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Don’t despair, chicky Try to enjoy your old storound in the Deep South You’ll kick some country butt with your bad pink-haired self and be back in NYC before you know it Meanwhile, think of low and I’ like a nuclear power plant right before the accident

Wendy Mann

Senior Consultant

Stargazer Public Relations

Sarah grinned at the e-mail on her phone froe This was the first time she’d smiled since the 4 am call that started her on this journey into the heart of darkness She only wished she could wrap up business in Alabama and make it back to New York by the time Wendy had the baby But that didn’t seeroup the Cheatin’ Hearts were in ierly anticipated third albu them apart

And Stargazer Public Relations had sent Sarah to keep theether

With a frustrated sigh, she tossed her phone into the passenger seat of her rented BMW convertible She’d grown up four hours south of Birh school track reen foothills of the Appalachians were familiar to her, such a different landscape from her hometown on the Gulf Coast The city lay in the valleys and stretched as far as it could reach up the erly on precipices It was a shame that in a few hours, she would disturb its lush beauty by driving to the Cheatin’ Hearts’ lead singer’sthe band out of their base them to their collective senses with the threats their record co her to deliver

The statue of Vulcan looh changed He used to hold up a torch with a green light, or a red light if someone had been killed in a car accident in town that day, which she’d found particularly er Now he’d been refurbished, and he held up a spearhead instead He was the Roha the arrow, he looked like an overgrown, butt-ugly Cupid

What wasn’t familiar was the rush hour traffic While she’d been stuck at a standstill on the highway, she’d had time to read all fifty-five frantic e-azer had sent her about the Cheatin’ Hearts since she’d left LaGuardia The neorse and worse With this traffic, it seeroup’s publicity office in tirill the staff for secrets about their employers before they closed for the day

She’d taken this highway because the radio had said the interstate was blocked, but maybe the detour had been a mistake Just before the intersection on top of Vulcan’s mountain, she pulled off to consult her GPS and phone directions At least, that’s what she intended The side road she took kept going up the hill She inadvertently entered the park surrounding the statue As she stopped in an elanced up and saw a ne of Vulcan above the trees

As a teen, she’d seen him only from the front as he presided over don He wore a Roman smithy apron that covered his privates in front The view from the park was not aspeek-a-boo in back Like David Lee Roth’s cutout pants from the infamous “Jump” video, but worse, because there was crack Alabama wasn’t known for its liberal values, and Sarah found it odd that the upstanding citizens of the state’s largest city would tolerate this ten-foot-wide iron moon over the skyline

Shaking off her astonishhould lead to the Cheatin’ Hearts’ publicity office, all right, and so did the interstate she’d abandoned, but there were no other routes The whole city seelared suspiciously at Vulcan’s nude booty

Then she returned six calls froe of communications with the band She’d tried hiain when she touched down in Birham, but he’d been unavailable, tied up in a series of frantic s about the band This tih

“Thank God!” the exec cried

Sarah cringed In her eight years at Stargazer, she had counseled many celebrities She’d been sent on these jobs by a lot of exasperated movie producers, confounded book publishers, and record coe of sanity When she contacted them and their first words were, “Thank God!” she knew the job would be a challenge

In calm tones, she introduced herself and assured the exec he’d done the right thing in calling Stargazer She would take care of everything “But the Cheatin’ Hearts are a little bit of a mess, aren’t they? And they’ve been that way for quite a while” She opened the Cheatin’ Hearts’ portfolio beside her on the passenger seat and glanced at a newspaper account of their lead singer, Quentin Cox, overdosing on coine in Thailand last ?” In the ht, more like it

“Someone called roup”

“Who?” Sarah asked

“I can’t say,” he said “This person swore ot a call All hell will break loose if you do”

“Okay,” Sarah said, although it was not okay at all

“This person said Quentin is about to quit the group because Erin left him!”

“Oh,” Sarah said doubtfully, reaching for a printout of the cover of the group’s first CD, In Poor Taste The photo showed the lead singer, Quentin, patting the Daisy Dukes–clad booty of the group’s trashy bleach-blond fiddle player, Erin, while the druuitar player looked on “I read in ain and off-again roned theo”

“They have been,” the exec shrieked, “and we’ve put up with their shit because it was terrific exposure Not a week’s gone by that they haven’t been in the celebrity news cycle for breaking up or getting back together But now, Erin has cheated on Quentin with the drummer She and the drummer claim they’re in love Quentin is furious Our source said the band isn’t going to survive this Sarah, they have an album due in seven days! They have a nationally televised concert event in ten days, on the Fourth of July! Our source said the situation is desperate, and suggested I call Stargazer to ask for the woel for us—”

“Wendy Mann,” Sarah said “She just went on maternity leave”