Some Part of Me is You Page 3

  “Into... indie rock,” Brian asked. His version of the make-over had resulted in a new earring, light shades of blue that really made his skin pop, and a pair of navy dress shoes that looked like they’d been made for him.

  Kristen hesitated, and shook her head. “I mean, sort of? There’s a reason I’m still working with Steve, though. I want to be doing something that’s still me, but a lot more honest.”

  Tony raised his hand, lowering it when Chelsea shot him a highly amused look. “Sorry. Just—so are you still ... I mean, how you would describe...” He tapped his fingers on the table, sighing. “I’m just going to say it. You’re pop country crossover, straight up. Is that still the sound?”

  The room was silent for a few tense moments, with Kevin looking like he was on the verge of apologizing for them, until Kristen looked at Chelsea and said, “Get me my guitar, will you? The black Taylor; it's in the car.”

  Mitch looked over at Ali, the excitement clear on his face. And it was hard not to be excited, even if none of Kristen’s existing stuff was anything she’d be caught dead listening to voluntarily. This was something that people would pay big money for. An impromptu acoustic performance by one of the world’s best-selling recording artists. One infamous for refusing auto-tune, and for even occasionally flubbing a few notes live and laughing it off, but—

  She really had to put the interviews out of her head. They were too distracting from the real Kristen, who tugged at her ponytail and sighed.

  “Look, as I said, I can guess what you make of my career,” she said, looking directly at Ali, who felt her face heat up at the implication that her thoughts were written all over her face. “And you're not wrong. I'm good at what I do, but that’s not—” The sentence trailed off with a hand gesture that seemed to mean what you guys are. “That lick in Base Line in particular is—I’ve tried to play it but my hand just gets stuck on the shift from the D minor chord to that little...” Which was followed by a pitch-perfect imitation of one of Ali’s trills.

  Before Ali could say anything—like, maybe an apology for how obvious her disdain apparently was? Or maybe just an explanation of the tuning and capo combination that made it easier?—Mitch laughed. “It’s her years of violin, I'm pretty sure; she’s got crazy flexible fingers.”

  Brian nodded. “Yeah, don't worry, it's not you. I can’t get it as quickly as Ali does for the life of me. I tried to step in once when she’d sprained a finger and we had to slow the whole song down by a quarter beat so I didn’t ruin it completely. That didn’t really work, either.”

  “The violin, huh?” Kristen asked, tilting her head to the side and studying Ali’s face intently, like it added a layer of understanding, which it really couldn’t, because Ali wasn’t sure it had anything to do with the violin at all. Still—better that Kristen was focusing on that rather than Mitch's fingers comment, which was not going to help her stop blushing.

  “Our parents insisted we get a proper musical education as children... which we then threw overboard in our teens,” she said, in a voice that was thankfully fairly normal; either way, she shot a glare at Mitch, who looked like he knew exactly what he’d done and was proud of it.

  “Yeah, so... wow, you guys are siblings, huh? That’s cool, though I can’t imagine touring with my sister, I would probably kill her... I mean, not literally...” Kristen clamped her mouth shut, bouncing out of her seat when Chelsea returned with the requested guitar. “Good, thanks Chels, here we go. Okay. This is a little stripped down but, you know, one person, two hands—there’s only so much I can do on a single guitar. So...”

  Kristen's frantic energy seemed to settle as soon as she slung the guitar around her neck and fished around her back pocket for a pick. It was an unsettling thing to see someone so unlike her do something Ali herself did so often, just as unthinkingly.

  After a quick tuning check—probably unnecessary, she probably had someone on staff just to tune her kit at all relevant times—Kristen looked across the room again, but with a tangible confidence now. Almost like the rambling of a few moments ago had been in their imaginations.

  “This one’s called Goodnight Nobody,” she said, and started picking out a melody.

  Ali leaned forward, eyes drawn instinctively to the guitar work. From the volume of bass underpinning the main melody, it was clear that the guitar has been tuned down to a very rock-only drop D. Tony's feet, after two repetitions of the lick, made it clear Kristen wasn't playing entirely in common time, either. Her voice came in on the third beat, chasing the guitar; the overall effect was tense, but hauntingly beautiful. Gone were the standard rhymes and ready clap-along rhythms that made for easy top 40; and gone was Kristen's acclaimed belt, too. Maybe just because this was a stripped down version of the song—but somehow, Ali didn't think so. This was meant to be fragile, all the way, and it was.

  By the time Kristen reached an outro, Ali was already mentally mapping out other parts to the song; a dissonant bass line that Mitch would destroy, along with harmonies for emphasis and deconstructed power chords to give the song the kind of depth that a stadium would need...

  It took Mitch's, “Wow,” along with a few claps and, because her brother just couldn't help himself, a quick finger whistle, to draw her back to the people in the room.

  Brian was smiling, Kevin had stopped looking at his tablet—a genuine accomplishment—and Tony said, “Yeah, okay, Jackson Caulfield and Five Point Star can't open for that”, more to himself than to anyone else. Kristen's eyes flicked past all of them, a small smile playing around her lips, until she had only Ali left.

  A lightning-quick lift of her eyebrows was the form her request for feedback came in, and Ali tilted her head, nodding a few times. “Yeah, Right Turn can get a room ready for that, especially if it’s going to be electric on tour—and I’m guessing with some effects?”

  Something akin to relief flashed over Kristen's face, so quickly that Ali almost thought she'd imagined it—but then that famous smile was there, underpinned by the rush of performance, and Ali forgot to breathe for a second. Magazine covers had nothing at all on it in the flesh. “Yeah, absolutely. I can't wait to show you guys—you can come to one of the dress rehearsals and really hone in on the sound.”

  It was a you guys, and there was nothing at all that suggested Kristen meant the words for Ali in particular, and they just happened to be looking at each other anyway—but none of those facts made the way her had pulse stuttered at that smile any less true.

  Kristen Nichols the product did nothing for her, but the person?

  ...

  It was a feeling that she was just going to have to shake off, because it was so unwanted. Her only concern had been that Kristen Nichols was either a fraud or a stuck-up snob in person—that one time they’d probably interact—but it had never once occurred to her that it would be equally if not more problematic if she found herself actually liking Kristen Nichols. Those were just not Ali Wright problems. Busted amp, lost pick, tremolo that broke off? Been there done that. A misplaced crush on a very straight headliner way out of her league, who she probably had nothing in common with anyway? ...

  As they drove the van towards their rehearsal space—Kristen’s new material wasn’t available in any way that could be leaked, so they’d built in some extra time to listen to her set and adjust their own before the tour was due to start—she thought back to their last tour. Seven cities, with support from a local getup called Shillings that they’d known for years. The circuit was small, and few lasted on it. Shillings had been a great fit; all five of the guys were easy-going and reliable, and all five of the guys were guys. No issues of attraction anywhere. She mostly remembered getting on each other’s nerves, and finding space away from them by... well.

  It wasn’t that she had a reputation, or anything like that. It was simply that she was openly out, and Right Turn had a real if compact fan presence around Chicago, and Mitch was supportive of her to the point where he insisted playing at a lot of LGBT-t
hemed club nights; and so, yeah, hookups were easy to come by. She didn’t kid herself into thinking these girls were interested in her. They wanted the thing they got on the stage, the focus and the wild energy, the Alison that lost her mind a little bit. And sometimes, in the aftermath of a good show, she reveled in those feelings for as long as she could. Always, though, and usually before the morning, the adrenaline would wear off and she’d politely extricate herself from someone else’s bedroom and head back to the apartment she shared with Tony, ready to dive back into math homework or tooling around in AutoCAD.

  She didn’t have time for anything more substantial, nor was she looking. There just also hadn’t been anything to make her think of her singledom in a while. Not since Julia, and given how that had ended...

  They were pulling up on their destination, and a man in low-slung jeans and a faded t-shirt was waiting for them under the overhang in front of the entrance, pointing to the side of the main building. They were directed around back of it, where loading doors were already open. Tony turned the van around and parked it, and they hopped out, cautiously peering inside.

  Their new space was bigger than most of the stages they’d ever performed on. It was yet more evidence that this tour, however much it was a ‘small’ thing by K-Nic standards, was held up by more money than Right Turn was likely to ever see.

  Ali bit her lip and looked over at Tony, who grinned at her and said, “A step up, isn’t it.”

  “We’ll be able to really go hard here,” Mitch agreed, shoving his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels and laughing a little crazily.

  The back of the studio housed a sofa, a table and some chairs—where Kevin would set up, dealing with whatever contractual and social media obligations they had—a poster board and a small fridge. Everything else was just empty space, ready for them to set up however they wanted. It would be a world away from twice-a-week rehearsal in Mitch’s basement, where they toned down the practice amps and faced each other on a set of stools to just run through some of their finished and unfinished material. The only times they’d used a rented space was in advance of the small tour they’d done before; but as Kevin had warned them, GSharp had little money, and the twelve hours they’d gotten out of that cramped hole felt like a joke compared to what they had here.

  This was a space where they could improve. Where they could get their sound bigger; big enough to support someone like Kristen Nichols, who of course had a rehearsal space and recording studio attached to her own house.

  Brian clasped her shoulder. “Pick your spot, Al. And think about where you want to dance to as you go.”

  She looked at him and felt her face split into a grin. “We’re going to be killer, aren’t we?”

  It earned her an answering grin and a bag shoved into her hands, and she almost skipped as she headed for the first of five amps waiting for them.

  ...

  She was replacing her high E string when someone knocked on the still-open door with a soft, twangy, “Hi y’all. How are we settling in?”

  She looked up, saw the guy in the low-slung jeans, accompanied by an older and harried looking man sporting a Bluetooth earpiece and a notepad. Jeans stepped forward, heading straight for Kevin. “You're Kevin Matthews. It's good to finally meet you.”

  Kevin—tie-less in the heat, so at his most casual—got up from the folding chair with a, “Steve—thank you for having us.” A few moments later he was pointing out the rest of the band with practiced ease. “Mitch Wright, bass and lead vocals; Brian Turner, rhythm, backup vocals, and keys on the occasional song; Tony Castillo, percussion; and Alison Wright, lead guitar and writing.”

  Steve nodded hello to all of them, ending on Mitch. With a teasing smile, he said, “Wasn’t expecting you to also look like this when you’re not on stage, but at least you’re easy to spot.”

  It took more than that to embarrass Mitch, who just grinned. “I was going to pester Kev for your details and to try to find the time to take you to dinner for, well, a thank you, but—”

  Steve—who had his right ear pierced three times and needed a shave—waved him off. “Don’t be crazy. I didn’t do you any favors by letting Kris have a listen to your album; she’s like a terrier when she wants something, and y’all are just fortunate you didn’t get to experience what she’s like when she gets told no.”

  Bluetooth frowned at Steve’s fond comments, but wiped the expression off his face quickly. He turned to Kevin and shook his hand. “I’m Rich, K-Nic’s tour manager. I’ll be your main point of contact as soon as we get on the road. Let me know if anyone is ill or injured; we’ve got a list of replacement players for every city we travel to—”

  Kevin cut in, looking as close to affronted as he ever did. “I assure you I've done what we contractually agreed, including looking over that list already and seeing who would fit best.”

  Rich looked around the room, unperturbed, nodding quickly at the band. “Have you ever opened for anyone of K-Nic’s stature before?” They all shook their heads, and Rich pursed his lips for a second. “Okay. Well, lucky you. You’re getting a cushy deal compared to the norm for openers, which at this level is already a lot more than what you're used to. Kristen insists on taking care of her openers’ accommodation, food and travel costs. General rules still apply, though: it’s her road crew; her sound-check first; and her needs foremost.”

  Mitch ran a hand through his hair. “Honestly, we’re just happy to be here.”

  It earned him a smile and fractional relaxation from Rich, who closed his notepad and looked back at Kevin. “Okay, you've clearly prepped them well. Now, as for everything else, Chelsea’s asked me to pass on that K-Nic will be doing a dress rehearsal at hers tomorrow morning at 11 and another one tomorrow afternoon at 3.” He pressed a button on the headset and frowned for a second. “You’re expected at both of those. For now, Steve will talk you through production of the new album. Okay?”

  They nodded again, as Rich almost spun 180 degrees around and immediately headed back out the doors. Steve watched him go and laughed, shaking his head. “Man gets more stressed out with every one of her tours, even though we keep telling him that this is going to be the most low-key one she’s ever done.”

  “He’s always that frantic?” Brian asked, from where he was kneeling and checking the connections to his effects. “I’m not judging, but I can’t imagine he’ll live long that way.”

  Steve grinned. “Nah, he gets weirdly Zen once they’re actually out there. An entire semi full of equipment flipped during the last tour and the visas for three of her touring musicians fell through a day before she was due to play and... Didn’t blink an eye, apparently.” He wandered over to where Ali was fiddling with her own pedalboard and peered at it, until she stood up and gestured at him to get closer. “That’s okay, it’s just curiosity—I’ve heard you, I know you know what you’re doing.”

  It wasn’t difficult to see why Kristen had stuck with Steve despite the new start. There was something very reassuring about him; like even if he had to give it to you straight, he’d do so in a way that really wouldn’t hurt you at all.

  “What does she play? On the new album,” Ali asked, because Steve might actually be more loose-lipped than anyone on team K-Nic was about the new stuff.

  “A real beaut. Vintage SG, cherry red. It packs a real punch; she wanted the P90s, and I’ve got to agree that it was the right call.”

  Ali smiled. “Not bad.”

  “You a Gibson girl as well, then?”

  Reaching behind her, she produced her touring guitar. “Not quite.”

  Steve nodded at the sight of the Thinline Tele. “Interesting. Jazz your thing?”

  “Johnny Marr was my thing when I was fifteen,” she admitted, and Steve laughed softly.

  “Aimed high from the start, then, didn’t you?”

  She shrugged and put the guitar back, giving it an unconscious little stroke at the neck. It had been with her for the last four years; it
made an appearance on the album, but mostly, it was a permanent part of her on stage.

  “I didn’t think of you and Kristen until late in the recording process, if I’m totally honest. Had heard you, seen you, and thought you were good at what you did; real good, even. But it didn’t link up with her until the end. She kept doing different things, wanting to push the envelope a little more, and that’s when I remembered you. Any other kind of support wouldn’t have fit this new thing she’s got going on. Hell, I don’t know how she decided that I fit with what she’s doing now. It’s something else, all right.”

  The boys had come over, and Steve rubbed at his cheek for a few seconds, adopting a more serious expression.

  “I won’t lie to you; I’m a little nervous for her. Whatever she says, this is her doing something for herself for the first time in years, and it’s just not what people want from her.” He hesitated, but with a nod, looked from Mitch back to Ali. “And a lot of what they take away from this tour is going to depend on how you guys set the scene. I know that she’s the big established thing, and y’all are just a litter of puppies, but she needs you as meticulous on this tour as you are on that album you put out. Okay? She’s going to lose some of her fans, and we need the people who like your sound to buy into hers instead.”

  This was someone who had known Kristen Nichols since she was a teenager—he’d produced some of the songs for Home Rule as well as her later solo recordings—and expected them to help her get this tour right. Ali averted her eyes after a moment, resisting an unexpected urge to apologize for... well, them.

  “... We’ve wanted this for a long time, and we’re not kidding ourselves about it being easy. We’re here to put in the work,” Mitch said, a little haltingly, running a hand through his hair. “For us as well as for her.”