“Hey, you’re very good at the scene. You have an ear for the singers. Especially the female leads, like Patrice and her all-girl band playing feral guitar at the Clean Laundry, standing room only. Aubrey, you put them on the map.”
“A victory. It took a lot of nerve—no, more like stalking. I stalked venues to get them heard.” I’m speaking, but my voice is far off.
“So how about if we change that?”
“I’m sorry? Change what?” I’m soft and feathery.
“Change how you report to me. You manage half the bands—the ones that matter to you. I know you’ll take on some of the female singers and see what flies. Tomorrow I’ll give you an agreement. It makes us equal partners on a company we’ll start, our company.”
Equal partners. “Why? No, that makes no sense. You’re the one who toils away, it’s your career.”
“Half and half. You and me.” He stares at me in a good way, a caring way.
“Equal partners?” I ask. “Are you sure, Tyler? I mean, I’m starting out, really, it’s only been a year since you hired me.”
I don’t mention how women leave this business, the number of men in charge, the hours. I don’t reveal how I’ve been known to flit from idea to idea, that I came upon being a music rep when I saw a posting on Craigslist for an assistant. When the position with Tyler came up, I didn’t hold the bar very high. I had no idea he’d be reasonable and civilized, polite. He opens doors for older women; he doesn’t cut in line. Now that we’re together, I know he is decent all around. He hangs up his towel in the bathroom, takes out the garbage, and unloads the dishwasher. While I expected him to be edgy, given the bands he’s drawn to and his music finds, he isn’t.
“It’s been a great year and we’ve had some hits. I doubt anyone’ll come to town to perform and not ask us to handle it.” He slides his right hand under my dress. “You have instincts—you’re good. Besides, Aubrey, the papers are drawn up for us to sign.”
When Saige, the lead singer for Dirk O, grabs the mike for a solo, I feel like I can be a co-discoverer. I know their sound, their every move. I’m sucked into how nostalgic it is, like music I loved in high school. I listened to Billy Joel, Dave Matthews, the Grateful Dead, Madonna. I loved the raspy sound of Pink. Tyler leads me, pushes through to the middle of the dance floor. We’re both so cool, rocking together. The room recedes; we’re floating. I could take his shirt off, melt into his chest.
“One more set and we’ll go,” he says. “I want to bed you early tonight to celebrate.”
I bend closer, our bodies welding into each other. Then I remember. “On a breakout night? Aren’t the reps from Geffen showing up?”
“Yep, they will.” His breath is warm. I breathe it in.
“But will the reps…” I begin.
“We got them the gig, it’s fine. One more set. Besides, we’ve got the meeting with Dirk O tomorrow. That’s what counts for us.”
He moves away from me a step to better see the band. Although he is slouching the smallest amount, his biceps show and he tilts his head toward the music.
* * *
Tyler fiddles for the key to the front door, swoops me up, and carries me to the couch near the windows. From the thirtieth floor of this glass tower, the spotlights on the beach are specks. Before my head falls back against his shoulder, I look out at nothing. No stars, no moon, I can’t see the ocean.
“You hear it, right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “The waves always crashing.”
We kiss on the couch and he undresses me, yanking down my miniskirt, my gauzy blouse.
I touch his immaculately shaved head, trace his jawline with my hands, a three-day beard. How are his teeth aligned like that? I move my hands over his back and down his body.
He stands, I watch him take off his T-shirt and jeans—he’s good at it, he’s done it all before, seen it all before. Tyler is thirty-seven and had a fiancée six years ago. Two years after the engagement was broken, he had a live-in partner. Beyond those two serious relationships were the others—he’s been in demand. A slowly revolving door where the women, one at a time, have moved forward, stepped into the room. They have filled the chair, slept in his arms, his smooth, taut shoulders protecting them. Until he realized, true romantic that he is, that none of them was the one. That was when they sensed a chilliness and knew it was over. There was some sort of conversation and then they left, their scent and human dander gone. I can see them packing their Clarins or La Mer that they kept in the cabinet in the second bathroom—the guest bathroom. Their lace thongs and flip-flops, Stella McCartney mesh jackets or Gap sweatshirts, herbal teas and travel-size Living Proof dry shampoo stuffed into a generic straw bag, a simple canvas tote from the Miami Book Fair. And as easily as they had settled in, they weren’t asked to stay. Tyler is a catch if he can be caught. He is the only guy I’ve not wanted to fix or repackage, ever.
For his every move tonight, my body and mind fall into a chant, a plea, really. I don’t want to be next—I want to be last. He is asking me to be his business partner; it has to be that we are a match.
My head is on his chest and he’s running his fingers across my shoulders. I put my right hand on my heart, then on his heart. I’m on my back, and his hands on the inside of my thighs move upward. “Aubrey, Aubrey,” he groans.
That urgency, the speed tonight. Then he’s inside me and I wrap my legs around his waist and we move together.
* * *
Stuck behind red taillights and truckers on I-95, I turn up the volume for Joan Jett belting out “I Love Rock ’n’ Roll” and sing along. I’d be annoyed if I weren’t in such an up mood from last night. My goodwill extends to Elodie’s plea of an hour ago.
“Could you please, please come up to Palm Beach? I know you’re busy with work, this is imperative,” she begged me.
Imperative. I wonder what that means to Elodie. In our family, a crisis isn’t wide in scope but personal. There isn’t much talk about politics or climate change. Nor is there such talk among our friends, it seems. Whatever Elodie has to say, she sounded flat, afraid.
“This is the third time this week that I’m driving up to you,” I said.
“I know that, yet I can’t drive down, I really cannot, Aubrey.”
“I have a meeting in Miami with Tyler and Dirk O at noon,” I said.
“With what?” she asked.
“A big meeting. A critical meeting. Can we do this over the phone?”
“I’m sorry, but please come,” Elodie insisted. “I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t pressing.”
* * *
I take the exit that reads SOUTHERN BOULEVARD BRIDGE and turn left toward town. At least in Palm Beach I always feel young. The weird inverted ageism makes the young very young, but it’s Mom’s crowd and older ladies who rule the place. This compared to South Beach, where I’m close to invisible at thirty-two. Each time that Tyler meets with a new band, these twenty-three-year-old girls appear out of nowhere. Only last week it happened on the pool deck at the Savoy. I bet every time I don’t tag along, they lunge at him.