6. The Tour Stop
THE TOUR STOP
My phone's on the nightstand. I shouldn’t check it yet. Lena won’t message me yet, its early and she’s asleep.
I get up. Make coffee. Open my laptop. The studio email inbox is a list of logistics and complications. Three messages from the label stacked in the order of escalation: A&R rep. Publicist. Artist relations. All marked urgent.
SANDY GAUNTLET'S WILD NIGHT OUT: BELLADONNAS GUITARIST PHOTOGRAPHED LEAVING EXCLUSIVE CLUB WITH UNNAMED COMPANION.
The photo is grainy. Sandy's wearing sunglasses at midnight. The woman next to her is wearing leather and could be anyone.
I take a deep breath and close the article. I open a new email and start typing.
The studio is the usual basement concrete smell—coffee, humidity, no windows. Jo's phone is face-up on the mixing desk. Rebecca again. Ana's on the couch with her guitar. Jeremy's running ghost notes through the air with his drumsticks.
Sandy's chair is empty.
"She's on her way," Ana says when I don't ask.
"She said that twenty minutes ago."
Jo glances at her phone and smiles. Of course she does.
I snap at Jeremy for rushing the count-in. I make Ana redo a clean take because the tone is “muddy,” which it isn’t. I tell Jo the reverb she loves makes the whole track sound like it was recorded in a stairwell. Every time someone laughs at something on their phone I feel it behind my teeth.
“Okay.” Jo sets down her headphones. “What is going on with you today?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You’ve made Ana do that take four times.”
“Well, it wasn’t right.”
“It was right on the second one.” She says. “Rhonda. You’re allowed to be a person. What’s wrong?”
“I’m just stressed. The label, the EP, Sandy. It’s a lot. But I’m handling it.”
“You don’t have to handle all of it,” Ana says.
“Someone does.” It comes out harder than I mean it to, and the room goes quiet.
Jeremy sets his sticks down. “Take a few days off, Rhonda. Seriously. Go somewhere. We’ll survive a week without you.”
Nobody offers to book the studio, or field the label, or chase Sandy down. They just want me to go be tired somewhere they don’t have to watch.
“Sorry,” I say, to Ana, to the room. “The tone was fine. Both takes were fine. I’m sorry.”
“We know,” Ana says. Nobody says anything else, and I pack up my bass with hands that won’t quite settle.
Thursday morning, the booking agent calls.
“So Rhonda, about Friday’s hometown show,” she says. “Confirming load-in at four, doors at eight. And you asked me to add a name to the guest list?”
“Lena,” I say. “Just Lena. No plus-one.”
“Done,” she says. “She’s on the door.”
I end the call. Open my texts.
You’re really flying in Friday?
I watch the three dots. Eleven minutes. Long enough that she's deliberating. Short enough that she's not running away.
Depends. Are you going to get revenge for the soda?
The grin arrives before I can stop it.
I make no promises. But I’ll try not to break anything you bring this time.
Bold of you to assume I’m bringing armour this time.
I plug in my bass. Play the opening riff of "Nightwork" because my hands need something to do that isn't texting.
"Good mood?" Ana asks.
"Same mood as always."
"Right,” She mumbles. “Not after what happened yesterday.”
"Sorry about yesterday, but I’m okay now."
"Ah huh."
Ana grins and goes back to her guitar.
Jeremy walks past, staring at me. "Are you in your luteal phase?"
I roll my eyes. "You can’t ask me that Jeremy."
“I’m in a band with three women, I’m allowed to know."
I don't argue. I just play.
Later, locked in the bathroom again, phone warm in my hand.
The label's third email about Sandy.
I don't reply yet.
Instead I text Lena: What are you doing right now?
Working. You?
Bathroom hideout. Thinking about you.
My thumb hovers over the send button. I delete and change it to:
Bathroom hideout. Thinking about your city.
Eight days until I’m in your city. Not that I’m counting.
Seven, actually. But I’d never admit I’m counting too.
Should I be flattered or concerned?
Maybe both.
I leave the bathroom.
I’m smiling and I can’t help it.
I can’t wait.
Sandy finds me in the van before I leave. She slides into the passenger seat and doesn’t ask permission.
“I owe you an apology,” she says.
“Sandy—”
“No, let me.” She turns a guitar pick over in her fingers. “The club photos. The emails you’ve been answering because of me. I know it’s you who cleans it up. Every time. Not anybody else, not the label. You. And I’ve never once said thank you, or sorry, which is what I actually owe you.”
I don’t know what to do with that, so I look at the steering wheel.
“I’m not going to magically stop being a disaster,” she says. “But I see you. I see how much you carry. And I’m sorry that so much of it is my weight.”
“It’s okay,” I say, and I mean it more than I expected to.
“It’s not, but I appreciate you saying it.” She grins, herself again, and reaches for the door.
“You seem lighter lately,” she says, halfway out. “I don’t know what it is and I’m not going to pry. But whatever it is—hold onto it. One of us should get to be happy without it ending up in a paper.”
She climbs out, oblivious to how close she just came, and shuts the door.
I sit in the van a while, feeling warm and unfamiliar in my chest.
Me: Sandy just apologised to me. I think I’m in shock.
Lena: Good. You’re owed about ten more of those.
I drive home in the dark with the heater ticking and my phone lighting up on the seat where Sandy sat, and for once the thing I’m carrying feels a little lighter.