Chapter 55
Corey Lyondell was back.
The cab whisked her down Storrow Drive, back toward her condo and her cat. Iggy would be pissed—her three-day excursion to Catalina had lasted two-and-a-half months, longer than her last couple of tours. It was even a new year. She had spent the holidays in Catalina. And though Josh and Kincaid said they didn’t mind cat-sitting, she still felt bad and promised herself she would buy them a nice gift. Which wouldn’t be a problem now.
Because she was back.
When Ricki Fucking Parrish throws one of her artist showcases—which Corey had no idea she was playing at the time—the brass comes. Not the scouts, but the suits themselves. The major labels were all represented—Sony, Universal, Warner, Island, BMG, Atlantic—and some smaller, scrappier labels who Ricki respected enough to offer a seat at the table. And they all brought their checkbooks. So Corey returned to Boston a conquering hero—with a record in the can and a bidding war that Lou was already moderating.
“Don’t worry,” her manager said, “I’ve told them all their first offers were insulting to you and beneath them. I’m letting them stew for a bit.”
Whichever label they chose, Lou assured her, her money problems would be over, with a payday the likes of which Corey had never seen and a multi-record deal. All debt zeroed out and the coffers running over. And after two plus decades in the business, Lou had trained for this by noting the myriad ways in which labels screw over their artists and keep them indebted to the system, like eating up their advances on dumb shit like video shoots and wardrobe. Corey Lyondell was no longer the naive ingénue who was just happy to be here. Team Corey would not play nice this time. If her new persona conjured images of a general returning to the field of battle, then Louise Yardley manned the 50-caliber machine gun, prepared to shoot the contracts and their bullshit pitches full of holes.
Lou gave Corey only one instruction: “Don’t answer your phone.”
“Why not?”
“The industry illuminati do not decamp to Catalina and get in a pissing contest without generating some buzz. This is all the industry is talking about right now.”
“So why not talk to them?”
“Oh, you will. But now is when you keep your head down and your mouth shut. Let them all salivate and pine over you like lovesick little schoolboys, while you remain aloof and inscrutable.”
“I’ve never been good with aloof and inscrutable.”
“No shit. That’s why I’m telling you to lock your phone in a drawer again. Build some goddamn mystique for once.”
With her long term financial forecast sunny for the first time in a decade and a half, that left her immediate cash flow to sort out, which Lou also assured her they could manage. When the first check of the advance came, there would be no more talk of licensing Limelight. There would be no need.
The only fly in the ointment was the waiting. Once they chose the label, then they needed to slot it, crank up the promotion machine, do advance press…at best, it would be half a year before it would be available to the public. She had to trade the immediacy and the artistry of writing and recording for the patience and cunning of the marketing phase. Catalina had lit a fire, and seeing the faces in the crowd, she wanted nothing more than to play these new songs and spread the gospel to as many people as possible. She was sitting on a rich vein of gold and no way to extract it.
And new songs were still pouring out of her. The fifteen tracks they had selected for Running Light were only about half of what they recorded, and a quarter of the new songs she had written overall. Creativity begat productivity which begat more creativity, and she was in output mode. So she kept writing, stockpiling songs for when her energies would be directed elsewhere, like promoting and touring, or when the vein dried up. She already had an open invitation from Ricki to return to Catalina with the next batch of songs.
In the early years, success caused her to worry. She’d only allow herself a day or two to be ecstatic at good news…when she signed the record deal for Damsel, when it got a glowing review in Rolling Stone, when Limelight charted, and later when it hit number one. Then the anxiety set in and she would peer over the top of her immediate success, straining her eyes to spy the next set of problems that might follow it on the horizon. Now she knew better. There had been enough lean times—and what had the past few years been but a protracted lean time?—to remind her to appreciate the success, and for the first time, some security.
There would be no instant anxiety or imposter syndrome flare-ups, she told herself, because after twenty-five years, she could finally admit it.
I’m a fucking professional. And I am damn good at what I do.
Back in Boston, her shoulders relaxed. Her back straightened. She held her chin higher. Smiles came quickly and without warning.
Josh stopped by with Iggy before he left for work at the restaurant. He told her that Kincaid was traveling for business, but couldn’t wait to hear about her Catalina “holiday.” Josh left and she pulled Iggy onto her lap and after several yowling protests, he settled down and let her love on him. She sat like that for several minutes when the doorbell rang.
She let Iggy escape and walked to the door.
“Did you forget your keys—”
“Hey babe.”
Corey’s mouth fell open.
It was not Josh. It was the last person she expected to be there, leaning in her doorway, tall and casual with his thousand watt, devil-may-care smile.