Phoenix Rising I (35 page)

“I was saying it is a shame that you’ve never been there before. They do your band a lot of justice. Aren’t they throwing you a party in a few weeks?”

“Sort of,” he said, draining the coffee. “Maybe I should go in and say hello.”

“It would be the friendly thing to do,” she smiled.

Yes, it would, he thought. “Do you think I could just walk in?”

“I don’t see why not. You are famous, after all.” She patted his hand in her motherly way.

“Thanks for the coffee,” he said, leaving a twenty on the table.

The rain had let up a bit. Grey wondered what they would think at
Metal Alloy
when he showed up looking like death. They would probably throw him out on his ass. He smiled at the thought. He would love to see that.

The building was nice and warm but not overly warm. The bottom floor was like a waiting area or something. It looked like a bank. It was pristine and cold. The floors were an ivory colored tile, and there was a large chandelier hanging in the center of the room. The elevators were on both the left and right side of the room. There was a large spiral staircase on the left side of the elevators to the left. Grey instantly felt like he was out of place. He started to turn and walk out, but someone noticed him and instantly recognized him.

“Mr. Grey,” the girl said. She came bouncing across the foyer. She was young with a cute blond bobbed hairdo.

“Hi,” he said when she reached him.

She took his arm in hers and looked up at him. “Mr. Grey, welcome to
Metal Alloy
. Did you come about the party?”

“No, I didn’t. I just came to look around. I was in the area.” He let her lead him toward the elevator on the right.

“In this weather? You’ll catch a cold for sure. Aun … I mean Mrs. Marks will not like that. With the concert and party coming up.”

“No, she won’t,” he wondered who Mrs. Marks was.

The girl led him into the elevator and pushed the button for floor number two. He smiled. “I’m Becca. I’m going to be flying to Memphis for the premiere. I can’t wait. I’m hoping to get the scoop on the CD. Is it true you put a porno in the multimedia section?”

Grey would have laughed if the girl hadn’t looked so serious. This was only one of the many rumors he had heard about the multimedia section of his new CD. They were becoming more and more ludicrous as the event drew closer. He guessed he deserved it. After all, he hadn’t been very media friendly as of late. He hadn’t denied any of the rumors. He had let the tabloids say their piece about everything from the contents of the new CD to his rumored preference for red heads.

The elevator stopped on the second floor as his stomach tightened. This was the headquarters for
Metal Alloy
. He took a deep breath. The girl, Becca, was still talking. She was going on about how much she loved his music and about how she had enjoyed the
Playgirl
spread, etc., etc. He had basically tuned her out, only nodding occasionally so she wouldn’t think he was being rude. His mind was not on her but on Anna.

Becca bounced out of the elevator, her arm still locked in his arm. He hadn’t noticed whether or not she had held onto it the whole time they were in the elevator. He supposed that she probably had. She went to the main desk on the second floor, practically gushing.

“Mark, this is Grey, the singer for....”

“Morpheus,” Mark said, standing. Mark was a tall guy, about six feet himself. He was thin, though with a perfectly manicured hand and a pansy handshake.

“You’ve heard of us.”

“Of course I have. I may be a receptionist, but I know my music. I am a big fan and am anxiously awaiting the release of the new CD. I hear it’s going to be awesome. Yet another side of the band,” Mark tried to play it cool in Grey’s presence. The two men had never met, and he understood now why all of the women went wild for this one. He oozed maleness. Just his presence here, dripping wet even, made Mark feel self conscious.

“I’m afraid I’m ruining your floor,” Grey said.

“It’s just water,” Becca said. “You have got to meet Anna. She’s hosting the party for you in Memphis. She’s kind of shy, but you’ll like her.”

Anna was hosting his party? Perhaps he had made contact with her through her dreams. Seeing her again had been his purpose when he chose the locale for the premiere of the new CD.

Becca led Grey to the area behind Mark’s desk. Two large wooden doors stood between his area and the rest of the office. This area was carpeted. Grey was beginning to regret his decision to come here. He would read it in the paper tomorrow, “Notorious Lead Singer Destroys Office Building.” They would never get the details right. Not a very exciting story anyway. He just got water everywhere.

Becca reached the door of Anna’s office. There was no answer. She slowly turned the knob and went inside. “Anna?” No answer. “Anna. Someone is here to see you,” she called again. She turned to Grey. “She is not in right now. Come in. She keeps a few towels in here, I know. Always prepared for everything. You can at least dry off a bit if you want.”

Grey stepped into the large office with its mahogany desk and black leather chair. He could smell a faint scent that smelled like tangerines or oranges coming from miniature citrus trees that were covered with tiny fruits. She had a long leather sofa on one side of the room, and there were two doors on the other side. He watched Becca disappear into one of them and reemerge with a large towel in hand, allowing him a glimpse of the small bathroom.

“You can dry off a bit anyway,” she smiled. “I’ll go find Anna. You
have
to meet her.”

Before Grey had a chance to protest, Becca had bounded out the door. He sat on the leather sofa, enjoying the scent. Leather always brought back memories for him. Lately, the memories had been of her in that hole in the wall club. There was something definitely sensual about the smell. Grey used the towel to remove some of the water from his hair. It was a soft, thick white towel. It, like the room, smelled like tangerines. He knew what kind of woman preferred tangerine scent to the floral, rosy scents that women usually wore. She was the kind he desperately needed.

He hadn’t seen a picture of her on the walls. No awards. Usually these kinds of offices were filled with pictures of their inhabitants cozied up to various stars. This one was void of all of the pomp and circumstance that went with a journalist job. The pictures on the walls were of places. Gardens and such. All of the places looked misty and mysterious. They all had a timeless feel, yet they seemed trapped in time. One was of an Egyptian bath with gardens hanging around it. Another was of an Irish field of grass that lay against ancient stone structures. He wondered if these were real places or imagined from the artist’s fantasies. Most of what he’d seen of the world had been through the eyes of the night.

Grey went over to the desk and sat in the leather chair which was small but comfortable. He spun the chair around, a silly motion that he wouldn’t normally do. Wheeling the chair over to the window, he looked out onto the rainy street, noting the diner and the street corner where he had stood minutes earlier.

Becca interrupted his thoughts. She was cute, he had to admit. She looked at him like all of the other eighteen year old girls did. With admiration. It grew old after a time. “I’m sorry, Mr. Grey. I can’t seem to find her.”

He looked up from his reverie. “It’s fine,” he said. “I should get back anyway.” He stood, but he wasn’t ready to leave yet.

“I’m so glad you came by. Would you like to see Amanda first?” Then Becca stopped. “Why did you come by? I’m sorry. I never asked. I just took over, didn’t I? Were you here on business?” Becca turned red. She was flustered, he could tell. He had been known to have this effect on women, but he had never understood it.

“No, I wasn’t,” he said. He wanted to put her at ease but wasn’t sure what to say.
I was walking by and saw my destiny in the window
. No, that wouldn’t work. He took a deep breath and took one last look at the office.

“Oh,” was Becca’s response.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. He knew she was suddenly nervous because she had stopped talking. She had gone nonstop up to this point. Her silence let him know that she realized who he was and what he was. This was the part he hated. He hated it when people treated him differently. This was the curse of fame, and it was the time when he wished he could crawl back to dreamland and resume his old unassuming job. This could never happen now. You just didn’t go back to your day job after
Playgirl
. Especially when you were the ousted ruler of dreamland.

“It was no problem. I hope you don’t get sick from being so wet,” she said.

“I’m sure I won’t. I should go. I will see her … Anna did you say?”

She cut in, “Yes, you know, it is spelled like Anna, but has that Ah at the beginning. Ahhh-na,” she pronounced beneath her blush.

“Yes, Anna,” he stressed it. Her name sounded good flowing from his lips. “I will see her, and you, in Memphis.”

“I’m really excited.”

“I’m glad. I hope you will not be disappointed,” he looked back at the room. Anna. He would be on the look out for her.

“You never said if you needed anything,” Becca said. Grey was a curious man, she decided.

“I didn’t. I just thought I’d drop by. I was at the diner across the street.”

“Oh. Well, would you like for me to see you out?”

“No. I can find my own way,” he said. “Thank you again,” he left Becca standing there, looking after him.

He walked to the elevator. He didn’t know how he was going to handle this next tour. He had sworn that if the new CD didn’t do well that he was going to give up the business altogether. Secretly, he hoped that it would fail. He could not bear the road and the problems that came with it. One of his band mates had seen a t-shirt once that said “Wink and I’ll do the rest.” That was almost Grey’s motto. It was more like all he had to do was wink and the girls would do the rest. He hated how he needed them.

He stepped out into the cold air again. At least the rain had let up. He decided that he should get back home before it started up again. It was five
PM
now. He would go home and rest, take a shower, and go out. There was a cozy little bar not too far from his apartment that always showcased new bands. He would see what was going on there tonight. And he would stop following Anna. They would be meeting again in Memphis. By then, maybe she would be ready to face who she was.

* * * *

She knew he had been there as soon as she entered the room. No place was safe from his influence.
Nocturneau
he had called her. The word, she learned, meant sleepwalker, but it had no real modern use because it didn’t refer to the literal act of walking in one’s sleep. It was an old term for the guardians chosen by Morpheus to defend the dream realm in mythology. Some mythology, anyway. They all had their own versions of what exactly happened back in the day.

Grey was part of this night world. She knew because she had felt his presence in her safe little apartment on St. James, and she knew why he had come for her. He wouldn’t let her rest--literally--until she admitted to who she was.

And now, he had come to her office to convince her he was right about things that didn’t make sense. In her structured, well-ordered world, her cereal boxes were lined up alphabetically and her dreams were nothing more than nighttime fantasies brought on by stress.

But this world of possibility he was opening for her was beyond intriguing. She closed her office door, capturing his scent in the tiny room. Then she sank down into her

executive chair and closed her eyes.

“I can’t keep fighting you, Grey. I don’t have the strength.”

Yes, you do,
a voice inside her head insisted.
You can’t give in to him.

Anna closed up her office and headed to the elevator, avoiding Becca again. She really didn’t want to know what Grey was doing in her office. The air was cool, and there was a wet breeze blowing when she stepped out into the evening. Her apartment wasn’t far from here, so she decided to walk today since the rain wasn’t coming down so hard anymore. There was something about rain in New York. It somehow fit. New York was a hard cold town, and the rain only accented that. It made her wonder why she had come here from a small town in the South, a place that no one here had ever heard of much less been to.

She rounded the corner, vowing to call her best friend, Brooke, when she got there. She would have an answer. She always did.

Brooke’s answer was a party. Anna wasn’t in the mood to party. She would have rather stayed at home and eaten a pint of ice cream and watched
Sleepless in Seattle
for the hundredth time. She didn’t want to be en route to an underground club. She wanted to be away from the music scene. It was too pretentious. Ice cream, now that was real.

The rain had started again by the time Brooke arrived. She looked ready to seek and destroy. Brooke was tall with legs that seemed to go on forever. She made Anna feel extremely self conscious about her petite build. Brooke also had long blond hair, perfectly manicured nails, and a smile that could melt ice. Tonight, she was dressed in leather pants and red halter top, perfect clothing for October in New York, Anna thought as she rolled her eyes.

“Girl, what has happened to you?” Brooke asked when she walked in. She hugged Anna and looked down at her jeans and T-shirt. “Let’s do something about those clothes.” Before Anna could protest, Brooke had led her into the bedroom.

“You always know how to cheer me up,” Anna said sarcastically as Brooke opened the closet door and began rummaging through the contents.

“You can’t go out like that. How do you expect to
feel
better when you don’t look better?” She picked up a green silk blouse and held it up to herself. “Here, try this,” she said handing it to Anna.

Anna frowned, “Brooke, it is wet outside,” she protested.

“Oh, yeah, it is.” She went back to the closet and came out with a purple leather top. It would go great with a black skirt. She took a look at Anna, who didn’t feel like purple leather tonight. “Do you want to talk about it?”