Center Stage - Chapter 12

I woke up to the sound of my phone ringing. The sun was all the way up and I blearily noticed the clock said it was half past noon as I slapped the nightstand a few times before finding my phone, which stopped ringing by the time I found it. I vaguely remembered an alarm sometime around nine and shut it off.

The phone started ringing again, and I saw I had nine missed calls, meaning it had been going off for a while before it managed to wake me up. I was exhausted when I rolled into bed last night, but I hadn’t thought I was that tired.

I saw it was Warren’s name on the caller ID. I wasn’t late for my call time, which wasn’t until three, but maybe he was calling to check in and see how everything turned out last night.

“Hey Warren, what’s up?” I said, answering the phone and sitting up in bed.

“Have you seen the article?” he asked, a weird tone in his voice.

“The what? No, I literally just woke up. I didn’t get back to the hotel until almost two.”

“We have a problem. There’s an article on SpilledTea about last night.”

SpilledTea was a gossip website calling itself a celebrity news site, but was more of a celebrity gossip site that had a bad history of invading people’s privacy. One which I had, sadly, read from time to time because their stories were outrageous.

“What do you mean?”

“The article is actually about Alina. They’re claiming she was drugged at the party and that the winner of the last season of The Stage was seen carrying her out unconscious. They’re suggesting you took her back to a hotel and took advantage of her while she was out of it, and they have several quotes from the party that you were drunk, reeking of booze.”

“What? That’s not true at all! I was on the phone with you half the time. She was on something, but there were these other guys assaulting her. I only took her back to her hotel because she was too wasted to be left alone. And I don’t drink.”

“I know, Charlie. I know,” Warren said, trying to calm me down. “I’ve already talked to Arthur and Benny about this. They’re confident there won’t be any legal trouble, even if Alina or someone from her camp tries to press charges. The real problem, for us, is public perception. The optics on this are bad, and so are the pictures of you putting her in the taxi and getting in with her.”

“Shit. Okay, give me a second.”

I pulled the phone away and put it on speaker, then opened a browser on my phone, going to SpilledTea. Right there on the front page was a picture of me half-carrying Alina into the cab. The headline read “Alina’s Night of Terror: Alina Petrova’s Disturbing Ordeal with Reality TV Star.”

I skimmed the article, my stomach sinking further with every word. It was full of innuendo, never quite saying it but strongly hinting that I had drugged Alina at the party and then taken her back to her hotel room where I assaulted her. There were quotes from anonymous sources claiming I had been drunk and reeking of booze.

Nothing in the article outright accused me of assaulting her, but it heavily implied it. And the pictures of me practically carrying Alina and pushing her into a cab before getting in were, indeed, very bad. It was obvious from the pictures that Alina was completely out of it and I was doing all the work to put her in the cab.

“Warren, this is bad,” I said, feeling sick. “Really bad.”

“I know.”

I switched over to my social media accounts. My follower count had exploded over the past month as my appearances on talk shows and the footage of me performing had made the rounds.

On Switcher, where I’d gotten the most traction since it started as a music video app where people lip-synced to songs or showed clips of performances, the comments were a mix of people defending me and others condemning me.

“He said on The Stage that he doesn’t drink. Why would he be drunk?”

“Just another celebrity thinking they can do whatever they want. Disgusting. #Scumbag”

“Can’t believe Charlie would do something like this. He seemed so genuine on The Stage. Guess it was all an act. #CancelCharlieNelson”

“Another man taking advantage of a vulnerable woman. When will it end? The music industry needs to do better. #TimesUp”

“Innocent until proven guilty, people. Let’s not jump to conclusions based on some gossip site. Charlie deserves the benefit of the doubt. #IStandWithCharlie”

“So disappointed right now. I was rooting for Charlie, but if these allegations are true, I can’t support him anymore. Fame really does change people. :(“

“Y’all are so quick to believe the worst. Where’s the proof? These are serious accusations to make without evidence. #InnocentUntilProvenGuilty”

I was reading it all out to Warren as I read the comments. On Cadance, where we were doing the most streams, people could leave comments on songs, and my album was on the front page as the “most talked about” with people arguing back and forth on my tracks. Some insisted I was innocent, others claimed my nice guy persona on The Stage had been an act.

Widget, which was mostly for older people but where I’d gotten a following thanks to Kat, was even worse, with people viciously fighting amongst each other. The article was getting posted and reposted. The site was usually toxic, which is why I hardly ever went there, but this was worse than anything I’d seen on others sites. The threads accusing me of being a predator were beating the posts arguing the article didn’t actually prove anything.

All of that, thousands and thousands of messages, for an article that had only been up for three hours.

“I know,” Warren said when I finally stopped reading off the angry comments and dropped my phone on the bed. “You’re not the first to go through this, and we can survive it, and you have a lot of people defending you, which is good. It’s also why we need to get you a PR person as soon as possible. This week at the latest.”

“I know, I know,” I said, flopping back on the bed. “What do we do next, while we wait to find one?”

“It depends on what Alina decides to do. Has she reached out to you at all?”

“No, nothing. You think she will?”

“Hard to say. Her team might advise her to steer clear entirely, or they might reach out privately. If we could get her denying it, that would go a long way.”

“I’m not sure she was conscious enough to deny it,” I said.

“I know. Were you ever alone with her? Even for a minute?”

“No. We were at the party, then in the cab with the cabby, and then with the doorman who helped me get her upstairs. An assistant showed up as soon as we got to her room and took over from there. I rode the elevator back down with the doorman.”

“At least that’s good. The drunk part hurts, but we can work with it.”

“I didn’t drink anything but a Diet Coke,” I insisted. “I had a run-in with Kirsten Lindstrom. She was hammered and invited me back to her hotel. When I turned her down, she threw her drink on me and started screaming. Everyone at the party saw it. I swear, people saw what happened. The cabby and the doorman, at the very least, can back up my story.”

“Alright, I’ll get on it. See what statements we can get out there letting people know what really happened. But Charlie, for now, you need to keep a low profile. No going out, no parties, no public appearances unless absolutely necessary.”

“But the tour ...”

“The shows will go on as planned. But outside of that, you need to be a ghost. We can’t risk any more bad press or opportunities for people to twist the narrative.”

“They lied, though. Can’t we … I don’t know, sue them?”

“Arthur and Benny are working on the legal end of things already, but Benny said there probably isn’t any way we can go after the website. They were very careful to walk the line of defamation, which is harder to prove as you get more name recognition, and they’ve got a lot of experience fighting bigger names than yours over their stuff. Right now, let’s focus on the PR aspect of it and make sure it doesn’t derail anything we have planned. We’ll weather this storm, Charlie. Hang in there,” Warren said, disconnecting.

After Warren hung up, I checked my three dozen unread messages that had come in since I got back to the hotel ten hours ago. It wasn’t hard to figure out what they were. The news had spread fast and I had texts from what felt like half the school, or at least those who knew me, along with messages from Chef, my bandmates, and even Mrs. Phillips.

Mrs. Phillips and Chef were checking in on me and making sure I was okay, while the rest were varieties of ‘omg, what happened.’

There was one text, however, that was noticeable by its complete absence. While I had faith that Kat trusted me, she’d gone through a lot of her own trauma and the article was written in a way to very much make me come off as guilty. That she hadn’t texted me when everyone else did worried me.

“Hey, you,” Kat answered on the fourth ring, slightly out of breath. “What’s up?”

“Hey, have you been online at all this morning? Or maybe had some calls?”

“I had some calls, but I was in practice and figured I’d call them back. I was about to, since I just finished, but you called before I could. Everything okay?”

“So you haven’t talked to anyone?”

“No, I’ve been in the pool. Why? What happened?”

“There’s an article. About me. From last night.”

“What kind of article?” she said.

It was a matter of fact, not accusatory or even concerned.

“It’s on SpilledTea, I’ll send you the link when we’re done. They’re saying I drugged and assaulted a model at the party last night.”

“What?” Kat’s voice pitched up. “That’s insane. You would never-”

“I didn’t,” I cut in quickly. “I swear, Kat, it’s not true.”

“Of course it’s not. If I had to guess, you were white knighting and someone’s taking things out of context. So just tell me what happened for real. Not what the article says.”

“There was this model, Alina, she was really messed up. I found her passed out and these two guys were trying to take her out of the party, their hands were all over her. I chased them off and tried to find someone who knew her, but she was there by herself. I called Warren and he got a hold of one of her managers somehow and found out where her hotel was. The pictures on the article are from the paparazzi outside the hotel where the party is, where I was trying to get her into a cab. She was completely out of it and I was practically carrying her, so it looks really bad. I didn’t trust her with some random cabby, in her shape, so I rode with her back to the hotel and then me and the doorman carried her upstairs. Her management showed up right when we got her upstairs and they took over from there. I wasn’t alone with her, even for a second. I swear.”

“Even if you had been, I’d know the article was a lie. You did the right thing. ‘m proud of you for looking out for her. A lot of guys, even the ones who’d never take advantage of the situation, would’ve just ignored it.”

“I know. I just ... I didn’t want you to see this article and think something happened that didn’t.”

“Charlie, I trust you completely. It never even crossed my mind that you’d do anything like that.”

“Thank you.”

“I mean it. But ... this sounds like it’s going to be a problem.”

“Yeah, Warren’s already on it. He and benny have made it their top priority to get me someone to handle PR. He says we should have it this week. Although, the damage is done. People on social media are up in arms.”

“I can imagine. When we’re done, i’ll call Warren, see if we should put out a statement. I know he’s probably waiting for a PR person, but on the internet, a week is an eternity. We should put out something in the meantime, at least denying it and laying out the facts,” she said, and then paused. “You should call her.”

“Who?”

“Alina. I’m betting the article makes her look bad too, except she wasn’t awake to go through any of that. Her people have probably told her what happened form theri point of view bu ... waking up and hearing you were assaulted but not remembering anything or knowing if it’s true, that would be incredibly scary. You were there and know what happened. She’ll want to know.”

“But her people …”

“Can only tell her part of the story,” Kat said, interrupting me. “I know you did the right thing, but you also made yourself responsible. Like you did with me. I know you’ll see it through.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to get involved more and I was almost certain what Warren would say, but how could I say no, especially after she compared their situations.

“I don’t know how to get a hold of her,” I said, trying one last dodge.

“Warren will get you her number. Do it, Charlie.”

“Okay. Okay. I’ll send him a text now.”

We stayed on the phone for another thirty minutes. She was pushing herself too hard and I tried to convince her to slow down, even a little bit, but I wasn’t really one to give her that advice, considering my own schedule.

Even with the backlash of the article hanging over me, I felt better after talking to Kat. I could stand the world hating me, at least for a little bit, as long as Kat believed me.

I spent the rest of the afternoon calling back everyone who texted me, repeating the story over and over, although downplaying how bad Alina was, since Kat was right, this would be hard on her and, even though she didn’t know these people, I didn’t want to drag her name through the mud.

Thankfully, my friends are all supportive and everyone believed me. They all agreed to help squash any rumors that might start around school before I got back and Chef basically gave me the same advice as Kat, which was helpful. He’s helped people in these types of situations before, so if he said I should talk to Alina and at least reassure her that nothing happened and we were never alone together, giving her a little peace, then I’d do it.

I had to rush getting through all the conversations because I still had a show that night. As soon as I walked through the door, two stage-hands intercepted me and had me follow them. Neither could explain where I was going, although it became pretty clear when they showed me into a room filled with Phoenix West, tour producers, and several of what seemed to be lawyers, based on what they were wearing.

“Charlie, we need to talk about that article,” Phoenix said, confirming my suspicions. “The bad press is something we can’t afford right now. We’ve called you in to let you know we are considering pulling you from the tour.”

I felt my stomach drop. I was getting the Dakota treatment.

“It’s unfortunate that you’re not signed with GLR,” he continued after a pause. Our in-house PR team might have been able to squash the article before it came out, and they’d still be able to deal with it now. I know you’ve made it clear you’re not interested in signing with us, and I’m not going to push you again. But if you did change your mind, we’d be able to help you out of this situation. Unfortunately, without some kind of team in place to deal with this situation, since our in-house team can legally only represent our artists, we have little choice but to make decisions for the good of the tour.”

“So you’re going to remove me like Dakota, unless I sign with GLR.”

“I want to make it clear, we are not saying that,” one of the lawyers said. “Phoenix was just pointing out that, if you were signed with the label, there would be tools in place to help you. He is not saying there is a guarantee that nothing would happen if you were with the label, since it’s impossible to know what an effective team would be able to do, and we cannot make guarantees on counterfactuals. He is just pointing out the variables that had to be considered in reaching this decision, which is why he included the possibility that having your own team, outside of GLR, would have been equally helpful.”

“Dakota was with GLR, and yet there didn’t seem to be any push from the label to help her,” I pointed out.

“That was different,” another of the lawyers said. “What happened to Ms. Rayne had nothing to do with public relations. Her issues happened on stage during a performance and caused serious liabilities for the tour.

I didn’t buy it for a second. I had a sneaking suspicion that, because Dakota’s career was on the downslope, they wanted to make way for new people they’d signed. Not that pointing that out would have helped. They almost certainly had an answer for that too.”

“The article is a lie. Everything is either taken out of context or a complete lie, mostly the latter. My management is already working on a response.”

“Be that as it may, the bad press is still out there. It’s not a good look for the tour. I’m sorry, Charlie, I really am. You have done great work and I, personally, am a big fan of your music, but after everything that’s happened so far, we just can’t afford to let the tour derail this far along. Again, I’m really sorry, but that’s why morality clauses are in our contracts. For exactly this situation. However, I think it would be best if we didn’t have to do that, since those things get messy. It would be better for you to make this quiet and leave without us having to do anything drastic. Labels and distributors don’t want to work with a difficult artist who might end up costing them money, so it’s best if something like this can be handled without a lot of public opinion.”

“I appreciate you looking out for me, but I am not going to quit. You’re of course free to do what you feel is right for the tour, since you’re in charge of this thing. But I think it’s important to remember there are limits to the morality clause in contracts.”

“What exactly are you implying, Mr. Nelson?” one of the lawyers said.

“I’m not implying anything. I’m just sharing some of my past experiences with other labels that decided to make changes based on clauses in the contract before the conditions for those clauses were actually met. It didn’t work out well for them that time around. In fact, it became very costly.”

“Are you threatening us?” Phoenix said, any semblance of apology or empathy gone.

“No. Not at all. I’m just relaying history that I wasn’t sure if you knew or not. Like I said, you should do what you feel you need to. I just feel it’s best if we all have a full picture of what’s happening before jumping into anything rashly.” I kept my tone even, meeting his glare with, what I hoped, was youthful innocence.

We both knew what I was saying, and I was calling him on his bluff. I’d made sure Benny read over this contract with a fine-tooth comb for anything like this before I started the tour. Well, not exactly like this, since there was no way to predict disaster, but for any kind of clause they could use to pull the rug out from under me. I hadn’t expected them to try it, but after how they handled the negotiations after the show, I wanted to make sure we dotted our i’s. I knew for a fact that I was in the clear, and they were hoping I’d ‘quit so it wouldn’t be an issue.

Phoenix looked at his lawyers, but their expressions, and his, told me they didn’t need to discuss it. If I had to guess, they probably already warned him that any dismissal would cause problems.

“We don’t have another show until Philadelphia two weeks from now. We’ll be using that time to assess the situation and determine what’s in the best interest of the tour. By the time we hit Chicago the following week, I would suggest you figure out how to deal with this. Otherwise, I believe you will be in a place to at least be sidelined, if not removed from the tour outright.”

Did he have another way of getting rid of me, or was that another bluff? I’d have to look into it. For now, I just wanted out of here.

“Understood,” I said, standing up and walking out of the room.

I headed to the stage for sound check, but I did everything on autopilot, instead working through the implications of what had just happened. A conspiratorial mind would have thought the whole thing a bit too coincidental. Alina, the paparazzi, the story.

I wasn’t quite that paranoid. It seemed very unlikely GLR could have drugged a supermodel like that, and as I understood it, the paparazzi always set up after that part, in hopes of catching drunk or vulnerable celebs to photograph.

What wasn’t as crazy was the idea that GLR had found out about what happened and leaked the story themselves, framing me in a bad light. They had the most to gain from this mess. It gave them leverage to sign with them, or if not, to get off the tour and make way for Vince, who had signed with them.

Vince had seen me at the party with Alina, after all. And there were those quotes from inside the article, about my smelling like booze. I hadn’t really gotten near anyone else, other than the guys originally harassing Alina, after Kirsten threw her drink on me, so he was really the only person to know what I smelled like, unless they tracked down the cabby. But that would have backed up my story. It was very possible after seeing me, he called someone at GLR, who passed the news up to Phoenix, who saw an opportunity.

I’d talked my way out of it for now, but I’d need to talk to Warren... again. Mostly though, we needed to get a handle on the PR. If we could nip this in the bud before it got out of hand, it would become a non-story and GLR would lose whatever footing they thought they had.

For that to work, though, I couldn’t wait for Benny and Warren to find me a PR person.