Page 2 of Backstage

“Why don’t you think before you do that shit?” he asks me, softening his tone, and I realize I got away with it, at least this once. “Sooner or later, people are gonna get tired of your rockstar attitude. There’s a fine line between the fickle VIP persona and the troubled one nobody wants to work with. Don’t cross it, you understand?”

“Can you fix the situation in any way?” asks Thomas, our drummer and the most reasonable of all of us. The original manager of our band, it’s because of Thomas and his practical nature that we’re living the dream life. Once again, his instincts kick in to help Evan. He’ll never be able to set aside this part of his character, even if we pay someone to take care of our problems. He’s our own personal mother hen.

Evan sits in the armchair in front of us, elbows on the armrests, hands to his mouth, and remains silent for what seems like an interminable amount of time. It’s literally killing me, this waiting. I get the distinct impression he wants to tell us something that we absolutely do not want to hear. My relief at having gotten away with something is clouding with worry.

“We’ll keep doing what we’ve been doing, interviews, public apologies, and so on, but we need to shift the focus away from Damian, and this whole thing that has blown up in the papers. We need to focus on your fans,” he says seriously.

I breathe a sigh of relief. I can get out of this mess. I haven’t exactly been a role model lately, but I haven’t killed anyone.

“How do we do it? Make them the center of attention, right? Meet and greet? Dinner? Awards? Concert tickets? Please tell us,” begs Michael, guitarist, and the craziest guy in the band. Patience is not his strong suit. Once, he decided he didn’t have time to wait for our driver to move the tour bus, and he did it. I still remember Evan swearing when we called him to tell him that Michael had utterly destroyed the rooftop of a gas station because he hadn’t noticed that the bus was too tall.

Evan breathes in and looks down, looking defeated.

“It’s not that simple,” he says, sounding almost emptied of his usual proverbial patience.

“There’s sure to be some up-and-coming bands among your fans. We’ll do the contest we’ve talked about before, but you’ve always refused to organize. Everyone will upload a video cover of one of your songs, then we’ll select the three best entries to come play it in the studio. The winning band will open all of the dates on your next tour. Obviously, they’ll have to send us a demo of their original songs; we don’t want people who don’t have anything to play. If they’re legit, we’ll sign them to the label.”

The words hover over us in absolute silence for a few seconds. Nobody seems to breathe.

“But that’s absurd,” I explode. “The big bosses have taken advantage of this bullshit to stick us with a marketing stunt the label geniuses have been planning for months.” I stand up and throw my chair back, banging it against the wall. “It wasn’t even my fault! I tried to get away from the crazed fans. I apologized publicly, I did interviews. They’re taking advantage of the situation to blackmail us. We’re talking about our tour, our image!”

My deep voice thunders inside the office. My bandmates look at me with expressions halfway between resigned and worried. It’s true, we’ve been through worse times together. That doesn’t mean we have to accept this. A tour is a stressful event in a thousand ways, but it’s also a time when the band gets even closer together. The tight spaces, the forced cohabitation, the miraculously avoided fights, the blatant outbursts, the moments of absolute loyalty to my friends, are part of a sacred rite. They can’t rob us of that by making us babysit kids.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s your fault or not. It’s what it looks like that counts, not what actually happened. You’re lucky those girls were all of age—otherwise you’d be in much more trouble. The label’s got the ball rolling, and they know we can’t turn them down. They’re clinging to the image protection clause and threatening to terminate the contract and make us pay the penalty. You made them suffer because you didn’t want to do the contest, now they’ve found a way around it.”

Evan’s voice is firm and strong, the tone of someone who’s doing the impossible to protect our business and our rights. I know he’s done everything he can to defend us, to honor our wishes. He’s been doing it since we were little more than kids who could barely change our underwear. I’m not mad at him. I’m mad at the label: they needed a new band to squeeze and a media campaign to draw attention to them.

“There’s no chance of appealing this decision, is there?” asks Simon, our bassist, in a resigned voice. It hurts me to hear him so downhearted. He’s always the quiet one, looking for mediation so as not to get into a fight. He sees the glass half full, and sometimes I hate him because he seems like a fucking Disney prince with that smile. But he manages to point out the positive aspects that we, in the heat of the moment, do not notice, saving us many times from getting pissed off.

“No.” Our manager’s tone is both harsh and apologetic.

I can see the defeated expression on the faces of my bandmates, and the anger bubbling up inside me almost makes me want to punch the wall. Without a word, I swing the door against the wall and leave the room with such fury radiating from my body everyone I encounter gets out of my way.

*

I watch Loretta get dressed after I fuck her. I called her as soon as I left our manager’s office and met her, as usual, in the hotel room that I rent on an annual basis only for these kinds of situations. I don’t take any women home. I don’t want romantic relationships, and I want to avoid finding my apartment’s address in Tribeca on every website in the world.

I like her red hair and tits that would make a porn star envious, but especially that she has no limits in bed. She’s wild, and she fucks me until she drains all my energy, my anger, my fears, and insecurities. We get in touch when we need to, and we both know there’s no feelings between us. She knows who I am, she’s discreet and never wants money or gifts. Though a few days before Christmas she and I usually treat ourselves to dinner in a super-exclusive restaurant where I spoil her a bit. She’s married, has a rewarding life, and doesn’t want to turn it upside down for someone like me.

“You didn’t get away with those three tongues stuck in your mouth, did you? You were an animal today.” She smiles as she puts on the elegant dress she’s wearing back to the office.

“So, you heard?” I ask her with a grimace as I light a cigarette.

She bursts out laughing in her delicate way. “You’re on every fucking TV channel these days. It’s impossible not to notice. Your face is on a whole wall of shelves at the newsstand.”

“I’m not going to the newsstand,” I grumble like a child, but it hit a spot. I can’t even scroll through the usual sites I like without finding my wasted face everywhere.

She smiles and caresses my bare foot that is poking out of the sheets.

“You’ll get over this one too,” she says with a reassuring smile. She grabs her bag, fixes her hair and make-up in the mirror, then grabs the door handle and, just before leaving, turns around and says, “It’s been a pleasure, as always.” She winks in a sexy way.

I chuckle and wave to her. Sometimes I think she’s the only friend I have besides the band.

“The pleasure is all mine.” I wink at her, watch her open the door and then—surprise!—wrinkle my forehead as she moves to the side and my three bandmates walk in.

“Hello, Loretta,” they greet her in chorus with a smile as she leaves.

“Jesus Christ, I still can’t believe you’re still fucking her after all these years. Doesn’t she ever get tired of you? You’re a pest,” Michael says, walking to the liquor cabinet and pouring himself a whiskey.

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