The Girl in the Comfortable Quiet (10 page)

Leaving Kaley for the first time…not discussing
with Neil about being with Alan at the recording session…seeing Alan…shit, I
wish I didn’t feel so guilty and anxious about everything.

I head for the door.

CHAPTER NINE

I
roll to a stop in a driveway outside a black iron gate. A stucco wall encircles
an enormous house in Newport Beach.

Where the hell am I? Did I screw up the
directions?

I rummage through the papers on the passenger
seat and lift out the fax with the date-time-location information. I check it
against the plaque by the gate. Nope, this is right.

I hit the button on the intercom.

“Yes?”

I lean out my open window. “This is Chrissie
Parker.”
Oh shit.
“Stanton. Chrissie Stanton.”

Low, amused male laughter. My brows shoot up. It
sounds familiar, but I can’t place it.

“I knew who it was the first time. Come on
through, Chrissie.”

The gate opens and I slowly make my way to the
front of the house. I park, sit back in my seat and stare.

Oh my.
I should have recognized the
voice on the intercom. Dressed in UGG boots, baggy walking shorts, and a loose
silk shirt, with his sandy blond hair, deep golden tan and a Rolex flashing in
the sun from his wrist, Ian Kennedy, music producer extraordinaire, is standing
in the middle of the driveway smiling exuberantly at me.

I open my door and hurry from the car.

He holds his arms wide. “It’s Chrissie Parker.”

“It’s Ian Kennedy.”

Laughing, I let him pull me into a hug. He drops
sloppy kisses all over my face, shaking me side to side, and then steps back,
his caramel eyes twinkling. “Jesus Christ, girl, you look good. I about fell
out of my chair when I found out you married Neil Stanton and have a kid of
your own now. The next thing I know you’re here about to have your first song
recorded. Things move fast in your world, girl. It’s been too long. How come we
never see each other unless it’s totally random and unexpected?”

I lift my brows doing a slight shake of my head
as if to say
I don’t know,
but
random and unexpected is the
understatement of the century.

Arm draped loosely around my shoulders, he starts
to guide me into the house. “Fuck, what has it been? Four years? New York,
right? The tracks to
Long and Hard
?”

I nod. “Six years. But you’re right. New York.”

He shakes his head, those lovely eyes smiling at
me. “Too long. We need to catch up. Last time I saw you, you were hot and heavy
with Manny. This time married to Neil-mania.”

I smile and refrain from comment.
Fuck, Ian,
you still don’t have any tact.
Hot and heavy with Manny? Neil-mania?
Crud.
Is the entire day going to be like this? Effusive Ian making embarrassing
remarks in
This Is Your Life
fashion.

The interior of the house has tile floors and a forty-foot-high
open ceiling that echo from our steps. I try to focus on that sound instead of
my mounting nerves since arriving here.

God, maybe I shouldn’t have come today.

“So how’s your old man?”

Praise God. A safe subject. “Jack is great. You
know Jack. He’s always great.”

“Everything good with Neil? He’s sure taken off
like wildfire. He’s all you ever hear about anymore.”

“Neil’s doing great. We’re doing great together.”

He nods. “Then you can’t ask for anything more.
So don’t.”

He taps my nose. He opens a heavy door that I
know belongs to the studio.

The air is heavy with the smell of weed and
tobacco, and there is booze all over the console and ashtrays overflowing with
cigarettes. There is a guy at the sound board, tilted back, eyes closed,
looking half-asleep and I realize it’s Ryan Norris, Ian’s mix engineer. Beyond
the glass I spot Alan lying on a couch, staring up at the ceiling. He has that
look. Energized and hyper-focused. Working Alan.

A nervous tingle runs along my flesh. Wistfulness
whispers through my body. There is a lot to absorb here and too much to deal
with. God, Alan looks beautiful and being in here with him, doing this, feels
and is all exactly like I remember…

“Chrissie.”

Startled, I turn to find Linda sitting on the
couch.

I flash a smile to hide my discomposure. “Linda.
I didn’t know you’d be here.”

She exhales in a silly way. “Where else would I
be?” She pats the space beside her and I sink down. She takes me in a breezy
hug and touches my cheek. “Your timing is brilliant. I think they are about to
lay the vocal tracks for your song. That is, if Manny can stop being pissed off
for five minutes so he can sing.”

She makes a face.

I laugh. “Not going well?”

“Pretty much SOP. Something has pissed Manny
off.” She nods in the direction of the soundproofing glass. “I don’t know how
she manages with him. He has been awful to her all day. But she just rolls with
it. Never an angry word. Never a tear. She just rolls with the shit. I would
have hit Manny with my shoe two hours ago.”

I look in the direction of Linda’s stare and my
heart stills. I didn’t see her before when I looked through the glass. Built.
Dramatic dark hair with blue eyes. Drop dead gorgeous. Your basic worst
nightmare any day of the week. Fuck, who is she?

I turn back to Linda, a sinking feeling in my
stomach. “Who is that?”

Linda’s brows hitch up. “That’s Kathy King. She’s
part of the extended band. You don’t know her? She’s recording tracks on your
song. Tracks on the new album.”

I stare, stunned. I don’t know how I feel about
this.

I sink into the couch beside Linda. My eyes lock
on Kathy.

“Is she any good?”

Linda nods. “A very talented vocalist.”

“How long has she been part of the extended
band?”

Linda shrugs. “Six months. You’ll like her.
Everyone likes Kathy.”

I definitely
don’t
like
that one.
Alan is fucking her. I can tell. I start studying her even more intensely.

I can feel Linda’s heavy watching gaze on me.
“Don’t ask the next question, Chrissie. I can see this is uncomfortable for
you.”

I make a
what the fuck are you talking about
gesture with my hand. “It’s not uncomfortable and there is no next question,
Linda,” I say dismissively.

She rolls her eyes. “You want to know if that is
where Alan is getting his dick wet these days. Yep. They’ve been together four
months.”

I have to fight not to visibly cringe—
dick wet?
Really, Linda?
She’s being deliberately crass to get me to back off. Fine.
Backing off.

The studio door opens. Linda and I both look as
Kathy comes flouncing out, breathy and excited. Why is she smiling at me that
way? Yuck, this is awful.

She floats down onto a chair facing us. “I can’t
tell you how thrilled I am to meet you,” she gushes, and damn if it doesn’t
sound like she means it. “Your song is amazing. I’m so honored to get to record
it. And your vocals on
Long and Hard—
incredible. I can’t even come close
to them. Not even close.”

I can’t do anything. I can’t find the words in my
head. I can’t even smile. I’m plunged into disarray by too many things hitting
me all at once: this girl is fucking Alan; this girl knows I used to fuck Alan—
awkward,
Chrissie, awkward
—and I am irrationally hurt and feeling violated that Alan
played for her the tracks of
Long and Hard.

And what the fuck did she mean? Come even close
to my vocals?

I manage a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Kathy.”

Her smile is beaming. My insides turn.

“We’ve been doing those songs for two months on
the road. Every time I’m about to step out on stage, I run your vocals through
my head.”

On the road?
She tours with Alan. She
sings my parts from the album. She sings
Long and Hard.
The song Alan
wrote about
us
.

Ian swivels around to face us. “They’ve been
promoting the album for two months. You must be excited, Chrissie, that the
label is releasing it.”

Releasing it?
I feel like I’ve just
been run over by a truck. If it’s possible to be sent into a coma and be still
aware that would almost describe how I’m feeling now.

They all start chatting and I am mute, wishing I
could drop through the floor. Neil is going to freak when he finds out about
Long
and Hard
. Damn, why is it being released? Alan promised me it never would
be.

“This should take one take, Ian, if you don’t
fuck it up,” Alans says through the microphone, and Kathy springs from her
chair.

She smiles at me. “We’ll talk more later, OK?”

Not if there is a God in Heaven.

I watch her disappear beyond the glass where Alan
is and those black eyes fix on me. I can tell by his expression that he knew
the exact second I arrived and thirty minutes has passed and he hasn’t even
said hello to me.

He kisses Kathy and puts the cans on her head. I
feel as though I’m shrinking, diminishing. Why did I come here? This was a
mistake. I sit numb, not even able to hear them clearly through my distorting
thoughts and emotions, hurt and panic.

The guys hit the track. The music starts to play
and I’m struck by the third leveling shock of the day. I’m consumed by the
music practically from the first note. He’s slowed it down, quiet, precise,
powerful, a blending of darkness and light. The arrangement, the subtle changes
to the melody, it’s so beautiful. My little ballad is an Alan power-ballad,
exactly what I heard in my head and could never seem to create on the tapes.

I scan the lead sheet in my hand. The words are
nakedly revealing of me. I wonder if they are to Alan. It’s a beautiful ballad
and Alan has breathed us into it. My gaze lifts to stare at Kathy. Or at least,
that’s what
I
hear.

Four hours later, I’m frozen on the couch beside
Linda after listening to my song—and watching Alan singing it with Kathy—so
many times my stomach is sick. I can’t seem to escape the
was he like this
with me
when we recorded
heartache turning over and over again in my
thoughts. A caress of her face. His lips on her ear. Kathy never out of his
touch. It was like that with us and it unreasonably hurts, more than I ever
expected it to, to witness it.

And then there are the images of how we were in
bed after that recording session. The unspent adrenaline rushing through Alan’s
flesh as he devoured me, totally consuming my body as he whispered,
“The
opposite of death is you. You are my opposite of death.”

Fuck, I should go.

The last playback finishes and the studio door
bursts open and Alan drops into a chair. I’ve been here for hours and he still
hasn’t spoken to me. I didn’t expect that one.

Ian reaches for his coffee mug. “Are we good?”

Alan’s eyes flash wide, his gaze angry. “No.
We’re not even fucking in the realm of good.”

“What do you want to do?” Ian asks.

Alan closes his eyes again and says nothing.

I lean into Linda. “I’m going to go. I don’t need
to hear any more. And I don’t like driving after dark.”

Linda hugs me. “Talk to you soon, sweetheart.”

Alan shoots out of his chair and in a minute he’s
in front of me. “No. You’re not leaving.”

His reaction and voice startle me, especially
after an entire of day of being ignored by him.

“I need to go, Alan. It’s late. I love what
you’ve done to my song. I don’t need to stay.”

Those black eyes burn into me. “Sing it once with
me, Chrissie. Before you leave.”

What?

He grabs my hand and looks at Kathy. “I know you
can hear. I want you to listen to her sing this.”

I flush scarlet. “No, Alan. I really have to go.”

“I need you to do this,” he orders.

My head spins.

Alan touches my cheek. “You are the most gifted female
vocalist I’ve ever heard. You can show her what I can’t explain to her, in one
track.”

I stare at him, shocked. He wants me to sing with
him so
she’ll
know how to sing it for him. Oh God…

“Please do this for me, Chrissie. I want it to be
perfect. Perfect for you.”

It feels like the earth has turned upside down.
Oh,
that was unfair, Alan. That was unfair.
Before I can muster a response, he
pulls me with him into the studio.

Three hours later, I sit on a chair in the studio
listening to the final playback. Fuck, what the hell just happened here today?
Somehow I’ve done it again. I not only gave Alan my song to record, I’ve
recorded it with him. In the too-fast-moving shifting currents of Alan’s
universe, I replaced Kathy on the album without ever intending to or
consciously doing it.

Alan merely told Ian after the first take we did
that that’s the track we release, and the next thing I know I’m redubbing
Kathy’s vocals on other songs.