Martin’s eyes were wide behind his crooked glasses. He unclapped the hand over his mouth to announce, “The PR chick is enormous and scary, with pink hair.”
Owen said, “She sounds like a girl Wookiee.”
“She’s headed this way,” Martin said ominously.
Quentin took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, touched the wound on the side of his nose, and slid the frames back on. “I guess I’d better go put my contacts in.” Part of his job as the band’s front man was to look as studly as possible. He hoped his glasses didn’t make him look as nutty-professor as Martin, but he knew they made him look nerdy enough, which was why he never wore them when meeting with record company representatives or starting bar fights that would be photographed for the tabloids.
“It’s more serious than that, Q,” Martin said angrily.
Quentin quickly looked around on the floor for something non-electronic that wouldn’t cause a fire when he ripped it up and threw it at Martin. Martin had no right to lecture Quentin about the band’s serious troubles.
Luckily, before Quentin could bust up more of his house, Martin was saying, “Okay. Love you, too. Bye.” He clicked the phone off and informed the others, “The Wookiee used the word imbroglio in conversation.”
“What does that mean?” Erin asked.
“She’s onto us,” Quentin said.
“It’ll be fine,” Erin said soothingly. “We’ll do the burly hick act.”
She was right, of course. They couldn’t turn on each other with this PR she-monster approaching. They had to face her head-on. Quentin turned the intercom to the control room back on just long enough to dismiss the technicians for the day. Then he stepped around the piano and over a mass of cables to huddle with the others. “Okay, we’ll show her that we’re tight-knit, so she’ll be satisfied that we’re not breaking up, and repulsive, so she’ll run screaming from the state and leave us alone.”
“Sounds like she doesn’t scare easily,” Owen said.
“Whose turn is it to get drunk?” Martin asked.
“It’s my turn,” Quentin said, “but you know me. I’ll blow our cover. Let me get drunk at something that doesn’t matter so much, like the Fourth of July concert. That means it’s Erin’s turn.”
Erin shook her head. “We were going to record ‘Barefoot and Pregnant’ tomorrow, Q. I don’t want to be hungover when I’m recording something with that much fiddle in it.”
“It’s for the greater good,” Quentin told her.
“It’s your turn,” she responded with more heat than he thought this issue deserved. “You can get a saline IV in the morning and be okay. I’ll be sick for two days.”
“Fine.” He shrugged.
“But don’t start laughing and crack us all up,” Owen warned him.
“I’m telling y’all,” Quentin said, “if I’m getting drunk, you have to be prepared for certain things.”
“And remember Rule Three,” Martin added.
“You think I’m going to sleep with the PR rep sent by the record company?” Quentin exclaimed. “She’s a Wookiee.”
“Let’s get to it,” Erin said impatiently. “I don’t think I have any alcohol in the house. Do y’all?”
“We have a six-pack,” Quentin said. “Not enough.”
“Do we have time to go to the store?” Owen asked.
Martin said, “She’d already left the Galleria when Rachel called.” He glanced at his watch. “Traffic’s died down. She’ll be here any minute.”
Quentin said, “Owen, take the Timberlanes home, and ask them if they have some liquor we can borrow. Martin, find cards and poker chips.”
Owen pulled the glass door of the sound booth, which didn’t budge. Mr. Timberlane rose from his seat in the control room in slow motion to open it. Then Owen followed Mr. and Mrs. Timberlane up the stairs at a glacial pace. Martin, in a show of forethought that had been rare for him lately, waited with his foot propping the broken door open until Quentin put his own foot in the space.
Quentin watched Martin climb the stairs, then turned to Erin, who was packing her fiddle away. “I’ll go put in my contacts.” He paused. “You should take your bra off.”
“You wish.” She sashayed toward him with her fiddle case. “If I take something off, everyone else does, too.” She snapped her fingers. “That’s it! Strip poker. That’ll scare this lady away.”
“Excellent,” he said, and kissed her forehead. Then, because they were alone now, he added, “Let me see them.”
Unperturbed, she batted her eyelashes at him.
“I can’t catch any kind of break today,” he said dejectedly, holding open the sound booth door until she walked under his arm, then mounting the steps to the kitchen after her. It really was disturbing. No one in the group was allowed to have sex with Erin—that was Rule Two. But she’d pretended to be his girlfriend on and off for the last two years. That had made for a lot of very pleasant PDA. Even in private, if he teased her and asked to see her br**sts like he used to when they were dating, she would at least flirt back. After Thailand, he’d told her to pretend to break up with him and choose Owen instead, but he hadn’t foreseen that she’d take her fake flirting with her.
They all met a few minutes later on the back patio in the evening heat. Quentin and Martin had taken off their shorts and thrown them in the pool, and Erin had stepped inside the house to take off her bra, by the time Owen arrived with a wooden crate he set on the outdoor table.
He pulled out a small box and tossed it to Quentin. Over-the-counter sinus medication, expired ten years ago. “Mrs. Timberlane is worried about your allergies,” Owen explained. Next came a dozen tomatoes from the Timberlanes’ garden. Finally, in the bottom of the crate, Owen reached several dusty bottles of tequila. “The Timberlanes took a trip to Mexico in the seventies.” He handed one of the bottles to Quentin. “Get started, Q.”
Quentin broke the seal on a bottle, unscrewed the top, took a swig, and grimaced. It was for the greater good, he reminded himself, but he hadn’t wanted to get drunk tonight. He’d wanted to have one beer, bake some bread, and retreat to his Fortress of Solitude to read the latest issue of Clinical Immunology and Allergy Today.