Real Time (16 page)

“It is good to meet you, Nick,” Arlan said, as they sat down. “My kids love your records.”

Nick smiled. “So you’re not a fan?”

Arlan smiled back, shaking his head. “Sorry. I’m country all the way.” Nick could see that Arlan was confused as to why he was there. For Nick, it was like walking into the enemy camp.

“That’s okay, mate,” Nick answered. “I won’t hold it against you. Did Michael tell you what his long-term plans are here at the studio?”

“He wants to give my job to his son. But then it has been his plan since I’ve been here.”

“He also doesn’t want to send you away with a pink slip,” Nick told him. “That’s where I come in. I want you to work for me at Empire.”

Arlan was obviously surprised. “You’re serious?”

“Absolutely. I need someone to run the place – the day to day operation. I’m a musician, not an administrator, and the last year of being one has reminded me smartly of that fact.”

“You seem to have a lot of faith in me,” Arlan said.

“I’ve done my homework and I won’t lie to you, mate. Your workload will more than double what you do now, because I want no part of the daily work, which Michael is well involved with here. I want to go back to recording my records and going out on the road with my band. And in the interim, make the big decisions. So I need someone to run the place and I’m willing to pay for it.”

Nick handed him a folded piece of paper. In it was a salary offer, along with quarterly bonus figures. Arlan’s eyes widened when he saw the figure, which was more than double what he was currently earning, not counting the bonuses. “This is way too much, Nick.”

“I guarantee you’ll earn it. Here is how I see things,” Nick answered seriously. “This will put you the number two man in charge, answering only to me. You will have full autonomy to run things as you see fit, within reason, of course. Hiring, firing, scheduling; anything which has to do with the daily running of things. The only exception to this is I have five musicians on the studio payroll who are contracted to me personally and, unless I’m recording or on the road, they’re free to come ask you for work. You just can’t put them in any kind of rotation or planning schedule.”

“I can handle it,” he answered. “Is Kate Thomas one of those?”

“She’s my keyboard player,” Nick answered, smiling. “And my wife.”

“She seemed much happier when she came in to work on Barry Ramsey’s album,” Arlan told him. “I understand why now.”

“So do we have a deal, mate?” Nick asked, standing up and holding out his hand.

Arlan stood up and took his hand in a firm handshake. “We do indeed. When do you want me to start?”

“I’ll get the contract drawn up and whenever Michael is good to let you go, I’m ready. I want to get into the studio yet this year and go out on the road before the holidays, so the sooner the better.”

* * *

N
ick and Arlan walked out of Michael’s office and rode the elevator down to the lobby. As they stepped off, Nick smiled when he saw Kate walking toward him with an older grey haired man which, as he got closer, he recognized as Barry Ramsey. Kate was all smiles walking up to the two men, Ramsey in tow.

“Nick, what are you doing here?” she asked.

“Hiring me a manager, love,” he answered. “Arlan’s coming to work for me.”

“That’s awesome,” Kate said, giving Arlan a hug. Then she turned back to the older man. “Barry, I’d like you to meet my husband, Nick Marshall. Nick, this is Barry Ramsey.”

The two men shook hands. “Wasn’t expecting this,” Barry said, shaking his head. “When you said you were married, Kate, I expected some suit and tie ‘Mr. Thomas’ to show up.”

“Kate doesn’t want my name interfering with her reputation,” Nick answered. “But it’s good to meet you. “

“And you. Thank you for loaning me Kate, the last songs seemed to just zip right by. I got more done this week with her than I had the past two months.”

“Kate’s the one you need to thank. She agreed to it.”

“This was my last record on this contract,” he said seriously to Nick. “I’ll give you a call when I’m ready to do the next one.”

“I’m more than interested in the conversation,” he answered. Barry gave Kate a kiss on the cheek and walked away. Arlan had already excused himself while they had been talking.

“So you have yourself a manager?”

“He jumped at it,” Nick confirmed. “Of course, I made sure I sweetened the deal pretty well. Lots more money and more authority – oh yes, he wasn’t going to turn that down.”

“He’ll make Mickey look like an amateur,” Kate told him. “Arlan is hardcore.”

“Then I made the correct decision. Are you done here?”

Kate nodded. “Was going to stop at the grocery store and then head home.”

Nick walked her outside and to her car. He pulled her to him and kissed her. “I’ll meet you back at the house then.”

“I’ll pick up something special,” she said, returning his kiss. “We can celebrate.”

“That we will, love,” he agreed. “That we will.”

* * *

“W
hat is your problem, Kate?” Nick asked, exasperated at what appeared to be Kate not being able to play the new song. The notes were off and she was struggling to read the music. It just wasn’t like her. This was the last song Nick needed to complete his record – things were not going well.

“It’s not my friggin’ fault, Nick, that you don’t hire a company that knows how to write music. A two year old on a toy piano could do better,” Kate retorted, storming out of the studio, the sheet music in her hand.

The rest of the guys were doing their best not to laugh, but it was contagious, and soon all four of them were laughing. “And just what’s so bloody funny?” Nick asked, in an irritated tone of voice.

“The look on your face is priceless,” Andy said finally. “It’s good to know Kate hasn’t loss any of her sass being married to you.”

Nick shot Andy a dark look and said, “Let’s go on without her. She can lay the keyboard track later.”

Nick and the guys were able to lay the rest of the instrumental tracks while Kate was gone. Some of it was a little harder as this last song had a large keyboard presence but Nick just wanted to get this done. It irritated him when people took a long time laying down tracks. If his stuff went much more than a month, he’d be uptight and cranky toward the end. So far, they were only to the one month mark. This was a big album for Nick – number thirty in his career.

“Let’s take a break for lunch,” Nick said. “I’ll go calm Kate down and we can finish this after you guys get back.”

“I don’t know that calming is a good idea,” Dave replied. “I sure wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her temper.”

Nick ignored the comment as the guys filed out of the studio. Kate was usually quiet and mild mannered, but she did get feisty when she was mad. He followed the guys out of the studio and Andy made a motion back to Nick, pointing to one of the other sound studios, indicating where Kate had gone. Part of him wanted to take Dave’s advice and head off to his office. He was sure there was a mountain of paperwork on his desk, even with Arlan to do most of the daily work. But for Kate to explode like that she had to have been fairly frustrated with the music. Because of how well she played, he was leaning toward the comment she made that the music hadn’t been arranged very well.

Nick watched Kate from the sound booth for a long time, before deciding to enter the lion’s den, as it was. Kate looked up when the door opened and glared at him, not saying anything.

“Go away, Nick,” she said finally. “If you want to finish this album today, you need to let me correct this garbage. “

“What makes you think its garbage, love?” Nick asked.

“Listen to it,” Kate said, going back to the section that had given her the most trouble. She hummed the melody and played the notes on the page. Nick started to get a strange look on his face as she went through about fifteen bars. “See what I mean? It’s almost like a new song in a new key. This is the same crap Ramsey had going on last month.”

Nick picked up the music with her corrections on it, looking at it. “You think this will fix it?”

“I have no clue, Nick,” she answered, still frustrated, taking the sheet back out of his hand. “But I need you to get lost while I work on it. Being in the same room with you messes with my concentration.”

Nick smiled. Kate’s words told him that she wasn’t angry with him and all was still well in their world, even if she did explode at him in front of everyone. He couldn’t be angry with her – that was part of what they had discussed numerous times before getting married and even afterwards. Nick was not going to treat her any different than the rest of the band when it came to the music and the tours. If she had a complaint about something, she was free to express it the same as everyone else. And she definitely had expressed an opinion. Nick walked over and kissed the top of her head. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now beat it.”

“Come find me when you are done, love? I sent the guys off for lunch.”

* * *

K
ate waved him off and went back to the music. When she had gone to help Barry Ramsey on his album, some of his piano arrangements had come off sounding odd. Taking a minute to look at the small print at the bottom, she saw it was the same company he’d used. Once this was done, she would take it back to Nick and see if they could find a better company to do the arrangements. It took her about forty more minutes to get something that sounded decent and she figured she could ad lib the rest if needed. To save time, she went back to the studio and found Nick and the guys had already laid the other instrumental tracks. This left the piano, and, after a couple of false starts, she was able to get the keyboard track down flawlessly. She had Ron Jacobson, the sound guy, play the instrumental parts back and it sounded nice. The vocals were the only things remaining on this last song.

She ran into the guys on her way to Nick’s office, where they proceeded to give her a hard time about what had happened. She was used to their brand of humor and was able to laugh it off easily. They said they were going to go lay the backup vocals, so Nick would only have his own left. Kate nodded agreement – she didn’t have to go with them since she didn’t sing – and stepped into the elevator to go to Nick’s office. Kate was also hoping she would be able to grab some lunch soon; it had been a long time since breakfast. Looking at her watch, she was surprised it was almost three in the afternoon.

T
erry smiled as she walked into the atrium where Nick’s office was located. The atrium was all glass windows and, being on the fifteenth floor, you could see for miles on a sunny day. Terry nodded when Kate motioned toward the door and she walked in without knocking. Nick looked so official sitting behind the desk with mounds of papers everywhere.
If only his dad had been able to see this
, Kate thought to herself. He definitely found his way into a trade – albeit not what his father might have been thinking. It was hard to see him as an executive – her first images were of him standing on a stage singing his heart out and that would be how she would always see him.

“I think I got it, Nick,” Kate said without preamble. “But you really need to blast the company who does your arrangements. Barry Ramsey had the same issue when I laid the tracks for him. He had piano music that sucked and some of the bass guitar music was bad as well. “

“I’ll get Arlan looking into it,” he confirmed. “We use them for a lot of music and if we are getting trash back, it has to stop.”

“Do you want to go get some lunch? The guys are in the studio doing the backup vocals now and I already finished the instrumentals.”

Nick pushed half of a sub sandwich toward her. “Terry brought me a sandwich - I didn’t know how long you were going to be. You’re welcome to the other half.”

Kate took the offered turkey sandwich and sat down in a chair next to his desk. “What are you planning once this is done?”

“With all the production time, I expect the record to be ready to release either just before, or after, Labor Day. I would like to hit some cities before the holidays... maybe do some more after the New Year.”

“Are we planning anything for the holidays?”

“We could spend Thanksgiving with your parents, love,” Nick said. “I was kind of kicking around the idea of going to Jamaica with Trevor and his family at Christmas.”

“That’s a big step,” Kate observed. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”

“I think so. We’ve been talking a lot over the past year and I can see changes for the better. Jamaica would be a nice neutral place. I have a house on the beach and December is a nice month to go.”

“I’m not surprised,” Kate said laughing. “You have houses all over the place.”

“Back to the concept of the return on investment being greater. I like my privacy and don’t want to take the chance of the press being around.”

Kate wadded up the empty sandwich wrapper and tossed it in Nick’s trash can. “You ready to go finish this?”

“I am. Kind of numb though,” Nick said, as they walked out the door toward the elevator to take them back to the studio. “Thirty records. I almost can’t believe this is number thirty.”

“Dave said it best on tour,” Kate said, teasing him. “You’re a machine.”

He stopped in the hallway long enough to pull her back against him and kiss her. “I’ll show you a ‘machine’ later, love,” he said, making her laugh.

* * *

K
ate followed Nick in as far as the sound booth. The guys had finished with the backup vocals and gone into the booth to watch. Nick had Ron play back the instrumental tracks so he could hear what they had come up with. Nick was smiling as he listened to it – this was not one of his ‘normal’ songs. He had written it when he first realized his feelings for Kate and it spoke of his amazement and surprise that it was his turn for love. The song was called “Real Time” and it was a cross between a ballad and one of Nick’s harder rock and roll melodies. Ron set up the take, counted off, and the music started again in the studio. And then Nick was starting the lead vocal. Kate was smiling, hanging onto Andy’s arm as they watched the legend in action. Nick wasn’t the least bit nervous or self-conscious with everyone watching. He smiled at Kate in between verses, loving the way this song was playing. Nick wasn’t sure if his fans were going to like it but he planned to release it first. Nick stopped in the middle of the song and waved a hand at Ron.