by Sol Crafter, Diana Sheridan, Talya Andor, Lacie J. Archer, Angel Propps
Dale looked at Luis in horror. He didn't dare say anything himself but hoped Luis would know how to extricate them from this obligation. Luis, however, just stood there open-mouthed, the perfect illustration of dismay across his face.
Glam burst out into raucous laughter. "Gotcha!" she said, doubling over in the hallway and leaning her hands on her knees. "You should see the expressions on both your faces. Priceless! Now run along to your room and do what you were planning to. I'll see you in the morning."
Dale and Luis chorused, "Good night!" and scurried to their room.
Not to go to sleep. Not for a long while.
A week passed. A week of Glam being her usual outrageous self, a week of sold-out concerts, a week of hectic schedules, and a week of Dale and Luis growing more and more attached to each other. On a Wednesday afternoon, they arrived in Chattanooga, where Glam was to give two performances, on Friday and Saturday nights. On Friday, she was also scheduled to appear on a local morning TV show.
"Nine o'clock in the freaking morning! That's the middle of the night! And the call is for eight o'clock. How barbaric!"
"You'll just have to get to bed early Thursday evening," Dale said in his most soothing and reasonable voice, but there was no placating Glam, whose idea of "early morning" was sometime after eleven.
It fell to Dale to wake her up. He was already awake, lying comfortably snuggled in Luis's embrace in the hotel's luxe king-size bed, and he was loath to get up from that cozy cocoon. But the bedside clock showed that it was six-thirty, and he had work to do. As he tentatively stirred, Luis roused from sleep himself. He had still been holding fast to Dale even while he slumbered. Now, as Dale propped himself up on one arm and reached for the hotel phone, Luis followed his upper torso across the bed and bestowed little brushing kisses across the smooth planes of Dale's back.
Dale dialed Glam's room on the hotel phone and, when it rang and rang and finally went into voicemail, he considered but rejected the possibility that she was already up but in the shower. Not a chance! Reaching for his cell phone, he dialed Glam's cell and let that ring till it, too, went into voicemail. He tried the hotel phone one more time and, when he got the same result, grumblingly got up and pulled his pants on, dispensing with such niceties as underwear, shirt, or shoes.
Glam's room was three doors down the hall from theirs, and he padded out into the hallway and banged on her door determinedly. He hated making such a racket at so early an hour, but it seemed this was the only way to rouse the sleeping Glam. When even that failed to get a response, he banged even louder, finally eliciting a sleepy/angry, "Stop it! Go away!" from inside.
"Glam! Wake-up call! Get your butt out of bed and into the shower." In a week of working for her, he had learned that addressing her in such a manner would not get him fired but was sometimes, in fact, necessary.
To his right and down the hall, a bit of movement caught his eye. Looking down, he saw that Luis, a towel draped discreetly over his body from the waist down, was watching his progress—or lack of it—with amusement.
"Glam! Get up!" Dale called again, prompting, at last, a grumbled, "All right, all right. I'm up," from within.
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yes. Yes. Now go away." The voice sounded nearer, as if she might have progressed to the bathroom door, located near the door to the room. Dale flashed Luis a thumbs-up, and Luis in return flashed Dale a grin.
Making his barefoot way back down the hall to where Luis stood waiting for him, Dale stopped at the room door, blocked by Luis's unbudging frame. "Pay the toll to enter," Luis chirped, inclining his head forward to Dale's face for a kiss. Dale gladly complied. "Do you think we have time for a quickie?" Luis asked. Although Dale certainly understood the question, the tented front of Luis's draped towel left nothing to be guessed at as to his intention.
"I doubt it," Dale said with a sigh. He took his job seriously. "I don't trust her not to get back in bed. I'd better check on her in ten minutes."
"You're right," Luis agreed with regretful resignation. "I've known our Glam longer than you, and you're absolutely on the money."
Indeed, ten minutes later, when Dale called Glam on both the hotel phone and her cell, once again there was no answer, and he had to repeat his trip down the hall.
"You're a damn slave-driver!" she cursed as she came to the door and opened it a crack. She was wearing what appeared to be a man's extra-large T-shirt, which she'd apparently slept in and which barely preserved her modesty. "All right, all right. I'm up. We can skip breakfast. They'll have food in the green room. Let me jump in the shower and get myself presentable. I'll meet you in the lobby at seven-thirty. Migawd! What an hour to be awake. Anyone with half an ounce of sensibility is still sleeping—and will be for quite a few hours yet. Call downstairs and arrange for a taxi."
Dale, persuaded that Glam really was up this time, returned to his room and got into the shower himself. Luis followed. At seven-thirty the trio met in the lobby, went out to the waiting taxi, and told the driver their destination. Just before eight, the cab pulled up at the TV station, Dale paid the driver, and the three got out, Glam still grumbling at the "ungodly hour" of the morning.
Although the TV show had a make-up artist (but not a hairdresser) on staff, Glam demanded that her own make-up artist—Luis, of course—apply her make-up and coif her hair. The staff of the show grumbled about the union and protocol and threw up a number of other objections, but in the end Glam got her way—as usual—and Luis got her camera-ready well before her scheduled time on camera.
"And now," the host proclaimed, "the moment you've all been waiting for! The one, the only, the inimitable and irrepressible Glam Gran is with us this morning and—"
"Morning? It's the middle of the freakin' night!" Glam, already miked and her mic live, grumbled in the wings, her comment going out to the studio and at-home audience. The studio audience tittered.
The host, more amused than annoyed, looked off to the wings and uttered, "You see why I called her 'irrepressible'. She's going to perform one of her all-time biggest hits for us, 'Raining Tears in Torrents,' and then we'll talk to her for a bit. Here she is … Glam Gran!"
To raucous, thunderous applause, Glam strutted out to center stage. The accompaniment was canned, but Glam herself wasn't lip-synching. She was truly singing and giving it her all. Luis and Dale, watching from the wings, squeezed each other's hand as they watched their boss, and Dale's idol, giving it her all. Despite her sleepiness and resistance, Glam gave it 100%. The song was solid. The audience was wowed. All was going fine till the host invited her to sit on the sofa and talk to him.
"I read your recent biography. I understand your real name is Linda. May I call you 'Linda'?"
"Not if you want to live to see tomorrow," growled Glam, shooting him daggers with her eyes.
"Heh-heh-heh. Quite a sense of humor you have there."
"You think I'm kidding? Try me. Got any more lame questions or would you rather I do another number?"
The audience broke into spontaneous applause.
The host, flummoxed, said, "I'm sure the audience would like to know more about the real Glam Gran. If you don't want to talk about the real Glam Gran, what would you like to talk about?"
"It's tough to talk about anything at this ungodly hour of the morning. But I do like talking about myself, a trait I share with most other performers in showbiz. So do you have another question on those cards in front of you?"
"Not that you would find acceptable," said her host, "so why don't you talk about what you would like to talk about? Or, if you're at a loss for topics, tell us what you were doing all these years before you burst on the showbiz scene at the belated age of fifty-six—if I can believe your biography?"
Glam guffawed. "Yeah, I'm fifty-eight—almost fifty-nine now—and I got my start at fifty-six. Before that? You don't want to hear about that. It's not interesting. Besides, it's all covered in my biography, Glam! Let's talk about now. What would you like to
know?"
Thoroughly flummoxed, the host said, "Let's go to commercial, and we'll explore that some more when we come back."
But of course, when they came back, it was, "Our next guest is…" and the host introduced a local meteorologist, there to talk about recent oddities in the weather patterns.
"Hey—what about me?" Glam screeched as the weather expert opened his mouth to speak. "What's more interesting—hail or Glam Gran?" She turned to face the studio audience and threw her arms wide in an appeal.
"Glam Gran! Glam Gran!" the audience shouted in unison.
The host had completely lost control of the show.
"See? They love me!" Glam stood up, faced the camera, postured exaggeratedly, and then blew kisses at the audience. They responded with whistles. Resplendent in a turquoise satin jumpsuit bespangled with sequins, Glam turned to the producer and said, "Cue up 'Gems Aren't All That Sparkle.' They wanna hear me, not some weather weenie."
When no notes sounded after a minute, Glam said, "All right. I'll sing a capella." And she launched into an unaccompanied rendition of one of her biggest hits. When she had finished, and after the tumultuous applause died down, Glam mugged for the camera and said, "Welcome to the 'Glam Gran Musical Hour.' What would you like to hear next?"
The audience's response was a cacophony of shouted titles. Glam basked in the love, a beatific grin draping her face. "Lady Gaga, eat your heart out!" she crowed.
The director cued a commercial break, and Glam realized the camera had switched off, but the studio audience was still with her. "Why don't you guys ask me the questions. You can do a better job of it than this bozo," she suggested, pointing to the red-faced host.
At that point the director took her by the elbow and politely but firmly escorted her offstage. She didn't fight him but exited blowing kiss after kiss to the audience and shouting, "Don't miss my shows tonight and tomorrow at—" She never had a chance to give the time or name the theatre, as her mic had been cut off and she herself had reached the wings of the stage.
Dale and Luis were waiting in the wings, from where they had been watching Glam being even more than her usual outrageous self. Luis wore an amused smile, but Dale was laughing hysterically. He still was amazed at the extremes to which Glam would go in her pursuit of fame. "How was I?" she asked in perfect sincerity as the director let go of her elbow but stood between her and the stage, seemingly concerned that she would make a break and head back out in front of the cameras.
"You were pure Glam Gran," Dale answered, and it was an answer that apparently satisfied Glam enormously.
Dale was satisfied too. His romance with Luis was going well, and as they continued bouncing from city to city to city, they continued sharing a hotel room, enjoying each other's company, and finding new things to delight in with each other. When they played a date in Miami, Luis introduced Dale to Cuban food, not that different from Puerto Rican cuisine. Dale let Luis order for both of them, and they shared an order of camarones en salsa verde, shrimp in green sauce, and lechón asado, Cuban-style roast pork. Dale had never before eaten plátanos maduros fritos, fried ripe plantains, and he enjoyed them, but thought their sweetness made them more suitable for a dessert than a main course side dish.
A three-nighter in New York gave them a chance to explore New York's ethnic restaurants together. They had Turkish food one night, Hungarian food another night, and real Chinese food—no chow mein!—down in Chinatown one night. The food at a kosher-style deli one lunchtime was so good that they returned there the next day for lunch again, and both Luis and Dale enjoyed such delights as latkes, Jewish-style potato pancakes, cold sliced tongue sandwiches on rye bread with Russian dressing, whitefish salad, and stuffed derma, a slightly spicy and very fatty artery-clogging concoction that Luis had with gravy and Dale tried without.
The more time the two men spent together, the more they found to like about each other. Dale found that Luis was not only very congenial but eager to make Dale happy. Without being a wuss or a pushover, he'd go out of his way to make Dale's life as enjoyable as he could, whether it was letting Dale have his choice of what to watch on TV or what movie to rent, or simply not escalating the occasional mild disagreement. Yet Luis stood up for what was important to him and stood his ground firmly on issues that really counted with him, which caused Dale to respect and appreciate him all the more.
Luis stood up to Glam, too. Dale was present during a discussion of Glam's hairstyle. She had a new style in mind, one that she had seen in a magazine, and Luis objected vehemently. Although this was his boss he was going up against, Luis told her firmly and unwaveringly that that style would not look good on her. "If you want a new hairstyle, fine. I'll design one for you myself, or I'll copy something in a magazine if it suits you, but this style absolutely will do nothing but accentuate your high forehead, which is not a good thing. I will not do it!"
Dale was so proud of Luis, even while he quaked at the thought that Luis might get fired for refusing to do Glam's bidding. But Glam, for all her outrageous behavior, was not an unreasonable woman. "Thank you," she said finally when Luis refused to back down. "Thank you for having my best interests at heart, and thank you for having the courage to stand up to me. I appreciate it."
Dale was proud of Glam, too, for her response to Luis's refusal. He had grown very fond of his boss, whose behavior only served to endear her to him. Working for Glam Gran was very different from working for Mr. Beaumont, and Dale chuckled inwardly when he compared his job with Mr. B. to his present employment. Whoever would have thought five months ago—yes, it had been five months already that he had worked for Glam—that he would have wound up as personal assistant to an "instant mega-star," one of his own idols? Night after night, day after day, at rehearsals and at performances, he listened as Glam sang the songs that had made her famous, and he never tired of watching and listening as she sang, postured, mugged, and sang some more. On those rare occasions when she didn't utter her trademark phrase, he mentally said it for her: Lady Gaga, eat your heart out, indeed!
Yes, it was five months, he realized, and that meant five months of virtually living with Luis as well. He thought of it as a trial by fire. They had begun the relationship casually enough, but because they were on the road and had shared a room that first night, they had fallen into sharing a room every night, almost by default. Yet it suited them well. Since Luis was so considerate, he was easy to live with, and since they were both working for Glam, their schedules coincided, so there were no issue with one wanting to go to bed early and the other wanting to stay up late.
In fact, Dale realized he had fallen in love with Luis, and the best part was, it was mutual. One night, after making love, Dale had murmured, "I love you," without planning it or thinking about it first.
Luis had responded, "I know, and I'm glad, 'cause I love you too." Then Luis had kissed Dale's ear, and Dale had kissed Luis's neck before they fell asleep entwined in each other's arms. Since then, they had exchanged "I love you's" on a number of further occasions. The best part, though, was that they didn't say it routinely. It hadn't become a habit, as meaningless a phrase as "Good morning" or "Good night," so when they did say it, they said it with meaning and with feeling.
It was evident in their actions as well as their words. It was mostly in little things, like deferring to each other over who was to get in the shower first (when they didn't shower together—which occurred mostly as a prelude to sex), or, speaking of sex, who was going to do what to whom in bed, since both were versatile, so that they took turns as top and bottom.
But then, about three weeks after their first declarations of love, Luis tore the fabric of the relationship into shreds with one simple sentence: "Maybe you'd better take a room for yourself tonight."
Dale just stood there, in the middle of the hotel room, staring uncomprehendingly at his beloved, who was seated at his laptop computer. What had brought this on? Thinking that perhaps he had misunderstood Luis's words or, if not his words then
his intent, Dale first said nothing, just running Luis's sentence through his head and trying to make it mean something other than the way it sounded. Finally he asked, "What?"
"I've heard from Roberto. He wants to patch things up. I don't know what to do, but I do know I can't be writing back and forth with him, talking about a possible reconciliation, while I'm still kind of living with you. It seems disloyal."
"To whom?" Dale asked bitterly. "Which of us are you concerned about?"
"It seems disloyal to both of you," Luis answered, looking down at the floor and avoiding Dale's gaze. "It feels dishonest … like I'm cheating on you. Or on him."
"I thought we loved each other."
"I do love you. But I'm not sure I ever stopped loving him, either. I'm confused. I'm confused, and I don't know what to do. But I can't keep sharing a room and a life with you while talking online with Roberto about maybe getting back with him. It isn't honest. It isn't right. It feels like cheating. I've never cheated on you and I'm not going to start now."
Now what? Could Dale possibly continue traveling with Glam Gran, working for Glam Gran, being with Luis day after day in a work environment but keeping his hands off him and his heart sealed up? He doubted it.
He had become used to the traveling life, even though he knew it would end for a while once the tour was over. In a month and a half they were scheduled to go to L.A. and remain there while Glam cut a new album. There were TV appearances and a few southern California concert dates, but the bulk of Glam's time and attention was to be devoted to laying down tracks. Still, the touring would resume at some point after that, and it was a lifestyle he had grown to enjoy.
Working for Glam Gran was a trip unto itself. She was irrepressible, unpredictable, and outrageous, but she was loyal to a fault and unquestionably honest and forthright. If someone worked for her and she liked them, she had their back and would fight for them in any situation. Besides, working for her was a life full of surprises. Dale never knew, when he woke up, what the day would bring, what situations would unfold, what unpredictable and incredible utterances would issue forth from Glam's mouth. The woman drank her breakfast—a gin and tonic on arising somewhere between eleven and noon, if left to her own devices—but Dale was certain that even stone-cold sober Glam would be just as outrageous.