I flushed the toilet with my boot and walked out. The woman at the mirror, bless her heart, had a face like a fist, but had rolled her bangs for the occasion of hating my band. Her mascara hand hardly faltered at the sight of me.
“Too bad about you andSteve,” I said, running my hands through the water at the next sink. I checked my lipstick. Perfect. “You know, at one point, I would havelovedto live in a trailer. You ladies enjoy the show. Or… don’t.”
Back onstage and fired up, I shopped through the set list and moved a few things around while the girls shot looks behind my back. I was being a hothead, but I didn’t care. At the mic, eight o’clock on the dot, I thanked everyone for coming out. Marisa was still in the corner booth and the women from the bathroom were carrying drinks from the bar to a far table, the easier to pretend they weren’t listening.
I’d make them listen. I’d make every one of them listen to me.
I put on my brightest twinkle, my sweetest y’all, swallowed the hint of anxiety that always threatened at the opening chords, and dedicated the first song to Steve. We came out cooking.
8
Anger fueled the first set. I couldn’t help it, couldn’t get off that hamster wheel, even when I got us off tempo a couple of times. I was playing red and furious for an audience of one in the big corner booth. Every time I looked in Marisa’s direction, she was fussing with her phone. At one point I lost track of her, and then the internal compass I had for her pointed me toward the bar, where she was bothering Alex, literally tugging at his sleeve. It was loud in the room—you’rewelcome—and Alex was doing everything he could to avoid being pulled down to her level.
We finished out the set, loud and riotous, my voice nearly shredded. Before the last chords died out, Lourey was in my face.
“What was that about? That wasslop.”
But the folks down front didn’t think so. They clamored for my attention while Lourey and the rest of the band headed for the storeroom for a break among the kegs, away from the crowd of women lining up at the door of the public john. At set breaks, that windy little ice-cold toilet might as well be solid gold.
I didn’t need the break. I was dialed up to eleven, my blood thrumming through my body. I scoured the crowd for Marisa, but she was gone. The corner booth had been taken by a group.
I sank to the edge of the stage next to the tip jar, exhausted suddenly.
“Buy you a drink?” a man’s voice said.
The guy wore a nice blue scarf and had a wool coat draped over his arm. I knew him, didn’t I? “My drinks are on the house,” I said, lifting my water bottle. “But we’d sure appreciate the consideration in our tip jar.”
He didn’t even blink in its direction. “That was a hard-driving set.”
Over the guy’s shoulder, I could see the bar was swamped, and Alex was at the grill instead of serving. I would need to jump behind the bar—
But then someone else popped up on the other side of the hatch. It was Oona, earrings as big as Christmas tree balls swinging from her ears. She grabbed an apron and was soon jollying Lumpy Jim and mixing drinks, holding things down pretty expertly, I had to admit, even though Alex didn’t like just anyone behind the bar. When she saw me looking, she shot me a grin and two thumbs-up.
If Alex was on the grill, where wasNed? I was scoping the room when my eyes caught on Primary Jim’s as he scanned the room from his post at the bar.
“High energy,” the guy in front of me was saying, as though I’d asked. “Less… emotionally vacant than you can sometimes sound.”
I sputtered into my water bottle. “Buddy,” I said. “When I have a bad show, I know it.” And sometimes, as a matter of fact, I was the only one who did. I looked around for someone else—anyone else—to talk to.
“I’d love to hear your real voice,” the guy said. “Stripped of all the affectation.”
“I don’t think we know each other well enough for you to say that to me,” I said flatly.
“We met out in the alley.”
Thisguy. “Oh, we’regoodfriends,” I said. “You dogged me out there in the cold and now you’re inside offering to buy me a beer for the chance to do it to my face? Heck of a kink you have, Jack.”
“You know your performance is hollow, that’s the thing,” he continued. “The look—it’s cute. It turns heads, but you’re worrying too much about staying pretty. I like that you really opened up andwailedtonight. Your voice is probably trashed for the second set, though, right?”
I looked away.
“You could learn to control the emotion, modulate that power,” he said. “But all those cover songs. That’s a dead end.”
And people thoughtIhad too much confidence.
“Covers get the crowd singing,” I said. And tips put in the jar,usually. “You a voice coach or what? What’s your snake oil?”
He whipped out a card and held it out. I had a terrible premonition it would saySteve.
