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I looked at her in surprise. “Why, Eli. You do know that I was first famous as a musician in my own right – before receiving the Brock family name?”
Eli shrugged. “Might’ve heard something about it. Figured you were crap.”
Luna was stifling a laugh. I shot her a warning look.
“Well, if you’ve not heard my old band’s music... perhaps I might give you some to listen to, see if it sparks anything for you? If not, I won’t be offended. But perhaps we can talk music sometime. I’m not only a musician, but a big, big fan of music. Maybe I can play you some things you won’t have heard before.”
Eli sighed a long, rattling sigh. “Fine. I’ll give anything a shot at this point. Even your music. Put it on a memory stick, will you?”
“Of course. Just one moment.” I raced around to the side of my desk where I stored things like CDs and memory sticks, and plucked one off the top of the pile. When I’d loaded a ‘greatest hits’ selection of my past music onto it, I handed it over to her. “You can keep that.”
“Gee, thanks.” Eli snatched the memory stick off me and dropped it into her vast coat pocket. She gave a wink to Luna, who she’d caught suppressing a laugh at her antics in my office. “Goodbye, Mr. Brock.”
“Bye, Eli. You can drop back in any time!”
The door closed behind her. I exhaled a sigh and sat down wearily at my chair.
“Who wasthat?” Luna’s eyes were lit up and curious.
I was surprised Luna hadn’t heard of her. I couldn’t be bothered to explain one of the world’s most famous film directors to her right now, though. I wanted to push Eli out of my mind and concentrate on my supposed ‘memoir’. “Film director. Just one of the many wonderful people I have to play nice with on a day-to-day basis. Sorry for the interruption, I did tell her she can visit my office any time, I suppose she took it literally. Shall we get started?”
Luna’s eyes still glimmered with amusement, but she pressedrecordon her device. “Sure. Let’s go.”
The week after,I was getting set up for Luna’s next meeting arrival – which involved checking myself out in a nearby mirror no less thanfivetimes in the build-up – when I received a text from her.
Luna:Sorry, need to cancel my appointment today. Feeling under the weather.
Sylvester:Good call not bringing your germs to me. Get well soon
I was disappointed. I’d been looking forward to seeing Luna.
With the leftover jitters from waiting for her arrival, I decided to transfer that nostalgic rush elsewhere. Reed’s new band’s website had been knocking about in my bookmarks, and I’d been checking every few days, as if staring at his face on the promo photos would unlock some key to the mysteries of my past. But there were no mysteries – I’d been a dickhead, and Reed hated me because of it.
Still, I visited the website once again, in a jittery and spontaneous state of mind. I clicked through to the ‘tour dates’ page.
He was playing in Chicago tonight. Well, I had a private jet and felt like making an impulsive decision. It seemed like fate.
I finished work early – I’d been so efficient keeping my inbox at zero, my employees had been eyeing me like I’d had a personality transplant – and went back to my apartment to change my clothes. I’d felt so out of place in Luna’s regular bar. I certainly wasn’t going to show up to a gig in asuit– however much I’d managed to tailor my suits so that they didn’t look as stuffy as those of my brothers. A suit was a suit, you couldn’t hide it.
Prepared as I’d ever be, I checked the private jet had been readied for my arrival and called upon my chauffeur to pick me up. Soon, I was being escorted from door to car to jet without even having to think about any part of the process. It was easy to follow through on a rash decision when you were rich. You just set the whole thing in motion then sat back and watched the chaos unfold.
In the same manner, I soon found myself incognito within the sizeable crowd who had gathered to watch Reed’s new band. I enjoyed myself much more than I had at a gig in a long time – I was used to being spotted, but I’d managed to disguise myself well by dressing down and wearing a baseball cap.
But, only a few songs after Reed’s band took to the stage, it seemed he’d somehow spotted me from all the way up there.
Into the microphone, he outed my presence to the entire audience. “Well well well, it seems we have an old ‘friend’ in the audience.”
A spotlight slid onto me, blinding me. I held up my hands against the onslaught of the light.
“Sylvester Brock, everybody. Though you might know him better as Sylvester Hart, lead vocals ofNeedlehead.”
Though I wasn’t very well liked by fans ofNeedlehead, people still liked to know a celebrity was in their midst, so a roaring cheer rose up from the crowd.
“What do you think, guys? Should we let him sing with us for old time’s sake?”
The crowd roared even harder.
“Sylvester, come up onto the stage!”
