“Taylor Hanson! It’s so great to see you again!” An older man smiled welcomingly and grabbed my hand in a firm handshake.
“Mr. Donahue, it’s been ages,” I concluded with a grin.
“Johnson, come here I have to introduce you to an old pal of mine from New York,” Mr. Donahue called to a friend across the room. A stout middle-aged man I presumed to be Mr. Johnson came waddling over towards us. Mr. Donahue pulled the man towards me. “Johnson, this is Mr. Hanson,” Donahue said. “Mr. Hanson, this is Mr. Johnson.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Johnson,” I said extending my hand.
“Please, call me George,” he responded accepting my handshake.
“Taylor,” I said.
“So you’re the man behind this baby,” George announced gesturing around the meeting room.
“I guess I am,” I replied trying hard not to sound like a timid little boy. Being around the older record executives had a way of converting me back to a fourteen year old teenager. They had been in the business long before I had even started walking. I was confident with a great number of people but men like Donahue and Johnson had the tendency to make me feel inferior, even if I did own the record label most of them worked for.
“Martini sir?” A waitress asked holding a tray out towards me.
“Thanks,” I replied taking a glass from the tray. I downed it quickly, thankful for the interruption.
“How are those children of yours?” Donahue inquired sipping his own drink carefully.
“Wonderful,” I said turning the glass nervously in my hand. I wondered where to put it. The formal setting I was in made me uncomfortable. I felt eyes watching my every move, some of them judging me.
“Jim Hawks tells me you’re welcoming another soon.”
I grinned and nonchalantly placed my glass on the tray of a waitress walking by. “Two more,” I said.
“Well congratulations!” Donahue said patting my shoulder. “Twins?” I nodded excitedly. “Gentlemen!” He called to the room. “Ladies! Listen to this!” He pulled me closer into him and held me around the shoulders. “Taylor’s wife is having twins!” Everyone cheered and “Congratulations” were thrown at me from all directions. I said “Thank you” to as many people as I could see. “This calls for a toast,” Donahue went on. He held up his Martini glass and everyone else did the same. “To Taylor, the founder and life force of Next Generation Records.” Everyone applauded. “To his wife and his children! Cheers!” Glasses clinked throughout the room.
“Thanks, Donahue,” I said accepting another Martini.
“Smoke?” Johnson asked holding out a cigar.
I glared at it for a moment or two deciding whether or not to accept. “Come on, Taylor, it’s a special occasion,” Mr. Donahue insisted. “You can’t insult Johnson that way.”
I felt like a kid.
“Leave him alone, Donahue,” Johnson said pulling the cigar away from my face. “If he doesn’t want to he doesn’t want to. Besides, he’s not insulting me.”
“Thanks, George,” I interrupted not wanting to be the cause of a fight between the two record execs. I took the cigar the man had been offering me and nodded towards the balcony. The two men followed me through the glass doors and out into the mild California air. I accepted a match and leaned up against the balcony wall, holding the cigar between my fingers. “I feel like a hypocrite.”
“Why, Hanson?” Donahue questioned, drinking yet another Martini.
“A month ago I was chewing my brother out for smoking again.” I looked down at the floor while I talked, taking in the familiar smell as I breathed. “Who would have known a month later I’d be taking up old habits again too.”
“Old habits die hard,” Johnson agreed.
“Yeah,” I said looking up at the two men. “That they do.”
“How are your brothers?” Donahue asked.
“Isaac’s fine. He and his wife are expecting again. A son due in the end of July. They’re notorious for having problems but everything seems all right so far.” I paused to take a drag. “Zac got back from his honeymoon earlier this month. He and his new wife Nicole are in Tulsa for their first Christmas and New Years together.”
“Are you three planning on touring soon?”
I chuckled to myself. “You need to put out an album before you tour, that’s in the rules.” The two men laughed, knowing exactly what I was talking about. They had funded many a tour in their long careers. “My brothers and I plan to get together after the new year and talk about the new album. We’ll probably record at the studio in New York because my wife can’t exactly get to Los Angeles right now and my daughter is in grade school already, kindergarten to be specific. I feel somewhat bad for Zac’s wife, she doesn’t know what she’s gotten herself into.”
“She’ll know soon enough,” Donahue joked.
“Once she climbs on the bus and goes around the United States she’ll know,” Johnson put in.
I laughed, “definitely. She won’t know what hit her until we’re driving 90 miles an hour down the freeway screaming ‘Zac, you’re 25 not 15, stop throwing water balloons at the fans!’” The three of us laughed knowing how naive the poor girl would be, especially at her first public appearance. I suspected the Hanson fans knew that Zac had “settled down” but I was sure they hadn’t seen Nicole yet. Her first public appearance would be when my brothers and our families set out on the road again for concerts.
“We’ll probably set out for a tour either this summer or fall,” I said. “The kids will all be out for break and if we need to we can get them out of school for a few months.” I nodded and held the cigar down at my side. I was starting to get sick from the smell. I remembered then why I had quit smoking them years ago.
“How old are Isaac’s children?” Donahue asked.
“The twin boys are nine and the girl is six.”
Donahue was shaking his head, a smile plastered on his face. “Jeeze, kid, when I first met you, you were fourteen years old and your oldest brother was sixteen.” I grinned and stood up from the wall. “You had hair back,” I joked.
Mr. Donahue touched his balding head. “Nice crack, kid.”
“The stone age back then.” I shivered and glanced up at the sky. It was almost evening and I had to get up early to meet with the band I had come across the country to evaluate. I squished the cigar into an ashtray on the metal table that was on the balcony. “I better get going, guys,” I said. “Jim and I have to get back here at nine to meet this new band I’ve been hearing so much about.” I shook Johnson’s hand, “it was nice to meet you George and I hope to see you again soon. But next time it won’t be at a boring record label party.”
George smiled. “The less formal the better. Good luck to you and your wife with the new babies.”
“Thanks.” I turned to Mr. Donahue. “Nice to see you again, Donahue “ I patted his shoulder. “I’ll speak to you again soon.”
“Bye, Taylor.”
I walked towards the door but then turned back to Donahue. “Don’t be hiding out with these record people way out here in California, come visit me in the New York section of the label some time. We’ll have drinks.”
“You got it,” Donahue said with a chuckle.
I waved a final goodbye and slid the glass doors behind me when I stepped back into the hot, stuffy office meeting room. I looked around for my pal Jim and spotted him talking to some people near the champagne table. Making my way through the crowded room turned out to be tougher than I remembered. I hadn’t been to a meeting in so long, especially not one in the California sector, and I had forgotten that every step I took was intercepted by a person who wanted to introduce me to a friend or a colleague. “Mr. Hanson! This is so-and-so from so-and-so Records” and “Taylor! It’s so great to see you again! Sign any new bands lately?” or “Mr. Taylor Hanson, it’s an honor to finally meet the man behind New Generation Records, the highest grossing company of this century. It’s an honor, sir- may I call you sir?- a complete honor,” and even more of “Hanson old sport! How’s the brothers? Planning on a new record/tour soon?”
When I finally got to Jim, I had shaken several hands and my face hurt from smiling too hard. I grabbed my colleague and said, “Dude, I’m getting claustrophobic in here. Out, now.” I nodded towards the door.
“Definitely,” Jim agreed. We barely escaped with our jackets and into the cold night air. We decided to skip the cab and walk the few blocks to the hotel our company stayed in when they sent reps to Los Angeles.
“Hawks, why’d we come out here?”
“To hear the new band-”
“No, really, Jim,” I said shaking my head. I looked up at the cloudy sky and shook my head. The wind was starting to pick up causing the clouds to blow swiftly across the sky. The moon was completely covered with the clouds and there wasn’t a star in sight. It almost felt like snow, if I hadn’t have been in California I would have told my daughter we would be making snow angels in the morning. It was probably snowing in New York. There would be no school the next day because of the snow on top of the snow that had already accumulated. Zoë had asked me the day before when she and her mother had returned from my in-laws if this was God’s way of telling the school that the children should have Christmas vacation earlier. I had chuckled and told her that it probably was. She asked if this meant vacation had started now instead of starting on Thursday when it was supposed to. I told her I wouldn’t be surprised if that was true and the snow would keep coming until the day the school originally planned to let the kids out for Christmas break.
After I told her I was leaving Zoë insisted that the snow was going to stop, everything was going to melt, and that was God’s way of telling her that it wasn’t going to be a white Christmas after all because her daddy wouldn’t be there to share it with her.
“It’s almost Christmas,” I sighed watching the clouds swirling above us. It was going to be a white Christmas in New York with or without me. “Why on earth did we come out here?”