We make it up to the box surrounded by bodyguards and they leave us at the door. I step inside with Haley and she takes her coat off before sitting down.
“Are you sure you should be taking off your coat?”
“Brando,” she says, affectionately. “I need to rest my vocal cords; I’m not dying of frostbite.”
I shrug and sit beside her.
When the support band comes on, Haley turns to me with a dropped jaw and eyes that are lit up.
“Oh my God! The band from last night! Did you do that?”
“Well, I’m still managing the tour,” I say. “If people are gonna cancel gigs without telling me first, I’ll have to show my power in other ways.”
“But aren’t they, like, unsigned? Wasn’t last night their first gig in New York?”
“Yeah. And tonight’s their second.”
I look at her face, and wonder how she can smile a million times and make it still seem different.
“Music is music,” I go on. “If any of these fans feel half as good as I felt last night then they’ll have gotten their money’s worth.”
Haley runs a finger across her lip and looks away shyly for a second.
“It was the band that made you feel good?”
“Not really,” I admit, putting an arm around her. “It was all you.”
I hold her through the whole set, enjoying the smell of her hair, the way her body fits so perfectly against mine. When the band finishes up, however, and Lexi’s show is about to start, she sits up and leans over the railing.
“Have you ever seen Lexi perform?” I ask.
“No,” she says. “I used to be too tired from my own show. The last thing I wanted to do was sit through another.”
Lexi’s show starts with an explosion of color, a bass drum that sounds like bombs exploding, a catchy synth melody that makes the crowd scream like they’re on the world’s loudest roller coaster. In the swirling mix of blood-pumping sounds Lexi starts singing, and the crowd goes even wilder.
“Holy shit,” Haley says, her face pink with the heat and excitement emanating from the mass of humanity below us, “the audience loves her! I haven’t seen a crowd like this on the tour before at all.”
“You’re half the reason they love her,” I say, as Lexi rises up out of the stage on a platform, legs spread on six-inch heels, white latex dress reflecting the sweeping lights. “This audience would be half the size if you hadn’t brought so much buzz to the tour.”
Dancers spin onto the stage, obscuring the focus of the crowd’s love and adulation, and then the music goes low for all of half a second – but it’s enough. When it hits again, this time with snares and even harder bass bombs, the dancers fall away as Lexi exhibits her trademark strut through them. Sheer power, pure sex, ultra-feminine.
“I dunno,” Haley says, almost as wide-eyed and adoring as the fans having seizures below us, “that’s some stage presence.”
“Sure is,” I smile at her. “Enough to make you forget about the songs.”
Haley shoots me a disapproving look before breaking into a laugh of acknowledgment.
“Maybe.”
We watch Lexi strut across the stage, hold out the mic for the crowd to sing the chorus.
“You see,” I say, leaning over the railing beside Haley, “she loves this: the performance, the act, the spectacle—and the crowd can tell.”
“I love it too,” Haley replies, almost defiantly.
“I know, that’s why your shows did well. But with Lexi,” I say, “there’s an added element. She’s not just giving them a show; she’s giving them a fantasy.”
“What fantasy?”
“That they can be like her,” I say, leaning in closer. “There isn’t a person in the audience who doesn’t want to be Lexi right now, or be with her, at least a little.”
Haley laughs dismissively. “I’m in this audience, and I’m fine with who I am, thanks.”
“You sure?” I say, nodding toward the stage as Lexi lets a couple of semi-naked male dancers run their hands over her body. “Maybe not the songs, and the latex dress. But that confidence? That raw sexuality? That command over the whole audience that seems so natural for her?”
“No,” Haley says, glancing at the stage, then back at me. “Maybe. A little bit?”
I lean in a little closer, so close she can hear the softness in my voice even over the loudness of the music. “It’s a fantasy though. And just like any fantasy, you only get it if you go for it, and it only lasts a little while. So enjoy it when it comes. As for me, I’d rather put my hands on what’s real.”
Haley’s eyes flicker over my face, and I see her almost look away, but decide to keep her face close to mine.
“Why does everything you say to me sound like it might lead to sex?”
“Because it might?”
Haley moves her face so close that I can see her pupils dilate and her tongue move between her teeth.