FAME and GLORY

by K. T. Hastings

  Diane answered, “I'll tell you if you two boys will stop fighting. You two are worse that Bruce and Suzi. I thought it was both of them but now I see that Mr. Jackson is the common denominator here, so I guess it's him.”

  Suzi joined the conversation. “Damn straight it's Bruce. He'll argue with a wall if it looks like it might disagree with him.”

  Bruce looked at Jake with mock horror, making the international “Blah Blah Blah” sign with his thumb against his four fingers.

  “Can you believe the way they talk to me? I'm glad you're here. You can be my witness that I am abused to end by these two women. I should get disability or combat pay or something for putting up with these two natterers.” Bruce shook his head in exasperated indignation over his mistreatment.

  “You're about to be a father, my friend," Jake said, throwing his arm around the shoulders of the older man. “My dad always told me that there are only two sentences that a man with a wife and a kid needs to know. He needs 'Yes dear,' for his wife and 'how much do you need?' for the kid. He can never go wrong if he remembers that.”

  Bruce nodded sagely and looked in his pockets. “I need to remember to take notes from you, Jake. All of that wisdom and a pretty face in one package. I should kiss you on the lips.”

  Jake couldn't get out of the van fast enough. He was followed out by the three musicians, the sound of their laughter chasing him outside.

  “Keep that hairy face to yourself, old man," Jake said as Bruce unfolded from the seat of the Nissan. You're not wired right to be kissing this mouth.”

  The four of them walked into Jaxie's and sat down for breakfast as Jake suddenly realized that he was hungry.

  ***

  Interstate 70 parallels the old Cisco trail through that part of its run, and Brandee and Janelle could almost imagine what it would be like to be alone in the world out there. After about 15 minutes, Brandee broke the silence.

  “Tell me a little more about you than I already know, Janelle. What makes you who you are?”

  Janelle had always been the kind who didn't volunteer information readily. More than one person had been on the wrong end of one of her “mind your own business” outbursts. Even when she was very young, her teachers had a hard time getting her to open up. So it was a surprise even to her when a torrent of words rushed out of her mouth.

  She told Brandee everything there was to tell about herself. Always before she had severely edited the stories that she told about herself, but not so in her release of information to Brandee Evans. She maintained that she was anxious to see her parents. After all, on a certain level that was true. Everything else, warts and all, sped from her mouth to Brandee's ear.

  For her part, Brandee felt herself to be like a kindred spirit to the younger girl. She wished that she had done some of the more outrageous things that Janelle had done. She had no desire to do time in a detention center, but Janelle's “get outta my way!” persona displayed some of what Brandee had wanted to be when she was young.

  Brandee had always felt like she didn't have time to be a kid when she was young. From the time that her father had met his untimely end, she had decided that she had to grow up and start being an adult. When she had been in San Francisco taking lessons from Racheal Geyer, there hadn't been any time to explore Fisherman's Wharf or get in trouble in Chinatown. She had been a driven young lady, but was now envying a life without care. To her, Janelle's stories didn't sound like the life of a troubled child, but a free spirit.

  Janelle had never felt so good in her young life. Brandee Evans was actually listening to her. She felt like she could tell Brandee anything there was to tell, without being criticized or judged for what she said. Less than 2 hours into the trip, she had told Brandee how it felt being incarcerated at a young age. She told her how she had waited day after day for someone to say that they wanted to come visit her when she was on the inside. She described how empty it felt to watch other inmates (or “guests of Lane County”, as she laughingly called them) receive postcards and letters during mail call while she sat alone in the lunchroom, fighting a feeling of abandonment. Just being able to talk about all of this with Brandee gave her a sense of freedom.

  Brandee and Janelle stopped at Jaxie's in Spanish Fork for lunch just before entering the suburbs of Salt Lake City. While they were having lunch, Janelle took a break from telling Brandee her life story to let Brandee tell her story of performing in front of a dead crowd at the USANA Amphitheater. Janelle was suitably appalled at how her idol had been treated by the Utah crowd.

  “I can't believe that! We weren't anything like that in Laramie! You were rocking that place so damn hard! What a night!”

  “I rocked the Amphitheater just as hard,” Brandee said, “And it didn’t seem to matter. It was like I was performing to a bunch of stiffs.”

  Janelle thought that was the funniest thing she had ever heard. She laughed until she doubled over. Brandee patted her on the back to help her catch her breath.

  “Hey, hey! Take it easy!” she told Janelle. “It's not worth hurling your lunch.”

  That sent Janelle into renewed gales of laughter. She thought Brandee's sense of humor was a scream for sure, but it went beyond that. She thought that she understood what it was like to kick back with Britney Spears or Fergie, except that Brandee was more beautiful than the former and a better singer than the latter. She was dazzled by the very presence of Brandee Evans, and would have gladly choked anyone who would have tried to take this moment away from her.

  “You want to split a piece of pie?” Brandee asked her. “I like the looks of the peach pie, but I need to be able to get in my clothes for the show. Half a piece won't hurt me.”

  Janelle nodded without speaking. She suddenly realized that she hoped the server only brought one fork with the pie.

  ***

  By the time that Brandee and Janelle had finished their pie, worked their way through the traffic tie-ups in Salt Lake City, and headed into Nevada, the Nissan was already at the venue for the show that night. Jake, Bruce, and Diane made quick work of the setup with Suzi acting as overseer for the operation. Jake left to see if he could find the venue manager and the light and sound tech for the evening. Bruce was chewing the last of a maple bar when Suzi and Diane approached him.

  “How do you think he's doing?” Suzi asked. “You've been in the back seat with him.”

  Bruce swallowed his pastry and thought for a second before answering.

  “I think he's okay. He's doing the work that he needs to do to put them back where they need to be. He has a lot on his mind right now, but my guess is that it's going to be fine.”

  Suzi's eyes filled with tears. She figured that it was the pregnancy that was making her emotional, but that didn't make it any easier to see her friend in such a bad way.

  “He's just such a great guy," she sniffled. “Sometimes I could just kick Brandee. She doesn't know what she has. She only cares about herself. And now she has that Janelle, or Giselle, or whoever it is, with her. She's going to be too tired to put on a good show tonight because she kicked her husband to the curb.”

  Bruce put one arm around Suzi and Diane put another arm around her. They stood there like a tripod of loving support. Suzi let her head rest against Bruce's strong chest. She could feel his heart beat through his shirt and took some comfort in that.

  Diane said, “I don't think it's good for any of us to interfere in what's clearly their biggest issue to date. I want to be sure and be there for both of them. All of them, actually. I think Janelle could be trouble, but more than that, I think Janelle is troubled. I want to help her and keep an eye on her at the same time. I don't know if she will let any of us do that, though. She's pretty stuck on Brandee.

  Just then, Jake returned with the casino's entertainment director as well as the light and sound manager for the showroom at Sneaky Pete's. They were in an animated discussion about the small stage that was available. This was the last weekend that their shows were going to
be held inside. Since the weather was warm, Jake asked about the possibility of taking the show outside, so the performers would have more room. The venue manager told him that would be impossible because the concert wasn't seated in a festival seating manner. The tickets had a row and seat number on them and those numbers wouldn't translate to the larger outdoor setting. Jake didn't think that this would be an insurmountable problem, but couldn't get the manager to see his side of things.

  Bruce took a run at changing the manager's mind, seeing that it was going to be a hot and sweaty operation that evening. The manager was no more amenable to Bruce than he had been to Jake, though, so the members of the group completed their set-up on the stage of the showroom.

  ***

  Brandee and Janelle showed up at about 4:00 PM. The sound check went well. Brandee paced off her choreography on the diminutive stage, shrinking down the radius of her moves, which appeared to be so spontaneous to the crowd.

  Jake had ordered some lunch from the dining room of the adjacent hotel to arrive as soon as the sound check was complete, and the members of the group descended on the food as soon as they got backstage after the check. Brandee gave Jake a quick hug and went straight to the refrigerator in the dressing room to refresh herself with her requisite mandarin oranges, but found for the second time on the tour, that her fruit and candy, though clearly requested on their booking sheet, wasn't in the dressing room when she arrived. Jake left to see what could be done.

  Jake quickly discovered that the candy was readily available from the Cactus Pete convenience store adjacent to the casino. The oranges, though, were going to be no mean feat.

  The closest town of any size was Twin Falls, Idaho, over 50 miles away. Hollister, Idaho was closer, but wasn't served by a grocery store. Jake wasn't sure that he could get to Twin falls and back in time for Brandee to get the most out of her preferred snack before going on stage, so he decided to make do with regular oranges from the restaurant in the casino.

  Fearing the worst, Jake carried a tray of regular orange slices into the dressing room. Brandee surprised him though.

  “It's okay,” she said. “Just put them down on the table.”

  Brandee was already getting into her zone for the performance that night. She knew that the oranges that were available would cool her throat as much as the mandarins would. The reason that she always chose mandarin oranges was a secret known only to her. The Christmas Eve before he had died, Brandee's father had driven for miles to find mandarin oranges to put in her stocking. That memory was something that Brandee held dear in her heart. It gave her a feeling of being loved to peel a fresh mandarin orange before she performed. Nothing could be done about it tonight. She was determined to be fine with it and still put on a great show.

  Janelle had been quiet since she and Brandee had arrived in Jackpot. She didn't know the routine of the group pre-show and didn't want to do anything that would draw attention to herself in a negative way. As the time for the show drew near (but not, in Janelle's mind “too near”) she crept up beside Brandee, who was sitting in the lounge chair beside the mirror. The singer smiled at her young friend.

  “How ya' doing, sweetie?” she said, “I didn't mean to ignore you. I'm just clearing my mind.”

  Janelle shook her head quickly from side to side. “Don't worry about me. How are you? Are you tired from driving?”

  Brandee thought for a second before answering. “Not as far as I can tell. You were good company.”

  Janelle glowed under Brandee's compliment. She decided to step away from Brandee while the compliment was still in the air.

  “I'm going to let you relax. Break a leg.”

  She stepped over to give Brandee a hug, pressing her cheek against Brandee's. Brandee returned the hug and gave Janelle a Hollywood air kiss in return. Janelle's head spun. She wondered what it would be like to actually kiss Brandee on the lips. She couldn't imagine that fantasy ever coming true, but she hadn't been able to imagine anything that had happened in the last three days.

  Brandee closed her eyes. She never slept in the moments leading up to the concert, since a real nap during that time would have left her lethargic on stage. She liked to rest her eyes, though, in preparation for looking into the performance lights.

  Not too many days ago, she had considered wearing sunglasses for a portion of her performances, rejecting that idea because it would have separated her from the people who came to see her perform. Her fans meant the world to her, and she wanted to connect with every one of them during her time on stage. She smiled to herself as she thought about Janelle questioning her about being tired. If she had spoken aloud, her words would have been, “As long as I can hear the sound of people showing up to hear me sing, I'll never be too tired. I was born to sing for those folks, and they were born to hear me.”

  ***

  At 8:08 PM Mountain Daylight Time, the four performing members of Brandee took the stage at Sneaky Pete's Casino Ballroom. They had made a small change to the opening routine of their act to see how the crowd responded.

  Usually, as soon as the announcer intoned “Ladies and Gentlemen... BRANDEE!” the stage lights came up on all of the performers at once, ready to go to work. Diane would clap her sticks together and away they would go. Tonight's opening was designed to be a little more dramatic.

  A single spot came up on Diane. She clapped out a slow and steady cadence with the tools of her trade. Then, the spot left her and the stage was in the dark again. Diane clapped away in the sudden, eerie blackness. Five seconds passed. Ten seconds passed. It seemed longer as the crowd waited.

  The single spot returned, this time illuminating Suzi on the right, holding her bass guitar with her left hand and bringing a wavering tremolo out of it, enhancing the rhythm of Diane's cadence. The spot disappeared again. Ten seconds passed. The crowd moved forward in their seats.

  The spot reappeared, this time on the left side of the stage. Bruce started a walking bass line in time with Diane's cadence. Suzi, in shadowed darkness, followed Bruce's lead. For a time, the lone spot stayed on Bruce as the three of them increased the tempo and the volume of their opening sequence. Then the performers were left in darkness again. Some of the crowd members rose to their feet in response to the rising tension.

  Ten seconds after the spot on Bruce was turned off, it came back on, illuminating Brandee. It became apparent that the light that had been playing over Diane, Suzi, and Bruce must have been filtered. Brandee was dazzling under the powerful spot. She was wearing a sequined and beaded outfit that was cut short and in a Western style. It was trimmed in gold and shone pure white under the intense light that had found its home. Brandee's tanned and shapely legs made her look like a Jaguar on a showroom floor. Brandee was all muscle, and all power, on the stage at Sneaky Pete's. She was the personification of molten lust in the Nevada desert.

  Brandee turned the small stage, which had been a concern to the performers earlier, into a plus. She made the audience, which was much closer to her than normally they would be, feel like an intimate part of the show. She made eye contact with everyone within 50 feet of her, and made each of them feel like she was singing to only them. Less than two songs in, she owned them.

  Fewer hard rocking numbers were on the menu for tonight. More of the balladeer Brandee was in store for the good people of northern Nevada and southern Idaho. As for the musicians, they sensed and bought into the unique mood of the show on this night. Bruce played a subdued solo, showing off his emotional core. Suzi, whose taste in solo projects normally ran toward Freebird, kept that part of her persona more under wraps. Diane didn't have a drum solo tonight, but rather played a support role to the others, buoying them up with her calm and steady rhythms.

  Brandee gave them a show that was powerful as well as tuneful and melodic. Brandee Evans worked the crowd into a lather when she did “12 Gauge” while standing among them on the seating level. She wailed her by-now-standard closing number “Voracious Little Girl” hanging off t
he front of the stage, allowing those in the front row to touch her throbbing legs while she closed the show. Some of her more ardent fans looked like they had found the gates of heaven with the access that Brandee allowed them. Two encores, “Voracious Little Girl” and “These Eyes”, a new addition just for this show, closed the evening.

  ***

  Janelle watched the action out front from the wings that led offstage. She stayed about ten feet to Jake's right during most of the show, giving her less of a view of Brandee's face and more of her backside. About halfway through the show, Brandee started writhing under the touch of the wind machine. Janelle thought that she might have to go somewhere and pass out.

  Janelle had never had strong feelings for anyone before. She knew that subconsciously, but that knowledge had never found its way to the forefront of her mind. She used people to get what she wanted if they had anything that they could do for her. Her philosophy had been “I want what I want when I want it.” Janelle had never known another way.

  So, it was a surprise to her when she was left a little lightheaded backstage, waiting for the applause to die down. Most people have known some kind of genuine connection with another human being by the time they leave their teen years. Most young ladies have had several BFFs before they finish high school. Each one would be “forever” no matter how temporary they turned out to be. Not so for Janelle Maranda Kelly. She had wandered through life using and being used, working the system and being worked by the system. She lied when she needed to lie and lay with who she needed to lay to get to something that almost always seemed to disappoint. She had nearly decided that life itself was a decided disappointment, but that had all changed