Teenage groupie…XXXIV

Dinner was actually a formal soiree to celebrate the gigantic success of their new album and to finalize the arrangements for their upcoming world tour. Lance had explained all this to me on the way to the Manhattan of Las Vegas restaurant that was strategically scheduled for a tasteful part of town.

We got to the restaurant noticeably late, as the others had arrived and were patiently waiting for us. Luckily for nervous ones like I, the record execs had already had their dinner, resigning to a hotter, trip-happy part of town. I assumed they must have gone to get some hookers.

The guys were standing watching the buffet table when Lance and I crept up behind them. He tapped Justin.

“Hey…” They exchanged a friendly hug. Justin had shaved off his curly locks, leaving a round fair scalp and with the brown suit he wore it gave him an extra couple of years. “You are always late, always…is this a new record you are aiming for…to beat JC in being late all the time,” Justin teased, conveniently ignoring me as I stood behind Lance.

Lance snickered mischievously. “Where’s JC?” He asked looking from Justin’s face to the rest of the people standing around.

“He’s in here somewhere, I don’t know, he didn’t come too early either.”

“Anyway, “ Lance took hold of the small of my back to nudge me towards them. “You guys remember Nikki from…”

“Hey…” Chris smiled winningly. He had on a black tuxedo and a stubby manly beard. He came forward and hugged me, to my utmost surprise, his body warm under his tux. “I remember you from Los Angeles right? We met back there when you didn’t want to let Lance out of the room.”

I beamed back and tapped his shoulder. “So how have you been...good?” I tried to fight back nervous chills.

“Alright though…the tux is killing me but I’m fine.” He adjusted the bowtie of his tux, uncomfortably like it was a nook set to choke him.

“I love your beard though.” I complimented, brushing my hands over his nice carpeted trim. He blushed, excited that I could pay him such a direct compliment, especially in front of Lance.

JC and Joey walked up behind us and almost pushed Lance down as they pounced on his back playfully.

“You guys easy on the hair?” Lance begged when JC made to ruffle his nice blond spikes. That hair had taken Lance an hour and half a can of hair spray to style just to get it to look that way in front of the mirror, he was right to be touchy about it.

“Oh excuse me, mister…JC began. He had on a shiny black patent leather suit with his black unruly hair all over the place. “Who’s the chick?” He pointed at me rudely. I ignored him folding my arms. “Hey…I know you…you’re from LA when Lance said you got arrested and em…”

Chris planted his hands over his mouth before he could finish, dragging the spectacle away from us.

“Please excuse JC…he is on medication…” Chris said still clasping JC’s mouth shut. JC was flapping his hands in the air trying to beg for air.

Joey emerged from behind this drama with a girl under his arm. I looked up and my eyes met Vikki’s. She was in a yellow chemise gown, low neckline, her blonde hair pulled up in a bun and her make-up neatly applied.

“Vikki?” I gasped in shock, unable to contain my self.

Joey looked at me in surprise. His suit was a black double-breasted Armani that doubled his beefy chest in size. “You gals know each other?”

Vikki squinted her eyes at me warning me not to reveal a single detail of our history together.

“No…well…yeah…we met..” I fumbled.

Vikki cut in smartly. “We used to go to high school together years ago before I moved out west,” she replied confidently.

I heaved a sigh of relief, as I felt Lance’s hands squeeze mine tighter, possibly out of suspicion.

Finally, the manager who had been busy preparing our set moved us over to our table for dinner. Dinner was made of freshly baked crusty Italian bread, an assortment of sea food’s and an array of delicacies to choose from which included: steaks, veal, chicken Alfredo, mezzo Luna and one of their famous dishes---Cannelloni. Some of the dishes I might not have been able to identify, if not for my few years in the bourgeoisie world, I wouldn’t have been able to tell which fork was what.

The waiters dropped off the dishes one after the other in quick succession.

“Wow!” Lance exclaimed when they were done setting up the table. The spread was enormous. There was no way all 7 of us could possibly finish the food even if we emptied it directly into our stomachs.

We started off slowly, each picking up their meal of choice. Half an hour later, we had almost become filled to stupor, leaving the only thing flowing freely as the alcohol. However, I had not taken part in its consumption.

Chris, who sat to my left, made to pour some wine into my glass. I stopped him instantly, putting my hands over it. “No thanks…I’m underage.”

“You are…who would have thunk it?” he continued with his own glass, giving the others a suspicious look that I read to mean: So she’s a minor, so what? Like I hadn’t overheard Lance tell them that afternoon in the other room how old I was.

“So Lance what are your plans for the tour…is mommy coming this time?” he directed the question to Lance who was seated to my right.

“No…Lance has plans for the world tour…” Justin said. “Not go.”

“What is it again…6 continents in 3 days? Wow…that would be so awesome.” Lance gushed.

“Yep,” JC replied. “That’s the name of the game. Total awesomeness.”

“And just in time to tour good ole US once again and make the teenagers bouncy,” Justin boasted.

“Think we will make it in time?” Joey asked.

“Maybe...who knows they are planning on getting us to stay in Japan longer though...said China men dig our music much.” Chris winked at me. “I dig you much...baby I really dig you much.” He mimicked Janet Jackson’s hit song, “I miss you much” inserting his own lyrics and a stomach-turning high-pitched voice.

Then, they all started to speak at once with each one of them ignoring the ladies amongst them. This continued for another 5 minutes until I summoned the courage to speak.

“It’s impossible.” My voice cut through all the maleness. Vikki was the first to shoot a harsh stare at me.

They stopped abruptly, Chris almost dropping the bottle in his hand.
”What do you mean…it’s impossible…what are you talking about?”

I began, “I’m talking about the 6 continents in 3 days…it’s impossible. The distance from here to Australia already takes up a day and a half in flight time…so what are you gonna do, stop there just to take a piss. The flight time should be calculated without the duration of time you would be spending there. That’s the only way I can see it working. Now if you had said…4 days, then maybe, just maybe. The extra 24 hours would make a difference, but 3 days. That’s like 72 hours…shit. No way.” I rambled, revealing my adverse knowledge of geography and general knowledge, which I had comprehensibly accumulated from my comprehensive study of hotel room CNN. The guys gaped at me open-mouthed. Vikki’s face held a lingering smile, like she was about to burst.

“I remember you now…from LA…you had red hair and all. I knew I knew you from somewhere. Gees…what happened to your hair…it’s so black and boring. Did Lance convince you to change it?” Joey remarked brightly, like a light had switched on in his thick head.

The others heaved a sigh of relief and went back to their former positions, chatting and sipping expensive wine. “Anyway, we weren’t really planning on doing it in that time, what are we crazy? But we just want the Press to think that we are, you know,” Justin excused, grinning.

“Yeah, we wanna create a media diversion…” JC added.

“Not diversion...Media hype...like media fanfare,” I corrected.

“Yeah…whatever, hype, fanfare…well you know how it goes.” He accepted the correction, albeit reluctantly. “Lance where did you meet this girl again?”

He asked Lance who was sipping wine casually lost in his own cyberspace. “She’s like our personal encyclopedia. She knows it all…look maybe you could come on tour with us…that’ll be dope, what do you think? Give us pointers on foreign languages too.”

Noise filled the table again. I couldn’t tell if it was noise of approval or disapproval of JC’s suggestion. Then, Lance spoke up, letting his deep voice drown out the chaotic atmosphere. “Oh, she’s definitely coming…infact I’m glad you guys mentioned it cos’ I just…” his eyes surveyed the table at their eager eyes as they waited in baited breaths for his next sentence. I was eager to know what he would say too. Oh, she’s my girlfriend, or she’s my lady, nope Lance was more romantic than that. “I just asked Nikki to marry me…haven’t gotten an answer yet though but a boy can only dream right.” He blushed, giddy like a schoolboy.

They didn’t speak for about a moment but their eyes said everything. They held sorrow, anger, shock and intense distrust of the whole situation. They hardly knew me, and the little they had gotten around to knowing, didn’t like them or was criticizing their elaborate plans. And I was sure Lance must have filled them in on the whole police arrest situation. “But she would be coming on the tour with us, definitely,” he finalized, putting the nail on the coffin.

That was the part that I got me upset. Lance had assumed I would go on tour with him. That I would travel round the world in whatever number of days they had decided on, go on the road, and eat takeout food and live in hotel rooms for the next 6 months or as long as the tour was to last. What would happen to my dreams of going to college, of helping other children, of making an impact with my social work? Was I supposed to pack that all in just because Lance wanted to marry me, a proposal I now wasn’t too sure about accepting and from the look on his band members faces I didn’t think would have been too heartbroken if I rejected the enticing offer.

Vikki handed out her death glare again with her mouth wide open in shock. I could see her fingers tremble as she clutched her fork still on her plate. Her eyes had contempt, jealousy and envy all in their little blue selves, and if we were in a private place I am sure she would have been the first vocal or physical person there.

“I need to use the ladies room.” She leaned over to Joey and pecked him before she left. I could tell she had run out to smoke an anticipated cigarette.

With her departure, everybody sort of ignored all that Lance had said and continued like it had never happened.

“Joey, where did you meet her again?” Justin inquired with a hint of sarcasm in his tone.

“None of your business, Justin…a gay bar, a bikers hangout…what the fuck do you care?” Joey snapped back with an equally snide remark. I snickered even though I was secretly eager to know how Vikki had landed Joey too. She said he liked blondes but I had no idea he liked them that much.

They started to throw spit fights at each other, each snappy comment edgier and more resentful than the one from its opponent. Lance was amused by their tantrums; maybe it wasn’t the first time, or maybe they were just tugging each other chains, but hell, they were damn good at it.

I nudged Lance’s left thigh where my hand had been conveniently placed all evening. He bent down for me to whisper in it. “How long does this tour last?”

He smiled and returned my gesture with a soft squeeze from his. “It depends. Is it the first leg or the second one…I think all in all everything normally concludes within a period of about 6 months tops,” he whispered.

“Do I have to come with?” I whispered again.

“Yeah...of course you will…I’m not going nowhere without you, baby. We’ll be together, it’ll be a blast you’d see,” he echoed, squeezing tighter on my hand.

I took a deep breath. The table was filled with the noise of Justin and Joey’s endless attack, Chris was eyeing a blonde at the corner of the restaurant, almost drooling and JC was fiddling with his cell phone trying to ascertain if he could get any reception inside the restaurant. I thought hard, can I possibly go through another year touring with another band…was that the be-all and end-all of my life?

I nudged Lance again. “Lance…” he bent his ear. “You know I have plans to start college in the Fall, don’t you?”

“What…” he smiled bemused. “You want to what?”

“I said…” I raised my voice this time to resound my message. “I said…I want to go to college…so I don’t think I might be traveling around with you this time.” Unluckily for me, that was the instant the others had stopped talking and suddenly my raised voice was the only one that could be heard ringing across the table. Everyone fell silent, expressing genuine interest in our racket.

I heaved angrily. This was turning out to be an annoying, pulsating and eventful dinner. Lance retrieved his hands from mine and his teeth were grinding in compressed embarrassment. He had no idea what to make of what I had just said that the others had conveniently heard.

“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together on the table. “The show’s over guys… common, go back to your dinner,” he begged to avoid further embarrassment.

Chris jumped in. “Yeah…” he waved his hands in the air. “Yeah, get your nosy eyes away from us, and put them somewhere else like over there perhaps,” he pointed to the other end of the restaurant, where a nice couple were seen celebrating a birthday together. “See Joey, your girl’s back from her smoke…no…bathroom.” Chris was a classic at sarcasm.

Joey made a fist at him, which was unnoticeable to Vikki.

Vikki took her seat and her eyes spanned the table confused at the reason for the tense air around. It fell on mine but I replied with a cocked eyebrow of my own.

Lance nudged me, “I think we better go outside and talk.” His teeth gritted.

I put up an apologetic smile at the others, flushing from embarrassment, grabbed my purse and followed Lance outside like the obedient girlfriend. With our departure, I could sense there was a certain relief to the others.

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