by Frankie Rose
Marika, glowing only two seconds ago, looks like I’ve just thrown a bucket of ice cold water all over her. She opens her mouth, closes it again, and then looks at Butler, clearly waiting for him to say something. Cole’s the first to speak, though; he clears his throat. “Actually, Luke, that’s something Butler mentioned last week. He thought...since everything went so well with the music video and everyone seems to be loving Marika, that maybe…well, that maybe she could stay on with us. Indefinitely.”
“Indefinitely?”
Cole doesn’t do anything. He’s stopped prancing around the room like a lunatic and now he’s standing very, very still, hands clasped together, shoulders tense with his lips pursed, obviously holding his breath.
That’s obviously a yes.
“Right. So I’m…what? The guy that stands at the front of the stage with no instrument like an asshole?”
“Dude! You’re the lead singer. The face of D.M.F. And you’re also the fucking songwriter as well. That’s pretty much the most important job in the band.”
“I’m not a lead singer, Cole. I’m a guitarist. I love music because I love playing guitar. It’s that simple. If you don’t want me to play, then that’s just fine. You can sing as well as I can. And I’m sure MVP can hire someone to write songs for you if you need them to. You don’t need me anymore.”
Marika steps forward, holding her hands out, urging me to calm down with the simple motion. “They absolutely need you. We do. People are responding to the band as a whole, and that includes me. I’m a part of D.M.F. now. You can’t deny that I’m an excellent guitar player. And the ratings are in, Luke. The public wants to see more of me and you together. They love the idea that we might be a couple. It gives the band a story, and a romantic one at that. You can’t buy that kind of publicity.” Cocking her head to one side, she steps closer still, closing the gap between us. She places her hand on my chest, over my heart—the tender touch of a lover. “Can’t you see that we’re great together?” she whispers.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Cole’s reaction to what she’s just done. He knows what’s coming next. “Oh shit,” he hisses under his breath.
Calmly, I take hold of Marika’s hand at the wrist and I remove it from my chest. For a brief split second in time, hope flashes across her face. That is, until I drop hold of her arm and step back. “Enough,” I grind out.
“Enough? I don’t see how you can argue with the polls, Luke. I mean, I—”
“ENOUGH!” I have something in my hand, my phone, and then suddenly it’s not in my hand anymore. It’s flying through the air and smashing against the wall behind Butler’s head. The guy flinches, as though he expected me to hit him with it, arms drawn up close around his head.
“Jesus, Reid! What the hell are you playing at? This is smart business. Anyone in their right minds can see that!”
I ignore him, turning my attention solely on Cole. “You brought me here to play. You told me you couldn’t be D.M.F. without me playing lead and singing. If you want Marika in the band, that is totally fine with me, but let me go. Let me go back to New York so I can get on with my life. I won’t be a part of this if I’m not playing. There’s just no way.”
The muscle jumps in Cole’s jaw. He knows I’m not being a diva. He knows I’m not overreacting to this, and he knows that every word coming out of my mouth right now is the truth. Playing for Fallen Saints was a dream of mine when I was seventeen, and living out here, living the LA rock god lifestyle is all well and good, but it’s not my dream right now. My dream is a five-foot-eight blonde majoring in journalism, but I can’t have that dream and so this…this is a compromise. This is something I won’t mind giving up, because it means so much less to me than it does to him. Cole studies me with dark eyes, taking long breaths of air in and out of his nose.
After a very long, painful thirty seconds where everyone in the mixing suite is waiting, frozen, to see what will happen next, Cole sighs, his head rolling back. He smiles and then he pulls me into a hug. “All right, man. This is nuts, Marika’s a great addition to the team, but she’s not you. She can’t replace you, and I wasn’t lying in New York. We wouldn’t be the same without you.”
I guess, in a weird, deflated way, I was hoping he’d tell me that it was okay, that I wouldn’t be massively letting them all down if I just went home. That’s probably very selfish of me, very ungrateful, but his decision does give weight to what he’s been saying all along. He fucking adores Marika. He thinks the sun shines out of her perfectly formed, admittedly very nice ass, and he thinks she’s key to pushing the band forward, but he values me over all of that. He cringes as he faces Butler and the woman in question. Marika looks like she’s about to have a fit; her eyes are narrowed and her hands are already firmly planted on her hips.
Butler’s wearing a nervous holy-shit’s-about-to-hit-the-fan expression on his face. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. Don’t worry. I’m sure there’s a solution to this hiccup. Cole, please…talk some sense into your friend. He’s being highly unreasonable right now.”
Thankfully Cole knows better than to even try. “Sorry, dude. Once his mind’s made up, it’s made up. Marika, I’m so sorry. It pains me to say this but you won’t be with us next month for the Fallen Saints gig.”
“Ahh…well, it’s not all as simple as that,” Butler says. “Marika has to play, or you boys don’t play.”
Pete frowns, shoving his hands into his pockets. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, dear boy, that Marika’s uncle is Harvey Bruce Sung. I’m assuming you know who that is?”
Pete’s face warps with disgust. “I’m a drummer, man. Of course I know who Harvey Bruce Sung is. He’s the drummer for Fallen Saints.”
“Correct. My apologies. No offence meant. Yes, Harvey is Marika’s uncle. She was crucial in getting you guys this gig.”
“You just said their agent heard the song and liked us,” Pete counters.
“Yes, yes, I know, that’s true, but when Harvey put two and two together and realized that Marika was playing with you guys, it was a done deal.”
“As far as I see it,” Marika says, “if you want to play with the Saints, I’m your golden ticket. If you want to pass on what could be an amazing way to kick off an even more amazing career, then by all means kick me out of the band.”
“We’re not kicking you out,” Cole says. “We’re just not keeping you on. That’s different.”
Marika pops her hip out, glaring at me with unbridled anger in her eyes. This isn’t how she planned this whole thing would go down by the looks of it. “It won’t be in Uncle Harvey’s eyes,” she says.
Under his breath, Cole curses—something colorful and very unrepeatable.
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
TWENTY-TWO
LUKE
“Fuck. And then what happened?” My sister can’t keep the scandalized note out of her voice. A strange creaking sound rattles down the line—Ave smashed my mother’s phone on the ground the last time she was in my childhood home, and regardless of the fact that Mom glued and taped the thing back together, it still groans and complains when you hold the receiver too tightly. Emma must have a death grip on the Bakelite right now for it to be making this kind of noise.
“Nothing. I walked out. Cole followed me. He didn’t really know what to say and neither did I so I just came home.”
“Damn. So…are you going to consider just singing in the band and letting her play? This woman sounds like a crazy bitch, Luke. I saw the video on TV last night. It was gross. No woman wants to see her big brother getting face-raped across all fifty-two inches of their flat screen. It looked like she was trying to eat you, for crying out loud. And why the hell were you shirtless? Tiffany nearly fell off the sofa when she saw you.”
I’ve known Tiffany, Em’s best friend, since long before she could walk. The thought that she was appreciating my near nakedness on television is disturbing to say the least. I tell my
sister so.
“You’re telling me! And, god. Oh, god…”
“What?”
“Mom came in and saw it, for fuck’s sake. That was more than awkward, Luke.”
For some reason, I haven’t once thought about the fact that my family is on the sidelines, watching all the stupid interviews that we’re coerced into giving online. And I definitely haven’t thought about them seeing the music video for Cottonmouth and how badly it would weird them out.
“Ah shit. Is she massively disappointed in me?” She cried so hard the day I graduated from the police academy. She was so damn proud. Said I looked handsome and distinguished in my dress uniform. And now I’m prancing around like a goddamn male stripper, letting girls slobber all over me while I’m told to ‘make love’ to the fucking camera.
“If only.” Emma laughs. “She made me look the link up on YouTube so she could forward the video to all of her friends. She thinks it’s the best thing ever.”
“Oh boy. I don’t know if that’s better than her being pissed at me, or way, way worse.”
“Look at it this way. I wouldn’t be planning on talking to your old Home Ec. teacher anytime soon. She won’t be able to look you in the eye.”
“Mrs. Woodward?”
“She and Mom have been going to cribbage nights together at the school for the past couple of years. They’re best friends now.”
I remember Mrs. Woodward distinctly. She had a hairy mole on her chin, and she never wore a bra, despite having humongous, pendulous boobs that were almost down to her waist by the time I left Breakwater High. They’re probably on the floor by now. “Sweet Jesus,” I sigh.
“Right. You’re basically turning life upside down here in small town Wyoming, big brother.”
“Fantastic.” My phone starts making an urgent beeping sound in my ear, notifying me that someone else is trying to call me. I look down at the screen and Cole’s name flashes at me. “Ahhh, sorry, Em. I have another call. I should probably take it, otherwise I’m gonna have a very anxious guitarist on my doorstep any second.”
“Wait, wait. Mom just walked in. She wants to talk to you.”
“Em, I—” Too late, though. She’s gone. Cole’s call cuts off, silencing the line so that the only thing I can now hear is my mother as she scuffles around in the background, probably taking off her jacket and dumping her grocery bags on the counter. And then she’s saying, “Hello? Is that my infamous son?” into the cracked receiver in the kitchen where I used to hide from my drunken father in the pantry, and it feels like my heart is being cleaved in two.
“Sure is,” I tell her. “You okay?”
“Of course, baby. Are you? You don’t sound like you’re okay.”
“I am. I’m fine. Really. I think this is just a bad line or something.” I can’t tell her about the shit going down with Marika and D.M.F., and I can’t tell her about my sessions with Rafferty. I want to, but I’m feeling so frayed around the edges right now that I won’t get the words out. I just want to sit here and listen to my mother’s voice, and hopefully by the end of the call I’ll feel better.
“That’s good, love. How’s Los Angeles?”
“Hot,” I laugh. “Plastic.” This isn’t what she wants to hear, though, so I tack, “Inspiring,” on the end, too. “You meet so many creative people every day. You can’t throw a stone without hitting a writer, a musician and an actor all in one go. It’s very motivating.” I keep my mouth shut about the fact that LA would dissolve into a Hunger Games style free-for-all if the police weren’t here to keep things civil. All those budding wannabe actors, writers and musicians would be shooting each other with crossbows and clawing each other’s eyeballs out if it meant they could get ahead. It’s a savage place, filled with savages.
“So you’re having a great time, then?” Mom asks. “I have to say, Luke, that music video…”
“I know.”
“I barely recognized you.”
“Me, too,” I say quietly.
We stay quiet for a little while after that, and a lot’s communicated through the silence. I never wanted to tell my mother what Dad was doing to me when I was a kid. I felt dirty about it. Wrong. And I thought if she knew all the depraved, fucked up things I’d participated in and witnessed in order to keep my father’s fists out of my face, she’d love me less. When everything came out after my father was dead and buried, cold in the ground, I still couldn’t really talk to her about it. Instead we’d sit there in silence, her feeling hollowed out to the very bones of her body for not for a second suspecting what had been going on, and me feeling tainted and broken in my adolescent skin. We’d found a way to share our thoughts and feelings through simply sitting together and allowing each other to hurt, without ever saying a word.
“You have mail here, y’know?” Mom says eventually. “Looks important. Want me to forward it on for you?”
“No, just open it for me,” I say quietly, grateful for the change of topic. Glad to be saved from the burden of thinking about dad. The old bastard’s ghost emerges from the far recesses of my mind and comes at me, knocking my feet out from underneath me so he can grab hold of me by one ankle and drag me kicking and screaming back into the shadows with him far too often these days.
I hum a piece of music while Mom puts the phone down to fetch the mail she was talking about. Just hearing the rise and fall of the music grounds me again. Brings some semblance of order to the chaos in my head. When I realize that it’s a Fallen Saints song, one of their biggest, most successful hits, I can’t help but laugh a little. I’ve been humming that song for years in the pauses between work and coffee and laundry and driving and love making and everything else in between, and now here I am with a chance to not only see them perform the song live, but to support them at the Staples Center, and I’m turning it down. Funny how things turn out.
“All right, Luke. You there, baby?”
“Yeah.” Mom’s lost that laid back, dreamy note to her voice that she spoke with before. She sounds focused and tense, now. Slightly worried? “What is it?”
“You have a couple of letters from the bank. Nothing important. But there’s a letter here from the Wyoming D.A.’s office, too. They’re calling you back to Breakwater for a court hearing.”
“What the hell for?” My spine’s straightened, as though an electric current’s being passed through me, tightening nerve endings all over my body.
“Chloe,” Mom says. “She’s applied for an appeal. Looks like it’s been granted. They want you to repeat your testimony.”
“When?” I can’t really breathe, but I manage to squeeze the word out.
“September 9th. That’s fast. Isn’t that fast? I thought, if she wanted to do something like that, it would take months to get a court date. Seems strange. Not really giving you much time to decide if you’re going to go or not, are they? God, I need a beer all of a sudden.”
She’s rambling—something she does when she’s nervous. “I don’t get to decide if I want to go, Mom,” I tell her. “It’s a subpoena, isn’t it?”
She pauses, probably re-reading the letter, and then, “Yes.”
“Then I have to go. And, yeah, it probably would take longer normally, but Chloe’s got a lot of friends on the police force. The Wyoming D.A. has probably been working with her for twenty years. When you have friends in high places, these things tend to be expedited.”
“I…I suppose I just don’t…understand. Didn’t she confess? And what about double jeopardy? I thought someone couldn’t be tried for the same crime twice? ” I can tell my mother’s on the brink of tears right now.
“She did confess, yes. But she could say she was in shock. Coerced. Not in her right mind. She could be pleading insanity for all we know. And this isn’t the same thing as double jeopardy, Mom. She’s not being retried for the crime. She’s appealing it. Don’t worry, though. Everyone knows what she did. There’s no way she’s changing anyone’s mind. It’s going to be okay, I promise.”
/> She makes an unsure noise on the other end of the phone, and I can hear Emma asking what’s wrong in the background. I speak to Mom for another few minutes, and then to Emma as she rants and rages about the social injustice of a woman like Chloe Mathers even being afforded the luxury of an appeal, and then I’m telling her that I’ll speak to her soon and hanging up the phone. I’m numb. Completely and utterly numb.
Ironically, when the sensation begins to return to my body, the twisted scar in my chest where Chloe Mathers shot me is throbbing like a bitch.
I can’t figure out whether to laugh or cry. Being called back to Breakwater to an appeal being held for the woman who tried to murder me should be an awful prospect, and yet it’s not. Chloe isn’t getting out of jail. There’s just no way. Psychopaths love attention. They bond with their victims on an intimate level. Chloe loved the courtroom circus, loved the cameras on her, loved answering the incessant questions that were thrown at her for days on end as the case was being heard. The only time Chloe wasn’t glowing or practically bouncing out of her fucking chair was when Avery was called to the stand. For weeks before the trial, I coached Avery through what was going to happen when she walked into the court room, what she was going to be asked, how the defense was probably going to trip her up, how they might imply that she and I had concocted the story and attacked Chloe for our own unknown purposes. I’d spent hours calming her down, and I’d told her that she wasn’t to make eye contact with Chloe under any circumstances. On the day that Avery had to give her evidence, she’d been incredibly nervous but also incredibly brave. My girl did exactly as I told her to. She explained what happened clearly and slowly and she didn’t panic when the defense tried to unseat her. And she didn’t even look in Chloe’s direction, let alone made eye contact with her.
