So she figured we were better off apart
Candy looked out the window again. She knew Frank had most likely written the song, but it felt like Rich was singing about her.
Why couldn’t he understand? She had to do what she did for Roxanne. She had to stand by her friend. But still, it was times like these when she missed him the most. And it could creep up on her when she least expected it. Like now.
Love is not the issue
It never matters at all
I bet if you ask her
She’ll make the call
You’ll need money
Or it’ll be your turn to fall
~ ~ ~
Rich laid the papers on the desk and paused before finally looking at Candy. “Are you just saying all that for my benefit…or is it true?”
“It’s true,” she said with a defined nod.
He massaged his temples.
“What?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“You know…I held a lot of animosity toward Roxanne for such a long time for what she’d put Frank through.”
“And now?”
“Now…?” he said, looking a little lost. “Now I just feel really sorry for her. I had no idea she had such a self-conflicting struggle about the whole thing.”
“Just goes to show…there are two sides to every story.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure,” she said. “You can ask.” But she might not answer.
“We’ve read about Roxanne’s love affairs. What about yours?”
Candy didn’t say anything, just shook her head slowly.
“So…” He tried to cap the urge to laugh. “You’ve remained celibate all these years?”
“Don’t push your luck.”She chuckled.
“Well…one good thing has come from all this.”
“And what would that be?”
“I can still make you laugh.” He winked at her.
“You know,” Candy said, a bit more serious now. “It’s funny.”
“What is?”
“Well…Roxanne always wanted something from Frank that she couldn’t get.” She hesitated, seeing the irony. “Yet she had two other men who were dying to be whatever she wanted—especially Kirk. He would’ve given anything if Roxanne could’ve given her heart to him.” A wave of sadness hit Candy.
Rich wasn’t exactly comfortable discussing Kirk Bronson or David Faulkner. If he talked about them with Candy then he was also acknowledging them as Frank’s rivals. Somehow that seemed disloyal. Instead, he decided to change the subject. “By the way…when did you guys buy this house?”
“When you guys were touring Europe. We didn’t stay here long. Rocky was afraid that Frank was going to magically appear from out of nowhere.”
“Funny thing is…if he’d known for a second, just once, where to look for her…” Rich’s words trailed off.
It was senseless to think about what-if. It was much too late for that.
While Roxanne and Candy collaborated to write Bad Company, Garrett-Hollander recorded their third album.
The phenomenal success of the second album won the band new fans. Record sales for the first album began to skyrocket, too. That year, G-H had two albums in the top ten.
Roxanne and Candy formed Simon Productions and produced their first film, while Garrett-Hollander’s popularity continued to rise and they accepted more Grammys for their third album.
~ ~ ~
“Well…we’ve got the basic groundwork down for the book.” Candy said. “Now all we have to do is figure out how to end this thing.”
“Are we going to make it public knowledge that Roxanne took an overdose?” Rich said anxiously.
“Well…” Candy hesitated. “She wanted the truth to be known.” She looked to Frank for an answer.
“Let’s not forget that she had a different ending for this story...her death,” Frank reminded them.
“Personally,” Rich said, “I think we should just say that Frank and Roxanne got back together and eventually married. I think if we’re going to tell anything even remotely close to the truth, it should be that it was an accident. And as of publication of this book, she’s still in a coma.”
Candy thought about it. “I agree.”
“Aren’t you two forgetting something?” Frank questioned them.
“What?” they both said in unison.
“You two really want to end this book and leave everybody hanging?”
“Well,” Rich said defensively. “Roxanne is the one who’s in a coma,” he added, as if the cliffhanger had nothing to do with him.
“I’m not talking about Roxanne,” Frank said. “I’m talking about you two.”
“Us?” Candy asked innocently.
“In case you two haven’t noticed,” Frank said. “There is a romantic subplot here, involving the two of you.”
Rich and Candy looked at one another, then at Frank, then back at each other. Their snorting laughter filled the air.
Candy looked at Frank. “A romantic subplot?” She looked at Rich again and they snickered together.
Frank ignored their cavalier attitudes. “It would be nice if the two of you would give us a happy ending to work with. Besides…” He shrugged, knowing exactly how to get to Candy. “I think it’s what Roxanne would want.”
“Oh, damn.” Candy moaned. No way could she fight it now.
Rich said nothing. But given the smile curling at the corners of his mouth, he got it that Frank had done him a tremendous favor.
Later that night, Frankie wandered into his parents’ bedroom in search of his mother. He pounded Frank’s arm. “Daddy…Wake up!”
“What? What!” Frank moaned, struggling to awaken. Then he realized Frankie was standing over him. That woke him instantly. “What’s the matter?” he asked, but he could easily guess.
“I want my Mommy!” Frankie cried.
Frank sat up and lifted Frankie onto the bed. “I tell you what,” he said, wrapping his arms around the boy. “Tomorrow, I’ll call Jerry. I’ll tell him that you and I have to go see your Mommy.”
Frankie’s eyes widened. “We’re gonna go to the water to get her?”
“No,” Frank said, keeping calm. “We’re going to go see her at the hospital. Remember, your Mommy’s sleeping and nobody can wake her.” The last thing Frank wanted was to give Frankie false hope.
“She’s not at the hospital, Daddy,” Frankie insisted. “She’s at the water.”
In the beginning, Frank thought that letting Frankie see Roxanne in her present state was a bad idea. But at this point, he figured it was better to let him see her in the coma, rather than having him continue with this fantasy that she was conscious and at the beach somewhere. Because it was, after all, only a fantasy. And somehow, some way, Frank intended to get inside that hospital to prove it.
“But, Frank,” Jerry argued across the telephone wire, “you know what Roxanne’s power-of-attorney says.”
“If that’s the only card you’ve got…save it. I don’t give a damn about that.” Frank’s anger barreled across the airwaves. “I’m going to take this kid to see his mother. And I’m going to show him that she’s in the hospital, and not conscious at the beach somewhere.”
“What?” Jerry blurted out.
“You heard me. You best get me in that damned place. Now.”
“Let me talk to Jason. I’ll see if we can set something up for the first of next week.”
“Sooner is better.” Frank slammed the receiver down onto the phone’s cradle.
The nerve of that guy. The nerve of the two of them. Both Jason and Jerry. Who did they think they were? Did they really think they could keep him away from her, forever?
***
Chapter 30
On a nice, warm November afternoon, Rich and Candy were grilling steaks in his back yard. A crisp breeze blew in from the lake, carrying with it the scent of jasmine.
“I’ve given this a lot of thought,”
Candy said, playing with the meat on the grill.
“What’s that?” Rich said vaguely, while relaxing in a lawn chair. Idly, he was taking in the scenery around the lake.
“What to give Frank for his birthday.” She hadn’t overlooked the fact that Frank’s birthday was also his and Roxanne’s first anniversary.
“So what’s your surprise?” Rich asked, paying more attention now.
“I think we should give him what he wants.”
“What he wants is for Roxanne to wake up.”
“Besides that.”
“Well besides that...he wants you and me to get married.” Rich didn’t give much thought to the idea since he knew marriage wasn’t in Candy’s cards.
“Well,” she said with a mischievous smile. “Why don’t we go get ourselves a marriage license then?”
“Geez…” Rich laughed nervously. “What kind of a romantic are you? You don’t just say, ‘why don’t we go get a marriage license?’ Somebody should propose to somebody.”
“Okay.” She dropped to her knees.
“What are you doing?” he questioned her with an anxious laugh. “Get up.”
“Would you just shut up? I’m trying to ask you to marry me.”
The shock of what she was doing hit him full force. Candy was serious.
“Richard Hollander…” She slipped her hand around his. “Would you do me the honor of becoming my lawfully wedded husband?”
Rich looked at her intently. Seeing those emerald green eyes sparkle with sincerity gave him assurance that everything was going to be okay. “Candice Simon…” he said, tossing out a serious tone. “If you try to back out of this…or if you decide to run away and disappear…there will be no place on earth where you can hide from me. I will hunt you down if it takes the rest of my life.”
They laughed playfully. Rich pulled her into his lap. “I love you, girl,” he said, running his fingers through her golden-blonde hair.
Candy wrapped her arms around his shoulders. “I’ve always loved you. I just never deluded myself that I could replace you.” She brushed her lips against his.
“Jerry,” Jason said nervously into the telephone. “We have a problem.”
“You’re telling me,” Jerry said with biting laughter.
“Has he called you too?”
“Frank?”
“No. Kirk Bronson.”
“Kirk Bronson?” Jerry wasn’t talking about him. In fact, he hadn’t given Kirk much thought in years. Not since Roxanne stopped talking about him.
“Yes. Kirk keeps calling me. He’s eager to come to the States to see Roxanne, even though I keep telling him that nobody can see her.”
“Just ignore him.”
“I’ve been avoiding his calls for about a week now. But it’s only a matter of time before he shows up here in New York. Or maybe even there in Florida.”
“I have a news flash for you, my friend,” Jerry said. “Kirk Bronson is the least of our worries.”
“What?” Jason didn’t like the sound of that.
“Frank Garrett is insistent upon taking Frankie to see his mother. I put him off until next week, but he’s determined.” Jerry was still in awe over Frankie’s perception. “It seems that Little Frankie contends his mother isn’t in the hospital at all. He says she’s conscious and somewhere at the beach …and Frank is determined to take him to the hospital and show him differently.”
“You’re kidding? Where did Frankie come up with something like that?”
“Apparently he’s been dreaming it.”
Frank felt lucky that Rich and Candy had decided to get married on his birthday. That way, he had something to preoccupy himself with, rather than having all the time in the world to think about the fact that he and Roxanne were unable to celebrate their first anniversary.
Rich and Candy got themselves a marriage license, and since there was no waiting period in Florida they were free to marry immediately. They found a Justice of the Peace who came to Rich’s house to perform the ceremony.
Their wedding, like Frank and Roxanne’s, was a small gathering. In the end, aside from Frank and Little Frankie, the only other people in attendance were Jameson, Rose, Glen, and Glenna.
“Who gives this woman?” the judge asked, breaking into Frank’s concentration. Or was it self-pity?
“You can skip that part,” Rich said.
“Wait a minute,” Frank butted in, not about to miss the chance for a little fun. “Who gives this woman?” He laughed skeptically. “Hell…we’re not giving her away.”
Frank glanced at Rich. He swore there were tiny little fire-tipped daggers shooting out from Rich’s eyes. It made Frank’s laughter rumble inside.
“We might trade her for a good amp or something,” Frank said, willing to bargain. “But we’re definitely not giving her away.”
The judge cast a startled look over the faces of the guests, as if to say, “someone please take control of this man.”
Candy started giggling. After that, everyone laughed.
“Go ahead,” Frank said, on the verge of laughter. “Marry them.”
Within moments Rich and Candy were pronounced husband and wife.
“I guess this sort of makes us brothers-in-law, doesn’t it?” Frank said, witnessing the marriage license.
“Guess we’re stuck with each other now,” Rich said with a smile.
Candy noticed Glenna had wandered off and now she was standing alone with her head hung low. “Glenna,” she said, going to her side. “What’s wrong?”
“This may seem selfish of me,” Glenna said slowly. “But this just reminds me of how much I really miss the band.”
“We all do,” Candy said. “But Frank refuses to play anymore. And Rich is determined not to play if Frank won’t.”
Candy and Glenna both knew there was only one person who could put the band back together again, but she wasn’t there.
“Damn it!” Glenna’s frustration blew out with her words. “Why doesn’t she come back to us?” She searched Candy’s face for some hint of comfort.
“Nobody wants that more than me,” Candy said. “Except maybe, Frank.”
After talking to Jerry, Jason caught the first flight to Tampa. If he got out of New York before Kirk Bronson showed up, he’d consider himself lucky. But Jason had more important things to worry about right now. Like the fact that Frank expected to see his wife, next week at the latest.
With this turn of events, Kirk’s nosiness seemed a bit trivial. Of course, he might have felt differently had he known Kirk was headed to Tampa at that very moment.
Jason rushed into Jerry’s office. “Are you ready?”
“I’ve been waiting on you,” Jerry said.
“Well, let’s get to the airport then. Our plane leaves in an hour.”
Once Kirk arrived in Tampa, he rented a car and headed for the address he’d found for Jerry’s office. He couldn’t get any information on the hospital Roxanne was in, but he’d get the address out of Jerry, one way or another. He laid his hand on the handle, preparing to open the car door when he saw Jerry and Jason rushing out of the building.
What was Jason doing here? And where were they in such a hurry to go? Kirk decided to follow them.
He was surprised when he ended up following them back to the airport. Trailing them inside, he watched them board a flight headed for Kingston, Jamaica.
What the hell is going on? He watched their plane take off and tried to make some sense of what he’d witnessed. Vaguely, he remembered Roxanne once saying something about Jason having a vacation home in Jamaica.
A little voice inside Kirk’s head urged him to follow them.
Kirk went to the ticket counter. “When is the next flight to Kingston?” he asked casually, even though he had no clue why he was considering going there.
“We don’t have another flight until tomorrow morning,” the ticket agent replied. “Would you like me to check the other airlines for you?”
“Ye
s, please.” He gave her a flirtatious smile.
“You’re in luck. Delta has a flight leaving in an hour.” A star-struck look crossed her face, suggesting she recognized him. “Would you like me to book you a seat?”
“Yes. Thank you.” Kirk grabbed his ticket and boarding pass, then headed for the cocktail lounge to have a drink while he waited to board his flight.
There was something fishy about the whole thing with Jason and Jerry. Kirk couldn’t put his finger on it, but he was determined to find out what. He’d forgotten something though. Something he hadn’t realized until he got off the plane in Jamaica. He had no idea where to look for Jason and Jerry. Frustrated, he went down to the beach and got a room for the night.
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