The High Notes: A Novel(41)

Chapter 11





Boy went back to work a few days after Iris did. Their ribs still ached, but she could sing again, and so could he a few days later. Clay was happy to see them back in their studios. Iris had brought the puppy with her. She was sound asleep in a little pink travel bag, with some toys and one of her pink blankets. The backup band loved her. Iris saw Star and Boy going out to lunch together and she smiled. They looked nice together.

It had been two weeks since her father’s visit, and she was in constant rehearsals for her album, and working on her music. She stopped at a newsstand on the way back to the hotel to buy a magazine, and she saw a stack of a popular tabloid with a familiar figure on the front page. The headline read “Chip Cooper—Iris’s Dad Tells All.” So it had come to that. If she didn’t give him money, he would find a way to sell her out anyway. Against her better judgment, she bought a copy. She sat down to read it as soon as she got to her suite, and let Rosie out of her little pink bag. She went to play with one of her toys.

Her father looked like an old craggy-faced cowboy, and had posed in front of a casino in Vegas. He had told a lot of stories of her growing up, singing in bars as a kid. There was a picture of her at about fourteen, in the black velvet dress Sally had made for her. She was surprised he still had the photo. What he didn’t realize was that the interview he had given them made him look bad, it didn’t make her look like less than she was. It told the story of a heartbreaking childhood, with a father who had exploited his daughter shamelessly. She finished it, and threw it in the wastebasket. She wondered how many more interviews like that he would give before they got tired of him.

Boy knocked on the door and walked in, then saw the tabloid in the garbage.

“You read it?” he asked her, and she nodded.

“You too?”

“It’s all crap. It makes him look like an asshole and a shit father. He’s a jerk. He’s a parasite. People like him can’t live unless they’re sucking blood from someone else. You really are better off without him.”

“I came to that conclusion too.” She smiled at him. “You left rehearsal early. Are you feeling okay?” She still felt bad that he had gotten beaten up because of her. But Clay’s plastic surgeon had done a good job. The bandages were off his nose and it looked perfect.

He looked sheepish at her question. “I went to look at an apartment.”

“For you and Star?” She looked surprised. The romance was still very new.

“No, for myself. In SoHo. It’s small, but it’s a loft in an old warehouse. I realized that I miss having my own place. I can’t live here forever.” He glanced around the suite. It suited her. She was used to living in hotels on tour, and this was way better than any she’d ever been in. “I like having my own space.” He had been missing his apartment in Nashville. He wondered when he’d get back there. He was too busy in New York, rehearsing and recording, to go anywhere right now.

“Maybe it’ll be nice for you,” Iris said, but she’d miss him. She was happy at the hotel and had no desire for her own apartment. She loved the service and being able to order something to eat whenever she wanted, and the hotel security right outside her door made her feel safe.

“You can come and visit,” he said. He looked happy. Star was only part of it, although he was having fun with her. The recording of his second single was going well and the first one was selling like crazy. People recognized him on the street now. He liked that a lot better than Iris did. She missed her anonymity. She wanted them to love her music. They didn’t have to love her, or even see her, just hear her music.

She had dinner with Clay that night. They talked about her album. He was already planning the tour. Most of the time, they talked about business. But other things crept in. She had told him about her father’s visit and it made him heartsick for her. He’d seen the interview in the tabloids. It was obvious that Chip would stoop to any level to make a buck, and he didn’t care what a lousy father he was. He was the opposite of Clay, who was constantly trying to protect, and willing to spoil his daughters. Iris felt that it was how he treated her, and she was sure that he considered her like another daughter. She told him that Boy was moving out of the hotel. He thought it would be good for him. He was comfortable in New York by then, and felt at home.

It reminded Iris of something she wanted to ask Clay about the tour.

“Have you thought about an opening act yet?”

“I’ve had some ideas, but nothing definite.”

“What about Boy?” She loved the idea of being on tour with him, and having him open for her, and Clay liked the idea too.

“The timing is right, because after he does his own album, he’ll be too big to be an opening act. He can just get away with it now. People are going crazy over his single.” Iris was happy for him. There had never been any competitiveness between them. They were always trying to help each other and listening to each other’s music, or showing up at rehearsal and making suggestions later.

“I’d love him to tour with us,” Iris said.

“I’ll talk to him about it.” He didn’t want to plan it without getting approval from Boy, but he thought he’d like the idea too. “You know, I was thinking about it the other day. Maybe the three of us get along so well because we had tough childhoods, in similar places. Boy was raised by the state in Tennessee, I grew up dirt poor on a farm in Kentucky. I didn’t have real shoes until I was ten, and I had to wear them long after I outgrew them. My mother cut holes in the toes. And you grew up being dragged all over Texas, singing in bars. Not one of us had a reasonable childhood. You’ll probably be a great mom one day because of it.” Just like he tried to be a good dad to his daughters, sometimes too much so. “I was hungry all the time as a kid,” Clay admitted to her. He’d never said that to her before. “Sometimes I had to catch something to eat, or eat the scrawny, half-rotten vegetables from our garden.”