Burning Tracks (Book Two: Spotlight Series) Read online

  “Keep walking, keep walking.”

  “Clem, what are—do you owe someone money and they came to collect? Why are we making a break for it?” They weave through the crowd, and just as they reach the exit, Clementine wobbles—those heels really are killer—and Gwen slings an arm around her waist to steady her.

  “Thanks, sugar.” Clementine leans her weight into Gwen, and a series of lights flash around them just as she’s hauling open the heavy back door. “See? That’s why. I’ll never get out of here with them snapping at me and I’ve had enough. I want to go find Grady.”

  Inside the metal and concrete stairwell is Clementine’s security guard.

  “How the hell—” Gwen starts. How did he know? Bat-signal? Pheromones? Kevin falls in behind them. Clementine kicks her heels off, hooks them with two fingers, and takes off down the stairs at a fast clip.

  “This isn’t like him,” she says, spinning around a landing to the next set of stairs. “Not anymore.”

  Gwen follows as quickly as her shorter legs will allow. “Should I call Nico?”

  Now on the basement parking garage level, Clementine pauses. She works her jaw; her eyes dart. “Let me find him first. I should have—you were right to try and stay with him, I—” She shakes her head and opens the door.

  “Hey, this isn’t your fault.” Gwen follows Clementine, and Kevin follows Gwen. “I bet he just forgot. He never hired another assistant, and Nico is usually with him before, during, and after...” Gwen’s voice echoes in the darkened garage.

  He was acting erratic yesterday, all alone, and Gwen knew that. She knew he wasn’t okay and she did nothing. If Nico ensures that Grady is where he needs to be, and Nico is not here, then that falls to her. She failed at her job. She failed as a friend. She’s failing as a partner. Soon she can add failed mother to the list.

  The pretentious hors d’oeuvres spit bile up her throat.

  “I’ll find him.” Gwen catches up to Clementine and the limo waiting with its engine running. “I did last time.”

  Clementine considers, her face drawn; even worried and in this terrible lighting she manages to look ethereal, like a softly glowing angel. Whatever Clementine is paying her aesthetician is not nearly enough.

  “We’ll both go,” Clementine finally declares, getting into the limo and scooting over to make room for Gwen. She shakes her head. “Time to call in the cavalry on that boy.”

  Just before Gwen ducks into the limo, there’s yet another flash of light.

  “Can we head to DisChord, please?” Clementine says, while Gwen presses her face to the window to find whoever followed them. She should sic Kevin on those creepers. But they pull away and out of the garage too fast. Kevin is behind them in his black Navigator, and Clementine seems undisturbed, as if being stalked and photographed everywhere she goes is normal, because it is.

  “Want some water, hon?”

  Gwen flops back in the seat, takes a water, and enjoys the admittedly luxurious ride to the music store in a decked-out limo.

  DisChord is in one of Nashville’s many square, flat buildings; it’s not the trendiest or most well-known vinyl record store in Nashville, but it’s been around for decades with its streamlined shelves of vintage records in pinewood boxes, squeaky gray floors, and harsh fluorescent lighting.

  “Grady’s favorite,” Clementine says, ridiculously out of place in her designer gown and bare feet, dramatic makeup, and elaborate updo. “He doesn’t buy often. Just likes to ‘be with the music.’” She arcs her arms out dramatically.

  The cute girl with a nose ring and neck tattoo watches them from behind the counter, then pretends she isn’t watching them. They don’t find Grady, but Gwen does snag a 1979 copy of The Buzzcocks: Live at the Palladium, one of the best punk bootlegs around.

  “Nice,” the cashier says. She rings Gwen’s purchase up and can’t stop glancing at Clementine, then away, then back, the whole time. Gwen wants to pat her on her sweet little Mohawked head. Gwen had once hidden her guilty pleasures, too, until she met Flora, who saw right through her. Flora, who loves boundlessly and with conviction. Grady, too, loves unreservedly and without fear, even after so much loss and heartbreak.

  If Nico finds out she lost Grady or let him get hurt, he may never forgive her. He shouldn’t forgive her.

  “We could check Nico’s apartment?” Gwen suggests, back in the limo. Grady must miss Nico as much as Nico misses him and could have wanted to feel close to him somehow.

  But the apartment in the sleek steel and glass high-rise is dark and silent; two stickers from missed package deliveries days ago are stuck to the door.

  Down on the street, they pass upscale restaurants and bars and high-end stores; enough is happening in this area even late at night to make it hip and young. The limo is double-parked in front of one of those overpriced hipster-magnet thrift stores.

  “Hey, Clem.” Gwen pauses and takes two steps backward. “Want to slip into something more comfortable?”

  They browse shoulder to shoulder, pushing aside shapeless sweaters and puffy-shouldered rayon blouses, acid-wash jeans and neon T-shirts, babydoll dresses, halter tops, super low-rise jeans, and velour tracksuits. Everything old is new again, Gwen thinks, and checks a cute 50s-era shirtdress for any tears or stains.

  “How about this?” Clementine shows her a hideously frumpy floral print dress with a wide Peter Pan collar, long puffy sleeves, and a hemline down to the ankle. Shaped like a deflated rectangle, it’s the sort of dress that is worn by someone who has no other choice. It makes Gwen’s soul feel sad.

  “Although,” Gwen muses, handing Clementine the adorable powder-blue shirtdress, “If anyone could pull that thing off, it’s you.” She takes the offensive frumper and shoves it back on the rack. “In fact, within the week it would be the next hot fashion trend, thanks to Clementine Campbell.”

  “Keep flattering me like that and I’ll never let you go home.” Clementine’s eyebrows lift and fall and she grins, flirty and teasing.

  Gwen’s neck goes hot. “Go change, we’re on a mission. And careful with that gown!”

  “Whatever you say,” Clem says, her voice dropping low, and then she’s off to the tiny changing room. Gwen pushes the clothes on the rack back into place, and in the few seconds she’d looked away, Kevin had appeared next to the changing room with his arms crossed and his intimidating glare firmly settled into place.

  “How in the fuck...” Gwen mutters, walking, bewildered, to a bin of shoes.

  They try Grady’s favorite chicken restaurant, his favorite barbecue place, the diner that Gwen knows he and Nico like to go to late at night when Nico gives in to junk food after a hard day or an imploring look from Grady. They hit a few music clubs and, after that, some bars, usually in and out fast enough that no one should notice Clementine, but she gets stopped for pictures or autographs or stared at everywhere they go.

  It’s seeping into early morning by the time they end up at a park. The air is light and cool; rustic lamps puddle light on the trails. They walk together at a tired, meandering pace in the fading dark beneath a hushed canopy of trees, and eat frozen custard from Grady’s favorite late-night custard place—naturally.

  “Okay. ‘Burning Tracks.’” Gwen scoops a bite of chocolate custard. “Angsty song about heartbreak. What was that line? Leaving shattered pieces of me on the other side for you to see. Who did it? I need to know.”

  Clementine pokes at her strawberry cheesecake custard. “Not all of my songs are autobiographical. Sometimes they’re just stories.”

  Their feet swish on the dirt trail, crickets chirp, and something rattles the leaves high in a towering oak tree. “So all those love songs are lies? I feel betrayed, Clementine Campbell. Betrayed. I thought you understood my unique pain.”

  Clementine laughs, steals a scoop of Gwen’s custard, and says, “Love is for chumps.”

&
nbsp; Gwen clucks her tongue at the custard theft and the sentiment and teases, “Who hurt you?”

  Clementine doesn’t laugh, and a heavy silence pushes between them on the dark and empty walking trail. They don’t talk again until they reach the bottom of the long stretch of steps that Grady likes to run for an early morning workout once or twice a week, and sometimes just to blow off steam.

  Clementine stirs her melting custard, hangs her head, and confesses quietly, “There was this girl...”

  “Oh, there’s always a girl.” Gwen sits on a bottom step and pats the cold, dirt-dusted space next to her.

  Clementine sits and stretches her long, long legs out in front of her. “I was young. Real young. But I’ve never felt…”

  Heavy silence again, until Gwen prompts gently, “What?”

  “I was gonna say that I’ve never felt that way about someone, but that was before. I was fifteen when my first single went gold, you know. My life is not normal. I’ve never had the chance to see how I feel about anyone. I can’t just date, go out a few times and see how it goes. I can’t fall in love. Can’t just… have that. Not with everyone looking, watching and waiting. I loved her, you know? And she didn’t love me back. But sometimes I wonder if it only hurts so bad because she was the only one.”

  Gwen’s chest aches, and her eyes prickle. She sets down her custard cup and gathers Clementine close. It hadn’t occurred to Gwen that never getting the chance to love and lose can hurt just as badly as heartbreak.

  “You’re so lucky, you know? To have Flora. The life you two have.” The sun is rising between the trees; the tips of the leaves are bathed in gold. “I wish I knew what that was like. Just to see. Even for a little while.”

  Gwen puts her arm around her shoulders in a comforting gesture. “You will, Clem. I promise.”

  13

  Eight years and two weeks ago…

  “Shit, I’m so sorry. Shit.”

  The first minute of their first date, and Flora was wet. She pulled her skirt up from her lap where the light blue embroidered fabric was now blotched with a dark puddle. “It’s okay.”

  Gwen hovered over her, up on her knees and moving her hands over Flora’s damp lap frantically. “No, it’s not. Oh shit, I didn’t even bring any napkins. What kind of fuck-up doesn’t bring napkins to a picnic?” Her face was crestfallen.

  “It’s fine. It’ll dry.” To prove her point, Flora shifted the wet patch of fabric into a spot of sunlight on the bridge where they’d set out their picnic. Where Gwen set out the picnic. She’d planned this whole thing, tugged Flora by the hand the entire way—like a kid showing off her super cool tree fort—to this little footbridge over a pond surrounded by ferns and shrubs and thick trees, where a weeping willow stooped, its branches dragging, while sunlight flickered through it along with a caressing breeze.

  Gwen had dressed in her usual all black: jeans with a hole in the knee and a black shirt ripped at the sleeves, neck, and midriff, showing her concave stomach and belly button ring, the notched ridges of her ribcage beneath her pale skin, and the clear protrusion of her hipbones. Her heavy combat boots had thumped across the bridge to show Flora what she’d prepared: a white wicker basket with a red checked blanket; two champagne flutes; strawberries and roasted chickpeas and finger sandwiches of cucumber and vegan cream cheese.

  “I’m considering radical veganism,” Gwen had said, laying out the food, then popping the champagne. “I’m having a hard time kicking bacon, though.”

  “Are you twenty-one?” Flora had to ask, because she could have sworn Gwen was a sophomore. And she didn’t really look much older than twelve. Flora couldn’t imagine that anyone would buy the fake ID Gwen must have used. “Because I am,” Flora continued, gently chastising. “I could have gotten the champagne.”

  “What fun would that be?” Gwen had wiggled her eyebrows mischievously, handed Flora a glass, and poured the champagne with trembling, overexcited hands. She’d poured it everywhere but in the glass.

  “I really am sorry,” Gwen said again, picking at a sandwich, feet swinging off the edge of the bridge. “This was supposed to be romantic. The girls I date aren’t usually into—” Gwen seemed to change her mind halfway through the confession and finished with a mumbled, “romance.”

  Flora picked up a strawberry and nibbled the end. “I’m not like the girls you usually date?” She casually crossed her legs beneath her, trying to look more indifferent toward the girls Gwen usually dated than she felt.

  “Am I like the girls you usually date?”

  Flora smiled. “That’s fair.” Something moved in the water below them; a fish or a turtle, it was hard to tell through the murky water. Ripples passed over the surface, and the shadow in the water moved on. “I haven’t dated that much,” Flora confessed. “I like monogamy, I guess.” She shrugged, finishing her strawberry. She’d really gone from relationship to relationship without casually dating much at all.

  That was what seeking Gwen out was about, that night, trying for a one-night stand. And yet, here she was anyway.

  Gwen pressed her lips together, put down her sandwich, and brushed crumbs from her hands. She nodded at Flora’s champagne-damp skirt. “Silk brocade can be touchy. You should hand-wash it in cold water, then lay it flat to air-dry when you get home.”

  “You know a lot about silk brocade,” Flora said, but Gwen just shrugged. The mood had shifted, though Flora didn’t know why. They ate in silence. Flora was comfortable with the relative silence; it wasn’t awkward between them, though it really should have been. There was an occasional rustle in the bushes, more flickers of movement on the water. The botanical gardens were tucked away right in the middle of the UCLA campus, and every once in a while sirens or jackhammers or particularly enthusiastic honking broke through to the oasis.

  Gwen, however, was restless: she tucked one leg under the other, then switched, rested on her haunches, crouching, then plopped back down to kick her feet off the edge. She tore off bits of bread to feed a turtle that popped briefly out of the water. Something was on her mind, and Flora decided to give her space to say it when she needed to, if she needed to, instead of pushing.

  “I flunked out,” Gwen finally said, her gaze darting to the water, her mangled sandwich, her black scuffed combat boots. “I didn’t quit, like I said.”

  Flora leaned back on her elbows; sun warmed her upturned face. “When?”

  “A week ago? The night you came...” She paused, a very pleased grin tugging at her lips. “... over. That was my second week in that apartment. I’d been ditching class to take extra shifts at work and finally had too many absences. I don’t know, I just—” She tossed more breadcrumbs to a turtle that was no longer there. “None of this was ever what I wanted. My parents chose this school. My guidance counselor recommended business administration. I don’t even—” She whipped her head around. “What are you majoring in? What’s your plan, Flora?”

  “Teaching,” Flora answered right away. “I’m getting my masters after this and then I’d like to teach elementary school. First or second grade, ideally.”

  “See? That’s exactly it. I don’t even know what I want, because I’ve been pushed into a school and a career I don’t want to be in, and I went along because…” She gestured helplessly. “It was easier, I guess. I didn’t want my parents to be disappointed in me. Again. But here I am. A dropout working at a salon, though at least yesterday they moved me up from receptionist to this intern-stylist thing or whatever.”

  Flora sat up, crisscrossed her legs, rested her hands between her knees, and turned toward Gwen. “So wait. In two weeks, you got an apartment and a promotion. Clearly you have tenacity and a good work ethic. You put together that awesome inspiration board. And this picnic.” Gwen looked up, tipping her head curiously. “Pretty impressive, I think,” Flora said.

  “It sounds like more than it is.”

&nbs
p; “You should give yourself some credit, Gwen.” Flora moved closer again, clasping their hands, needing to touch her. Flora bent to look up at Gwen. “There’s more than one path to success. And you have... gumption.”

  Gwen burst out in a loud laugh, an echoing ha. “Most people just say ‘obnoxious,’ but let’s go with gumption.”

  Flora smiled. “You go after what you want; what’s wrong with that? I mean, I knew you wanted me. It was pretty clear.”

  Gwen shook her head. “I thought you had a girlfriend and slept with you anyway. That’s exactly the sort of thing I do and then only think about later. I couldn’t even drop out officially. Just got up one morning and got ready for class and just—” She flicked one hand, discarding something imaginary from her fingers. “I stopped going. Didn’t even tell my parents, and they’re going to flip the fuck out. I have no plan. I never have a fucking plan, you know?”

  “Okay, so.” Flora pulled her spine straight. “If you channel all that energy into something that you’re really passionate about, then you could make a plan.”

  Gwen sighed. “It’s not that easy.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t…” Gwen started, then her face shifted into a sly grin. “I mean, the plan for today was to wine and dine you and then get you back in my bed.”

  She was clearly trying to change the subject, but Flora flushed hot anyway. “Okay, and after that?”

  Gwen’s grin faltered; her gaze went far off and unfocused. She pulled her legs up, tucked them against her chest, wrapped her arms around them, and set her chin on her knees. “I don’t know what comes after that. I don’t know how to look down the road and see what might be coming. Could you really picture yourself with someone like me? I mean, long-term. Monogamous. Like, what I can possibly offer you, Flora?”