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Chapter Thirty-Seven


The last day in April started out crappy. It was one of those days that kind of have a foreboding feeling to them. I almost didn't get out of bed. Which wouldn't have been much different than normal by that point. Ever since the video shoot the week before that's pretty much all I'd done - lay in bed. I was just so tired, I couldn't seem to get enough sleep, and the stupidest things just completely exhausted me - like grocery shopping or doing a load of laundry.

"Checks came," Kevin said, holding up the envelope to me as I entered the kitchen. I took it from his hand and opened the cupboard for my cereal. "You're not going to be happy," he added.

"Why?" I pulled a bowl out and a spoon.

Kevin looked up from the paper he was reading. "Well, that raise Lou supposedly gave us is reflected in it..." he said slowly.

I put the bowl and my cereal down on the table and opened the envelope. Pulling the check out, I stared at the bottom line and did some quick math in my head. "Seventy five cents?" I said, dumbstruck.

Kevin gave me a rueful sort of expression.

"This is bullshit," I snapped. I threw the check onto the table.

Kevin nodded, biting his lips.

I looked at the check, sitting there on the table like it was a disease, my blood starting to boil. I shook my head. "It's insulting he thought that would wipe up the problem," I said, "Just like it's insulting he paid off Jane Carter, just like everything else he's ever done." I turned and grabbed the milk out of the fridge and slammed the door in my annoyance.

"Hey now, don't take it out on our old ass appliances unless you wanna use that check there to buy another fridge," Kevin said.

"I wouldn't be able to fricking afford to," I snapped. I poured the cereal and the milk and returned the gallon to the fridge. "What a bastard," I said, slamming the door shut again.

"Hey, what did I just say about taking it out on the fridge?" snapped Kevin.

Howie came into the kitchen, groggy, hair a mess. "Why's Brian beating up ol' Betsy for?" he asked.

"Lou gave us a raise," Kevin said in an ironic tone.

"Seventy-five whole cents!" I said, "Don't go spending it all in one place, Howard."

Howie blinked blurrily at me. "I'd love to be angry and pissed off too but I don't think I'm awake enough for that yet, so I'll just say that bastard and get back to you on the angry and pissed off." He opened the fridge and pulled out creamer and waddled to the coffee machine in the corner.

Kevin shrugged, "I suppose he'll want praise for giving us a raise at all."

"Well he doesn't deserve praise," I said, "He deserves --" I couldn't even think of anything, so I let my sentence drop there and picked the check back up with one hand as I shovelled cereal into my mouth with the other. "I'm willing to bet there are few multiplatinum artists that need to consider a second job in this world," I said.

"Maybe Bobby McFerrin," Kevin joked.

"Sinead O'Connor," Howie mumbled.

"Oh yeah, the bald chick," Kevin laughed. "Ah, one hit wonders. Gotta love'em."

I looked between Howie and Kevin. "How in the hell are you guys joking about this?" I demanded, "Doesn't it piss you off? He's stealing our money and using it to buy those... those.. ridiculous, multiple hundred dollar suits he wears all the time." I thought of Leighanne at the airport the day Lou had requested we say she was my cousin. I thought of how annoyed by him she was. She wasn't even directly involved and she had more to say on the subject than Kevin and Howie seemed to.

"Of course it does," Kevin said.

"Then why aren't we doing anything about it?" I demanded.

Kevin and Howie exchanged a look. Kevin turned back to his news paper.

I shook my head. I got up and shoved my bowl into the sink. "Cowards," I said simply. I went to my room, grabbed my keys and my wallet, and ducked out of the apartment before either of them came after me. In the car, I turned on the radio and turned it to the country channel and just drove around Orlando aimlessly, blowing off steam. I couldn't believe that I was seriously the only person pissed off enough to actually want to do something about Lou and the money thing. I didn't understand.

I mean I know money isn't the end all and isn't why we were in the business - we were in it for the music, for the smiles we provided the fans, for the art of it - but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that part of the shock and awe of fame is the financial stability, having the security to not have to worry about money anymore... And the rate we were going, it wouldn't matter how famous we became, only Lou would have that security. Lou, I realized, was a coward, too. Maybe he feared paying us enough, that we'd become independent of him. Maybe he feared allowing us too much control, too much freedom. Maybe he feared losing us.

I didn't consciously mean to, but I drove past Leighanne's house and her car was missing from the driveway. I wondered where she was, what she was doing, who she was with...

I drove home and went inside. Kevin was waiting for me in the living room, dirty brow already in place. "What was that?" he demanded.

"I needed space," I answered, heading to my room.

"Nuh-uh," Kevin shook his head, "Get back here." Howie was sitting on the couch, trying to look apart from the situation, but Kevin said, "Howie and I have been talking. After this tour, I think we should all work on getting a lawyer and review this contract and figure out what we can do to change the situation. We can all talk to Lou, we can all work on this together."

I sighed. "Why wait?"

"We need time to research this," Kevin said, "We need time to get AJ and Nick into this, and we need time to know what we're talking about, to talk to other artists and see what they're making compared to us, to get the full picture."

"It just seems wrong to just let him steal from us for another few months," I said flatly.

Kevin nodded, "Yes, it does. But we need to be prepared going into this or we're going to get screwed over."

"We already are," I answered. I looked up the hallway, "Can I go now?"

"Yeah."

I heard him and Howie saying something as I went up the hall, but I didn't stay to listen to them. I took a couple aspirin and went in my room and curled up on my bed, staring at the drawer, unable to put words or thoughts around how I was feeling, just knowing that something was wrong. It was all wrong. Leighanne was right. I wasn't willing to fight for myself - but neither were the other guys. I wasn't the only one being so passive about the situation, and I wasn't the eldest and I wasn't the strongest, I wasn't the one who took the lead.

I closed my eyes and allowed myself to fall asleep.

I had that dream again. The one where Lou pulls my heart from my chest, and the guys are all fighting over it. Only this time, as they grappled over my heart, I lay there screaming for them to stop fighting over it, begged them to all get along, to see what was really important. And Kevin looked at me, his eyes hungry and desperate, and he said, "You're no better, just look at your blood!" and I looked down at my chest and found cash pouring from the hole Lou had made. It flowed out of me like crazy, and I tried to cover the hole, to stop it from flowing out of me, but nothing could stop it, and the more I tried the more panicked I got and the harder the flow gushed the money.

I sat up in bed and took deep, sharp breaths. I'd slept through the night, and early morning sunlight peeked through the window. I put my hand over my chest where the hole had been in my dream because even though it was a dream, even though it was all in my head, I could still feel it there, still feel the blood money pouring out of me.

Even though it was only five-thirty, Kevin was already in the kitchen. He looked tired, and he was staring into a cup of black coffee. I poured myself a matching cup and sat down at the table. He didn't look up. "Couldn't sleep," he muttered.

"I'm sorry," I said.

He shook his head, "You're right," he said quietly. "I am a coward. When it comes to this, I am a coward. I'm scared to lose everything we've worked so hard for."

"I am, too," I replied.

"We should talk to the guys tomorrow, on the flight to Monte-Carlo," he said.

I nodded.

Nick arrived at our apartment at 9:30, a pair of Mickey Mouse ears already perched on his head, eager and ready to go. He was talking a mile a minute and I envied Jane being able to just drop him off and escape. By ten, AJ had arrived too and we all piled into my SUV and we drove to meet Lou so we could head over Disney to start getting ready for the show at Grad Night.

The park was already humming with activity by the time we got there. Lou brought us to the stage by Splash Mountain and made Nick get rid of the mouse ears, which he did very reluctantly. It was a muggy day, the sort that you can just feel the rain coming on in the air, and made our t-shirts stick to us. When Lou cut us loose for a couple hours to explore the park, Nick and I both tossed baseball caps on and tried our best to blend in. We spent most of our time waiting in line at Splash Mountain.

After we'd been soaked, we wandered and Nick bought a big cloud of cotton candy, which be picked as he talked about various high school experiences he wished he'd had and asking me what they were like, since I'd had a pretty typical high school life. We were on our way back to the stage when I spotted a Donald Duck character walking towards us and I did my Donald Duck voice and Nick laughed. His laugh made me miss Leighanne's laughter. The Duck voice was one of her favorites, she'd told me, and the last time we'd made love, when she'd suggested it, I'd exclaimed "Oh boy oh boy oh boy!" in the voice.

"Bri-i-i-i-an," Nick sing-songed at me.

"Sorry," I said, realizing I'd fallen into a memory, staring at Donald. "What?"

"The stage is this way," Nick thumbed to the right.

"Oops," I said, doubling back.

The show went really well, the grads crowded the stage and seemed to know the lyrics. Everyone got really into the music, and the energy was just incredible coming off the audience. Probably because they were all super-charged being at Disney World and Graduating and everything. It was the first time all week that I didn't feel run down and tired, and I poured myself into the show.

We were coming off the stage, exit music playing, the crowd cheering loudly as some emcee took over the microphones, when a sharp pain went through my chest. I caught the rail of the steps I was going down, but only just barely, and tripped into AJ. "Jesus, watch it," AJ snapped.

"Sorry," I said through gritted teeth, wincing from the stabbing jolt that had just run through my chest. I rubbed it with the heel of my hand, took a deep breath, and, though I felt shaky on my feet, I tried not to let it show what had just happened. I didn't want to ruin the buzz from the show. I leaned against one of the folding chairs they'd set up for us in the 'backstage' area where we were supposed to do an interview in a few minutes. The pain was blossoming through my nervous system, like blood flowering out of a bullet wound, like they money in my dream had done.

Thinking of the dream sent an ice-cold chill down my spine.

"Great! The show looks good, the show looks good," the stage production guy for Disney said, grinning as he walked by, carrying a clipboard. He gave us the thumbs-up.

Once he was passed, Lou rolled his eyes, "The show looks good," he sneered, "You people were clumsy out there tonight, careless."

I looked up in surprise at Lou, "What?" I asked, "That was one of the best shows we've done yet this run," I argued.

Lou scoffed, "You can do much better," he answered. And he proceeded to nit pick his way through out entire performance, beginning to end, saying every kink, every little tiny minor detail he was going to pound out of us in the rehearsals that we were going to be doing everyday between now and the tour. He stood behind Nick, his hand coming to land in its' old resting place - Nick's shoulder - making Nick's face drop into a painful expression. "Which, incidentally," he said, "I've added a few more dates onto the tour." His eyes met mine, "I hope that's not a problem? It's not very many, but we got some offers from a few more very prestigious venues. Including Argentina and Canada. This thing is going global, Boys!"

Howie was looking at me from across the room. Kevin was staring down at his knees. AJ was rocking himself ever so slightly in his chair. Nick's eyes were trained on Lou's hand, which now tightened to squeeze his shoulder.

"We'd be back from Argentina on September 20th," Lou said directly to me. "It's only one more month, and it's such an incredible opportunity for you..."

Silence filled the room. Everyone was waiting on me to say something. My hand was still pressed to my chest, my heart beating rapidly. I felt like I was going to throw up as the room seemed to spin around me, Lou and Nick and everyone seemed blurry. I closed my eyes... took a deep breath... and opened them, looking Lou square in the face.

"No." I said.

"Excuse me?" he asked.

"I said --- NO."

Lou looked stunned for a moment. "No?"

"Yeah," I said nodding, "That's right. NO." I reached over and slapped his hand off of Nick's shoulder. "Get your filthy fingers off my friend, while you're at it. Haven't you learned a thing? Or did you think he was only worth a hundred grand? That now you've bought and paid for him?" Nick looked at me with a sick expression. "Don't you ever put your fat, fucking fingers on him again," I demanded. "And you keep your prestigious tour dates, you keep your fucking global tour dates. Go sing on the stages yourself, go perform this show yourself. If we're so God-awful at doing it that we need a daily rehearsal then maybe you should haul your ass up on that stage and maybe you should show us how it's done. Maybe you should give doing all the work we do a try. Since you're getting paid twice as much as all of us combined are gettin' paid anyways, you might as well do the work."

Lou looked at me, flabbergasted. "What in the hell is your --"

"What's my problem, Lou? Really? You need to ask what my problem is?" I interrupted, "YOU are my problem, YOU. You and your greed, you and your lack of compassion, your lack of caring about anything or anyone other than yourself. Everything is all about you, you and your precious schedule. Not everything in the world is about you, not everything in the world revolves around and works into your precious schedule."

"Are you quite finished?" he snapped.

"No," I answered, "No, I am not finished actually. Lou, we are human beings Lou, we need things like time off and breaks. We're world famous and we're struggling to make ends meet financially. Nick's mother was so desperate for money she was willing to sell her son to you. And you're so disgusting that you thought you could buy him, like he was cattle. Like we're all cattle. We're not cattle, Lou. We're not cattle and you can't buy us or break us."

Lou looked really shocked now, and the fellas were all looking at me, their eyes wide, expressions pale.

"You don't get to dictate who we fall in love with or what we do with our lives. You work for us, YOU work for US. You aren't a king, a dictator, or a god. You're nothing like a god. You're a lazy old man." I shook my head, "You don't get to tell me that I can't have surgery to fix my heart. You don't get to decide how long I can push it back. You don't get to decide when I'm gonna die, or how much money I am worth. You can't put a price tag on me, I won't let you. I am worth more than a tour date at the MGM Grand. Maybe not to you, but to some people I am. To my mother I am, to my father. And to Leighanne Wallace I am."

Lou snorted, "Oh really? And where is she?" he snapped.

"She is the only person with enough sense to do what I should've done the first time that you made me postpone my heart surgery, Lou. She's the only person who had the balls to do what we all should've done the first time you made me postpone the heart surgery. She left." I stood up, my hands and knees shaking, my mouth and esophogus burning with acid as my stomach flared with nerves. My innards felt like they were searing with pain. "Now I am finished."

And having said that, I turned and I ran out the door. I ran through the crowds of high school seniors milling around the park, through all the colorful sets, past all the smiling, laughing faces. I ran, my knees weak, my palms sweating. Past all the rides, through the front gates. I looked into the ticketing booth and asked the girl there to call me a cab, and she did, and within ten minutes' time I'd been dropped off at Lou's house, where I got in my SUV and I drove home. I took the steps into the apartment two at a time, rushed into my room, ripped open the drawer and grabbed the ring and the pad of legal paper. I ran back to the SUV and drove to her house, parked behind her little white car, walked to the front door and knocked with purpose upon it.

When the door opened, she was wearing jeans and a green silky tanktop. Her hair was up in curlers, no make-up on her face. She probably thought she looked hideous but I thought she was gorgeous. "Brian?" she stammered, surprised. "Aren't you supposed to be at Grad Night?"

"I was. We did the show... and afterwards, this producer guy, he was walking by, and he said to us great, the show looks good, the show looks good."

She still looked confused.

"In seventh grade lit class, we had an assignment where we had to write a paper on a cliched phrase. We got to pick the phrase we wanted to do it on, and I picked famous last words. I did so much research for the paper, it was crazy. I found all these amazing examples of last words. I found funny ones and ironic ones and ones that would make you feel motivated and prideful and ones that could bring tears to your eyes... and I spend days when I did the paper trying to come up with something brilliant for my own famous last words to end the paper with..."

Leighanne's eyes were saddening as I spoke.

"And that producer, what he said, they reminded me of this Broadway guy whose quote fascinated me at the time. Florenz Zeigfeld. He died in 1932, and his last words were 'Curtain! Fast music! Lights! Ready for the last finale! Great! The show looks good. The show looks good.'"

"Brian..." Leighanne started, but I interrupted her.

"I don't want those to be my last words."

She stared at me for a long moment, "What are you saying?"

"I walked out," I said, "I walked away." I drew a deep breath, "I'm going to my mother's house and I am telling her what is going on and then I am going to Rochester and Dr. Danielson is going to cut open my chest and he's going to fix my heart, and --" I paused. I reached into my pocket and took out her ring. "Leighanne, I need you. I need you. We can share our dreams and our lives coming true. I can show you what true loves means, if you'll just take my hand." I held the ring out to her. "Baby, please."

Leighanne's eyes filled with tears.

"I can't do this alone," I whispered. "I need you."

"You're going to Rochester now? Not after the tour? Now?" she asked hesitantly.

"Right now."

Leighanne nodded slowly, processing.

"Please," I said, holding the ring out to her again, "Please."

She looked down at it, her eyes spilling over, tears crawling across her cheeks. "Brian," she said on her exhaled breath.

"Leighanne Wallace," I said thickly, "How many times are you going to make me ask you?"

She looked up at me. "Just once more," she whispered through her tears. "Please?" she asked.

And I knew what she was waiting for. So, I knelt down in front of her, still holding it out to her. "Marry me."

"Yes," she said, taking the ring from my fingers. I leaped to my feet and wrapped my arms around her after she'd slid the ring onto her hand. I held her close to me. "A million times, yes," she whispered in my ear.