“That’s right. She always comes to New York for your birthday.”
“Right.”
Mel did the tight smile/nodding thing she always did when the conversation turned to her mother. Even the most well-intentioned people couldn’t help but be openly curious about Trina Gallard. She was an international icon, after all. Savelina was more conscientious than most when it came to giving Mel privacy, but the thirst for knowledge about the rock star inevitably bled through. Mel understood. She did.
She just didn’t know enough about her mother to give anyone what they wanted.
That was the sad truth. Trina love-bombed her daughter once a year and once a year only. Like a one-night sold-out show at the Garden that left her with a hangover and really expensive merch she never wore again.
Melody could see Savelina was losing the battle with the need to ask deeper questions about Trina, probably because it was the end of the night and she’d had six beers. So Mel grabbed her kelly green peacoat from where it hung on the closest stool, tugged it on around her shoulders, and looked for a way to excuse herself. “I’m going to settle my tab at the bar.” She leaned in and planted a quick kiss on Savelina’s expertly highlighted brown cheek. “I’ll see you during the week?”
“Yeah!” Savelina said too quickly, hiding her obvious disappointment. “See you soon.”
Briefly, Mel battled the urge to give her friend something, anything. Even Trina’s favorite brand of cereal—Lucky Charms—but the information faltered on her tongue. It always did. Speaking with any kind of authority on her mother felt false when most days, it seemed as though she barely knew the woman.
“Okay.” Mel nodded, turned, and wove through some Friday night revelers toward the bar, apologizing to a few customers who’d witnessed her anticlimactic underdog story. Before she could reach the bar, she made sure Savelina wasn’t watching, then veered toward the exit instead—because she didn’t really have a bar tab to settle. Customers who recognized her as Trina Gallard’s daughter had been sending her drinks all night. She’d had so many Shirley Temples she was going to be peeing grenadine for a week.
Cold winter air chilled her cheeks as soon as she stepped out onto the sidewalk.
The cheerful holiday music and energetic conversations grew muffled behind her as soon as the door snicked shut. Why did it always feel so good to leave somewhere?
Guilt poked holes in her gut. Didn’t she want to have friends? Who didn’t?
And why did she feel alone whether she was with people or not?
She turned around and looked back through the frosty glass, surveying the bargoers, the merry revelers, the quiet ones huddled in darkened nooks. So many kinds of people and they all seemed to have one thing in common. They enjoyed company. None of them appeared to be holding their breath until they could leave. They didn’t seem to be pretending to be comfortable when in reality, they were stressing about every word out of their mouth and how they looked, whether or not people liked them. And if they did, was it because they were a celebrity’s daughter, rather than because of their actual personality? Because of who Melody was?
Melody turned from the lively scene with a lump in her throat and started to walk up the incline of Union Street toward her apartment. Before she made it two steps, however, a woman shifted into the light several feet ahead of her. Melody stopped in her tracks. The stranger was so striking, her smile so confident, it was impossible to move forward without acknowledging her. She had dark blond hair that fell in perfect waves onto the shoulders of a very expensive looking overcoat. One that had tiny gold chains in weird places that served no function, just for the sake of fashion. Simply put, she was radiant and she didn’t belong outside of a casual neighborhood bar.
“Miss Gallard?”
The woman knew her name? Had she been lying in wait for her? Not totally surprising, but it had been a long while since she’d encountered this kind of brazenness from a reporter.
“Excuse me,” Melody said, hustling past her. “I’m not answering any questions about my mother—”
“I’m Danielle Doolin. You might recall some emails I sent you earlier this year? I’m a producer with the Applause Network.”
Melody kept walking. “I get a lot of emails.”
“Yes, I’m sure you do,” said Danielle, falling into step beside her. Keeping pace, even though she was wearing three-inch heels, her footwear a stark contrast to Melody’s flat ankle boots. “The public has a vested interest in you and your family.”
“You realize I was never really given a choice about that.”
“I do. During my brief phone call with Beat Dawkins, he expressed the same.”
Melody’s feet basically stopped working. The air inside of her lungs evaporated and she had no choice but to slow to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk. Beat Dawkins. She heard that name in her sleep, which was utterly ridiculous. The fact that she should still be fascinated by the man when they hadn’t been in the same room in fourteen years made her cringe . . . but that was the only thing about Beat that made her cringe. The rest of her reactions to him could best be described as breathless, dreamlike, whimsical, and . . . sexual.
In her entire thirty-year existence, she’d never experienced attraction like she had to Beat Dawkins at age sixteen when she spent a mere five minutes in his presence. Since then, her hormones could only be defined as lazy. Floating on a pool raft with a mai tai, rather than competing in a triathlon. She had the yoga pants of hormones. They were fine, they definitely counted as hormones, but they weren’t worthy of a runway strut. Her lack of romantic aspirations was yet another reason she felt unmotivated to go out and make human connections. To be in big, social crowds where someone might show interest in her.
It was going to take something special to make her set down the mai tai and get off this raft—and so far, no one had been especially . . . rousing. A fourteen-year-old memory, though? Oh mama. It had the power to make her temperature peak. At one time it had, anyway. The recollection of her one and only encounter with Beat was growing grainy around the edges. Fading, much to her distress.
“Well.” Danielle regarded Melody with open interest. “His name certainly got your attention, didn’t it?”
Melody tried not to stumble over her words and failed, thanks to her tongue turning as useless as her feet. “I’m sorry, y-you’ll have to refresh my memory. The emails you sent me were about . . . ?”
“Reuniting Steel Birds.”
A laugh tumbled out of Melody, stirring the air with white vapor. “Wait. Beat took a phone call about this?” Baffled, she shook her head. “As far as I know, both of us have always maintained that a reunion is impossible. Like, on par with an Elvis comeback tour.”
Danielle lifted an elegant shoulder and let it drop. “Stranger things have happened. Even Pink Floyd set aside their differences for Live 8 in 2005, and no one believed it was doable. A lot of time has passed since Steel Birds broke up. Hearts soften. Age gives a different perspective. Maybe Beat believes a reunion wouldn’t be such an impossible feat after all.”
It was humiliating how hard her heart was pounding in her chest. “Did . . . did he say that?”