Revenant Rising

by M. M. Mayle

  A rapid calculation and resetting of his watch to NY time establishes that if he rings home now they’ll just be sitting down to tea, they’ll all be in one place.

  He makes the call with every intention of turning the talk to the leafing-out of specimen trees, the blooming of countless shrubberies, the progress of ongoing restorations and conversions, but all they want to talk about is his surprise appearance at the awards show that they’ve preserved on tape. Even little Simon gets in on the act. When brought to the phone the lad babbles on and on about seeing Dad on telly—“Dad” and “telly” being the only intelligible words. When it’s Anthony’s turn to speak, he’s near-unintelligible in his excitement. Colin’s mother, gone dithery over the win, may or may not be paying attention when told his whereabouts and given the number where he can be reached.

  After ringing off he showers, dresses in his last-remaining clean clothes and falls asleep on an uncluttered couch, the dose of Polks Extra Strength that was supposed to get him over the hump forgotten about.

  Colin is slow coming awake when a phone call announces Nate’s arrival with the luggage. According to his reset watch he slept close to three hours. Not long enough. He’s still in the bath, splashing cold water on his face when the door chime rings; he takes his time answering it.

  After a bellman deposits the bags in the bedroom and is dismissed, Nate confounds expectations by saying nothing whatsoever about the change of venue. He says nothing about the under-the-radar trip to L.A. when he examines the Icon statuette that’s found temporary pride of place on the baby grand piano. No comment about Bemus’s conspicuous absence, either. Maddening this is, this waiting for the other shoe.

  “Well?” Colin says when it appears Nate’s ready to sit down, maybe enjoy a beer.

  “Well what? You looking for congratulations? That it? For this?” Nate remains on his feet, pings the Icon with a snap of middle finger and thumb. “I hope you realize you should’ve left this behind to have personalized.”

  “That the best you can summon?” Colin assumes an adversarial stance.

  “Congratulations are in order, no question about that. And no real surprises there because I’d never have allowed use of ‘Revenant’ in the soundtrack of that movie if I’d thought it wouldn’t win best song.”

  “You just didn’t count on me showin’ up to collect the prize and set matters straight.”

  “I’ll give you that, but I should’ve seen it coming, I should’ve realized you wouldn’t sit still for the insult any more than you’d accept staying at my place when you’re in rebellious mode.”

  “You did recognize it was an insult, then, this bein’ passed over to perform my own bloody tune?”

  “Yeah, I saw the potential for insult—right from the start—and I thought you could live with it once you’d claimed the prize—which was always a given.”

  Nate shows no signs of wanting to stay long. If Colin’s in rebellious mode, Nate’s in wary mode—extreme wary mode—even though there are no metaphorical elephants in the room now that the two touchiest subjects have been addressed.

  “Just so you know, David Sebastian’s office is sending over some reading material. There’ll be the fine points of the agreement we’re seeking from the record label later in the week, the agenda for tomorrow, and profiles of the applicants I’ve assembled for the new team. Reminding me—David’s taken on a new associate who’s slated to work with us throughout the contract negotiations. Her CV is included in the packet they’re sending, so you’ll have a chance to see that her credentials are impeccable. Plus, word has it she was hand-raised by David.”

  “Don’t you mean hand-picked?”

  “I heard that he had something to do with her upbringing. Mentoring, maybe more. May still be something going on between—”

  “Who the fuck cares? I don’t care who she’s sleeping with and neither should you. Don’t waste your time on that shit. You’re turning into a gossipy old woman along with everything else. This new solicitor needs to know how to argue and how to pick holes in contracts, that’s all any of ’em are good for.”

  “Duly noted,” Nate says with a withering expression. “A few more things I want to mention—Kingsolver’s planning a dinner party around you on Friday and if you’re bringing a guest I’ll need to know her name. Next, but not necessarily in order of importance, there’s the matter of every media outlet in the civilized world clamoring for a statement about your impromptu performance at the Icon show. So far they’ve all been turned down. Subject to change, of course.”

  “There won’t be any change. The old rules still apply in this instance.”

  “Then that means you’re turning down social requests as well?”

  “It does. Unless I make ’em.”

  “You’ll be disappointing a lot of A-list socialites and industry heavies if you don’t make the rounds.”

  “Do I need the connections? Do I actually? Didn’t you say there’s three-four other record labels interested? What do I need with the social shit? The decision stands, so you’d better be thinkin’ of ways to get me out of breakin’ bread with Kingsolver because I am not sitting down with a bloke that’s out to rob me of both cash and creativity.”

  “Interesting way to put it. I’ll see what I can do.”

  “See that you do.”

  As done with Bemus, Colin rather crowds Nate in the direction of the door, but Nate stalls the attempted bum’s rush with another of his withering glances, this time directed at the surroundings.

  Obvious he is with this faultfinding even before putting it into words. “You must have noticed,” Nate says at conclusion of the prolonged appraisal, “you had to have noticed that along with being too small, this suite has seen better days.”

  “As a matter of fact I did notice.” Colin yanks open the door to the hall and holds it open—wide open. “And a bit too small and a bit worn at the edges is very much to my liking, actually.”

  As though he hadn’t heard, Nate goes on with the critique and remains planted just short of the threshold. “Given more notice, I could have arranged for something more appropriate, more accommodating of your special needs and requirements, but Bemus didn’t let me know until—”

  “What the fuck do you mean ‘arranged’? What the fuck are you talkin’ about when you say Bemus didn’t let you know? Are you sayin’ you’ve been in on this all along?”

  “That surprises you?”

  “Are you saying Bemus was giving you my every move . . . starting in Denver?”

  “He was only following orders and we had to cut it a little tight when you decided to leave L.A. on the red-eye.”

  “Fucking hell! Bleeding fucking hell! Bemus is binned as of now! And you . . . you are on notice. You hear me?”

  “Everyone on this floor hears you,” Nate has the balls to say.

  “That is so goddammed insulting! Shit, you could be on the Institute Awards organizing committee!” Colin cranks up another notch.

  “You’re being rash about Bemus. As I said, he was only doing as told.”

  “Like he’s working for Nazis! And who does he work for, I ask you? Who pays his bloody wages, then? You think I’m gonna let that sort of disloyalty go unnoticed and just roll over and jump through another hoop? Now get the fuck out of here and don’t come back unless you’re called!”

  Colin skims the heel of his hand off top of Nate’s perfectly tailored shoulder. Not precisely a blow, not enough of a shove to propel him out the door the way he got rid of Bemus. No, Nate has to do his own propelling when he finally recognizes threat level.

  Nate’s near-poisonous presence lingers for actual minutes after his departure. For the first of those minutes Colin remains stationed behind the closed and bolted door as though the madly possessive manager might still be on the other side attempting to exert influence. Or Bemus, the turncoat, might have come back to reassert control.

  A move to the windows and the splendid view of the park fails to evoke t
he yearnings felt earlier. Home and springtime are the farthest things from mind now.

  He closes all the curtains, goes to the bar, opens a beer and sits down in front of the telly, tuning it to the music channel where he soon sees a replay of himself at the awards show. When the beer’s gone he returns to the bar, eyes a bottle of whiskey, rejects that notion and goes in search of the room service menu. The phone rings just as he’s about to place an order from the children’s page of the menu. He ignores the ringing. It could be Nate, intent on having the last word. And if it’s home calling they know the drill—to wait an interval then ring again.

  Minutes after he’s finished placing the food order, the phone rings again. This time he picks up only to hear that it’s the front desk calling to say that a representative of Clark, Sebastian & Associates has delivered a packet for him and a hotel staff member will bring it up straightaway.

  TWELVE

  Morning, April 1, 1987

  Minus a bodyguard and the direct involvement of a manager-overseer, Colin prepares to leave the pleasingly imperfect hotel suite. The notes and chordings for a tune he struggled with half the night are locked away with the working title “Angle of Repose,” a title Nate will no doubt disparage as inviting of misinterpretation, as was said of Icon-winning “Revenant.” But that will only happen if Nate is made aware of a work-in-progress and allowed to offer one of his sour opinions.

  The subject of Nate and what to do about his smothering attentions occupied the other half of a sleepless night and wants to linger now when the priority is getting his unattended self to the meeting at David Sebastian’s offices.

  Dressed in a modishly cut suit and a tieless dress shirt, he’s clean-shaven, and brushed, combed, and polished in all the right places. Armed with the packet of unread material sent round by the solicitors, he’s determined to arrive at Rockefeller Center with a minimum of fanfare.

  The ride down in the lift and the passage across the hotel lobby are uneventful. Entry into a taxi on the park side of the hotel attracts no undue notice till the bloke behind the wheel turns out to be the only unjaded cabby in Manhattan. He’s the opposite of blasé about identifying his passenger and demanding a personal account of the hijinks at the Awards Show. Hijinks—the cabby’s irksome expression for something that needed doing—irksome enough to make Colin terminate the trip short of destination.

  Leaving the taxi on Fifth Avenue is no sacrifice. Hiring a taxi was a concession to time rather than the condition of his feet—feet that feel fine now that he’s wearing socks and a pair of bespoke shoes.

  Apace with the flow of humanity moving through the landscaped passageway towards the central plaza, Colin keeps his head down and goes unnoticed. At the core of the Rockefeller Center complex he homes in on a remembered feature—a glassed-in entryway—that always put him in mind of a Paris Metro station. Everything looks much the same as three years ago: the open-view restaurants either side; the colorful array of flags flying opposite; the gaudy statue of Prometheus below; the skaters in agreeable conflict with the spring flowers bordering the ice rink.

  The office tower he enters is remembered by the grandiose artwork in the main lobby. In that lobby he collects a few sidelong glances whilst waiting for the lift. These glancers must be natives because that’s as far as the intrusion goes.

  On the specified floor he’s met by a small pretty girl with curly red hair who blushingly introduces herself as Amanda Hobbs, assistant to Laurel Chandler, and escorts him to a conference room. He has no idea who Laurel Chandler is unless she’s David’s hand-reared new associate, the one Nate went on about yesterday.

  In the large conference room the usual types—publicists, stylists, and marketers by the look of them—are segregated at one end of the long table, and members of Nate’s regular staff are clustered at the other. They all snap to attention once they recognize him; to a man and woman they all offer to see to his every whim and desire, but it’s only wee Amanda who thinks of practicalities by making a direct offer of refreshments.

  He would like a coffee and he could use something to eat, breakfast forgotten in the rush to take care of everything himself. David Sebastian arrives before he can decide what to ask for. With David is an entourage dominated by Nate.

  David extends a cordial welcome without going overboard.

  “Good to see you again.” Colin replies with an equally restrained smile and remains fixed on the senior partner if only to avoid eye contact with Nate.

  “And this is my new associate, Laurel Chandler,” David goes on to say. “She’ll be second-guessing me throughout.” David and Laurel Chandler laugh as though second-guessing were the rarest form of inside joke—some sort of clever, intimate practice known only to them.

  Colin’s outlook is more than a bit cynical when he switches his attention to Laurel Chandler and takes her offered hand.

  “Gah . . . aah,” he says upon finding himself face-to-face with the spectacular brunette from yesterday—the one glimpsed in the hotel lobby. “God is good,” he somehow manages to enunciate whilst holding on to her hand a bit longer than propriety would dictate.

  “I’m sorry?” She cocks her lovely head at him then looks at David as if for support.

  “You would have met Laurel yesterday afternoon when she came by your hotel to drop off the proposals, but you weren’t available when she called,” David explains.

  “I left them at the concierge desk. I trust you received the information?” Laurel Chandler says.

  Colin hopes he’s making the correct responses because his utter amazement still has him on autopilot. He must be doing all right, though, because now she’s assuring him that no harm was done by his missing her call,

  “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “My car was parked at a garage near your hotel so I didn’t go out of my way.”

  “Did I see you at The Plaza yesterday morning, near the main entrance?” He still can’t quite believe his eyes or his good fortune.

  “Yes, you did. David and I had breakfast there and I was near the door when you arrived, Mr. Elliot.”

  “Did you know who I was?” The question is left hanging because the meeting’s about to start.

  Colin takes the seat assigned him halfway along the length of the table. Nate Isaacs, flanked by two yes-men, positions himself at head of table as though this is his home turf. David Sebastian, flanked by Laurel Chandler and her assistant, Amanda Hobbs, takes the place directly across from Colin and any twit can see where the power is and where the focus belongs. The extras—whoever they are, whatever the fuck they’re here for—vie for the ample remaining spaces; they could be the otherwise useless seat-fillers he saw employed at the Institute Awards ceremony to keep things looking tidy for the cameras.

  Unbeknownst to Colin the first item on the agenda is an examination of how best to repulse rumors without adding to them and how best to set the record straight without inviting excessive subjectivity.

  Where in bloody hell did this topic come from? Who asked for it? Colin aims a scowl at Nate that has about as much effect as religion applied to an atheist. The premise sounds ridiculous, even when spoken in David Sebastian’s dignified tones. The ensuing give-and-take soon proves even more ridiculous when the flaks and flunkies introduce intricate schemes that only skirt the real issues.

  With few exceptions, everyone in the room appears to have forgotten he’s there. This is not a new experience and his response today could be the same as it was back in the old days when similar groups were regularly brought together to debate some sticky element of Colin Elliot, the commodity. He could amuse himself now, as he used to back then, by mentally ticking off the considerable number of people unnecessary to this discussion. He would if there weren’t something better to do.

  Occasional stolen glances are not cutting it where Laurel Chandler’s concerned. He stops pretending his interest is casual, that the length of her eyelashes doesn’t intrigue him. Are they real? He decides they are and next wonders
how long her lustrous dark hair is. Would the release of the clip holding it in a thick coil at the nape of her neck result in a moderate spill or something greater—one that would flow past her shoulders, actually? He’s captivated by the way her brown eyes catch light and the angle of her cheekbones reflect that light; he’s fascinated with the high bridge and narrow nostrils of her proud nose, the set of her strong jaw, the lift of her tapered chin, and the way her lips come together in perfect harmony. He’d likely worship her teeth if he could see them.

  He watches her hands toy with a Mont Blanc pen; her fingers are long and slender, the fingernails unvarnished and cut sensibly short. He can’t tell much about her breasts because she’s wearing a loose jacket; he’ll also have to imagine the parts he got only a fleeting impression of yesterday because they’re hidden from view beneath the table. He debates dropping his own pen and cadging a peek at her legs and ankles whilst retrieving it. His intentions must show because she flashes him a look. Momentary it is, the slight arching of an eyebrow to signify displeasure, the sort of warning given a child acting up in church.

  Sufficiently chastened, he occupies himself with his copy of the agenda and sees that it includes outlines for several of the schemes he’s just heard about for the first time. He leafs through a set of marketing and endorsement proposals, rejects the lot out of hand, flips through more pages till he comes to Laurel Chandler’s curriculum vitae.

  He could kick himself for not reading it before now. As Nate said, her credentials are impeccable. Fabulous, he rates them when he spots an especially useful bit of information.

  Forewarned—forearmed—as he should have been from the start, Colin tunes back into the goings-on as one of the publicists pitches the idea of choreographed photographic spreads and canned interviews. Legendary lensmen Herb Ritt, Gregor Leffler, and Ron Snow get namedropped along with long-established industry publications such as Rolling Stone, Melody Maker, and Crescendo. “Neo-imaging,” “structured restyling,” “revisional career modeling,” and “sculpted profiling” are amongst the ludicrous terms tossed about.