16. Atlanta
16
ATLANTA
ARCHER
Ian reached out a hand to grab my elbow. “Sit. You’re making me dizzy.”
I shook him off and kept pacing. “Think she’s out there yet?”
Mal was sitting on the back of an overstuffed sofa with no regard for upholstery. He had his elbows on his knees. “Just text her and find out, man. Shit, you’re so edgy.”
“I want her to have a good time. You know, because of the promotion of the band.”
“Sure,” Ian said. “For the band.”
I wheeled on him, suddenly grateful my vague anxiety could have a focus. “I’m doing this stupid fucking dating school for the band, you know. I am.”
He held up his hands. “I’m not arguing with you, brother.”
I stomped my feet and shook my shoulders. Calm down. Just calm down. “I know. Sorry. I’m fine. ”
I wasn’t entirely fine. I had maybe a little too much nervous energy.
“Fuck,” Mal said. “You’re making me nervous. Want me to find a cute young thing who wants to meet the hot singer? You know”—he nodded to the locker rooms—“quickie in the can? Your specialty?”
I thought about it. There was always someone willing to blow me. Fast, friendly, over in five minutes. I’d feel better.
But would I? Groupies hadn’t been doing it for me lately. Thinking back on it, when was the last time I’d gotten some?
I’ve known Ian most of my life and realized he was counting with me. “Not in Florida,” he said, thinking back. “And not in Omaha.”
“Was it at the Mohegan Sun? No—I signed her tits and she left, remember?”
“So . . . the Paramount? Dilly always wants to blow you.”
“Yeah, but our show was so shitty, I didn’t have the heart. It must have been the Troubadour, then. Is that possible?”
“That was a month ago, man.” Mal was astonished. “Are you feeling okay? Yanking it so hard you’re gonna break it off?”
I resumed my pacing, looking back over the weeks. I hadn’t had any kind of sex at all since?—
Since I’d met O’Connor.
Man. That was fucked up. “What does that mean?” I asked my guys.
They shrugged. “Had to be the first blog post. The bad-kisser part.” Mal looked to Ian for confirmation.
He nodded. “Fucked with your confidence.”
“But—but I’ve got my swagger back. These shows have been killer. Who wouldn’t want to kiss me?”
“It’s not them. They all still want you. It’s you, man.” Ian raised one eyebrow, and I suddenly hated him. “You’re going to have to kiss her. ”
“What?”
Mal was on his feet. “Yeah, man! And this time coming up? When you’re driving her around in the BFT? That will be the perfect opportunity. The two of you alone on the open road. Darkness. Play some good music. Plant a good one on her! That’ll be the cure. I’m sure of it.”
“I can’t go kissing O’Connor! Be serious. She hates me. She’ll take my cock with her when she leaves and make earrings out of my balls. No fucking way.”
Ian flicked that eyebrow at me again, which was an entire conversation in Ian-speak. The stage manager gave us our five-minute call. As we waited in the wings, hearing the terrifying, thrilling sound of the crowd, Ian leaned over. “She doesn’t hate you,” he muttered.
I turned, surprised, and looked my question to him.
He just gave me a single nod and a quick wink, his face serious. He was telling me to go for it.
Kiss O’Connor? It wasn’t that I didn’t want to or hadn’t considered it. She was just such a ballbuster.
Except she really wasn’t. She was kind of funny. She hadn’t hung up when I called her.
She’d called me .
Well, she’d called all of us in the BFT . . . but that included me.
Fuck. Wrong time to think about this.
We were introduced and took to the stage. Management had already told us the concert was sold out, so maybe Monday wasn’t such a loser gig after all. All my nervous pre-gig energy gave me a little edge, a little lightning to brighten the high notes. Everything felt new. “Lizabella” was as fresh to me as the first time Mal played it for us. How would it sound from the audience? Did it swing?
The crowd was right there with us. The energy flowed both ways—from us to them, from them to us. We’d made a connection. Nothing was going to go wrong. If I wanted to kiss O’Connor, that would go well too.
“Atlanta!” I shouted after the applause began to taper. “You are looking so foxy tonight at the Fox Theatre!”
Every band probably said the same thing to them, but they screamed with delight anyway. And I had reason to believe there was at least one fox-colored woman lost in the dark mass of the audience. She deserved to scream and dance too.
Okay. You want a rocker? You got it.
“Blood Burn” was all the rage I’d felt when she’d trashed me. “Charlotte’s Lullaby” was all the tenderness I heard in Ian’s voice when he talked about Nicky. “Street Dancing” was the wild abandon O’Connor had mentioned when she was dancing, unnoticed, at the Omaha show.
My biggest song, “The Salesman,” now seemed childish, like the rantings of a person who knew how to be interesting but didn’t understand the value of being interested. But the crowd sang the words with me anyway, and we all rejoiced in our unity.
The concert was hot. We were clicking. Mal and Ian had my back. Our voices were strong, our riffs were irresistible, our look was smokin’ hot.
But as we stood there, taking our bows after our second encore, Charlotte at my hip and Mal and Ian to either side, it occurred to me that everyone in the theater now stomping and whistling and screaming and clapping . . . would all slowly trickle away.
They’d leave.
They’d become individuals again. I wouldn’t lead them, and they wouldn’t hold me up.
And that was sad.
I lingered for a moment, wishing I could see all the faces more clearly. Wishing I could know them. Find out who they were, what they liked, how they thought.
Then we were off the stage. I went through the rest of the evening a little distracted. By the time we got out of the showers and had on clean clothes, O’Connor would be out of the theater. We lined up to meet dignitaries, people who bought expensive tickets, members of the press. O’Connor would be back at her hotel. We loaded up the BFT, which took forever. Maybe she was falling asleep and wouldn’t hear my text.
“Okay,” Ian said as he locked the cover over the bed. “Let’s go get you laid.”
“Not laid,” I protested. “Come on. It’s O’Connor.”
“What, you don’t want to hit that?” Mal loaded Charlotte into the cab, and he and Ian got in the back so I could pick up O’Connor. “She’s definitely hot.”
“O’Connor isn’t a ‘hit that’ kind of woman. Obviously.” I texted her that we were on our way.
Mal wasn’t done with the conversation. “You like all kinds of women. They’re all your type. Are you feeling okay?”
I shrugged and negotiated the loading bay. Unlike Omaha, Atlanta was still wide awake at two in the morning. “Not O’Connor. She’s not my type. She’s . . . you know. Smart.”
“Yeah,” Ian chuckled. “That’s hardly ever been the case.”
“Oh, fuck you.” My phone binged, and I checked it at a stoplight. “And you can stop talking about this. She’s waiting in the lobby.”
“You got it, Romeo.” Ian was done discussing it. Probably because he knew Mal wouldn’t let it go.
“At least you could kiss her. You know, this time without teeth.”
“I do not kiss with my teeth!”
Ian stabbed me in the back. “Nicky says you do.”
I nearly drove into a cabbie. “The fuck she did! ”
He shrugged and said nothing.
“That’s two smart women. Maybe you should stay away from those collegiate girls, huh? Keep making your selections more from the back of the classroom.”
“Fuck you, Mal.”
He hooted. “There’s writing on the wall, Arch. Read it, maybe.”
“We’re done with this discussion! Knock it off!”
They both shut up, but I could feel the waves of amusement coming from the back seat. Know-it-all bastards. Grr.
O’Connor came out the door when I pulled up. Two bellboys fought to help her with her bags. She stayed at the fanciest places.
I saw folded money exchange hands as she tipped them. I locked the truck bed again, and they’d already helped her into the passenger seat. By the time I got behind the wheel, she was already chatting comfortably with Mal and Ian, Charlotte’s greedy head under O’Connor’s slim, pale hands.
“Hello, O’Connor,” I said, and knew immediately that I’d just awkwardly broken into their conversation.
“Hello, Archer.” She paused. She was waiting for something? Was it time for me to be interested?
“What did you think of the concert?” Shit. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to be interested in her opinion of me. Of Aftermath.
She didn’t let me down, though. “I thought it was amazing. Things seemed tenser than in Omaha, but that wasn’t a bad thing. The crowd was almost jumpy from following your songs.”
“Jumpy?” Mal asked.
She offered her thoughts as I got us out of the city and on the road to the airport. She was a surprisingly astute critic. No, I guess that shouldn’t have been surprising. She’d earned her spot as a social media influencer. But she’d seen the show differently than we had, and her views were unexpected .
“So, you think so many dance numbers in a row wore the crowd out? That’s something to look at, Ian.” Mal and Ian were thick as thieves with O’Connor, and I tried not to resent the easy discussion they were having. Who knew Mal was so good at being interested?
“I’m saying that Archer is right, and a Monday-night audience might not be as pumped as a Friday- or Saturday-night audience. I don’t know. You guys have the experience, not me. But I think that if you’d put a slower song in the middle of that long run, you’d give them a breather.”
“Interesting. Arch?” Ian was asking my opinion. I nodded.
“We could consider it. The Chicago gig is a Saturday-night crowd, so we don’t have to think about revisions just yet. But the one after that, in Washington, D.C.—that’s a Thursday.”
“I love this idea.” Mal was happy. “We’ll customize our sets to the days of the week and make sure our audience can keep up with us to the very end. Good idea, O’Connor.”
She sat back in her seat with a smile and watched as we approached the many empty travel lanes around the airport in the middle of the night. “What time’s your flight, you guys?” she asked.
Mal was the navigator. “Just after five in the morning. We won’t have long to wait. We’re pretty much on time. Pull over, Arch. This’ll do.”
We fished their luggage out of the truck bed and did the one-armed hugs in parting. Ian looked from me to O’Connor with a raised eyebrow, and I shook my head. Back off, man.
Mal, of course, made up for Ian’s silence. “We’ll see you in Chicago on Friday. Hope you have a good trip with this knucklehead, O’Connor. Give me a kiss, baby—come here, Charlotte. You be good for Archer. No skunks, hear me?”
“Mal,” Ian said. It was enough.
“Give my love to Gerta,” I said as I held O’Connor’s door for her. “Tell her I’m sorry to miss her birthday. ”
“She understands. Bye, you guys.”
The BFT’s perfectly engineered door thunked shut as I got behind the wheel, and the whole rest of the world’s noise and confusion was cut off. It was me and O’Connor and nighttime and a lot of empty road in front of us.
And a large Great Dane’s head between us.