Release Day
The 125 research jobs were safe. That much was official. A special shareholders’ meeting this morning had settled it. In the two weeks since beta, everybody, even the greedy old shareholders, had gotten caught up in Darcymania. Zycorp was abuzz with it. Zoe felt proud, exhilarated, and incredulous all at once to be such an important part of it.
She also felt strange wearing a dress and full makeup around the office today. During the dreaded shopping last week, this trendy little jade cocktail dress had leapt out at her straight away. It brought out her eyes. She knew she wouldn’t find better even if they spent an exhausting day looking. Thankfully, Laura had let her away without prolonging the search.
Laura burst into the office in a magnificent little black-and-gold number and bounced up and down on the sofa bed. Not even she could find dressing up this exciting.
“Okay, what is it?” Zoe tried to keep her voice calm. “What’s the big secret?”
“All right … While you were working your ass off last month, guess who went and released a single that went to number four on the U.S. charts?” Laura’s voice was hitting an octave higher than normal.
“I don’t know. Who?”
“Geiger, you ninny! Tyler! He finally went and did it.”
Tyler? Was that what this was about?
Laura skittered over and shoved her phone under Zoe’s nose. “They did this softer track that’s more hard rock than metal—oh, you have to hear it!—and it’s really clicked with audiences everywhere. They had this brilliant video that went viral. I didn’t tell you in case you’d get distracted, and you’ve no idea how difficult that was for me.”
Zoe nodded, grappling with her avalanching thoughts.
“Their big break, Zoe! He’ll never be a starving artist again.”
“He never was a starving artist.” She laughed. “He always had my fridge to raid. Are you sure this isn’t some kind of hoax?” This didn’t sound like Geiger at all.
“Look.” Laura held up a display of the top ten music singles. A purple cover with the familiar name Geiger in white lettering was clearly positioned at number six on the U.S. charts. “He’s going to pay you all that rent money he owes.”
Zoe grabbed the phone. There was nothing fake about the website. “I can’t believe it. It’s that song. I helped him with the intro.”
“Number four yesterday, gone down two places today, but hey, still. They’re going to be raking it in, especially if they’re doing massive gigs over there January through June.”
“Wow. I mean, wow. I don’t know what to say.”
“But that’s not even the biggest surprise.”
Zoe laughed. “What could be bigger?”
“Geiger contacted marketing last week. They’re playing at our release party tonight!”
“No, you’re kidding.”
“I have it from the best of sources.”
“But isn’t thrash a tad aggressive for Austen? I was thinking more Mozart.”
“You have to hear the new track. Hell, it’s nearly soft rock.”
Zoe frowned. “I doubt that.”
“There is no music that suits cyberpunk meets Regency. It might as well be thrash metal. Anyway, it’s out of your hands.”
Zoe threw her hands up in the air. “You’re right. It’s all crazy, and it’s out of my hands.”
“And here’s the best thing. Tyler seemed so hell-bent on pushing this, he’s doing it for free. Can you imagine? A top-charted gig for free? Of course marketing jumped on it like a sex-crazed groupie.”
“Love the imagery.” Zoe was still grappling with the irony of Tyler’s creative efforts being suddenly entwined with hers.
Laura clapped her on the cheek. “Take a rest from it, hon. We’re heading down to Giacomo’s for a pre-celebration prosecco pronto, and you’re coming with us. You can’t control everything, so don’t even try. Now’s the time to par-tay.”
“You’re right, Laura.” After all this time, it would be wonderful to see Tyler doing his thing and being successful at it. And it would be great just to see him again, too. He was familiar, he knew her fun side, and he’d be able to snap her out of the serious managerial mode she’d become entrenched in the past few weeks. Believe it or not, there was more to life than just this one project. And if she was feeling a twinge of disappointment for any reason, she should bear in mind the difference between what was real and what could only ever be called wishful thinking.
• • •
Yes, this release party was one glitzy affair. Zycorp may have saved money on the live performing artist, but they’d sure blown the bank on the rest. The venue was the London Hyatt, where an entire floor of gilded function rooms was booked for their private use. Journalists circulated, but not in such numbers that they ruined the atmosphere.
The two proseccos she’d gulped down with the gang in Giacomo’s had gone straight to her head. Now she was biding time with a glass of champagne. She danced a few tunes in the main ballroom with Laura, José, Evan, and Evan’s wife, Rachel, who had come for “the first night out in a bloody long time” and was absolutely lovely.
At this level of intoxication, everyone was absolutely lovely. Well, except for Bob, lurking by the sides of the dance floor with a caustic eye, conspicuously without his darling supermodel wife, wherever she’d gotten to.
Harry was inundated with attention, and he looked super sweet and yet stately in his dark-green tux, a flamboyant Lex Luthor look that only he could pull off.
The other star of the show was Mr. Darcy himself, of course. His avatar head was on display on a laptop center stage and projected onto massive screens around the room, backlit with the company’s trademark pink. From time to time, people in various stages of inebriation wandered up to the podium to ask him a question.
Surprisingly, or perhaps not, most people showed little interest in the AI after the novelty factor wore off. The humans were too keen to get down to the serious business of dancing and flirting. The dance floor was amazing. The DJ gauged the crowd correctly and got them up on their feet. A bunch of dark-clothed thirty-somethings hogged the seats near the stage, waiting for the band to appear.
Then the lights dimmed, and a hush spread throughout the crowded room. Geiger came onstage—Scott, the drummer; Big Joe, bass guitar; Small Joe, keyboard. Her heart filled with something like pride as Tyler strutted across the stage, lead guitar raised high, his tight, burgundy leather jacket open, showing off his bare, tattoo-covered chest. The spotlights homed in on him, and he waved to the cheering crowd in precisely the way he’d always dreamed of. How gratifying to see him fulfill that dream right before her very eyes, even if the whole thing had a surreal quality to it.
The new song was good, catchy. It had that A-major to B-major transition she’d advised Tyler to include, and Laura was right, it bordered on soft rock during the chorus. On other tracks they’d toned down the guitar solos and adapted the drums, taming them into docile beasts. She grinned to herself, imagining the screaming matches between Tyler, Scott, and the two Joes behind the scenes. Even rock dudes had to compromise for the sake of commercialism, but this was a big-time sellout.
Exhilarated after the encore, she used her VIP badge to wrangle her way into the backstage lounge. She’d been backstage often before but never quite at this level. She spent some bewildered moments standing there in the relative gloom, taking in the effortless, rock-style glamour of the loungers. Skinny arms and legs flashed under muted lights, and shiny hair swished around beautifully shaped skulls.
She heard a familiar yell. Tyler pushed through a throng of leggy girls, leaving a trail of jealous gazes in his wake. He grabbed a cocktail from the complimentary bar on the way and swaggered toward her.
“Hey, babe.” He handed her the drink, triumph glowing in his dark-brown eyes.
“Hey yourself.” She hugged him tight. Now it felt real. “Incredible, Tyler! Congratulations. This is to you. This is your moment.” She pulled back, raised the cocktail, and took a slurp of whatever it was. Her nose tingled. Highly alcoholic something with crushed ice and a cherry.
Tyler’s face broke into a huge grin. “Babe, look at this party. And it’s all for you.”
“Not for me. For the team, Tyler.”
“But you’re the boss, right?”
“Yeah.” She grinned. “Some of the time anyway.”
“That’s amazing. But they’re still working you too hard, aren’t they?”
“No, I’m working myself hard these days.”
“Yep.” He scratched his goatee. “I know how that goes.”
“Tyler all grown up?”
“I wouldn’t say that, babe. Wouldn’t say that.” He looked smug. He took a strand of her hair and twisted it even more. “Man, you look amazing. You always have, you know. Forget these suit types—this isn’t you. Follow your heart. You always wanted to go to California. Live the life. Now you can.”
What was he suggesting? She gave a nervous laugh. “Uh, Ty—”
“It’s a random world out there, babe. It could all change next week, as you know, but we’re riding it. But I’m not in it for the money.”
“I know that, Ty.”
“And I was thinking, maybe there’s more to it than this. You know, a family … maybe someday, some way, somehow? I’m not saying straight away. But you know, down the road. Maybe after I get the solo album out.” He looked at her in anticipation, as if he expected his words to cause an epiphany in her soul.
“A solo album. Wow,” was all she could say.
“I bought a house and all.”
“You bought a house?” She laughed out loud. This was incongruous. “I’m sorry, Tyler, this is just … well, sudden.”
“Yeah, no mortgage either, just a down payment. See, I’m not stupid, Zoe. I’m not going to blow it all on coke. It may not be there tomorrow, so what the hell, y’know? You’d love it. It’s not a mansion, but it’s in LA and it’s got a veranda. Whaddya say?” He slung an arm around her shoulders and pulled her in. A heavy aftershave scent wafted around her, something new. He was as lean as ever, the boy-size leather jacket molding onto his wiry frame. He was the dream man for thousands of women. Maybe even millions by now, and judging by the glares darting her way, some of them in this very room.
A camera flashed. Then several more. In the early days of Tyler and Zoe, they’d exchanged fantasies of what fame would look like. It was all this. But after a few blinding flashes, she’d had enough. Tyler was still grimacing for the photographers like a pro. She held out her palm to make them go away. A bouncer sidled over and did his thing to scare them off.
When the last one had gone, she turned to him. “I don’t know, Ty. What happened to Vikki, who you dashed out of our apartment for without so much as a goodbye?”
“Nuh-uh, she was one crazy bitch. She had all the right contacts, and I’m not saying that didn’t help us out big time, but me and her—we only lasted a week. No, it was all wrong for me. I wanted to turn back and run to you, but my pride wouldn’t let me.”
You have pride?
“But I knew that someday I’d make it good and when I did, I’d come back and get you. I didn’t think it’d happen this soon. But, heck, here I am. I’m back. This is our moment.”
“And, just so I’m sure, you’d like me to drop everything and move with you? To California?”
“Hell, yeah. That’s what you love. The spontaneity. The freedom. You know I won’t force my rules on you, babe.”
That was the thing with free-spirited guys like Tyler. They never tried to force their rules on anyone … until they did. Granted, in a different way from her brothers and her father and every manager she’d ever had. But now that she knew what she was capable of achieving on her own, she didn’t need to be told what she did or didn’t want to do. She could walk away, calmly and with purpose, from Tyler, from anyone. If she wanted to.
But did she want to? This was pretty amazing, what Tyler was proposing. He’d never gotten near this point in their five years of dating. Maybe he’d just been waiting for the point at which he felt he had something to offer. It was all so … touching.
“That was then, Tyler. But—”
“It’s someone, innit?” He pulled her close. “You’re into someone else. You’ve got that look about you. Don’t deny it, I can tell.”
“No.”
“You can’t fool me. I’m the king of lurve.”
He was slurring and leaning heavily on her. He may not even remember this conversation tomorrow. Or it could be the most important conversation he’d ever had in his life. The problem was, she couldn’t tell which. A life with him would be glamorous, chaotic, and probably short-lived. Not what she wanted.
“Look, Ty, let’s just have the bash of a lifetime here tonight. It’s been great to see you, and you know we’ll always be friends.”
He pouted. But in the time it took him to down his cocktail, Tyler’s gaze was caught by a sleek brunette slinking by in white leather shorts and a silver bikini top. He smiled at Zoe apologetically. “I know her. I just gotta … ”
She smiled and slipped away, seeking out a quiet corner to let her emotions settle, because something was bothering her. And it had nothing to do with Tyler.
She’d made a huge mistake. A huge, huge mistake. And she’d been too busy, or too blind, or too stupid, to notice. Because it was clear that there was only one person she could imagine wanting to spend her life with. And he wasn’t anywhere in this room.