by Nathan Roden
“Excuse me?” I said.
“My producer asked me what I wanted for my sixteenth birthday, and I told him I wanted to redo your demos. He did better than that. He got copies of the studio master tapes.”
“So, they’re both onboard for your plan,” I said.
Skyler crossed her arms.
“I won’t lie to you,” she said. “There is some opposition.”
Pow!
That’s the sound of the bursting bubble—the explosion of the dream.
“Opposition?” Nate said.
“Yes,” Skyler said. “Opposition.”
Nate’s shoulder slumped.
“No one doubts that Wylie has talent,” Skyler said. “That’s not the problem. The problem is the Golden Goose.”
I looked at Nate.
“Go ahead,” I said. “We’re lost again.”
“Me,” Skyler said. “I’m the problem. I’ve been the Goose that lays the golden eggs since I was five. Everyone is afraid of the fallout from the scandal from ‘Voice’.” They’re all afraid that my career will be damaged—or destroyed.”
“Wylie didn’t do anything wrong,” Nate said.
“We all know that—” Skyler said.
“But they’re right,” I said. “I understand perfectly why they would try to discourage you.”
“That’s right, Wylie,” Skyler said. “But this isn’t all about you.”
“It isn’t?” I asked.
“First, there’s the music,” she said. “What did you think of our voices—together, I mean?”
“You’re joking, right?” Nate said. “That was phenomenal.”
“Precisely,” she said. “The music is ‘can’t miss’. With the right songs, the right production, the right marketing, and the perfectly structured ‘super-tour’, this thing works. But that’s only part of it.”
“I like that part,” I said. “We can talk about that part all you want. In fact, I’m not really sure that we need any more parts.”
“I’m not talking about just you, Wylie,” she said.
“Well, of course not,” I said. “What else are we talking about?”
“We’ve done extensive polling,” Skyler said. She still had her little notebook open.
“Forty-four percent of my current fan-base is girls thirteen to sixteen,” she read.
“The Hormone Brigade,” Nate said.
“Exactly,” Skyler said. “And while my television persona has been allowed to have very innocent and temporary relationships with boys, I’ve never had anything approaching a serious romance. There has never been a boy referred to as ‘boyfriend’.”
“How about off-screen boyfriends?” I asked.
Nate gave me a strange look.
“That has been carefully guarded as well,” Skyler said. “As I said, you don’t mess around with the Golden Goose.”
“My point is that I stand to benefit from an alliance as well,” Skyler said. “The entire world knows that I just turned eighteen. I believe that by recording together and touring together, not only will we be creating an excellent product with a huge earning potential, but the resulting publicity that will surround our…cooperative efforts, will spark maximum media interest across my demographic.”
“Wow,” Nate said. “My general manager would be weeping right now if he was hearing this.”
I sighed. “All my life, I have dreamed of being a ‘Maximum Demographic Stimulator’.”
“I know what I’m doing,” Skyler said. “Being an artist doesn’t mean you have to be stupid about business.”
“How do you plan to deal with this—opposition?” I asked.
It was Skyler’s turn to sigh.
“You’re still associated with the ‘Voice’ scandal,” she said. “And although it’s not exactly front-page news, there are rumblings that you like to follow your encores with fist-fights.”
“Well, you can see that I was thinking ahead,” I said. “We don’t have to fabricate a ‘bad-boy’ image for me. I’ve already done it.”
Skyler didn’t appreciate the humor.
“Look, I’m not going to apologize for not allowing some idiot to yell whatever he feels like at my shows,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, it’s self-defense.”
“Look, I’m not trying to be your mother,” Skyler said. “Or your Sunday-school teacher. I’m telling you what other people talk about, and what they remember. Have you ever heard the saying ‘perception is reality’? Welcome to show business.”
“So, what happens now?” I asked.
Skyler finally quit pacing, took a deep breath, and sat down.
“Actually, this weekend will be the best time to meet and make plans. My two biggest supporters are in St. Louis now. They leave on Monday,” Skyler said.
“I’m guessing that you need these ‘supporters’ there because of the ‘opposition’,” I said.
“Hey, this weekend will work out great, Wyles,” Nate said. “We’ll already be in St. Louis, for the concert.”
I saw Skyler’s jaw drop a little. Something had changed. Something bad. And then it hit me.
Nate was not a part of her plans.
Crap.
“That’s perfect,” she said. Her eyes didn’t match the enthusiasm of the statement.
“Oh, man,” I said. “What am I going to do about Toby?”
“Hey, just leave him with—” Nate started to say. He must have seen the shocked look on my face. Yep. He was about to say ‘leave him with Duncan’.
“I hate leaving him anywhere,” I said.
“I’ll tell you what,” Skyler said, taking out her phone. “St. Louis has a ‘dog lover’s’ hotel. It’s not far from where the concert is.” She hit a few numbers. “St. Louis information, please.”
“A dog hotel?” Nate said. “There is such a thing as a dog hotel?”
I shrugged.
Skyler pulled the phone away from her head.
“Are you going up tonight or tomorrow?” she asked.
“Uh, tomorrow, I guess,” I said.
“Reservations for two adults,” she said as she raised her other hand, palm down, and rocked it back and forth.
“Oh, aren’t we funny,” Nate whispered.
“This place has a kennel next to it, connected by a breezeway,” Skyler said while she was on hold. “Bells and whistles out the wazoo. I think it’s a brilliant idea. St. Louis is in the middle of the country, and lots of people like to travel with their pets.”
“Cool,” I said.
“That’s right,” Skyler said to the desk clerk. “Three nights, beginning tomorrow. Two rooms for two adults, and one male West Highland Terrier. Just a sec.” She reached into her purse and pulled out a wallet. She rattled off a credit card number. Nate and I both started to protest, but she waved us off without even looking at us.
“The expiration is June of next year. Yes, Skyler KwyK. Oh, thank you! That is so sweet! Wait, wait, wait! I almost forgot. The reservations are for Mr. Westerhouse and Mr. Barlow. Thank you again. Excuse me? Ahhh, sure. Put her on.” There was a pause as Skyler rolled her eyes.
“Hello? Yes, how are you? This is Skyler KwyK.” Skyler jerked the phone away from her head. We all laughed at the sound of two screaming girls that could be heard across the room.
When the screaming subsided, Skyler put the phone on ‘speaker’.
“What’s your name again? Cheryl? It’s nice to meet you, Cheryl. And your friend’s name? Valerie,” The screaming started again but didn’t last quite as long.
“Tell you what, Cheryl and Valerie—you’re both listening right?” Skyler said. Of course, they were. “We’ll be doing a few shows in St. Louis early next year. You two take good care of my friends and their sweet puppy, Toby, and I’ll hook both of you up with backstage passes. Sound like a deal?”
I don’t understand how two girls who are old enough to work at a hotel can scream that loud and that long without sustaining some type of permanent damage. It went on
for a long time.
When the call was finally over we were all out of breath.
“If you want to make any ‘normal’ phone calls, Wylie,” Skyler said. “You had better make them now. You will be facing that same kind of thing.”
“I can always call my mother,” I said. “She’ll never be that impressed with me.”
The look on Skyler’s face told me that we had that in common.
Duncan came home early that evening. Nate was still there. He kept staring into space and shaking his head. He was still reeling from our afternoon with Skyler KwyK.
Nate and I took turns reliving the adventure with Duncan. There was a little bit of deja vu about that night. I was reminded of the nights when Nate, Duncan and I were kids. We spent countless hours making crazy plans for the future.
Duncan was excited about what happened right here in my house, but it was not the same. There was no way that it could be. Duncan was no longer a part of the band.
I was thrilled to have my brother with me, but I knew that it was temporary; it’s not the best thing—for any of us. None of the ghosts know why they are ghosts, but they all seem to know that it was just one extra step in their journey.
It’s a layover between the real worlds—this one and the next. And it could come to an end at any time.
Thirteen
Wylie Westerhouse
Branson, Missouri
My alarm clock went off for the first time. I allow myself a maximum of two “snoozes”. I once heard that it’s not good for your brain for you to jump right out of bed in the morning. That was a long time ago that I heard that, and I don’t remember the source. It might have been Pee-Wee Herman.
Duncan was up and moving around. I heard him laughing.
“Looks like you’re going to keep that lipstick for a while, Buddy Boy,” he said from somewhere in the house.
“Are you coming to the castle, Dunk?” I asked him on my way to the bathroom.
“You betcha, Bro,” Duncan said. “I’ve already showered and shaved.”
“Yeah, right,” I said, scratching my stomach. “Rub it in, why don’t you?”
“One of the perks, Wyles,” he said. “I didn’t make the rules. I just roll with them.”
“Since when are you a morning person?” I asked.
“Well, we don’t eat, so I don’t have that pesky digestive process slowing me down,” Duncan said. “I also don’t have nightmares or insomnia.”
“So you can channel all of your energy toward your new stone-cold fox of a girlfriend,” I said.
“She’s not officially my girlfriend,” Duncan said.
“Did you put in a change-of-address?” I asked. “Your ‘Official Girlfriend’ certificate should be here any day now.”
“You didn’t mention that she’s also an older woman…” Duncan said.
I nodded. “Yes, there’s also that. It’s a good thing that her old man likes you. That could mess you up if he didn’t.”
Yes,” Duncan said. “He could have me drawn-and-quartered in the Town Square, or force me to joust with Sir Stabs-A-Lot—”
“Or Sir Shish-K-Bob,” I said. “They might chop you up for Chunky Dunky stew—and then put your severed head on a pole on top of the castle wall for the crows to—”
“God, Wylie,” Duncan said with a sour face. “Not everybody is the horror-freak like you are.”
“Sorry,” I said.
“I’ve noticed that you’re still in love with those gross-out movies,” Duncan said. “You’ve been through a bunch of them since I’ve been here. Some of them are just plain sick.”
“Yeah,” I said. “They haven’t made that many good ones lately. I love the classics.”
“Yeah, like the ones with that guy in them,” Duncan said, pointing to the cardboard Christopher Lee/Dracula.
I nodded.
“Exactly. Christopher Lee—Vampire Extraordinaire.”
“Does he put people’s heads on poles?” Duncan asked.
“No,” I said. “That’s a reference from Game of Thrones.”
“What’s that?” he asked.
“We’ll get you caught up,” I said. “I have the whole series, so far. We’ll do a binge.”
“A what?” he asked.
“You know,” I said. “A binge. That’s when you watch a bunch of the same episodes of a series back-to-back.”
“You know what, Wylie?” Duncan said. “Some of the changes in the last ten years don’t sound all that mentally healthy.”
“Probably not,” I said.
“Not to mention that you probably wear out a VCR every six months,” Duncan said.
“VCR?” I said. “Is that what we used to—?”
Duncan crossed his arms with an exasperated look.
“Sorry,” I said. “Things are changing fast these days, Dunk.”
“Well, multiply that times about a million, and that’s how I deal with Nora and her family,” Duncan said.
“You should have thought about that before you got yourself a really, really, old girlfriend,” I said.
“I don’t think my getting a girlfriend was part of ‘the master plan’—whatever that might be,” Duncan said. “The only reason we met at all is because somebody has friends that move large buildings around the planet for grins and giggles.”
“Yeah, and what else might be different if I didn’t have a friend like that?” I said. “You might have been lying on the end of my sofa until I turned into the old man who scratches himself all day and yells at the neighborhood kids.”
“Speaking of gross,” Duncan screwed up his face. “Your brain takes some strange detours, Wylie—which is not really anything new.”
“That’s why my senior class voted me ‘Most Likely to Remain Consistent’,” I said.
“Did they really?” Duncan whispered. “Did you get a trophy, or a plaque or something?” He looked around the living room. “Where do you keep it?”
“Puhlease,” I said. “What do you and Nora do all day? I can’t even imagine. I’ve been busy training the new guys to do the castle tours.”
“Nora is really close to her family, as you would imagine, after five hundred years of isolation,” Duncan said. “So, we’re all together most of the time. I have absolutely no idea what acceptable dating behavior is to people from their culture. I don’t even know how to ask. I’ve been reading to them.”
“Really?” I said. “They…I know they can read—”
“Oh, yeah,” Duncan dismissively, “They read better than most people. It’s the turning pages thing that messes them up.”
“But you can’t—”
Duncan shook his head.
“I can barely make a page move at all,” he said. “Charlotte is the page turner. They like for me to read to them from American books. They find our culture fascinating.”
“That’s weird, isn’t it?” I asked. “Meeting people who know absolutely nothing about America. Except for Baywatch, I mean.”
“Yeah!” Duncan said. “What’s the deal with Baywatch? That’s like some kind of inside joke with them. The subject makes Mr. McIntyre turn red. I would hate to make that man mad.”
“You read to Charlotte and Nora?” I asked.
“That’s how it started out,” Duncan said. “But now it’s the whole family. Some days there are more.”
“More than the McIntyres?” I asked.
Duncan nodded.
“The Atkins families and even some of Bruiser’s gang.”
“What are you reading now?” I asked.
“We finished The Hobbit and we’re just starting on the Lord of the Rings.”
I nodded. “Good choice. Are you going to watch the movies?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I have no training as Cultural Media Guide for Medieval Spirit Beings.”
“Wow,” I said. “I’ve got to see this.”
“Yep,” Duncan said. He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms over his head. “I pl
an to find a little bow-tie and a button-up sweater, and begin each session by singing ‘It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood’.”
“That would be epic,” I said. “An epic setting for an epic adventure story.”
“When will you be leaving for Scotland?” Duncan asked.
“Three or four days, I guess,” I said. “A couple of these guys are pretty sharp, and I can tell that they’ve been practicing. Once of them is probably ready right now, but he was sneezing some today; might be coming down with something. I can’t take the chance. If we start to get a bad reputation, the castle could be in trouble all over again.”
“Bummer,” Duncan said. “Hey, what are you going to do about Thanksgiving? Are you going to Boston?”
I squeezed my eyes closed and let my head fall backward.
“I hadn’t even thought about it,” I said. “Thanks a lot.”
A thought suddenly occurred to me, and I began ticking off fingers…
“Oh, man,” I said. “Your birthday is the day after Thanksgiving this year. Black Friday!”
Duncan shook his head. “Close. It’s Thanksgiving Day.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Twenty-second is on Thursday.”
“I’ll be hearing from Mom for sure, then,” I said.
“Hey,” Duncan said. “Having a mother that wants you home for Thanksgiving —that’s a first-world problem, Bro.”
“Yeah,” I said. Something else was bugging me, but I couldn’t quite put a finger on it.
Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Thursday. November.
“Holy crap!” I yelled and ran toward my room.
“What…?” Duncan said. He followed me to my room where I yanked open my desk drawer and rifled through some bills and statements. There it was.
“What day is it?” I said, probably too fast to sound like English.
“Uh, Thursday, I think,” Duncan said. “The thirteenth.”
I exhaled and sat down hard on my bed.
“What’s that?” Duncan asked.
I waved the concert ticket in the air.
