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“Ori Herd…I wish I found you years ago. I can’t believe I spent nearly forty years on this planet without you.”
She grinned a wicked smile. “Well, when you think that, just remember…for most of those forty years, I wasn’t born.” She shrieked with laughter as he tickled her in mock outrage. He moved on top of her again and she sighed as he kissed her. He smiled down at her.
“You tired?”
“Not even slightly.”
Milo grinned as he made his way down her body. “Good…because we’re going to do this all…night…long…”
***
Milo sat in his office, the door closed and the best-selling and only album by Astoria Vine playing in his headphones. He wanted to feel close to her, even while he was at work, and although he had already a ton of pictures on his phone, he wanted to hear her voice…and what a voice.
Her singing voice mirrored her low, gruff speaking voice, the depth of tone in it was extraordinary and the range of it – jeez – he struggled to find the superlatives. What took it beyond a good voice, though, was the way it would break, almost a sob at the song’s most emotional parts. Astoria Vine felt every emotion and conveyed them as she sung; he was reminded of Purple Rain, Prince’s masterpiece or Eddie Vedder’s voice on Alive. The album concluded with a cover of Tom Wait’s Jersey Girl – and he loved that she didn’t change the gender of the song. I’m in love with a Jersey Girl….damn, it sent chills through his entire body.
He didn’t even realize Brandt was in the room until his advisor pulled one of the headphones away from his ear.
“Hey, you listening to me?”
Milo, startled out of his reverie, glared at Brandt. He’d known Brandt for ten years, had poached him from another company to come run his music division. The two men had gotten along fine but Brandt’s intense ambition had stopped Milo from ever forming an out of work friendship with the man. Milo knew Brandt would work twenty-four hours for the business but also knew, that if it suited his agenda, Brandt would have no compunction about dropping Milo like a stone. He sighed now as Brandt snuck a look at Milo’s mp3 player.
“Astoria Vine, huh? Jeez, if we could get an artist like that, I’d die a happy man.”
Milo looked amused despite his unease at hearing Ori’s old name in Brandt’s mouth. “Well, if we keep trawling in the pool of Disney and Nickelodeon kids for our music stars…”
“Hey, those kids make up seventy-five percent of our business, Milo. And it’s a rapidly diminishing pool. Download and streaming sales are down. Majorly down.”
Milo shrugged – he’d heard this all before. “Brandt, I keep telling you, touring is the only place musicians make money now. We need to concentrate on signing actual talent instead of human Barbie dolls and boy bands whose shelf life is less than the average Twinkie.”
Brandt was wearing his favorite expression – the patronizing mr-billionaire-has-no-idea-about-the-real-world face that made Milo irritated and tense. Whose company was this? He still remembered why he set up the company to begin with – his love of music. It had ruled his life since he was a kid, the one thing he could always, always count on. He still remembered hearing Bowie for the first time, going through the racks of his local independent music store for bargains with the money he earned from chores. Heck, he still got excited by new artists, Florence and the Machine, Adele, John Legend – why wasn’t Brandt bringing those gems to him?
He asked him straight out and Brandt again wore the supercilious smile of the shark. “Because, Milo, we’re not big enough. We haven’t got the showpiece artists on our roster.”
“Whose fault is that?”
“This is a business, Milo. I go with what I know will sell.”
“And to hell with the quality?”
“Bring me an Astoria Vine and we’ll talk.” Brandt got up to leave. “Until then, let me run the business that made you a billionaire, Milo.”
He stalked out leaving Milo annoyed and belligerent. He pressed the intercom. “Dan? I need an hour, no interruptions okay?”
“Sure thing.” Dan, his p.a., was his usual easy-going self.
Milo stuck the headphones back on his ears as he opened his laptop and typed in Astoria Vine into a search engine. He figured it wasn’t spying if Ori said she wasn’t Astoria Vine anymore, was it?
Was it?
***
Ori looked around the restaurant feeling very, very exposed. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t experienced this luxury lifestyle when she was Astoria, she just thought that was all behind her and truth be told, all night, she had been worried someone might recognize her. She looked totally different of course, but her eyes always gave her away if someone looked too close. She’d kept her glasses on deliberately, even if they didn’t quite go with the dress she was wearing. The delicate pink showed off the dark olive of her skin, the tiny seed beads on the bodice throwing small sparks of light onto her skin. Milo, to her amusement and embarrassment, took a double-look when she opened the door to him.
“Wow. Just wow.”
She’d had to redo her make-up thanks to his admiration. At least, she smirked to herself now, she knew it was easy to get in and out of this dress quickly. Milo grinned at her, reading her mind.
“Just a preview of what you can look forward to later, Ms. Herd.”
