Opening Act (7 page)

“Byron can wait,” she said. “He's waited this long. You're coming with me. Now.”

As Zee dragged her out of the ballroom, along with the last few stragglers from the show, Loni said, “What do you mean, ‘He's waited this long'?”

“Nothing,” Zee said, emerging into the open air. “Look for a cab. We'll go have a drink first, to give the party time to get going before we make our entrance. There's one—
taxiiiii
!”

CHAPTER 3

“This is it?” Loni asked, after a swift, desperate look at the departing cab's taillights. “You're sure?”

Zee checked the address on her phone—or rather rechecked it, as she had every thirty-five seconds on the ride over. “I'm sure,” she said, sounding not sure at all. “This is exactly what he gave me.”

They looked up at the building in front of them. It wasn't tall—just a five-story walk-up—but it compensated for its compactness with its ominous exterior. It was grimy and gray, its windows either boarded over or blacked out by tattered curtains.

“We're actually supposed to walk in there?” Loni said, looking now at the dim, cluttered lobby beyond the front door. A drooping houseplant sat just inside, looking as though it were gasping for its last breath. “We're supposed to just walk in there and go up those stairs and knock on a door because some guy—”

“Not ‘some guy'! Lockwood Mott! The drummer for Overlords of Loneliness!”

“—because Lockwood Mott, the drummer for Overlords of Loneliness, told you there was an after-party here,” Loni went on, undeterred. “Did he mention what kind of after-party, exactly? I mean, is it just for the fans, or are serial killers welcome?”

Zee grabbed her by the arm. “Please, I
just
need you to stick with me till I meet Shay Dayton, then you can leave. I
promise
.”

Loni looked around at the empty, yawning neighborhood. Battered chain-link fences, a darkened strip mall, and a sinister-looking Laundromat were all she could make out. “Yes, I'm sure I can just come back down here and hail a cab, no problem,” she said. “That will totally happen.”

“Call ahead for one. Don't be such a
baby
.”

“Me?” Loni laughed. “
You're
the one who's afraid to go to a party alone.”

“I
told
you,” she said, leading Loni into the building. “I'm not
afraid
. I just don't want Lockwood to think I'm there for
him
.”

“Then you shouldn't have flirted with him in the first place.”

They crossed the lobby toward the inner door. “I didn't ‘flirt' with him. Well…not per se. It was sort of pseudo-flirting. And anyway, if I didn't, I'd never have gotten this chance to meet Shay Dayton. This party is only for the
top tier
of Underlings.”

The inner door resisted a bit, until Zee gave it a yank. “So, you used one guy to get to another,” Loni said, shaking her head. “Feminism marches on.”

They started up the stairs. “I'm sure he didn't really take it seriously,” Zee said, barely audible over the squeaking of the steps. “I'm sure he knew it was just a little game.”

“Of course. Guys always thoroughly understand what women mean when they come on to them.”

“I don't know why you're being so horrible to me.”

“Because you've dragged me to this war zone of a neighborhood to chase after some preening windbag of a rock star.”

“Oh, you filthy bitch!” she said shrilly, then dropped her tone so as not to draw anyone out of the doors they passed on each floor. “Shay Dayton is the voice of his generation, and Overlords is
the
next big thing in music!”

“You could get a job writing their press releases.”

“You just watch. This is
literally
my last chance to get to meet him before he's a celebrity. By the time they get back they'll be superstars and will have whole
teams
of people keeping fans away from them.”

“I wish they had a team or two right now,” Loni muttered, but it was too late in any case. They were on the fourth floor, and she could already hear the music, chatter, and clamor seeping out from Apartment 414.

They found the door hanging ajar, so Zee gave it a little push and it swung open.

They were immediately hit by a wave of smells: alcohol, cigarette smoke, perfume, fried food. A little pocket of warmth tumbled out to envelop them.

People were strewn everywhere, lounging on couches, poured into armchairs, seated cross-legged on the floor, or—Loni noted with distaste—secluded in corners, in pairs, making out. Everyone was engaged in either earnest chatter or languorous appreciation of the music, which, Loni was grateful to note, was an old Moody Blues album. She didn't think she could take any more Overlords tonight.

The lead guitarist greeted them at the door. The shyness Loni had noted earlier seemed to have fully evaporated in the afterglow of the show. “Hey, ladies,” he said with a wide grin, “welcome to my pad. I'm Baby.”

“Baby Cleveland, I know!” Zee blurted, as if it were the answer she had to give in order to get to heaven. “We were at the show! You guys
rocked
!”

He gave them a courtly little bow, then gestured for them to come in. “Enter my inner sanctum,” he said, “and partake of anything you find therein. Just please note, I promise you joy, but I cannot promise you clean.”

A moment later, Lockwood Mott noticed them. He left the pale-looking girl he'd been talking to and came over to greet them. “You made it!” he blared. “Come on in!” And before they could obey, he grabbed Zee and pulled her into a bear hug and gave her a large, wet kiss, the body language of which was oh so very
this-is-my-lady
.

From within his burly arms, Zee smiled at Loni, as though not at all concerned, but her panicked eyes told the exact opposite story.

When he finally released her, Zee took a moment to pop all her limbs back in their sockets, then turned and said, “This is my friend Loni.”

“Welcome, friend Loni,” said Lockwood, shaking her hand with uncalled-for vigor. “Come on, let's get you fräuleins some adult beverages!”

He grabbed Zee's hand and pulled her after him. Zee shot Loni a pleading look, so Loni felt compelled to follow.

She found herself stepping gingerly over sprawled-out partygoers, propped up on their elbows or draped over throw pillows—or over one another—drinking liquids of various strange hues: milky green, sky blue, crimson. She waved away acrid smoke, screwed up her nose, and managed to knock only one glass out of someone's hand. To be fair, the guy was waving it around as he told a very animated story, but she apologized quickly and moved on before he could react.

She could see the kitchen at the far end of the apartment and presumed that was where the drinks must be. Despite herself she felt she could use one—just one—to help quell the feelings of not-belonging and not-wanting-to-belong that were now gripping her like a too-tight sweater. She
really ought to be used to those now. She'd felt this way ever since grade school. Whenever people gathered together to hang out, laugh, and relax in their own company, something inside her got a little more starched, a little more rigid, and she'd end up standing off to one side, all by her lonesome, longing to be back home with a book.

They'd come tantalizingly close to the kitchen, where bright fluorescent light shone like a miner's headlamp in the dark apartment, when Lockwood Mott suddenly pulled Zee over to a small circle of bearded, sullen musician-types and hugged her to him so hard that her eyes seemed to bulge out. “This is the girl I was telling you about,” he said. “This is the fabulous
Zee
.” And the musician-types looked at Zee as though not 100 percent convinced of her fabulousness—or maybe they were just jealous of Lockwood for scoring such a hot number when they were all stag—but either way, it was clear Lockwood had completely forgotten Loni's existence. And even though she would much rather be forgotten than drawn into that little scenario, something about it still stung. Rather than stand around awkwardly outside the circle, she continued to the kitchen on her own. She could feel Zee's eyes casting after her, like lassos trying to draw her back.

The kitchen was so bright that Loni couldn't avoid seeing what a complete dump it was. There were cans and bottles and fast-food boxes piled everywhere. A few hipsters lingered among the debris, chatting in cool, muted tones. Something about Loni's jagged energy must have made them uncomfortable, because they soon ambled back out to the party, leaving her alone.

She took a beer from the refrigerator, popped it open, and had a sip. Her face contorted as it went down; she really didn't like beer. Too sour. She was a fine wine girl, and champagne was her favorite. But it was silly to think of champagne in a place like this.

She leaned back against the kitchen counter as she drank, slowly and without pleasure. She wondered how much longer she had to stay. She'd promised not to leave until Zee had met the infamous Shay Dayton, but that could be a good, long while. It was clear Lockwood Mott wasn't going to let her out of his sight—hell, out of his
grip
—any time soon.

She sighed. And she wondered, once again, what it was about rock front men that made girls like Zee dissolve into puddles of romantic sap. She herself had been relatively unmoved at the Overlords concert, even as Zee wailed and writhed and moaned at the foot of the stage. The music hadn't been bad, really. The songs were very well constructed, and some of them had a complex harmonic structure. Shay Dayton's voice was fine, though he appeared not to know how best to use it. But the lyrics still bothered her. So simplistic—she might even say pandering. And the way he had strutted across the stage—thrusting himself at the audience like he was the yummiest dessert anyone would ever taste—had been mortifying.

Of course, Loni had been the only one in the auditorium who appeared to think so. Maybe the problem was with
her.
She was willing to consider it. But only because she was fairly certain she could convince herself otherwise.

She was turning the issue over in her head when someone entered the kitchen—lean and muscled, in a threadbare T-shirt and ruined jeans, with dark hair tumbling down around his shoulders—and Loni realized, almost matter-of-factly, that it was Shay Dayton.

She blushed guiltily, as though she'd been caught at something, but of course the singer couldn't have any idea she'd just been thinking about him.

She turned away from him and, pretending not to have recognized him, leaned against the refrigerator. With great concentration she took out her phone and checked her e-mail.

But this wall of private business meant nothing to Shay Dayton, who leaped right over it. “Hey,” he said.

She looked up at him, as though seeing him for the first time. “Oh. Hey.” She looked back at her phone.

He extended his hand. “I saw you come in,” he said. “I'm Shay.”

She felt a little twinge of pleasure at this. It was nice that he was letting her pretend she didn't know who he was. She shook his hand and said, “I'm Loni.”

“Welcome, Loni.” He leaned against the butcher-block table that had clearly made its way there from IKEA.

They stood staring at each other for a moment. Loni began to feel uncomfortable. What was going on here? Was he coming on to her? Was her pose of ignorance of who he was some kind of
challenge
for him?

She was just starting to get a little irritated—and a little panicky, too, if she was honest about it—when he gestured past her and said, “Sorry, I just need to get in there.”

“Oh,” she said, suddenly embarrassed. She moved away from the fridge. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” he said, opening its door now that Loni had stepped aside. He bent over and looked inside. “Jesus, what the hell is going
on
in here?”

She peered in after him and said, “Whoa.” The shelves were packed—beer bottles, jars of pickles, mayonnaise, five different kinds of mustard, Worcestershire sauce, capers, aromatic bitters. “Doesn't he ever throw anything away?”

Shay crouched down and started rooting around inside. “This is kind of amazing. He's got eight thousand things in here, and not a single goddamn thing to eat.”

Loni crouched down next to him. “What are you looking for?”

“Eggs,” he said, moving aside an ancient-looking box of Arm & Hammer baking soda.

Loni blinked. “Eggs…?”

He chuckled and looked up at her. “Someone dared Trina—our rhythm guitarist—to see how many raw eggs she could eat before she ralphed 'em up. She's already downed half a dozen and isn't slowing down. They sent me for another carton. It's all going down in the bedroom, if you're interested.”

“I am the opposite of interested,” she said.

He laughed, and said, “Yeah, I get that.”

At that moment Baby walked in, and Shay stood up. “Hey, dude,” he said, “you got any more eggs? Trina's working a bet.”