“Thank you for your gift of music.” Again that hint of a smile played in the corner of his lips.

Nola shut the door behind her, dropped into an armchair upholstered in brocade, and kicked off her shoes. The room, although temporary, was filled with mahogany furniture, brocade draperies, silk rugs, lamps, objets d’art. Wade had spared no expense in creating for her a scene of unbridled excess. A beautiful interview setting. A dungeon of loneliness.

She wiggled her toes on the rug with its lone pink lily floating on blue water and dropped her face into her hands. She heard Wade outside keeping journalists and assistants at bay until she “freshened up.” She would rather he let them all in—the reporters, musicians, staffers and stylists. Anything to put the stagnant air in motion. Even have Wade come in and, for once, love her for who she was—not the performer, but the person. In her head, a bass chord gathered force. Surrounded by people, she had no one. How different would she have felt had her parents and sister been here, or anywhere. She started to cry.

The words of Janis Joplin, who had been a friend of her parents, echoed through her mind. “Tonight I made love to thousands of people, but I went home alone.”

A flock of stylists and assistants were tending to her hair and face, massaging her feet, and fluffing her ice-blue dress. Wade strode in, muttering into his cell phone. His solid figure looked tapered in his Italian-cut tux. He covered the mouthpiece, examined Nola's gown, and one of his pale blue eyes winked. “You’re beautiful, Honey. Ready for the big exit scene?” He gave her bottom a pat, and she felt her nostrils flare in annoyance. She would speak to him about this gesture, even if it meant opening the gate to an argument.

Jean-Claude, a small-framed man with big nose and ears and motorized by nervous energy, drained a glass of champagne. “One concert down, five more to go, and you’ll be the star on top of every Christmas tree. Ten million more records sold! Didn’t I promise?” Jean-Claude asked in his French accent, an affectation, no doubt. He had too good an ear not to have perfected his pronunciation after nine years in New York. He blew Nola a kiss and dipped into a floor-sweeping bow that reset her mood. “And now I must breast-feed my musicians. A bientôt. See you soon at the hotel party, my Ginger Goddess.”

She laughed at the name he had coined for her reddish hair. “A bientôt,” she mimicked him. “I love you, but you’re crazy.”

He jumped and kicked his heels. “Cute-crazy. Good-crazy, yes?”