Chapter Seven
December 13
th
, 2020
By morning, Andy had begun to form a handful of ideas. That meant he was up and out of bed uncharacteristically early for a Sunday. He was particularly proud of how he was able to extricate himself from the pile of bodies without so much as a stir. In fact, while all the girls were basically still asleep, Andy snuck out of the bedroom and headed down to his office to make a handful of phone calls.
The first was to his agent, Trish Geovani, who was out in New York, although not in NYC proper. She wouldn't be in her office on a Sunday, but thankfully, since Andy's recent bump in prominence, she'd given him her home phone number, so any time he needed to reach her for business reasons, he could do so.
"Trish, how the hell are you this morning?" he said, sitting down at his desk, dressed in sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt from some fantasy convention he'd been a guest at a couple of years ago. He had her on FaceTime, and she looked like she was at home in her study, wearing a giant t-shirt that had as many holes in it as one of his first drafts. She leaned back in her chair, like she expected this to be some kind of gripe session, or news of other problems he was having that had suddenly sprung up without warning. Calling unscheduled on a Sunday was very much unlike him.
"Okay Andy, who died?" Trish sighed.
"Lots of people. Maybe you've seen the news? But that's not why I'm calling," he said. "If I wanted to put together a quick little book signing tour, say, six days, how hard would it be to get that together?"
He could see Trish sitting up on the other end of the line, realizing that he was being serious and wasn't just calling to chit chat. "Theoretically? Not very? I mean, you've got your security concerns to worry about..."
"Let us handle those," he countered. "If I picked six cities, how fast could you line up a bookstore for me in each one to do a signing, and get a bit of promotion going around it?"
"I basically phone up any bookstore in America and ask them if they want to do a book signing with you, right now, they're going to leap to say yes. Sales for your stuff doubled after the
60 Minutes
interview, you know that, and bookstores are always eager for anything that gets people in through the door. Assuming you wanted me to start on this today, I could probably have your first signing tomorrow, assuming you can get there."
"I've got a private jet now, Trish, so getting there and back isn't the problem. Personal security we can also handle just fine, but logistics at these kinds of places might need law enforcement or military helping out if there's giant turnouts. I can probably reach out to the Air Force here, but if you've got contacts on the ground..."
"It shouldn't be too hard one way or another. You have a city list in mind?"
"New York City, Jacksonville, Cincinnati, Denver, Seattle and LA."
"Quite the road trip."
"Air trip," he corrected, "but yeah."
"You need me to handle hotels, ground transportation and the like?"
"We'll cover all that ourselves," he said, waving his hand. "If I wanted to, could we start in NYC tomorrow evening?"
"I mean, I might have to call in a few favors, but I can probably make that happen," she admitted. "I don't know what turnout's going to be like, though. People are still pretty gunshy about leaving their own houses."
"That's the whole
point
, Trish," he sighed, leaning back in the incredibly expensive leather chair the house's original tenant had left behind. "As long as you're paired and vaccinated, there's nothing
wrong
with leaving the goddamn house. We keep telling people that, but apparently folks in the government aren't
seeing
anyone else do it, so I gotta put my money where my mouth is. I'll go and do signings and readings, make a big show of the thing. We'll do a photo blog of the whole trip, although maybe we'll leave out the airplane parts. Other than that, though, we'll show people, like
really
show people that it's time to stop hiding indoors. I want to have a little travel diary so that everyone who's protected knows they can go out and be part of the world again, encourage them to do so."
"We can get events thrown together fast, sure Andy, but I don't know if there's going to be enough turnout to make it worth your while," Trish said. "You can always show up and sign books, but that doesn't guarantee anyone's going to come or that you'll sell more books from the effort."
"I don't
care
about making money off it, Trish. I just want to do my part to help the country wake up from the slumber of staying in their homes, once they're vaccinated," Andy told her. "I'm also going to make a point of seeing some family members for a handful of people. We're probably going to do a stopover in Chicago, and the LA portion coincides with some meetings that Sarah and Emily need to take down there, so I figured, getting out of the house for a bit isn't the worst idea. My security team will probably chew me out for a while, but I think it's important we set precedent that we can see people, hang out with people, be around people.
Anyone
who's got the vaccine can. If I'm getting out there and being seen, that'll be progress enough. It'll be
a start
. And I want to take my fiancΓ©es around to a handful of places. We're going to stop and see Piper's parents, Fiona's parents, Niko's mom and, most importantly, introduce everyone to my nephew Connor. I know he's still in shock with his dad dying, but I need the kid to know I'm there for him, whatever he needs, however he needs it. It's safe for me to travel. It's safe for me to go
see
him, so I'm gonna do that. And I think it'll help the people of America if they don't just hear someone telling them it's safe, but actually
acting
like it. In a way where they can see it." He realized he'd been talking for quite a bit without her saying anything. "So what do you think?"
"I think... it'll be a good thing," she finally responded, shifting in her chair, having scribbled a dozen or so things onto a yellow legal pad while they were talking. "But I think you'd better clear it all with your security team first, and you'd better listen to every damn thing they'll tell you along the way. This is uncharted waters we're heading into right now, so be overly cautious rather than lax. No shaking hands, no taking pictures with people. Ask people who to make it out to, sign the book, hand them the book and then move on to the next person. Don't linger and for fuck sake, Andy, don't engage in political discussions, no matter how much I know you're going to want to. As long as you can do that, then I can have your list of bookstores ready for you by the time you're wheels up tomorrow morning. New York City's easy, so hell, I'll have that ready and booked before lunch."
"Okay, get it done and I'll start things rolling on this end," he said. "Thanks Trish. I know I can be a pain in the ass, but I'm trying to do the right thing."