Superstar (17 page)

“Kwai!” Sioux had never been so happy to
hear Benny’s familiar screech in her life.

Kwai rose elegantly to her feet. “Keep your
Spanx on. I’m coming. I’m coming,” she barked over her shoulder.
Then she turned back to Sioux with an almost compassionate look.
“Just call the boy,” she said before rushing back over to the
impatient choreographer.

Chapter Ten

“Interesting. Most people know to leave you
alone when you don’t return their calls,” Bryan said with a
sneer.

“That would be too convenient, now wouldn’t
it?” Sioux retorted. She had driven up to his house on the Encinal
Bluffs above Malibu because neither he nor Thad would return her
calls. Coming to the house was a last resort because she knew
Callie would let her in, even if, like Thad, Bryan wouldn’t. Callie
had led her into the den of the stone and glass Mid Century modern
home where Bryan sat at the piano evidently composing. None of
their growing brood was in evidence, though the detritus of their
presence was scattered all over the room leaving it looking as
though there had been an explosion at a toy company.

Bryan didn’t rise from his seat or even turn
around to face her, so she walked over to the piano to face him.
Still he ignored her, as he continued to make notes in his battered
songbook. It was only after she had the temerity to close the book
that he finally spoke again.

“I know I’m going to hate myself for asking
this question, but what do you want?”

“I want to play tonight.”

Well that got his attention as he rose to
his feet and stared at her as though not believing his own
ears.

“Why the hell would I agree to that? You did
exactly what I knew you would do. You played with Thad’s head just
for the hell of it. You fucked him over and I can’t believe you
have the nerve to come here and ask me for anything.”

Sioux gasped at the unfairness of the
accusation. “You don’t really believe that do you? I never played
with Thad at all.”

“I know what I saw.”

She paused and took a deep breath. And that
was the point. From what he and Thad had seen it probably did look
that way. “Bryan, I want to make it right. Just one song. I
promise. I love him, but he’s not going to talk to me. I have to
show him.”

“Well, what you’ve shown him so far…”

“I know. I know. I wasn’t thinking straight.
I was scared. Hell, I’m still scared. But I love him.”

“If you hurt him again, I’ll make sure you
never get a recording contract or sing in public again. Do you
understand?”

Sioux stared at him for a long moment,
knowing he meant every word he said. “Fair enough.”

Under the glare of a single spotlight Sioux
played the long introduction to “Superstar”. The club was
practically microscopic; she doubted it was much larger than her
den. She wondered who B.T. owed a favor to that he would book the
band in such a undersized venue. Even so it was standing room only
and the fire marshal had already forced several dozen people to
leave, though there wasn’t an appreciable difference in the size of
the crowd. The room was quiet in a way that was almost spooky.
Several hundred people should not be capable of that level of
noiselessness. People, just by their very nature, had a tendency to
make sound, even when they tried not to. But this crowd watched her
with the fixity usually reserved for a tightrope walker, and the
comparison was certainly apt.

She played the intro again. She hadn’t meant
to drag it out, but she needed the extra time to relieve the nerves
that had almost closed her throat. She had never experienced this
level of stage fright. Then again, she’d never had this much on the
line before. When it was time to begin singing, for a moment she
feared nothing would come out, but then, almost of their own
volition her lips parted and the words poured forth.

The emotions were too much to bear and she
closed her eyes, focused on nothing but the music. Telling him the
only way she knew how that she loved him and deeply regretted
causing him so much pain.

Bryan had agreed to keep Thad in the
dressing room until she began her set, but even with her eyes
closed she knew he was there. Could feel his presence in the wings
just as surely as she could feel the cool smoothness of the wood of
her guitar under her damp hands. Then he crossed the stage and
stood beside her and everyone in the room evaporated like fog under
the warm rays of the summer sun. There was no one but him; everyone
else had ceased to exist. When he joined her on the chorus it was
as magical and lyrical as it had been that day on her deck. She
watched his face as he stood at the mike with her. The lines of his
face were drawn. He looked as rest-broken as she felt. Their gazes
locked and never separated through the next verses and then the
chorus. When the song ended, neither of them said a word. She
couldn’t look away and apparently neither could he. Even the
audience seemed caught up in the same spell. Sioux had forgotten
they were there, and Thad actually jumped when the crowd leapt to
its feet and the thunderous applause shook the rafters of the small
venue.

Still she couldn’t look away not even when
tears welled in her eyes. She knew that in this small place pretty
much everyone there could see her face as though in extreme
close-up, but she didn’t care. When he raised a hand to cup her
chin she nuzzled there as he wiped the tear off with his thumb.
Almost in the same motion he pressed his lips against hers so
lightly she sensed rather than felt their presence. Just as she
felt rather than heard his words over the deafening applause.

“So we’re going to do this?” he asked.

“If you still want me.”

“Always baby. Always,” he said before
lowering his head again. And just like that the audience vanished.
For this moment nothing existed but real Sioux Dupree and the man
she loved.