Kristin Hardy - Bad Influence

Not that she was even remotely considering it. She ran the windows down and let the breeze come in. No more thinking about Zach Reed. He was already miles behind her. Getting out of town for the morning was the perfect antidote. She’d head home, pick up some clothes, her laptop, the files she needed for work.

If she’d timed it right, she’d hit L.A. just after rush hour and get straight through to her Hancock Park condo. Call it an hour and a half, maybe two. She’d be back in Santa Barbara by early afternoon.

Adjusting her sunglasses, she settled in more comfortably and headed down the highway.

Z ACH LEANED BACK ON the couch in Gloria’s guesthouse, looking up through the skylights to the overcast sky above. By noon, it would burn off to reveal a blue so pure it hurt the eyes. For now, it was gray and inscrutable. Idly he strummed the electric guitar he held and began to play a blues riff. A two-note riff in E, that classic staple of the blues, that low thud that was the rhythm of a heartbeat, the rhythm of footsteps.

The rhythm of sex.

Without conscious thought, he vaulted off into the high, wailing notes of a solo that he played against the basic rhythm in his head. He played on instinct, fingers stroking the fret board, working the strings, pulling out the keening cries of pain and ecstasy. It was what he’d always loved about the blues—being able to go with it and see where it took him. He was never happier than when he was playing lead over the rhythm laid down by his band.

His band.

What did you do when you’d had a job for over twenty years and you got laid off?

On impulse, he picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. “Creative Music Associates,” a woman’s voice said crisply.

“Is this Bonnie?” Zach asked.

“Yes, it is. Is this Zach?”

“Bingo. Still trying to reach Barry.” They’d become good friends over the past three weeks, his manager’s secretary and he.

“Just a minute, Zach, I’ll see if I can get him.”

He went on hold, listening to the latest White Stripes release.

The phone line clicked. “Jimmy, hey, good to hear your voice, man.” Barry Seaton, happy and hearty and slick as goose shit.

“It’s Zach, Barry, and it’s good to hear your voice, too.” Zach could take only sour satisfaction in the awkward silence, given the number of times his manager had ducked him of late.

Barry, to his credit, recovered quickly. “Oops, hit the wrong button. Hey, sorry it’s taken me so long to get back to you on that Crossroads thing. That sucks that they dropped you, man, seriously.”

Crossroads Records, his erstwhile recording company, which after three well-received albums had elected not to renew his contract. “I’m not too worried about it, Barry, because you’re going to hook me up with another company, right? I’ve already got songs for the new album.”

“Oh, hey, yeah, I’m working on it. The blues is a harder sell than it was when Stevie Ray was making headlines.”

Zach drummed his fingers. “Nine albums over eighteen years, Barry—you ought to be able to do something with that.”

“Come on, Zach, you’ve been in this industry long enough to know how it works. It’s the numbers, man, pure and simple. I don’t give a damn how good the reviews are, you’ve got to move units.”

And Zach didn’t.

“Get your booking agent—Sarah is it?—have her set up some dates, put you on the road. Maybe I can shake something loose.”

“She says it’s hard to set up dates without the record company backing.”

“She might be right.”

“Oh, come on, Barry, I’ve been playing some of those clubs on the circuit for fifteen, eighteen years. And you ought to be able to find someone who’ll take me on for a new album. After all, I make money, we make money,” he said, playing the one card he knew would get Barry’s attention.

“Look, I’ll make some calls, get back to you.”

Zach almost growled in frustration as he disconnected. In Barryspeak, that meant never, and meanwhile his bank balance continued to drop.

He’d gotten a guitar for his tenth birthday. By eleven he’d blasted through every songbook he could lay his hands on, learned all that his teachers could pass on to him and found his home in the blues.

By thirteen he’d joined his first band. He still remembered how it had felt walking into the audition held by a group of guys in their twenties. “What the hell is a kid doing here?” one of them had demanded. “Great, a refugee from Musical Youth,” another had muttered.

Zach had just ignored them and plugged in his guitar. Let them talk, he’d figured—all he’d wanted to do was play. And when he’d begun to solo to the backing riff in his head, they’d first quieted, then stared, then one by one picked up their instruments and begun to play with him.

Five years later he’d released his first album. It had been put out by a small indie label, one without wide distribution. It hadn’t done much to make him money, but with the pittance of an advance, he’d bought his first beat-up van and gone on the road. When that label had gone under, he’d switched to another. By then, he was touring as the Zach Reed Band. By the time he’d switched labels yet again he’d amassed a critical success and a small, rabid fan base.

Unfortunately small, rabid fan bases didn’t pay the bills. He didn’t care, for years he hadn’t cared, content as long as he was playing. So what if he was in a different city every night? So what if he was piling into his van with the guys to go from club to club on the giant Pacific Northwest blues circuit that ran from Chicago to San Francisco to Portland and Seattle? So what if they ate in diners and slept in fleabag hotels or the back room of a club if they were lucky and in the van if they weren’t?

He hadn’t cared. But this time his label hadn’t gone under—it had dumped him. This time Rory, his bass player, and Angel, his guitarist, had begged off for local gigs. Good reviews weren’t enough. They wanted—needed—successful albums to keep their heads above water. And it wasn’t happening.

Zach was damned if he knew why. He’d always figured that talent would prove out. He’d always assumed all he had to do was play and make the best albums possible and sooner or later it would come together. Only it hadn’t. It hadn’t at twenty, twenty-five, thirty or thirty-five. He had a treasure trove of amazing memories, but he’d never quite broken through, no matter how well respected he was. He was thirty-six going on thirty-seven and he didn’t have a clue what came next.

Sure, some of the legendary bluesmen had stayed on the road until they’d wound up being broken-down old guys with nowhere to go. He’d played more than one fund-raiser for their cause.

He didn’t want to become a beneficiary.

Part of him said to keep pushing until he made it, but in some small, disillusioned corner of his brain he was starting to wonder if maybe that would never happen.

So he’d come to visit Gloria. Here, he could suck up a shot of her feisty energy and have a home base for a couple of weeks while he figured out what to do.

But then she’d gotten into the accident with the tight-assed antique next door. The antique with the entirely too tasty morsel of a granddaughter.

Thoughtfully Zach set his guitar aside. Paige Favreau, so neat and proper, so calm and controlled. She might tell him that she didn’t want any part of him; he knew better.

He saw it in her eyes.

It was enough to make him think.

He didn’t know what to do about his career, but he did know one thing. Gloria wanted the museum, and that was enough for him. On his twelfth birthday she’d given him a vintage Les Paul. His parents had objected on the grounds that no kid needed a guitar worth a few thousand dollars. What was money for, Gloria had countered, if not to enjoy? She’d believed he was going to go somewhere with his music, and with the Les Paul in hand, he had.