|
|
THE STUDIO IN THE COUNTRY, Part 5
I'm sorry this one took so long. The installments are getting harder to write for some reason.
DISCLAIMER: The story that follows is a work of fiction. Many characters are completely fictional. Though some characters are based on actual persons, they should not be considered accurate or truthful representations of those persons. This story is not intended to reflect the behavior, work habits, personal hygiene, sexual proclivities, or preferred style of horseback riding saddle of any real person, living or dead.
WARNING: This story deals with homosexual themes. If this offends you, read no further. If you are under 18 years of age, read no further. If accessing this story causes you break any laws applicable to your location, read no further. If you do not read English, how the Hell did you get this far?
FEEDBACK: If you want to contact me and make any comments, please send them to michaelwashere@netzero.com. Many thanks to the five or six people who have emailed me already. The response has all been positive so far. This was fun before, when I was just writing this for myself, but now that I'm getting email out of it, it's even more fun. And, especially for BOB IN WEST CHESTER, there are an unusually high number of ellipses in this chapter. Enjoy!
THE STUDIO IN THE COUNTRY
Part 5 - Tuesday night
About half an hour later, I was opening the tack room when I heard the crunch of footprints in the gravel driveway. I turned to see Kevin coming toward me. He'd changed into jeans and a white T-shirt with a light blue shirt thrown over it. I laughed when I saw how he was dressed. At first he looked a bit confused until he noticed that I was dressed exactly the same way, even down to the brown cowboy boots.
"Well, I guess great minds think alike," he finally said.
"Guess so," I replied, swinging open the tack room door. "I just hope the horses can tell us apart." I stepped to one side to wave Kevin into the room.
"They will," he said, passing inside. "I'm the tall one."
"And I'm the pretty one," I said following him into the tack room. The room wasn't large, but it stored a lot of things. Six wooden stands, each holding one saddle, were arrayed down the long wall across the back. Various bridles and halters hung from nails in the beams overhead, and the wall of shelves on the right were covered with curry combs, brushes, and the many other things that we used for our horses.
"What's your preference?" I asked him. "Hunt seat or saddle seat?" Looking at the six saddles, I added, "We have a couple of western saddles, too, but they're not the most comfortable way to spend a couple of hours."
"I've never ridden on a hunt seat," he said, looking more closely at my mother's small riding saddle.
"Let's take two saddle seats, then," I said. "I wasn't planning on our jumping over anything this afternoon, anyway."
When we emerged from the tack room a couple of minutes later with our arms full of equipment, Kevin asked, "So where are we going anyway?"
"Just around," I told him. "There's a nice path that goes around the perimeter of the large pasture in front of the house. It's a nice ride, but we'll be back in plenty of time for dinner." By this time, I'd opened the barn door and we were inside.
At the mention of dinner, Kevin got a slight worried look on his face. "Are you sure this is no problem? I know you have to get dinner."
"Don't worry about it," I reassured him as we stepped into one of the stables and through it into the corral that adjoined the barn. The two horses inside perked up when they saw us approaching. "Everything's gonna work out perfectly for dinner. Now, what do you think about riding Vanessa? You and she seemed to get along well last night. Robby turned out all the horses except Vanessa and Tico this morning, but we can get one of the others if you'd rather."
Kevin shifted his tack so that he was holding the halter, blanket and saddle in one hand. He reached up with the other hand to stroke Vanessa's nose. "No, Vanessa and I will get along just fine today. Won't we, girl?"
A few minutes later we had each blanketed and saddled our respective horses. Once I got Tico's halter on, I suggested to Kevin that we should check each other's saddle. I was pretty sure that my saddle was secure, but I wanted to check Kevin's. He seemed pretty knowledgeable, but I didn't want to take any chances of an important client falling off one of our horses.
But his saddle was secure and the cinch was just tight enough to hold it secure without hurting Vanessa. I complimented him and offered to hold Vanessa's halter while he mounted. Then I led Tico to the gate that led onto the driveway. Once we were all outside, I closed the gate and mounted up.
Waving to AJ and Stacey, who were still by the pool, we turned the horses to the west and started down the hill.
"So, did you find Brian?" I asked him.
"What?" Evidently I'd interrupted Kevin's thoughts. "Oh, yeah. He was up in his room."
"He's okay, isn't he?" I continued. "He and Nick were supposed to play the little brothers at basketball."
"Yeah, he's okay. Just making some phone calls." He didn't sound completely sincere, but I didn't press it.
Leaving the grassy area around the house, we rode past the tractor barn on the opposite side of the driveway and stepped up to a gate. I dismounted and opened it for us. Once I'd remounted, we walked our horses down the path through the trees and out into a large, grassy field that was hidden from the house by the stand of trees behind the barn.
The wild grasses were about knee-high on the horses. Though some of them were still green, most of the slender stalks had been turned golden brown or a pale greyish brown by the late summer heat. Some drying wild flowers were still poking up, spots of white or yellow floating above the grass. A few yellow butterflies flitted about, outnumbered by far by the thousands of grasshoppers that leaped above the field.
A passing breeze sent a ripple across the field, like one lonely wave toward a beach. The grasses made a simple whispering sound as they brushed against each other in the wind, a sound that was picked up by the leaves overhead as the wind reached us and the trees at the same time. Tico made a slight neigh.
"Man, this is a big place!" Kevin said. "It must be great to get on a horse and tear across this field."
"It would be," I replied, "except that we don't. There's too many gopher holes hidden out there. If the horse stepped in one, it'd snap an ankle. That's why we stay on the paths, even though we have all this room."
"Oh." Kevin sounded a little disappointed. I snapped Tico's halter lightly and he began to walk down the path as it surrounded the field, counterclockwise. Kevin and Vanessa followed.
"We can ride in the fields," I explained, "but only after they're mowed and even then we go very slowly."
"Why do you mow the fields," Kevin asked. "Don't the cows graze out here."
"We mow it to make hay. In fact, we'll spend next week out here mowing and baling."
For the next hour we rode around that pasture and the other pasture to the south. Sometimes we would talk to each other, but mostly we rode in silence. Kevin seemed content to just enjoy being on horseback and being in the country.
Sometimes a worried look would cross his face, but he never said anything about it. I left him alone to think.
In fact, I found myself thinking quite a bit too. Mostly I thought about Mom and Robby encouraging me to get with one of these guys. And some of the time I thought about that afternoon around the pool. I'd had a good time, just hanging out with my brothers and these guys. But I'd have had to be blind to not notice how good Kevin looked, wearing just a bathing suit and dripping wet.
I stole a glance over at Kevin. He was looking ahead of himself, not really looking at anything. Probably lost in thought. I let myself notice his high cheekbones and square jaw. Quite a handsome face, really. I noticed his square shoulders underneath his blue shirt and the strength of his thighs as he gripped the horse's withers with his knees.
"Ben?" Kevin was talking to me, and had been for a few seconds, it seems.
"Uh, yeah, what?" was my stunningly intelligent reply.
He laughed a bit. "What are you staring at, bud?"
There, I thought. He caught me checking him out. While I was trying to decide what to say, I was unexpectedly rescued by the insect world. I noticed a grasshopper had jumped up and attached itself to Kevin's pant leg.
"I was watching that grasshopper climb your leg," I said, "and wondering how long it would take you to notice."
Kevin brushed the grasshopper off and kept talking. "I hope I haven't been boring company. I haven't said much since we left the house."
"I don't mind," I told him. "I like the quiet of being out here."
"I do too," he said, glancing around at the few trees along the fence on our right. We'd gone halfway around the second pasture by then and were riding along the fence that separated this pasture from a little country road. "This is a really relaxing place."
"I was afraid you'd be bored out here. I hear that you guys like to go out dancing and clubbing. There's none of that around here."
"We do a lot of that," he admitted, "when we're not exhausted from working. But sometimes it's nice to just relax and think for a while."
"You've been thinking a lot today," I said. "I hope nothing's wrong."
Kevin glanced over at me, a little quickly. I was looking back with what I hoped was an open, non-judgmental expression on my face. I guess it was, because Kevin visibly relaxed a bit on seeing it. "No," he said, "nothing's wrong. I just have some things on my mind."
"Anything you wanna talk about?"
He looked up at me for maybe half a minute before saying, "Nah. That's all right."
"'sorry, Kevin. I'm not trying to be nosy. 'guess it's the 'big brother' genes kicking in."
He smiled at me -- God, what a great smile! -- and said, "I understand. I do a lot of that too."
We talked a while about the job of "big brother." For me, that was a genuine position, but of course my brothers and I had our parents around all the time. Sure there were times when they'd come to me about something—Mike especially—but the parents were always there. Kevin wasn't actually the guys' older brother, but he'd taken on the role being the oldest. And each of the guys had their own parents but usually it was just the five of them and various management people around. So Kevin took the "big brother" role very seriously.
During the conversation, I heard a couple more stories of stupid things the other guys had done, more things to tease them about during dinner. Then we passed from under the trees and found ourselves near the point in the gravel road where it split, one fork going to the house and the other leading to the parking lot outside the studio. We followed the driveway to the parking lot, then past the studio to curve east toward the barn.
The sky in the east was already getting darker, and the western sky was beginning to turn pink and orange as the sun began to set. The land here is pretty flat, and I know a lot of people hate it. But I like the openness of it. And our sunsets and sunrises last for hours because the horizon is so broad.
We reached the barn. In a few minutes, we'd returned Vanessa and Tico to the corral. We brushed both horses and I checked the water in their trough, before Kevin and I carried the equipment back to the tack room. After closing its door behind us, we started walking toward the house. I checked my watch. "Dinner's in about an hour," I told Kevin. "I should grab a quick shower and head to the kitchen."
"Yeah, I wanna get a shower too," Kevin said. "Thanks for taking me out today."
"Sure thing, bud," I told him. "It was fun."
He laughed. "Even though you went riding with a mute."
"You weren't mute," I told him. "You were just quiet. It was relaxing." We'd reached the corner of the patio by the gym. After Kevin and I shared the obligatory man-to-man handshake, I turned to go in through the den as Kevin headed across the patio to the hotel doors.
My shower wasn't that quick. Once I was under the spray I couldn't get the mental picture of Kevin's body, lean and strong and dripping wet in the sunlight, out of my head. Eventually, I stopped trying to and just let my mind and my hands take what inspiration they could from the image.
It was maybe half an hour later when I got to the kitchen. Robby was already setting the table, and Mom was busy putting the various sides into dishes presentable enough for the table.
"Hi, honey," she said. "Did you and Kevin have a good time?"
I was on my way to the oven by then, but I stopped long enough to plant a quick kiss on her forehead. "I think so. It was relaxing, but we didn't talk very much."
"Well, there's a lot to be said about comfortable silences, too," she replied.
I opened the oven and took out the barbecued brisket. I turned to see Mom laying a couple of towels flat on the kitchen island. I smiled at her and set the pan onto them. "I don't know how 'comfortable' it was," I continued. "Kevin seemed kinda preoccupied with something."
"Everything's okay, isn't it?"
"As far as I know," I told her. "Maybe it's nothing; maybe it's personal. I don't think they're having any problems in the studio," I continued, guessing that she was worried about the guys working in our studio. "Except that Brian evidently has to re-do some vocals tomorrow."
"Yeah," Robby said as he entered from the dining room. "You should have heard him this morning. He made the same mistake, like, twelve times this morning!" Robby began to set drink glasses onto a tray.
"Maybe Brian has the problem, and Kevin is worried about him," Mom suggested.
"Maybe," I said. "They are cousins, and they're supposed to be pretty close."
Dinner was on the table at 7:00, but most of the people had been there before that. Howie had shone up about twenty minutes early and came into the kitchen to offer to help. I had just smiled at him, but Mom smiled then put him to work carrying dishes out to the table.
"Mom, you know he's just being friendly," I whispered to her after Howie had carried a salad out to the table.
"I know," she said, "but if he's going to offer to help, I'm going to take him up on it."
Once everyone was seated and began eating, the conversation was a lot livelier and more animated than the night before. I took that as a sign that everyone was more relaxed. The two exceptions to this were Brian and Mike. Brian was again sitting on my right, with Kevin on my left. I could tell that Brian was listening to the other conversations, but he didn't have much to say himself. Mike wasn't talking either. In fact, he didn't even really eat that much. He was picking at his food absently, and his eyelids were heavy like he was dozing off while eating.
Brian, I decided, probably wouldn't want me to intrude into his thoughts, but I had to find out what was up with Mike.
As I passed the bread down to Nick, I asked, "Mike, are you okay? You look like you're half asleep."
Mom, Nick, and Kevin all looked at Mike. Mike looked up at me. On my right, I heard Robby chuckle.
"I'm just tired," Mike said. "Swimming and basketball wore me out."
"Go on," Robby prodded him.
"Go on with what?" Mom said cooly, still looking at Mike.
"I found out why Mike was so silly this afternoon," Robby said. "He and Nick ate a half gallon of ice cream before they went swimming. Mike was on a sugar high."
"Now it looks like he's hit a sugar low," Dad said, his voice slightly amused.
Mike smiled weakly. "Michael," Mom said, "it's not funny. You know better than to eat like that."
"I don't get it," Nick said. "It was just ice cream."
"Mike's hypoglycemic," I told him. "Sugar makes him crazy, then it makes him comatose."
"Is that like diabetes?" Howie asked.
"No, it's not that serious," Mike said.
"But it can turn into diabetes," Mom explained, talking to Howie but looking at Mike, "especially if a person isn't careful about what they eat."
Mike looked over at her. "'sorry, Mom," he said.
"Michael, you did a foolish thing. Let's not hear anymore about it." She smiled affectionately at him, and he smiled back. I smiled too. Mike was always going to be Mom's baby boy. I could barely hear it when Mom leaned over toward him and added, "But if you do it again, I'll cut your hair with a weed eater."
"Where's Stacey?" AJ asked, looking at the empty chair between him and Howie.
"She went home," Dad explained. "She said something about having things to do tonight."
Robby laughed again. "Yeah, she's busy treating her sunburn so she won't glow in the morning when she comes to work."
The guys and I laughed. Howie said to Robby, "Aren't anyone's secrets safe with you?"
We laughed again. When I turned to look at Robby, I noticed Brian giving him an odd look.
"So, Dave," Kevin began, "what time do you want us in the studio in the morning?"
Dave was chewing when Kevin asked. He nodded at Kevin, chewed faster, and waved his fork in little circles to pass the time until he could swallow and answer. "Sleep in a little," he said finally. "We'll need Brian about 9:00, and the rest about 10:00."
I kind of halfway expected the guys to tease Brian about messing up, but no one did. I was inwardly afraid that Robby might tease him, so I decided to get into the conversation before my brother could. "You by yourself, huh?" I said to Brian, trying to sound friendly. "I guess all those Web sites were right."
"What Web sites?" Kevin asked.
I looked down at my plate and tried to sound very casual as I said, "Oh, the ones that say Brian is the most important Backstreet Boy. They say he's the real talent and the rest of you are just there to dance around him." I looked up to see Kevin, Howie, and AJ smiling at me.
"No way," AJ said with a grin. At the same time, Howie said, "That's just not right," and just a half second later I heard Nick say, "Are you sure they weren't talking about me?"
Mike laughed. "Yeah, lots of people spell Nick 'B-r-i-a-n'." Most people laughed at this.
"These boys are a team," Ms. Shaw said.
"We really are," Kevin said. "We're all equal. We need everybody, or it wouldn't work."
"I know that, Kevin," I smiled at him. "I'd pretty much figured that out on the ride in from the airport."
"Though some of us do get more fan mail," Nick added quietly from Kevin's other side. What followed sounded a lot like Kevin kicking him under the table, but I could be wrong.
"So, you look at Web sites about us?" Howie asked, changing the subject.
"We looked at some of them when we heard you were coming," Robby told him. "We wanted to find out more about you."
"Y'know, favourite foods and things like that," I added.
"Learn anything interesting?" AJ asked with a sly grin.
"Well, I learned that Brian is afraid of heights..."
"I am," Brian said quietly.
"...that Kevin likes to sleep late..."
"I do," Kevin said.
"...and that AJ is a notorious flirt."
"He is," everyone at the table said. AJ blushed a little but he had a huge grin on his face.
Dinner broke up about 8. Most of the guys scattered, but Howie and Robby stayed around to help clear away the dishes.
At one point Howie was in the dining room alone and I was about to return to the dining room but Robby stopped me at the door. "Dude, what's up with Brian?" he asked me quietly.
"I was going to ask you," I said. "He gave you a weird look when Howie asked if you could keep secrets. I thought maybe you knew something."
"I don't," he said, "but you didn't see the way he looked when Kevin said that about them being a team and needing everybody to make the group work. Brian relaxed like someone had taken a piano off his head or something. What's up with that?"
"You know as much as I do," I told him.
"I thought maybe he'd said something to you last night. I know you guys stayed up late talking."
"Nah, he seemed okay then." I thought about how Brian had acted the night before. He'd seemed pretty relaxed, but how would I know? I just met him yesterday. But I did remember something that had happened that afternoon. "And, by the way, what's with telling me to 'go for it' with Howie?"
Robby smiled. "I'm starting to think he likes you. He hangs around you whenever he can, and AJ tells me Howie hates to do dishes."
"He's just being nice," I argued.
"Yeah, he's just being nice," Robby said, picking up a damp towel to wipe down the table, "but why?" He walked out of the kitchen, letting the question hang.
I started the washing up while Robby and Howie brought everything in from the kitchen. Once the dining room was clean, Howie stayed in the kitchen to help me wash. We could hear Robby vacuuming the dining room while we worked.
"Good dinner," Howie said.
"Thanks," I replied. "We do the work, but they're all Mom's recipes."
"But you've got to be a good cook to follow a recipe. Me, I ruin microwave popcorn."
I laughed. "Mom taught us to cook. And she used to make us eat whatever we cooked, so we learned to be careful." I heard Robby come into the kitchen, so I added, "Even Robby can cook a little, but he's not very good."
"Ha!" Robby said. "Just wait 'til tomorrow, Howie. I'll show you some real cooking."
"Before you get too cocky," I told him, "check the menu for tomorrow. Roast chicken for dinner."
"No, Mom changed her mind," Robby said. "Since the weather is supposed to be sunny again, we're having a cookout by the pool. Mike gets to do the roast chicken."
I shook my head. "I get baked flounder and barbecue brisket, and you get hamburgers on the grill. There is no justice."
"It gets worse," Robby said, jumping up to sit on the kitchen island. "Mike has to go to the grocery store in the morning, so you get to do all the rooms."
"You clean the rooms?" Howie asked.
"Yeah," I told him. As I handed him two more glasses for the dishwasher, I decided to tease him a bit. "That's how I know something the Web sites don't know."
"What's that?"
"Well, they all seem to think you guys wear boxers. But I know you and Nick wear briefs." Fortunately, the glass he dropped didn't break.
I heard Robby hop down from the island. "I'll let you two finish doing the dishes," he said, emphasizing the last three words for me. "I'm gonna go set up the studio. The girls'll be here soon."
Howie and I made small talk as we finished loading the dishwasher then washing the larger pots by hand. He asked about my ride with Kevin, saying that maybe he'd go with us if we went out again. I told him that I'd be glad to ride with him anytime, even if Kevin didn't go.
I was tempted to ask him about Brian's mood, but I decided against it.
It was about 8:30 when Howie and I left the kitchen and made out way down the corridor to the studio workroom. Turning left, we could see that the hallway that connected the two studios and their booths was dark, but light shone out from the windows of the smaller studio.
Coming down the dark hall, Howie and I passed the four large windows on our way to the studio door. The room was 30 feet square, with light coloured carpet on the floor and white acoustic tile on all the walls. Mike's trap set and the other instruments were pushed back into a corner, except for one electric keyboard, which Kevin was playing on while Nick, Brian, and Dave watched. AJ was attaching a cord to a single mike on a stand in the center of the room. Robby was in the booth, yelling instructions through the open connecting door.
"Okay, I'm getting the feed now, AJ. Say something so I can check the levels."
AJ decided to be cute. He looked over at the guys at the keyboard and started singing, "You're all I've ever wanted..."
"Ugh!" Nick yelled. "Give me something to throw!"
Kevin and Brian just laughed. "I knew it!" Howie said as we entered the room. "I knew you were a closet 'NSYNC fan!"
AJ pretended to hide his face in his hands. "Oh, the shame of it all." Everyone laughed along.
"Where's this music?" I asked my brother.
"On the keyboard," Robby yelled. "Kevin's playing it."
I crossed to the keyboard and picked up the loose sheets of manuscript. It looked pretty straightforward: lots of rich chords in the three vocals with a pretty simple piano line underneath. "This should be pretty easy," I yelled in to Robby. "Are you sure you want to do it on the electric keyboard?"
Robby stepped into the studio. "Do you think the piano would sound better?"
"Maybe," I answered. "Let's try it on the keyboard and see how it sounds."
"Here," Kevin said, standing up so I could sit down. After arranging the sheets on the stand, I started playing. The piano part was chord-heavy at first, but it got lighter once the vocal lines came in.
While I was playing, I heard the phone in the booth ring. Watching through the window, I saw Robby answer it. He talked for a few seconds then punched some numbers. I guessed the girls were here, calling from the gate, which Robby opened with the remote code in the phone.
The structure of the song was simple: two verses with the same refrain at the end of each, the intro repeating at the end. The second verse was virtually identical to the first, so I played one verse and refrain and stopped.
" 'Sounds good," AJ said.
"You've never played that before?" Kevin asked.
"No, but it'll get better after I've been through it a couple of times," I told him.
"It's already good," Kevin said. "You sightread really well."
"Thanks," I said to him. "Robby, the girls are gonna want this to sound as country as possible, and it's already got a kinda church revival/honky-tonk sound to it. I think we should use the real piano."
Robby considered the idea. "Let's push one out here and give it a try."
Kevin and AJ helped Robby and I push the covered piano away from the wall and into the middle of the room. While we were doing that, Howie gathered up the sheet music. At some point during the moving, we heard a knocking on the studio's outside door. Before anyone could say anything, Nick yelled, "I'll get it" and ran down the hall.
"The girls are here," Robby said. "That was them on the phone."
Kevin and AJ grinned at each other. AJ said "5, 4, 3, 2..." Before he got to "1" we heard squealing from the office. "Well, they recognized Nick," AJ said, laughing.
Nick came down the hall with three girls in their early 20s and one guy about the same age. I knew all the girls, but I'd never seen the guy before. Robby met them at the door. "I see you met Nick," he laughed. They all laughed and one of the girls, Caroline, blushed, so I guess we know who squealed.
Once we were all in the studio, Robby introduced the guys to Jennifer, Amy, and Caroline. He explained that he'd gone to school with Jennifer and Amy. When they started a singing group with Caroline, he'd helped them out by playing guitar for them and helping them make some recordings.
Then Amy introduced Alan—the guy I hadn't recognized—as her boyfriend. "He came to play the piano," she said, "in case Ben couldn't do it."
"Oh, Ben can do it," Howie said. "It sounds really good." He smiled at me, but he didn't notice Robby grinning behind him. I looked around to see if anyone else did, but the guys were mostly looking at me.
"Then you don't need me," Alan said, smiling at Amy.
"I always need you," Amy said, putting her hands on her shoulders and giving him a quick kiss. "You don't mind if Ben plays, do you?"
"No, not at all" Alan said. "I'll just listen."
"What's with the two keyboards?" Jennifer said, noticing that we had both an acoustic and electric piano.
"I tried it on the electric first," I told her, "but I think it would sound better on a real piano."
"Yeah," Jennifer said nodding. "It'll sound more country that way."
"It's a pretty song," Kevin said. "The vocals are really close harmony. I bet it was hard to learn."
"It was," Caroline said, tilting her head and smiling shyly up at him. "We had to go through it over and over until we got it down."
"Well, let's hear it," Robby said. "We're not getting anything done by talking about it."
Dave laughed. "Kid, you sound like a producer already. You want us to stay here or go into the booth."
"I wanna play it a couple of times through with the girls singing before you record anything," I said, talking as much to Jennifer and Robby as to Dave. "Everybody can just stay in here while we do that, I guess."
"Go for it," Robby said.
After everyone was settled, Robby, Kevin and Dave were in the booth, listening through the microphone feed. The girls stood in a half circle around the microphone, turned slightly to see both me and the booth window. Nick, AJ and Howie sat in chairs against the wall, with Alan and Brian sitting on the floor nearby with their backs against the wall.
I started the song, and the girls came in more or less on cue. The harmony of their voices was really good. I'd heard them before, but I think the guys were surprised at how good they sounded. They knew the song well, but they were a little shaky on some of the chords in the refrain. Mostly Caroline, but every time she messed up, she'd smile shyly at Kevin.
When we finished, I asked them quietly, "Are these guys making you nervous?"
Before they could answer, Kevin came out of the booth and said, "That sounded great, but I think maybe we're making you nervous."
Caroline and Amy giggled a little, and Jennifer said, "Maybe a little. But we'll get over it. We've sung in front of bigger crowds before, and I'm pretty sure you aren't gonna throw any beer bottles at us."
"I don't even have a beer bottle," AJ said.
"And I'm not allowed to drink beer," Nick added.
Caroline was still looking at Kevin. "We're not that nervous," she told him. "We're just warming up. It'll get better I promise."
"Let's do it again," I said. Kevin and AJ went into the booth while I asked the girls about the tempo and my volume. We talked a bit about my following them as opposed to leading. When we were ready to start again, Jennifer waved at Robby.
The second time through was much better, though we did stop four or five times to iron out specific parts. After the third time, Robby announced over the intercom that he thought we were ready to record. Nick, Brian, Howie and Alan went into the booth with the others.
We recorded it once all the way through. Then Robby started telling us over the intercom how it sounded on the recording and making suggestions, and we began again to work on the song in pieces, ironing out various things. It was during this process that Dave stood up and stepped into the studio. "Good night, ladies. It was nice meeting you, and I really like your sound. When I hear you on the radio, I'll tell everyone that I knew you before you were famous."
After Dave was gone, I noticed that Brian had left the booth too without saying anything.
We spent maybe half an hour working through the song, then we recorded it three more times before Robby announced that he was happy with it. He and the other guys came out of the booth, and Robby held a small DAT cassette in his hand. "This is it," he said. "I'll burn this and the other songs on CDs tomorrow night. You can pick them up Thursday night."
The girls got real excited and started hugging each other. Amy ran over to Alan and hugged him. Caroline grabbed Kevin and hugged him. AJ and Jennifer laughed at her for a second, as Caroline realized what she'd done and recoiled a bit. Kevin just smiled at her.
Now that the work was done, we could relax a bit. For about an hour we just sat around the studio talking. Everyone got along well. Alan turned out to be a nice guy, even though he spent most of his time whispering to Amy, who sat on the floor in front of him and leaned back against his chest.
AJ and Jennifer spent a lot of time talking, and Caroline and Kevin seemed to get along really well. Caroline seemed to have calmed down about talking to the Backstreet Boys and was really funny and charming. Nick and Howie sat near me at the piano.
Occasionally I would play something and we would all sing. Jennifer and Caroline knew the words to a lot of Backstreet Boys songs, so I played some of them using the various tones on the electronic keyboard to simulate the actual song. Kevin and Nick didn't believe me that I could pick out the chords to pretty much anything I'd heard a couple of times, so they tested me with songs until they were convinced. I even played "I Want You Back," and we made AJ sing the whole thing this time.
"Well, guys, this has been fun," Jennifer said after a long time, "but I have to get to work tomorrow morning."
"So do I," Amy said, sounding very sleepy. I was beginning to be sleepy myself, and I was glad that Robby had to do breakfast in the morning so I could sleep in.
"C'mon then," I said. "Let's get everything put away so the girls can go home."
When everything was shut down and put away, we started back up the hall toward the studio offices. When we got there, there was more trading back and forth of "You guys were great" and "It was really nice to meet you." Nick, Howie and Kevin said their good nights and turned to go up to their rooms. Robby, AJ and I walked the girls and Alan out to their car.
The night was warm and clear. The parking lot outside the office was lit only by one small lamp on a pole near the driveway. Its pale, yellowish glow was enough to get us safely to Jennifer's car, but it wasn't bright enough to interfere with the millions of stars overhead. There are a lot of great things about living in the country, but the night sky is one of my favourites.
"Whoa!" AJ said, taking in the stars for the first time. "What a view!"
"And we get it out here all the time," Jennifer teased him a little. "You city boys don't get to see all these stars. Cities are never dark enough."
"AJ, doesn't need to see stars," Robby replied. "AJ is a star."
Most of us chuckled at Robby's teasing. AJ just laughed a bit, then said, "And don't you forget, country boy."
We stood a few minutes enjoying the beautiful night, and each other's company, and the nice feeling of having done good work together. Robby and I reminded Alan and the girls how important it was that they not tell people that the Backstreet Boys were at our place. The small talk lasted until Amy yawned. Alan wrapped his arm around her and said they really should be going. We said our good nights before they climbed into the car and Jennifer drove them away. As we watched the taillights disappear down the hill, AJ asked if we'd be doing any more recording that week.
Robby and I grinned at each other. "We don't have any plans to," Robby told him. "But when our brother gets here Saturday, we could invite Jennifer to drop by. Just to see him, y'know."
AJ took his real meaning and smiled. "And Caroline too. Kevin seemed to really like her."
"Sure," I said. "We'll make a little party out of it."
We turned back toward the studio door, me slightly behind the other two. I was a few steps from the door when I heard a noise on the gravel. It turned out to be Rex and Regina coming around the corner of the studio to investigate the noise of the car driving away. As I started toward the two dogs, Robby asked, "You coming in?" He was inside already, holding the door open and leaning out to look at me. AJ was just a dark shape in the office behind him.
"Not just yet," I told him, walking toward the corner of the building where the two dogs stood, staring at us. "But don't lock me out," I added.
Robby grinned wide. "Why, the thought never occurred to me."
"Yeah, I bet." I returned his grin. "I'll turn on the alarm when I come in. G'night, little brother."
"G'night, bro."
"Night, Ben," I heard AJ say as Robby closed the door.
For a couple of minutes I knelt and petted the dogs. Regina rolled onto her back so that I could scratch her belly. Rex butted at me with his nose and tried to lick my face. As fond as I am of them both, I've always hated dogs licking my face. Every time he tried, I would turn my head to avoid him. I kept my face dry that way, but my neck got soaked.
Maybe a minute later, I stood up. "Well, that's enough of that," I told them. "I'm going to bed. You guys keep everybody safe tonight, okay?"
I was about to step back around the corner toward the door when I heard a voice say quietly, "You were good tonight." It took me a few seconds to recognize it as Brian's voice, and then a few more to place it. He was overhead, sitting on the balcony of his room.
I stepped onto the grass and crossed most of the forty feet to stand under his balcony. "Thanks," I said. "Did you listen for very long?"
"Long enough to hear how good you are," he said. "Have you ever thought of playing professionally?" It was hard to see his face in the dim light, but his voice sounded soft and tired.
I tried to sound friendly when I spoke again. "I did play professionally," I said, grinning.
"I don't mean in a piano bar," he said. "You'd make a great studio player."
"Well, thanks." I really felt the compliment in his opinion. "But I don't think being a musician is my real ambition in life."
"What is your ambition in life?" he asked.
People always ask that like it's a simple thing—and it is for lots of people, I guess—but I never know what to say. Usually I avoid having to answer, and if I have no choice I respond with some weak joke. One weak joke coming up, I thought.
"Well, right now, my main ambition is to get to bed. It's been a long day."
There was a second or two of silence from overhead. A warm wind came around the house and brushed the leaves of the small tree at the corner near Brian's balcony.
"Yeah, I guess it has been," Brian said at last. "I forgot that you had to get breakfast this morning. 'sorry to be keeping you up, Ben."
"Oh, that's no big deal," I replied, maybe a little too quickly. "Like I told you last night, I like talking to you. I just really need to get some sleep."
"I understand," he said simply. "G'night, Ben."
"G'night, Brian." I turned to walk away, adding, "Don't stay up too late, guy. You have to work in the morning." I regretted saying it as soon as the words were out. Brian was pretty obviously unhappy about something, and I'd probably just brought up the very thing.
Or maybe not. The emotions in his voice hadn't changed when he said, "I know."
I stopped walking and turned back to face him. Deciding to be a little bold, I asked, "Brian, I know it's none of my business, but are you okay?"
I heard a slight exhalation from him. "Yeah, I'm okay," he said. His voice was flat and unconvincing, like he'd said it more out of habit than conviction. I watched him a moment, a subtle silhouette in front of the curtain and sliding glass door that separated him from his suite. Remembering that he'd said he found me easy to talk to too, I decided to be a little bolder.
"Well, I don't believe you." I paused just a second before adding, "but I won't push it. But if you need someone to talk to, someone who has nothing to do with your life, you know where I live."
Another exhalation. I imagined this one accompanying a slight smile. "Yeah, I know where you live."
"I'm good at listening; I don't give unasked-for advice, and I know how to keep my mouth shut. Come find me if you need to, bud. Anytime."
There was another silence from above before Brian said, "I may do that, Ben. Thanks." His voice sounded a little warmer than before.
Deciding that I would have to be satisfied with this much, I said "good night" again.
"G'night, Ben," he said.
I turned away and walked back to the office door. Just before I opened it, I think I heard Brian open the sliding door and go inside his rooms.