Rocked Up

I sit there looking up at Ronald standing next to me and we share an awkward pause that seems to last for days. The room is so quiet I can hear him breathing.

“I hear you still won’t work with the song writers. That’s okay,” he finally goes on. “As long as you’re writing hits you won’t have any problems from me. It’s just that we haven’t heard anything from you lately and we need that album ready for spring. We need a summer hit, a summer love song,”

“Okay. I’ll call it Summer Love Song,” I answer sarcastically

“I like it,” Ronald answers, choosing to ignore my sarcasm. He sits down next to me and says earnestly, “We don’t need another one of your avant garde projects. I don’t care if those hipster magazines love it, it doesn’t pay the bills. That shit doesn’t pay for your fancy condo in the hills. What the fuck did you call that album again?”

“Stomp Box,” I answer.

Stomp Box was an album completely comprised of analog guitar effect pedals swirling and driving ambient sounds for an hour and a half. Not a single chorus or hook, just one long track of me manipulating twenty effect pedals and playing my guitar. By the end of the track I had every pedal on. I’m not usually into smoking pot but after that session you could barely see the instruments through the smoke.

“Yeah, that fucking shit, enough with that,” he says. “Now, look. It wasn’t easy, but you don’t have a single flight for this tour so you are in for quite the road trip. This means you will be living on your bus for over two months. I expect big things on this tour. Really big things. The venues are getting bigger, and we are selling out faster. You need to step up to the plate. When you get back it’s straight to the studio to get that album ready for spring, so I need you to be ready for that, too. I told you the day I met you, over ten years ago, there will be times when it’s hard and you will want to give up. I’m just reminding you, it’s not going to be easy over the next few months. I promise you that. I need to know you won’t give up. I need to know you will see this through.”

“This is what I do. You have nothing to be worried about,” I assure him.

He clears his throat, avoiding my eyes. “We have a new temporary bass player for you. She’ll be with you for this tour while we look for someone to fill the position full-time.”

“She?” I question. What the hell is he talking about?

Ronald looks uncharacteristically defeated.

“She wants to be a musician,” he says quietly, almost wincing. “I think she’s caught up with some kind of romantic idea of what life on the road is like and there’s nothing like two months on a bus during winter to get it out of your system.”

“Uh, who are we talking about, Ronald?”

Ronald stands up and stalks over to the door. He opens it and sticks his head out into the hall, bellowing, “Come on in.” Then he turns to look at me. “Brad Snyder, meet your new bass player.”

Lael Ramsey steps into the boardroom.

No one says a word. Ronald smiles, looking back and forth between Lael and me.

What the fuck is going on?

I know I should say something, and it has to be the right thing or else I’m dead. This is his fucking daughter here.

“I didn’t even realize you played bass,” I manage to say to her.

Her fake awkward smile breaks for a moment and she opens her mouth to say something.

“She’s a fantastic player,” Ronald says, cutting her off. “And I think she will be a great part of the team. She’ll have her own bus to travel on and her own security. Other than sound check and the actual shows, she won’t be bothering you and Twitch.”

“Switch,” I correct him on the name of my bandmate.

“Sure. Look, this is really a non-issue. Lael is very capable, and there is no reason you, Mitch, Calvi, and her can’t have a professional working relationship. You guys will travel together as usual and Lael will meet you at the venue at the appropriate times.”

Ronald looks at Lael and puts his hand on her shoulder.

Lael gives him an awkward smile and nervously whispers, “Yay…”

“Good,” he says with a nod, happy with her fake enthusiasm. “I think we’re done here. Lael, darling, I know you have somewhere to be so I won’t keep you. Your assistant will let you know when the first rehearsal is. You’ll see Brad, the other guy, and Stitch there and I am sure it will be great.”

I exchange a look with Lael, trying to let her know everything’s fine. She returns my gaze with fear in her eyes. I can’t blame her. Perhaps I look the same.

Ronald ushers her out the door, closing it behind her, and once again Ronald and I are alone in the boardroom.

He sits next to me with a grave expression. “I’ve invested more in you than any other artist in the history of my company. I’m not going to say I own you—that wouldn’t be right—and I’m not even going to say you owe me anything. You’ve held up your part of the deal quite well. But, young man, I want you to know, I will take it all away if you let anything happen to Lael. You and anyone else from the crew are not to socialize with her, okay? This is a working relationship. In fact, I’ve told Lael that you are basically her boss. And I have eyes and ears everywhere, so don’t fuck this up. She doesn’t belong on the road, I don’t want that life for her. It just has to be this way for now. Remember, it has nothing to do with the chicken.”

And with that he smiles, stands up, and heads out of the room, leaving me alone at the big table.

I can only sit there, dumbfounded, trying to make sense of this. I don’t like this situation being forced on me. The boss’s daughter following in her own bus for a two-month tour? Nepotism at its finest. Or perhaps at its worst.

“Hey,” says Lael, her voice soft and concerned. I look up to see her poking her head in the door.

“Hey,” I tell her, not sure what else to say. Shit, this is awkward.

“Look,” she says, “I just asked my father if I could audition. I didn’t want things to be like this.”

She seems embarrassed, and I have no doubt she’s telling me the truth. This is one hundred percent her father’s doing. It has nothing to do with her.

“Are you my ride home?” I ask with a sigh.

“Uh-huh,” she says warily.

“Well, all right then, take me home,” I say, giving her a small smile, and together we walk out of that miserable office building.

I like being in her tiny car. It’s very much an extension of her, at least the her that I know so far. There’s teal everywhere and it smells like coconut sunscreen.

We glide away without a sound. She’s concentrating on driving through traffic so I take the opportunity to stare at her profile without being noticed. Her long blue-green hair is pushed back by her sunglasses, completely revealing her face and neck. She has a profile that is hard not to stare at—a perfect nose, full lips, young, sunkissed skin. By any standard she is beautiful, but she does not look like the next bass player of And Then.