“Miss DiLorenzo,” he grits out as his sleazy, sexually harassing eyes slide left and then right. “I’m terribly sorry you’re unhappy with your grade. However, I can’t change it, and more than that, I won’t. You’ve received the grade you earned. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”
“Wait. What?” I’ve lost the ability to do the whisper-yell thing. I think I’m just yelling now. “I’ve been through two straight years of courses for this degree. Most of those were in photography. I’ve never received anything below an A minus. I never received anything below an A from you until the final portfolio. You’re seriously going to say, after a Bachelor’s degree with all A’s and B’s and two years of graduate work with all A’s, my final portfolio was a C? No one will ever believe that.”
“Keep your voice down,” he snarls while yet again scanning the room. “You’re lucky you’re getting out of this program at all, considering your behavior at the moment.” Disdain drips from his lips like syrup off a stack of pancakes. “You’re a little fool. I’ve been playing this game a lot longer than you and I’m a lot better at it. Don’t challenge me on this, Melanie. You won’t win.” He sits back, crosses his arms, and glares at me.
I take a deep breath, noticing how it shakes as I release it. I don’t think I’ve ever been this mad in my life. It doesn’t feel good.
“I was set to receive the Eddie Adams Award for Photojournalism. That C ruined my chance. I’ve worked for The Eddie for six years. I earned that damn award, and I’m not about to let you, your giant ego, and your little prick take it away.” I’m trembling and my cheeks burn as I lean down with my hand on the table so I’m level with his face. I see his eyes go wide for a moment when he takes in my expression. “I’ll see you in the Dean’s office, Professor, or I’ll see you in Hell. Either way, you haven’t heard the last of me.”
Chapter Three
Joss
Colin waves to me from the studio as I walk into the soundbooth-cum-lounge with its glass wall that adjoins the room Mike and Colin are in. Lush’s album Your Air went gold two weeks ago and is well on the way to platinum. We’ve been a decently successful band for the last three years, playing openers for guys like Kings of Leon and Arctic Monkeys. But this is our breakout album, and the title track is selling nearly 200,000 copies a day. You’d think this would be a dream come true for me. I’ve worked at nothing but being a successful rock star since I was sixteen years old, when Mike and Walsh and I started fucking around with music in my mom’s old garage.
But for some reason, the last year or so, when it started looking like this day was coming, I lost the drive. I lost that compulsion to be this almighty rock god. The girls, the press, the money—none of it means shit to me anymore. And while no one else has any idea why that might be, I know. I know exactly what it is that’s killed my soul.
As if on cue, in she walks: Tammy DiLorenzo, band Girl Friday, five feet eight inches of smooth olive skin, sleek dark hair, and breasts that would bring even a gay guy to his knees. And right alongside her is Walsh, our drummer, recovering alcoholic, my best friend since second grade, and Tammy’s boyfriend since we were fourteen.
Yes, that’s right. I fucked my best friend’s girl, and everything but my self-respect and my soul survived.
Walsh and I were best buds all the time we were growing up. He was the fun guy, the one who met all the other kids, started all the neighborhood football games, and always knew the exciting things to do. I was the serious one, the sad kid without a dad. I hated that about myself. I hated not being light or sunny or optimistic. My hair may be blond, but my soul is dark, like cold night air when it rolls in off the ocean. My songs and my lyrics are always about the losses, the heartbreaks, the futility of shit. That’s me—the brooding, damaged rock star. I’m a fucking cliché.
“Well, well, well,” says Walsh. “Our sainted leader has beaten me here. Whassup, bro? You got insomnia or something?”
I’m known for my odd sleeping habits. They usually mean I don’t come in to work until three or four p.m. But sleep of any sort is impossible in the pit of hellfire that is my apartment right now.
“A/C’s still broken,” I grunt at him as I take the sandwich and soda Tammy hands me, working not to look at her.
“Damn, Joss. I guess that’s what you get for trying to become a property owner in some swanky, high-security building. You should just rent-a-mansion like Tam and I do.”
I take a big bite out of the BLT so I can’t respond to his idiocy. The house he and Tammy are leasing is 10,000 square feet of gilded trash. There are chandeliers in every room, black satin walls in the bedroom, metallic gold ceilings in the living room, and a fireplace so enormous you can stand up in it. Basically what the family from the Honey Boo Boo TV show would live in if they won the lottery. Tammy’s got better taste than that, but she’ll give Walsh whatever he wants if he’ll stay away from the bottle, and he has no taste whatsoever.
Mike and Colin have spotted the food Tammy brought and come out of the sound booth, wrestling with each other like a couple of overgrown puppies. “Munchies!” hollers Colin as he puts Mike in a headlock and gives him a noogie.
“Christ, you two,” I mumble. “Give it a rest. We’re twenty-seven goddamn years old.”
“Who pissed in your Wheaties, glamour boy?” asks Mike, a hard glint coming into his eye. I was right—he’s drunk. And that means it’s going to be a long night. He’s a mean drunk, and these days a jealous one as well. He’s made it no secret that he feels my role as lead singer has overshadowed his as lead guitarist, and that’s pissing him off to no end. He’s taken to calling me names like a ten-year-old and denigrating both my vocals and my songwriting, even though the success of Your Air—which I wrote and sang—should dispel those accusations pretty handily.
I couldn’t give a shit what Mike thinks of me, but I’m tired of the constant friction, and one of these days I’m not going to be so taciturn. When that happens, we’re going balls to the wall, Mike and me.
“Mike, dude, take it down a notch,” says Walsh, ever the happy-go-lucky peacemaker.
“Whatever,” Mike mumbles around his ham and cheese. He pulls a flask out of his back jeans pocket and splashes some booze into his soda.
“And you might want to take it easy on that stuff too when we haven’t even started the work day yet,” Walsh adds, pulling Tammy in for a quick kiss on the cheek as she sits down next to him on the sofa.
My stomach flips at the soft look that crosses her face when he kisses her. The sandwich turns to sawdust in my mouth and I take a big swig of soda to wash it down. She loves him, she’s always loved him, and I know I was a huge mistake in her book. She was in mine as well, but only because she belongs to Walsh, not because of her. I would give anything to have what she and Walsh have, but I know I never will—and certainly not with her. I think she regrets that night, not just because she regrets betraying Walsh, but because she regrets me. I can’t decide if that hurts me or infuriates me more.
“What the fuck, Walsh?” says Mike as he leans against the wall, chewing his food. “You so high and mighty now you have to preach sobriety everywhere you go? Unlike you, my friend, I can handle my substances. I’m not an alcoholic, and I’m over twenty-one, so I can drink whenever the hell I want.”
Walsh shakes his head and looks at Mike patiently. “Hey, you may be able to handle your shit better than me, but when you can’t make it through a single recording session without being loaded, you’ve got a problem, man.”
With the impeccable timing to go along with his impeccable grooming, our manager, Dave Keller, walks in. Today he’s in business casual—a pair of designer jeans, a pressed short-sleeved Polo shirt, and loafers with no socks. He looks like a chump, but the fact is, as shitty as I treat him, he’s a good guy and he’s taken our career exactly where we asked him to. It’s not his fault I changed my mind somewhere along the road.
“Fellas,” Dave says as he scans the small room that overlooks Recording Studio B, suddenly famous as the site where Your Air was recorded. “Glad you’re all here.” Everyone grunts and nods at him as we continue stuffing our faces—or drowning our livers, as the case may be. “I’ve got some news I think you’re going to like.”
“Lemme guess.” Mike puts his hand in the air and jumps up and down in an imitation of a little kid. “Congress wants to pass a law requiring everyone to bow to Joss, and all families have to donate their eighteen-year-old daughters for one night to become his pleasure slaves.”
Dave scowls at Mike. “Play nice now, son. Daddy doesn’t want to have to separate you boys.”
I mutter something particularly vulgar under my breath, but Mike is either too big of a pussy to acknowledge it or too drunk to hear it.
Meanwhile, Tammy and Walsh are snuggled on the sofa, and she’s watching us like we’re a reality TV show. Her hand is in Walsh’s hair and she’s stroking it softly, a small smile playing around her lips. He leans in to her touch and I see his hand snake around her waist and begin stroking the strip of bare flesh that’s exposed by her cropped t-shirt. I remember what that skin felt like under my own fingertips—how warm and smooth it was, like heated velvet—and I’m sick from the loss and the guilt.