“I appreciate the offer,” she said, “and I’m flattered that you think I could handle this mess. But I can’t be your manager, for a couple of reasons. First, you say you’re coming clean with me, but you’re lying to me even now. I’m not Karen. I can’t work this way.”
“What do you—” Erin began innocently.
“Oh, come off it, Erin,” Sarah interrupted. “I would love to believe that kicking Quentin out of the band is purely altruistic on your part. But you and Owen”—she waved her fingers between the two of them—“are having sex with each other, and you both want to kick Quentin out before he kicks you out.” She turned to Martin. “And you’re so far gone on heroin that you’re backstabbing your best friend. You’re kicking him out of the band so you can do drugs without him hounding you.”
Erin gaped at Martin, her eyes filling with tears. Owen slumped over with his elbow on the table and his chin in his hand. Martin flicked ash, too high to be particularly concerned.
Sarah didn’t pause to let it sink in. While she had them off balance, she went on. “The other reason I won’t be your manager is that the Cheatin’ Hearts will never make it without Quentin. You could get a new lead singer, but you’d never recapture what you have now. I doubt Manhattan Music would even re-sign you without him.
“You could break up, and each of you could make it on your own. You could have long, successful careers in Nashville. Write songs. Join other bands. Produce albums for other people. But you can’t go on as the Cheatin’ Hearts. Each of you is integral to the group, but Quentin is—”
As she paused to find the words, Martin offered, “The life.”
Sarah took a big swig of beer and banged the bottle down on the table with finality. “I have a flight to New York soon. Tell me how we’re leaving this so I don’t have to come down here again.”
Erin said quietly, “You need the group to stay together to keep your job, right? So don’t tell Q we had this conversation. Maybe he won’t self-destruct, and we’ll go back on tour like we always planned.”
“Girlfriend.” Sarah felt tough athlete Sarah rise up to subdue crafty Natsuko. “You are not hearing me. You’re in denial. You can’t go on tour and pretend nothing’s happened. Martin is addicted to heroin, and you’re pregnant with Owen’s baby.”
Erin watched Sarah for one, two, three beats, unmoving, expressionless, so long that Sarah thought she’d guessed wrong.
Erin burst, “You bitch!” at the same time that Owen exclaimed, “What?”
“Ouch,” Sarah said, “and you haven’t told Owen.”
Owen and Erin jumped up from the table simultaneously. Erin screamed at Sarah, but Owen blocked her with his big body.
Sarah stood up and clacked across the flagstones. It was a relief to close the kitchen door on the screaming. She slid her bag from the counter.
When she turned around, Martin stood in the kitchen with his lit cigarette. “I’ve enjoyed having you spy on us, kid.” Swaying a little on his feet, he took her hand.
“Me, too.” She looked into his beautiful dark eyes behind the crooked glasses. She asked him, “Are you going to kick it now? You’re the link between Erin and Owen on one side, and Quentin on the other. You’re going to have to take some positive action to keep the band together. You’ll lose everything you love if you don’t.”
Martin squeezed her hand. “Ask me again when I’m sober.”
They stood in exactly the spot where Quentin customarily kissed her good-bye and banged his head on the door. Martin kissed her on the forehead. And then she walked through the garage to her car.
For the first few minutes of the drive to the airport, she felt numb, thought nothing. Then pieces of the puzzle began to fall out of the sky, littering the highway in front of her.
She was devastated. Last night, Quentin had tried to tell her. He’d basically asked whether she could take him as she thought he was, and she’d basically told him no. Having him turn out to be a brilliant college grad on a mission to save the children should have been a bonus. It was no good trying to explain to him now that she would have jumped at the chance if it hadn’t been for Erin.
She was outraged. He’d lied to her over and over and over. He had pretended to her that he didn’t know the word renegotiate.
But above all, she was hopeful. There would have been no reason for Quentin to pursue her last night after sex when he knew she was leaving for New York soon, unless he meant it. He loved her.
It was just a matter of finding him.
For the first time in nine months, she didn’t have a plan.
Well, the plan definitely should not include a trip to the airport. She turned the BMW around at the next exit and headed back the way she’d come. And quickly ground to a halt in a traffic jam. She heard on the radio there was a collision up ahead between a busload of fans headed to the Nationally Televised Holiday Concert Event and a limousine.
She might as well make use of this downtime. Maybe Quentin had left her a message. She reached into her bag and switched her phone back on. As she drew it out, her eyes fell on Quentin’s asthma inhaler, which she’d forgotten to leave at the mansion.
She flinched as the phone rang in her hand.
Quentin jumped down from his big-ass truck. He ran through the garage and into the kitchen.
And hit a wall of cigarette smoke.
“Q!” Martin exclaimed. He let out a stream of epithets, this time directed at himself, because he’d smoked in Quentin’s path. “Man, I am so sorry!”
Quentin stumbled, coughing, out the back door to the patio. Erin and Owen’s argument echoed against the house. He told them desperately, “Sarah checked out of her hotel last night, and she’s not answering her cell.”
Erin and Owen didn’t even slow down. Quentin glanced over at Martin, who had sat down at the patio table, cigarette butts and ash around his chair. Quentin fleetingly wondered what could have stressed Martin out so badly that he needed to smoke even when he was high. In the name of self-preservation, when they roomed together in college, Quentin had convinced Martin to stop smoking. Or so Quentin had thought. But that could wait.
“Hey!” he said.
Erin paused in yelling at Owen just long enough to tell Quentin, “She came here and now she’s gone.”
Quentin stepped between Erin and Owen to stop the stream of vitriol. He took Erin by the shoulders and looked down into her big blue eyes. “When was she here?”