Center Stage - Chapter 36

I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, wincing as the doctor finished up the last of my stitches. The adrenaline had now fully worn off, and I still had a little of the shakes. I’d had them before after fights, but never like this. Although I guess this wasn’t so much of a fight as someone trying to kill me.

“I’m so sorry, I’m here,” Kat said, rushing in.

The doctor looked up at her, but didn’t say anything as she came over to my opposite side and took my hand. One of the benefits of a certain level of status was getting escorted to the doctor right away and your girlfriend being escorted through to you. Or it could have been Hal and Warren, who’d both still been in the bar, and who drove after the ambulance and started greasing the wheels the moment they stepped in the building.

I’d actually tried to convince them to just let me get a bandage at the ambulance and call it a day, but nearly everyone had insisted and it didn’t seem worth fighting.

Kat had stayed behind to move some of our stuff out of the room and to Lyla and Tabitha’s room until we got a new one, since our current room was kind of destroyed and maybe a crime scene. I’d thought she’d have had to wait a lot longer to get that all figured out, but maybe they only lock down crime scenes like they do on TV when someone dies, and not just for an assault.

“You’re lucky it wasn’t deeper,” the doctor commented, putting a bandage over the finished stitches. “This should heal up nicely. The discharge nurse should be along in a little bit with instructions on care and cleaning and to get you all situated.”

“Thanks, Doctor,” I said, reaching for my shirt and starting to pull it back on.

As the doctor left, Hal came into the small curtained-off area I was in.

“Charlie, how are you holding up?”

“I’m okay. It’ll probably be sore tomorrow but he put some kind of thing on it that’s helping and prescribed painkillers.”

“Good. Good. The press is already swarming outside. Don’t worry, I’ll handle it, but we need to discuss our next steps. If you’re not feeling up to it, we can postpone the concert and hand out rain tickets to everyone. It’s not ideal, since we will lose some of the fans, but I’d prefer you wait until you can put on a good show, rather than trying to push you to do more than you’re ready for. However, if we are going to do that, it’s better to do it now than wait two days for the decision.”

“No. I’m good to keep doing it. I might not be up to all of the interviews Quinn set up, however. Do you think we could cancel those? At least the ones for tomorrow?”

“No, we can send your bandmates to do them. It’s not quite the same but it’s better than just not … actually, that’s a thought,” Hal said.

“What? We shouldn’t send them?”

“No, actually we should send them to do all of your stops. Keep you out of the public eye until your first show. The news is going to feed into this, hard. That would be obvious even without all the reporters camped outside. Maybe, if they’re going to use you, we should use them right back. We have your friends tell everyone you are, of course, fine and just taking a few days to prepare for the show, but everyone’s going to try to read into it. The news people can’t help themselves, speculate about your tour. The amount of free media we’re going to get off of them will be invaluable.”

A year ago, I would have balked at the idea. But he was right. They were going to try and use me to drive ratings one way or another, so I had no problem using them.

“Anything to get out of interviews,” I said, getting a laugh out of him.

I’d done all the marketing asked of me, but I’d never made it a secret that I didn’t love it.

“Good. Good. Did you want me to stay with you? Make sure you get back alright?”

“No, I’m good. They’re releasing me soon, and I’ve got Kat, Jean, Warren, and the others. There will be enough people to escort me back.”

“Alright, get some rest. I’ll make sure Warren has what he needs to take care of your stay here and then I’ll deal with the reporters,” he said, patting my leg, and nodding to Jean as she came into the curtained off area while he left.

“Everything sorted out?” I asked her.

The police had practically followed me to the hospital and come in to talk to me, but it had been brief, with Jean and Hal handling most of it. Another thing that either having money or notoriety helped me with.

“Yes. We’d already been talking to the locals in every city we went to about the situation with him, and they already had a warrant out for him in North Carolina, so it made everything pretty open and shut. You might have to deal with testifying when he finally goes to court, but that can take forever and he’s likely to plead out or get deemed unfit to stand trial and held on psyche instead.”

“Ohh, good.”

I was worried how dealing with this would go, since I had not been wowed with the legal system so far in my life. But I also knew there was a two-tiered system, and people with nothing were treated very differently than people who had resources. This was my first time seeing it in action. I wasn’t sure I liked causing others to fall behind as I moved ahead of them in line, but I also didn’t want to have to deal with everything, so I wasn’t going to complain.

“Kat, can I have a minute with Charlie,” Jean said.

Kat nodded, squeezed my hand and left the curtain area. Jean had a serious look on her face. Well, she always had a serious look, but this was extra serious.

“I’m turning in my resignation, but I wanted to tell you first,” she said. “I’ll stay until the company can find someone new to protect you, but after that, I’m done.”

“Why?”

“You almost got killed on my watch. I can’t in good conscience continue to protect you when I failed so badly.”

“I think that might be an overreaction. This guy had eluded police for months. He knew what he was doing.”

“That doesn’t matter...”

“I think it does,” I said, interrupting her. “You made the right call in the moment. I didn’t question it then, and I don’t question it now.”

“The right call wouldn’t have put you in danger.”

“There wasn’t time to check the room and deal with him downstairs. And there was no reason to believe the room was compromised. Anyone would have made the same call.”

“If something like this happened again, I don’t want…”

“If someone else had been guarding me, it would have been the same. Nine times out of ten, it would have been the right call. I’m not going to judge you on the outlier. I want to make it clear, if you resign, I’ll have to find a new security company altogether.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Jean said, clearly getting frustrated.

“It does, because I value my people, and you have done a great job. You don’t let me get away with putting myself in danger, you are amazingly observant, and you’re a phenomenal supervisor of the people under you. If Mana or Malik had been in your place, would you have demanded they resign?”

I could see her defense crumble at that.

“I thought not. Now, if you’re done with that, what’s the deal with Nolan?”

“He’s in this hospital, actually, about to go into surgery for his shattered wrist. After that, he’s being transferred to Rikers. Booked on attempted murder, among other charges.”

“Which means he shouldn’t be a problem to me anymore, right?”

“Right. It’s possible he gets the charges dropped and institutionalized instead, but either way, he’s gone. He won’t mess with you anytime soon.”

“Good. So this is all done with?”

“Yes,” Jean confirmed. “It’s over.”

“Then we did what we needed to do.”

“I suppose we did,” she said, finally letting some of the guard she’d had up since she’d walked into the curtained area to try and resign.

“Alright, then how about seeing if anyone can spring me out of this place.”

***

Two days later, I was on the wings in Madison Square Garden, watching Cole have maybe the best set I’d ever seen him have. It was slower than the music we’d be playing tonight, but he had some ballads in it, and the crowd seemed to be enjoying themselves.

“It’s nuts out there,” Kat said, joining me.

Even with the Olympics, in this context, she was still just anonymous. With a big hoodie and glasses, she could mostly slip through the crowds unnoticed and check things out. After she’d seen Cole start, she said she wanted to look around before I went on, since she was planning on staying here to watch my whole set.

I actually thought she wasn’t going to make it before Cole finished his last song, until she came jogging back.

“Disorganized?”

“No, just packed. There are as many people walking around, looking at merch and stuff, as in the stands, although I think they were heading that direction as I was coming back, since people were saying it was almost time for you to start.”

“You almost lost track of time, didn’t you?”

“Shut up,” she said, bumping me with her hip. “You should see the merch booths though. Stuff is flying off the shelves and I love the designs ARC came up with.”

“Yeah, they showed me the mock-ups before we left for Tokyo. They were amazing.”

“You really made it. Like … just think back to how it was when we were driving around in Seth’s van, all sleeping in that one hotel. Playing for under a hundred people. Look at this,” she said, waving her hand out toward the crowd as Cole started getting close to the end of the song. “I can’t believe both of our dreams came true.”

I knew hers did, for sure. We were already talking about a case to put her medals in so she could display them. We’d convinced her not to take them on tour with us because we didn’t want them lost or stolen, but she couldn’t stop looking at them until we finally had to give them over to Mrs. Phillips to take back to the house for safekeeping.

For my part, I actually wasn’t sure.

“I’ve been thinking about that. I’ve been chasing this for a long time, to be able to do music for a living, to have crowds cheering for me. I think, the more I’ve learned about the industry, the less I think this is what I was really looking for. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. I love having people hear my music and spending my life making new music for them. I thought this was everything I wanted. And now … I think I was wrong and I think I found what I wanted way before now.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think I started music to try and impress my dad, to make him like me. I mean, that was never going to happen, but honestly, I think I just wanted a real family, not the mess I was born into. And I found one. You, Hanna and her mom, Chef, all of you. If I think about it, the time I’m with you guys has been the best times of my whole life. Better than on the stage or with fans or all of that.”

Kat’s arms wrapped around me, “I’m glad you found us too. You really changed all of our lives.”

I hugged her tight as Cole hit the last notes of his song and started getting the crowd ready for my entrance.

She pulled away slightly, gesturing towards the roaring crowd. “Though this isn’t too shabby either, you have to admit.”

I chuckled. “No, it definitely isn’t.”

From on stage, Cole said, “ … the one, the only, Charlie Nelson.”

I gave her a last squeeze and ran out on stage, pulling Cole into a big hug and slapping his back. The applause hit me like a physical force. So many people, screaming at the top of their lungs. I could feel it in my bones.

“They’re all yours, man!” he said in my ear, before pulling out of the hug, waving at the crowd, and running off stage.

I moved to the middle of the stage, stood in front of the mic stand, and raised my hands over my head.

“Hello, New York!” I shouted into the mic.

The crowd went wild.

Yep. Not too shabby at all.

The End