Playing Dirty (Stargazer 2)

Quentin slid a mug of coffee across the bar to Sarah. He asked her dryly, “Black?”

Sarah preferred lots of cream and sugar. He was right, though: Natsuko would take hers black. She sipped the rich, expensive coffee he handed her, which without sweetener tasted like rich, expensive nail polish remover.

Quentin transferred omelets and bacon onto several plates and wrapped them in foil. He said to Owen, “Call the Timberlanes’ butler, would you?”

As Owen fished his phone from his pocket, Sarah asked, “Who are the Timberlanes?”

“Q’s next-door neighbors.” Erin smiled. “Q has a thing for old people.”

Quentin said without looking up again from the stove, “I just hope I’m that wily when I’m a codger. If I live long enough to be a codger.”

Owen rolled his eyes and said disgustedly, “Oh God.” Erin took the fiddle from her lap and played a low dirge.

Quentin glared at both of them. “Are you making fun of me for Thailand ? I’m going to make fun of you when you have a near-death experience.”

He might have been annoyed with them, but he fed them well anyway—so well that it almost made up for Sarah’s coffee. The pancakes were fluffy, the eggs were perfection, and the fruit was fresh and cold. It probably was the best breakfast Sarah had ever eaten. Which wasn’t saying much, because her mother wasn’t known for her culinary skills, either. The other three made no comment, as if they ate like this every morning. What luxury. Sarah ate until she was stuffed. Owen and Quentin were still eating when the doorbell rang.

Quentin put down his food and took the foil-wrapped plates to the front door. They heard him exclaim from several rooms away, “Hot damn!”

“The Timberlanes have a garden,” Erin explained to Sarah.

Quentin returned carrying a large grocery sack. “I got some corn. See? It pays to be nice to people. I’ll make this for lunch, and I’m not giving you any.” He gestured to Erin and Owen. “You remember that the next time you make fun of me for being on a ventilator.”

Owen asked, “How long are you going to milk this ventilator thing?”

“I was near death!”

“It’s hard to feel too sorry for you,” Sarah couldn’t help commenting. “You OD’d on coke. You did it to yourself.”

“No he didn’t,” Owen told Sarah at the same time Erin said, “He has food allergies that close up his airway and make him go into shock unless he gets his medicine in time.”

“She doesn’t believe you,” Quentin said simply. He turned to Sarah. “No corn for you, either.”

Was he so stupid that he’d already completely forgotten they were supposed to be lovers?

The doorbell rang again, and three long-haired men reeking of cigarette smoke let themselves in the door from the garage, waved briefly into the kitchen, and stomped down the stairs to the studio. They were followed immediately by a grizzled man with an impressively laden tool belt. “Came to fix your door?” Quentin pointed him down the stairs, too.

Sarah had never felt so sad about a door being repaired.

“I guess we’d all better get to work,” she remarked. So there would be no mistaking her message, she pointed at Quentin, then pointed toward the garage. She waved good-bye to Erin and Owen as she slid off the stool. Erin waved back. Owen stared. Sarah heard them whispering behind her as she rounded the corner.

She met Quentin at the door to the garage. “You’re not very good at this,” she whispered acidly. “You act like you love fresh corn and that waffle iron more than me.”

“It’s a pancake griddle,” he whispered back. “You told Erin last night that I remind you of Ernie from Sesame Street. That’s not good for business, either.”

“Touché.” Sarah laughed.

“Let’s try again to make Erin jealous,” he said softly, stepping closer and slipping his hand under her shirt. “We’ll do a better job this time.”

Her whole body tingled at his touch. She pulled off his glasses just before their lips met.

At first, she let him kiss her. Then she broke the kiss. When he stopped in surprise, she licked his lips with the tip of her tongue and simultaneously rubbed her thigh across his groin.

He had exactly the reaction she’d been counting on strategically, and aching for physically, all through breakfast. He took in a gasp, let out a small groan, and kissed her hard, with drive.

That’s when she put her hand on his chest and pushed him away. “Better.” She settled his glasses back across his nose.

He opened the door to the garage for her. She was such a masterful femme fatale that she managed to hold his hungry gaze without tripping in her heels while she descended the two steps. “I want my album,” she said.

“I’m going to give it to you,” he said darkly.

Maneuvering between the pickup trucks in the garage, headed for her BMW out on the driveway, she heard the door to the kitchen close behind her. Then a soft thud. Then a faint curse. She smiled to herself and kept on walking.

Quentin collapsed with his back against the door. And banged his head in frustration. And cussed.

“Did you break Rule Three?” his bandmates hollered from the kitchen bar. Even Martin had finally dragged himself up from the guest room/opium den to confront Quentin about Sarah.

“You think I’d be beating my head against the door if I’d broken Rule Three?” Quentin exclaimed. With effort, he pushed away from the door and returned to the kitchen under their accusing glares. He started an omelet for Martin like everything was normal, even though he knew Martin wouldn’t eat it.

When he looked up from the pan, they still stared grimly at him over the bar. They didn’t believe him. Nobody believed him today.

“I swear to God I didn’t,” he said.

Their looks didn’t change. They were going to kick him out of the band.

“I swear on the statue of Vishnu in my daddy’s front yard,” he said desperately. “Erin, you believed me earlier!”

“That was before she came downstairs,” Erin told him. “There was definitely a vibe between you two.”

“Well, I was going to,” he confessed. “I had full intention of breaking Rule Three.” He laughed nervously. “And then I passed out.”

Owen exploded in laughter, and Erin clapped.

Martin said quietly, “If you’d broken Rule Three, being drunk wouldn’t have been an excuse. A rule is a rule.”

Quentin said, “Yeah, but—”

“There’s no ‘but’ if you break a rule.”

Martin was really beginning to piss off Quentin with his hypocrisy. Martin was high, for Pete’s sake, his pupils pinpoints behind his glasses.

“Y’all made me get drunk!” Quentin protested.

“It was your turn,” Owen said.

“Yeah, but we could have skipped me and moved to Erin if we’d known Chewbacca was a hot chick.” He reached across the bar to poke Martin’s chest with the eggy spatula. “Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because you acted like you were going to hit me,” Martin reasoned.

“I’ve hit you before and you survived.”

“And anyway,” Martin said, “the three of us agreed you were going to pass out before you could make a move on her.”

“Then what the hell’s the problem?” Quentin smacked the omelet onto a plate and shoved it across the bar at Martin.

“The problem is that there was a vibe between you and Sarah,” Erin repeated. “You know I know you, Q. You know I know the vibe.”

Quentin glanced at Owen, expecting to see him jealous. But Owen didn’t emote much, and his face was the usual blank. Quentin could have sworn he’d sensed something real between Erin and Owen last night. But he’d been drunk. Or he was just no good at detecting the vibe.

He confessed, “Sarah wants to fake a thing with me until the concert, to get me back with Erin.”

Martin grumbled, “What kind of thing?” and Owen cursed, but Erin’s voice rose high above theirs. “What have you gotten yourself into? What have you gotten us into? Don’t you remember what’s at stake here? Owen, tell him what’s at stake.”

Owen recited the sales figures for In Poor Taste, the portion of profit that went to the Cheatin’ Hearts, the large portion that went to the record company, and the other large portion that went to the lawyers. Then the figures for Ass Backwards with the profit breakdowns for the band, the record company, and the lawyers.

After he finished, Erin declared, “I’m not fighting the record company and signing my life away to the lawyers again. I’m not going to do it, Q. This double life we’re leading isn’t worth the money.” Her diatribe escalated into a wail. “My grandmother thinks I’m a slattern!”

Quentin decided this was not the time to point out that they still had an awful lot of money. He allowed them to complete the ritual. Erin lectured and Owen recited the sales figures every time Quentin made a decision they didn’t like. That was fine if it made them feel better.

Then he said, “We don’t have much choice. Sarah’s a Jedi. She figured out the burly hick act is a put-on.” He explained the deal he’d arranged with Sarah, deleting their discussion of Martin’s heroin use. Also omitting Sarah’s opinion that Owen didn’t matter as much to the band as Quentin did. Owen was thin-skinned. Also editing out that his dreams last night had been filled with making love to Sarah, which was probably why he’d woken with his hand in her pants.

“That bitch!” Erin exclaimed.

“She makes me very nervous,” Owen agreed.

“That’s what she’s here for,” Quentin said to Owen. He gave Erin a reproving look. “And she’s not a bitch. She took a page out of our book. Look, y’all, I didn’t break a rule. I won’t get drunk again. I’ll pretend—pretend—to be doing the deed with her to make Erin jealous, just like Erin and Owen are pretending to do it to make me jealous. Hell, none of us are getting any. No wonder we’re all on edge.”

Martin stared at his untouched food. Owen laughed nervously, and Erin watched her fingers flying on the neck of her fiddle.

“We’ll put our energy into the album,” Quentin went on. “Come the Fourth of July, Erin and I will pretend to get back together. The Wookiee will see that the band’s not breaking up, and she’ll go back to New York or Tatooine or wherever the hell she’s from.”

He turned to Erin. “So you act jealous.” He turned to Owen. “And you . . . continue to say as little as possible. Grunt if you must.”

Owen grunted.

Quentin said, “And I’ll beat my head against the wall for nine more days.”

Late that afternoon, while Martin and Erin worked in the studio on Erin’s solo for “Barefoot and Pregnant,” Quentin and Owen lay on opposite sides of the sectional sofa in the den, watching Owen’s DVD of an old Masterpiece Theatre production of Crime and Punishment. Quentin had argued about this at first because he wanted to watch World Poker Tournament, but he’d relented after a few minutes. He’d come so close to getting kicked out of the band this morning that he figured he’d better tread lightly for a few days. Or just hours, maybe, depending on how things went.

Now he was sorry he’d given in. He’d only skimmed Crime and Punishment in college because he’d had a calculus midterm that same week. He’d convinced his girlfriend at the time to fill him in on the details of the novel so he could ace the test. Owen had started the DVD on episode two, and Quentin was thoroughly confused. He couldn’t remember how Raskolnikov had gotten himself into this guilt-ridden fix in the first place. Quentin hated being confused. “Why’d he whack those old ladies?” he asked Owen.

“Shut up,” Owen said without taking his eyes off the screen.

Martin appeared behind them with his phone in his hand. “Excuse me, Porfiry Petrovich.”

“Which one?” Quentin asked.

“Rachel just called,” Martin told them. “We got an offer to be on a late-night talk show in a few days, and Sarah turned it down.”

Owen actually peeled his eyes from the TV and turned to Quentin. “You see? That’s exactly why we don’t get involved with the record company.”

“I’m sure she had some reason,” Quentin said, strangely defensive of the pink-haired girl yet again. “She doesn’t want us to do badly. The record company brought her in, and they want us to have good sales. That’s how they make money.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Owen said. “We want to sell albums on our terms. She’s manipulating us on their behalf, and you’re letting her.”

Quentin held his hand backward so Martin could give him the phone. “I’ll call her and find out what’s going on.”

Martin’s steps sounded back down the stairs to the studio, and Owen and Quentin were reabsorbed by Crime and Punishment. Quentin found the story revolting but hard to stop watching. Like a particularly nasty gunshot wound to the abdomen with intestines spilling out that had come into the emergency room on his shift once. Anyway, it was a lot easier to watch this poor sod torture himself with guilt than to think about Sarah, the problem with Sarah, what he was going to do about Sarah.

“Call her,” Owen insisted, eyes glued to the TV.

“I have it under control,” Quentin said. It was early evening, and he half expected the phone in his hand to ring with the signal that she was at the gate in her car. He’d hoped all day, hoped and dreaded, that she would come back over to check on their progress on “her” album.