“Thanks for having me,” Gretchen said. “It was good timing. I’m in need of a break from real life.”
Hear, hear, Sugarplum.
“I just hope I can live up to the…” Gretchen side-eyed me. “Talent pool you have in place here.”
“I assume you two have met?” Marion said.
“Sort of,” Gretchen said. “I introduced myself at the airport.”
I had not responded in kind. That was what I meant about not being a picnic right now. In my defense, I’d thought she was a fan when she approached me at a Starbucks in the Minneapolis airport. I’d been wearing dark glasses and a hat with my hair pushed up into it, so I’d been extra undercover. Which had led me to believe she was asuperfan. The worst kind to encounter in the wild. In general, but particularly when one’s nuking of one’s career had recently been on display for all to see in the pages ofUs Weekly. So when she’d flown at me all abuzz—that was where she’d earned her initial Mosquito nickname—I’d shut that shit right down, answering her questions in one-word grunts.
It was only when we were both being greeted by Paul Newman in baggage claim that I realized my error. It was almost funny. Here I’d thought I was being fangirled, and really she’d just wanted to talk to me because we were both going to the same place to bequeath our artistic sensibilities to the masses or some shit.
I told myself to stop being such a dick. Gretchen was my colleague here.
I slapped my forearm, hitting an especially engorged mosquito so hard it left a bloody spot.
Gretchen Miller.I had eclectic taste, and I knew a lot of people across a lot of genres, but I was coming up blank on that name. Of course, this place probably drew from more of a regional talent pool.
Maybe she worked behind the scenes. If this camp was meant to teach people the music business, they’d be smart to staff it with producers and engineers and such. That kind of career was a more realistic goal for most people than, you know, that of an actual rock star.
Said the actual rock star.
But was I anymore? Could you be a rock star without a band? Could you be a rock star if you were just one self-contained shard?
Did I evenwantto be a rock star anymore?
So many existential questions. At least I knew the answer to that last one. No, I did not want to be a rock star. I never had. It just sort of happened. And really, Iwasn’ta star. That had been Scott Collier, our handsome, charismatic front man and rhythm guitarist. Runner-up on the star front had probably been our lead guitarist, Jet. I mean, when your name is Jet Lexington—Jet Lex—and you have a penchant for standing on the very edge of the stage doing your over-the-top shredding, you kind of have to be a star, right?
I’d been happy to stand in the back with my reputation as a cranky-ass and play my bass and sing backup along with Luis Costa, our drummer. I considered myself a songwriter first. The only thing I cared about was that Scott and I shared writing credit equally, à la Lennon and McCartney. I cared that we made each other better. I cared about the music.
I’d thought he did, too.
“And of course I know who you are,” Gretchen Miller said, drawing me from my thoughts and reminding me that we still had an introduction in progress. “Tennyson Knight.”
Her use of my formal first name startled me. No one called me that except my mother, the woman who had cursed me with it in the first place.
“It’s Teddy,” I said.
“OK.” She shrugged.
It was a dismissive shrug.
It wasn’t as if I cared if people were starstruck by me. People generally weren’t—that was the not-a-star thing—and usually Ilikedit that way. I was the Mike Mills to Scott’s Michael Stipe. The Michael Anthony to his David Lee Roth. Not even. I was the Duff McKagan to Scott’s Axl Rose and Jet’s Slash. Rock people knew me, but in the real world I could generally walk around unbothered. It was a sweet spot I appreciated. The hat and dark glasses at the airport had just been extra insurance given the upheaval—and resultant tabloid attention—of the past week.
But somehow, irrationally, this shrug, thisdisregard, from a fellow musician got my back up.
Even though I had no leg to stand on here, given what a jerk I’d been to her at the airport.
Man, I was all over the place with this woman.
“I hadn’t heard much Concrete Temple before this summer,” she was saying as another especially vicious mosquito landed on my cheek. “It’s very…” Her nose scrunched as she searched for the word she wanted. “Emphatic.”
Well, fuck you very much, Gretchen Miller.
Gretchen turned to Marion and opened a planner, which I’d noticed she’d been consulting on the drive from the airport.Maybe Gretchen Miller was an A&R type. Maybe she had no business passing judgment on my music. Maybe she was just a suit.
Although that “I Minnesota” T-shirt was very… not suit-like. It was formfitting, and there were splotches of sweat blooming beneath her breasts.
