Call me paranoid. I had the rigger come by with his harness again. The only person who didn’t make fun of me or complain about it cutting into my schedule was the rigger himself.
“Girl, we ain’t got time for this shit this morning. You listen to those tracks yet?” Joe complained.
“Beright—withyou,” I panted to the rigger, pedaling Tour-de-France fast on my spinner. I glanced at my cousin. “YesIdid.” I stopped talking and stepped it up a notch for thirty seconds. Sweat poured off me.
“I have to tell the studio guys yes or no today,” Joe said.
“Tell’em—” I couldn’t say any more. My legs blurred under me. The room darkened. I could barely suck enough air. The heart monitor finally beeped.
Joe whined, “God dammit, multi-task on Mom! I’m meeting with these guys in ten minutes!”
I pushed harder, shutting out Joe’s voice. My legs failed. The heart monitor went into continuous beeee—and suddenly there was no resistance from the pedals. Everything darkened. My heart banged in my chest as if it wanted to get out. Cool air rushed past my face.
Then cool, dry hands caught me and laid me down. The floor was cool and flat under my back. Relief.
“Thanks—for—comingby,” I panted in the general direction of those hands, trying to glare past my strobing pulse, which painted everything red with each beat of my heart. To my cousin I said, “Joe.”
“Still waiting,” he grumbled.
I breathed shallowly and slowly until my heart slowed. The red faded in my vision. The ceiling lights came into view. “Everything’s—fine—sofar—except—thatfourth—track. Tell’em—nocymbal.”
“I told ’em to use the cymbal.”
“No.” I blinked up at him. I drew in more air. “Joe, no cymbal.”
Joe came to stand over me, blotting out the light. “You look hot like that, on your back, all sweaty. Fat but hot.” He looked across me at the rigger. “She’s all yours.”
I shut my eyes as the door closed behind him.
“Two-twenty-five?” I heard the rigger say incredulously.
I curled myself into a ball, hugged my knees, and pulled my back muscles until they stretched out.
Then I rolled to my feet.
The rigger was looking at the heart monitor on the spinner. “That’s way past coronary.” He glanced up at me—I was only an inch or two taller—and I saw understanding in his face. “At the risk of sounding like one of your family, are you crazy? You’ll hurt yourself like this.”
“At the risk of sounding like me, mind your own business.” I smiled, but my tone said, back off.
“Do you know where Olympic athletes and pro football players top out? Two hundred beats per minute.”
“I’m learning to push myself.”
“When do you graduate?”
We locked looks and I felt suddenly silly.
He said, “Athletes train themselves to push cardio until they can put out more effort with a lower heart rate. They know they’re doing it right when they can go faster and their rate goes down. Where the hell’s your trainer?”
“It’s Thursday. He comes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
He stood there slightly crookedly, as if the floor he stood on was tilted, as calm as ever. “What you’re learning to do is to scare the shit out of your heart.”
Yes. I didn’t say that. “Why do you look familiar?” I said. The weird thing was, I knew him. Every time he showed up I got a blood-thumping satisfaction, as if I’d won a prize.
He smiled and shook his head. “C’mere.” He slipped the flying harness off his shoulder. “I replaced that buckle. It’s now a slide adjuster with a fail rating of twelve hundred pounds.”
Well, I wasn’t going to pry. I’m the last person to want to poke at somebody’s privacy. “Let’s try it.”
But while he went over the harness yet again, naming the parts, telling me again what they did, showing me how they snapped together, making me test each linkage to see how strong it was, I eyed him, either directly or in one of the suite’s many mirrors.
At superficial glance he was just another roadie, a white guy in his early forties, sturdy but not hulkingly muscular, not tall, not short, his hair a dirty-pale color between blond and gray, dreadlocked the way he’d always worn it, I would guess, from twenty years ago when he first started in the business. His head was big and square, more so than most white guys. His eyes were such a light blue they looked empty at first. Then you saw the humor and the tired laugh lines, as if the world was less funny than it used to be. He wore typical stagehand duds—those ugly cargo shorts, work boots, and a rocker tee, this one for Pearl Jam. His bare calves were all nice and knotty. His hands were huge and bony but deft and gentle as he rigged me up.
He kept talking, getting me to try the fasteners myself, making me participate.
I wanted to hire him to rig me for life. With help like this around, I might not have to teach myself to survive getting the shit scared out of me.
Then I remembered that it wasn’t the stuff I rehearsed that set my heart pounding.
“No, pull it a little farther to the front,” he said, placing my hands on the waistband and making me pull it around. He had really big hands. As I looked down, I noticed that his cargo shorts had a button fly.
A blush crawled over me, starting at my lower back, which was exposed between my sport bra and my workout shorts, and creeping around my chest and up my throat.
For the first time I realized I was alone in my suite with this guy and I was practically naked and soaked in my own sweat.
And fat. Thanks, Joe. I’ve never weighed more than one-twenty-five, trained up.
He smelled a little spicy, like a brother I knew once who used cinnamon oil on his skin. And he was close—
—Well, almost arm’s length, really. Being a real gentleman. His touch was completely impersonal.
I was the one with the dirty mind.
“Hang on,” I said to interrupt my thoughts, and walked away in my harness to the bar. “I have to hydrate.”
I got a big bottle of Fuji water and guzzled it at the open fridge door, keeping my back to him. Not safe to turn your back on a stranger, I reminded myself. I didn’t care. That blush was burning my ears now.
It occurred to me suddenly that we had been alone for ten whole minutes.
Free time is like candy to me.
I felt greedy. All alone with a whole cake and a fork.
“C’mere,” I said, hopping up on one of those godawful tall bar stools they put in hotel suites. “Have a drink.”
He nodded as if I’d told him to take the car for an oil change. Then he went behind the bar and started fiddling with the espresso machine. “Where’s the switch on this?”
“You’re on your own. I never use it.” I took off my harness and laid it clanking on the bar.
He fiddled some more, got the lights to turn on, found the ground coffee, found a cup, found milk in the fridge and poured it, steamed it, steamed the grounds, and dumped the fragrant black brew into the milk. His big hands could do anything. That thought did nothing to cool me down.
I blurted, “Have we met? You look so familiar.” I’d decided not to pry, and now I was prying. “You ever been a roadie in LA?”
He stayed on the business side of the bar. “New York. For a year.” He sipped his latte and put it on the bar. “Got sick of hotel rooms.”
“Yeah.” I said it with feeling. “When was that?”
“Fifty-nine. I toured with Elvis.”
Which would make him seventy-something. “Riiight.”
He definitely had that rock’n’roll air about him, though. He slumped over the bar across from me, and his flimsy pale dreads dangled to his shoulders, and his big, pale, bony face swam into focus for me.
Oh.
Of course I knew him. Holy moses.
“Oh my gosh. You’re Ashurbanipal. From the Mesopotamians.”
He showed his teeth. “That’s me.” He didn’t look a day older than his Rolling Stone cover.
“That was the first song I ever learned.” I was stunned.
“Which one? We had two,” he said, grinning again. “I’m guessing, ‘That’s My Dirt.’”
A fire broke out in my heart. I almost got up and did the dance, squat, up, arms out, walk like an Egyptian, 360, elbows, and flip the bird. Then I remembered who I was and refrained. “Oh. My. Gosh.” I didn’t care if I was blushing now. “Can I shake your hand?”
“Sure.” He shook my hand, still grinning.
“You’re why I got into this business!”
“Oh, now, that’s tragic,” he said. “I would apologize, only I don’t give a shit.” He tried to straighten his face but the grin came back.
We both laughed.
“Any words of wisdom to pass on?” I said, before I remembered how spectacularly he had crashed and burned.
He examined my face carefully. I noticed that he didn’t lower his gaze to check out my tits. Nice.
“Sure.” We locked eyes again. He held up a finger. “This. Failure is an option.”
My mouth fell open. When I first saw the Mesopotamians’ “That’s My Dirt” video, I fell in love. When Ashurbanipal crashed and burned, taking the band down with him, my heart had broken, but I’d learned a powerful lesson that now saved my bacon every single day of my life. And when I recognized him today, I had realized that it was impossible for this man sitting in front of me to fail. Whatever the press had said twenty years ago, this guy would not let himself half-drown in his own vomit and blow off a concert.
No, failure was not an option.
I couldn’t let that stand. “Whatever you’ve accomplished stays accomplished.”
His look turned inward. “Boy, does it ever.”
To break the mood I said, “You know, you’re saving my life with this.” I jingled my harness. “I’m terrified of flying.”
He sat across from me and smiled. He was very restful. Whatever I thought of his ‘failure’ advice, it was super nice to be around somebody who wasn’t bustling me all the time.
My custom intercom went off with a hoot. “Incoming. Uncle Chester in a swivet,” said Verlette’s voice.
“Oh, shit,” I said, scowling. I jumped off my bar stool. I found my heart pounding again, as if I was ten and about to be caught sneaking candy.
Lazily, my rigger—Ashurbanipal—wow, Ashurbanipal!—stood up and put the cappuccino cup in the sink and walked around the bar. “Free time’s over, huh?” he said kindly.
I grabbed him by one of those big hands. “Look, I—shit, sometimes I hate my life, you know that? I get absolutely no time to myself. Listen, I was going to fan-girl at you with much more finesse than this, but Uncle Chester will be here any second. This is—what I want to ask—it’s totally unreasonable.”
The elevator was cranking closer.
My heart was really going now. One-eighty at least. His hand was hot, warm, and dry in mine.
“Ever since I was a kid—” I started again. I was screwing this up.
He smiled and shook his head.
Then he pulled me to him and put those big hands around my face and looked me in the eye, so that I knew without a doubt that for the first time in my life—after fantasizing all those years—wow, his hands were hot—his face got closer and his thin, pale lips smiled—
Time stood still.
No, really.
Every single part of my body woke up. It was like the first moment at the end of a workout. My heart thundered and I could feel myself sweating and I was so glad it was over that I wanted to do it again, to feel this relief and gratitude. And his mouth on mine. I’d seen this in the movies. You open up—they do something with their jaws—was that his tongue?
My tongue was touching Ashurbanipal’s tongue!
I was such a fan-girl.
I remembered that I had wanted for years to thank him for making a musician out of me, and I pulled my body close to his and sent my gratitude blazing out at him.
There was a moment of blinding light.
Oh, shit, was that a camera flash?
But the light went on and on, pulsing with my heartbeat, white with the beat, fading to gold between beats.
I was charged up. I let the buzz flow out of me, the way I do during a show, but my audience was the man in my arms. Thank you! I said with every inch of me. Wow! Ashurbanipal! I forgot myself, feeling his mouth on mine, his tongue stroking mine.
His thumbs brushed me under the eyes.
“Hey, princess. That uncle of yours will be here any minute.”
I heard the elevator outside my door, as if the world was rushing in to steal my free time. I sprang away from him. “Oh, gosh.”
The late-morning sun shone through the sheer curtains, turning everything in sight that golden color. In their vase at the end of the bar, the red roses from Aunt Maybellyne had doubled in volume, their heads bowed with the weight of their own petals and pouring out scent and arching almost to the granite bar top.
I was still wearing my workout clothes.
The door opened. “Girl, aren’t you ready yet? Who the heck—oh!”
My rock-star rigger didn’t say a thing. He tilted and smiled at me.
Uncle Chester glared around the room. “Git your clothes on! You got rehearsal and then a show, or don’t you remember?” He turned to Ashurbanipal. “And you, get out.”
“Hang on, be right with you,” I said to Ashurbanipal. “You can go with me over to the theater in my car.”
“Go git dressed,” Chester said.
“Uncle Chester, this is—” I looked at him.
“Call me Baz,” Ashurbanipal said.
My heart rate spiked. This was one reason why I work out like that.
I picked up my Fuji water off the bar. “I’m hiring him to be my personal rigger. He makes me feel safe.”
Uncle Chester narrowed his eyes. “He’s insubordinate and mouthy.”
“That’s another reason why I’m hiring him.”
“The payroll won’t stand it. He’s probably union.”
“But it’s my payroll,” I said, putting the water bottle down. I raised my eyes to my uncle’s.
He looked away and saw the roses on the counter and his eyes widened. He turned a step to the right and looked around the room.
I turned to Baz. “Give me five minutes.”
“You need a shower,” Uncle Chester said automatically. “Keep your hair dry. And wrap up. It’s warm out there but it ain’t that warm.” His tone softened. “Don’t want you to take a chill, baby.”
“I know. I’ll shower at the theater.” I kissed him on the cheek. “Stay right here,” I told Baz.
As I walked out of the room, I heard Uncle Chester telling Baz he could leave again, and Baz not saying a word.
Panic-fast, I changed into clean sweats and came back out to the living room to find Uncle Chester grumbling about how bossy I was getting, taking over things I was too young to handle, blah blah blah. Baz still stood there, a slightly-leaning rock.
I hooked my purse off the bar. “Ready?”
Baz turned away from Uncle Chester as if he had vanished. Uncle Chester looked fit to be tied.
I smiled, took Baz’s arm, and waltzed out.
In the elevator I said, “Omigod, that was fun!”
“You know I’m not quitting my job to rig for you,” Baz said in a let’s-be-fair voice when we stood companionably close, side by side in the elevator.
“I know. But it was worth it. The look on his face. They piss me off and they boss me and I’m over it.”
“Ah. Well, in that case I’ll see what I can do. For the next week.” Baz smiled down into my eyes.
“Thanks. No, wait, I have a better idea,” I said on impulse. “I’m recording this month at a studio in the South Loop. How about—would you like—” I realized suddenly what I was asking and of whom. I stepped away from him so he wouldn’t think I was trying to take advantage. More formally, I said, “Could I impose on you to sit in for just one track? It’s got a good spot for a sour-apple bass lick.”
He gave me one of those tilted looks. This time his gaze ran over me, up and down, but settled on my face, all serious. “For real?”
“Let’s record something,” I said recklessly. “Worry later about if it makes the final cut.”
“Um. Sure.”
The elevator doors opened. “Great! Thank you!” I gushed.
We got halfway across the lobby before I realized I hadn’t called down for the car. I hadn’t sent anybody on ahead of me to check for paparazzi.
I wasn’t even wearing shades.
But the people in the lobby ignored us.
I mentioned this to Baz.
He said solemnly, “I have anti-charisma. It rubs off.”
“What?” I laughed. “Are you saying that as long as I’m with you, nobody recognizes me?”
“That’s right.”
I imagined this. “Wow. That could be really handy. I haven’t been to the grocery store on my own for ten years.”
He squinted. “That’s your dream date? Thank goodness. I thought it would be something expensive.”
I really thought he was kidding. But we stopped in at the drug store on the corner and I bought a pack of gum, which I handed to Baz outside. “Wow.” My heart pounded the whole time. “That was amazing. They even had one of my CDs on the counter at checkout and nobody—nobody pointed or screamed or said my name.”
“Just the Mesopotamian service.”
I looked at him sidelong and nearly collided with another pedestrian. People passed us in streams. Nobody recognized me. If we hadn’t been out in public I would have taken his arm.
We crossed the street and walked all the way down Grant Park to the theater. Nobody recognized me. I couldn’t keep the stupid grin off my face.