Brando 2 (7 page)

Haley
breathes on her hands and rubs them. “Are
you trying to replace me already?”

I
laugh. “Impossible.”

She
grins. “Thanks,
but I should really get going back to the hotel. It’s
late.”

I
know she should go. If she was just one of my artists I’d
be arguing myself for her to go home now. To give herself plenty of
rest and hot tea and to make sure nothing bad happens. But she’s
not just one of my artists. I’ve
been waiting to get her alone for three weeks, across the entire
country. I’m
not going to let her slip away from me again without a fight –
or
at least a kiss.

“You
don’t
have a gig tonight, and you’re
heading back soon. You should enjoy the city while you can.”

“My
gig’s
still tomorrow, and it’s
cold,” she
says, tightening her jacket and folding her arms over it.

“Why
didn’t
you say so,”
I
reply, taking off my designer jacket and hanging it off her
shoulders. “There.
No excuses now. Unless you really don’t
want to go?”

She
hesitates. “I
do, it’s
just that…”

“Haley.
It’s
the Mercury Lounge. And as long as you’re
with me, you’re
a VIP.”

She
looks up at me and smiles with a little nod of defeat. I put my arm
around her and lead her to the lounge. Little victories.

The
band is surprisingly good, even more so than I’d
been led to believe, but I’m
too focused on winning Haley over to bother with business. It’s
a sold-out show, but I use a connection and get us in late, sliding
into the back of the packed room.

They
play a slow, bass-led rhythm. Synths swaying around the lead singer’s
dream-like vocals. The kind of music that makes time slow, that pulls
at your deepest secrets. I stand behind Haley and wrap my arms around
her front and feel glad when she puts her hand over mine and presses
back against me.

We
stay like that for the whole show, moving slowly, her body melting
into mine. We don’t
even pull away when the band finishes and the crowd erupts in
appreciative applause. Instead, Haley twists her head and looks up at
me, her lips inches from mine. We look into each other’s
eyes, as vulnerable and open as each other, a look that’s
full of promises. I move in slowly, more like falling. Her lips part.

“No,”
she
says, suddenly standing two feet away. “Brando
…
please.”

It
takes me a few seconds of rubbing my eyes and avoiding eye contact
before I recover from being stunned by the rejection.

“Okay.
It’s
fine, I get it,”
I
say, my voice suddenly sounding like somebody else’s,
somebody defeated. “Let’s
go get you a cab.”

She
nods, backing a few more steps away from me.

What
the fuck just happened?

Haley

Lying
on my side, I push my soft breasts up against the hard muscles of his
back. I feel the heat of his body, smell the hazy musk of his skin.
My fingers trace his side, so delicately I can feel every goosbump. I
reach around to his front, run my nails down the central line of his
abdomen, down to the base of his cock, already growing. I pull myself
closer and for a second it feels like I’m
flying, like there’s
nothing beneath me.

Then
I realize there really isn’t
anything beneath me, and slam face-first into the floor beside my
bed.

I
jump back up to my feet so quickly I see black and white stars zoom
past. Through the daze and the mist of my sudden awakening I begin to
put the pieces of reality together. I’m
in a hotel room, in New York City. Brando’s
not really in bed with me (he walked me to my door and left –
almost
like a real gentleman) and I have a gig tonight.

There’s
something else, I think, as I stumble into the bathroom, rubbing the
dull echo of pain on my forehead, unable to tell if it’s
a headache or the effect of falling out of bed. I stand in front of
the mirror, turn on the faucet, and splash cool water onto my face.
Another piece falls like a die in the groggy swamp of my sleepy mind.

Brando.
His big, broad arms around my shoulders, leaning back against his
chest, tracing the thick veins in his hands. In the battle between
professional distance and pure, animal instinct, the latter is
winning.

“Keep
it together, Haley,”
I
say to my reflection.

Except
it doesn’t
sound right at all. It sounds like somebody put my vocal cords
through a lawnmower. And it feels even worse.

“Oh
no, wait. No,”
I
say, scrutinizing every stab of scratchy pain that each syllable
causes in my throat, listening to the random pitch-shifting in my
voice. From two-packs-a-day-smoker huskiness to clown-trumpet sharp
notes and back again.

“Fuck!”
I
scream, yanking on yesterday’s
leggings, and it sounds like an outtake from the Exorcist.

I
run out of the hotel suite and go to the next door, banging like the
zombie apocalypse is at my back. I don’t
know who exactly is in the next room, but I know it has to be
somebody I can trust; we booked the entire floor of the hotel for our
crew, band members, and tour managers.

“I
am going to tear your head from your fucking neck and—”
I
hear Lexi say until the second she opens the door and sees me
standing there. Her downturned eyebrows suddenly raise themselves in
arches. “You’ve
got the wrong door.”

“I’m
sick! My throat!”
I
scream with full force, though it comes out sounding like an alien
language of squeaks and croaks. Lexi looks at me like I just turned
into a giant beetle before I point frantically at my throat, and her
confusion quickly turns into wide-eyed recognition.

“Oh!
You’re
sick! You
poor
baby
,”
she
says, smiling with sympathy.

I
nod so hard I nearly break my neck. I see the flicker of thoughts
behind Lexi’s
green eyes as she debates what to do, but then she steps aside and
opens the door wide.

“Okay,
get in here. You’re
not gonna get better standing in a hotel hallway.”

I
almost sprint into Lexi’s
room, not too exasperated to notice how much more lavishly furnished
it is than my own, but too panicked –
and
definitely too incommunicative –
to
worry about it. I walk in circles, humming and making sounds with my
voice as if making the right one will stop it from feeling like I’m
inhaling gravel.

“Are
you trying to look as ridiculous as you sound?”
Lexi
says, standing to the side watching me. “Sit
down.”

I
sit on the lounge chair by the window, though I continue to tap my
heels and clutch at my throat anxiously.

“Look,”
Lexi
says, grabbing her hotel key from the desk beside me, “stay
here, and stop forcing it. I’m
going to go get a doctor, alright?”

“Yes,”
I
say, and it sounds like a creaky door.

Ten
minutes of frantic knee-tapping later Lexi returns followed by a
sharply-dressed bald guy that looks kinda familiar. She taps him on
the shoulder and nods toward me.

“Hi,
Haley,” he
says, a note of awkwardness in his voice. “Let
me take a look at you.”

I
sit still as he kneels in front of me and puts his hands on the side
of my head.

“Open
your mouth…now
stick your tongue out…now
say ‘ah…’”

He
gazes into my mouth for a few seconds, adjusting the view by tilting
my head a few times, then looks toward Lexi, who gives him a stern
stare. He stands up, breathes deeply, and licks his lips. I can tell
by his face that it’s
not good, but I have no idea how not good it is until he says the
exact words I’m
dreading.

“It’s
bad. Really bad. You’ve
been singing a lot, and it’s
wreaking havoc on your vocal cords,”
he
says, exchanging a nervous look with Lexi. “You
need a lot of rest, hot tea, no singing and no speaking. A couple of
days at least.”

“But
the gig tonight!”
I
say, my will to plead with him forcing the words through. “It’s
the last show of the tour! It’s
New York!”

“Haley,
listen to me,”
Lexi
says, putting a hand on my shoulder and crouching beside me. “I’ve
known singers who pushed themselves through things like this and did
irreparable damage to themselves. You don’t
wanna do this to yourself. Even if it is New York.”

“It’s
just a sore throat!”
I
say, looking up at the doctor for a positive sign. Though I’m
still croaking and squeaking randomly, I manage to get the words out.
“Look,
it’s
already starting to go away.”

“I
wouldn’t
advise you to perform…”
the
doctor says feebly. Lexi nods him away angrily then turns her
attention back to me.

“It’s
shitty, I know. But you can’t
put your entire career on the line. You’ve
gotta put yourself first. And there will be other shows. New York
isn’t
going anywhere any time soon—I
promise.”

I
shake my head, tears that I didn’t
realize were there falling from my eyes. “Not
like this! This is what it’s
all been building up to! Where’s
Brando?”

Lexi
snorts. “Where
he always is when you need him: Not here.”

“I
can’t
do it,” I
say, still shaking my head, my voice broken by both the sobs and
croaks. “I
can’t
let everyone down. My band. The crew. The fans. I can’t
do it. I won’t.”

“Come
here,”
Lexi
says, putting her arms around me and pulling my head against her soft
chest. “You’re
a fucking star now, Haley. Start acting like one. It’s
not them that got this far, it’s
you. You’re
paying their bills –
remember
that. Take care of yourself first, and they’ll
always follow.”

She
pulls away, her hands still on my shoulders, and we look at each
other. She wipes the streaks from my cheeks and I laugh.

“I’ve
got to admit,”
I
say, looking into my lap, “I
never thought you could be this nice.”

Lexi
smiles with her angular lips. “I
wasn’t
always a bitch, you know. But this business has a habit of bringing
out the worst in you.
If
you survive.”

“Thanks,”
I
mumble.

“I
know I didn’t
make it easy for you, this tour, but you’re
going to have to deal with a lot worse than me in the future. I’m
impressed though. You came a long way.”

Her
kind words only make me feel even more defeated, and my lower lip
trembles. “It
wasn’t
easy. And this isn’t
the way I imagined it ending. How am I going to tell everyone?”

“You’re
not,” Lexi
replies, picking up her phone and tapping out a message. “Let
me take care of that. Just do what the doctor said and get some rest.
It’s
not your job to handle the small stuff. It’s
your job to get better.”

I
shake my head again as the realization that I won’t
be playing finally sinks in.

“I
feel so bad about this,”
I
say to myself.

Lexi
looks up from her phone, her expression sympathetic. “I’ve
been through worse than this, trust me. It’s
not the end, remember that. You know, you kinda remind me of myself –
in
a funny kind of way. Tough, hard-working, dealing with a lot of
shit…”

“Does
that mean I’ll
end up in a latex dress?”
I
smile.

Lexi’s
face hardens, the pointed lines of her face getting sharper. She
gives me a cold look that feels like taking a knife in the neck. I
feel my muscles tighten, my spine tingle, my body bracing itself for
something violent.

“What
the fuck does that mean?”
she
says in a voice that seems to come from the depths of hell. The voice
I imagine people use right before they kill someone.

“Uh…nothing,”
I
say, my voice barely a squeak. “Seriously…it’s
just a joke—”

Suddenly,
as quickly as she turned cold, Lexi cracks up into a loud, deep
laugh, doubling over as she heaves out huge hoots and snorts.

“I’m
sorry,” she
says, in between deep gulps of air, “I’m
just playing with you.”

“Fuck!”
I
say, laughing myself, though more from the release of nerves than
humor. “You
scared the shit out of me. I thought you were going to kill me or
something!”

“Ha!”
Lexi
giggles, picking up her phone and heading out the door again. “No.
If I wanted to do that then you wouldn’t
even see me coming.”

Brando

I
decide to give Haley a little space the day after her ‘tour’
of
NYC. I’ve
never been a patient guy, but then again, Haley’s
got me doing a lot of things I never thought I’d
do for a girl before. Sometimes you just have to load the bases
before you try and hit it out of the park, and right now, I’m
closer than I’ve
been for a long time. I’m
not going to fuck it up at the last moment.

Just
after midday, I hear the news, and wonder if I fucked it up at the
last moment anyway.

I’m
in Brooklyn, at one of the guitar stores I visited with Haley the day
before, arranging a pick-up for an amp she liked, when I get the
email on my phone. Haley’s
pulled out of her slot, and another support artist will be announced
soon. I check a few more news sites, almost every one of them
confirming her cancellation, the comment sections a shit-show of
angry, snarky fans. What the hell is going on?

I’m
on the phone to anyone I can get before I even hail a cab, only
interrupting the call to hand him a hundred dollar bill and tell him
it’s
for the speeding ticket.

“Who
the fuck did this? How the hell did nobody talk to me about
cancelling a fucking show...I haven’t
spoken to her since last night! …Well
if you didn’t,
then who the fuck did?”

I
try calling Haley’s
phone but it’s
turned off, so when I get to the hotel I make a beeline for her room,
sliding my key frantically and then slamming the door open like a
police raid.