Fever
The last notes of the final song of the first set still rang in the audience’s ears while the curtain closed in front of the six women and the applause broke over them in waves. They smiled and waved and bowed and enjoyed the approval of the crowd. All but Lucy, that is.
Lucy didn’t just enjoy it. She loved it, cherished it, reveled in it. She’d craved approval and validation from her parents when she was young, but when she hadn’t received what she thought she’d needed, she’d looked for it elsewhere. After her father’s death, she’d been heading for a life of drugs and booze and cheap, tawdry sex when her sister had dragged her to a guitar lesson, and the sound of the strings ringing out had captivated her. Hearing Lois’ instructor play at that lesson had changed the course of the twelve-year-old girl’s life forever.
She loved the guitar. She loved the keyboard. She loved the drums. She loved playing them, holding them, reading about them. She couldn’t get enough of any of them. Her mother and stepfather had, at first, indulged what they’d believed was merely a phase, but when Lucy had begun playing in high school garage bands which actually earned money for playing, they’d tried to steer her into a “better” type of music and a “higher” class of people. She’d resisted at first, but when she was hired to play drums in a teenage big band doing Miller and Goodman and others, she’d blossomed both musically and personally. She’d learned some of Buddy Rich’s and Gene Krupa’s techniques and had memorized their solos.
The experience Lucy had gained in that group couldn’t be found in any university. She learned not only what to play, she learned what not to play. She learned when to attack the beat and when to lay back, when to play with flash and when to just keep the band in the pocket. She brought that understanding to her keyboard and to her guitar, and she learned to be the ideal bandmate, one who played for the success of the song instead of her own glory. And when she began playing drums and guitar after high school with Lois, who by this time had decided to focus on vocals and bass, they learned to lock in together and become a single unit.
When she and her sister had joined the Mountaintops, she’d shown herself to be a steady rhythm player and second guitarist. She never stepped on Connie’s parts or tried to take over a solo that the others hadn’t all but insisted that she play. She’d worked with Shamika on the drums, first listening and learning but then sharing and teaching, so that both women not only enjoyed sharing the drummer duties but looked forward to hearing the other play. The jazz piano styles which didn’t interest Ramona became Lucy’s by default, and then hers by conquest.
No matter what song the band did, no matter what style, Lucy could contribute to the success of the song and of the group without dominating on stage or in rehearsal. She knew she was good and knew she could have made a living as a soloist or a session player, but she also knew she needed the rest of the Mountaintops to be anything close to famous. And she desperately wanted to be famous. She firmly believed that being famous would bring her the inner peace she’d sought for so long.
Lucy had never before been around people who were both as monumentally talented and absolutely committed to the success of the group instead of where their names were posted on the marquee as the women in the Mountaintops. They all exuded that attitude. They lived it. They ate it, they drank it, they slept in it, they awoke in it. And – besides her sister Lois – they were the closest thing to family Lucy had left.
The rest of the women had already pulled off their instruments and moved away from the curtain, but Lucy closed her eyes and listened to the last trailing dregs of applause from the dance floor. She soaked it in and sighed, wanting more.
“Lucy?” She ignored Shamika’s call at first. “Hey, jazz girl!”
That got her attention. She suppressed a smile and unplugged her guitar. “What you want, rocker woman?”
She sneaked a glance at Shamika’s face, and the other woman’s face was fighting a smile just as hard as Lucy’s was. “Come on, jazz girl, we got to get ready for the soft and easy stuff. You know, set up the drums for you and such. And Connie got to go through the set list with Charlie, so you and me got to make sure we on the same page.”
Lucy’s grin finally broke through. “So, how do you think Charlie did mixing us his first time?”
Shamika shook her head. “He musta done good. I didn’t even know it was him ‘stead o’ Malcolm till halfway through the set.”
“We didn’t tell you because we didn’t want Christie to get spooked.”
“Yeah, well, I guess it worked. Maybe she been scared straight.”
Lucy’s smile faded. “I think it would take more than that to straighten her out.”
*****
Ramona glanced up from the set list at their provisional lead vocalist. “Hi, Christie. You ready to get changed and do the next set?”
Christie shook her head. “I want to change my solo.”
Ramona’s eyes slowly widened. “You – you what?”
“I want Lucy on the piano on my solo song.”
“But – but we rehearsed it with Lucy on drums and me on piano! We all know what to expect and what to play!”
Christie shook her head and flipped her hair back and forth. “No. We have to change it.”
“Come on, Christie! You know we can’t change it now! It’s too late for that!”
Christie’s voice was firmer than her sense of balance, but she managed to put even more determination into her words. “I want Lucy to play the piano for me.”
Ramona tried to keep her composure. “Christie, we can’t make this switch now! The next set starts in fifteen minutes. We rehearsed this song with me on piano and Lucy on brushes. That’s the way it’s got to be.”
Like a stubborn child, Christie folded her arms and pushed out her lower lip. “No. Lucy has to play the piano on this song. She’s better on it than you are.”
The comparison stung, but Ramona forced herself to stay calm. “Look, let me go get Toni and we can – “
“No!” Christie put her hands on her hips and glared into Ramona’s eyes. “You want me to lay out on two songs in this set, don’t you? I will – if Lucy plays this one song for me.”
Just then Shamika walked up beside them. “There you are! I been lookin’ all over for you, Christie! C’mon, we gotta get ready for the next set. Them rocker clothes got to go. It’s time for some cool jazz attitude.”
Ramona took a breath to speak, but Christie spun around and beat her to it. “Shamika! Can you play drums on ‘Fever?’”
“What?” Shamika looked at Ramona, who rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Yeah, sure I can, but not as good as Lucy. She got that jazz-brush thing down to a fine art.”
“But you can play it, right?”
Shamika frowned. “Course I can. But why do I need to? Lucy get sick or somethin’?”
Ramona pinched the base of her nose with her thumb and forefinger. “Christie wants Lucy to play the piano for that song. I told her that we can’t switch it up fourteen minutes before the set starts.”
Christie pointed one finger at Ramona’s face. “And I told you that if you want me to sit out for those other two songs, Lucy Lane had better play piano for my solo!”
Shamika’s mouth dropped open. “What? Where you come up with this?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Christie snapped. “This is my song and this is the way I want it! Now are you going to play drums so Lucy can play the piano on this song or not?”
Ramona looked into the taller woman’s face and remembered that Shamika, despite her athletic ability, physical strength, determination and excellent hand-eye coordination, hated fighting and conflict with a passion. She could usually bluff her way out of a fight just by looking menacing, and when that failed she nearly always withdrew from a position of disdain for her challenger. Ramona secretly believed that Shamika was afraid – not of losing or of being hurt, but afraid of seriously hurting someone else, afraid of repeating a mistake from her youth. So she simply stepped back from conflict as if it were beneath her.
But that strategy wouldn’t work this time. Christie had them over a barrel and she knew it. If they wanted her to keep her word and sit out for those two songs, they’d have to switch the arrangement of ‘Fever’ at the last minute. And if they wanted a shot at the financing Toni was dangling in front of them, Christie had to sit out for those two songs.
It wasn’t impossible. Lucy would switch from drums to piano, Shamika would switch from rhythm guitar to drums, Ramona would simply sit out, and they’d just leave the second guitar part out. It wouldn’t stop the song, and might even be a little edgier that way. Connie liked having the extra guitar in there even if Shamika was only playing the changes, but she didn’t see that she had a choice.
Ramona sighed. “Okay, we’ll do it. Shamika, you find Lucy and tell her that I set this up. Maybe she won’t be quite so mad.”
“You sure this what you want, Mona?”
“No. But that’s the way we’re going to do it tonight.”
“Okay.” Shamika hurried off on her errand.
Ramona turned to Christie. “You sing this like we rehearsed it, you understand? Don’t break the tempo, don’t throw in extra choruses, and for crying out loud don’t embarrass us! If you screw up this song, I’ll turn Lucy AND Lois loose on you at the same time. And Shamika won’t hold either one of them back. In fact, she’d probably hold you down.”
Christie smirked in victory. “Don’t worry, Ms. Wilcox. You girls won’t have to change a note.”
“Fine. Now get changed fast and get back here and be ready to go on. And don’t bring anything to drink!”
Ramona watched Christie slink away with a victory roll in her hips. She hoped she hadn’t just made a terrible mistake.
*****
The first four songs went off without a hitch. Christie had even smiled and backed away from her microphone as unobtrusively as she ever did anything when the Mountaintops started a smooth quartet version of “Route 66” that featured Lois’ inspired bass work. Ramona was beginning to think that things were going to work out just fine as she vacated the piano bench for Lucy. She slid back out of the lights and listened as Lois introduced Christie’s featured solo for the set with her rich bass lines.
Shamika slipped in with her brushes almost as smoothly as Lucy would have as Christie began snapping the fingers of one hand in time with the beat. She slithered to the microphone and breathed out, “You’ll never know how much I love you, never know how much I care.” Ramona followed Christie’s gaze to one side of the audience, expecting to see Johnny Taylor there grinning fatuously at his talented but troubled girlfriend.
But it wasn’t Johnny who was the target of Christie’s vocal seduction.
The man was sitting alone in a booth along the outside wall, smiling and sipping a tall drink. He was dressed in a charcoal business suit, immaculate white shirt, and black dress shoes that reflected the stage lights all around. He appeared to be in his late thirties, with wavy brown hair that just cried out for some woman to help him tame it. And he followed Christie’s every move with dark, hooded eyes.
As she slipped into the chorus, it became obvious to everyone in the building who Christie was singing to. Ramona glanced around the room, hoping that Johnny wasn’t anywhere near the scene.
No such luck. He was standing in the back next to a big guy in a cheap suit who was chewing on the wooden end of a match. Johnny’s face showed his astonishment and he appeared to be rooted to the spot. The big man’s attempts to get Johnny’s attention went unheeded.
She’s crazy, thought Ramona. She’s gone absolutely nutso. Johnny’s going to shoot her dead right here on stage and then he’s going to shoot us because we’re witnesses. We won’t record our album because we’ll be dead. And Christie will never get to record that album of torch songs she says she wants to –
Record an album –
Suddenly it all made sense. Christie was singing to the money man, the guy with the deep pockets who’d asked them – through Toni – to sing two songs without her. And she knew who the guy was! She was trying to undercut them and get the recording deal they’d worked so hard to get!
Ramona clenched one hand into a fist and almost slammed the wall with it, but stopped herself just in time. Christie was still making love to the microphone and all but offering herself to the man in the charcoal suit. Her price – one lush-sounding album and lots of promotion – might as well have been outlined in flashing neon above the stage.
Ramona glanced around to the other girls in the band. Shamika was ignoring Christie so she could stay locked in with Lois. But Lois – who was staring at Christie as if the singer had just turned into a werewolf – had actually missed an entire measure, something which had never happened in Ramona’s memory. Connie had stopped trying to play harmony lines and ornaments behind the vocal and was playing just the chord changes with her teeth gritted in cold fury.
Lucy was doing her best to support Christie’s flights of vocal fancy, even when they took the singer to the edge of the grand piano and then on top of it. Ramona had never played for a singer who’d crawled onto the piano top during a song, and she was fairly sure Lucy hadn’t either, but so far the brown-haired pianist hadn’t missed a note. She was focused on staying in time, and even though Christie played with the timing within the phrases, she kept her promise not to change the basic arrangement.
She hadn’t promised not to sing the song like a porn star on Quaaludes, though. Ramona would definitely make that stipulation clear the next time Christie pulled a stunt like this. Assuming, of course, that Lois or Connie didn’t kill her first.
As Christie finished the final “What a lovely way to burn” coda while sprawled on her back on the piano top, Connie played an extended closing arpeggio over Lucy’s final chord. The men in the room slowly came to their feet and bombarded the stage with applause. Even Charlie, sitting at the sound board, seemed to come back to life with a deep breath. Most of the women in the audience stepped possessively close to one man or another as everyone stood and banged their hands together.
There were two exceptions. One was the debonair man in the charcoal suit. He allowed Christie to catch his eye, then he lifted his glass to her and took a small sip. Ramona wondered what that meant.
The other man who wasn’t overwhelmed by Christie’s performance was her gangster boyfriend. Ramona watched as Johnny took a step towards the stage, then looked around and apparently decided to deal with Christie privately. Too many witnesses, too many paying customers to take care of her at the moment. He spun on his heel and almost ran to his office. Ramona was sure he’d slap her senseless later.
Christie slid down from the piano and stepped to the edge of the stage, out of position and in front of everyone else. Ramona mentally yelled at her to get back. They couldn’t begin the next song in the set as long as she stood there. Instead, Christie lifted her mic and shouted, “Thank you!” The applause thundered even louder. She bowed, then turned and waved to the other four women on stage and gestured for them to take a bow with her. They hesitated, but then displayed brittle smiles and complied with her wishes.
She lifted the microphone again. “Ladies and gentlemen, I want you to know that I could not possibly have sung that song without the wonderful talents of these ladies behind me. Please, give it up for the Mountaintops!”
The applause reached an even greater crescendo. Ramona didn’t know if the rest of the girls were grateful for Christie’s grandiose gesture, but she was furious. With one statement, she’d relegated them to backup band status and had made a blatant play for the alpha female slot in the group while complimenting them all in the most backhanded manner possible. Christie’s cunning was completely transparent. How could they be upset with her now after she’d shared all that credit with them? How could they deny Christie her proper place in the musical pecking order?
Ramona caught the predatory gleam in Christie’s eyes as everyone shifted back to their usual positions for the rest of the set. Had Ramona been closer, she was sure she would have smelled the other woman’s victory pheromones.
Cold anger washed through her. Tomorrow, thought Ramona, is another day. We’ll see who comes out on top in this competition.
Assuming, she mused, that a mountain doesn’t fall on Christie first.
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(If you’re not familiar with the song “Fever,” follow
this link for a look at Deep Space Nine’s version of it. Very interesting.)
