She-Rox: A Rock & Roll Novel (30 page)

“You are one evil, cruel witch.”

Eddie laughed at his obvious discomfiture, but in two fast strides, he grabbed her wrist and holding her there, he asked, “Are you still mine?”

“Always—”

He met her lips again, but it wasn’t the same. His lips told something different. His body burned with a change of passion, as Eddie mentally deciphered this one from the last.

Stopping him again, she pleaded, “Kai, I have to go home. You need to take me home. We left T.J. back at the house and—”

“Stay here,” he begged.

“I can’t stay here.”

“Sure you can. We’ll hang out, order room service in the morning, and then I’ll take you to work.”

“I’m not leaving T.J. alone. She’ll be a casualty by tomorrow morning.”

“It’s your call.” Kai had made a solemn oath to himself on the plane ride down: No fighting.

Back at the Kat House, Eddie told Kai, “You have to go inside. They’re dying to meet you.”

“Anything I need to know?”

“Gretchen’s the band meddler -- I mean leader, Ginger drums, Raven’s bass.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, you want to know who’s the outcast, the prom queen and the slut?”

Kai nodded.

“You’re savvy enough to figure it out.”

“Lead the way.”

Kai slipped his hand into Eddie’s, squeezing her fingers as they walked into the Kat House. T.J. was watching T.V., and, seeing them, she cried, “Hey, you’re back! I was afraid you left me here for good. And you’re wearing my tank top.”

T.J. expected a “thank you”, but taking a closer look, she noted Kai looked like a drunken friar at Mardi Gras.

“Where are the others?” Eddie asked.

As her shoulders dropped, T.J. droned, “In the kitchen having some kind of band meeting.”

“Without me?”

Eddie left Kai behind and marched to the kitchen where she found three serious looking faces. “Hey, what’s going on?”

“Rachelle called,” Gretchen said.

“Okay, so why the long faces?-”

“They’re moving the showcase up . . . way up. The label wants Slade back on the road sooner rather than later.”

“How much time do we have?”

“Two weeks-”

“Get your music out of your cases and go to the piano room, now.”

Ginger, craning her neck, asked, “So is that him?”

“That’s him.”

Eddie grabbed a red pencil and quickly made various markings all over the charts to each song as her band members watched the harried display. When she finished, she started with Raven, showing her where exactly in each song she was having problems. She went on down the line with each player, showing them their parts.

“If you take the time to practice what I marked out, we’ll be ready. I promise you we’ll be ready. But if you slack off, and screw around with the two weeks we’ve got left, our showcase won’t exactly be a cosmic success.”

The rehearsal after rehearsal was finally finished. Eddie apologized to her guests, “I’m sorry. I had to do that.”

Standing behind her, were three curious Katz. “
Oh,
” she conjectured, “Kai, this is Ginger, Gretchen and Raven.” She pointed to each of them. “This is Kai.”

“Hi, Kai,”
they purred in unison, using their radio-ready suggestive voices.

“Hi ladies,” he greeted, standing up. “So, you’re the three that have been holding Eddie hostage. I should hate you,” he teased, “but votre mondialemont musicients, Le Katz, I can’t very well be too angry,” he charmed, flashing them a spectacular smile. “Le femme fatales de la internet-”

“Ooh,” cooed Ginger. “I love obscenities with an accent.”

Eddie scoffed, “Well, we’re not famous, yet.”

“I googled you,” Kai retorted.

Gretchen was used to good-looking guys filling her with one-liners, and countered, “We’re just playing guitar . . . it’s not brain surgery.”

“That is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell Eddie. I’m glad somebody else said it for me. But you know Eddie, Elle est obstine.” (She is persistent.)

Eddie stated, “I’m going to go put my guitar back in its case,” which really meant, “You’re flirting; I’m leaving.”

Kai snatched her wrist and quickly pulled her close as the girls watched his possessive display. With Eddie clutched in his arms, he looked in her eyes and purposely fawned, “Isn’t she adorable?” he teased, nuzzling her face with his nose, knowing the others were ogling. “Tell her she has to come back home with me.”

“She can’t go.” Ginger used her kitten voice. “We have a big show coming up, so she has to stay here with us. But, why don’t you come see us play? You could bring some of your friends from school.”

“That’s going to be impossible,” Kai stated.

“You don’t think they’d come?”

“Tell you what . . . I’ll come to your showcase when protons change their atomic weight.”

“When does that happen?”

“When ammonia becomes static.”

Knowing how fast Kai could go from charmer to snob, Eddie whispered, “That’s enough.”

Katz Jam Shed, July 2, 2007 – Mandatory Band Meeting

Rachelle Klein was slim in build, but no pushover. She had a blonde pixie haircut, strong blue eyes and a pert little nose. She came across as a cream puff, but when she opened her mouth to negotiate, the pit bull took over. Being a child actor back in the seventies, she was intimately familiar with the ins and outs of entertainment contracts.

“Slade had nothing to do with this decision,” she explained, clarifying why the date on the showcase was moved up. “It was purely the label’s. They want him back on the road promoting his ‘Bad Blood’ CD. The European tour brought quite a bit of momentum in sales and they don’t want things to get stagnant.” As Eddie listened to Rachelle, she could feel the tour slipping through her fingers. “Actually,” Rachelle said, “they were going to get a different band altogether so they could leave immediately, but Slade asked for the two weeks and
that’s
why you got them.”

Observing their faces of mild discouragement, she carried on, “Don’t worry, if that doesn’t work out we’ve been slammed with emails for a possible USO tour to Afghanistan due to the video. We’re still working on it.

“Tomorrow,” she continued, “the same crew that made the riser will be constructing more stage.” She set down a blue print for a set design, it wasn’t much more than a bunch of silver bars outlining the back half of the stage and another set of silver bars crafted into a large cube, displayed next to Ginger’s drums. “With your name, ‘The Katz,’ and the silver cat suits, we decided to make you a bunch of caged animals.”

Eddie didn’t like the idea and made a face revealing her ridicule. Catching it, Rachelle said, “It’s effective.”

“What’s this thing here?” Gretchen asked pointing to the cube next to Ginger’s drums.

“That,” she answered, “is an empty cage, where we are going to put two dancers. We need more bodies on stage to fill it up. It will add to the show. We’ve hired a dance company and sent them your CD. They will be doing a dress rehearsal with you the night before the show. Which leads me to the next item,” she paused. “I need all four of you to become bigger than life and to help you out this same dance company is going to give you some lessons. Your first lesson will be belly dancing; and the second, pole dancing.”

“I can’t
pole dance,
” Eddie shot.

“I can,” Ginger returned.

“Eddie,” Rachelle soothed, “we just want you to pick up a few moves. That’s all.”

“Playing guitar doesn’t mean I can wrap my leg behind my ear,” she whimpered.

“You are all scheduled for two lessons this Thursday and Friday at five p.m.
Don’t miss them.
Next is the Fourth of July. I hope you will all find this good news—the President of Moonshine, Lanni Fauste, has invited all of you to his annual Independence Day Champagne Brunch and since there’s a good chance that you may become part of the Moonshine family, he wants you all to go so he can meet you, personally. Please be advised that this is a
command performance.
It goes from noon till three, which isn’t really brunch, but that’s what he calls it. Anyway, he does this every year, it’s one of his bigger affairs and he expects anybody who has anything to do with Moonshine to attend, that is, if you’re not on the road.”

Rachelle flipped open her messenger bag, pulled out four white envelopes and handed one to each girl. “Inside each of these is a check for one hundred and fifty dollars made out to you. This is a clothing allowance for the brunch. Please get yourselves an
appropriate
outfit. Please stay away from stage wear like black leather pants or anything too costumey. We would prefer you went with a nice sundress for the brunch – like I said, appropriate. Sexy is fine, but not so sexy that you look like a hooker who crashed the party. We need you to look young, fresh, clean and hip. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” they said together.

“Good. Lanni has invited you so he can
observe
you. He will be watching to see who drinks too much, who hits on his rock stars, who’s rude and who’s got track marks up and down their arms. That’s why the sundress is such a good idea. He is looking over the merchandise before he buys. His wife’s name is Celina—she’s the hostess, so don’t forget it. Any questions so far?”

Eddie raised her hand. “Can we bring a guest?”

“That is a very good question and I’m glad you brought it up. Under normal circumstances it would probably be fine, but Mr. Tierney, your boss, doesn’t want any
distractions
. That’s his word, not mine—meaning no boyfriends, no hangers on or free loading groupies. He wants all four of you to focus on charming the pants off Lanni and bewitching him with all that Kat appeal you got going on.”

“Well, that settles that,”
thought Eddie. She’d been hoping to bring Kai and T.J. to the party, to soften the blow of not spending the holiday with them.

“We’re almost done here,” encouraged Rachelle, “and then you can start rehearsing. Our last item on the agenda is the house.” Her tone became serious. “If, and hopefully when, you are contracted with Moonshine, you’ll get an advance. Up until now, Astral has been paying for the house on Briarcliff and all the other bills that go with it. Here’s the deal: After you sign the contract, you are not obligated to live in that house anymore. You can live anywhere you want because you are going to have to use your advance money to pay for it. You can stay at the home on Briarcliff; you can move out and get a roommate; or you can get yourselves a house together. Either way, that advance money you got coming from Moonshine is to be used for paying your own expenses, which includes the house if you so choose to stay there.”