Chapter Five
Tristan
It only took a few hours to get to Vegas. We had rooms at the MGM, which was cool. I would have been okay on the bus, but I wasn’t going to turn down a VIP luxury room, either. They gave us a schedule and it was pretty tight because our first show was the next morning. We weren’t allowed to run around Vegas at all, but the section of the hotel we were in was completely private and it had a little mini casino, a couple of restaurants, and bars and gift shops. It was cool; behind where the rest of the tourists partied, they didn’t even know we were there.
I avoided Elly. I’d never seen her as pissed as she was when she barged into the bus and told everyone to fuck off. The guys in the band thought it was hilarious. It was funny to see her like that actually…she was usually so even tempered. I wasn’t even sure why she thought she had a right to be mad at me. She’d gone snooping and then blurted my personal business out without even talking to me about it. I wanted to concentrate on the show and having a good time. I wasn’t going to let that shit follow me around and drag me down.
I had to meet with the stylist and then get together with the band on my bus for practice. In the midst of all that, I got a note delivered to my door by one of Jake’s assistant’s that said Jake wanted to see me tomorrow before the show. Jake was the big wig producer that Elly was so fond of. I didn’t see that he was really any less of a prick than the rest of them. I wondered what the fuck I did. I wasn’t going to worry about it, though; I had too much other shit to do.
I went down two floors to the room I was supposed to meet the stylist in. In the past, the cheap bastards gave the contestants four hundred dollars for each performance to buy their outfit. I say cheap bastards, but honestly, I got some nice stuff with it. The problem as usual was the girls. They whined so much about that, the producers had changed the rules. They made it worse instead of better. They changed it so that they take our measurements and the stylists bring clothes in and then help us choose what we’re going to wear. I didn’t need help, but what the fuck ever. I wasn’t going to whine about it like the girls. Brooke had gone on about it at dinner for an hour the other night.
“Hi, Tristan!” Holly, the lead stylist opened the door for me. There were three others in the room. The hairstylist was a flaming gay guy who was funny as shit. I liked him, but I didn’t care much for the uptight make-up artist and her assistant.
“Hey, Holly.”
“I’ve got some great stuff you’re going to love!” she told me. I liked Holly, but she and I didn’t see eye to eye when it came to fashion. She wanted to dress me up in skinny jeans and shit…not going to happen unless she killed me first.
She led me over to two racks of men’s clothes. I went straight for the “normal” jeans and picked out a plain pair of dark blue Levi’s.
“Really, Tristan? All that stuff and you want the plain ones?”
I shrugged, “You brought them, so obviously you expected someone to wear them, right?”
She made a face at me and said, “I knew you would bitch if I didn’t and threaten to wear your old, faded ones.”
I grinned, “How well you know me, Holly.” She rolled her eyes as I picked out a plain blue t-shirt and a pair of black boots. I took them into the next room and tried it all on. I needed to go one size bigger in the shirt. I had been eating a lot better since I quit using and it was showing. I was going to have to start hitting the gym hard before it started showing around my middle, like a pot-bellied old man.
I went back out, took the bigger shirt, and said, “Okay, you and I are done, Holly. Thanks.” She rolled her eyes again. I was an affront to her profession. I turned to the hairstylist and said, “Jose, you gonna trim me up today?”
“Yes, my love,” I didn’t care for the pet name, but he called everyone that, so I put up with it. He didn’t mean anything by it. I’d seen his boyfriend and I was sure that I wasn’t even close to his type. “Come, sit.” Jose trimmed my hair and gave me a shave. While he worked, he talked and I thought about Elly again. I wondered if she was still mad. I was still mad at her, but I was horny. I went back to my room and thought about her some more after my haircut. I ended up having to take a shower. Fuck, I was horny!
That night I hung out with Ethan. He was a pretty good guy and fun to hang out with. We gambled for a while, but I didn’t win shit. I got a glimpse of Elly on our way in for dinner. She was on her way out. I pretended like I didn’t see her, but damn she looked good enough to eat. After dinner I went to the bar with Ethan and I actually went so far as to order a beer. I thought just one wouldn’t hurt. I sat there looking at it for a while but, I realized that even with it right in front of me, I knew I wasn’t going to drink it. “Just one won’t hurt” was what I’d told myself every time I started back up in the past. I pushed it back and asked the bartender for a coke instead.
The next day, I got up with a few knots in my stomach. I know they said some nights on the show we were in front of three hundred million people, but I didn’t have to look at them all; I forgot the ones behind the TV were there. I would be performing in front of over sixteen thousand people live. I’d done bigger arenas when I was a kid, but that had been a long ass time ago. Once I’d gotten used to it back then, the bigger the better. I loved that adoration shit the audience laid on me. Right then, I wasn’t positive I could do it. I went to the gift shop and bought some Rolaids and started eating them. I didn’t eat anything else; I was afraid I’d get up on stage and puke. The show started at five and I performed last, so around seven. I didn’t have any duets or group songs planned for that night; they wanted to showcase us each individually the first night, they said. I went to meet with the band at noon to go over the music for my song one last time, and by that time, I was seriously wondering if I’d make it to seven. The anxiety was getting a lot worse before I went in, but singing and playing the music really seemed to help alleviate a lot of it.
We practiced for about three hours and by that time, I thought I might be able to hold something down. I went to the restaurant and got a turkey sandwich and took it back to my room. I ate lunch and thought about taking a nap. It was almost four, though, and I didn’t want to oversleep. I was about to get in the shower when there was a knock on the door. I let myself imagine just for a second that it was Elly, here for a quickie. I pulled it open and there stood Jake’s little messenger…again. He didn’t look anything like Elly. Shit! I forgot I was supposed to meet with that son of a bitch.
“Hey, Tristan, Jake is waiting to see you.” He had this tone that said he couldn’t believe I’d actually defied the great and powerful Oz.
“Alright, I have to take a quick shower. I’ll be down in half an hour.”
The messenger didn’t look happy with that answer, but that was too damned bad. I was the star of this fucking show, not the producer. If he wanted to see me, he could wait.
I took my time in the shower and then getting dressed. I finally made it down to his room at four-thirty. When he let me in, he raised his eyebrows and said, “You’re pushing it to the last minute, Tristan. Don’t you still have to get dressed?”
I looked at the fucker in his custom-made three thousand dollar suit. His hair was perfect and each one of his teeth was covered with a shiny white veneer. It probably took him hours to get ready to go anywhere. He may as well wear a sign around his neck that says, ‘I’m a rich mother-fucker and I think I’m better than all of you.’
“I’m dressed,” I told him. He looked me up and down, obviously disapproving of my choice of outfits. Fuck him, I didn’t care. “I do have to hit hair and make-up though, so….” If we could get the fuck on with it!
“Have a seat, Tristan.”
I sat down and he said, “Would you like anything to drink?”
“No thanks, I’m fine.”
“Okay then,” he said, sitting down opposite of me. “First, I was wondering how the rehab was going?”
“Good. I finished the program and I only had one therapy appointment to go outpatient when we left. He was supposed to be in touch with the show’s therapist about it. I’ve been sober now for over 100 days.”
“That’s great, good work. It’s hard stuff; I’ve had my own struggles with it, so I know.”
I just nodded at him. I was hoping that was it. Then he said, “How’s the bus? Is that comfortable for you?”
“Yeah, it’s nice.” I said. Shit, I didn’t have time for this idle chit chat crap.
“Good…good. So, how far along are you with the songs?”
“I’m sorry? The what?”
“The songs…for the record company.”
I had no fucking clue what he was talking about. “Um…I don’t know what you mean.”
He looked shocked, or annoyed, or something. “Tristan, you have to have twelve songs ready to go…and already approved by the record company by the time this tour is over.”
“What the fuck?”
“Did you read the contract you signed when you started on the show?”
“Yeah, of course I read it,” I lied.
“Then you knew that if you won, in order to get the money, you had to have the twelve songs done and approved by the end of the tour.”
I could feel myself getting pissed, but I was really trying to control it. He was not only talking to me as if I was a fucking idiot, he was telling me that I wasn’t going to get the money I already felt like I had worked for.
“That’s bullshit,” I said, but in an even tone. “I won this contest…fair and square. Now we’re on tour and I’m putting on ten shows in the next two weeks and I’m supposed to be writing original songs on top of that?”
“It was in the contract.”
I imagined my fist connecting with his obviously altered nose and lips before I stood up and said, “Fucking bullshit! That’s what this is.”
He continued to sit there all composed and professional as he said, “Bullshit or not, Tristan, it’s what’s in the contract. Maybe this will be a lesson to you to read what you sign from now on.”
“I read it!” I snapped back. I didn’t read it, or I did and I was too fucking high to process it. Either way, it was bullshit. Even if I had known about it, they just didn’t give me enough time. Shit! I had nine months. Fuck! I didn’t know who I was more pissed at, him or me.
He was looking at me with that fucking holier-than-though look…like maybe he was an artist, like he’d ever given up a piece of his soul to write and then sing a song in front of millions of people and I realized, it was still him. I couldn’t stay in the room any longer without ruining his veneers and his lip implants or injections or whatever the vain son of a bitch had put in them. I stormed out of the room and slammed the fucking door behind me.
I had to go straight to hair and make-up. Poor Jose got the brunt of my attitude after that while he was doing my hair. I never spoke to the make-up chick, anyways; she was an uptight bitch. By the time they all finished with me it was my turn on stage. I ran out under the lights and looked out at the sixteen thousand people who had come to see me. I thought about the millions more who had liked me enough to vote for me so I could make it there.
They tossed me my guitar and I slipped it over my shoulders. Before I started playing, or even opened my mouth, there were people on their feet in the audience, screaming out my name. The butterflies in my stomach were gone along with the rest of the anxiety. I was still shaking, but the shakes never really go away. I think that’s adrenaline and that shit feels good; it’s the most basic form of high that you can get. When I started singing, they screamed louder. My pulse was racing, I was sweating and I had to consciously think about controlling my breathing so I didn’t waste it before I was finished with my song. When I was done, I was bathed in sweat and the lights felt like they were setting my skin on fire. I had that black shit the make-up girl put on my eye lashes in my eyes and face powder dripping down onto my new t-shirt. Over half of the audience was on its feet and hot girls were throwing panties and bras and fucking phone numbers up on stage. It was incredible, better than any drug. I loved feeling like I was more than just a has-been child star. I loved knowing that in spite of how crappy my family was, these people loved me. I wondered if Elly was watching.