Softer Than Steel (A Love & Steel Novel) (28 page)

Wounded Warrior

Thank goodness for the children. Sidra watched as they invaded her space, their feet slapping happily on the wooden floor and their chatter echoing up to the stained glass windows. “You’re welcome to stay,” she hollered to the building’s buyers, where they huddled deep in discussion on the bimah. She plunged the lights down to their dimmest. “Join the class.”

The children knew exactly what to do. Low lights was their cue to grab mats and form a circle with them on the floor. Today they were twenty strong, spreading the circle generously, their energy as bright as the sun. Sidra set her mat in the middle of them and sat cross-legged, in lotus position. When she nodded, all of her young students fell dutifully into prayer, their starting pose of the day. Kneeling wide, their tiny rumps in the air and their foreheads to the mat. Sidra felt like Aditi, the Hindu sun goddess, as their little arms all stretched toward her in the center of the ring.
Aditi, mother of all,
she remembered learning as a child.
Keeper of the light.

There was no way she was going to let Thorton Young rain on her parade. Or Thor, as his friends—like Rick—had called him. The Norse god of thunder would not storm on her day. Not when she had this circle of light around her.

Sidra smiled in satisfaction as the only three people still standing had to pick their way out, tripping over foam blocks in their haste. They twisted and stepped wide to avoid the mats and bodies in their path to the exit door.

Her mother had once sculpted Aditi in relief, glazing her in a brilliant orange sari and sitting her on a majestic purple lotus flower. It had been one of her favorite pieces.

You’ve got flames in your hair, my golden goddess.

The memory of Rick’s words from the first time they made love slammed into her from behind, and she broke, just like her mother’s sculpture. She fell into her own prayer pose to hide her tears.

* * *

“Sid?”

The door wasn’t locked, but Mikey knocked anyway. Sidra didn’t feel like moving from her spot under the light. An hour of Karma Kids on the stereo had forced her through the children’s class, and she had powered through the next hour with her teens to Enya. Now she lay, allowing complete silence to surround her. No students, no music . . . just her and the
ner tamid
. For now.

They’d knock it down, of course.

She remembered the day Thorton Young had introduced himself, on his “exploratory visit.” How he had said he’d had a vision, more than a purpose, for the space. And it hadn’t been just his alone.
My investment partner . . . he’s in entertainment, keeps odd hours.

Rick knew all along,
she thought, rolling onto her side.
How could I have been so blind?
She felt the twinge in her lower back, left over from that same day, when she had popped too fast out of that warrior pose.

The battle was over. She had no reserves with which to fight any of this.

Until she turned, she hadn’t been aware of the tears. Now she let them roll, hot across the bridge of her nose and down into her ear.

Soft footfalls made their way toward her. Her cousin sat on the wide edge of the top step. “Fuckin’ A,” was all he said.

“Fuckin’ A,” Sidra repeated tonelessly.

He grabbed a nearby brick and twirled it between his thick, blunt fingers. Sidra wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Hey, we’re the fighting Irish. Well, you’re half Irish. But that’s half the battle. We can do this. Shillelagh law.” He raised the brick in his fist.

“No, Mike. We can’t.” There would be no protests. No lying down in front of the bulldozers that would come in the name of gentrification and progress. The building that had been in their family for three generations would morph into some sort of hipster oasis. For musicians and their entourages, women wearing thousand-dollar shoes. And showing up in limos. Meeting Rick in the elevator that day may have been chance, but she had been a fool to believe that anything after that wasn’t just some desperate fantasy she had conjured up. No rich rock icon could ever be happy slumming in her shabby neighborhood, her tiny apartment. Or in her sad little life.

“Kind of ironic that my record store is closing because of a recording studio.” Mike blew out a defeated laugh. “Can’t they just do that shit on GarageBand? With laptops and USBs?”

Sidra thought about how distressed Rick had been about CBGB closing down. Yet watching him behind that console yesterday, she saw how in control and focused he was. Like a metal monarch behind the glass walls of his castle. When it came to business,
his
business, he probably had no trouble acquiring kingdoms. No doubt just another part of the deal he’d made with the devil. She, Mike, and Sully just happened to be in the path along the way.

And as Charlie would say, everybody has a price.

“I’m sorry, Mike.” Her whisper was almost too hoarse to decipher. “So, so sorry.”

“For what? Like this is somehow
your
fault? Get outta here. My dad was looking to unload the building long before—”

“You can say it. Before I let another heartless musician trample all over me.” She pulled her knees up, curling into fetal position.

“Hey. At least you didn’t put him on your payroll.”

Sidra forced a smile. She knew her cousin was just trying to lighten the mood. But even as they were bathed in the warm golden light from overhead, there was no denying it: Things looked pretty bleak.

“What say we round up Fi and Reggie and go get toasted?”

Sidra sat up slowly. “Reggie’s got that summer share on weekends, remember? Fire Island?”

“Well, fuck it. Let’s hop on the Jitney and burn that shit down.” Just like her brother’s hand flexed in anticipation of playing percussion, Sidra’s cousin milked his fist at the thought of an ice-cold brew in hand.
Happy-go-lucky Irish party boy,
she thought,
or just another Jack in training?
Sidra wondered how far the scale had to tip to register the point of no return.

“You go.” Banana Louie was waiting for food, water, and a lightbulb change. And her father, well . . . hopefully he’d remembered to eat, shower, and leave a light on for her. She would make her rounds. And then she would go home.

Mike stood to his full height. He tossed the foam brick from one hand to the other. “For what it’s worth, Sid . . .”

“Yeah?”

“Sullivan and Son . . . and grandkids. We had a good run.”

* * *

It was after dusk by the time Sidra rounded 5th Street and plodded up the path to her apartment. How could this possibly be the same day that she had burst from her front door into the sunshine on her way to see Rick at the record store? She didn’t even feel like she was on the same planet, let alone in the same time zone. If depression dulled the senses, why did everything around her appear so different? Her block looked shabbier, traffic sounded more crass than usual, and her outside vestibule smelled foul and foreign.

A figure swayed out of the darkness, under the brownstone stairs, lurching heavy against her and knocking the key from her hand. She screamed, the weight and confusion bringing her down, and her knees scraped the pavement.

“Lost her . . .” A plaintive mumble slowed her racing heart. “Lost my truth.”

“Daddy.” Sidra wrapped her arms around her father’s slumped shoulders. Not Jack, not Dad . . . She needed that father figure she remembered from her childhood.

But he wasn’t that.

And he was no longer the distinguished NYU professor on a summer bender. He was broken.

Jack still wore the same clothes he had had on the night she and Rick visited with him in the back garden. He smelled of sweat and tears. “Let’s get you inside,” she said.

She brought him through her apartment door rather than trying to get him up the steep steps of the brownstone to his second floor bedroom. Once he was slumped on the couch, she figured he would pass out peacefully. But instead, he grabbed the mother dove statue from the console table.

Her heart sank.

“Dad . . . let go.” Her words fell on deaf, drunk ears. She didn’t worry that all hell would break loose, like when she was little, and that he’d throw it like all the others. No, his death grip on it worried her more.

Even in death, her sweet mother had such a grip on him. Sidra wondered if he would ever be free.

Jack squeezed the sculpture so hard, she thought it would pop and shatter to dust in his hands. “You’re holding her too tight.” The sharp edge of one wing bit into his unfeeling flesh, drawing blood. “You’re hurting . . .”
Who, Sidra? Himself?
“You’re hurting me!” She yelled the words, even startling herself. “And you’re hurting Seamus!”

He started. Looking stunned and unsure. “But I lost . . . her.”

“Yes. But you didn’t lose
us
. We love you, Dad. But you need to get help. Will you agree to get help?”

There was a lucid look to those watery blue eyes, and he slowly nodded.

Loyalty Lies

“How long has he been like that?”

“Dunno. I just got here.”

“What should we do?”

“Let’s wait for Digger.”

Rick could hear Sam and Jim whispering. A door slammed. There was more whispering, then Adrian’s low murmur. Footsteps.

“Is he breathing?”

Rick slowly rolled out of the Plow pose he had been holding, one vertebrae at a time. He kept his legs together and steady as he brought them down. “Yes, Sam. I’m alive.” Now that his neck wasn’t in a compromised position and his feet were no longer over his head, Rick could see his bandmates’ concerned faces as they surrounded him. The inversion he’d held was known for calming the brain and reducing stress.

A pity he couldn’t stay there indefinitely.

He arched his back and pushed into Fish pose to counterbalance, then slowly came to rest in Corpse. He let his eyes close. “I fucked up. Big-time.”

Night settled over Dream Depth Music Studios as the bandmates sat and listened to his sordid tale. All of it: from the beginnings of the botched business deal to Wren showing up and everything in between. Including all the fights with Isabelle over the album, a burden he had considered his, as bandleader, to bear. Then came the personal stuff. The highest highs of falling in love with Sidra all summer in the city were counterbalanced with the lowest lows. Lying to her. Losing her. Letting her building fall into the hands of Thor. The guy who had his hands in everything, including the future of their album.

“He’s going to leak it.”

All heads turned. Mason, Thor’s assistant, was standing in the doorway. “I saw him duplicating multiple thumb drives from Pro Tools.”

“Why should we trust you?” Sam demanded. “He’s your bloody paycheck.”

“I trust him.” Thanks to Rick, Mason had become a fervent follower of Sidra’s yoga. He was a good kid. And sharp. Rick touched his hand to his chest pocket, remembering the USB Thor had dropped in there and what he had said. About the beast being bigger than all of them.

Thorton Young was no upstart in the business. He had been bred by the machine. And fed by the machine. He was pissed that their dealings were going south. And once he found out Rick had hired Gloria—not to dig into his past, but rather into the past of the building—he’d want Rick’s blood. And the best way to siphon it would be through the veins of the band itself.

“We’ll go to the label and demand a new producer. It’s a conflict of interest.” Adrian was adamant. “We’ll storm the gates and take it right to the top if we have to.”

“Don’t you get it?” Rick scrubbed a hand over his eyes, his cheek, his mouth. “We’ve been trusting the wrong gatekeepers all along!”

The look Sam and Jim exchanged, followed by a quick glance at Adrian, confirmed something Rick had been denying the entire time. All his talk about control and doing it their own way this time around—he had marched them right into the jaws of the bloody machine again. And for what? The glamour? The fortune? They had had all that. What was the point? Corroded Corpse had rid its old shackles like a snake shedding its skin, becoming the Rotten Graves Project. But for all intents and purposes, they were still in captivity.

Rick had confused guilt for loyalty. Aligning himself with Isabelle because of her connection to Simone had been his first of many mistakes. She’d done nothing but push deadlines and force stress on him. And he had mistaken attention for validation. Signing on to a 360 deal just because one had been offered, the first of its kind to a metal band of their stature, had not been what they needed. Or what he thought he had wanted.

And his mind and his body had been trying to tell him that all along.

“So what should we do?” Sam ventured.

“We beat him to the punch,” Rick said.

“Oh!” Sam’s eyes widened. “In this case, I am all for a premature ejaculation of this nature.”

“It can’t be the rough cuts, coming from us.” Adrian rubbed his goatee in thought. “The press will rip us apart.”

“The fans will go bonkers, though. They’ve been dying to hear new material,” Jim pointed out.

“Bloody well right!” Sam boomed. “We’ve been dusting off and hauling out the old standards live these past four years. They deserve a taste of the new.”

Rick spoke up. “What if we were to record one of the tracks, live? And interlace it with the studio takes?”

The rest of the band agreed, but which track?

“Track eight.”

It was the song he had been composing for Sidra. And in light of all that had happened, it couldn’t wait. Not for the album’s official street date, not months from now.

“Track eight? It doesn’t even have a title,” Sam pointed out. “Or lyrics!”

“It does now,” Rick said.

Cashing In

“You gotta lotta nerve, Riff Rotten.”

Fiona cracked her gum and gave Rick her best stare-down. Her cadence was downright melodic; he had missed it. Along with everything—and everyone else—within the four walls of the Rivington Street structure.

“I’d like to speak to the owner.”

“Which one? New one? Old one?”

“Come on, Fi.” Rick could’ve sworn her expertly penciled brow twitched at the sound of her nickname. “Page Mike for me. Please.”

She feigned boredom, pressing a long pink nail down on the store intercom button. “One of the
investors
is here.” Fiona glared at him as if he’d brought an infestation of rats along with him.

“We’re not taking in new stock,” Mikey said as Rick hoisted the heavy crate full of albums onto the counter.

“Trust me. You’ll want these.”

Mike folded his arms across his chest. “Why? So that bitch in the heels can take a hammer to them after I’m gone? I’d rather her claw my fucking eyes out.”

Rick pulled out the first album in the pile. “Recognize this?” He tapped the windowed artwork on the front of Led Zeppelin’s
Physical Graffiti
, but was met with a blank stare. “No? You should. That’s the front of 96–98 St. Mark’s Place. Mick Jagger sat on that stoop, too, during the video for ‘Waiting on a Friend.’” Rick singled out the Rolling Stones’
Tattoo You
from the bunch. “Then he and Keith walked around the corner to St. Mark’s Bar & Grill on 1st and met the rest of the band inside.”

Mike stole a glance, but didn’t make a move for a closer look. “So what of it?”

“
So,
it’s your neighborhood.” Rick pulled the Allman Brothers out next, followed by the Velvet Underground. Hendrix. The Dead. “You’re too young to know about the Fillmore East or the Electric Circus. But they were the stuff of legend, the places that made me want to leave England to come here! And I did.” Out came the Ramones, Blondie, the Pogues. “I bought half these records at Sounds in the 1980s. A little shop on St. Marks. Gone. CBs, Sin-é, Coney Island High. Some of those have to ring a bell, right? But they’re all gone now.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Mike shifted his weight impatiently to the other foot.

Rick slapped down another album: Corroded Corpse’s
Palladium Live
. “We were one of the last rock bands to play there, before it turned into a nightclub. Then it was demolished.” He leaned on the counter and leveled Revolve Record’s proprietor with a steely stare. “So you’re right. I
am
invested. I had forgotten the history. The significance. Until I found this place. And until I found Sidra. I’m not the enemy, Mikey.”

“How much do you want for them?”

Rick shook his head. “I don’t want money. I’m looking for a trade.”