Playing For Keeps (11 page)

“Were you feeling bad before?” He raised his eyebrows and I flushed. His fingers were so close to mine, drifting along the second bar, while mine were on the fifth. Only a little music stood between us. My breathing began to accelerate. My heart went from slow and steady to a little uncertain, a little erratic. My brain followed. I tried to control the air in the room, but he seemed to have control of everything. This was his home, he was comfortable here. And he knew he didn’t have anything to lose.

And that’s what made me draw back, pressing myself against the chair. The dynamic was wrong. I was powerless, here. I couldn’t let the way my legs went weak and my hips tingle make a mess of what we had achieved so far. What we hoped to achieve. If something crazy started with Jimmy Keats and then went south? We were screwed.

I smoothed my hair and pursed my lips, thinking about his stunning ex-girlfriend downstairs, freezing the heat between us.

“Okay, play what you have so far for me.” I leaned forward, ready to hear his work. He paused for a second, then went to the piano. His posture was stiff and tall and it could have been because that’s how he liked to play, but I thought there might have been something more to those strong, broad shoulders. He put his fingers—the ones I’d wanted on me, still—on the keys.

The first chords split the silence in the room. He went on slowly before picking up the pace and adding flourishes. I closed my eyes and listened for a few bars, moving my fingers along the neck of my guitar like ghosts of sound, hearing in my mind the music it would all combine into. I nodded in time to the beat, a bass riff forming in my head as he played. He’d changed the song a bit. Found a middle ground between what Ladies in Waiting used to play, and what I knew we had to play to become popular. The melody cradled me, the song familiar enough to relax me. I came in with the words at the right time.

I stood outside an hour after last call,

Needing to go home, not wanting to exist at all.

It wasn’t until the chorus when I realized he was singing harmony, practically under his breath. His low sultry sound wrapped around me. I felt his singing like I felt the bass – in my muscles, in my bones. Just a hint of rough around the edges, enough to make it sound like a second voice was whispering only to me. The music pulled us together and I knew, no matter what else happened between us, that we would always have this.

I quickly regained control of myself and my guitar, thinking harder about my fingering, about how to coordinate with his sound. If I focused on what I was doing, the knots in my chest unraveled.

Our voices blended beautifully, dancing together like a waltz. I strummed the bass guitar in my arms, adding one more layer to our song and, in turn, he laid off the lower keys.

Will you hold me if I cry o’er my broken heart?

Can you love me even as I’m falling apart?

And when the song was over, he didn’t play any flourishes. He simply stopped and let sound fade into the hush of the room. Closed the piano. Stood and strode over to me. Pulled the guitar over my head and set it to the side. Gazed at me under his dark lashes the whole time, as if daring me to leave. But I couldn’t move. I didn’t want to. His eyes were beautiful, yes, but it was the way he looked at me that made me want to melt in his arms: focused, wanting, like I was the only thing in the room.

He leaned over me, his knee pressed into the cushion between my legs, his hands on the arms of the chair.

“You keep nice rhythm,” he said in a low voice.

“I’m good at what I do,” I whispered, forcing my words, even, to be steady. They didn’t want to be. My whole body was like a machine gone haywire. My legs trembled, my lungs felt tight, my center longed for him to come even closer. I licked my lips and his glance dropped for a moment before returning to mine.

“You like letting go a little, though. I like that.”

Despite all my reservations, I wanted to scream yes. Letting go was exactly what I wanted. I was so steady in every other aspect of my life: school, friends—except for the one fight Bea and I had last week—family. I’d always felt pressure to do things the “right” way. I even chose an instrument that functioned to keep music steady, on track.

But in this one part of my life, I wanted to let someone else take the reins. It would be something that, deep down, I knew was safe, but that held enough danger to get me excited, over my head. And Jimmy Keats got me excited. Dampness grew between my legs, every muscle stood at attention for him, for the way his expression challenged me. In every other aspect of our relationship, I wanted things to be professional. I wanted to win arguments and ensure things went in my band’s favor. But in this, I wanted to trust Jimmy, let him have whatever he wanted.

I parted my lips, ready to tell him. But we weren’t the only people in the room anymore. Duncan Prospect stood in the doorway. He cleared his throat. Jimmy didn’t look away, still fixed on me, but I did. Duncan zipped his jacket.

“I’m out for the night, Jimmy. People have been asking for Courtney.” And then he walked away. But it was enough to bring me back to reality.

“Let me up,” I said to Jimmy. He hesitated just long enough to let me know he didn’t have to move, then pushed aside. I followed Duncan quickly.

“Where’s the restroom?” I asked his retreating back.
On this floor
, I didn’t add. Because I knew where the one upstairs, attached to Jimmy’s bedroom, was.

He turned around, watching me for a moment, maybe deciding if he wanted to say more than directions to the bathroom. But he didn’t. He just pointed. “Down the hall. Second door on the left.”

I swirled away and locked myself in the bathroom. Even it was luxurious, with marble floors and counters and a huge copper basin sink. I stared at the woman in the mirror and narrowed my eyes.

“You are stupid,” I berated her. “Are you trying to ruin things for everyone? Chicks before dicks, Courtney.”

I grabbed a tissue and tidied up the smudged eyeliner under my bottom lashes, rubbed a bit of tropical smelling lotion into my hands and took a deep breath. Then I went downstairs. I shook Payton’s hand, even though he didn’t looked pleased to see me, and managed to force a smile when I was introduced to Julia Wood. Three strong drinks in, I was charming them all. Three strong drinks…it was the only way I could possibly deal with how Jimmy Keats’ eyes followed my every move.

8.

In the morning, Ladies in Waiting met in the back room of a well-known Hollywood salon. I had never been the kind of girl who got excited about a makeover. Partly because I was too busy with my music, partly because makeovers were for white girls with big blue eyes and silky hair, not mixed girls like me with gold eyes and an unruly afro. But the rest of the band was excited, so I put on a smile and hoped the stylists knew what they were doing.

We were seated the moment we walked through the curtains to the back room. The leather or vinyl or whatever material the chair was made out of was warm, as though another body still inhabited it. Before two seconds had passed, a tall woman with long, flat bangs across her face closed in on me. She swathed my front in a cape, then stepped back with an expectant look on her face. I didn’t even have time to grab one of the beauty magazines on the little table to my right.

“Hello, darling,” came an accented voice from behind me. I began to swivel around in my chair but my actions were halted by hands on my shoulders. “No. You stay right where you are.”

I lifted my eyes to the wall of mirrors in front of me and sought out the man holding me in position. He was not what I was expecting. He was the same height as me, probably, and drop dead gorgeous, with skin as dark as mine, but a warmer shade of brown. Latino. He winked at me in the mirror.

“And what shall we do to you today?”

“Don’t you know it’s a capital crime to mess with a black woman’s hair?” I said.

He laughed and looked at his assistant. “I like her.” The assistant smirked at me.

“My name is Rodrigo and you may call me…Rodrigo. I have the pleasure of taking you, my little ugly duckling, and turning you into a swan.”

“That’s the first time since childhood that I’ve been called ugly.” I tried to sound offended, but a smile tickled the corners of my mouth. I could already tell Rodrigo was the type to “call it like it is,” even if his version of “is” was a little embellished. He liked the attention.

“I have seen worse,” Rodrigo conceded. “But this hair…it just doesn’t scream pop starlet to me. Does it to you?” He didn’t look at his assistant, but she shook her head anyway.

“That’s my signature look,” I said, dryly.

“In my world, women only get to have a signature look once they’ve made it. Until then, you belong to me.”

“I don’t know…” I snuck a glance over to Bea. She didn’t seem to have any qualms about giving herself over to a stylist. She was leaning back in her chair slightly, her eyes closed, totally relaxed, while her stylist hovered over a stack of foil squares.

Rodrigo came around to stand in front of me. He bent close to my face. “I know it’s hard to give yourself over to someone else. Especially because there is so much to navigate, culturally, for you. Do you think I don’t know about that? Hair is my
life
. And I’m the best there is at it. It’s my job to understand good hair and kinky hair and girls being teased for their hair and product and texture and, for real, all of that.

“It’s a minefield. But try to get through it. Because I understand women. And I understand power. And I understand the connection between women, power and beauty. That’s my very specialized job. It’s what makes the most famous of women line up for me. So relax. Let me make you beautiful and confident and powerful. You won’t have to thank me today. Rodrigo is a patient man.”

Part of me wanted to get up and walk away. Rodrigo talked about power and beauty, but I stumbled over the idea that giving in to other people’s visions of beauty wasn’t exactly powerful. It was letting other social systems dictate my personal style. Fitting a standard. But I knew image
was
a powerful force in this industry. I didn’t have to accept that, but I wasn’t prepared to be the one who ruined our chances. I heaved a sigh.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

I reached around Rodrigo and grabbed a beauty magazine. “Okay. Make me beautiful. Create my signature look.”

Rodrigo grinned. His teeth were big and white. Then he straightened, reached for my hair and slid his fingers through it. He paused, did it again. Then he grabbed a fistful and inspected the strands more closely.

“Melva,” he whispered. The assistant snapped to attention and leaned toward him. “Is this what I think it is?”

“It’s ugly enough to be,” Melva said, not trying very hard to hide her boredom.

“Melva, Melva,” Rodrigo muttered. “When you have been styling as long as I have you will understand how precious this is. See? My hands are trembling a little.”

He could tremble all he wanted; my neck was beginning to ache with the strain of him tugging my hair backwards.

“This is virgin hair, isn’t it?” Rodrigo asked. “You’ve never dyed or relaxed or gotten extensions or had any of those things done to your hair before, have you?”

“I’m all natural, all over, Rodrigo.”

Rodrigo dropped my hair and clasped his hands together, staring at the ceiling like a man possessed by angels. Then he picked up a comb and caught my eye in the mirror. “Two things. One, thank you for trusting me with your hair. And two, believe me when I say that your image does matter. It’s a part of who you are, who you will become. And it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be empowering.”

He began to run the comb through my hair, unknotting the tangles so gently that my scalp barely registered it happening at all. Rodrigo started barking orders to Melva. A series of letters and numbers. He would spit out one string, then backtrack and start over again. Melva didn’t bat an eyelash as she scribbled notes, crossed them out, scribbled more.

“Courtney, you are going to be so sexy. And badass, too. Bassists have to be badass.” His words lifted my soul. For the first time, I believed him when he said he knew what look was best for me. Then, he said to Melva again, “She’ll need a deep condition, of course. Hot. After the color and before the cut.”

“What color?” I asked.

“What color would you like?” Rodrigo shot back.

“Pink,” I said. I was joking, but Rodrigo seemed to consider it seriously.

“We’ll just do a little bit of color,” he said, and I knew pink was off the table.

When Rodrigo finished giving Melva order, he gazed at me in the mirror. “Here we go, darling.”

Rodrigo and Melva had their hands in my hair for hours. They foiled and wiped and rinsed and oiled and cut and I just sat there, trying to relax. This sort of thing was supposed to be fun, right? Before they would turn me around to the mirror, a make-up woman came in and worked for another half hour. Finally, I got to see the new me.

Looking at the woman in the mirror was like finding a long lost sister. I knew it was me, and there were parts of me that looked familiar, but so much was different. Rodrigo had taken off a lot of hair. One side was artfully shaved and the other remained long, with a bit of wave, like a 40’s film star. My neck was now exposed to the warm L.A. sun and my head felt much lighter. Black was shot through with blond and, across my forehead, one strand of pale pink forced me to smile. My makeup was gorgeous: thick kohl around my eyes, shimmering gold on my lids and a succulent raspberry on my lips.

“Well?” Rodrigo asked, arms crossed behind me. “There is nothing to hate, correct?”

I caught Bea and Kaitlin’s eyes in the bank of mirrors across the room. They looked like they’d been done for a while, relaxing with their new, hot styles. We all looked like we’d just leveled up in a video game.

“Nothing at all,” I said.

I kept peeking at myself in the rearview mirror as the driver took me back to the house. What would my DG sisters think about my new ‘do? What would Jimmy Keats think? I didn’t have time to find out right away, because after the salon visit, we were swept away by Kendra, a stylist, for a round of Fill Your Closet, where we visited clothing boutique after boutique, putting together our signature style, all on someone else’s dime.

“You need clothes that flatter your curves,” Kendra said to Bea. “Cinch your little waist, don’t hide it. You need something to
give
you curves,” she said to me.

With a chagrined expression, I took the high waisted sequin shorts she passed me. My body was more athletic than va va voom. Normally, that was fine with me, but I was a business major: I knew sex appeal sells.

“And you,” Kendra told Kaitlin, “have great boobs, but you’re so short that you disappear. Platforms, my dear. Learn to walk in them.”

“I’m going to break my ankles,” Kaitlin muttered, when Kendra gave her a stack of sky-high stilettos and thigh high boots.

“I’d guess you could charge the medical bill to Jimmy Keats, too,” I assured her. We all giggled at that, even Kendra. Because spending someone else’s money was fun.

*

I hung the new clothes in my closet, but went right back to my skirts and t-shirts for classes. My new hair was enough of a change, without adding designer labels and risqué cut fashion to my daily style. The DG ladies loved the look, impressed that I would make such a change. I redirected their questions—why the change? Why now? What does it mean? Was it for Jimmy?—by shrugging and pretending it was for MBA interviews, and definitely not for a man. Their puzzled looks were the only follow-up to my excuse, because, yeah, it was a pretty cutting edge cut and color. Not the sort of thing I would normally do for grad school interviews. I considered that it might actually be a strike against me, when I did apply, but then I played with my hair all through my classes and smiled indulgently when I caught people looking at me too long and I realized I loved the change. Even when I discovered I’d missed a full ten minutes of a lecture with my head in the clouds, daydreaming about walking the red carpet with my hot look.

After classes, Bea came over to study and she, too, seemed slightly distracted by her new style, continually twirling her long, honey brown hair around her finger.

“Oh, Duncan called me while I was in lab. Left a message. We have a photo shoot tomorrow morning.”

“I have classes,” I said, blowing a stream of frustrated air. Fantastic hair or not, I had to buckle down and get my studying done.

“It’s before that.”

“That’s…early.”

She twisted her mouth with half-amusement. “Yeah.”

I made a mental list of all the things I had to do: practice music, photo shoot, classes, study, apply to grad school, DG duties, be a decent human being, sleep.

I guessed I could mark sleep off that list.

“Argh. Thank goodness I downloaded this new study app to my tablet last weekend. It’s a timesaver. I’ll show you.” I lifted the stack of paper on my desk, then checked my drawers and my bag. A dark feeling took root in my belly. I swallowed. “That’s weird. My tablet’s missing. Last week, I lost my planner, too.”

“It’ll show up. Maybe you left it in a class.”

“Maybe.” That didn’t seem likely. I was great at remembering to gather all my things after classes. I checked under my bed, just in case, then sat in the middle of my floor, pondering. My glance went to my open window, just above my desk. It was almost as though someone was stealing my things. I stood and closed the window, trying to bury the uncomfortable thought that a stranger had been in my room, and got back to studying.