Under Her Skin (14 page)

"You're about to see why. I'm really not that good, so please don't laugh at me, and please don't get upset when I screw up." She pleaded.

"I wouldn't dream of it. Let's warm up." He sat her in the chair and put a pillow in her lap, then handed her a guitar.

Sammy was already banging on his drums and AJ was slamming a smooth line on his bass. Marlo looked up at Tobias apprehensively, and after an encouraging nod from him, her fingers began to tickle the strings. He winked at her and started to warm up his throat. After a few minutes, Pete came over the intercom and said they were going to get started. The studio engineer spoke to them for a few minutes, then gave them the cue to start.

The red recording light went on, and Marlo's throat went dry. She almost missed her cue to start, but got on it at the last second. Her fingers moved stiffly at first, but the more she strummed, the more she relaxed. The song stopped and started a few times, fixing missed notes and off beats. Each time they started, it got easier and easier for Marlo.

Tobias was definitely impressed with his girlfriend's hidden talents. As he sang the song, he gazed over to where Marlo sat. She looked like she was lost in her own little world, and her body no longer held the anxiety that it did when they first started. He noticed that she was even adding backup vocals where they were needed.

After a few hours, they finally recorded the song all the way through, and Pete told them to take a break. Marlo looked the most relieved, especially after Tobias took the guitar from her.

"That was great!" He told her smirking, helping her up from the chair. "How's the shoulder?"

"It feels dead right now. I don't think I'll be able to use it for anything for a while. I just hope I didn't push it too hard." She put her hand to her shoulder and rubbed it softly.

"I'll rub it for you tonight, how does that sound?" Tobias told her, winking.

Marlo didn't have time to react before AJ grabbed her around the waist from behind and twirled her around in the air. "That was awesome! I had no idea you knew how to play!"

Marlo giggled. "I really don't know how to play, I just mess around a little. Dusty's been working with me though."

"You always manage to surprise us." Sammy told her, giving her a soft kiss on her cheek.

"Hey!" Tobias protested, and pulled Marlo back to him. "She's mine, lips off!"

"Ok guys, hate to break up your fun, but I just thought you might like to hear this." Pete said over the intercom. Before they knew it, the track they had just recorded filled the air.

Marlo covered her face with her hands, nervous to hear what it sounded like when she played. AJ grabbed her hands, and danced with her around the sound booth. He twirled and dipped her, moving to the beat of the song, in exaggerated steps., careful of her sore shoulder. Then it happened…she heard her voice coming through the speakers. It surprised her so much that she stumbled, and sent both her and AJ crashing to the floor, him on top of her. They both landed with an audible groan. Marlo was so stunned with what was flooding her ears that she didn't feel the pain from the fall. She didn't know how they had captured her voice, because she hadn't been singing…had she?

She pushed AJ off her body with all the strength she could muster. Before she could get up and tell them to stop, the song ended. She looked out at Pete and shook her head. "You can't use that." She cried.

"What? Why not? That was awesome!" Tobias told her.

"But you can hear me singing." Marlo turned around and told him.

"That's one of the best parts." Pete told her. "You started out as a background singer, and when we heard how good your vocals were, we engineered them to be louder. They mix perfectly with Tobias's gravelly voice."

"No, change it. Take my voice out." Marlo told them stubbornly.

"But why?" Pete asked. "This song's got hit written all over it. Not to mention how marketable it's going to be, Tobias and his girlfriend sing together."

"No. Everyone will know it's me. At least with me playing the guitar, no one will have to know that it was me playing and not Dusty." Marlo pleaded. "It sounds horrible. Please, take it out."

"Marlo, it really does sound great. You know I'd tell you if it sounded bad." Sammy told her.

"Let us just leave it like this for now, and we can decide later whether we want to use it or not, ok?" Pete decided. He had no intention of not using it, the song was great. He knew that it would take her some time to get used to the idea of her voice being recorded. "How about we call it a day now. Oh, and see what you can do about getting Dusty in here so that I don't have to get the lawyers involved for breach of contract." With that, he turned and left the studio.

Marlo sighed deeply and helped the guys pack up their stuff before leaving. They let her carry the light stuff, which only required one hand, but she wasn't complaining. She was pretty drained, and was still distracted from hearing her vocals on the song. "I'm going to wring Dusty's neck the next time I see him." She growled. This was all his fault…his fault and the little whore that had him wrapped around her pinky.

After leaving the recording studio, Sammy and AJ followed Marlo and Tobias to their house, hoping to find Dusty and talk some sense into him. When they got there, they found an empty house, much to their dismay.

Sammy and Tobias started cooking dinner for them while Marlo and AJ watched TV in the living room. Marlo would have liked to help them, but she was so tired, the recording session had taken a lot out of her.

Her and AJ were talking about the whole situation with Dusty, and Marlo was telling him about her brother's past with this girl. She was so frustrated with the situation that she knew it was time to take some desperate measures. "Hey AJ, I need you to come with me and be my lookout." She said as she got an idea in her head.

"Why, what are you going to do?" He asked, apprehensively.

"I'm going to get some answers." Marlo said over her shoulder as she walked towards Dusty's room.

AJ followed behind her, nervous about what Marlo was going to do. He didn't want her to do something stupid, and he definitely didn't want to get caught trying to help her with whatever it was. "What are you doing?" He asked again.

"I'm just going to go through her stuff to get some answers. Relax, it’s not that big of a deal!" She said, almost too calmly. It was as if she had done this before.

AJ situated himself in the hallway, watching for any signs of Dusty or Carly, while Marlo made her way through the room. As much as he didn't like this idea, he had to chuckle at Marlo's 'Ah-ha' cry when she found Carly's suitcase.

Marlo carefully opened the suitcase, trying not to move it from its original spot on the floor. She knew that delicacy was of utmost importance. She needed to make sure that no one would ever be able to tell that she had been snooping.

Inside the suitcase, Marlo carefully searched through all of the clothes, not finding anything of importance. But at the very bottom of the suitcase lay a day planner and a statue. She opened the day planner first and took out one of Carly's business cards, putting it in her back pocket for later use. She surely wouldn't miss one of the 20 or so bards that she had in there. Then she flipped open to the current date and found it blank, along with all of the pages following it. The pages leading up to the current date had different meetings and appointments listed on them, but nothing current. After reading a few meaningless pages, she put the planner back in the suitcase exactly how she had found it.

Next was the statue. Why would she be carrying a statue of an ape with her? It was so ugly, about ten inches tall, with its big lips over exaggerated, with a big, fat, round belly. There had to be a reason why it was there though. Marlo turned it in her hands, front to back, top to bottom. Something just wasn't right about that statue.

Thinking for a minute, Marlo began playing with its arms. They moved easily in her hands, causing the overly large lips to open. Inside the mouth there was a button that she pushed, which opened the fat belly of the ape. Out tumbled some small baggies with a white powdery substance that landed in her lap. Still stuck inside the ape was a misshapen spoon and a few needles.

"AJ." Marlo gasped, trying to get his attention. When he didn't answer her, Marlo called for him again, a little louder this time.

He finally came into the room, hesitantly, to see what she wanted. He looked from her shocked face, to the statue in her hands, to the baggies in her lap. "No shit!" He said, never thinking for a minute that Carly would be involved with drugs.

Before either could say anything, they heard a door slam, and voices calling out hellos to Dusty and Carly. Both looked at each other panic stricken as they scrambled to put everything back in the statue together. Neither one was having much luck with their fingers since they were so nervous. They finally got the drugs back into the ape, and closed it up. Marlo looked to AJ and told him to go stall them while she put everything back where she found it.

AJ raced out of the room, and Marlo took a deep breath, trying to remember exactly how the ape had been in the suitcase before she took it out. Not sure it was exactly right, Marlo made an effort to put it back in, then threw the clothes back over it and zipped up the suitcase.

Looking around, it appeared that everything was back in the right spot. She calmly walked out of the room, towards the kitchen. As she passed by the bathroom, she reached in and flushed the toilet, intent on using that as her excuse for being in their hallway.

No matter how calm she looked on the outside, Marlo was freaking out inside. Drugs! She just hoped that Dusty wasn't involved in that at all. She smiled at the group when she walked into the kitchen and said hello to everyone. Tobias grabbed her by the waist and kissed her, whispering in her ear asking her what was going on. She smiled at him and gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head, and he knew right then that something was wrong, but that she would tell him later.

Before long, they all sat down at the table, ready to eat the meal that Tobias and Sammy had prepared. Not wanting to get into a fight while Carly was there, no one mentioned a word about all of the missed recording sessions. They knew that it was something that they needed to talk to Dusty about when she wasn't around.

After dinner, Marlo excused herself and went to her room. Tobias followed not too far behind her, needing to know what was going on. Once they were in Marlo's room, they turned on some music to drown out their voices, and sat on the bed, close together.

"What the hell is going on?" Tobias asked anxiously.

"Well, I went into Dusty's room to see if I could find anything on Carly, and did I ever find something." Marlo shook her head, almost unbelievingly. "I found a bunch of drugs in her suitcase."

"What?" Tobias yelled. "She just had drugs lying around in her suitcase?"

"No, they were hidden in a statue, but I found the way into it. There was a cooked spoon and some needles too." The thought of it all made her sick.

"We need to find a way to get rid of this chick!" He said, his head lowered into his hands. "If she tries to get Dusty hooked on that shit, we're in huge trouble."

"No kidding!" Marlo sighed. "What are we going to do?" She refused to lose her brother to drugs. There had to be a way to get Carly out of their lived for good. One way or another, she's make sure that it happened.

Chapter 16

"So here's the deal…we need a way to get Carly away from Dusty, at least for a little while so that you can talk to him." Marlo told Tobias.

"And how are we going to do that? The girl is a leach and she doesn't leave his side for a minute." He reminded Marlo.

"Just leave it to me." Marlo said, grabbing Tobias by the hand and dragging him to the living room, where Carly and Dusty were watching television. "Hey Carly, I was thinking that we really don't know each other all that well, and since you're so close with my brother, I was wondering if maybe you and I could go to lunch today to change that?" Marlo asked oh so innocently, after sitting on the love seat across from Carly and Dusty.

Three sets of eyebrows rose. It was no secret how Marlo felt about Carly, so everyone was shocked when she was not only speaking to her civilly, but also extending the friendly offer of lunch.

Even though Tobias knew there was a plan behind her words, he was still shocked that Marlo was able to remove all the venom from her voice and speak so sweetly to Carly.

"Um, sure. I guess." Carly uttered after she got over her momentary shock.

"Hey, maybe you and I can get something to eat too, Dusty." Tobias interjected before either he or Carly had a chance to figure out what was going on.

"Sure man. Let's go." Dusty said, rising from the couch. He figured that he'd better get out of there before anything else weird happened. He leaned down and kissed Carly on the cheek. "I'll see you later, ok? Have fun."

"Let's hope." Carly muttered softly.

AAAA

A half an hour later, Dusty and Tobias sat at a booth in a sports bar. Both were silent, feeling the tension between them.

Tobias knew he'd be the one that had to start, so he figured he'd just go for it and put all his cards on the table. "Why are you doing this man, not only to yourself, but to the band too? What kind of hold does she have on you, that you're willing to throw away everything the band has accomplished and is on its way to accomplishing, as well as all your self-respect?"

Dusty sighed. Not only did he know that this talk was coming, he knew that Tobias was right. "You don't understand man. I finally have another chance with Carly, and I can't mess it up this time."

"So you're willing to risk the future of the band on some girl that treats you like shit?" Tobias bit back.

"You guys just need to understand…" Dusty started.

"How can we understand if you don't tell us. You don't talk to us anymore, you don't show up for recordings…how are we supposed to understand?" Tobias yelled, interrupting him.