Reluctantly, Frank moved slowly away from Roxanne. Every couple of steps, he turned to look back at her. Part of him wanted to run to her and comfort her. Tell her he could never leave her.
Yet, something else was calling out to him. Music. The music had been his whole life for so long. His need to perform called to him stronger than ever now, luring him away from Roxanne.
Frank had made his choice. Sadly, it wasn’t her. He continued to walk toward the house, each step taking him farther away from her.
She could feel him slipping away. Somehow, she knew, things would never be the same between them again.
***
Chapter 9
Roxanne moped around the condo for a few days after Frank left, until finally she’d accepted that the time had come to go to work. With Candy’s help, Roxanne landed a job at the restaurant where she worked.
Roxanne’s first day on the job went fine. Somebody even commented that she’d taken a lot of orders for someone who’d never waitressed before. Everyone assumed she was going to be a natural.
Beginner’s luck.
The next few days went horribly wrong. She didn’t have Candy, who worked a different shift, to fall back on. Instead of getting better at the job, she found she had no flair for it at all. She could never remember which orders went with which tables. If by some small chance she did somehow manage to bring an order to the right table, she could never remember who got what.
And people were so rude, like that family who spoke very little English. The man’s broken English, tolerable at best, did not make him the fluent bilingual he thought himself to be. His wife had apparently wanted mashed potatoes with her meal, but that’s not what her husband ordered. Sadly, Roxanne had to bear the brunt of the woman’s anger since she was the one who’d placed the baked potato in front of her.
Roxanne didn’t need to understand the foreign language being hurled at her in shrieking tones to know she was being cursed out.
I don’t need this crap. But she had to take it if she wanted to keep her job.
She did have the day off tomorrow though, thank God. She looked forward to it because she and Glenna were going shopping. It was the only thing keeping her sane.
At the end of her shift, Roxanne tried to get out of the restaurant without any more hassles. But Terri, the head waitress on the graveyard shift, got a hold of her before she made her getaway.
Terri had a hundred and one different ways to set up a table. Every day she picked a new one for Roxanne to use, causing her to have to stay behind another twenty minutes or so, every day, rearranging tables.
Terri had a motive for her spiteful treatment. Revenge. Terri had a thing for Frank Garrett. She’d been one of his favorites until Roxanne came along. But now, Frank wouldn’t give her or any of the others the time of day. He acted like he didn’t know who any of them were. Roxanne was the only one he cared about now, and that pissed Terri off. Somebody had to pay. The way she saw it…hell, it might as well be Frank’s precious little Roxanne. It may turn out to be the last thing she ever did, but Terri intended to see that little-miss-goody-two-shoes paid for stealing Frank from her.
Shopping with Glenna the next day proved to be much more fun for Roxanne. Helping Glenna pick out stage clothes for the band, she almost forgot her problems.
“How’s your job going?” Glenna wondered, perusing a rack of clothing.
“It sucks.”
“That bad, huh?”
“I just can’t seem to get the hang of it.” She readily confessed her shortcomings. “And then there’s Terri.” Roxanne rolled her eyes. “She really wants to smack my fist with her face.”
“Yeah…” Glenna let out a laugh. “She has that effect on most people.”
“Just what did Frankie ever see in her?” Roxanne didn’t get what had attracted Frank to Terri in the first place.
“She’s a slut,” Glenna said without much thought.
Throughout the day Roxanne watched Glenna spend a tremendous amount of money on the band. Aside from the clothes, she also sent them a four-figure money order. The last thing Roxanne witnessed Glenna doing—preparing to mail out a monthly payment on a hefty bank note—confused her most of all.
“What’s that for?” Roxanne asked curiously. “If you don’t mind my asking?”
“The payment?” Glenna looked at Roxanne. “It’s for their equipment,” she added dryly.
Glenna had laid out a lot of money. For Garrett-Hollander. But the kicker was when Roxanne realized Glenna always spent a lot of money on the band. A band that her husband didn’t even have a hand in founding.
Roxanne was almost curious enough to vaguely wonder where Glenna got all her spending money. But she had other things to worry about. Like her job for instance. And Terri. Not to mention Frank and what he might be doing out on the road without her. Yes, she had far too much to concern herself with, without worrying about why Glenna had more spending money than she did.
Roxanne’s next day at work didn’t go any better than her previous days. Everybody from the cooks to the customers rode her ass all evening long. By the time Terri came in, Roxanne’s patience had run its course.
“Roxanne…” that irritating voice of Terri’s rang out. “You’ve set the tables up wrong again.” She gave Roxanne a harsh glare. “I’m only going to show you how to do this one more time. Then I’ll have to go to Mark about it.” Terri threatened her with the manager.
Granted, Roxanne could never be described as waitress-material, but she did set those tables up exactly the way she’d been shown—every day.
Okay. That’s it. Roxanne had had just about enough. She stormed behind the counter and grabbed her purse. “You know what?” she said to Terri in a less than friendly manner. “I have a really good idea…and Frank says I have some great ideas.” She added that last bit simply because it would piss Terri off.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Terri said in a lofty tone.
Roxanne pretty much ignored her, bolting for the exit. She did stop at the door long enough to tell Terri about her idea. “Why don’t you take those tables and shove them up your ass!” Roxanne smiled, turned and paraded out the door, extremely pleased with herself.
For the next few days, Glenna’s expenditures clung tight in Roxanne’s mind. No matter how much she tried to forget about it, it kept creeping back into her thoughts, troubling her until she couldn’t take it anymore. She set out for Glenna’s to find out what was going on.
Glenna smiled, seeing Roxanne standing at her door and gestured her inside.
“I really need to talk to you,” she said with a bit of urgency and followed Glenna into the living room where they both took a seat on the couch.
Glenna took a joint from a tin on the coffee table. “So what’s up?” she asked, lighting the joint and toking on it.
“I quit my job,” Roxanne said calmly.
“That bitch gave you a hard time once too often, huh?” Glenna offered the joint and Roxanne took it.
“To say the least.” Roxanne paused, getting lost in the marijuana’s near-instant effect. “You know…I tried so hard at that job.”
“Some of us just weren’t cut out for that kind of work.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?” Roxanne asked, handing the joint back to her.
“Sure. I don’t know that I’ll answer it,” she said, “but you can ask.”
“I was thinking about all that stuff you did for the band the other day when we went shopping. Do you do that often?”
Warning signals went off in Glenna’s head. You ought to keep your mouth shut. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Often?” She laughed dryly. “Try always. Hell, if it weren’t for me—” A distinct bitterness invaded her tone. “—There wouldn’t be a band.” She tried, in vain, to contain her frustration. “Instead of Garrett-Hollander…it should be called Glenna’s Band.”
“But how can you afford to do that?” Confusion crinkled Roxanne’s brow. “Where
do you get that kind of money?”
Don’t do it. Glenna heard the warning voice inside her head, and again, she ignored it. “It’s not something that I’m supposed to talk about. Especially with you.”
“Says who?”
“Your boyfriend,” Glenna said.
“What?” Roxanne began to wonder who was pulling the friendship strings between herself and Glenna. “I thought our friendship was based on a little more than Frank and Glen being in the same band?”
If that made Glenna feel the least bit guilty then Roxanne would do it to get what she came for.
“If Frank ever finds out that I told you about this…” Glenna’s voice trailed off as a frightened look froze on her face. “All hell will break loose.”
Obviously, Glenna had something to hide. Roxanne meant to find out what it was. “He’s not going to hear about it from me.” She paid no mind to those little voices inside her head; the ones telling her not to get involved.
“Roxie…this is a taboo subject with the band.” The stress of disclosing her secret had frazzled Glenna’s demeanor. “They don’t talk about it, but they condone it,” she said with a hint of bitterness. “So you can’t say anything to anyone, okay…?”
“I won’t.”
Frank is going to kill you. The threat weighed heavily on Glenna’s mind. Still, she couldn’t stop herself. “I’m a prostitute,” she said, and quickly looked away.
“Really?” It wasn’t a judgmental response, but one born more out of curiosity than anything else.
“I don’t walk the streets.” Glenna felt the need to defend her actions. “I work in a studio. It’s kind of like a massage parlor. I don’t do anything with anybody that I don’t want to.”
Glenna had Roxanne’s attention. Granted, getting paid to have sex with strangers wasn’t exactly what Roxanne had in mind. But it was good enough for Glenna. Did she think she was better than Glenna? No.
No wonder Glenna felt secure in her relationship with Glen. He couldn’t afford to lose her. Now Roxanne understood. Of course Glenna came first—without her there would be no band. Glenna knew her place. Glenna knew where she stood.
Did Roxanne know her place? Not really. Did she know where she stood? Her guess would have to be—nowhere. Maybe, just maybe, if she helped Glenna, then she would be important to Frank. Just like Glenna was to Glen. Maybe this way, she’d have something to hold on to—some way of holding on to Frank.
Besides, if Glenna could make the sacrifice, so could Roxanne. In all her confusion and insecurities, she decided she was right.
“Can you get me a job?” Roxanne asked.
Glenna laughed. “You’re joking, right?”
“Oh, I’m quite serious.”
“Frank would kill us both.”
“It’s my body and I can do with it what I want.”
“My, my,” Glenna said. “Frank certainly has brought you out of your shell.”
“I think you should get me a job,” Roxanne said. “Besides…” She looked at Glenna. “If you had my help, it’d make things easier on you.”
Glenna couldn’t deny that. If Roxanne helped her support the band, then she’d be able to save a lot of money that she figured was otherwise going to waste. Glenna did what she did for Glen, because that’s what he wanted. But as far as she could see, Garrett-Hollander was nothing but a bunch of loser musicians, who were never going to amount to a damn thing.
Saving money sounded tempting. Glenna knew she couldn’t sell herself forever. Sooner or later, she had to do something to secure the future. Not Garrett-Hollander’s future, but her future. Her future with Glen.
Man, could she ever use Roxanne’s help. Are you crazy? Popped into her head. Frank Garrett would kill her with his bare hands.
Frank was very possessive, not to mention obsessive, when it came to Roxanne. His ego would never allow him to agree to such a thing. Not even for the band. Not Roxanne. Frank would have her all to himself. Or there would be hell to pay. Everybody he ever came in contact with would pay. Especially Glenna.
“Frank’ll never go for it,” Glenna said.
“Why are you so sure about that?”
“Okay.” She’d put a stop to this once and for all. “You talk it over with Frank,” she said. “If he says it’s okay…I’ll get you a job.” Glenna felt confident that this would be the end of it.
“All right.” Roxanne easily accepted her terms.
Whatever it took to pacify Glenna. But Roxanne didn’t think she needed Frank’s permission to do anything. Especially when her motives were purely altruistic. If he couldn’t be grateful for her assistance, well then, that was just too damn bad. The consequences were a factor she’d deal with later.
Roxanne figured that insuring the future of the band was the easiest way to insure her future with Frank. Anything she could do to help him would be helping them. She talked herself into believing she was right. And as for those warning signals going off in the back of her head, she ignored them all.
Roxanne gave Glenna a couple of days to consider the whole notion of getting financial help. Then she moved on to the next phase of putting her plan in motion.
She sat down on the bed and crossed her legs beneath her. She grabbed the phone off the bedside table, dialed Glenna’s number and then waited, a bit anxiously, for her to answer the call.
Upon hearing Glenna’s chipper voice, she said, “I…ah…I talked to Frankie last night.” That much was true. “We talked about…well…you know…” Roxanne stumbled over the words. “He said it was totally up to me. He doesn’t care.”
Glenna hesitated, unable to picture Frank agreeing to such a thing. “If that’s what he said…okay,” she agreed, against her better judgment.
“Great.”
“I’ll talk to my boss this evening and I’ll let you know something tomorrow.”
Long after Glenna had hung up the phone, she remained bewildered. She didn’t understand how Frank could agree to this. He wasn’t like Glen. He would not sacrifice Roxanne, not even for the sake of the band.
But Glenna didn’t have the nerve to call Frank to ask him whether or not he approved.
Roxanne went to work with Glenna and kept this information hidden from everyone, including Candy. Especially Candy. Candy would hit the roof. She would never understand.
The first week didn’t turn out half bad. Roxanne made tons of money. And when she helped Glenna pay the band’s bills, she felt useful. For the first time in her life, she felt like someone truly needed her.
It didn’t take long for the showers Roxanne took between sessions to start growing longer and longer, and she would scrub harder and harder, rubbing herself raw as she tried to wash away what she’d done.
One of the girls saw her inward struggle. “Everybody needs a little help now and then,” she told Roxanne. “A pill here…a pill there,” she explained, “and everything’s fine. You go see Dr. Foster.” She scribbled on a slip of paper. “Tell him you know me and he’ll fix you up.” She offered Roxanne a miracle cure in the form of a phone number for a crooked doctor.
Roxanne went to see this Dr. Foster, thinking he’d give her some magic pills and then miraculously everything would be fine.
The doctor gave her a prescription for Triavil, an anti-depressant/ tranquilizer. But, a couple of days later she was back in his office.
“The Triavil isn’t helping you?” he asked.
“Oh sure, it helps,” she said. “So long as I don’t plan on doing anything but sleep. But that kind of defeats the purpose since I can’t sit around and sleep all day.”
“Have you considered trying a different line of work?”
“Sure,” she said. “But I can’t. I need the money this job pays.”
“I see.”
“I just need something that’ll relieve the stress of what I’m doing. Something to help me cope with day-to-day life.”
This time, Roxanne walked out of the doctor’s office with a prescription for ten
-milligram Valium. Now life was going to be wonderful because she had some little blue friends.
***
Chapter 10
Roxanne decided to turn the spare room across the hall from Candy’s bedroom into an office for her writing. Making up her mind to finish her novel, she decided to make Ben Herrington everything Frank Garrett wasn’t. The only thing Ben and Frank would have in common was the fact that they were both musicians. And that’s where it ended, because not only was Ben famous in his native country, he would never, ever sacrifice Cherie for the music.
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