Playing For Keeps (4 page)

Did I?

Bea tucked a trailing wisp of hair behind her ear and cleared her throat for the zillionth time. She’d tucked a tiny vial of olive oil in her pocket, because she’d read somewhere that it lubricated the vocal chords and would make her singing better. I asked her for a sip and she held it out of my reach.

“No way, Court. Your voice is sultry, like a 1940’s lounge singer. I didn’t know why you’d want to smooth that away.”

“Maybe I wanted it for my hair.”

Bea’s laugh was half-snort and, finally, our mood was lifted.

“The one day it rains,” Kaitlin muttered, pressing on her head to test the staying power of the hairspray in her long, fat curls.

We entered the building lobby and gave our names to the security guard standing behind the black desk taking up half the room. He checked our names against a list on a clipboard, then printed and passed badges to us. We clipped them on our tops and walked toward the elevators he pointed at. We rode to the twelfth floor in silence, nerves creating a thick tension in the elevator. Bea nibbled on her bottom lip and looked to us for assurance. When the elevator doors opened, a young guy with brown hair and a gray vest stood waiting for us. His eyes flicked over our name badges and he waved for us to follow him down the hallway with rolled eyes and an impatient sigh.

“I know,” I told him. God, he wasn’t even as tall as me and his tan was obviously fake. “Sad, sad starlet wannabees.”

“Whatever,” he said, ducking into a waiting room. “Wait here.” He indicated a row of chairs against the wall and disappeared behind a door.

“Don’t act like this in front of Duncan Prospect,” Bea warned.

“Fine, but remember, I’m only here for you.” Bea looked pointedly at the guitar case at my feet and raised her eyebrows. “For
you
,” I repeated.

“Okay. Sure.”

Our appointment had been scheduled for three-thirty. At ten till five, the first activity since we sat down occurred: the guy in the vest reentered the waiting room.

“Duncan will see you now.”

“Is everyone here on a first name basis?” I raised an eyebrow.

“You’re not,” he said.

I felt like a roach along the baseboards. My jaw tightened and I lifted a finger, ready to give him a piece of my mind. But Bea leapt to her feet.

“Here we go!” Bea pushed me out of my seat and forward, grinning at Kaitlin who, to my chagrin, shared every ounce of Bea’s excitement. I gripped my case and, biting back a
moo
, followed my bandmates.

Bea sang one of our songs under her breath to calm her nerves as we followed vest-guy down a long hallway with photos, news clippings and awards lining the walls. We passed by a black and white framed picture: World Wonder at an awards show, the four guys close together, each of them holding a silver statuette. I caught a glimpse of one of the band members and paused, intending to get a closer look. The one in profile looked really familiar. But Bea ushered me along and instead of a good look I was rewarded with a niggling sensation in the back of my head that threw me off-balance.

I forced my brain to forget what I thought I saw. It was just Bea’s magazine photos giving me déjà vu.

Another door opened and Duncan Prospect stepped into the hallway.

“Oh, it’s all of you,” he said, as though he hadn’t actually set an appointment with us and we were the least interesting thing he’d ever seen. “I didn’t think I’d see you again.”

“That show you were at was supposed to be our last one,” I said.

“It probably
was
,” Duncan said. “But you can stand in the hallway, or you can come in and try to prove me wrong.”

And then, another voice drifted out of the room. “Ease up, Duncan. Can’t have the ladies running off already.”

“Ladies, meet Jimmy Keats,” Duncan said.

When Jimmy Keats emerged from the room—no, not emerged, he floated out like he was being carried by a cloud—the hallway seemed to turn into a vacuum. Ladies In Waiting, each of us, caught our breaths. Jimmy Keats wasn’t just gorgeous—even more so than his pictures made him out to be—he had an easy, evocative presence that demanded people pay attention to him. Maybe it was the low, sultry carry of his voice or the easy way he tucked his hands in the pockets of the cream colored suit that hung perfectly on him and set off his dark skin. Whatever it was that made Bea and Kaitlin give him their complete attention, it wasn’t the same thing that nearly floored me.

It was realizing that Jimmy Keats was a liar.

His name was Kevin.

My breath caught in my throat as our eyes met. As a world of thoughts passed over his face. As we both waited to say something, to reveal how intimately we knew each other, already. My neck went hot. I tightened my grip on my guitar case, rage taking the place of surprise. He’d let me rant to him. He’d fucked me and said he would call.

He never called.

I had to remember that I hadn’t wanted him to. That, before this moment, he’d crossed my mind once, maybe twice, in the past three weeks. Okay, maybe I’d finished writing that song about our encounter, but so what? That didn’t excuse the fact that he’d played me in that bar, and then
really
played me afterwards.

Finally, Jimmy or Kevin or whatever the hell his name was, spoke.

“Please,” Jimmy Keats said, holding out an arm as an invitation. As though nothing had happened between us. As though I was a stranger. As though he hadn’t told me to clear my schedule on a particular Saturday for him. “Come in and take a seat.”

I raised my chin, my flare-up of anger keeping any latent nervousness at bay, and stepped into the room. I wanted to call him out on his lie. I wanted to ask how his weekend out of town had been,
Kevin
, but I also didn’t want to blow this chance for us.

And then I remembered bashing World Wonder to his face at Filth and had to stifle a groan. I’d probably already blown it.

Bea turned and grinned at me and I swallowed my irritation, my embarrassment, my past-Courtney-stupidity. I had to pretend nothing had happened between me and Jimmy-slash-Kevin. For Bea. So I entered, I sat, and I pretended I’d never before seen the face in front of me in my life.

The room wasn’t large, and it was sparsely decorated with an assortment of plastic chairs and a table. Another door led into a room with recording equipment and, beyond that, a small studio. I wondered how many famous songs had been recorded there, or if it was solely for auditions.

Duncan Prospect sat across from us at the table, but the man who called himself Jimmy Keats walked down the row of us, shaking our hands one by one. I was last, and the closer he got to me, the more my body sizzled with remembering his fingers on me. I tried to bury the sensation under my anger, but my skin wouldn’t behave, tingling in anticipation of his touch. When he finally reached me, he held my hand a little longer than the others. At least, it seemed that way, with how time felt like it was on pause while he met my eyes. His melting brown eyes that probably saw through all my bravado. Maybe he had as many questions as I did. I hadn’t been entirely honest about who I was, either.

“Nice to you meet you all,” he said. I narrowed my eyes at him and his lips went into a flat line. So, that’s how it was going to be, was it? Pretend we’d never met and move on.

He released my hand, finally, but his warmth lingered. I wasn’t one to get unsettled by a man, usually. A flicker of annoyance lit inside my stomach. I looked down at my lap and smoothed my short skirt over my thighs. I could be cool. I
had
to be cool.

“Did you bring your recording?” Duncan asked. When Bea had finally gotten hold of him, after calling the general AGM number, being transferred about a million times, leaving ten messages and speaking to a whole gaggle of random people, Duncan had asked us to bring a sample of our music to our meeting. I hoped it was good enough.

When I looked up again, it was to catch Jimmy Keats staring at me. He didn’t look away when I noticed, and I both thrilled and became irritated at his boldness. This wasn’t a man used to not getting his way, I could tell. And yet, he’d acted completely calm in the meeting, so far. A far cry from the passionate lover of several weeks ago. What if Duncan—and Jimmy—did love our recording? Could I work with a man who’d touched me the way he had? Could I draw a line between business and pleasure? Could I even
find
that line, having to be so close to someone who brought all my senses to heightened attention?

The questions didn’t even matter, right then. He hadn’t said a word about signing us, yet, and if my emotions right now carried over into all our interactions, I’d spend most of my time disgusted that he was a liar. So, I tucked down the way he was making me feel. Told my skin to be calm. Put a chilly expression on my face.

Duncan took the recording Bea passed over and tucked it in his jacket pocket. He ran his palm over the few wisps of hair on his head and settled back, relaxing into his chair. Jimmy Keats, on the other hand, leaned forward, his hands clasped between his knees.

“Let’s just get to know each other a little bit.” Duncan said. “Where are you from?”

We spent the next hour talking about ourselves. How Bea was super close to her dad, since her mom died when she was little. How Kaitlin was raised on a dairy farm in the Midwest and hadn’t seen the ocean until she came to UCLA for college. And me. Growing up in New Orleans, seeing changes to the vibrant city I loved: its glory days, its low times, its rejuvenation, and being taught classic blues by a mentor at times gruff, at times tender.

Duncan had a way of asking question after question, prying every last tidbit of our life experiences out of us. And Jimmy Keats had his own way of making us want to talk: watching us like we were the only person in the room, making low sounds of agreement or understanding at the right moments, never interrupting. Some things Jimmy Keats, at least, already knew about me. But he sat there and listened intently, as though he’d never heard me say I was from New Orleans, before. I didn’t know if I should feel buoyed by his attentiveness, or dejected by the way he acted like he’d never met me.

Before long, we were all smiling like old friends. I actually wanted to be there. Until I caught the way Jimmy was looking at me. Dark eyes under long lashes. Intensity. I squirmed in my chair and looked away. Bastard. Throwing me off my game, just because he could.

In a brief lull of silence, Duncan and Jimmy Keats exchanged a glance. Duncan stood and went to the door to the studio.

“Let’s hear a song, okay?”

We filed through the interview room with our instruments. I stood to the left of Bea, watching Jimmy Keats fiddle with buttons on the soundboard, waiting for Kaitlin’s nod to Bea to count us in. I had a sudden vision of opening my mouth to sing, but no sound coming out. That man over the soundboard, whatever his real name was, unsettled me and I didn’t like it. I cleared my throat.

“Ready when you are,” Duncan said. I pulled my guitar strap over my shoulder and placed my fingers on the board. And that was when my mind and body settled down.

It was incredible how much the guitar felt like a part of my body. Like a missing limb I was born without. I’d heard about these kinds of auditions being nerve-wracking but, considering how often I’d played in front of people before and how little I could pretend this whole thing meant to me, the experience finally felt right. Easy. I worried more about Bea. She’d cleared her throat four or five times now. I hoped her voice lessons had been worth it.

I moved my fingers up the strings, not making a sound, as I considered our song. Then Bea counted off behind us and I launched into the music.

My right hand plucked across the strings while my left fingers moved like a blur, forming rhythm, yes, but also melody. I had no patience for staid chords on the bass guitar. I wanted to show these guys what this instrument could really do. We’d chosen a classic song, channeling southern rock, just like Local Jackson showed me how. My body moved in time to the sounds, I sang the words automatically, but I was lost in the sound of our music, in the lilt of my voice, in the power that came with singing softer, then louder. When we were done and my muscles stilled, I felt deflated. I pushed my hair away from my face and looked at the window separating the studio rooms.

Jimmy Keats bent over a mic. “Do you dance?”

Bea and Kaitlin laughed nervously, but I scowled. An impromptu dance felt so out of place after what we just did, so I boldly said, “Yeah, we dance.”

This time it was Jimmy Keats’ turn to laugh. “I believe you. Go ahead and pack up. Duncan and I will talk and we’ll call you with our thoughts, later.”

I dropped my guitar back in my case and fastened the latches. So that was it.
I’ll call you later
. L.A. code for
Sorry, not good enough
.

A little like
If I don’t forget about you.

In that moment, I stopped thinking it was my ranting about World Wonder that would ruin our chances and instead worried it was the way I’d been flippant with Jimmy at the end of the night we spent together. Shit. Bea was going to hate me when she learned every wrong thing I’d done.

“How do you think we did?” Bea asked, once we’d been shown out of the skyscraper by the guy in the vest. Her nerves made her voice shaky and uncertain. I gave her a bear hug.