“Be careful,” Carlie said.
I gave her a half smile and finished my beer.
“You should get up there and watch Holden,” I told her.
“Yeah, I really should. Come with me, you aren’t going to help yourself sitting down here, moping in the dark.”
She had a point. I followed her up to the stage. I was in no mood for a concert but then I was no mood for anything except crying out my pain.
Alex
I’d waited three days for the rumours to get around, for people to start talking about how we’d ruined our careers and we’d never play again. Instead, there was nothing. The only mention of the gig was a few people having a laugh about it but no more than that. It was like people didn’t care at all. No one was shocked or outraged.
Then the local music press came out. As soon as the guy dropped the bunch of papers off at the bar, I grabbed one. I thumbed through it, getting newsprint on my hands, looking for a review of the gig.
I found it, with a big photo of Holden King. Most of the review talked about Holden and predictions for his new album. Zero got mentioned as ‘a band to watch’, a few comments about our sound, then a note about a spectacular end to the performance. Dee’s band got called raw and powerful.
That was it? A spectacular end? That’s all they had to say. I felt like I’d been given a free pass. I mean, we did pay a decent amount for adverting for Trouble so maybe they’d been swayed in their opinion by that. The music press wasn’t the finest example of objective journalism in the world. Still, the less people reading about me being tackled to the ground, the better.
The world wasn’t going to end. Everything went on as before.
I had to meet with Matt from the record company to fill him on the recording sessions. He grabbed me a coffee and we got settled.
“Everything’s on track,” I said. “It’s coming together like magic.”
“That’s good,” he said. “We’ve got a few things in the pipeline, radio interviews and the like. My PA will email you the details.”
He talked on, I listened but I had something on my mind. I had to speak up.
“There is one thing…”
He paused.
“It’s about ‘Fifteen Minutes of Sunshine’.”
“Awesome. We’re getting a good reaction to the preliminary cut. People just can’t get enough of that song.”
“Well, the thing, it’s not my song.” I didn’t look up from my coffee mug. It was so much not my song.
“But that doesn’t matter. Just let us know the holder of the rights and we’ll run it through legal. It’ll just be a formality really. Although, it might hold up the release. We’ve got everything ready to go with that song.”
“Is it possible to switch it out with something else? It’s a bit different to our usual sound anyway. We don’t want people getting the wrong idea.”
“Ha, yeah, if only that was possible. We’ve already invested a great deal of money in that track. If we pulled it now, it’s going to screw up all our plans. Like I told you, the higher-ups want that as the first release. Alex, I’ll tell you something just between the two of us. I don’t want to put pressure on you or anything, but pretty much if ‘Fifteen Minutes’ doesn’t get a stellar reaction, the money will stop. Personally, I’d love to support you, give you time to develop, but this is a business. The guys upstairs need to see profits.”
Hell, that wasn’t what I wanted to hear.
“So, there’s no room for negotiation?”
“Not in this. Look, I’ll get you Jenny in Legal’s phone number. Just give her all the details and she’ll iron it out for you. It’s her job, she does it all the time.”
I wondered if Jenny in Legal dealt with people like Dee all the time because I was certain that some snotty corporate bitch contacting her about Jake’s song wouldn’t go down well.
As I walked out to the car, I realised it wasn’t about the song. If I just wanted the song, I was sure I could get Dee and her parents to agree. Everyone has their price and I’d be prepared to pay it. But, in the process, I’d slip even further away from Dee.