the dead to their feet the way you were playing tonight.”
“You are
“On life!” Graham said, gave Click one last pat and moved, finally, to Vanessa, where she was sprawled in a chair, her shoes already off, finishing her second bottle of water. Her rider specified that the water be Evian. It also specified a bottle of Grey Goose vodka, a bottle of Glenlivet, and a dozen fresh-cut red and white roses. She’d drink the water, but never drank the alcohol. She wouldn’t give it away, either; she’d dump the contents either down the drain or down the toilet, and once or twice I caught her using it as a perfume.
The roses normally figured into the encore, when Van would go to the edge of the stage and give a couple to whoever had caught her eye during the show. It was the code—a fresh young male carrying a couple roses, red or white, got access backstage, and often access to even more than that.
Graham opened a third bottle of Evian for her, swapping it out for Van’s empty, then crouched down beside the seat, his hands in front of him, cupped, as if he would catch whatever she might spill. Van took another swig from the bottle, then looked to Click, then to me, grinning. She was still a little out of breath from our close, and perspiration still shone on her arms and face. She looked at Graham and the grin got bigger.
“You may praise,” she said, regally.
Click and I laughed, and Graham didn’t miss the cue.
“I think a shrine, Vanessa. A shrine dedicated to you, a shrine befitting a goddess. You have ruined Christchurch for the next girl, there is no one to follow you.”
“You were practicing that one,” she said mildly.
“I was. I was, but I think it captures the essence.”
“It wasn’t bad.”
“I’ll swap you insurance for a statue,” I told Van.
“Fuck that, I’ll take either of yours for the walking dead,” Click said.
Graham got to his feet, looking at all of us, touching one hand to his breast, faking the wound to his heart. “All I do for you, and yet you mock. Do I not care for you? Do I not provide for you? Do I not love you?”
We all told him that yes, he loved us very well, indeed, and we laughed more, and set about getting cleaned up and ready for the first wave of backstage passes and VIPs. As our manager, Graham is required to be our greatest advocate, but even his hyperbole knew some bounds; seeing him like this, tonight, was different, and only reinforced the sense of triumph.
The parade of visitors started, and we played nice with them all for another hour or so. Most of the flock went to Van, but Click and I had enough attention that we couldn’t duck out without being rude. You never know who’ll be coming backstage; we’ve had politicians and movie people, we’ve had local celebs who act like we should know them, and people who’ve won contests who act like we shouldn’t. Sometimes someone from the label shows, or someone hooked into the Big Money, and they’ve got to be treated like insiders. So it’s part of the job, to be nice backstage, and after a show like this one, it’s even easy, and pleasant.
The last were two girls, late teens, with passes won at a local record store, and Click and I did our best to keep them engaged, getting them to talk about themselves, as Van finished with her clump. Then Graham was at the door, telling us we had to get back to the hotel, and I walked the two girls out, giving them a handshake, thanking them for coming. Graham went with them down the hall, to make sure security got them out the rest of the way without trouble, and that left one person alone, outside, a good-looking white kid in his early twenties, holding three white roses.
“Hey, you,” I said. “What’s your name?”
He actually checked over his shoulder to see if I was possibly talking to someone else before giving me an answer. “Pete.”
I nodded and stepped back, searching for Vanessa, who was getting the last of her things together. “His name is Pete,” I told her. “He’s waiting outside.”
She grinned at me, a little caught, a little conspiratorially, and I thought what the hell, it’s been a good night, I’ll make it easy.
I leaned back out into the hall. “Hey, Pete—we’re getting ready to go back to the hotel.”
“Oh,” he said. He did a bad job of hiding disappointment.
“You want to hold on a minute, you could probably ride back with Van.”
It took him a second to parse it, to trace the thread to its inevitable conclusion. Then he said, “Oh,” again, but this time it was far more enthusiastic.
“Be a second,” I said, and closed the door.
“Thanks,” Van said.
“Cute.”
“God, yes.”
“He a keeper?”
She shrugged, pulling her bag onto her shoulder. “I’ll let you know in the morning.”
Pete was enough of a keeper that he was at breakfast the next morning in the restaurant, looking dazed to be seated between Van and Graham. Click was there, too, but I didn’t realize I was running late until I saw our tour manager, Leon, with them, as well. I caught the last of the day’s marching orders, and then Van told Pete to go with Leon. I downed some orange juice, listening to their idle talk.
“Well?” I asked Van.
“Throwing him back,” she told me.
I nodded and switched to coffee, doctoring it with way too much sugar, just for the added jump start. Click was working on an omelet, and Graham was futzing with his PDA.
“You hungover?” Van asked.
“Just a headache,” I told her.
“Not coming down with something?”
“No, just a headache.” I looked closer. “You’ve got a hickey.”
Click and Graham both focused on her, and Van’s hand flew to the side of her neck, alarm all across her face. Then she saw me grinning and picked up her butter knife, making a stabbing gesture.
“Not funny, Mim!”
“No, especially if he’s not a keeper.”
“Shut up, drink your coffee.”
“Yes, my mistress.”
Graham stowed his PDA, pulled out his briefcase, and started distributing photocopies.
“Came this morning. You are looking at a mock-up of the article that will run next week in
Conversation stopped for most of a minute as rustling paper and moving silverware took over the audio. The packets were ten pages, including a copy of the cover photo, stapled together, black-and-white. I skimmed, more interested in combating my headache than finding out how good or bad I looked, but Click and Vanessa both put full attention onto theirs.
“I’m ‘The Body,’ ” Van announced after a moment. “Me, body.”
“Not just any body,” Graham said. “
“This’ll be in color?”
“That’s what I’m told. The article is mixed, some b/w, but your shots are color.”
“The body?” I asked.
Van showed me the page she was looking at, a picture of her relaxing in a chair, head craned back but turned toward the camera, laughing and stretching. Her belly was bare, showing the hoop through her navel, the tone of her muscle. Not overtly sexual, but attractive. It was captioned with the words “The Body.”
“Which makes Click?”
Both Click and Graham answered. “ ‘The Spine.’ ”
I went to my copy and flipped through. The picture had Click from the waist up, wearing his Winterhawks jersey, looking straight on at the camera with his hand-rolled cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth. His smile in the shot was amused at the attention.
I flipped to what they said about me, and when I saw that I’d been labeled “The Brains,” I laughed out loud.
