“Wimp,” she said over the rim of her coffee. “But from one pansy to another, east coast has too much weather for me, too. I was born and raised in San Diego, where if it drizzles, people lose their shit.”
The waitress arrived with our food. I never let anyone alter their diet around me, but the scent wafting from Kacey’s plate curled around my nose, rich and meaty and grilled. I glanced down at my salad that smelled like nothing and took a bite, mostly for Kacey’s sake.
“So you have a gallery opening in October?” Kacey asked, dabbing her mouth with a napkin. “It’s too bad I won’t be around to see it. I’ll be on tour for the next bazillion years.”
“A bazillion years…that’s a long tour. I hope you like to travel.”
She shrugged. “Eh. It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“No?”
“It sounds ungrateful. Most musicians would give their right tit to be signed by a label and go on a multi-city tour, right?”
“As I have no tit to give, right or left, I couldn’t say for sure,” I said with a grin. “But from my professional observation—as your chauffeur—it doesn’t look like you’re having the time of your life.”
Her eyes flicked up to the ceiling. “What gave it away? The trashed concert venue or blacking out and puking in your limo?”
“Tie.”
She smiled. “I miss the honest music without all the theatrics, you know? I used to love just sitting with my guitar and picking out a song. Finding a riff or a melody, falling into the zone of writing lyrics.”
“Did you go to school in San Diego for music?”
“No, I didn’t go to college at all,” she said. “But...I’ve been playing since I was a kid. My grandmother gave me a guitar when I was ten. I liked to play, but mostly I liked writing songs. The guitar was a way to put the tune behind my words. It could have been anything—a piano, drums… I just wanted to write and sing.”
“You sing too?”
“Only back-up nowadays,” she said, not quite meeting my eyes. “And I don’t write my own stuff anymore. Just stuff for the band.”
“Why?”
She traced the line of one dark eyebrow absently with her finger. Her hair was blonde but her eyebrows were darker. And perfect.
“We’re a team now. I write for us,” Kacey was saying. “But in a way it’s better for me. I need the band.” She glanced up at me through lowered lashes. “I don’t do so well on my own.”
I nodded, struggling for something constructive to say. To stay focused on her words and not the little details of her face.
“I feel like everything’s moving so fast,” Kacey continued, “and I don’t have time to sit and sort things out. Like what do I want to do? Is this what I want to do? Be a rock star? Half of me says, ‘Hell yeah!’ The other half of me is scared.”
“Scared of what?”
“The lifestyle. The partying. I feel like I do that so I don’t have to make any real decisions. I just follow the band, play really loud music, and drink a lot because…”
“Because…?” I asked gently
She shrugged casually, even if her words weren’t. “Because I have nowhere else to go.”
An image of the bodyguard carrying her out of the club last night flashed through my mind, juxtaposed with the promo shot of her giving the world the finger. Vulnerable and tough at the same time.
She seems lost…
Kacey sat back and waved a hand, as if her words were cigarette smoke to dispel. “Anyway, that’s my angsty hangover story.”
I knew that wasn’t all of it. I had the impression she had a ton more stories and a ton more songs in her.
Silence fell between us as I sipped my decaf that was growing cold. A half-dozen times I started a sentence, wanting to share something with her. Something deeply personal, as if there were some cosmic scoreboard that needed to be evened up.
But my most personal thing was too much. Too dark. Kacey Dawson was luminous and I couldn’t stand the idea of watching my deepest truth settle over her like a shroud, dimming her light with its awful finality.
I toyed with my medic alert bracelet under the table. I could at least tell her why I had to eat a fucking salad instead of a burger. I started to, then the waitress appeared with her coffee carafe. She refilled Kacey’s mug, then started to fill mine.
Kacey’s hand shot out and covered my mug. “Wait! Is that regular? He can only have decaf!”
The waitress jerked the pot back with a small cry. “Damn, honey, I nearly scalded you.”
“I’m sorry,” Kacey said. “I just…it’s important.” She glanced at me.
“It’s not worth you getting burned,” I said. But the gesture touched me.
“I’ll get the other pot,” the waitress said, and retreated in a huff.
Kacey’s hand was back in her lap and her cheeks were pink. “Sorry. I got a little over-excited.”
“You go all the way up to eleven,” I said, figuring an eighties movie quote would smooth things over.
Her head shot up, a smile breaking across her face like the dawn. “This is Spinal Tap,” she said. “A classic.”