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“It’s not like that!”
“How is it like, then?”
He opened his mouth and closed it again. Then opened it again. “I don’t know.”
“You do know. You’re just a liar and a coward. How do the other guys feel about this, huh? Reed and Petey and Mark, they cool with this?”
His mouth was a grim line. “They have to be cool with this. It was my say.”
I was fuming. Underneath it all was my total disappointment in who I thought Sylvester was, and who I was just now finding out he had been all along. “Wow.Wow. So now you’re leader of the band too, I guess. Don’t I recall you saying something about ‘just because I’m the frontman doesn’t mean I’m in charge, this is like a cooperative, we’re all equal parts and all equally important’.”
“Yeah. Well. Things change. The music industry doesn’t operate like that.”
“Convenient. So this is all about money for you?”
Something twitched in his expression. Then he relented. “Well, yeah. Anything wrong with that? Hardly any musicians ever make a living from their work. Is it so wrong I want to try and be one of the few?”
That was it. At his words, I thought of my father. My kind, gentle father who composed in his kitchen and never made a penny from his art. There was a whole universe between that and Sylvester, who’d sold out at the first chance he’d gotten.
“Fuck you, Sylvester Hart. I hope your album flops.”
From then on it was a quick decline for the music career I’d been promised. Being dropped from the tour meant that other promoters were wary to take a risk on me, since it was known that I hadn’t dropped out for ill health or any other reasonable excuse. My record label quickly saw what was happening and dropped me like a hot potato.
I’d been promised an escape from the endless, mundane high school life. I’d been promised a way to make my dreams come true, to bring home money to support my dad so he could quit his day job and focus on his passions. I’d been promised love, and I was left with nothing.
Just an ordinary girl with an entire year of school stretching out in front of her, alone, the laughing stock.
Sylvester
It was done. With the signing of the contract, Luna’s fate was tied into mine, twenty years after I thought I’d severed it for good.
My stomach bubbled again with that mixture of feelings rising up now that my anger had been mollified.
No, I was still angry. But the anger was no longer focused on Luna. She may be my enemy, but I’d made her into my enemy by betraying her so badly. I was angry at myself. I was angry at my deceased biological father, Emery Brock, who, by pulling me into his schemes, had changed the course of my life irrevocably.
I hadn’t been angry at myself or Emory in some time. Reopening the past was also reopening old wounds, facts of life that I thought I’d already processed and moved on from.
There was nothing to do about it. Time to figure out my next steps – our next steps, including the brothers.
I sent a message to the group chat.
Sylvester:I’ve tracked down the writer of the memoir
Sylvester:If you want full details, you’ll have to call by my office. I’m cranky
Winston:Uh oh
Winston:Not a fan of Cranky Sylvester
Sylvester:Yeah, well, too late
Sylvester:You’ll see why when I explain it to you all
Forest:Very mysterious
Forest:I suppose I’d better head over. You in, @Jude, @Winston?
Winston:Sure. Better bring our hazmat suits so we don’t get sprayed by @Sylvester’s toxins
