Page 42 of The Duet

“Bad day. Sorry,” Jess says. She looks small. Defeated. Even though I never meant to, I’ve hurt her. I’ve taken away her dream, no matter how far-fetched it was—although, how far-fetched was it really? If I can be in bed with Lana, then why couldn’t she?

“That’s it? That’s your excuse?” Tim still has all this energy running through him. “That you’re having a bad day?”

“Tim, come on. Give Jess a break. We’ve all had bad days. It happens. We have another show the day after tomorrow. We’ll be back on our game.”

“I just want to learn from this so we can make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Tim paces up and down. “There are four people in this band. If we all have a bad day one after the other, we’ll play far more terrible shows than good ones.”

I march over to Tim and put my hands on his shoulders. “Don’t blame Jess. It’s my fault. I—” It’s not like Tim doesn’t know why Jess had a bad gig. “I take responsibility for this one.”

Tim shakes his hands and wiggles his shoulders. “Sorry. My perfectionist tendencies got the better of me. I just think that, no matter what happens behind the scenes, we still should have been better. We owe that to ourselves and to the audience. We didn’t just take this tour so we could play with the legendary Lady Kings. We did it so we could showcase ourselves in the best circumstances. That was not a showcase. That was like a bad rehearsal.”

“Give it a rest, Timmy. Don’t you think you’re exaggerating just a teeny bit?” Daphne chimes in. “It’s one show. Perfection is an illusion, anyway. It happens. We’ll be better next time.” She turns to me. “Cleo still has a chance to make the audience completely forget about our below-par performance later, when she sings with Lana.” I’m not sure if Daphne is being sarcastic or just plain honest.

Jess dramatically huffs out some air.

“I’m sorry, Jess.” Tim walks over to her and puts his arm around her shoulder. “My energy is changing. I’m calming down. I know it’s hard for you.”

They hug and I’m left feeling even more responsible for everything. My muscles tighten with rising tension. It’s all well and good for Lana to claim that this will blow over and our band will be all right, but I’m the one who has to deal with it.

Instead of letting go of him, Jess pulls Tim close and starts crying on his shoulder.

“I can’t help how I feel,” she says between shaky breaths. “Now I’ve screwed up our show as well.”

I try to find Daphne’s gaze, but she won’t look at me. Is the entire band upset with me now? Is this even worse than I thought it was going to be?

“Okay.” I square my shoulders. “What can I do to make this better?”

“It’s more what you shouldn’t have done in the first place,” Daphne says.

Jess is still crying. Tim strokes the back of her head.

“I can’t undo what I’ve done.”

“It’s like you going after Tessie while you knew I liked her.” The disappointed tone of Daphne’s voice shakes me.

“I would never do that.”

“That may be so, Cleo, but it’s not hard for me to imagine how Jess feels.” Daphne clearly has a thing or two to say. Or maybe it’s because we had an iffy performance and all annoyances are bubbling to the surface. “You know how she feels about Lana.”

I’m not sure I can argue my way out of this. Everything I think of to say in my defense sounds utterly lacking.

“I agree,” Tim says from somewhere beyond Jess’s hair. “That this is not how you treat a friend. It’s like Friendship 101. Don’t sleep with the person your friend has a crush on. Just don’t, no matter how much you want to.”

Jess stirs in Tim’s embrace. She takes a deep breath, then extricates herself from his arms. She looks at us with red-rimmed eyes, her cheeks puffy from the tears that spilled on them.

“It’s fine, you guys. I appreciate you standing up for me, but Cleo and I talked about it. It’s not like I ever stood any chance with Lana.”

“That’s not the point, though,” Daphne says. “It’s the principle that counts.”

“Word,” Tim says. “But good to hear you feel that way about it, Jessie.”

“So…” It’s been a while since I’ve been ganged up on like this. I can’t help but be on the defensive. “What do you want me to do? Stop, um, seeing Lana?”

“That would surely help,” Tim says.

“It would be the right thing to do,” Daphne adds.

“No,” Jess says on a sigh. “It’s not because I can’t be with Lana that Cleo can’t be with her. That’s just… ridiculous.”

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