CHAPTER NINE #2
“You’ll be fine, you have those big choir lungs, you’ll just get a good rasp going.” Johnny brought the cigarette to his mouth and took a deep drag. On their right, the yacht club and marina flashed by. “I have a feeling we’re gonna clean up tonight.”
It was actually astonishing, maybe even concerning, how little interest Scott currently had in hooking up with a random woman. “Ha,” he said. “Yeah.”
“I’m surprised you didn’t get Wes for this gig, he’s always after the rich girl pussy.”
The memory of Carver saying ‘this is your pussy’ blasted through Scott’s mind like a train whistle. He leaned back in his seat and blew out a sigh. “Wes is doing me a different favor, he’s lining up drummer auditions for us.”
“What, Joe left Silk Tourniquet?”
“Joe got kicked out.”
Johnny glanced over at him, his mouth an O. “No shit?”
“Wasn’t my decision. I got outvoted three to one.”
“Yoo… what happened?”
“It was bullshit. He’s drumming in like four bands right now, but he’s never let us down in any real way, but Graham got this idea that he’s not committed and started campaigning against him. And I know it’s bullshit, he just wants to bring his cousin Mason in.”
Johnny shook his head, then adjusted his beanie, which had slipped. “Mason’s not on Joe’s level. I don’t know him that well, but I know that.”
“Yeah, I thought everyone knew that,” Scott said. “But it’s always something, right? At least I have veto power on anyone coming in, ‘cause they know if I walk, that’s it. So Mason’s gonna audition along with everyone else, and I don’t like his odds.”
“Honestly, if I were you I wouldn’t put anything to a vote. Because exactly, they know you’re the draw, you’re the frontman.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to create resentment.”
Johnny stuck his hand out the window to ash his cigarette. “Sometimes there’s no choice. Someone has to be in charge, right? I get you, though. I always hate this shit, like, having to rely on people not to fuck you up. You remember what happened to Net Zero?”
They entered a stretch of road fully enclosed by a tunnel of trees, which were a bright, light green after the rain of a few nights ago. Scott leaned forward to take in the view. “Lead singer was a piece of shit?”
“Yeah, he was on meth and hitting his girlfriend, and we couldn’t even agree on kicking him out,” Johnny said, blowing out smoke. “We had two for, two against, and I just dipped.”
“I had something similar like ten years ago,” Scott said.
“Our lead guitarist was fucking around with fifteen year olds, and everyone else wanted to play dumb, so I left.” It took him longer than he was proud of to leave, because he was dirt broke and sleeping on the drummer’s couch, so he always omitted that part.
“That shit is always crazy to me,” Johnny said. “Like, how can you know something and pretend you don’t?” He shook his head. “Anyway, I hope you guys get Joe back.”
“Yeah, me too. I might go to Wes and Aimee separately and see if I can get rid of Graham, honestly.”
“Oh, I like that. I like that idea.” Johnny tossed his cigarette butt out the window, then winced. “Sorry. I know you like the environment.”
Scott laughed. “I mean, we live here.”
“Where, Westchester?”
“No, like, in the world.”
“Oh, right. Yeah. My bad.”
The country club’s parking lot was almost deserted, but the clubhouse was hectic when they got inside.
A team of decorators was rushing back and forth with vases and armfuls of cloth, while people in dark green BCC polos danced around them and chirped at each other over walkie-talkie.
Scott and Johnny walked slowly so no one would run into them.
As they entered the sunny reception hall, they saw it was being prepped for the ceremony, with dozens of chairs arranged to face a hexagonal arch that decorators were draping with gauzy fabric and fresh flowers.
The low platform where Scott and Johnny would play had been tucked into the back right corner and was itself being decorated with fabric and flowers.
There were white calla lilies affixed to the side of one of Scott’s amps.
A stocky, smiling redhead approached them. Scott recognized her as the wedding coordinator Ashley, and introduced her to Johnny, who set down his bass and keyboard so he could shake her hand.
“Here are your copies of the final run of show,” she said, handing each of them a half-sheet of paper. “I know you wanted to rehearse your full set together at least once, but the sound system is down right now, unfortunately. They do have someone working on it.”
Scott had anticipated, if not this, some issue very much like this. “How long are we looking at?”
Ashley shrugged and grimaced. “The guy’s doing his best, but he didn’t install it, he’s just one of the electricians who works for the club.”
Johnny whistled and said, “Alright, wait, let me go talk to him.” He set his bass down. “I’m an A/V guy.”
Ashley pointed to her left. “When you go down to the end of the hall, it’s the second door on your left, up the stairs, then the first door on your right.”
Johnny jogged away, pulling his beanie off and fluffing up his curls as he went. Ashley watched him go, then said, “That reminds me,” and offered something to Scott.
It was a hair tie. Scott shot her a wry smile, set his guitar down and took it. “I’m in violation?” he said, sweeping his hair back from his face so he could put it into a small bun.
“No, no, it just looks neater. I mean, you already went to all the trouble of putting on a tux, you might as well shore up the details, right?”
“How much of your job is shit like this?”
Ashley laughed. “Honey, it’s the whole thing. So, you know the staircase you passed when you came through the front hall? We have two bridal suites set up upstairs, and Letty’s in the one to the east. She requested that you come see her when you arrived.”
Scott was amused by this sentence construction, which made Letty sound like the queen of England. “Alright, got it, thanks.” He made one last tweak to his little man bun. “How am I looking?”
“Very handsome,” Ashley said, in the practiced tone of someone who paid compliments to people all day, “and like you’re doing your absolute best to look corporate.”
“Without actually looking corporate.”
“Well, the beard is a stretch, for one.”
Scott laughed and walked away, calling “Thanks,” over his shoulder.
Letty’s bridal suite was a dizzying white everywhere you looked.
A dozen or so stout vases containing lilies and peonies had been placed on every hard surface; photographers and makeup artists orbited bridesmaids in garnet dresses who were perched on the plush poufs and couches.
Scott felt out of place the second he walked in the room, and Letty herself was nowhere to be seen.
“Ooh, a tux,” Priscilla said with a wink when she spotted him. A few of the others waved or offered hellos, including Josie.
“Hi,” Scott said. “Where’s your sister?”
Priscilla pointed to a door at the end of the room. Scott awkwardly navigated his way through the crowd to knock on it.
“Come in,” Letty called.
Scott slipped inside what looked like a narrow little dressing room — clothes rack on one end, lit vanity mirror on the other.
Letty was sitting at the vanity, facing away from it, looking at her phone.
Her hair was elegantly done and frozen in place, but she didn’t have any makeup on yet, and she was wearing an Adidas tracksuit.
A white garment bag hung from the clothes rack.
She looked up and smiled at him. “Hey hey.”
“Hey. What are you doing in here?”
“Hiding,” Letty mouthed.
Scott laughed. “That bad?”
“It’s just a lot. And I can’t even see Sana until the first look. I’m just trapped in here with my sister and my best friends, God forbid.”
“Hey… best female friends.”
“Well, yeah,” Letty said, flapping a hand. “And you are here, at the moment.”
“I am. Did you need me for something?”
“I wanted to say hi, and I’m kind of curious about how your conversation went last night,” Letty said.
Scott felt a jolt in his gut like someone trying to yank it out of him from below.
“I’d love to hear some good news before I go get my face slathered for an hour,” she added.
He inhaled, breaking eye contact and looking at a small seascape on the wall.
“Was it that bad?” Letty said. “Shit.”
“Uh,” he said. “I wouldn’t say bad.”
“No?”
Scott hesitated again, then fidgeted. Suddenly he felt too tall for the room and his tuxedo, as if he were growing rapidly like Alice. “We did — there was some closure, I guess, in a way.”
“In a way?”
“Yeah.”
Letty stared at him, squinting, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “Oh, you fucked him!”
“Shh, Christ! Your mom is out there!”
“Scott!”
“You wanted me to, Violet!” he hissed, panicky, wiping his sweaty palms on his pants. “You were both egging me on!”
“To talk, and maybe reconnect and make out or something! Not to fuck him!”
“Stop,” Scott said, swinging his arms like an umpire and accidentally knocking the garment bag off the rack. “Fuck.” He hurriedly restored it. “Is that your dress?”
“It’s a jumpsuit. Jesus Christ, don’t fuck my married cousin the night before my wedding, are you crazy?”
“I swear to God you wanted me to.”
“I —” Letty brought her hand to her forehead and rolled her eyes. “Okay, yeah, I see how you maybe got that impression. I see how maybe Sana and I got a little carried away. But you didn’t have to do it! Shit!”
“It was one night. It was nothing. It’s fine. We were drunk.”
Letty’s hand did not leave her forehead. She stared into space, her brown eyes wide and round.
“It’s fine. Seriously.” He sounded to his own ears like he was begging her to affirm it was fine.
“He’s mar-ried!”
“Look —” Scott glanced at the door. “He told me he fucks guys sometimes, okay? He said they have an understanding.”
Letty’s eyes got wider. She shook her head slowly. “Jesus, he makes me sad.”
“So it’s not like this is —”
There was a knock at the door. They both turned to it in terror.