“Exactly.”
“And if I get legal involved?”
“‘To what end?’” she mocks. “What proof do you have? It’s the word of a desperate starlet seeking attention to try and win a tired battle she should have given up years ago. And do you really want to turn Glambam into a madhouse with a lawsuit there aren’t grounds for? If they’re already hesitant to invest in you—as evidenced by their refusal to even consider buying yourmasters until recently—how much more hesitant will they be once you’ve brought new chaos to their doorstep? Please. Let’s settle this practically.”
It feels like the walls are closing in on me. My muscles are rigid, yet somehow they don’t keep me from trembling. She’s right; I have no case—no proof besides my own testimony. At best I might be able to get a few attendees here to say they saw me talking to FM Sound’s Head of Catalog, which means nothing.
This was the perfect place for Dana to approach me. She can argue that she simply “ran into” me and stopped to say hello because, we are, after all, in the same industry—and this is an industry event. Plus, the hotel bar is loud enough to cover a private conversation but quiet enough that if I get visibly heated I’ll make a scene and draw negative attention to myself.
“Also,” she adds, “if we catch a whiff of you talking to lawyers, we’ll leak the documents anyway—anonymously, of course. You still won’t have a case, and the damage will be done.”
Not just damage to my career, but damage to Griffin’s too. Damage to Glambam and their reputation, which would affect their ability to sign future talent, which would affect the company as a whole, including all its employees. A leak would ruin all of us. If it was only me, I’d say “fuck it” and let Dana tell the truth. In fact, I’d tell it myself, on a live broadcast for the whole world to hear.
But nothing is ever that easy, is it?
“I stop pursuing the masters, and you leave me and my friends at Glambam alone?”
“That’s right. As long as you approve sync deals, continue to promote your early work, and don’t re-record the songs. Any attempt to retaliate in underhanded ways will result in the same punishment we’ve just discussed. If you test us, yes, we risk losing a bit of money onBrightly BurningandNebuloussales and streams when the fans turn on you—but FM Sound will always be the one who made you, even if, in your personal morals, you turned out to be a disappointment. That’s something we can spin. ‘Harmony Sonora goes off the rails since leaving her first label.’ Either way, you’re not getting those masters. It’s just a matter of whether you want to keep the situation clean and private, or make it a major spectacle. Up to you.”
Neither fight nor flight seems like a viable option right now. Instead, I freeze. Deer in the headlights. Standing in front of her, about to let her run me over the middle of a street I thought was safe.
Her ultimatum screams in my mind, a dissonance unlike any I’ve heard before. She’ll destroy everything I’ve built; she’ll hurt people I care about; and I still won’t legally possess the original music I wrote.
I say nothing. What can I say? I can’t agree to this.
But I can’t argue either.
I’m stuck.
“When you’ve made up your mind about what you’re going to do,” says Dana, “call FM Sound headquarters; reception has been instructed to give you my personal number. They don’t know anything about this meeting, so you let me know directly. Until then … enjoy your night.”
Gravity Has Taken Better Men Than Me
RIFF
IfindHarmonystandingin the middle of the bar’s lounge area, holding two drinks and staring at nothing. I go up behind her and put my hands on her hips and whisper into her hair.
“You’ve been gone forever, babe. And I’m so …thirsty.”
She doesn’t respond to my sultry tone. In fact, she doesn’t respond in general. She just stands there like she’s numb from top to bottom. I turn her around to look at me and her face is pale, tears welled up in her dark eyes.
“Harmony?” I cup her cheek. “What’s wrong?”
She sits on the end of the hotel-room bed while I crouch in front of her holding both her hands.
“They know about us,” she says shakily, her red-rimmed eyes shining and ready to spill over.
“Know what about us? Who?”
“FM Sound. They know about the stunt. They must have bribed someone, or found a willing mole, at Glambam. DanaHatton, one of their executives … she came to me at the bar. I didn’t remember her, but she’s been with FM Sound since before I left. She has copies of contracts, texts, emails, annotated social media reports … all with details that prove our whole relationship is staged.”
“Was staged,” I correct her.
“It doesn’t matter. No one will believe us if they see those documents.”
I have to consider for a moment what this actually means. I hadn’t thought about the potential consequences if the truth ever came out. Fans are always speculating, sure, but that’s part of the game—what’s real and what’s not—and like Harmony’s manager said, people will believe what they want to believe. That’s kept us pretty safe, so accusations of fraud didn’t cause me much concern.
But hard evidence of an effort to fool the public, especially with lofty sales goals attached, might actually turn fans against us. Not in the “love to hate ‘em” sort of way where they’d say we’re a little trashy but still support us. More in the way that they’d bully us off the internet demanding their money back … because we tricked them out of hard-earned cash by lying to their faces.
