by Weston, Dani
We had a lot in common – and a lot of differences. I could see spending more time with him. I wanted to spend more time with him. Out in the real world, where everyone could see us together, and like this, away from cameras and scrutiny. In our own secret place. I wanted him to sing to me again and go out on dates with him and walk with him. What did he want? Any of those things? Was I just his newest fling?
I wished, now, that I knew more about Jimmy. Was he a player? Did he have scandals in his past? There was probably a ton I could discover with an hour-long internet search, and yet…they idea of doing that left a bad taste in my mouth. The whole point behind our spending time together was so that we could get to know the real Jimmy and Courtney, not some image or PR construct. He’d even said it was something he liked: he could be his true self without my having preconceived notions.
The image of the threatening letter floated in my mind. Being public with Jimmy made life more complicated than I ever thought it could be. Was it the same for Julia Wood? It is hard to nurse heartbreak when all eyes are on you? Perhaps it was easier to act anonymously, take out her pain on Jimmy’s next lover.
I bit my lip. “Your grammy knew about Julia Wood, right?”
I didn’t notice any particular movement from Jimmy. No jaw clenching or tightened shoulders. But tension in the car grew. It might have just been me, though.
“Sure,” Jimmy said.
“Did she like her?”
Jimmy shrugged. A nonchalant shrug? A forced shrug? A defensive shrug? “I guess.”
“Did she ever meet her?”
“No.”
I wanted to ask if Jimmy’s grammy would ever meet me, but my questions were already bordering on uncomfortable. Still, I did get a threatening letter and if Julia Wood was the one who sent it, she needed to back off.
So I went for it. “Is she the jealous type, Julia?” I blurted out.
“Julia?” He said it as though Julia was the last person who could possibly jealous. As though I was a fool for even thinking it. I frowned. It was normal to be a little insecure about a guy’s ex when she a flawless, famous actress, right? He didn’t have to act so disbelieving. I crossed my arms and looked out the window.
“Yes, Julia. People get jealous after breakups, you know.”
“It’s not like that.”
“Why not? Because she’s perfect and wonderful and gracefully moved on like a perfect fucking perfect person does?”
His lips twitched. It pissed me off even more.
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“So you agree she’s perfect.”
Jimmy pulled into the parking lot of a retro ice cream parlor and cut the engine. He faced me. “Look, you began this conversation by asking if Julia is a jealous person. But now…she’s not the one coming off as jealous.”
I itched to smack that knowing look off his face. Or, at least, to punch the car door. Something…anything…to get rid of the horrible, dark feeling making me feel so insecure and stupid.
“I’m not allowed to ask simple questions without you becoming my shrink?” I sputtered. “She’s everywhere! People wonder why you broke up. How you’re handling it. How she’s managing, now. Saying you two were perfect together. And I’m--.”
“Nowhere?”
He took my hand. Pulled my arms apart. Entwined his fingers with mine.
“Courtney. Don’t listen to what anyone who doesn’t know me or you or Julia has to say. They make game of our lives, that’s all.”
“That’s not a game I want to play.”
“So don’t. Let it go. I haven’t seen or spoke with Julia since the night you met her. But where you are? Is right here. Just where I want you.”
Finally, my tense body relaxed. His words were the exact right ones. The way he was looking at me, with longing and ease, was the right way. This all felt right. He leaned toward me, his eyes capturing mine, proving to me, with a look, that he meant what he said. I took his face in my hands and kissed his luscious lips. He smiled. Grabbed his door handle.
“Now get out, woman! This place has the best shakes west of the Mississippi.”
We ordered, but as soon as the chocolate malt and berry trio shakes arrived, Jimmy herded us back in his car.
“Now where to?” I asked.
“My place.” He wiggled his eyebrows and I gave him a flirty look over the top of my straw. But when we arrived at his house, it wasn’t quite what I’d expected. He led me to his bedroom, where the T.V. was hooked up to an old school N64.
I almost dropped the rest of my milkshake in my excitement. “Please tell me you have Mario Kart.”
“You’re joking, right?” He slid the cartridge off the dresser and I squealed, climbing onto his bed and grabbing the gray controller.
“You are going to eat my Rainbow Road dust!”
“Dream on, Yoshi. My Bowser is going to flatten you like a pancake.”
“You talk to your Momma with that voice?”
Jimmy flipped the N64 on and joined me on the bed. We stared each other down for two seconds, intimidation flying in the air between us. We laughed. Started on the easy levels, but quickly worked our way up.
“Cheater!” I yelled, when he nudged me practically off the bed to get an edge on Choco Mountain, but I got him back soon enough as I flung myself into his lap, forcing his character to become an ice cube during Sherbet Land.
When all was said and done and my stomach hurt from laughing and our shakes were long gone and the last lap of Rainbow Road was only a memory, I stood on Jimmy’s bed and raised my fists in the air. “Victory is mine!”
Jimmy grabbed me around my calves and brought me crashing down to his level. “I let you win.”
“Ha! You would say that…Loser McLoserston.”
“I challenge you to a rematch. No cheating with your womanly wiles, this time!”
“My wiles, huh?” I rolled to my back and blinked up at him. “You think if I use my wiles hard enough I might get another kind of rematch?”
Jimmy Keats burrowed his face into my neck, inhaling my scent before placing a kiss on the skin there. His laughed was a gentle rumble through his whole body. “I have a better idea. I’m going to play you something.”
“What?”
“I want it to be a surprise. Close your eyes.”
I looked at the tie he’d removed and tossed on the floor sometime during Mushroom Cup. “Or, you could use that.”
He raised an eyebrow, but reached for the tie, wrapping it around my head. The scent of his aftershave filled my nose. Woody, like the earth, but fresh, sharp and salty, too, like the sea. Purely masculine.
With my sight taken away, my ears perked up. I thought about how many of my senses were incapacitated and how I loved letting them go and swimming in the moment. I heard the click of wood. The shuffle of socks on carpet. The metallic press of a button. A beat of static. And then, music.
Violin, with the first note, but immediately afterwards, a full orchestra recording in the background. I had no idea what piece Kevin was playing, I had no idea he even could play, but it was gorgeous. He was shattering my preconceived notions of boy band musicians and their limited abilities.
Minor notes with the tang of melancholy and romance led into a sprightly section of quick notes which built in tremor to a rich fullness of sound, once again. My body was like the instruments, moving in time, like the mouths blowing the woodwinds, like the drums, being thrummed by the percussionist. Music came over me in waves and I breathed in time, holding my breath in the crescendos, letting it go once we reached and went over the tip of drama.
The recording silenced and Kevin’s bow ran over the strings, his fingers picking out the melody with precision. When the tempo increased, so did my heart rate, running, dashing, leaping high as each note trilling at the very edges of what the violin could produce. I moved my hips forward, reaching for another crescendo. My skin stood at attention, shivering along with the vibrato Kevin commanded from his instrument.
&nbs
p; The bed disappeared. The house disappeared. All that was left was my body, soaring in time to an ethereal sound that lifted me high, brought me down gently, then raised me up again. My clit swelled, throbbed. My lungs struggled to keep up with my need for oxygen under the perfect weight of his playing. With all my attention focused on the music, on my body, on what felt good to me, I discovered a new energy. Something entirely self-serving. Something wonderful. I didn’t need lips or fingers or anything physical to build my pleasure. The freeing way I couldn’t expend any part of myself on Kevin, even if I’d wanted to, because he was busy, because he wanted nothing more than to get pleasure from my pleasure was intoxicating and torturous at the same time. Warmth and moisture built between my legs as sound built for the final crescendo, and when it came, so did I.
I panted into the silence that was left when Kevin put his violin down and pressed that button again, turning off the speakers. He came back to me, unknotted the tie and gazed at me like I was his beautiful discovery.
When I took a breath of the air that had changed between us, become clearer and lighter, I said, “What were you playing?”
“Korngold’s Violin Concerto in D Major.”
“You’ve played it before.”
His eyes flicked to me, but he didn’t mention the slightly jealous tone in my voice. “Many times before. Never like this. Never with an audience. Of any kind. It was always my secret. My thing.”
“And you let me in.”
“Yes.”
I smiled. I had one thing from Jimmy Keats—Kevin—that no one else, no matter how many demands on him the public gave, had.
I stood and he tucked one hand behind my neck and kissed me.
“Can I have you for the rest of the night? Perhaps for more…typical things. Lazing around. Watching a movie.”
“Okay.”
We did more typical things. Sprawled on his bed and watched stand-up comedy. Kissed until I felt dizzy. The second time, I undressed him and we made love slowly, more of my attention on him as I climbed on top and rocked with his firmness inside me. We slept until dawn crept into his unshaded windows, then made love again, a thin sheen of sweat glistening on our bodies. We showered together and I laughed at his purple loofah and coconut scented body wash, then slept again.
*
Duncan Prospect folded his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes as Jimmy’s baritone voice came into the sound studio. “Again. From the top.”
“Again times ten,” Bea muttered. Kaitlin sighed and cleared her throat. I practiced my fingering without making a sound and wiggled my toes in my shoes. My feet were beginning to fall asleep. At least Jimmy had been right about giving me good sleep last night. I’d slumbered like a log after his solo concert and our chill-out time.
“We’ll get it this time.” Jimmy encouraged us. But he’d said that last time. And the time before, too. Still, Bea counted us in and we launched into what would be our first track, “Up All Night.” I was feeling the lyrics on a personal level, today. I knew Bea’s rhythm was perfectly in time, and Kaitlin was keeping the harmony well. And I knew I sounded great, my smoky voice carrying the words beautifully. I leaned into my mic to begin singing.
Jimmy stopped us.
“I have an idea. Let’s see what this track sounds like without three part harmony. Leave your part out, Bea. I’m going to try mixing some additional vocals from Courtney. We can record those later.”
The air in the studio went thick with tension. I didn’t look at my bandmates, because I didn’t want to see their accusing eyes. I licked my lips. It was no big deal. Jimmy just wanted to hear the difference.
“This’ll be quick,” I told my band, pasting on a laughing smile. “The moment he realizes I have no range at all…”
“Remixed vocals to give the song a fuller sound,” Kaitlin piped up, an unnatural ring to her voice. “That’s normal for girl bands, I think.”
Bea didn’t say anything. And I didn’t look at her to see her reaction.
Instead, I looked at the glass separating us from Jimmy and Duncan and the techs in the sound booth, hoping someone would agree with Kaitlin, but they were too busy adjusting knobs and settings.
Finally, Jimmy looked up. But all he said was, “Let’s go.”
A wave of nerves threatened to close up my vocal chords. I fought the nausea back and focused on listening for Bea’s count. I breathed out, a long, steadying breath, and cleared my head. Brought my guitar in. And, at the right moment, my voice.
I sang the whole song. It was the first take for a while that we went through the whole thing without being stopped by a critical comment from someone in the booth. When I finished, I adjusted my guitar strap and turned around.
“Okay, should we do it again, with Bea back on?” I hoped someone would say yes. Definitely. It didn’t work with just me and Kaitlin. But Jimmy shook his head.
“No, that’s good. We have enough material for me to go through. Let’s finish up for the day and I’ll let you know if we need to pick this up again tomorrow.”
“Right,” Bea said, bitterly. “Good work, ladies.” She snapped her drumsticks together and dropped them into the bag at her side.
We all gathered our belongings, from this room and the tables and couches out front. I hadn’t talked to Jimmy much since we arrived. Just notes about the song and how recording worked. Even when I’d tried to catch his eye, he stubbornly refused to humor me. That was probably for the best. We were in a working environment. We had to remain professional.
But now, as we were heading out into the California sunshine, Jimmy sauntered after us. “Well done, ladies. Bea, I’ll call you and let you know if we need to pick up again tomorrow.”
“Right, Jimmy.”
I sat close to Bea on the car ride back to campus. I needed her to know that I was on her side. I worried that she didn’t know that. That she wondered if my loyalties were shifting to Jimmy.
“You were really good today,” I told her. “The voice lessons are paying off.”
“Are they?” she snapped.
“Yes,” Kaitlin said, firmly. “Come on, Bea. We don’t know how the track will get mixed, in the end. I bet there’ll be ten of you singing along.”
I laughed. Bea allowed a half smile. When would this roller coaster with Bea end? I kept thinking we were good. And then we weren’t.
I allowed myself to sleep in Saturday morning. Or, at least, I tried to. Bea burst into my room, waking both me and Diya from our dreams. Diya moaned, pulled her pillow over her face and rolled over, but I sat up when I saw the expression on Bea’s face.
“They’re horrible, vicious sharks,” she said, flopping into my desk chair.
I rubbed my eyes. “What are you talking about?”
She opened my laptop, typed my unlock code and searched for a moment. The screen lit her face eerily. I closed my eyes and began to doze off again, but she shook me out of that.
“Look.”
I scrunched my eyes against the computer light, slowly adjusting to the images on the gossip site she’d opened. But once I made out what they were, I groaned.
Blurry photos of the last night Jimmy and I spent together. A dark shape in the window of an ice cream parlor. Thank God it wasn’t more than that. Except, Bea kept scrolling, and it was more than that. His car arriving at the gate outside his house, the fairly obvious shape of my head in the passenger seat.
Jimmy Keats’ New Project in the Studio and…Elsewhere? The headline blared. Anonymous sources say the mystery woman, Courtney Dreger, is lead of the band Ladies In Waiting, a girl-group Keats is producing. But we say Ms. Dreger’s plans to sleep her way to the top are classic gold-digging M.O. What about Julia Wood? Come on, Jimmy, stick with class, or get taken out with the trash.
I wouldn’t let Bea see it, but the words stung. No, they did more than that, slicing like a knife at the core of me. I swallowed and pushed the laptop away, blinking rapidly.
“You can’t be surprised,” I sai
d, forcing my tone to sound calm. “This is always how these kinds of things play out. This is living in the public eye, Bea.”
“An anonymous source,” Bea said, darkly. “Like who? Duncan? Jimmy? You?”
“Um, what?”
“Is this a PR thing you two talked about? ‘All publicity is good publicity’ and all that.”
“No way. I would never agree to any of that. I have some dignity, you know.”
“But you are sleeping with the guy. And now people will think we don’t have the talent to go all the way.”
“Thanks a lot, Bea.” I closed my laptop and pushed it away. Laid back and threw my arm over my face. Groaned. “Thanks for thinking we aren’t a great band. Thanks for thinking I would whore myself out.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“It sounded a little like that.”
Her voice lowered. “I know. Oh God, Court. It’s not you, honestly. It’s just…I’m freaked out! This is big time and I don’t want to mess it up. And, you know, it pisses me off to see people talking about you this way.”
“I know. Don’t you think I feel the same way?”
“Yeah, but at least you have this thing with Jimmy.”
“And that means…what? That I have two things to lose: the band, and my heart. Look, I’m not trying to play who has it harder, here. But we’re in this together and I’m not doing anything to ruin our chances, or cut you out. You’re my best friend. I need you, and the band needs you.”
“I’m being stupid for making you feel like you have to choose between us. No real friend would do that.”
“It’ll pass. People will forget about it.”
Bea made a disbelieving sound. “Will they?” She pushed the laptop away and stood. “I hope so. In the meantime, don’t you forget that we have dance class in an hour. Hopefully I won’t fail so spectacularly at that that they’ll have to kick me out of the band.”
“It’s my band. Our band,” I corrected. “No one’s going anywhere.”
“Promise?”
“I swear it.”
Bea hung around for breakfast and, after, we walked to the dance studio together.
