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anything about the band, but I think I want to hear more from whoever it was who sang it. A bit sassy, a bit serious, pure rock and roll. I loved it.”
    The next morning, Tony got a call from Columbia Records.
    Three weeks later the song was number seven on the Billboard Charts, and it seemed Tony’s lifelong dream was about to come true.
    Six months after that he received his first royalty check. It was for $120,392.
    Tony never told his band-mates how much they got paid. He wrote them each a check for $10,000 and they were ecstatic to get it.
    The song faded from the scene as fast as it’d exploded onto it, and the next royalty check was $16,820. It was the last one he ever saw.
    Columbia released another two singles from the album, but they were universally panned as crap. Not much later, they sent Tony an official note, dropping him.
    He tried again the following summer, but the second album went nowhere. Even he knew in his heart that the new songs were worthless, written too quickly, not enough sparkle, nothing radio would like.
    Tony was a one-hit wonder, a label he detested with a passion. He felt like a joke, a tricky question buried in some secretive edition of Trivial Pursuit, a guy who’d had one shot and blew it.
    There was only one good thing that came from the whole thing: Cindy Jameson. When he was riding on the top of the rainbow, he drove over to her station.
    She met him before her show started and he was stunned. It was late August and she was dressed as if she were going to the beach, not going to work. She wore a pair of ultra-short, faded cut-off blue jeans and a tight tank top that showed off her body perfectly. Her long blonde hair seemed to call out for him to touch.
    His first thought was, I want to fuck her .
    She interviewed him on air and he floated on cloud nine.
    He did fuck her three days later. Six months after that they were married.
    And eight months after that, he beat her with a sack of oranges. She’d stopped playing Summer Drive on her station, and even though she tried to explain that the song wasn’t new anymore and she’d played it as long as she could, it didn’t matter. He knew she was just abandoning him, and she wasn’t going to get away with that.
    The oranges didn’t leave any marks, which is why he chose them. She had to miss three days of work, though, so the next time, he hit her mostly on her back and arms and legs instead of the stomach. He’d learned his lesson.
     
     

 
     
     
     
Chapter 3
July 4
     
     
    Cindy McKay loved Independence Day. She always had, and this year was no different. If anything, it would be even better than others because Avril was ten years old now and with every passing year, she grew to appreciate special events.
    When Cindy herself had been a child, she remembered her parents taking her out on a cruise on Elliott Bay with aunts, uncles, and cousins. It was the one day each year the entire Jameson clan tried to get together for a party out on the water, waiting for the fabulous fireworks display that would come after dark.
    Even now, she remembered the thrill and excitement she felt each year.
    She and Tony had tried to capture at least a portion of that excitement. For the past couple of years, Tony had picked up a box of fireworks and orchestrated a spectacular show in the back of their yard. Avril’s best friend, Laurie, was always invited. Cindy would meticulously arrange a barbeque dinner ahead of time: chicken thighs for her and Tony, burgers for the girls. Then they’d hang out in the yard and throw the Frisbee or play catch with a softball, with the games usually degrading into Avril and Laurie grabbing some dolls and playing with them in the bushes on the east side of the yard.
    That’s the part I love the most , thought Cindy. Watching my little girl playing happily with her friend.
    The two girls would never be mistaken for sisters, since Laurie was several inches taller and probably thirty pounds heavier than Avril.