New York. Madison Square Garden. 01/11/2012. 23:20.
"You go talk to your friends, talk to my friends, talk to me…
Ohhhooo yeahhhh ohhooooo
But we are never ever ever ever getting back together…
Ever….."
The song finished as Taylor and her dancers made a small bow in front of thousands of a very enthusiastic public, the lights turning off on the stage, hiding the artist going backstage to change their outfit. Once Taylor arrived there she was immediately taken in charge by two makeup artists, wiping off the sweat on her face and fixing her makeup. One girl gave her a new dress to change into, all of it done swiftly with practiced movements. After a month of touring, everyone on the tour knew what to do by now.
Taking her new clothes, Taylor started changing immediately, her manager coming to meet with her.
"Everything is going splendidly, two more songs and this is the end of the tour so enjoy yourself Taylor." Dan said with a big smile on his face.
He was her manager since she had started music and was touring with a radio station back then. Now they knew and appreciated each other quite well and had a good friendship.
"Don't worry, I will Dan." She answered, smiling and looking around her seemingly searching for something. Noticing the look, Dan spoke again.
"Your friend is still not here, I don't believe he will come." He sighed.
"You don't know him like I do, if he says he will come, he will come Dan. Maybe something happened, did you look at my phone?" Taylor said hopefully.
"Yes, I did like you asked. No calls. I'm sorry Taylor, maybe you were wrong about that kid."
It was in that moment that the producer called in her earpiece, saying it was time to go back on stage. Since they were recording the whole event tonight, they had a team of cameramen around the stage and a production department on the side of the square. Hearing that with his helmet, Dan stopped talking and straightened Taylors clothes before pushing her on the stage again before shouting something to her, smiling.
"Have fun Taylor!!"
Not sensing anything weird about that, Taylor walked back onto the stage, a light following her the whole way, the audience cheering for her.
"So how are you doing New York?" Taylor shouted into her hand microphone, eliciting new cheers from the audience making Taylor smile. "You know you are the best public in the world, right?" Taylor said again, eliciting cheers even louder than before coming from the voices of fifteen thousand people.
It was at this exact moment that all the lights on the stage abruptly cut off, plunging Taylor in complete darkness. Surprised by the sudden event Taylor did not even have time to think before the producer immediately started speaking into her earpiece.
"It seems we have an electrical problem on the stage, just reassure the public that it will be ok. We are working on it."
Even if the situation was kind of unlucky, Taylor did not lose her cool. Since the start of the tour and with her experience as a singer she could deal with it easily. Moving to the edge of the scene for the audience to see her as the light in the audience was still lit, albeit dimly.
"We have a little problem with the light, don't worry it will be fixed soon." She said to the audience.
She kept talking to the public when she received troubling news on her earpiece.
"Taylor, one of our technicians got electrocuted, he is being evacuated by the paramedic right now. It's all because of the rain earlier, it soaked everything. We need to halt the concert temporarily to give us the time to fix this without risk for our guys." The producer said in a concerned voice.
Taylor wanted to talk to the producer directly but she could not. Their radio was set up to permit him to talk to her but she could not answer, unless with her mic but in that case the whole place would hear her. Even if she was not happy to announce the news to the audience, she had no other choice taking into consideration that one of her crew members had already been hurt in the process of fixing the problem.
She was going to speak into the microphone when she heard a musical note resound in the stadium. Following that note, a melody started to come alive inside Madison Square Garden, a melody really familiar to Taylor.
"What's going on here?" She asked no one in particular even if her voice was captured by the hand microphone.
A huge laughter answered her in her earpiece before the stage behind her was lit by a single spotlight, showing a young blond man playing piano. The audience was cheering even if only a few thousand people present here recognize who he was, Taylor included.
"Come on! Really?" She shouted, angrily walking in his direction.
"Everybody, I present to you Nathaniel Lyndon." Taylor said, shocking herself out of her surprise and remembering that she was in front of thousands of people.
Nathaniel playing piano, made a nod with his head to the public who cheered, the face of Nathaniel appearing on the huge screen on top of the stage.
"It's so short of lifeeee…." The pure voice of Nathaniel started to sing, a number of musicians starting to be lightened up as well on the stage.
As the song was upping in intensity, the voice of Taylor finally joined Nathaniel's, creating a beautiful atmosphere inside Madison Square Garden.
"Too stubborn to die…
… Too loved to say goodbye…
… Naive enough to fly…
… Strong enough to cry…"
Until the song finally ended, their voice merging with each other, the public completely dazed.
"Strong enough… to cry…"
It was a few seconds before the audience came back to their senses and started to give a thunderous applause and cheer. Nathaniel got to his feet and hugged a still emotional Taylor, making the cheer go even louder. They finally let go of each other and gave a bow to the public before leaving the stage. He was arriving backstage when he was hit on the shoulder by Taylors tiny fist.
"That was not cool!" She shouted, making Nathaniel laugh.
"It was so funny looking at your face when you realized what was happening." He laughed even more.
In that moment, two men arrived with smiling expressions on their faces.
"You two you are on my radar as well! You told me we have a technician in the hospital! That was horrible having to keep a smiling expression on my face the whole time!" Taylor shouted some more. Nathaniel just fist bumped with Taylors manager and the producer who he had talked to quite often the last few days to organize everything.
After that, they kept talking as the concert was over. Dan had successfully organized the show to confuse Taylor and made her believe she had still two more songs to sing as it was not the case.
Two hours later they were separating as Taylor was going back to her apartment in the city to sleep as she was exhausted. Nathaniel then exited the Madison Square Garden by the back door, alone. There were a lot of fans waiting here to sign autographs with Taylor, he just dodged them easily and kept walking home. It was then that a limo just stopped itself near him.
He was curious to know who wanted to talk with him when the window descended and the face of an old sophisticated lady appeared.
"Grandma?" Nathaniel said, surprised.
"Hello dear, happy to see me?" She smiled mischievously.
"Of course, I'm always happy to see you. What are you doing here?" He asked. It was around midnight and he was not walking in a big street to go back home. It was even the kind of street that people would choose to avoid in the night. Nathaniel just did not care about that and was not scared by street thugs.
"This is a kidnapping dear. Your grandfather is going overseas for work and your mothers are busy working too, I will be alone in Hampton again. What an old lady needs to do to have her lovely grandson with her this weekend to keep her company?"
"You just need to ask grandma." Nathaniel answered smiling. Since he had nothing particular to do this weekend, going to the beach sounded really great to him right now.
"Hop in then." She opened the door for him.