I gave him my usual show-gal flirty “Hello, mister, how you doing?”
He smiled, his teeth so straight and white, you had to wonder if he had come out the womb with braces. “I’m good,” he answered in the overly hospitable way of Southerners, even the ones that had lost their accents. “How are you?”
“Well . . .” I launched into the last verse of “Fever.”
But then the spotlight adjusted and his face came into full view under light bright enough that my subconscious could not trick me into thinking it was not who I didn’t want it to be.
That’s when I saw that it was James. Yes, James Farrell. In my club and sitting beneath my butt.
FIFTEEN
It took every single ounce of cool that I had constructed in the fifteen years since the Farrell Manor Incident not to throw up.
And nothing could prevent the static. It filled my ears as soon as I recognized him, and then I couldn’t hear anything. Not even myself. Truly, I could only hope that I was on key for the last verse of “Fever” and keeping up with the music as I sang about Pocahontas and Captain John Smith.
What felt like hours passed before I got to the part where I declared that chicks were born to give men fever, and the spotlight led me out of James’s lap and back up onto the stage.
“What a lovely way to burn,” I sang over and over again.
The farther I got from him, the more the static receded. But it never completely went away. And as I walked up the stage steps, I could feel his eyes on me. I thanked the band, the waitstaff, and everyone else for joining us, and I could see James clapping along with the rest of the audience, his expression droll and amused. Just like Andrew McCarthy in the record store in Pretty in Pink, when Molly Ringwald tells him that the Steve Lawrence album that he has jokingly picked out is “white hot.”
I had to get out of there.
“Good night, darlins.” I kissed the palm of my hand and threw it out to them in an arc of waggling fingers, just like I always did. And then I headed backstage before the lights were all the way down.
. . .
The plan was to gather up all my stuff from my dressing room, and then run—not walk—up to my apartment.
But Nicky was waiting outside my dressing room door.
“You in love?” he asked.
I froze. “What?”
“You was barely looking at that guy and you were stiff. That’s not how I taught you to do it. So I’m thinking you must be dating somebody else, and that’s why you couldn’t do your job tonight.”
“Oh, you’re complaining about my performance.” I unfroze and continued into my dressing room. Nicky always came out to watch me sing “Fever.” Most nights it felt fatherly, like he was watching over me. But sometimes he had notes, and then it got annoying.
He followed me into the dressing room. “Damn right I’m complaining about your performance. What the hell?”
“Nicky, I’m sorry. I’ll be better tomorrow, I promise.” I gathered up my makeup bag and purse and started to leave, but he got in front of me.
“Hey, I’m not paying you to phone shit in tonight and do it right tomorrow. You’re supposed to be bringing your A-game every night.”
Usually I didn’t mind Nicky, but at that moment, I was truly afraid I might cut his fool ass if he didn’t let me by.
“Okay, then, don’t pay me.” I tried to push past him.
But he stopped me with a hand to my chest. “Wait a minute, what did you say?”
“If you’re so disappointed in my performance, then don’t pay me for tonight.”
Nicky crooked his head to the side. “Since when you ready to give up a paycheck? You don’t got money like that.” His eyes went from suspicious to worried in an instant. “Are you okay?”
“Nicky, I so appreciate that you’ve finally learned to be my friend first and my boss second. But right now, I do actually need you to let me go, before—”