by JL Bryan
Chapter Twenty-Six
The restaurant at the Collins Hotel was packed full of tourists and businesspeople on Thursday morning. Erin met with Mitch and Dred for breakfast. Dred ordered fruit and toast, and Mitch had the “full Irish breakfast” of eggs, bacon, sausage, tomatoes, mushrooms and some kind of fried potato bread. Erin ordered the French toast and a strawberry pastry.
“How can you eat like that and stay so thin?” Dred asked as Erin poured honey on top of the powdered sugar on her French toast. “If I ate one meal like that, I’d gain forty pounds.”
“Come on, that’s not really possible,” Erin said.
“It’s possible,” Dred told her.
“Morning, Erin,” Jason said, sitting across from her.
“Hi.” She smiled at him. While being around Mitch and Dred had gotten tense, Jason relaxed her a little bit. They’d spent the last three days in the studio with Heath, who kept bringing in his lame pop songs and making her sing them. They’d played a song called “Saturday Nights Are Fun!” about twenty times, and it had echoed in her brain for hours afterword. Erin didn’t know if Heath wrote these songs himself, or if Malarkay actually paid a songwriter somewhere to crank out the stupidest, most repetitive songs imaginable.
Erin’s sullen attitude had radiated, and Heath had been twice as hard on her as a result. She’d quickly grown to dislike the producer. Despite his carefully cultivated edgy look, with his tattoes and vintage 70s punk t-shirts, he seemed to record nothing but the safest and cheesiest of corporate music.
“Are you guys ready to meet Dracula tonight?” Dred asked.
“I don’t see how that could happen, considering Vlad Tepes has been dead for like five hundred years,” Mitch said.
“Oh, was that your first time ever hearing a joke?” Dred asked him. “It must be an exciting but scary new experience.”
“You’re so clever,” Mitch said. “Well, let’s hear what Erin’s unhappy about this morning.”
“Come on, leave her alone,” Jason said.
“I’m fine,” Erin said. “I’m not trying to cause problems.”
“We can all relax in Romania for a few days, away from Heath,” Jason said.
“Ehhh!” Mitch made a sound like a game show buzzer. “Wrong answer. Heath told me he’s directing the video himself.”
“He’s what?” Erin asked.
“He says he has a vision,” Mitch said.
“Why does nobody tell me these things?” Erin asked.
Everybody looked down at their plates.
“There they are!” announced Cayce Roddell as he swept into the room, all grins, his quiet Russian assistant Velga following close behind in a red leather dress. “Mick! Dred! Jayce! Erin! How are we this morning? Who’s ready to meet Dracula, am I right? Nice hotel, huh? Everybody having a good time? Great. Say, Erin, if you could have a word for a second...”
“About what?” Erin asked.
“Maybe we could step out in the lobby?” Cayce suggested.
“What’s it about, though?” Erin hoped he hadn’t come to talk about her conflicts with Heath.
“Your mother’s been calling our head office.”
Tendrils of panic sprouted in Erin’s stomach. Now she wished he was coming to yell at her about Heath instead.
“Okay, I’m coming.” Erin followed him out the lobby, and then out to the hotel’s ground-floor garden by the river.
“Yeah,” Cayce said. He turned on her, and his smile was gone, and his face was as friendly as a hungry shark’s. “I guess you know why she’s calling.”
“No idea,” Erin lied. “What’s happening?”
“She says she never signed the parental consent forms. She says you’re not supposed to be here.”
“What?” Erin asked.
“Is it true? You didn’t forge your mother’s signature on your record contract, did you?”
“No!” Erin said. “She’s...just...probably changed her mind. She’ll change it again tomorrow. She’s kind of wacky. Highly medicated. You know. Can’t keep a job or anything.” Erin was a little scared at how quickly her lie verged into the truth.
“This is a real problem, Erin,” he said.
“It’ll blow over in a few months, when I turn eighteen,” Erin said.
“Not good enough. Our legal department wants it to blow over today. Before she calls a lawyer and charges Malarkay Records with the international kidnapping of a minor.”
“Oh. Wow,” Erin said.
“Exactly.” Cayce held out his cell phone. “Call her. Settle this right now, or you won’t be flying to Romania to make any Dracula video. The four of you will be flying home to Wisconsin, today, commercial airliner, riding in coach. Have you ever flown coach all the way across the Atlantic Ocean?” Cayce shuddered.
Erin stared at the Android phone in his hand.
“Can’t I do it after breakfast?” she asked. “I need a minute.”
“No minute. You call now, or you go back to your boring little life.”
Erin scowled at him. She hesitated...maybe this was a way out. She could let Malarkay Media kick her out, then go back to Madison and make a record with Zig Kaplan and his Squid Ink Records. She might not make millions, but she would make good music.
“Rock star or unemployed teenager?” Cayce asked. “Choose.”
Erin looked towards the glass wall of the restaurant, which she could barely see through a screen of potted trees. It wasn’t just her choice—she’d be disappointing everyone, ruining everything for them. The three of them would probably hate her forever. She especially didn’t want to hurt Jason, when he’d been so nice to her, and she’d already hurt his feelings before when she turned down his offer of a date.
“Any time,” Cayce said.
“Fine, whatever.” Erin snatched the phone from him. Her mom’s phone number was already programmed in and queued up to dial, which was creepy. She pushed the green button. “Can I have a little privacy?” she asked Cayce.
Cayce shook his head, smiling his chipper salesman smile.
“Hello?” Dave answered. Great.
“Hi, Dave, it’s Erin.”
“Erin, you are in a lot of trouble the moment you get home,” he said.
“Yeah, can I talk to my mom?”
“You’d better. She’s out of her mind worrying about you. She’s barely slept.”
“Can I talk to her now?” Erin asked. She listened as Dave gave the phone over to her mom.
“Where are you?” Erin’s mom asked.
“Dublin, like I told you,” Erin said. “We’re making a record. It’s...going really well.”
“You have to come home now,” her mom said.
“I can’t! Everybody’s depending on me. The whole band.”
“Those are just your high school friends, Erin. I’ve told you. They won’t even remember your name in five years. They don’t really care about you.”
“Yes, they do!” Erin snapped.
“I can’t believe you pulled this stunt.”
“It’s not a stunt, it’s a music career.”
“You can’t be in Ireland. There are...things over there. Dangerous things.”
“Right,” Erin said. “What? Leprechauns?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“I do understand, Mom,” Erin said. “You just don’t want to see me succeed because you’ll be jealous. Nobody cares about your art anymore, and Dad left, and now you’re stuck with stupid Dave. You want me to fail because you’re a failure.”
Erin’s mother made a hissing sound.
“You just stay there,” her mom snarled. “Just stay there and let them come for you. I’m tired of waiting for it. You don’t want to be safe? Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“Warn me about what?”
“The Caomhánach. And their minions.”
“What are you talking about, Mom?”
“Just go. I can’
t stop you from being what you are. You’re barely my daughter anymore. I barely recognize you.”
“That’s great,” Erin said. “Can you tell Cayce I can stay?”
Her mother had already hung up.
“She gave up,” Erin said. “I don’t think she’ll bother your lawyers anymore.”
“Hey, that’s great!” Cayce said. He pointed to his eyes with two fingers. “We’ll keep our eyeballs on this situation. You just go and make a great video. Say hi to Dracula for me!”
“Whatever,” Erin said, and she returned inside. She felt terrible for what she’d said to her mom, terrible for sticking with Malarkay and Heath Blank, terrible about everything.