Authors: Jade Allen
****
“Let’s do it again,” Alex said, looking from Jack
in the control room to the rest of us.
“Fuck,” Nick said, bending over and plucking his
pack of cigarettes off of the little side table he’d left them on.
“I think we’ve almost got it, guys,” Jack said
over the intercom. “It’s just missing that little thing—that flavor.” I
scrubbed at my face and grabbed the beer I’d almost forgotten about to take a
gulp of it. Even though we had hundreds of thousands of dollars at our
disposal, the band had decided to stick with recording in Miami; it was where
we’d gotten our sound together, and it was where we all wanted to be. Ron, our
manager, had tried to tempt us to go to New York or LA or even Toronto, but
none of the paired-off guys in the band wanted to spend weeks away from their
girls, and we had all always done better in our own environment. We’d flown
Jack in after going over show reels for about two weeks; he’d worked with Kill
Kill, Bacchus, and Minute Music Militia, who we all loved, and his ideas for
the album based on the demos we’d put out there were the most like what we
wanted to do.
“Mark, think you can tighten up that part in the
last verse? You’re losing the punch on the snare,” Alex said. Mark rolled his
eyes a bit but sat back from his kit, examining the head on his snare. I took
another sip of my beer and went through the bass run quietly, trying to see if
there was a better way to play it—a faster chord change or a quicker
progression. For a minute, everyone took a break, examining their instruments,
and I could feel the ripples of tension in the room. Mark was having a good
day, but Alex was right: the snare bit at the end of the last verse just wasn’t
coming through like it should.
We’d agreed that we’d work on the live recordings
first, just to get a baseline and to get an idea of the shape of the album, and
then move onto individual parts. For once, Alex was actually inviting
contributions—songs—from the rest of us; we’d started out in rehearsals with
about fifty songs between the five of us, which we’d narrowed down to about
twenty. If we couldn’t pick and choose at the end of the recording process, it
was going to be a monster of an album. But we all had a couple of tracks we’d
put forward—which was different from the previous few albums, where almost all
of the songs were written by Alex and Nick, with the rest of us filling in
parts.
I had a good shot at getting at least two out of
four of my songs on the finished album, and I figured Jules had maybe three
that were worth recording and including. Mark only had one that made the cut,
but he’d only put in three, and he’d admitted the other two just weren’t there
yet—maybe the next album. The rest either Nick and Alex had written together or
separately; still, it wasn’t a bad ratio of songs for a finished album, and I
had to figure that some of that had to do with Jules going off with his
girlfriend to record a side project. The last thing anyone in the band wanted
was to split up—together we were fucking magic, and if Jules’ work with Fran
had lit a fire under Alex’s and Nick’s asses to pull more of the rest of our
stuff into the loop, I wasn’t going to be a shrinking violet about it.
Once everyone had settled in, we went back to
work, playing through the song again. Mark nailed the last verse, but Jules
flubbed one of the bits in the bridge. “Take a break,” Jack suggested. “Come
back in ten.”
I grabbed my phone, my beer, and my cigarettes and
headed outside the studio; technically it didn’t matter where I smoked, since
we’d booked the complex for the duration of the recording and we’d paid a
deposit for cleaning specifically so we could smoke inside, but I wanted the
air and the mega-watt South Florida sun in my face for a little bit. I sat down
in the grass after I made sure there weren’t any ants, and lit up, unlocking my
phone and opening Facebook while I lit up. The notifications told me I had five
event invitations: Heather Brooks—who I only knew from tenth grade French—was
throwing some kind of makeup party. Decline. Jonny had an event going on in
Downtown Ft. Lauderdale the next weekend at Stache—that one I tapped
‘interested’ since it was a pretty good-looking show and I could always pregame
a bit to save myself on the overpriced drinks the club served. A friend of a
friend whose name was actually Jessica but who had decided to go by “Jezebel”
after abandoning her husband and two-year-old son to try and become a famous
BDSM performer had invited me to yet another fetish party at yet another strip
club out in Plantation; I declined and then went to her profile page and took
her off my friends list altogether. Going back to my events, there were two
left: a pool party at my friend Hannah’s house in two weeks with a luau theme
and a show up in Lake Worth at Propaganda, featuring Atreides, Jackal 5,
Kingsroad and Heatkeeper; I accepted both invites and closed out the app.
“Yo, Dan! Break’s over, man,” Nick said from the
door.
“Give me two seconds, I need to finish this,” I
told him, waving the cigarette butt in his direction. I thought about Sophie,
not for the first time since I’d seen her at Respects; as I took a last drag of
my cig and stubbed it out, I wondered if she went to any local shows. Probably
not—she’d get her fill of bands working at the club. I went back into the
studio and pushed her out of my head.
****
Propaganda was fucking packed; I had to wait an
extra five minutes at the bar to get my Jack and coke—and Kelsey the bartender
knew me, and knew I tipped more than decent. But Mark was with me, and Nick and
Olivia had even agreed to come out; Olivia had an article due about Atreides
anyway, and thought she could get some good pictures at the show. It was so damned
hot it felt like the walls were sweating, but of course Nick—a few feet away
from me—looked like he might as well have been in a walk-in fridge, and Mark
somehow managed to make “sweaty and red-faced” look like a legitimate fashion
choice.
I looked around the packed club while Heatkeeper
set up, not at anything in particular but just to keep from getting bored; most
of the people I saw were regulars—Lake Worth people, who practically lived at
the club because it was a dependable place to go, and only a few blocks from
their homes. It was about forty minutes away from my place in Deerfield, but
Mark had already said we could crash at his brother’s place in Delray.
As I was looking around, I spotted her. Sophie had
her hair down instead of in pigtails, but her face in profile—and the deep,
mermaid-green color of her hair—was instantly recognizable. She must have
gotten her hair cut or something, because it looked shorter than it had when it
was up, and it was half-plastered to her face with sweat; but she looked hot as
hell in a tight, pink, old school Middle Class Brats tee shirt, a black and
white plaid miniskirt and a pair of suspenders. I couldn’t see what kind of
shoes she had on, but I didn’t care; just the sight of her, the shirt starting
to go a little transparent from sweat, her tits straining the front of it, the
skirt barely—barely—covering the curve of her ass, was enough to almost make me
forget I was at Prop for a show. She was smoking a cigarette, pressed up
against the bar, talking to Benny from Jackal 5; I looked around to make sure
that Mark was busy, and slowly made my way in her direction.
“No, you are
not
going to get Mel to make
one of your specials for Ricky,” Sophie was telling Benny when I finally got
within hearing distance. She flicked the ash off the end of her cigarette and
shook her head. “The last time you came up with a special drink for him he
spewed Jaeger and schnapps all over my fucking kitchen floor and I had to clean
it up.”
“Make him clean it up this time,” Benny said with
a shrug. Sophie rolled her eyes and turned to look around. I hadn’t realized
how short she was, the week before at Respects; up close, without the bar
between us, she was something like half a foot shorter than me.
“If he spews in my kitchen tonight I’m going to
make
you
clean it up,” Sophie told Benny. Benny caught sight of me and
grinned.
“Danny boy!” I smiled at him. Sophie turned to
find out who Benny was talking to and her eyebrows went up at the sight of me.
I gave her a quick grin and set my drink down to fish my cigarettes out of my
pocket.
“Fucking packed in here,” I said, shaking my head.
“You guys still play that cover of The Cranberries, Benny?”
“Of course we do,” Benny said, shaking his head at
me. “It brings down the fucking house—we can’t take it off the set list.”
“Benny wants to feed Ricky some disgusting
combination of alcohol to see what happens,” Sophie explained to me, clucking
her tongue against her teeth. “Tell him no—since he apparently won’t listen to
me, and I’ve heard
all about
how much he admires you.”
“You admire me, Benny?” I put my hand over my
heart, leaving the cigarette dangling out of the cover of my mouth for a second
before I lit it.
“She heard me wrong,” Benny said matter-of-factly.
“I told her I admire your cock.” I rolled my eyes.
“In fairness it
is
nicer than yours,” I
pointed out. “You ever get that enlargement surgery?”
“Hey, hey, it’s not the size that counts,” Benny
said, smirking.
“It counts when you don’t know what to do with
it,” Sophie countered. I almost choked on a drag of smoke and raised my hand
for her to high-five me.
“You here for Atreides?” I nodded to Benny’s
question, more than happy to abandon the topic of dicks for the time being. I’d
been in a band with Nelson from Atreides before joining up with Molly Riot, and
even though I didn’t have any real desire to work with him on anything, he was
one of the most talented keyboard players I’d ever met. “Sophie’s sister Jess
is the new bass player,” Benny explained, nodding in Sophie’s direction.
“What happened to Chris?” Benny shrugged.
“Family drama out in Cali. You know how it goes.”
I nodded.
“I’m going to run to the ladies’,” Sophie said,
slipping away from the bar after stubbing out her cigarette. “Make sure Benny
doesn’t order something disgusting for Ricky, will you?”
“Why’s she so worried about what Ricky drinks?” I
settled in at the bar, glancing at the little stage to check on the progress
that Heatkeeper was making. They were starting in on sound check; Tom strummed
a quick progression and looked over at the sound booth.
“Ricky’s dating her sister, they crash at her
place usually on show nights,” Benny said. “So of course Ricky gets sloppy
fucking drunk and pukes everywhere.”
“And you’re helping him? Not very friendly.” I
flicked ash off of my cigarette and gestured to Kelsey that I wanted another
one.
“It’s hilarious. Before the puking he gets all
apologetic about being so drunk—hell, he apologizes for shit other people are
doing.” I snorted, shaking my head.
“You seem pretty knowledgeable about Sophie,” I
said, leaning in a bit closer to Benny. “What’s her deal?” Benny shrugged.
“She’s un-pull-able,” he told me. “You should know
that right off the bat. Even for pretty boys like you and Nicky.” I rolled my
eyes.
“Nicky’s the next thing to engaged anyway,” I
said. “He ain’t pulling anyone.”
“I’m just saying: she’s unattainable.” I raised an
eyebrow at that.
“Why?” Benny shrugged again.
“Maybe she’s into chicks? Who knows? All I know is
I’ve been trying for like two years and her legs are as closed as ever.”
“Two years? You need to move on, son.”
“Oh I’m not living the monk life,” Benny said,
waving that idea aside. “Just whenever I see her, you know? Or I’ll text her
sometimes. Funny as shit, hot as a five alarm fire, completely un-pull-able.”
“For you, at least,” I said. Kelsey brought me
another drink, and I sipped. Heatkeeper was almost done checking sound.
“For anyone,” Benny insisted. “I’m telling you,
man: she just doesn’t fuck anyone.”
“Is she asexual or something?”
“Nah, she flirts, and Jess tells me she
does
fuck—just no one anyone knows.” Benny knocked back a shot of something
clear—tequila or vodka I thought—and chased it with a sip of beer. “She’s sure
as shit not fucking anyone in the scene.”
Sophie came back and we started talking about
something else—the sound guy, Dave, or something to do with what was going on
down at Revolution in Ft. Lauderdale, anything but the woman in front of us. I
thought about what Benny had said about Sophie, trying to wrap my head around
it; obviously she was in the scene—even if I hadn’t seen her at shows until
that night—but she wasn’t hooking up with anyone in the scene. That was smart;
but it didn’t leave a lot of hope for me to convince her to hang out sometime.
Of course, it didn’t leave a lot of hope for Mark, either.
You don’t even
know if he remembers her,
I reminded myself as Heatkeeper started to play.
I pretended to almost ignore Sophie, not in some kind of strategy but because I
didn’t want to make it obvious that I wasn’t paying 100% of my attention to the
band on the stage. She sang along with a little over half the songs the band
played, and I couldn’t help occasionally glancing over to see her tits shaking
and jiggling inside her shirt as she danced around.
By the time Atreides started setting up, some of
the people who’d only come for Jackal 5 or Heatkeeper had wandered off, and
Nick and Olivia and Mark had found me where I’d camped out, next to Sophie and
Benny, who had broken down at record speed after his band finished. I watched
Mark flirting with Sophie and didn’t tell him about what Benny had told me on
the subject of Sophie’s prospect of being picked up; instead I just watched as
she flirted every bit as hard as Mark did, but without giving a single inch—it
was like watching a cat with a cloth mouse: the cat’s obviously having fun, but
has no intention of actually doing anything to the mouse or even killing it,
since it can’t be killed in the first place.
Atreides finished setting up and started sound
check and I watched a total change come over Sophie’s demeanor; she no longer
even pretended to pay attention to Benny or Mark or even me, but instead
started jumping up and down, screaming for her sister. It was adorable. “Oh my
gawd, Jess Riviera! Have my
babies
!”
“Bitch, that’d be incest,” Jess called back from
the stage.
“Not if you’re just a surrogate,” Sophie
countered.
“Find a sperm donor then!” It went on like that
the whole time Jess, Nelson, and the rest of the band went through sound check;
I wasn’t the only one enjoying the side-show, but I had the front row seat, so
to speak.
When Atreides started playing I actually did pay
full attention to them, barely even noticing Sophie next to me. I sang along
with Jason, Nelson, and Jess; I jumped when they told the crowd to jump. I
grinned at Sophie during one of the slower songs and followed the chant. It was
a good show—as good a show as any that Molly Riot have ever put on—and I was
glad I’d come out to see it, even if I couldn’t get anywhere with Sophie.
After the set was finished, I turned my attention
back onto the bar. People started closing out their tabs, heading for the next
spot on their evening out, but Sophie hung around, and so did Mark and Benny,
so I had no reason to leave. Nick and Olivia took a few minutes to chat up the
members of the band, and I was pretty sure that Olivia got whatever it was she
needed for her article; they left after a quick drink to celebrate the show.
Within thirty minutes of the show finishing, the crowd at Prop was only about a
dozen people; it was the time of night I liked the best. Jess and Ricky were
making out at one of the tables off in a corner, and Mark was talking to Benny
about the studio. The air conditioning started to be better than theoretical,
and I was more than ready to close the place out. I wanted as much of a chance
to see what the deal was with Sophie as possible.