FAME and GLORY (13 page)

“Why not?” said Bruce.

“I don't know.  It was never something that I ever talked to anybody about.  My mom and dad never asked me about it, even when Brandee and I got married.  Becks never asked me either.”

“Do you think that maybe they just assumed?” Bruce asked.

“Probably," Jake nodded.

“Do you think that they assumed because you assumed that it was something that would just happen?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” Jake answered, still not seeing the point to which Bruce was obviously driving.

“That might be it then," Bruce continued.  “It's something that you always thought would happen as a normal part of life ever since you were a little boy.  Now, at 33 years old, it looks like it might not happen.  It feels like it's been taken from you.”

Jake nodded, looking down at the bench.  Bruce put his hand on Jake's shoulder and waited until his friend looked back up, because he wanted to look into Jake's eyes when he said what he was going to say next.  After about 10 seconds with his eyes averted, Jake looked back up.

“You're grieving, my friend," Bruce said quietly.  “You're grieving the child that you always thought that you would have.  You're grieving the games of catch and the ball games and camping trips that you thought you would have with your son.  You're grieving the hugs and dances and the wedding day that you thought you would have with your daughter.  You're grieving being parents with the woman you love.”

By the time Bruce finished this, the longest statement Jake had ever heard him say all at once, both men had tears in their eyes.  Jake's tears were because he knew in his heart that what Bruce said was true.  Bruce's tears had a two-fold source, and both sources were intermingled in the tears that threatened to overflow.

First, he felt bad for his friend.  It's never easy to watch someone grieve, especially one you had grown to care about.  He couldn't imagine what Jake must be feeling right now in the depths of his grief.

Second, his tears were tears of joy for himself and Suzi.  Ever since he had found out that he was going to be a father, he had thought of all the scenarios that he had just lain out to Jake.  Like Jake, he had never thought much about fatherhood either way.  Now, at the ripe old age of 45, he was going to experience what his friend might not.  Never much of a praying man himself, he nevertheless tossed one upstairs to the source of all life, thankful that he had been blessed with Suzi and their just-started child.

“Shall we walk some more,” he said to the younger man, “or shall we head back?”

“Let's stay out for a little longer," Jake said.  “I need to think some more, but I don't want to be alone.”

Bruce smiled to himself.  Suzi could be a nutbar sometimes, what with her bouncing around every time she got excited about something.  She had a wise soul though.  When Bruce had thought he should just leave Jake alone, she knew better.  He reminded himself to tell her later that she had been correct in her analysis.  He knew what she would say to that.

“I know.  Now let's have popcorn and watch an old movie.”

***

If Brandee Evans was upset about the row with Jake, she never showed it during the time in the dressing room before the show.  The people who had first heard her sing back in Las Vegas would barely recognize the polished young performer that she had become.  She was able to draw into herself during the hours before a concert, focusing her attention on every note that would escape her mouth that night.  Everything, and everyone, was excluded from this study in deepest concentration.

Only after having cleared her mind of everything outside of what was going to happen in the spotlight was she able to ad lib and freewheel on stage.  The deep thought in the dressing room had cleansed her mind of extraneous material, helping her to think more quickly and react more readily to the mood of the crowd that awaited her.  She had become a consummate professional before she was 24 years old.

Jake was present in the dressing room with the rest of the band.  He went about his business as usual, albeit a little less talkative.  Interestingly enough, he found himself less nervous for the group than he had been on the other nights of the tour.  He wondered if this meant that he didn't care as much.  He hoped not.

He had much to think about after his talk in the park with Bruce.  The kind words of the keyboardist hadn't made it all go away.  Nothing but coming to some kind of mutual understanding with his wife was going to do that, and Jake didn't know how to go about facilitating such an event.  The talk had given him a kind of road map though, he guessed.  He hoped that he and Brandee could carve out some time to follow that road map to a greater understanding of one another's needs.  His love for Brandee and belief in his marriage was not in question.

***

If Laramie had been the high point for the group so far, Grand Junction wasn't far behind.  The raucous nature of the end of school crowd at UW had fed the energy of
Brandee
.  They used that, as well as the considerable energy in The Opera House, to fuel another dynamite performance.

They opened the show with “12 Gauge” and didn't let the crowd rest before sailing straight into “Honky Tonk Broad”.  Brandee went straight into the audience for “Honky Tonk”, not waiting for the crowd to heat up before showing up in their midst.  She found that being among them kick-started the hysteria that she longed to hear from her fans.

Since they were the only act on the card,
Brandee
needed a significantly longer set than they had used in Laramie.  After “Honky Tonk Broad” they offered up “Jamaica Moon” for the appreciative Coloradans.  It was a medium-paced number with a touch of calypso in it, giving Diane a chance to show what she could do on the rims of her drum kit.  Bruce accompanied Diane with an assortment of blocks, rings, and triangles.  They had enjoyed themselves a great deal working all of that out, and their enjoyment translated well to the crowd in Grand Junction.  The vocals kept Brandee's voice in her mid-range, giving it a break after the rambunctious “Honky Tonk Broad”.

Next, Suzi was turned loose with her new favorite part of the show.  She pranced around the stage during the opening bars of her guitar solo, before kneeling at the edge of the stage and beating the living hell out of her piece as the tempo increased to a fevered pace.  Of everyone in the group, she had shown the most growth as a performer during their time together.  Diane and Bruce smiled widely as the crowd roared in response to their friend.  Suzi was sweating up a storm on the floor of The Opera House, but she was entertaining the crowd and soaking up the cheers.

Brandee was well rested by this time, and a little hungry to be back in the spotlight.  She appreciated the strides that Suzi had made, and appreciated the breaks that the others' solos gave her voice, but she was Brandee Evans after all.

During rehearsal, they had left open what was going to happen at this point.  If Brandee was up to the strain of “Bad Girl in Town”, they would do that one.  If not, they would use “Diva”, still a powerful and fast-paced piece, but one without the vocal cord shredding characteristics of “Bad Girl in Town”.

Brandee made a “Crack the Whip” motion with her microphone cord. That was her signal to the band that she wanted to do “Bad Girl in Town”.  It was what Bruce was expecting and also what he wanted to see.

It may have been the response from the crowds over the past two nights.  It may have been his talk with Jake that afternoon.  It may have been because he was so fired up inside himself about Suzi and the baby.  It may have been a combination of all of the above with a dose of the improvement that he had made as a performer himself. Whatever it was, there was about to be a thunderclap on Colorado's West Slope.

“Bad Girl in Town” already relied on strong pressure, pushing Brandee Evans from behind by the keyboard and percussion.  In Laramie, Bruce and Diane had given her the ride of her life during “Bad Girl”, and Brandee had loved every second of it.  Tonight was another, higher gear than Laramie had been.

Brandee knew that something was different during the opening 12 bars.  Bruce was pushing the rhythm.  Diane's eyes found his as she followed his lead.  Bruce looked at Diane with an expression that seemed to say, “Who, me?”

When it came time to pick up the pace, Bruce shifted down and pressed on the throttle.  Diane stayed in step, and Brandee did too.  She shot Bruce a quick look before re-engaging the crowd with the lyrics about how no one was going to tell this bad girl where to draw the line.

Bruce pushed again!  Diane's muscled arms gleamed as she gave it back to him.  They were just two-thirds of the way through the song, and they were going as fast as they had gone at the end of the song the night before in Wyoming.  Brandee exploded through the second chorus, and the crowd burst into a frenzy.

Usually, by the third verse of “Bad Girl”, Brandee was down in the crowd. Tonight, she stayed on the stage.  Frankly, she didn't trust Bruce and wanted to keep an eye on him.

Bruce's eyes gleamed as he pushed the pace still harder.  Brandee was being asked to sing at very near the top of her range and do it faster than she had ever sung anything in her life.  Could she do it?  Bruce Jackson was determined to find out. If she fell off of the pace and turned it into a keyboard solo, he would feel like he won.

She would have felt the same. Brandee turned her back on Bruce and mentally asked the crowd to help her.  She started to drop her hips with the notes and use the muscles in her butt, looking for the power to go higher, faster, and longer. She felt less like a bad girl and more like a girl trying to hang on. She could not lose!

She didn't lose.  The end of “Bad Girl” came like an onrushing locomotive.  Brandee finished with a note that she held for a good 15 seconds.  Bruce finished with a keyboard flourish.  Diane finished with a drum tour of everything on her kit.   Brandee, Diane, and Bruce were all a bit spent from the exertion and their emotion.  The crowd didn't know that.  All that they knew was that they had just witnessed something magnificent on the stage of The Opera House.  They rose to their feet and cheered loudly.

Brandee absorbed the cheers, allowing them to refresh her for the rest of the set.  She stepped back and acknowledged Diane, allowing her some love from the assemblage.  Then she stepped back and acknowledged Bruce, not allowing the crowd to see what she said to him as she acknowledged him.  Most of the crowd would have been surprised to know that the singer had just called her keyboardist an asshole.  Bruce beamed at her as if she had just said he was the sexiest man alive.

Jake, no musician himself, knew that something had happened onstage.  He knew that after they did “Peinado Ora Amante”, which was Brandee's only foray into singing in a foreign language, he would be taking water to her during Bruce's official keyboard solo.  Maybe he would be able to figure out what had happened out there from how she would seem then.

“Peinado Ora Amante”, or “Golden-Haired Lover”, was a slow song about a girl whose man has gone off to war.  She wrote to him every day, always promising to remain his golden-haired lover.  At the end of the song, the man came home after having been blinded in the war.  He knows his girl, though, by the touch of her hand and the feel of her hair under his.  The group had first used the song in Chico and again at the USANA Amphitheater in Utah.

The group had decided to do something different with “Peinado Ora Amante” tonight.  Normally, Diane accompanied Brandee with brushes, and Bruce accompanied with a soft rhythm throughout the song.  Tonight, they decided that Brandee would sing the moving last verse of the song a cappella.  Standing under a sole bright spot, Brandee made the crowd believe that she had a man fighting in an overseas conflict who was in grave danger.

During Bruce's keyboard solo, Jake brought Brandee her water.  He looked at her carefully to see if anything was different.  She seemed to be the same as always.  He asked her if she was okay like he always did and she answered “Great!”, like always.

She went back to the center of the stage and hit her spot perfectly.  Right after she had her water and short break, she needed to center herself under the wind machine.  They were going to use the wind machine twice tonight.  They usually did “Kneel Before You” with the wind on.  This time, they were going to do that right after the break and then bring on the breeze later for “I Will Always Love You”, the Whitney Houston show-stopper from the 90's.  That would be their second-to-last number for this evening.

Jake watched his wife's slithering body under the touch of the wind machine.  He still wasn't happy, but he would have to be made of stone not to be aroused by that sight.  It reminded him again that love has many different facets, not the least of which was simple animal lust.  He suddenly realized how much he wished that they had a wind machine at home so that he could turn it on over her while she made a sandwich.