Groupie/Rock Star Bundle Read Free

of the
endeavor.
    At least not yet.
    I reached out a hand, “Andy Foster,” I said as
I sat. “Nice to meet you.”
    “Nice to meet you finally,” Alana said with the
same dazzling smile. “I’ve heard so many things about you from
Iris.”
    “Not everything,” Iris interjected. “I left out
the stuff that was illegal, immoral and just plain fun.”
    We all shared a laugh as a young, fit and
beautiful boy brought us our menus. I cast a suspicious eye over
the top of the page to my friend. “Vegan?” I asked my meat-loving
friend. Iris Kimble happened to be the reigning champ at our local
barbecue joint for four years running after scarfing the most ribs
in a two-hour sitting.
    She just laughed it off. “It’s not a lifestyle
change,” she assured. “Alana’s a vegetarian and most guys in the
band are either vegan or vegetarian, so…”
    “When in Rome,” I concluded for her.
I glanced over the menu and ordered what looked reasonably
familiar. I never really met a vegetable I didn’t like so it was
calculated risk at best.
    “It’s a shame you couldn’t join us last night,”
Iris said as she handed over her menu to the waiter, along with her
order. “The band was in rare form. This show is going to be a
game-changer.”
    I tried to feign indifference but
that was impossible to do with Iris. Her bubbly enthusiasm was
infectious, and quite simply I was curious. “How so?”
    “I only got the biggest name in music to come
down and check them out.” Her voice dropped conspiratorially.
“Jasper Carrington.”
    Even I knew who that was, and I
wasn’t in the biz like Iris or Alana. Jasper owned one of the
biggest record labels in America, and his superstar wife had
charted four top-ten singles in the last year alone. This was,
indeed, a big deal. I was more grateful than ever that Iris thought
to include me. If this band took off, my career as a freelance
journalist could as well.
    In entertainment it was all about
hitching your wagon to the right person.
    I spent the entire lunch grilling Iris and
Alana on things you couldn’t find out from a press release. Within
an hour I knew how the band had met, where they had performed and
how they even hit Iris’s radar at all.
    Alana was the one who turned Iris onto Dreaming
in Blue. She had fallen for the bassist, Iain Wallis, when he
arrived in the States from England. Practically a Londoner herself,
Alana knew Iain from his starving artist days in Camden. He moved
to New York City in part to chase his dream but mostly to be near
her, and their relationship hit overdrive since then.
    Two months after he answered the ad for
Dreaming in Blue, Alana took this fledgling band’s demo to Iris in
part to help her boyfriend’s band get some exposure. Mostly she
just believed in the music and the group of guys brought together
to create it.
    Iris was sold from the very first performance.
The entire band was phenomenal, she guaranteed me, but it was
Giovanni who would sell the music on a national level. Alana
agreed, though not dismissing her boyfriend’s contribution at all.
She could understand why someone like Vanni, as they both called
him, would give them international exposure and acclaim.
    “He’s a star,” Iris concluded.
“Women fall in love with him and men want to be him. It’s the
perfect combination… with the talent to back it up, of course,” she
sent a smile to Alana, who simply nodded.
    She believed in Iain’s talent, but
again – it’s whose wagon you’re hitched to. She was savvy enough to
know what his best chances for success were.
    “Okay, I’m sold,” I said as I tossed my napkin
onto my empty plate. Surprisingly, even with the absence of animal
fat, the meal was quite good. “Let the torture
commence.”
    The rest of the afternoon was spent driving
around Philadelphia, in and out of several boutiques where Iris
insisted upon trying to makeover my wardrobe. I held her off as
best I could; I knew at this rate she’d have me