Chương 178: CHAPTER 102 - Big Mouth Strikes Again

"Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else," Walt Whitman,"I Hear America Singing", 1860 The Bully Boy Shanty went out at five past midnight on the East Coast, and again at five past midnight in Los Angeles three hours later, following west behind itself. For about forty minutes, the unsuspecting world was subjected to the antics of a sixteen-year-old girl from California singing a sea shanty to two million bewildered Americans.

From coast to coast, the unforgettable face of Euphemia Fontaine conquered hearts and ears. Her face was in a bar in Baltimore with the sound off and the captions on, delighting the late-night patrons. She was playing in Tulsa motels, entertaining weary travellers. She was in the kitchens of people who worked late nights, such as every fire station in the country. She graced the television boxes of night owls, which were a great many Americans, and blew them away with her "blow".

By the morning, editors of morning shows knew what they had to do, because the joke was written, the story was heartwarming, and it passed all broadcasting censors. Two of the big three ran it before nine. Her role as a state ward was dug up and sold all over again. A suddenly inspired columnist in Chicago wrote four hundred words about state care. And then Bully Boy went international, because 2008 was the Information Age in a nicer, less cynical epoch. A London paper ran the shanty.

Gatekeeping forums erupted, arguing the validity of Americans rediscovering their own sea songs. A Dublin station played the audio on a morning show. A man in Rotterdam offered an outraged annotation of the ballad's provenance as founded on Finnish whalers. And around the world's imagined corners,"O Blow, My Bully Boys, Blow" travelled on threads of light, parasitising the unsuspecting ears of an unsuspecting world. Madeleine Filmore had readied her body since Sunday night's taping.

As the premier priestess of the Church of Our Lady of Fontaine, she knew that the next twenty-four hours would be crucial in making or breaking her blonde mistress' battle against her bullies. At four o'clock on Monday afternoon, a messenger came up to the twenty-second floor with a padded envelope from the show, and in the envelope was a disc. It was a clean feed of the performance. No titles, no host, no applause bed laid over it.

Eleven minutes and forty seconds of a girl on a stool in green light, from four cameras, cut by people who knew how to cut the best angles. Maddy watched the video twice. Then she got up from her chair and stretched. Then she placed her war chest on her desk. She didn't have her own office as a rank-and-file publicist, but she had been hand-picked by the managerial team to manage Eppie, and in the wake of success after success, the role of Senior Talent Management was within her grasp. Now was the final push.

On her desk, she had a pot of coffee. A six-pack of V. Blankets she had brought from home. A change of clothes for midnight. A cooler box consisting of dinner, breakfast, and lunch. And another six-pack of Red Bull. Everything else had been cleared. Her security clearance for staying the night had been cleared as well. Her co-workers cheered her on, and some even bought her hot chow. The disc spun. Maddy made her cuts. Full Length Version. Chorus Version. Short Form Version.

And of course, Eppie singing "O Blow, My Bully Boys, Blow" on a one-hour loop. Two-hour loop. Three-hour loop. And a lyric version on loop for five hours. The equivalent of an auditory war crime. Then she sat and waited for the official broadcast. As soon as it was over, after the hour-long negotiated delay window passed, she put it on the official partner site first, because that was policy, and then she stopped caring about policy. YouTube, every variant, all official.

MySpace, with the player set to autoplay, which she knew people hated, and she did it anyway, because who would fault the guileless face of Euphemia Fontaine? The Facebook page, which the label had made her set up in March because it was gaining rapidly on MySpace. Then she sent download links to her goblins in the forums—the Eppie superfans who had been doing her bidding this whole while, reporting on the negative posts, fighting for Eppie's right to happiness. By two she had it in eleven places.

By three she had written to every fan site she had an address for, including two she had spent June asking to take things down, and both of them posted it. And then Maddy Filmore, thirty-four, of Queens, did not go home. She sat in an office with the overheads off and the screen too bright and about thirty windows open on two screens— And she watched the numbers go up. Views. Hearts. Shares. Comments. The numbers went up, and so did her high. GOOD GOD. She got so high.

At around three AM, she cried for about ninety seconds, because she had never seen such beautiful numbers, and to think America wasn't even awake. At half past five, with the light coming up grey over the river and her mouth tasting of the inside of the office microwave, she began to draft her reports to Trent Davis. The email came first. The numbers… would be updated hourly.

Either way, her precious Eppie had better record the song ASAP, because even a tsunami must end, and she had to catch the wave before it crashed. Tuesday. Breakfast at the Vaughan House was served at half past six AM, though Eppie had picked up a bad habit as of late. Sleeping in. It was a crazy thing to do for a woman running on borrowed time, which made the pleasure all the more guilty. Her consciousness surfaced at ten past nine because the telephone on the guest-room writing desk was ringing.

Her iPhone, she realised, had been on silent. She rose, her hair somehow perfectly messy, the loose camisole sliding down her narrow shoulders.

"Mm?"

"You're asleep?" said Eric Lee.

"Truly the privilege of the unemployed."

"I'm awake now." Eppie put her face back into the pillow, which was Belgian and enormous.

"I was resting my eyes." Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

"It's nine."

"It's six in Los Angeles." She stretched like a cat, facing the sun from the window, spreading both fingers and toes.

"Is something the matter?"

"No. Something's up, which is why I'm calling you." A rustle; her Newfoundland had a thick stack of papers.

"Ferroni starts casting today. Three days, maybe four."

"Nice."

"Stay away from casting." Eppie stopped resting her eyes.

"Eh?"

"You stay out of it," Eric went on, in the pleasant, level voice he used when berating a disobedient kitten.

"We talked about this. You put the money in. You're in the lead. Your teacher's now in it. That is already three things. Now you want Kel?"

"Eric—""No. No. Listen. Just stay away. Else your trust money is NO GOOD." Eppie sighed. When Eric growled, that was the whole of it, because Eric Lee did not respond even if she laid her cheek on his shoulder and fluttered her eyes—a trick that would have surely worked on Curon.

"Fine," replied Eppie.

"Thank you."

"I'm hanging up… in a bad mood."

"Show up uninvited, and I'll spray you with a bottle." Eric hung up. She lay there afterwards in the luxurious quiet of her host's enormous house, with the grandfather clock going downstairs and the pipes singing of old calcite deposits, and stared at the ceiling and thought the only thought available to her. Please, God, let Kel be able to act. Kelvin Grant's music videos ran full-blown teen fantasies, from wack martial arts to police dramas. Surely, Kel's acting was not a complete loss. He had three lines.

Three lines were nothing at all if Kel could put in the effort. Tuesday. Sony Tower. Trent Davis, Sony BMG's CEO, waited for the arrival of the faux-father-daughter duo in his office. As a wealthy C-suite executive with actual taste, Davis made sure that his office was peerless by doing the opposite of Curon's suite downstairs. His couches were dark, and the wood was deep walnut. His wall art involved actual collectables, though their city view remained regrettably the same. DING!

The lift opened to a pair of smirking cats. His friend looked horrendously homeless as always. The girl looked… good. A little too good. Her figure had remained as petite and unmarketable as ever, but her face—it was simply exquisite, and her hair—was inexplicably balayage. Davis knew that the girl did not attend salons or spas—so all of this, somehow, was au naturel. Trent came around the desk and gave his friend a warm shake of the hand. To Eppie, he gave an affirming nod.

"Sit," Davis offered, pulling out a chair for Curon. Eppie sat. Davis looked at Curon, his lips thin and judgemental, then pulled out another chair for his friend. Curon sat without a word. Davis returned to his seat.

"It's blowing up," he said.

"Erupting, as they say. Trending. Charting. Off the charts. Did you know this would happen?"

"Sorta," the girl answered, her face smug, which grated on Davis' nerves.

"Well, it's bigger than you think. The song's enormous—but the bullying angle? Masterclass. How the hell did you come up with this?"

"The bullying?" Eppie looked at him incredulously.

"Did you not know I was being bullied?"

"Did you not know you're a contractor, and not one of our artists?!" Davis fired back.

"You think there'd be pictures if you were?" Curon laughed awkwardly.

"So, when do you want to record? I'll do it myself."

"Having you credited would be the best," Davis concurred.

"That's the message now, anyway."

"Ho…" Eppie gushed. She looked very cute. In another life, the House of Mouse would have dragged her kicking and screaming into their stables before she could say the words Charity Trust.

"So, we're official now?"

"…You're what?" Davis felt his blood pressure rise, which was akin to vertigo.

"Official!" Eppie leaned over and hugged Curon about the neck. His friend grinned, enjoying the kinship.

"We're officially father and daughter! Two peas in a pod! The dynamic duo!" Curon gave him a helpless, hapless look.

"I guess we are…"

"GOD! Please. NO…" Then Trent Davis put his face in both hands. He groaned, like a man drowning in shallow water.

"We're not?"

"No," said Davis into his palms.

"Give me a moment. I need a drink. You want one?"

"Sure," Eppie said. Trent walked to the alcohol cabinet and poured himself a stout Scotch. Watching the girl, he got her a glass bottle of chilled tonic water. They drank their drinks.

"Say it again," he said. Eppie said, "I mean, for the market, he's my father. I'm his daughter. We're a found family, right? Rolling Stone's story of the year."

"Is that what it means? Going official?" Davis snorted. Curon finally broke through the spell of Eppie's manic pixie energy and said, "Oh." Davis breathed out through his nose.

"In April," Davis said, "I told you that Frederick Curon is your discoverer. That's the industry title. Not father. Not a guardian. And I told you that you're emancipated, and that there are no papers." Davis drank; he needed it.

"And now you come back to me in July and tell me that you've decided to Dad him harder."

"I can see how this looks." Curon cleared his throat.

"Brother, I love you. So be quiet." Davis rubbed his eye." Yes, I can market this. No. Do not market any of this yourself, in public. PLEASE."

"But it's funny," said Eppie, looking mischievous.

"That's true." Curon raised a finger.

"IT'S NOT FUNNY." Davis cracked a prescription bottle.

"And never say this where there's a microphone. We're putting this to bed. NOW. Forever."

"All right."

"Okay."" Right," said Davis, washing down his hypertension meds with the booze.

"Now. When's the studio session? What are your plans for MTV? We need to move FAST. My office's phones are off the hook."

"I can record it now, if you clear Mueller's schedule, but…" The girl's baby blues glinted.

"Yes?" Davis felt his skin crawl.

"I'd like a favour."

"Ah." Davis smiled. It was good when people wanted things.

"Anything."

"I want you to talk to your friends at Sony Pictures." The girl's grin showed teeth.

"I want you to pitch my movie…" Davis' smile froze. It was not an impossible task, and the Picture division already knew of Euphemia Fontaine. From memory, Pines and Dream a Little were already licensed for productions. He could indeed do this favour, but why should he? Was she NOT going to release the song if he said no? Against a regular client, Davis would have scoffed. Eppie's expectant face, so sure of his answer, irked him to no end.

On the other hand, Curon's undisguised expectation made his profit-driven heart soften.

"This would be… the Ferroni movie," he said.

"Yes."

"You haven't shot it."

"We'll have sample footage soon," the girl promised.

"About four minutes of it. There's a scene we're shooting on Monday, in one take, finished—lit properly, cut, graded. It'll be amazing." Eppie made her point with her hands. Combined with her face, it was a challenging proposition to say no. Davis sipped his drink again.

"So you're a producer now, huh," he said. He did not say it unkindly, because he was recognising the fact that she had halfway hijacked Ferroni's position. The girl was now the chief financier. Lead. And the reason it could receive distribution from Sony Pictures.

"Give me something else," Davis said. He did not believe that the girl would simply walk in with a song ready to be recorded and just expect him to sell her film to the Picture division. If he knew the girl as well as he felt like he did—she had another ace in the hole. The girl smirked. More teeth. Jackpot. Another song?

"Do you want the song to exist in perpetuity, across almost every American household?" Eppie asked. Davis felt taken aback.

"No reason I would say no…"

"Then I have an idea… for our MTV," Eppie said. Davis waited. And she told him. She told him about a singing whale on a plaque called Bully Boy Whale. And Davis sat in his chair, mouth half open, stunned by the horror that awaited American families this Christmas.