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“Okay,” said Jake, still grinning. “I’ll take a note of that.”
Rielle scowled. “I don’t like this goddamn waiting.” Her booted foot kicked back and forth beneath the table, winking in and out of Jake’s eye line.
He refocussed on their faces. “I was hoping to go over the tour bible, the show schematic and discuss how you like to run things. Would you like to wait for Jonas or make a start?”
Rand said, “Wait,” at the same time as Rielle said, “Start.”
Jake said, “So?” and got exactly the same response, but this time brother and sister glared at each other. He laughed. “It’s like you’re my sister and me. If she says black, I say white. This must be what Mum feels like being stuck in the middle.”
Rand laughed quick and generous, but Rielle rolled her eyes, not amused. “We start,” she said.
Fifteen minutes later, a beaming Jonas Franklin joined them. “Sorry I’m late, folks. I was checking out the town.” So this was the famous producer. He looked more amused than sorry, more asleep than ready for a meeting. Was he drunk? Stoned?
“What’s there to check out—it’s Adelaide for God’s sake.” snapped Rielle.
“Sorry, sorry,” said Jonas, holding his palms up in surrender. “I thought Australia was all laid back and groovy, you know—bloody hell, she’ll be right, no worries, crikey mate, Crocodile Dundee.”
Oh yeah, Jonas was off his face. This was going to get interesting.
“You’re high.” Rielle stood quickly, her hip hitting the table edge making it bark loudly on the floor.
“No, lovely one, just happy to see you,” said Jonas. “Can I get a coffee? They have coffee in Adelaide, don’t they?” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of the cafe’s counter.
“What are you on?” Rielle demanded.
“Sunshine and fresh air, my lovely.”
“Take your glasses off and look at me.” She leaned across the table to get in close to Jonas. An attack dog in a tartan skirt. Jake didn’t want to have to be the one to muzzle her, but he liked the skirt—what there was of it, and what it didn’t cover.
Jonas pulled his glasses down his nose, revealing bloodshot eyes with pinhead pupils.
Rielle slapped her open hand on the table knocking the menus out of their plastic stand.
Rand groaned. “Jonas, what were you thinking? This is not acceptable.”
“Go sleep it off,” said Rielle, in a hard, gritty voice that made Jake super glad he wasn’t in her sights and absolutely determined to make sure it stayed that way. Here was the bitch of legend in full living colour with special spitfire effects.
She thumped back down in her seat and folded her arms as though trying to hug her anger close, oddly as though it hurt her to let it out. He had no time to let that thought ripen, Jonas was in his face.
“You must be Jake. Welcome to the Mainline show. And yes that is their real fucking name. You’d think it was made up wouldn’t you? He’s too much of a nice guy and she’s too much of a bitch. If you’re smart, you’ll run a mile before she gets you hooked.”
Words were still coming out
of Jonas’s mouth when Rielle erupted, flinging a glass of ice water at him. Rand caught her hand before she could release the glass as well. “Jonas, fuck off. We’ll talk later.”
Jonas wiped his hand across his sodden face, pushed his sunglasses back up his nose and slowly rose from the table. “Run Jake, run.” He laughed, nodded to Rand, cut Rielle with a knife-like glance and left.
“I’ll talk to him; I’ll sort this out. It won’t happen again,” said Rand, as they watched Jonas weave across the cafe and through the doors.
He had a hand on Rielle’s shoulder. She pushed it off. “Fucking right, it won’t. He does that again, he’s out. I don’t care how much of a genius he is.” She turned to Jake, those violet eyes violating his relative calm. This wasn’t his first rock star tantrum. It wasn’t his first shouting match over creative differences. He’d sorted out set-ups and lock-downs and walkouts and everything in between but there was something about Rielle Mainline he found unsettling. That tight coil of anger with that edge of something else he couldn’t identify.
She cast her eyes over him, a top to bottom examination, the kind men did to women they were interested in, but with none of the trying not to get caught about it, or the barefaced hope the interest was reciprocated. She meant to be offensive. It should’ve made him cranky, but it did something to his temperature the shouting hadn’t. It lit the furnace, again.
“Welcome to the show,” she said.
4. Ground Control
Four days until show-time and Jonas Franklin was conspicuously absent—again.
