This Is Where We Live - By Janelle Brown Page 0,45
deal.”
Julian shrugged. “I’ll get you one. How close are you to being done?”
The next band had arrived on stage and were knocking about in the dark, plugging in their amps. The audience surged forward in anticipation, jostling Jeremy and Julian up against the steps. Jeremy drew in closer and spoke quickly. “Two or three more songs. Plus we have to master the album,” he paused. “Maybe six weeks if we really bust our asses.”
“Well, bustamove, buster,” Julian said, and knocked Jeremy’s shoulder with the edge of his hand. “I’ll be in touch. Audiofuckingphone. Brilliant, really.” He raised a beer—nonalcoholic, judging by the smell of it—in a one-man toast and meandered away. The audience edged aside to let him through as the band onstage slammed into the first song of their set with a squeal of eardrum-popping static. Jeremy raised his own invisible toast to Julian’s disappearing back and turned to go locate his bandmates.
He found them in the green room backstage, drinking warm Coors Light and sharing Zesty Taco Chipotle Ranch Doritos out of a crumpled bag that looked like it might have been left there for the last decade. The sweat was drying on their faces and their salty foreheads sparkled in the light of the bare bulbs overhead. The dull thump of a bass line from the band onstage pulsed through the floor. The ceiling fan whizzed overhead, spinning hot gusts of air around them. A giant graffiti penis was scrawled on the far wall, just below a panel of chipped soundproofing.
Jeremy planted himself before them, flush with determination. “We were amazing tonight,” he announced. “Emerson—that opening line you improvised on Super Special? Remember it. Daniel—way to engage the audience, friend. Ben—nice work with that last solo. We should all be proud.” He paused, for dramatic flourish. “We are getting so tight. But guys, we’ve got a lot more work to do, and we have to do it pronto. No more screwing around anymore.”
Ben flopped down in a battered armchair: “Good playing with you too, killjoy.” He rolled his drumsticks compulsively back and forth in his lap. Ben’s jeans gripped his legs like sausage casings, and his blond hair and beard flowed Jesus-like across his tattooed shoulders; an extreme look that Jeremy knew he should probably be adopting himself if he wanted to fit in with the hipster rock crowd but couldn’t really bear the idea. The amazing thing was how much time and effort Ben spent on looking like he’d made no effort at all.
“Have we been screwing around? I thought we were doing pretty well, actually,” Emerson said. He licked his thumb and scrubbed at a black smear on the side of his tennis shoe.
Jeremy turned to Daniel, expectantly. Daniel had always backed him up, ever since they first met in sixth grade, when Jeremy returned to the States after a two-year stay on an Indian ashram with Jillian. When the kids at school made fun of Jeremy’s macrobiotic lunchboxes, Daniel would punch them; when Jeremy wanted to cut school in order to feel up Maggie Bond, Daniel would forge a doctor’s excuse; when Jeremy returned home from New York and couldn’t handle staying in Jillian’s cancer-ward bungalow, Daniel let him sleep on his couch; when Jeremy got married, Daniel stood up as his best man. Daniel attended Jillian’s memorial service, and hadn’t cringed or made a funny face when the shaman pressed Jillian’s ashes into his forehead and waved sage under his nose. But now Daniel just fidgeted with his watch, as if he hadn’t heard a word Jeremy said.
“Look.” Jeremy hated being the bad guy. He’d managed to skate through most of his life without ever being forced into this position—the guy in charge, the guy laying down the rules—and it made him uncomfortable to have to be the band leader. He smiled, softened his voice. “We have to pull it together and finish the album. Otherwise, why are we doing this?”
Ben’s cellphone chimed out the arrival of a text message, which he examined intently. “Because chicks dig it?”
“Because we love the music,” Emerson said, sincere.
“Yes,” Jeremy agreed. “Because we love the music. Of course. But also because we want to put out a really great album, get a six-figure licensing deal for a commercial, receive critical acclaim, and headline the Hollywood Bowl. This is what I propose: Let’s recommit to practices. Let’s agree to get together every night—don’t roll your eyes, Ben, I’m serious—every night until we have the album knocked together. I