Chapter 73

Liz and I managed to make it all the way through the day without snapping at each other. Sadly, however, we were both worn to a frazzle by the time we got back to the hotel.

At least we got to sleep in the same bed on Wednesday night. Liz had told me that she had tried to spend the night with me on Tuesday, too, but I was too far out of it to move and I didn’t leave her enough room to sleep beside me. The best she could was to get my belt off of me because she didn’t want to have to ask Ryan, Dom or Brian to help her move me.

Liz grumbled a little about some of the interviews but I think she finally understood the concept I was presenting. I admitted that I might be wrong. Maybe people would be willing to sell their grandmother’s engagement ring or their grandfather’s gold watch to see Liz in concert.

I didn’t think so and the other professionals she employed didn’t think so either. The Dallas area had a large number of millionaires but not enough of them to fill a stadium. Tickets for a family of four would set the budget back $300 (for the worst seats in the joint). It would be two or three times that amount for seats down front. The best tickets had a face value of $225. As much as I enjoyed seeing Liz perform I wouldn’t spend that sort of money to watch her (on a stage; I would probably sell a kidney on the internet to participate in a private bedroom performance).

To that end we were out of bed two hours before the ticket sales opened and Liz made a few more call-in appearances on radio stations to hit people on their way to work and while they were getting ready for school. The TV interview was going to run just before the eight o’clock hour so we put the television on after Liz put the phone down.

“Thank God!” she said but at least she offered me a sweet smile.

“I think it gave you the best chance to pull this off,” Jill said. I had spent most of the previous day with Jill Clay as we made our way from place to place.

“Yeah, I know,” Liz said with a rueful grin. “I guess I needed to do this. That doesn’t mean I liked doing this.”

“Was it really that bad?” Skye asked. “It was tedious and monotonous but it wasn’t like you were ... working for a living.”

Liz tilted her head in Skye’s direction while the rest of us fought back laughter.

“You know what I mean,” Skye said. To her credit, she didn’t flinch in the face of Liz’s baleful gaze. “You’re not plowing a field in the hot sun six days a week. You’re not going into an office and sitting in the same chair and crunching the same number eight hours every day. You had to spend some time talking to people. Big deal. Get over it.”

Jill was the first one to crack. It started as a snigger and evolved first into full guffaw and then to her sitting with her head on the table because she couldn’t stop laughing.

“Sorry,” Skye said when the chuckling had ceased (from everybody but Jill). “I thought that ... I was told that...

“I’ve never had to couch my words with Liz before,” she concluded.

“You were never angling for a job with her before,” Ryan noted with a smile.

“Uh, if I’m going to work for her she’s going to have to understand that I have opinions and I’m going to express them,” Skye said. “If she wants someone to nod and tell her how great she is ... I’m not going to work out very well.”

Liz had started out perturbed but gradually saw the humor (and the merit) in Skye’s words.

“I thought I’d hired Travis to nod and tell me how great I am,” she said, using a single finger to push me on the shoulder. “Turns out he was just smart enough to keep me buttered until he was under contract.”

“Butter?” Jill asked through her snorts. “Old school! I figured he’d at least use baby lotion or something.”

The relaxed atmosphere lasted only a few more minutes – until 7:57 a.m., to be exact. The interview segment ended and the screen faded to black for a moment.

“The concert event of the year is coming,” a sonorous voice boomed from the television.

A chant of “Liz” came from a host of previous concertgoers on the screen.

Snippets appeared of Liz dancing on stage, greeting the fans, playing her guitar ... entertaining. Fans popped up gushing about the concert and their favorite performer and the announcer read off reviews from online magazines and newspapers.

“One night only!” the man said. “Get your tickets now!”

He read off the website and the phone number.

I watched as the commercial ended and the news anchor came back on the screen.

“What in the fuck was that?” Liz asked in an angry voice. I turned to look at her. I thought the advertisement had come off pretty well. It took me a moment to understand that she was really pissed.

“A commercial,” I said as I glanced around the room.

Her breathing was ragged and her eyes wide with anger as she stared at me.

“How did you manage to put that together?” she asked through gritted teeth.

“I didn’t,” I answered. “You’re upset at the wrong person so back the fuck off. I had nothing to do with it. You knew about this, Liz!”

“The fuck I did!” Liz insisted. “Is this something one of your ‘friends’ put together?”

“No,” I said. “This is something your label put together. Granger felt like shit about how things have gone down. He wants you to succeed down here. He called me ... a week ago, I guess. He asked me what I thought of the label buying air time on every TV and radio station for an ad that would run three minutes before the ticket sales began. I said I had no problem with it but he needed to get you to sign off on it.”

“I didn’t sign off on that!” Liz said in a loud voice.

“Yeah, you did,” Jill cut in.

Liz turned on her.

“What?” she asked.

“He called last week,” Jill said. “You were working on something and waiting for a callback. He said he had some ideas and wanted to run them past you. You told him that Travis was handling things and he should call him. You said if Travis thought it would work then you were fine with it.”

Liz sat down on the chair.

“Fuck,” she muttered.

“I don’t understand the problem,” I said. “Those things crop up all the time.”

“I don’t like to do TV promos,” Liz said. “They’re ... tacky and low-grade.”

“Oh, fuck,” I said. “You bought into that garbage about you being too big for television because it played into your expanded self-worth. You’re full of shit. Get off your fucking high horse and understand that the mediums you’ve used in the past two days are free and expansive. Tacky and low-grade ... for Christ’s sake.”

“We’ve never had to resort to TV,” Stephanie noted. “They’re viewed by the public as ... a last desperate attempt to sell tickets.”

“Wow!” I said, throwing my hands in the air. “I would love to see the research you’re using to support that fallacy. And even if you’re right, guess what, we’re pretty fucking desperate here.”

“Not this desperate,” Liz said.

“The hell you aren’t,” I countered.

“We’ve never needed to advertise,” Stephanie said.

Jill gave me a look and then tilted her head at me. I didn’t understand what she trying to say so I just shrugged. She took it as my assent, I suppose.

“Sure we have,” she said. “We’ve advertised via word of mouth. We don’t have time for that now. Two days between the announcement and the ticket sales; two weeks from the sale to the concert; that’s not enough time for word to filter out. I spent most of yesterday with Travis and I have a better feel for what he’s doing. This has to be viewed as the event of the year in order to make it work. He had two days to get 2 percent of the region to drop what they’re going, change their plans and spend the better part of a week’s pay to come see a concert. We’ve known this was coming for nine months; two days ago, about 100 people outside of this room knew about it.”

“Get this through your head,” I said, happy to have an ally. I knew I had more than just Jill with me. Brian and Dom understood the situation and I thought Skye probably did as well. The only people in the room unhappy were Stephanie and Liz. So I spoke to them directly. “The people that you want to pay money to see you watch television. They listen to the radio. They surf the internet. You’re not too big for any of those things. Put a fucking pin in that ego of yours and accept that four million people just got reminded that you’re putting on a fucking show in a couple of weeks and, hey, by the way, it might be pretty cool if they spent their hard-earned wages and went to see it. You seem to forget, I’ve been putting this shit together for you with money from my own pocket. I don’t have an advertising budget. So I went with the shit that I could afford – radio and TV advertising disguised as news.”

“You certainly are worried about money all of a sudden,” Liz spat.

“It’s not all of a sudden,” I cut in. “And if you’re not worried about the money, play the fucking show for free! We’d have no trouble giving the fucking tickets away.”

Liz blinked.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said. “You’ve bitched and complained about any idea that might cut into your profits and now you’re bitching and complaining when I put together something that didn’t cost a fucking dime! Oh, wait. It cost you an airfare, a rental car, two off-the-rack suits and a single hotel room for three nights. Oh, and six greasy fast food meals. Best guess? You managed to reach 4 million households for three grand. But because I didn’t find a way to do it that soothed your ego, it’s not fucking good enough. Well, tough shit.”

“Everybody get out!” Liz yelled.

I got up with the rest of them but she pointed a shaking finger at me.

“Not you,” she said through clenched teeth.

“I’m not going to rehash the same argument we’ve had for the past three weeks,” I told her. “There isn’t a God damned thing you can do about it anyway. RFN bought a minute of airtime at 7:57 a.m. on every single medium that might reach a fan of yours. It’s not going to re-air. It’s not going into syndication. Screaming at me like a fucking harpy and blaming me for your mistakes is not going to solve a single thing. I had nothing to do with the fucking commercials so call Granger and ream his ass if you’re pissed off. There is no reason for me to stay if you’re planning more of this bullshit.”

“This has to do with my dissatisfaction at how you’ve started to view your employment,” Liz said.

“I’m pretty well dissatisfied with how you view my employment,” I countered. “You seem to think that you can just walk into a city, snap your fingers and a crowd will throw money at you. It’s ain’t that simple. You have no idea the hoops I’ve had to jump through to get you this far. This all happened outside of your view so you seem to think anybody can do it. Well, that’s not how it works. I’ve put up with a bunch of amateurs picking apart every single thing I’ve done since we got down here. To top it off, you get shitty with me for something I had no part in. So, yeah, if you start yelling at me, I start yelling back. This is only a professional disagreement on the periphery.”

“No,” Liz said. “It’s professional. I’m sorry I yelled at you for the commercial. But, given the other things you’ve set up for me down here, I thought it came from you. We ... I’ve determined that you just don’t have a firm enough grasp on things right now. I’m convinced it’s important that we do things a certain way and your way isn’t it. Until I’m sure that we’re not going to have any other radio call-ins or television commercials, I just can’t have you in charge of this section.”

I bit my tongue and nodded.

“I’ll find someplace else for you,” Liz continued.

“The fuck you will,” I said. “I’ve got an opt-out at 90 days. It’s fucking shame I didn’t set it for 20 days. I would have worked just as well. So, consider it exercised... 77 days early. Don’t worry about paying for the dead time. Granger found a way to get some of the money I pissed away on your image back to me. I’ll e-mail my unpaid expenses to your accountant and we’ll be square.”

“Wait!” Liz said. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going home, Liz,” I said. “I’ve need to start looking for a job and I can’t do it from here. But you’re going to have the same problem with anybody else you bring in here if you let a couple of fucking amateurs make the decisions for you. That’s what you are. You have no fucking clue what goes into making your image and planning your publicity. You’ve never had to do it for yourself. Well, now you can. Good luck with it.”

I tossed my shit into my bag and headed out. I’d find a flight somewhere westward and rent a car to get to San Diego.

Liz was already out of the hotel suite when I departed. I didn’t figure out where she’d gone until I heard loud voices coming from a different room.

“You told him it was your way or the highway,” Jill said in an angry voice. “Why the fuck are you surprised he chose the highway?”

“He’s past the expiration date anyway,” Stephanie said. “He’s served his purpose.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Jill asked.

“You remember the image consultant we met with last winter?” Stephanie asked.

“Yeah, so?” Jill answered. “He was a dick. I can’t believe you hired him, Liz.”

“He said she’d do well with a ‘common’ boyfriend for a few weeks,” Stephanie answered. “He was right. That’s all Travis was. Her popularity immediately spiked upward. Now it’s leveled off and it’s time for Travis to go. He was clearly out of his element – radio and television. Jesus, how fucking lame. Anybody with half a brain can make you look good, Liz. You were absolutely right yesterday. He’s a pain in everybody’s ass. A few ticks in popularity weren’t worth putting up with him anymore.

“I have to say: You handled him perfectly. You kept him off-balance and played to his ego just long enough to keep him involved. He actually thought that you were going to make everybody in your organization an equal. What a dolt!”