Page 14 of The Duet

I sing the last line with my head tilted back against Lana’s shoulder, my mic held dramatically above me. When the song ends and the audience erupts into a wild applause, Lana gives my shoulder a quick squeeze. I straighten my spine. Again, she takes my hand in hers. I hold onto her fingers a little tighter. We bow to the audience, thank them profusely for all they’ve given us tonight, and head off the stage.

As though there’s an invisible line painted between the stage and the wings, Lana drops my hand as soon as we cross that wretched line that nobody can see.

“Damn, Cleo.” At least she speaks to me this time. “You were in it.” She arches up her eyebrows as she looks at me. “Thanks for that.” Then, she’s off again, swallowed up by her entourage, and I’m left feeling all confused again.

Chapter 11

Lana

We’ve been on the road for a few days. It’s Andy’s birthday, and he has booked the bar of the Oakland hotel we’re staying at for drinks.

We’re five shows into this tour, and it has become easier to perform the song I wrote for Joan. It’s still weird to not have her with me, to not have her talk me down after a show. Some nights, when I was too buzzed on adrenaline and the occasional other stuff, she would stay awake with me and stroke my back with her calloused fingertips. Maybe I need to find myself another guitarist as a lover again, someone with the same practiced fingers Joan had. The Other Women’s guitarist has been non-stop hitting on Tessie, so she surely isn’t an option. Not that I would ever consider sleeping with any member of our support band.

I glance at Billie, with whom my rapport has been growing. By the time this tour ends, we’ll be best friends. From what I remember from previous tours, the last few gigs are always the most powerful because of the connection that builds as a tour progresses.

“Hey.” Cleo slides next to me on the leather bench of the booth I’ve been hiding in. It was impossible not to notice her and her bandmates doing shots with Andy earlier. “Can I ask you something, Lana?” She slurs her words. Dealing with intoxicated people is such an inherent part of life on tour, I learned long ago not to let it bother me. Before our hiatus, when the previous night’s alcohol consumption had little to no effect on my performance, I was often one of the more inebriated ones. I won’t claim to have infinite patience for people who make the same mistakes that I did, but I can practice a certain mildness toward them, especially toward Cleo.

“Anything.” This should be fun.

“When we sing ‘I Should Have Kissed You’, which is, you know, quite an… intimate song.”

“Hm.” I nod.

“What do you feel? Do you even feel anything at all?” Cleo stares into my eyes.

“What do I feel?” I wasn’t expecting that question. “Why do you ask? What do you feel?”

“I feel like a million bucks, Lana, because singing with you is like this huge endorphin rush, and that little act we do for the audience is, um, great, but, I don’t know…” She tries to keep her watery gaze on me but her body’s swaying too much. “Truth be told, afterward, I kind of feel… used.”

“Used? How do you figure that?” What am I missing here? I know Jess has a crush on me, although she’s been avoiding me since our backstage chat at the Hollywood Bowl, but what is this? Are all four Other Women going to come up to me in turns and reveal their infatuation with me?

“When we’re on stage, everything you do seems so heartfelt, so real. When you take my hand to walk off together, for instance. Before you say anything, I know you do that to give the audience exactly what it wants. I know that. I’d do the same if I were you, but…” Cleo frowns and falls silent.

“What are you saying? That I should no longer take your hand?” Maybe this is a conversation we should have in the sober light of day. Have I crossed some sort of boundary without knowing? Times are very different than they were before Joan died.

“No, no, no. Take it.” She holds out her hand for me. I gently grab it and lower it to the table. We both stare at Cleo’s palm as though it holds the secret key to unlock this puzzling conversation.

“How about I ask Logan to take you to your room?” I ask.

“No, I don’t want to go to bed yet. I was just wondering if it’s all just pure entertainment for you.”

“What else would it be?” Cleo’s all dressed up for this party, which is more a gathering of the people we spend all our time with these days. She’s wearing the kind of oversized suit that millennials go nuts for, in a shade of pink my parents’ bathroom was tiled in many decades ago.

“I guess it’s different for me because you’re my idol,” Cleo says. “But I do feel something. A connection to you. Some sort of chemistry…”

“Cleo!” Tim shouts. We look over. He’s taken the bartender’s place behind the bar. Maybe we should have toured with a more mature band or, even better, by ourselves. But Sam and Deb seem to be having a great time. Billie’s nursing a drink at the far end of the bar, overlooking things in silence. “Come on. We’re doing more shots.” It’s as though Tim only now notices me. “You too, Lana. Join us.”

I shake my head. I’ll have the odd beer, but I’d much rather find my bed, and rest my weary bones, than do shots with people in their twenties.

“Good chat,” Cleo says and gets up.

Was it? It was baffling rather than good. As I watch Cleo saunter off, her hands buried deep into her pockets, looking every inch the cliché of the glamorous young rock goddess, I replay our conversation in my head so I can try to read between the lines.

I must have done something wrong for her to come up to me and start this conversation, no matter how drunk she is. But I just do what I always do on stage: I put on a show. That’s what we do. Cleo is a very welcome gift to me in that respect. Her presence injects some new excitement into our act. Her voice is more than strong enough to make up for the lack of instruments on stage. Sure, we have a certain chemistry on stage. We’re professionals. Creating the illusion of attraction is part of the deal. Put the least attractive-to-me person in the universe next to me to sing that song with and I could still create that impression for the audience. I’d make them believe it.

Before I call it a night, I put two new things on my tour to-do list: pay attention to what I’m feeling the next time Cleo and I sing “I Should Have Kissed You” and find out whether what she was really trying to say is that she’s attracted to me.

“Please welcome Cleo Palmer of The Other Women back to the stage,” I say to a raving Oakland crowd. “We have one last song for you tonight.”

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