Courtship of the Cake (5 page)

“What? You want me to take a Breathalyzer test before you'll ride
with me?” He leaned against the metal supports of the cart's roof and gave me a lazy brow arch.

“No. I just figured . . . you had somewhere else to be.”

“Nowhere but away from them.” He jerked his head in the direction of the eager fans that were still pacing along the fencing, hoping to catch a photo or an autograph as he left the Kids' Zone compound.

Riggs had already moved to the rear-facing jump seat of the small cart, phone to his ear on a call. Delilah scooted into the middle of the front seat and patted the spot next to her. I sat.

Nash climbed in, turned the key no bigger than a windup toy's, and turned to Delilah. “Hang on, kid.”

Wind and dust kicked up as he floored it, and the sights of the festival blurred colorfully by us. What would've been easily a ten-minute walk to the backstage area was accomplished in a mere minute or so. Riggs hopped off before the cart came to a full stop, phone never leaving his ear, and loped toward the production office. “Where to, ladies?” Nash asked.

“Home, Jeeves!” Delilah pointed due west.

“Her dad is a glassblower,” I explained. “He's set up over by the festival merch.” We were off once again, bumping along the gravel path toward vending.

Festivalgoers stopped in their tracks at the sight of one of the headlining artists blowing past them in a golf cart. Some gave his name a shout-out, others gave chase for a few yards before realizing he wasn't going to stop and chat. The laminate around Nash's neck fanned out behind him in the wind, reminding me of an eager dog with its head out a car window, tongue out and ears flapping, enjoying the breeze. Delilah clutched my knee as we careened down a small hill, her eyes tearing from the wind. “The wheels on the golf cart . . . ?” she prompted.

“Kid, I'll give you your dollar back if we never have to sing that again.”

“It wasn't my dollar, it was Dani's,” she informed him.

Nash pretended to drive off the path in shock, much to Delilah's
delight. Then he pulled a three-sixty, causing even me to squeal and grab hold of the bar alongside the seat. We were off again, in a beeline in the direction of Delilah's pudgy pointed finger.

Travis tried to play it cool as his child was delivered by rock star messenger, but I could tell he was on the brink of losing it, especially when Nash handed Delilah a few of his engraved guitar picks to keep.

“I'd better get back to work or Maxine will have my head,” I sighed. Trav and Dee-Dee waved us off, and Nash puttered toward backstage once more. Without Delilah as a buffer between us, I searched for something to say. “You're good with kids,” I began.

“I've got one.” The words came out slow, as if he was testing them out for the first time.

“Oh? How old?”

Nash squinted, not taking his eyes off the path in front of us. “Older than Delilah. Younger than you.”

“Well, I would hope so,” I chuckled. Nash couldn't have had more than five years on me, at most. “Do you get to see him much when you're on the road?”

“I've never met him.”

Despite the open frame of the golf cart, our conversation felt keenly intimate. I was at a loss for what to say.

“Would you like to, if given the chance?”

“Can we get a ‘Fame and Fortune' tonight, Nash?” a guy asked as we slowed to cross the barricade into the backstage area. He had a Press pass on, notepad in hand, and a photographer was trailing behind him. Nash gave him a thumbs-up as we pulled past security. “Is that a yes?” the guy called.

Nash came to an abrupt stop along the edge of the tree line near the artist compound. He pulled the brake and hopped out. The photographer scuttled alongside the reporter to catch the exchange.

“Sometimes,” Nash said, and I knew it was more for my benefit than for the reporter's. “I don't get to choose.”

Go Get Her's front man and I fell into a pattern as our rock-and-roll circus moved from town to town, just as routine as load-in, sound check, and curfew. Nash automatically became my first client of the day, even if his name didn't always make it onto the schedule on the clipboard. I loved a challenge, which made him my ideal client. Whatever ache or pain he had woken up with, I massaged away, while he swore like a sailor being dragged to his watery death by a sultry siren. Our sessions were becoming the stuff of legend among the other therapists and the musicians who frequented the massage tent.

One rainy morning, I received an SOS text from Riggs with a series of cryptic numbers to follow. It was the key code to Nash's tour bus door lock.

“I can't keep coming to you, China Doll,” he managed through thin, tight lips between gaps in the pain. Squirming, like the plush sex-den bed at the back of the bus was his personal torture rack. “Not every time.”

“Have you seen a doctor yet?” I asked, caught somewhere between
my own personal ethics and the Hippocratic oath. He always gave me the same answer: he'd go when the tour was over. It was against my better judgment to keep working on him when I didn't know the root of his problems. But there was no denying I provided the relief that let him perform each night.

“Bringing tears of joy to my eyes, every damn day when I rise,” he'd joke, panting at the end of each session like he'd just completed a half marathon. But often before we began, pain robbed him of the ability to speak.

“Everything's going to be all right.” It was a mantra that came out of me in a whisper as I smoothed his hair out of his eyes and got down to work.

These private pain parties were invite-only. Sometimes Riggs would oversee, but mainly it was just Nash and me. Never the Dramettes. And certainly never the other members of Go Get Her.

Despite the magic we accomplished each morning, when the tour bus was rocking late into the evening, I never came knocking. Besides, the artists weren't the only ones who knew how to party like rock stars. On the rare off nights when we didn't have to rush to pick up stakes, or had already set up camp somewhere in preparation for the next tour stop, the hospitality crew let its true hair down. Even Maxine would turn a blind eye to our midnight antics, as long as we cleaned up after ourselves and were ready to report to work come morning.

Spin the Bottle Karaoke was a crew favorite. Whoever was pouring the shots got to spin the bottle, and whomever it landed on was forced to sing the spinnee's choice from the eclectic array of CDs we all brought. It often resulted in hilarious pairings, like Jade and Travis doing a death metal duet, or Deuce from catering shaking his massive ass in his striped Zubaz chef pants and channeling his inner Shakira to our screaming Waka Waka chorus.

“You know I got it. These hips don't lie!” our hulk of a chef boomed,
and aimed his Jack Daniel's bottle squarely on me. “Let's see if our Blondie has a little Blackheart in her.”

“Ha, you're on.” Laney and I had caught many a Joan Jett show in our youth, from the Bowery to the Birch Hill. As Deuce cranked up “Bad Reputation” on the boom box, I let Joan's trademark growl rip from my throat as I hopped up on the picnic table beneath the strand lights and did a low-slung air guitar to the opening riff as my colleagues cheered me on. Who needed black leather and eyeliner? I just widened my eyes, snarled my lip, and dove in. Not giving a damn, just like the song said.

What I hadn't noticed was the small entourage that had gathered on the other side of the wire fencing that separated production and hospitality from the talent. Nash stood with a few of the other headlining artists, arms crossed and legs splayed, one heel turning over in his expensive, broken-in rocker boots. Light from the hydraulic towers set up backstage to brighten the night pooled down, setting his blond hair ablaze like a fiery crown. His eyes were trained on me as I kicked my way down the Solo cups littering the picnic table in my ragged cutoff jeans and combat boots. Let him look. I didn't care.

No, no, no . . . not me, me, me.

I head-banged in time to the chorus, wishing I had Joan's pin-straight, black shag that would never frizz in the damp night like my kinky pile of pale curls. Go Get Her's bassist leaned in to commune with Nash's ear. The lead singer's brow lifted as he nodded, and I could only imagine the conversation going on in their Ol' Boys Club. While Joan could strut the strut with her training-bra chest, I was probably channeling sexy lumberjack in my tank top and the half-buttoned flannel I'd donned to get through the unseasonably cool night.

War whoops and fists punched through the midnight air as I scissor-kicked myself over the keg and ended my song. “Spin, spin, spin!” mixed with chants of “Chug, chug, chug!” and the Jack bottle was thrust into my hand.

Nash had leaned an arm forward, his fingers curled in the chain link. Now his other hand grabbed hold, as if he was thinking about scaling the fence. It looked like the VIPs were on the outside looking in, for once. A small smile played on his lips as I made my way over to him.

“What'up, Doc?” he drawled, gaze never leaving my lips as I took a fluid haul from the bottle.

“You lost?” I rasped, the whiskey adding a layer to my usual husky tone. Behind him, laughter and conversation among the other musicians drifted in the smoke-filled air, and I smelled the skunky burn of pot.

“Not all who wander are lost, China Doll.” He fingered one of my curls, coaxing a silken spiral through the chain link to his side of the fence. “How about a drink?”

I held the base of the bottle up, and his throat throbbed as he took fluid swallows. Meanwhile, all conversation had stopped on my side of the fence, as my co-workers watched the festival's hottest act drain half a bottle of their hard-earned Jack, its neck propped through the wire fencing.

“You'll never find yourself, if you haven't yet lost yourself.”

“Pretty profound,” Nash replied, licking his lips.

“Ivy League, remember?” I quirked a brow and took the bottle to my mouth once more.

“You know what I think? I think you're lost, little girl. Or hiding out. Something—or someone—has you spooked.”

“I don't care what you think. Or what anyone else thinks.”

Nash cocked his hip as he leaned, the chain link bulging toward me with his weight. Even under the too-bright lights, his pupils were dilated, obsidian eclipsing moss.

“If you really didn't give a damn about your reputation, you'd be on my side of the fence right about now.” The slight pucker in his smirk could have been a come-on, or a signal for another swig of alcohol.

“Morning will be here soon enough,” I said, and left it at that.

Business and pleasure was one cocktail I didn't mix.

“Don't eat that!” Riggs nearly smacked the chocolaty goodness from my hand. “Never eat anything left on the bus by someone you don't know,” he admonished, as if I were five years old and accepting candy from a stranger. “Especially baked goods, unless they are still sealed in their packaging.”

“Oh, gimme a break.” I tossed the half-devoured cookie into the trash anyway, glaring at him. It had tasted perfectly innocent, but he had ruined the indulgence anyhow. “Whatever. More for you, you greedy bastard.”

His laughter followed me down the bus steps and out the door. “Might want to stay close by, girlie. In case you start to trip.”

I didn't want to be anywhere in the vicinity of Nash's goon. But sure enough, I had barely made it to the tree line before I started to see jagged trails. Ugh. I'd seen my fair share of festival-goers tripping balls this summer, leaving me with no desire to experience it myself. Not with Maxine constantly nipping at my heels like a police dog.
I
need air
.
And open space. I'm just going to find a nice tree to sit under, close my eyes, and listen to the music.

The problem was, the music sounded so, so good. Not dancing was impossible. And when I closed my eyes, the beats had a color. When I breathed in, the melody had a taste.

“Dance with us!” It was the trio of painted, airbrushed girls that followed the festival from town to town. The blonde was done up in glittery blues and greens like the cosmos, her every curve a planet, a moon. Her navel was a star. Star Belly. The tall raven beauty was covered head to toe in scales of purple, pink, and yellow like some iridescent fish, winding her way between the blonde and me. Her arms moved languidly in the air, hands slowly twirling. The third girl had only her top painted, like the sheerest, flexible T-shirt. She took my hand. “Can we paint you?”

The airbrush mist had felt like a whisper against my skin. It was hard not to giggle and sigh, but I tried to stay completely still, even though the music had trailed after us, all the way to the body paint artist vendor's tent. The cool lick of a tiny paintbrush kept time with the rhythm of the drums onstage.

“So beautiful,” Raven marveled, as Star Belly and the other girl used my body as their canvas, the spray of the paint as cool and refreshing as the slight breeze blowing through the festival grounds.

I had danced my way backstage, my Working laminate the only thing adorning my body besides the evenly distributed paint job and my barely there thong. I marveled at how the natural camouflage of design and color presented itself in such a way that tricked the eye into believing you were covered. I felt fully clothed, although the air temperature told me different.

As did my boss, who took one look at me and fired me on the spot.

Apparently I had collected quite the crowd as I danced my way back to the artist compound.

“I told you this position required a high level of respect and
professionalism,” Maxine raged, making a holy production out of unclipping the laminate from my lanyard in front of all my colleagues. “Parading around in your altogether? Soliciting musicians, on their buses? That doesn't fly with me, and it certainly won't fly with the promoters. I told you this was a one-strike job. I won't have you jeopardizing our entire team with your antics. This was your last show. Out you go.”

“Antics? You can't be serious?” Jade countered. “Who hasn't gone into the crowd to blow off steam, on an off day? Come on. Dani is our best masseuse.”

“Correction. Dani is
my
best masseuse.”

The crowd parted as Nash stepped forward. His bare chest was slick with sweat and heaving with an exhilaration that could only come from having sex, or having just played to a crowd of twenty thousand.

It had been his music, pouring from the speakers and washing over me on the hill.

Mind. Officially. Blown.

“I wouldn't have let her onto my bus if I had had any doubts as to her respect and professionalism.” He took his own Artist laminate that was threaded through the belt loop of his low-slung, tattered jeans and replaced my Working badge. “You've earned this.”

Turning to Maxine, he added, “She stays on this tour. With me.”