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Chapter Ten
They had an off day before the Phoenix show, which meant the four o’clock sound check they usually revolved around never happened, leaving everyone on the tour a little listless. Parish and Ro had rented a car to tool around the city and David had a phone call with his family, which left Remy, Laurel, and Michael to grab lunch together. Despite their best efforts to have a totally non-music-industry meal, the conversation fell into one about Auto-Tune and SoundCloud and the amount of talent coming out of New Zealand.
It was nearly five o’clock before Remy put on his best studio clothes and made his way over to Vivi’s bus. He walked to the door and lifted his hand to knock, but almost immediately, it flung open. It wasn’t Vivi Swan on the other side—it was a beefy security guard who stomped down the steps, one eyebrow raised threateningly.
“Um, I’m supposed to meet Miss Swan here? For a production session?” Remy said, picturing how his arms would look when this guy broke them in half. “I’m the drummer,” he added, like this was some sort of supersecret passcode that would explain everything.
The security guy radioed someone else then nodded at Remy, stepping aside so he could ascend into the bus. Remy stood in the doorway, confused, looking for Vivi, but the place was empty. It smelled a little like her—like sugar and hairspray—but other than that, there was no sign she’d ever been here, much less a sign she was here now.
“Wait, am I—she was supposed to meet me. Should I come back later?” Remy asked the security guy. The man shrugged, which, given the size of his shoulders, looked like two boulders rising.
“She said to let you in. We let you in. You want to go?”
“I—no,” Remy said, frowning. He didn’t have the pay grade to stomp out because she wasn’t on time. “I guess I’ll just…sit. Here. And wait.”
The man nodded then put a hand to his ear, listening to something over the headset. “She says help yourself to anything in the fridge.”
“Are you talking to her now?” Remy asked.
“No. I’m talking to head of security.”
“And he’s talking to her?”
“No.”
Remy stared. The man stared back.
“Okay,” Remy said, nodding and forcing a smile. “I’ll just sit here. At the table.”
“Right,” the security guy said then turned and stepped off the bus.
Remy slid into his seat, wondering if there were cameras on him. That didn’t seem totally out of character for Vivi Swan. Was she watching him now? Checking to see if he’d try to sneak into her bedroom or paw through cabinets? He became very aware of the line of his spine, trying to perfect a casual slouch as he surveyed the room.
The lounge—here, it was definitely a lounge rather than a galley—was wide and long, with cream-colored benches and two matching recliners. There was a ruby-red-and-navy oriental rug down the center of the room, and the area was lit by gentle strips of light glowing from the ceiling. He spotted the refrigerator—full size, of course—in the galley, where there was a large stainless steel sink and a stackable washer-dryer hidden behind a slightly adjacent pocket door. The bedroom was just beyond, in the back, though it was unsurprisingly closed off.
Remy opened his laptop and, to busy himself, drew up a standard collab contract for himself and Vivi to sign—he was surprised she hadn’t brought up a collab contract, to be honest, but one of them needed to, now that they were actually having planned production meetings. Twenty minutes passed, then thirty. At forty-five, he rose and went to the refrigerator. It was full of bottled smoothies and iced teas, the drawers packed with hummus and vegetables and yogurt cups. He found a sparkling water in the door and took it, wondering how he’d look drinking on camera. He’d decided he was on camera. He had to be.
He sat back at his computer. He turned the text in the contract blue, then pink, then black again.
At fifty-three minutes, his phone rang. It was an unknown number with a New York area code. He answered the call, expecting to be asked to complete a survey he didn’t want to complete or pay a forgotten bill he didn’t want to pay.
“Remy?” a voice—Vivi’s voice—said. He heard hustle around her—cars and movement and the swish of fabric.
“Hey, uh, Vivi,” he said. He nearly asked her how she’d gotten his number, but that was stupid. Of course she had his number. He wondered if this was hers or just a lackey’s phone.
“I’m so sorry. I had a meeting with the Grammy Museum people, and then had to meet with Noel’s manager, and then there was some sort of storm that delayed my plane leaving Philly, so now I’m stuck in New York for another few hours or so.”
“Oh, it’s cool. We can do it another time,” Remy said, while wondering what sort ofmeetingone had with one’s significant other and his “team.”
“No, no, let’s do it now,” she said. “I’m going back to my hotel room. I just sent you a new rough cut of the song—did you get it?” To answer her question, Remy’s laptop beeped at him. The email had arrived. It was from [email protected]—not her personal address. Did she have a personal address? Did people as famous as Vivi Swan check email?
“Okay, I’ll listen and give you a call back,” Remy said.
“No, just put me on speaker. I want to hear what you think when it plays,” Vivi said. He heard the thud of something—bags? shoes?—hitting the floor of the hotel room, which he guessed was probably a thousand times more opulent than this bus, which was really saying something.
“Sure,” Remy said. He set the phone down, feeling at least slightly more confident that she wasn’t watching him on a camera—at least, not actively, since she was clearly not looming in front of a screen. He closed the contract, opened the song file, and hit play.
It was only marginally more done than it’d been on the bus from Portland—still mostly Vivi singing with a guitar track, though she’d added a layer of herself doing the lower side of the harmony. She also had a few more lyrics in place, now, and had changed the arrangement of others. It still sounded more like a template than an actual breakup song, but Remy heard one line—“whisper fights on anxious nights”—that made him think of her fighting with Noel in the hallway during rehearsals.
