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Chapter 16
After the No Doubt show Anne and Howie went to Los Angeles for a few days, he did some acting readings and Anne relaxed and did a little shopping before they headed back to New York. When they were back in the big apple, Anne talked to her lawyer, Peter, he put some people from his firm to work to see if she had a case.
"Rose, who does your books?" Ben, one of the lawyers working with Anne asked, he specialized in contract law.
"An accountant at Jake's office, why?"
"Something here is not adding up. Why don't you have your own accountant?"
"I did for a little while, but Jake said this would be easier, you know, kill two birds with one stone."
"That's not what I wanted to hear. Rose, if I did my math right, this is how much money you have right about now."
"Yeah that looks about right, but I think it would be a little more because some of my stocks are doing well."
"Well that may be, but I checked the numbers for your deals, and I keep getting a number that isn't that one. Okay let me break this down for you, okay this is how much you got for signing with your old company, and you had eight points for the album, and There and Back sold 2.3 million in the end, okay so we would have this so far," he said as he punched the numbers into a calculator. "Now this is how much you got when Columbia bought out the other company, and here's how much you got from Jive, the tour and the Lilith dates, and the money from you doing promotion and merchandising, so, so far you should have about $1.33 million, after taxes and management fees. Right here is where we run into problems."
"What do you mean?"
"Well look here," he said pulling out other papers. "It says right here you only got about $1.26 million, so as of right now you're out around seventy thousand dollars. Now I was messing with these numbers last night and I think I know how these numbers were 'adjusted,' if you get my drift. If I do the exact same thing but only give you seven points on the album, ooh lookie here, I get about $1.26 million."
"You're saying I was cheated out of money?"
"Uh huh, and it gets worse, I did the same thing for this year and compared the new deal, where you should have gotten nine points, and you should have gotten about $3.5 million and you only got, well you only got about $2.45 million. So let me just add the numbers up right here, all right, and subtract this. Well, well, well, we have a minor discrepancy that adds up to about one million dollars. That's just bad business, I hope whoever Jake's accountant is, just has a bad calculator, or they are in for some problems."
Anne was furious, she felt betrayed, one million dollars is a lot of money, money that should have been hers. With this new evidence Peter told Anne she could get out of her contract with Jacob. She wrote him a letter informing him of her decision to seek new management, but did not mention the money. The moment Jacob read the letter he stormed over to the studio where Rose was working on a cut for a soundtrack, she and the band, her road band had now become her studio band also, were rehearsing before they actually started recording. Jacob burst into the studio, he did not care that the tapes were rolling. Howie was sitting with the producer and the engineer in the booth, he stood up in alarm when he saw Jacob come in. The entire band stopped playing, Jacob walked right up to Anne, his face was three inches from hers.
"Rose, what the fuck is this?" Jacob screamed, holding up Anne's crumpled letter.
"Jake, plain and simple, I want out," Anne calmly replied.
Howie had quietly left the booth and entered the studio, Mickey had gotten out from behind his drum kit, and moved toward them, he was prepared to separate them if the need arose.
Jacob's next comment started out calm enough, but by the last word he was screaming at the top of his lungs. "Rose, I made you, if you think you can just brush me aside, then you are horribly MISTAKEN!"
"You can't stop me, Jake, they showed me the books. I want my money back, you lying bastard!" she yelled back at him.
Jacob snapped. He drew his right arm back and hit Anne across the top of her right cheek with the back of his open hand, hard. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion, Anne could see it coming, but could not react fast enough to brace herself, she collapsed in a pile on the floor. "That is for talking back to me you stupid, fat, little bitch!" Howie rushed to Anne's side, and helped her up off the floor, she was stunned for a split second, she had her hand against the side of her right eye. Mickey's temper snapped, he was so enraged he did not even think about what he was going to do. Jacob was a good size guy, at 6', and 190 some pounds, his muscular stature backed up his bullying personality, he was a little intimidating, but Mickey was bigger, and stronger, he had a good three inches and twenty pounds of muscle on Jacob. He punched him as hard as he could with a quick one/two combination to the face and stomach, Jacob let out a grunt of pain and fell back against the wall behind him and slid to the floor, pity, the wall was padded.
"Get up you coward!" Mickey ordered Jacob. "Only a coward hits a woman. Those were for my sister and Rosie, and I swear on my sister's grave, if you ever, I mean ever lay a finger on her again, I will beat you within an inch of your life, for myself. Do you understand? Get out."
Jacob slowly got to his feet, his lip was bleeding. "Mickey, you'll pay for that, your ass will be in jail. I'll sue you for every penny you're worth, it's a shame I won't be getting very much money, but that's the way the check bounces," Jacob let out a sickening laugh. Mickey snarled and half lunged at him, Jacob quickened his pace to the door.
"Jake, I'm not afraid of you anymore. You are an arrogant, base, avarice, pit viper, and I am going to get out of my contract with you," Anne called out to him.
"What did you just call me?"
"Why don't you get a dictionary and find out?" Jacob finally stormed out, much to the relief of everyone in the studio. Anne finally showed the pain she was in, and lightly touched her eye which was beginning to swell, and to check if it was bleeding, it was a bit. "Seriously, do they teach you guys how to do that or something? Ah, fuck that hurts," she said as she touched her eye again. "Every time, it's right here, is there like some target that pops up on a woman's face when a man goes to hit her, so he can get her in the most painful place?" Anne said shakily.
"Here," Will said, handing Anne some ice.
Mickey grumbled almost inaudibly. "Foster, that bastard, I'd like to give him a piece of my mind." He cracked his knuckles. "Asshole, nobody calls me poor, not anymore."
"That's going to be really purple," Howie said, and kneeled down beside the chair Anne was sitting in and examined her eye. "Keep the ice on it."
"Fun, a battle scar," Anne tried to joke.
"Let me take you home," Howie said. "I think after everything that went on today, maybe we should stop." Everyone agreed. Howie took Anne back to her apartment. By that evening there was a violet crescent encircling much of Anne's right eye, and a thin cut about a quarter of an inch long, from Jacob's ring, decorated the darkest part which was a lovely shade of purplish-maroon, the surrounding areas were lavender and yellow. Every time Anne left her apartment she wore her sunglasses, she did not care if the sun had already set or not, she did not want anyone to see her in her current state, she was ashamed of the way she looked. That night, the night of the 'incident,' as the lawyers would later refer to it, Howie and Anne decided just to stay inside. After they changed into their pajamas, they curled up together to watch a movie. Part way through Anne drifted off, as did Howie, he awoke just enough, hours later, to use the remote to turn off the television, which was now playing some inane infomercial, the VCR had long since rewound the tape automatically. He fell back asleep with Anne still in his arms. In his dreams he decided he would never let anything bad happen to Anne again. He did not care about any of the ghosts in her past, he just wanted her to have a happy future, and would try to do everything in his power to make sure that would happen.
The next month for Anne everyone connected with Rose was a mess. She had her lawyers file a lawsuit against Jacob to get her out of her contract with him and to try and get at least part of her missing money back. It soon evolved into a squabble about whom exactly 'owned' the name 'The Rose.' Jacob was able to freeze Anne freedom to work, and she did not mind a bit, this was her first real 'vacation' in a long time, she enjoyed not having to jump through hoops daily, she fully recovered her health. While she and Jacob's lawyers were battling out a solution, Anne took a trip to Florida to see Howie. The more time she spent in the warm climate the more she liked it, each time she had come to the state it made leaving more difficult, although she did like Michigan summers. Anne was doing well, now, Jacob on the other hand was another story. For about a week he was involved in another lawsuit, he had attempted to sue Mickey for assault, for the time when he punched him in the recording studio. After his lawyer, who was also one of his good friends looked over all the details, he informed Jacob the lawsuit was not in his best interest.
"Jake, it's not worth it. No judge in the state of New York would buy it."
"Are you sure, Sam?"
"Not when they found out why the Shumaker kid hit you. I just hope that girl's lawyer doesn't get a hold of that tape, or you're screwed. Look, the best you could hope for is an apology, you're better off letting this one go."
"Well, thanks for trying, Sam."
"It's no problem, Jake. Mary keeps bugging me to have you join us for dinner sometime. Tonight we're having dinner out at Tavern on the Green, we'd love to have you and-Cynthia is it, join us?"
"That sounds fine, well, I'll see you tonight."
"I'll have my secretary add you two to the reservation." Jacob and Sam had been old money, good old boys together during college at Harvard. Jacob did not go into his line of work for the money, initially, he had just thought it was a good way to meet celebrities, he found he liked it, he could call the shots and make good money doing it.
The dispute between Rose and Jacob rolled right through April and right into May, Jacob's lawyers' strategy was to drag out the trial as long as possible and 'starve Anne out.' She was still under contract to his firm, Jacob hoped she would run out of money and come back to work for him. Anne did not buy into it, she knew what she was doing, she lived quite comfortably in her home in Michigan for much of April, and commuted back to New York the last week, because she needed to be in court.
Things had been going fairly smoothly in Anne's personal life, despite the fact she could not work, she still thought things were going quite well. Anne did what she enjoyed, went to Broadway shows, and wrote. Jacob could not stop her from writing. She just could not record any of it. She went jogging in Central Park one morning, and she was just past the John Lennon memorial close to her apartment when she knew this has been a bad idea. It was oppressively hot. The sun beat down on anything unlucky enough to be subjected to its rays. She had completed her loop and was headed back to her apartment. Up ahead she saw the entire path clogged with high school aged students, many of whom were wearing bright yellow T-shirts.
"Wonderful," Anne thought as she moved past them on the grass. The image on one of the shirts caught her eye. "Wait a second, well I'll be God dammed, I don't believe it." She stopped and opened her mouth to talk to one of the kids and found herself face to face with the last person she ever expected to run into in New York. "Mr. Wangeman?" she said surprised.
"Anne? Hi, what are you doing here?"
"I live here. I was going to ask you the same thing." She walked with him while they talked.
"The choir trip."
"I guessed," Anne said pointing to one of the T-shirts, with "Haslett High School, Choir Tour 2000," emblazoned on the back. "So how have you been here?"
"Since Friday, we leave Monday."
"That's so weird you're here." Anne's senior year the choir trip had also been to New York. "So did you see any shows yet?"
"Aida, on Friday, it was amazing, and then Lion King, last night, the only thing I liked was the opening, and the elephant, I just hope it was because of where we were sitting."
"I finally saw Aida last week. It was some good stuff. Unfortunately, Adam Pascal, Radames, was out for some reason, so I caught his understudy, Eric, he did a great job. He lives in my building, I hope he takes over when Adam eventually leaves."
"That guy, Eric, black hair, I guess 5'10" or so?"
"Yep."
"We saw him too. He did a nice job."
"What else did you guys do since you were here?"
"Well we sang down at St. John's Friday, and we sang at the Intrepid yesterday, and this afternoon we're going to do a clinic with a Broadway actor."
"Well that's cool, what's his name?"
"Tim Shew, it didn't ring a bell with me, but he's supposed to be a nice guy."
"Tim? You're meeting with Tim? No way, that's awesome. I sang with him this winter, he's Jean Valjean in Les Mis, he's such a cool guy, you'll get a kick out of him." Anne realized she had been talking too much, she noticed the blond woman walking on the other side of Mr. Wangeman, was looking a little left out. "Well, I think I'd better just chill for a while, give my voice a rest." Mr. Wangeman took this subtle cue and introduced the woman next to him.
"Sorry, this is my wife, Theresa, Theresa, this was one of my first choir students, Anne Gray, who has made a bit of a name for herself as The Rose."
"Ah, I see."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, I remember you from way back when, when you were still Miss Hayward," Anne commented.
"Yes, that was me. So, Anne, are you staying in New York for long?"
"For a while, business, I'm working on changing management at the moment, and if everything works out I hopefully will be out on the road again before the end of the year."
"Well that would be nice," Mrs. Wangeman replied.
Anne looked over to her right and noticed they had passed the sign saying they were back in the Strawberry Fields section of the park, a few moments later they crossed the large 'Imagine' memorial.
"I'm afraid I must be going," Anne said. "It's been nice seeing some Haslett people again, I hope you have a nice time during the rest of your trip." Anne said goodbye, and started walking toward the street. One of the choir girls she knew waved to her, she waved back, and then crossed the busy street and went right in her building, which was on the corner.
The trial plodded on, eventually the lawyers ended up in a stalemate. The judge who was overseeing the case stepped in, and made a decision. Everyone had to be in court that day. The judge, Elizabeth Stanek, addressed Jacob.
"Mr. Foster, for the past two months, I have found it very hard to like you. You are arrogant and greedy. Your firm has embezzled more than one million dollars that rightly should have been Miss Gray's, and your best explanation was there an error was made by your bookkeeping software. Every day when I learned of your verbal, emotional, and physical abuse of Miss Gray, I liked you less and less. You think just because you have money you can boss people around, well not in my courtroom, mister. Justice is supposed to be blind, but, Mr. Foster, she sees quite clearly when a man hits a woman. I am dissolving the contract between Miss Gray and your firm, and I am turning over the control of the name, 'The Rose' to her. In addition to the one million dollars you withheld from her, I am also going to award her an additional five million dollars in punitive damages."
"Ouch, that's going to hurt his wallet," Anne thought. There was an overwhelming sense of elation from her side of the courtroom. She was now free, Jacob was in her past, and had no control over her anymore. Even if Jacob did try and appeal, she still was free, the money was just an added bonus, really, what mattered to her was she was her own boss now. Anne quickly went back to work on the music she had promised to do for the movie before, and after it was completed she continued her extended vacation a few more weeks. The first week in June she went down to Florida to visit Howie.
"I love the freedom and all, but Jake was there from the beginning, it's scary not having someone there to help call the shots.""I understand. We lived it too."
"I need someone I can trust, someone who will let me do want."
"What about out guys, The Firm? They're good and they won't take you for all you're worth."
"Would they take me? I don't exactly fit their normal mold for clients."
"Neither did we. Baby, there must be a dozen high-powered people trying to get your contract, they would love to have you."
Howie was right. There were over a dozen big names trying to get Rose to sign a management deal. Anne decided perhaps he had a point, and within a week she had been 'adopted' by The Firm. She liked Jeff, the head of the Firm, she could not believe all the freedom she had under her new contract. When Anne went home, she threw a suitcase, tent and guitar in the trunk of her car, put her dog in the backseat, drove off. She decided to see the country on her own time and relax in the process, before she headed back out on the road in a few weeks.
Her cell phone rang, rushed to dig it out of her purse, she was not expecting any calls. "Hello?"
"Annie, it's Howie, where are you?"
"West Virginia, why?"
"What are you doing in West Virginia?" he asked, that was the last answer he expected to hear.
"Camping. Just me and the dog." Elise barked at the mention of the word 'dog' she knew Anne was talking about her.
"I've been trying to get a hold of you for a week now, I take it you haven't been to either of your homes?"
"Not since last Friday."
"Then you wouldn't have gotten it in the mail."
"Got what?"
"Annie, can you be in Kentucky this weekend?"
"Sure, I guess, what's in Kentucky?"
"Kevin and Kristin's wedding, it's really small and hush-hush, they just mailed out the invitations, last week."
"Oh you bet, I'll be there, give me the details," Anne said and rummaged through her purse to find a piece of paper and a pen, and scribbled down the information Howie had given her over the phone. She chatted with Howie for a few more minutes. Anne arrived in Lexington the day before the wedding, and knew she had nothing to wear, she had not planned on needing dress clothes on her camping trip. She went to the local mall and bought a long flowing light blue dress with flowers on it. Also, she picked up some strappy white dress sandals.
The service was reasonably short as weddings go, it was beautiful, Kristin looked amazing, Anne had never seen Kevin look so happy in all of his life, there were tears in his eyes the entire time. Kevin's brother, Jerald was best man, he looked so happy for his brother. The other four Backstreet guys were there, they all were happy for Kevin, and for his discreetness when he decided on the date of the wedding, there was not a person from the press for miles. Anne was on the verge of crying for the entire service. She always had been a sucker for romantic moments, after the service there was a small reception. Anne went, and afterward had to begin her trip home to prepare for the tour. Kevin and Kristin were off to Europe on their honeymoon, they were half way to Italy before anyone in the media knew what had happened.
After her 'vacation' she went back out on the road, this tour was going to be fun. She was going to play forty shows, but at a much more reasonable pace. She kicked off in New Orleans on June 22nd, the plan was to play two or three shows and then have a day or two off, depending where they were. It was going to be a real day off, not just a travel day.
The tour took them out west, each time The Rose went out on the road the venues got larger and larger. Anne was thrilled about Rose's success. She was amazed more than anything else. She was amazed that all these people had bought her album. Crossroads had just inched over the six million mark worldwide. It never had reached higher than number ten on Billboard, but had sold steadily, while a lot of it was due to word of mouth, the singles, Why and Stars, also helped a lot. While MTV had virtually ignored her videos, Vh1, had picked her up, and she got regular air play. Anne was also amazed how many people wanted to see her perform.
After the show in Phoenix, at the Desert Sky Pavilion, Anne took the whole band up to see the Grand Canyon, no one had ever been there except Lucy and herself. They spent the night in Flagstaff, Anne loved the area, it reminded her of Northern Michigan, except for the fact that Humphrey's Mountain was a fixture in the skyline, and there were no mountains in Michigan, well, technically there was one, but it barely passed the height requirements. They played a dozen dates in California, two in Los Angeles alone, Anne did not care for Southern California much, although going to Hollywood was fun, everyone was like tourists. Anne thought Northern California, Washington and Oregon were beautiful, but it rained more than water the night of the Seattle show. After the show Anne hauled out her laptop and checked her email, since she had received hate email the year before she had to change her private address twice. She saw she had a message from a Haslett person she knew. Lynn was a high school student, six years Anne's junior, Anne had baby sat for when she was in high school herself. Lynn was a lot like her, and they had both noticed several parallels in their lives, Lynn supplied Anne with, "the Haslett hookup," news on what was going on back in their hometown. Anne had seen Lynn the day she saw the choir students in Central Park. She opened the message with the title "It's bad..." and was concerned by the title. "Anne, I'm sorry to be the barer of bad news, but I think you need to know since you were friends with Josh and all. Mrs. Hamilton died this morning, everyone knew this last month that it was the end, the funeral is Thursday. They are setting up a music scholarship in her name. I will send you all the information I can about everything. I hope you're having a great time. Talk to you later, Lynn."
Anne was enraged, ever since she had heard Mrs. Hamilton had cancer she thought it had been incredibly unfair, Mrs. Hamilton was one of the coolest and nicest people Anne had ever met. Anne went to school with her eldest son, Josh, for six years, for the first four he had been a first rate jerk to her, but in the final two he actually earned her respect, during their senior year Anne would have been proud to call Josh her friend. Lynn had known the youngest of the three Hamilton children, Jeff, for about nine years now. Everyone connected with the family at all was adjusting to the shock. Anne started typing on a blank screen, she gritted her teeth, tears welled up in her eyes, the words just came out. "Okay God, you and me, right now, let's go. All right, first things first, why Mrs. Hamilton, huh? What the hell did she ever do to you? All she ever wanted to do was take care of her husband and her kids. You know they are good kids, God, why would you go and hurt them like that. Seriously who's next? Who are you going to give cancer to now? Why don't you just give me cancer now too, huh?"
Anne felt better, still angry, but better, she'd had it out with God, and decided perhaps the best way she could support the family was with a sympathy card and her checkbook. She just wanted the world to pause, to reflect on what had happened, a really cool lady had died, and three kids were now without their mother. But the world kept on spinning, that night everything Anne did just seemed to go in slow motion. As it had to, the tour rolled on, they played four dates in Texas, and hit Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Salt Lake City. Playing Denver was odd, she could still see snow on the tops of the mountains, and it was August.
On one of their two day breaks Anne managed to fly to Florida for Howie's birthday, this year. They spent as much time together as possible, because they were not sure when they would see each other again. After dinner they sat on the couch, relaxed, talked and watched some tv.
"Annie, I've been wondering, you can avoid the press like the plague. With all the stuff that has happened in the last year how come no stories get out to the tabloids, I mean I half-expected you to be all over the headlines of the Inquirer, after you were in the hospital for a little while."
"Simple, Howie, when we first started out on this tour everyone agreed not to talk about what they would see. Whether it's someone doing something they shouldn't, or if someone is sick, or what. Band business is band business and no one else's. We made a pact, if you want to air and laundry you do it in private, no press."
"Hmm. That sounds like a really good idea. How do you get everyone to do it?"
"Everyone signed contracts in blood."
Howie rolled his eyes, he knew she was kidding.
They happened to flip by MTV and saw a few seconds of a commercial for the 2000 VMA's, Howie had an annoyed look on his face.
"You aren't still pissed about that are you?" Anne asked, surprised.
"Maybe a little, we are one of the most popular groups on that entire damn channel and we get nothing, but look at some of the stuff that gets chosen?"
"All right, you got screwed, so what? Let's face it. This year they did a pretty shitty job of picking stuff, The Thong Song? I mean there must be some better videos out there than that piece of crap. I can think of about three videos that deserved it more than some of these: Show Me The Meaning, Unpretty, and Simple Kind Of Life. Sometimes I think that channel wouldn't know an insightful video if it bit them in the ass. But come on, on a scale of one to ten, exactly how important is this?"
"Four. I'm just saying it hurts, we got the shaft, we've won awards the past two years and now not even one damn nomination."
"You're making too much out of this."
"How would you know how this feels? You've never even been nominated for one." Howie said, letting off steam, the instant the words left his lips he knew he had said too much, Anne went white. "I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to say that."
"It's all right," Anne said, with a little waiver in her voice. "You're right. I don't know what it feels like. But I do know what it feels like to be passed over in the first place, just because you're not some eighteen-year-old blond who struts around half naked in her videos. They'll give me an Oscar before they give me a VMA."
"The VMA's suck, how about we don't even show up this year?" Howie joked. "Yeah, we'll go t.p. their limos while they're having their little 'awards show,' instead."
"Hell yeah! Let's do it," Anne smiled, they slapped hands. They were kidding about the toilet papering, but they were still undecided if they were going to make an appearance. It would be a week before they had to make that decision.
Anne left Florida the next day and rejoined her band in St. Louis, after that show they moved onto Kansas City, and Minneapolis. Anne was wandering around backstage after sound check, it was deserted, everyone was still at dinner break. She spotted Mickey from a distance. He was sitting on some equipment cases, and was tossing something in the air nervously, as she approached she realized it was a ring box.
"Michael Anthony Shumaker, is that what I think it is?" Mickey jumped at the sound of her voice.
"Oh, Rosie, it's you, I didn't hear you coming," he said, looked around for anyone else to be coming and buried the velvet box in his pocket.
"Okay, fess up, what was that?" Anne asked.
"If you promise to keep it down, I'll show it to you." Mickey pulled the small square box out of his pocket and opened it so Anne could examine the contents.
"Oh it's beautiful," Anne said as she studied the white-gold diamond solitaire ring inside. "If I didn't know better I'd say there was a whole carat here," she looked at the stone in the light, the six prongs glittered as brightly as the facets on the gem. "When did you get this?"
"Yesterday, I've been looking for about two weeks now."
"When are you going to ask her?"
"I don't know yet, I have to get up the courage first."
"Mickey, I think it's a great idea, but don't you think it's a bit soon? It's only been what-six months?"
"I know it's short, but I love her more than anything, I'll go nuts without her."
Anne smiled. "Well if you're going to do it now, you'd better do it now, or wait until you get back to New York, I mean the day tomorrow is her last show."
"I know, I know." Emily had accepted a job at a small New York City private school called, Huntington Academy, which was just a fancy name for a 'rich-blue-blood-students-only-if-you-please' school. It may have not been the most diverse environment, but it payed extremely well, even to teachers without tenure. Emily was leaving the tour early so she could prepare for the school year, she had two weeks to do it, but that would be undoubtedly be cutting to too close for comfort.
The next night there was not a show, and Mickey took Emily out to dinner at a very nice restaurant. Under some false pretense he ordered champagne. After it had arrived, he waited until the waiter diverted her attention for a moment and silently dropped the ring into her glass, she was talking so she did not hear the faint clink as it hit the bottom. After the waiter left she went to take a drink and noticed the foreign object in her glass, she held it up to inspect it. She smiled. Mickey took her hand in his, her hand began to shake, he knelt down in front of her.
"Emily, will you marry me?" Tears of joy welled up in the corners of her eyes, her throat closed up she could not speak, she nodded yes. Mickey was overjoyed, he brought her hand to his lips and kissed it, then he straightened up, put his strong arms around her waist squeezed her tightly and kissed her on the mouth, he did not want to let her go. Finally he did, and returned to his seat. The next morning Emily boarded a plane for New York, Mickey was somber, the only thing that cheered him up was the fact that he would see her in a week, and she was wearing the ring on her finger.
Everyone survived the final two dates on the tour, Madison, and then they put the tour to rest in Milwaukee on the 30th. Everyone returned to New York, and Howie joined Anne there the first week in September. The guys were promoting their single, It's True, from thier Burger King promotion, which would be on their new album. Howie and Anne went out that night and had a few drinks to celebrate the end of the tour, among other things.
"Baby, do you realize how long we've been together?" Howie asked, his speech was a little fuzzy.
"Over a year," Anne replied, a little foggy herself.
"Over a year," Howie said, her reply had not registered. They had each put away two or three drinks too many, and were pretty out of it, not at the point of being 'stupid drunk,' but past the point where things tended to 'slip.' They were beginning to say things that they had never consciously thought of when they were sober.
"It was one hell of a year, wasn't it, baby?" Anne asked, with slurred speech.
"Yes it was. Our album blew up. Your album blew up."
"I wouldn't say mine did."
"Six point five-six point five million, worldwide, isn't nothin' to stick a shake at."
"Shake a stick at?"
"That's what I said." They both cracked up. "Anyway, we sold out our tours. You sold your tours. Kevin got married. Brian is getting married in a couple of weeks. You know what Annie, I'm gonna marry you someday," Howie slurred out. Anne nodded, his last comment did not register, she took another sip of her drink. It was unfortunate they both had ingested so much alcohol, because neither of them remembered any of the conversation. Howie and Anne both woke up the following afternoon with splitting headaches, Anne was entangled in the blankets on her bed, and Howie was curled up on the couch, they took a cab home the night before.
"Now I remember why I don't drink like that very often," Anne said, when she was talking to Howie that evening, after their hangovers had faded.
"Tell me about it, I took four Advil, it didn't help."
"Try six, that's how many I took," Anne said. That week Anne decided she needed to simplify her life, she looked over her investments and decided to sell off her property in Northern Michigan, she did not use it enough anyway. She also entertained the idea of getting out of the city, but she worked out of New York, so it would not be practical.
Since Anne was done with touring her thoughts turned to her next album, she wanted to raise the bar a bit, so earlier in the summer she had enrolled in some music classes at NYU, for the fall, so she could develop her musicianship further. Also Emily and Mickey had decided on a very small, simple wedding that also was very soon, and they had asked Anne to help, so between that and school she did not have much free time, but she was used to that.
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