Goin' Back Home Again

I let it all sink in. My first thought was, So what? I was thinking about quitting anyway. Still, Walter's little ditty about making sure I had something else to do came to the front, and I decided I didn't want to so severely limit my options.

Monty interrupted my thoughts. "Yeah, it was looking real bad last night. But that all changed when those videos started showing up on the internet this morning."

Teddy smiled. "How so?"

Ethan's smile was enigmatic. "Let's wait until we have the whole band together, okay?"

So we walked the rest the last hundred feet in silence. I guided Ethan and Monty to the pole barn while Teddy went out to gather up Will, bassist Rob, and drummer Jimbo.

I watched them stroll into the cavernous room, all but Teddy a mix of nervous excitement. Will was tall and gangly with an unkempt shock of brown hair, intense, brooding manner, and classic pianist's hands, which is to say his fingers were long as hell. Rob was hidden behind Will, but stepped around him to present a crew cut of blonde hair, clear blue eyes, and a wrestler's physique of muscular arms and broad shoulders tapering to narrow hips and bandy legs. Jimbo had an aw shucks quality about him, maybe five ten, neither skinny nor fat in the way farm boys are usually built around Grant City, short brown hair parted on the side, and an open face incapable of hiding emotion. All three fidgeted as the introductions were made by Teddy.

Surprisingly, Teddy seemed amused. I had a feeling I knew where this was headed, and I'm sure Teddy knew, as well. I expected him to be impatient or aloof, but he just had a quiet smile that betrayed nothing.

"Boys," Monty started, looking at the three college students, "I'm sure you're all well aware that your little show from last night has created quite a bit of . . . shall we say interest?"

Their grinning looks between each other told me they were well aware of their YouTube success.

"That was all well and good," Monty continued, "but my boss got a call this morning, and he now shares that interest."

"Go ahead," Ethan prodded. "Tell them who called."

Monty looked at all three of them, then his eyes settled on Teddy. "Bob Dylan, if you can believe it. He loved your version of 'Lily, Rosemary and the Jack of Hearts.' Said he'd never heard it done better. Singing, arrangement, the whole thing."

Teddy nodded as if this was everyday shit for him. I, on the other hand, didn't bother hiding my surprise, and I appreciated the high five between Will and Jimbo, who were obviously tickled pink. I don't give a good Goddamn whether you like Dylan's music or not; in the industry, he's a certifiable fucking genius. When Bob Dylan speaks, which is seldom, record executives listen, particularly since he reinvented himself about ten years back and proved once again his ability to create.

"Teddy, I'm not saying we liked everything we saw and heard, mind you," Monty continued. "I spent half the morning watching the other videos from the show. They weren't the best quality, tell you the truth. Still, we want to see what you've got, if you don't mind."

Teddy just nodded. "Now?"

Monty nodded in response. "If you don't mind."

Teddy looked at the boys, then to me. "All of us?"

I understood what this meant, and so did everyone else. My eyes lit on Ethan and stayed there.

After a moment, he nodded. "All of you," he said.

Teddy looked at me and shrugged, the smile beginning to disappear. "I suppose I'm game," he said. He was looking unsure now.

"Me, too," I said.

Teddy let go a long breath. "Okay," he said. "You guys get it all turned back on and I'll go get everyone back in here."

"Wait," Monty said. "We'd rather just see you without any interruption if you don't mind."

Teddy just ignored him, and Ethan and Monty both turned to me for help.

"Don't look at me, boys," I said. "Might as well get used to it now if this is what you really think you want."

So we did it. We played four more numbers, two rollicking tunes, one ballad, and one medium tempo. Monty recorded everything on a hand held camcorder to show later to the suits back in LA. Granted, the sound would still suck, but it would still beat a cell phone video uplinked to YouTube.

When we were done, Monty thanked us and passed on the invitation to stay for the food. Instead, he promised to call the next day sometime, hopped back into the chopper, and was gone.

Ethan, on the other hand, stuck around for the festivities. I was amazed, and my guilt at being gone so long compounded further, when I noticed that nearly everyone knew Ethan on a first-name basis.

Within an hour of the show, I was helping Teddy haul the pork shoulders out of the smoker.

"You really interested in this?" I asked.

He smiled. "We'll talk away from prying eyes."

We let the shoulders rest under a massive tent of aluminum foil. Meanwhile, I made the rounds, chatting for awhile with Mom and Dr. Bob and Will, all of whom knew each other. Mom dropped a bomb on me when she informed me she had helped Teddy recruit Will, Rob, and Jimbo from Chadwick College.

"Easy enough," she said. "Just ask the music professors who was worth a damn, then put 'em in touch with Teddy. He took it all from there."

After a half hour, Teddy called me into the kitchen to help him shred the pork shoulders for sandwiches. He handed me two plastic gizmos he called bear claws and showed me how to use them. Then we each speared a shoulder and got to work shredding fifty pounds of fatty pork into pure barbecue goodness.

Teddy allowed me to get the hang of it before he spoke.

"All right," he said. "The answer is yes, I'm giving this some serious thought."

I said nothing, not really knowing what to say.

After a few minutes, I noticed Teddy was no longer shredding and I looked up. He was staring at me. "Say something."

"Okay," I replied. "Do you have any idea what you're getting yourself into? What you're getting your family into?"

He smiled that lazy smile. "I know exactly what I'm getting myself into," he said. "This has been a long time coming, and we've prepared very carefully for this day."

Now it was I who stopped, waiting for clarification.

The clarification came in with Ethan breezing through the kitchen door. He took in both of us and said, "You're not telling him now, are you?"

"Yep," Teddy said. "Might as well get it over with."

"Telling me what?" I said, a feeling of dread washing over my limbs.

Ethan ignored the question and rummaged through a drawer until he found yet another pair of bear claws. Then he joined us and started tearing into the pork. Not only does he seem to know everyone, I realized, but Ethan Rose, the Jewish kid from Jersey, knew how to shred pork–not that I'd ever known him to give a shit about keeping a kosher table–and even knew where the kitchen utensils were stored. This was a set up, I now knew, and I went back to work waiting for the explanation to come out.

Ethan finally broke the silence.

"Truth be told," he said, "LeadFoot hasn't really been worth a shit since the second album. You're a great songwriter, but all of your best stuff was when you combined with Teddy."

I nodded. He was right, of course. We'd been riding the wave of our initial popularity since then, though it had still been good enough to sell millions of albums and sell out hundreds of arenas.

"So five years ago," Ethan continued, "maybe ten months after the Grammy when you guys swept 'em, I flew in to see Teddy. I saw a small decline in the songwriting even then, and I wanted to get Teddy's take on it. So he shows me all the stuff he was still writing."

I looked up at that. I had no clue Teddy was still writing. We sure as hell hadn't played any of it the night before.

"It sucks," Teddy said.

"Good enough for album filler," Ethan continued, "but not a hit in the lot of it."

"You always were the better songwriter, Nick," Teddy continued. "Ethan's spent the past five years, then, trying to talk me into getting back together with you."

"So why not just call?" I asked. "We could've collaborated. You could've stayed out of the rest of it."

"I was going to," Teddy said. "About a year and a half ago, I got ahold of Ethan and told him to approach you."

"But that was in the middle of studio sessions for Cactus Rose," Ethan said, naming our most recent album. "All the songs were already written, and you were burned out from the studio sessions. The time wasn't right, and we were at the end of the record deal."

"So why didn't you just wait awhile and then tell me?" I said.

Neither of them would meet my eyes on that one, and I waited for an answer. After a minute, I put down the bear claws and put my hands on the counter, leaning into it.

"Fess up, fellas," I said, more than a hint of growing anger coming through.

Teddy looked up first. "About five months ago you gave Ethan the next batch of songs. You'd just come off the American tour, and you'd spent most of the time writing. He shot them along to me for comments, and I went over them. Re-worked most of them, actually."

This was a pleasant surprise, and I had no idea what was so wrong with this. "Okay, good, then they're better than I thought."

My smile soon disappeared, though.

"Ethan, the songs we've been negotiating with are mine. Teddy's never been near them."

"Aw shit," Ethan said. "Nick, I got the songs back about two months ago, just before the negotiations started. They're better. Way better, actually. Not quite there yet, but close."

"Then why aren't we using them?"

"Because Ethan learned about Carl and Tara about a week before he got my re-writes," Teddy said.

I felt the anger boiling, my jaw all tense and my hands now balls of fury I struggled to keep locked on the counter before me.

"You've know about this for two months and you didn't fucking tell me?" I said to Ethan. "And you," I said to Teddy, "you just told me a few hours ago to find out the why before I made a decision? You knew, too?"

They looked to each other, then back to me.

"My advice remains unchanged," Teddy said. "Neither of us has a clue how long it's been going on or how many times they've gotten together or, most importantly, why it even happened in the first place."

"But Jesus, Teddy, you should've fuckin' told me."

Now he threw down the bear claws. "When, Nick? Huh? You wanna answer me that? When the fuck what I gonna tell you? You haven't said shit to me in six years. Think about that. Six fucking years. You didn't even know I was married, did you?"

My anger at him was now mixed with shame. He was right, of course.

"I sent you a friggin' invitation to the wedding, Nick. You blew it off, not even a fuckin' card. So you wanna tell me when I should've told you? Or better still, why the hell I'd have even bothered?"

"Theodore Cooper!" Jenny yelled from the door. We all looked at her, and the look on her face was enough to put fear in the hearts of greater souls than ours. "You have guests outside," she hissed. "I don't think they need to hear this . . . this . . . this bullshit. Do you?"

We all hung our heads, mumbled our apologies, and went back to shredding the pork. She turned, slammed the door behind her, and we soon heard her cheery voice telling everyone it was just boys being boys.

"I never saw the invitation, Teddy," I said. "I'm really sorry. Tell you the truth, I've felt like shit since first seeing you. You've been real good, and I have no right to expect it."

"And what I said stands," he said. "You still need to find out more. Hell, if they've only screwed a few times, and if you can live with the reason . . . . I'm not saying I'd forgive her and try to keep it together. Still, I'm not you, and I think you really need to see it through."

I nodded. Then I looked at Ethan. "You, though," I said, keeping my voice down. "It's just the money, isn't it? You were afraid to tell me because you're afraid it'll kill the band and your cash cow gets killed, right?"

"No, Nick," he said. "It's not just the money. You're like a brother to me. You're the only one I've ever gotten on with–well, you and Teddy. I just didn't want to see you out in the wilderness. You quit LeadFoot without a backup plan and . . . well, I'm not sure. I just know I didn't want to see you disappear, okay?"

"And he did tell you," Teddy said.

"No he didn't," I shot back. "I walked in on them Teddy."

"You walked in on them because I ended the negotiations three hours early that day," Ethan said.

"You knew they would be together?"

He nodded. "I had someone keeping an eye on Carl. When he pulled into your driveway, I got a text message right as we started. Remember how I got all pissed off early on and stormed out, ending the session?"

"Why didn't you just tell me?"

"Would you have believed me? Me over Tara? Or even Carl for that matter?"

I snickered. "Well, over Carl for sure. He's a pussyhound."

But he was right, and I knew it. I'd have been pissed at him for even suggesting Tara was cheating on me.

"Why try to get me back for the negotiations then?"

"He didn't think you'd do a runner," Teddy said. "He thought you'd go straight to him and either demand Carl be booted–"

"Which I immediately suggested," Carl interjected.

"Or just quit LeadFoot altogether," Teddy finished.

"At which time I was going to show you the re-writes from Teddy, get the record deal, and keep your career intact," Ethan added. "Oh, and help you find a new bass player."

"And you helped him on this?" I said to Teddy.

His lack of denial told me he had.

This was a lot to take in all of a sudden. Truth be told, I was pretty pissed. Still, why be pissed at either of them? I doubted very much I'd have played it any differently. Sure, Ethan was looking out for his wallet, but he was really looking out for me. And for LeadFoot, too, which we paid him bundles of money to do. Then it occurred to me.

"Okay, if all of this was to keep LeadFoot together and Teddy back on board helping with the songs, then what was this afternoon about?"

"No one at Columbia's ever seen anything like it," Ethan said. "Those YouTube scenes? They're dynamite. Sure, you're in 'em, and that's going to guarantee some big interest. These are way bigger than that, though. Hell, they're like that British chick on that show. Susan Boyle, I think? Anyway, this is bigger even than that. The word of mouth went over the net like wildfire. Monty check before we landed here and it's already had over twenty million hits on three of the seven videos, and the other four are over fifteen million."

"And I suppose you don't just ignore Bob Dylan, do you?" Teddy said, his lazy smile back.

"Not if you want to keep your job at Columbia you don't," Ethan confirmed. "So they wanted to see if there's a way to cash in on this. Right after Dylan called, Monty called me and asked if this was something that I thought could work. The two of you getting back together. I drove right over to his place and showed him the re-writes. He looks through them and just drops the whole folder of songs on the floor."

Ethan smiled. "If I'd shown him those songs from the get go, we'd have already gotten the contract and now be in the position of kicking Carl out of the band in the middle of it."

At that, my anger vanished, and it was hard to contain my grin. "So he's really pretty much fucked now, isn't he?"

"Worse than you think," Ethan said, relieved I was no longer angry. "He's damned near broke."

"Really?" Teddy said.

Ethan nodded. "He spends the shit faster than he makes it. And unlike you two, he doesn't have song royalties coming in. He gets some proceeds on album sales, but they can't finance his champaign and caviar lifestyle. Nick, you own–with Tara, by the way–a really nice place in Brentwood. But you've seen Carl's places, right? His goddamned ski lodge in Aspen, condo in the Big Apple, mansion in Malibu. Hell, I think he just got a place in London."

"What the fuck's he gonna do in London?" I asked, laughing.

"Chase London chicks," Teddy suggested, which evoked knowing laughter all around.

We finished shredding the pork and piled it into serving trays. I held back as Ethan carried the first tray out the kitchen door.

"Teddy?" I said, and he paused. "I really am sorry, man."

He turned. "I may have come across a bit more harsh than I meant to," he said.

I shook my head. "No, you were right. I've been a no show. And I can't believe I never saw the wedding invitation."

He got the lazy smile. "I may have been laying it on a bit thick there," he said. "I intentionally sent it to your home in the middle of your worldwide tour knowing you'd never get it in time. Sorry, old buddy, but I just wanted a normal wedding. Having the members of LeadFoot there would have made for anything but normal."

"Prick," I said.

"Jag off," he said back.

We carried our trays onto the deck and laid them next to the buns on the serving tables.

As I turned back to the crowd, I caught Aimee watching me, a pensive look on her face. Teddy walked over to her, kissed her forehead, then whispered something. She turned back to me and her face relaxed. I smiled, and she smiled back. Then a pang hit as I wished I had been the one kissing her forehead and whispering soothing explanations into her ear.

I grabbed a beer and stood off in the corner, alone with my thoughts. I realized now that Tara had been cheating on me more than just that once, and it sounded like it had been going on for some time. There was little doubt that I'd never get over it, and I was sure my marriage had officially gone the way of the dodo bird. Nevertheless, I decided to take Teddy's advice and at least hear her out. After five years together, I really wanted to know the full extent of what she had done–or at least as much of it as she was willing to share.

I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned. "Penny for your thoughts," Aimee said softly.

"Just thinking of something my father used to say," I said. "'Some days you're the pigeon, and some days you're the statue.'"

She laughed, and her face lit up with her laughter. I'd never heard her laugh before, and I'd never seen such a look of pure joy on her face. I was suddenly giddy at having given her that look, that uninhibited laughter.

"So which are you?" she asked. "The pigeon or the statute?"

I shrugged and smiled wide. "Don't know yet," I said. "But things sure are looking up."

Little did I know what the morrow held in store.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

"You'd better get up," Walter grumbled in my ear.

I turned, surprised to see him this early. The bedside clock told me it was a little after nine, and I'd slept enough.

"What's the problem?" I asked him.

He looked outside, then back to me. "The little tramp didn't bother waiting," he said. "She's been on the morning shows spilling the beans, telling everyone she's leaving you because you're a womanizer."

I smiled. This sure was one weird dream. I thought he'd just said–

"I said get the hell out of bed," he thundered. The blankets flew off of my as if torn by an unseen hand.

I froze. He'd never done anything like that before, and I didn't even know he had the ability to move things.

"Yeah," he said, "just like a real ghost. Now get your ass out of bed and get ready. The press will be swarming down there any minute now."

He was right, and I scrambled to get cleaned up as quickly as possible.

Fifteen minutes later, I was in the kitchen looking at a fidgeting Dr. Bob and a pissed off Carol.

"You've heard already?" Carol demanded.

I nodded, and she didn't bother asking how I knew.

"Is it true?" she barked.

I shook my head. "Not even once," I said.

"Told you so," Bob said, patting my shoulder.

Our home phone rang. Carol picked it up, said hello, then handed it to me. "It's Ethan," she said.