Cool Shade by Theresa Weir

Author:Theresa Weir [Weir, Theresa]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: romance, fiction, Contemporary, General, Disc Jockeys, Gothic, Sisters, Default Category
ISBN: 9780061084621
Google: uQLpKrlfNF0C
Amazon: B00428LBLI
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 1998-04-14T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

The World I Know

Eddie had been thinking too much lately. Way too much. About something he tried for years to forget.

Music.

His old life.

It was weird to think that Rick had been shot because of the lyrics in a song. Because of words, written in solitude, but sent out on the airwaves to millions of people.

A song that some nut case had said spoke to him, told him to kill Rick Beck. On the night of Rick's last performance, the music had been so loud that nobody even heard the shot. Eddie had seen Rick falter, then go down.

Rick was always goofing around, and at first Eddie thought that's all that was going on. But then he saw the blood.

Eddie was the one who'd ended up cradling his friend, holding him while he bled.

Later, someone had come forward and confessed. Somebody who'd wanted to be a star, wanted attention, like Hinckley killing Lennon.

"Cool Shade."

Rick was to have performed it that day for the first time.

After the funeral, Eddie had taken the notebook containing the lyrics and burned it. At the time, he’d forgotten about the demo tape they'd made.

He wanted to hear it.

After all these years, he was ready.

But when he opened the cabinet where he'd stashed it in another life, all he found was a bunch of dust and a few dead bugs.

The tape was gone.

Maddie.

Maddie Smith, of the big eyes and white skin.

She'd ripped him off.

~0~

Holding the tweezers between her fingers, Maddie pulled out the last stitch from her arm. Good as new. Why pay somebody with money she didn't have when she could do it herself?

She was putting away the alcohol when someone knocked on the front door.

Maddie answered it to find Evelyn standing on the porch, cigarette in hand, eyes squinted against the smoke.

"This is the third time I've been here," she said in that disapproving landlady tone of voice that Maddie had become so familiar with over the years.

"Sorry."

Maddie rubbed her head. Was she going to be forever running from these people? When she was eighty years old, was she still going to be playing dodge the landlord?

"You're going to have to get out or start paying rent."

"I won't get a paycheck for two weeks."

Evelyn thought that over. "I need some help around my place. If you're willing to work, I'll take it off your rent."

Maddie wasn't actually willing. She'd been up all night and had been looking forward to a long day in bed. But she guessed she could sleep tonight. She didn't have anything else planned for her first night off.

She helped Evelyn. And in the process, she learned a new trade. Carpeting sidewalks. Yessir. It turned out, Evelyn wanted all of her sidewalks carpeted with red indoor-outdoor carpeting. Maddie admitted that it would be a lovely addition to the woman's lawn decor.

And so Maddie spent the day gluing and cutting, cutting and gluing, just another bent-over butt among many. And when she was finished, her back aching, her lungs raw from ingesting toxic fumes, she stood and surveyed her work.

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