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Chapter 14
When Anne rejoined everyone, they were ready to play shows on the Iberian Peninsula, one date in Portugal and two in Spain. She had never been to Lisbon before, and Madrid and Barcelona had a bit milder weather than they had that summer, which was nice. All throughout the entire tour Anne had been having flashbacks from the last time she had been in Europe. She missed Howie and the rest of the guys. On their 'day off,' if you could call it that, everyone flew to Norway, where they were going to play their first of three dates in Scandinavia: Oslo, Copenhagen, and Helsinki. At those concerts Anne could have counted the number of brunettes she saw in the audience on one hand. Anne would have loved to get some skiing in, but there was not time.
On March 7th, Rose played Manchester, England. Even though the skies were grey, Anne still felt good. She had missed England, after this show there were only three shows left, then she could rest for a little while.
The next show was in Dublin, Ireland, she fell in love with the Irish countryside as she flew over it in a small plane, on the way to the city, everything was so green. Everywhere in Dublin she heard music. She did not want to leave, Anne had heard so much about the whole country she wanted to explore it, she wondered if Howie had ever been there, she guessed he had. That night before the show she talked to the band during the nightly 'band conference.'
"Tonight, after Lily, you're going to get a little extra time to change."
"Why Rosie? What's up?" Will asked.
"After we do Lily, I'm going to play an Irish song at the piano by myself. You guys are off the hook."
"Hey thanks," Mickey said.
Later Emily pulled Anne aside. "Annie, what's with the solo work?"
"I could have sworn I told you this. Well this is something I learned from touring with the guys, suck up to the audience you're playing for, make it something personal they will get a kick out of. If it means singing a song in French or playing an Irish song, you do it, it helps. When you see them, watch, they do it. Damn, I need to remind Mickey to leave the Union Jack boots in the dressing room tonight. I'm not sure this crowd would like those."
"I bet you're right, but I'll tell him. Ooh check out the latest postcard I'm sending my parents."
Anne looked at the card addressed to Emily's parents. Anne read the card out loud, "Haha, I'm still on the tour, we're in Ireland, I'm making money and being successful, and without any of your guilt trips. So you could just kiss my..."Anne trailed off. "Um, Em, are you sure that last comment was the best way to close something you're sending to your parents?"
"You should have seen the one I sent from Paris. This is just my little way of reminding them that they couldn't manipulate me. I'm the one who got away, I got out when I was seventeen."
"I remember, Em, I helped you move out. I'm just saying maybe it's time to make peace and speak to them again."
"Hell no, not until they finally admit they were always scared that any of us would be successful. I don't know if I'll ever forgive my mom for all the stuff she did to my grandma."
"I remember all that crap. Who is that other postcard for?" Anne asked, seeing another post card in Emily's possession.
"This is the one for Grandma. 'Grandma, I'm in Ireland now, it's beautiful here, I'm having so much fun. I'll see you soon, I'll be home for a quick visit in a week or so. Love, Emily.' I love her more than I ever loved either of those two," Emily coldly said about her parents.
All throughout the tour Mickey and Emily had been getting closer, after Anne had returned from the Grammy Awards Mickey confided in her that he had been kicking around the idea of asking her out for a while.
"So should I? I mean I like her and all, I don't know if I should."
"Why not, Mickey? If you like her go for it, you're nice, good looking, what do you have to lose?"
"I just don't know, I'm worried about my past. You know me, I've got so much shit behind me, I just hope it doesn't come up and bite me in the ass. I don't want to blow my chance with her."
"Mickey, you're making too much out of this. So what? You screwed up a few times as a kid, it's not like you killed anybody. And all that stuff with Cathy, you tried to save her, no one blames you. Ask her out, go for it."
Emily and Mickey got along great, and were able to draw what they needed from the other. They made a good couple, seeing them together made Anne miss Howie, she was just glad she was going to see him in a week.
That night after Lily, the band went back for the first costume change, Anne walked in a spotlight to the piano on the left side of the stage. She sat down, the bright lights of the stage reflected off of her white top and skirt.
"How is everyone doing tonight?" she asked. "Do you know what? I was talking to the band before we all came on and I found out I'm the only person without a drop of Irish blood in them. Well it sucks. I would love to be Irish. I've never met nicer people anywhere in the world."
She heard a man shout over the cheering, "We still love you anyway, Rose."
"Why thank you," she replied. "Well I want to take some time right now to play a beautiful song I absolutely love, if you know it, feel free to sing along." She played and sang the old Irish song, The Last Rose of Summer, and heard much of the crowd singing along. It was one of those songs that most native Irish people knew by heart. After she was done the band played an instrumental while Anne quickly changed. The rest of the show went great.
After the show the entire band went out to a local pub. The music was loud and people sang and danced. Everyone downed a few pints of Guinness. While Anne was sitting at the bar, a young man about her age came up to her and started talking to her. It took her a little while to realize how drunk he really was.
"I really must be going," Anne said, looking at the rest of the band who was not sitting at a table on the other side of the pub. Anne got up to leave, the man grabbed her wrist.
Every living creature has the 'fight or flight' instinct, although she was not quite sure why, but Anne was caught in a situation like that, the switch always flipped to 'fight,' her normally rational thinking went out the window.
"Please let me go," Anne calmly said. The man only gripped her wrist even tighter. She wrenched free of the man's grip, when he tried to grab her again she happened to grab a hold of some of his fingers that were clenched around her upper arm. She jerked them back and felt a faint pop, she did not mean to. He let out a roar of curses, and grabbed his hand, but felt very little pain, the alcohol in his blood made him virtually numb. Mickey rushed over to see what the commotion was, the bartender also came over to see what had happened.
"Oh my God, Rosie, are you okay? What happened?"
"He grabbed me, and wouldn't let me go. I didn't mean to hurt him, it's just I was scared."
"It's all right miss. Patrick," the bartender called out to a young man behind the bar. "Take Joseph home, make sure his sister puts him to bed."
"Aye, Finn, come on Joseph let's go home."
"You always were a bit of a spitfire weren't you, Rosie?" asked Mickey. "Let's go back and sit down. God I'm sorry I wasn't there to tell that guy to get lost." Mickey had always seen a lot of Cathy in Anne, because of this he was fiercely protective of her.
The tour rolled into London the next day, again Anne felt a sense of being 'home.' When she got into her hotel room that afternoon, she placed a call over to Katie and basically rented out Kelly's for the following night, after the final show. People loved Rose in England, she guessed perhaps it was because they sort of thought of her as one of their own. When the lights faded after Stars that final night she was free. Shirley Manson came back and visited with Rose for a while, she liked the show. One hour later everyone, band, crew, and Anne all headed over to Kelly's.
"Rosie, I am so glad to see you," Katie said as she greeted Anne at the door. "My, my, my, you have brought quite a few people with you."
"This is my whole supporting cast, Katie. They are the reason I could pull off this insanity." The staff seated everyone on the left side of the restaurant. Kelly's was big enough where Rose's entourage could sit on one side, and there would be room for the Les Mis people when they showed up, they would be there soon.
Anne stood up at her table and clinked her spoon on her Guinness glass. "I just want to thank all of you for making this one hell of a month. I couldn't have done any of this without all of you, and I can't wait until we do the same thing in the U.S. in a few weeks. I owe all of you a lot." Anne raised her glass and took a drink, everyone joined her. Anne sat down and continued to eat her food.
"We've got to stop meeting like this," a voice behind Anne said. She smiled, and everyone at her table looked perplexed.
"Well what can I say, Scottie, the service is good, but they always have those damn Les Mis kids running around," said Anne, still seated. She stood up and gave Scottie a huge hug, he picked her up a little. "God I've missed you guys."
"Rosie, you have to come over and say hello to everyone."
Anne got up from her seat and walked with Scott over to where the cast was sitting. Tonight there were a rather large number of cast members there, and with Rose's party there, Kelly's was jumping. Anne nonchalantly sat down at a table with Ryan, Shelly, Scottie and Graham.
"Oh, it's you," Ryan coolly said. Anne knew he was joking.
"It's nice to see you too, Ryan," Anne replied. Ryan had left the Broadway cast and had come back to the West End. He did not like being away from Shelly, and four thousand miles put a bit of a strain on their pocketbooks and their young marriage. "Hello Shelly, or should I say Mrs. Hayes. Graham."
"Hello Rosie," Shelly said. "It's been too long."
"You look well, Rose," Graham added.
"Thank you." It was strange to have Anne's two worlds come together like this. Each regarded the other with an uneasy disdain.
"Rosie, I see you are without your dashing companion," Scott commented.
"Yes, he's on another U.S. tour right now."
"Good for him," Scott replied. "Do you think you would like to play the toast for old times sake?"
"I'd love to." Anne played the Drink With Me toast. She sang along with her Les Mis friends as her tour friends watched, a few of them knew the words but did not sing along. That night when Anne left Kelly's was especially hard or her. She felt that chapter of her life closing for good, and it hurt. She did not want to give up doing the theatre if she could, but she knew her days as Eponine were over. For the second night in a row Anne was caught out in the cold London rain.
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