“Don’t look at us,” Johnny said. “Look at her.” He nodded his chin in Cheyenne’s direction. She didn’t respond in any way. She simply had a sip of her coffee and kept her head down.
“Oh, I know,” he continued. “Chey got drunk. Which was really stupid,” he added, turning to her. “She and I have discussed this at length, and I’m confident it won’t happen again. Right, Cheyenne?”
“Right,” she answered. Her voice was thin, weak.
“But maybe Cheyenne wouldn’t be getting drunk at gigs if you boys didn’t shit where you eat.”
“Huh?” Richie was sincerely confused.
“It means don’t diddle your fellow bandmates.”
“Hey, man, I’m not really sure what you mean by diddle, but I ain’t never—”
“Put a sock in it, drummer boy. You all know what I’m talking about. I have no idea who has relationships with who in this band, and I don’t want to know. What I do know is that all this behind-the-scenes shit is fucking everything up. So, from today forward, you’re no longer friends; you’re business partners. Understand?”
It took me a minute to process that.
“I’m sorry, Jeff, did you say you don’t want us to be friends?” I asked.
“That’s right.”
No one else jumped in, so I continued, “But aren’t our friendships what make the chemistry of the band work?”
He smiled. Like a shark. “No. They’re not. What makes the band work is the chemistry of the music.”
“I don’t know—” I started, but he cut me off.
“Cheyenne,” Jeff said, turning to her, “how close are you and Mr. Drummer Boy, over here?”
“Dude,” Richie said, “stop calling me that.”
Cheyenne thought about it for a minute. “I don’t know. Not that close, I guess.”
Jeff turned to Richie.
“What?” Richie asked, his hackles now up.
“Well, is she right?”
“I don’t know. We see each other all the time. She’s, like, one of my best friends.”
“Do the two of you ever hang out outside the band? Do you go to movies together or anything?”
“No,” Richie answered.
“Do you call each other on the phone to talk?”
“No.”
“Do you even have Cheyenne’s phone number?”
“No.” Richie hung his head.
“Buck up, Drummer Boy. This is a good thing. Let me ask one last question. How close are you and Cheyenne musically?”
Richie scrunched his face as he thought about this. “I’d say we’re married.” He flashed a grin at Cheyenne, and she grinned back. Johnny was sitting next to me, and I could feel the air around us shrivel.
“That’s right. You and she are musical soul mates. It’s a beautiful thing. But once the amps are off, you hardly know each other. That, kiddies, is what you will now strive for. It’s what you need to become. You are fellow musicians, and you are business partners. Once you learn how to do that, maybe, just maybe, you can go back to being friends. Everyone understand?”
And we did.
CHEYENNE BELLE
A couple of days before Jeff had dragged the whole band to New York City for lunch, he’d taken me out to a kind of fancy restaurant where Central Avenue crosses the border into Scarsdale. Well, fancier then I was used to anyway. It was a Red Lobster. Have you heard of these places? I actually got to eat lobster! That was a first for me. I thought it was gross but didn’t want to say anything. I wanted to be sophisticated.
“Look,” Jeff said after we’d ordered. “I don’t care if you drink. In fact, here.” He slid a glass of white wine from in front of his place setting to in front of mine. I looked at the glass and at Jeff like they weren’t real. “I only care that whatever you do offstage doesn’t hurt what’s happening onstage. Do you understand?”
I nodded. Jeff was twenty-eight-years old, and I took him very seriously.
“Good,” he said. “Moderation and control are important lessons to learn, Cheyenne.”
“Can I ask you something?” I was afraid to sip the wine—afraid that it might not be real, that it might be a trap—and wanted to distract myself.
“Sure, kid, shoot.”
“Why does any of this matter? Isn’t the band kind of, I don’t know, over?”
“What? No, no. Great bands go through this shit all the time.” I liked the way Jeff cursed, like swear words were just words. “Roger Waters and David Gilmour can’t be in the same room with each other.”
“But didn’t Pink Floyd break up?”
“Yeah, but they were together for years hating each other, and they made zillions.”
“Okay, but what about Johnny and Harry? I’m pretty sure they think this is over. I haven’t even talked to them since New Year’s Eve.”
“Leave them to me, okay?”
I trusted Jeff. I don’t know why, but I did. “Okay,” I answered.
It was a little weird he was sitting on the same side of the booth as me, but I just figured that was how older people went to dinner in fancier restaurants. Anyway, that’s when he suggested I get a tattoo.
“You want me to get a what?” I said.
“A tattoo.”
“Why?”