Seeking Enrique

by Austin Bates

  Rick shuddered, spitting the taste from his mouth, and took the mint. He took a deep breath and took a step toward the store. Everything in him told him to run; everything, that is, except for Jules’ hand on his elbow.

  “You have to do this,” Jules hissed in his ear. “My reputation and yours depends on it.”

  He was right, and Rick knew it. His body wasn’t so rational. He was shaking like a leaf by the time he made it back to his seat, staring down a line of bewildered fans.

  “Sorry about that everybody! Enrique had a little disagreement with his breakfast, but he’s fine now. My name is Jules Golias, I am Enrique’s agent. Please address all questions to me, and let’s have a good time!”

  The first customer came forward. She was a shy-looking teenager with braces, and should have been utterly unintimidating.

  “Hi Mister Enrique… I mean, Dominguez… um… could you make it out to Brittney?” she stuttered.

  Rick nodded. He wrote To Brittney, and signed his pseudonym with a flourish. She didn’t ask for a photo, to his great relief, and it was all over in seconds. The next person was a ball of energy, chattering about the books, the characters, how much she loved Luther, how jealous she was of his love interest, what an honor it was to meet Enrique R. Dominguez… Rick, cringing, signed her book quickly and suffered through a photo, anxious to get her on her way.

  The longer he sat there, the more people seemed to pick up on his mood. Some of them talked to him softly, keeping their words efficient, getting what they wanted without pressing their personalities all over him. He appreciated them. Others tried to “cheer him up” by cracking jokes and generally being uncomfortably familiar. Wave after wave of customers battered his defenses until, finally, it was time for a break.

  He darted out the back door and across the street to the gas station. He hadn’t smoked in a long time, and didn’t really want to start up again now, but Jules wasn’t about to let him drink more, and without Xanax, he was desperate. He purchased a pack and ripped it open, dragging the paper cylinder from its slot with shaking fingers. He’d burnt it down to the filter before he made it back to the store’s parking lot, where Jules was waiting. He looked furious.

  “What’s wrong? You said break, right? I heard break.”

  “Yes, I said it was time for a break,” Jules snapped. “But you disappeared so fast I didn’t think you were coming back. You offended everybody still waiting in line with your disappearing act.”

  “Offended? How? You said break, and I broke.”

  “No, you fled,” Jules corrected. “And it was obvious to everybody in there that you were uncomfortable, the whole time you were signing.”

  “So?”

  “So, you need to act like you want to be here!”

  “I’m not an actor, I’m an author,” Rick griped, lighting a second cigarette.

  “Since when do you smoke?” Jules asked impatiently.

  “I told you frequent smoke breaks would be needed. What did you think I meant?”

  “Well….”

  “Don’t act like this is all a surprise, Jules. You’re lucky I’m here and not laid up in the hospital with a panic attack. I told you my issues, I told you what I needed, and you’ve breezily ignored all of it. You want me to finish this, you better let me do what I need to do.”

  Jules crossed his arms and gave Rick a stern look. Rick turned his back on Jules and puffed. Let Jules judge him. Let him be angry. Rick didn’t care anymore. He was doing his best, and he couldn’t very well do better than that, could he?

  “Break’s over,” Jules told him after several minutes.

  “Okay.”

  Rick put out the cigarette, straightened his shoulders, and walked through the door under his own power. Jules wasn’t surprised, though he should have been. He’d been expecting Rick to behave like he would behave in the same situation; talking to readers, engaging with them, maybe even flirting a little; but Rick was just compressing into himself like a spring, shooting out of there at every opportunity. It frustrated Jules so much that he didn’t notice when Rick began to take control of the situation.

  Six grueling hours later, Rick was ready to die. Jules was already on the phone, confirming their appearance the next day and making travel arrangements. When Peggy thanked them, it was all Rick could do to nod and shake her hand briefly. He trudged to the car as though he carried a planet on his shoulders and collapsed into the passenger’s seat. Jules, meanwhile, was bouncing around the parking lot, talking animatedly on the phone.

  Rick buckled and curled up into a ball. He shut out everything, turning his attention inward to his stressed nerves and bunched muscles. He desperately needed a hot bath. Jules slid into the car and slammed the door, startling Rick awake.

  “Alright, gonna take the redeye tonight and do it all over again in San Diego tomorrow!” Jules said happily.

  Rick didn’t respond except to curl more tightly into himself.

  “Oh, come on,” Jules said. “It won’t be that bad!”

  “Yeah, sure, whatever you say,” Rick muttered. “I’m gonna need a whole bunch of four-ounce containers.”

  “Why?”

  “Because there’s no way I’m flying sober.”

  Jules laughed, then realized that Rick was serious.

  “You can’t drink your way through this,” he said heatedly. “You’ve got to get over this. It’s not healthy.”

  “Neither is stress,” Rick pointed out sullenly. “You know stress is the leading cause of heart attacks? Do you want me to die, Jules?”

  “Now you’re being dramatic,” Jules said, rolling his eyes.

  “Says you. Swear to god, I thought I was going to die a hundred times today. No, thought isn’t strong enough. I knew I was going to die, and the fact that I didn’t is still confusing my senses. You don’t get it, Jules. I need what I need if you want me to finish this tour.”

  “You don’t need it, you want it,” Jules snapped.

  “Oh, oh, I’m sorry, did I miss the part where you got a doctorate in abnormal psychology?” Rick asked sarcastically.

  “You aren’t abnormal,” Jules sighed heavily. “You just have a little stage fright. Perfectly normal. But you have to face that head-on, you can’t keep drinking your way around it.”

  “A little stage fright!” Rick shouted. “A little stage fright? Did you see me out there? I was dying! This isn’t some silly little bump in the road that everybody has to deal with, Jules, this is nothing like that! This was a lion’s den, a plane in free-fall, a burning building. That’s what it felt like, don’t sit there and tell me it’s ‘just stage fright.’”

  “That’s what it feels like to everybody at first,” Jules insisted. “But once you get in the swing of things, it fades away.”

  “How long?”

  “What?”

  “How long does it take for stage fright to fade away? How many more times do I have to do this before it isn’t hell, oh mighty understander of all?”

  “Well, you’d know that better than I would. How long were you signing books before it stopped being terrifying and started to feel like work?”

  “Six hours.”

  “Yeah, you’re funny, we were only there six hours.”

  “Exactly!” Rick said, throwing up his hands. “It didn’t just go away, because it isn’t stage fright!”

  Jules opened his mouth to speak, but shut it again. Rick had an answer for everything. It wouldn’t do any good to keep arguing, because Rick was convinced that he was somehow incapable of doing this very simple job. Jules thought he was just trying to get out of it. It was out of his comfort zone, so he didn’t want to do it. That perception made Jules angry, and he was determined not to let Rick get away with it. They were going to stick to the schedule, and dammit, Rick was going to make an effort to be agreeable.

  No matter what Jules had to do, he would force Rick to cooperate.

  Chapter Twelve

  Rick panicked all the way through t
he airport. He panicked when the plane took off. Once the plane was cruising, Rick stopped panicking and began to drink. He was stumbling by the time they reached San Diego, and Jules essentially poured him into bed. All romantic feeling between them had faded into the ether, replaced by bitter frustration on both sides; Rick, because he felt like Jules was expecting too much and not considering his needs or feelings, and Jules because he felt like Rick was deliberately sabotaging the tour.

  The next day, at the book signing, Rick was prepared for the surge of fans. He was buzzed, bordering on drunk, and had enough nicotine in his system to kill a rat. He kept himself in that state for the full six hours, and managed to avoid vomiting. Jules didn’t seem as pleased about that fact as Rick thought he should, and the tension between them thickened.

  “I told you that the drunk artist thing wasn’t going to fly on this tour,” Jules snarled as he drove them back to their hotel.

  “And I told you that I needed Xanax,” Rick shot back.

  “I can’t get you Xanax. Nobody can, because you abuse the stuff. We’re going to L.A. tomorrow, and I want you sober and smelling fresh, you understand me?”

  “Not happening,” Rick said stubbornly.

  “It better happen,” Jules snapped. “You’re right on the edge of my nerves right now, Rick, you keep pushing and we’re going to have problems.”

  “We already have problems,” Rick grumbled. “When this tour is over, I’m looking for a new agent.”

  Jules slammed on his brakes and glared.

  “You’re what?”

  “You heard me,” Rick snapped. “We’re done. I’ve had it.”

  As Rick slept that night, Jules paced. He couldn’t afford to lose Rick as a client, and he had the unsettling feeling that he’d already lost him as a friend. The problem seemed unresolvable, though; Rick was simply unwilling to perform the way Jules needed him to, the way their brand needed him to. Jules needed Rick to be a people pleaser, for just a little while, and Rick didn’t want to do it. At a loss, Jules took his phone into the hallway and called Ernest.

  “Do you know what time it is?” Ernest grumbled.

  “Yeah, I’m sorry, look… I need your help.”

  “What’s the problem?”

  “Rick’s the problem. He won’t do the signings sober, and when he’s drunk he’s like a zombie. He’s ruining his image, and I’m going down with him. He’s going to wreck everything, and now he’s threatening to find a different agency when the tour is over.”

  “He’s contracted for a few more books with us, isn’t he?” Ernest asked, sounding more awake.

  “Yeah, I’ve got him under contract for five more in the series. But if he presses the issue, he could sue to be released from the contract if he can convince people that I breached the agreement first.”

  “Well, did you?”

  Jules thought back to the three days they spent in the cabin. His conduct had been utterly unprofessional; he was certain that a halfway decent lawyer could find something in that disaster to hold against him.

  “I, uh… I don’t think so, but it’s possible that a very good lawyer could dig up something.”

  “Hm,” Ernest said.

  Jules cringed. He’d worked with Ernest for essentially ever, the man knew him well enough to know when he was hiding something.

  “What do I do, Ernest?” Jules asked.

  “You’re going to have to seduce him,” Ernest sighed.

  “What?” Jules asked, shocked.

  “Not like that,” Ernest said impatiently. “You need to woo him back, as our client. You need to give him whatever it takes, come up with incentives, bribes. Pamper the hell out of him. Give him a reason to stay, because let’s be honest, he’s proved himself a successful author. There isn’t a publishing house in the world that wouldn’t want him.”

  “Right,” Jules breathed. “I’ll do what I can. I don’t know, Ernest, maybe this book tour was a bad idea.”

  “Couldn’t have known till you tried. Next time, keep your debut tour down to a week. Month, max. This full three months would intimidate even the friendliest author, and Rick doesn’t exactly like people.”

  “Would have been good advice to have six months ago,” Jules sighed.

  “Yeah, well. Live and learn, right? I’m going to sleep. You can do this, Jules.”

  The call ended, and Jules leaned against the wall, sighing.

  “Woo him,” he muttered. “Seduce him. Did that already. Gotta do it again. God, this job is a pain in my ass.”

  He pushed back into the hotel room and considered Rick. He looked utterly innocent, the way he had the first time Jules watched him sleep. Jules was going to have to get back to that mental space, figure out what made Rick so confident and capable in his cabin, figure out which of those elements he could bring to the tour.

  He sat down and began writing a list. Fireplace. Isolation. Notebooks. It didn’t make any sense at first, but eventually a pattern began to emerge. Rick’s place was, ultimately, Rick’s place. His books, his fire, his door. Every bit of that cabin was saturated in Rick’s personality, designed specifically to make Rick’s life easier.

  That was his job, he realized. He needed to make this easy. He chewed on the problem for the rest of the night, until it was time to wake Rick and catch their plane. He carried his notebook with him; it was time to get creative.

  Rick was digging through his carry-on for a bottle when they were in the air, and Jules put a hand on his arm.

  “Before you do that,” he said. “I need to talk to you.”

  “About what?” Rick said irritably.

  “About how to make this easier on you. I thought about what you said last night, and you were right. I’ve been pushing you too hard to do this my way. I want to know, aside from mood-altering chemicals, what will make this go more smoothly for you? What specific aspects stress you out the most?”

  Rick thought about that for a while, but his mind was working in short, panicky jerks. He pulled out a bottle and took a drink. The taste alone broke his internal loop so that he was able to actually discover an answer to the question.

  “The rush when the doors open,” he said. “If I could see one person at a time, I wouldn’t panic as quickly. It would be a slow grind rather than a sudden shock.”

  “Okay, I can work on that,” Jules said, scribbling in his notebook.

  “The pens are always on the wrong side of the table. It’s a little thing, but it makes me feel alien and wrong, as though I’m expected to be something I’m not; in this case, right-handed.”

  “Easy fix,” Jules said, nodding. “What else?”

  “Sitting still for six hours. It’s uncomfortable, and it makes me feel trapped.”

  “Hm. That’s a little harder to address,” Jules said, mostly to himself.

  He drew a big question mark next to that point in his notebook, and decided to tackle a solution to it later.

  “What else?” he asked.

  “I really don’t like it when they touch me. Shaking hands is fine, but when they’re posing for pictures they insist on squishing our faces together, and I spend all day trying not to punch a little girl in the face.”

  “Oh. Right. That wouldn’t go over well with the fan base,” Jules chuckled. “I can help a little bit with that, but it’s really going to require that you take control of the situation. When it’s time to take a picture, stand up and put a hand on their shoulder, the shoulder closest to you. That’ll keep your arm between you and them. You’re also taller than the vast majority of your readers, so that’ll completely eliminate the face-squishing issue.”

  “Okay,” Rick said. “I think I can do that.”

  “Excellent. Anything else?”

  “Meeting the owners and organizers. I can never remember their names, and they always want to have an actual conversation with me. I don’t know how to talk to them, and it sets my teeth on edge before I even get to the table.”

  “Would it be better
to have a meet-and-greet with the organizers the day before? We couldn’t do that today or tomorrow because we’re still playing catch-up, but we could start that next week. Alternatively, I could run the show and explain that you’ll be free to talk to them after the book signing. Which would you prefer?”

  “Um… either would be better, but I think I’d prefer to get it all done the same day. So make it after.”

  “You got it. Now, for the problem of containment… tell you what, when you need a break to wander, set your pens on the right-hand side and I’ll call for a breather.”

  “Okay, that’ll work.”

  “As for the rush of people… hm. Got it. I’ll have them set up a booth or a curtain around your table, and we’ll send people in one at a time. What do you think?”

  “I like it,” Rick said with a smile. “I think it’ll work.”

  “Awesome. I’ll get all this set up as soon as we land. Let me know how you feel afterwards, and we’ll adjust as we go. Okay?”

  “Okay.” Rick was relieved, and it showed.

  So was Jules; the slight adjustment made him think that they might be able to salvage their professional relationship after all. Their personal relationship was another problem entirely. He scribbled a small note to himself to open a dialog about it once they had solved the other problems satisfactorily.

  They were due at the bookstore an hour after they landed, which gave Jules just enough time to hammer out the details while Rick attended to his appearance. Rick had finished off the bottle and there wasn’t time to restock; he was going to have to do this run dry.

  “You’ve got this,” Jules encouraged him as they pulled up. “Just remember: pens on the right gets you a break, stand with your hand on their shoulder for photos, and I already have it set up so that you only have to see one face at a time.”

  “Thanks,” Rick said gratefully, wiping his palms on his thighs.

  Jules got him through the back door without encountering the line or the store manager. Jules had asked the manager to leave the back door open and give them space, and he had agreed. Curtains were in place in front of the table, and the pens were on the left. Everything was perfect. Rick seemed calmer than he’d been since they left the cabin, and Jules squeezed his shoulder supportively before stepping through the curtain to greet the fans.