176:

With a trembling breath she focused on Michael once more. "Booked a gig for me? What are you talking about? What venue? These things have to be reserved or planned for, you don't just book a gig for a Friday night."

"I asked a couple of other musicians to come do a couple of videos with you, you're so far behind, and half the industry is pushing for the videos. It's a godsend that you got this awesome footage, and were quick enough to snatch it up from Marc."

"Okay," She took a deep breath of relief. 

Austin was gone, Lisa was gone, she was diffused, her heart rate was slowly returning to normal, and her eyesight was clear. She could pretend to focus on Michael "I thought you meant something else. I thought you meant a live performance."

"I do mean that. But I've had a couple of guys set it all up to maximize the time for you. Friday night and Saturday should do it."

"Who'd you get to do it with me?" she asked, forcing more cheerfulness, while suddenly her heart was plummeting. New people... new personalities, what would they want from her?

"You know Eric Michaels? Rod Sangera?"

Tracy was stunned. Did she know Eric Michaels? One of the greatest guitarists... Rod Sangera.... He had his own band, they were really good, he was very popular....

"Are you serious?"

Michael was laughing. He was pleased with her astonished reaction. "I thought you could use some good news right now, babe." He had no idea how relieving the news was actually, she rolled her inward eye. He chuckled wetly. That was just Michael. He tended to burble when he was really pleased.

"That's really good news, and you know how I hate trying to come up with stuff for the videos, I'm so glad you arranged that. Who did you get for that?"

"Some guys out of LMS. They're good, you don't know them."

"Do I have to do anything? What songs? Are they done yet, wait, this isn't typical, usually you have this long drawn out process for me, pick the song, pick the atmosphere, pick the story line, pick—"

Michael was hooting gleefully now. "I know, I know! But you've become one of those people we like to call a super artist around here. You don't have time for all that, and you can afford to hire people to take care of all the details."

"Now wait a minute. Phil Collins always does his own planning and all that. I don't want to be out of the loop completely. What if I have ideas?" she was struggling to understand the term 'super artist'. Back in the day, when Pepper's was really big, they'd been called that. And they'd hired somebody else to arrange the venues, to come up with the show, to storyboard the videos.... But once that was over, none of them on their own had been that big....

 Not to mention she was essentially broke. She'd had to borrow money from her dad and Richard...

"Michael..." he was still cackling uncontrollably.

"Have you seen the charts?"

"You know I don't have time for that. Tell me the charts like you always do."

"You've crossed over." He said seriously.

Tracy sighed. She hated it when his terminology left her in the dust. "What?"

"You're number one on the pop charts, and number one on the rock charts, and number one sales in all categories all over the country, a regular phenomenon."

She sat up. "Number one for what? Have I been putting out music? What are you on about? I haven't played since New Year's."

"You've been putting out a lot of music, babe. Right before Christmas remember, you were in the studio every day."

"But nothing was solid, Michael, nothing was serious, and I never consulted on jackets, or layout, or...." She was dismayed at being so ignorant.

"Let me remind you that you were very involved last year with ABCSC, school, kids, etc etc etc."

She laughed. "Enough so that I forgot I put out a CD?"

"You just didn't promote like you should have, and it didn't matter. You're so incredibly talented, they love you anyway. But I have had to hire people to take up the slack, designers, specialists." He sighed, and she could hear him gearing up for the same old schpeel... he needed help.

She blinked, clearing her mind abruptly. "You know what? We need to talk. Yeah, I'm going to tell Mom I need to come in to Rocks. Are you at Rocks?"

"I'm at Rocks. Yeah." He said curtly.

Tracy hung up, she blew on her toes, squinted her eyebrows and dialed Julian. He answered on the first ring. She didn't bother with preliminaries, she usually didn't with Jules anyway. "Where have I been when I was making all these chart topping songs?"

He laughed. "Michael got a hold of you? Good. I was wondering when he planned on telling you. You've been so wrapped up in other stuff, and yet, the incredible Tracy machine making a ton of hit music... yeah, so he called me in and we arranged your stuff by genre, got a bunch of old pictures and a few little quirks from you.... Not a clue that it would go so big so fast."

"You? The two of you? And Greg and Jimmy? 'Cause I distinctly remember not finishing anything..."

"Trace, you have to believe that I wouldn't let your music go out without being Tracy perfect, okay? It's all you, babe, all you, with a little me, and a little help. Only the best help, okay?"

She smiled. "I do believe you, Jules, I'm just a little shocked is all. You know, I'm still just little old Mommy me, trying to make it in the world, and to have somebody tell me I have a chart topper album, and chart topper songs when I didn't do anything is a little surprising. I'm glad it was you. That makes it all okay in my absence. So, I'm going in there, are you stateside? Will I see you?"

"Yeah, I'm here. If you're coming over, we'll talk, but I'm on another project at the moment, so we'll be hit and miss."

She shook her head. "Jules, you amaze me."

He laughed and they clicked off. Tracy called her mother and made the arrangements. She looked down at the blue jeans. Was she dressed okay? Yeah. She went upstairs and re-did her hair in a messy bun, a straggling messy bun, and clasped a gold necklace in place as well, added more eyeliner, knowing she would be photographed, realizing that it made more sense now why they were hounding her so much if she was in the limelight without knowing she was there.

*****