Joplin's Ghost Page 6

  He was beautiful.

  Shit. She was really going to spend the night with a fan. What would Ronn say if he could see her in a candelit bathroom with this half-naked manchild? She and Ronn had never said they were exclusive. She hadn’t seen Ronn in a month. He only called her every three or four days now, not every night like he used to. It wasn’t like he was going home alone every night. She’d be crazy to believe that. “You know who my boyfriend is, right?” Phoenix said, to cover her obligations.

  “Just what I read,” Kendrick said. He didn’t sound concerned.

  “Keep that in mind before you say anything foolish to anybody. We’re straight?”

  Ronn would never hurt her, and she didn’t think he’d try to hunt down a groupie she’d met on the road if he heard about it, but you never knew. One of Ronn’s overzealous fans might give Kendrick a beatdown if he started bragging. Anything could happen after that crazy shooting last month in New York, everybody saying G-Ronn and Three Strikes was behind it. That was bullshit—Ronn had hustled a little in the projects way back when, but he’d been more a businessman than a thug. Still, you couldn’t guess what other people would do in your name.

  Kendrick hooked his hands into the waistband of his linen pants. “You don’t have to tell me twice. This is about me and my memories, and hopefully you and yours.”

  Kendrick must have put too much bubble bath in the jetted tub, she realized. The bubbles were a mountain in front of her, so Phoenix had to carve a tunnel to see through. The bathroom reeked of the bubble bath’s sickly sweet strawberry scent. He’ll learn, she thought.

  “Didn’t you promise to scrub my back? Better hurry, before I drown in these.”

  “Sorry,” he said, timid. He knelt beside her, one knee against the marble floor.

  He knocked away some of the bubbles, a path. “Lean over,” he said in her ear.

  Phoenix leaned forward, her ears drowning in the water’s rush from the faucet near her face. Kendrick’s fingertips traced the trail of her spine. His fingers were more steady now than when he’d been in the hall, all hesitation and boyishness forgotten. His fingertips were smooth, and the tickle she felt at the end of his fingers grew into a burn.

  “Phoenix.” He said her name as he rubbed soapy warm water across her back. He said it again as he encircled her with his arms, resting his palms across her breasts, gently pinching her waiting nipples with his fingertips. Phoenix. There was wonder in his voice.

  And in his touch. Phoenix was shocked at the way his squeezing fingers locked the rest of her body in place, almost fetal, as if it were afraid to release something. Her lips parted as her body seemed to expand beneath the warm water, pleasure in a balloon.

  “Does that hurt?” he said.

  She shook her head. It wasn’t painful, but torture all the same. “Let’s go to the bed,” she said, thinking about how Gloria must be eating her heart out. Gloria was probably hoping Kendrick would sashay his chocolate loveliness over to her room next. Too bad. With blond hair like a magician’s wand, Gloria usually had her pick—but not tonight.

  In her bedroom, Phoenix noticed her Rolex on her nightstand, a small, gleaming window to her conscience. The watch had a diamond bezel and dial, and it was the only gift she had accepted from Ronn. Her Rolex was the most expensive item she owned, more than her car and keyboards combined. She burrowed beneath the mound of covers, cool sheets swaddling her overheated skin, and felt like she was hiding. She hadn’t expected to feel bad. She’d told herself when she hit twenty-one she would stop doing things she felt bad about.

  Kendrick climbed under the covers beside her. His long, bonelike manhood nestled against her hip, pulsing gently whenever she inhaled and her body rose. When he leaned over to kiss her breast, his lips were so gentle that they might have been kisses, or only hot breath. She could barely feel his lips and tongue. Ronn always took her breast in the palm of his hand, making it bulge like a melon, and lathered her nipples. She always knew when Ronn was there.

  Kendrick guided her hand toward where his eager body strained against her, and she grasped him the way she might hold a stick, feeling his juices beading already as she rubbed her thumb across his most sensitive spot. He moaned against her neck, waiting. He’s tripping if he thinks I’m going down on him, Phoenix thought, and she let him go.

  Kendrick pulled her thighs apart and burrowed beneath the sheet, but his tongue felt dry and lifeless on her, as if he had lost his way. He was just a kid, she remembered.

  “Get the condoms, OK?” she said, because she was ready to be done with it.

  Kendrick was better at intercourse, luckily. He kept his eyes on hers, watching her face as he inched his way inside of her, steadying himself with his arms locked. He didn’t expel right away as she’d feared, and he no longer felt like a boy. Kendrick was so long, he seemed endless. Phoenix felt her body loosen and flood, embracing him. His measured, confident strokes felt so good, she almost had a full-blown orgasm. Almost. That would take more practice, and Kendrick wouldn’t have time to learn. When he was ready, Kendrick gritted his teeth and tilted his head so far back that his Adam’a apple bulged. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit.”

  Then, it was over. This was the same way it had been with the Dominican guy she’d danced with at Crobar on her twenty-first birthday: The heat of a buildup realized in brief bubbles, the pleasure over too soon, and wishing she could roll away as soon as it was done. She suddenly wanted to ask Kendrick to leave. She hoped he wasn’t expecting to spend the night.

  But Kendrick had made himself comfortable, gazing at her from his pillow.

  “Phoenix…” he whispered beside her, disbelieving. She could smell a trace of his last meal on his breath, something spicy. She would not kiss him. Kisses were too intimate for a man she didn’t know.

  “Why do you keep saying my name like that?” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know…Like it’s…”

  “Like it’s the name of an ancient Egyptian goddess? It is. Like it’s the name of a force of nature? It’s that, too. Pheeeee-nixxxx,” he said. He cupped her chin in his hand. His eyes were swathed by thick lashes, and he gazed with a gravity she found unnerving. “I’m jealous, girl.”

  “Jealous of what?”

  “I’m jealous because I knew about you first. I knew you when nobody else did. And now everybody’s about to come late to my party. I have to share you.” When he stroked her bare shoulder, his hand lashed fire. Her body didn’t mind if he stayed a while.

  “You really think I’m gonna be all that?” she said. Her voice cracked.

  Kendrick laughed, his head rolling against the pillow. “Don’t even front. You know it.”

  She smiled. “Yeah, you’re right.” Sarge would see to it, that was all.

  “But you changed your sound. I heard a Rising demo, and you’re different now.”

  Phoenix had nearly forgotten that anyone would know her old sound. “Better, right?”

  “Different, not better. Maybe not as good, in some ways, not to me. Too R&B radio. I miss the rock riffs, the freaky keyboard, the worldbeat. But you’re still in there. I still hear you.”

  Phoenix had gone so long without hearing the truth, she hadn’t realized it was missing. When was the last time anybody had the nerve to say something like that to her? Not Gloria. Not even Sarge. Nobody since Carlos, who had seemed to enjoy telling her exactly what she didn’t want to hear. Having a truth-teller was like having God himself in the room, so Phoenix tried to think of a question worthy of Kendrick Allen Hart. She covered her bare chest with the sheet. They were two people talking now, not a wannabe singer and her one-night stand. They could be in a junior-high schoolyard sharing a strawberry soda.

  “What’s the worst cut?” she said.

  He shrugged. “A couple of them are weak.”

  The word weak made Phoenix’s stomach cramp with gas.

  Kendrick went on: “Truthfully, tracks five and seven could go. That’s the produ
cer talking, not you. He drowned you out. He was putting out that same shit two years ago.”

  Damn. Phoenix tried to think of what to do about the seventeen hundred people who would hear her singing behind those recycled beats at the Osiris. They would boo her off the stage. Had Sarge given her an escape clause in her contract? Sarge usually took care of that.

  “But that one ‘Party Patrol,’ that’s gonna bump all summer,” Kendrick said. “Reminds me of Prince, or the Gap Band, but with your own flava mixed in, too, like that Middle Eastern vibe. It’s tight. Nothing on your old CD was that good. It’s gonna make you a star, girl.”

  Phoenix felt herself breathe, her heart pounding. “Party Patrol” was one of the few songs on Rising that had felt like a collaboration, at least pieces of it. At first, D’Real hadn’t liked the sound of the Egyptian-style violin intro she’d asked him to weave inside the opening measures, but he’d relented, mixing her until she sounded like a full string section. “Party Patrol” was one of their few true moments of musical collaboration.

  “But is the CD any good?” she said.

  “Yeah, mostly. It’s real good, Phoenix. It’s on for you, girl. All I’m saying is, my favorite ones are when you’re in there, too. Not your voice, but your music. The best part.”

  Phoenix’s stomach cramped again. In today’s rehearsal, she hadn’t been able to get through the choreography of “Party Patrol” without sounding breathless when she sang, and on the last song her voice was smothered beneath the exploding tracks. She wished she had a voice like her sister’s, because Serena could sing. Serena could bring it like Aretha and Patti and Whitney, from her soul-space.

  But Phoenix would have to be Phoenix. Whatever she was, she was.

  Phoenix wanted to ask Kendrick if people would think she could sing worth a damn, but she had heard enough truth for one night.

  Me and my crew’s gonna roll…We’re on a Party Patrol…”

  Kick-cross-step, kick-cross-step. Phoenix spun, hitting her mark a fraction behind the beat. Head cocked left, then right. And sliiiiiide…two, three, four…sliiiiiiide…two, three, four…. Hunched shoulders, snapping high. “We’re losin’ control…Out on this Party Patrol…”

  The more Phoenix concentrated on her dancing, the more sluggish her energy felt. Arturo and the other two dancers seemed to follow her lead, missing cues, stumbling over steps and performing by rote, as if they were unmoved by the music blasting from the giant club’s speakers. Phoenix’s voice cracked on the last high note, fluttering to nothing, barely audible in the speakers from her headset microphone. She was so breathless, the recorded vocals drowned her out. Her voice was worse than yesterday. And her lower back throbbed, the old injury taunting her.

  The rehearsal at Le Beat was not going well.

  “OK, guys, let’s take a deep breath,” the choreographer said, stopping the music.

  Phoenix was grateful for the break. The label hadn’t paid for backup singers on this radio tour, much less dancers—but Sarge had convinced Manny to give her dancers in St. Louis and at the Osiris. Hell, it’s all coming out of your end eventually, Phee, Sarge had reminded her. Dancers would make the concerts look better, give Phoenix more dancing practice, and give her and Sarge a chance to audition their choreographer before the video shoot began.

  But the choreographer Olympia was pushing for too much too soon, trying to show off for Sarge. Phoenix had studied a little dance in high school and had always been rhythmic, but Olympia’s finely regimented contortions took her mind away from her voice, and apparently her voice needed more attention. How could they perform this tomorrow night? How could they dance at the Osiris, with only a week of rehearsals left before that show?

  Olympia sighed. The lithe, short-haired woman was twenty-two, but something officious in her voice made her sound like a Student Council president moonlighting as a B-girl. “Guys, was that your way of telling me it’s time for lunch?”

  That was the first good idea Phoenix had heard today.

  Sarge was waiting for them in the club’s tiny conference room, standing against the wall with his arms crossed as they filed in with their bags of lunch from Wendy’s across the street. Sarge was always her watchman and taskmaster, with his shaven head, trademark skullcap, and mole-splotched face that hadn’t changed since her childhood. The only part of Sarge that aged was his temper, which had gotten more brittle. Sarge gave her a look: What’s the problem?

  Phoenix shrugged. She wasn’t in the mood for Sarge on an empty stomach. While she waited for the dancers to negotiate whose food was whose, Phoenix’s eyes studied the room’s wood-paneled walls, which were plastered with concert posters dating back a decade. Everybody had been through here, apparently. Nelly, of course. Chingy. Ginuwine. Lauryn Hill, from forever ago. Even Gloria Gaynor, still surviving on a long-ago comeback tour. This room reminded Phoenix of the Gallery of Greats in the Silver Slipper, before her mother sold the club like she’d always promised to. There was even a piano against the wall, like déjà vu.

  “I have a migraine after that sorry display,” Sarge told the group, as the dancers took their seats in the plastic chairs, crowding the table. “Maybe since this isn’t New York or L.A., you think this show doesn’t mean shit. Well, there’s no such thing as a small show. Maybe I need to call my friend R.J., who’s doing Ronn a solid even having you on his stage, and tell him my crew isn’t ready for Le Beat…”

  Sarge could go on all day.

  Arturo sat sullenly beside Phoenix, stirring his chili with a plastic spoon. The other two dancers were Olympia’s contacts, but Arturo was Phoenix’s friend from high school, and she always hired him when she had a chance. He was a great dancer, perpetually underemployed. Arturo was six-four, a colossus who could leap over a horse.

  “Maybe you need to learn to let people eat without all this noise,” Arturo muttered, and Phoenix slapped his thigh under the table.

  Sarge pierced Arturo full force with The Ray. “You know what? You’re the first one I’m sending home. And don’t think I’m gonna have you in that video or on my stage at the Osiris if this is the best you’ve got. I’ll send you back delivering those damn pizzas, or whatever the fuck you were doing when Phoenix begged me to call you. You’re not ready for this level, son.”

  Arturo’s ego must be screaming, Phoenix thought. She’d met him at Miami’s New World School of the Arts when they were both fourteen, and he was still one of the most dynamic dancers she’d ever seen, able to make his body defy physics. After studying dance on a college scholarship, he’d somehow ended up back in Miami managing a Domino’s Pizza. She didn’t want Arturo to blow this chance. She could take him with her, if only he’d get out of his own way. Under the table, Phoenix squeezed her friend’s hand. Chill, sweetie. It’s just Sarge.

  As Sarge beckoned Olympia through the door to tell her something privately, Arturo spoke close to Phoenix’s ear. “He’s got it twisted if he thinks I’m a sissy queen shaking in my shoes. I will take him outside to throw down, whether he’s your father or not,” he said. Arturo had a low-pitched, satiny voice that had always made Phoenix wish he weren’t gay.

  “No stress,” Phoenix said. “It’s just trash talk, Arturo. You know Sarge.”

  He pecked her lips, standing. “Only for you do I tolerate this, chica. Believe that.”

  The dancers rushed their lunch, since no one wanted to wait for Sarge to come back, so Phoenix waited for her father alone. She pulled one of the plastic chairs up to the piano and tested the keys. Surprisingly, it was nearly in tune. She slid her foot to the sustaining pedal and ran her fingers through a hurried version of the largo from Dvorák’s From the New World Symphony, which had been a recital piece her freshman year in high school. Playing felt good, a chance for her fingers to dance. She hadn’t brought her red Roland AX-1 or Moog Liberation shoulder keyboards for this tour, the first time ever. But there was no substitute for a piano.

  Phoenix didn’t realize Sarge was behind her until she heard h
is chuckle. “Haven’t heard that in a while,” he said. “Your mama would be glad to know you can still play it.”

  “By heart,” she said, concluding with the stately D-flat chord.

  She played better than she sang, Phoenix realized, and the thought made her spirits wane. In high school, she had told Mom she would attend one of the arts colleges that had been cramming her mailbox with solicitations by the time she was a sophomore, Juilliard included. But when Phoenix was sixteen, she decided she wanted to be a star like Janet Jackson, and Juilliard didn’t have classes on that.

  The band Phoenix started in high school, Phoenix & the New Fire, hadn’t worked out, even with Sarge’s contacts and enough momentum to get bookings and a small record deal. Their two CDs got great reviews (when they were reviewed), but they never found an audience in R&B, pop, alternative or anywhere else. Maybe she could have stuck it out like Lenny Kravitz, waiting for the audience to find her, but there were plenty of bands whose music was never heard, and never was a long time. Sarge had known multiplatinum rapper G-Ronn since his first tours, so when Ronn said he was looking for an R&B singer, Sarge suggested her. Just like that. Now, Phoenix was flying solo. And it’s a long way down by myself, she thought.

  Sarge looked at her closely. “What time did you get to sleep last night?”

  “Late,” Phoenix said, guiltily. Her hair still smelled like strawberry bubble bath, and the scent irritated her now. She’d been in such a hurry to get to rehearsal that she’d barely said a word to that boy as she walked him to the door, much less offered him a number. She wished she could erase last night.

  “You know better,” Sarge said, as if he knew everything. “Your voice sounds worn-out. Where’s Gloria?”

  “Probably at the hotel ordering room service and watching pay-per-view.”

  “Tell her to stop wasting up our money, hear? Ronn isn’t paying our tab, and nobody here is rich. Your advance has to last.”