What Now? (4 page)

Shari
was just about to pounce on that comment when Nick’s phone rang, interrupting
them.

“Hi,
Lily,” he answered. “Coming.” He disconnected the call and headed for the front
door. “Apparently Lily will be joining us.”

“How’s
it going?” Shari heard Lily ask as she walked past the living room.

“Not
bad, considering. I was just telling Shari a bit about my family and you know I
don’t do that, so she’s good.”

“Hi,
Shari! Are you realizing that Nick is not as bad as he’s made out to be?” 

Shari
diplomatically held her peace and smiled at Lily.

“Actually,
I can’t say that yet,” she said truthfully. “But he was just telling me that he
always goes to his parents’ for the Holidays, which is rather sweet.”

“Hey,
you should go with him so that you can see that side of his life,” Lily
suggested.

“Lily,
you can’t just invite me to Nick’s parents’ for Christmas!” Shari exclaimed.

“That’s
Lily for you. Always trying to arrange my life. Maybe it’s not a bad idea. My
parents won’t mind and my mother loves a big gathering. Unless you have other plans.”
He said to Shari, checking for a ring. “No husband. Boyfriend or parents
expecting you home?”

“No husband,”
she agreed, waiting for the pang to come, but surprisingly felt none, “and my mother
is going to the Caribbean to visit family for Christmas.” Her dad had died
several years before.

“Well,
come then. I’ll let my mother know. They have plenty of room now.”

She was
tempted. It would definitely be good for the story if she could see Nick Badley
with his family.

“You
don’t know anything about me,” she protested half-heartedly, giving him an out.
“I might be a jewel thief or…” she fumbled for another excuse.

He
studied her, assessing the single pair of studs in her ears and her slender watch.

“If
you’re a jewel thief, you certainly don’t flaunt the merchandise and, from your
reaction to my guests, I can tell that your name is fitting. My mother will
love you. So it’s settled. Just leave the camera guy behind. I don’t want the
faces of my family in the documentary.”

“What
guests?” Lily asked. “Or do I want to know?”

“You
don’t want to know,” Shari advised her. Lily looked more curious than ever but,
before she could open her mouth, Shari said: “OK, I’ll go. If your mother says
it’s OK.” She was beginning to get excited about the assignment for the first
time. It would be interesting to see another side of Nick Badley, if there was
one. 

“So what brings you to my suite, Lily?
Making sure that I don’t say anything to sully my image? I don’t suppose it can
get any worse. Or to make sure that I don’t come on to Shari?”

“Really, Nick! We need to downplay that
bad boy image. It’s getting a bit out of control. Besides, we need to reach a
wider audience so you have to show your good side more.”

There’s a good side? Shari wondered. 

“Not that you’re doing badly now. “Moving
On”
just jumped seven notches on Billboard and is poised to go to number
one and you have nearly one thousand more followers on Twitter than you did a
week ago. Speaking of which, you should tweet something today.”

“Why don’t you tweet something? I don’t
have the time or the interest in tweeting. It’s bad enough that I can’t walk
down the street without someone in my face and now you expect me to tell them
my every thought as well?”

“If you want to stay top of mind, you’ve
got to be present on the social media networks, Nick. Do you know how many followers
the Justins have and how much they tweet?”

"No and I don’t care.” He was
getting tired of Lily’s constant badgering. “I’m not a pop star. I don’t need
to tweet every minute.”

“Justins?” Shari interrupted cautiously.

“Bieber and Timberlake,” Lily replied
impatiently, as if Shari should know that. “Rock stars are a dying breed,
Nick,” she warned.

“Well, according to the charts and the
sold out concerts, we’re not dead yet,” Nick tossed back at her.

Lily couldn’t argue with that.

“Can we continue the interview?” Shari
asked Nick.

“I've had enough." Nick said
abruptly, getting up. "I need some air." Disappearing into the
bedroom, he came out minutes later holding a pair of shoes, sunglasses, a cap
and one of his many leather jackets.

He quickly put on his shoes and jacket
and started for the door, donning the sun glasses and pulling the cap down over
his forehead. Shari stared after him. That was it? After talking for only half
hour he was leaving to get air? She silently blamed Lily and her interruption.
How was she supposed to get her job done like this?

"I'll be back in time for the
rehearsal at five," he threw over his shoulder.

Shari looked at Lily in disbelief,
opening her mouth to protest. Lily made a "calm down" gesture with
her hand and mouthed 'Go with him', gesturing for Shari to follow him.

"Wait! Do you mind if I come with
you?"

"Suit yourself," he replied
indifferently. She quickly gathered up her stuff and followed him to the door,
leaving Lily in the suite.

The elevator opened as soon as Nick hit
the down button as if even
it
responded immediately to the demands of
the great Nick Badley. He stepped back gallantly and, almost mockingly,
gestured for her to precede him. Two girls who were chatting away moved back to
give them space. They did a double take and fell silent as Nick stepped in,
obviously wondering if their eyes were deceiving them or if it was really him.  

As the lift descended, Shari cast a
quick look at Nick and saw that he had his head bent as if trying to shield his
face from the two curious girls who kept stealing glances at him. She was
relieved when the elevator hit the ground floor and the doors swooshed open
without them saying anything. With the mood that Nick was in, she wasn’t sure
how he would respond. He waited until they all stepped out of the elevator
before getting out, leaving the girls no choice but to move along.

Striding to one of the entrance doors,
he waited with barely restrained impatience until Shari reached the door that
he held open for her. As he stepped into the courtyard, he was pleased to see
that it was a perfect day for a walk.

"I'm going to the fountains at
Bellagio," he announced, heading towards the famous attraction. Shari had
no choice but to follow him; not that she minded. This was her first time in
Vegas and she was looking forward to seeing as much as she could. Reaching the
fountains in minutes, they squeezed into a space along the wall bordering the
pool and blended into the crowd. The fountains were just waking up.

“Does this happen often?” Shari asked.

“What?”

“Elevators coming as soon as you touch
the button, shows starting as soon as you turn up?”

Nick smiled. “I never noticed,” he said,
relaxing a bit. “The universe must know that I can’t stand to wait.”

“And since the universe revolves around
you, it responds by making sure you get what you want when you want it.”

“It’s the least it can do in exchange
for my soul.”

“You’ve exchanged your soul? For fame
and fortune?”

“I’ve got fame and fortune and sometimes
I feel as if I have no soul. So maybe somewhere along the line I exchanged it.”
He sounded jaded.

She didn’t know how to respond to that
so she said nothing, turning, instead, to watch the fountains. She silently
filed that comment away, adding it to the folder which she had mentally labeled
“Nick Badley Unplugged”. They were the comments that came from him uncensored,
when he seemed to be at his most honest.

The soothing sound of the fountains as
they leaped into the air and fell gracefully back into the pool to the music of
Mozart quieted the restlessness in Nick. He was getting tired of flying into a
city, performing and flying out in a day or two. The thought of doing ten
cities in the next three weeks was as appealing as flying over the Bermuda
Triangle. Worse yet, the only emotion he could summon at the moment as he
thought about the final sold-out concert at Madison Square Garden was relief
that the world tour would be over after that show.

He was sorry when the sounds of Andrea
Bocelli’s and Sarah Brightman’s “Time to Say Goodbye” faded, ending the show. While
the crowd began to move away from the wall he remained, staring at the fading
ripples as if clinging to something he was not ready to let go of yet. Shari
was unwilling to intrude as he seemed relaxed for the first time since she’d
met him.

“Is that Nick Badley?” someone whispered
loudly, abruptly shattering that peace.

“I’m not sure. It looks like him. Should
we ask him?”

Shari glanced at Nick and saw his jaw
tighten. He swung away from the wall, turning in the direction from which they
had come.

“Nick Badley?” Two excited teenage girls
blocked his path. Nick hesitated before he said with a regretful smile: “Wish I
was, girls. I get that all the time.”

He lengthened his stride to put distance
between him and the girls, who didn’t seem convinced. The Strip was teeming with
people and Shari had to hurry to keep up with Nick’s longer strides. He seemed
to be heading back to the hotel. While some people passed by him without any
sign of recognition, several openly stared at him.

The hotel loomed ahead of them with its
magnificent pillars soaring almost to the full height of the building. The
structure was perhaps a bit more conservative than some of the other hotels on
the Strip, like the Venetian, with its recreation of Venice, Paris with its
miniature Eiffel Tower or the Luxor, which was built in the shape of a pyramid.
However, the interior was truly spectacular and its shows boasted some of the biggest
names in the business.

“I would gladly trade the road for a
stint at a major hotel like Elton John or Rod Stewart.” He finally broke the
silence. “But I have to pay my dues like they did.”

“Do you consider being on the road ‘paying
your dues’?”

“After touring the world for the last
six months, yeah, it’s beginning to feel like paying dues. Don’t get me wrong,
I love the music and the fans, but sometimes I begin to lose the enjoyment, you
know?” 

She nodded.

“And then there’re all these hotels.
They’re top of the line, I can’t deny that, but there’s nothing I would like
more than to just sleep in my own bed. I bought a place in Brentwood a couple
years ago and I’ve barely lived in it.” He headed for the doors they had walked
through less than half hour ago.

“Had enough air?”

“Not really, but I’ve had enough of
being Nick Badley for today.”

“The price of fame.”

“Yes, fame demands a price. She’s like a
beautiful woman who is enticing because she promises to take you to places that
you can barely imagine, but you have to pay a high price for her favor.”

Shari was relieved when they reached the
elevator bank without further incident.

“I’d like to come and see you rehearse.”

“No problem. Be down here by five.”

The band had been practicing for more
than an hour. They were scheduled to fly out in the morning to perform at the
Pepsi Center in Denver the next night before a sold-out crowd of 20,000. The
stage had to be set up, so there would be no time to rehearse on location
before the show.

Shari had been given the schedule for
the rest of the tour and it was enough to make her head spin. After Denver,
they would fly to Kansas City, to Chicago, to Cincinnati and then down to
Florida with shows in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. Then up to Atlanta and then
Raleigh (her home city), to the Capital and, finally, to New York for two
shows, the last one being at Madison Square Garden. Some of the shows were back-to-back
while a few had as many as three days between them.

She couldn’t imagine how Nick and the
band could endure the pace and it was probably even worse for the crew who had
to set up and break down the stage in each city. She was looking forward to the
trip to Denver as they would be travelling in a private jet and she’d never
travelled in one before. The band apparently leased it to travel between locations
where it didn’t make sense logistically to use their tour bus.

“OK, from the top again,” instructed
Nick who, Shari realized, was somewhat of a perfectionist. The first run
through of his song
“Moving On”, which was almost at the top of the
charts, sounded fine to her. Not that she appreciated the heartless lyrics in
which a man was telling his woman that the relationship had lost its excitement
and he was moving on. It came a little too close to home for her liking.

“Shoot, Nick. It was near perfect the
last time!” complained Tim. His bloodshot eyes betrayed that he’d obviously had
more than enough to drink the night before, and who knew what else. She was
sure that every beat he played must have been reverberating in his head, which
probably accounted for the pained expression on his face. And she seriously
doubted that his constantly running nose was due to allergies. There was
something about him that gave her the creeps, apart from the fact that he
seemed to have amnesia when it came to remembering that he was married.

“From the top,” Nick repeated.

“ ‘From the top’ says the great Nick
Badley!” Tim mocked. “Well, you’re on your own. My head feels like it’s about
to explode and I’ve had it!” He pushed back his stool roughly and stood up,
throwing down his drumsticks before storming out of the room.

“
He’s
had it? I’ve had it with
him. I need a drummer I can rely on. Brad, I wasn’t kidding when I told you to
start looking around. Find me a drummer. Soon!”

Shari sat in stunned silence. She had
not known that there was trouble in the band. What would it mean for the rest
of the tour?