His Pretend Baby Page 36

  “You have to, pumpkin. Chances like this don't just come along every day, and you know how hard I had to work to get this one. How's it going to look if I've got to go out there without a guitar player, cuz you a trifle scared?”

  It's true. We're at The Rusty Roof, and the head of Big Hill Records is out in the audience. Valerie's right. Opportunities like this didn't come along often.

  But I'm not just a trifle scared. I know deep down to my bones that going out on that stage tonight isn't a good idea.

  “How about that white girl who tried to go on earlier?” I ask my mother. “She didn't even make it through her whole song, them men out there were riding her so bad.”

  The petite blond had come off the stage in tears, because some the male audience members in the front had gotten so loud and lewd with their catcalling.

  “Two minutes,” the stage manager calls out from the stage entrance.

  My mother grabs me by the arm. “You think I'm some scared little white girl?” she asks me, like I've insulted her beyond all get-out. “Those men out there ain't nothing I ain't dealt with before. Now come on!”

  All traces of sweetness are gone from my mother's voice now, replaced by the stubborn fierceness she carries around, hidden like a knife under her cute-as-a-button surface.

  I know if I don't go out there on that stage with her, she'll never let me forget it. Will probably go right on ahead and dump me at my grandparents' house, like she's always threatening to do if I even hint I have something I'd rather be doing on a Friday or Saturday than performing with her.

  I can already hear her telling folks all about it. “I almost got in with Big Hill, but Kyra flaked on me for no good reason, and made me go out there and do a less than professional showing.”

  Valerie must see the crack in my resolve because she pounces on it with some more honey.

  “Baby, I know you're scared, but you've got to be brave for me now, because I can't do this without you.”

  Valerie's right, I decide, my heart softening as I push aside my fears of those drunk fools in the audience. My father abandoned her. My grandparents don't hardly speak to her anymore. I'm all she has. Not just her backup guitar and backup singer, but all the real backup she has in the world, period. I can't let her go out there alone…

  Still I eye the burly men in the front row nervously as I walk on stage behind my mother.

  I'm used to folks double taking when we come onstage. My mama in her cowboy hat, cut-off jean shorts, and flannel shirt tied bikini style at her breast like a Daisy Duke poster. Me in a little cowgirl outfit that I really need to start thinking about changing. It's not so cute anymore now I got all these new curves.

  But the guys up front more than double take when we come out. Their mouths drop open, and then the F-bombs start flying. “What the fuck…? Who the fuck…? Why the fuck…?”

  I decide not to get all the way up on the stool they set out for me. Instead I kind of perch on it, so I'll be ready, just in case we've gotta run.

  “Oh, calm down, ya'll” my mother calls out to the men with one of her thousand watt smiles. “You'll understand soon enough once I get to singing.”

  Like the ambitious country artist she is, she finds the Big Hill head in the audience and throws him a big fake-eyelashed wink. Then she gives me the cue to start before the men have a chance to respond.

  I do, and the men quiet down. My mother might be a little crazy for trying to make it as a country singer in Alabama, I think to myself, but at least she's got the voice to back up all that crazy.

  For a whole verse the quality of my mother's voice, singing one of my songs, is enough to hold the men in thrall. For a whole verse, I get to thinking maybe coming out here on stage wasn't such a bad idea. For a whole verse, I think maybe my mother really will get her meeting with the Big Hill exec, and maybe he'll actually give her a record deal.

  Then I see one of the men sneer, and raise his arm. He's got an empty beer bottle in his hand, and I know what's going to happen next, even before it leaves his hand.

  I stop playing and singing and scream. “Mama!” even though I'm never supposed to call her that. Especially when we're out singing in public. When we're on stage, I'm supposed to call her Val so nobody guesses she's old enough to have a kid.

  My mother turns, probably to hush me, and her turning to scold me is what takes her out of the thrown bottle's range before it can hit her square in the chest.

  Instead it hits me. Smacking sharp into my face. I hear the sound of glass breaking, and then I feel something warm rushing down my face, followed by a much hotter pain.

  Then I hear my mother scream, “Oh my God!” as I tumble from the stool.

  “What is wrong with you?” I hear her yell at the guy who threw the bottle. “She's only a child!”

  “Red.”

  “She's only a child!”

  “Red.”

  The one word pulls me out of the dream. Makes me open my eyes to find for countless time in fifteen years that this is a memory, not something happening to me right now.

  Right now, I'm not in some honkytonk bar, but on a couch, my flushed face pressed against someone's chest. That same someone's fingers on my old beer bottle scar.

  I jerk back into a sitting position, my wide eyes landing on Colin, who's also in the process of sitting up. But much slower with his hands in the air like someone who knows he's been caught doing something he shouldn't have.

  “What were you doing?” I ask him, even though my frantic mind is easily putting together what happened.

  I'm still in the purple lace dress I was wearing last night, and the couch isn't folded out. We must have fallen asleep while watching the movie, with me somehow ending up all the way in Colin's arms.

  It's morning now, with soft rays of light illuminating everything in the room. I can easily imagine what Colin saw when he woke up. My puckered scar in the full morning light with no makeup to mask its appearance. And now my scar is once again throbbing. Because of the nightmare, because of Colin's touch…

  “Why were you touching me?” I ask him, breathlessly.

  “I was curious about your scar, so I touched it,” he tells me, lowering his hands.

  “Why would you do that?” I ask, coming to my feet. “Seriously, what the hell?”

  “Sorry,” he mumbles. He comes to his feet, too, and for a moment his eyes cut away from mine… but then they come right back to my face. Right back to my scar.

  “How did you get it?” he asks, the old confidence creeping back into his voice.

  “That's none of your business,” I tell him. “You bought my time this weekend. You didn't buy my back story.”

  His eyes narrow and the silence stretches out real thick between us.

  But then he reaches into his back pocket, and takes out a thin leather wallet.

  “Beggin' your pardon, Red,” he says with a lazy Alabama drawl. “I didn't realize I hadn't paid you enough. How much do you want for your back story?”

  I stare at him for a long, hot angry moment. Then I say, “I don't know. How much do you think it will cost me in legal fees when you sue me for punching you right the hell out for asking me that? Cuz that's how much it's going to cost.” I pretend to ponder this idea some more. “Course then you'd have to wait until I take the stand to hear the whole story, so maybe it's not worth it for you to find out.”

  Colin puts his wallet away with a grin. “You're a funny one, Red. Let me tell you, I'm looking forward to hearing what you come up with for this demo.”

  The mention of the demo takes near all the pride right out of me. Makes me remember Colin holds my future in my hands.

  Now I'm the one cutting my eyes away. Looking out the window, where the sun is sitting pretty high in the sky. Josie will be here soon. Sweet, charitable, flawless Josie, who wears a pair of cat eyeglasses on her face as opposed to a beer bottle scar.

  “You're right,” I say, fully deflated. “I better start getting ready. Ginny wil
l be here with my dress any minute now.”

  Then I rush away to the half bathroom where I left my toiletry bag before Colin can answer.

  8

  I’m right about Ginny getting there soon. I’m barely out of the shower, and putting concealer over the scar, when I hear her sharp knock on the door.

  “Hi again,” she says after she squeezes into the bathroom with me, a cup of coffee in one hand and a dress bag in the other.

  She sets the coffee down, hangs the bag on the door, reaches into her purse, and the next thing I know, she’s squirting me with what smells like a very expensive scent. Like a pile of sapphires and a field of orchids had decided to have a perfume baby. A perfect match for Colin’s cologne, I think to myself, sniffing at the air.

  “Sorry, just had to get it out of the way,” Ginny explains. “It’s the standard scent for Colin’s women.”

  I raise my eyebrows at that. “The women Colin dates all wear the same perfume?”

  Ginny unzips the dress bag. “Colin’s very discreet about who he chooses to spend his intimate time with. He doesn’t talk to anyone about who he’s dating. No press, no events—he doesn’t even tell me. The only instruction I’ve ever been given in regards to his personal life was to buy a certain person this perfume, which is his way of saying he’s spending time with her , and he’d prefer she’d smell a certain way.”

  “So Colin asked you to make sure I smell like his … other women?” I ask.

  “No,” Ginny says. “He hasn’t said anything about you, other than you’re a songwriter who has agreed to help him out seal this deal with his friend, Josie. In this case, I made what you might call an artistic choice. To better help sell the story he’s pitching.”

  I don’t love how she’s talking about the woman, who spent near all of Colin’s concert texting with her shelter, because she cares about her do-gooding that much, like she’s an open business deal that needs to be closed. And I really don’t like that I now smell just like every other side piece Colin’s kept discreetly.

  Why? a nasty voice asks inside of me. Because you’re special?

  I’m not, I remind myself after Ginny’s leaves me alone in the bathroom to get dressed in the dress she’s picked out for me. I’m a prop, in this case, a stand in for the girl Colin really wants. No matter how good I look in the little white dress, Ginny picked out, I think as I look at myself in the bathroom’s full length mirror. It’s one of those special effects dresses that lifts up your chest and butt while corseting in your waist and thighs. And even though Ginny tore off the price tag, I know the dress must have cost a bundle, because the curly cherry red image in the mirror when I’ve got it on looks like the Photoshop version of me. Sexy, curvy, and a little bit wild, even though I’m mostly covered up.

  “Not bad, Red. Not bad at all,” Colin says when I come out of the bathroom. He’s sitting on the couch, arms spread across the back, like a king waiting for his pet.

  His appreciative gaze lingers on me a little longer than I’d think it wouldI expect, considering this is all a ruse to get the girl he really wants.

  But then he turns back to Ginny, who’s standing nearby with a clipboard, and he’s all business. I’m left to stand awkwardly near the window, listening to him and Ginny go over his day. He’s got this brunch with Josie, then a couple of interviews for local TV, then an early dinner with Geoff Latham, the new head of Big Hill Records. He’s flown out for the concert, probably hoping to poach Colin from his current label, Stone River, but that’s not going to happen, because Colin doesn’t even have enough new material to present to Stone River, much less, let himself get poached by another head.

  “When you call to confirm with Geoff Latham, tell him I’ve got a new songwriter I’m working with,” he tells Ginny. He glances over to where I’m standing by the window, like he’s only now remembering I’m there. “You gotta get back to Tennessee tonight, Red?”

  “No,” I answer.

  “Then you should probably stick around after this brunch with Josie. Ginny will set up a backstage meet and greet for you with Geoff.”

  My eyes widen. Colin’s setting up a meeting for me with Geoff Latham, the thirty-four year old music exec who’d just been hand -picked by the retiring head to take over one of the most successful labels in country music history. The same label my mother was trying to get signed to that fateful night at The Rusty Roof. This is a connection I couldn’t have dreamed of making on my own without years and years of hard work, and Colin Fairgood is going to make it happen in just a matter of minutes.

  “Th-thank you,” is all I can think to say.

  Colin shrugs. “No problem, just make sure you send me a copy of your publishing contract before you sign with him. Geoff’s a good guy, but there’s nothing such as a label won’t try to screw a new kid for rights. It’s just their nature.”

  “O-okay,” I easily agree. “Thank you. Thank you so much! You, too, Ginny! I can’t believe this!”

  “Like Colin said, it’s really no problem,” Ginny answers, like this life-changing opportunity isbusiness if something she does for aspiring artists every other day. “But I better get out of here. Josie’s due in ten minutes.”

  The reminder of Josie’s arrival takes some of the wind out of my sails as I remember exactly what I agreed to do in order to get an opportunity like this.

  “Leave the door propped open, will you?” Colin says as Ginny leaves.

  Then he waves me over, indicating I should sit down next to him on the couch. Someone’s set out an elaborate brunch on the coffee table, two trays full of pastry, bread, meat, and cheese selections. The plan, Colin tells me after I sit down, is to let Josie walk in on us, eating and talking. Let her get a mental picture in her head about what a relationship with him would look like.

  I busy myself with “playing my part.” Don’t think about what you’re about to do, I tell myself as I fill my plate with fresh fruit and a croissant. Think about meeting Geoff Newsom tonight instead. Think about anything but the weird feeling this is giving you in the pit of your stomach.

  I keep myself together, and somehow even manage to joke, “You think Josie will bring any more of her fried chicken for you to eat tonight after your concert?”

  Colin laughs. “I didn’t feel right asking her for another pan, so I’m letting the venue take care of the chicken tonight.” He glances sideways at me. “That is, unless you want to step up to the challenge with your grandma’s recipe.”

  “Like I said, I can’t say for sure whether I know that recipe or not. And say I did, it’s not like I have a kitchen here.”

  “I’d find you a kitchen,” Colin promises. He sounds exactly like a knight swearing a solemn vow.

  “…and it’s not like I’d have this recipe memorized. My grandma’s still alive, you know—”

  I stop, remembering. Yeah, my grandma’s still alive, but his mother isn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say to Colin. “I wasn’t thinking. Sometimes we get to talking and I forget how short a time it’s been since you lost your mama —”

  “Let’s not talk about that,” Colin says quickly. “That’s not how I want Josie to see us when she comes in here.”

  I wonder about that. About all of this. Him acting like his mama’s death is just a sad line in his biography. Him putting more time into getting at Josie than he put into arranging his mother’s funeral, which I read online ended up just being a simple cremation and closed service.

  But it’s not my place to ask, so I just fake a smile, and say, “Okay, Spock versus Yoda in a fight. Who would win?”

  He shakes his head. “You know it would be Yoda, Red. C’mon let’s not even pretend to have this fight.”

  “Can you tell me something? Can you just answer me this one question? Why must you hate on Spock the way you do? Because you know that Vulcan would totally win in a fight with Yoda!”

  “The words coming out of your mouth don’t even make sense. Yoda is a Jedi. A Jedi. You think Spock ishe’s going to
outgun Yoda? With what? Vulcan mind tricks and a phaser?”

  I squint at Colin. I thought that maybe the nerdy guy I’d met all those years ago, had been wiped out by this smooth talking country singer, but judging from the amount of outrage in his voice, he is definitely still in there.

  “Obviously you’re not taking into account that a phaser has longer range than a light saber. Spock could put your itty bitty Jedi down, soon as he came through the door—”

  My defense of Spock is cut short by a knock on the door.

  Colin points at me. “This ain’t over,” he says in a low voice, before calling over his shoulder, “Come on in. We’re back here.”

  Forcing more watts into my smile, I stop arguing and look up to see Josie’s reaction to the scene when she comes through the door.

  But it’s not Josie who comes through the door. It’s not Josie at all.

  My heart, my mind, my lungs—every single vital organ I have stops working when I see the person who’s entered the room. And I unconsciously come to my feet, unable to do anything but stare at him.

  It’s him. The reason I ’ve never came back to Alabama. The one boy I’ve been trying to forget all these years.

  He’s here. In Colin Fairgood’s penthouse suite.

  Colin surges off the couch. “Don’t say anything. Not one word,” I hear him whisper beside me.

  It’s a command he doesn’t have to give. I continue to stare at the man standing at the entrance of Colin’s penthouse suite, near paralyzed with shock.

  Then Colin says to Beau Prescott, “You have got some fucking nerve coming here.”

  9

  Mike and Beau, I know, used to be good friends. But Colin and Beau? Well let's just say if they were ever friends, it's obvious as soon as Beau gets into the room that they ain't anymore.

  Beau doesn't even acknowledge Colin's words. Just turns his handsome face toward me. “Josie, I know you don't want to see me. But I had to see you.”

  My eyes widen. He thinks I'm Josie? Why does he think I'm Josie? And what does she have to do with any of this?