The Lonely Hearts Club (9 page)

“Thank you,” I say, taking a sip of my drink. The first sip right after I come off stage is always the best one. I savor it as I wait for Alan’s big pitch.

“I represent a wide range of clients,” he says. “We should be in business together.” Music to my ears. It’s just like my grandmother always says—when you least expect it, your life can change in an instant.

“I’m listening,” I say, stirring my drink slowly.

“I have a proposition for you,” Alan says. “That song of yours—the tomorrow one—it’s absolutely incredible, and I want to buy it.”

“Buy it?” I say.

“For one of my clients,” he says. “Can we talk about it?”

“You don’t want me to perform it?” I say. “You want to buy it from me so that someone else can perform it?” I feel my face begin to burn.

“I want to introduce you to someone,” he says as I get up from my bar stool.

“No, thank you,” I say. “I’ve actually got somewhere to be.”

I get a head rush as I walk to the back of the bar and process what Alan Golden has just said to me. He sat through my entire set, watched me perform, and he doesn’t want to sign me. What he
does
want is to buy my lyrics for some no-talent artist who can’t write so that
she
can become famous and get a record deal. My record deal. Maybe the A&R rep from Pinnacle was right two years ago—I’m nothing without my band. They wouldn’t take our band without Billy, and now no manager is going to take me on my own.

When I get backstage, Chloe is still there, making out with America guy against a wall.

“Come on, we’re leaving,” I say to Chloe, prying her away from her prey.

“What happened?” she says, her eyes only half open, giving her guy the “one-minute” finger as she lets me pull her away.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say, and look over my shoulder. Alan is making his way backstage and has a tall blonde following in his wake, who is also wearing a baseball cap low on her head so that I can’t see her eyes. I’m sure that this is the no-talent artist who can’t write her own songs who he wanted me to meet, but I’m not interested.

“That’s Alan Golden,” Mr. America says. “He’s a music manager.”

“Jo, let’s try to meet him!” Chloe says, grabbing my arm.

“I already did,” I say, and America guy takes this as his cue to rush over to Alan to introduce himself. “Can we go?”

Alan hands America guy a business card and walks over to Chloe and me.

“Jo,” he says, “this is the client of mine who I wanted you to meet. Well, she’s my wife, too. She’s my client
and
my wife. May I introduce you to the lovely Miss Amber Fairchild.”

Yes,
that
Amber Fairchild.

She takes her baseball cap off and a cascade of huge blonde curls fall onto her shoulders. I want to tell her that the pageantry is not necessary, that I’m not a fan, but she is already grabbing for my hand before I get a chance.

“It’s so nice to meet you,” she says in her thick Midwestern farmer’s daughter accent as she takes my hand and shakes it vigorously. She obviously doesn’t remember me from
American Star
. But I remember her. Whenever I see her on MTV, her accent always seems thicker than I remember it being, and I’m sure that it’s entirely put on for the cameras. But, here, now, meeting her in person, I see that it’s not. This is honestly how she speaks.

“We’ve met before,” I say. “
American Star
?”

“Good to see you again,” Amber says, not skipping a beat. I can’t tell whether or not she actually remembers me.

“Do you remember who I am?” I try to ask, but she’s already on to the next thing.

“I love your shirt!” she says at practically the same time. I’m wearing a vintage Ramones T-shirt, one that my father bought my mother when they first began dating. That she notices it makes me start to warm to her.

“It was my mother’s from the eighties,” I say.

“Oh my God, no way!” she says. “I totally got the same one at Urban Outfitters today!”

“I’m out of here,” I say, grabbing Chloe’s arm and turning around.

“Don’t you even want to discuss this?” Alan says. “We’re talking about a lot of money here.”

“No, Alan, I think we’re done here,” I say, still headed for the door.

“What is he talking about, Jo?” Chloe asks.

“Nothing,” I say as I grab my guitar case. I don’t even bother to put my guitar into it as I continue walking toward the door.

“A licensing deal, Jo. Royalties,” he says, my back facing him.

“Don’t you even want to know how much?” Chloe whispers to me, stopping in her tracks, and in so doing, stopping me in my tracks, too.

“My songs are not for sale,” I say as I spin around. “I’m not a sellout.”

“Getting your music out there,” Alan says, “is selling out?”

“You’re just going to turn it into some bland, lame, overproduced pop thing,” I blurt out. “Something disposable, like the rest of your music.”

Chloe gasps. Even I’m surprised at my audacity. Amber looks down to the ground and crosses one leg in front of the other.

But I’m not going to apologize for how I feel. What I’m saying is the truth about her music. And anyway, now that I have the gig at supergood, I don’t have to sell out my music for money. I can wait it out until my next big break comes along, just like I know it will.

“Chloe, let’s go,” I say, hoping that she already exchanged numbers with America guy so that we don’t have to stop again before leaving.

“One more thing,” Chloe says, releasing herself from my grip and turning back to Amber before we leave. “Could I get your autograph for my Little Sister?”

The next morning, Chloe and I drag ourselves into the supergood offices for our final Healthy Foods meeting. I try not to hate her too much for asking Amber for her autograph as we walk into the conference room for the big day.

“Are you still mad at me?” Chloe asks as she sets up her easel and her storyboards.

“Why on earth would I be mad at you?” I ask as I put my guitar down on its stand.

“What?” she says. “It’s not my fault that Tiffany likes her!”

“You asked for two signatures,” I say as I walk toward the credenza and pour myself a cup of coffee. There is a wide assortment of things to put in your coffee in the supergood conference room—you can have three different types of artificial sweetener, two different types of sugar, agave nectar, and your choice of whole milk, skim milk, soy milk, two percent, or cream. But I take my coffee black.

“Well, she
is
Amber Fairchild,” Chloe says, sitting down at the conference room table and arranging her notes. “Why do you hate her so much? She’s not singing about killing kittens, for God’s sake. Don’t be so hard on her.”

“I hate her because she creates conformist overproduced crap. She is everything that is wrong with the music industry today,” I say, sipping my coffee and taking a seat next to Chloe. “She is the reason why I can’t get a record deal.”

“Is
she
really the reason why?” Chloe says, just as the account executive in charge of Healthy Foods walks into the conference room.

“Okay, ladies. Big day today,” he says, flipping through Chloe’s storyboards. “The Healthy Foods wrap-up.”

Within minutes, the client has arrived and everyone takes their places at the conference room table. The account executive in charge begins the pitch meeting and Chloe passes me a note on her yellow legal pad.

Sorry
, it says.

I write back:
Me too
.

Are you just saying that because I said that?

Yes
, I write back.

You conformist overproduced kitten killer
, she writes,
you’re everything that’s wrong with the music industry today
.

The rest of the meeting flies by—the client’s happy, supergood’s happy, everyone’s happy.

I’m
happy. As we wrap the meeting, it dawns on me that I actually like working on the Healthy Foods matter. I really enjoy working at supergood. It turns out that working for The Man really isn’t that bad. I don’t really want to stick it to him anymore. In fact, I kind of like The Man.

“Jo,” the executive in charge of the Healthy Foods account says to me after the meeting, “we will definitely contact you again when the next freelance gig comes up.”

I’m all smiles as I pack up my guitar and its stand. Music to my ears—getting a paycheck for doing what I love best.

“Thanks,” I say. “I really enjoyed working on this with you.”

“So did we. These things don’t come up that often,” he says, “but when they do, you’ll be the first person we call.”

“When will that be,” I say as we walk down the hallway toward the elevator, “do you think?”

“We’ll call when the next freelance gig comes up,” he says as he presses the button for the elevator. I wonder if he knows that he hasn’t answered my question.

“When will that be?” I say, trying to sound confident and professional.

“First person we call,” he says with a smile as the elevator doors open.

“Great!” I say.

“Great,” he says. I stand there, waiting for him to say more, but he doesn’t.

“So, we’ll call you,” he says with a smile as the elevator door closes.

When will that be?

11 – Birthday

“
Surprise!
” the crowd screams as I climb up to the rooftop of the Delancey with Chloe. Even though it’s the dead of winter, Chloe told me that the band we were here to see was set to perform on the roof, so I let her lure me upstairs. The retractable roof has been drawn and the heat lamps are on.

We immediately freeze in our tracks. Cameras are flashing like crazy, and somehow I know that it’s not the paparazzi here to greet us. Through the flickering lights, I can barely see the crowd of people circling us.

I thought that we were coming to the Delancey, one of our favorite Lower East Side rock clubs, to see Cakewalk perform, but I now see that instead, I have been tricked into doing the one thing I do not want to do tonight—celebrate my twenty-second birthday.

“You are dead to me,” I mutter to Chloe under my breath.

“I had no idea,” she says without letting her lips move as my mother comes in to embrace us both.

“Surprise, honey!” my mother says, emerging from the crowd of lights like Diana Ross returning to the stage for an encore, as she pulls me to her bosom for a hug. “Are you surprised?”

“Sure am,” I say.

“How about you, Chlo?” she says, hugging Chloe. “Bet you didn’t think I could pull something like this off?”

“I can honestly say that I did not,” she says.

“I didn’t even know you wanted a party, Pumpkin,” my father says as he walks over to us and hugs and kisses me. He is wearing a pair of jeans and a black leather blazer with a white button-down shirt underneath. As usual, he’s got on his gold Tiffany belt buckle, but since it’s
the weekend, he’s forgone the usual shellac in his jet-black hair, and I notice for the first time that he bears a striking resemblance to Gene Simmons.

“Me neither,” I say.

“Ha!” he says back. “Your mother is something, isn’t she? How are things going with the freelance job?”