by Brooks, Tori
Jess watched him but Kenny wasn’t going to cave under his silent interrogation. It didn’t take long for Jess to give up.
“Bryan and Dev know yet?”
“No. Not sure how I’m going to pitch it. Assuming I can get Paige to go along with it. And of course the pageant.”
“First, they should want us. It’s televised and it’ll increase their ratings. Second, if we just do a song that’s in our recent play list, we don’t need much lead time, which is good because we won’t have it. Third, and this is important, you’re not bribing anyone. A friend was blackmailed and you’re just evening things out. You already admitted you know she won’t win. She knows she won’t win. You’re not hurting the, we’ll hope, innocent young women who do have a chance to win. No bribes. This has to be clean.”
Kenny considered Jess thoughtfully. “You’re really big on the bribery thing.”
“Bribes are bad, even for the best of reasons. They come back to bite you on the ass. Assume someone will look into this at some point and make it look innocent. Something the press wouldn’t bother with. For the pageant or us.”
○ ○ ○
Kenny sat in the plush, if overly feminine, office of the Miss North America Pageant. He knew they did a lot of things by committee, Paige ranted about it once before she pulled herself together, but he didn’t expect this meeting would be too. He planned on speaking to just one person.
Of course he started with five, Kenny thought as he watched the third woman storm off. At this rate he would be dealing with just one person in only a few more minutes. One woman got called away to deal with some issue with her son before they even started. An older man, who didn’t have a sense of humor, left in a huff when Kenny introduced the idea of having a rock band play at their prestigious event. Kenny faced the remaining businessman and former beauty queen sitting across from him. He wondered who he’d end up dealing with. He wasn’t even sure which one he wanted.
“So,” the businessman smiled pleasantly after the door slammed closed. Eric Parker, Kenny reminded himself of his name. “I saw your name on the agenda and took the liberty of looking you up. Quite a name you’ve made for your band. Quite a history. I used to do business with Paul Lovett,” Eric said.
Him, Kenny decided. He wanted to do business with him. “Really? Small world. Paul was helpful in the early days.”
“He was a good man. I was surprised to see Flynn Peterson was your mentor for many years. I ran across him too, although it didn’t go nearly as well.” The look in Eric’s eye wasn’t as friendly. Kenny changed his mind, he’d rather deal with Raquel Hatch, his partner. He liked the way she perked up at the mention of Flynn’s name. Clearly she was a fan of In Like Flynn.
“Depending on when in his life you met him, Flynn might have been an interesting person,” Kenny conceded.
“Shortly before I divorced my first wife.”
Several responses crossed Kenny’s mind, but he decided to keep it simple. “Flynn won’t be there,” he said.
“It’s an interesting proposal, Mr. Wright. You’re offering an appearance by a popular band in exchange for guaranteeing her a certain level of success,” Raquel smiled. “I assume that was the proposal anyway.”
“Paige’s very devoted. We haven’t known each other long, but the first time we met she already knew she’d be eliminated before the semi-finals now, where before she had a chance at the top ten or higher. Worse, she accepts it. I don’t.”
Eric appeared to take all this in, including, Kenny assumed, the fact that he didn’t deny the near-bribery allegations.
“What makes you think Ms. Hart won’t make it at least to the semi-finals on her own? Other than the impropriety of trying to bribe the system?”
“She was blackmailed and didn’t play,” Kenny answered. He assumed they knew, the details on why they knew were irrelevant.
Eric held his eyes for a moment then nodded. “Good for her. On that point at least.”
“So you already heard the consequences?” Kenny asked.
“Politics are distasteful sometimes. Having a boyfriend isn’t a stroke in her favor.”
“She’s a friend. I saved her from my lead singer. In her mind, his attention was a fate worse than death. In some cultures if you save someone’s life, it makes you responsible for them.”
Eric laughed. He thumbed through a folder Raquel handed him. Kenny saw various pictures of Paige, including one of her in a bikini. Very nice.
“I think Ms. Hart is a beautiful young woman with a great deal of potential. I think she can at least make the semi-finals. If you’re willing to donate your time as friends, it could only help her support network.”
Kenny didn’t like the vagueness of it, but it was a start. They might be in for more than a single number. At least the hosts were already announced. “I’m glad to hear that.”
“Of course you can’t tell the other girls or sponsors you’re friends, you have to be impartial –” Raquel added.
“Naturally. Can I have our manager give you a call? Or would it look better if your office called us?”
“I think it would look better if we called you,” Eric said immediately.
Kenny nodded and pulled Alec’s card from his wallet, handing it to Eric. “I mentioned to him I wanted to do this, but he has no idea why. My number’s on the back if you have any trouble at all.”
Kenny stood and shook the Eric’s hand, then Raquel’s.
“Thank you for taking the time to hear me out. I just wanted to offer my help in overlooking an indiscretion that isn’t part of the judging anyway,” Kenny added. They smiled tolerantly. Kenny left wondering just what he’d gotten them all into.
○ ○ ○
Jess answered the door to the snug apartment over the garage he shared with Kenny. It was Bryan, and he left Brenda at home. Jess ushered him in with a mixture of relief and anxiety. The anxiety was for Kenny, the relief was that they’d finally get this Miss North America thing in the open. And that Bryan had left Brenda at home. Jess suspected she might have an opinion on this and the thought made him cringe.
“Guys, I’d like a word,” Kenny said as Bryan sat by Dev at the small round table in the corner of the room. Jess lounged on his bed and watched as Kenny walked over and closed Dev’s laptop to be sure he had his attention.
For a change, Dev didn’t protest. Everything seemed unreal now that they were back. Tiffany was gone. They missed her funeral, although Cassie forgave them. She bought the excuse that they couldn’t make it back in time, to their combined relief. She even accepted Kenny’s thin story that Jess’s voice was nearly gone from an oncoming bout of laryngitis and he was under doctor’s orders to shut up. He even said it like that.
Jess was horrified watching Cassie hobbling around on crutches, abrasions and greenish yellow bruises disfiguring her beautiful face. He and Tiffany fought more than anything, but it wasn’t malicious. She was Cassie’s best friend and didn’t think he was good enough for her. Jess would never admit it aloud, but he sometimes agreed she had a point. Not that it would ever stop him from wanting Cassie. It grieved him to see her in such pain. It was worse than when Teri had died, and he didn’t think that was possible. At least then she had Tiffany to lean on. Now she had no one. Dev, Flynn, Sophie – they tried. Brenda and Lindsay came over frequently to do what they could. Nothing seemed to help.
When they arrived home, everyone offered Cassie their condolences. Jess just gave her a hug after Kenny explained. Feeling her trembling slightly in his arms tore at his heart, but not as much as her easy acceptance of the lie.
Dev spent a lot of time with his sister for a couple of days. Kenny flew into Seattle, spent a day at home with Cassie, then back out east to do something about Paige’s problem. Jess hovered in the shadows watching Cassie and Dev while Kenny was gone.
He wanted to approach her, hold her while she cried. Take her face in his hands and kiss the bruises on her cheek and jaw better. Instead, Jess watched while C
assie leaned on Dev. He was consumed with jealousy that Dev got to wrap a blanket around her and hold her for hours, whispering little things to her to make her smile.
It was absurd to be jealous of Dev. He was her brother. Even if he wasn’t, he was inept when it came to women. Sure, Dev had a girlfriend, but he didn’t catch her so much as she caught him. It wasn’t the same thing.
Regardless, it was a relief to pick Kenny up at Sea-Tac and find the Miss North America Committee called Alec while Kenny was still in the air. When Kenny returned Alec’s call, walking through the airport and waving to fans, he got the official request, and the terms of the arrangement. Jess and Kenny discussed how to tell Dev and Bryan on the way home.
Thankfully Bryan and Kenny spent enough time with Dev between the time Tiffany died and now that he seemed mostly fine. The little guilt Dev still had about missing the funeral, Cassie and – heaven help them all – Lindsay were taking care of. A couple more days and the gangly emotional wreck should be back to normal. Jess wished he could say the same of himself.
“We just finished a small tour, but we have one more show to do,” Kenny said. Jess cringed, this wasn’t how they agreed it should be pitched. What was he thinking?
Kenny waved a hand at Jess as if to tell him to settle down, although he hadn’t done anything to warrant it. Yet.
“Why?” Bryan asked.
Kenny exhaled loudly. “Short story? Paige. Official story is we’ve been offered the opportunity to donate our talents to the Miss North America Pageant and we’ve accepted.”
“The opportunity to donate?” Bryan asked.
“We accepted without taking a vote on it?” Dev asked, sitting back in his chair as Bryan sat forward in his own.
Kenny nodded. “I’m dragging you into this, and I’d really appreciate it if you’d back me up.”
“I really would have appreciated being asked up front,” Dev said.
“You’re right. I didn’t know what exactly was going to happen until it did. It was a snap decision.”
“Not to sound greedy, but I’d like to get back to this ‘opportunity to donate to a beauty pageant that they probably already make a fortune on’ concept,” Bryan said.
“Let me back up even further and tell you a bit more about what Paige and I talked about when Jess first saw her.” Kenny pulled a chair out from the table, turned it around, and straddled it.
Jess could only see Kenny from profile, he was talking to Bryan and Dev, not that it really mattered. The announcement wasn’t news to Jess, nor was the motivation behind it. Kenny had his agreement already. It could have gone so much easier if Kenny would have just agreed to the original plan, even though it wasn’t quite as forthright. Now he was bogged down in details and truly screwed if Dev or Bryan didn’t agree.
Kenny could pay Bryan, if that was his only qualm. Dev might want to spend more time with Cassie. That was a problem. He also just might have a problem with precisely why Paige was in trouble to begin with. Jess wasn’t sure what Teri’s stance on abortion was, she never mentioned it. Dev was more stubborn and ...
Jess didn’t want to say Dev was more religious really. Teri never stressed organized religion. He couldn’t even say what denomination they were, now that he thought about it. Jess did remember Teri saying it was a personal thing. Private: between a person and God. And Jess could see that sort of thinking being where her big hang-up on abstinence came from that caused Dev to be such a headache to deal with for so long. Jess grudgingly gave Lindsay a small thanks for bringing him into this century on that issue.
Lindsay, that was the key. If Dev did have an issue with abortion on moral grounds, he’d talk to Lindsay. Well Kenny could talk to her too. And have Lindsay probably kick him in the nuts for trying to use her to sway Dev.
“Jess?” Kenny waved his hand in front of Jess’s face.
“What? Yeah? What’d I miss?”
Across the room, Dev let his head fall forward and banged his forehead on the table. Bryan shook his head sadly. Jess looked to Kenny for an explanation.
“Everything. It’s a go. What were you daydreaming about? Or do I want to know?”
“Nothing important, as it turns out. Yay. It’s a go. When is it a go?”
“Dev goes back to school, has a week to arrange things with his professors, then he’ll meet us in Toronto,” Kenny said. “He’s going to email them tonight and set up what he can in advance.”
“So ... almost two more weeks of pretending I don’t live here,” Jess said with a nod. “By then I probably won’t.”
“It was time you moved out anyway,” Kenny said.
“How long until Paige gives up her crown?”
“Screw you.”
Chapter Five
Dev sat off stage at the rehearsal for the Miss North America pageant and watched the girls practice their talents. Bryan stood close on his right side, almost leaning against him. It should be an invasion of his personal space, but oddly, Bryan’s proximity made him feel better. Slightly. Despite his best friend’s presence, he couldn’t think of anywhere in the world he wanted to be less than here.
When Kenny explained about Paige and her own brother screwing her over, he had a little trouble wrapping his head around it. Cassie drove him nuts sometimes, but he couldn’t imagine her ever doing anything that would make him willingly do something at the cost of her happiness. He even read the rough draft for her doctoral thesis, a boring piece of literature in excess of two hundred pages. And she wasn’t even done with it! She wasn’t in the doctoral program yet either, so the whole thing was a huge waste of his time. But he did it because she asked him to, she was his sister, and it made her happy to make him miserable.
So as Dev listened to Kenny explain his plan to give Paige not so much a chance at the title she might have deserved but at least recognition, Dev’s irritation with him fell away. Besides, it was obvious Kenny had a crush on Paige. She was beautiful, so that part was understandable. He’d spent a little time with her, so maybe it was something more. Dev wasn’t the best judge.
Dev agreed to Kenny’s rash plan to rescue the damsel in distress before he even finished his sales pitch. Beside him, Bryan agreed out of sheer surprise, Dev suspected.
And now here they were. Standing like consolation prizes at the county fair for two dozen young women. Dev didn’t think even one of them failed to size them up as they either walked on or off stage, or both.
“So Kenny,” Dev said as he leaned against the piano and watched Miss Great Lakes walk happily off stage. Kenny gave her some suggestions after hearing her earlier and it sounded like she listened. “If we’re all from Seattle, why are we giving tips to Miss Great Lakes instead of Miss Northwest? Officially, I mean.”
Off to his left, Jess snorted a laugh. Dev ignored him but Kenny shot him a warning look.
“Dev, do you know who Miss Northwest is?” Kenny asked.
“No. Should I?”
“You didn’t recognize her?”
Dev sighed and turned to face Kenny. A few of the girls were edging closer to listen, but he was irritated and ignored them.
“Can we just count it as a given that I’m clueless about girls, which is the main topic here? You just spell it all out in that patronizing voice you reserve just for me, while Jess sits over there and fails to suppress derisive laughter, okay? It’d save us all a lot of time.”
A rainbow of giggles broke out around them and Kenny tried to wave off the girls as he leaned closer to Dev.
“You’re not supposed to admit you’re clueless about girls,” Kenny said, maintaining eye contact.
Dev looked around pointedly at their female audience. He couldn’t escape them no matter how hard he tried. There was no use in pretending. It was enough to drive a guy to drink.
“Kenny, we have a permanent audience not just sporadic girls passing through that I can briefly put on an act for. Any who haven’t figured it out by now will shortly and I can’t be on guard all the time. So what’s
the history with what’s-her-name?”
“Rene Golden. She graduated with Bryan, you idiot, and tried to hit on you. Of course you were doing your damnedest to pretend any girl not in the chess club didn’t exist back then. It shouldn’t surprise me you don’t remember her.”
“Computers, Kenny. I didn’t play chess anymore by the time I met you guys.”
“Don’t worry about it, Dev,” Jess called over. “I explained your indifference and consoled her.”
“I bet you did.”
“Problem is,” Kenny continued, “it didn’t end well.”
“So Rene’s mad at Jess.”
“Actually, no. Jess is mad at Rene,” Kenny said.
“Whatever.” Dev threw his hands in the air and turned away. “I don’t want to hear it.”
“You’re right. Go call Lindsay, take a swim or something, and settle down. I would say pick someone who was cut and have a good time, but it’s beyond you,” Kenny called.
Dev shook his head and walked off to find a quiet corner to call Lindsay while he waited for their turn to rehearse.
○ ○ ○
Kenny watched as Jess edged over toward Dev again. The show director, John Brusky, kept making changes in their routine and he really wished the man would just let them do their job. They were intermission: a pause while the contestants changed clothes, a bit of a draw for viewership. All they had to do was two songs, and they could play them both in their sleep. The constant changes to their entrance or their positions, and insistence on practicing was overkill. Dev was getting twitchy being around the girls so now Jess wasn’t playing nice anymore. He was clearly heading over to bug Dev.
Kenny didn’t blame him. Playing the Miss North America Pageant was a big deal, but in retrospect it wasn’t his best idea. He wanted to help Paige, thought it up, and sold it without considering Dev was going to be in his own personal hell. He knew better.