Chapter 17: Exposure

The next two days were very different for the teens. Thursday morning Tony and his parents took Anita to Virginia Beach. All the others, including Rebecca were needed to continue work on the big concert. She would only perform with Tony as her pianist but Tina had one that would rehearse with her and the orchestra. Almost everything that she sang was a female power ballad that Tina did amazing work on with synthesizers and her violin. Now that she had an entire orchestra pretty much at her disposal she was going to take full advantage of it.

It was a drive of only a couple of hundred miles or so and in three hours they were all lost. Well not lost, they were at Anita's house, but Anita didn't have a key to her own house with her. That was a bit of a dilemma. They would be justified in simply breaking in but thought better of it at first, but Anita changed their minds somewhat. "We have to go in, Sparkles is still there. There's no telling how long it's been since he's been fed."

Sparkles, as it turned out, was a cat. He was a rare calico tomcat and he was unusually (for a cat) devoted to Anita. How Sparkles got that name was apparently lost to Anita. Tony was sure that if he'd been more intelligent than, well, a house cat he would have resented the name. In another hour they had a locksmith and the police there to give them permission. Sparkles was an unusual cat. When the door opened he took a running start and simply flew at Anita's chest. Even more unusually he did it with claws firmly retracted. He knew she would catch him, and she did.

"Sparkles!" Anita cried as she went in the door, cat in her arms like it was an everyday occurrence. The cop had asked a lot of questions before, but that display convinced him that this was, in fact, really Anita's house and he left shortly after the locksmith was paid. Anita did have a house key, though it was pretty much useless before as it was on her dresser in her bedroom.

Sparkles got fed and Anita dutifully took care of the overloaded litter box. The group decided to spend the night in the house as opposed to the hotel that they were planning on. Carol spent the afternoon doing what she could with the funeral home.

Jim and Tony took a two hour trip to B&B construction. It was immediately obvious that the Breelands were hands-on managers; probably too much so. There was a foreman who was likely pretty good at a job site but was hopelessly out of his element in an office. He seemed to be the senior person left in the company.

On the drive back to Anita's house Jim Smith made a comment, "There is no way that company is going to survive. They have fifteen employees and a huge project."

"Do you know anyone; someone who could take over and do it?" Tony asked.

"I know several for the business side. That foreman can build, but he'll go under if he has to do both."

"Yeah, I kind of got that feeling. It's in Anita's best interest that the company survives right? I mean I guess it's her company even if she can't make any decisions. I assume it falls to her legally. It would be better if the company made money than if it was just sold."

"Well maybe both," Jim said, a plan forming in his mind. "We could just buy a controlling interest in the name of her trust. We could put people in there that could run it well. Then her trust gets the income which, if it's run well, will be a lot more over time than just liquidating it. Plus all those employees keep their jobs. Reagan has made a pretty good mess of the economy right now. It might be hard to find a new job for them."

"Yeah, that sounds good Dad. There's a lot to do I guess and that just adds to it. Anita is one thing but there is the house and who knows whatever else. I was going to take her back to New Jersey after the service tomorrow but what the heck do we do with Sparkles?"

"Take the litter box," his father replied sagely. Tony had to hand it to him, his dad was a practical man.

It would have been nice to tell how Anita bravely sat through the next day's funeral service. She didn't, she was on the verge of hysteria throughout. She sat on Tony's lap after the first two minutes and with his big arms surrounding her she wept freely and loudly. All of the other kids had driven down for the service but at that time she wanted nothing to do with anyone but Tony. It was mercifully short as he had asked for and there was no grave side service. They simply went straight back to her house where Tony lay with her in her bed until she dropped off into a sleep she didn't wake up from until the next morning.

It was Anita Breeland's twelfth birthday.

The next morning was an early one. Everyone packed into the rental vans by seven in the morning and headed back to New Jersey. All of the band was in one van with Anita included, she wouldn't be separated from Tony. Gwen and Chrissie rode with the Smiths.

Sound checks were complete by noon. There was no second-rate equipment and Ziggurat had their own sound technicians that worked well with Gwen and Chrissie. They were union but it never seemed to occur to them to ask about the girls (who still had their cards anyway). These were true professionals who were all about the show. The show was at the state park. There was no seating, just a vast field at one end and the massive stage on a small rise at the other. The concert would go well into the night and Chrissie stayed the entire day to learn the lighting with the help of one of the professionals there.

The biggest event of the afternoon was the pianist. He had apparently petitioned the Gilchrist council for the right to play piano with the orchestra which would mean he would be backing Rebecca. Gilchrist seemed to agree, after all they had selected him as one of the best young pianists in the country and he probably was. Tony stayed out of it. He drove the band to the meeting but just let the girls talk.

The boy's name really was Guillermo and he was from California. He was a concert pianist of some note in the young musical community. He seemed also to have an ego at least as big as the state he came from. Tina threatened to simply have NO members of the orchestra play at all and Rebecca simply refused to sing without Tony. Both reminded the council that they had been selected as a group and they'd play as a group. If the Gilchrist Orchestra wanted to help they were welcome, at Tina's discretion. If not there was no song in the concert that hadn't been done before without them. The committee caved in front of Tina's verbal onslaught and Rebecca's adamant refusal to perform with him, and he stomped out of the meeting in a huff. It was a big, national stage and he wouldn't be performing.

Another thing came out of the same meeting that was even more important. Dewayne and Jerry, along with Ziggurat could only come up with a single eight-song set in the limited time they had to work together. Given another week or two they could probably perform the band's entire repertoire but in less than three days that was the best they could do. They flipped the performances. Ziggurat would do a single set then Chaos would fill in the role as the headliner. The teens had plenty of material to do the job, but working out set lists would consume the afternoon.

There were no mix-ups in the passes. What Tony now jokingly referred to as 'the New Jersey chapter of the Chaos fan club' (which Rebecca pointed out was the ONLY chapter) had not just passes this time but free tickets and backstage passes as did several of the lifeguards from the beach who had kept an eye on Cheri. In all that had gone on Tina had taken care of the 'fan club' and a grateful Jerry, and Cheri had seen to the lifeguards. As Tony had promised, the lifeguards did get to meet Ziggurat though without its most famous member.

Tony did get a chance to talk to Rachel. To Rebecca's amusement, and agreement, he told her that any boyfriend of hers that not once, but twice in the same week, helped her haul and herd her twelve-year-old sister and not less than half a dozen other girls to their concerts was not a boyfriend she wanted to let get away. She was able to assure the lovers that 'Bobby' was not going anywhere and she knew exactly what he was doing and he got his just rewards anytime he wanted. She had a twinkle in her eye that told the two that she thoroughly enjoyed giving those rewards.

The segment of the concert that followed would be talked about for years. Dewayne's subtle tendency of bending strings had almost been erased but it was still there and turned Ziggurat's music into something different while still sounding the same. The note was there and then it was something else, something more intimate and personal. Where Cal's voice was raspy and driving Jerry hit the notes easily and was able to modulate at will. All in all the performance was what Ziggurat fans had come to see, but subtly different. When Rand introduced the "replacements" he was apologetic. But by the end of the set he was effusive in his praise. Then it was time for the teens to play their own music.

"Ladies and Gentlemen the Gilchrist Music Festival is proud to present, from Savannah, Georgia, Chaos!"

Dewayne's harmonica pierced the air and floated out to nearly ten thousand people gathered on the state park's grounds. A blue spot picked him up several seconds later. A hard rocking southern rock rhythm followed by a bright white spot on what nobody expected to see, a 5'4 fifteen-year-old girl with a pink guitar. The two played together for only a few seconds before Tony shouted into his microphone 'here we go' and the entire stage lit up and he began the opening lyrics of Blackfoot's 'Train, Train'. While Jerry kept the beat and Tina the rhythm, Tony and Dewayne held a musical duel with Tony on guitar and Dewayne on harmonica that neither won but the crowd went crazy over.