Toronto Collection Volume 2 (Toronto Series #6-9)

by Heather Wardell

  What had Angel said?

  Before I could speak, Angel said, "I wouldn't stay if you paid me. You don't know what you're doing. Misty and I can break you."

  The woman raised her chin. "I'll take that chance. Go."

  Angel snatched up her purse and mine too. "You'll regret this," she snapped, then stalked out of the restaurant with me and our guards scurrying after her.

  "What happened?" I said when I caught up to her on the walkway outside.

  She pushed my purse at me and rolled her eyes. "I made one little comment and they bring the chef out, of all stupid things. So I told her how disappointed I was, and she throws us out! Ridiculous."

  One little comment. Yes, someone here was ridiculous all right.

  "Come on. Let's go clubbing and forget all this shit."

  I didn't want to go anywhere with her ever again. "On a Wednesday night? I'm not in the mood. And actually, I think I've had enough for the night. I'm heading home."

  "What?" Her eyes widened. "You blame me for that, don't you?"

  Kind of, yeah, I thought, then decided to say it. "You didn't have to be such a jerk about it."

  "They screwed up! I will not accept incompetence. I'm too good for that."

  Well, maybe I'm too good for dealing with you.

  *****

  Angel's wrath still ringing in my ears, I sat on my couch eating the stale bread that was the only food I had in the apartment and wishing I'd finished what had been an amazing meal.

  I felt sick and weird, even more than the uncomfortable events of the evening should have caused, and as I nibbled my bread I tried to figure out why. I'd never been good at analyzing my emotions, as my failure to recognize I was trying to live Giselle's life for her made clear, and I didn't get very far until I had an idea. I grabbed my laptop and began to type.

  I'd always been able to access my inner workings through my songs, and so I wrote a song about the evening. It didn't rhyme, the lines weren't the same length, and the clichés I used would have made Tim whimper, but I got my head straightened out and soon understood my discomfort.

  That poor waitress.

  The second one would brush off our rudeness as just a couple of spoiled rich girls being jerks. I didn't like that much but I could live with it. But the first one. She loved us, used to love us anyhow, and no doubt Angel had crushed her.

  I tried to convince myself I hadn't done anything to her, and on one level that was true. But I also hadn't stopped Angel, and I could have. I'd been afraid she'd turn her nastiness on me. But she had, at the end, when she realized I was truly not going to go out with her and watch her con people into buying her things just because of who she was. She'd told me I was stupid and untalented and not worthy of being her friend, and I'd survived. I'd simply turned and walked away. So I could, and should, have stepped up for the waitress.

  A glance at my phone showed me it was only eleven-thirty. The restaurant didn't close until midnight. I had time to do something about it.

  I gathered up a bunch of Misty merchandise and called for a driver and bodyguard, putting my Misty persona back on while I waited for them.

  As we approached the restaurant I grew steadily more nervous. I'd been told I wasn't welcome. What if they made a scene?

  Well, then they made one. I had to do the right thing.

  The bodyguard leaned against the parked car as I stood in front of the closed beauty supply store next to the restaurant trying to decide how to proceed. The street was nearly deserted except for a tall dark-haired man on the restaurant's front path holding a huge bouquet of red roses in one arm.

  I'd almost gathered the nerve to step toward the restaurant when the chef came out and went straight to the man. Her voice full of suppressed laughter, she said, "You are allowed inside, you know."

  He shook his head, smiling. "We had a deal. I'm not to interfere. And after last night, I definitely can't go inside. I can't be trusted."

  She touched his cheek, an opal ring on her left hand glimmering in the streetlight's glow. "You weren't bad at all. It was barely even a discussion."

  "Never has the choice of green or red pepper caused such a 'discussion'. And it never will again."

  "Paul wasn't bothered, you know. He actually said you were more mellow than usual. Besides, if you're dealing with him and not me, I don't care. You can 'discuss' with the manager as much as you want."

  "So I should give him the roses then?"

  She giggled and reached up to kiss him, but he pulled back slightly and turned to me. "Can we help you?"

  She turned too and her eyes widened. "You came back? You guys haven't done enough tonight?"

  The man glared at me with fire in his dark blue eyes. I had no doubt he'd fight for her, physically if need be, to protect her from me or anything else that might hurt her, and I wondered if anyone would ever look at me that way. He said to her, "She's the one who said—" but she shook her head and he cut off to let her say, "No, she's the other one."

  The one who didn't do anything. Well, I was there to fix that. "I came to apologize." I held up the tote bag with my face emblazoned on it. "I was hoping to give this to the first waitress."

  "She went home," the woman said. "Went home crying. Didn't have a great night myself thanks to you two."

  I flinched but made myself keep going. "I'm sorry. I feel terrible. I should have stopped her."

  "I doubt she'd have listened. Or cared."

  I nodded. She had Angel figured out, to be sure. Too bad I hadn't.

  Her face softened. "But you care. You weren't even the one who made Carrie cry but you came back. I'm sure it wasn't easy."

  No, it hadn't been, but I hadn't come to have her make me feel better. "Can you give this to Carrie for me?"

  She nodded, and the man reached out and took the bag from my hand as she said, "Listen, Misty—"

  "Amy."

  Jo would kill me if she knew how many people I'd been telling my real name, but I didn't want to hide from this woman.

  She smiled. "Amy. Here's the thing. You took responsibility. Yeah, you screwed up a bit, but you came back. That's what makes you better than the other one. That's what makes anyone a good person, admitting their mistakes and doing whatever it takes to fix them."

  The man wrapped his arm around her waist and she leaned into him. It reminded me of snuggling into Tim on that flight to Germany after telling him about the biggest mistake I'd ever made, and my throat tightened. "Thank you," I whispered.

  She smiled. "You're welcome. And you're welcome here too. Just don't bring your friend."

  I smiled back. "I'm pretty sure we're not friends any more."

  "Good for you. You deserve better."

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  I sank onto the sofa and looked around at my home for the next three days. I'd felt a huge need to get away and get all the new things in my heart and mind into some sort of order, so the week after my dinner with Angel I'd told Jo I wanted a few days off. She'd studied me for a moment then said, "As long as everything can be rescheduled, go for it. You've been working hard and a break will probably do you good." My schedule for the following week had been rearranged by the lovely Cindy and now I had this equally lovely hotel suite in Ottawa to myself.

  "Why Ottawa?" Cindy said when I asked her to book it.

  "Because there's nothing else for me to do there but rest and relax."

  But as it turned out, there was one other thing, and I found myself doing it shortly after I arrived. I'd decided to take a long bubble bath, and had just slipped into the water when I remembered Jason buying me bubble bath on a trip last year. He'd been a sweet guy, but Misty had been just too much mess for him to handle.

  Something about that thought struck me, and I hopped out of the tub and went to find the notebook and pen I'd brought in case I felt like working on a song.

  I wasn't sure I did feel like it, but I felt the song pressing at me to be written so I sat in the tub for ages, refilling it with hot wate
r at least five times, and wrote about Jason and how if I'd been a different kind of mess we could have managed to stay together but he wasn't the kind of cleaner that could handle my mess. It could have been a 'you're too lame for me' kind of song but that wasn't how I felt and the song didn't feel that way either. It was plaintive and wistful, and I adored it.

  It wasn't my only bathtub song, either. Once I finished it, I got halfway through one about how brave Cindy was to keep trying to build up her strength and confront the demon of her landlord before I needed dinner. After eating, I went back to the tub, and I spent most of my three days off in there writing. Somehow the warm water and the sweet smell of the bubble bath made the words flow like the water flowed around my body, and I wrote and wrote until my hand burned and I had to instead balance my laptop on the bathtub rack that should have held a paperback for peaceful reading.

  I wasn't peaceful until the end of the three days. I cried a lot, and raged too, as songs tore themselves out of me. The hardest, by far, was the one about Tim. I'd pushed him way further than I should have, repaid his support over Shawn by throwing myself away on parties and booze and Bart, and I hated myself for it. Then, as I finished the song, I forgave myself.

  I forgave myself, too, for how I'd handled Giselle's death. Shawn had made the disgusting move of propositioning a minor and he had to live with that. But I didn't let myself off the hook in my song by blaming the whole thing on him. Going off with him had been a catastrophic mistake, my catastrophic mistake. But I'd eventually pulled myself back together. I'd thought of it as "Mr. Peterson saved my life" but my teacher couldn't have done it on his own. He'd helped me see how to turn things around, but I had done the turning.

  Taking responsibility for everything, the good and the bad in my life, was the hardest thing I'd ever done, but as my time in the suite passed I began to feel so much clearer and cleaner inside. Every song I wrote polished a little more grime off my soul.

  Only the songs for Jason and Cindy had a prayer of being released by Misty, and only a few more would have worked under my real name. It didn't matter. I wasn't writing them for the public. I was writing them for me, like I had before.

  On the last day, I finished a song about how much I hated being criticized by the media for my perfectly normal body, then automatically opened a new file for the next song.

  There wasn't one.

  I felt clean and open and fresh.

  And free.

  Everything I'd been struggling with for months, or for years, was out, no longer clogging me up. I could see so clearly.

  I could see, without a doubt, what I wanted and needed to do.

  I needed to be Misty.

  I was Misty.

  Though the songs I'd written hadn't been for her, now that they were out I could feel new and playful ones nudging at me, ready to be written. I hadn't been able to hear them while the other stuff was in the way, but it was gone now, and everything else that awaited me was for Misty.

  I loved being her. I loved being on stage, drawing teenage girls to me. What I would do with them, though, was more Amy than Misty.

  I would guide them.

  No center. Just me and my songs.

  I loved it, and I knew it was right for me. But the center still nagged at me. Giselle's dream, which I had the power to fulfil.

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I didn't know how to deal with the center, but I did know one thing I didn't want to deal with any more. I flew to Paris and broke up with Bart.

  He was clearly stunned, and equally clearly not sad about losing me. His focus was elsewhere. "My movie's still in theaters and you'll be touring soon. Staying together is good for our careers."

  "But not for us. We're just not right for each other."

  "I know," he said, goggling at me like I was the idiot. "What does that matter? We look damn good together."

  I laughed. "Not any more."

  By the time I got back to Toronto the gossip sites were buzzing over the breakup, and poor Cindy blushed as she showed me the biggest headline.

  "Misty Will come out as a lesbian!"

  True, to some people dumping a guy as hot as Bart would be proof of my homosexuality. To me, it was a sign I'd finally figured out a way to listen to my heart: writing songs even if nobody but me would ever hear them. "Oh, trust me, I like guys." One guy, anyhow. But there would be others. I'd lost my chance at Tim but now I knew I wouldn't settle for just any man. "But it wasn't right with Bart. I'm waiting until it is."

  "Good for you. You deserve that."

  My heart melted at her sincerity. "You're such a sweetheart."

  "I try," she said, smiling at me. "Oh yeah, another fax came in while you were jetsetting across Europe to break Bart's heart."

  I rolled my eyes. "He's forgotten about me by now, I'm sure. Moved on to someone else who can help his career."

  "Sadly, that could be true, but it's no reflection on you." She handed me the fax.

  So strong and so brave, and so beautiful too. No wonder I wish I'd stayed closer to you.

  "Stayed closer to me. So the person was close to me before."

  "I thought that too."

  "Tim maybe?" I loved the idea, even though the way we'd parted meant it wasn't likely. "Or even Jason? I had Jo's card in the apartment so he could have found the fax number."

  She tipped her head from side to side. "To be honest, I'm thinking Jez."

  I blinked and was about to say it made no sense when I realized it did. She'd accepted a tour gig with the new kid Marian and I hadn't seen her for weeks. I did miss her humor and her amazing keyboard playing; maybe she missed me too.

  "Could be, I guess." Mr. Peterson again popped into my mind. He almost certainly knew about my success, even though he was overseas, and I didn't think any of the faxes couldn't have been written by him. But how would he have known the number? "Or it's someone else."

  "Well, now that we've narrowed that down..."

  I grinned at her. "Shut up."

  She laughed and pushed me toward the door. "Don't you have work to do?"

  I did, actually. I'd spent the flight to Paris reworking the song I'd written about Cindy so it better suited Misty. It still had the same pride in her accomplishments and hope for her future as before, but now Misty was watching a dear friend going off to university while she stayed behind. I'd sung it for Jo and she'd approved it, so now I wanted to get it recorded and then present it to Cindy.

  I hoped she'd love it.

  *****

  "Are you ready to hear it?"

  Cindy grinned. "I've been ready for days!"

  I hadn't told her what the song was about, only that it mattered to me and I hoped she'd like it. The timing was perfect: we'd come out for dinner to celebrate her birthday and Steven had given me the rough cut just before we left so I could play it now as a birthday present.

  I cued up my iPod to "Stand Strong, Old Friend" and passed her the headphones. Once she had them on, I pushed play, then sat watching her face move from anticipation to an amazed confusion to understanding to so much emotion I couldn't separate it all.

  "Play it again," she said when it finished. "Please."

  I did, and afterward she said, "I love it. Absolutely love it. It makes me feel like I could do anything. And somehow it's like it's..." She shook her head. "Never mind."

  I smiled. "Tell me."

  "It's like it's about me," she admitted. "I know that's stupid."

  My smile broadened and I waited.

  Her eyes widened then filled with tears. "It is about me?"

  I nodded, then qualified it with, "Slightly modified to fit Misty."

  She shook her head in wonderment. "But it can't be."

  "Why not?"

  She blushed. "Misty is so... impressed with her friend. I can't even tell my landlord to fix my washing machine, never mind get my ex-husband off my back."

  She'd told me about her ex, how he insisted she still owed him money for what he'd spent on her w
hen she went back to school to become an assistant even though at the time they'd been married and she'd never dreamed he'd considered it a loan. "I know all that. But I also know you keep going. With your landlord and your ex, and with the crazy wig-wearing singer you're trying desperately to keep on the right path."

  She grinned. "Is it that obvious?"

  "With all the times you've suggested I not drink, not party, work instead of hanging out with Angel?" She'd been subtle, but I'd realized in Ottawa that she'd been trying to help me for a long time. "No, it wasn't obvious, when I was oblivious. But now I'm not. And thank you."

  Her tears rose again and I said, "No way, missy. You do not cry on your birthday. It's a law."

  "It's not," she said, dabbing her eyes with her napkin.

  "It is. I say it is so it is."

  "Ooh la la."

  "Exactly. But we need to toast you and both our glasses are empty." I called over the waiter and ordered myself another diet ginger ale and another white wine for Cindy. Once he left, Cindy said, "No booze, huh?"

  I shook my head. "I'm not so keen on myself when I drink. I go kind of numb."

  "Good stuff. You were hitting it kind of hard."

  I scrunched up my face at her but didn't say anything. We both knew she was right.

  She gave me a gentle smile. "There's too much wonderful in your life to be numb, my friend."

  My turn to well up with tears. No Tim, but everything else was amazing. "True," I managed to choke out.

  Her voice a bit shaky, she said, "We're pathetic, Amy, you know that, right?"

  I raised my chin and blinked my eyes clear. "I know no such thing. We are fan-freakin'-tastic."

  She smiled. "Absolutely."

  The waiter returned with our drinks, and I said, "To Cindy. The best assistant and friend Jo's money can buy."

  She laughed, and we clinked glasses.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  By noon the next day, the gossip sites had already lit up with rumors of my pregnancy. Pictures of me drinking ginger ale instead of alcohol were everywhere, along with speculation about who might be the father. Bart was the front-runner, of course, but a bewildering array of other possibilities were listed too, including several guys I'd never met.