For that matter, my killing or subjugating countless people in neighboring countries had been a kind of service. For somebody. And the libraries I’d built. Libraries were good, right?
“Did you ask?” I said, figuring that if I couldn’t be tactful, then I should at least get as many answers as possible, “I mean, did you want to be the god of anything? In particular? Anything, anybody, anywhere?”
Veek stood very straight. “No.”
Now I’d done it. My last roommate to comfort my old age, and I’d offended him.
My headache didn’t feel any better.
I gave up. I made feeble jazz hands. “Listen, I’d love to gas about this all night, but I have a hot date with a motherfucker hangover tomorrow and I want to get a head start.”
He put his palms up, echoing the gesture I’d made. Then he patted me on the shoulder and went out, closing the door gently behind him. In two minutes he was back. He set a pitcher of ice water beside the head of the bed on the floor, and left without saying a word.
I lay down gently on the lynx coverlet. The room swam. My stomach was very angry with me.
On the upside, Yoni and her troubles were far, far away.
I sat up again and drank some water, blessing Veek, who hardly ever gets a chance to mother-hen me, and then out of curiosity I flipped the edge of the coverlet over.
Why had he asked about the thread? Looked like hemp twine to me. Very stout. I forgot the name of the stitch that was used to attach the pelts together, but it was thorough, and it somehow knocked on my aching skull, familiar, but what? It’s just stitching, I thought.
Then I found what he called the “monogram.”
It was my seal. Ashurbanipal, King of Akkadia, King of Assyria, King of Mesopotamia, Ruler of the Known Universe. Me in the ribboned crown and the fringed robe, and the lion rampant trying to claw me while I stuck it in the gizzard with a sword.
It came back to me now.
This was my coverlet. I’d shot the lynxes myself when I was fifteen. The palace women had sewn it up and marked it with my seal. It had hung over the end of my bed, too small really for that vast royal platform, but pretty, and tons of fun to tumble on for the next forty years. Moths got at it eventually.
But not this version. This one looked brand new.
My brain was not up to this.
Maybe I should throw up again.
Instead, I drank some more water, crawled under the lynx-fur coverlet, and passed out.
YONI
I was pretty ragged next day. At breakfast Aunt Maybellyne pretended that nothing had happened yesterday. She fluttered and fussed around me as if I was a little girl again. She’d even bought me new roses. Uncle Chester smooched my head and went back to his paper, as usual. That was weird. I had gotten used to clashing with them, especially in the last few years. They hadn’t liked my taking over the business. But that was their own doing. They were the ones who had hired my tutors for business courses, made me take online entrepreneurial and econ classes. It was my business, my company, and my money. Uncle Chester used to drive a truck before my first record hit it big. Aunt Maybellyne had been a hairdresser.
Nevertheless they’d resented it when I took over at twenty-one, and even though I handled it better than they did, sometimes they still tried to make me feel guilty for it.
After breakfast I skimmed through the business email and worked out and showered and dressed for public in a cap-sleeve chambray shirt and pencil jeans and went off to the studio in the limo like a good little girl. I left word with Verlette to have Baz call me if he showed up at the hotel. I made sure that the recording studio manager knew Baz could get in the front door. I wasn’t taking chances that Uncle Chester could somehow forbid him entry.
But they didn’t mention Baz to me, either.
When I remembered the paparazzo and the buzz-kill of Baz’s guilt over that, my tummy began to resent my breakfast.
And when I got to the studio, Baz wasn’t there.
My tummy felt a lot heavier.
Nine o’clock came and went. The boys and I set up. I hadn’t told them Baz was coming, and I realized that the reason I hadn’t was that I’d feared he wouldn’t show.
I saw now how right I’d been.
I rewrote the list for the day, but I couldn’t focus on recording. I was tense, jumpy, and bone tired underneath. That kind of work was not going to make the CD of the century. Which I knew this could be, if I could get it together.
At ten o’clock I was realizing how right my aunt was about love. It messes you up. Ten minutes later the studio manager came in with an envelope messengered over from my aunt. I opened it, pretty sure from the size what it was. Yep.
The National Enquirer, with exclusive photos of me and aging rocker bad-boy Ashurbanipal, surprised in love nest. They’d photoshopped out the El station behind us and put in something so fanciful and bordello-boudoirlike that I would have laughed, if, well, I wasn’t sick about it. My face in the second shot, with my mouth slack-jawed and my eyes googly with surprise, was particularly choice.
“Take ten, guys,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “And get rid of this.” I left the newspaper on the table and fled to the bathroom.
The women’s bathroom in a moderately well-to-do recording studio is never a palace. The business still favors men. For women, one hole, one sink, no amenities.
I locked the door and leaned against it, trying to get my breath. Tears of exhaustion and defeat ran down my face. I slid to the floor and covered my face with my hands. I had five minutes to finish this cry and get back out there and be a pro some more.
If Baz was right, and the goddess of love was hiring me to be her next avatar, all I could say was that she had a lot of nerve.
I cried as hard and as fast as I could.
Then I got up, washed my face, and pulled it together. My brain was working again. I realized that today’s media debacle could be saved only one way. And I could probably do it.
I had never stretched those powers I had been reluctantly acquiring in these past four months. But, after last night, I felt a connection to Baz so deep that, when I imagined losing him, I got the shakes inside.
I stood still and closed my eyes.
There had damn well better be some perks to being a goddess.
I didn’t dare scream in the bathroom. But in my head, I directed a brief, furious message at my wandering stagehand-badboy-rock star.
Baz, you get your ass over here!
Then I heard a sound, and something heavy and smelly and clammy and warm was all over me, and I really did scream.
Baz was there, clinging to me for support. He stank. He was naked. He was barely awake, but his swollen, reddened eyes were full of shock and confusion. There was a Band-Aid on his cheekbone.
I maneuvered him backward by the shoulders and made him sit on the toilet. I pulled about forty paper towels, soaked them, and scrubbed his face. By then he looked fully awake.
Then I gave his face a nice hard slap. “Snap out of it. What’s the matter with you?”
He was shivering. I’d been in the business long enough to know what that meant.
“Drink some water and puke it up. You’ll feel better. I’ll go find you some clothes.”
“Yoni,” he groaned. “I’m no good for you.”
I grabbed him by his bristly, stinky chin. I looked him in the eye and threw all the mana I could summon into my voice. “You will get sober really fast. You will get cleaned up and I will bring you clothes and you will get out there and play this session.”
“But why?” he burst out. “Why do you want me?”
I stood up. “I’m not sure I want you . . . like this. But you’re the only afterlife coach I’ve got.”
“Afterlife.” He chuckled weakly. “Life after what?”
“Life after Yoni.” I had no idea why I said that. Maybe all that free time yesterday had gone to my head.
I saw light and warmth returning to his eyes and color
to his face. His face got redder. He looked alarmed. He surged to his feet.
I backed away and skedaddled.
As I left I heard him vomiting into the toilet.
Fortunately the studio manager had a gym bag. I raided it for shorts and a tank top and a pair of conspicuous acid-green and hazard-orange sneakers, along with some toiletries, and brought them to the women’s bathroom. No Baz. Then I heard water running in the men’s next door.
I went in—no lock on this door, because it had four urinals, a potty stall, and a full shower. Naturally.
I pulled the curtain aside and saw my warrior king naked in the shower.
I don’t know why I was so surprised. I’d been naked with him before. I knew he wasn’t paunchy or anything. But somehow that had been so personal—I’d been paying attention to his face, to the feel of skin on skin.
This? Whoa.
He might not disgrace me, even in borrowed gym shorts.
He looked as if his bones were in a fight with his muscles to see which could take over. His shoulders showed knobby and big on him, like his hands, and his hip bones jutted out and his butt was shaped strong, like a horse’s butt. He probably had a fifty inch chest. Water dripped off him as he stood there staring at me.
His lips curved. “Are you coming in? There’s room.”
My eyes narrowed. “You have five minutes. Use them wisely.”
I backed away and hustled back into the studio, where I prayed that Baz wouldn’t sneak out the back door as soon as he was dressed. The studio manager had put bottled water and food and a hot towel steamer on the table in the back. Shan sound-tested each of us from the booth.
“Oh, and guys, we have a guest today,” I said. “Jimmy, can he borrow your other bass?”
“What?” Jimmy frowned, making his woolly white eyebrows crawl together on his dark brown forehead. “He can kiss my—” he started, with all the respect and accommodation I was used to in my employees. Then his face changed. He blinked.
I turned around.
Baz had arrived.
“Hey,” he said, like a polar bear pretending he’d dropped in for tea. “Mind if I sit in?”
Wordlessly, Jimmy handed him his Conklin. Baz pulled up a chair. The studio manager bustled in and set him a mic. Jimmy dug out his second bass. They tuned up and fiddled around and Baz sat quietly noodling on the bass, cocking his ear to it while water dripped off his dreads onto his borrowed tank top, and I tried to still my thundering heart and rewrite the day’s worklist in my head.
Shan in the booth put his thumb up.
“Earphones on,” I said. “Let’s run through it so Baz gets the idea.”
And, well, it was magical. Baz got the hang of the song in one go. We messed with it two or three times, and then we were ready to record. I had written the song with my first ax man, who had quit to take care of his mom nearly a year before. It was called “Come Home,” and it only had six words—-baby, come home, all is forgiven—and it made me cry every time we did it all the way through.
Baz took the break with the bass and made it sob, made it groan, made it stutter and beg.
Then he started crooning. Not in the plan. I would have clocked him, but it sounded too good.
He changed the lyrics, too. “Let me come home.” He did a lick I could swear had never been done in the entire history of blues bass. “Oh baby, let me come home.” He did that a couple of times and then nodded to me, and we swung into the regular refrain in harmony.
I could tell the guys were as excited as I was. I nodded to Max on the drums, as yellow as me but built like an orangutan with those long powerful drummer’s arms, and he picked up the pace and the volume. “He’s home!” I yodeled between phrases.
Well, things got a bit disorderly after that. We cranked that ballad up until it was a celebration stomp. Baz finished the vocals with me in counterpoint, “Thank God I’m home,” or “Baby I’m home,” and we went out together on a long triumphant howl.
As the reverb died in that dead little room, Jimmy’s rich voice burst out, “Damn, you could dance to that.”
We all looked at each other and burst out laughing.
I decided we’d done enough for one day.
The guys stayed to hear the rough mix anyway, and Baz stood in the back of the booth and grinned while Shan played it all back, and I felt as good as I’ve ever felt about a song.
On the playback I sounded as good as I ever have, too. I wondered what effect this would have on an audience.
My eyes turned to Baz, and he smiled at me.
Everything, absolutely everything, was all right.
I sent the band home. The guys shook Baz’s hand. I thanked Jimmy extra for lending Baz his bass and went to hug him. Jimmy held me off and gave me a peck on the cheek. “Ain’t touchin’ you, girl. You taken now.”
I blushed so hard that my feet tingled.
Max came back into the booth. “The press is out there, Yoni.”
“Thanks, Max. Say, did the studio manager buy that stuff I asked for?”
“Is this it?” Shan handed me a Gap bag.
“Yes! Thanks. Make sure they put it on my bill. And call my car?”
“It’s already out there, Yoni.”
I handed the bag to Baz. “I’m sorry, but there’s one more speed bump.”
Baz made a face. “Press conference?”
“Photo op, that’s all,” I promised. “It’ll make fools out of those National Enquirer people.”
At the mention of the tabloid, Shan and the studio manager and Max faded away, leaving me alone in the booth with Baz.
Baz said gravely, “I’m sorry.”
I was melting inside, but I hardened my voice. “I want an itemized apology.”
“I’m sorry I blew off the gig this morning. I’m sorry I was such a mess. I’m sorry you had to do damage control with your family. I’m especially sorry for getting us photographed last night.” His face darkened. “That was my fault and my failure. I should have been thinking of protecting you and not thinking of—”
“Calm down,” I said hastily, though I really wanted to know what he’d been thinking of instead of his anti-charisma last night. “You sound like you’ve been over this a few times in your head already.”
“Well, I have.”
“I didn’t know rulers of the universe apologized for anything.”
“When we screw up in battle, we do. It got me liked by my troops almost as much as free beer.”
I wanted to throw myself into his arms. I wanted a lot of things. But cameras waited outside like a firing squad. I handed him the Gap bag.
“Let’s get this over with.”
He put on the clothes I’d had bought for him. We stood outside the studio door and got our picture taken. We refused to make a statement. Baz got into a taxi. I got into the limo where my cousin Joe lurked. Not even Joe brandishing The National Enquirer in my face could ruin my glow.
That, I thought happily, is what I call making music.
At my suite, Joe squealed on me to Aunt Maybellyne and Uncle Chester about Baz coming to the session. They had apparently recovered from the shocks of last night. They took turns yelling.
I explained how it would work as damage control for last night’s paparazzi attack.
They weren’t grateful. I couldn’t figure out why not. Uncle Chester wanted me to do a press conference about the upcoming album.
“But why?” I said, exasperated.
“So you can promise the public you’re not dating that skeezeball.”
“No,” I said flatly. “That photo op outside the studio did that job. Did it better. A press conference would be overkill. They’d really suspect something if I volunteered that.”
That set them off even worse. “Suspect what?” Aunt Maybellyne whimpered. Uncle Chester wanted to know, “What you done to suspect?”
And on and on.
There was only one way to choke them off.
I picked up the house phon
e and asked for backstage at the Arie Crown. It took a while to get through. Finally:
“Can you find Baz over there? This is Yoni.”
Now that I knew I could get him if I wanted him, I was suddenly too shy to zap him into my presence. Besides, what if he arrived naked again?
I overheard through the phone, “Yo, Baz, some chick claiming to be Yoni. You got your own stalkers now, man?”
There was a growl, and then his voice came. “Don’t call me here. The guys don’t need to know you’re really you.”
I said, “Good point. What’s your cell number?”
He told me, and I pulled out my cell and entered it. “I’m sending a photo to test it,” I said. I took a picture of my hand with the thumb tucked up between my middle and ring finger—“the fig.” In some parts of the world, that’s an obscene invitation. I didn’t dare put my face in the picture. Send.
Ten seconds later, I heard him choke. “Got it.”
I rushed out, “Listen, I want a mini-vacation. Think you can rustle up something that takes me away from all this for the afternoon?”
“Public or private?”
“Don’t mess with me. You’re not the only one with a peanut gallery.”
“It’d do ’em good to think you’re having sex,” he said, but he promised to pick me up in fifteen minutes. “Wear sensible shoes,” he added.
We hung up. My aunt was speechless, but my uncle said, “And what am I supposed to tell the press?”
“Tell them I’m postponing the meet. I’m playing hooky.”
I scampered into my room for those sensible shoes. When I came out, slinging my shoulder bag, they stared at me, outraged.
“You got a show tonight at the Cubby Bear!” Uncle Chester hollered.
“I’ll be there,” I said as the elevator door shut.
VEEK
I was almost certain Sophie had spent the night at the botánica, given her ability to get into locked places and her pardonable disinclination to share her father’s suite.
So as I approached the botánica from the alley, I put my powerful ears forward to see if I could detect her talking in there—or more likely, sleeping. She’d had an exciting night.
Walking on Sunshine Page 16
