“Wish me luck,” Clay told the empty loft.
“What was that?” Spider, downstairs, asked in his headphones.
“Nothing. Psyching myself up.”
Like his hero/mentor/friend, Clay preferred singing alone in the dark, under the stars. It was easier to rekindle the emotions that had inspired the song without everyone staring at you. Through that first night, Fiasco and Spider were constantly climbing up between takes, offering words of encouragement—since hearing your voice on tape could have a humbling effect (even Boyle had admitted he didn’t sound half as good recorded as he did in his head). Savy, on the other hand, seemed preoccupied. It wasn’t until late afternoon of the second day that Clay grew suspicious.
They were just starting “Houdini Nights” when Spider ran into a glitch downstairs and told Clay to take five. “Actually, make it fifteen. I need to sort this out.” Clay had zero knowledge of the technical aspects of recording; all he’d observed when delays of this kind occurred was Spider turning knobs, pushing faders, and frowning. Clay was reaching for his Syd Barrett biography when Savy caught his eye out the window.
She was down on the lawn, texting with busy thumbs. Smiling at the replies. Clay knew that smile—and didn’t like that she was offering it, however indirectly, to someone else.
There was a telescope that Peter insisted on keeping under the skylight and on a whim—an immature one, admittedly—Clay dragged it over and pointed the lens down at Savy. After a lot of wild aiming and adjustments, he managed to locate her phone, though the screen was a white blur, and he couldn’t make out so much as an emoji.
Finally, she stepped out of view, and Clay scolded himself for playing the jealous lover, the voyeuristic creep. He lifted the scope behind the property. Daylight savings was still a few weeks away, and at this hour the sun lit the western face of the Verdugos in hues of yellow, brown, and maroon. Clay scanned the deep crags and high ledges for the bluff that Savy had told him about, the one where binocular-clad fans supposedly gathered to stare into his back yard.
The floor behind him creaked and Clay turned, certain it would be Boyle.
Savy was there. “Who you spying on?” she asked.
And for some reason, Clay told her, “I was trying to see who you’ve been texting.”
Savy laughed at this like the joke it wasn’t. “You want some tea for your vocal cords? Or a humidifier? I brought one in case you get hoarse.”
“I’m good. Just trying to stay in the zone. Like you said, we have to be great.”
“You’ll crush it,” Savy said, starting back down. “I’ve no doubt.”
“You have a boyfriend, don’t you?”
She stopped. Long enough for Clay to note the irony in recording his voice, when he seemed to have so little control over it. “Or someone you hang with and tell none of us about? Did Mo ever tell you about the time I came by your grandma’s? I waited all night for you.”
“Guys,” Spider shouted up. “Argue quieter. The mic’s still hot.”
Savy went to the microphone and covered the foam in both hands. Her face was hard; her eyes soft. “It was a mistake, after the fire. And you’re only proving the point.”
Clay threw his hands up, knocking the telescope askew. “I’m just asking.”
Savy stared back, a pucker of flesh forming between her clenched eyebrows. For a moment, Clay’s inability to mind his tongue threatened to spread through his whole body, and he saw himself grabbing her, kissing her, leaving Spider to ponder the smacking sounds on the mic—first lips to lips, then likely her palm to his face. Though it went no further than an innocuous squeeze of Savy’s bicep before she stepped away. “Dream’s over,” she said. “Wake up now.”
Savy’s feet had hardly receded on the stairs before another, more urgent pair began clomping up. “You’re killing it,” Fiasco Joe told him without expression.
“First time for everything,” Clay said.
“And you’re killing me.”
“What now?”
Fiasco drew as close as Savy had, which was to say uncomfortably close for anyone you hadn’t slept with. Though his breath was consistently better since Delilah had shown up in his life, minty-fresh, Tic Tac-inspired. “It’s not entirely your fault,” he allowed. “You’re a band virgin and Savy glossed over what happened with Bass.”
Bass again. Emphasis on the “ass.” The Fishman who’d come before him.
“She told you we parted ways because he wanted us to do a rock/hip-hop fusion thing,” Fiasco went on. “Truth is, Bass had great style and a vocal range that totally expanded our sound. It wasn’t till we were on the road that the shit hit the grit.”
“What happened?”
“What happened is they fucked,” Fiasco said. Following Clay’s eyes, he added, “The mic’s dead now. It’s just us boys talking.”
“Savy and Bass were in a relationship?”
“Everyone in a band is in a relationship, bro, icky as that sounds. What they were into was the bump-nasty whenever Spider and I weren’t around. It wasn’t real obvious before we were on the road together. Costly Creation had six gigs between Diego and Portland and Savy and Bass argued and bitched at every stop. One morning I drove Sav all around Eureka looking for ‘purple-flavored Red Bull.’” Here, Fiasco conducted with his hands. “‘They only had the orange kind,’ she’d say. ‘What’s wrong with the orange kind?’ ‘No, no, it’s got to be purple—let’s go to another pharmacy.’ Come to find out she was really after morning-after pills. Lies like that set our band back a year. And I’m not going through it again.”
“So… is this a compliment? You think I have what it takes to land our band leader?”
“Doubtful,” Fiasco
