Oreos for Breakfast

Oreos For Breakfast: Chapter 36
By the Paperbag Princess and Pumpkin Coach

How did we end up on Broadway? Of all the dreams I’d ever had, the venues I’d wanted to fill with screaming fans, Broadway was not among them. I didn’t dislike musical theatre. It just wasn’t my thing, for all the shows I’d done as a kid. When I was a kid, that was pretty much my only outlet for what turned out to be my obsessive need to be on stage.

Not that I was doing musical theatre tonight. It wasn’t like I had to get out there and remember lines and dance. I just had to sit on a stool and play my acoustic guitar and sing a few songs with Shirley.

Just me and Shirley. No boys to back me up.

I was scared out of my mind.

There was a knock on my dressing room door and Shirley burst in, her Scottish accent making her rant nearly incomprehensible. “What the fuck are we doing, Rachel? Have you been out there? There are people out there. Not our people, either! They are wearing furs and diamonds and designer clothes! Fur! I hate fur!”

“We should have declared a fur free zone,” I said to placate her. Shirley was never shy about sharing her opinions with me, as I found out during rehearsals this week.

She threw herself onto the couch. “I do PETA ads, you know.”

“I do know. Sorry. We gotta trade off for another cause tonight, okay?”

She pouted for a second, twirling a piece of her perfect red hair around her finger. I loved her hair. I’d always wanted to be a red head.

“Fine,” she finally conceded. “I get to say ‘fur is evil,’ though.”

“At the end of the show, okay? Let’s not start with that.”

She flashed me half a smile. “You don’t think that would get all the bloody fucking socialites on our side?”

“Um, no.”

We shared a smile, but then she went back to her rant. “Seriously, Rachel. What the fuck are we doing? How did you drag me into impressing your ex-boyfriend’s mum? Your. EX. Boyfriend. He was even ‘ex’ at the time you agreed to it.”

“When I agreed to it, I thought it was a little show. It got out of control.”

“We’re on bloody fucking Broadway,” she laughed.

“Yeah… I’m not sure what happened there.”

“I’m here!” Gwen announced, bursting into my dressing room, trailed by her entourage. She always had an entourage.

“Let’s make her do it,” I said to Shirley, and we both laughed.

“Make me do what?” Gwen asked. “Where’s my dressing room?”

“You don’t get one. You’re the surprise guest, remember? The operative word there being ‘surprise’. You didn’t walk the red carpet, did you?” Shirley said, and Gwen shook her head.

“No, I came in the back. No one knows I’m here. I’m taking over this dressing room, though. I have to do my make-up.”

She looked perfect, as usual. Why had we invited her?

“Want to borrow Max?” she asked us both, meaning her make-up guy. Shirley and I both gave her blank looks. We’d gone through this every night of the tour. Gwen never really believed that Shirley or I was ready to be seen by the adoring public.

“Yes,” Shirley said, and I laughed at her.

“You’re really scared.”

“I’m fucking terrified! What are we doing?”

“We’re doing a show for a really great cause,” Gwen said. “And we’re going to go out there and rock. Well, you two will. I’ll just come in at the end and do ‘Ex-Girlfriend.’”

That’s why we’d invited her. Because under the perfect hair and the perfect make-up and the great clothes, she was really a sweet girl from Southern California.

“No,” Shirley said, as Max sat her down in front of the mirror. “You get to do something else. Tell her, Rachel. Don’t you dare make me look like that fucking Barbie doll you usually work on,” she warned Max, and he just smiled at her.

“What else do I get to do?” Gwen asked, ignoring how Shirley was being mean to her make-up guy.

I sighed, giving Shirley a look. “She broke me down,” I admitted.

Gwen squealed. “Hit Me Baby, One More Time?”

“Yes,” I said. “Even though this is a benefit for kids, and we should not be encouraging the message of ‘Hit Me’.”

“It’s not really about hitting,” Shirley dismissed me. “She just misses him. It’s a great break up song, and that’s what we do!”

I sighed. It was a good song, and Shirley had made me try it yesterday, and our version turned out to be great. I was pretty sure it could be a single, and I liked the idea of making a lot of money for the charity from it.

“And it’s not written by a woman,” I reminded her. We might have had this argument, oh, every day for the last week.

“One song,” Shirley said, making Max sigh impatiently as he tried to apply some magic potion to her face. “We’re all about the girl power tonight, Rache, we can throw the boys a bone.”

“How many songs are you doing?” Gwen asked.

“About twenty,” I admitted. “Almost two hours.” I was afraid we were going to bore everyone. But they’d paid a lot of money to be there, so I didn’t want to just do a short set. The executive director of the charity was going to talk for a minute at the beginning and introduce us. We’d built in an intermission, and Ben’s mom was introducing the second set.

That was the worst part. Ben’s mom scared me, and the beginning of the second set was just me with two new songs. We couldn’t tell anyone, or they wouldn’t come back from intermission. But Gwen would show up at the end. That was good.

“Rachel’s doing two solo songs at the beginning of the second set. They’ll bring the house down.”

I felt myself blush. “I’m afraid I’ll turn everyone off. They’re pretty sad,” I explained to Gwen.

“They’re fucking awesome,” Shirley corrected. “So personal.”

“That’s the scary part.”

Gwen gave me a look. “We can do personal songs, Rachel. I sing songs about Tony to Tony all the fucking time.”

“That’s different, somehow.”

These were all about how fucked up I was. And I had to dedicate one to Ben, and he’d be watching. AJ had already heard ‘Sober,’ but I was a little afraid he’d cry tonight and I’d see him and lose it.

I should have opened with the solo set. Now I had to dread it for the entire first act. That was poor planning on my part.

“What do I get to do on ‘Hit Me’?” Gwen asked, and I picked up my guitar.

I was using the great acoustic guitar that Nick had gotten me in Vegas. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Part of me might have found the strength to forgive him so that I could use this guitar again. I used a couple of different guitars on the No Doubt tour, but none of them were as good as this one. This one just fit me somehow.

“Pretty guitar,” Gwen said.

“It’s a Nick guitar,” Shirley sing-songed, ratting me out.

“Really? What happened there? Did you see the news?”

I cut her off before she could go on. I couldn’t hear anyone’s ‘theories’ on what happened when Nick and Paris broke up. Part of me was thrilled, of course, that they were over. And this seemed pretty permanent.

“He didn’t beat up Paris Hilton. I’m sure of it,” I said in a tone that told her and everyone in the room not to push it.

I had known that even before AJ had told me that Nick denied it all. I’d known that from the moment I’d seen all the pictures of Paris and the press implying that Nick had done it.

Gwen considered me for a minute. “You hated that he dated her at all, right?”

“This isn’t up for discussion, Gwen. Especially not tonight. I know him really well, and he couldn’t have done that.”

Gwen and Shirley exchanged a quick look, but it was okay. They were my friends, and they believed me. If I said Nick didn’t do it, then he didn’t do it.

I didn’t care that the press had only shut up about it because Nick had gotten some high powered Hollywood lawyer to make it go away. Paris had enough money to make the charges stick if they were true. So they must not be.

And my Nick wouldn’t have done that to a woman. He just wouldn’t have.

“Okay,” Gwen said, smiling at me and changing the tone in the room with her larger-than-life personality. “Let’s go over the song.”

“No singing, Shirley,” I warned her. “Or Max will mess up your make-up.”

“Hurry it up, Max,” Shirley said.

“It is my great pleasure to give you, once again: Rachel Connor,” Ben’s mom said, smiling at me as the applause started.

Shirley and Gwen pushed me out on to the stage, and I took a deep breath, heading for my stool. I liked my stool. The first act had flown by, and after the first song, Shirley and I both relaxed enough to joke with the audience. I knew we sounded great by the looks on everyone’s faces. It was not our normal audience, but everyone was so gracious, and our fans were in the cheap seats in the balcony. Their enthusiasm was infectious enough that they got the society types singing along with us.

Ben’s mom kissed my cheek as I reached her, and I smiled. “Thank you so much, Rachel,” she whispered to me. “You are doing so much good here tonight.”

“I’m just raising some money. You guys do the work.”

She just smiled again, squeezing my hand, as she left the stage. I took my stage, looking around at the audience for a second. The boxes on one side of the theatre were filled with the charity’s biggest supporters. Ben and Jessa and her friend were over there, with his family and some people I didn’t know. I’d looked up there a couple of times in the first set, and Jessa was always dancing in her seat, and Ben looked… enthralled. I knew that fan boy look. I’d just never seen it on his face before.

Shirley and my friends were in the boxes on the other side. AJ was right up front, leaning his arms on the railing. He knew his song was coming up. Sarah had not come with him, which made me a little sad. I’d hoped they’d get back together. I hoped she hadn’t decided not to come because AJ had told her about what had happened with us last month. I didn’t want to be the reason she decided to leave him for good.

Kevin and Howie were with AJ, which freaked me out a little. But they’d wanted to come, and they’d paid to get the good seats.

As I looked up, James sat down behind AJ, JC right behind him. They must have gotten caught in the lobby. The rest of my band were behind them, and my family in the box above theirs.

“Aunt Rachel! Woo hoo!” Colleen and Katie yelled, so loudly I could hear them above everyone else.

I smiled at them, and then leaned towards the mic to say something… and the screaming didn’t stop.

I laughed, motioning everyone to sit down, and after a moment, they did.

“I’m not introducing Shirley yet,” I joked, and that made them scream again. I laughed, and they quieted as I spoke again. “I have to be self indulgent for a minute and do a couple of new songs.”

Screaming. We never going to get out of here if this kept up. “Listen closely. Because these are so new they’re not on the new album. Coming to a record store near you in April, have I mentioned that?”

I’d mentioned it a few dozen times. Never hurt to get the plug in there, especially when it made people laugh.

“These two songs were both inspired by the same event, when a friend of mine was trying to find himself. He’s encouraged me to do a little work on myself, as well. This is ‘Sober’.”

I let myself noodle around on the guitar for a bit to end it, and when I looked up at the boxes, Jeremy was giving me the most disbelieving look I’d ever seen on his face. I wasn’t sure if he hated the song or loved it or if he was just shocked by my guitar solo. I usually didn’t believe in guitar solos.

Yeah, it was my fucking song. I’d do a solo if I wanted to do a solo.

The crowd exploded again as I ended the song, and this time my band was on their feet up in the box. And Ben was smiling at me, mouthing ‘thanks,’ while Jessa screamed her head off.

I wasn’t sure if Jessa was old enough to get this one yet. But it was for her Uncle Ben, so who cared? I was sure that everyone at her school was going to know that Rachel Connor wrote a song for her uncle soon. She might be texting it to all her friends as soon as she sat down.

“Thanks for indulging me,” I said. “And now… Shirley Manson.”

Shirley walked onstage to more cheering and in a new outfit. I wrinkled my nose at her. I hadn’t changed during intermission. I liked my jeans and pretty blue shirt. “Gwen made me,” she hissed, taking her seat and settling down with her guitar while I took mine off and held it out again for someone to magically appear and take off stage.

Shirley got to play during this set. We were mixing it up a little. Because a girl with a guitar got old after a while.

“Don’t know how I’m supposed to follow that,” she said into the mic, and the crowd told her they were ready for more. Which was good, because now we had to rock out, to make up for me bringing everyone down.

With songs they really liked. I couldn’t stop smiling as we ran through our pop covers and angry Ani DiFranco songs. They had everyone in the balcony up on their feet, and I saw Jessa pull Ben out of his seat when we did “Pretend to Be Nice.”

We said ‘good night’ after what felt like five minutes and the crowd demanded an encore. Which was good, because that was were Gwen came out. The crowd went crazy, but not quite as crazy as I’d expected, because the Gwen fans hadn’t bought tickets, really. Wouldn’t they be annoyed later when the news got out?

Even the socialites sang along to ‘Ex-Girlfriend.’ I wondered if they’d given out lyrics or copies of the song with the invites.

And then it was over in what felt like an instant. My evening was perfect - everything I’d hoped it would be, and nothing that I’d worried about. Shirley and Gwen and I screamed and hugged each other and I knew this would be one of the best nights of my life.

And I missed Dad, because I always did when good things happened.

And I missed Nick, because… I just did. I’d get over that eventually.

But tonight was really mine. And Shirley’s, and a little bit Gwen’s, but mostly mine. I’d said ‘yes’ to the show in the first place and arranged all the songs and done two new solo songs. I’d never done a solo song to a crowd, ever. It was my night. That wasn’t something I got to say often, and it was a nice feeling.

“We have re-do the album. Again.” Was the first thing out of Jeremy’s mouth when he saw me at the after party at Darien’s new restaurant. Which looked pretty good, and there was plenty of my wine on hand to get the socialites drunk while they told me how fabulous I was.

“Why?” I whined. He’d better not tell me they’d lost the masters or something, because that would ruin my perfect night.

“Because you have been holding out on us! What the hell were those two songs?”

“I just wrote them. I played you ‘Sober’ and you were unimpressed,” I reminded him.

“Because you recorded it on JC’s fucking four track and he overproduced it, as boy banders do. And there was too much AJ grandstanding.”

“I was not grandstanding!” AJ said, slipping an arm around my waist and bending me back for a showy kiss. “Loved it,” he whispered, smiling into my eyes.

Oh. Maybe AJ needed to get the memo that I wasn’t counting on him as my back-up Backstreet Boy.

Or, maybe I’d worry about that in April, because I did love his devilish smile.

“You always grandstand,” Jeremy countered. “What the fuck was that?”

“A kiss,” AJ said, his arm still around me. “Did she ever write you a song like that?”

Jeremy gave him a look. “Ever listen to any of our albums? She’s written me plenty of songs.”

“None that good,” AJ boasted.

“You may be right,” Jeremy admitted. “And when we record it, you can do the backing, but I’m producing this time. And I’m doing the guitar line on the other one.”

I smiled. “Talk about grandstanding. I need to find Ben, speaking of that song,” I said, looking around.

“You found a place for the ‘green again’ line,” AJ said, and I smiled, pleased that he’d remembered that conversation.

“Good one, isn’t it?”

“The record company is going to be pissed that we need to add tracks,” Jeremy said, looking gleeful at the thought.

“Does that mean you’re going to record my song now?” Ben asked from behind me, and I turned to see him. Before I knew it, I was in his arms and he was kissing me. Not a ‘you done great, kid’ kiss but a real, live kiss with passion I hadn’t remembered from when we were together. Maybe I should have let him see me perform before?

Tonight was too good to worry about such things as AJ and Ben and passionate kisses, though. So I just moved away when he let me go and turned to Jessa, who was staring at us, her eyes wide and hopeful. “Hey, Jessa! Did you like the show?”

“It was amazing!” she said, her eyes finally darting to Jeremy and AJ. Mostly AJ.

“Jessa, this is Jeremy Nolan. Jeremy, Jessa Lawson, Ben’s niece,” I introduced him, hoping he be the good Jeremy I knew he could be, charming and sweet.

“Hi,” Jeremy said, flashing her a nice grin so as not to disappoint me.

Ben introduced Jessa’s friend, and then I gave them AJ.

“I hear that you like Nsync, Jessa,” AJ teased, and she blushed.

“I like you, too,” she mumbled, not looking at him, and he smiled.

“So, it might be okay if I can introduce you to Kevin and Howie?”

Her eyes grew huge as she looked at her friend, and AJ smiled at me, putting a hand on each of their shoulders. “They’re here somewhere. Let’s go see if we can find them, okay?”

Jeremy had gotten distracted, and I was alone with Ben. “That was a great song, Rachel,” he said.

“Sorry it wasn’t exactly what you might have wanted.”

“No… it was great. It was what I needed to hear. And when I hear it on the radio, I can tell everyone it was your fault that we broke up.”

I laughed. “Glad to help.”

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