Chapter One
Micky came bombing through the door, waving three letters. “Mail Call!” he roared.
“Who for?” Mike asked, coming through the bathroom door and toweling his hair dry before looping the towel around his neck and holding the ends in front of his bare shoulders, leaning his jeans-clad hip against the staircase as he craned his neck to see over Micky’s shoulders.
“Quit it, willya? Your mane’s drippin’ all over my letter!” Micky teased, earning a gentle nudge/kick from Mike’s bare foot in the back of his calf. He laughed and held up one. “From my mom. Davy got airmail from his grandpa—Davy! Mail!—and you got a letter from New York. Someone named Baker.”
“Baker?” Mike said, tearing the envelope open. “We don’t know anyone named Baker.”
The letter was short and to the point. He was a Broadway producer. He’d seen them, he liked them, he wanted them to come to Manhattan. There was even a phone number to contact him. Mike frowned. The hairs on the back of his neck were perfectly still, but even so, he didn’t quite trust the letter.
Davy came in from the beach, flushed, Mike’s staff in his hand. “What’s up?”
“We got this letter, from a McKinley Baker. Said he wants us to star in a Broadway musical he’s writin’,” Mike said, already moving to the phone.
“Mail?” he asked Micky, who handed him his grandfather’s letter. “Broadway, right. It’s probably one of Niles’s friends pulling our legs.”
“We’ll soon find out,” Mike replied, lifting the receiver to his ear. “There’s a phone number here.”
Davy nodded and headed to his room to read his grandfather’s letter in private. Peter’s feet rang on the stairs as he headed down them. “Any mail for me?” he called, draping the now-clean cloudy-day shirt Micky had borrowed from him over his arm.
“No, man, sorry,” Micky said.
Peter sighed. “Who’s he calling?” he said with a nod towards Mike.
“We got a letter from some Broadway producer. Mike’s checking it out.”
Mike leaned on the staircase, hunching a little further over the phone to block out his friends’ voice. “Hotel Merriweather,” came the voice on the other end of the phone. “What extension, please?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” Mike said. “I-I got a letter here from a Mr. Baker—the only number I got was this one here.”
“Mister Baker . . . mister McKinley Baker?”
“Yes sir.”
“One moment, please.” After a moment another man’s voice answered. “Baker.”
“Mr. McKinley Baker?”
“Yes . . . who is this?”
“My name’s Mike Nesmith. I’m one of the Monkees, and we just got this letter—”
“Ah! Yes! So how soon can you get here?” His voice was eager, excited.
“So this is for real?”
“Yes, sir, it’s absolutely for real! I saw you play the Vincent Van, I liked what I saw, I think you’d be perfect in the musical!”
Mike wasn’t sure what to say. “Well, um . . . I’ll have to talk to the others guys first.” He covered the receiver. “Hey guys—it’s for real!”
Peter’s jaw dropped. Micky had to sit down. “It’s real?” Davy asked from the bedroom door.
Mike nodded. “So he says. Wants to know when we can be there.”
Micky grinned. “Soon as we can find a flight—”
“No planes,” Peter said, paling.
Mike glanced at Peter, shrugging at the “we’ll talk about this later” look that the blond shot him. “It’s okay—we don’t have enough money for a plane, anyway. How ‘bout a bus? Or a train?”
“We have bus fare,” Davy said. “I’m positive of it.”
Mike turned back to the phone. “We’ll have to come by bus. Couple days?”
“Excellent, I’ll be here at the hotel! Room 304.” Mike snapped his fingers, pointing for Peter to grab a pen. With no paper available he scrawled the room number on his palm. “Okay, Mr. Baker. We’ll call you when we’re in town.” He hung up, looking at the others. “Well guys, we’re goin’ to New York.”
They whooped and Micky did a little celebratory jig. He was still dancing when the others split up to go and pack.
~~~~~
Mike tore his gaze away from the Oklahoma scenery and looked at Peter. “So Peter . . . how come you didn’t wanna fly?”
Peter twisted one of the fringes on Mike’s sleeve and sighed. “It’s silly. And I’ll get over it. I just have this irrational fear that if I get on a plane, I’ll open my eyes from a blink or something and I’ll be . . . back there. Back with those not-yous.”
Mike nodded. “I can dig that. And it’s okay—everyone’s afraid of somethin’.”
“I’ll get over it,” Peter smiled reassuringly.
“’Course you will. An’ we’ll still be here . . . blowin’ you around.” Mike winked at the intentionally bad pun.
Peter winced like he’d been hit. “That was your most pungent pun yet!” He smiled at his own play on words.
Mike growled. “Don’t make me put you in a headlock, man . . . on the bus it could be dangerous.”
Peter chuckled. “Straight from the horse’s mouth.”
Davy lost his coffee at that, spraying the back of the seat in front of him. “You two are horrible!” he said, smiling nonetheless.
Mike chuckled, looking back out the window at the farmland, the endless rows of corn that sped by. He had no idea why they were heading across the country, but not knowing the future was something he was getting used to.
Micky allowed himself to be lulled to sleep by the motion of the bus and the hypnotic farmland. He found himself dreaming that they were not a band, but discontented actors on a show. Tired of the formula, they left and flew to Paris, where they spent several days just running around the city, playing tourist—and being chased by beautiful women. When they returned, nothing had changed, and they took off again.
The bus hit a bump and Micky woke up, blinking his eyes. As reality reasserted itself, he shook his head, grinning. “Peter . . . ” he chuckled. That dream of his had been so real, it seemed that Micky had been dabbling in his sandbox. Peter and Mike were both asleep, Mike’s head on Peter’s shoulder.
Davy was returning to his own seat, having covered Peter with his jacket. He smiled at Micky. “Couple’a little boys.”
“Yep.” Micky propped his legs up on the seat in front of him. “It’s a nice change—seeing them as the kids for once.”
“They deserve to relax now and again.” Davy sat down.
“Yeah. They don’t do enough of it.”
Davy looked over the seat at his friends and smiled. “Sleep well, Than . . . Ngo,” he whispered. “We’ll watch over you.”
On to Chapter Two
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