The Words of Every Song

by Liz Moore

“Hang on one second, Lamont,” says Wanda, and congratulates herself on being casual, then puts her on hold and realizes that she has called Lenore by her last name. She shudders and transfers her to Jax.

  “Lenore!” says Jax. She has been doing not much of anything, for once. She has been speaking with her parents about their trip to France. She and they leave this afternoon. A long black car is due to pick her up in an hour. “What’s going on?”

  “You had a secretary,” says Lenore. “Cynthia?”

  “I did, yes,” says Jax. “How do you know her?”

  “She’s a friend,” says Lenore. “I was wondering if you knew her number.”

  “God, no,” says Jax. She might, actually, but she is too preoccupied to find it. “Sorry.”

  “Cynthia Kelley.”

  “I know her name,” says Jax. “I’m sorry; she hasn’t been in touch. Did you try calling information?”

  Lenore did call information. To her dismay, there were no listings for Kelley, Cynthia, and more than a hundred listings for Kelley, C. Finally, she mustered her courage and took the subway to the little apartment she had shared with Cynthia, breathing in sharply before ringing the buzzer and hearing a man’s voice.

  “Does Cynthia Kelley live here?” she had asked.

  “Nope,” said the man.

  “Do you know where she is?”

  “Nope,” said the man.

  “Do you know her number?”

  No answer.

  Lenore buzzed again.

  “Go away,” said the man’s voice.

  She did.

  Now Lenore simply says to Jax, “Yeah, I tried. No luck.”

  Jax tries to change the subject. “I talked to Theo and he’ll be with you for Colin’s show Wednesday. You’re gonna be great. I’m so sorry I can’t make it.”

  “Don’t worry about it. Jax, I really need Cynthia’s number.”

  “Look, I’ll see what I can do,” says Jax, and hangs up, and goes back to daydreaming about France.

  X.

  The news breaks in the early hours of Tuesday morning: tomorrow is Colin McAllister’s last show. The Post has a headline: “Colin’ It Quits!” The Daily News gets the release too late, causing a minor uproar on the newsroom floor and an angry phone call from the owner to the editor in chief. Jon Stewart invites Colin to be on The Daily Show and makes a joke about taking over his show for him. “It’s all yours,” says Colin McAllister, thinking how glad he is to be leaving the business.

  In the Titan building, Theo receives an ecstatic phone call from Jax.

  “This could not, could not, could not have come at a better time,” she says. “Do you know what this means for Lenore?”

  Theo says he does and promises to make sure she has everything she needs for the show on Wednesday.

  Jax hangs up, satisfied. In the other room, her parents are getting ready for a dinner at the same restaurant they frequented before she was born. Her mother’s perfume finds its way under the door and brings Jax back to her youth, reminding her that once she was small enough to think of perfume as something very grown-up and foreign.

  XI.

  On Wednesday, Lenore wakes with an ache in her stomach that threatens to become unbearable. She clutches it and doubles up. Because of the way her head falls on the pillow, the first thing that comes to her mind is not the massive quantity of food she has been consuming over the past four days, but Cynthia. The picture of them stares her in the face. Cynthia in the picture, looking at Lenore onstage with an expression of pure adoration; Lenore on the bed, looking at herself in the picture with terrible contempt. You had what you needed and you left it, she thinks. Coward. Fool.

  She cries again, thinking of Martin’s face on the pillow beside her, thinking of Cynthia beside her, Christy, all those men and women, all the boys and girls she has ever tricked into loving her. Her stomach churns and she thinks she will vomit, but she can’t bring herself to leave her bed for the bathroom.

  She thinks of what she had to eat last night and gags. A sandwich—no, four sandwiches—made with cheese and deli meat that she can’t remember when she bought. She would perhaps not have eaten it had she not had five improvised mojitos before that, and two bags of microwave popcorn. And a frozen wiener schnitzel from Trader Joe’s. Frozen, not microwaved; the popcorn was occupying the microwave and she couldn’t wait. She gnawed that schnitzel like a Popsicle. It was obscene.

  Lenore is sweating. She thinks of the Colin McAllister show tonight and it seems entirely unimportant. Even if she knew that it was his last (she doesn’t; she has been cloistered in her apartment and she doesn’t read the paper anyway), the news would pale in comparison to her own ailment. When Lenore is nauseated she can think of nothing else. It’s been this way since she was small. She closes her eyes and tries to sleep it off.

  XII.

  Theo wakes up alone in his apartment on Wednesday morning with the feeling that something big is happening, then remembers the Colin McAllister show tonight. Everything will be fine, he tells himself. This will be good for him; Jax has given him an easy babysitting assignment and he will complete it, and at their next staff meeting, Jax will congratulate Theo on successfully shepherding Lenore Lamont, the next big thing, through some very important publicity. Lenore completely lucked out, he thinks. He likes Lenore’s music; it’s slightly different, hard-edged, but poppy and hooky enough so that the radio will love it. Still, this kind of exposure can’t be bought, can’t be deserved. He knows that wherever Jax is, she has arranged for some kind of ridiculously extravagant fruit basket or bouquet to be sent to Colin McAllister. He also knows that the heads of every other label are all cursing that it wasn’t their artist on tonight’s show. Everyone’s predicting astronomical ratings for tonight.

  Theo looks at his clock: nine A.M. Not too early to call Lenore. She’ll want to be up and prepared for tonight. She has hair and makeup at two P.M. and a sound check at three-thirty. The show’s filmed at five.

  He gets her home number from his Trio and dials. No answer. He’s not concerned; she’s probably out for breakfast or something. He’ll try her again in a bit.

  XIII.

  Colin McAllister wakes up next to his wife and sighs. She is his third wife and the difference between their ages rarely bothers him, but today it’s annoying him. He doesn’t like to feel old, and although he had thought that having a young wife would keep him young, mainly it just reminds him of his own age. He regrets leaving his show abruptly for only one reason: he has not had time to really plan his farewell, to think of a really original way to end it. They’ve got a great actor on tonight, an old-timer who’s just coming off a string of good movies, a comeback of sorts that will surely result in an Oscar this year. But Colin’s unsure about the music act. It’s no one he’s ever heard of. Still, he prides himself on being a music aficionado, and he has always made it a point to break new bands. He supposes it’s fitting that his final show should be helpful to someone’s career.

  XIV.

  Siobhan wakes up in her father’s house in Yonkers and thinks, Tomorrow my career ends. Tomorrow the record comes out. She has known this was coming for a while. When the first record didn’t sell well, she tried to comfort herself and the band, saying sales would pick up eventually, saying it was a slow record to start but that their touring would turn it around. When their touring didn’t turn it around, she said their next record would do better. She loves their new record; she thinks it’s the best thing she’s ever done. But she is smart enough to realize when a band is quietly being taken off life support. Titan has done little or nothing to promote this album.

  She came to her father’s house yesterday to escape her life, the phone calls from friends wishing her luck, the phone calls from bandmates wanting her to reassure them. She has no idea when she became the voice of reason in the band, the leader. She has always avoided leadership positions; in fact, prior to their signing, she hardly ever spoke onstage, leaving the banter to the others. She
feels she’s bad at it, but Theo makes her do it. She will stay here until the first numbers for sales come in, and then she’ll return to her place in Williamsburg to start her life over. It’s true that she’ll still have connections in the music industry, but she figures she’ll have to lie low for a while before trying anything. Maybe get a day job. She and the Burn are in deep with Titan—they’ve recouped next to nothing of their album advances. She’ll have nothing really to take away.

  Her father knocks once lightly on the door.

  “What is it?” asks Siobhan.

  “Breakfast or tea?”

  “Not now, Dad, thanks,” she says, and rolls over, and waits to go back to sleep.

  XV.

  It is noon and Theo still cannot get in touch with Lenore. His day has gone from easy to terrifying. He does not believe in God but he thinks, Please, if you’re there, please help me today.

  He picks up his phone and dials Lenore’s once more, unsuccessfully, then calls Wanda at the office.

  “Titan Records,” says Wanda.

  “Wanda, this is Theo. Has Lenore Lamont called you today?”

  “Nope,” says Wanda.

  “I need Lenore Lamont’s home address.”

  Wanda tells him to hang on and looks on her Trio, in her Rolodex, on her computer. “Sorry, Theo. I don’t have it.” There is dead air on the other end. “Hello?” says Wanda.

  “Hi.”

  “Want me to phone Jax in Paris?”

  “No,” Theo says quickly. “Definitely, definitely do not do that.”

  “’Kay,” says Wanda. “So.”

  Theo is thinking creatively. “I want you to look in your Rolodex for Cynthia Kelley’s phone number,” he says.

  “K-E-L-L-Y?”

  “E,” says Theo. “E-Y.”

  Wanda gives him the number and then he takes a breath and thinks about this before he dials. Because of his connection with Siobhan and Siobhan’s connection with Lenore, he had heard that Cynthia and Lenore were a thing a while ago, and vaguely the office knew this too, but it was never mentioned. Jax, he knew, was trying to spin Lenore as some kind of rock ’n’ roll goddess, a girl that boys would like. Still, Theo was friends with Cynthia, and he had felt mildly guilty about sweeping the whole thing under the rug. He wonders if it hurt her, if she’s mad at him. Still, he’s desperate, so he dials.

  She answers. Thank God.

  “Cynthia?”

  “Yes.”

  “This is Theo Brigham. I’m trying to get in touch with Lenore.”

  On the other end of the phone, Cynthia tries desperately not to react. She wants so badly to be over Lenore, but, as always, a mention of her name produces a physical reaction in Cynthia. Cynthia is trying to move on. She has started seeing someone: a TV producer named Germaine. But she still can’t get Lenore out of her head, and when she lets her mind wander it is almost always to Lenore, as if she were the default setting in Cynthia’s brain.

  “I don’t have her new address,” Cynthia says stiffly.

  “Do you have any other way of getting in touch with her? Do you know anyone who would? It’s important,” says Theo.

  “Is she okay?”

  “She’s supposed to be on Colin McAllister tonight and no one can find her,” says Theo.

  Cynthia pauses. She knows she shouldn’t care about Lenore’s well-being anymore, but it’s hard not to.

  “Hang on,” she says, and goes to her desk and retrieves an address book she hardly ever looks at. Buried in it someplace, she knows, is the telephone number for Lenore’s parents in Minnesota. She had insisted on having it if they were to live together. “What if something happened to you?” she had asked a disgruntled Lenore, who was always so private. Cynthia is still not certain if her name would mean anything to Lenore’s parents. Once or twice, toward the end of their relationship, she tried to tell herself that surely Lenore had told her parents about them—they’d been together for close to four years! But she had never met them, and she could never be sure, and she could never ask Lenore because Lenore hated questions in general and especially questions that came from insecurity.

  There it is, in green pen: Joanie and Lou Lamont of Minnesota. She pauses, looking at the book, and reflects on her time with Lenore. She should slam the book shut, slam the phone down, never look back. She knows how much Titan needs this publicity for Lenore. If she wants to fuck it up, Cynthia thinks, I should let her. Then she conjures an image of the childlike Lenore sitting cross-legged on her old red bed, an image that often presents itself to her in moments of weakness, and lifts the receiver to her ear, and gives the number to Theo Brigham. One digit at a time.

  XVI.

  Two hours later, Theo is lying flat on his back on the floor of his apartment and trying not to hyperventilate. This is it. His job is over. Lenore Lamont is in the hospital, and she has some kind of third world–sounding intestinal malady that could not possibly have come at a worse time. This is really it.

  He considers his options. He can call Jax right now and tell her the news. He can resign preemptively, maybe salvaging his reputation in the business, maybe spend this afternoon trying to get hired by a rival company before word gets out that he’s been fired from Titan.

  Instead he picks up the phone and dials Colin McAllister’s people. He is still in his position on the floor. Colin’s assistant answers and Theo chickens out and clicks his phone shut. Distantly, he has an idea that seems too crazy to actually follow through on, but he is a desperate man and for once he feels he must save someone else at his own expense.

  XVII.

  At four-thirty, Colin McAllister is sitting in his office, wondering what he is going to do with his life after today. He guesses his wife will get pregnant in the next year. Kids are a full-time job. This he tells himself while sipping from the lowball glass of Jack Daniel’s he has before every show and staring at the wall opposite his desk at the portrait of his predecessor on the show. He wonders if his own portrait will be made and placed next to it. He kind of doubts it. He’s sure that everyone’s pissed at him; this was an unexpected move on his part, a move that has pretty much eliminated his chances of ever working in TV again, a move that has left the network scrambling to replace him. But he’s okay with never working in TV again. He thinks. Either way, he’s made his bed and he’ll lie in it. He hopes tonight’s show will be his best. Everything seems to be in place. He considers smoking a cigar in celebration, but he thinks that would be a lonely thing to do, and it might make him cough.

  A knock comes at the door. This is unusual, because he has a strict policy: after rehearsal, after makeup, no one is to talk to him between four-thirty and five. He takes this time to sit at his desk and prepare.

  “Yes? Come in,” he says, and his door opens to reveal his director and his personal assistant, both looking white-faced. Behind them is a man he does not recognize.

  “What’s going on?” he asks them.

  “Colin,” says the director. He rubs a hand over his face. “It seems that Lenore Lamont will be unable to perform on this evening’s show.”

  “Who’s Le—the singer girl?” says Colin.

  “Yes.”

  “Where the hell is she?”

  “She’s in hospital,” says his personal assistant, a little British woman named Malory. “She’s very sick.”

  “Fuck!” says Colin. He looks at his watch. “Do you people realize it’s four-thirty? This is the most warning a person can get around here? Was she just taken to the hospital? Did the frigging ambulance pick her up from the set?”

  “Colin,” says the director. “This is Theo. He works for Titan.”

  Theo steps forward, realizing as he does so that tomorrow he may be in the same boat as Colin McAllister: jobless. But with not nearly as much money.

  “Let’s hear it,” says Colin.

  “I have a replacement for Lenore.”

  “Who?”

  “The Burn.”

  “The who?”

&
nbsp; “No, sorry, the Who wasn’t available,” says Theo, in a misguided attempt at a joke. Colin McAllister looks as if he might throw something. “Seriously, Colin, the Burn is a really hot new band. It’ll be perfect: everyone will remember that your last show was their first big one,” he says. Is this the right thing to say? He can’t be sure.

  Colin thinks about the rest of his life. One more show, and then he’s done. He didn’t leave himself enough time to make it a perfect farewell. He doesn’t care.

  “I don’t care,” he says. The director and the PA look absolutely shocked.

  “What?” says Theo.

  “Fine! I don’t care. Where are they? What’s their name? The Heat?”

  “The Burn,” says Theo. “They’re in the dressing room. They’re ready. They’re gonna be great.”

  XVIII.

  Five bandmates sit silently in a small greenroom. Their makeup was done halfheartedly by a disgruntled young Czech girl, employed by the network, who kept telling them, “Normally I just do this for Mr. McAllister.” Siobhan tried to do something nice with her hair, but she fears she has wound up looking something like a messy debutante.

  Fortunately for them, they’ve been practicing steadily for the tour that is to follow the release of their album. If their album does well, that is. Also fortunately—miraculously, even—all five of them answered their phones when Theo called with his idea. Siobhan had to take a car to get to the studio from Yonkers in time, which she really couldn’t afford. She borrowed money from her father, apologizing, feeling unworthy and excited simultaneously. She wasn’t sure if her father understood the magnitude of the event; even if he did, he wouldn’t show her. Mike R., who never answers his phone, had been opening the door to his apartment just as the phone began to ring, and answered it quickly and absentmindedly, mostly just to see if he could get to it in time. This was a little over an hour ago. In a half hour, they will face a studio audience—a small one—but six hours later, their electronic images will face the biggest audience they could possibly conceive of. The thought of this is making a few members of the Burn shake. Katia, the drummer, looks at her hands, trembling as they are, and wonders how she is to hold and control drumsticks.