Typography Note: Sentences in [brackets] represent the narrator's unspoken thoughts.
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Coming of Age in Texas: Chapter 28: Cars and Jocks
After dinner, we all moved to our work room to debrief and plan for the next day and the rest of the week. Armando brought clothes for us to wear for our visit to the high-fashion shopping district in the morning. Mike instructed us to skip breakfast at the hotel since we would eat at a restaurant over there. He suggested to Johnny that he sleep late in the morning to get over any jet lag he might experience.
The next morning, Troy and I met Guiseppe and Mike in the lobby as planned, and when we stepped out of the hotel, Mike handed the valet a ticket and told us to wait for the car. "You rented a car?" I asked.
"Yes, the stores don't open until 10:00, so we're going to just drive around the district for a bit and hopefully be seen. That's why I got us a convertible," he said.
And some convertible it was too: a Maserati Gran Turismo. "The whole point is to be seen," said Mike, "and you should definitely be seen driving this car."
"You mean, I'm going to drive it?" Troy asked, almost in shock.
Mike didn't even answer. He just dangled the keys in front of Troy.
Mike and I sat in the back seat so that Guiseppe could navigate for Troy. We just drove around for almost an hour, occasionally waving back at people who waved to us or snapped pictures of us. When we parked, we were besieged by autograph seekers.
"Pop the trunk," Mike told Troy, and from that trunk, Mike pulled out shopping bags from Dolce & Gabanna, Versace, Gucci, and several other fashion houses with shops in the area. The bags contained some clothes, but nothing special—just something to make them look full. Mike told us to walk around the district, stopping at any store we might want to check out, carrying the bags to give the impression that we had already bought merchandise from those stores. As we "shopped," more people stopped us to ask for Troy's autograph or to take pictures, and some even took pictures of Mike and me. And each time, we told Troy's fans to be sure to watch him on Silvana Serafini's show Saturday night.
After our morning in the fashion district, we dropped Troy off at the academy, and Mike let me drive the Maserati back to our hotel. I called Johnny, who had just gotten up, and made arrangements to go to lunch. Instead of eating in the restaurant or one of the nearby cafés, we took the Maserati around town (with Mike's approval) and ended up on Via Lecco, one of two major streets in the gay district. I pointed out to Johnny the bars and clubs we had been to and, of course, Michele's shop.
Wednesday morning was largely a repeat of Tuesday morning except that we went to regular shopping malls instead of the exclusive shops. In the afternoon, while Troy was at the academy, I took Johnny to some of the attractions that Troy and I had seen. Many of the local papers carried stories and photographs of our shopping spree. The society pages focused on where we had shopped, the entertainment pages talked about our fans and the fact that Troy would be on TV Saturday night, and the sports pages concentrated on the novelty of having three American football players in Milan. Most of the photographs focused on Troy, but Mike and I were in some of them.
That night, our debriefing/planning session was jam packed with news. Rob announced that with the help of his staff, Troy's Website was up and running with some of the photos that Armando had taken, and Maria announced that the "O Sole Mio" video had been posted to that page and had already gotten over 200,000 hits.
Mike announced that we would be spending most of the next day, Thursday, in Turin, a town about two hours away from Milan. When I asked why we were going there, Mike turned the meeting over to Armando, who asked, "Does anyone know what Juventus is?"
"Soccer team," replied Johnny, almost like he was on a quiz show.
"Si," said Armando, "and Juventus is based in Turin. We are going to Turin to get a tour of the Juventus stadium, and our tour guide will be none other than Alessandro Del Piero, one of the greatest soccer players of all time and practically a national hero here in Italia."
We were all very impressed but not totally surprised since Armando seemed to know everybody who was anybody in Italy.
"Right after breakfast," added Mike, "we will caravan down there."
"Caravan?" I asked.
"Yes, Rob, Maria, and Armando will be going with us, and we can't all fit into the Maserati, so I've rented a couple of other cars. Guiseppe, Maria, and I will ride with you, Troy, in the Maserati. Rick, Armando will ride with you in the Alfa Romeo that I have rented, and Rob will ride with Johnny in the Ferrari."
"Holy shit!" shouted Johnny. "I'm driving a Ferrari? Hot damn! How did I rate that?"
"You see," said Armando, "Ferrari is owned by a company called Exor, and do you know what else that company owns?"
To a roomful of blank stares, Armando answered, "Juventus. Exor owns the Juventus team and the Ferrari company. And do you know what else is in Turin—besides the Holy Shroud?" Armando asked, again to blank stares. "Fiat is based in Turin."
"So why aren't we driving Fiats to Turin?" I asked.
"Because," said Armando, "Fiat owns Alfa Romeo and Maserati, among others. We thought it would be a good idea to have you driving around—and hopefully being seen— in luxury cars owned by the Fiat company, which, as I said, is based in Turin. It's good for publicity."
"So are we going to be meeting with folks from Fiat?" I asked.
"Not yet," replied Armando, "but it is all part of our grand scheme."
So, the next morning, we all piled into our luxury sports cars and headed for Turin. Alessandro met us at the entrance to the stadium and gave us the royal tour, which Armando photographed all along the way. Troy was delighted to learn that Alessandro was not only a world-famous soccer player, but also a singer who had recorded several albums of mostly rock songs.
As we were wrapping up the tour, Alessandro announced, "I hope you don't mind, but I asked a friend to join us for lunch." [Any friend of yours has got to be a friend of ours.] I just about fell over when I recognized that friend as Ben Cohen, the hunky rugby player from England. "He's a big fan of yours," Alessandro said to Troy. "We've both seen your videos and were very impressed." I thought I would have to scrape Troy off the pavement with a shovel.
Over lunch, we talked about football—American style and the-rest-of-the-world style (soccer) as well as rugby. And then Ben dropped a bomb on us. "A couple of years ago, I established a foundation called the StandUp Foundation."
"It's the only foundation in the world set up specifically to combat childhood bullying," I jumped in. "Sorry, Ben."
"That's quite all right, Rick. I'm glad to know that you're familiar with our work."
"And since LBGT kids are bullied more than most, the foundation has made that population a priority of its work."
"Wow, Rick. I should hire you as the head of publicity for my foundation."
"Sorry again, Ben. It's just that you're doing such remarkable work, and it's something that no one else has tackled before."
"What did I tell you guys about apologizing?" Mike scolded. "So, Ben, the StandUp Foundation...what can we do to help?"
"I'm glad you asked, Mike, because that's why I invited myself today. I was planning to come down to meet with Alessandro tomorrow, but when he told me that you guys would be here today, I moved up my plans."
[For us? Oh, my god!]
"My foundation has several projects for raising funds, and one of them is a concert we're working on for next year. I came here originally to ask Alessandro to sing in that concert, and now that I have you here too, I want to ask you, Troy, if you would also participate?"
Since we were all speechless, Alessandro saved our asses. "I would be honored to do that, Ben. Actually, I'm planning to put out a new album, and I wanted to ask Troy if he would be willing to record a duet with me for that album."
Sitting next to Troy, I had to brace him to keep him from falling off his chair. That time Mike saved us. "He would be delighted to accept both of your invitations."
Finally, Troy acknowledged, "You heard my manager. I'm in."
"That's great," said Ben, and Alessandro agreed.
"Now, there's one more thing," said Ben. Our eyes all widened further in anticipation. "One of our traditional fundraisers is our annual calendar. So far, the calendars have featured only me—in different poses and various settings—but we're exploring the idea of mixing it up next time. I would be the featured model for half of the months, and we would invite other celebrities to fill the other six slots. Mike, I would like to ask you to be one of those six."
Mike seemed genuinely surprised, but Mike never lost his composure, so he quickly accepted. Then, Ben turned to Troy again, "And I'd like you to be in the calendar too," he said. "You could do it solo, or we could work Johnny and Rick into the shot. Armando has sent me some samples of the shots he took of you guys recently in his studio, and I think they are dynamite. In fact, I think you could put out your own calendar and corner the market. It would sell like hotcakes."
Once again, we all looked to Mike for a decision. "Let us talk it over, Ben, and get back to you, but at this point, I'd say it's a strong possibility."
"Fantastic," said Ben.
All the while, Armando was constantly snapping candid shots, and when we stepped out of the restaurant, we were faced with a small cadre of paparazzi and reporters. Ben, Alessandro, and Mike were thoroughly experienced in dealing with the press, so it was no big deal to them, and Troy and I had recently experienced the phenomenon, but it was a totally new experience to Johnny.
As the cameras flashed away, the reporters asked us a barrage of questions. "What are you guys all doing here? Are you old friends, or have you just met? Are you planning some new initiatives? Who? What? When? Where? Why? How?"
The three veterans handled the questions deftly, and Armando managed to steer us toward the cars so that the photographers would capture the Maserati, Ferrari, and Alfa Romeo in the backgrounds.
Troy, Johnny, and I were too excited to drive, so Mike drove the Maserati back to Milan so that the three of us could go ape shit over what had just happened. By the time we got back to the hotel, our pictures were all over the evening newscasts and the Internet, including Troy's own newly established Website.
I couldn't wait to call home and let my folks know what was happening, but there was no answer, so I called The Flirt, and invited him and the guys to come over later to celebrate.
After dinner, we gathered in our little conference center to hear Mike's plans for the next day, Friday. Whatever it was, it couldn't be any better than what we had just experienced. "Tomorrow morning," he said, "we're taking all three cars to the airport." He didn't elaborate, and we were all still so focused on our trip to Turin that we didn't even bother to ask.
I was thrilled that Mike dismissed us early so that we could get together with The Outlaws. They were all excited to meet Johnny even if they weren't going to get him in bed with them, and Johnny enjoyed meeting them too, especially after all the stories he had heard us tell. No, they weren't going to get Johnny into bed, but Troy and I were a totally different story.
The morning after our visit to Turin, we assumed that we were going to the airport to return the cars to the rental agencies, but Mike led our caravan instead to short-term parking near the arrivals gates. [Are we here to pick up someone else?] Once inside the terminal, Mike directed Johnny and me to go with Rob to purchase every newspaper we could get our hands on.
When we completed our errand and got back to the baggage claim area where Mike told us to meet them, we literally dropped all the papers we had collected. All of our moms were standing there to greet us. We were absolutely thrilled to see them again. Dad and Mr. Andersen had to stay behind to tend to the farm and the business, but Mom explained that our mothers "wouldn't miss the big TV show for anything."
We loved showing off the sexy sports cars Mike had gotten for us to drive, and we practically talked their ears off about meeting Alessandro Del Piero and Ben Cohen, and, of course, they all listened just like mothers are expected to do even though they had no idea who these sports celebrities were.
When we got to the hotel, Rob, of course, met us and had bellboys take their things to their suites, where Armando had displayed the dresses they were to wear to the studio on Saturday night.
At our debriefing/planning session after dinner, Rob had spread the newspapers we had bought at the airport across our conference tables. We were on the front pages of the Turin and Milan newspapers, and Rob had learned from his worldwide network of hotels that we were in many other papers around the world as well. In some papers, we were in the sports pages with headlines like, "Who is the best ball player?" The entertainment pages focused on Alessandro and Troy as singers. Other papers followed the "next generation" theme, with Troy, Johnny, and me as the up-and-coming young stars of sports and entertainment, and we even appeared in the automotive section of some papers with speculations about the cars we had driven. Some of the photos were from the paparazzi, and some were unmistakably Armando's. It was becoming crystal clear that Armando was a major force in our publicity campaign.