Spicy Sapphic Christmas

7. Bea

SEVEN

bea

Bea wrung her hands together, her stomach almost in tighter knots than it had been two weeks ago when Siena had come to watch them play. They’d played phone tag for the better part of a week, and finally had a meeting set up. Bea glanced over her shoulder to check on Jo in the elevator.

Keeping her sister in line for this conversation was going to be a task, but Bea was prepared.

They walked into Siena’s office and were immediately greeted by an assistant who told them to sit down and wait. Bea shifted a glance to Jo, and sat precariously on the edge of a comfy lounge chair. Jo sat down next to her, clearly resisting the urge to bounce her feet on the ground.

“Do you think this is where Bunny and Piper first met Siena? Or has she found new digs since then?” Jo couldn’t stop looking around the room.

Bea winced, but since the assistant hadn’t come back into the room yet, she didn’t mind it too much. “My guess is she’s moved up in the world right along with them.”

Jo grinned and leaned in closer. “I can’t believe we’re here.”

“Spoiler alert,” Bea said with a conspiratorial look. “I can’t either.”

Laughing, Jo rubbed her palms over her knees. It was her nervous tic. Bea had no doubt that she wasn’t the only one worried about this entire negotiation. Though Siena hadn’t said it was going to be that. She’d just said she wanted to meet with them to talk. After everything that had happened at Julianna’s, had Bunny told Siena about it? Had she told Siena not to hire them?

The worry slipped its way through her, and it was impossible to shove it all down and lock it in a box never to see the light of day. That would be too damn easy, wouldn’t it?

“Do you think they’d ever do a show with us?”

“What?” Bea frowned and looked over at Jo.

“Bunny and Piper.”

“Why would they want to do that?”

“We could be their opener or something.”

Bea sighed heavily. Jo’s crush on Piper was going too far. Bea rubbed her hands together, looking around the pristine office again. It was well decorated, minimalistic but still nice. If she had an office, this is what she’d want it to look like. Instead, she did most of their business off her kitchen table, which was shoved into the corner of her studio apartment because that was all she could afford at the moment.

“I don’t know. Karaoke was fun, wasn’t it?”

“Sure.” Bea winced. She hadn’t really enjoyed the night. It had been tense with Bunny there. But she’d endured it for Jo’s sake and that was enough. She and Bunny had agreed to be civil, and that was all she could ask for.

“Have you thought about dating again?”

Bea choked. She spluttered and pounded her hand against her fist. “I’m sorry. But what?”

“Have you thought about dating again?” Jo repeated. “I know after Genevieve that you wanted to take a break—a well deserved break, I might add—but that was over a year ago. Aren’t you ready to get back on the wagon?”

“Back in the saddle,” Bea corrected, staring at the wall. How would she explain this in a way that Jo could understand, because clearly it hadn’t sunk in before. “I don’t want to date again.”

“But you can’t be celibate for your entire life. I know you. You don’t want that.”

“No, I don’t want that.” Bea lowered her voice, hoping that the conversation wasn’t carrying down the hallway for Siena or her assistant to hear. “This really isn’t the appropriate place to talk about this.”

“I know, but you never want to talk about it.”

“Why would I?” Her voice had a bite to it. Bea cringed and tried to backtrack, knowing that Jo would take offense to her tone and it would cause more rifts between them. More than they needed going into this conversation with Siena. “Look, this really isn’t the right time or place to have this discussion.”

“But don’t you dream about it? Don’t you dream about what might happen if you were to find love again?”

Bea snorted out a laugh and closed her eyes in pain. “I didn’t love Genevieve.”

Was that truly the first time she’d said that out loud to Jo?

“Are you serious?”

“Bea! Jo!” Siena appeared in the lobby, a grin on her lips and her hands clasped in front of her like she was going to clap at them.

How much had she heard?

“Siena.” Bea immediately plastered on her business face, shot Jo a shut up look and stood up with her hand outstretched. They shook, and Bea immediately stepped to the side so Jo could also join in on the conversation.

“Come on in.” Siena led the way to her office.

They were all seated in chairs to the side of Siena’s desk, a small table between them. Bea had to work really hard to tame her nerves so that she could make reasonable conversation.

Once they were settled, with water bottles for each of them, Siena gave them a patented smile. “I’m glad I was able to speak with you today.”

“We’re glad we could meet as well,” Bea said, taking over their side of the conversation.

“We’d love to work with you,” Jo chimed in loudly. A definite sign that she was nervous.

Bea shot her sister a sharp look. “Jo’s not wrong, we would love to see if we could work with you. But we understand there’s a lot of conversation that needs to happen first.”

“Right, there is.” Siena’s smile faltered. “Your show the other week was good. I’m surprised you’re not represented by anyone already.”

Bea shrugged slightly. “We’ve worked with several publicists and production managers in the last few years. None of them worked out.”

“Why’s that?” Siena twisted the cap off her bottle and took a long sip.

“A number of reasons.” Bea sighed. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask because it’s been weighing on me. How’s your daughter?”

“My daughter?” Siena halted, the bottle of water right in front of her lips.

“She broke her arm?” Surely, Bea was remembering that correctly. She hadn’t been able to get the thought out of her mind. Siena had looked so worried that night.

“Oh! Yes.” Siena put her water bottle down. “She fell out of her bunk bed. My ex insisted that bunk beds were the only beds that would fit in the room, and of course, since Harley is older, she’d have to be on the top.”

“So you have two kids?”

Siena waved her hand. “Only Harley. She’s fine. She has a bright pink cast that her friends have drawn all over, and she’s absolutely loving the attention. She hates the fact that she’s not allowed to do any writing at school, though. I’m pretty sure she’ll figure a way around that one by the end of the week.”

“Good.” Bea let out a breath of relief. “I was worried it was more serious than that.”

“No, just typical kid clumsiness, I suppose. At least that’s what my ex keeps telling me.” Siena glanced from Bea to Jo and back again. “I’m surprised you remembered.”

“I’m a big sister to quite a few siblings. I think the worry comes naturally.”

“Ah.” Siena smiled, genuinely. “Well, thank you for asking.”

“No problem. I didn’t mean to disrupt our conversation.”

“No, don’t worry about it. You were saying that you’ve worked with several managers.”

“Yeah. We have. None of them worked long term, and right now we’re without representation.” Bea squared her shoulders. Just that small interlude of the personal had given her enough strength to find her center and continue this conversation in a manner that would get them somewhere.

“What didn’t work out with them exactly?”

This was where honesty could either work in their favor or not, and Bea had a strong suspicion with Siena that it would work for them. She’d told Jo as much when she’d initially brought Siena to Jo’s attention.

“Most wanted us to tone down our queerness.”

Siena coughed. “I’m sorry, what?”

“They said we were too gay.”

Siena’s jaw dropped. She focused her gaze on Bea, her head shaking slightly before looking at Jo. “Is she serious?”

“Unfortunately. The conversation always centered around one of us could be gay, the other one couldn’t, or we could be out, but they didn’t want it anywhere in our branding. And they really didn’t want us to have any relationships that were out in the public.”

“Holy shit,” Siena muttered. “Talk about homophobic, especially since we live in Portland. Then again, I can’t say that I haven’t seen it before.”

Bea nodded, folding her hands together so that Siena wouldn’t see them tremble. “We’d love to work with you for that specific reason.”

“Because I’m a lesbian.”

“Yes.”

Siena pursed her lips. “There are other queer production managers out there.”

“You also represent Bunny and Piper,” Jo chimed in again.

Bea really should have prepped her better for this conversation. While she wasn’t saying anything outrageous, this conversation could go so much smoother in some ways than it was.

“I do represent them.” Siena slowed down her speaking pace. “Which means that most of my time is spent with them.”

“We won’t be as busy as them,” Jo said.

“But you hope to be, eventually, I assume.”

“Yes,” Bea answered so Jo wouldn’t say anything else that might get them into deeper water. “Yes, we want to grow our brand and our business.”

“And what plans do you have in place for that already?”

“We’re booked after the New Year every weekend until April. And we’re working on writing a new album so we can record it in late spring.” Bea folded her hands together more sharply. Her anxiety was rearing its ugly head again.

“You’ve booked those on your own?”

“Yes.” Bea had done a lot of the leg work. Julianna’s had asked them back at least monthly, and she’d gladly accepted the booking. “But we’re starting to reach beyond what I can do.”

Siena nodded. “I’ve seen the numbers that you sent me.”

Bea shifted a glance to Jo. Had she done that when she’d invited Siena to observe them? Damn Jo for that. Sometimes she was so much better at this than Bea gave her credit for.

“Bunny and Piper did speak highly of you.”

“Did they?” Bea asked, trying not to make it sound like she was hinging more than necessary on that question.

“Yes.” Siena sucked in a sharp breath. “I’m not willing to sign a full contract with you just yet. I want to make sure that we work well together before that happens. I don’t do short term commitments. If we’re in this together, then we’re in it for the long haul.”

That was exactly what Bea had wanted to hear.

“So I have a proposal for you.” Siena stood up and walked to her desk, snagging a manilla folder and setting it on the small table before she sat back down. “There’s a charity event that I’ve agreed to manage this year. It’s a fundraiser for the Holbrook Foundation, which is a charity for single mothers. It’s not your typical fair, so I’m not looking for your regular music.”

“You’re not?” Bea frowned. How would it be any kind of test for them if they weren’t singing the songs they wrote?

“No. This is a Christmas fundraiser. The traditional songs, slightly non-traditional songs, those will be expected. You can add your own twist to them, for sure. But it won’t be your original music.” Siena spread out some of the papers in front of them.

“So we’ll have to learn all new music in order to do this?”

“You will. But like I said, traditional songs, so you should know the basics already.” Siena sent Bea a comforting smile. “I’ll represent you for this charity event, and we’ll see how we work together from there. If that goes well, we can sign a one-year contract. If after that year, we both agree to continue to work together, we’ll sign a much longer contract.”

“Who else is singing at this thing?” Jo leaned forward and picked up one of the papers to read.

Bea was still too stunned to say anything.

“You’d be the first to sign officially if you agree. I was just handed the contract late last week.” Siena leaned back in her chair and crossed one long leg over the other. Bea gnawed on her lip as she skimmed what she could of the papers, wanting to read them in far more detail than she had time for.

“Will we be singing with whoever else you hire?” Bea asked.

“Maybe. It depends on what the other band wants to do. Would you be open to singing with other people?”

“Yes!” Jo bounced in her chair.

Bea nodded her agreement on that because what else could she do? She’d rather stick with just Jo because she knew Jo’s voice so well. It would be much harder to blend with people she didn’t know.

“This sounds like fun,” Jo said.

“You’d have to be available for the entire week of Christmas.”

“The whole week?” Bea and Jo asked together.

Siena nodded. “This is a Christmas charity event, so yes. The concert is on the twenty-fourth.”

“Indoor or outdoor?” Bea found her voice as her mind ticked over the most pertinent information they would need.

“Indoor.”

“Full setup?”

“Yes.” Siena’s lips twitched upward in a smile. “This sounds like you’re interested.”

“We are!” Jo squeaked. “We’re very interested.”

Siena nodded slowly. “Good. I’ll have Marina write up contracts if you’re amenable, and we can do some negotiations from there.”

“I’m assuming this is an unpaid event.” Bea held her breath. They really could use the money. Especially since it was going to take a week of their time, not that they’d booked anything for that week, but there was still time to do that. “Since it’s for charity.”

“It is unpaid.”

That might be a dealbreaker. Bea sent Jo a look, telling her as much. But this would give them the chance to work with Siena, which could potentially make them more money in the long run. But could they handle the lack of pay for a bigger pay off in the end?

Yes.

“All right. We’ll do it.”

“Do you agree as well?” Siena looked directly at Jo. “When I make agreements with bands, I expect every person to sign on. One person doesn’t, then I won’t sign the contract.”

“Absolutely!” Jo was beyond excited. “I want to work with you, Ms. Frazee.”

“Good. Then it’s settled. We can work on the contract over the next week.” Siena stood up, and Bea and Jo followed suit. “Welcome to the family.”