Getting Real

14. Heavy



Crunching an apple, Rand watched the crew at the broadcast van unloading camera and sound gear. He’d just toured the stage construction with How and Roley and now they were taking a break before beginning a technical run-through. Behind him the sound of construction echoed along with the occasional blast from the video system.

The whole business with Jonas had been a shock. Yeah, they’d all known he was using, and yeah he’d been off his game, but Rand was angry with himself for not taking it more seriously, not acting more decisively. Now he was on Jonas like a head on a nail. Only Rie had seen it for what it was, but since they’d agreed to the tour she was so ready to expect the worst of everything, he started to discount her impressions. He’d never seen her this uptight, this unstable, and she was trying to hide it from him. He sighed. He’d have to keep a check on her and not get caught doing it.

He watched the TV crew assembling gear and talking with the Ng brothers. He guessed it was just as well Jonas was out of the picture before the documentary makers started shooting. Then he stopped thinking such pragmatic thoughts.

“Red alert—two o’clock,” Roley said. Rand followed Roley’s eyeline.

How looked up from his muscle car magazine. “The blonde?”

“No the beer belly with the beard.”

How ignored Roley, a skill they’d all perfected. “She’s damn fine.”

“Fierce.”

“Dibs.”

Roley sighed. “You can’t have dibs. You didn’t see her first.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” How scratched his nose, tucking the folded magazine in his back pocket.

“Well, how does it work then?”

“It’s first to say dibs.”

“Sometimes I forget what a dunderhead you are.” Roley deadpanned.

“Toss you for her.”

Roley considered. “Best out of three gets first crack.”

“Wait a minute?” Rand said

“Snooze you lose,” said How.

Rand pushed his sunglasses back up his nose. “Yeah, well I’m awake now.”

There were five people working in and around the broadcast van; camera, sound, vision recording and production specialists. Four blokes and one leggy blonde with a cap pulled down over her face. What were the chances—a billion to one, a trillion?

How said, “I’ve got dibs.”

Roley complained, “No you haven’t. We just agreed to flip.”

Rand punted his apple core into a nearby rubbish heap full of staging woodchips, packaging and other random garbage. “Don’t think it works like that.”

He strode out towards the van, the other two taking off after him. The girl and the beer belly had their backs to him when he drew near. “Harry Young?” he asked, taking his glasses off and trying not to squint.

The beer belly, who was closest, turned and held out a plump hand. Rand took it and the two men shook. “You’re Rand Mainline?”

“Yeah. Good to meet you.”

Beer Belly was pretty much as Rand had imagined. He felt an irrational bump of disappointment in his throat. After confronting Jonas yesterday, and worrying about managing without him despite expressing confidence in Jake, Rand realised he’d concocted the distracting fantasy of a chance meeting with his old school friend as light relief.

“I’m Ted Mason. That’s Harry,” said Beer Belly, inclining his head towards the leggy woman who was bent over an open laptop.

Rand coughed; felt a flutter in his belly. “You wouldn’t be Harriet Young by any chance would you?”

The blonde straightened up and turned. “Nobody calls me Harriet, Randall Mainline.”

He laughed. “Nobody calls me, Randall.”

“Jesus on a stick,” said How.

“Screwed,” said Roley. He made an airplane crashing sound to accompany dashed hopes.

Harry Young sized him up. With his dyed black hair, chipped paint on his nails, tattoos decorating his arms and piercings in his ears and eyebrow, there was barely a trace of the boy who’d been infatuated with her. He grinned and hoped she still liked what she saw. When she flushed, he felt a hard squirm of delight in his gut. He’d never expected to be standing within arm’s reach of her again. And he wouldn’t have been either, had the original series producer not needed emergency surgery. It was pure chance she got this gig. Pure chance he was standing here, looking at the first girl he’d ever wanted to kiss, and would get to keep looking at her for the next sixty days of the tour.

“You’re all grown up. Great teeth.” Rand grinned, tapping his own front tooth.

Harry laughed, then her cheeks pinked as she caught up with his memory of kissing through the steel barbs of her braces. He had a mad impulse to kiss her now, right here in front of How, Roley and the crew.

She hefted her laptop. “It’s amazing to see you. How’s Arielle?”

“I can’t believe it’s you.” Rand snorted. “Nobody calls her Arielle—she’s good.” He waved a hand towards the stage. “You’ll see her soon. I just can’t believe it’s you.”

They grinned at each other and Roley said, “Aw, for f*ck’s sake, Rand. Put us all out of our misery and hug the girl.”

Rand laughed. He stepped forward hesitantly. “Can I have a hug, Harry?”

She put the laptop down and nodded, and then was in his arms, her head tucking under his chin. He said softly, “Now I’m home,” as he pulled her against him and hugged her off her feet.

They were interrupted by a runner with a message from Jake for Rand to join them on stage.

“Have dinner with me,” Rand said, holding one of Harry’s hands. He waited for her nod and sprinted towards the stage where he could see Jake, Tim and Bodge heads tipped back, checking out a piece of rigging.

“Jake, it’s just not right. I don’t like it,” said Tim. “Jonas insisted this is the way he wanted the lighting rig, but it’s not safe. I want to change it back the way we had it.”

Rand joined them and they moved to the side of the stage and unrolled a set of plans with the rigging changes Jonas had specified marked on them. Rie, Ceedee and Jeremy were in a huddle on the stage front, directly below the piece of rigging under discussion.

Tim said, “See this bracket is holding too much—” and he was cut off by the screeching sound of a metal tearing, followed by the sudden shattering of glass and the thump and clang of scaffolding pieces pounding down onto the stage.

Jeremy grabbed a screaming Ceedee and dragged her out of the way, but Rie was farther from him and too far from Rand for him to do anything but gawp at her. She crouched down, wrapping her arms over her head as metal and glass rained down around her.

Bodge was closest and first to react, moving while the scaffolding and rigging were still self-destructing. He ran into the hail of flying debris, and scooped up Rie, carrying her to safety bundled in his arms, while pieces of wreckage bounced off his back, head and shoulders. Rie looked like a kid in the big man’s arms, curled against his chest. In some ways she still was a kid, stuck in the horror of what happened and why they’d never come home before now. Rand went to her. This was all she needed on top of the crap with Jonas, to convince her the tour was jinxed.

Tim and Jake had reacted as well, and the three of them converged at the edge of the whirlpool of destruction.

Bodge said, “Take her,” and thrust Rie into Jake’s arms. He had blood streaming from a cut on his head, he swore and took off again to see Jeremy and Ceedee bellowing for the first aid kit. Rand wiped a hand over his face. Jonas. He wanted to reach back to LA and ring the dude’s neck til drugs didn’t help his pain. Jake had Rie. He went after Bodge to see what needed to be done to fix this.

Jake cradled Rielle. He looked her over. “Are you hurt?” There was blood, but he wasn’t sure if it was hers or Bodge’s.

“What the hell happened?” She breathed in, lifting her head to look up at him with wide violet eyes.

Jake exchanged a quick look with Tim. “Jonas wanted a rigging change, but we weren’t happy with it. We just didn’t figure it out quick enough.”

“Jonas did this?”

“Technically I did it,” said Tim, “but yeah, Jonas ordered it.”

The colour was back in Rielle’s cheeks. She let go of Jake’s neck and he lowered her feet to the floor. “Bastard!” she said, balling her fists.

Roley, How and Stu arrived on stage in time to hear Rielle’s exclamation, shock written on their faces. Stu immediately made his way to Ceedee, catching her in a hug and slapping Jeremy on the back. Rand stepped over shattered glass and walked through the tangle of metal, looking up at the place where it had all been suspended moments ago.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in my life,” thundered Bodge, now holding a piece of cloth to his forehead. He rounded on Tim. “You should’ve seen that. You should never have let that happen.”

“Bodge, we missed it by minutes,” said Jake. Now he’d shaken the faith of his own crew. And minutes might as well have been miles given the damage done. “It’s my fault. I should’ve thought to check any of Jonas’s last minute instructions. I will now.”

“TLTL,” growled Bodge and Jake knew it was.

“Jake,” called Rand. He came over to drape his arm around Rielle’s shoulders. “Look at everything Jonas has put his fingers on. Everything.” He turned to Rielle, touched her neck. “You’re bleeding.”

“Let me take care of it,” said Jake. It was the least he could do. He took the first aid kit from Lizard’s outstretched hand. Just brilliant. First day on the job as stage manager, half the set collapses, my lead singer is hurt and my crew think I’m incompetent. His one overriding thought was to get Rielle backstage so when she carved him up, it was at least in private.

Rielle took the wad of gauze Jake offered and pressed it to her neck. She followed him backstage without protest. She was fine. She didn’t want a fuss made over it. Going backstage with Jake was better than having half the crew staring at her, wondering if she was going to crack, better than having Rand not look at her for the same reason. In the dressing room, Jake pulled out a chair for her and knelt in front of it.

“TLTL?” she asked.

“Too little, too late,” he said with a grimace. “Bodge is right. I should’ve checked everything.”

“Goddamn right you should have.” She dabbed at her neck and looked down at him. His lips were clamped shut, the expression in his eyes grim.

“Sharon will have a list of possible replacement stage managers for you later this afternoon.”

“So you’re just going to give up? Walk away from it?”

He narrowed his eyes, poured fresh water on another cloth to clean her wound. “I’m giving you the option like you wanted.”

“I’d prefer you had a backbone, Jake. I’d prefer you weren’t so weak. Didn’t have such a heart of straw.” She stood up and stepped around him. “But I guess that’s too much to ask.”

“Sit down.”

It wasn’t a request. He hadn’t moved off his knees but his tone made her pause—it was unguarded and hard. She sat, looked down at him, saw the tension in his jaw and the determination in his eyes.

“I said possible replacements. I didn’t say I was walking away. But if you’re about to fly off the handle and bounce me then you need a fall back first.”

“I’m not about to—”

“Shut up, Rielle. Let me see your neck. We can talk about what you’re going to do after we’ve made sure you’re not going to bleed to death.”

Cool, this was new. Jake showing his anger without being drug addled. She liked it. Enough to do what he asked. She removed her hand and turned her head so he could see where she was bleeding. He grunted in annoyance. “You’re got a bunch of nicks and scratches and one nasty cut.” His fingers went tentatively to the area around her tattoo. “It’s not deep but it’s bleeding still. Does it hurt?”

“No. It’s nothing.”

He held a wad of gauze against her neck. “It’s not nothing. You’re hurt and it’s my fault. It’s only luck it’s not much worse.”

“It’s okay Jake, I’m not hurt. I’ve had worse.”

“You could have been.” He pulled the cloth away and got to his feet, leaned over her, his fingers gentle, smoothing her hair away. Was it weird that it felt nice? She was bleeding onto her t-shirt—yeah it was weird to like the way he was all tense and serious and fussing over her.

“It’s a clean cut, no glass. Antiseptic is going to sting. I’m sorry.”

When he met her eyes she said, “Quit apologising. I’m not angry with you. I’m pissed off with Jonas and with myself for not fighting Rand harder on my issue with him. But I’m not angry with you.”

He grunted. “You’d have every right.”

“Yeah, I would.” She sighed. She wanted him to understand. He didn’t need to feel threatened by this. She wasn’t about to bounce his ass for Jonas’s cock up. “Everything that happens on your watch is your responsibility.”

He pulled the cloth away, but the bleeding started again so he pressed it back. She didn’t flinch when the antiseptic hit the cuts. It was really a nothing injury, she’d had worse blisters.

“At least we agree on that.”

No, he still didn’t get it. “Yeah, yeah—everything is your fault.” He frowned; she went on.

“Missing parts, stuck motors, rogue roadies, drugged out EPs. My miscues, turbulence, the weather. Me not wanting to be here.”

He pulled back to look at her. “What?”

“I’m just saying, while you’re responsible, it’s not all your fault. This wasn’t your fault, Jake.”

The look he gave her was full of mistrust. Rielle sighed, pushed his hand away, taking hold of the gauze herself. “You hate me don’t you?”

He shifted away. “I don’t hate you. I don’t get you, but I don’t hate you.”

“I don’t want you to hate me.” She paused. She sounded like a school kid. She was never like this at school. Never cared what anyone thought. Why did she care what Jake Reed thought? She dropped her eyes. “Bad enough you think I’m a fake.”

He sighed. “Look, I never should’ve said that stuff. It was inappropriate. I was angry with you for calling me on the heights thing. I don’t need anyone to remind me how crippling it is.”

“I’m sorry. I—”

“You have no need to apologise. I think we’re square.”

She looked up. “Yeah—you think I’m a nasty fake and I think you’re piss weak. Some square.”

Jake plucked fresh gauze from the first aid kit and made a bandage with plaster. “At least we know where we stand.”