by Karina Halle
Butterflies swirled in my stomach at that.
“Come on, tell me about Dawn Emerson. Where were you born?”
“Ellensburg, Washington. Home of the rodeo.”
He smirked. “And were you ever part of the rodeo?”
I cleared my throat and said defiantly, “Yes, actually. Every year. And I win every year.”
I shot him a sideways glance and saw he was staring at me, mouth agape.
“Well, go on,” he said, wide-eyed.
“I do barrel racing with my horse. Moonglow. This was supposed to be our last year. We’ve came first or in the top three in the last seven years I’ve been doing this.”
I was totally prepared for him to laugh. He looked stunned. Then impressed. “Why is this supposed to be your last year?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m getting old or something.”
“You’re, what, twenty-one?”
“Yeah, so?”
“That’s not old.”
“Then I’m over it. People grow out of things.”
I knew I was sounding defensive. The truth was, the fact that I was getting over the whole rodeo and racing circuit scared me. I liked to hold onto the way things were, even the shitty things. And I knew it made my dad proud. It always had, even in the toughest times.
“That’s true. People do. They change. So what will fill the void?”
I laughed quietly. “You know what? I have no freaking idea, man.”
“Not music journalism?”
The funny thing was I always thought it would. But now that I was on the road and living it, I wasn’t feeling fulfilled. I was feeling confused.
“I don’t know…maybe. I hope so.”
“Do you love music?”
I looked at him askance. “Of course I love music.”
“Maybe that’s enough then,” he said. “Just to love it.”
I chewed on my lip and thought about that, my eyes drifting over to Noelle’s hunched over back and the black lace of her scratchy shirt.
“Can you play music?” he asked, his voice getting lower, like he was afraid of disturbing me. “Like an instrument? Can you sing?”
“I can play guitar,” I admitted. “I can sing a little too, but I’m not very good.”
“Will you play for me one day?” he asked huskily. He leaned more toward me. “Will you sing for me?”
My cheeks heated up at the prospect.
“I don’t know…”
“And something original. I’d like to hear something from your heart.”
I smiled in amusement. “That’s borderline corny, Sage Knightly.”
“Perhaps I’m secretly borderline corny then. This is off the record, of course.”
“Oh, of course.”
“You do that for me, and we’ll be even.”
I raised my brows. “I wasn’t aware we had a score to settle.”
That look of melancholy blazed in his eyes again and he let out a puff of air. “I know you weren’t.”
“Why…” I began but couldn’t finish.
He smiled shyly. “I’m vague again. Sorry.”
“I just never know what you’re talking about. I get that you didn’t want a journalist here on tour but come on. It’s not that bad. It’s not even historic like Jacob said.”
His gaze snapped to mine. “Jacob said what?”
I was a bit put off by his sudden change in demeanor. He went from corny to intense in two seconds flat.
“He said, well, he told Barry Kramer at Creem that someone needed to cover this tour because it was going to be historic or go down in history or something like that, and that I should be the poor sap to document it all.”
Sage frowned and looked away. The silence around us was heavy, punctuated only by the occasional cry from inside the bar and the hum of jazz music.
He cleared his throat. I expected him to elaborate on why he seemed so shocked about what Jacob said, but instead he started to get to his feet. “Can you watch Noe for a second? I’m going to see if they can call us another cab. The bus will leave without us.”
I doubted the bus would leave without the bassist and lead guitarist, but I did what he said and brought Noelle up next to me while he disappeared into the bar, his flip-flops echoing in the night.
While I waited, Noelle stirred and began to mumble out sentences.
“The demon,” she said, her head swinging between her knees.
I leaned in close. “What was that, Noelle?”
“It’s that demon in white, always in white.” Her voice became higher and clearer.
I looked back at the bar and wished Sage would hurry it up. If I knew any better, he was probably inside having a few shots. Noelle was really losing it and scaring me at the same time.
“She wants me. She wants me,” she repeated. It sent chills up my arms.
I rubbed her back and whispered, “Who wants you? Who is the demon in white?”
She began to whimper and rocked back and forth with more force. “I saw her. Every night I see her. She gets in my thoughts. It gets in my head. She keeps coming.”
Suddenly her head sprang up and I thought my heart was going to bound out of my chest. She looked straight at me, totally sober, a pure fear sparkling in her blue eyes.
“Sage did this. He did this,” she alleged in a raw, throaty voice. “He brought this on us. On me!”
My breath became ragged, the goosebumps marching along my arms.
“What did he bring?” I choked out.
She collapsed against me, and I caught the words, “monsters, monsters, all of them” coming from her lips.
Just then bright lights appeared on the street and I let out a huge breath of relief when I saw the cabbie sign on the roof.
The door to the bar swung open and Sage ran out. Before I had a chance to digest what Noelle had told me, he was at our side and lifting Noelle to her feet like a ragdoll. He waved at the car and shot a look at me.
“Aren’t you coming?” he asked.
I stared at him, dumbfounded and kind of scared. What the fuck was Noelle just talking about? Sage brought this? Brought what?
“Dawn, are you all right?”
I finally found the strength to ease myself off the curb and I gave him a quick smile. “I’m fine. Let’s go.”
The cabbie didn’t look too pleased at having to give a ride to a drunken invalid and initially refused, but Sage stuck an extra wad of bills into his hand and that seemed to turn him around.
Once in the cab, Sage and I were engulfed in an awkward silence. At least it felt awkward to me. He smelled like whiskey so I was right about him going back in the bar and drinking, and he seemed to be lost in his own little world. Meanwhile, I went over what Noelle had been saying. Most of it was just the drunken rantings of an upset rock star, but some of it made sense. For one, she mentioned the woman in white and it was too much of a coincidence for her not to mean Sonja. But calling her a demon? Unless she meant that figuratively and I wouldn’t put it past Noelle to call every woman out there the spawn of Satan.
Plus, whatever Sage brought upon all of them was pretty much everything. He was the boss, the genius, the real voice. He made the band what they were. He brought everything to Hybrid and without him there would be no band.
As for the monsters…well, that could have been figurative too. Monsters of the music industry. Groupies. Journalists. The band. Everyone was suspect, not just actual monsters. There were no such things as monsters.
But I couldn’t deny the icy fingers that clamped around my chest the moment she uttered those words. I couldn’t help but think of the noises that came from underneath the bunk that night I was on drugs, the sick, insect-like shadow I saw on the walls before I passed out. Of course, that was the answer: I was on drugs. That was the easy explanation. But it didn’t explain this uneasiness and fear that never seemed to go away.
I looked up at Sage, his face half in shadows, half lit up in the amber glow of a passing light. It was odd t
o still want him after the weirdness of tonight. Maybe it was the prickles at the back of my neck or the fact that he was still a very mysterious, sensual man who was crammed up beside me in the dark. Maybe it was that I had listened to his music while lying on the floor of my bedroom for hours on end. Maybe because at heart I really was just a lowly little journalist, a college student who had no real reason to be there. Maybe it was all of those things. It didn’t really matter.
Carefully, like I had the power to ruin everything with one touch, I rested my head on his meaty shoulder. It twitched, briefly, as I caught him by surprise. Then he relaxed back in his seat and I knew this was okay, if just for the ride home.
I closed my eyes.
Twelve
One thing about staying on a tour bus is the lack of hygiene. Not that anyone was beginning to stink, except for Graham, but that’s because he kept rubbing weird oils all over himself. But I found it frustrating that the hot water was almost always gone, so I was left with giving myself a sponge and water bath in a room the size of a closet. Thank goodness for dry shampoo, best invention of the 1970s.
My head was deep in the fruity smelling cloud of powder when I felt someone come on the bus and saw Mickey heading for the back room.
I poked my head out of the washroom and looked over at him. It was a cloudy, hot day in Philadelphia and he should have been inside doing soundcheck with the rest of the band.
“How’s it going?” I asked, trying to rub the dry shampoo out of my head.
He paused when he heard me, his hand deep in a leather satchel.
“It’s going,” he said. Then he resumed searching for something. Seconds later he pulled out a small bag of weed. He stared at me with a defensive expression, like I was going to lecture him on drug use or something.
It occurred to me that now was the perfect time to get my Mickey interview and I knew just the way to do it.
“Aren’t you supposed to be with the band?”
He frowned. “Not really. I’m too hungover to do the soundcheck. A tech is checking it for me.”
“Do you mind if you smoke a bit of that with me?” I asked, making my eyes big and pleading.
“Uh…okay,” he said, a bit taken aback. “I was just going to go for a walk around the building. Nothing special.”
I grinned. “That’s perfect! Give me a second.”
I quickly ran a few drops of patchouli oil on my hair to tame the frizz then grabbed my messenger bag that had my notepad and tape recorder in it.
We left the bus, and as we strolled, I pretended that Mickey didn’t make me feel extremely awkward. He was the hardest one out of the bunch to read and the one guy I felt like I never really knew. Well, unless you counted Graham. But I tried not to.
We rounded the corner, away from the backstage area, before Mickey lit up. We stopped near a loading dock and took a seat on the cement steps. The dark clouds above us looked ominous and the heat they were trapping below was stifling.
After Mickey took a few puffs, he passed it to me. I took only the smallest bit, needing to keep a sharp mind. I wanted, needed, him to open up and he was always more jovial when he was high as fuck.
A few minutes of increasingly comfortable silence flew past before I asked, “Do you mind if I interview you now?”
He snorted, smoke coming out of his nose. “Aw, man, Rusty. This was your plan wasn’t it?”
“I’m just trying to make you comfortable,” I said, raising my hands in peace.
“Well, you did that all right. Okay. Fine. Ask your stupid questions.”
So I brought out the tape recorder and the notepad where I had already made a list of “stupid” questions and started the interview. It was hard to be as professional as I should have been, considering I was high and laughing half the time. But Mickey was laughing too.
At least he was, until I started asking the serious questions.
“How’s your relationship with Noelle?” I searched his face. The reason he was so hard to read sometimes was because he hid beneath so much facial hair. It made his expressions subtle and made him look much older than he was.
“Noe…” he started. He sighed and scratched absently at his beard. “Noe is my everything.”
“How do you explain the groupies then?” I knew it was a bit of a rude, not to mention personal question, but my interviewing tactics had gotten bolder these days.
I wasn’t surprised by the dirty look he gave me.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“I mean…” I began, trying to say it properly, “you’re in a relationship with the same woman for years. You’re childhood sweethearts. Yet it’s kinda obvious that you hook up on the road. I’m just curious as to how your relationship survives that.”
He fell quiet, his sharp eyes searching the empty lot in front of us. I swallowed hard, hoping I didn’t piss him off too much and waited with bated breath for him to say something, anything.
Finally he gave me a gentle smile. “I think being part of the band is the hardest fucking thing in the world. I wouldn’t have survived this long if it wasn’t for Noe. She’s been my island since the beginning. Is she perfect? No. You see me sleeping around with the groupies but she’s no angel either. Oh no. But I still love her and that’s a love that doesn’t go away. I know I’m not perfect either. We make our imperfectness work. If she asked me to change, I’d change for her. And she’d change for me. But we love each other too much to ask for anything more than just staying alive. Rock music, you know, bands, all this shit. It kills you. The industry kills you. Your bandmates might even kill you. Sometimes I get the feeling like this whole thing, the band, the tour, everything, I feel like it’s a big joke and one day we’re going to get it, and we’re not going to be laughing. But Noe’s part of the joke, too. So I go forward and so does she. That’s how we survive. Because we have each other.”
I didn’t think I’d ever heard Mickey talk that much and I quickly checked my tape recorder in a mild panic, hoping it was working. It was, the wheels were turning, and I did a dance of joy inside from having just snagged a wealth of pull quotes from that one long, surprisingly heartfelt ramble.
“That’s kind of beautiful, Mickey,” I told him.
He held my gaze steadily. “It’s the truth. Beauty or not. I love Noelle. She loves me. Noe and I aren’t typical but we love and we make it work. You need love in a business like this. If you don’t have love, then none of this means anything.”
He put the joint out on the ground and stuffed the roach into a pack of cigarettes.
“You mind if we go back now?” He asked, getting to his feet. “I feel like a rat missing soundcheck like this.”
He pulled me up by my arms and I smiled gratefully. “Thank you. It was nice to hear you speak.”
“Anytime you wanna smoke a little something something, you know where to look.”
I took that as a very welcoming sign.
I pressed the stop button on the recorder with a satisfying click and we walked back around the building until we were near the bus and the back doors again.
“Hey, Rusty,” Chip hollered at me, sticking his head out the backstage door. “Phone’s for you!”
I stopped in the middle of the parking lot and looked back at Chip.
“Who is it?”
Though unlikely, Mel or my brother could have found out what venue the band was playing at. I hoped it was them saying hello, but part of my chest froze up with a burst of worry. What if it was Dad? Maybe he got drunk and hurt himself or choked on his own vomit. What if Eric was beaten up at school and was in the hospital. What if—
“It’s Barry Kramer from Creem!” Chip yelled back.
Okay. That wasn’t so bad. But I had a feeling Barry didn’t call you if he had good news…unless the band was going to be on the cover.
Fixating on that positive, I gave Mickey a small smile and ran across the lot, my humidity-challenged hair flowing behind me.
“Thanks,” I tol
d Chip and ran over to the payphone inside the backstage area.
“Dawn here,” I said into the receiver.
“Dawn, it’s Barry,” he said through the line.
I swallowed hard. “Yeah. Hi, Barry, what can I do you for?”
“Oh, not too much. How are you?”
I scratched nervously at my head. “I’m good, good. Tired.”
“And the band?”
“They’re…you know. Good. Being themselves. Noelle got pretty drunk after the Detroit show, and out of sympathy, Mickey was plastered on stage the next night in New York. But I just got a good interview out of him, so there’s that.”
“I know about the New York show, I read the review in the Times,” he said absently. “But that’s not why I’m calling.”
I scratched harder. “No?”
“Dawn…I’m playing a hunch here. Just a feeling. Normally I’m not sticking my honker in our writers’ business, and hell you’re not really our writer anyway, but I kind of like you and I just wanted to give you a heads up.”
He paused and I couldn’t think of anything to say.
“We’ve been getting some letters here at the office about you.”
“About me?” I asked with widening eyes. The scratching stopped.
“Yes. I don’t know who they are from and there’s no return address, but they’ve obviously been written by some sort of fan with an agenda.”
“Well, what are they saying?”
“That you’re a fraud. That you’re crazy and were a stalker and a groupie and all that usual shit that women like to sling at each other.”
“Terri,” I whispered, thinking of when she was talking to Jacob.
“As I said, I don’t know her name. But this girl thinks she has it in with the band and the manager. She acts like she’s with them, that’s she’s been the number one fan from the beginning. That she gets special privileges. That normally isn’t any reason to call you like this, but based on the fact that I’ve got twenty fucking letters here from her, I’d say we’ve probably got a nutter on our hands. And by that I mean you are dealing with a nutter on your hands. I just want you to stay safe, Dawn.”
Once I found my voice, I told him about Sonja, Terri, and Sparky.
