Getting Real Read online

  After dessert and a cup of tea, Jake took his mobile into the backyard where Monty was slobbering over a dried pig’s ear, his big Lab tail thumping the grass, and called Ron.

  As usual Ron Teller, Australia’s biggest entertainment promoter was straight to the point. “Mate, I’ve got a new job for you. I want you on a stadium tour, a month’s prep and two on the road. Shows scheduled for Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. Oh and Adelaide. You in?”

  A stadium tour—that meant it was a big name artist. The only big name Jake knew about to tour was the rock band, Ice Queen. And that was big. That was awesome. That was the pig’s ear in his world. “I’m in.”

  “It’s ‘Re-elle’, mate,” said Ron, drawing out the pronunciation of the lead singer’s name for effect. “This Side of Purgatory. It’s a sell out, capacity crowds. Their first time touring here. The media are wetting themselves over it.”

  Monty made a little whine of contentment, the sound perfectly capturing how Jake felt. A sell out stadium tour with one of the biggest bands in the world—tasty. It more than compensated for spending the last two months touring regional centres like Newcastle, Ballarat and Bundaberg with the Jays.

  “Who’s opening?” he asked.

  “Problem Children.” Ron named another chart-topping local band just breaking into the US scene.

  “You want me as tour manager?”

  “Yeah mate, the band’s bringing their own exec producer and I’ll leave you to put together the rest of the crew.”

  Mentally he assembled the rest of the people he’d need to provide staging set up, catering, security, transport, and logistics. “What do you know about Rielle?” Jake knew she was a talented performer and a media darling because of her explosive temper and outrageous stage presence, but that was little more than what was public about her and the band. He wanted the inside story. The more he knew, the easier it would be to run the tour.

  “She and her brother have managed themselves since they were teenagers, they’re tight. He’s the business brain; she’s the star. I hear she’s one hundred percent pure bitch, mate,” said Ron. “Talented yeah, but from what I know, relentless about quality, rides everyone hard to get what she wants and not nice about it.”

  In the dark backyard, with the whir of the washing machine and the slobber of the dog, Jake nodded. The expression ‘pure bitch’ covered a lot of ground and was usually applied to female talent if they were in any way strong-willed. He was well aware of the double standard that applied in the industry. No one thought a male entertainer was a bastard if he was focussed on a quality performance, but a demanding woman—bitch.

  “Seriously a bitch or just, you know…?”

  “Reedy, mate, from what the US promoter tells me, she doesn’t pull any punches and she’s the boss on stage,” warned Ron. “Anyway, she’ll be your problem now, whether she’s a bitch or a pussycat. We’re leg one of their global tour, they want to get it right here, where the fans are more laid back, before they take it to the US and Europe. So we’re the guinea pigs, and when I say we, mate, that’d be you, playing the part of the rodent.”

  3. Gemini

  Adelaide, Australia. Now.

  Jake stepped up on a cross trainer, set the computer for a twenty-minute session, plugged his earphones into the socket, and tuned into the music channel, scoring a Black Eyed Peas video that matched his stride. Five minutes later, he was feeling warm and fluid and enjoying an old Lady Gaga clip, the one with the biker apostles.

  One of the side benefits of working on a big, high profile tour was getting to stay in decent hotels with access to facilities like pools, gyms, bars, and cafes. It’d been a while since he’d been in a gym. His usual workout was a run or a surf when he could get one in. He didn’t notice the place start to fill up until the cross trainer beside him started to move. He glanced to the side and saw a cute girl in fitted black gym skins begin her workout. She had short blonde tousled hair and when she glanced back at him, he saw big green eyes and freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and cheeks, and a gap in her front teeth that bit her plump bottom lip. Cute.

  Fifteen minutes into his workout, he picked up his pace. As he pushed faster on the pedals he noticed she did as well. The arms on their cross trainers swung back and forth in sync. He chanced another glance. She had her earphones plugged in and was watching the same music channel he was. He pushed his heels down harder and kicked his pace up again. And so did she.

  Okay now, that can’t have been coincidental. He’d thought she was simply pounding the same rhythm to the music as he was, he kicked it again. Now he was running hard and she matched him. Damn, she was a little thing but she was fit. She had no trouble keeping pace with him. Was she grinning? He didn’t dare look directly at her. He was sweating buckets. The heart rate icon on the computer screen leapt into the purple zone and pulsed brightly—was that the exercise or the girl?

  When his twenty minutes were up, the machine automatically lost traction, but she kept pounding away, never looking at him directly. He slowed to the pace of a light jog, and then stepped off the machine. Now he could get a good look at her. Not cute—hot as! Standing behind her, he could take in her narrow waist, slim hips, the flexing, well-formed muscles in her legs and arms. Hmm, real sweet.

  He moved to a rowing machine and set it up for another twenty minute cycle; strapped his feet in, grabbed the handles and started to pull. This machine didn’t have a sound and TV system to plug into, so he contented himself with trying to beat the pace boat on the onboard screen.

  Five minutes in, and ahead of the pace boat by a full length, someone settled in the rowing machine beside him. It was Green Eyes again. When he pulled back in his stroke, he could see her strapping her feet in. When he slid forward, she grabbed her machine’s handle and they both pushed back together. But his stroke was harder and faster than hers, so the rhythm they had was in opposition. When he was forward, she was back and he couldn’t see her. But when he was back, she was in front of him, and he could check out her perfect form, bent into the task of rowing, head down, puffing her breath out with each push through her legs and pull of her arms.

  He wasn’t sure he had enough air in his lungs to have a conversation, but he was going to give it a go. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  She looked at him blankly as he passed her, moving backwards.

  He tried again. “I wondered if you were trying to kill me. I haven’t been in a gym for a while and you’re obviously used to this. I can hardly keep up with you.”

  “Oh.” She passed him again, and on the next pass, she added, “No.”

  “Good, ‘cause I think you could do it.” He slowed up, letting the on-screen pace boat catch him, taking the opportunity to spend a fraction more time behind her—watching her.

  She was sweating heavily too. A rivulet of moisture trickled down her arm. He shook his head to clear the kind of thoughts that didn’t belong in a public gym, or a public anywhere, but made him want to lick her, like she was flavoured ice.

  “Do you work out here often?” he said, on the pass.

  She shook her head. Tucked her chin down to avoid him. She had to have known he was checking her out. He had about as much subtlety as sunburn.

  He brought the rower to a stop and released the handles. He was defeated on the field of flirting, but he was still genuinely interested in her. “What do you do to stay so fit?”

  She pulled harder. She was well ahead of her onscreen pace boat. “I don’t get distracted.”

  Crash and burn. “Good on you.” Jake released his feet from the stirrups and stood. He laughed at himself under a swipe of his towel. He’d had more practice pushing women away than reeling them in on the last tour. On most tours. And how it showed.

  He dragged the towel across his face and chest again and watched the girl a moment. She was focussed, intent on the machine and her skin glowed with the effort. When he entered the weights area, it was with a spring in his step. Just watchi
ng her, even if she’d made it clear he was as annoying as gum under her shoe, made him feel warm inside and out.

  He sat on a weight bench. He could still see her across the room. If she lifted her head she’d be able to see him in the mirror. He wondered if she’d bother. He lay under a set of weights and tried to concentrate on bench pressing instead of pressing something else entirely. Like his hands against her hips, or his lips against—

  He groaned out loud, which would’ve been more embarrassing if half the other occupants of the weights area weren’t grunting and groaning over dumbbells. He was the dumbbell. She didn’t even know he existed.

  He grunted again, but this time it was because his chest was burning and his arms felt boneless from the number of reps he’d done. If he’d been hot before, he was a furnace now. He sat and dragged his towel over the back of his neck and when he lifted his eyes he met hers. It wasn’t an accidental glance, but she dropped her head the minute he caught her out.

  So she could get distracted.

  The workout left Jake feeling totally energised. Tomorrow he’d be sore, but right now he was ready for anything. And anything might happen in his first meeting with Ice Queen’s management.

  He was showered, changed, and waiting in the hotel’s outdoor terrace café. This meeting would establish the band’s expectations and give him a feel for what they’d be like to work with. Sometimes the talent showed up at pre-production meetings, but mostly they sent their management. Jake expected to meet with the executive producer and stage manager, Jonas Franklin.

  He knew Franklin by reputation. He was considered a genius EP. Jake was keen to see if the publicity matched the man. Ten past the hour and he was wondering if Jonas had gotten lost, but then it was hard to get lost in Adelaide. Twenty past the hour and he was feeling like his date was going to stand him up.

  Then a shadow fell across the table and a deep voice said, “Jake Reed?”

  Jake looked up to see Rand Mainline blocking the sun, and leapt to his feet. “Yes, hi, I’m Jake.”

  “Good to meet you, Jake, I’m Rand.” The rock star offered his hand to shake. He wore black denim and a Grateful Dead t-shirt featuring the iconic Deadhead skull in a top hat. “This is my sister, Rielle.” They shook. Rand’s grip firm and steady. Jake shifted to offer his hand to Rielle, but she waved him off.

  Next to the lanky Rand, Rielle was fairy tiny with an outrageous mop of multicoloured hair in red, gold and black, snaking over her shoulders and down her back. She wore a skin tight black singlet that finished well above her pierced belly button and showed off the arrowed muscle of her abs. Now that was hot.

  “Jake, we seem to have lost our EP. He’s around somewhere, but we’re not sure where. I thought we’d come and introduce ourselves.” Rand took a seat, and gestured for Jake to do the same. Rielle slumped into a chair and folded her arms. Her mouth was a tight line. She had fishnets on. They had holes in them here and there. Jake sat across from her and wondered if the crossed leg she was kicking would connect with his knees. Her boots weren’t steel cap, but not far off. She had ‘could do you damage’ written all over her.

  She ignored him and looked at Rand. “I knew there was something off about Jonas on the plane. I’ll fire his ass if he so much as looks like he’s been high in the last six hours.” She pulled off her sunglasses and turned unnatural violet coloured eyes on Jake. “You look like a nice guy, fit and healthy, but you’d better be clean and sober or I’ll fire your ass as well.”

  Jake grinned. She was as feisty as her hair colour and pint sized but—like that blonde in the gym—a little powerhouse, or rather a powder keg. With a short fuse. “I run a professional team. You won’t have any cause to complain.”

  She grunted and tapped bright lime green fingernails that matched the jewel in her nose, on the tabletop. One of her fingers was tattooed. She had another tattoo on the inside of her wrist.

  “Jake, please forgive my sister. She has no manners. She was raised poorly by itinerant fruit pickers,” said Rand. He might’ve been saying mangoes are good this season; there was no trace of irony in his voice—a mongrel mix of Australian and American accents.

  “Wolves, you forgot the wolves,” said Rielle, with an accent that gave no hint to her origin, but a bite, with perfectly formed white teeth, that could’ve severed a finger.

  “I always forget the wolves.” Rand sighed.

  Jake laughed. According to rock history, the Mainlines were born in Sydney, but moved to the US after their mum was killed in a car accident. Two years later their dad, a classical musician, was dead from cancer. They raised themselves, starting their music careers at eighteen and sixteen. Rielle was still a schoolgirl when they had their first hit single. That was before they formed the band, before they became music icons.

  “Please don’t laugh, it only encourages her,” said Rand.

  “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.

  All Jake’s stadium crew department heads were present for a pre-production meeting and he wasn’t prepared to waste time waiting

  They had a stage to build, rehearsals to schedule and fifty thousand punters to please on one night, with a high octane performance that would include laser lights, a highwire trapeze and pyrotechnics, as well as a set design with two acrobat poles and a telescopic tower device called the Hand of God that would carry members of the band over the heads of the punters nearest the stage.