The next night we played the Centrum again. Clarice and Fran smuggled me into their dressing room so we could do vocal warmups in the immense sports-team sized shower they had. Because, yes, everyone sounds better in the shower.
“M.D. got some range,” Clarice said when we were done. My range wasn’t especially good: my upper notes were weak and my lower notes were hard to keep in tune. I think they said things like that so I wouldn’t feel like chopped liver singing with them. These two had serious vocal firepower.
“Don’t he?” Fran answered. They had this way of referring to me as if I wasn’t there, and of making up nicknames for me. I think M.D. stood for Moon Dog, but I could be wrong. “Where’d you learn to sing again, boy?”
“Same place you did: church.” I shrugged.
Fran clucked her tongue. “Not a gospel-singing church.”
“True, it was a northern church where most of the singing was in Latin, and we only went on holidays.” I tuned my top two strings again without thinking. “And that was before my voice changed, anyway.”
Clarice patted me on the shoulder. “That must be some kind of a trauma for a boy, when you start cracking all over the place.”
“Yeah, but then they settle down,” Fran said. She hefted her boobs in her “show bra” which I understood was both structural enough to support her and was fancy enough that it would look good if it showed on stage accidentally. “I’ll never get over carrying these everywhere. Man alive.”
Clarice snickered. I think they kept thinking they’d eventually embarrass me with girl talk but I took it in stride. (Same way I did when guys in the crew got overly masculine on me, now that I think about it.) I changed the subject. “You decide what you want us to do for your birthday? You still want The Stones?”
Fran wrinkled her nose. “Someone else would have to sing the Jagger part and I don’t know.”
“Because I heard a song on the radio yesterday that I thought might work with your voice,” I said. “But I would want us to do a rock-blues arrangement. And it’s kind of crazy, I know, but I know the band would go for it.”
“Well, you gonna tell me what it is, or you want me to guess?” Fran batted her fake eyelashes at me.
“You’re either going to love the idea or hate it. I’m thinking Terence Trent D’Arby’s ‘Wishing Well.'”
Clarice shrieked, which was really ear-piercing given that she’s a soprano and we were still in the shower. “That’s a fabulous idea!”
Fran rubbed her chin like she was pretending to think about it. “You think the other guys will go for it?”
“I’m sure I can convince them.”
“Even Remo?”
“You leave Remo to me,” I said.
My plan was to talk to Reem about it that night, after we got back to the hotel, but there were two messages for me when I got back. One was from Jordan saying please call. The other was from Ziggy saying please call anytime. It was a Los Angeles phone number.
I called Jordan first and got his machine. “Hey. It’s Daron. We’re in Worcester for a couple more days. Day off tomorrow–I’ll probably spend it in Boston. Here’s my number there if you don’t get me here.”
That left the unfamiliar LA number that Ziggy had left.
I dialed it. A woman answered.
I was a wuss and hung up.
—
(ctan hits the road today to the RT Booklovers Convention in Dallas, Texas. Watch her Twitter or Instagram for photos of the wild romance author parties and the RT awards ceremony…)
14 Comments
No no no no no. See this is what happens when you go MONTHS without seeing/talking to him.
This is how the conversation with Ziggy was supposed to go (in my head, don’t judge).
Z: Hey, guess what, I’m in the hotel across the street from yours. Get your ass over here.
D gets room number, tells Flip not to wait up. Shenanigans ensue, and he says you should call him more because he wants to actually have a relationship with you, and you say something like ‘yeah, me too’ and we are all left emotionally satisfied.
Not this…definitely not this.
This *whatever* you have with Ziggy is not giving me warm-fuzzy feelings…
As I’m rereading on Wattpad, I’m realizing more and more that the warm fuzzies I got from D/Z were mostly in my head, imagining that they’d ever work it out… Oi! Boys.
Yeah…Wait, no. It was real. They actually got along and it was so beautiful, at the end of the last tour before everything went to shit.
It’s a really unsatisfying relationship they’ve got going on right now though. A year apart, then they only see/talk like every 2 months. WTF boys? I know you’re busy and cell phones are not ‘in’ yet, but would it actually kill you to pick up the phone and talk occasionally? Maybe then you would know who that woman is and maybe it’s not even a big deal. Seriously, is Ziggy gonna tell you to call ‘anytime’ so that his girlfriend can pick up the phone? That seems fucked up even for Ziggy…(no offense Z, you know I love you)
I dream about him and me together. Why wouldn’t you? Then again I have nightmares about him, too… nevermind. Forget I said anything.
He just saw Ziggy in New York when they were playing there, what would have been like a week, two weeks ago in the story if that long.
I do enjoy your version of things a little more, though.
That’s true. But I think they’ve only seen each other twice since New Years, and this is April, so…
I do have a wicked imagination when it comes to love and sexy times between these two 🙂
Yeah, he’d have to be not at a Los Angeles phone number for that.
But that’s what PHONES are for! So you can talk to the people you love when you can’t be with them…he did get that pager so you could contact him whenever you want. Perhaps he should get YOU one so he can contact you whenever HE wants…I have a feeling he might use it more than you do.
I have a clear image in my head of you getting all angsty about this and not calling him again, and him getting weird because you never called him back and it all just going to shit again.
Sometimes I think I must make up whole storylines for Daron and Z that exist no where but in my head, simply because I love them together so much. I think I screamed out loud when he hung up!
Amy – I have to agree…reading back through, D & Z have only had a very few “good days”.
I honestly don’t have a lot of hope for them together, no matter how badly I want it. There’s just so much in limbo right now. Daron was named in the lawsuit against Digger, and I just can’t trust a lawyer when he says ‘don’t worry about it.’ What’s that going to do to them if D gets fucked by Z pressing the issue to screw Digger? What if D does start a new band w/o Z? How’s Ziggy going to handle that? And we all know about D’s thing for singers…Their careers are certainly keeping them apart much of the time. And what the hell is going on with Ziggy?
It’s just one of those fiery, passionate romances that’s probably going to go up in flames…again…and again…and again…I’m not even convinced they are actually good for each other, but boy do I love them together. So. Freaking. Much. *sigh*
Oh, Daron, Daron, Daron. That was no wuss, that was being a jerk. You have to trust that Ziggy isn’t yanking your chain.
I just wasn’t ready to face it if he was. Yanking my chain, that is.
Oh, D, would you be a dear and lean just a tad closer, please?…I can’t quite reach to smack you on the back of your head!
Yeah no less than I deserve, I know.