Crow-Black The Night (eBook)

3

The ebony skin of Charisse Banze’s shaved head glistened with sweat despite the single-digit temperature. She had power-walked from the El stop three blocks away and was in no mood to wait.

Donna’s voice came through the intercom. “What?”

“It’s me,” she said, her breath clouds fogging the LCD screen.

She was tall and lean, with gym-sculpted muscles. An inquisitive light animated her dark eyes. She always seemed to be in motion. Even now, she put a hand on the doorknob and tapped an impatient foot while waiting for the lock to buzz. When it did, she shoved the door open, stormed past the elevator, and took the stairs two at a time to the second floor. She entered the apartment to find Donna on her knees, mopping coffee off the hardwood with fistfuls of paper towel.

Charisse stood in the doorway, arms crossed. “You’re testing the limits of our friendship.”

Donna shuffled to the sink, a trail of brown water dripping from the wad cupped in her hands. “I just got out of bed. Lay off.”

“Are you using?”

“Do I look like I’m using?” She threw the soggy mess in the trash.

“I just figured you’d have to be high to tell Mitch McCoy I’m managing your apparently resurrected music career.” She put a hand to her hip. “Spoil.”

Charisse never started a book without reading the ending first, and she refused to watch a film without reading spoilers beforehand. Her theory was if a writer couldn’t nail the ending, there was no point in wasting her time with the whole thing. Donna had picked up the habit from her. In their lexicon, spoil meant get to the point.

Donna rinsed her hands at the sink. “I met Mitch last night. Tommy brought him by after the show. He was fishing around about a comeback, but I shut him down.”

“And yet he texted me not an hour ago, wanting to discuss signing you.”

“Really?” Donna dried her hands on the dishtowel.

“Yeah, really,” said Charisse, putting a little more snarl in her voice. “So you wanna try again? You can start with the fact that you didn’t shut him down.”

“I did.” Donna traced circles on the counter with a fingertip. “But then I started thinking.”

“Of course you did.”

“I didn’t realize how much I wanted it until he asked. So when I got home, I sent him some demos.”

“You’re not even a year sober.”

“So what’s the rule? One year? Two?”

“You know there’s no rule.” Charisse paused. “You talk to your sponsor about this?”

Donna swiped at the clean counter with the towel, a tiny smile curling at the edge of her mouth. “I messaged her last night. We’re discussing it over coffee this afternoon.” She tossed the towel aside. “Listen, I get why you’re pissed.”

Charisse shook her head and trudged over to the living area, where she sank down on the love seat with an exasperated sigh.

“I should’ve talked to you first,” said Donna. “I just got excited.”

Charisse fixed her with a furious glare, the one Donna always referred to as the Murder One. “That’s the problem. You decide what you want, and everything else goes out the window. It’s heroin logic.”

Donna’s cheeks reddened. “Not every minor transgression is a sign I’m about to start using again.”

“Telling a label executive I’ve gone back to managing you isn’t a minor transgression — it’s a big fucking lie!”

“There wasn’t some evil master plan behind it. I got carried away. You were there from the beginning. I just thought—”

“You assumed.”

“No! I panicked! I didn’t want to come off like an amateur. And I thought you’d want to be a part of it.” She sat next to Charisse and drew her knees to her chest. “I guess I was wrong.”

“Oh, no,” said Charisse. “Don't sulk. This is a you issue, not a me issue.”

“Forward me the message. I’ll text him right now and tell him I spoke too soon.”

Charisse laughed. “You’d do it, too, just to prove a point.”

“No, you’re right. I have to be honest. If I start lying… Well, I can’t be that person anymore.” She paused. “But maybe, this one time, we could let it go.”

It was sixteen years since they’d done business and thirteen since Charisse had been in artist management. Working with artists was light years from managing a recording studio for an ad agency. Hers was a simple nine-to-five gig with a minimal drama. She was good at her job, and her salary reflected it. And there were none of the headaches, sleepless nights, or outright lunacy intrinsic to managing talent.

But then there was none of the excitement either. Scheduling union musicians to record jingles couldn’t compete with riding the wave of Madonna Bell’s fame. It had been the most thrilling experience of her life. She’d mattered. After Donna’s career ended that night in New York, she’d tried to replicate the feeling with a string of other bands, but she was never able to recapture the thrill.

A minute ago she’d been furious, but now her heart raced as she imagined bringing Madonna Bell back from the dead. A new promo shoot could address that literally: a takeoff of the iconic cemetery imagery from the first album.

They went back and forth for a bit, Charisse insisting she wasn’t a manager anymore and Donna acting like she’d learned her lesson, but they both knew it was for show, so after a couple of minutes, they dropped the act.

“Okay,” said Charisse. “Get me a cup of coffee, and let’s discuss what you want.”

Donna shot up and hustled to the kitchen.

“First things first,” Charisse yelled after her. “No more of this ten percent shit. That’s the friend rate.”

Donna returned with a mug. She was smiling; a genuine smile, not the sardonic one she mustered for self-defense.

“I mean it,” said Charisse. “You pay fifteen.”

The smile widened into a grin as Donna handed over the mug. “Yeah, boss.”

The lawyer Charisse hired had red-lined the contract and gotten approval from the label for the changes. She’d receive a signing copy tomorrow.

She and Donna were supposed to meet at the coffee shop around the corner from Donna’s place to discuss recording logistics, but when Charisse stepped off the El platform, there she was, standing on the sidewalk, shifting from foot to foot like she had to pee. Normal Donna was a handful; nervous Donna required a velvet touch. But if Charisse thought she’d get a minute or two to put her thoughts in order, she was mistaken; by the time they reached the shop, Donna was in a near-panic.

Charisse had managed to hire one of the industry’s top producers: Alistair — no last name. He was only available to track for a month. That was plenty of time. But that month started the third week of April, right when she was scheduled to visit Renata.

“We can make it work,” said Charisse for what seemed like the fiftieth time, settling into a chair. “We’ll find a studio in Madison.”

“I need to be there for the recording. How am I going to manage that if I’m spending the week with Renata?”

“You don’t need to be there at the beginning of the session. It’ll take at least a week to track the drums.”

“So I’m supposed to just let this Alistair guy do whatever he wants and hope it all turns out?”

Charisse’s foot started tapping. “I didn’t say that. He can email you files for approval.”

“It’s not just that. There are always last-minute changes. Arrangement tweaks, lyric rewrites—”

“You want time with Renata. I get that. And you can have it. But it’s not going to be exactly the way you imagined it. You’re back in the game now, and part of that is accepting that your nights and weekends aren’t yours anymore.”

“You don’t understand! It took months of finessing to get Linda to agree to this visit. If my attention is divided… Look, I can’t give her an excuse to back out.”

“Hand her off to me.”

Donna pulled her phone from her bag. “You don’t know this lady. She’d see that as me evading responsibility.” She dialed. “If she’s going to shut me down, I want to get it over with.”

Charisse went to the counter for their coffees. The return of Madonna Bell was barely off the ground, and she was already spinning plates. Alistair had only gotten back to her this morning after weeks of ignoring her emails. The good news was he was taking the job, and he wasn’t complaining about the money. The bad news was he insisted on hiring his own studio musicians. She hadn’t mentioned that one to Donna yet. Nor had she brought up Mitch’s demand-framed-as-a-request for full access to the recording session for a writer from New Rock Sounds who wanted an exclusive on the Madonna Bell comeback story. Donna was going to freak about that one, and not in a good way. A nickel-sized pain burned just below her ribcage, and she wondered if it was soreness from that morning’s crunches or a nascent ulcer. She glanced back at the table. Donna still had the cell to her ear, but she waved Charisse over.

She took a seat just as Donna hung up.

“You won’t believe this!”

“Spoil.”

“Linda told me about a house she and Renata rented last summer. It’s a couple hours north of Madison in a little...