Chapter 5

I think Greg, Carrie and Kellie blamed me for slowing their rise to superstardom. They seemed to think that if I had capitulated to the studio's demands we would be splashed across MTV in perpetuity.

The studio pulled a fast one on me and released "Style over Substance" as a video. They used footage from the movie, so I couldn't stop them. But I could and did stop them when they wanted to release it as a single.

I think they believed I would pander to the public outcry and relent. If they thought that, they were wrong.

I refused and I refused their offer to release it as a solo. They refused my offer to allow Greg, Kellie and Carrie to rework it for themselves — if the studio agreed to allow The Collection to come to the forefront.

By the time I returned from France in mid-August, my friends were no longer my friends. They weren't speaking to me at all and ignored me whenever I tried to make contact. So I didn't tell them about the studio contacting me. They only knew that I refused to allow them to release the single.

I settled in for a lonely senior year of high school.

I decided in mid-fall that I would graduate early. I had been accepted at Boston College and the school agreed to allow me to start taking classes in January. I tried to contact my former friends and bandmates one last time before I left but none of them called me back.

But Greg trudged over in January as I was packing the U-Haul to head east. We exchanged generalities for a few minutes before anything serious came up.

"I'm sorry about the way things worked out," I told him. "But it's not like it seemed. I didn't throw you guys under the bus. If anything, it was the opposite. I wouldn't let the studio have their way because of how they treated you guys."

He was about to answer when Carrie's car pulled up and she and Kellie piled out. They saw Greg talking to me and I could see they weren't happy.

"See ya around," I said and handed him a parting gift. Before Greg could say anything I went back into my house.

From my front window, I could see the girls giving Greg a ration of shit for talking to me. I could see Greg pointing and gesturing toward the house in a pleading manner. But soon the three of them stalked back into the car and disappeared.

Greg had not returned by the time I pulled out of my driveway for the last time.

I guess it was my junior year at Boston College when I turned on the radio and heard three familiar voices emanate forth. The announcer said it was a new group called Trio but I recognized them almost instantly — Greg, Carrie and Kellie.

I couldn't help but smile.

It helped that I recognized the song as one of several I had penned in Europe. They were in a notebook I handed to Greg that last day in my driveway.

I was happy that Trio had finally hit the big time but I was sorry that it had taken four years longer than it should have.

Because my voice was out of the mix, unless you knew them no connection to The Collection could be made. They had made it on their own merits and I was extremely proud of them. Not that I made any attempt to let them know that.

My parents moved not long after I left. I think they only planned to stay in town until I graduated high school anyway. With them gone there was no reason for me to return to my hometown, so I never had.

My parents had moved to upstate New York and seemed to loving the life of rural farmers. I'll admit I enjoyed the solitude of spending time outdoors in the summers I spent with them. It gave me time to clear my head and to work on my writing.

I was working on what would become a novel. Not well received or well purchased, but at least it was published. But I also was writing poetry. Of course, I was certain to make sure the words could be set to music if someone so desired.

Outside of the shower, I probably hadn't sung a dozen times since I left my home state. I would participate in the family Christmas caroling, of course, but I had no desire to be in public again.

I did read a couple of my poems in a coffee house in Boston. They received high praise from the patrons but they did not achieve my primary purpose — to get horizontal with a member of the opposite sex for an extended period of time (to steal a line from one of life's greatest storytellers, Harry Chapin).

My dating life in college was best termed as "migratory." I would date a girl for a month or two before one or the other of us would decide it was time to move on. I'm not some hopeless romantic who believed the one great love of my life was Kellie. But many of the girls I would date seemed to pale in comparison to the girl I remembered.

I am careful to use the term "girl." The young woman Kellie manifested into wasn't part of my fond memories. By the time I left, there was far more about her that I didn't like than I did like. She had become manipulative and deceitful in her middle teen years. By her later teens, she was vengeful, arrogant and paranoid.

But there were few who could compare to the young girl I met when I was a young boy.

A year after I first heard Trio on the radio, they were making their way up the charts with regularity. Their videos were in constant rotation during that 45-minute block of time that the music video stations actually set aside to play music videos those days. There were times I would see them and think wistfully of what might have been.

Maturity had come late to me. I was probably 20 before I could admit that I wasn't always right and even older before I could take a look at both sides of an issue. I guess maturity came to Greg about the same time as it had to me because one Saturday night he showed up outside of my apartment in Chelsea.

He didn't say anything when I opened the door for him. He just hugged me tightly.

"Before you left," he began, "you told me things weren't as they appeared."

I nodded.

"I tried my best to protect you guys," I offered.

"I know you did," he said sadly. "It's only been very recently that we finally have a firm enough grasp on the industry to understand that. I'm sorry I didn't take the time to find out what happened."

There was little I could say.

"You're doing well now though," I said with a smile. "I'm happy for you."

He looked around my somewhat spartan apartment.

"Don't worry," I said. "I live simply because I want to, not because I have to. I have better uses for my money than furniture."

"Or a kitchen table," he added with a laugh. "Do you even have glasses and stuff?"

"Yes," I said. "McDonald's always has giveaways."

He shook his head.

"We wanted to let you know that we miss you," he said. "When I saw you packing up your U-Haul, I couldn't believe it. I guess I knew you well enough to know that you wouldn't have done something just to spite us. I caught hell that day."

"I saw," I told him. "I'm glad you could use a couple of songs that I put together for you."

Greg smiled widely.

"You'll probably be happier now that I have an address to send the royalty checks to," he said. "I registered them in your name. You had already set up a profile with ASCAP, so I just tagged them in with the ones you'd already done."

I chuckled.

"I didn't register them for that very reason," I admitted. "It's why there were releases for your use with all of them. I didn't want you to feel like you were beholden to me. I wrote them while I was in Europe."

"I guessed that," he replied. "Well, I guessed that later. At the time, Kellie and Carrie thought you were trying to bribe your way back in. When you didn't contact us — well, ever again — they figured out they were wrong."

"You know," I began. "Even if we would have made it big, it wouldn't have mattered. I wrote those songs for you three to sing. I was never going to be part of the equation after I came back. I had different plans."