Getting Real

“That’s settled then.”

Jake lay his virtual protest placards down and grinned at his dad.

Mum picked up plates and headed towards the kitchen. “I’ve got homemade cheesecake for dessert.”

“I’ll whip the cream,” he said, taking a serving plate and the gravy boat into the kitchen, leaving Dad to clear the remains of the meal.

After dessert and a cup of tea, Jake took his mobile into the backyard where Monty was slobbering over a dried pig’s ear, his big Lab tail thumping the grass, and called Ron.

As usual Ron Teller, Australia’s biggest entertainment promoter was straight to the point. “Mate, I’ve got a new job for you. I want you on a stadium tour, a month’s prep and two on the road. Shows scheduled for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Oh and Adelaide. You in?”

A stadium tour—that meant it was a big name artist. The only big name Jake knew about to tour was the rock band, Ice Queen. And that was big. That was awesome. That was the pig’s ear in his world. “I’m in.”

“It’s ‘Re-elle’, mate,” said Ron, drawing out the pronunciation of the lead singer’s name for effect. “This Side of Purgatory. It’s a sell out, capacity crowds. Their first time touring here. The media are wetting themselves over it.”

Monty made a little whine of contentment, the sound perfectly capturing how Jake felt. A sell out stadium tour with one of the biggest bands in the world—tasty. It more than compensated for spending the last two months touring regional centres like Newcastle, Ballarat and Bundaberg with the Jays.

“Who’s opening?” he asked.

“Problem Children.” Ron named another chart-topping local band just breaking into the US scene.

“You want me as tour manager?”

“Yeah mate, the band’s bringing their own exec producer and I’ll leave you to put together the rest of the crew.”

Mentally he assembled the rest of the people he’d need to provide staging set up, catering, security, transport, and logistics. “What do you know about Rielle?” Jake knew she was a talented performer and a media darling because of her explosive temper and outrageous stage presence, but that was little more than what was public about her and the band. He wanted the inside story. The more he knew, the easier it would be to run the tour.

“She and her brother have managed themselves since they were teenagers, they’re tight. He’s the business brain; she’s the star. I hear she’s one hundred percent pure bitch, mate,” said Ron. “Talented yeah, but from what I know, relentless about quality, rides everyone hard to get what she wants and not nice about it.”

In the dark backyard, with the whir of the washing machine and the slobber of the dog, Jake nodded. The expression ‘pure bitch’ covered a lot of ground and was usually applied to female talent if they were in any way strong-willed. He was well aware of the double standard that applied in the industry. No one thought a male entertainer was a bastard if he was focussed on a quality performance, but a demanding woman—bitch.

“Seriously a bitch or just, you know…?”

“Reedy, mate, from what the US promoter tells me, she doesn’t pull any punches and she’s the boss on stage,” warned Ron. “Anyway, she’ll be your problem now, whether she’s a bitch or a pussycat. We’re leg one of their global tour, they want to get it right here, where the fans are more laid back, before they take it to the US and Europe. So we’re the guinea pigs, and when I say we, mate, that’d be you, playing the part of the rodent.”

3. Gemini

Adelaide, Australia. Now.

Jake stepped up on a cross trainer, set the computer for a twenty-minute session, plugged his earphones into the socket, and tuned into the music channel, scoring a Black Eyed Peas video that matched his stride. Five minutes later, he was feeling warm and fluid and enjoying an old Lady Gaga clip, the one with the biker apostles.

One of the side benefits of working on a big, high profile tour was getting to stay in decent hotels with access to facilities like pools, gyms, bars, and cafes. It’d been a while since he’d been in a gym. His usual workout was a run or a surf when he could get one in. He didn’t notice the place start to fill up until the cross trainer beside him started to move. He glanced to the side and saw a cute girl in fitted black gym skins begin her workout. She had short blonde tousled hair and when she glanced back at him, he saw big green eyes and freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and cheeks, and a gap in her front teeth that bit her plump bottom lip. Cute.

Fifteen minutes into his workout, he picked up his pace. As he pushed faster on the pedals he noticed she did as well. The arms on their cross trainers swung back and forth in sync. He chanced another glance. She had her earphones plugged in and was watching the same music channel he was. He pushed his heels down harder and kicked his pace up again. And so did she.

Okay now, that can’t have been coincidental. He’d thought she was simply pounding the same rhythm to the music as he was, he kicked it again. Now he was running hard and she matched him. Damn, she was a little thing but she was fit. She had no trouble keeping pace with him. Was she grinning? He didn’t dare look directly at her. He was sweating buckets. The heart rate icon on the computer screen leapt into the purple zone and pulsed brightly—was that the exercise or the girl?

When his twenty minutes were up, the machine automatically lost traction, but she kept pounding away, never looking at him directly. He slowed to the pace of a light jog, and then stepped off the machine. Now he could get a good look at her. Not cute—hot as! Standing behind her, he could take in her narrow waist, slim hips, the flexing, well-formed muscles in her legs and arms. Hmm, real sweet.

He moved to a rowing machine and set it up for another twenty minute cycle; strapped his feet in, grabbed the handles and started to pull. This machine didn’t have a sound and TV system to plug into, so he contented himself with trying to beat the pace boat on the onboard screen.

Five minutes in, and ahead of the pace boat by a full length, someone settled in the rowing machine beside him. It was Green Eyes again. When he pulled back in his stroke, he could see her strapping her feet in. When he slid forward, she grabbed her machine’s handle and they both pushed back together. But his stroke was harder and faster than hers, so the rhythm they had was in opposition. When he was forward, she was back and he couldn’t see her. But when he was back, she was in front of him, and he could check out her perfect form, bent into the task of rowing, head down, puffing her breath out with each push through her legs and pull of her arms.

He wasn’t sure he had enough air in his lungs to have a conversation, but he was going to give it a go. “Are you trying to kill me?”

She looked at him blankly as he passed her, moving backwards.

He tried again. “I wondered if you were trying to kill me. I haven’t been in a gym for a while and you’re obviously used to this. I can hardly keep up with you.”