Author's Note: Things are looking up. Things are changing. And updates will come faster, I promise.
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Two weeks flew on silver wings and Tommy Stone found himself too busy to think about the reporter from the New York Herald. Shannon informed him coolly that Mr. Stewart had asked for a reservation on a flight back and Stone had nodded agreeably and let it happen.
Arthur had made every attempt to be civil on the night before he left.
Brian hadn't wanted civil. He had smiled, made good conversation and listened with his grey eyes fixed unwaveringly on Arthur's long, nervous face, that sensitive mouth that spouted the most inane rubbish at the most inappropriate times.
He had made no secret of his intentions. He acted like a lover, with soft words and soft glances. He made Arthur laugh. And then he took the man upstairs to his room and had sex with him.
It was easy. Arthur really didn't know how to counteract anything Brian chose to do to him. He just couldn't understand the way the other man's mind worked. Brian could see that very clearly.
It depressed the hell out of him- made him feel like one of the old lechers in La Glace, preying on the young and innocent.
The last two shows took his mind off things and he spent his time in practice and publicity, finally free from all other distractions. Tommy Stone liked his solitude best and sent himself to sleep every night with a fifth of a bottle of whiskey every night, drinking to take the edge off the silence.
He really did prefer things this way. In the old days… Brian didn't like remembering the old days. In the old days there'd be people to get drunk with, but they had always made demands on his time and Brian hadn't been able to shake them off. Shannon had had to do that. Shannon and his disgrace, naturally, but Shannon had gotten rid of the most persistent once he was deposed as the King of Glitter Rock.
"No one replaced him," Ray had said, speaking of Brian Slade.
Tommy Stone suspected the guitarist had some sneaking suspicions about things, because that thin face always adopted the sliest look he'd ever seen before. A triumphant glance of knowing. Stone wasn't sure what Ray knew, but he didn't think he wanted to have that conversation.
When the last show finished, Stone took the night plane back to New York. He spoke to Shannon about his future plans only once, when he was at the airport.
"Cancel the trip to France, Shannon," he said, "I'll stay in L.A."
"Are you sure?" she asked in concern.
"I've got a few ideas I want to work on. France isn't convenient."
She'd only shrugged and got on with the arrangements. But Stone suspected she knew, too. It was obvious. He hadn't said anything, but he wasn't exactly going out of his way to cover things up. Not like the elaborate charade for Maxwell Demon. Nothing close. He expected Shannon to know.
He saw less of her in Los Angeles. She had her own home, her own office. Their interaction tended to be limited to public spheres. But she was happy to hear from him when he called her up and invited her to breakfast one morning after his second cloistered week back in his mansion. He even let her in himself, in bare feet and jeans, the bleach beginning to fade out of his messy brown hair.
He kissed her on the cheek, knowing it would soften her.
Shannon followed him into the kitchen, setting down her purse on the breakfast counter that she knew very well Brian hated to use. "You just woke up?"
"No, I was working," he said, "I'm writing again."
"It sounds like a disease," she remarked.
"It is when you can't stop," he retorted, "Come. I've been awake since six and I'm dying for coffee. Want one?"
"I'd love one."
He didn't talk much as he gestured her over to the table to sit down.
She watched him work and smiled to see him concentrate. He wouldn't even boil an egg but he could use a coffee maker with the best of them.
Shannon knew what was coming and it surprised her that she was looking forward to it a little. She had spent some downtime thinking about it, waiting for Brian to call because she just knew that he would. And he had called. It was only a matter of time before he made a decision either way, particularly if he was writing again.
He came back and set the coffee pot down without a word, glancing up at her from under raised eyebrows.
"Settled in, yet?" Shannon asked, pouring herself a cup of coffee.
"Yeah," Brian smiled, "Got the papers?"
"Here." She tossed them to him and grinned when he delved right in. He always started meticulously with the headlines and worked his way through. Brian's method of reading the newspaper could take the whole day. He read every article, every opinion piece, every column.
"The in-depth piece is due this weekend," Shannon offered quietly.
Brian nodded absently and absorbed the state of the environment and endangered species.
"Mr. Stewart's piece," Shannon said unnecessarily, "About the London show."
Grey eyes flicked up briefly, but with the barest hint of a smile in them. "Fishing, are we, Shannon?" Brian laughed, "What? Do I throw a tantrum or look heartbroken?"
Shannon fervently hoped he would do neither. She'd handled both before and neither were a pleasant scene. She preferred to see him like this- sitting peacefully in the sunny kitchen, steaming cup of coffee at hand and the newspaper spread out on the table, relaxed and flippant and genuinely at peace. "I'm just saying," she excused, "We can still pull out."
"We signed a contract."
"I'm not stupid, Brian. I had the lawyers put in a clause or two. I can keep them in the Courts long enough to make it too much work," she suggested.
Brian laughed again and shook his head. "What would I do without you?" he asked.
It was a serious question. Of a sort.
"Don't talk tripe, Brian, you'll just find someone else," she snorted, "You always do."
"I haven't had another manager since Jerry," he pointed out, "Ten years with you. You know all my habits."
"So break in someone new."
He made a face and went back to the paper.
Shannon didn't need the paper to occupy her. She didn't get the time to do nothing very often. When she did, she liked to take it. Brian couldn't do that for longer than a few days. She'd taken it for granted that he would be writing or painting or taking a vacation by the end of the week. He was right, she did know all his ways. She'd been with him since… oh, '71 or '72? Something like that. Over ten years. She'd been the only one he tolerated by '74.
"You're thinking again," Brian said suddenly, "I can hear you all the way over here."
"What'll you do," she asked, "Without me?"
"Don't know."
"You're really quitting this time, aren't you?"
He put the paper down and this time she knew it was serious. Brian Slade didn't relinquish his paper for anything less than momentous. The fact that he leaned back as far away from her as he could settled the matter.
"It's not exactly working out anymore, is it?" he asked.
Shannon sighed. "You make it sound like a fucking marriage," she said.
"No, that would have been a disaster. Never liked it much the first time."
"Then why did you marry her?"
He didn't reply that day. Or the next day. Or the next week. Shannon spent the next few weeks in Los Angeles drawing up all the usual paperwork to dissolve their partnership. Hopefully Brian wouldn't be too difficult about what he owed her. She deserved a lot for what she had done for him. No one could put a price to working eighteen hours a day for ten years. No one could put a price to the harassment and haranguing she'd had to take when Brian tried to make things work before Stone. The seedy clubs and the drunken men. And usually it was just her, Brian and Brian's guitar.
Shannon had drawn up the paperwork before. For Brian. When Brian wanted to quit from Jerry's label. She'd handed her resignation in to Jerry and run around for Brian.
"You're making a big mistake," Jerry had told her, "That guy is finished."
Jerry hadn't thought, just like all the others hadn't- if Brian could create one Rock God, Brian could create another.
"Sandy Wakeman," she remembered, her lips twisting a little, "God, how sweet!"
Sandy Wakeman had been very sweet, indeed. An English lad who went off to Australia to release two albums of musical chaos. Jazz and Soul infused with brash rock vanity.
Bertrand Thomas had done 'Black Tar' in… Sweden, was it?
Shannon had managed to talk him into releasing the damned thing in Los Angeles. The little kids had had fun with the horror-story inspired art rock.
"My Frankenstein," Brian had laughed, mocking the reporters with an American twang, "Don't look! It's alive!"
The reporters had succumbed. Every reporter eventually did.
Shannon read the weekender issue religiously and thought it was quite good. Nothing over the top, and just the slightest bit reserved but hopefully they would only think he was being objective, rather than disapproving.
Brian didn't contact her for weeks. When he did, it was to ask if she'd settled everything.
"There's a few financial matters," she said immediately.
He wasn't happy, and he beat her down by a good bit, but Shannon got the feeling that he wasn't actually that interested in her any more. He'd moved on. She could tell from the sound in his voice, from the distraction and the way he didn't have anything really personal to say beyond the fact that he was well aware of her loyalty and couldn't see why he needed to pay for something she had chosen to give him.
Shannon didn't take it personally. Brian certainly didn't. And she called him Brian, now, leaving aside Tommy Stone because she was certain that Tommy Stone was going to retire sometime soon.
She wasn't far wrong.
The next month proceeded without event and she sent the papers to him, waiting anxiously for him to sign them. More than relinquishing of her control and knowledge of his affairs, she wanted him to relinquish her from her contractual obligation to take no other client while she worked for him. There was an offer she was interested in- a sweet girl with a face like an angel and a mouth like a sailor. Shannon could see possibilities to expand her repertoire and they stretched so endless she needed to move fast. Brian's lassitude was holding her up.
And then an old friend in the business called her up and cautioned her. "Babe, you can't tell me you don't know what your Tom is up to?"
Only Laurie Bennet ever called Tommy Stone 'Tom'. Shannon knew Bennet; he was a media mogul who'd thrown his considerable backing behind an unknown pop-rock potential because he said the man had flair and his woman manager was a tiger with unclipped claws.
"No," she said warily, "I don't."
"Then I guess I should tell you. There's going to be an interview with him. Rumour has it he's coming clean about some big secret in his life."
"I see. Well, Bennet, I'm sorry I can't get you an exclusive. Tommy's his own man now. I've got other interests and we've decided to part company."
"Really? So there's no need for you to keep mum, eh? A little leak would do me a world of good, Shannon."
"Sorry, Bennet," she laughed, "You know how it goes."
"You know," he told her soberly, "Tom wouldn't do the same for you."
Shannon closed her eyes and felt an almost phantom ache at that reminder of how far the changes would affect her. She remembered thinking that Mandy was being stupid to cling to Brian like she had. She remembered Curt Wild's face when she told him the taxi had come for him and Brian hadn't yet surfaced from his room.
Was that what it was like? Everybody tore themselves in two because some part of their souls would always follow Brian Slade?
"Shannon?"
"You know, Bennet, we're just two different people. Tommy's got his way of protecting his own."
"Wow, there, tiger lady," he laughed, "I'm not calling you on that. I know better. Got room for dinner with me this week?"
"How's your wife?" she asked acidly.
"Fucking her therapist. How's your schedule?"
"No, Bennet. Not now."
Laurie took the hint and didn't question her. But before he hung up on her, he had one final note to add- "It's the end of an era, isn't it? That guy from Ohio dies of an overdose, that car crash for the band, you know the one with the purple logo. And now Tommy Stone. It's not turning out to be a good year for the music business."
Shannon gave him a twisted smile even though she knew he couldn't see it. "Bye, Bennet."
"Call me." He was gone.
Shannon stared at the phone for a long time and then put in a call for Brian. If there was something going to happen, she wanted to know about it. She wanted to be told. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck prickle as the panic washed cold through her tensed shoulders.
He wasn't picking up. Shannon tried a few friends, even an old lover that practically poured obscenities over the phone the minute Shannon mentioned Tommy's name. The lady slammed the phone down and Shannon concluded that she knew nothing.
She found out about it, however.
She got a call from some friend in New York who asked her if she knew what Brian had just done.
"He's what?" she yelled, on her feet and trembling with shock.
"Honestly, Shan, what's going on? Curt Wild introduced the guy as Brian. Is that true? I need a comment."
"I can't give you one."
"Shan, I know you're surprised. I'll print that if you want, but it would be better for you to make a comment. I'll be nice as I can, I promise, but I'm running with the story. What connection is there between Stone and Slade? Christ, even their last names sound similar!"
Shannon's heart was racing and she pressed a manicured hand to her chest, trying to catch her breath and formulate an answer that wouldn't make her sound foolish. "Lee, I don't know," she confessed, "Look, Tommy's got his own agenda now. I don't work with him any more. I really can't tell you anything about this."
There was a silence clause on her contract. The contract that Brian hadn't yet released her from. Shannon could be sued for opening her mouth. Inwardly she raged, dying to point out that she couldn't speak because she didn't have the facts. She didn't have a handle on what was going on. She was in Los Angeles and Brian wouldn't return her calls.
"Shan, you need to give me more than that," Lee demanded, urgent and aggressive, "Listen to me! The papers are going to have a hell of a time with this so you need to come clean and then disappear for a while. You don't want them to pin you both!"
"I have nothing more to say."
"Shan…
"I have nothing more to say!" Shannon slammed the phone down.
She heard about Curt Wild's sudden resurrection from nowhere. She heard about the show in a tiny club in New York because Wild had given a standout performance and then stopped half-way through to introduce 'an old friend of his' called Brian.
She took her phone off the hook because the calls were driving her up the wall. She stayed in her front room and ignored the few reporters outside her door that demanded to know what was going on. Her P.A tried to get her to eat but she felt sick. Her hands were shaking and her muscles were so knotted with tension that she walked with the slow gait of someone hurting down to their very bones.
Shannon had been prepared for it. She had known what was going to happen. She had told herself that she wouldn't end up like all the others- casualties of Brian Slade. And there she was, curled up on the couch in a curtained room and nails leaving marks in the expensive leather.
Shannon watched the interview, too. Her eyes were so dry they hurt but she kept them open for fear of missing any single glance from those grey eyes. Anything. She would have forgiven him for all of it if he had only had one look of guilt for the camera. She could have fantasized that the guilt was for her even if it wasn't and she could have gone on from there.
But there was nothing. Brian- and it was really Brian- came out in blue and black leather, with mascara and brown hair, his pixie face looking older but no less alluring than it had all those years ago. He chatted to the host, laughed about his changes and fed the scandal.
"There's nothing between me and Curt," he said, smiling that mischievous smirk, "That ship passed long ago."
His old accent was back and their flashed publicity photos from all his various incarnations onto the screen as he told stories about all of them. He turned himself into a circus and whirled the whole world around on his long, lithe fingers.
The next day Shannon received the signed papers absolving her.
She washed her face, did her hair, put on a neat suit of subdued gray with her pearl earrings and went back to work with a lighter heart.
Brian, in his own way, had taken care of her. He had given her freedom the moment it was convenient for him to do it. He was selfish and self-centered, yes, but he had tried to make things right for her. She couldn't ask for more than that.