‘Hey, we have the whole rest of the day free. Absolutely nothing to do. Want to go to a museum while we’re up here?’ Brooke asked, taking his hand and tugging gently on his arm as they walked toward the subway.

‘Nah, I don’t think I’m up for the Sunday crowds.’

She thought for a moment. ‘You’ve been wanting to see that 3D Imax movie for a while. I wouldn’t mind going with you,’ she lied. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

‘I’m fine, Brooke. I really am,’ Julian said quietly, pulling on his wool scarf. She knew he was the one lying now.

‘Can I invite Nola to the showcase? It sounds so fabulous, and you know Nola can’t miss any opportunity at fabulousness.’

‘I guess – but Leo said it’s going to be really small, and I already invited Trent. He’s only in New York on this rotation another couple weeks and he’s been working like crazy. I thought he could use a night out.’

They talked more about the showcase, and they discussed what he would wear, which songs he would play, and in what order. She was happy she could draw him out, and by the time they reached their apartment, Julian seemed almost like himself.

‘Have I told you how proud I am of you?’ Brooke asked when they stepped onto their own elevator, both clearly relieved to be home.

‘Yeah,’ Julian said with a small smile.

‘Well come inside, baby,’ Brooke said, pulling him down the hallway by the hand. ‘I think it’s about time I showed you.’

makes john mayer look like amateur hour

‘Where are we?’ Brooke grumbled, stepping out of the cab and looking around the dark and deserted side street in West Chelsea. The tall black pull-on boots she’d found at an end-of-season sale kept sliding down her tights.

‘Heart of the gallery district, Brooke. Avenue and 1 OAK are right around the corner.’

‘I should know what those are, shouldn’t I?’

Nola just shook her head. ‘Well, at least you look good. Julian’s going to be proud to have such a hot wife tonight.’

Brooke knew her friend was just being kind. It was Nola who, as usual, looked stunning. She’d jammed her suit jacket and her sensible pumps into her oversized LV tote and replaced them with a massive multistrand necklace and a pair of those sky-high Louboutin heels that were somewhere between a bootie and sandal, a style approximately six women on earth could pull off without being mistaken for a professional dominatrix. Things that would look downright trashy on everyone else – scarlet lipstick, flesh-colored fishnets, and the black lace bra that peeked through her sheer tank – on Nola managed to look both edgy and playful. Her pencil skirt, which as one-half of an expensive suit had been appropriate enough for one of the most conservative work environments on Wall Street, now showed off her toned backside and perfect legs. If Nola had been any other female on earth, Brooke would have hated her mightily.

Brooke looked at her BlackBerry. ‘Between Tenth and Eleventh. That’s exactly where we are, isn’t it? Where is this place?’ She saw a darting shadow out of the corner of her eye and yelped.

‘Oh relax, Brooke. It’s much more scared of you than you are of it.’ Nola waved off the rat spotting with a cocktail-ring-adorned hand.

Brooke hurried to cross the street, seeing that the even-numbered addresses they wanted were on the opposite side. ‘Easy for you to say. You could pierce its heart with one stomp of that heel. My dumpy flat boots put me at heightened risk.’

Nola laughed and scampered gracefully behind Brooke. ‘There, I think that’s it,’ she said, pointing to the only building on the block that didn’t look condemned.

The girls followed a small staircase down from the sidewalk to a windowless basement door. Julian had explained that these kinds of showcases were constantly on the move, and music-biz people were always looking for the next hip place to help generate buzz, but still, she had been envisioning a venue like a smaller version of Joe’s Pub. What was this? No line fanning out to the sidewalk. No marquee announcing the night’s talent. There wasn’t even the requisite sullen girl with a clipboard, petulantly telling everyone to take a step back and wait his turn.

Brooke felt a small wave of anxiety until she heaved open the vaultlike door, stepped inside, and was enveloped in a warm cocoon of semidarkness and low laughter and the subtle but unmistakable scent of marijuana. The entire space was the size of a large living room, and everything – the walls, the sofas, even the paneling on the small corner bar – was swathed in plush burgundy velvet. A single lamp rested atop the piano and cast a soft light onto the empty stool. Hundreds of tiny votives were magnified by the mirrored tabletops and ceiling, a look that somehow managed to be impossibly sexy without so much as a twinge of eighties-throwback.

The crowd looked like they had been hand-plucked from a poolside cocktail party in Santa Barbara and dropped in New York City. Forty or fifty mostly young and attractive people milled about, sipping from lowball glasses and exhaling plumes of cigarette smoke in long, languorous wafts. The men were dressed almost uniformly in jeans, and the few who still wore their daytime suits had ditched their ties and loosened their top buttons. Almost none of the women wore stilettos or the short, tight black cocktail dresses that made up the Manhattan uniform; instead, they were all roaming about in beautifully printed tunics and tinkling beaded earrings and jeans so perfectly worn in that Brooke actually yearned to strip out of her black sweater dress then and there. Some had hippie-chic headbands around their foreheads and beautiful hair falling to their waists. No one appeared the least bit self-conscious or stressed out – another Manhattan unlikelihood – which of course made Brooke doubly anxious. This was a far cry from Julian’s usual audiences. Who were all these people and why did each and every one of them look a thousand times better than she did?

‘Breathe,’ Nola whispered in her ear.

‘If I’m this nervous, I can’t even imagine how Julian feels.’

‘Come on, let’s find ourselves some drinks,’ Nola flung her blonde hair over her shoulder and held out a hand for Brooke, but before they could move through the crowd, Brooke heard a familiar voice.

‘Red, white, or stronger?’ Trent asked, magically appearing next to them. He was one of the only men in a suit and looked uncomfortable. It was probably his first time away from the hospital in weeks.

‘Hey there!’ Brooke said, hugging him around the neck. ‘You remember Nola, right?’

Trent smiled. ‘Of course I do.’ He turned to Nola and kissed her on the cheek. There was something in his tone that said Of course I remember meeting you, because you randomly went home with my friend that night and he was very impressed with both your willingness and your creativity in the bedroom. But Trent was much too discreet to joke about it, even after all these years.

Not so with Nola. ‘How is Liam? God, he was fun,’ she said with a huge smile. ‘Like, really fun.’

Trent and Nola exchanged knowing looks and laughed.

Brooke held up a hand. ‘Okay then. Trent, congratulations on the engagement! When do we get to meet her?’ She couldn’t bring herself to say Fern’s name, didn’t trust herself to say it without laughing. What kind of name was Fern?

‘Considering we are almost never not at the hospital at the same time, possibly not until the wedding.’

The bartender motioned to Trent, who turned to the girls.

‘Red, please,’ they said in unison, and all three watched as the bartender poured from a bottle of California cabernet. Trent handed them each a glass and downed his own in two swift swallows.

He turned to Brooke with a sheepish look on his face. ‘I don’t get out much.’

Nola excused herself to do a loop of the room.

Brooke smiled at Trent. ‘So tell me about her. Where’s the wedding going to be?’

‘Well, Fern’s from Tennessee and has a huge family, so we’re probably just going to do it at her parents’ place. Next February, I think.’

‘Wow, moving right along. Well, that’s great news.’

‘Yeah, the only way we can be matched the same place for our residencies is if we’re married.’

‘So you’re both continuing on with gastro?’

‘Yeah, that’s the plan. My interests are more in the scoping and testing area – they’re doing some incredibly high-tech things these days – but Fern is more a Crohn’s/celiac kind of person.’ Trent paused for a moment and appeared to reflect on this before breaking into a wide smile. ‘She’s a great girl. I really think you’ll like her.’

‘Hey, buddy!’ Julian said, clapping Trent on the back. ‘Of course we’ll like her. She’s going to be your wife. How crazy is that?’ Julian leaned over and kissed Brooke full on the lips. He tasted delicious, like chocolate mint, and just seeing him was reassuring.

Trent laughed. ‘Not as crazy as the fact that my socially stunted cousin has had himself a wife for five years now, but it’s up there.’

The three had just clinked glasses – Julian only had water – and were about to get the full rundown on Fern when one of the best-looking guys Brooke had ever laid eyes on seemed to magically appear by her side. He was at least six inches taller than her, which immediately made Brooke feel girlishly slight and dainty. She wished for the umpteenth time that Julian were as tall as this mystery man but then forced the thought from her head; Julian probably wished Brooke’s body was more like Nola’s, so what right did she have? The guy wrapped an arm around Brooke’s back and squeezed her left shoulder, so close she could smell his cologne. Masculine, subtle, and expensive. She blushed.

‘You must be the wife,’ he said, leaning down to kiss the top of her head, a gesture that felt oddly intimate and impersonal at the same time. His voice was not nearly as deep as Brooke would’ve expected from someone of his height and obvious level of fitness.

‘Leo, I’d like you to meet Brooke,’ Julian said. ‘Brooke, this is Leo, new manager extraordinaire.’

A gorgeous Asian girl walked by at that exact moment and both Brooke and Julian watched as Leo winked at her. Where the hell was Nola? She needed to warn her early and often that Leo was off-limits. It wasn’t going to be easy – Leo was exactly her type. His pink dress shirt was open one button more than most men would dare, and it highlighted his lovely tan – dark enough but without a hint of booth or aerosol. His pants were low-waisted and European slim. He dressed as though his hair should’ve been slicked back with heavy product, but he smartly let his thick, dark locks wave freely just over his eyes. The only flaw she could make out was a scar that bisected his right eyebrow in a hairless dividing line, but it actually worked to his benefit, taking away any hint of effeminate overgrooming or perfection. He didn’t have an ounce of fat on his entire body.

‘Pleasure to meet you, Leo,’ Brooke said. ‘I’ve heard so much about you.’

He didn’t appear to hear. ‘Okay, listen,’ he said, turning to Julian. ‘I just got word that you’re scheduled as the final act. One down, one to go, then you.’ Leo peered intently over Julian’s shoulder as he talked.

‘Is that good news?’ Brooke asked politely. Julian had already told her that none of the other musicians scheduled to perform that night were in any real competition. One was an R&B group who everyone thought sounded like a modern-day Boyz II Men, and the other was a heavily tattooed female country singer who wore frilly dresses and pigtails.

She looked at Leo and saw that once again, his gaze had wandered. Brooke followed it and saw he was staring directly at Nola. Or, more precisely, Nola’s pencil-skirt-swathed bum. She made a mental note to threaten Nola with banishment and worse if she went anywhere near him.

Leo cleared his throat and took a swig of whiskey. ‘The chick went already, and she was decent. Not mind-blowing, but mildly entertaining. I think—’

He was cut off by the sound of voices harmonizing. There wasn’t a stage, exactly, but there was a cleared area in front of the piano where four African-American men in their early twenties stood, each leaning in toward a central microphone. For a moment it sounded like a really good college a capella group, but then three of the guys stepped back and left the main singer alone to croon about his childhood in Haiti. The crowd nodded and grooved appreciatively.

‘Hey, baby.’ Julian circled around the group and came up behind her. He kissed the back of her neck and she almost groaned aloud. He was wearing his uniform, unchanged even after all these years: white T-shirt, Levi’s, and a knit cap. The outfit couldn’t have been less exceptional, but it had come to signify pure sexiness to Brooke. The cap was Julian’s signature, the closest thing he had to a ‘look,’ but only Brooke knew it was more than that. Just last year Julian had been crushed to discover the tiniest bald spot in the history of hair loss. Brooke tried to assure him that it was barely noticeable, but Julian would hear none of it. And truth be told, it may have gotten slightly bigger since he’d first pointed it out, although she’d never admit it.

No one who saw all those luscious dark curls peeking out from under the cap would ever guess what Julian was trying to cover up underneath it, and for Brooke, it only added to Julian’s appeal, made him more vulnerable and human. She secretly loved that she was the only one who ever got to see Julian without the caps, when he would safely pull them off at home and shake his curls just for her. Had someone told Brooke a few years earlier that she’d find her thirty-two-year-old husband’s increasing baldness to be one of his most appealing qualities she would’ve laughed with disbelief, but that is exactly what had happened.

‘How are you feeling? Are you nervous?’ Brooke asked, searching his face for a hint as to how he was holding up. He’d been a wreck all week – barely eating, never sleeping, even vomiting earlier that afternoon – but when Brooke tried to talk to him about it, he’d completely turtled. She had wanted to accompany him to the venue that night, but Julian insisted she go with Nola. He said he needed to talk through a few things with Leo, get there early, make sure everything was set up. Something must have worked, because he looked a little more relaxed.

‘I’m ready,’ he said with a determined nod. ‘I’m feeling good.’

Brooke kissed him on the cheek, knowing he was wracked with nerves but proud of him for holding it together. ‘You look good. You look ready. You’re going to be fantastic tonight.’

‘You think so?’ He sipped his club soda, and Brooke noticed his knuckles were white. She knew he was dying for something stronger, but he never drank before a performance.

‘I know so. When you’re sitting at that piano, all you’re thinking about is the music. Tonight is no different from doing a gig at Nick’s. The crowd always loves you, baby. Remember that. Just be yourself, and they’re going to love you here too.’

‘Listen to your wife,’ Leo said, returning from a quick chat with the people behind him. ‘Just forget where you are and why you’re here and do your thing. Got it?’

Julian nodded and tapped his foot furiously. ‘Got it.’

Leo motioned toward the area in the back of the room. ‘Let’s get you set up.’

Brooke stood on her tiptoes and kissed Julian on the mouth. She squeezed his hand and said, ‘I’ll be right here the whole time, but forget about all of us. Just close your eyes and play your heart out.’

He shot her a grateful look but couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Leo led him off, and before she could finish her wine, one of the A&R guys announced Julian over the microphone.

Brooke looked around again for Nola and spotted her talking to a group of people in front of the bar. That girl knew everyone. Happy to have Trent there, Brooke let him lead her to a little sliver of couch space, where he motioned for her to take a seat. She perched herself on the end of a velvet sofa and nervously gathered her hair into a knot. She rooted around in her bag for a hair tie but couldn’t find one.

‘Here,’ said the beautiful Asian girl Leo had winked at earlier. She pulled a brown elastic off her wrist and handed it to Brooke. ‘I have a million.’

Brooke paused for a minute, unsure what to do, and the girl smiled. ‘Really, it’s fine. There’s nothing more annoying than not being able to get hair off your face. Although if I had your hair, I’d never tie it back.’

‘Thanks,’ Brooke said, accepting the tie and immediately twisting it into her ponytail. She was going to say something more, maybe something self-deprecating about how she wouldn’t wish being a redhead on anyone, but at that moment Julian took his seat at the piano, and she heard his voice, a little shaky, thanking everyone for coming.

The girl took a swig from the bottle of beer she was holding and asked, ‘Have you ever heard him before?’

Brooke could only nod and pray the girl would stop talking. She didn’t want to miss a single moment, and she was totally preoccupied wondering if anyone else could hear the slight wobble in Julian’s voice.

‘Because if not, you’re really in for something. He is the sexiest singer I’ve ever seen.’

This caught her attention. ‘What?’ she asked, turning to the girl.

‘Julian Alter,’ the girl said, waving toward the piano. ‘I’ve heard him a couple times in different venues around the city. He has a few regular gigs. And I’m telling you, he’s ridiculously good. Makes John Mayer look like amateur hour.’

Julian had begun to play ‘For the Lost,’ a soulful song about a young boy who loses his older brother, and she felt Trent glance in her direction – he was probably the only other person in the entire room who knew what truly inspired that song. Julian himself was an only child, but Brooke knew he often thought of the brother who had died of SIDS before Julian was born. To this day the Alters never discussed James, but Julian had gone through a stage where he wondered, sometimes obsessively, what James would’ve been like today, how different life might have been with an older brother.

His hands moved across the piano keys, producing the first haunting notes that would eventually build to a powerful crescendo, but Brooke couldn’t focus on anything but the girl beside her. She wanted to hug her and slap her all at the same time. It was disconcerting to hear this perfectly attractive girl rave about Julian’s sexiness – no matter how long they’d been together, she never got used to that aspect – but it was so rare to hear a totally honest and unfiltered opinion.

‘You think so?’ Brooke asked, suddenly desperate for the girl to agree.

‘Oh, definitely. I tried to tell my boss, like, a dozen times, but Sony got him first.’ The girl’s attention to Brooke started to wane as Julian’s volume increased, and by the time he tilted his head and sang out the raw, emotional chorus, she was fixated only on him. Brooke wondered if she noticed Julian’s wedding band through the haze of worship.

Brooke turned to watch, and it was all she could do not to sing along. She knew every word by heart.

They say Texas is the promised land

In the highway’s dust you become a man

Blind and blue, lonely in love

Scars on your hands, broken above

He was a mother’s dream, he was a fist of sand

My brother, you slipped away with the second hand

Like parallel lines that never cross

For the lost, for the lost

The woman sits alone in a room

Alone in a house like a silent tomb

The man counts every jewel in his crown

What can’t be saved is measured in pounds

He was a father’s dream, he was a fist of sand

My brother, you slipped away with the second hand

Like parallel lines that never cross

For the lost, for the lost

In my dreams the voices from beyond the door

I remember them saying you weren’t coming no more

You wouldn’t believe how quiet it’s become

The heart obscure fills with shame

He was a brother’s dream, he was a fist of sand

My brother, you slipped away with the second hand

Like parallel lines that never cross

For the lost, for the lost

He finished the song to rousing applause – genuine, enthusiastic applause – and moved effortlessly into the second. He had hit his stride, and there wasn’t a single sign of any anxiety. Just that familiar sheen across his forearms and the furrowed brow of concentration as he sang the words he had spent months, sometimes years, perfecting. The second song was over in a flash, and then the third, and before she realized what was happening, the crowd was ecstatically cheering and calling for an encore. Julian looked pleased and a little confused – his instructions to play three songs in under twelve minutes couldn’t have been clearer – but he must’ve gotten the green light from someone offstage, because he smiled and nodded and eased right into one of his more upbeat songs. The crowd roared their approval.

By the time he pushed back the piano bench and took a modest bow, the air in the room had changed. More than the loud cheering and clapping and whistles, there was that electrified feeling of having been part of something important. Brooke stood, hemmed in on all sides by her husband’s admirers, when Leo approached. He gruffly greeted the hair-tie girl by name – Umi – but she immediately rolled her eyes and walked away. Before Brooke could process that, Leo grabbed her arm a little too tightly and leaned in so close she wondered for the briefest second if he was going to kiss her.

‘Get ready, Brooke. Get ready for one fucking crazy ride. Tonight is only the start, and it’s going to be insane.’

a toast to hot redheads

‘Kaylie, sweetheart, I don’t know how else to say it: you do not need to lose weight. Look at your statistics; look at this chart. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are.’

‘No one else here looks like me,’ Kaylie said, lowering her eyes. The girl absently twisted her limp brown hair in circles around her forefinger, methodically wrapping and turning, wrapping and turning. Her face was filled with anxiety.

‘What do you mean?’ Brooke asked, although she knew what Kaylie meant.

‘I just … I never felt fat until I came here. At public school, I was totally normal, maybe even on the skinny side! And then this year rolls around and they stick me in this weird place because it’s supposed to be so fancy and special, and suddenly I’m obese.’ The girl’s voice cracked at the last word, and it was all Brooke could do not to hug her.

‘Oh, sweetheart, you’re no such thing! Come here, look at this chart. One hundred twenty-five pounds at five-one is well within the healthy range.’ Brooke held out her laminated chart showing the huge range of normal weights, but Kaylie barely glanced at it.

She knew it wasn’t particularly comforting in light of all the astonishingly thin girls in Kaylie’s ninth-grade class. Kaylie was a scholarship student from the Bronx, the daughter of an air-conditioning repairman who raised her alone after her mother was killed in a car accident. Her father was clearly doing something right, considering the girl’s straight-A record in middle school, success on the field hockey team, and, according to what Brooke heard from other teachers, an ability to play the violin that far surpassed that of her peers, and yet here was his lovely, accomplished daughter, and all she could see was that she didn’t fit in.

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