Hi Ruben.
Absolutely. Geoff and I can meet you for a video chat on Friday. How does 11 a.m. suit?
Best,
David Cranage
Publicity Director
Chorus Management
Our four faces fill the screen in equal boxes.
Small talk is done, and it’s time for Zach and me to bring up the reason for today’s call. David and Geoff are pretending that they have no idea where this is going, but they have to know what we’re going to say. In fact, I’d bet a lot of my net worth that they were chatting together to finalize the plan right before calling us.
None of us are smiling.
Zach looks down at his lap, and I take it as my cue to kick us off. “So, Geoff, when Zach and I told you about our relationship—”
“Oh, it’s official now, is it?” Geoff cuts in with over-the-top enthusiasm. “Congratulations!”
“I—yeah, it is. Anyway, at the beginning, you said—”
“It must be hard to be apart right now,” Geoff interrupts again. “I trust you’re practicing discretion in regards to visits?”
He’s trying to buy time. That, or he’s hoping if he changes the subject enough, or puts me on the defensive, I’ll lose my nerve. “Yes, we are. You said that we could come out publicly after Russia.”
Both Geoff and David keep their expressions carefully blank. Zach peeks up at them, then turns back to his lap.
David answers first. “Russia is still a year away at this stage.”
I’m ready for that. “It’s unconfirmed. We aren’t going to stay a secret because of theoretical trips to certain countries we might take years in the future. That’s ridiculous.” I sound confident. Like a fully grown man, capable of holding his own in this meeting. Which is the opposite of how I feel, if I’m honest.
Geoff leans back in his chair. “Ruben, as I’m sure you’re well able to recall, we made no promises about announcing your relationship immediately after Russia. The conversation as I remember it is that we could begin to think about the plan for it after Russia. And I agree. It’s the perfect time to have this conversation.”
Zach glances up. I set my jaw, waiting.
“Of course, this is a conversation that affects the whole band, so nothing will be settled on before we run it past Jon and Angel.”
Zach nods. “We get that.”
I blink. “Um, no, we don’t ‘get that.’ We’ll take them into account, but we don’t need their permission to say we’re queer.”
Zach considers this. “True. Fair point. But, I’m sure they wouldn’t have a problem with us doing it?”
“That’s not the point.”
“This sounds like a conversation the two of you might want to have in private,” Geoff suggests. God, anything to shut this talk down before he has to commit to anything.
“It’s a business conversation,” I say briskly. “There’s no need for privacy.”
Geoff, David, and I stare each other down. Zach’s looking at the screen, but the crease between his brows tells me he’s not a participant in the face-off, but an observer.
David shrugs first. “Okay. Well, on my end, the first obvious thing to consider is the promotion of The Town Red. We’re still snowed under managing the media’s coverage of Angel, here. We’re on top of it, but the last thing we need is another scandal.”
“Well, ‘scandal’ is the wrong word,” Geoff jumps in quickly.
“Right, of course. Sorry, haven’t had my second cup of coffee yet.” David laughs. No one else does. “We just need the narrative to be more focused on how Saturday is returning to business as usual. Not another significant change. People need time to adjust after a hiccup like Budapest. The best time for an announcement like this will be when things are steady and predictable, and Saturday’s regained its image.”
“But this could be good for the band’s image, right?” Zach asks uncertainly. “If we spin it, it could pull attention away from Angel’s accident and make the narrative about, like … love?”
I want to smack David’s patronizing smile—directed at Zach—right off his face. “As I said, not in a period of instability like this. There’s a ton of ways the media could spin a revelation like this, and if it suits them to tie the announcement in with Berlin and Budapest to theorize that Saturday is a bad influence on its vulnerable audience…”
“Why, because we’ll turn them all into gay drug addicts?” I snap.
“You know as well as I do how some groups will take this news, Ruben, don’t be obtuse. Just because the official narrative for Angel is exhaustion doesn’t mean journalists won’t revisit the substance abuse theories from a few weeks ago to boost their story. We need you to be realistic, here. Maybe a little less selfish?”
“He’s not being selfish,” Zach jumps in, uncharacteristically firm. “This is important to us.”
“We understand. How about we pencil in a group discussion about this, say … January?”
I think my heart stops. “January of next year?”
“Well, I don’t mean January five months ago.” David laughs again.
“But it won’t take seven months for the Angel story to become old news.”
“Yes, but we’re about to go into album promotion for The Town Red. We have a real shot at breaking some massive records with this one, guys. I don’t want you to get too preemptively excited, but we think this one will be career-changing. But for that to happen, we need all of our current audience, and then some. Your younger fans might be largely progressive, but it’s mommy and daddy who control the purse strings. When this happens, you will alienate a portion of your would-be sales, and an even bigger portion of their parents. We lose support in the red states, and we lose a lot. You do this now and who knows what’ll happen. The band might not recover.”
Zach’s nodding, and I feel a flicker of frustration toward him. “That makes sense,” he says. “So, January, then?”
“Yes! We can revisit in January,” David says.
“In January,” I say, “there will be another reason we can’t come out.”