The Hope That Starts

by Heidi Hutchinson

  “Well,” she said to Hüsker Dü. “I hope he figures it out before he starves to death a week from now.”

  She jumped when her cell phone rang. Shaking off her complete incredulity from what had just happened, she answered the unknown number.

  “Hello?”

  “Zelda?”

  “Yes, sir.” She straightened her back automatically when she recognized Carl's surly tone on the other end.

  “I talked it over with the guys. We'll put you on the Red Bus with Sway and Harrison. It'll be your home for the next six months. They agreed to let you bring your cat, but he has to be your responsibility. If he gets out, we can't get behind schedule to look for a cat.”

  Zelda's heart warmed. They were letting her bring her cat.

  And just like that, her happy buzz came back.

  “That's fine. I'll probably leave him with my friend, Amber, when we go through Omaha.”

  “One more thing,” Carl said, sounding irritated, or at the very least, annoyed with this phone call already. “If at any time you feel uncomfortable with the living arrangements, let me or one of the girls know, and I'll take care of it.”

  “Thanks, Carl,” Zelda said, meaning it.

  ***

  “Have you met her?” Sway asked Harrison from the guitarist's kitchen.

  “Nope. Just saw her portfolio.”

  “I wonder how old she is. Zelda is kind of an older name, isn't?”

  “Does it matter?” Harrison asked, looking over his shoulder at Sway as he stacked his bags next to the door.

  All packed. As ready as he could be for the next leg of their journey.

  Harrison was more than a little apprehensive about this tour.

  Their drummer's misunderstood setback in California a few months ago had become tabloid discussion. It had even made it to several of the nightly talk shows. Everyone was basically assuming he was off the wagon and the band would implode any second.

  He hoped having the photographer on tour would help clear some of it up. Yes, they would be paying her to shoot them in a positive light. But it's not like she would have to fake it.

  He also knew part of the marketing strategy was to showcase him and Sway as the eligible man-candy that they were. Harrison wasn't terribly comfortable with that idea. Sway seemed fine with it, though.

  “Maybe she was named after the video game,” Harrison quipped, the corner of his mouth twitching up at the thought.

  “Nah, you couldn't get that lucky,” Sway chided. “She's bringing her cat. I'm going to guess she's in her forties, never married, lives alone, and has probably never even heard of us. She probably listens to Barry Manilow or something.”

  Harrison chuckled. “That would explain why Carl didn't have an issue sticking her on our bus.”

  “That, and we're totally out of room. This is going to be the most massive tour we have ever embarked on.”

  He wasn't wrong. They had more crew, more trucks and more equipment than ever before. The new album hadn't even dropped yet and already shows were selling out in huge stadiums all over the country.

  “Are you ready?” Sway asked like it was a dare.

  “I sure hope so.”

  “What are you gonna do about Kiley?”

  Kiley. The chick Harrison had been trying to see for the past few months. He'd reconnected with her when he'd gotten back to Boston after being in California all winter where they had met.

  She was pure class, all the way. But oddly hard to pin down.

  She seemed into him when they were together, but sometimes she was either too busy or just simply unavailable. Harrison wasn't even sure if they were exclusive.

  “I have no idea. Maybe absence will make her heart grow fonder.”

  “Yeah, or maybe you should give up on her,” Sway said with a half-shrug.

  “That's not what I expected, coming from you,” Harrison said, surprised.

  “Listen, dude, she's gorgeous and elusive in a hot way, but don't waste your time. If she can't be up front with you on what she wants, cut her loose.”

  Harrison ran his hand through his curly hair and considered his friend's words. He didn't like the way it made him feel to think about Kiley possibly seeing other guys on the side. Then again, he hadn't asked her if that's something she wanted. Truthfully, he was a little scared that if he brought it up, she'd dump him.

  “Harrison,” Sway said, grabbing his attention. “You're worth more, brother.”

  Chapter 2

  Modern Love

  Zelda looked around the nearly empty apartment. She just had to wait for Jose from downstairs to come up and get her bed, then she'd be done.

  Matt hadn't come back last night. She had no idea where he was; she also didn't call to check on him. In her mind, they were done. She'd told him to leave, and technically he had.

  He'd just left all his stuff there.

  The pile she'd made in the corner of the living room was stacked as neatly as she cared to stack it. So it was mostly a heap. She hoped he would come back and get it so that it wouldn't have to be the management's responsibility.

  She'd already given her notice, turned in her keys, and was tying up all her loose ends. Work was easy to fix. Everyone wanted more hours, so she covered her shifts, and apologized to her bosses for the short notice. They all seemed disappointed to lose her, but not overly surprised.

  Carl had called again. Apparently due to her “extenuating circumstances” involving the need to bring Hüsker Dü along with her, she was getting a ride with him on a private jet tomorrow.

  At first, Zelda argued. It wasn't absolutely vital that her cat be allowed to come with, she never made that a condition. That's when she discovered that Carl really hated being argued with. So she dropped it.

  Private jet? Yee-haw.

  The cab would pick her up at 6 AM and take her to Van Nuys.

  “Where the hell is the couch! And the TV!”

  Zelda turned slowly to see Matt in the open door. The look of shock on his face would have been hilarious if she weren't instantly peeved by his appearance.

  “Why are you here?” she asked sharply.

  Matt ran both hands through his hair as he walked in a circle in the living room, taking visual inventory of what was left. He stopped when he got to his pile. Then he spun to face her. “Where's all the stuff?” he asked, looking like the petulant child that he was.

  “I gave most of it to Mindee. Some of it went to girls from work,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Princess, I know we had a fight, but this is a little extreme.” He was looking at her like she was crazy. Yeah, she was the crazy one.

  “We didn't have a fight, I broke up with you.” She screwed her face up in annoyed disbelief. “You slept somewhere else last night!”

  Matt ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “I stayed with Tyler because I thought you might need a little space.”

  “I know Tyler isn't real, Matt!” she started to raise her voice. “I answered your phone, it was a girl!” Zelda stopped herself, closed her eyes and shook her head. “This is unreal.”

  “Did you get a new place already?” he asked.

  “No. I'm staying with Mindee tonight, I leave tomorrow.” She had no idea why she was still even bothering to answer his questions.

  “Oh, for your new job?” He smiled, proud of himself for remembering that small detail.

  “Matt,” Zelda brought both hands up to her hair and fisted them against her scalp, “I'm breaking up with you. Hell, I broke up with you last night. Why you're not getting it is beyond me—”

  “Hey, do you have twenty bucks I can borrow?” Matt was standing in the kitchen with the refrigerator door open. “We're out of beer, I can go get some.”

  Zelda had never contemplated homicide until that very moment. But a vision entered her mind of sending that big stupid face flying over the fire escape railing.

  He'd probably be in denial all the way to the ground.


  She went over the logistics in her head. He was easily a hundred pounds heavier than she was, and had well over a foot in height on her. Plus, he was too big to fit through the window. On top of all that, she really didn't want to go to jail. Jail seemed scary. Zelda hadn't even liked detention in high school.

  She'd never survive jail.

  “No, you can't have twenty dollars!” she yelled, finally at the end of her rope.

  His blue eyes slowly rose to hers, his face blank. He still hadn't registered what was happening. She could have written it in gasoline on the living room carpet and he'd still deny the flames as the building burned down all around him.

  “Hey, Zeldy,” she heard as they were joined by a knock on the still-open apartment door. “We're here for the bed.”

  Zelda heaved out a breath and nodded to Jose and his cousin. They both looked a little sheepish at having interrupted what was clearly a domestic dispute (unbeknownst to Matt).

  “Aw, you sold the bed?” Matt asked her forlornly.

  “No, I gave it away,” she said, waving Jose towards the bedroom.

  “Here, man,” Matt stepped over quickly. “I'll give you fifty bucks if you let me keep it one more night.”

  Okay, so maybe jail wouldn't be so bad.

  Zelda tried counting backwards from ten to calm down. 10... 9... Nope, not working.

  “How do you have fifty dollars? You just asked me for twenty!” she snapped, her voice bouncing off of the bare walls.

  Jose took the fifty warily, not sure what his role in this whole thing was.

  “That was for beer, which you would drink too, duh,” Matt answered, nodding his thanks to Jose and adding a little eye roll as if to say, “can you believe this?”

  She couldn't.

  From now on, if she felt the urge to help the needy, she would just go down to the soup kitchen. Never again, under any circumstances, would she ever go on a pity date.

  It was like getting a tick bite. The tiny head gets buried in your tender flesh and they get fat on your blood. Then, just when you think you've found the parasite and ended its life with a hot nail to the head, you die of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever a few days later.

  “I can't believe this is happening,” Zelda muttered to herself. She needed to get out of here. As fast as possible. No way was her blood pressure in any sort of a healthy zone at the moment. If she were to take one of those complimentary blood pressure readings down at the pharmacy, an ambulance would automatically show up to get her.

  She needed to calm down. Stalking over to Hüsker Dü, who was waiting patiently in his crate, she picked it up and went to follow Jose and his cousin out the door.

  “Where you going?” Matt asked, genuinely confused.

  Always so very confused.

  Zelda decided to try not answering. It's not like he understood the words that she had been using thus far anyway. And more talking was a sure way for her to lose the last little shred of sanity she had left.

  She opened Mindee's apartment door two units over and quickly shut it behind her. Setting down the cat carrier, she rested her forehead on the door and groaned loudly.

  “I heard Winston Churchill came home.” Mindee chuckled from the living room.

  Zelda smirked. She opened her eyes and swiveled in the direction of Mindee's voice.

  “Great communicator of our time he is not,” Mindee added with a giggle.

  “Was he always like this, or should I have myself tested for carbon monoxide poisoning?” Zelda asked seriously.

  Mindee shrugged. “I didn't ever really talk to him much myself, so I have nothing to compare it to.”

  Maybe that was her way of letting Zelda slide with a technicality. If it was, she would take it.

  “I have band practice tonight, so I'm gonna be home late. Will you be all right?” Mindee asked, gathering her keys and purse, and stopping next to Zelda at the door.

  “Yeah.” She nodded her thanks and locked the door behind her when she left.

  “Meow,” Hüsker Dü protested from his crate.

  Zelda looked down. “I know. But soon we'll be on a tour bus and you'll have all new things to complain about.”

  ***

  “That is an enormous suitcase,” Carl remarked as he watched Zelda's tiny frame struggle the massive Samsonite across the tarmac. She tripped, the luggage fell flat, and she landed on top of it. Muttering curses to herself, she scrambled to her feet.

  She stopped, set it upright and studied it for a moment.

  “Yeah, I guess. But it has everything I own in it, so... there's that.”

  Carl narrowed his eyes at her and then at the suitcase again. “Everything you own?”

  She pushed a few strands of wild hair out of her face and nodded, looking around their vicinity.

  Carl was still worried about adding yet another woman to the entourage. Even if she came highly recommended and even if she was the most qualified for the job. She was still a woman. That meant there were other, significant, issues she would add to the already tense and testosterone-fueled atmosphere that seemed to build like a storm whenever they got out on the road. If that made Carl sexist, then so be it. He'd been called worse.

  Plus she was weird, and for whatever reason, the guys seemed to really dig weird chicks. The more unusual, the better. Zelda, with her jade green eyes, unruly head of curls, and complete and utter clumsiness, would fit right in.

  “So, California is hot today,” she said without inflection.

  Carl was still stuck on her luggage. “Seriously, everything you own.”

  She looked back to him and raised a hand to shield her eyes from the sun.

  “I'm not an overly sentimental person. Furniture, clothes, shoes, can all be replaced. When I left home, I sold or gave away anything I couldn't carry. Same thing when you gave me the job.”

  “You sold all of your things in a day?”

  She shrugged. “Or gave it away. Most of what's in the bag is my photography equipment. That stuff is expensive to replace, so I try to keep that around. And then of course Hüsker Dü.” She motioned to the carrier that she had set down in the shade of her luggage.

  “Did you name him after the game or the band?” Carl asked. He hadn't planned on asking. He told himself he didn't care and that he wasn't going to get to know this girl the way he had the ones before. Had been forced to, was more like it.

  Even though in the back of his mind he was wondering if she would end up with Harrison or Sway.

  “Does it matter?” Zelda answered him with a sassy smile.

  “Nope.” He turned to face the two men approaching from the hangar, coming to load their belongings.

  Was he just getting soft in his old age, or was being married finally taking its effect and he was, God forbid, becoming more domestic? He decided to nip it in the bud and looked over his shoulder at her. “We're not friends. We're not going to be friends. I'm your boss.”

  She dropped her head dramatically then raised it again, a teasing light in her eyes. “Oh, thank God. I hate being friends with people, it's the worst. I prefer polite adversaries myself.”

  Carl clenched his jaw to keep from grinning and faced the plane again.

  Shit, she just had to be funny.

  ***

  Zelda ran her hands over the white leather arm rests beside her and smiled. She had never ever in her life ridden in anything so fancy. It was a lot like the new bridge in the rebooted Star Trek. She pictured Captain Kirk slowly lifting one eyebrow, the corner of his mouth curling up slyly as he leaned towards the view screen—

  “Don't get too used to it, the guys like to drive. So most of the tour will be by bus,” Carl warned from the seat adjacent to her.

  She sucked in a slightly nervous breath as the image of the Starfleet Captain disintegrated in her mind's eye. “That's good. A girl could let a thing like leather seats really grow on her,” Zelda admitted, hoping she'd be able to hide her weirdness from everyone long enough to get established in
their lives. At the bare minimum, long enough to get a decent recommendation when they finally did send her packing.

  “Meow,” Hüsker Dü said, sounding about as impressed as he had been since being loaded into his crate that morning.

  “No, this fancy ride isn't for you, even though I know you think it is,” she told him, realizing after the fact that maybe normal people didn't talk to their cats.

  Carl snorted and she glanced in his direction, but his nose was buried in a newspaper.

  Huh, people still read newspapers. She figured they just got their news off of the internet like she did.

  The flight was only five plus hours, so she settled back in her seat with the intention of napping. But she was too excited to really relax. She wanted to ask questions about the band, about the tour, about how they had picked her. But Carl didn't exactly give off a please-ask-me-a-million-questions-right-now vibe.

  That was okay, Zelda was a fast learner. She'd be able to figure out what she needed to know when she needed to know it.

  The paper rumpled as Carl turned the page. Then it rumpled again as he folded it closed and set it aside, rubbing the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger.

  “The buses are already loaded,” he began. “The band's assistant, Kendra, is all in a twitter with your addition. You'll understand when you meet her. Nice girl—tightly wound—but nice. She's in training to be a talent manager or some shit so this is her last year as assistant. She has a small army that she is training to take her place.”

  Carl rubbed his cheek with the palm of his hand.

  “The tours only get bigger. I fear someday we won't be able to afford it,” he said, almost as if he were talking to himself. He wasn't even looking in her direction; he was focused on Hüsker Dü's crate, in all honesty. Hüsker Dü's ears had swiveled in that direction and his disinterested scowl looked very similar to Carl's, who shrugged and raised his eyebrows thoughtfully. “Though the guys are smart about stuff, they take a real interest, you know? They pay attention to how much money things cost and what they can and can't afford. They're scary smart... considering.”