Most of the people attending had probably never heard of me. I started out with one of the songs the band played with me, the song that had the most internet hits. It started with a spotlight on Darlene playing the piano introduction. Then when the rest of the band cut in and I started to sing, the lights on the stage came on and three spots focused on me. I knew what they saw. A little blonde girl with a large guitar, standing there and hoping to make good.
It was by far the largest venue I had ever played, but I had confidence in my voice. With a microphone, I figured I could blow the roof off. The crowd was restless and excited, anticipating good music and a good time. I thought of Jake telling me that as long as I didn’t sound like a tortured cat, he would let me sing for my dinner.
I opened my mouth, and did my best to let everyone know I belonged there. I sang one more number backed up by the band, and then the lights focused only on me. Playing the Martin, I sang the song I had written for Jake, the song I played on harp for my encore in Vienna. The song was modified to a narrower vocal range, the tune re-written for guitar and a folk-pop audience. I had never heard such applause and cheering in my life. These people were a lot less restrained than classical or operatic audiences. Smiling my fool head off, I decided I could get used to it.
Ed, my guitar player, stepped up and shouted in my ear, “Screw what we planned. Do a malaguena, then do Wandering Traveler, and then we’ll step back in and hit them with Dance All Night.”
I looked at him, then at the audience. “Are you sure?”
“Trust me,” he said. He had done gigs with some of the biggest names in the business. I pulled a stool over, and changed to my classical guitar. A malaguena is a type of flamenco music from southern Spain. As I hit the first few notes, the audience quieted. I played through it, giving an American audience a taste of how powerful an acoustic guitar could be. While the notes were still dying away, I changed back to my Martin and sang Wandering Traveler, the song I wrote about walking into the Roadhouse for the first time.
When I finished, I turned to change guitars again to my electric Gibson. Ed stepped into the spotlight with me and shouted, “Miss Cecily Buchanan!” into the microphone. The audience was clapping, cheering, and stomping their feet.
I turned to the band, and launched into the opening rift of Dance All Night. After the second rift, they came in on time, and I turned to the mic to sing.
It’s been a lousy day
Come home to get away
Boss was a jerk, always down on me
Need to kick loose and move to feel free
Going to go out and
Dance all night
The music makes things right
Shake my ass and forget
Ain’t heard last call yet
Dance all night
Boyfriend called and moaned
Says he has to work ‘til dawn
Thinks I’m too dumb to catch on
He’s gettin’ some on the side
I ain’t staying home while he rides
Don’t want to sit around bored
Short dress and fuck-me shoes, hit the door
Going to go out and
Dance all night
The music makes things right
Shake my ass and forget
Ain’t heard last call yet
Dance all night
Don’t want to sit around bored
Short dress and fuck-me shoes, hit the door
Flirt with all the good lookin guys
Gonna find one to make me fly
Going to go out and
Dance all night
The music makes things right
Shake my ass and forget
Ain’t heard last call yet
Dance all night
When I finished, I did think the roof would come off. It was a new song, one I started thinking about in New York and finished in London. It had a dance beat, and the lyrics were inspired by all the women I saw alone in the clubs. I had practiced it with the band, but no one else had heard it. Neither Darlene nor Terrie had great singing voices, but when we practiced it we decided they should come in on the chorus.
When we finished our set, we came off the stage and the headliners, two women about twenty years older than I was, intercepted me.
“Go back out there,” the taller one said. “Do an encore.”
“I’m not supposed to,” I told her. “The contract specifically says not to.” There were reasons for that. Promoters don’t want introductory acts usurping the main show, and often the big stars are such divas that they would blow a gasket if they felt they were getting upstaged.
“Screw the contract,” she said. “Go do something. They’re going nuts out there, and you deserve it.” She turned me around and gave me a shove. So I sang one more song, a quiet one, and then left the stage.
~~~
Chapter 23
Jake
Myra and I watched Cecily’s performance from backstage. I could tell she was nervous, but when she walked out there and the spotlights hit her, she played with all of the confidence I was used to seeing. Compared to the elegant gowns she wore for her classical tour, she dressed for this performance in a sleeveless red wrap blouse, blue jeans and cowboy boots.
Myra was nervous, too, and clung to my arm through the first few songs. When it became evident that the audience loved Cecily, Myra relaxed and let me go, moving a few steps away with a flush on her face. During the week that she stayed with us in Greeley, I caught her watching me on several occasions, and took pains not to get too close to her when we were alone.
Cecily and the band sang a song I hadn’t heard before, but I instantly knew it would be a hit. By the time she hit the chorus the second time, most of the girls in the audience were trying to sing along with her.
I glanced over at Myra, and she was singing along, too. When the song finished, the arena erupted.
“Talk about a hard act to follow,” a voice behind me said. I turned and saw the two women who were headlining the show.
“God, did you ever hear a voice like that?” the other woman said.
I stayed with Cecily that night in Denver, and she was so excited that I thought she would never wind down. I don’t think I could have kept up with her when I was nineteen, let alone at my advanced age of thirty.
“God, Jake,” she said, cuddling up against me after we made love for the third time. “I wish you could come with me. You have no idea how much I miss you when we’re not together.”
“If you’re like this after every performance, I’m not sure my heart is strong enough,” I teased.
She giggled and put her hand between my legs. “I think your heart is just fine. It seems to be able to pump enough blood to keep this hard.” I groaned as she started doing something to try and make it hard again.
She and the band took off for Santa Fe the next morning, and I went home to Greeley.
~~~
Chapter 24
Cecily
Maybe it was because Jake was so much closer than when I was in Europe, but I missed him a lot more on that tour. We Skyped every night, but sleeping alone in a strange hotel room afterward was incredibly lonely.
The tour was turning into a major success, and Dance All Night passed the two hundred thousand download mark by the time we reached Washington, D.C. Tim was already talking about recording a second album and setting up a tour for the following year.
Unfortunately, as we reached the large cities on the east coast, the paparazzi and the tabloids descended on us. One morning I was treated to a story calling Dance All Night an autobiographical song. They dredged up all the garbage they printed when I was in Europe with Jake. The story went on to speculate that the reason I had “called off her engagement with Jake McGarrity” was due to his cheating on me.
To say that I was angry would be putting it mildly. I could handle them intimating I was a slut, but to say anything about Jake’s character was going
too far. I talked to a lawyer, and he said that because of the way they couched their language, reporting “rumors” and not directly saying any of it was true, there was little I could do about it. There wasn’t any way I could prove that they made up the rumors so that they could report them.
We bypassed Baltimore on purpose. Kerrigan, Jake and I felt that was an unnecessary risk. Four FBI agents were now under indictment, and the federal task force was playing havoc with the drug business there. But I did perform in Washington, and then in Philadelphia a few days later.
I was walking down the street with Myra and Terrie near the concert hall in Philadelphia when I saw Alejandro. He was standing with a pretty blonde woman who was dressed in as little as legally possible.
“Good afternoon, Cecily,” he said with a smile. “It’s so nice to see you again. When I heard about your tour, I was disappointed that you weren’t playing in Baltimore, but I have a lot of friends in Philadelphia, so I forgive you.”
All I could do was stare at him. I felt paralyzed and my mind refused to work.
“Come now,” he said, “don’t you have a warm welcome for your old friend? Don’t I deserve a hug and a kiss? Perhaps we could get together after your show. I have missed you. You know that, don’t you?”
Myra stepped between us, blocking my view of him, and it seemed to break the paralysis. Terrie grabbed my arm and pulled me away. I stumbled, but she helped steady me, and then we were walking in a different direction. Myra was on her phone.
I heard Alejandro call in Spanish, “Don’t think you can hide from me. I can find you, Cecily. I can always find you.”
“Tim,” Myra said, “we need security. Twenty-four-seven bodyguards on Cecily, limo transport, the whole deal. No, no, I’m not sure what’s going on, but we need protection right now.”
They pulled me into a crowded cafe and found a table while Myra gave Tim our location. The fog around my mind seemed to fade away, and I became aware that my friends were watching me with alarm and concern showing on their faces.
“Are you all right?” Terrie asked.
“Who was that?” Myra chimed in.
“Yeah, I’m okay,” I said and started shaking uncontrollably. Myra pulled me into her arms and held me.
When the shaking subsided, I looked up into Myra’s face and said, “What did Jake tell you?”
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“Why did you call for security so quickly?” I asked.
“You’re white as a sheet,” Terrie said. “I’ve never seen anyone look so terrified in my life.”
Squeezing me a little tighter, Myra said, “I remember the discussions about the tour, and that you didn’t want to play in Baltimore. At one point, Jake said that Kerrigan didn’t want you anywhere near Baltimore.”
I took a deep breath and pulled away from her. Looking at Terrie, and then at Myra, I said, “You can’t tell anyone, ever, what I’m going to tell you. Not even Jake, or Tim, or God himself, understand? If anyone ever tries to bribe you to talk, or to sell me out, I’ll double whatever offer they make.”
“That sounds pretty dramatic,” Terrie said, with an attempt at a grin, but I could see she was shaken.
“That guy is the number three player in the drug distribution network in the Mid-Atlantic states,” I said. “He’s the kingpin in Baltimore. He wants to kill me, because I know too much.” I took a deep, shuddering breath. “It wouldn’t be quick, though. He has a thing for me. Sexually. He’s obsessed, and he tried to buy me once.”
I reached out and took their hands in mine. “That’s why you can’t ever tell anyone. It would put you in danger. I won’t even tell you his name. Just know that you need to stay away from him. If anyone in the FBI ever wants to talk to you about me, don’t do it. He owns FBI agents.”
“Why are you telling us this?” Myra asked.
“He saw you with me,” I said. “You need to understand that if anyone tries to kidnap you, or talk you into going with them, scream your head off. Don’t get in a car or go anywhere with someone you don’t know. No one would ever see you again. I’m so sorry. I wish you weren’t caught up in this, but there’s nothing I can do about it now except warn you.”
“How did you get caught up in it?” Terrie asked.
“An old boyfriend. A whole string of bad decisions. Disastrous decisions. Stupid decisions. Eddie’s dead now, but his boss remembers me. He’s not at this concert by accident. You heard him.”
We sat there, drank tea and ate a little bit, for about two hours. Myra spoke with Tim a couple of times and I called Kerrigan. I wanted to call Jake, but I was afraid he’d drop everything and fly to Philadelphia. I couldn’t endanger him. I decided that I would call him after the concert, once we headed out of town.
Tim finally showed up with several large men and introduced them as our security detail.
“Tim,” I said, “send me the bill. This is outside of anything you’re supposed to provide. Okay?”
“We’ll talk about it later,” he said.
We were hustled into a limo waiting outside, and taken to our hotel so that I could change for the show. I ate dinner in my room, and then the limo drove us to the concert hall.
I don’t think I gave my best performance that night, but I don’t remember it very well. The limo took us to New York immediately after the show, and Myra, Terrie and I checked into a different hotel than the one where the rest of the band and entourage were staying.
We were somewhere in New Jersey when I called Jake from the limo.
“Hi, sweetheart,” I said. “Jake, I saw Eddie’s boss in Philadelphia tonight. He came to the concert. He ... he threatened me. Honey, you need to be careful, okay?”
“Where are you?” he asked. “I’ll be there today.”
“No, Jake. I have a security team now, on duty twenty-four hours a day. We’re taking precautions. I’m on my way to New York now, and I’ll be fine. I just need you to be aware and take precautions, too. Okay? If anything happened to you, I’d never forgive myself. I love you, Jake. You’re my world. Never forget that.”
We checked into a three-bedroom suite in a business hotel in the financial district. The security team told us that we would be easier to protect if we were all in the same place. Dawn was breaking over the city by the time we settled in, and none of us was particularly sleepy. Exhausted, but not sleepy. We ordered a room service breakfast and sat back with coffee to wait.
“You know,” Terrie said, “I own every album you’ve ever made. We’re the same age, and when I was in high school, I saw you perform in San Francisco. My parents asked me what I wanted for my sixteenth birthday, and I said Cecille Buchanan tickets.”
Myra seemed surprised. “You’ve been following her that long?”
“Oh, yes. When the concert started, this little blonde-haired girl walked out on stage, and she had the entire audience in the palm of her hand. I wanted to be you so badly. I’ve worked my butt off since then. You showed me that it didn’t matter that I was just a girl, or that I was tiny. You’ve always been my hero. When I heard that someone was recruiting for violins to play with you, I flew down to LA and camped in Tim’s office for days to get a chance to audition.”
I didn’t really know what to say. I had been successful at an early age, but it never occurred to me that someone might consider me a role model. The other girls at Peabody had always been mean and jealous.
“Cecily,” Terrie said, “when you cancelled your tour three years ago, was that when you got into the drug scene?”
“Yeah,” I answered. “I never did drugs very heavily, but my boyfriend was a dealer, and I got caught up in the scene.”
A sudden thought struck me. Resisting Alejandro was something I’d never been able to do. I always felt like a bird facing a snake, and anything he wanted, I gave him. What if Myra and Terrie hadn’t been there? A feeling of emptiness and futility swept through me, and before I understood what was happening, I started crying. They came ov
er and sat on either side of me on the couch and both of them hugged me.
“What is it?” Terrie asked.
“I don’t know what I would have done without you,” I sniffled. “I might have gone with him.”
Myra cocked her head and studied me. “Cecily, you were obviously terrified of him. Why would you have gone with him?”
“I always have before.”
“You said he tried to buy you?” Myra said. “How could he do that?”
“Women are always for sale,” I explained. “Like the girl he was with today. For the right price, you could buy her. Eddie liked the prestige of having a songbird, as everyone called me, so he always refused to sell me. But he rented me for favors or coke or traded me for other girls for a night or a weekend.”
Terrie looked horrified, but Myra seemed to take it in stride. “Maybe he just didn’t offer Eddie enough,” she said.
“Eddie was stupid. I didn’t tell him that, but twenty kilos of coke is a hell of a lot of money.” At that statement, I saw shock register on Myra’s face. She knew what kind of money I was talking about, enough to have kept Eddie alive.
I was beginning to feel calmer. I knew they were distracting me by getting me to talk, but that was all right. “I thought I was in love with Eddie, though, so I didn’t mind if he treated me rough sometimes. I just didn’t know any better. But I didn’t want to be with any of the rest of them any more than I had to.”
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