Playing Dirty (Stargazer #2)(6)
Author: Jennifer Echols

He was in for a long night.

2

Quentin’s a coke fiend, eh? That’s too bad. Well, thanks anyway for e-mailing his pic. First impression:

GOOD LORD.

Let me study it. Perhaps I was too hasty.

Okay, GOOD LORD.

Is that a stalk of straw in his mouth? O that I were this straw. Caution be damned, I might just let him sniff coke off my naked belly. Though it would be a long line, because my belly is the size of Brooklyn.

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

Sarah clicked her phone off and tucked it into her bag, shaking her head. Now in her ninth month of pregnancy, Wendy clearly felt the heat. There but for the grace of God go I, thought Sarah, telling herself she wasn’t jealous of Wendy.

Sarah had parked in the brick driveway of Quentin’s gorgeous old Spanish Colonial mansion. The rest of the group lived elsewhere in town. According to Manhattan Music, they were all staying with Quentin to record the album. In the past, Quentin’s girlfriend Erin would have moved in with him while the other two men stayed in the guesthouse out back. But now that Erin had switched boyfriends, she’d also switched residences, staying with the drummer in Quentin’s backyard. Judging from the look of Erin in her push-up bra on the album covers, the wonder was that the group hadn’t had more problems over the years, and that all three men hadn’t been tossing her around like a baseball.

Two enormous pickup trucks filled the mansion’s garage. A pink Native American dream catcher hung on the rearview mirror of a red Corvette, obviously Erin’s, pulled to one side of the driveway. Sarah wondered where the fourth vehicle was. Considering their behavior, one band member or another might have lost his license. But if that were the case, she would have known, because the event would have made the Cheatin’ Hearts Death Watch in the Birmingham newspaper.

Sarah had found out about the Death Watch through Rachel, who headed the Cheatin’ Hearts’ PR office. A tall African American woman with imposingly long dreads, Rachel looked the part of no-nonsense caretaker of the band’s reputation, such as it was. Something had been fishy about her protectiveness of her employers, though. She didn’t have much of a poker face. When Sarah had raised one eyebrow at her, she’d confessed that she and Martin had dated in the past.

And when Sarah asked Rachel to fill her in on recent events, Rachel very practically handed Sarah a scrapbook of the Cheatin’ Hearts Death Watch, which was more complete and informative than the dossier Stargazer could have compiled with any amount of digging. This feature of the newspaper’s entertainment section had started two years before, just as the band made the move from local favorite to national debut act. It had run weekly in the past, but more often lately because there was more material to work with.

Fistfights between the band members broke out on-stage with such regularity that some fans reportedly came to witness the violence rather than the billed attraction, as if it were a hockey game. Besides these events, the rundown for the year so far was this:

In January, Erin and Quentin broke up because he had an affair with the band’s manager. Quentin overdosed on cocaine—or went into shock after eating an almond, depending on whether you believed the press release—and stayed a day in an Oklahoma City ICU. The band had to reschedule a week’s worth of concert dates. Quentin and Erin got back together.

In February, the band embarked on months of overseas tour dates, with plenty of partying in between. Quentin and Erin broke up. Owen was shot in the shoulder in a bar fight in Crete, with more delayed concert dates. Quentin and Erin got back together. Quentin and Erin broke up. Martin was arrested for public indecency in Osaka. Quentin and Erin got back together.

In May, thankfully, the world tour ended before anyone was killed, and the band was scheduled to return to Birmingham to record their third album. Instead, they took a detour to the beach in Thailand. Quentin overdosed on coke again. Or had a life-threatening allergic reaction, whichever. This time he was kept alive on a ventilator for several days. His first act on emerging from the ICU was to fire the band’s manager.

Quentin had recovered sufficiently in time for the band to attend the Academy of Country Music Awards. Erin wore a tiara, a bikini, trashy high-heeled wedges, and a beauty contest sash printed with the band’s name in glitter. Arguably this was an improvement over her outfit the previous year, a dress from Target.

Last week, Erin had played a Mozart concerto with the Alabama Symphony Orchestra to benefit the Cheatin’ Hearts’ pediatric asthma and allergy foundation. Even the very worst spoiled stars had a children’s foundation, Sarah had grumbled to herself as she read this installment. And every computer-enhanced musician thought she could play with the orchestra. But apparently there really was some substance to Erin’s talent. Her concerto drew a sold-out crowd, earned her multiple standing ovations, and garnered local critical acclaim and amazement. Martin attended the performance—without Rachel, so they’d been apart at least since then. Quentin didn’t show. Later that night, Erin and Owen were spotted out together at a trendy restaurant, clearly together.

Then, two nights ago, as Martin and Quentin were escorted out of a local bar by police, Martin told reporters that the band probably wouldn’t make the July 1 deadline for recording their album, due to “malaise.”

But of course, after all the negative PR, even this hadn’t been the straw that had broken Manhattan Music’s back. It had been the phone call tipping them off that Quentin would quit the band, tearing apart this cash cow of a country supergroup, before they delivered their third album. Sarah was beginning to wonder whether the whistle-blower was Quentin himself, heartbroken by his friends’ betrayal, lost in a fog of drugs, desperate for help. She was determined to find out.

Steeling herself for her confrontation with the band, she gave herself one last experimental glare in the rearview mirror and stepped out of the convertible with her bag. Shouts and laughter drifted from behind the mansion. They knew she was here because she’d identified herself to an intercom at the gate. She stepped across the driveway, onto slate flagstones between lush plantings that bespoke money, around the side of the mansion, and into a back courtyard with a large pool.

“Welcome to the house of cards,” a man called to her from a table where the four band members sat. Then, “Ow! Who kicked me?”

Erin jumped up and hurried toward Sarah with a loud schlop of flip-flops. She wore the Daisy Dukes—that wasn’t just a costume for the album cover, apparently, but everyday wear—and a minuscule T-shirt with no bra for her ample bosom. And a necklace with a small diamond cross, which Sarah thought understated and strange for a redneck woman.