Sticks | Page 3

his eyes and not his hands. He was staring at her again but she didn't look away.
"Thanks," he said.
"I like that a lot," she said, flicking the side of the high tom with her fingernail. "A whole lot." She smiled again and walked away.
*
The basic track of drums, bass, and guitar went down in two takes. It was Stan's pride that they never had to put a click track on him to keep him steady. Keven and Rosen listened to the playback and nodded. Then they emptied the percussion closet. Stan put down a second drum track, just fills and punctuation, and the rest of the band loaded up another track with timbales, shakers, bongos and congas. Keven stood on top of a chair, clapping her hands over her head and moving with the music.
The tape ran out. Everybody kept playing and Rosen finally came down out of the booth to break it up, tapping on the diamond face of his Rolex. Keven got down off her chair and everything went quiet. Stan took the wing-nuts off his cymbal stands and started packing the brass away.
"Do you sing?"
Stan looked up. Keven was leaning on the railing again, watching him.
"Yeah, a little bit. Harmonies and stuff."
"Yeah? If you're not doing anything you could stick around for a while. I could maybe use you later on."
"Sure," Stan said. "Why not?"
*
Rosen wrapped the session at ten that night. Stan had spent five hours on hard plastic folding chairs, reading Spin and Guitar for the Practicing Musician, listening to WhiteBread and Jorge lay down their solos, waiting for Rosen and Keven to fool with the mix. Keven found him there in the lounge.
"You're not doing the vocals tonight," he said.
She shook her head.
"You weren't even planning to."
"Probably not." She was smiling.
"So what am I doing here?"
"I just said I could maybe use you. I didn't say for what."
Her smile was on crooked and her shawl hung loose and open. Stan could see a small mole just below her collarbone. The skin around it was perfect, soft and golden. This isn't happening, he thought.
There was a second where he felt his life poised on a single balance point. Then he said, "You like Thai food?"
*
He took her to the Siam on Ventura Boulevard. They left her car at the studio and took Stan's white CRX. The night air was cool and sweet and ZZ Top was on KLOS. The pumping, pedal-point bass and Billy Gibbon's pinched harmonics were like musk and hot sauce. Stan looked over at Keven, her hair blown back, her eyes closed, into the music. There was a stillness in the very center of Stan's being. Time seemed to have stopped.
Over dinner he told her about the time he'd backed up the sensitive singer-songwriter who'd gotten his start in junk food commercials. The guy always used pick-up musicians and then complained because they didn't know his songs. The only thing he actually took along on tour with him was his oversized white Baldwin grand piano.
The gig was in a hotel ballroom. Stan and the lead trumpet player were set up right next to the piano and got to listen to his complaints through the entire first set. During the break they collected sixteen place settings of silver and laid them across the piano strings. The second set was supposed to open with "Claire de Lune" on solo piano. After the first chord the famous singer-songwriter walked offstage and just kept walking. Stan would have lost his union card over that one, only nobody would testify against him.
Keven had done the same sort of time. After high school she'd been so broke she'd played piano in one of those red-jacket, soft-pop bands at the Hyatt Edgewater in Long Beach. When she wouldn't put out for the lead player he kept upstaging her and sticking his guitar neck in her face. One night she reached over and detuned his strings, one at a time, in the middle of his solo on "Blue Moon." The stage was so small he couldn't get away from her without falling into the first row of tables. It was the last song of the night and the audience loved it. The manager of the Hyatt wanted them to keep it in the act. Instead Keven got fired and the guitarist found another blonde piano player from LA's nearly infinite supply.
Halfway through dinner Stan felt the calf of her leg press gently against his. He returned the pressure, ever so slightly. She didn't move away.
The chopsticks fit in Stan's hands like Regal Tip 5Bs. He found himself nervously playing his empty plate and water glass. Keven put the dinner on her American Express and told him Warner's would end up paying for it eventually.
In the parking lot Stan walked her