The Luck of the Irish

Chapter 1

1998

“It’s finally here!” Paul Stanley quietly exclaimed as he rushed into the bookstore. He purchased a copy of Fan Club magazine, paid cash, signed an autograph for the check out clerk and got out, all within 5 minutes. Good timing, considering he was in a rush. He did enjoy signing autographs and having his picture taken with fans, but today he was in a serious hurry, he wanted to get home and check out this magazine. Paul had gotten a call from a friend of his, Seth, a photographer, who told him he had just finished a photo session with Calen McGregor.

"I thought you might be interested", Seth said.

"Of course I’m interested!!!" Paul exclaimed.

Paul had been intrigued by Calen McGregor, well, intrigued is a mild word, almost obsessed, is better, since he first saw her on Star Trek: The Next Generation in '93. He normally didn’t get into sci-fi, but Gene was watching the show so he watched it with him. He was instantly struck by her attractiveness. He had to find out more about her. He started looking up sites on the net and buying every magazine she was in until he had a substantial collection. He would have loved to meet her but for one little snag, he was in a long-term relationship. So, he kept his feelings to himself. By all accounts, he had become a certified fan.

********************

Calen had waited patiently for the final draft of the magazine to come out. It took a month since the photo shoot and interview with the magazine, but finally Beverly, Calen's manager showed up with a copy. Calen had been an avid KISS fan since she was 7 back in '77. She had albums, magazines, collectables; whatever she could get her hands on. KISS had been a huge part of her life, and in fact, still was.

Beverly had called her over a month ago and told her that a magazine was doing interviews and pictures with celebrities about their favorite bands and that she had submitted her name. Calen was excited and grateful to Beverly for doing so, because this was the first opportunity to really express how she felt about KISS. Naturally she jumped at the chance.

Now, she had the magazine in front of her. The photo was unbelievable! She is lying on a bed that is covered with a silvery material, like satin or silk. The camera is overhead so that her entire body is shown. She has a guitar draped over her, with the large end over her chest and the neck running straight down her body, her legs are slightly crossed to cover what the guitar doesn’t. Other than that, she doesn’t have anything else on. She had felt a little apprehensive about posing with nothing on, but she felt so comfortable with Seth that she felt good about it. Besides, he didn’t take a picture she didn’t approve of first. She really loved the guitar; it was exactly like the mirrored guitar Paul Stanley used on stage. That sends the right message, she thought. The interview was simple enough, she basically told about the first time she ever saw KISS, how long she had been a fan, that kind of thing. She was quite satisfied with the interview, but much more so with the picture. For the first time in a long time, she truly felt beautiful.

********************

Paul about fell out of his chair when he saw the picture. How beautiful she looked lying there. It was a sexier, racier side of her he hadn’t seen before, and he liked it. Seth hadn’t told him the subject of the article was, just that he had photographed her. Paul was totally shocked when he read the article. I can’t believe she is a fan, he thought. He felt almost honored that this woman whom he had admired for so long, was a lifelong fan of HIS! I have to meet her, he said to himself over and over.

When would I have time, he contemplated. KISS had just released their reunion album, Psycho Circus and they were preparing for the tour. He was truly busy, but he had at least a month before they left for the tour so he thought he had a chance.

At rehearsals the next day, he showed Gene the photo and article. "UMMM", was all he muttered. That was a definite seal of approval, at least as far as Paul thought.

"I really want to meet her Gene."

"Then find her."

"But how do I do that?"

"START WITH HER MANAGER!!!" a voice shouted from behind them. It was Shannon.

"I think that all the Star Trek actors have the same manager", "I’m pretty sure her name is Beverly Ryan."

"Thanks so much Shannon, I will try there tomorrow."

Chapter 2

The next day, Paul called around to everyone he knew trying to find out Beverly Ryan's phone number. It seemed to take forever but finally he found it. He waited and waited, wondering if what he was about to do was the right move. I have to do it, he said to himself, I can’t live with myself if I chicken out. He dialed the number as his heart pounded quickly. What if she doesn’t want anything to do with me? He kept thinking.

"Hello, Beverly Ryan's office, can I help you?"

"Yes, this is Paul Stanley, may I speak with Mrs. Ryan please?"

"Paul who?" the secretary asked.

"Stanley." said Paul patiently.

"Mrs. Ryan is out of the office right now, what is this regarding?"

Paul thought this was none of her business, but he decided to tell her so she would leave the message.

"Well," Paul started, "I’m trying to get in touch with one of her clients, Calen McGregor."

"For what?" she asked being nosey.

"I just would like to meet her, that’s all," Paul, said, losing his patience.

"Look, do you know how many phone calls I get here a day from someone wanting to meet Miss McGregor? I can assure you, she isn’t interested."

"Isn’t that for Miss McGregor to decide?" Paul said, trying to keep his cool.

"If I had a dime....", the secretary grumbled. "Look, get it through your head, she doesn’t know you and she doesn’t want to know you!"

"I....." Paul started, but before he could finish, the phone slammed down...hard.

Well, that was just great, he thought. Now what do I do?

*************************************

Over the next couple of weeks, he kept trying, hoping that Beverly would pick up the phone, but all he kept getting was that lousy secretary. Damn, he said outloud. I’m never going to get anywhere this way. He made the decision to go to Beverly Ryan's office in person and maybe he could make some progress.

When he showed up at the office, he stopped at the door. He was really nervous now. What if the secretary was right, what if Calen really didn’t want to meet him? No, he thought, he just couldn’t picture her being so rude as to not to give him at least a chance.

He slowly opened the door and stuck his head inside. The office was pleasantly decorated with leather furniture and pictures of Beverly's clients on the walls. He quickly found Calen's picture and smiled.

"May I help you?" Deandra, the secretary asked. Paul knew she didn’t recognize him.

"Yes," Paul said politely, "Is Mrs. Ryan here?"

"She is out for lunch"; "do you have an appointment?"

"No, is it alright if I wait?"

"Hold on, I recognize your voice!" Deandra said getting ruder, "You are that guy that I can’t get rid of!"

"Look," started Paul, "I have every right to meet with Mrs. Ryan, if she tells me to go to hell, that is her business, not yours!" Paul said loudly.

"Well, it is my business to weed out the weirdoes!" she said sarcastically. "You have 10 seconds to get the hell out of this office or I will call the police and have you charged with harassment!"

Paul had no choice but to leave. He sure didn’t want the papers to find out he had been arrested for harassment just as the tour is about to start. Disparaged, he went home and got ready for the tour. He wasn’t going to give up, but the tour now had to come first.

********************

Calen had waited forever to get tickets to the concert. She was so busy with the new Star Trek movie "Insurrection" that she hadn’t had a chance to get tickets. Jamie, Beverly's son was able to score some great front row tickets for her and Sheri. She was excited about seeing KISS in make-up again. It was two days before the L.A. show and she decided to go by Beverly's office to pick up the tickets. She called first because she wanted to see if Mandy, Beverly's secretary had come back from her two-month maternity leave. Deandra, the fill-in secretary was so ditzy that it made Calen's skin crawl and she was so plastic, that if she stood next to a radiator, she would burst into flames.

"Hello, Beverly Ryan's office, may I help you?" the pleasant voice said. Calen was relieved to hear it was Mandy.

"Hey! Mandy!" said Calen, "How are you doing and how is that new baby?"

"I’m just great, but sleepy." She replied.

"That is to be expected, you will get some sleep soon, don’t worry."

"I know, and are you going to be next?" Mandy teased.

"I think I gotta get a man first!" Calen laughed. It was great to have Mandy back in the office again, and especially to be rid of Deandra. "Anyway, has Jamie brought the KISS tickets by yet?"

"Yeah, they are here waiting for you!" Mandy said

"But...I need to talk to you", Mandy started, "It is important"

"What is it?" Calen asked, getting a little concerned.

"I will explain when you get here, OK?"

"OK, I’m on my way, I will be there in about 20 minutes"

"See you then" said Mandy

When Calen walked into the door of Beverly's office, all the mess struck her. Mandy's desk, which was usually so organized and neat as could be was nearly destroyed and covered with papers.

"What happened here!?” Calen gasped.

"Deandra is what happened here!!" Mandy exclaimed, "Look what she did to my desk in just 8 short weeks!"

She definitely had a lot of work ahead of her, Calen thought and chuckled to herself.

"Well, I’m here, what did you want to talk to me about?" asked Calen.

"Well," started Mandy, "while I was cleaning off my desk and getting everything straight, I opened my desk drawer and found a huge stack of pink phone message slips, apparently Deandra decided for herself what messages Beverly received and the others got thrown here in my desk. Well, I was going through them and I can upon this..." She handed Calen the message slip, it read:

Paul Stan Lee asking for Calen (very annoying!)

And several notations under it indicating that he called several times.

Calen was confused, "Who is this?" she asked Mandy.

"You don’t recognize the name?"

"No," she started but stopped when she saw the name again. Stan Lee, StanLee, Stanlee, Stanley. STANLEY???

"Stanley??" she exclaimed! "Not Paul Stanley!"

"I don’t know," said Mandy, "but I know a way of finding out!"

Mandy put in a call to Deandra to come to the office, NOW! While they were waiting, Beverly came in and immediately started laughing at the mess on Mandy's desk.

"I hate to laugh," said Beverly, "but you are usually so organized, it’s great to see a little mayhem!"

"You won’t laugh long when you see this", said Mandy and handed her the pile of pink message slips that were in her desk.

"What the hell?" Beverly exclaimed, "No wonder people were getting mad at me, they thought I wasn’t returning their calls!"

"That is what happens when you hire from a second rate temp agency", said Mandy shaking her head.

Beverly excused herself to her office to return the phone calls, some of them nearly 8 weeks old. She was so mad that Calen decided not to tell her about her messed up message.

"I just want you to know," started Mandy, "that if I had taken that call and it had been Paul Stanley, that I would have contacted you that minute, in fact, I would have given him you home number".

"I know, I know,” said Calen sadly. She couldn’t get over the fact that she just might have had her shot at the man of her dreams blown to pieces.

Chapter 3

It seemed like forever, but Deandra The Ditz finally showed up. More like Deandra The Dipshit, Calen thought to herself.

"God, she is even more plastic then I remembered," whispered Mandy. Calen chuckled.

True enough, Deandra had undergone so much plastic surgery that many doubted that there were anything left of her original parts. She was so blonde that it was almost white, and her tan so dark it made her skin look like the leather sofa in the office. She was trying to look much younger than she was, but it didn’t work, it just made her look, well, plastic.

"Hi, what’s up?" Deandra asked oblivious to the mess.

"What’s up??" Mandy mocked, "What do you think is up? Look at this mess!"

Calen was getting impatient and handed the message slip to Deandra.

"Explain this!" Calen said, dispensing with the pleasantries.

Deandra looked at the slip and thought for a minute. "Oh, yeah, he called about a thousand times looking for you. He was really annoying."

"What did he want?" Calen asked gritting her teeth.

"He wanted to meet you, but I got rid of him."

"You WHAT???" Calen screamed while Mandy held her back. "You stupid BITCH, you had no business doing that!

"You were only supposed to take messages and give them to Beverly, it is up to her do decide whether or not to give them to Calen. Is there anything else?" Asked Mandy.

"Oh, yeah," said Deandra, "He came by also, but he was so rude that I told him I would have him arrested".

"When was this?" asked Calen.

"About three weeks ago I guess."

"Are you insane?? You don’t threaten to have someone like Paul Stanley arrested!!!" Calen was so mad she couldn’t even speak; she had never wanted to physically hurt someone as much as she wanted to hurt Deandra. Hearing the screaming, Beverly came out of her office. When she saw Deandra, her face got as red as fire.

"You idiot", she screamed, "Your stupidity almost cost two of my clients a movie deal worth over a million dollars!" "How dare you take it upon yourself to decide what messages get to me and what doesn’t, who in the HELL do you think you are!"

You nail her Beverly, Calen said to herself as Deandra stood dumbfounded.

"I guess no one appreciated what I did around here. By the way, while I’m here I need to pick up my last paycheck".

Calen lost it, she ran after Deandra ready to strangle her. Deandra ran for the door screaming something about suing for her paycheck, but didn’t finish her sentence before Calen slammed the door in her face. “Maybe it ruined her overpriced nose job.” she said outloud, not caring who heard.

Mandy filled in Beverly in on what happened but Calen wasn’t listening. She was trying to figure out what to do next. How was she going to find Paul Stanley? There was no phone number on the message slip.

"Do you think you could try and get in touch with Doc McGee?" Calen asked Beverly.

"I could try, but I can’t promise anything," Beverly said with a sigh. Calen picked up the tickets and went home, totally depressed.

Calen phoned Sheri when she got home and told her what happened. Sheri was shocked, but at the same time seemed excited.

"Paul Stanley must have seen your magazine layout and decided to contact you," Sheri said, "That is so cool, you are so lucky!"

"I don’t feel so lucky, after all, it isn’t like he wanted to ask me on a date or anything."

"You are getting too down on yourself, just try and look forward to the concert on Saturday, besides, maybe Beverly can come up with something."

Calen really didn’t believe it would be ok. She just couldn’t get over the image of Paul Stanley asking about her and getting the door slammed in his face. He must think I don’t want to have anything to do with him. He must think I’m the biggest bitch in Hollywood, she said out loud. Depressed, she grabbed a pint of chocolate ice cream and ate it all while watching her DVD of "Gone With The Wind", which always made her cry.

Chapter 4

On Saturday morning, Calen woke up especially cheerful. She was still sad about what happened, but excited about the concert. It was all over the magazines and MTV. She had seen the press conference on board the ship while they were in make-up and it brought back some great memories. She still had a lot to do today, she was to make an appearance at a sci-fi convention in L.A. and try and be back in time to get ready for the concert tonight. She didn’t like to use limos, not for something like this. She didn’t want to call attention to herself; this was a night for KISS.

Beverly picked her up to take her to the convention and on the way there told her that she had struck out trying to get in touch with Doc McGee. She said that she spoke to his secretary and she said that he hadn’t been in his office all week, spending time with KISS getting everything ready for the tour and she didn’t expect him back until Tuesday, but that she would give him the message. Calen tried not to let it bother her, but it did. It wasn’t Beverly's fault, she did what she could. Calen came to the conclusion that if she wanted to get Paul's attention, it was going to be up to her to do it.

The convention had run a little longer than she had anticipated and she didn’t get home until after 3pm. She rushed to shower because she wanted to set her hair and do her make-up just right and besides, she hadn’t found anything to wear yet. Sheri came over, all dressed and ready to go. She looked great; she was wearing burgundy tight pants and a black shirt with burgundy flowers on it that tied in the back. Her long black hair was wavy and pinned up on the sides. She definitely looked stunning. Calen was still debating what to wear, something dressy like Sheri, or something more functional to move around in because she knew she was going to be dancing. Sheri went into her closet and brought out her black leather hip-huggers and her white silk top that also tied in the back. Sheri said this was perfect for her and Calen trusted her judgment. Calen had just recently gotten her hair cut short in the back and had it highlighted a little blonder than her usual medium blonde. This would be the first time she would be going out with it really fixed up and she wasn’t sure how to do it. Good thing Sheri is here, she thought. Sheri dried her hair with a round brush and then put some rollers on the top for fullness. Then she brushed through it and tucked it behind her ears. Calen was amazed at how nice it looked. It hadn’t looked this nice since the photo shoot, she said to herself thankfully. After getting dressed, Calen seemed satisfied with the total look and the two of them were off to the concert.

********************

KISS had just finished their sound check and now they were in the dressing room preparing for the show. Paul was nervous but excited about the show. They were not only going to be playing new material from the album, but some songs from the past that they hadn’t played in many years. Paul was still thinking about Calen. He couldn’t stand to leave things undone, and the thought of him going on tour without meeting Calen was tearing him up inside. But what can I do? he said to his reflection in the mirror. The show must go on, Paul sighed as he finished getting ready for the show.

********************

Calen and Sheri were getting more and more excited as the concert began. They were ready to dance the night away. The seats weren’t really seats at all, but it was a small platform toward the side of the stage just slightly off center. It was above the crowd more with the level of the stage. There wasn’t any place to sit but it didn’t matter, they went going to sit anyway. There were about 10 or 12 other people with them on this platform, most of which, Calen found out were friends of Jamie's. I must give Jamie a big kiss for this, she said to herself. It was perfect. After passing around autographs to the fellow concertgoers on the platform, Calen was ready to get on with the show. When the lights went down, everyone started screaming at the top of their lungs.

YOU WANTED THE BEST, YOU GOT THE BEST

THE HOTTEST BAND IN THE WORLD....KISS!!!!!!!!!

With those immortal words, KISS stormed onto the stage. They looked fantastic in the make-up and costumes. Calen had only seen them one time in make-up and that was '79. She wasn’t quite 10 yet and she went with her older cousin and his girlfriend. She didn’t remember too much about it except that they were so high up in the balcony that she could barely see anything. But that was different tonight. She could almost reach out and touch them. She danced and sang along to every song.

Love Gun

Strutter

Detroit Rock City

And her new favorite, Psycho Circus

All the great songs rang out in typical KISS fashion, loud and raw as ever. She indeed was having the time of her life.

Calen watched Paul intensely. Every move he made on stage, every word he sang, she imagined was just for her. She pictured what it would be like to be with him. How wonderful he would make her feel, how much pleasure they would give each other. Calen was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice Sheri trying to get her attention. Apparently some women in the front row had started taking off their bras to throw at Gene and Paul. Calen and Sheri watched in amusement as Gene held up a bra to the audience. It was so large that it must have been a 44EEE. Gene was trying to find the owner of the bra but she couldn’t be found. Calen was feeling a little cheated that she had gone to the show without a bra. She really wanted to throw hers in hopes of Paul catching it. Sheri made a hint that they should throw their underwear, but Calen quickly voted that down. She was wearing her functional, cotton briefs, not her fancy lace bikinis. That would have been pretty embarrassing for Paul to hold up a pair of white cotton Hanes Her Way briefs. The thought of that made Calen chuckle though; I’m sure that Paul had collected an assortment of panties by now.

The concert was beginning to wrap up and Calen was trying to think of a way to get backstage without a pass. Sheri said she should just tell them who she is and that should be enough, but Calen didn’t believe it. She didn’t like to do things like that anyway, but to get to meet KISS, especially Paul, she was considering giving it a try. After all, she was getting desperate. Paul would be going on tour soon and her time was running out.