In the Fast Lane

by Sherryl Hancock

  In the

  Fast Lane

  Sherryl D. Hancock

  Copyright © Sherryl D. Hancock 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without prior written permission from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any person or persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Vulpine Press in the United Kingdom in 2018

  ISBN 978-1-910780-95-4

  Cover by Claire Wood

  www.vulpine-press.com

  ♫

  One ♫

  Los Angeles, 2001

  Cassandra Roads stared openmouthed at her agent for a full minute. She couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. He’d gotten them a contract? A record deal? Impossible! No way! This wasn’t really happening!

  Fast Lane had been playing the club scene for over four years. Cassandra, or Cassie to her friends, had joined the band two months before. The previous lead singer, a temperamental redhead, had finally left in disgust when the band went “nowhere fast.”

  She was a diminutive woman, with straight jet-black hair that was cut to frame her face and fell two inches past her shoulders. Her face was a tiny perfect heart shape, with porcelain skin and eyes that resembled deep amethysts on fire. She added to that look dark eye makeup and bold colored lipstick and blusher, making her seem even more haunted. She dressed all in black most of the time, and when she wore color they were the deepest darkest tones: burgundy, purple, midnight blue, teal. She never wore anything light colored in public. Most often she wore gothic-style crosses of varying shades and styles on leather tongs in the same shade. She was what her bandmates termed the perfect gothic princess. She was beautiful, yet mysterious, dark, and haunting.

  What she brought to the band, however, was what had gotten them a record deal. She brought an incredibly powerful voice. She could start out sounding gentle and sweet, and round out the song with a hard driving force that could seemingly move mountains. It was a shock to hear such a powerful voice come from such a small package of a woman. She stood at a mere four ten and weighed no more than ninety-five pounds. She was a tiny little powerhouse.

  It was that quality that Steve Rice, their agent, had seen and sold to the record company; the shocking contradiction that was Cassie Roads. The recording company was Badlands Records, owned by BJ Sparks. It was his way of giving others the hand up he was given so long ago.

  “We have a contract?” Cassie finally managed, in total disbelief.

  “Yeah, Cassie, a contract,” Steve said, smiling.

  “Holy shit!” Cassie cried excitedly, displaying an exuberance she rarely showed.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought too,” Steve said, enjoying the moment.

  “How?” she asked, shaking her head. “I mean, how did we get this lucky? I mean, Jesus!”

  “Well, thank BJ Sparks for that,” Steve said.

  “BJ Sparks?” Cassie asked. She knew the name quite well; she’d idolized him since she was twelve.

  “Yeah, it’s his record label that signed you guys,” Steve said.

  Cassie bit her lip. She was way too excited for her own liking, but she knew she had every right to be. They had a record deal. Oh my God! Mike was going to shit bricks!

  Mike O’Connell was her boyfriend. His band, No Exit, had actually had a couple of hit singles in the past few years, but the albums themselves had never caught on. The term “one hit wonder” was a safe way to describe No Exit, but Cassie hoped against hope that Mike’s band would take off one day.

  Cassie’d met Mike after graduating from high school. She’d spent a lot of time at a club down on Sunset called Gazarri’s. She and her friends hung out around there a lot. Mike had been playing in a different band then, a band that never made it and finally broke up. He was the guitarist back then. He’d noticed her because she stood out, even with the gothic maudlin people she hung out with. She had a way about her that just made people stop and stare at her. The contrast of her dark hair, which was totally natural, and her pale, porcelain doll skin, in addition to the odd color of her eyes made her both exquisite and unique. No matter what she did to tone down her looks, they stood out anyway.

  Mike left the bar that night after it closed. Seeing her still with her friends, but getting ready to leave, he’d walked over to her.

  “I want to take you out,” he said to her.

  “I am out,” she replied, her eyes looking directly back at him.

  “Then I want to take you somewhere else,” he said, narrowing his eyes at her smart-ass comeback, “alone.”

  She should have realized then that he was far too intense and serious when responding to her acerbic manner. But hindsight was indeed 20/20; she couldn’t have known what a bastard he’d turn out to be.

  In the end he’d taken her out to another club, and once away from her friends she toned down her attitude. She felt oddly cowed by him, which was rare for her. She took that to mean that he could “calm her storm,” and fell in love with him.

  It had been a very rocky high and low four years. Things had gotten better when he’d gotten into No Exit a year after they got together. They moved into a place together, and things were looking up. But then she’d gotten into music too.

  She’d always known she could sing. No one knew it, but she’d been in the church choir for years back in New York. She’d done hundreds of solos for every holiday program and special mass. Everyone said she sang like an angel straight out of Heaven. She even considered becoming a nun at one point, thinking it was what she was meant for. But then her life had been turned upside down. Her father had been killed in a car accident when she was fourteen, and her mother had decided to leave New York and move to California with the money he’d left them.

  One look at her new school with all the “preppy kids” and she was disgusted. She’d quickly found the degenerates and become one of them. She was highly intelligent, so she was easily able to mirror their speech and attitude. Then she perfected it and found a number of ways to keep people away from her. The dark makeup, dark clothes, and wild hairdos were just part of an act to dissuade people from talking to her or bothering her. If she chose to speak, she’d usually do so with such a sharp wit that most people didn’t understand her. The ones that did, considered her a sharp-tongued bitch. More effective avoidance.

  Her mother was drinking full time by the time Cassie graduated high school, and Cassie was all too happy to get out from under her mother’s roof to move in with Mike. By then she’d found she had a propensity for drinking too. Drinking was what had killed her father, yet that didn’t seem to stop her when things got bad with her and Mike.

  When she got into a band as the lead singer, Mike told her she was just kidding herself, that she didn’t have any place singing. She shrugged off his negativity and went about teaching herself to sing more up-to-date songs. She found the 80s music, for the most part, too bubblegum. She found solace in bands like Depeche Mode and the Cure. It fed her need for darkness. However, she continued to try and sing upbeat music.

  She finally left her first band, feeling like a dismal failure. Mike was all too happy to feed that belief. He kept telling her it took a lot to make it in “this business” and that she just didn’t have what it took. Cassie believed him for a long time. Then one night she and some of her friends went to a club in Hollywood. The club was called The Troubadour and it featured the more punk-style rock and roll. That was th
e first time she saw Fast Lane play. The redheaded lead singer was alright, but she just seemed so garish compared to the rest of the band. She was flamboyant and bouncy, while the band seemed to be quite mellow. The band reminded her a lot of No Doubt, but the redhead didn’t resemble Gwen Stefani in the slightest. At least Gwen had a style all her own.

  After that night, Cassie watched the band all the time. It was six months before the redhead didn’t show up to a show. Cassie wandered over to the guitarist who was heatedly talking to the club manager. She listened in for a few minutes, hearing that “Tammy” wasn’t going to make it to the show. Fast Lane didn’t play, and Cassie bought the guitarist a drink.

  His name was Tom Timmerman. He had a shaved head, a sharp looking goatee, and about ten piercings in his ears and one in his eyebrow. She found that he was a very likable guy. They talked all night, and she told him what she thought of Tammy, and what she thought they really needed. Tom agreed with her, saying he’d never thought about it that way before. After that, every time Cassie would come to a show, Tom would wink at her during the show and sit with her during the breaks. They became good friends, and he constantly complained about the lead singer.

  Two months later, Mike walked into the club one night and “caught” her sitting with Tom. He flew into a rage and threatened to kill Tom for messing with Cassie. Cassie made an attempt to explain that Tom was just a friend. Mike had whirled on her and slapped her so hard she’d stumbled backwards. Tom stepped in, shoving Mike back and telling him to pick on someone his own size. A fight had ensued and security had to break it up.

  It had been the first time Mike had actually struck her. He’d told her it would never happen again, that he was just so mad that he thought she’d been cheating on him and he’d “lost it.” Cassie had accepted his apology and they’d gone on with their relationship.

  A month later she’d become part of Fast Lane. Tom had never commented on the scene with Mike, but he’d kept an eye on her since then. When she joined the band, she ended up with four older brothers she’d never had. Besides Tom, there was Johnny Sands, Terry Newbi, and Greg Overroy. The four of them looked out for her, considering her their greatest asset. And indeed she’d proven to be, after only two months!

  ****

  The night she found about the contract, she had to wait for Mike to get home, which wasn’t until 3:30 a.m. He’d been out partying, but regardless, she was excited to tell him the news.

  “Guess what!” she said, unable to hide her excitement.

  “What?” he asked, tossing down his jacket and glancing at her.

  “We got a record deal,” she said, grinning widely.

  “A what?” he asked, looking at her like she was nuts.

  “A record deal, we got signed to a record deal,” she explained.

  “What label?” he asked, making a face like he wasn’t too impressed yet.

  “Badlands,” she said.

  “Who the fuck is that?” he asked snidely. “Some no-name label?”

  “It’s BJ Sparks’s label,” she said, hoping he could be excited for her, just this once.

  “Bullshit,” he said, dismissing her comment with a flick of his hand.

  “It’s not bullshit, Mike,” she said, endeavoring to keep her cool. “It really is Sparks’s label, and we really have a deal.”

  “You sign anything yet?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

  “Yeah, why?” she asked.

  “Did you even read it?” he asked her, his tone indicating that he thought she was stupid enough not to have read it.

  “Yeah, Mike, I read it,” she said, sighing.

  She knew he wouldn’t be excited for her. She’d known it in the depths of her soul. He didn’t want her to succeed, because if she succeeded and he never got another hit, then in his eyes she was better than him. He wouldn’t be able to handle that.

  “Anyway,” she said, trying to push aside her disappointment, “how was your night? You were out late. Did you have a good time?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked defensively. “I was out late? What are you, my fucking mother now?”

  “No,” Cassie said, looking at him blithely, “it was just a comment. Usually if a person closes down the bar, it means they had fun, right?”

  “Oh, so what? I’m an alcoholic too?” he railed irrationally.

  “I didn’t say a damned thing about alcohol, Mike,” she said, growing angry. It was obvious he wanted to pick a fight with her.

  “Don’t get pissy with me, Cassie,” he said, his tone darkening.

  “I’m not getting pissy with you, Mike,” she snapped back. “It’s called defending myself against irrational outbursts.”

  She watched him tense, and she saw his hand come up slightly. Her chin went up warily. She knew he wanted to hit her. Narrowing her eyes at him, she waited. After a long moment, he turned and picked up his jacket, and walked out of the apartment. Sighing, she lay back on the couch. This wasn’t how this night was supposed to go. They were supposed to be jumping up and down excitedly. He should be thrilled for her, damn it! She’d been thrilled for him two years before when his band’s first single hit the Top 20. Why couldn’t he be thrilled for her in return?

  He came home late the next night, smelling of booze and another woman’s perfume. That was when Cassie knew that she needed to get away from him.

  ****

  Brenden Sparks walked through his studios, taking a break from his own recording session. He’d begun recording his new album two months before. They were on a particularly difficult part that had required a number of takes. He was frustrated and had headed out to the parking garage to smoke a cigarette. On his way back, he walked by the studios being used for recording. He had eight studios, usually all in production at any given moment.

  As he walked by one studio, two guys walked out of the sound booth. They were talking, and one man was holding the door to the sound booth open. Brenden could hear singing coming from inside. It grabbed his attention instantly. He made a cutting gesture to the two men and both stopped instantly, realizing in that moment who they were looking at. Brenden James Sparks was considered God in this studio; he owned it, he ran it, it was his label they were all recording on, and if he wanted something you gave it to him. He wanted silence, they gave it to him.

  Brenden walked toward the sound booth, motioning for the men to step aside. Tom and Johnny did exactly as he bid. This was the studio they were recording in, and if BJ Sparks was interested in it, they wanted him to have every chance to hear them. Cassie was singing at that point, her voice a powerful force all on its own. As Brenden stepped inside the, Kenny Collins looked up, ready to tell whoever had just walked in to get the hell out. He stopped short. No one told BJ Sparks to get out of his own studio, not unless unemployment looked like a good option.

  Brenden stood in the shadows of the sound booth, watching the young woman sing. He couldn’t believe such a powerful sound was coming out of such a tiny person. She looked like she might weigh a hundred pounds soaking wet. And she was tiny! She couldn’t be more than five feet, if that. Yet her voice was strong and persuasive. Brenden was entranced. She had a dark gothic look to her that was both shocking but intriguing at the same time. It was an attractive combination to him. Her music had a quality that he felt there was a definitive market for at this point in time.

  “Who is she?” Brenden asked Kenny.

  “Cassie Roads,” Kenny answered instantly, “the band is Fast Lane.”

  Brenden nodded. “You got tape on them?”

  “Yeah,” Kenny replied.

  “Burn me a CD, I want it this afternoon,” Brenden said, his tone commanding.

  “Yes, sir,” Kenny said sharply, his eyes shining excitedly.

  He knew that if BJ Sparks was interested in hearing more of Fast Lane, it might mean great things for them. On the other hand, it might mean that he was trying to decide ahead of time whether or not to terminate their contract.
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br />   BJ Sparks was famous, or notorious, depending on the source, for terminating contracts with artists. The contract that they signed for their record deal with the Badlands label was that Brenden James Sparks had all final creative control over whether or not an album was released. The deal that was signed was a one-time album deal. They had one shot, if they impressed him, he’d sign them to a bigger contract. If they failed to impress him, he shot them down, sometimes before they even finished the album. Quite often, lower level managers were authorized to sign up and coming bands to Badlands with a standard deal, but BJ always had final say on whether or not the band continued. He always had an out.

  One band had finished their album before he’d heard any of their stuff. They had been a great bar band, but in the studio, they’d been a dismal failure. It was said by many in the industry that BJ Sparks had played their album in his offices in the Badlands building, while the band sat by waiting for his approval. In the end, he’d taken the CD out of the player and put it in the jewel case with the band’s name on it. He’d tossed it to the lead singer, telling him to keep it as a souvenir for the time that he was a rock star for all of ten seconds. He’d terminated the contract with the band the next day citing creative differences.

  One reporter had the temerity to ask him what that actually meant. BJ pulled no punches with the press or anyone else for that matter.

  He’d given the blond reporter a wintery smile and said, “It means they thought they were good, I thought they sucked. And since it’s my label, my opinion counts more than theirs.”

  Kenny watched as BJ Sparks nodded, then stepped back out of the sound booth, glancing once more at Cassie Roads as she sang. Kenny sincerely hoped for Fast Lane’s sake that BJ liked their style. Kenny had seen a lot of bands in his time, some had been lousy, some had been mediocre, and some had been fantastic. He had a feeling Fast Lane could go really far, given the chance. If BJ Sparks liked a band, he could push them to fame in no time. But if he didn’t, he could put them in an abysmal pit.