“Right.” Drew nodded to a passing couple, then said cautiously, “It hasn’t happened again, has it?”
“No.”
“I hear things are coming along nicely.” The statement almost sounded like a question that Drew was afraid to pose.
“Probably another week, and we should be done recording. Then I’ll take the masters home with me and do the mixing there.”
A crease appeared in Drew’s otherwise smooth, collagened forehead. “Did we know you planned to do that? Is Two Dreamers even set up for that?”
Rob slugged down the rest of his champagne and said, “We have a fully functioning studio out in the williwacks. Casey and I dropped a fortune on it when we had the new house built. If anything we’ve recorded needs to be cleaned up, we can bring the essential people to Jackson Falls to finish the work. But I don’t think that’ll be necessary. For the most part, the sessions have gone well.”
“Good, good.” Drew looked immensely relieved, and Rob suspected that he’d been less than confident about this album. “Listen,” the record executive said, “can I steal your wife for a few minutes? There’s somebody I’d like to introduce her to.”
He glanced at Casey, read the acquiescence in her eyes, leaned and kissed her temple. “If you need me—” he said, for her ears only.
“I’m fine.” She patted his cheek, then turned and bestowed Drew with a beatific smile. “Mr. Lawrence,” she said, linking her arm with his, “let’s go adventuring.”
He watched them go. Then, alone, he wandered the room, his attention divided between the party and his awareness, at all times, of Casey’s location. Familiar faces came at him out of the crowd, faces of people he knew, other faces that were familiar only because he’d seen them splashed across the pages of People or Rolling Stone.
A burst of well-oiled laughter led him to the bar, where he traded his empty champagne glass for a Heineken. Leaning against a support beam with his ankles crossed, he nursed the beer and, his finely-honed radar focused on his wife, watched the band perform.
The singer, a zaftig young woman in her late twenties, had a strong, distinctive voice and an engaging style. The lead guitarist was an adequate player, and the drummer was really good. Add in bass, rhythm, and piano, and they had a pretty good thing going. Not bad, for a cover band. Not that there was anything wrong with cover bands—that was how he and Danny had started out—but if they expected to get anywhere, they needed to be writing and performing original material, not regurgitating music already made popular by other artists. He wondered idly whether they were signed, then realized that if they were playing an Ariel party, they must be. No record company would hold a private party of this size with a band they’d hired from some talent agency. They had to be new Ariel artists that Drew and his minions wanted to showcase.
Unlike the man of the hour, who was nowhere to be seen. Rob surveyed the room, but there was no sign of Phoenix. Through an opening in the crowd, he caught sight of Casey. His wife wore a form-fitting dress of cobalt blue that left her shoulders bare and showed just a modest amount of cleavage. The hem, on the other hand, was slit up to her thigh, displaying a significant length of slender, shapely leg. He wasn’t sure how she could walk on the five-inch heels, but right now, standing with crossed arms and one shoe peeking out from the hem of the dress, she looked as though she’d been born wearing them. She said something, and the middle-aged couple beside her smiled. Drew Lawrence responded to her words, and she threw back her head and laughed.
There was nobody in this world whose laugh sounded like Casey’s, and he’d heard far too little of it lately. Tonight, in that dress, in this setting, it was impossible to tell that she’d had more than her share of dark days in the past few weeks. Watching her, he could almost believe that this beautiful woman whose laughter floated on the air wasn’t a doppelgänger, that she was his strong, capable, lovely wife.
But appearances were known to deceive. Tonight, she had deliberately put on what she referred to as her company face, which would easily mislead anybody who didn’t know her well. It seemed to be working. Her companions appeared delighted with her company, and he suspected he was the only person in the room who knew that beneath that warm and charming persona was a woman who had crying spells for no reason, nightmares that kept her awake at night, and random bouts of grief so strong they would have flattened a lesser woman. She tried to keep it all hidden, and thought he didn’t know about most of it, but he knew her too well. When she hurt, he hurt, and lately, he’d been hurting most of the time.
Somebody hip-bumped him. He turned to see who it was, and found Phoenix standing there, holding his own bottle of beer. “I had serious doubts,” the kid said, “that you’d actually show up tonight.”
“It was a struggle.” He eyed the bottle of Rolling Rock. “And by the way, Phee, you’re not old enough to drink.”
“Too late for that. I’ve been doing it since I was twelve. No reason to quit now. And stop calling me Phee.”
Maybe there was no reason to quit now, but that didn’t mean the record company should be supplying it gratis. The kid should at least have to work for it. Nobody was doing him any favors, handing everything to him on a silver platter. He needed to learn the meaning of good, honest work. That was what built character, and right now, the kid could use some character building. He was hovering on the cusp of something, and it could go either way. If he fell on the right side of the fence, his future would be bright. If he fell the wrong way, he might be doomed.
And, damn it, it wasn’t up to Rob MacKenzie to save the kid from himself. He had enough problems of his own. His wife, his daughters, his marriage, his career. He didn’t need to add any more responsibility to an already heavy load. “Happy birthday,” he said glumly, and upended his beer.
“Where’s the lovely Mrs. MacKenzie?”
“Drew spirited her away. Looks like I’m on my own. Where’s Luther?”
“I told him to mingle. This is a highly secure private party. His services aren’t really necessary tonight. Come check out my cake.” He gestured with his beer bottle. “You’re certainly old enough to appreciate it.”
The kid wound his way through the room, stopping every so often to converse with his fawning subjects. Rob followed, alternately amused and irritated by the fawning. This bouncy pop crap that Phoenix was singing would not stand the test of time. Where would all these people be in five years, when there was a new kid in town, and Phoenix was just a faint memory?
They stopped in front of the cake. Ariel Records had really gone all out. The gargantuan cake was a wonder fashioned of sugar and flour and white icing in the shape of an old-fashioned portable record player, the kind that opened and closed like a suitcase. The cover was up, and on the turntable was a 45 record with the Ariel logo and the title of Phoenix’s first hit single. The words HAPPY BIRTHDAY PHOENIX were written in red lettering on the cover of the record player. The damn thing must have cost a fortune. “Nice,” he said.
“You don’t like it.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to say it. What, are you jealous because nobody ever did anything like this for you?”
Stung, he said, “You know what, Phee? One of these days, you’ll learn to think before you open your mouth.” And he turned and stalked away.
“Hey!” Phoenix’s voice floated behind him. “I was just needling you. Don’t be so bleedin’ touchy!”
Ignoring him, Rob shoved his way through the crowd, marched up to the singer, who had just put to bed Laura Nyro’s Sweet Blindness, and handed her one of the Two Dreamers business cards he always carried in his wallet. “Great pipes,” he said. “If Ariel Records doesn’t treat you the way they should, give me a call.”
He left her standing there, card in hand and mouth sagging open, and went in search of his wife. “Excuse me,” he said to her companions, catching her by the arm and dragging her away from their conversation. “I need my wife.”
&nbs
p; When they were far enough away for some semblance of privacy, she said, “That was very rude, Flash.”
“I don’t care. We’re cutting out. I’ve had enough of this.”
“What happened?”
“Nothing happened. I just don’t want to be here anymore.”
“Rob—”
He turned to respond, and the singer said into her mic, “We have a special treat for you tonight. The birthday boy is going to sing us a couple of songs.”
Applause. Some of it enthusiastic, most of it merely polite. “Come on,” he said, more gently, and began moving her toward the door.
Behind them, Phoenix took the mic. “Thank you,” he said. “I promised the record company that I’d do this tonight…under one condition. That my producer perform with me. So where are you, Rob MacKenzie?”
Six steps from the doorway, Rob turned and glared. “That little bastard,” he said.
“Over here,” some woman shouted, waving a hand in the air and pointing to Rob. “He’s over here.”
Expectant faces turned in his direction. “Shit,” he muttered, as the spotlight that had been focused on the band suddenly illuminated him with bright, white light. “Now what do I do?”
“You smile and nod, and you get up on the stage and perform.”
“Great,” he said through the fake smile that he’d plastered on his face.
“What’s wrong, babe? It’s not rocket science. You’ve been performing since you were nine years old. You love performing.”
Still smiling, he said, “Not with that little piss-ant.”
“Then you have two options. Bite the bullet and get it over with, or walk out and make a scene. I’m behind you, one hundred percent. No matter which door you choose.”
It was too late for door number two. Everybody in the room was looking in his direction. There was no way he could gracefully bow out now. There was no way he could bow out at all, not without making a fool of himself. His eyes met hers, communicated a silent message. She took his hand, and together, they moved in the direction of the stage. The party guests, their enthusiasm level pumped up a notch, parted like the Red Sea as he and Casey made their way to where Phoenix waited, microphone in hand. “What took you so long?” Phoenix said, and everybody laughed.
Rob glared at him, peeled off the linen jacket and handed it to his wife, unbuttoned his cuffs and rolled them up, and hopped up onto the stage. The singer he’d just given his card to beamed, and the guitarist lifted his guitar strap over his head and handed Rob the guitar.
Compared to what he was accustomed to, it was a small audience, probably three hundred people. Still, it had been a while since he’d performed in front of an audience any larger than the thirty people who’d gathered in the music store to hear him play. He lifted the strap over his head, adjusted it against his shoulder, ran his fingertips over the strings to check the tuning. His ear told him it was right, so he leaned toward the kid and said, loud enough for the audience to hear, “What are we playing?”
“Funny you should ask,” Phoenix said. “Since you’re so fond of the Beatles, how about Twist and Shout? That is, if you even know it.”
There was scattered applause. Rob glanced over his shoulder, the drummer nodded, and he leaned toward Phoenix again, this time speaking quietly, for the kid’s ears only. “Bite me,” he said.
And launched into the achingly familiar riff that started the song.
Casey
There was something significant about this moment, something life-altering, although she couldn’t pinpoint what it was. The song was one that everybody knew, and with its irresistible rhythm, there wasn’t a body in the house that wasn’t moving to the music. Early Beatles, from the days when their music was fun and light-hearted and could be understood without an interpreter. Rob let Phoenix take the lead, although he could certainly have carried it himself.
For inexplicable reasons, Rob MacKenzie had never considered himself a decent vocalist. Was it because he’d always played second banana to Danny? Was he still harboring some ridiculous feeling of inferiority? If so, it was time for her to kick his sexy butt from here to Kingdom Come. Measuring his voice against Danny’s was crazy, because a voice like Danny Fiore’s didn’t come along every day. Nobody could sing like her late husband.
But that didn’t mean Rob couldn’t sing. His voice was clear and true and strong. Tonight, he’d chosen to harmonize and let the birthday boy carry the melody. Phoenix was, after all, the reason they were all gathered here tonight. It was an amazing experience, hearing the two of them blend their voices in a harmony so sweet it was impossible to believe they hadn’t been singing together for years.
Something happened to Rob MacKenzie when he stepped onstage. He wasn’t like Danny, who’d changed personalities the instant he stepped into the spotlight. Larger than life, Danny Fiore had possessed an enormous talent and an ego to match. He’d been the consummate showman, and that in-your-face personality had been as responsible for his popularity as his amazing voice or his staggering good looks.
Rob’s talent was quieter. There was no ego involved. Where for Danny, it had been about the fame, about making a name for himself and proving his worth, for Rob, it was about the music. Period. Onstage or off, he possessed an incredible ability to lose himself in the music, to forget any audience even existed. That was part of what drew people to him. His lack of pretension was rare in the entertainment business, where everybody and his second cousin wanted to be the center of attention. Rob didn’t give two hoots about the attention. He just wanted to play his music.
There was a reason they called it playing. That’s what it was. Creative play, the kind that fed your soul and gave you wings. He’d been so lucky—they’d both been so lucky—to make a life and a career built around the music they loved. Rob came to life on stage, not because he had an inflated ego, not because he wanted to be the center of attention, but because music was how he communicated with the world around him.
It was Phoenix who brought surprises to the table. The enfant terrible, he of the canned, pre-fab pop music, could actually sing. And it was no wonder that every teenage girl on the planet was gaga over him. In spite of any possible personality flaws, the kid was heart-stoppingly handsome: long and lean, with gorgeous blue eyes, a beautifully sculpted face, and that perfect dark hair that fell in soft waves to his shoulders. And so young, with little more than peach fuzz on his upper lip. At eighteen, he had a long way to go before he’d reach manhood.
That wasn’t the last surprise. Rob, who was never one to grumble, had been grousing about Phoenix Hightower almost from day one. The kid was a thorn in his side, and he’d clearly been mad at Phoenix when he’d grabbed her by the arm and dragged her to the door, intent on making his escape from this lovely event.
Yet their onstage chemistry was unparalleled. They struck sparks off each other in a way she’d seen only once before: when he’d worked with Danny.
While she pondered the possible significance of this development, they finished the song, to roaring applause and shouts of “Encore! Encore!” Rob looked up, sought her eyes, and gave her one of those amazing, heart-stopping grins.
And it struck her, hard, that he’d made a monumental mistake when he’d stopped performing. Music was Rob MacKenzie’s religion, the spiritual connection that brought him closer to whatever he perceived as God than sitting in any church ever could. If she hadn’t been so consumed with her own problems, she would have noticed that he was getting restless.
Their Two Dreamers record label kept him busy. They’d started small and stayed small, with just two new artists signed to the label so far. Writing, producing, recording, and promoting two debut albums took up most of his time. Although the business end of it had been a tangle, her sister had helped with that.
But he’d stopped playing. Not completely, of course. But for most of his adult life, Rob had spent at least an hour every day—most days more than that—playing his guitar. He didn’t do it anymor
e. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen him pick up a guitar and play it. Not unless he was sitting in on a recording session. He’d been too busy making other musicians successful to devote any time to his own music. And it was a dreadful mistake.
He’d taken on the side job of producing Phoenix’s album only because Drew had begged. He hadn’t done it for the money, but out of loyalty to the man who’d been responsible for getting their music heard by more than just a local audience. Drew could be a pill at times, but if he hadn’t heard Danny Fiore singing in a Manhattan club fifteen years ago and recognized that he was looking at a future superstar, none of this would have happened. He’d taken the three of them on as a package deal, and their careers had skyrocketed to a place light years beyond their youthful dreams.
So whenever Drew called, Rob always answered. Even when he didn’t want to. Drew Lawrence had launched a very successful career for Rob MacKenzie. And Rob’s philosophy was, and always had been: Never forget where you come from.
Her husband was, without question, the most talented man she’d ever met. He breathed music the way other people breathed oxygen. He was smart, enthusiastic, intuitive, playful, and his instincts were spot-on. Rob excelled at everything he did: songwriting, arranging, producing, even the scut work of promoting.
But none of those things defined Rob MacKenzie. He was, first and always, a musician. A musician needed to be heard, and where Rob excelled the most was in front of an audience. Because as good as he was at all those other things, his heart belonged, had always belonged, to performing.
Onstage, their heads close together, he and Phoenix conferred, too quietly for the mic to pick up what they were saying. Rob raised his eyebrows, and Phoenix began talking again in a low voice. Rob shrugged, and Phoenix nodded to the rest of the band.
And the piano player started out.
Three notes in, she recognized the song. She knew it because Rob had written it, had recorded it on his second—and last—solo album. How Phoenix had known, she had no idea. But clearly, for some reason she had yet to determine, the kid had planned this “impromptu” performance in advance.
The Miles Between Us Page 17
