“Okay, Zac, do you have the schedule figured out yet?” Taylor asked his younger brother who was rummaging through the file cabinet in his office at MOE Records. “Yeah, here they are,” Zac tossed the packet of papers on the desk and shoved them in Taylor’s direction. “Zac, these are totally out of order! God, this is the third time this month you haven’t had the schedules organized. Why?” Taylor’s ice blue eyes glared down at his younger brother.
“Well, you know...” Zac shrugged and gazed into a picture of a young woman on the desk. Taylor felt his chest muscles tighten. “Yeah, I know,” he muttered, going through the papers. Taylor could feel a huge migraine coming on. Zac didn’t know he cringed every time he saw that picture; Taylor had become incredibly good at hiding his feelings ever since he was pushed into the spotlight when he was fourteen years old.
Taylor watched as the words blurred before him as the migraine intensified. “Zac, figure these out. I’ve got a migraine and I’m going to lie down.” Zac opened his mouth to protest when Taylor stopped him, “I don’t care about your plans. Organize the things or you’ll deal with every single manager that’ll be on my butt complaining about them.”
Taylor turned and walked out of the room and into his office. He laid down on the couch that was always available for the migraines. He had been having a lot lately. The stress of running a recording label with his two brothers was taking its toll. He had been doing it for a year now and it was beginning to show. His eyes were often tired and migraines were often unwelcomed visitors. He often wondered why there were only twenty-four bloody hours in a day.
It seemed as though there was always something to do: appearances, contracts, signing new bands, checking out competition, autographs, and of course, Hanson. Taylor had tackled all of these challenges and was reasonably happy with them all. There was just something missing. There was a huge void inside him that no accomplishment seemed to be able to fill. He knew very well what it was but he didn’t know how to heal it. It seemed to him like cancer: you know it’s there and it’s eating away at you and you try everything possible but it seems like it’s always there. But the problem was it seemed to be growing.
Taylor sighed and closed his eyes and let his mind wander back to her. He wondered what she was doing at that moment. He hadn’t seen her in eleven years. But he still remembered her smile, her laugh, and her eyes. God, those eyes. The feel of her hair as he ran his fingers through it, the scent of her strawberry lotion that she loved so much, and the redness of her lips. Then he opened his eyes and shrugged. ‘So much for childish dreams,’ he thought as he rolled over and drifted off to sleep.
Isaac walked in, “Taylor, listen...” he stopped short when he saw Taylor lying on the couch breathing deeply. Isaac smiled at the sleeping image of his twenty-six year old brother. Taylor’s blonde hair which was just touching his shoulders was limp across his face and his neck. His face, which had matured considerably in the last eleven years, was relaxed and peaceful. His full height of 6’1 was curled up in order to avoid falling off the couch.
As Isaac began to slip out of the room he caught his own reflection in the mirror. His hair which was about an inch above his shoulders was now almost totally brown with a hint of blonde here and there. He was the same height as Taylor but he had an older aurora and manner about him.
Isaac looked down and saw a picture that was taken in 1998 when they appeared for only the second time on the Rosie O’Donnell show. He picked it up and looked at it fondly. He still remembered that. At that time Zac’s voice was changing so they had tried to let him talk as little as possible until it fully changed. Isaac smiled at the picture for a few seconds, then placed it back on the desk and quietly crept out of the office.
A few hours later, he felt a rough hand shaking him awake. “Taylor, c’mon, it’s time to go home.” Taylor took a few moments as he stretched and allowed himself to fully awake. “All right, as long as you don’t drive like you did this morning,” he muttered to Zac. Zac cringed. “Actually, umm...the car isn’t working so Jen called a friend of hers.” Taylor turned toward Zac, trying to remember. Oh yeah. Jen had come with them that morning since she worked at the studio. She had been doing that ever since she and Zac had started dating seriously again. “Well, whoever it is they’d better be prepared to deal with me,” Taylor said with a hint of smile twitching on the side of his lips, “Who did she call?” Zac placed a hand on Taylor’s shoulder, “Kelsey.”
