They had been home from the tour for about a week when Suzy insisted that they needed to have lunch. She'd been in touch with Reggie a lot over the past few days, trying to figure out a plan that worked for everyone. Midge had nearly run off her feet with commercial work, but it was helping to bring in some sort of income, so she tried not to complain too much.
The diner was particularly busy the day Midge and Suzy finally decided to use some of their meager earnings to buy lunch. Suzy had finally gotten some results from her conversations with Reggie about the sudden ending of the tour, and was seemingly excited to share the news.
Midge, quite frankly, was just happy to be getting out of Queens.
Midge and the kids were still staying with Moishe and Shirley while they looked for a new apartment. It was… okay… but Shirley's singing and both of them being unwilling to wear clothes had started getting to her the moment she'd walked in the door. The only thing she looked forward to in the morning was being able to get out of the house.
"So," Suzy started up as soon as their food arrived. She bit off half of an extra long fry, then used the other half to gesture towards Midge. "Reggie is saying that the tour is officially postponed until further notice. Apparently it looks like a fancier way of saying 'cancelled until Shy is able to leave his house again'."
Midge made a mental note to call Shy when she got back to Queens. Maybe they could have dinner? She took a bite of her food, thinking that Suzy was going to continue, but apparently she'd been waiting for Midge to prompt her into action.
"Okay, so what does that mean for us?" When they left Florida, it had been made clear that cancelling would be a very real possibility. Now that they were faced with it, however, Midge was worried about what was next for her career. "I don't want to be insensitive to the situation, but right now it sounds like we are back where we started a few months ago."
Shy was clearly not in a very good place when she'd last spoken to him before they left. Midge knew that cancelling would be easier than having to rebook everything and supported the decision. It wasn't fair to put his recovery on a schedule and push him towards working when he wasn't ready.
Suzy held up a ketchup stained finger between them, then reached down into the bag she'd been lugging around. A large manila envelope appeared, with both of their names written in thick, blocky letters. Suzy held the envelope towards Midge, who grabbed it delicately in order to avoid spreading the ketchup further than it already had been.
"What's this?" Midge asked as she opened up the manilla and pulled out a stack of papers and two checks. "Is this from Shy?"
"Well, from Reggie, but basically, yeah…" Suzy took a bite of her sandwich and closed her eyes as she savoured the food. "End of contract, payment stuff."
Midge looked at the check with her name on it first and widened her eyes at the amount of zeroes written out. She looked over Suzy's too, and though it was smaller, it was still more than they'd made in the past two years and then some. She'd barely had a chance to look over the papers, though just at a glance they appeared to be contracts.
"I'm sorry, what is all of this for?" She couldn't stop herself from asking, hoping that Suzy had more information than she did. It would have been easy enough to read over the fine print, but hopefully she wouldn't have to just yet.
"That," she gestured towards the checks, "is more money than I've ever seen in my life," Suzy laughed with her mouth open and it took everything for Midge to stop herself from putting a hand up and averting her eyes. "The money we would have made. And a whole whack of money for termination of a contract early."
"Suzy, this is too much!" Midge tossed her handful of paper to the table and leaned back.
"You know, I thought it was crazy when the guys said to add that bit in. I thought 'they'll never end the tour. It would cost them a ton of money!' But they did! And it did! And now if you don't work for two years we will still be okay!"
"I mean, I just can't believe it! When I saw Lenny last week we were trying to work stuff out with living arrangements and stuff. I have to kids so it-"
"This right here," Suzy carefully pointed towards the small printed paper. "That's a contract for the rest of the tour. There's no date on it yet, but they wanted to give you something as a guarantee for when the tour starts up again. No date, but a promise of intent."
Midge stuffed her check into the purse she'd been carrying, and then passed Suzy her check as well. She briefly debated between finally digging into her food and going over the contract, but her stomach made a sound so obnoxious that the food won.
A/N: I know this one is a bit shorter than the others (especially compared to the last one), but I just wanted to get this part cleared up! What do you folks think is going to happen next?
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