Opening Act (19 page)

Loni, who had everything handed to her, even things she didn't want—had just gotten what Zee wanted without even trying. She hadn't even been derailed by Zee going behind her back and working against her. It really was true, wasn't it? Everything just…
fell
into Loni's lap. A degree. A job. Two men. One of them
Shay Dayton
.

She felt a kind of uncontrollable fury whip up inside her, like a funnel cloud. She didn't know what to do with it. But if she didn't do
something
, it would blow the top of her head right off. Fortunately, this explosive charge was diffused by Shay Dayton's phone, which now started to vibrate.

She picked it up. The screen said,
PERNITA
, and there was a photo of a beautiful brunette with high cheekbones and too much makeup.

Zee did something without thinking, without wanting to think.

She tapped TALK.

“Hello?” she said, and her voice was barely a whisper.

“Baby?” said a voice at the other end. “I'm outside your building again. Can you let me up? I think I left one of my shopping bags there. The one from Ornello's? At least I'm hoping it's there. If not, I left it at the store.”

Zee couldn't speak. It was a woman calling Shay Dayton “baby.”

“Hello?” the woman said. “You there? Say something, sugar! I didn't exhaust you
that
much this morning, did I?” She laughed lasciviously.

Zee had to sit down. Apparently, Shay had romped with this girl in the morning and then with Loni just a few hours later. She knew he was an animal, but for God's
sake
. Suddenly it seemed that Shay Dayton was putting out for every woman in town—
except her
.

“I'm sorry,” she said. “Are you calling for Shay Dayton?”

There was a long pause. Then, “Who is this?”

“I'm—it doesn't matter. Is…is he something to you? Shay?”

An even longer pause. “Who might be asking?”

Zee considered how to proceed. “He…he was here earlier. He left his phone. And his wallet. I'm feeling a little…I'm feeling like an idiot.” None of this was strictly untrue, she was pleased to note. “If you give me your address, I'll bring them by, and you can return them to him.”

“Why don't you return them yourself?” said Pernita, her voice like razor blades.

“Because,” Zee replied, “based on this call, I never want to see him again.” And that was true, too. In just the heat of a single moment, she had ceased to be an Underling.

“I'm in my car,” Pernita said. “You give me
your
address, and I'll come by and get them.”

“I'm at 1477 Londale,” Zee said.

CHAPTER 10

The doorbell woke Shay from his nap. He sat up, and a sudden head rush made him feel momentarily swoony. The sun was still very bright. He wasn't entirely sure what day it was. The doorbell rang again. He lurched up from the couch and staggered down the hall to the intercom. “Yeah?” he said into the speaker.

“I've been calling you” was the tinny reply.

Pernita. He sighed in defeat.

“Lost my phone,” he said, scratching his chest. Luckily he had left a set of spare keys with a neighbor, or he wouldn't have even been able to go home.

“Can you buzz me up?” she said. “I think I left a shopping bag there.”

“You didn't,” he said, scanning the place to make sure, but he buzzed her up anyway.

She appeared at the top of the stairs, looking as polished and fresh as she had several hours before—like she'd walked through a time vortex from 8 am straight to 4 pm.

She pecked him on the cheek and dropped her handbag on his orange-crate end table. “Silly,” she said, “how'd you manage to lose your phone?”

He went and sat down. “Don't know,” he said, yawning. “It happens.”

“I think I'd lose my mind if I ever lost mine,” she said, looking around the apartment. “I don't know who I'd even
be
without it.” She looked up at him. “The bag doesn't seem to be here. You sure you haven't seen it? Blue, with orange lettering? ‘Ornello's'?”

“I remember the bag,” he said with just a hint of pique. “I carried it halfway across town for you.” She shot him a challenging look and he moderated his tone. “Pretty sure you took it with you when you left.”

She looked at him for a while, to the point at which he began to feel uncomfortable. Then she came over and sat in the worn leather armchair across from him.

“Have you tried retracing your steps?” she asked.

“Hm?” he asked, confused.

“Your phone. Walk yourself through your morning. Where did you go, after I left you?” She raised an eyebrow, which had the force of a gunshot. “You told me you were staying in to sleep off the concert high. So whatever got you up and out of the apartment must have been something pretty …singular.”

She was
, Shay thought. But he said, “I just felt restless. Went out.”

“Where?”

“Just
out
,” he said, and irritation crept back into his voice. “I don't know.”

She smiled, but in a way that wasn't reassuring. “No need to bite my head off. I'm just trying to help you remember where you might've left your phone.”

“No worries,” he said, slouching down in the chair. “Sure it'll turn up.”

The smile grew wider and colder. Then she said, “Oh, I know it will.” Then she reached in her purse and pulled out his phone. She laid it on the table between them. “Your wallet, too,” she added and she plucked that from the purse and tossed it on top of the phone.

Shay felt his face burn like a pepper under a broiler. He opened his mouth, but no words came out.

“She doesn't ever want to see you again,” Pernita said, still smiling. “The girl on Londale Avenue. Apparently you neglected to tell her you were in a…nonexclusive relationship.”

“Goddamn it,” he muttered.

She sat back, and her smile relaxed somewhat. “Honestly, I don't understand why you insist on hiding these things from me. Your little ‘adventures.' I mean, when have I ever said you couldn't have them? That's been the agreement between us from the start, and I've never…I mean, I can only
imagine
what it must be like, the morning after a big concert. All that energy and power and testosterone still surging through you, looking for release.” She raised her eyebrows again. “Silly me, I thought I'd helped you work that off this morning. But I guess you had a little extra, huh?”

He looked down at his hands, resting on the arms of the chair. He used his thumb to push his cuticles back. He couldn't bring himself to look at her.

“Maybe hiding them from me is the
point
,” she continued, unwilling to let it go and let him stew in his misery alone. “Maybe it's not exciting for you unless there's some degree of subterfuge involved. Maybe the secrecy is what makes it
hot
.” She shrugged. “I don't know. Men are a mystery to me.”

He imagined the floor opening up and swallowing him, chair and all, plunging him down to drown in a deep, salty sea. It was a comforting fantasy.

Finally, she got to her feet with a little grunt of exasperation. “Maybe someday you'll learn to trust me,” she said, and she came over and kissed the top of his head. He remained completely motionless. “I'm not your enemy. In fact, I'm the best ally you'll ever have. At some level, I'm sure you know that.” She turned and fetched her purse from the end table. “Meet me for drinks tonight,” she said as she slung the strap over her shoulder, “and I'll prove it. Working on a little scheme that, if it pans out…well, let's just say, you'll be happy. Mambo Room, six thirty. We can go to dinner after, if you're free.” She winked at him.

I'm not free
, he wanted to say.
I may never be free again. You've got me completely sewn up tight. I'm trapped, and I'm suffocating
.

And then…she was gone.

He waited till he heard the front door click shut behind her before he moved. And then all he did was to reach for his phone, and hold it in his hands. He was stymied. His impulse was to call Loni and explain. But he couldn't do that; he didn't have her phone number. He couldn't even look it up; he didn't know her last name. He knew, in fact, next to nothing about her. He didn't even know if she had a job. If he knew that, he might be able to reach her there.

Suddenly, her criticism of him—that he talked only about himself—came roaring back to bite him in the ass, and hard. She'd been right. He'd spent what he thought was a wonderful, exciting, life-changing afternoon with her, and when he thought back on it, all he could remember was talking about himself. His tour, his songwriting, his insecurities, his desires. Loni had liked him; he'd sensed that. She'd wanted him; she'd made that plain. But he didn't really know her at all.

He felt a sudden welling up in his chest, like he might cry. He was belatedly realizing what a totally self-centered prick he really was. And now it was too late. He couldn't reach Loni by phone or text, and he couldn't reach her by Facebook, because she'd blocked him. He had no other way of getting to her, short of camping out in front of her building. He was afraid to do that, because what if she saw him and called Pernita? He had no idea what had gone on between them. There might have been
some horrible female-bonding thing, where Pernita had set herself up as Loni's protector should the predatory Shay come after her again. It was certainly within Pernita's powers to do that. She could manipulate the devil into handing over the keys to hell while he went off to live in a cardboard box beneath the freeway.

There was only one slender thread that might still work for him.

He called Lockwood.

“Favor,” he said.

Lockwood sighed. “Man, I am so
not
your pimp.”

Shay blushed. It was embarrassing that Lockwood just presumed this had to do with a woman. Even more embarrassing that he was right.

“Pernita got to Loni,” he said.

Lockwood let loose a stream of profanities. “You're a piece of work, you know that? You can't even keep it in your pants long enough to get this tour started. The tour that makes or breaks us. You're just determined to break us
before
.”

“This is different,” he said. “This girl…Loni. Dude, I think this is it. This is…I don't want to be all melodramatic or anything…”

Lockwood laughed. “You? You're like a goddamn Hollywood diva. On your
best
days.”

Shay gritted his teeth and soldiered on. “Listen, I just can't lose this one. Not yet. There's something there. Something
real
, man. We have a kind of…
connection
.”

Lockwood snorted. “You're talking, but all I hear is
blah blah blah
.”

“I know, I know. It's a string of clichés. That's the point. I need to get beyond that. I need to figure out what's there behind all the blah blah blah. Because there really is
something
.”

“Well, what the hell am I supposed to do about it?”

“You're still friends with the roommate, right?”

“Zee?” he said, and barked a laugh. “You expect
her
to help you? Are you out of your fucking
mind
?”

“It's all I've got left. Just ask her, man. Ask her to please, please, please tell Loni that I can explain everything if she'll just agree to meet me one more time. Time and place totally up to her. Loni, I mean.”

He sighed. “Fine. I'll ask. Just…don't get your hopes up. The girl's not your biggest fan, you know.”

He was a little surprised to hear him say this. Surprised and hurt. “She used to be.”

“Yeah, and then she got to know you. Put
that
in your pipe and smoke it.”

“I will. I promise. Just do this for me, and I'm humble for the rest of my life.”

“Fuck that bullshit. What am I, stupid?”

“No, you're my best friend. Best friend
anybody's
ever had. Thanks, bud. Seriously, I cannot express how much I owe you.”

“I can,” he said, before hanging up. “And I'll be invoicing you regularly, so be ready.”