I opened my eyes and looked to the right and the left before looking down at my stomach while running my hands over my midsection. No blood, no giant hole and no dragon in the room. Yep, it was an awful dream. No more eating Chinese at three in the morning. It's twelve thirty in the afternoon the day before a concert and no one has come banging on my door demanding I make an appearance or some appointment. There was a knock on the door and instantly I knew I spoke to soon. Standing at the door waiting for me to answer was no other than Carl,
"You have rehearsal in two and a half hours. You should get something to eat now before you get there." I nodded and closed the door as he turned to leave. Why do we need rehearsal? We just did three consecutive shows in LA. It's not like we could forget the routine after two days off but that was the way things were. I quickly opened the door and called out,
"Carl!" He turned around and I waited until he was near the door before I turned to retreat back into my room,
"Yeah. What's up?" He wasn't with Howie and me when we went to the gala. He came to Denver with the rest of the tour while Howie's bodyguard, John, made sure we were safe at all times. He closed the door and waited for me to say whatever it was that kept him from doing whatever it was he was going to do,
"Where are you going?" He frowned slightly from obvious confusion,
"To my room." I nodded as I walked further into the room and flopped down on the couch,
"What are you doing?" He shook his head and the wrinkles in his face multiplied,
"What do you mean?" I shrugged and and crossed one foot over the other as I propped my feet up on the coffeetable,
"I mean, what do you do? When you're in your room or when you're waiting around on me or when there is a break? Do you have family or kids? What do you like to do?" He shook his head and his hands simultaneously,
"Whoa, whoa slow down. Let's start with something easy. Like why you called me back." He refuses to give information. I don't know anything about him, I mean nothing.
"Come on Carl. You aren't going to tell me anything about yourself?" I knew absolutely nothing about him and the more I gave thought to this the more unsettling it was,
"Why are you so nosey all of a sudden? All you need to know about me is that I'm here for you." I shook my head,
"That sounds like something out of a bad action movie. Come on, how am I supposed to trust you when I know nothing about you?" He sighed,
"I'm from Arizona. Now, what do you want?" I guess that little nugget of information should make me happy. It's the most I've ever known about him,
"I have a friend coming into town later on today. I need to make sure a car is waiting for her at the airport." He nodded,
"What airline and what time?" I shrugged,
"She's going to call me and let me know." He nodded as he began to walk out the door,
"Let me know as soon as you know but I'll go ahead and give the service a heads up." He closed the door. Usually I don't know anything about the arrival of a girl into town. Usually I didn't even know they were coming they just showed up and then I had to drop everything to make sure they felt welcomed. Nothing pissed me off more than that. I had to change my schedule, how I planned to spend my time just to accomodate them. It really was rude and inconsiderate as far as I was concerned, I was put out. As someone who rarely has that much time to just relax I really tried to enjoy the time that I spent off when we were on the road and they would ruin that. Sure, I could say I had plans but I would just come out looking like the bad guy. You know, even when I did tell a girl to meet me in a city I wouldn't arrange travel and transportation plans for her. I would just tell her to come to the city and to call me when she arrived. Not Sarah, I wouldn't do that to her. She deserved better than that, she was more sophisticated than that and frankly, she didn't have to put up with it. I'm sure, unlike the regular girls I fooled around with, there were plenty of celebrities that wanted to spend time with her. So, there was no way I was going to let her slip through my fingers by acting like a total idiot.
I'm lazy. I don't know how I'm able to live my life as a pop star. A lounge singer is more like it. Someone who sits on a barstool and does nothing but sing, that's more my speed. Everytime we stop rehearsal the first thing I do is get off my feet and sit on my butt, sometimes I even lay flat on my back. My eyes were closed and I heard someone sit down beside me,
"You've been a stranger lately." I smiled and opened my eyes to see Jessica,
"I've been around." She nodded as she sipped on a bottle of water through a straw,
"Are you going out tonight?" Jessica and I haven't been intimate in a while. Between Sarah, Brehan and Jennifer I've been a little busy and knowing Jessica, she's probably been a little busy too. I mean, I'm sure I'm not the only one she's been sleeping with over the past few months. Right?
"I don't know. Maybe." I know for sure I'm not going out but I don't want to lock myself into an answer then have to dig my way out of some plan she has for the two of us.
"Come on, you should hang out." I didn't want to hang out. I was tired and I would think she would be too but then again a dancer's responsibility was limited to on stage performance. My job consisted of concerts, fan conferences, radio and TV appearances, interviews, working on new material and whatever else popped up and could be squeezed in between everything else. I sighed and pretended to be exhausted,
"I don't know I'm pretty tired but I may feel better later on. I'll see." Suddenly Carl walked over and I've never been so happy to see him besides the time some fan's hand was full of my hair which was still attached to my head. By the time they were able to pry me from her grasp she had a hand full of my hair and I had such a headache I had to bail out on the TV interview we had. He held his hand out towards me and I noticed my phone,
"You have a phone call." Thank God.
Chapter 88 contd
Stranger Than Fiction
Stories