Killer Riff

by Sheryl J. Anderson

  The force of his emotion was like a shock wave, and I took another small step back to absorb it. I’m blessed: I adore my parents. But I’ve had friends who weren’t so fortunate, and I know the kind of constantly gnawing pain that engenders. I could only imagine how it would be magnified if the father you could not adore was idolized by people all over the world and only grew closer to perfection in their memories after a tragic death. And to have Claire invalidating his feelings and his ambitions at every turn had to be torture.

  “Have you told her?” I asked.

  “Of course I have,” he said bitterly. “You know what she tells me? That I’m dishonoring him. Like he didn’t dishonor her when he brought Bonnie and Jordan into our house. And she says I’ve lost my way. Like he didn’t lose his way with the other women and the drugs and the staying out on the road when he didn’t have to. She tells me I have to be just like him, but she hates him and so do I. So where does that leave us? Where does that leave me?”

  He held his arms open to the empty auditorium as he tried to swallow back the tears I could hear threatening. “She keeps saying, ‘All it takes is one great song, a hook, a riff, and you’ll find it. You’ll be back on top.’ Easy for her to say when she’s never tried it, never failed at it.”

  I went to him instinctively, not sure what I was going to say or do, but before I could touch him, he grabbed me, swirling me back into a grinding samba step, humming something low in his throat, as though that expressed his thoughts better than any words he could come up with.

  But isn’t that the magic of music? It elevates and encapsulates at the same time, preserving moments of high-flung emotion like delicate flowers trapped in amber, so we can take them out again and again, take a shortcut to the place deep inside where those feelings live, happy or sad, repressed or treasured. And isn’t that the allure of the singer, that he or she can take you on that trip in ways more thrilling than you’d imagined? And the gift of the songwriter, to be able to catch the moment to begin with?

  But you can’t write a great song just because you feel great pain or experience deep love or because your mother says so. And if you are told to write a great song and want to write one and still can’t … The frustration had to be maddening. I’d never tried to write a song, but I’d searched for the perfect phrase for a column or article and had it elude me, so I’d had a taste of what was driving him.

  As I allowed myself to sympathize with him, I recognized the song he was humming. “I love Jobim,” I said, hoping I sounded like a true music fan and not an eager-to-impress groupie. My mother had a crush on Jobim when I was growing up and had several recordings of his songs, by him and by other artists. My father would stand at the bottom of the stairs and sing “The Girl from Ipanema” when Mom came down, dressed up for a night out. As kids, we laughed madly, thinking it was silly, but looking back now, I see it as romantic, sexy even.

  He loosened his grip on me enough to look me in the eye, a surprised smile lightening his gaze. “Lovely, talented, and she knows her jazz,” he sang, improvising his own lyrics without missing a beat, then segueing into scat. The song was Jobim’s “Desafinado,” which translates as “Off Key,” But Adam was more than on-key. Even just scatting, the quality of his voice as he sang the jazz tune was completely different from what I’d heard on his rock album. There was a richness, an intimacy that was seductive.

  “You should do a jazz album,” I whispered. “You sound great.”

  “Tell that to the folks with the checkbooks,” he whispered back, trying to hang on to whatever comfort the song gave him. “They seem to think that making me give up something I dearly want is a noble cause.” His mouth was against my ear, like at Jordan’s concert, and his voice snaked down into my chest and up into my head. He laughed low in his throat. “So much sexier than anything my dad ever wrote, I ever wrote.”

  I pushed out of his arms, trying to match his flirty laugh. “You’re making me dizzy.” He took a step toward me and I took a step back. “Wait,” I said, holding up my hand. But he took another step toward me and the intensity of his gaze made me drop back again. “Don’t you think if you explained how you feel to Gray—”

  “He’d tell me why it would never sell. Again.”

  “Record it yourself. You have the connections, the resources—”

  “Not if Gray and my mother blackball me.” He stepped forward, and I held out my hand to keep him at arm’s length. He grabbed my hand and pulled me into him again. “Passion can only take me so far. Though it might be interesting to see how far …”

  I pushed out of his arms and made myself concentrate. “What about the money you were going to invest with Ray Hernandez?”

  The taste of lightness the song had brought him was evaporating, his look darkening again. “I was going to invest the advance from the album. Which Gray won’t give me if it’s not rock.”

  “Forget the club. Do the album yourself. Or find someone else. There must be someone who—”

  “Believes in me? Only Russell. And look what happened to him.”

  “What did happen to him, Adam?”

  He flinched as though I’d slapped him. “Molly, every time we start to get in deep, really connect with each other, you have to spoil the mood by bringing up something I’d really rather not think about.”

  “Why don’t you want to think about it?”

  He stepped toward me again and I stepped back, not realizing how close I was to the edge of the stage. My left heel actually dipped into the air, and for a moment, I thought I was going to plummet backward into the pit and destroy my spine and a lovely grand piano. But Adam grabbed my hand, pulled me tight against him. I grabbed on to him gratefully, unable in my panic to let go even as he slid his other hand behind my neck, pulling me still closer and kissing me with the authority that comes from no woman ever saying no, then murmuring, “Because I’ve been thinking about that.”

  11

  “Have you lost your mind?”

  It would have been bad enough to hear it from Eileen, who was probably on her desk, dialing Henry’s phone number with her toes while dancing with glee. Or from Kyle, who was bound to be rethinking his decision to come back into my life right about now. Or from Tricia and Cassady, whose definitions of what they considered breaches of good taste, common decency, and basic sanity had been stretched and twisted by our escapades over the years yet still remained remarkably flexible. But no, I had to get the lecture on journalistic ethics and basic comportment from Peter Mulcahey, a man whose relationship with either bordered on estrangement.

  And it wasn’t that I didn’t want to defend myself. I couldn’t. The only thing more stupid than putting myself in a potentially compromising situation with a subject in a story I was working on was doing it in front of teenage girls armed with cell phones that took better pictures than I got with my camera. Pictures that had rocketed around Manhattan before I had been able to detach myself from Adam Crowley and get back to the office.

  I’d barely caught my breath from Adam’s kiss when laughter erupted in the house seats and we saw that the ringleader and her posse had returned. They looked like something out of a Verizon commercial, all with right arms extended, cell phones aimed at Adam and me, mouths open in perfect circles of fiendish delight. “Girls,” Adam protested halfheartedly, suspecting it was a lost cause, “please delete those.”

  “Oh, of course, Mr. Crowley,” the ringleader chirped. She pushed a key on her phone, and her eyes widened almost comically. “Oops. I think I hit ‘send’ by accident.” Her posse mimicked her exactly, and I remembered why high school had been such a blissful time of my life.

  Adam told them he’d meet them in the headmistress’s office, and they sashayed out defiantly. He offered to walk me out, but I told him the less we were seen together, the better. “I’m writing a story about someone you’re very close to …, “I began.

  “And a crime you think I’m involved in,” he finished.

  “I don’t su
spect you. Should I?”

  “Isn’t that why you came?”

  “No. Is that why you kissed me?”

  “No. You couldn’t tell it was sincere?”

  “I have to go.” Not only could I tell it was sincere, it made my head spin, and I still didn’t have my equilibrium back. I tried to focus on an image of Kyle’s face, but the only one I could come up with was frowning pretty deeply. Telling myself that the kiss shook me up only because he was famous and I’d never kissed anyone famous before wasn’t helping much, either. “I have to go,” I repeated, more for my benefit than his.

  On the way back to the office, I concentrated on everything but the kiss. Gray claimed to want Adam to record again, but Adam said he wouldn’t let him record what he wanted. Russell had been supportive of Adam’s move to jazz, but now Russell was gone. So were the tapes. Had Gray killed Russell in a struggle over Adam’s musical destiny? Had he then gone back and stolen the tapes to control them, too? Or, as he’d suggested, did someone else—like Claire—have the tapes? Did she have them because Gray had told her to go get them?

  One thing Claire had for certain was a burning desire to talk to me. By the time I got back to the office, I had three messages from her on my cell phone, two messages on my office phone, a note on my desk from Henry’s assistant that Claire was trying to reach me, and an angry editor in the aisle delivering much the same information in person.

  Eileen was swathed in a black cashmere cowl-neck sweater and houndstooth wool skirt. The weather hadn’t gotten that cold yet, but she dressed by the calendar more than by the thermometer. I’m sure the intent was a soft and warm look, but as she stood there tapping her Pliner-encased toe, the image was more Boston terrier than cuddly boss. Perhaps it was the growling that sold it.

  “Do you need a chaperone, Molly Forrester?” she asked peevishly as I hung up the phone. I hadn’t even had a chance to sit down yet.

  “Thank you, it would probably help,” I said, dropping my purse into my desk drawer and myself into my chair. I thought we were talking about Claire, but then Eileen reached over my shoulder and tapped a crimson talon on the space bar on my computer, and the screen sprang to life with a picture of Adam kissing me filling most of it. CROWLEY ON THE PROWLEY, the headline at this particular gossip site read. I could only hope that there weren’t many more sites—and if there were, that their headlines were better.

  “How do you explain this?” Eileen asked, fuming.

  “They rushed. I’m sure the pun would be more clever if they’d taken a little more time,” I said.

  “What does this have to do with your story on Olivia Elliott?”

  “Nothing.” She growled again, and I stood up so the vulnerable back of my neck would be out of reach of her fangs if she pounced. “Honestly, Eileen, this has nothing to do with the story.”

  She leaned in to read off the screen to me and everyone else in the bull pen, since all work had ceased the moment she’d begun questioning me. “‘What’s keeping Adam Crowley from his music these days? This lovely’”—Eileen paused to snort in my general direction—” ‘reporter from Zeitgeist who’s investigating the link between the deaths of his father, Micah Crowley, and music manager Russell Elliott.’ “

  “That’s Jordan,” I snapped. “He probably set this whole thing up, another chance to advance his theory.” I didn’t put it past Jordan to have that gaggle of Valkyries spying on Adam to begin with. Then I’d been stupid enough to let Adam put us both in this uncomfortable position.

  Eileen would have frowned if the Botox permitted; instead, her eyes danced a little with the strain. “Unless it’s your theory, too, it’s rather stupid of you to let him use you to promote it.” Which struck me as one of the most insightful things she had ever said to me. Unfortunately, my surprise must have shown, because her lip curled again and she growled, “Clean this up.” She gestured vaguely to the computer screen and stalked back to her office.

  As she passed, my colleagues fell back into their seats like newly shorn grass in the wake of a lawn mower. With the exception of Irina, who stood up and walked over to me, her shoulders rounded in diffidence. “You don’t have time for me,” she stated.

  “It would be a welcome respite from screwing up my life,” I said genuinely, patting the guest chair beside my desk.

  She sat down so tentatively, she seemed to hover half an inch above the seat of the chair. “Is it bad form for an advice columnist to suggest that some people were born to be alone?”

  “What an intriguing idea,” I said, considering all the ways in which being alone might improve my life at that given moment. But then I looked at Irina again, with her intense gaze and sad mouth, and continued, “But I do think you’ll find that most people who write in are interested in connecting with people more, not less. And if you’re a person who deeply values being alone, maybe the column wouldn’t be the best next step on your career ladder.”

  Irina sighed, her shoulders rolling forward even farther. “It probably doesn’t matter. You’re going to get kicked off this article and you’ll take back the column and it will have just been a writing exercise anyway.”

  If she had any idea how worried I was that she was right, it didn’t register on her expressionless face. “On the other hand,” I said with all the brightness I could muster, “someone of your perception could have a lot of fun with the column. Please submit something.”

  She rose without answering and drifted back to her desk. I grabbed my phone, hoping it would act as a talisman to protect me from more visitors.

  Claire Crowley didn’t sound as happy to hear from me as her multiple messages might have suggested. “You and I need to talk,” she said. “I’m concerned you’re not getting a balanced picture of how Olivia fits into our family structure, as it were.”

  Relieved that she wasn’t rampaging about the picture of Adam and me, I agreed to meet her at her apartment at eight o’clock. After hanging up quickly, I pushed on to my next call.

  “Got a second?” I asked Kyle when he answered.

  “Three or four.”

  “That’s enough, because it’s just that something happened this morning and it’s not what it looks like and I want you to know that and it’s the stupid gossip sites, though I’m impressed how quickly they post stuff—”

  “Molly, did someone try to hurt you?”

  It was entrancing and occasionally troubling, the way his mind worked. “No, someone kissed me.” There was silence at the other end. “And someone else took a picture.” The silence deepened. “And I wanted you to know it’s not what it looks like.”

  “What does it look like?” he asked in his official detective voice.

  “Like I’m kissing him back.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No,” I said emphatically, even though I could still feel the warm pressure of Adam’s mouth against mine. Which shocked me. How could I be talking to Kyle and thinking about Adam? What was wrong with me?

  “Okay, then.”

  “Are we? Okay?”

  “I am, are you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then we should talk about it later, because Ben and I are on our way into court.”

  “Sorry!”

  “No, no, it’s good, we’re good. Glad you called, appreciate the heads-up.”

  I dropped the receiver into the cradle, wondering how much to read into the fact that he’d hung up without any sort of endearment. Though “it’s good, we’re good” came close in his lexicon. I might have sat there and deconstructed those four words for the next hour, evaluating inflection, tone, volume, but Bonnie Carson had other plans.

  “Molly?” she said, appearing beside me like a sprite materializing in the middle of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Skyler was behind her, smiling smugly.

  “You have a visitor,” Skyler said, in case I hadn’t figured that out for myself. She held up a small bag from the pharmacy in the lobby. “You gave Eileen a headache, so I had to get her meds
. Your visitor was at the front desk, and I offered to bring her up.”

  “That’s so thoughtful, Skyler, thank you,” I said, confident that she knew I didn’t mean it.

  Skyler slunk back to her desk as Bonnie held out her hand. “Bonnie Carson. Jordan Crowley’s mother.”

  How interesting that she felt the need to introduce herself that way, as though I wouldn’t remember her after only a few days. Though maybe it had just become habit. Or her identity. “Yes, I remember. How are you?” I said, standing and shaking her hand.

  She laughed a little, but it wasn’t a happy sound. “I’m perplexed, actually. And I hate to be such a mom,” she said, emphasizing the word to the point that it became two syllables. “But what’s going on between you and my son?”

  To the dismay of my colleagues, I suggested we move to the conference room at that point. My relationship with one Crowley scion becoming tabloid fodder was a sufficient contribution to the drain on American productivity for one day.

  I ushered Bonnie into the hushed conference room, the scent of dry-erase markers hanging heavily in the air, and grabbed two bottles of water from the minifridge, more to have something to do with my hands than because I was thirsty. “I’m not sure I understand why you’re concerned, Ms. Carson—”

  “Bonnie.”

  I nodded in acknowledgment and continued, “There’s nothing going on. Not that there’s anything going on with Adam, either. But there’s certainly nothing going on with Jordan,” I assured her.

  “All this speculation about Micah and Russell—”

  “He started it,” I said, knowing I sounded like a three-year-old, but not eager to take the blame for anything but my own messes at the moment.

  There was a pause, then a sniff. Bonnie was crying. I scanned the room for tissues, but she pulled a linen handkerchief out of her Ferragamo Gancio satchel and dabbed at her eyes with that, careful to slide the handkerchief under the eyelashes so she didn’t smear the mascara. “That’s what I was afraid of. I almost hoped it might be some sort of publicity stunt you’d talked him into, but …” She took a moment to compose herself, and I waited, playing with a corner of the label on the water bottle. “The pressure’s getting to him more than I knew.”