Authors: Bec Linder
Fifteen minutes later, he was on his way downstairs to the lobby. Rushani had told them they had a band meeting at 10:00, and the last thing he wanted to do was piss her off. She was a worrier under the best of circumstances, and with everything that was going on with Andrew, she had become a coiled knot of tension, ready to crack down on anyone who broke the rules. O’Connor didn’t think she had been sleeping very much.
The hotel’s restaurant was mostly empty. People had checked out already, or gone off for their day of sightseeing. An elderly couple sat near the door, reading the newspaper over their empty breakfast dishes. A woman in a suit ate an omelet in quick, neat bites. O’Connor moved toward the table in the back corner where Rushani was sitting with James and, surprisingly, Andrew. She must have dragged him out of bed. He looked at least halfway sober.
O’Connor sat down and tossed his sunglasses on the table. “I’m not late, am I?”
“No,” Rushani said, giving him a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Right on time. I ordered coffee and a bagel for you.”
“Bless your heart,” O’Connor said.
“This is a goddamn farce,” Andrew said, bitter, his voice raw and ragged. He smoked too much. He didn’t care about anything except getting wasted and having sex with women he picked up at shows. He didn’t even seem to care about the band anymore. Or even about the music. His long hair was greasy and falling into his face in lank strings. The circles beneath his eyes had progressed from blue to a dark purple, like a two-day-old bruise. He looked like shit. He was wearing the same T-shirt he’d had on for the past three days. O’Connor was glad he was sitting on the other side of the table. Andrew probably smelled about as good as he looked.
“It’s not a farce,” Rushani said, with an edge to her voice that had grown all too familiar lately. She was clean, dressed, and perfectly made up, but her eyes were bloodshot from exhaustion. “We have two days to find another bassist. You’re playing in San Francisco on Monday night. Jeff can fill in if we’re desperate, but you know he doesn’t want to be on stage. You should be thanking your lucky stars that Kerrigan is a good person and waited to leave until we had a few days off.”
“Kerrigan’s a fucking traitor,” Andrew rasped. “Fuck him. We’re better off without him.”
Rushani’s mouth thinned into a grim line, and she looked away.
“Just shut up, Andrew,” James said, sounding tired. O’Connor knew the feeling. “Kerrigan left because you’re an insufferable piece of shit. Keep your mouth shut and don’t make it any worse than it already is.”
Andrew scowled. “Who died and made you the king of the universe?”
O’Connor took a long sip of coffee. This was an old argument, worn thin in its predictability. The specifics changed, but the underlying truth held steady: Andrew was self-destructing, and he was hell-bent on taking all the rest of them with him. The band wouldn’t survive. Andrew didn’t care. O’Connor had only recently realized how bad things had gotten, but he was beginning to think that Andrew didn’t care if he lived or died.
“Stop it,” Rushani said. The words were flat and expressionless. She was worn out. They all were. She leaned to one side and took a folder from her bag on the floor. “I called some people. Word should get around. We’re holding auditions today at 3:00. I want all of you there and sober. This isn’t a game. If you don’t have a bassist, you don’t have a tour, and nobody gets paid.”
Andrew still cared about money, at least for the time being. “I don’t see why Jeff can’t do it,” he said.
“Jeff has no stage presence,” James said. He unzipped his hoodie and then zipped it up again. It was a nervous habit that got worse when he was stressed.
“He doesn’t like the spotlight,” Rushani said, diplomatic, smoothing things over. O’Connor wasn’t sure what would have happened to them in the past few months without her. Utter destruction. The apocalypse. “He’s a great tech. He’s happier backstage.”
“I don’t want some stranger coming in and fucking everything up,” Andrew said. He finally noticed the cup of coffee on the table in front of him, and began scooping sugar into it, one heaping spoonful at a time. O’Connor watched in mute horror. It would be completely undrinkable. A diabetic sludge. What a waste of good coffee. “We don’t need a bassist. O’Connor can loop some shit in the studio and we’ll play it—”
“No,” O’Connor said.
“What do you mean, no?” Andrew asked. “You don’t call the shots here, asshole. If I say that you’re going to do it—”
“You don’t call the shots, either,” Rushani said, calm, very quiet, implacable. “This isn’t your decision, Andrew. You hired me to make these decisions. I’ve decided. We’re holding auditions.”
Andrew sneered at her. “Yeah, I hired you, and I can fire you again.”
“You absolutely can’t,” James said. The past months had changed him. As Andrew deteriorated, James had stepped up and become the band’s de facto leader. O’Connor was happy to cede that responsibility. He didn’t want to worry about paperwork or keeping the fans happy. He just wanted to play his guitar. “You’re outnumbered. O’Connor and I both want her here.” He shot a quick glance in O’Connor’s direction, checking for agreement, and O’Connor nodded slightly. He was Team Rushani all the way. “This isn’t
your band.
We walk away, and you’ve got nothing.”
“I’m everything,” Andrew said. “You’re nothing without me. I write all of the lyrics. I sing all of the songs that keep teenage girls up at night, staring at my face plastered on their wall, and probably crying because they won’t ever have me.”
“I write all of the fucking music,” O’Connor snapped, goaded into arguing with Andrew, which everyone knew was a fool’s game. He inhaled deeply and took another sip of coffee. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter what Andrew said or did. The only thing that mattered was the band. He was going to keep the band together or die trying.
Maybe literally.
Andrew didn’t miss a beat. “Songwriters are a dime a dozen. Let’s hold an audition for a new songwriter while we’re at it. Then O’Connor can go back to Middle America in a self-righteous huff.”
“Shut
up
, Andrew,” James said, and turned to Rushani, eyebrows drawn together. “Why is he even here? Can we ban him from band meetings?”
“You fucking wish,” Andrew said. “You need me. You can’t do this without me.”
Rushani lay one hand flat on the table, her shoulders pulled up toward her ears, ready—O’Connor hoped—to flay Andrew to the bone with the sharp edge of her tongue. But their waitress approached, notebook in hand, to take their orders, and Andrew immediately turned on the charm, smiling brightly and telling her how pretty her earrings were, and could she tell him where she got them, because his sister’s birthday was soon and she would really love a pair of her own.
James gave O’Connor a meaningful look, mouth twisted to one side. O’Connor shrugged and drank his coffee. There was nothing he could do, and nothing he wanted to. Andrew’s good looks and charisma were a large part of the reason they had sold close to three million albums in the last fifteen months. Andrew hadn’t lost that, at least. He still knew how to turn it on for the fans.
But the funny, easy-going guy O’Connor had first met five years ago was gone. Possibly for good. All that remained of him was this cynical, ruthless husk, a sad simulacrum that looked like Andrew and sounded like Andrew but wasn’t really him at all.
“Here’s to us,” O’Connor said, raising his coffee mug. “The Saving Graces.”
They all looked at him. Nobody else raised their mug.
O’Connor drank.
CHAPTER TWO
Leah groaned and rolled over in bed. Her eyes felt like they were glued shut. Tiny gnomes were drilling holes into her frontal lobe. She knew she’d done something crazy last night, but she couldn’t quite remember what it was.
She peeled one eye open and looked at the clock on her nightstand. 11:21. Great.
Not that she had anything she needed to do. It was the principle of the thing. She was an
adult
now, or—at least technically. She didn’t feel much like an adult. When she was younger, she’d always thought that grown-ups had all the answers and were never confused or uncertain about anything, and that she too would magically become all-knowing and wise, but it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe it never would. Maybe everyone was just as scared and lost as she was.
What a depressing thought.
She staggered out of bed and looked at herself in the mirror. She’d been too drunk to take off her makeup before she passed out the night before, and her mascara was smeared halfway down her face. Her hair looked like rats had been nesting in it. There was some sort of bruise on her neck, and she leaned closer to get a better look at it, probing it gently with her fingertips.
Not a bruise—a
spectacular
love bite.
Right: the bar, the guy, the ridiculously incendiary kissing in the alleyway.
Did functioning grown-ups have ill-advised make-out sessions with strangers they had just met? Probably not.
At least she hadn’t fucked him.
She needed at least a gallon of coffee before she was prepared to cope with life. She went out into the kitchen and found half a pot of coffee waiting for her, still hot. God bless Luka. It was probably several hours old by now, but she would drink engine sludge at this point as long as it had caffeine. She poured herself a huge mug and leaned against the counter to chug it. Definitely old. It tasted better than the inside of her mouth did, though.
As the caffeine worked its way through her veins, Leah noticed a piece of paper sitting beside the coffee maker, covered in Luka’s sloppy handwriting. She picked it up and squinted at it.
Drink ALL of the coffee
, the note read—ALL was underlined several times—
and then give me a call. I think I found you a gig.
Great. More meddling. But she would have to call him, or he’d give her hell later.
She wasn’t sure where her phone was.
After fifteen minutes of searching, she finally found it in the top drawer of the bathroom vanity. Good thinking, drunk Leah. Definitely an appropriate place to stash your phone: right next to Luka’s shaving cream.
She’d finished the second cup of coffee by then. Good enough. She dialed Luka’s number and waited for him to answer.
He picked up on the third ring. “Still alive, I take it?”
“Yeah, because I party
so
hearty,” Leah said. Luka acted like it was time to call Alcoholics Anonymous every time she had more to drink than a beer or two. She got it, but it was still really irritating. “This was the first time I’ve been out in a month! Just because you’re old and domesticated now—”
“Right, okay, not the point,” Luka said. “You got my note?”
“Yeah,” Leah said. “What’s this alleged gig?”
“Hardly alleged,” Luka said. “Straight from the horse’s mouth. Sean told me about it this morning. He’s got that friend in that band, you know, the guys who made it big—”
“Crayola Markers or something,” Leah said. “Colored Pencils.”
“No, that’s Mika’s band,” Luka said. “I’m talking about the Saving Graces. Anyway, so Sean told me their bassist just quit, mid-tour, and they’re in L.A. for like two days and they need a replacement. So they’re doing auditions today. I really think you should go.”
“I don’t want to be in another band,” Leah said. The first time had worked out
just great
. She wasn’t exactly champing at the bit to go down that road again.
“That’s stupid,” Luka said. “You’re good at it, and you
love
it, and if you spend the rest of your life just working bullshit office jobs it will be a complete fucking
waste
. Look, I know that what happened with us was horrible, but that’s not, like—that was just
Corey
, okay? Not every situation is going to be like that. And I’m tired of you moping around the apartment.”
“I don’t mope,” Leah said, which was a blatant lie. “And it wasn’t just Corey, it was everything, it was the shitty van with the heater that never worked, and the shitty truck stop food, and the shitty shows where the crowd hated us, and the like—not showering, and—”
“These guys have buses, and I think they can afford to feed you,” Luka said. “I’m done talking to you about this. The audition starts at 3:00. Get a pen and write down the address.”
Leah did it, so conditioned by a lifetime of being bossed around by Luka that she was completely unable to disobey a direct command. After Luka hung up, she stood there for a minute staring at the address.
The Saving Graces. Right.
What a stupid name for a band.
That settled it. Leah couldn’t play for a band with a name that dumb. She wasn’t going to let Luka bully her into it.
Fuck Luka, anyway. Leah
liked
her office job. It was uncomplicated and easy. She showed up at 8:30 and left at 5:00, and she didn’t have to talk to anyone except the nice lady in the next cubicle over, Irene, who had pictures of her grandkids on her desk and always gave Leah those little hard candies in the gold wrappers. Nobody yelled at her, or got high and puked in the back of the van, or spent all of their food money on weed. It was fine.