Chapter 3 Walk like a Man – Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons
It was one of those rare rainy days in Albuquerque the next day as Troy and Kelsi drove back to the coffee shop.
"Troy?" Kelsi asked as he drove carefully through the rain.
"Yes?" He asked, turning quickly to look at her before looking back at the road.
"Do you want to just do this together? I don't really want my own record deal. I'd much rather play piano for you and writing the songs, or helping you write the songs like the One You Left Behind. Would you mind that?" She asked timidly desperately hoping that he wasn't going to reject her.
"Honestly?" Troy asked, glancing at her again, "I don't really want to do this alone either. I don't want to be out there alone as the words to my songs possibly become reality. That's too depressing, I was actually wondering if we could get the whole gang to somehow work on this with us." Troy replied.
"Really?" Kelsi asked excited.
"Yeah, I can see Ryan doing choreography if we need it, or backup singing, even possibly a duet for all I care, Taylor organizing everything, Chad…. I guess making sure all of us eat right and exercise…." He replied trailing off as he parked in front of the coffee shop.
"What would Sharpay do?" Kelsi asked laughing slightly.
"No clue," He replied laughing too as they both quickly got out of the car and ran inside trying not to get wet.
"That's of course assuming we go on tour." Kelsi sighed, knowing what Troy was thinking probably wouldn't work out.
"That would be a good idea I think. Keeping it in the family almost. You all have been friends for how many years?" Mal said, nodding his head half an hour later as the three of them sat at a table.
"Getting close to six years." Kelsi replied, after noticing that Troy once again had a shocked look on his face and seemed unable to answer.
"So I was wondering then, if maybe tonight we could all get together for dinner since I need to leave tomorrow morning back for LA." Mal Jardine asked, smirking slightly as he noticed that Troy was in shock again.
"Excuse me." Troy said, standing up and walking outside.
"I'm guessing he isn't normally like this right?" Asked Mal. Kelsi shook her head sadly.
"Did you listen to the words of the song?" She asked as she watched Troy.
"Yes, who's the girl?"
"Gabriella Montez. She moved here when we were all juniors in high school and changed the whole school practically. She and Troy had some rough spots, but were in love. Dated for three and a half years when she suddenly announced that they had to get married before she went to study in London for a semester. He wouldn't do it since it obviously didn't make sense. We haven't seen or heard from her since. Troy's never been the same." Kelsi replied sadly , watching him look into the sky.
Troy took a deep breath once he got outside. He couldn't believe this was happening. All just because he wanted Gabriella back. This was all about her. Then again, everything in his life was practically all about her even if he hadn't seen her in years.
"I tell my blues they mustn't show but soon these tears are gonna show because it's raining, raining in my heart." He softly said, quoting Buddy Holly's song as he watched people walk by him with umbrellas. He didn't even know people owned umbrellas here.
He needed to move on. Even if this career he that had just been dropped upon him was all because of her, this wasn't healthy. Even if she came back, at this point it wouldn't be healthy either to take her back right away either. She would need to prove she was in it for the long haul. Because what if she just left again? She had done it twice before, no guaranteeing that she wouldn't do it again.
He looked up into the sky, letting the rain fall on his face, hiding his tears.
"So I'm thinking a theme to your songs will work well." Kelsi said, flipping through some of her sheet music.
"He probably doesn't even need that." Sharpay mumbled, looking over Kelsi's shoulder.
"Sharpay will you quit?" Kelsi asked, stopping on one of the pieces of music.
"No. Why does he become a hit even without a record? Stupid internet. It's been three months and the video of him singing is all around the freakin' world, one of the top emailed items in the past few months. I sang right before him, where are the videos of me? " She replied sulking.
Troy chuckled as he listened to the two of them. He looked around the recording studio nervously. Two and a half months later and here he was, about to record an album.
"What if we do a duet Sharpay, will that be better?" He asked, tapping the microphone, and grinning widely as he saw Chad on the other side of the glass take off a pair of headphones very quickly and yell 'Ow!'
"Really Troy?" Kelsi asked unbelievingly.
"Really Troy?!" Sharpay asked excitedly, practically jumping up and down.
"Why not? I don't really care as long as it's all of us doing this and not just me- but I have to agree to the song and the style. " He replied, holding his finger up at her.
"Who cares! I get to be on a CD!" She replied and hugged him.
"Because it's not like you couldn't have your own recording studio with the amount of money your daddy has." Kelsi muttered, shoving a sheet of music at Troy.
"Imagine that, he's not just my daddy anymore, he's yours now too." Sharpay replied smirking, tapping Kelsi's new wedding ring.
"Did I mention how sorry I am that you had to cancel your honeymoon?" Troy said, frowning.
"Don't worry about it Troy, this is what we've always wanted to do, remember?" Ryan replied, walking into the sound booth.
"Plus this way we will more likely have financial stability." Replied Kelsi distractedly handing Ryan a sheet of music. "What do you think of this one?"
"Seriously?" Ryan asked laughing a bit, he quit after stealing a glance at a glaring Kelsi. "Um, well I'm not sure if he can pull it off, takes a certain voice to do that."
"You like upbeat depressing love songs right Troy?" Kelsi asked, shuffling through some more of her music.
"Uh, sure." He said, moving to look at what Ryan was holding.
"Plus I absolutely love the piano part for the chorus on that song, it's an amazing harmony part." She said, holding out a huge stack of music to Troy.
"I'm not too sure that I can even try to live up to Frankie Valli's standards. I'm don't think I can quite sing high enough to do Walk Like a Man either." He said, taking the music from Kelsi, but still staring at the music Ryan was holding.
"Good morning everyone!" Mal said opening the door to the studio, "Kelsi, Ryan, Troy, and Sharpay – you mind coming out here? There's someone I'd like for you to meet."
"Ok," Troy muttered, putting down the stack of music and grabbing the sheet music for Walk Like A Man from Ryan. He really didn't think he could hit those notes.
"It's very nice to meet you." Said a female voice he didn't recognize. He looked up from the music to see a very pretty brunette shaking hands with Chad.
"Troy? This is my daughter, Lily Jardine. Lily, this is Troy Bolton. She's been bugging me for years to let her be more involved, but I told her that I didn't want just any band to have her, it had to be a special one. So I was hoping that you all wouldn't mind adding just one more person to your group? I figured it would also mean a little less stress on the rest of you having someone who's been around the business practically all their life." Mal asked, Sharpay scoff at the last part.
"It's so nice to meet you! I love your song! The video I saw was so amazing, can't wait to hear it in person." Lily said sincerely, shaking his hand before they could answer Mal.
"Thanks, nice to meet you too." Troy said, taken aback by her honesty and something else he couldn't place.
Lily then turned to Kelsi, "Your part was amazing too! You seem to have a distinct style to your music, I can't wait to hear what else you all are going to be doing."
"Thanks." Kelsi replied happily.
"Now do you all mind if she's your new manager/publicist/anything else you need?" Mal asked, putting his arm around Lily, causing her to roll her eyes.
"We don't mind, right?" Troy replied right away, looking for confirmation from everyone else quickly.
"Great! Well I'll be back later to see how everything is coming." Mal said taking his arm off of Lily's shoulder and clapping his hands before leaving the room.
"Sorry about my dad. Are you all sure you're fine with me?" Lily said looking a bit uncomfortable.
"No it's fine. Glad to have you aboard." Taylor said smiling at her.
"Thanks." Lily replied, smiling widely. "Now as my first act as your manager and anything else you might need, how about lunch orders? I'm going to go next door to the café. What do you all want?" She asked, pulling out a piece of paper and a pen.
Ten minutes later she had left to get the food and Chad hit Troy on the back. "Nice girl, huh?" He asked smiling widely, watching Troy.
"Yeah." Troy replied also smiling widely.
"Almost beautiful would you say?" Chad asked, smiling even wider.
"Definitely." Troy said cautiously, getting suspicious of how wide Chad's smile was.
"Dude, you totally like her." Chad said loudly, making Taylor slap the back of his head. "Would you quit doing that Taylor?" He said turning to her, but Troy wasn't listening to Chad anymore.
He had figured out what else about her had taken him aback. Her beauty.... he could like her…. Could he? It wasn't how he felt when he had met Gabriella though…
"So what are you going to do?" Chad asked, bringing Troy out of his revelation.
Troy could feel everyone in the room's eyes on him. He looked down to the music in his hand before looking back at Chad. "I'm going to walk like a man."
Hope you all liked that one! So I have to admit… I've gotten all these names from either music artists or books. I almost ended up with Lily being named Clara, then having the last name Clayton or McFly, but thankfully I didn't (I have watched all three Back to the Future movies twice in the past four days, I blame it on that). However, I resisted and ended up naming her Lily (blame Harry Potter). Mal Jardine is named after two musically inclined people, Al Jardine of the Beach Boys and Mal Rodgers who was on season 2 I believe of Nashville Stars and didn't end up making it very far due to a poor vote by a judge (seriously, he is AMAZING, I ended up not watching the rest of the season because he got kicked off). Also, to fully appreciate the last line of the chapter you probably need to look up the lyrics to Walk like a Man. Also sorry for yet another Buddy Holly reference in my stories, still a bit of my er-remembrance I guess you'd call it from February 3 (the 50th anniversary of the day the music died) hanging around.
Thanks for all the reviews! This chapter would've been out a whole lot sooner but fanfiction was being weird.