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Chapter Four
Two days from the first show, and Remy was finally used to the lights. The dancers. The moving sets, the number where he—and the rest of the band—moved under the stage via the hydraulics and Vivi performed an acoustic song on the guitar. She was a fair player—nothing wildly impressive—and Remy never heard much of the song anyhow, since she didn’t play the entire thing until the dress rehearsal. The usually quiet backstage area he’d been hydraulicked into was a noisy chaos of costume changes and set changes, aerialists hooking themselves to rigs and stagehands passing out bottles of water. Michael switched to the banjo for the next number; David cracked his knuckles and produced a towel to wipe the sweat off his brow. Around them, dancers ripped off costumes; David laughed when Remy tried a little too hard to avoid staring at their high, small breasts.
The dress rehearsal proved just how well-oiled a machine it all was. It felt a little odd being on a tour where nothing—nothing—was duct-taped together. The road manager came around during every break, writing down everything from the band’s dietary preferences to what sort of drumsticks Remy would prefer to use. (“The other guy liked what’s in the bag, Innovatives, I think, but we can order whatever. Just let me know.”)
It was during the dress rehearsal that Remy noticed a guy he didn’t recognize. He didn’t know everyone’s name yet, not by a long shot, but he knew all the faces at this point and enough names that he no longer felt or was treated like “the new guy.” This new guy, however, was wearing a white T-shirt and jeans. He had a beanie on and the sort of scraggly five o’clock shadow that made Remy certain he was someone from the industry—a musician, maybe an actor. His face was too intentional to be an accident and too casual to be someone who had a regular job. The stranger lingered in the seats near the assistants and task rabbits, drinking something in a glass bottle, though Remy couldn’t work out what it was from the distance.
They were on the back end of the show—the last five songs of the twenty-song set, not including any covers Vivi Swan wanted to play—when Remy recognized who the stranger was, in part because he saw Vivi wink at him. Vivi’s set was so streamlined, each head nod, each arm wave, each hair flip so choreographed that this small change caught Remy’s attention.
It was Noel Reid—the wink triggered his name and the memory of Celeste saying Noel and Vivi were an item. Remy knew his face, of course—much like Vivi’s face, you couldn’tnotrecognize Noel Reid given the sheer volume of tabloids he appeared on. He was a musician, a guitar-playing, doe-eyed sort of guy whose songs were covered on college campus quads everywhere. It wasn’t Remy’s type of music, frankly, but given the number of platinum albums the guy had, it was clearlysomeone’stype of music.
Noel saw Vivi wink and smiled in response before looking back to his phone, an act that Remy couldn’t help but be offended by. This was a huge fucking production, with moving sets and dancers and aerialists who were about to drop down from the ceiling, and this guy was looking at his phone? It was one thing for someone who’d seen it a million times to be disinterested, but to ignore it right off the bat?
They rounded to the last song, pausing so Vivi could say some canned things to the audience—something about accepting yourself, and ignoring bullies, or whatnot; it was all so scripted that Remy could practically hear Val laughing at it. When she finished her speech, he cued the next song, the last song, and as it was full dress, an onslaught of gold glitter confetti began to rain from the ceiling. The song reached its height; Vivi, in a long, sparkly ballgown, stepped onto a platform that floated over the empty audience. The screens on the wall flashed, a soundtrack of riotous applause roared over the speakers, the dancers ran out, and Vivi Swan skipped off the platform as it returned to the stage like a princess off for a lark around the castle.
It was the finale; Michael and Parish walked toward the front of the stage, playing loud and complicated solos one after another while the dancers bowed. Vivi Swan was racing around the staircase that arced over Remy’s head; once there, she motioned toward him, and he looked out toward the fake audience and grinned in gratitude; she repeated the act with David, whose keyboards were set up on the opposite side of the staircase. Finally, Vivi herself skipped toward the front of the stage, where she took the hands of her backup singers and bowed with them, then once on her own. The music peaked, the lights went brighter to the sun, and thenpow—it was done.
“Nice work, everyone.” Walter’s voice cut off the canned applause so abruptly that it startled Remy. There were purple waves in front of his eyes from the sudden darkness, and he heard the others sniffling and shuffling around, trying to pick the guide lights out from the strips of glitter confetti.
“No big problems from here, you good, Vivi?” Walter asked. A click, then Vivi Swan’s mic went live. The house lights came up, dull and gentle compared to the stage lights.
“I’m set, some costuming problems, not much else. Oh, and that section at the end of ‘Let’s Go Hide,’ where I’m in the audience, can we extend that? I don’t think it’ll be long enough for me to make a full loop. And I was thinking about maybe playing a little longer once I’m out at the tree,” she said then turned to look at the rest of the stage, hunting for another problem to remedy. “Looks good from back there?”
“As good as they’re going to look from the nosebleeds,” Walter said jokingly.
“Wait, they don’t?” Vivi answered immediately, eyes widening.
“No, doll, it’s great. It’s all great. Nice show, everyone! My assistant will give everyone their call time. Very important: make sure your personal stuff gets loaded! Roadies are only loading what’s on the stage and backstage right now. Anything you need with you, you need to take with you, yes?”
The dancers headed backstage, already unhooking clasps; the rest of the band began unplugging and helping coil up cords. Remy followed suit, reorganizing the stick bag as he’d found it. Vivi Swan’s security team—four large guys with faces that Remy wouldn’t mess with—was helping her down from the stage. Noel rose, sticking his phone in his back pocket, and opened his arms. She ran into them enthusiastically, hitting him hard enough that he had no choice but to pick her up.
“Remy?” a voice said. Remy spun around to see two roadies waiting to take apart the drum set.
“Sorry, sorry—here, I can help,” Remy said.
“We’ve got it,” one of the roadies said kindly. “Seriously, man. You did your job—go rest so we can do ours, right?”
“Sure—thanks, man,” Remy said, shaking the roadie’s hand. He headed backstage just as Vivi Swan pulled Noel toward the stage, their conversation coming within earshot thanks to the space’s acoustics.
“I just need to change, and we can go.”
“Okay, okay,” Noel said, sounding annoyed. “You already have makeup on though, right?”
“Yes, but I need to have them do street makeup. This is too much for dinner,” Vivi said, as if this were the most obvious thing in the world. “It won’t take long,” she added.
“It takes at least an hour,” he said, exasperated. Remy walked faster to get away from the conversation.
“That’s for hairandmakeup. I can keep this hair,” she answered plainly, like a teacher explaining a simple concept to a student.
“It’s just dinner,” Noel said—Vivi was also walking quickly, like she was trying to get away from the conversation just as much as Remy was. “Can’t you skip the airbrush makeup and everything?”
“You know there will be paparazzi there.”
Remy arrived at the open door to the musicians’ dressing room. The others weren’t there, so Remy sat and busied himself with his phone, trying to ignore Vivi and Noel’s conversation—but they were loud, and their voices grew ever closer as they made their way down the hall.
“Yeah, the paparazzi will be there because your managers are going to call them,” Noel muttered. “Whatever. I’m going to go smoke.”
“What? You told me you’d stop smoking.”
