He laughs. “Seriously. I thought we lost you for the night. And maybe forever, if you fucked those girls and messed shit up with Lou.”
“I’m not fucking this up with her. Or the tour. Or the album.” I lift a shoulder. “That’s not who I am anymore.”
“Glad to hear it.”
We play the show. The room is good. The crowd is better. Seattle sings the last chorus back like they wrote it. After, I follow my rules. No bar. No party. In bed by 12:51 because I’m wired and want to ruin it and don’t.
I’m proud and pissed at the same time.
Morning hits with a headline on a tabloid site that thinks it has a scoop. A photo of me and Mike nose to nose, a blur of my hand, a caption that saysYOKO STRIKES AGAIN? LOU NAVARRO TEARING BAND APART—BACKSTAGE BRAWL.There’s a second link that saysLOTTO BAD BOY MAY SUE TURNER DRUMMERwith a still from someone’s phone.
The write-up is trash. They say I lost it because she made me soft. They spell my name wrong once and then right. I don’t care about the lawsuit talk. I care about her.
I find Knox at the venue café with his laptop open and coffee that tastes like carpet. He’s already reading it. He hates it in his quiet way. Houston texts from the treadmill:saw it. don’t feed. Quincy Facetimes while I’m still standing there. “Tell me you didn’t hit him.”
“I didn’t hit him. I slapped him when he swung on me. Security saw it. They’ll write it that way if they have to write it.”
“Not perfect, but I’ll take it.”
“What we’re not doing,” I say, “is letting anyone call Lou a Yoko and letting that sit.”
“Agreed,” he says. “But?—”
“Nobut, Quincy. We post what she made for us, credit by credit. Art director, projection mapping, behind-the-scenes system, tour key art, microsite. We show her work. We make it impossible to sell the Yoko angle to anyone with eyes.”
Quincy groans. “Rolling out credits looks defensive.”
“It’s the truth.”
Knox closes the laptop and nods. “He’s right.”
“Fine,” Quincy says. “I’ll take care of it.”
By noon, he’s adjusted the crediting, and people are noticing. Fans respond with the energy I want. They talk about her work instead of her personal life. One of Mike’s drug groupies shared a video of the altercation, so now the phrase, “Yoko wasn’t even a Yoko,” is flying everywhere. Hopefully, they’ll learn what happened with her too.
The dumb comments still come, because dumb comments always come, but they’re not the chorus. That helps.
Mike’s “may sue” item cycles through a few aggregator accounts. Our counsel sends a bland statement:Security addressed a brief altercation initiated by a guest. No further comment.That’s it. We don’t feed it.
We leave Seattle for Vegas and land in Vegas at dusk. The Strip does that thing it always does, where it pretends the sun is for someone else. We roll through the garage and take the back elevator.
The suite smells like coffee and paper and a person who works here. Lou is at the table with a cutting mat and a stack of posters. Her hair is up. The locket is on. My hands relax without asking me first.
She stands when she sees us. She hugs Houston first, then Knox. I wait because I don’t want to look like I’m asking for the spotlight. She turns to me and I step in. It lands right behind my ribs.
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I sigh. “Annoyed. But okay.”
“I saw the posts. Thank you.”
“Needed doing.”
She tips her head. “How was the road?”
“Short. Better than usual.”
She smiles. “Look at you with restraint.”
