by Lelly Hughes
He does his due diligence and checks his clipboard, using my ID as a ruler as he goes down the list of names that are allowed through the gates without proper identification.
“Thank you, Mrs. Philips,” he says with a smile as he hands my license back to me. I open my mouth to correct him, but the words fail on the tip of my tongue. My eyes begin to water behind my dark glasses as I offer him a strained smile.
Once the cross bar is lifted, I pull through and follow the directions I was given to the sound stage. I’ve opted to leave my window down for a little bit of fresh air knowing full well that no one on this production lot gives a rats ass about me and what I’m going through.
As soon as I put my car in park, Darian is at the driver’s side door and opening it. “You’re late,” he says. “Caleb didn’t think you were going to show.”
“I’m here, and maybe if the label had sent a car, I wouldn’t have had to drive and be mindful of the paparazzi that have been camping outside my house for a month.” My tone is snippy and not meant to piss Darian off, but I can see that I have. “Look, I’m sorry. I don’t mean to snap at you; I’m just angry at this whole situation.”
“I know. C’mon.” Darian puts his arm around me and leads me to the sound stage door where Caleb Gilbert is standing and taking up most of the space with his hulking frame. Caleb is an executive from the record label who tells us what to do and when. His job is to make sure the label doesn’t suffer, and I have a feeling he’s none too happy with Van and me right now.
“Zara, it’s nice of you to show up.”
Mentally I’m flipping him off. Physically, I’m smiling as brightly as possible while my eyes are throwing daggers into his.
“Traffic was a bitch,” I tell him. I feel Darian tap me on my back. It’s his subtle way of telling me to be nice. I cock my eyebrow at Caleb and motion toward the inside of the studio. Obviously, if I’m late, you’d think he would want to get started.
When he finally does move, it isn’t without great effort and a dramatic sigh. His antics aren’t lost on me. He’s a diva. I’m a diva. It’s what makes us money. He’s also a huge fan of Van’s and probably feels like I’m over reacting.
As soon as Darian and I step in, there are gasps and murmurs from the galley of extra’s that will be in the video. Funnily enough, the song is very West Side Story with a girl falling for a guy from the wrong side of the tracks. The dancers are supposed to tell the story through their interpretation while Reverend Sister sings in the background. I tried to get the label to agree that we didn’t need to be on set for this to happen, that the dancers could perform to a recorded version, but they wanted live. Every production nowadays has to be live, and that can be exhausting for an artist.
The personal assistant on set intersects with us and pushes Darian and me toward the dressing room. The closer I get, the more stalled my steps become. Knowing Van is behind that door really does a number on my psyche and I’m not sure I can handle seeing him.
“It’s okay,” Darian whispers in my ear. “He’s not in there.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I asked Caleb to make sure you had your space before the shoot started. He’s here though, Zara, and he looks like shit.”
We stop right before the door marked “dressing room” and I turn to face Darian. Slowly I lift my sunglasses so he can see that I too look like shit. This past month hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows for me.
Darian sighs and nods toward the door. “Let’s go get ready.”
I’m sure in the back of his mind he thinks that I’ll need extra time in the chair to eliminate the dark bags and puffy eyes. He’s right to think that. As much as I wish I could say my nights have been filled with sleep and I haven’t cried since the day I caught Van, I’d be lying.
I’m trying to remain strong, but it’s hard. Van is the only man I have ever been with. He was my first kiss, my first love… I gave him everything and only asked that he love me in return. Lately, I’ve been wondering what the triggers were or what they might have been. We didn’t fight, rarely argued over anything that would cause either of us to seek solace in another person and genuinely loved spending our time together or at least I thought we did, but clearly I was mistaken.
The make-up artist and hair stylist get to work once I sit down. Oddly enough I find this very relaxing. Neither of them says anything about my disarrayed look. Probably fearing they’d get fired if they were to open their mouths and ask what the hell have I been not doing to myself. These women are professionals though and can handle anything that sits in their chair.
Some rank smelling cream is put on my face, right under my eyes. The scent cleans out my nasal passage rather quickly. I don’t even have to ask her what it is. I’ve been a victim of bags under my eyes before and already know she’s put hemorrhoid cream on me to curb the swelling. I tell myself to suck it up. I knew this shoot was going to happen and I could’ve prepared better.
I’m poked, prodded and painted to look somewhat human and more like the Zara Phillips that everyone knows. The one that showed up today is not how I usually leave the house and know I need to make a conscious effort to be better about that. I can’t let Van have this much control over me.
Looking at myself in the mirror, the girls stand beside me, marveling in the job they’ve done. In a matter of seconds, they turned me back into the person that I’m used to being. They brought life to face and hair with a few strokes of their personal magic.
“Beautiful as always.”
I freeze at the sound of Van’s voice and slowly turn my head to find him standing in the doorway, looking as sexy as ever in his leather pants, combat boots, and ripped t-shirt that probably cost a few hundred dollars.
The young girl who fell in love with him wants to run to him and collapse in his arms, but the woman he scorned has a stronger voice. Van takes two steps into the dressing room, and I shake my head while taking steps toward him. We’re almost torso-to-torso with him looking down to me.
“You don’t get to say that to me,” I say through a clenched jaw.
“You’re still my wife.” He casually points out.
“The day you stuck your dick into someone else is the day you stopped being my husband.” I side-step him and rush out the door, not watching where I’m walking and run smack into a man and his hot cup of coffee. “Ow, mother fu…” I let my f-bomb trail off as I jam the part of my burnt hand into my mouth. Tears begin to form, but I refuse to cry knowing that Van is right behind me.
“Z are you okay?” he asks, pulling on my hand while the man in front of me looks on with larger than life eyes at the scene that is playing out in front of him. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say he’s an extra for the shoot, but he’s dressed wrong in his trucker hat, plaid shirt, tight jeans and from the looks of it, cowboy boots.
“Don’t touch me,” I mumble and step away from him.
“Are you all right, ma’am?” the man who burnt my hand says in the nicest southern drawl I have ever heard. Not that I’ve heard many, but a few.
“I am… sort of.” My hand is burnt, and for some dumb reason, I show him where. He softly takes my hand over to the craft services tables and puts together a napkin with some ice.
“I am very sorry. I should’ve been watchin' where I was walking,” he tells me as he holds my hand gently in his.
I am completely dumbfounded by this man, and for the life of me, I can’t put my finger on as to why.
“It’s okay. I should’ve signaled before I left the room.” My joke is corny, and I don’t expect him to laugh, but he does, and soon I find myself laughing right along with him until someone steps next to me and takes my injured hand out of his and applies cream and a bandage. Before I can thank him, he’s disappeared, but Van is there to continue to ruin my day.
Chapter 8
Levi
I am as smooth as they come. Of course, I would be the one to spill my coffee on the lead singer of Reverend Sister,
burning her hand in the process. With how my luck has been going this month, it’s likely the hand that she holds her microphone with and for all I know I’ve ruined the video shoot today.
That’s the reason I’m here, drinking coffee and trying to ease the pain of the beautiful woman who has cautiously given me her damaged hand. If it wasn’t for Stormy, who spent days gushing about the lead singer and her epically cool hair, I wouldn’t have a clue as to whose hand I’m currently holding and trying to ice.
Weeks ago, I held onto the promise that I made Stormy and made sure that she was at every single audition that had been set up for her. Some of them—mind you—made my skin crawl and we promptly walked out, but others seemed legit. At the end of each night, I wanted to dig Iris up and strangle her for committing our daughter to some of these auditions. My feelings toward Iris only worsened when Stormy told me that most of the time her mother didn’t even bring her, that she took an Uber or asked her dance teacher to accompany her. I wanted to ask Stormy why she didn’t tell me but knew that nothing could change what happened in the months prior so why even bring it up?
I apologize to the woman, whose name I can’t remember as I place a makeshift ice pack on the burn. Her hand, in comparison to mine, is tiny.
“It’s okay. I should’ve signaled before I left the room,” she says, trying to hold back laughter. I can’t and bark out so loudly that others are staring at me. She, in turn, does the same and ends up snorting.
She quickly covers her mouth in total embarrassment. “I can’t believe I just did that,” she says.
“I thought it was cute.” The words are out of my mouth and to her ears before I realize that I’ve said the dumbest thing ever. Here I am, holding this uniquely beautiful woman’s hand and I tell her that her snorting was cute. And Barbara wonders why I’m single.
Our moment, or lack thereof, is cut short when someone takes her hand from mine. They immediately tend to the burn I caused leaving me no choice but to head back to the waiting area. I think about looking over my shoulder to get one last look at her, but I don’t.
As soon as I’m back in the waiting area, Stormy’s eyes are wide, and words are tumbling from her mouth before I can even sit down. “Did you hear that someone burned Zara’s hand and the shoot may not happen today? I mean, how could someone do that to her?”
Two things happen here for me. The first is my mind repeatedly says Zara’s name, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why. The second is acknowledging the fact that I may be public enemy number one if this shoot doesn’t happen and by looking around the room full of dancers, they’d have no qualms maiming me.
“I’m sure everything is fine,” I tell my overly anxious daughter. Never mind the fact that I’m shaking in my boots, wondering if I have ruined everything. I’ve been on the other side of production and can understand everyone’s disappointment when shoots get rescheduled. It’s nothing for a guy like me to move my schedule around, but for others, it can be a downright nightmare.
Not willing to divulge my involvement in the situation, I sit back and pull my cap down a bit farther and close my eyes. I really needed that coffee to stay awake. Since arriving in Los Angeles, I haven’t exactly been sleeping very well. Iris plagues most of my thoughts at night. Then there’s the lingering voice in the back of my head asking me what the hell I’m going to do with two teenage daughters. My mama will be on hand, as will Barbara, but I’m now in a situation that I never thought I would be in. Even with Iris being flakey, I always thought she’d be around to help me out.
The beauty of being here is that no one knows me. I’ve taken both girls to school, walked through their halls and haven’t been noticed. I even ventured out to the grocery store and looked at all the rag-mags on the newsstands to see if I’m anywhere in there. I haven’t been asked once for an autograph or picture at any of Stormy’s auditions, but I have been propositioned by a few of the other mothers. You know, these nice ladies are very sorry for my loss as their fingernails trail down my arm. Honestly, though, it’s been nice to stay under the radar and just go with the flow.
“Shoot’s on, I gotta go,” Stormy says. By the time I lift my hat to watch her leave, she’s in the mix of a sea of other dancers heading into production. This soundstage isn’t anything that I’m not used to, although most of my music videos are shot in airplane hangars or warehouses.
It’s not long before the music starts and I swear my ears are starting to bleed. For a brief moment, I feel like my mother used to when I would strum my guitar and sing out of tune. God bless her for putting up with me.
I sigh when the music stops, only for it to start up again, this time it’s much smoother. If I had to guess, someone was way off key with the first go round, but not this time. From the first beat of the drum, I’m tuned into listening and the riffs that follow on the guitar really have my attention, but it’s her voice that has me sitting up and listening a bit more. I won’t even talk about the goose bumps that have formed along my arms or the fact that my heart is racing a bit more.
“I take it this is the first time you’ve heard her sing?” A woman across from me says. I glance at her and smile.
“It is. This isn’t my type of music,” I tell her.
“Where are you from?” she asks. “I like your accent.”
The inner boy in me turns bashful. I have no doubt that if the lighting was better, she’d see that my cheeks are red. I don’t even know why I’m embarrassed by her question.
“Nashville,” I tell her, hoping that my answer doesn’t give away anything. I’ve rather enjoyed no one knowing who I am.
“That was your daughter with you earlier?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, that’s very admirable of you to bring her all the way out here for this. Not many parents would.”
I nod a thank you to her and sit back, letting the vibrations of the music work their way through me. The lady smiles before she reaches into her bag, pulling out two knitting needles. I watch as she weaves in and out of her stitches, working on what looks like a scarf but is probably something else. I remember my Memaw and how she used to do this every day. My memaw tried to teach me how to knit, but I was too focused on teaching myself how to play the guitar. And before Stormy and Willow moved to L.A. with their mama, she tried showing them, but they weren’t interested.
After a bit, the redundancy of the song takes its toll. The other parents who are still here have all occupied their time by reading or sleeping with headphones on, watching their iPad, or yammering on their phone. I’m the only one sitting here with nothing to do except people watch. Thankfully the brim of my hat shields my eyes so no one can really tell if I’m staring at them or not.
It’s about lunchtime when Stormy returns. She looks exhausted but has a beaming smile on her face.
“Y’all done?”
“Nah. It’s lunchtime,” she says and motions for me to follow her outside. There’s a tent set up across the way, and the dancers are all in line, waiting for lunch.
“We can go over to the cafeteria,” I tell her knowing full well that one call to Barbara and I’ll have access to the finer foods on the lot.
“But this is where we’re supposed to eat,” she tells me. I want to give her credit for putting herself in the same light as the others, but also want to shake her because I work my tail off to make sure she has the finer things in life. I know if my mama were here, she’d tell me that Stormy is teaching me a lesson in humility, and she’d probably be right. Stormy is trying to make a name for herself and hasn’t used me to do it.
“You’re right. However, I don’t think they want your daddy eating here, so I’m going to run over to the cafeteria. I’ll be back though.” Much to my surprise, Stormy kisses me on the cheek. It’s the first real emotion, that isn’t part of the grieving process, that she’s shown me since I broke the news about her mother. I’m taken aback briefly, but try not to let her see how much that simple gesture has affected m
e.
I don’t have to walk far to find a food truck, which will serve its purpose and is better than having to call Barbara to get me a pass into the lot’s café. Honestly, the fewer people that know I’m here the better.
With a burrito in one hand and a bottle of water in the other, I head back to the sound stage and choose to sit outside for a bit so I can enjoy the sun. It’s funny to be on this side of things. The side where people aren’t catering to my every need, making sure that I’d have a seat to sit on as opposed to getting my jeans dirty from the concrete.
Oddly enough I find myself laughing at the situation. Here I am, a mega superstar with a boatload of Grammys, number one hits and sold out tours and not a single person today has recognized me. It’s either that I’m fugly and no one has had the nerve to tell me, or I’m doing a damn good job staying incognito. I’m going with the latter because my mama would never lie to me and she tells me I’m handsome all the time.
“Do you always eat alone?” the melodic voice of the beauty with wild hair stands before me with her pants tucked into her combat boots and a tight shirt that accentuates every toned muscle of her abdomen. But it’s the gloved hand that diverts my attention. I swallow hard and adjust the way I’m sitting on the ground.
“How’s your hand?”
She lifts it and shrugs. “It burns, but it’ll be okay.”
“I’m truly sorry,” I tell her as I stand, instantly towering over her.
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says, laughing. She quickly covers her mouth and looks away, making me wonder if she’s afraid to snort again. “I’m Zara.”
“Levi,” I tell her as I shake her non-damaged hand. “My daughter is in your video.” I nod to where Stormy is standing and gawking at me. Normally, she’d come over, but I have a feeling she’s tongue-tied. That would definitely be a first for her especially since she’s grown up under the spotlight.
Zara looks over her shoulder and back to me. “She’s our lead in the video. I hope she makes you proud.” She winks before walking away, leaving me a bit speechless at not only her comment but the fact that I don’t think I was done talking to her.