She enjoyed playing momma to the young men, and counselor to the old ones. Fiona had always done well in the company of men, and the testosterone blunted the sting of what she was missing at home.
Artists floated in an out to speak with Natty, drop things off, pick things up, whatever. They always wanted to stay when they saw who was recording, but Natty would just laugh and hustle them out.
“I’m working,” he’d say, ignoring his manager’s bulging eyes as he gave the bums rush to some of the hottest names in music. When Natty pushed people off, he pushed people off. “I’ma call you,” he’d say, and he meant it too. But most of these chart toppers would have to wait.
When he fell heart first into something, schedules, deadlines, all of it ceased to have any meaning, and there was nothing anyone could do to rush him. People would pop up occasionally, hoping to be remembered, to get back on his brain. They knew it only took one night, a few hours for him to start something wonderful, but he couldn’t see anyone right then. He and Fiona were making “some of hottest shit I’ve fucked with in forever!”
For her part, Natty was so much on her mind Fiona actually wrote pieces of him into a song. The thick inky blackness of his curls was worth a phrase, as was the full pink pout of his bottom lip, and the sparkle in his eyes. Though to keep things on the QT the eyes of her mythical baby were brown not hazel in her song.
“You are so cheesy right now, it’s scary,” he’d say, and roll his eyes, but Natty never tried to change a word.
It was only when he wrote something that he continually made adjustments. Retooling, he called it. But she didn’t mind. His creations often took the longest to cut, but they were also the most brilliant. The songs Fiona wrote were well-versed, but at the root they were simple and sincere. They would resonate without question for the masses because she was a gifted storyteller, but much of her strength and appeal came from the way she could wrap her voice around each syllable, pushing the lyrics out as though performing some heroic, emotion-tugging feat. It was impossible not to feel her, hard.
The appeal of the music Natty made for her came from a lethal combination of all the experiences they had shared in their decade-long friendship, his deep appreciation for her womanhood and her voice, and his undeniable ability to craft a song. He had wonderful instincts, and a way of twisting beats and lyrics that made them seem brand new yet somehow utterly familiar.
Sometimes they fell into one of those working nirvanas where everything fit, and the hours rolled by like nothing. The board stayed lit, and the engineers and musicians became shadowy as her voice swallowed ideas and spat out pictures. Then she’d get distracted, by him.
“Keep it movin,” he’d say, impatient when he thought they’d exhausted something and he was anxious to move on. Or, he’d ask “think you might like to sing something?” in a deliberately cutesy way to irritate her, which never worked. He only made her laugh.
But sometimes when they were dead serious, when neither could see anything except the chorus or how the guitarist might play it up like this or how the bass could drop just a hair more to let out that snare, she’d look at him and just, lick her lips. He could have been the lone taffy apple on a platter at a child’s Halloween party she wanted him that bad.
A lot of mixed kids are either extraordinarily lovely or look weird as hell. Natty was the former. His skin color was a unique blend of caramel and cream with a dash of walnut. If he came in a cup he’d have been more upscale and expensive than Starbucks, and like any caffeine addict Fiona would have been hooked, willing to stand in a line wrapped around a building to get her a sip.
She spent a lot of time watching his big hands. She’d noticed them long ago, but now she entertained herself watching his long fingers play over the controls of the board when she was out of the booth or strumming the strings of one of his many guitars. She could tell someone did his nails. Fiona wondered who he was fucking.
“I think you should use this as your first single,” he said, not for the first time.
She eyed him narrowly. She was adamant that a song called “Damn” would be her first single. She’d said it over and over and over, but Natty continued to offer up beats and lyrics like sacrifices, alternating between whining, cajoling, bullying and even the silent treatment trying to force her to see things his way.
He’d been the same since the day she met him. Always thought he knew best. He and Daney had that in common, and she treated them both the same. She’d nod her head and smile, then do it her way. When Natty realized this and tried to really twist her arm, she flat out refused.
“Damn” was her getting-over-Daney song. The beat was fierce, the lyrics poetic, a lifted collaboration between her, Netty, Cleo and Natty, though he didn’t realize he’d helped. “Damn” was it, and Fiona knew it was going to be a hit.
“I feel the same way about it that I felt about “Crushed” off my first album,” she told Cleo.
That song had gone to number one and stayed there for five weeks. It was one of her most successful cuts, and in truth her gut wasn’t just giving her the same feelings as the old hit. Her gut was screaming it would be even bigger. This song would be her signature. It would define this stage of her career.
Fiona reached for her coat.
Natty frowned at her. “Where you goin’?”
“Home.”
“We ain’t done.”
“Yeah, we are. I’m tired of this shit.”
His head snapped up. He’d been scribbling on the yellow legal pad he was never without. He blinked at her in surprise, rising as she continued to gather her things. “What?”
“I’m out,” she repeated flatly. “You act like this ain’t some crucial move for me, or I’m some lame who don’t know what’s hot. Maybe you think ‘cause you big time now you don’t have to listen no more, but I’m not new to this game. You not gon’ tell me what to do like I’m some kinda punk, and that I mean.”
“Wait a fuckin’ minute,” he said, leaping up to stand in her way. “You don’t just walk out on me like that!”
Fiona laughed, a short bark of sound. “Why the hell not?”
Mike the engineer shifted uncomfortably on his stool. He rubbed a dry patch of skin on the back of his dark neck.
“Fiona!”
“Natty. I said I’m tired.”
He snorted. “You’re goin’ to fuckin’ smoke, who are you kidding? Whatever.” He moved to turn away, and Fiona took two whole steps toward the door before his arm shot out to block her from leaving. He grabbed her around the waist and squeezed.
“Come on, Feef! Don’t be mad at me. I’m sorry. Okay? I just wanna get this out, you know?” He broke away and danced lightly on the balls of his feet. He eyed her as he shoved both hands through his hair until the curls were practically standing on end.
“Why you think I keep this shit so short,” he’d grinned one of the first times she’d seen him do it.
That had been years ago. But he looked exactly the same, maybe a bit more gorgeous ‘cause he had more freedom now.
“I sense this vibe about you that’s like,” he snapped his fingers and looked at her quizzically. “I dunno, but you’re wiser, and sexier than ever. Sound that way too,” He grinned.
Fiona smiled slightly, but she refused to give in. The little shit. She had been going off to smoke. “Damn” is the first single.”
He nodded slowly, reluctantly. “Damn” is the first single,” he repeated, in much the same way he had every other time she’d won the argument. He reached out and grabbed her hand to kiss her knuckles absently. “Now can we get back to work? I mean your voice did come back. Maybe, just maybe, at some point today you could fuckin’ sing? Just something. I wanna work on that last shit a little bit more ‘cause I think if we –”
He kept talking, and Fiona rolled her eyes and headed for the booth. Her voice had come back better than ever, oddly enough, not long after she and Daney split. She’d jokingly asked Cleo if she should call him to t
hank him for the new richness to her sound.
It was true. Her voice was strong, steady, but at crucial moments it would break and the rasp, a pain, would bleed through. She’d bear down on the roughness, the vulnerability, and use it to wring even more emotion into your ear.
She’d sung something earlier in jest that had sent chills down more than one male spine in the room. And by silent agreement, none of them had said a word. She was too dangerous. Fiona made her whole self into an instrument, and though her heart was still knocking around inside her chest, she laughed as she sang about sadness.
She smiled as she sang about heartbreak and love gone bad, and was so sexy and confident with it, so assured, each word and riff was like a three-course meal. Male necks stretched beneath her vibrato. Thighs sprawled wide and spines rolled against the backs of chairs as her rich feminine blues penetrated their bones.
Fiona knew real-life angst colored the music, but she was grateful those who loved her were too kind to point it out. And those that didn’t love her still kept quiet. It would have been cruel to vocalize that her failed relationship was adding great things to the work. Plus, they were all musicians. Each accepted that a certain amount of suffering was necessary to create truly special sound, and they were enjoying the music too much to disrupt it.
Her girls knew she was sad. How she occasionally sat and smoked in silence until Netty or Sugar came in to talk. They’d cajole her into dressing when she would have gone to the studio in jeans and a t-shirt. Sugar bullied her into sleeping at night, and when she would have knuckled, Cleo ran interference on her food and anything else she could.
“You gotta stop, Feef,” Cleo begged. “You been smokin’ like the shit’s going out of style ever since you weaned Flora.”
“I know that, Cleo. I know. You think I can’t see this monkey on my back? I just can’t right now.”
“You sound like a fuckin’ addict,” her cousin said angrily.
“Yeah? Well, there you go,” Fiona said, in a cold, flip voice.
“It’s not good for your skin,” Sugar offered.
Before she’d begun recording her album Sugar had even rigged up a fan near Fiona’s favorite smoking spot to blow the smoke away from her face. She’d tried to stay out of the fray, but once Fiona started to count her smoke-free days, she joined the chorus of people who needled her boss endlessly to keep her clean. Hours in which she would have enjoyed a smoke, Sugar now filled with chatter and pampering.
Fiona knew self-medicating wasn’t the answer. That’s why she’d quit. But it muted the horrible emptiness in her belly when the phone rang and it wasn’t Daney on the other end.
It wasn’t as though she was completely fucked up, she reasoned. Gone were the days when she was so blowed she could barely keep her eyes open. She no longer ignored phone calls and voice mails or refused to attend most of the events Andrea and Cleo wanted her to. She still didn’t want to go, but now she forced herself, and she went smiling.
This involvement, however reluctant, made everyone happy despite the sadness that clung to her. Fiona was too sexy for people to see it clearly. There was too much else to look at. And post-Daney she was ripe, juicy. When she went to pre-production meetings for the movie she glowed thanks to Sugar’s latest invention and a ton of sleep. Her sensuality floated in the air around her during safety and training sessions. She used it as armor because she was constantly surrounded by men.
Her body was a bit more lush thanks to studio time as she held her arms aloft during costume fittings for her next movie. Her tiny waist was a magnet for hands. Even Fiona’s personal tailor, who she’d worked with for almost 10 years, couldn’t resist smoothing the fabric at that soft, steep indentation. She tightened corset laces until Fiona gasped and her breasts threatened to erupt from the bodice.
“I can’t run in this,” she whispered, taking shallow breaths.
Ruby grunted. “This ain’t for that scene. The leather works better for that ‘cause there’s only a small v visible at the neck. We want to remind them what’s there, not send it flyin’ all over the place while you runnin’ around shootin’ mu’fuckas.”
“Right,” Fiona smirked, and even that drew every eye in the room.
People looked at her and thought of closed bedroom doors and hedonistic afternoons in the rain. Her unconsciously sexy manner reminded of sinful little indulgences, the kind that became soft whispery secrets. Only her girls knew that beneath her deliberate sexual allure lurked frustration. She missed Daney so badly at night even masturbating was unsatisfying. Her body wanted him, needed his warmth. She craved the sound of his voice, his laugh, his singular ability to arouse and ease her.
She missed him.
Chapter ten
Netty was deep into wardrobe renovations for her upcoming publicity appearances.
“Once the album drops? The machine’s gonna crank up, and we gotta be ready,” she told Fiona, sounding like a general gearing up for battle. “The red carpet demands its due.”
Sugar was deep into herbs, and Cleo – who divided her time fairly evenly between dogging Andrea’s footsteps to protect Fiona’s image, keeping up with Barney, and monitoring her cousin’s weed intake – brought in an old friend, Liani Cambridge, to whip Fiona into shape.
“Peter called. He said he wants you to be in his fall show.”
“I just had a baby.”
Cleo shrugged. “He said you’d say that, and he told me to tell you to start working out tomorrow. Quote, ‘You did that English prick’s video, you can do my show.’ End quote.” Cleo did a credible impersonation of Peter’s thick, southern molasses accent.
“God damn it!” Fiona swore, hopping from her bed to stalk to the mirror. She took off her robe.
Preparation for Gabriel’s video had knocked most of the Flora weight off her, but she still weighed more than she usually did.
“You shoulda kept up with your workouts after Gabriel’s gig.”
“Damn,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t feel like fuckin’ with Lani right now.”
Cleo shrugged again. “You got too. She’s the only one you’ll listen to who can get you tip top in the time allowed.”
Liani Cambridge, or Lani as most folks called her, was married to Natty’s older brother Jeremy. Jeremy was even more beautiful than Natty. Fiona often found herself struck by that fact when they were in the same room with each other. Even worse, Jeremy’s particularly virile brand of masculinity came in a pair. His twin Jordan was his earthier, mirror image. Together the brothers were devastating. There was no cuter twin syndrome. They had distinct personalities yet were so eerily alike, and so close to one another, they could communicate without speaking.
“I didn’t have time for it.” Jordan was telling Netty how his framing business had gotten out of control. “I mean, I didn’t think a whole buncha people were gonna like my few frames and want me to do their shit. After the first couple, I had to farm it out. Then they gave me problems with the wood putty. I ended up going to the manufacturer and hookin’ that shit up too. It’s nice now though. The money’s flowin’ in crazy quick. I came up with ten more frames, and I still consult on the matting and shit like that when I’m there.
“My boy who’s a computer whiz got the Web site together. Apparently it’s integral that it connect to mine, so my brother helped me get things organized. He likes to project manage shit like that, bastard.” He chuckled, laugh lines appearing at the corner of his large gray eyes and ratcheting up his gorgeous factor another notch. “I got another deadline for five more frames! I had to make my aunt my business partner so I can at least pretend like I’m still a fuckin’ painter, you know?”
Lani was the perfect foil for them. She and Fiona shared the same tall, busty body type, with a tiny waist, high, tight ass and long legs. But where Fiona was prone to slouch artfully in her chair, chin in hand while she laughed, Lani was everything poised. Her posture and clothing were always perfect. Not ladylike perfect, Liani perfect.
She’d begun her career as a video vamp, but even then Lani insisted on final approval of her wardrobe, usually brought her own clothes and accessories, and effectively made herself the female star.
She’d graduated quickly from video girl to choreographer, stylist and then film costume and clothing designer. Helped by her sister-in-law Baby’s acting prowess, Jeremy’s best-selling novel push and the faithful fervor Jordan’s paintings drew along with stellar commissions, she alone was responsible for the wardrobes of some of the hottest black artists out. And she managed to be perfectly dressed all the time, be obscenely paid for the work she did, and was raising three beautiful children to be even more fabulous than she was.
“Natty said your music is fabulous!” Lani said at their first session.
Fiona grumbled and rolled her eyes but allowed Cleo to bully her into the workouts. She would have had to start up in a few weeks anyway for the movie, the videos and shows when she started promoting the album. Her music manager was squawking about a tour.
“It ain’t lookin’ good,” she told him.
Then there was Peter’s show hanging over her head like the sword of Damocles. Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you looked at it, behind putting together the perfect outfit and being gorgeous, getting fat off your ass was one of Lani’s virtuoso specialties.
They’d been working for a good hour when Lani’s daughter Lola dropped into the studio on her way somewhere. Fiona hadn’t seen the child since she was 10, gawky and cute. She was a lean 13 now and beautiful. Tall with near waist length curly black hair, she already possessed enough of Lani’s charm and femininity to be irresistible.
Fiona Love Page 14
