interesting thing to say,” he said between clenched teeth, “while you're eating our food and drinking our booze. All paid for by my ‘selling out.' ”

“I haven't eaten any of your food,” she said with a sneer. “And this is cheap beer, and I don't want it anyway.” She put it down.

“What
do
you want?” he asked, and it was not entirely a friendly question.

She glared at him. “I want rock to be what it was meant to be. It's revolutionary. An
art
form. It has the capacity to change the world. In fact it
did
change the world. All those people you mentioned, Jagger, Plant, Morrison. They didn't sit around fretting about
the market
. They tapped into the subculture of the great poetic visionaries. They studied William Blake, they learned to—”

“ ‘Hear the voice of the Bard, who present, past and future sees,' ” he said, interrupting her, “ ‘whose ears have heard the Holy Word that walk'd among the ancient trees…calling the lapsèd soul, and weeping in the evening dew, that might control the starry pole and fallen, fallen light renew!' ”

She stared at him, unable for a moment to respond. She hadn't expected him to throw Blake back at her like that. It completely derailed her rant. And it did something more. It made her feel…
what
? What was that small vibration, at the very base of her spine…?

Before she could put her finger on it, Zee burst into the kitchen, followed closely by Lockwood Mott, who said, “Oh, hey, Shay, there you are—got a sweet thing here just dying to meet y—”

Before he could even finish the sentence, Zee hurled herself at the singer. “Oh, my God,
Shaaay
,” she wailed, “I can't believed I'm
meeting
you, ohmi
gawd
, I am your total
biggest
fan I swear I listen to
Grief Bacon
constantly I know every song
by heart
I was at the concert tonight singing along with
everything
of course not like you because your voice is
incredible
and you are a
god
…”

By this time she'd backed Shay into a corner, and Lockwood had a look on his face that said he was finally figuring out why Zee had been so friendly.

Loni had promised to stay until Zee met Shay Dayton, and since that had just happened, she was free to go. She edged around Lockwood—who was partly blocking the door but was too paralyzed by his sudden epiphany to move—and slipped out. She took one final look over her shoulder and saw that Zee had grabbed Shay's arm and was stroking it like a pet cat.

And Shay himself?

He wasn't looking at Zee. He was looking at
her
. Watching her go.

She felt a momentary jolt at that, but, buffeted again by the warm, close, confusing dimness of the party, she was soon able to shrug it off.

She made her way through the apartment and out the front door. As she descended the stairs, she phoned for a cab.

While she was waiting on the curb, she noticed—with a little jolt of alarm—someone else standing on the street. She turned, and saw that it was the band's keys player. What was his name?…Jimmy Dancer. Onstage, he'd struck Loni as aloof and wary—a natural outsider—and seeing him here, outside the party, having a cigarette in the dark, she felt a sudden kinship with him. She was an outsider, too.

“Those will kill you, you know,” she said, nodding at the cigarette.

He shrugged. “With any luck.”

She didn't know how to reply, so she turned back toward the street to watch for the cab.

“Kinda surprised to see you go so early,” he said.

She half turned her head. “Me? Why?”

He raised his eyebrows. “Didn't Shay talk to you?”

Suddenly on alert, she replied, “A little. Why?”

He shrugged again. “Well, I guess everyone strikes out sometime. Even the Hall of Famers.”

She turned all the way to face him. “What do you mean?”

“Just that he noticed you the moment you walked in,” he said, after taking another puff on his cigarette. “And I've seen that look before. He spots his prey for the night, he stalks her, he moves in for the kill…he bags her.” He took another drag, then nodded in apology. “Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

Loni felt a little glow of heat in her forehead. “Well, he didn't bag this one.”

Jimmy Dancer grinned. “Sweeeeet,” he said. Apparently there was more than a little jealousy of Shay's sexual prowess among the other members of the band—or at least the one behind the keyboard.

Loni gave a little grunt of distaste and turned back to the street. She suddenly realized that Shay must have seen her enter the kitchen and then
volunteered
to fetch more eggs for the stunt going on in the next room, knowing it would give him the perfect excuse to sidle up to her.

She felt stupid. She felt manipulated. And she was grateful that she had bucked against the unwitting attraction he'd whipped up in her, grateful for the little bursts of pettiness and snarkiness she'd been unable to suppress. How could she have known they were a survival mechanism?

She was so upset, she actually considered making a pass at Jimmy Dancer. Going home with him instead? Now
that
would show Shay Dayton.

But of course, why should she let Shay Dayton be her motivation for
anything
? He was nothing to her. Less than nothing.

Besides, the probability of Jimmy Dancer having nicotine breath was a deal-breaker.

The cab arrived a few minutes later. During the ride, she considered calling Byron. It wasn't too late. But she felt strangely unmoved to dial his number—despite having protested so strongly to Zee, just a few hours earlier, that she needed to talk to him.

At home, she shucked her clothes and collapsed into her pillow. Exhausted, she fell immediately to sleep. And her last thought about Zee and the concert and Overlords and Shay Dayton was a firm, if drowsy,
Never again.

CHAPTER 4

Eventually Zee felt the call of nature and excused herself to use the bathroom. Shay was only too glad to give her permission to go.

“I won't be long,” she said, getting up from his lap and wagging a finger at him. “You just stay right here.”

“Hey,” he said, extending his arms—one of which held an empty beer bottle, “where would I go?”

As soon as she rounded the corner to the hallway, he leapt to his feet and scuttled across the party to the kitchen.

Trina was there, getting another Smirnoff Ice from the refrigerator. “Leave it open,” Shay said. “I'm goin' in right after you.”

She obligingly stepped away from the fridge and popped open her bottle. “Man, I can't get the taste of that goddamn rotten egg outta my mouth,” she said. “Like eating a dog's cancer tumor.” She swallowed a mouthful.