Keeping the Beat

by Marie Powell

  Lucy crashed her sticks down into her last roll, letting the beat drop out as Toni sang the final line of “Soft” with Harper. They were out of tune. Great.

  Applause smattered and then died as the murmur of bored voices rose to overtake it.

  Harper stomped off stage, followed by Toni, Iza and Robyn, who stumbled going down the uneven steps and nearly fell on her face.

  Lucy stayed at the drums for a moment, listening to her own heart breaking.

  Everything had been so fantastic before the Hollywood Bowl, but since then Crush had got worse and worse with every passing gig.

  Lucy felt more alone than ever. It was like her bandmates had been abducted and secretly replaced by malfunctioning robots. Lucy wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of them simply crumbled into a pile of smoking mechanical parts on one of these disastrous nights.

  She finally got up and followed the other girls.

  “We’re doomed,” Harper moaned. She slunk over to one of the grim duct-taped chairs in the backstage nook that had been labeled their dressing room, then wrinkled her nose and retreated before her white mini touched the greasy vinyl seat.

  “Not only are we stuck playing The Echo for the fourth time in two weeks, the show’s producers aren’t even bothering to film our gigs anymore and the freaking audience isn’t even listening!” Harper continued. “And I can’t blame them! We SUCKED. You were totally off, Robs, and don’t even get me started on how many intros you missed, Toni. Seriously, how can you not remember the melody line to ‘I’ll Cross the World’? How many times have we played that song?”

  Lucy couldn’t tell whether her headache was due to Harper’s shouting or due to an extreme case of déjà vu. She knew where this was heading — the same place they always ended up after a show these days. A fight.

  “It might help if you could stay in tune,” Toni snarled.

  “I wasn’t the one out of tune, you crazy —”

  Harper’s jibe was cut off by Robyn diving for the nearest bin and vomiting violently.

  “Robs, are you okay?” Lucy said, kneeling to hold Robyn’s hair away from her face and trying not to gag at the sound of retching.

  “The screech of our instruments clashing obviously made her sick,” Harper snapped.

  Toni looked from Robyn back to Harper and her eyes narrowed. “You insensitive bi—”

  “Oi!” Lucy hollered, cutting them off before they did each other actual damage. “Robyn is ill and we’re still in the venue. Stop behaving like children and help me with her, will you? Iza, put your bloody phone away and get Robyn something cold to drink. Luke will understand if you wait more than thirty seconds to reply to a text.”

  Iza paled, as though it was the first time she’d noticed Robyn vomiting right in front of her. Lucy shook her head as the pianist scurried off. She was glad Iza was happy, but she was so wrapped up in her new boy that she’d been useless in the past few weeks. And Lucy could have done with Iza’s help — keeping Harper and Toni’s inexplicable feud from going nuclear had been a full-time job. And that was on top of Robyn completely losing the plot.

  “If Jason were here,” Harper noted, ice trailing through her words, “we would have a real dressing room and a production assistant to help us. Wait. No. That’s not true. If Jason were on the case, WE WOULDN’T BE HERE AT ALL BECAUSE WE’D HAVE A REAL GIG!”

  “He isn’t here, so there’s no point in screaming about it, is there?” Toni snapped back.

  “Oh, there’s a point. Whose fault do you think it is that all of a sudden our manager’s dumb-ass assistant is booking all of our gigs and we’ve fallen so far off the radar that they’ve taken one of our camera crews and given it to Dead Kitten Mambo?”

  “Given that I am the only one interested in booking gigs for you ladies these days, you might want to be nicer to me,” Ash said dryly as he pushed through the door from the venue into the backstage area. He helped Lucy hoist Robyn into a chair. “Jason promoted me to coordinator, remember?”

  “Right,” Robyn said, shaking her head like a wet puppy. “Be nice to Ash, Harper. He’s a lovely boy and he’s doing his best to help us. It’s not his fault he isn’t that bright.”

  “Are you okay, Robyn?” Ash asked, ignoring her slurred chatter.

  “I’m fine,” Robyn said, waving off his concern. “A few too many cocktails, that’s all.”

  “Good,” Ash said, his tone flat. “I’ll get started loading up the equipment.”

  He turned on his heel and left.

  Great, thought Lucy. Now they’d alienated Ash as well. Just what they needed.

  Iza returned with a bottle of water, a wet bar towel folded into a compress and a mini bag of pretzels.

  “Sorry,” she said breathlessly. “I had to beg for something that even resembled food.”

  “You’ve got to stop this, Robs,” Harper said, taking the compress and applying it to the back of Robyn’s neck. “We can’t have you nearly collapsing all the time on stage. It’s not good for the band.”

  “It’s not good for you either,” Lucy said, shooting Harper a look.

  “Well, yes, that too,” Harper agreed. “I know you think you need to lose weight, or whatever, but you also have to eat. You know that.”

  “I’m fine!” Robyn said, her voice already clearer after a handful of the pretzels. She took the compress from Harper and nudged her away. “I’m fine. You guys worry too much.”

  “Well, excuse me for trying to help,” Harper snapped. “Whatever. Don’t we have another party to get to? At Darkroom? I’m going to find Rafe and Skye and we’ll meet you there.”

  “Oh sure, you just run off with Rafe. Leave us to load up all on our own. Again,” Toni said. “That’s fine, Harper. We don’t need you anyway.”

  “Hey, it’s not my fault we’re here at this dive. You know whose fault that is,” Harper threw back at her.

  What the bloody hell was she on about? Lucy knew that Harper somehow blamed Toni for Jason’s inattentiveness of the last few weeks. Without him, Crush had gone from the Project Next favorite, making waves at the Hollywood Bowl, to last place on the internet polls, playing the same crummy gigs. Something had happened, and they clearly knew what, but Lucy hadn’t been able to get an explanation out of Harper or Toni.

  “Why do you keep putting it all on Toni?” Iza asked, her voice quivering. “It’s not Toni’s fault that Jason’s abandoned us.”

  More to the point, Lucy thought, why isn’t Toni denying it?

  “She knows why,” Harper snapped.

  “Shut it, all right?” Toni hurled back. “And you stay out of it, Iza. You can just go back to texting your boring boyfriend and pretending you care about the band.”

  “I do care …” Iza’s voice broke. She scrubbed tears from her eyes. “I do care,” she whispered again, though Lucy could barely hear her over Harper.

  “See, now you’ve made Iza cry, you witch. I wish I’d never let you join my band. You’ve ruined everything!”

  Toni was practically trembling with rage. “What do you care about the band being ruined? You’ve got what you wanted, haven’t you? You’ve wormed your way back into Rafe Jackson’s life. Why don’t you go cry to him? A touch of sympathy might be just what you need to finish stealing him from right under his girlfriend’s nose.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Skye Owen’s sharp voice cut in. “She won’t be stealing anyone.”

  Lucy’s stomach dropped like a stone. Skye and Rafe were standing right behind them all, and they’d clearly heard every unfortunate word of Toni’s vicious little speech. Skye was practically glowing with rage.

  “I can’t believe you just said that!” Harper shrieked at Toni. “I can’t believe … after what you’ve done … How do you have the nerve?”

  “It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Toni snapped back, without a hint of apology.


  “What’s the truth?” Skye snapped. “That Harper is trying to seduce Rafe and doesn’t care that she’s doing it right in front of me because she’s an evil slut? Did you think I hadn’t noticed?”

  “Babe,” Rafe said, looking a little panicked in the face of his furious girlfriend. “That’s not true at all. Harper and I are just friends, you know that.”

  Lucy could feel Harper tense beside her at the words “just friends.”

  Please, Harper, Lucy prayed silently. Please don’t say anything foolish right now. Please.

  “You know what?” Skye said to Rafe, voice still snapping with anger. “We’re going home. I’ve had enough of your friends tonight.”

  “Don’t you want to go to the party, babe?” Rafe wheedled. “I think we should go. We’ll all feel better after a nice round of shots.”

  “No,” Skye said firmly. “We won’t because we are going home. Now.”

  Then she turned and marched away.

  Rafe shot Harper an agonized look. “I’m sorry, Harp. I gotta go. I … I’ll call you.”

  Then he turned and dashed after Skye.

  When they were gone, Harper rounded on Toni, eyes flashing and looking like she was about to punch Toni in the face.

  Lucy reached for Harper’s arm. “Harper, come on. Let’s pack up. We can talk about this when we get home.”

  “No, we’ll talk about it right now,” Harper said.

  Toni snapped, “Finally. It’s about time that we stopped pretending you weren’t using us to get Rafe back.”

  “Oh?” Harper hissed. “Is it? Then maybe it’s also time to stop pretending that you haven’t ruined our chances completely by hooking up with our married manager.”

  Toni’s face went white so quickly and completely that Lucy was afraid the bass player would faint.

  So that was it, thought Lucy. That was the missing piece that made it all make sense. Jason’s disappearance. Toni and Harper’s arguing. All of it.

  “You … and Jason?” Iza said, staring at Toni. “You actually …”

  “Yes, actually,” Harper snapped. “I interrupted them at Blvd3 after the Hollywood Bowl. Our last decent gig, if you’ll remember.”

  “You didn’t see —” Toni tried to say, but Harper cut her off.

  “I didn’t have to see. It was obvious. And it should have been obvious to the rest of you. Why else would Jason drop us just when we were really taking off?”

  “The hard work was done,” Iza said. “That’s what Ash said. Ash said Jason always passes easy stuff off to him. Always.”

  “Ash wishes,” Harper said, shaking her head in disgust.

  “I …” Toni was crying now, fat, awful tears running black streaks of mascara down her cheeks. “I didn’t know …”

  “You didn’t know he was married?” Harper snarled. “You ruined our chances because you’re too much of a moron to use Google, or pay attention to anyone but yourself. He called his wife three times a night when he was out with us. You really are the blindest, deaf—”

  Before Harper could finish, Toni turned and fled.

  Lucy was going to be sick. She’d known something was wrong. She’d seen the texts, noticed the flirting … but she hadn’t thought it was anything serious. And now … now it was too late.

  “So what are we going to do?” Robyn asked quietly. She’d been so silent, sitting in the low, cracked chair with her bottle of water and her bag of pretzels that Lucy had almost forgotten she was there. “We can’t just give up because Toni made out with the wrong guy.”

  “What can we do?” Iza said, near tears. “Without Jason …”

  “We’ve still got Harper,” Robyn said. “Harper got us to Los Angeles; she’ll get us to Las Vegas as well. Right, Harp?”

  Lucy turned to Harper, desperately hoping to see the familiar, diabolical light of a plan being hatched behind her best friend’s eyes. But Harper looked as lost as Lucy felt.

  “Right,” Harper said, with enough assurance that Lucy thought the others might believe it. “Of course I will. I always think of something, don’t I?”

  “And thinking is best accomplished while relaxing,” Robyn said, grabbing Iza’s hand and hauling herself to her feet. “Which means we need to find a nice drink and a loud dance floor, in that order. We’ll all feel better after a good, happy night.”

  “I don’t know,” Iza said. “Maybe we should find Toni. She was really upset.”

  “No,” Harper said, straightening up. “Robyn’s right. Toni needs to sulk and we need to have a good time and forget about this craptastic gig. Right, Robs?”

  “Right!” Robyn declared, hooking her arm through Harper’s. “Let’s do it!”

  Lucy trailed the others out to the SUV, her brain racing. Robyn and Iza might be fooled by Harper’s bravado, but Lucy knew better. This time, Harper McKenzie didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have a clue how to save Crush.

  If something was going to be done, Lucy would have to do it herself.

  Robyn hesitated just inside the heavy double doors of Darkroom. She hoped she could talk the bouncer into letting Tomas through, but what if she couldn’t? She didn’t want to have go to Harper for help. She was sure Harper was beginning to suspect that Tomas wasn’t just showing up at all the Crush shows and parties lately to cheer Robyn on.

  Not that Tomas was Harper’s biggest concern at the moment. Robyn couldn’t believe that Toni had actually been seeing Jason. No wonder their manager had been making like the Invisible Man lately. Robyn had been terrified that the others wouldn’t go for the idea of relaxing at Darkroom after Toni and Harper’s blowup. But it was a good plan for them all to relax, even if it had just been an excuse to get her there in time to meet Tomas. They needed some fun after these weeks of disaster. Maybe now that everything was out in the open, life in Crush House would settle down again and things would go back to normal. She really hoped so.

  Perhaps she should just text Tomas and make some excuse for why she couldn’t get him in. Then she could focus on helping Harper brainstorm ways to dig them out of last place on Project Next. It would be nice to have a night with just the girls for once. Robyn had missed that since they’d come to LA. When they’d still been just Project Next hopefuls back home, a lot of nights had been spent that way. Just the five of them, chilling out together, planning their destiny.

  The big double doors swung open and Tomas strolled in.

  “There you are, beautiful,” he said in his liquid Swedish accent. “I was beginning to worry.”

  “I’m sorry, Tomas,” Robyn said, straightening up and sucking in her stomach as she followed him to a dim corner of the club’s entry hall. She didn’t want him to see how bloated those pretzels had made her. “I was just going to speak to the bouncer.”

  “No worries,” Tomas said smoothly. “It’s handled. I had to slip him a hundred but that’s cool. We’ll put it on your tab.”

  Robyn swallowed back a protest. It seemed like her “tab,” as Tomas liked to call it, got bigger all the time.

  “Don’t look so glum,” Tomas chided her, tickling her gently under the chin. “I’m not upset. We’re going to have a fantastic time tonight.”

  He pulled the red canvas pouch he kept his drugs in from an inner pocket of his soft white jacket and set to sorting through it, pulling free little ziplock bags of pills.

  Robyn’s stomach flopped hard against her ribs. The sight of the little red bag out in public always made her edgy, particularly when Tomas was officially a guest of Crush.

  “Just be careful,” Robyn said, trying not to sound too much like a nervous schoolgirl. “Security is pretty tight. If you get caught … and you’re a guest of Crush …”

  “It’s cool, babe,” Tomas said. “I’m like a ninja; no one will even know I’m here. And if they stop me, I’ll just tell them I’m here with the b
and. They won’t bother me.”

  “But if they search you …”

  “They won’t,” he said. He pressed a quick kiss to her mouth and dropped a bright green pill into her hand. “We’ve been doing this for weeks, Robs, and everything has been fine, hasn’t it? Now go, have another round and drop this in it. It’ll help you relax and get ready to tear up that dance floor with me.”

  Then he was gone.

  Robyn stared at the pill. She shouldn’t take it. After all, she’d no idea what it was. But if she didn’t, Tomas would think she was turning uptight on him. She didn’t want that.

  Besides, he wouldn’t give her anything bad. The little pink pills had worked well and the square yellow ones had worked like rocket fuel. The weight was just falling away. She’d be at her goal in a week, tops. When the finale came around, she’d be exactly the person she’d always dreamed she’d be when she walked on stage. And it was all thanks to Tomas.

  She would take it, she decided, closing her fingers over the pill. Then Tomas would see what a rock star she really was.

  Harper let the pounding music fill her brain and clear her mind. Maybe then she’d be able to find a way out of this mess.

  “Harper!”

  Harper decided to ignore Robyn and keep dancing. She needed to think. So far she had no clue how she was going to save Crush — and she was going to save Crush. Somehow. She had to. If she didn’t, she’d have officially ruined Lucy’s life for nothing and Lucy would never forgive her. As it was, Lucy had barely spoken to Harper since the big fight at The Echo, and she’d disappeared as soon as they’d arrived at Darkroom.

  She’d make it up to Lucy. All she had to do was come up with a way to send Crush from last place to first place in the three weeks they had left. She could do that, if only she could just think.

  But instead of spinning a crafty plot to rescue the band from the bottom of the Project Next barrel, her brain kept drifting back to Rafe. He’d texted her a few minutes before.