He pulled away from the door jamb. “See you in the morning,
kiddo.”
Danny awakened when she crawled into bed beside him. He turned
over and wrapped an arm around her, drawing her close. “Hi,” he said.
She settled into his warmth. “Hi.”
“Your hair’s wet.”
“I just took a shower.”
“I’m sorry I fizzled out on you so early. What time is it?”
“Almost midnight. Try to get back to sleep, sweetheart. We have
to be on the road early.”
Outside the window, the neon sign flashed red, then yellow, red,
then yellow. Inside the motel room, Casey lay awake, watching the play of
colors on Danny’s face as he slept. If he ever found out what had happened
tonight, he would kill Silver. She never for a moment doubted that he was
capable; she’d seen how cold and hard and silent he could become. Like a snake
about to strike. She couldn’t let that happen. Better she should let sleeping
dogs lie than allow this nightmare to be carried any further.
It was after three when she finally fell asleep. Danny woke her
around six, and they made love for the first time in weeks, slow and sweet, but
she was bruised and sore, and it was one of the few times that she had ever
been left unfulfilled. She lay beneath him, hands tangled in his long hair,
sweetly content with his drowsy weight atop her. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“For what?”
“I rushed you...you weren’t ready...it’s been too damn long.”
“I’m just tired,” she said, gently kneading his shoulders. “You
didn’t do anything wrong.”
He let out a long sigh of contentment. “Christ, that feels good.”
She continued kneading. “It’s supposed to.”
The phone rang, and they looked at each other balefully. “We
could ignore it,” he said.
“Then whoever it is would just come pounding on the door.”
He scowled and reached for the phone. “Yeah?” he said. “Yes.
Fine.” He dropped the receiver back into its cradle. “We pull out,” he said,
“in forty-five minutes.”
“I guess that means playtime’s over.”
He kissed the palm of her hand. “I guess it does.” He peered at
her forearm. “What’s this?” he said.
Her heartbeat quickened. “What’s what?”
“This bruise on your wrist. Christ, I didn’t do that, did I?”
“My loving husband,” she said dryly, “Daniel de Sade. Of course
you didn’t do it. I probably bumped into something. You know me. I bruise if
you look at me the wrong way.”
He looked unconvinced. She planted a kiss on the tip of his
nose. “Stop worrying,” she said, “and let’s get dressed before the bus leaves
without us.”
Two days later, Silver telephoned Drew Lawrence and demanded that
Danny Fiore be replaced as his opening act. When Lawrence refused to cave in
to his demands, Bryan Silver packed his belongings and called a cab.
And Danny, by default, became the headlining act.
***
Twelve hours after the bus limped into the Big Apple, Danny found
himself again facing Drew Lawrence across a massive oak desk. “Sit down,”
Lawrence said, pumping his hand with enthusiasm. “Congratulations. I hear you
were a smash.”
Danny rested his weight on his tailbone and extended his long
legs. “It definitely went well,” he said.
“It went better than well. Album sales have gone through the
roof. They love you.” Lawrence leaned back in his swivel chair and locked his
hands together behind his head. “You’ve got big things ahead of you, Danny.
That’s why we want you back in the studio as soon as possible to start working
on a second album.”
“A second album,” he said, surprised. “Already?”
“We want to strike while the iron’s hot. How much time do you
need to get ready?”
He did some quick thinking. New York was a Mecca for musicians,
and he and Rob had contacts everywhere. Pulling together a band shouldn’t be
difficult. As for material, Casey and Rob were pros. They’d give him what he
needed in whatever time frame they were given. “Six weeks,” he said.
“Excellent.” Lawrence punched a button on his intercom.
“Lorraine, will you bring me that check for Mr. Fiore, please?” He studied
Danny bemusedly. “I just want you to know,” he said, “that we’re impressed.
Damn impressed. All of us here at Ariel believe we have a spectacular future
together.”
The secretary brought in the check. She shot a quick, speculative
glance at Danny and discreetly disappeared again. Lawrence slid the envelope
across the desk. “Remember,” he said, “this is just the beginning.”
“I hope you’re right.” Danny took the envelope, folded it, and
started to pocket it.
“Ah, Danny? You might want to open it.”
Danny tore open the envelope. Looked at the check, did a
double-take. And all the blood left his brain. Lawrence chuckled. “Listen,”
he said, “I’ll get the studio time set up. You’ll be hearing from our
publicist, who’ll be setting up a photo session, some magazine interviews. In
the meantime, you take care of things at your end.” He stood and held out his
hand. “Keep in touch.”
***
Two days later, they moved uptown, into an airy, three-bedroom
apartment in an old brownstone on Central Park West. Though the building
wasn’t as upscale as the newer high-rises, it had an elevator and a doorman,
and compared to Freddy Wong’s roach-infested slum, it was a palace. As Casey
was trying to figure out a way to make their pathetic collection of mismatched
furniture look a little less wretched, Danny walked through the door and
dangled a set of car keys in her face. Parked illegally next to the curb
outside was a spanking new, shiny red Mustang convertible with a V8, a
five-speed transmission, and the best sound system on the market. “I’ve been
thinking,” he said, as she admired the car’s luxurious interior. “Now that we
have new wheels, don’t you think it’s time we took a honeymoon?”
They’d never spent more than a day or two of uninterrupted time
together, and the idea was wildly appealing. They left Rob the task of
assembling a band, and on a bright Thursday morning, she and Danny climbed into
the Mustang, crossed the George Washington Bridge, and rocketed south on the
Jersey Pike.
They explored the Maryland shore, shopped for antiques and
trinkets, took in the breathless blue vista of the Chesapeake Bay. They danced
beneath the stars in Virginia, ate barbecue at a roadside stand in North
Carolina. Made love in the sand on a lonely stretch of beach on the Outer
Banks. It was a halcyon time with no schedules, no deadlines, no expectations
to live up to. Just the two of them, alone on the open road, free to explore
and enjoy the world around them.
But as all good things must, it eventually had to come to an end.
At a record store in a strip mall in Newport News, they were approached by a
hesitant teenage girl carrying a copy of
Stardust.
“Mr. Fiore?” she
said.
Danny was reading the liner notes on Springsteen’s latest album,
and he looked up distractedly. “Hmm?”
Flushing, the girl held up the record album. “Can I have your
autograph?”
He looked stunned. Then he turned the full force of the infamous
Fiore smile on the girl, two hundred megawatts of dimpled splendor, powerful
enough to fell the hardest woman. Against that kind of ammunition, no mere
teenage girl stood a chance. “What’s your name, sweetheart?” he asked, looking
at the girl as though she were the only female left on the planet.
Her eyes were feverish. “Heather,” she said. “Heather
Gladstone.”
“Well, hello, Heather Gladstone,” he said as he scribbled.
“Pretty name. And a pretty face to go with it. Here you go.” And he winked
at her as he handed back the album.
The girl clutched the record to her bosom, her eyes the size of
dinner plates. Her mouth worked as though she were trying to speak. Without a
word, she spun on her heel and fled.
Casey met his eyes. “You,” she told him, “are a wicked, wicked
man.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “But nobody does it better.”
“And humble as well, I see.”
He turned that grin on her, and she took a step backward. “Oh,
no,” she said. “I know how you operate. I’m immune to your considerable
charm.”
The grin widened. “Bullshit,” he said, and backed her up against
the wall and kissed her, right there in the record store. Face to face, they
studied each other until their grins faded and they grew serious. And Danny
voiced the thought that was running through both their heads. “It’s time to go
back,” he said.
Her heart constricted with regret. She’d hoped for more time.
“These have been the most wonderful six days of my life,” she said.
He cupped her cheek. “There’s a part of me,” he said, “that
wishes we never had to go back.”
Then don’t
,
she wanted to say, but she knew that was impossible. A bittersweet sadness
pierced her, a fierce longing to cling to the present, to hold on with all her
might. But it was too late for that. The winds of change had already begun to
blow, and some profound force had taken control of their fates. She had no
idea what shape those changes would take, but they would happen, as surely as
tomorrow’s sun would rise.
They spent a final night in Virginia Beach, but Danny was
distracted, a part of him already somewhere else, some place where she couldn’t
follow him. He sat on the balcony outside their motel room while the breakers
rolled in below, the tip of his cigarette a pinpoint of light in the darkness
as he listened to music only he could hear.
Never enough time
, Casey thought. Not in a lifetime would there be enough time to
satisfy her hunger for him. Or to appease the hunger in him that she couldn’t
satisfy.
She took the lead in their lovemaking that night. Aggressive and
demanding, she loved him with an unprecedented fierceness that took them both
to dizzying heights before plunging them back to earth in a spent tangle of
hearts and bodies and damp sheets. The next morning, immediately after
breakfast, they shot back across the Chesapeake, Bob Seger blasting from the
Mustang’s stereo. Eight hours later, they were crawling through rush hour
traffic in the Lincoln Tunnel. “Welcome home,” Danny said dryly as he edged
the Mustang ahead half a car length.
Casey yawned. “Some things,” she said, “never change.”
But others do. And neither of them had an inkling on that
ordinary Wednesday afternoon that life as they had always known it was about to
blow up around them with a magnitude beyond their wildest imaginings.
***
That year, they spent 300 days on the road, and Casey got to see
up close and personal the glamorous life of a recording artist. As a bit
player in a big boy’s game, Danny didn’t qualify for the luxurious
accoutrements given to the big name acts. They toured in a converted Greyhound
bus, fifteen people sharing one bathroom with a hand-held shower nozzle and a
twenty-gallon hot water tank. Privacy was nonexistent, sleeping arrangements
were abysmal, and bathroom time had to be staggered. Timing was everything, and
creativity the name of the game. Casey was the only woman in the group, and at
first, the men didn’t know how to take her. But as time and proximity wore
down the initial discomfort, she became one of the guys, treated to the same
raunchy humor and off-color jokes as the men. Practicality took precedence
over vanity. She wore her hair in a single thick braid that reached her waist,
gave up wearing makeup, and slept in sweat pants and a ragged sweatshirt. They
made bologna and tuna fish sandwiches in the tiny galley, drank endless cups of
coffee laced with bourbon or rum, and sang silly songs. While Danny took
advantage of his considerable poker playing skill, she and Rob spent hundreds
of hours working together with his new Gibson acoustic at the tiny table in the
galley.
Life on the road was an educational experience. Casey learned to
drink hard liquor, to win at blackjack. She learned that a healthy
twenty-three-year-old woman could go for the better part of a year without
sleep. That two people could share the same narrow bunk as long as they didn’t
mind being close. She learned that it was imperative to check the position of
the toilet seat before attempting to sit on it in the dark. And that it really
was possible to make love with a six-foot-four, hundred-ninety-pound man in a
shower enclosure the size of a broom closet while rolling down the highway at
fifty-five.
The towns all looked the same. It was only when they rolled into
a new burg and hit the stage and this ragtag assortment of lunatics transformed
instantaneously into professional musicians that she realized it was worth
every ounce of the craziness. The clean, clear timbre of Danny’s voice, the
indescribable sweetness of Rob’s guitar, could bring tears to her eyes.
The venues were relatively small: county fairs and small-town
armories, old converted movie theaters that still smelled of popcorn, the
occasional 4,000-seat civic auditorium. A representative cross-section of
middle America. But no matter what the differences, they all had one thing in
common: a sellout audience that was seventy-five percent female.