by May Burnett
One good thing about the hard work – I could not brood about Myra’s disappearance and inexplicable lack of communication. Her brother’s vanishing act had convinced me that her family was in fact magical – or super-natural? - in some mysterious way. Given that, it seemed less of a stretch to accept her vanishing without trace, and her survival, than it had right after the event. P.A., too, might share some of that magical talent, I suspected. The mere knowledge that such things existed, even if I had no explanation, was exhilarating. In my few moments of leisure I would wonder what else there was out there, beyond mundane reality.
I was too tired most of the time to be tempted by the beauties swarming all around me whenever I left the house. I wasn’t completely immune – my hormones were as active as anybody’s at seventeen, and I did look with admiration at pretty girls and women, flirting at parties, the way one does. The thought of a serious relationship with anyone but Myra was not appealing, however, while a short affair or one-night-stand might doom any hope I had of seeing Myra again. If not for that conviction, I confess, I might have given in to temptation now and then. As it was I reined in my unruly hormones, the few times they threatened my self-control, and focused on my music.
6
All my hard work paid off in spades when the first concert, and the official launch of my album, finally took place in June. The organisation and planning had been accomplished much faster than normal, but nobody complained. It was as triumph. The people stood and jumped, the atmosphere was so highly charged, that I feared to be electrocuted by the result of my own performance. It took me several hours to come down from that incredible buzz, when several thousand fans shrieked in unison, “Jas-son, Ja-son!”
Looking out at the sea of faces I could not help wondering – was Myra also looking on, maybe hidden in the audience? The thought inspired me to put my innermost feelings into my performance. I gave my best, and was in good voice – but when I finished with “Not the End”, the sweat was dribbling down my body, and I felt I’d lost at least four pounds.
The reviews the next morning were all I could wish for. Divinely inspired, was the headline of one. It went on: That a youth of barely seventeen should have composed and written the songs we heard last night defies comprehension. Yet every source we questioned confirmed that they are indeed his own. Mozart has a rival… There was much more in this vein. If I had not learned long ago not to put too much stock in reviews, whether good or bad, this drivel might well have made me conceited.
More to the point, the investors were ecstatic, my parents sent a telegram expressing their congratulations, and I could finally relax, for the first time in months, though the other four concerts, and several smaller events were still scheduled over the course of July. Compared to the preparations and constant decisions to be taken beforehand, though, that was a lesser challenge. I even found time to write a couple of new songs, and to pass another exam. There were always people around me these days – Mabel, the P.A., the new agent and publicist, my personal shopper, the voice tutor, a personal trainer, - to look after my fitness – tutors for the various school exams still before me. Of course none of them were family, but you don’t miss much what you’ve hardly known, after all.
SUMMER
1
The rest of the concert tour went very well, except for a moment of panic in Las Vegas, when I couldn’t remember the words to a song two numbers from the end – not one of my own songs, of course. I managed to improvise, although not to my entire satisfaction. The audience were so buzzed by that stage that they hardly noticed, my agent told me later, and the applause was just as thunderous and lasting as in the previous venues. It still bothered me that this should have happened. During the rehearsal the song had gone well, so I had to wonder if my brain was finally reaching its limits after all that gruelling work.
No matter. Sales of the new album were stratospheric. I heard that executives at my former record label were very bitter at my refusal to extend my contract, causing them to miss out on this bonanza. My private earnings finally topped the size of my trust fund. Nobody else knew or cared about this fact, but it gave me a certain satisfaction to have reached that point already by seventeen.
Dad’s lawyers were preparing the lawsuit against Jerry Murdock on my behalf. Jerry had his attorneys offer a settlement, but I refused to let the matter rest there, and apparently my case was open-and-shut, “though you can never be completely sure with judges and juries,” Zackary warned me.
Alice was writing a book about me, I read in a magazine article that several fans had helpfully forwarded to me, and I had to consult my lawyers yet again. I feared she would put some spin on the story that I would hardly like, to increase her sales. I learned that it was not easy to prevent the publication of the book ahead of time, but if she included confidential details, she might be sued afterwards. The lawyers sent her a warning letter – for the rest I’d just have to wait and see.
Between the last two concerts, my father called me via Skype. I was not reluctant to interrupt my maths studies; I’d only seen my parents in person twice since Christmas, very briefly.
“You are looking good,” he said. “More engaged and alive than ever, all that performing seems to suit you. Is everything all right?”
“More or less. I’m very jazzed at the success of my album and the concerts are going really well. But so many balls in the air at the same time are getting to be too much, I badly need some relaxation. Do you still have that yacht moored at the Bahamas?”
“I lent it out for the summer to the Vandergrachts,” Dad told me, “but it’s odd that you should mention it, because I was calling to invite you to join us on a cruise of the Eastern Mediterranean in the first half of August. We’ll be spending two weeks on the Locarno II, as guests of Yannis Christophoros and his wife.”
“I remember him from when he used to visit you, but I don’t recall the wife.” A large, rotund Greek, “Uncle” Yannis had a booming laugh and great love of life; I’d always liked him.
“You wouldn’t know her in any case; this one has been married to him for barely a year, his forth, I think. I haven’t met her myself yet. Their boat is twice as large as ours, and you’d be sheltered from all those paparazzi that always swarm around you like flies. Nobody will be on board but Yannis’ family, us and a handful of other friends of his.”
I quickly consulted my schedule. The cruise coincided with the only free time I had available for the rest of this year.
“All right, I’ll come. Mabel can coordinate the dates and travel details with your staff.”
2
After giving the details of the proposed cruise to Mabel, I called the team together for a strategy session. Tom, the new agent, Jack, the publicist, Mabel and I met in my workroom over Chinese takeout – I preferred not to engage live-in staff and didn’t have a cook.
“You need to pace yourself – this current level of productiveness is great, but will lead straight towards burnout,” Tom advised, and the other two nodded.
“I know.” I had been feeling close to exhaustion for weeks now. “I need to set up some ground rules to avoid such overstretch in future.”
“Your situation is unusual,” Jack put in, “since you’re essentially combining two full-time careers, on top of your schooling: being either a singer or an actor by itself would be time-consuming enough.”
“There were others –“, I objected.
Tom shook his head. “In most cases, one role predominated. Astaire was a dancer first, Elvis a singer. Their movie roles only came later because they excelled at their primary vocation. Monroe was an actor who sang when she had to.”
“Judy Garland?” Mabel put in. “Frank Sinatra? Dean Martin?”
“All right, there are precedents, but note that all these examples are from way back. In recent decades, such a double focus has been very rare. Our Jason is a phenomenon, as the media keep pointing out, a throwback to an earlier, heroic age of movie history.”
“I agree,” Tom said, somewhat to my surprise. “That means that we’ll have to be very careful and lucky in choosing them. Talking of which -” he handed me a sheaf of scripts. “Here is some reading material for you, three movies, to be produced over the next eighteen months. In my humble opinion, one of them would be a crime to pass up, but I won’t tell you which, so as not to bias you.”
I groaned. “I already have plenty of homework, thank you very much.”
Mabel contributed a short rundown of my schedule after the summer. I told her to double the hours of voice training.
“It’s not like you’re going to sing in opera,” Jack observed. “Is that really worth so much of your time?”
“I think so. I want to make the most of what talent I have, and who knows, maybe at some point I do want to sing a small role in an opera. The way the future looks right now, almost anything is possible.”
“For you, the sky is the limit,” Tom agreed. “But opera does not pay well enough. As your agent I advise against it, except maybe as a one-time publicity stunt.”
“No,” Jack was firm. “It’s not how I’m positioning you, Jason. Don’t go there.”
Since I had not been serious in my suggestion, I merely shrugged.
“Fine. While I’m on vacation – don’t tell anyone where, please – I don’t want to be called, but you can send email, I’ll check them at least every other day.
“What if there’s news about Myra?” Mabel asked. I had told her to contact me night or day if there were the slightest progress in the investigation. She regularly checked with the Colorado authorities about the progress of their investigation, not that this had yielded any results so far.
I thought only for a moment. “It’s not likely after all this time, but by all means call me right away if there is anything new.” The information dropped by P.A. and Hell put me way ahead of the police, but I could not tell anyone about what I thought I’d learned, without looking like a credulous fool. “If Myra’s brother Hell or my friend P.A. get in contact, put them in touch right away.” If I was not mistaken, they would hardly need her assistance to find me. “And the same goes for Myra herself, of course.”
The other three, unaware of the reasons underpinning my optimism, exchanged meaningful glances. I ignored their silent dismay. When Myra came back, they would see who had been right all along.
3
By the end of July I was not exactly a wreck, but even more in need of a vacation and looking forward to the cruise. Mabel had arranged for a direct flight to Athens, where a limousine would take me straight from the plane to the dock just two hours before the boat’s departure. The Locarno II would stop at various islands, some so small they weren’t even on the maps, but also a couple of larger ones like Santorini.
Maybe I’d run into P.A. again, I thought hopefully, he was from that part of the world. Strange that I still knew so little of him.
The yacht proved to be even larger than I’d imagined, with a crew of seventeen. Besides Yannis, the owner, and Anna, the newest Mrs. Christophoros – a stunning blonde Norwegian vet – there were just my parents and two other middle-aged couples. I hadn’t met any of them before, but they seemed pleasant enough when we exchanged greetings.
“And this is my cousin Eleni,” Yannis said as he introduced the only other young person among the passengers. Around my own age, she was deeply tanned, with long brown hair, slim and beautiful and with a most attractive smile. I felt my heart accelerate as I looked into those dark eyes. Not since Myra had any girl had such a strong impact on me.
“Hello, Jason,” she said. Her husky voice had a very slight accent that I found captivating. “I really liked your album and especially, Not the End.“
“Thanks. I never tire of hearing that,” I replied with a grin. “What kind of music do you like otherwise?”
From music it was an easy step to other subjects. Eleni and I turned out to have a lot in common. She was also the child of relatively old parents, she told me, though unlike me she had a number of siblings, already grown up when she was born. Her parents had retired from active business and lived on an island in the Mediterranean, where she had spent most of her life.
“But I’m tired of this isolation,” she told me, “I’ve decided that I need to learn how to live among young people my own age. I’m lobbying my parents to send me to an American collage in a year’s time, when I pass the SAT.”
“How well do you expect to do?” I thought uneasily of all the subjects I’d yet to cover myself.
Eleni laughed, carefree. “I happen to have an excellent memory, and most subjects actually interest me, so I’m not worried. I’m already doing quite well on the mock exams.”
Good for her. I’d always been drawn to intelligent girls, the kind with opinions of their own, who were capable of friendship as well as … don’t go there, Jason. “Do you hope to get a scholarship?”
She shook her head, brown hair flying with the energetic motion. “Nope. My parents are well able to pay my way, and I wouldn’t want to take a scholarship away from someone who might really need it.”
They must be loaded, I thought, - but if she was related to Yannis, that figured. Not that all relatives of the very rich are also well off, but she certainly didn’t act like a poor relation, nor did Yannis treat her as such.
“Tell me about your own plans,” Eleni invited. I was not reluctant, since talking about my options might help to clarify them in my own mind.
“Well, right now I’m throttling down the acting career to two movies yearly, and I want to focus more on music – write at least one new song every month, do more concerts, bring out another album in eighteen months or so. Of course, everything depends on the continued favour of the public. You know how fickle they can be.”
She nodded. “In general, yes, but I can’t imagine them dropping you, at least not for years and years.”
“Maybe not.” It did seem unlikely. “My father sometimes talks of me taking over his business concerns when I’m old enough, but I’m not keen on that life, and he would not truly want to let go. Art is more fun, and we have enough money already. But lately I’ve felt I want to add something more meaningful, I don’t know, useful, to my activities.”
I hadn’t talked of this idea to anyone as yet, but Eleni was a good listener, and I sensed she had sufficient common sense to advise me. “I’ve been thinking of helping young people in prisons for drug –related convictions. Our drug laws are insane, and but for the help of a friend, I might have run afoul of them myself, even though I’ve never touched hard drugs in my life. It made me think, though.”
“What happened?”
“My former manager tried to frame me by hiding drugs in my house and alerting the police. I escaped the trap only through a miracle – literally, now I come to think about it. There is something deeply wrong about the whole set-up.”
“So, have you thought about the best way to help these young people? Not all will be unwitting and innocent, as you were. There are some pretty vicious guys in that population.”
“But not all – and is time in prison going to make any of them better, or more able to cope with education, employment, and life in general? I rather doubt it. But I don’t really know enough to find the right approach.”
“Mmh. Let me think about this – that’s an interesting challenge you are setting yourself,” Eleni said. At least she had not dismissed my idea out of hand, the way my agent or publicist would have done, I was fairly sure. I remembered a lecture Alice had given me, long ago, on the need to avoid unpopular causes – the charities a celebrity supported formed part of his image, and had to be carefully vetted, she’d lectured me: “Just look at all the backlash Madonna is getting. And Mia Farrow was
not altogether lucky, either.”
I shoved the memory away. If I couldn’t indulge myself in this, what good was all my wealth and fame?
“Maybe as a first step,” Eleni suggested, “you could have somebody collect statistics, studies, information about NGOs already working in that area, their methods, experiences and success rates? It sounds like something that requires in-depth study and careful thought before you choose your approach. I would guess the point where young people will most need help is probably when they are first charged – to make sure they have an effective legal defence - and again when they leave prison, to offer them a chance for work and going straight. But I’m just talking off the top of my head here, I’m sure there already are successful approaches that you can simply support or fund.”
I looked at her with admiration. “That’s great advice. I’ll collect the information via Mabel, she can write up a report or order it form someone else, ASAP. I could have a look at it right after I’ve finished studying the three scripts in my luggage.”
“Three scripts?”
“Yeah, I’m supposed to choose which of them I want to do next year. I’m almost overdue now, but somehow I haven’t felt like starting anything new these last couple of weeks, and my brain was tired of making decisions.”