Chicago Stadium parking lot, 11pm

Barry stifled a yawn as before getting into his rented car. He hated depending on anyone else for his transportation so once the tour hit its stride he made sure to have a rental waiting for him at every airport.

"See ya tomorrow guys, don't forget breakfast in the small banquet room for crew bosses and musicians."

Various exhausted mumbles and groans drifted from various places within and beyond the circle of the parking lot lights.

"Hey, not until eleven a.m., so it's practically brunch!" Bonnie reminded them. "You still have plenty of time to hit the clubs tonight and sober up in time for sound check tomorrow. Except for you guys." She pointed at Davy, Peter, Micky and Mike. "You got an interview at WFCL at one. With..." She pulled notebook out of her "magic bag" and flipped to a folded page. "Ron Britain. Barry'll be going with you. The car'll pick you up at twelve-thirty."

Barry stopped his door in mid-slam and leaned out again. "Oh, right, sorry Bonnie, I got more things to arrange at the stadium with the press. You'll go to the studio with the guys."

Evil laughter from Micky. "Get ready, Chicago," he cackled, "you're about to meet the Raybert Birthday Girl."

She was too tired to smack his head as she climbed into the limo behind him, grateful for Nesmith's helpful shove.

"In yer dreams, Dolenz. I'll be in the office. I don't wanna know what happens in the booth."


The Drake Hotel, Coq d'Or Bar, midnight

In spite of their complaints of being worked to an early grave to get a jump on the next day's opener of their two-night stand most everyone hit the clubs as predicted. Bonnie planned to retire to her suite to get the load in paperwork done but was detoured by Mike, who had ignored her encouragement to go out and have fun while the going was good.

"C'mon, Morris," he coaxed as he steered her bodily to a corner table. "And tell me again what the name of this place means?" He looked around with exaggerated concern. "Sounds a little, y'know... red-light district and all."

Bonnie rolled her eyes as Mike summoned a waiter. "It means 'The Golden Rooster' you pervert. The hotel literature says it opened the night after Prohibition got repealed. Now you tell me... why can't I just go upstairs and get some work done?"

"Split of Dom P.," Mike instructed the waiter. Because the man appeared to recognize him he added, "Not on the Monkees tab, thanks. I'll take care of it."

"Very good, Mr. Nesmith."

Mike returned his attention to Bonnie and tapped his watch. "It's just after midnight. Which means happy birthday, Morris." He leaned across the small table and gave her a kiss. "Don't forget, you said this year starts a whole new birthday bag for you. No more hiding and moping and snapping the heads off of anyone who dares to say the words."

"Hey, I did okay last year!" she protested. "Bob gave me the day off work and you took me out to dinner after you finished taping and I blew out the candle on the cupcake and everything. And I didn't cry once all day, not even when the guys had those flowers delivered to the house."

"Yeah well the 'please don't hurt us' message on the card might've had something to do with that. But it was a real improvement over the year before when you hung up the phone every time I called." He waited for the returning waiter to pop the cork and fill and set the flowered champagne flutes. "But last year was just the warm-up. This year you are gonna act like a regular person who got born and remembers what day every year without going to pieces. Genie told me that's what you said awhile ago, that night when I called her about this. Dig?"

"Dug. Nice you were gathering intelligence while I was sleeping, by the way." She couldn't believe she was being lectured on Birthday Etiquette by the man who greeted his every new year on earth by downing enough shots of tequila with his friends to pickle Pancho Villa. When Mike set a little shiny black box down in front of her she asked, "What's this?"

"It is something regular people who live normal kinda lives call a 'birthday present'. I didn't wrap it because I didn't want you to have to work too hard on your first regular-people birthday."

"I feel a head-snap coming on," she warned, then plucked the top off the box and bounced it off of his head. "Oh wow!" Her smartass smirk was wiped away by a smile of pure delight as she pulled the necklace out of the box. From a silver chain whose links alternated with light turquoise beads hung a silver charm. Bonnie laughed as she held it up to inspect it more closely. The charm was an armadillo sitting in a cowboy hat. Its eyes were set with the same light turquoise to make them pale blue like her own.

"Not that I'm a goddamn cowboy or anything," he explained, "but you are stuck in my head Mamadillo. The jeweler who made it convinced me that having you sitting in a skull would probably freak you out so I told him I'd be cool with the hat." By the time he finished talking she was wearing it, trying to lift it away so she could see it at the same time.

"It is so perfect, I love it!" Her expression grew sly, wicked even. "And I'll love saying 'no comment' whenever the press asks me what it means!"

"Knew you'd find a good use for it," Mike grinned. "Confusing jewelry does suit you." When she suddenly ducked her head and began rummaging in her bag he thought she might be crying and hunting for Kleenex, so he handed her a linen napkin. "Listen if you're gonna ruin last year's record at least do it with style." But when she sat up again she handed him a black velvet bag.

"What's this?" he echoed her earlier question. It was heavy for its size and whatever was inside had a weird shape.

"It's for you, is what it is. Because this is the second year in a row that I will wake up on my birthday and the first thing I'll see will be you. Which makes you a present. And this here is for that." She lost her train of thought, which was easy to do when he was staring at her with those indecent eyes. She'd had it all figured out what she'd say and it was gone in flash of liquid brown and long dark lashes. "Just open it will you?"

So he undid the drawstring and began to unroll a long narrow strip of tooled leather. "Oooh, Morris, getting kinky are ya?" he asked with a raised eyebrow. She was rolling her eyes again so he shut up and unrolled the whole thing until he reached the silver buckle. It was an oval with a raised edge, and in the center was what looked like a monogram worked in flowing script.

"I think you got ripped off, mama, these do not look like my initials..." He picked the candle up off the table and held the buckle under the light. "S... T... Y?" The T was the center of the monogram, flanked by the smaller but no less ornate S and Y. By now Bonnie had her head down on the table. "What? I can't hear you if you're eatin' the tablecloth."

She raised her head and gaped at him in disbelief. "S, T, Y. Which is S, Y, T, monogram-style." Still he wore a blank stare. "Oh my God, Nes, you wrote the damn song with Carol and Gerry, we both get ragged on it all the time by the press..."

"Sweet Young Thing?" He puzzled for a minute, then light dawned. "Hey now..."

Even though that song was honestly one that actually had been written for nobody at all, jealous chicks who fantasized about it and reporters who couldn't resist getting in a dig or two in revenge for all the "no comment" responses to the "age issue" crap often found a way to include it in some comment or other.

"Hey now, yourself," Bonnie told him. "I'm that Older Chick that has Mike Nesmith in her clutches, so that makes you my Sweet Young Thang. If you don't mind, of course."

The bartender looked up from his glass-polishing to see what was happening at the corner table when Mike roared with laughter then lowered his voice to a dark growl.

"Mind? Baby you can clutch this Sweet Young Thang anytime you want." He put Bonnie's glass in her hand and raised his own, and leaned in to tell her in a quiet voice, "Happy Birthday Morris. That's happy. First of many darlin', I'll see to it personally."

When they'd clinked and drained their glasses she couldn't stop staring at him. "Well for all of 'em you are the best birthday present I will ever get." She sat back after a minute and laughed a little. "Wow. For a minute there we were almost, you know, like regular people."

Mike stood and crooked his finger to beckon her, his expression unmistakable.

"How about we blow this speakeasy... unless you wanna unwrap your sweet young thang right here?"


One of the hotel's five elevators got stalled between floors for the next twenty minutes or so, but no guests were inconvenienced.