Soul Siren (9 page)

“So you’re working the room, but you’re warning me how if Erica’s not careful, your colleagues will eat her alive?”

“I never said don’t swim in the deep end. I said she has to be careful. If money talks when bullshit walks, then flattery
sings
. There’s a reason why they have the expression ‘music to my ears.’ ”

Distractions

W
e beat Erica
to the party by half an hour. A swarm of people hovered near the door for the newest bright young thing, ensuring that I wouldn’t get a chance to greet her for about fifteen minutes. Lots of hugs, lots of kisses on both cheeks. Then Erica gave a big squeal as she spotted me, and we hugged.

“You’re here!” she yelled. “You’re finally here! Oh, girl, we are going to have so much fun! Look at
you
!”

“Look at me? Look at you! You’re the one in the Chanel suit.”

“Borrowing it,” she lied. As I stayed on, so the suit stayed in its place on the rack of her walk-in closet. But this was an Erica who still felt slightly embarrassed by new wealth. She tugged on my arm and whispered in my ear, “Can you believe this shit?”

“Hey, it’s your ball, Cinderella.”

“I don’t know if all this is…necessary.”

“Your friend Luther was telling me how a lot of deals get cut at parties like this.”

“Luther,” groaned Erica, but she had this smile on her face, which I came eventually to understand was reserved just for him. Interest? Affection? Definitely something going on between them. “Luther’s paranoid about the business. He talks about the deals ’cause that’s all he sees.”

“I don’t know,” I offered. “He didn’t sound like—like a salesman or anything.”

“Oh, no, he’s not that at all!” she said quickly. “He’s a fantastic producer. He’s great, really. But he bitches a lot about the labels, and he’s always trying to warn me. I say, ‘Luther, I
can
get a lawyer, man.’ I think he’s a little burned out if you ask me. Listen, honey, I don’t want to talk about him. You meet Steven yet?”

“Yeah.”

“So what do you think? Come on, tell me, tell me, tell me—”

“This the one you phoned about?”

She nodded vigorously, still with an ear-to-ear grin. The way Luther had talked about Erica, you would think he was involved with her. Wrong. Funny thing was, the way Erica talked about Steven, you’d think
they
were an item. Wrong again. I think at best, she and Steven had a vibe going, and that was about it. It must have been obvious to Brown Skin Beats management, because they were pushing Steven her way, with Luther thrown in as a bonus. The message seemed to be here’s what you can have if you cross the street to us: hot talent to collaborate with, hot producers and whatever else you want. But keep in mind, when I came down, Erica was still doing her peep show routine for Easy with his two-way mirror, and that whole sordid business with gangsta Jamal Knight was about a month in the future.

“He’s smart, and he’s funny, and, thank God, he’s talented, and he’s already
there,
Mish,” she was saying. “He’s made it. It’s awkward with anyone else now, you know? Ever since the first album took off, I’ve had a couple of dates, and guys just look at you strange. They’re either scared puppies, or they’re horny as hell to nail a pop star, or they think you’re going to ramp them up to the six-figures. They must be dreaming if they think I’ve made that much money!”

“You will,” I offered.

She didn’t hear me. Still holding my arm, eager to gush about the new love of her life. “But Steven knows what’s going to come my way. He’s been through all that bullshit with the negotiations and the marketing idiots. He’s been so helpful, and he’s really caring. He’s got genuine charisma. Don’t you think so?”

“He seems nice.”

“Hang out with us tonight. I really want you to like him.”

“Okay, but Erica, I got to go somewhere and change. I feel hopeless dressed like this.”

S
he insisted we jump in a cab even though she lived only a few blocks away from the hotel. When we walked through her front door, I saw how she could afford to splurge. A white carpet as pristine as fresh-fallen snow lined the four-bedroom apartment under ceilings twelve feet high. The windows in some rooms went from the floor all the way up, the views not fantastic but still impressive enough with their corner panorama of Manhattan. One wall in the living room was completely covered by a shelf unit with a 36-inch-screen television, DVD player, stereo plus sleek Sanyo machines I couldn’t even identify. The pictures on the walls weren’t prints. They were original paintings, chosen carefully to go with tables and chairs in blond wood and the gigantic white sofa. The second bathroom leading off Erica’s walk-in closet held her only ego wall. Here she kept her double-platinum award for “Late Night Promises” and a poster for her first big concert in New York.

“You’ve arrived,” I gasped.

“You like all this?”

“It’s…a grown-up’s place,” I joked.

She laughed, knowing what I meant. I had spent so many summer hours with her in Erica’s room in her old family house, listening to music, trying on clothes and simply talking. When this holiday was over, I was going back to New Haven, Connecticut, to a dorm room or an apartment with roommates off campus. And here was Erica, done already with a twenty-something’s rite of passage as far as apartments go. No more roach-trap dives with a suitcase to rest your TV and pots and pans borrowed from Mom.

“You’re rich,” I said.

“No, not yet. But I’m doing okay. We better get you changed so we can get back.”

She led me into the second bedroom and showed me the en suite bathroom I’d have all to myself. I hurried to open my bag and find the couple of dressy ensembles I’d brought along for nights on the town.

“Mish?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think sex changes when you get a lot of money?”

I had to laugh. “You’re asking me? You’re the one with the cash! You tell me how it is.”

“Hey, I told you I really don’t have a lot of money,” she explained. “I bought this place, and that’s got to be it for a while. I’ll have to work my ass off to hang on to it, you can be sure of that. No, seriously.” She bit her bottom lip and steered us back to the issue on her mind. “You think if you’d got a lot of money, you’d be different with someone?”

I settled on a silk blouse with a leather mini. I could have slipped into my one cocktail dress, but instinct told me that hanging with Erica would mean other chances to impress. Next party I’ll make an entrance, I promised myself.

“Different how?” I asked her. “You mean you’d be actually different in bed?”

“I don’t know,” she answered, and I watched her struggle to put it into words. “Maybe when you can have everything, you think you should…”

I know what you’re thinking as you read this. Those guys she fucked during breaks in performances, the guys she picked up before and after concerts in all the cities along a tour. But success didn’t give Erica Jones a healthy sexual appetite—it was already a part of her.

“What are you trying to say, sweetie?” I prompted, laughing. “You think you’ll come louder on satin sheets instead of plain cotton whites?”

She slapped my arm playfully. “I have
got
to stop telling you shit. You’re terrible.”

“Hey, I don’t understand, that’s all. This is pretty insecure for you.”

She shrugged, sitting down on the little bench where she could try on a dozen or so shoes. “I know. Remember I told you how I hear the music in my head? I mean, it must be like that for you with writing, isn’t it? You get words or notes or whatever, but you’re happiest when you’re putting it together.”

“Yeah…?” I didn’t know where she was going.

“When you make love, don’t you feel like you’re creating something?” she asked me innocently. “I don’t mean
babies,
I mean…You’re in the moment, and you want to make music physically. I don’t know how to say it, Mish. I think when it comes down to it, we’re all just ultimately
alone
.”

“This is good,” I joked, “you’re in the mood for a party, sure.”

“No, no, I’m not depressed, I’m fine,” she told me. “I’m just making a point. You’re with a guy, and no matter how tender he tries to be or, hell, when he’s just giving it to you, and it’s
ummmph,
good, you’re still so inside yourself when you come. Just once, I want to find a guy who makes me want to write out a chart after he makes my toes curl.”

“You’re talking about love,” I said somewhat dismissively. “You’re only dressing it up in different words.”

“No, it’s not just love,” she said, shaking her head. “Well, it is, but…Look, I know creative people are selfish. You have to claw and fight your way to steal somebody’s time to listen to your demos, and that means somebody else loses, and you miss dates and friends’ birthdays because you’re trying to get there. You’re climbing and climbing, and you think just a little bit further. So now I’m almost there, and…”

I thought I understood. She wasn’t worried about being alone at the top. She was worried that this was who she was. This is what she did. She made music. She would go on making music, and any man who wanted to be with her had better accommodate
her
. Erica Jones, force of nature. And how did she get the man who would make her happy? Of course, she had the regular concerns—finding a guy who wouldn’t be a submissive doormat but not a control freak either, one who let her breathe. She knew already you could have great sex without love, but she was beginning to wonder if she could find a great muse, and what’s love got to do with it?

All I could think was: you need a good woman, darling.

P
arties. You never notice how the steady arrival of people increases the pitch of everything. The music, the air, the reflexive increase in the stereo volume, even the crash of the ice as the bartenders fix a new drink. That afternoon in the hotel, I had been in my jeans and tank top, and now I was here again, looking around in a tan silk blouse and a short black skirt, and I heard voices layered over each other. I found Erica in the room with the billiard tables and the pinball machines, her arm wrapped around Sheila Tammany of the group Black Canaries, both of them singing along melodramatically to “I Have Nothing” from
The Bodyguard
. Erica was hilarious as she parroted each one of Whitney Houston’s gestures:
Stay in my arms if you daaaaaare, or must I im-ahhh-gine you there…

We burst out laughing when Steven made his entrance. He was carried like Whitney in Kevin Costner’s arms, only the arms holding him in this case belonged to a tall muscular black guy. As Steven got down, he introduced his “rescuer” as Odell, the lead dancer for his upcoming concert tour. He had a dark complexion and his head was shaved, which helped deflect attention away from how long his face was, but it was a nice face. He was reasonably handsome. You could see he had a dancer’s vanity, standing in a way that showed off his arms and chest. Sheila was suitably impressed. Erica was polite, having met him before. Odell made me a bit self-conscious, focussing all his attention on me. I felt distinctly set up.

“Steven’s heavier than he looks,” said Odell. “Now you…You’re so petite, I’ll bet I could lift you over my head like a feather.”

“Bet you can’t,” Erica put in quickly.

I gave her a look:
Don’t encourage him.

“I believe you,” I told Odell.

“No, you don’t,” he said with a grin. “Come on, I’ll bet you were a dancer in school, too, weren’t you?”

“Not at all,” I lied.

“She was a singer,” Erica volunteered.

My eyes were pleading:
Will you stop.
Erica mischievously shook her head:
Nope.

As he gripped me by my hips, I sprang off the balls of my feet so that I wasn’t deadweight for him. He lifted me high in the air, and my squeal was lost in the cheers of the others below. As he brought me back to earth, I had to slither down his chest, staring into his eyes.

“Told ya,” he said, as if it were me who had contradicted him.

I said I needed a drink after my “latest flight,” and he rushed off to fetch me one, saying don’t go anywhere. Erica linked her arm through mine and led me away, assuring me Odell would find us no matter where we were on the floor. “Didn’t think you’d go for a guy like that,” she teased, “but he’ll be good for warm-up action. I’ll find you a better one, I promise.”

“He seems nice,” I said. “Comes on too strong, but…”

“You can do better. Odell’s the kind of guy who if you’re doing it in front of a mirror, the man’s watching
himself
. Oh, shit, there’s Easy. I better go do some baby-sitting before we have a real scene on our hands…”

She was off. I didn’t know all the politics of their relationship yet, not then. When Easy Carson had arrived with Erica, I had watched his baby face light up for a couple of friends then shyly look away as he lumbered in. He and Steven Swann gave each other the barest of nods. Spotting Luther, I drifted over to him to ask what the friction was all about.

“Carson thinks that Brown Skin Beats wants to lure Erica away from Easy Roller Records,” explained Luther. “And he’s right.”

“He is?”

“Mmm-hmm. Carson only signs his artists to two-album deals. His ‘short leash’ policy has meant that his rappers, his singers, his producers all got to worry about job security. But it’s a double-edged sword. He’s never had a star break into the top ten before. The distributors aren’t going to love
him
—they think it was pure luck he found Erica. They don’t want to buy in with him, and that means he can’t throw cash and goodies at Erica to keep her happy.”

“Erica cares about other things besides money.”

He wore this look of patience on his face as if I were hopelessly naïve. “All right. I’ll put it another way. Forget the perks and the trinkets, Easy doesn’t have the cash to back her
as a star
. To keep her on top, he’s going to need to spread around the green for the image consultants, the producers, the tour machinery, all of it. Easy thinks if he just hangs on to her, he’ll get the investment somehow, and he’s jealously guarding his stake.”

“What do you mean?”

“Steven offered to sing backing vocals on ‘Pariah’—title track of the second album. That little cameo alone can shoot an artist into the top twenty or thirty on the charts. Keep in mind, all this was being talked about a while ago—nobody could be sure how well ‘Late Night Promises’ would do. Easy gave Steven a flat no. Didn’t matter his voice would be perfect for the track, or it would help Erica, or even that she wanted him on it, Easy interprets the help as the label wanting to swoop in. And he doesn’t want to owe Brown Skin Beats any favours.”