Rich and Famous (16 page)

“I thought you were a public relations man,” I said.

“He thought he was making a joke,” the skinny one said.

Woody sighed. “If you guys are going to keep the wit going all the way up to Pawling, I'm getting off here,” he said. “Let's talk about something sensible. Did anybody see the Mets last night?”

So we talked about the Mets, and then everybody began telling music business stories, which are crazy and fascinating and made me laugh. And on we drove in the Rolls-Royce, going seventy and eighty miles an hour up the various parkways, and about an hour later we reached the outskirts of Pawling.

Around then I began to get kind of nervous again. What was Uncle Ned going to say when he saw me?

“Where do we go?” the round one asked.

„I'm not sure,” I said.

“I thought this was your hometown.”

“I haven't lived here much since it got to be my hometown,” I said.

“We could ask somebody directions,” the skinny one said, “but I'd rather not. The Boy Next Door shouldn't have to ask directions to his own house. It doesn't sing, if you get what I mean.”

“I think it's down this way,” I said. We made the turn and drove along for awhile and soon I began to recognize where I was; and all of a sudden we pulled up to Uncle Ned's house. I got out, walked up onto the porch, opened the front door and, my heart pounding, shouted, “Anybody home?”

Nobody answered. Where was everybody? I was counting on being recaptured. I walked into the kitchen. “Anybody home?” I shouted again. But still nobody answered. So I went back out the front door. The photographer was taking his equipment out of the trunk of the Rolls and Woody and the P.R. guys were milling around, looking at the house.

“I thought you said the place burned down,” the round one said.

“I guess they got it fixed up already,” I said.

“That was fast work,” Woody said.

“
Yeah,” I said. “Well, it was coming up to their twentieth wedding anniversary and they had this big party planned, so my uncle hired a lot of extra men to get the job finished in a hurry.” I could tell by their faces that they were having a hard time believing that, but they didn't say anything. “My uncle and my aunt aren't at home.”

“That's a shame,” the skinny one said. “I was looking forward to meeting Aunt Bob.”

“Cut that stuff out,” the round one said. “You want us to get thrown off the place?”

“I wouldn't mind,” the skinny one said.

“I think my cousin might be out back,” I said. I started around the house to the back and just as I came around the corner I saw Sinclair coming out of the barn. His eyes were wide open and he was running.

“George,” he said. He came up to me. “Boy, are you in trouble.” He sounded pretty pleased about it.

“What trouble?”

“My father called the police. They've had an alarm out for you.”

That didn't surprise me too much. “I'm surprised,” I said.

“Listen, Sinclair, where are your parents?”

“Mother is at the library club luncheon. She won't be back for awhile. And my father is down at the school— who are all these people?”

I looked around. Woody, the photographer, and the two P.R. guys were coming around the house. “Well, look, Sinclair,” I said. “You know how I was going into New York all the time. It was to make a record.” So I explained a little bit about George Stable, The Boy Next Door, and how these guys wanted to take pictures of me for a magazine, and Sinclair's eyes got bigger and bigger. Then he began to pout, and just as everybody was gathering around he said, “It sounds like the worst sort of cheap commercial enterprise.”

“Oh, it is,” the skinny P.R. guy said. “At least we're praying that it will be.”

“Cheap, anyway,” the round one said. “Let's hope it turns out to be commercial, too. Who's this object?”

“This is my cousin Sinclair,” I said.

“Aha,” the round one said. “The gas man. Give us two dollars worth and where's the men's room?”

“Tell him to clean the windshield and ask him for a map,” the skinny one said. “Also the
coffee
machine doesn't work and does he take Diner's Club cards?”

“Shut up, you guys,” Woody said.

I could see that Sinclair was getting pretty sore. Next to being a star and getting in a magazine his perfectness didn't amount to very much. The thing that worried me was that he'd have a tantrum and throw everybody off the place. I didn't mind about that; but I didn't want it to happen until Uncle Ned got home from school and recaptured me. “Listen, Woody,” I said, “I've got to talk to you.” We walked over to the side. “The thing is,” I said, “Sinclair's sore about me being a star and all that. He might try to prevent us from taking pictures. So what I think, it would be a good idea if you could butter him up a little bit.”

Woody stared at me. “George, there's more going on here than meets the eye.”

“No, no,” I said. “It's okay, I just don't want to have a big fight with him.”

He frowned at me. Then he said, “Okay,” walked back over to the group, and flung his arm over Sinclair's shoulders, which I didn't think was going to please Sinclair very much. “Sinclair, George tells me you're a pretty smart kid, and I wonder if you'd mind helping us out. We want to take some pictures of George around the place and of course since it's your house you ought to be in some of them.”

Sinclair looked confused. He kept trying to start the pout across his lips, and he'd get it going all right, but halfway there it would stop and retreat.

Woody took his arm off Sinclair's shoulder and looked down at the ground. “Of course, you might have some objection to having your picture in
Teen Hit
or
Vocal
Star.”

That got to him. “Well, I don't know—”

“And then when George gets to be well known, we might need somebody to come down to New York from time to time to advise us. You know a lot more about small town life than we do. It could be pretty helpful.”

“Well, I'd have to think about that—”

“Oh, sure you would. Talk with your father. It's hard to say how much money would be involved.”

That sunk him. “Of course I'm an excellent flute player,” he said. “My teacher says I'm the best pupil he's had for years.”

“Well, there you are,” Woody said. He turned to the P.R. guys. “It's just amazing the way we keep turning up these terrific talents in out-of-the-way places. Isn't it, you guys?”

“
I keep fainting from the shock,” the round one said.

Woody gave him a look, but it didn't matter because Sinclair was nailed down. “Well, all right,” he said, “but I think we ought to hurry before my parents come back. Not that they'd mind me being in a magazine, of course, but it might upset them to have a lot of strangers around.” Sinclair was picking up the idea of lying pretty fast.

But of course I was in no rush to get it over with, and I began to think of ways of stalling. The photographer and Woody and the P.R. guys began walking all over the place as if they owned it, picking out good backgrounds for shots. I sort of lagged along taking my time. They took some shots of me washing the dishes and mowing the lawn and fooling around in the barn and sitting on a pile of logs that Uncle Ned had for the fireplace. Then they took me out front and had me pretend to be polishing the Rolls-Royce, except that they shot it from an angle so you wouldn't know it was an expensive car like a Rolls.

By this time of course a crowd of kids had gathered out front of the house, mostly kids from around who were friends of Sinclair's. They stood staring at the Rolls and watching me get photographed. It was star time all right. It felt pretty good and naturally I acted casual and made jokes with the P.R. guys and called Woody “Woody” so that the kids would realize I was pretty important and could call adults by their nicknames. Of course Sinclair tried to put on an act, too, but he didn't know how. Instead of acting cool and casual, as if he was used to the whole thing, he ran around boasting and saying, “George is a big star and I'm going to play flute in his group, and we're going to be in a magazine,” which was very uncool, especially as he wasn't going to be in a magazine.

It went on like this for a couple of hours and still Uncle Ned didn't show up. I was getting worried, and I kept suggesting new ideas for pictures, but I knew I couldn't hold out forever. Finally at around three Woody said to the photographer, “What do you think?” and he said, “I guess I've got enough.”

“Gee, we hardly took any pictures of me inside the house. I would think the magazine would want a lot of shots of me making the beds and vacuum cleaning the living room.”

Woody looked at me. “You're supposed to be The Boy Next Door, not Cinderella,” he said. “Let's get out of this hick town.”

The photographer began packing his stuff and we started to get into the car. Then at the last minute a kid ran up with a pencil and a piece of paper and asked for my autograph. I gave it
to
him and that started everybody getting pieces of paper and borrowing pens from each other and asking for my autograph—except the kids my own age, who stood around sneering and making sorehead remarks. I signed my name as slowly as I could, but finally there was nobody left.

“Come on, George,” Woody said.

So we climbed into the Rolls and took off. All the way through town I kept leaning out of the window hoping that Uncle Ned would come along and see me, and send the cops after me. But he didn't and then we were out on the highway, heading for New York.

All the way down my heart kept sinking lower and lower, because I knew that sooner or later Superman was going to call me in and ask me if I'd delivered the tapes all right. It really scared me.

We got back to the city around five o'clock. The P.R. guys left Woody and me at the Camelot Building, and then took the car back to the rental place. “Come up and let's have a look at tomorrow's schedule,” Woody said. So we went up and into the reception room of Superman's office where his secretary sat. “Is his majesty in?” Woody asked.

“He's in, but he's busy,” she said.

“What's on for tomorrow?”

She picked up a piece of paper and looked it over. “Nothing special. George is supposed to work with Damon Damon.”

Woody slapped me on the back. “Got that, kid?”

“Okay,” I said. We turned and started to go. Then the secretary said, “George, Superman told me to ask you to stick around for a while. He said he wanted to talk to you about something. He said it was important.”

Chapter

I sat there in the reception room reading Rolling Stone
and trying to look bored and restless as if I hadn't a thing on my mind. It got to be six o'clock and then six-thirty, and then quarter to seven. Finally I said to Superman's secretary, “Maybe he's too busy to see me. Maybe I should go home and see him tomorrow.”

“He said he wanted to see you. You'd better stick around.”

So I went on sitting. It got to be seven, and then quarter after, and then suddenly the door to Superman's office opened and he stuck his head out. “Be with you in a minute, George,” he said. Then he said to the secretary, “You can go on home, Arlene. I'm just going to talk to George for five minutes, and then cut out myself.” He shut the door. The secretary got up, put some stuff in her purse, dithered around for a few minutes, and left. I went on sitting there. It was beginning to get kind of quiet around the Camelot offices. In the distance, I could hear doors slamming and people's voices off in the distance by the elevators. The voices got fewer and fewer, with long gaps of silence in between. Finally the only noise I could hear was the hum of the air conditioner in the reception room.

It made me nervous to be there all alone. I reached in my pocket and took out my teddy bear key chain. It made me feel better to have it around. I sort of rested it on my knee where I could look at it when I wanted to, and went on reading
Rolling Stone.
It got to be seven-thirty and then quarter to eight. And finally Superman's door opened again and there he was. “Come on in, George. Sorry I've been so long. I'll only take a couple of minutes.”

I got up. My knees were weak and my eyes felt sort of blurred. I walked into this room. He shut the door behind me and then he crutched himself over to his desk and sat down. I leaned against one of the chairs in front of his desk. I didn't feel like sitting down. I sort of had the idea of being able to run if I had to.

“Sit down,” he said.

“It's okay,” I said. “I don't mind standing.”

“Sit down,” he said. I sat down. He leaned back, his hands behind his head so that I could
see
those huge shoulder muscles swelling up, and stared at me out of those blue egg-eyes. “How did the shooting go up in Pawling?”