A Face in the Crowd (9 page)

Chapter 8

The next morning arrived too quickly for Lexie’s taste. If possible, she would’ve slept another ten hours, but the idea would have to remain a pleasant dream. Still half asleep, she dragged herself to her kitchen and turned on the coffee pot before climbing into the shower. It didn’t matter how early she went to bed, she was never ready to get up at four. Of course, if she hadn’t stayed awake tossing and turning half the night, replaying Oliver’s words over and over again until her head began to ache, maybe she wouldn’t be quite as exhausted as she was now.

He was glad he met her. Well, that was just peachy, but what did it mean, exactly? He needed a friend and she was there? He liked her? What? She leaned her head against the cool tiles to try to clear her mind. How could one simple statement make her so crazy?

The hot water helped loosen her muscles and when she stepped out of the shower, she could smell the bitter aroma of coffee floating through her apartment. It was heavenly.

Though small, her apartment suited her. It was a one bedroom with a small kitchen and a living area, decorated modestly in earth tones. And, usually it stayed pretty clean since she was rarely there. Except for her bedroom, it always resembled a war zone. Between the dirty scrubs and clothes strewn around the room and the old coffee mugs containing stale coffee from mornings past littering her nightstand, she needed to spend her next day off doing laundry and cleaning.

Regardless of her lack of cleanliness, it was all hers. It was strange to think that in the beginning she had only intended to stay there for a year. At the end of the year she had planned on moving in with Mike, but plans had changed. She and Simone had contemplated living together at one time after the Mike debacle, but they both admitted they needed a certain amount of space. They were grown women after all, and sometimes grown women had company. Plus, they each lived close to their respective jobs, so it didn’t make since that one of them should have to drive twice as far to get to work. Especially in a city where twice as far could equal hours of one’s life.

She sighed and tugged on her dark purple scrubs before hastily French braiding her hair. After giving herself a onceover in the mirror, she grabbed the rest of her things and took off. Leaving even ten minutes late could mean the difference between getting caught in a wave of traffic and getting to work on time.

This was her last day of work before getting a day off. She just had to make it through one more day. She flipped on the radio and landed on a song she liked, but when she reached to turn up the volume, her hand froze in midair. The paparazzi vans were back and seemed to have doubled in force. Something had to have happened to spark their interest, but she had no idea what.

“Hey, did you notice the vans are back outside?” Laura leaned against the counter next to her.

“Yeah, I thought they’d given up for the most part, but there seems to be more than before.”

“I don’t know how celebrities can stand it.”

They went over the high points with the charge nurse and went their separate ways. Lexie had her same three patients from the day before which made life a little easier, as long as Mr. Callahan didn’t decide to have another heart attack. She started with him and hoped he’d had an uneventful night. She knocked lightly and went in. “Good morning, Mr. Callahan. How was your night?”

“Fine, but you folks sure make it hard to sleep around here.” His complaint was a common one amongst patients and one she couldn’t do anything about.

“Well, we have to do our jobs.”

“I guess. Could you get me some fresh ice? That other nurse didn’t do it before she left.”

“I would be glad to. Is there anything else you need right now?”

“No, just some ice please.”

“Okay, I’ll be right back,” she stepped out of his room and headed down the hall.

Janice, her boss, stepped out from behind the desk. “Alexis, I need a word.”

“Sure, can you give me just one minute to take this ice back to Mr. Callahan? You and I both know he’ll start calling every five minutes if I don’t get him taken care of.”

“That’s fine. Just meet me in my office after you’ve given out the morning medications. It would be better if we spoke in private.”

“Sounds good,” Lexie headed for Mr. Callahan’s room, but couldn’t shake the feeling something was wrong. Only on the rarest of occasions did Janice request someone’s presence in her office. Lexie thought back over her cases from the last few days. She didn’t remember any major issues or mistakes. Except for Mr. Callahan’s heart attack, things had been pretty normal.

“Good morning, Miss Dorothy.”

“Hello, Lexie. There’s been quite a bit of traffic downstairs this morning. Is there something going on?” Dorothy was sitting up in bed and staring out the window.

“It most likely has to do with our celebrity patient. Hopefully, it’ll die down soon.” But, when Lexie looked out the window it seemed to be getting worse instead of better. Now, scattered in with the professionals, were fans. They had posters, T-shirts, and there were quite a few who had shaved heads. She stepped back from the window slightly dazed.

Dorothy strained her neck to try to see out the window. “What did you see down there?”

“Oh, nothing, just a lot of people.” Lexie couldn’t believe it was possible that word of Bailey’s condition had spread so fast, but there was no other explanation for the onslaught of fans outside. “Is your daughter coming by today?”

“Yes, later this morning,” Dorothy’s face lit up.

“That’s great, but you might want to warn her about the parking lot. It’s a zoo.” Lexie smiled. “Okay, I’ll be back.”

She headed for Bailey’s room. Her curiosity was definitely piqued. She knocked lightly and stepped in to find him alone, but awake.

“Morning, Lexie.”

“Hey, Bailey. I can’t believe you’re already up.”

“My phone’s been blowing up. I finally had to turn it off.”

She observed him sitting up in bed, head shaved and smiling. He didn’t look sick. If anything, he looked out of place in the small room. Like his brother, he was nearly exotic and too beautiful for this place. She half expected him to jump out of the bed and burst into action the way he did on stage, all energy and charisma.

“What are you thinking about over there?”

“Oh, nothing. Sorry," she stepped to the far side of the bed and checked him over.

“You were admiring my amazing head. Go on admit it. You want to touch it.”

“You’re impossible.”

He grinned at her.

“Okay, let’s get your meds out of the way.”

“If we must.”

His mood was definitely better than it was the day before. The previous night had worked wonders for him. She smiled as she thought about all the guys filing in with hair and leaving without it. It had been more than a little fun watching them take the plunge.

“You know the drill, name and birthday.”

“You’re going to like this one,” Bailey then proceeded to rap the answers.

“Mr. Honeycutt, you are a man of many talents.”

He gave her mock cocky smile and swallowed his pills.

“I’ll be back in a little while.”

Bailey raised his hands as though in disbelief. “Can’t you stay and hang out?”

“Hang out? No. My boss has requested an audience, so I really have to go.”

“Good morning, Lexie.”

The moment she heard Oliver’s voice her heart did a summersault in her chest. The sleep stealer had arrived. “Good morning.”

Oliver looked at his brother’s pleading face. “Oh no. What does he want now? I’ve seen that look before. There was the time he wanted a puppy, and then the time he wanted Leo to get him Blake Lively’s phone number. The list goes on.”

“It was nothing quite so elaborate. He just wanted me to stay and play, but as I explained to him,” Lexie placed her hands on her hips and looked at Bailey the way a mother might look at her small child. “I have to work. I’ll see you guys later.”

As she walked past him, Oliver leaned in close. “In his defense, I wish you could stay and play, too.”

“You two are impossible,” she said it as though exasperated, but laughed at the same time.

Still smiling, she pulled open the door to reveal Andy hurrying in.

“Move please.” He waved her off and made a point of closing the door in her face once she was on the outside. His message was clear. She didn’t belong.

Oliver flipped the page as he continued to skim his
Rolling Stone
while Andy proceeded to freak out about the previous evening’s fun.

“Bailey, why didn’t you tell me you were going to put it all out there? We could’ve gone bigger. We could have put teasers out to lead up to it.”

“Because that’s not what it was about. I did it for me and for the fans.”

“You have to see the crowd outside,” he gestured wildly to the window. “And the site crashed this morning. We have someone working on it, of course, but the fans are going crazy.” Andy was practically vibrating with excitement.

Bailey eyed Oliver behind Andy’s back as if to say ‘deal with him, would you?’

“Did the guys get to the airport this morning?” The best Oliver could come up with was to try to change the subject, but it was a challenge with Andy. The man was relentless.

“Yes. I just left them and came straight over here.” His cell phone buzzed. He held a finger up to them and stepped over to the window to answer it.

Oliver stared at the story about the history of the infamous Les Paul guitar without really taking it in. It was better now that everyone knew what was going on with his brother. That he had
cancer
. He struggled with the term even in his own mind. It was a word he never would have believed he’d have to apply to Bailey at twenty-eight years old, but there it was.

The hardest part of keeping it quiet had been the speculating. Every reporter, blog, fan site, and radio station had been throwing out guess after guess as to why Bailey was in the hospital. The worst ones were the rehab rumors. He and his brother worked hard to stay away from the demons of the business—aside from girls—he was no saint. But, he’d seen too many careers implode from drug abuse. He vowed early on he wouldn’t be one of them. He would not become another cliché and he wouldn’t allow Bailey to, either.

When Oliver grew up and turned to music, his mom worried he would fall in with the lifestyle so often associated with the music scene. She tried everything within her power to turn him onto something different. Sports, art, anything other than what he loved, but eventually she accepted it was in his blood.

Resigned, she let Oliver be who he was and discovered he had talent which couldn’t be ignored. She agreed to pay for guitar lessons. Guitar lessons turned into voice lessons and then he met David. When the two became serious about starting a band, she remained close and then become their manager.

“Listen, Bailey, it was the label guys. They think your idea is genius.”

“Good to know,” Bailey sounded irritated which pulled Oliver’s attention from the magazine and the past.

“They want to launch a full scale campaign. What do you think?”

A crease formed between Bailey’s eyes. “I think we should keep it the way it is—on our website. Word will spread soon enough, hell it already has.”

Andy’s face contorted in disbelief. “Are you sure? Think of what this could do for the band—the exposure alone will have album sales back on top—no, through the roof.”

“Dude, leave it alone. We’re not going to use my cancer to sell more albums. It’s not like we need the money.”

The color drained from Andy’s face. “I just thought since you’d already gone public . . . and the label—”

“I don’t give a shit about the label. They keep acting like they haven’t cashed in on their investment when the truth is, they’ve made their money back a hundred times over.”

“And, that’s why we’re getting out after this tour,” Oliver’s tone was calm, unlike his brother’s. He hadn’t planned on breaking the news to Andy this way, but enough was enough. Andy would have to decide if he wanted to stay on with the label or not. He’d worked for them originally and he could stay, but Oliver and the rest of the guys were out.

“Getting out?” Andy’s eyes went wide making him look more like a wild animal than a man. “You can’t.”

“Actually, according to our lawyer and our contract, we can. Our obligations are almost fulfilled.”

Andy placed a hand on his head and turned to face the wall. “I can’t believe it.” He took a minute, his breathing labored while he fought to regain his composure.

Oliver studied the man’s back, a man he’d known for the better part of a decade. He’d known Andy wouldn’t be thrilled with the idea of breaking ties with the label, but he hadn’t expected his reaction to be quite this over the top.

“You know what?” Andy faced them, composure back in place. “You guys know best, but we should talk about this more when I get back from L.A.”

“Sounds good, but Andy,” Oliver caught and held the man’s gaze, so he wouldn’t miss what he was about to say. “We aren’t going to change our minds on this. It’s as good as done.”

“Understood.” Andy ran a hand through his hair. “I’ll be back out next week. You call me if anything comes up.”

“I’d say Andy took that pretty well,” Bailey laid his head back on his pillow, drained from the discussion.

Oliver stared toward the door, unsure he agreed with his little brother. “I guess.”

“You wanted to see me, Janice,” Lexie stepped through Janice’s open office door, the smell of floral air freshener overwhelming.

“Yes, please come in.”