By the time they arrived at the scene, everyone was there. Mike was running around, looking clearly agitated. The group sat nearby the stage, talking to each other quietly, faces mirroring their worries. AJ was on the phone, talking rapidly. “…mom, just calm down, what happened?…what? how could they? Now just relax and…I know…they had a what? Oh man…”
Julian was also on the phone, his face grim. He was growling, biting off each word. “I don’t care, damnit! A deal’s a deal, McAllen!…Well, choose another location! That shoot’s going to go on no matter what!”
“Sounds serious,” Billy whispered to her. Rachael took her eyes off the scene and nodded.
After some time, Mike broke off whispering urgently to Julian, who had gotten off the phone, and straightened. “Attention please! Everyone, please be quiet!” murmurs and hubbubs died away into expecting silence. “We just got a call from the Finelight Inc. it seems like they got involved in a serious law suit against them. They were going to cancel the photo shoot.”
Talk erupted everywhere, this time tinged with panic. Finelight was the company that were supplying the equipment and location for the shoot. Mike motioned for silence again.
“Julian just talked with the director of the company and persuaded him to reconsider the canceling. With any luck, we’ll be able to go on with it, but so far it’s not certain.”
“He mentioned if we were to use their equipment and crews,” Julian cut in, “we have to move fast. There might be a major change in the schedule, and that’s the problem. We don’t have any room to move any event around. We might have to cancel some shows in the next few weeks.”
“You’d better tell my mom,” AJ said. “She was totally freaking out.” Denise McLean, Rachael remembered, was the band’s publicist.
Julian nodded. “Right now we can’t do anything. But I think there are no other ways. We have to pull some shows back.”
The guys nodded glumly, resigned looks on their faces.
“I’ll see what I can do,” Mike added.
Julian met Rachael’s gaze for a while, his dark eyes emotionless. There was a slight suggestion of a smirk there. She could feel it. We’ll see, she thought. We’ll see.
The meeting broke, and everyone departed from the room, each talking to each other. The guys came out huddled together. Billy, Rachael, Marcus and Carlos followed some steps behind.
“This is bad,” Brian started.
“Well, it’s not good, is it?” AJ retorted.
They shot him a withering look and kept on walking.
“When do you think it’ll start?” Howie asked after a while.
“You heard him. He doesn’t know yet.” Kevin frowned. “Do you think we should start packing?”
“Let’s just wait a bit.” AJ said. “Mom reckons Jive might step in and clear this out.”
Nick was silent. Not only because he was still moody from being woken up so violently and hurled out of the bunk- this presented another problem. He glanced back at Rachael. What was he going to do with her? He had read the contract sometime before, and it had stated that she was hired for the tour and the tour only. He remembered the time when she first started and Kevin saying something about running into trouble at the photo shoots. He had never really considered what would happen then. And now…
“You coming?”
Nick looked up. “What?”
“Sound check. You coming?” Howie repeated patiently.
“Oh…yeah. In a minute,” he replied absently and headed to the dressing room. Rachael followed silently. As the door clicked shut, he whirled around, a dismayed look on his face. “Oh great. What have I done now?” he asked exasperatedly.
Rachael blinked. “I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t act dumb, will you? I had enough of your sarcastic crap. Just get on with it,” he said rudely.
The only sign of her anger was the slight tightening of her mouth. “I don’t have anything to say,” she said stonily.
He stared at her for a second, then sighed. “forget it,” he muttered, stalking out of the room.
Rachael sighed. It was too much. Way too much. This kid was absolutely the limit. Wearily, she pushed it out of her mind and began to think about the problem in front of her. Whitestone. His attitude. His posture. The medical form this morning. She thought about it for a second, then pulled out her phone and dialed.
“Hello?”
“I need a favor,” she started.
“Rock, is that you? Where the hell have you been?”
“I’ll explain later. Can you do something for me?”
“If I could,” the voice said cautiously.
“I want you to look up everything you can on a man called Julian Whitestone.”
“Hold on. Whitestone, is it?”
“Get me everything. Biography, occupation, the works. Got that?”
“Yep. When do you want it?”
“ASAP. Possibly in the next twenty-four hours. Send it into my CIAB account.”
“Gotcha.”
“Thanks. I owe you.”
“No problem. I’ll send you the bill later.”
“Oh, one more thing,” she added.
“Yeah?”
“Look up specific details on his medical status.”
“m-e-d-i-c-a-l. Right.”
Rachael hung up, drumming her fingers on the arm of the chair, lost in thought. Then she got up, heading for the catering. She needed another cup of coffee.
© 2000 Copyright ‘The Bodyguard’
