Sucker bet - James Swain [72]
He clinked his bottle against hers, his eyes swimming. “So did I. And vocational school. But I still went to work in the mill. One of those stupid family traditions, I suppose. Not that it was a bad life. Just horribly dull. On weekends, I got drunk in the pub.”
Candy was on her third beer. The sun was hot; tomorrow she’d be as pink as a lobster. She looked into Nigel’s face. She was still mad at him. “So?”
“I’m getting to the good part,” he said, wiping his mouth on his wrist. “I knew these blokes who had a band. They called themselves One-Eyed Pig. I would go to gigs with them, help them set up. They paid me in beer.” He smiled, the bottle inches from his lips. “One day, the lead singer, Troy, calls me up, says he has a problem. The band’s drummer quit. Troy offers me the job.”
“And a star was born,” she said sarcastically.
His eyes narrowed. “Not really. I don’t play the drums.”
“Very funny.”
“I’m not a musician. Troy wanted me to fake it for a gig in the next town. I would pretend, and they would play a tape.”
“How do you pretend to play the drums?”
“The drumsticks were made of Styrofoam. No sound.”
A big wave came in and knocked her back a few inches. Nigel, a hundred pounds heavier, was unaffected. She scampered back to her position.
“The gig was in this huge dance hall,” he went on. “At first, I was scared, but then I realized that this was the only time I was going to get a taste of being famous, so I jumped around and did crazy things with the sticks and made a complete horse’s ass of myself. The crowd was mostly dopey kids. They loved it.
“There was a record producer there. Bloke named Flash Summers. Liked to wear outrageous designer clothes and have an underage girl hanging on each arm. He signed us up on the spot.”
“But you don’t play.”
“It didn’t matter. Flash loved me. Said I was the greatest natural showman he’d ever seen. He wrapped his arms around me, said he was going to make me famous.”
Another wave came in. Nigel held Candy’s hand so she was not dragged backwards. They were big hands, yet also soft and gentle. “The band was born that night,” he said. “Flash knew it, the crowd knew it, and we knew it. We cut our first album the next week.”
“Who played the drums?”
“A studio musician they hired.”
Candy stared out at the endless stretch of blue. She had seen Nigel play, remembered it as clearly as what she’d had for breakfast. The AIDS concert in New York’s Central Park. She’d watched it on TV, Nigel’s maniacal solo piercing the still night air. That couldn’t have been a recording.
“But I saw you play,” she insisted.
“Where?”
“On television, from New York.”
He took the empty beer bottle from her hand, replaced it with a fresh one. “Another hoax, I’m afraid. After the album went platinum, we were expected to tour. Flash knew we couldn’t do concerts with a tape and survive, so he put this drummer in a hollowed-out amplifier directly behind me. He would play, and I’d fake it.”
“In an amplifier?”
“He was a dwarf. Flash found him in the Tom Thumb circus.”
Candy put her hand over her mouth. “Cut it out.”
“I’m serious,” he said. “Guy could play any instrument. Sing, too. He’s out in Vegas now.”
“Doing what?”
“A mean Elvis Presley impersonation. He wears one of those white leather outfits with all the lace. Calls himself Elfis.”
Candy didn’t see the monster wave roll in. As laughter poured out of her mouth, it hit her in the face, and she went under.
“I want to ask you something,” she said after they burned up the sheets with their lovemaking.
“No,” he mumbled, his face buried in the pillows.
She shoved him playfully. “Come on.”
He rolled over on his side. “What?”
“Why do you hang out with guys like Rico? What is it going to get you, except in trouble?”
He thought about it for a while, his finger tracing a heart in her bare midsection.
“Do you