Chapter One, or: What I did for NaNo 2012

[jasonbeast]

Ginny and I opened the door to the chilly dressing room backstage at the Drake Theater on State Street in Grace Grove, Michigan. Stephan was playing scales on his unplugged black Strat with his eyes closed. He had a gray fedora on his head, and wore a black button-down shirt and faded jeans with the left knee spring. Nearby, Bowdy, in his usual red track pants and plain white sleeveless undershirt, had his sticks out and was beating on a chair back. Morgan, my older brother, was in the corner holding his careworn upright bass and was alternately slugging his coffee and adjusting his tuning. Dennis, bleached blond, shirtless, in a biker jacket and jeans, had a red Sharpie and was standing on the back of the beat-up and vomit-colored couch, emblazoning the graffiti-covered wall with “TYTAN ROCKS!” in vivid red.

“Hey, Nick. Heya, Ginny.” Bowdy looked up as Ginny closed the door behind us. “How’s it looking out there?” He kept playing, didn’t miss a beat. He was wiry and athletic with messy blond hair.

“Good crowd,” I said. “Lot of campus Greeks, lots of pitchers on the tables. The usual, for a Thursday night here. Better keep things upbeat and apolitical.”

“Oh fuck that,” Dennis said. “We should open with some union anthem ... ‘Which Side Are You On,’ you know. Really get ‘em riled up.”

“No, no, no,”Stephan said, still playing, like Bowdy, not missing a beat, his fingertips flying across the fretboard. “None of that. Didn’t they throw a basket of wings at you last time?”

“They were good, though!” Dennis said. “And free.”

“ ... you ate them?” Ginny, in her gray tweet jacket and skirt, her hair tied back in a severe ponytail, sneered at the rhythm guitarist. She was as tall as me, and skinny, her hair straight and jet-black. “Like, picked them up off the stage, which was last mopped God-knows-when, and ate them?”

“Hey, nine-minute rule,” he said with a shrug.

“I thought it was nine seconds,” Ginny said.

“That’s nowhere near long enough,” Dennis said with a dismissive wave. He tucked the marker behind his ear, took out a cigarette pack, tapped a joint out and lit it with a chrome Zippo. The room instantly smelled like kerosene and skunk-bud.

“Put that shit out,” Morgan growled. “You’re gonna get us booted before we even get onstage.”

“They didn’t give us any shit about it last time, or the time before that,” Dennis said. He turned and folded his legs, dropping butt-first onto the sofa, and flashed Ginny what he probably thought was a dangerous grin. “Ginny, baby, I just love the cute-librarian thing you’ve got going on. Are those pantyhose or garter-stockings?”

“You’ll never know,” Ginny said icily.

“Burn!” Bowdy said, and laughed.

“Dennis, are you tuned up? Because you sounded like crap on a stick on the first three songs, last gig.” Stephan set his guitar aside and reached for his cigarettes. “I was in A minor and you were somewhere near Uranus.”

Everyone in the room groaned, except Dennis, who laughed raucously.

“Fuck you, Stephan. Yes, I’m in tune.”

“Great, prove it, pick up your Gibson POS and gimme your low E.”

Stephan picked up his guitar again, and made sure that Dennis’ guitar was in tune with his. Morgan plucked his strings and twiddled with his tuning pegs as well, then drained his coffee cup and poured a fresh one from the pot on the table near the door.

There was a knock, and a kid in a Drake Theater T-shirt stuck his head in the door. “Hey, is one of you guys named Nicky?”

“That’s me,” I said. “What’s the what?”

He shoved a piece of paper into my hand and hurried off.

“Great, what’s this ... ?”

“You paid our bar tab last time, right?” Dennis actually looked worried.

Stephan raised his eyebrows at me, watching my expression. “Looks like good news.”

“We have a VIP in the audience,” I said. “Blue is here.”

“Blue Rheinholdt?” Dennis had stubbed out the joint and was raising a can of soda to his lips, but had frozen when I’d said that name.

“Oh, yeah, Dennis,” Stephan said, grinning, “Didn’t happen to mention that he was my guitar teacher ten years ago, did I?” That had been intentional, on Stephan’s part, and he’d made me promise not to mention it to Dennis Reynolds before or during his audition for the band. Since then, the topic just hadn’t come up.

“Bullshit.”

“No bullshit,” I said. “I’ve met him, hung out with him. He bought us lunch ... what was it, three years ago?”

“Right before his Saint Andrew’s Hall gig,” Bowdy said.

“Yeah. Opening for Iggy Pop, that time,” Stephan said.

“I was at that show,” Dennis said, sounding confused and a little wounded. “And you guys hung with Blue and the Devils beforehand?”

“Yeah, we helped ‘em load in, too. Carried amps and cables ... and street-team stuff, fliered Trapper’s Alley. Really glamorous, Hollywood-style hobnobbing.” I shrugged. “He’s just another musician in another band, man. Don’t get freaked out, he’s around a lot.

“Oh, and, umm ... he has a guest. Does anyone know someone named Mari Asher?”

Dead silence.

Everyone knew a certain someone named Mari Asher.

In the mid-nineties, you couldn’t walk past a tabloid rack without seeing her name or her face. She was two parts Debbie Harry, three parts Janis Joplin, five parts Courtney Love, all on a nasty binge. Powerful, bluesy voice, booze-soaked lyrics about heartbreak and mourning, and a trail of exes that read like a who’s-who of the entertainment industry.

Blue and the Devils were like a band you heard of and maybe caught on the radio a few times this year. Mari Asher was someone you couldn’t escape even if you wanted to, and you fucking loved her last single, cranked the volume in the car and sang along with it until you thought your throat was going to bleed. Couldn't' wait to hear what she was going to record next.

“I’m going to let that sink in for a minute,” I said. “Blue Rheinholdt is here, and he’s connected like mad. He’s here with Mari freaking Asher. Mari isn’t someone who makes deals, but Blue has been doing on some A and R lately and -- ”

“I’m sorry, what is A and R?” Dennis asked.

“Artists and repertoire,” Stephan said. “That means he’s a part-time talent scout.”

“Nobody catches a break at a dive bar!” Dennis protested. “You’re just messing with the new guy.”

“You’re not that new,” I said. “Three months, fifteen gigs, including two frat parties. You’ve pretty much seen it all.”

“But you didn’t think it was worth telling me that you guys were ... you know ... ”

“An actual, working band who knows other actual, working bands?” Ginny was starting to get angry, and her temper was always short with Dennis. “When you auditioned, you said you wanted to do this professionally. I remember, I was there. We shouldn’t have to talk you down from the ceiling when someone from a label drops by to listen.”

“You aren’t even in the band, shut up,” Dennis said.

“She’s management, like me,” I said. “She’s done more for this band than you have, and she’s been doing it from day one.”

“Guys, guys, take it down a notch.” Stephan stood up, adjusted his belt and pants and gave his hat a little nudge so the brim tilted over his left eye. “This is just another show. We’re not afraid of Blue, we’re not afraid of Mari, we’re not afraid of the kids who came to see us tonight. We’re going to go out there, play our asses off, sing like our lives depend on it, have a blast. Just like any other gig. Dennis, look at me.”

Dennis stood up, looking a little belligerent and a little wasted.

“Dennis. You have a hell of a voice and you draw a crowd. You’re an asset to this band. Bowdy, you’re an all-state champion drummer, three times over, you’ve never let us down. Morgan, you lock with Bowdy like crazy, it’s like the two of you share a heartbeat. Nicky, you’re always around when we need you. Ginny, I love you, and we know that you want all of this as much as we do.”

A pep-talk from Stephan was pretty standard. This felt above-and-beyond, though.

“We have exactly one minute until we need to be onstage,” Stephan said. “Anybody who needs to perform any bodily function, do it right now or do it in public.”

Dennis opened his mouth, closed it again, then bolted for the bathroom.

“Dude,” Bowdy said to Stephan, “that’s not cool. You made him barf.”

“No, he got high on top of a bellyful of nothing but caffeine,” Stephan said. “He made himself barf, I just sped things up.”

Dennis re-emerged minutes later, looking pale and panting a little. “Okay, better now. Ready?”

“Let’s go,” Stephan said. “Nick ... go keep Blue and Mari company while we’re playing. Eavesdrop a lot,” he added. “Ginny, go call Jake at the Heidelberg, see if he has room for us next weekend. Showtime,” he added, for emphasis, and headed for the stage.

Five minutes later, the band was roaring through their cover of “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” which was a hell of a great way to open a rock show that year. All the guys in the audience, in their baggy jeans and flannel shirts and beanies, were on their feet, a fist or two in the air, pumping in time to the beat. A mosh pit was developing in front of the stage. This was not a big venue, so the pit was maybe six feet wide and guys were bouncing off each other, right back into the audience. Basically, the way you started a mosh pit in the early 90’s was by playing a chord. I’ve heard stories about fans moshing to the Cranberries and Concrete Blonde. So, this alone was not an indication of the quality of the band or the hardness of the rock generated by them.

Bowdy was lurking back behind his stripped-down drum kit ... three toms, a snare, two cymbals, bass, high-hat. He had played a much bigger kit in high school, but it was easier to gig with less gear, and he could make it talk just as loud without the added bells and whistles.

Morgue was at stage right, his hair falling in his face, left hand figuring the notes on his monolithic upright bass, his right hand running, slapping, plucking as needed. There was a bow as long as his arm, leaning against the chair beside him. He only broke that out for the mellow tracks and there were none of those in this set, that was for later.

Stephan was at stage left, hat over one eye, shoegazing and looking over at the guys as they played, giving them visual cues they’d developed over many years of playing together. I don’t know if they even realized they did it, it was so deeply ingrained. But every change of chord and tempo was dead-on, nothing murky or sloppy about it. When they reached the first chorus of the song, and everyone came in together at high volume and intensity, I saw him grinning in the shadows of his hat-brim.

Dennis, for his part, was stomping and showboating and mugging at the audience in ways that would have had Kurt Cobain spinning in his grave, had Kurt been dead at the time (RIP). He caught some of Stephan’s cues but was mostly off and running in Dennis-land. That was okay; lately, Dennis was the guy who brought the crowds in. He looked and acted like a rock star. The rest of the guys could have been anybody at all, it was the Dennis Reynolds show with a backup band and that was that.

I waited until the song and applause ended and I made my way to the table where Blue and Mari were sitting, stone-faced like sphinxes, their eyes on the stage.

“Hello,” I said, offering a paw to Mari. “Good to see you here’ ma’am. I’m Nick Keller, co-manager of the band.”

“I need a drink,” she said, ignoring the hand. “Bourbon, up, double. Not well-shit, either. Jack or Jim.”

“Sure, yeah, no worries. Blue, you want anything?”

“Lobotomy?” he said. His hair was dyed to match his name and his jacket was more metal than leather. He gave me a razor-blade grin and shook his head. “Nah, I’m good, man. Thanks, good to see you.”

“Likewise.”

As I waited at the bar, Dennis stepped up to the mic again and shouted, “Hello, Grace Grove! Hope everyone’s having a good night!” There was a low roar of applause, and, encouraged, Dennis added, “This next song is our version of a classic ... If you like it, don’t be shy, feel free to throw us money or buy us drinks.”

Stephan started playing a raucous and familiar riff, and then the rest of the band jumped into “You’ve Really Got Me,” and the mosh began anew.

“It’s Jack,” I said, setting the drink in front of Mari, who ignored me and watched the band, looking bored senseless.

It made no sense to talk to them during the set, so I sat with them, half watching the band, half staring at Mari Asher, because, damn, it was Mari Asher.

Her long blond hair was tucked into a black beanie, with just a few photogenic wisps poking out around her face and the back of her neck. She wore no makeup and her upper body was mostly obscured by an oversized faded-blue sweater with sprung elbows and frayed cuffs and a vaguely mothball smell to it. She wore perfume, but not much; mostly she smelled like cigarettes and bourbon and I suspected she hadn’t showered in the past few days. Without the vivid red lipstick and stagey eye makeup and blush, she barely looked like herself; if I hadn’t known that it was her, I wouldn’t have figured it out at a glance, or even a lingering stare. I looked at her, though, and it was like one of those Magic Eye things, where you unfocus your eyes a little and you try to make sense of it, and suddenly BAM!, there it is, you see it; only instead of seeing the Statue of Liberty or a unicorn, I was seeing Mari Asher, the rock star, the eye of the hurricane herself, and then with a tilt of my head, it was gone again.

By the time the set ended, Mari had sent me back to the bar twice more with the same order. I suspected that her tolerance was just insane, because six shots of straight whiskey didn’t seem to affect her in any way. She still looked bored, had nothing to say, lit a cigarette after the third song and chain-smoked until Dennis announced that the band was taking a break.

Then she stood up, crushed out her smoke and looked Blue in the eye.

“Let’s go talk to your friends. I can think of fifty places I’d rather be, so we need to get this over with.”

Blue turned to me. “Yeah, let’s go chat with the guys. This’ll only take a minute and I think it’ll be a good deal for everyone involved.”

“That’s all you’re giving me up front?” I asked, and laughed.

“All things considered, it should be plenty,” Blue said with a sober wink.

“Holy shit! Holy shit, it is you! I knew it!” A skinny guy with glasses and a death-hawk haircut, long on the top and back and shaved on the sides, had run up and was wringing his hands in front of Mari, whose expression would have been the same had she seen this guy pee his pants, which, figuratively speaking, was what he was doing.

“Yes, yes, it’s me,” Mari said.

“Can I get your autograph? I love your music, ‘Hotel Berlin’ is the best thing ever.” He pushed a menu and a ball-point pen at her and she took it, scribbled mechanically, handed it back, taking great care not to make any physical contact or eye contact with him in the process.

“This is so cool,” the fan said, and scurried away, shouting to his friends, “It’s totally her! I told you!”

“Dressing room. Now,” Mari hissed, clamping her hand onto my left bicep.

We were there in less than a minute, the door was open and all the guys were smoking cigarettes and Dennis had a bottle of cheap champagne in a deathgrip in his right hand.

“Hey, hey, welcome to the Drake!” he shouted at Mari, and tried to hand the bottle to her. Mari took it, gave him a withering look, and handed it back without taking a drink. “Oh, okay, no problem,” Dennis blustered on. “Pretty lively audience or what?”

“You have a roomful of drunk sheep who would do the Chicken Dance if you played it. You also have no ear at all, or your guitar would have been in tune. Thank the gods you were singing along with what the band was doing instead of what you were playing, or you’d have sounded much worse.

“And you ... seriously, what the fuck?” She had whirled to face Morgan, whose stubbly jaw dropped in surprise. “An upright bass? This is a fucking rock band, not some jazz-cafe bullshit. Save that crap for whatever pretentious side-project you have going, and get an electric bass like any normal human being.

“And Speedy Gonzales ... you were pulling away from the rest of the band in every God-damned song.” Bowdy, now, who was grinning, but it was the kind of grin that looked like it was about to turn into nasty words about someone’s mom. “It’s not a race, stay with the pack.”

“And what do you have to say to me?”

Stephan’s arms were folded across his chest. His hat was off, his hair sweaty and sticking out every which way, his chin tilted up defiantly.

“That you need to run a tighter ship, because that shit might fly here at a cow-college in Maine or wherever the fuck we are, but it won’t work on a festival stage or any auditorium worth a damn.”

“First of all, you’re in Michigan,” Stephan said. “Maine does ships, we do cars. It’s really easy to tell the two apart. Second,” he added, ticking off points on his left hand, “it ain’t a cow-college, there’s no agricultural school, and in fact it’s one of the Midwestern Ivies, and if you try to insult the school in that way, you’re just showing off your own ignorance. Third, you’re complaining about a crowd on a Thursday night? We have loyal fans around here, they support us in every way, and about half of them are sacrificing grades to come out and see the show. Fourth, Dennis was in tune when we hit the stage, I made sure of that, and the problem is that his guitar sucks.”

“Hey!” Dennis yelped.

“It’s a fair point,” I said and shrugged.

“Fifth, Morgue here was the star bass player in jazz band all through school, and he can do things on that bass fiddle that you wouldn’t believe. He’s the musician, it’s the instrument he feels comfortable with, and he gives our sound a wicked punch. Wouldn’t change a thing. And I don’t know what you were hearing, because Bowdy could make a damn Rolex sound inaccurate. And sixth, who the fuck do you think you are?”

Mari turned to Blue, gave him a long look, and nodded. “Yeah. These are our guys. Sign ‘em up. I’m going back to the hotel.” She turned and left, taking a cell phone out of her pocket as she walked away.

Blue cleared his throat and smiled, glancing from one to the other of the guys in the band.

Ginny appeared in the doorway, giving Mari’s retreating back a glance and then turning to me, puzzled. “Nick, sweetie, what just happened?”

“Mari Asher just ripped everyone in the band a new asshole, and your boyfriend ripped her several right back,” I said.

“That’s my boy,” she said, and grinned.

“No, actually, what just happened was, you passed the audition,” Blue said.

“Huh? I don’t get it,” Dennis said.

“Something bad just happened in St Louis,” Blue said. “Mari had a falling-out with her entire backup group and her manager, and they all basically told her to go to hell and quit with seven dates left on her North American tour.”

“Wait, that’s true?” Ginny frowned. “I heard something about that from one of our street-team girls, but I thought it was just another rumor.”

“Nope, no rumor. Left her high and dry and she has a date in Chicago in three days. How fast can you guys learn 30 songs?”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hang on. You’re offering us a tour?” Dennis’ eyes were wide and wild.

“He’s offering us a job,” Stephan corrected Dennis. “It’s not ‘our’ tour, it’s Mari Asher’s tour. You just experienced Mari Asher, in Technicolor and stereophonic sound. She would be singing lead and we’d have to learn every song she plays by Sunday afternoon at the very latest and she would be our boss for the whole trip. And we’d be out of Grace Grove for ... how long?” Stephan turned to Blue.

“About three weeks.”

“Three weeks,” Stephan went on, to Dennis. “And you and Bowdy and Ginny have classes and homework due and everything else going on here. Can you drop everything for three weeks to do this?”

Dennis clamped a hand over his mouth, and I could practically hear gears turning in his head.

“Okay, now, before you make any decision at all,” Blue interjected, “I need to tell you how you’ll be compensated for this. First of all, for the tour, flat rate of ten kay for every musician and five kay for every auxiliary member. Mari would have the final say-so on everything. Wardrobe, instruments, whatever. You will be billed as Mari Asher with Tytan. Upon completion of the tour, the label will offer you a separate recording contract, three albums in four years, with a substantial bonus for everybody.”

“Uh ... how big is substantial?” Dennis asked.

“You won’t go hungry and you won’t have to worry about rent, booze or drugs for a long, long time.”

“I’m in,” Dennis said immediately.

“Wait, now, we have to talk about this,” Stephan said.

“What’s to discuss? This is it, this is a huge, huge break ... this is the kind of shit that never ever happens, ever, in the history of ... ever!” Dennis shouted. “Three weeks with the bitch and we’re doing body shots on Sunset Boulevard and recording our first album, man! How can you say no to that?”

“Dude, her entire band bailed,” Stephan said. “Her manager bailed. They hate her. They basically put their careers in jeopardy just to get the hell away from her. Granted, they’d been doing it for a while, this didn’t happen overnight, but it don’t sit right with me.”

“The alternative is that we continue playing for stupid drunks in the Grove until we’re too old and we have to quit and get middle-management positions and buy station wagons and shit,” Dennis said. “This is it, this is opportunity knocking. We have to open that door. Otherwise, what the hell are we doing?”

“I’m already working as a professional musician and earning pretty good scratch,” Stephan said. “I have what I need. This is a bigger game, and I’m up to it, but I don’t have to do this.”

“You’re gonna stand there and tell me that you could walk away from this?” Dennis squinted his eyes and brushed hair out of his face. “Are you nuts?”

“Jury’s out on that,” Stephan said.

“Jury came back, unanimous,” Bowdy said immediately.

“Guilty as charged,” I added.

“Hanging’s at dawn,” Morgan said with a grin.

“So, if the peanut gallery is finished -- ” Stephan looked around.

“Please make a charitable contribution to his poor widow,” Ginny said. “ ... and we're done.”

Stephan laughed and tapped Dennis on the shoulder. “It’s a big step, and we all have the chops to do this. You sure it’s what you want?”

“Oh, hell yeah,” Dennis said.

“Blue, it looks like we’re on board,” Stephan said.

“Awesome. Knew you’d come through, little brother. Thanks, everyone. Pack your bags, we’ll be at the house on the bus at nine.”

“Wow, instant tour bus," Dennis said.

“Just add Blue,” Stephan cracked.

“Just add Mari,” Blue said. “It’s her bus, her gear. Expect to be very busy on the way to Chicago, and all the way up to showtime Sunday. Guys ... good show, I’ll have your contracts when I see you next.”

The door closed behind him, and Dennis let out something that could be described as a barbaric “Yawp!”

The rest of us just laughed.

“Guys ... guys?” Stephan said, over more laughter and back-patting, “we still have a show to play. Let’s get out of the Grove in style, huh?”

The rest of the band headed out to the stage, and Stephan turned to me.

“Okay ... in the roll-top desk in the living room, I have a big manila folder. It’s contact information for all the utilities and a phone number for my mom. Call my mom, let her know what’s up, tell her we’re keeping everything turned on and we’ll need her to drop by twice a week to water the plants. I have forms to change my mailing address and the band’s mailing address to my mom’s place, signed and ready to go, they just need a date. There are blank forms for everyone else, too, make sure they sign ‘em and pass ‘em along to you by eight tomorrow morning. Go to the post office in the Meijer ... they open at 7. Turn in the forms and head back to the house. Umm ... bring donuts and coffee.” He pondered. “There’s also a signed blank check in the folder. Make it out to yourself and take out five-hundred dollars. The utilities are gonna be a bit tight this month, unless we get paid really, really soon, but we’re gonna need pocket money until we do. Five is about all I can float for the band slush fund.”

“I’ll kick in, and I’m sure the others will, too,” I said. “Given this a little thought, have you?”

Stephan grinned. “Only every day, my entire life.”

“So that little speech to Dennis was ... ?”

“Dude,” Stephan said, “I know what I want, I know what Bowdy and Morgan and you and Ginny want. Dennis ... I’m still trying to figure his ass out. If he’s going to give this a hundred percent effort or go running back to school when shit gets rough. I have to push him, I have to make him see that this is the real deal.”

“I was going to go with, ‘bullshit,’ but your explanation sounds better.”

Stephan burst out laughing and picked up his guitar.

“Long overdue, for you guys,” Ginny asked, and Stephan kissed her cheek, hard.

When he was gone, and the crowd was cheering the intro to the first song of the second set -- I think it was “Daytripper” or some other middle-era Beatles cover -- Ginny turned to me, forehead creased, arms folded.

“What’s wrong?”

“Well,” she said, “Stephan and the guys are up to this. You’re up for the challenge, I just don’t know about me.”

“When have you ever backed down from anything?” I asked.

“This is different,” she said. “I have to call my dad tonight and tell him I’m taking a little leave of absence from school. He’s gonna shit bricks.”

“My folks aren’t exactly going to be falling over themselves with joy,” I said.

“Yeah, but you’ve just been working and hanging out.” She gave me an apologetic look. “Sorry, that sounded less bitchy in my head. But you know what I mean, you’re doing band-stuff. I know you put in for admission to a few schools, but that’s not where your head is, where your heart is.”

“I’d have to be on a scholarship if I got in anywhere,” I said. “Either that, or taking out some big-ass loans.”

“Meanwhile, my dad will remind me again of all the money he’s paying for me to go to school and how can I just throw it away and, dammit.” She sighed.

“You could stay.”

“Are you nuts? No, I can’t! Although ... hm. I might be able to spin this ... Shit, what time is it?”

“Eight-thirty.”

“Cool. I need to go make some phone calls. The band-house stuff, have you got it covered?”

“Yeah, no worries. If you don't come by before then, call the house at six, just to make sure we’re all up and relatively conscious.”

She gave me a quick hug, and when she pulled away, I saw that her worried look had been replaced with a little smirk.

I walked six blocks to the band house, the cramped white two-story place that belonged to Stephan’s family which he and the band had taken over right after high school. We all grew up miles away from Grace Grove, but in the same county. The town was called Dexter and you’ve never heard of it unless you’re from there, yourself. Morgan’s and my family had a small farm and Stephan had lived with his grandparents and mom a few miles away, with Ginny’s family across the street from them. As spread-out as Dexter is, we all ended up in a fairly tight geographic constellation, all but Bowdy, and he lived the next town over and was insane enough to ride his bicycle to practice every week when we were kids.

The house, though ... The house in grace Grove had belonged to a cousin or something who had wanted to become a slumlord in the student ghetto. The rest of his “empire” had been sold off long since, but a lot of Winfords went to Grace Grove over the past seventy years, so the house stayed in the family, with furniture accumulated from the Atomic Age until now, but it wasn’t cluttered and it was shockingly tidy, considering that five bachelors lived there. Stephan had a housekeeper come in once a week, and Nancy was enough of a hardass that none of us made too much of a mess for her in-between times. We even washed our own dishes.

I opened the desk in the living room and found the envelope right where Stephan had said it would be. I called his mom, who seemed a little surprised by the tour offer, but not overly so. She had raised him, after all; she knew what kind of life he wanted and how many years he’d put into making it happen.

“It’s like I’m hearing that he’s graduated college,” she said to me, and laughed. “Congratulate him for me. Do you guys know where you’re staying in Chicago?”

“Not yet.”

“Well, call me when you do know, and I’ll send something along for you boys. I’ll make sure the band-house doesn’t burn down while you’re away.”

I then realized that I didn’t have much more to do until morning, and not much to do besides shove clothes and books into a duffel bag.

I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten, so I put on water for ramen and turned on the stereo ... Really high-tech for its time. Stephan had shelled out the money for a recording system and we could go from cassette tape to CD and back again. I cranked up one of the band’s demos and hurried upstairs to pack and get that mess out of the way.

I passed by the darkened rooms of the other bandmembers ... Bowdy’s, with dull glints of gold trophies on the windowsills and desk; Morgan’s, with the big Coltrane poster and three-foot bong; Dennis’, with the heaps of clothes on the floor, and the stack of textbooks gathering dust beside his bed; Stephan’s, with the huge shelf of books and CDs and tapes and videotapes. Then I was in my room, last on the left by the bathroom, which was a mass of papers and books and ashtrays and writing implements. I collected a few notebooks, a Greek mythology (Graves, not Edith Hamilton ... her work is standard in the high schools, but my gods, she sucked all the life out of every myth she touched. Seriously, if they taught Graves at the high-school level, with all that gore and sex, classes would overflow and PTA groups would have that much more to complain about.). Then I figured I’d need some clothes, too, so I grabbed two pairs of Levi’s and a handful of T-shirts and stuffed them into the top of the bag.

Heading downstairs, I stopped at the door to Stephan’s room. There was a small Fender combo-amp by the window, with one of his guitars leaning against it, and an easel on the other side of the room. He’d started a sketch of Ginny ages ago but hadn’t finished it; she was looking over her shoulder, her straight black hair gathered on the opposite shoulder and mostly out of view; her pale eyes focused on some point above the viewer’s head.

I’ll admit it ... I felt a little pang, at that. I mean, I’d seen the picture a thousand times, but at the band house, by myself, where I had the luxury to consider it, to consider that they were together, always and forever, well ... yeah. Didn’t make me want to jump for joy.

By the time my noodles were ready, Ginny was at the house, two pieces of luggage in her hands and a huge, triumphant grin on her face.

“I called my adviser and told him what I’m doing ... managing a band for a while. And then I asked him, point-blank: ‘Can I do this for credit?’”

“What?”

“I know! He was absolutely floored by this. And the I explained that I would be involved in finance, public relations, promotion, and logistics, and he agreed that it covered a significant amount of coursework. He said that as long as I complete a research paper describing what I did, sounding reasonably academic, he should be able to list it as an independent study. I’m going to have to take an Incomplete in all the classes I have active now, but I’m still earning college credit for this. Go, me. What’re you eating?”

“Ramen. Want some? I made two packages.”

She frowned and looked in my bowl. “What the hell did you add to it?”

“Peanut butter, green onions, hot sauce, and sesame oil.”

“Gross. I think I’ll pass.” She found a vanilla yogurt she’d left in the fridge not long ago and popped the lid, grabbed a spoon, dropped into the seat beside me on the couch.

“So, okay. Blue is with Breaking, right?”

“Breaking Records, yeah. Soon to be the band’s label and our employer.”

“What do we know about them?” she asked. “We" in this instance meant “me” ... she was half testing me, half picking my brain.

“Blue is on the board of directors. He made them a buttload of money in the 80’s and when his band broke up, he went into A&R. The other boardmembers ... I have no idea. The CEO is Dmitri Constantinos -- ”

“Wait, is that the airplane guy?”

“His son, yeah. Younger son, idle rich, has a pile of money and wants to hobnob with famous people as a bigshot. Not a bad guy but I’ve heard he can be kind of a douchebag. Long trail of former girlfriends and rumored former boyfriends. Not very hands-on; he might show up to shake hands with the band someday, if they chart, but he spends most of his time in Athens and Paris.”

“How much money is the band going to see up-front, post-tour? Ballpark.”

“Seriously? I have no idea. But consider this: Tytan is stepping up to bail the label out of what could be a major disaster. They used to have a really, really good lineup, but Mari Asher is their only big moneymaker these days. And she’s awesome at that ... her shows always sell out in hours, if not minutes, she’s in the papers and in the news and she does cameos in movies and TV shows and all that garbage. Without any backup or support, all of her remaining shows for this tour would be canceled, tickets would be refunded, pissed-off fans wouldn’t buy her next record. We’re stepping up as a complete band and road-management. They even threw us a bone and gave the band billing, most labels wouldn’t do that. They’d announce a ‘lineup change’ and leave it at that. No ... they’re serious enough about this that we get billing and the guys get a record deal if the tour succeeds, as icing on the cake.

“So it looks to me like the label is counting on Mari’s notoriety to promote Tytan, and then they’re giving the band a chance to stand on their own after that, and, with any luck, to start making buttloads of money for Breaking, as well.” I smiled and shrugged at Ginny. "That's my take, anyway."

“We need to take all the merch with us ... Dammit, I should order new T-shirts. We have like fifty left ... I mean, that would last a while here, but touring?”

“Call in the morning, before we go,” I said. “Blue should be able to tell us by then where we’ll be staying. You can have 'em shipped there.”

“Right -- I have to tell him, too, that Stephan and I need separate rooms.”

“Ginny?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I’m your friend, right?”

Ginny laughed and set aside her empty yogurt cup. “I’d better, after all this time.”

“Okay. Sweetie -- really. Why have you and Stephan never ... umm ... ”

“Done the horizontal mambo?” she offered.

I blushed like a fire hydrant. “Um.”

She laughed again, at my discomfort, and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “It’s just not what it’s about, for Stephan and me. I’d love to ... really, I know he would too ... but it’s like, there’s so much going on with the band and school and I think it would just distract us, you know? We’ll always be there for each other, there’s no hurry.”

“You know girls are going to be throwing themselves at him every night, from now on,” I said.

“That’s no different from now. Dennis may be the frontman, but there’s always some little Buffy or Bitsy hitting on Stephan after a show. I know he’s not going to do anything. We’ve been together this long, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Boy, did I ever know.

The band showed up not long after, and everything got noisy and really kind of nuts for a while. Dennis rolled up a ginormous joint and it made the rounds; everyone was smiling, nobody was pissed off, nobody desperately needed a bath, nobody was sulking and threatening to leave the band.

In other words, the arrangements might have been made, but the tour had not begun.