December 24th [COMPLETED]

Chapter 9: Twenty-Eight Part 2

It was the constant rotation of familiar faces that had George frozen in place. It was cold (New York winters usually were) but George's body seemed unaware of the chill wind that rushed down the street. Nor was she aware of the constant stream of people hurrying from cabs and cars and subways, racing toward the entrance of the arena.

Her fingers were surely cold, as were her feet, most likely, but George couldn't feel a thing. She couldn't tear her eyes from the constant rotation of familiar faces that flashed before her eyes, one by one, on the large screen above the arena entrance. Each time a face flashed into view and then out of it, only to be replaced by another one of George's clients, one of her peers, her friends, George could feel herself being stripped away, little by little.

The first face in the rotation was one of the Late Night boys. George had been avoiding the signs for the show so well over the last week that she hadn't even known he was performing. George had been working so hard that year on trying to reclaim her name, her career, her identity, that she didn't even know he had put out his own solo work.

His face appeared and George was back in Canada, up late at night in a hotel ballroom working on music; she was getting the call from Julien, she had been awarded Producer of the Year; she was hanging up the phone and bursting into tears. The face flashed from view and the memory was gone, taking with it the Late Nights project and the Producer of the Year award.

It was the same with each face. Rosie Mulligan appeared and George was in a New York dive bar listening to this small redhead sing her heart out. First there and then gone.

Ali Sykes and George was Upstate, the award for Best Folk Album, there and then gone.

Reeve Keller was next. And then Felix. There were too many memories with those two, too much history, it would have taken dozens of flashing rotations to steal all of them away.

Something in her brain, some part of her that wasn't completely consumed with the end of her career and the death of her identity as an artist, registered that the crowd had thinned around her. It then also registered that someone was trying to flag her down. It was this small part of George that finally managed to tear her eyes away from the flashing faces signaling her demise.

Someone was waiting for her at an open door set into the side of the arena. George's brain knew exactly where to look, the dark gray metal door blending in so perfectly with the wall that anyone who hadn't walked through it a thousand times would have completely missed it. George's feet knew where to go. Even without the guidance of the staff member, George would have been able to walk the underbelly of Madison Square Garden blind.

The staff member led George to a plain gray door set in a long white wall down a long narrow hallway. George was grateful for the guide because they made sure she made it there. If left to her own devices, George would have avoided the door entirely and instead gone out to the pit and taken her usual spot in front of the sound booth, her favorite hiding spot.

But there she stood, in front of that door, in front of the room that stood beyond it, its four walls surely filled with each of those faces she had just been staring at. She had to go in. She wanted to go in. At least, she wanted to want to go in.

It took three deep breaths, right in a row, holding the last one in for good luck and any courage it could give her, for George to finally open the door and go through.

It was as if her entire history as a music producer stood right in front of her. A living mural of her work, in real-time, with real people, all of them turning to face her as she entered the room. They knew. They all knew. As soon as their eyes fell on her, George could read it in each of their faces. They all knew.