Bittersweet Chronicles: Pax (30 page)

“Damn, Joss. I guess that’s what you get for trying to become a property owner in some swanky, high-security building. You should just rent-a-mansion like Tam and I do.”

I take a big bite out of the BLT so I can’t respond to his idiocy. The house he and Tammy are leasing is 10,000 square feet of gilded trash. There are chandeliers in every room, black satin walls in the bedroom, metallic gold ceilings in the living room, and a fireplace so enormous you can stand up in it. Basically what the family from the Honey Boo Boo TV show would live in if they won the lottery. Tammy’s got better taste than that, but she’ll give Walsh whatever he wants if he’ll stay away from the bottle, and
he
has no taste whatsoever.

Mike and Colin have spotted the food Tammy brought and come out of the sound booth, wrestling with each other like a couple of overgrown puppies. “Munchies!” hollers Colin as he puts Mike in a headlock and gives him a noogie.

“Christ, you two,” I mumble. “Give it a rest. We’re twenty-seven goddamn years old.”

“Who pissed in your Wheaties, glamour boy?” asks Mike, a hard glint coming into his eye. I was right—he’s drunk. And that means it’s going to be a long night. He’s a mean drunk, and these days a jealous one as well. He’s made it no secret that he feels my role as lead singer has overshadowed his as lead guitarist, and that’s pissing him off to no end. He’s taken to calling me names like a ten-year-old and denigrating both my vocals and my songwriting, even though the success of
Your Air
—which I wrote and sang—should dispel those accusations pretty handily.

I couldn’t give a shit what Mike thinks of me, but I’m tired of the constant friction, and one of these days I’m not going to be so taciturn. When that happens, we’re going balls to the wall, Mike and me.

“Mike, dude, take it down a notch,” says Walsh, ever the happy-go-lucky peacemaker.

“Whatever,” Mike mumbles around his ham and cheese. He pulls a flask out of his back jeans pocket and splashes some booze into his soda.

“And you might want to take it easy on that stuff too when we haven’t even started the work day yet,” Walsh adds, pulling Tammy in for a quick kiss on the cheek as she sits down next to him on the sofa.

My stomach flips at the soft look that crosses her face when he kisses her. The sandwich turns to sawdust in my mouth and I take a big swig of soda to wash it down. She loves him, she’s always loved him, and I know I was a huge mistake in her book. She was in mine as well, but only because she belongs to Walsh, not because of
her
. I would give anything to have what she and Walsh have, but I know I never will—and certainly not with her. I think she regrets that night, not just because she regrets betraying Walsh, but because she regrets
me
. I can’t decide if that hurts me or infuriates me more.

“What the fuck, Walsh?” says Mike as he leans against the wall, chewing his food. “You so high and mighty now you have to preach sobriety everywhere you go? Unlike you, my friend, I can handle my substances. I’m not an alcoholic, and I’m over twenty-one, so I can drink whenever the hell I want.”

Walsh shakes his head and looks at Mike patiently. “Hey, you may be able to handle your shit better than me, but when you can’t make it through a single recording session without being loaded, you’ve got a problem, man.”

With the impeccable timing to go along with his impeccable grooming, our manager, Dave Keller, walks in. Today he’s in business casual—a pair of designer jeans, a pressed short-sleeved Polo shirt, and loafers with no socks. He looks like a chump, but the fact is, as shitty as I treat him, he’s a good guy and he’s taken our career exactly where we asked him to. It’s not his fault I changed my mind somewhere along the road.

“Fellas,” Dave says as he scans the small room that overlooks Recording Studio B, suddenly famous as the site where
Your Air
was recorded. “Glad you’re all here.” Everyone grunts and nods at him as we continue stuffing our faces—or drowning our livers, as the case may be. “I’ve got some news I think you’re going to like.”

“Lemme guess.” Mike puts his hand in the air and jumps up and down in an imitation of a little kid. “Congress wants to pass a law requiring everyone to bow to Joss, and all families have to donate their eighteen-year-old daughters for one night to become his pleasure slaves.”

Dave scowls at Mike. “Play nice now, son. Daddy doesn’t want to have to separate you boys.”

I mutter something particularly vulgar under my breath, but Mike is either too big of a pussy to acknowledge it or too drunk to hear it.

Meanwhile, Tammy and Walsh are snuggled on the sofa, and she’s watching us like we’re a reality TV show. Her hand is in Walsh’s hair and she’s stroking it softly, a small smile playing around her lips. He leans in to her touch and I see his hand snake around her waist and begin stroking the strip of bare flesh that’s exposed by her cropped t-shirt. I remember what that skin felt like under my own fingertips—how warm and smooth it was, like heated velvet—and I’m sick from the loss and the guilt.

My heart rate accelerates and my breath hitches, that god-awful pain in my gut starting up again. No one notices of course. Except Tammy. She gives me a hard glance and looks slightly ill herself as she scoots away from Walsh. I see her flush and know she’s remembering too. I wonder if she’s as fucking sick and tired of feeling like this as I am.

“I’ve added another stop to your tour,” Dave continues now that Mike has shut up. “You’re going to play Coachella.” Everyone looks at him, unimpressed. “But as headliners, boys.
You
. Are the show. Last year, attendance was 225,000 people. It beat out Glastonbury by 50k. You’re going where Eddie went first,” he finishes, referencing Eddie Vedder and Pearl Jam, the original Coachella performers. Many fans consider Pearl Jam to be the granddaddies of Lush. I like them fine, but I certainly never modeled my music on them. My music’s just what it is, what I am. And right now, that’s a whole lot of unhappy.

But I rally. “That’s great, man. How the hell did you swing it?”

“Fuckin’ Coachellllaaa!” hollers Colin as he high-fives Mike, who is whooping. “Duuude, you da man!”

Dave rolls his eyes and turns to me and Walsh, since we seem to be the only ones coherent enough to listen. “You’ll be headliners on the east stage the third day. It falls between your gigs in Atlanta and Miami, so you won’t be able to come home that weekend like we’d planned, but I figured it was worth the extra stop to get you in front of that many people.”

“Sounds fine. Thanks a lot for setting it up,” I tell him with as much enthusiasm as I can muster.

Walsh nods in agreement and then goes back to undressing Tammy with his eyes. He’s always been into her, but since he got out of rehab, he’s been so fucking in love with her that, if I didn’t know something of how he feels, I’d find it repulsive. But I realize he can’t help it. I wonder if he’d believe I couldn’t help sleeping with her that night. It just happened—no thought, no master plans. Somehow I doubt that excuse would fly.

And what he’d really never get is it’s because he and Tammy are so damn in love that I slept with her. I’ve watched them for thirteen years, and at my lowest, most desolate point, when my mother passed away and my best friend looked like he might never come back to me, I just wanted what he had with Tammy more than I wanted anything else in this world. Just once I needed to feel what they felt when they were together.

I’ve come to realize though that it wasn’t the girl who made that magic, it was her
with
Walsh. The combination of the two of them. I didn’t love her, but her with him. I wanted what they have, but I didn’t get it by having her. I just got a gut of pain and self-loathing.

“Tammy?” Dave interrupts the love fest on the sofa. “Did you want to tell the guys about Mel or should I?”

“Oh!” she sits up straighter and bats away Walsh’s roaming hands. “So, you guys remember my little sister, Mel?” Everyone nods obediently. “Well, she’s finishing up her MFA at Seattle College this semester. She’s a photographer.”

“A photographer?” interrupts Mike, scowling.

“Shut it. My girl is talking,” warns Walsh.

“Thanks, honey,” Tammy coos. “So, Dave and I talked, and he’s agreed to let Mel come on tour with us this summer. She’ll do a photo essay of the tour that we can put into digital and print layouts to release at the same time as the new album. We’re going to call it
As Lush As It Gets
, after the tour title, and we’ll have it available via download as a slide show, a DVD, and a hardback coffee table book. We’ll give download codes for the new single to the first few thousand people who buy either of the electronic formats, so we’ll be using it to push the album from the start.”

“And what’s Mel’s cut of everything?” I ask, not that I really care. We’ve got plenty of money already, but I know I’d be a crappy businessman if I didn’t ask questions like this.

“Twenty percent plus a salary for the summer and all her expenses paid on the tour,” answers Dave.

Everyone else seems fine with the finances. Mike is looking like he’s about to slide down the wall to pass out, and Colin’s thumbing through some guitar magazine that was lying on the coffee table. Walsh is smiling and nodding because, after all, it’s his future sister-in-law. What the hell can he say about it?
      “And access?” I ask, getting to the real heart of the issue.

“Unlimited,” Dave responds, his jaw set.

Mike snaps out of his stupor. “What the fuck?”

“Dude, that is such a bad idea,” Colin seconds.

“Dave, we’ve been over this,” I chime in, feeling adrenaline start to course through my veins.

Dave holds up a hand to stop me mid-sentence. “Look, I know you guys don’t want to be ‘that band.’ I understand, and I respect it. I realize everyone is entitled to some privacy, and being ‘fucked up’ as you so frequently put it, Joss, isn’t where you want to make your name. However,”—he stops and looks seriously at each one of us—“you can’t go your whole careers and never give the fans anything but a website and live concerts. That isn’t how this business is run. If you don’t give them some access, the media will make the shit up. They’ll ruin you before you can even get started. The smartest way to handle it is to maintain control over access. Give them their taste, but you’re in control always. By doing this with Tammy’s sister, we can be guaranteed your best interests will be at the forefront. She’s not going to ruin her future brother-in-law’s reputation, gentlemen.”

“What about
our
reputations?” asks Mike belligerently.

“They’re one and the same,” replies Dave. “Something you all need to remember. You have to realize, Melanie wants to be credible as a photojournalist. If it looks too much like a fluff promo piece no one will be happy. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t in control of what’s going on behind the scenes. She knows the score here, and she’s going to respect the band and its image. This shit is going to launch her career into the stratosphere. She doesn’t want to fuck that up.” Dave ends by looking at me, because, ultimately, it’s my decision. You see, there’s something the outside world may not realize, and it’s not such a pretty thing to say.

I’ve been with Mike and Walsh since grade school. We met Colin when we were seventeen and looking for a bass player. We’ve been through it all together, living out of our cars, eating nothing but popcorn and beans for days on end, my mom’s death, Walsh’s bottoming out and four months in rehab. Girlfriends who came and went, parents who disowned us, and club owners who stole our money. But our deep dark secret is that, while we may have lived with one another and performed together and been friends all these years, we’re not really much of a band. Being a band implies the music is a joint endeavor, the decisions are made together, the effort is universal.

While there are lots of promo pictures showing
four
badass guys in leather and denim, in the end, Lush isn’t four. Lush is me. I’m the voice, the face, the songwriting, and the brain of this operation, and that’s not being cocky, just goddamned truthful.

Mike has been like acid etching away at my shell bit by bit over the last year. He questions everything I do and challenges me every chance he gets. His envy is eating him alive, and it may eventually eat through the delicate thread that binds the four of us.

But while I fear for Lush, I fear more for myself right now. Anyone can play my music. I can survive the breakup of the band. What I’m not sure I’ll survive is the relentless guilt I feel over Tammy DiLorenzo. She’s sitting next to Walsh in a pair of skin-tight jeans and a cropped t-shirt, and having her there—a constant reminder of my worst life mistake—is like having a flame licking ever closer to my skin, singeing me, charring me a little more each and every day. Some heat tempers you, makes you harder and more impervious to damage, but I’m starting to think that night with Tammy is actually the sort of heat that will reduce me to ashes.

“All right,” I say to Dave. “You win. We’ll give full access, but we sure as hell better be in control of it.”

Dave gives me a quick nod. “Good. I’ll let you guys get to work. I’ll hear the second single next week?”

“Yep, next week,” I say and stand to go in the studio, where I’ll spend the next six hours pouring my heart out into a microphone while the flame burns ever closer.

**

Want the rest? A Lush Betrayal is FREE here:
http://amzn.to/1cCZW0g

About the Author:

Selena Laurence lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and spends a hell of a lot of time at soccer games, on her laptop, and reading. She requires a Mocha Latte every day to function, keeps a goldendoodle at her feet most of the time, and has more kids than she knows what to do with. Her husband, Mr. Laurence, spends as much time as he can at the office and the gym in order to avoid the kids, the dog, the laptop and the reading, but he always shows up for the soccer games, and he makes a mean Mocha Latte.