Losing Gabriel Read online

  So he taught her. First how to hold the too-big instrument, then basic chords, and over time how to position her fingers on the fret, strum the steel strings that eventually made calluses on her fingertips, and how to use picks that changed the timbre. He taught her how to take care of the guitar, how to restring it, clean it, and gave her an old battered case to protect it, and said the instrument belonged to her now. When Sloan was twelve, and after many lessons, Gramps had died alone in his trailer, but the guitar was still hers, and no matter how rich she became, she’d never part with it. Her voice and her guitar, now appearing at Bonnaroo. Gramps would be pleased.

  The Beast was halted at the entrance, and a team of men searched the bus for contraband—drugs and booze in glass containers (the booze wasn’t the problem, only the glass) and anything that looked like a weapon. They got wristbands and were sent into the field to find parking. Hal maneuvered the bus along the bumpy ground of the cow pasture and wedged the Beast between two older campers far less flamboyant than the Beast. “Home, sweet home…at least for the next few days.”

  They cheered, piling out of the air-conditioned bus and into heat and humidity that felt like a smothering blanket. Sloan shielded her eyes and skimmed the area, saw they were pretty close to the POD, where the porta potties, showers, and fresh drinking water were stationed. In another field, tents looked like blooming mushrooms.

  Bobby stretched, turned to Sy. “Going to be a hot one. You got the beer locked down?”

  “Do I look forgetful to you?”

  “Let’s fire up the generator.” Bobby had insisted on buying the unit that ran on propane gas with a chunk of the performance fee they’d received. He’d insisted it was a good investment, and now in the suffocating summer heat the others agreed. The guys set to work and soon the AC was humming. “Beer break,” Bobby said when they were finished.

  Jarred grabbed Sloan’s hand. “Going to check out the stages. Recon for my band. Won’t be gone long. Save us a cold one.” Jarred studied the map of the Bonnaroo grounds he’d pulled up on his phone. “Centeroo is that way.”

  The concert field, Centeroo, held the performance stages, vendors, and giant tents set up for the masses. Sloan was wearing a halter top and shorts, but without a breeze, Centeroo, already thick with people, felt like a furnace. Jarred led her to the clearly marked VIP tent, set up for people willing to pay the higher fees for higher comforts. Wristbands were being checked at the door. Sloan balked. “Hey, this isn’t our tent. I don’t think we’re allowed in there.”

  “Don’t you believe it.” Jarred held up two bands of another color, clearly marked VIP, and tugged them onto his and Sloan’s wrists.

  “Where did you get—”

  “I made some connections.”

  “Jarred—” He interrupted her with a hard kiss.

  “You’ll thank me later.”

  She followed him inside the enormous air-conditioned tent where she saw a lounge area, a fully stocked bar, and waitresses taking drink orders. People sat on comfy sofas and chairs. Two guys were playing a game of table tennis. Hard to believe this oasis existed away from the human mash outside. The place was amazing, but Sloan was suspicious because VIP wristbands cost hundreds of additional dollars. The band was supposed to vote on major expenses, and they sure hadn’t voted on VIP wristbands! “What kind of connections?”

  “The leader of the band kind.” He grinned. “Trust me, babe. This is for the greater good.”

  “Why only two bracelets? What about our guys?”

  “Deal only included two. We can share these with them, or not. Keep it our little secret.”

  What kind of deal? she wanted to ask. She didn’t like Jarred’s evasiveness. She started to light into him when a skinny guy with wild red hair, a row of earrings down one ear, and eyebrows riveted with hoops and studs walked up and held out his hand. “I’m Mick. You Jarred? With Loose Change?”

  Sloan shot Jarred a look. Who—

  “And this is Sloan,” Jarred said before she could react.

  “Jarred said he’d be with the best-looking woman at the festival. He didn’t lie.” Mick had an accent, maybe British, and roamed her body with his gaze.

  She offered a stiff smile, recognizing sleazy when she met it. “Funny, he hasn’t mentioned you to me.”

  “Well I’ve heard your CD, luv, and your voice is a total turn-on. And so are you.”

  Jarred took Sloan’s elbow. “Hey, babe, why don’t you get us a table by the bar and order something. Mick and I’ll be right over.”

  Sloan bristled over being dismissed like a child and started to object, but the look in Jarred’s eyes warned her away. She had no idea what was going on, but she didn’t like it. She leaned into Jarred, rubbed against him seductively, pressed her lips to his ear, and kept her voice low and steely. “This is our big chance. We’re all counting on you, so don’t blow it for us.” She felt him flinch; then she backed off, smiled, and kissed him playfully and cooed, “Don’t be too long, now, darlin’. You know how impatient I can be.”

  “Dad’s getting better because he’s getting cranky. A sure sign.” Dawson and Lani were sitting in lawn chairs on the back patio watching Gabe ride his Big Wheel across the expanse of concrete. “Your bringing Gabe for a visit this morning helped his mood considerably, but I’m sure the nurses will be happy when he’s released.”

  “Doctors don’t always make the best patients,” Lani said with a smile. “Gabe didn’t want to leave when it was time to go. He’s really missed his Pops.” Lani moved her feet as Gabe barreled past, his legs pumping hard.

  “Slow down, buddy,” Dawson called. “Yeah. The visit was good medicine for both of them. Good for me too.” He stared pensively into the glass of lemonade he held. “Until this happened, I never saw Dad as mortal. When I was a kid, he came and went a lot, but he was always there for me. And Mom too.”

  He rarely spoke of his mother, but she understood how much she had meant to him. Lani liked it when Dawson trusted her with parts of himself, while at the same time telling herself to shut that door. Privacy meant guarding her emotions, keeping her feelings at arm’s length. It was hard.

  “I’m looking into a school and day-care place for the fall. He turns three in August and the private school Dad recommended says they have space for him.”

  The news came out of the blue and startled Lani. “What about his asthma?”

  “They specialize in kids with issues. Already have a girl with diabetes and another kid with a peanut allergy enrolled.” It would be a big step for Gabe, for himself too, but it was necessary. Once summer passed, Lani would certainly move on, return to college and the hospital program. Dawson had to find another way to care for his son. Gabe would miss her. So would he.

  She warred with feelings about the upcoming change, kept her disappointment to herself. They watched twilight creep across the sky, changing from red to indigo blue. Sounds of a lawn mower from down the street ceased. Lani eyed Gabe, making sure he was breathing normally. “When your dad comes home—”

  “He’ll have home health care nurses checking on him, so don’t worry, he won’t be your patient. You’ll still only have one kid to take care of.”

  She smiled at his joke, still struggling over the idea of losing Gabe. And Dawson. She tried to remain upbeat, said, “Knowing Dr. Berke, he won’t be homebound for long. Maybe he can walk around the park with me and Gabe.” She knew Dr. Berke would be on an exercise program, like all recovering heart patients.

  “Dad’s already making noise about returning to work.” A frown creased Dawson’s forehead. “Not sure Lopez is totally on board with it, though.”

  In the gathering darkness, Lani saw a firefly glow, then another and another. “Oh look!” She jumped up and snatched a glass jar off the patio table. “Gabe! Come on…let’s catch some lightning bugs.”

  The toddler climbed off his trike and, squealing, ran out onto the lawn. Dawson watched as Lani twirled and scooped the jar through the air.
Gabe jumped up and down. “I see, Lani! Let Gabe see!” She clapped her hand over the jar’s top and bent to huddle with the boy. Like twinkling captured stars, the glowing jar illuminated their faces, and for the first time in a long time, Dawson felt like the raw edges of his life had softened. His dad was recovering; his son was happy.

  He wondered why he’d never noticed her in high school. Sloan. He’d never looked beyond Sloan Quentin, and he should have. Now he did. And what he saw was the brown-eyed girl with the thousand-watt smile who had stepped into his world and lit it up.

  CHAPTER 28

  Bonnaroo’s main stages, the What and the Which, featured headliners and superstars. Smaller acts, the less well known and the newbies, played at This Tent, That Tent, and the Other Tent. Loose Change was scheduled to perform at two in the afternoon on Friday on the Other Tent stage and again at one a.m. Saturday—actually Sunday, when Sloan thought about it—at This Tent. She neither cared where or when they performed, just as long as they performed. She knew they were ready. Years’ worth of work came down to a single purpose—to make a splash, to stand out amid the one hundred and thirty acts booked at the festival. Huge feat, Sloan knew, but so long as she had a stage and an audience, she planned to light a musical fire with her voice listeners could not forget.

  Friday morning dragged. The summer heat built, baking the ground, sweltering the crowds, and despite the availability of daily showers, people began to smell like farm animals. Hats, sunscreen, stripped-down clothing, and gallons of drinking water did little to stem the scorch of the sun. Those not hydrating enough passed out and were carried to the medical tents and treated. Beer flowed in steady streams, and the aroma of marijuana permeated the air. So much for the ban on drugs. No one gave a damn. People were there to celebrate music and to party.

  Because of the heat, Sloan traded her leather look for hip-hugging micro-mini red shorts and a silk scarf folded to make a halter top that cradled her generous breasts. She glued a bright red fake diamond in her belly button that glittered with every sensuous twist and turn of her body. “Smokin’,” Jarred said, fingering the scarf’s knot at the nape of her neck. She swatted his hand. “Don’t even think about it.”

  Jarred took the stage in jeans and biker boots, his upper body bare, his massive biceps and forearms glistening with suntan oil and sweat. The long line of arrowheads aligned from his neck to his wrist stood out in dark relief. Bobby, Hal, and Sy were content to wear long shorts and black wife-beater tees. They started their set with hot guitar licks pouring from their amps. At the top of a crescendo, Jarred stepped forward, struck a screaming riff, and Sloan strutted onto the stage. The crowd erupted.

  The show was to last an hour. It went twenty minutes longer. The band tore through their playlist, and Sloan held nothing back. She rocked from piece to piece, pacing the music to the mood, hot and sexual for one song, sultry and soft for a ballad with Jarred. He played to her strengths, leaned into her, locked gazes, brushed his lips across hers. The crowd went crazy.

  And when their set was finished, they took bows to hoots and whistles and screams of adoration. Bobby reminded the crowd of their Saturday-night performance, shouted for people to bring friends. Then Sloan stepped forward, dug the red jewel off her body, and pitched it. They learned later that two guys suffered broken fingers in the scramble to retrieve it.

  Sloan walked hand in hand with Jarred through jam-packed Centeroo, sidestepping a crush of gawkers and long lines of people waiting to go into the tents. “Hard to come down,” Sloan said, still stoked from the high-octane performance of their one a.m. show. If anything, it had been better than the first, certainly more crowded. Word had spread that Loose Change was a bright light among this year’s newbie bands.

  “No reason to come back to earth. We killed tonight. We’ll be headliners here someday.” Jarred dodged a staggering drunk man.

  “I’d rather be an icon like the guy we saw last night. Twenty-five years and the fans still flock to hear him. That’s what I want. Don’t want to flame out early.”

  “You mean you want to be The Stones.”

  “What’s wrong with that?”

  He tugged her to him. “Not a damn thing.” He was wearing a Western-style hat with two long black feathers stuck in the hatband, jeans, boots, and a seventies-style fringed vest over his bare upper body.

  “Where’d you find the threads?”

  “Same place you probably bought your dress—the sixties hippie vendor.” He flashed a smile. “A dress that looks very hot on you.”

  She returned his smile, stroked the fabric of the psychedelic print. “I think it’s cool. A little keepsake to remember tonight forever.”

  “What you wearing under it?” He ran his hands down her sides and across her belly.

  Shivers shot through her. She caught his hand, pressed it to her breast. “Nothing.”

  His grin went lascivious. “That an invitation?”

  She teased him with her tongue. “Let’s go back to the bus. Bobby, Sy, and Hal are doing the all-nighter thing with three girls they picked up. We’ll have the Beast all to ourselves.”

  His brow furrowed. “I’ve got an appointment.”

  “With who?” When he shrugged, she pushed. “That Mick guy?” Again he was silent. “I don’t like him, Jarred. Who is he, anyway?”

  “An agent.”

  “You’re kidding. He doesn’t look—”

  “LA style. We’re talking about a deal for the band, out there.”

  Her interest piqued. “Shouldn’t all of us meet him together? The band should have a say in any deal.”

  “Let me open the door with him, make sure he’s serious. I’ll give a full report tomorrow.” He began to back away, turned, kissed the air in her direction. “I’ll meet you back at the Beast later. To remove the dress.”

  Before she could react, he melted into the crowd and disappeared. She wanted to follow him but felt a tap on her shoulder and turned to see a long-haired girl shyly staring at her. “Um…’scuse me, but are you the singer with that Change band?”

  Sloan nodded. The girl’s eyes grew even wider. She spun and yelled, “OMG…It’s her! I told you it was her!”

  A small group of people quickly separated out of the masses. “I’m Allison!” Then as the others surrounded them, Allison grabbed Sloan’s hand. “You were wonderful! Fabulous! I love your voice.”

  A chorus of voices chimed in. “Effin’ great” and “I bought your band’s CD” and “Where you touring next?” and “Posted one song from your show on my Facebook page and got a ton of likes.” A girl in the back asked, “Where’s your hunky guitarist?”

  Her irritation with Jarred evaporated. These people were fans and were acting as if they knew her. She couldn’t turn them away. “Glad you liked our music.” She smiled, let their adoration wash over her and soak in.

  “Where you going?” one of the group asked. “Can we buy you a beer?” A big guy with dreadlocks pushed forward, offering a smile and a hand. “Stuart. Serious about the beer. I’m buying.”

  The others hooted. “He never buys. Make him pay for all of us.”

  The experience was heady, lifting Sloan ever higher. Face to face with fans, a community of people in love with music, and now saying they loved her too. How could she say no? She hooked her arm with Stuart’s. “Where should we go?”

  Cheers went up. The General Admissions tent was a seething zoo of humanity. “In a few hours we all go home, go back to our real lives. No one wants it to end, though,” Allison shouted above the din.

  Sloan understood. She wasn’t ready to return to Nashville and pull things together for the tour of tiny lounges, noisy bars, and in-and-out county fairs. She wanted this, festivals and fans who knew her and wanted to be around her.

  “Hey,” Stuart called, “no use hanging in this crowd. I got a beer stash at our tent. Come on, or we’ll all be sober before we get service here.”

  The walk to the tent area was long, but Allison chattere
d about how she and Stu had hooked up online as fellow travelers from Florida in order to save money. Once they’d set up their tent, they made friends with others all around them. Five guys were there from Indiana, two girls from Wyoming, and an older couple had driven up from Arizona. “Been coming for four years,” one of them said. “Save for it all year. And I have the best time of my life.”

  “I’m coming until I’m an old fart,” said a guy named Tim.

  “Honey, you’re fifty. We are old farts,” said the woman with him, making everyone laugh.

  Once at Stu’s camper site, he handed Sloan a beer. She took a big gulp and stretched out on a blanket someone had spread. Staring up at stars sprinkled like jewels on black velvet, she thought about Jarred’s appointment but couldn’t help wondering if the story about Mick was a cover so that he could bed some other girl…the way girls looked at him with invitations written on their faces. Sloan knew better than to expect him to be faithful to her. Not Jarred’s style. She held their relationship together with music and sex. But he was faithful to the band, and that’s what mattered most. She took another swig of beer, welcomed the numbing rush of alcohol to her brain.

  Someone in the group lit a joint and passed it around. When it got to Sloan, she sucked in the potent smoke, as much to be a part of the group as to feel the buzz. Music from the festival drifted on the night air. She felt as if she belonged.