Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “I put you down as my family,” Tink said. “My only family.”

  “Of course,” Charlie hugged her. “I’m really glad you came by.”

  Blushing, Tink followed him over to meet Delphie.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Thursday morning – 1:15 A.M.

  Tanesha slipped out of bed. She crept through the early morning quiet of the penthouse to the kitchen. Before she had left this morning, Jill had asked her if she’d ever listened to Jeraine’s music. It was a simple question, but with Jill’s new found ‘abilities’ nothing was simple. She shook her head. Outside of the two seconds it took her to change the radio station, she’d never listened to his music. Jill had pressed an iPod full of his songs into her hand. The last thing Jill said was maybe Jeraine could better serve people by making music. Excited about the house, Tanesha hadn’t thought much about what Jill had said. A half hour ago, Jill’s words woke her from a sound sleep.

  “Maybe Jeraine could better serve people by making music.”

  “How would I know Jill?” Tanesha whispered and flicked on the electric kettle.

  “Listen to his music,” the Jill in her mind said.

  “Hrmph.”

  Tanesha scowled but went to her purse. Her hand found the iPod while her heart and mind waged a battle. When he’d left the first time, she’d promised herself she’d never listen to his music. The more famous he became, the more determined she became. She was not going to fall prey to some stupid idolization of the person who ripped her heart out of her chest.

  It wasn’t easy, especially when he sold out and they used his songs in Coca Cola ads. But her friends had helped by not listening to him either. They were probably the only people in the world who didn’t know even one of his songs. Hearing the kettle click off, she went into the kitchen.

  She made her tea and went to sit in her favorite chair next to the fireplace. She had a view of the entire city and the mountains. Setting her tea down, she couldn’t have been more surprised to find the iPod in her hand.

  “Jill,” Tanesha said softly as if her friend had in some way made the iPod appear.

  Giving up her struggle, Tanesha put in the ear buds. She picked up her tea and turned on the iPod.

  And time passed.

  Tanesha cried, smiled, and boogied in her comfy chair. His music was good, really good. She could see why he was so popular.

  And the love songs? She felt what she was sure every girl felt while listening to these songs – handsome Mr. It was singing directly to her. She’d listened and re-listened to a few love songs before she realized why Jennifer, Valerie’s publicist, was so excited to meet her. In every love song, Jeraine whispered something to Miss T.

  Jennifer had asked her if she was Misty. Tanesha had no idea what she was talking about. After the third or fourth love song, Tanesha looked up ‘Mr. It and Misty’ on the Internet. Unbeknownst to Tanesha, there was a big controversy about ‘Misty.’ The gossip columnists speculated that Misty was short for Melissa or Millicent or Marissa. Every gossip magazine had a favorite girl who they believed was Misty. A bunch of girls had come forward saying they were Jeraine’s beloved Misty. You could even buy tight skank T-shirts with a picture of Jeraine on one side and ‘I am Misty’ on the back.

  Yet, every time and in every language someone asked him who was Misty, Jeraine said there is no Misty.

  Because there wasn’t a Misty.

  There was a Miss T.

  All of his love songs were for her.

  Just as he’d always said, he’d done all of this for her. She’d always thought he was just talking his usual bull. His music whispered something else.

  He loved her, all of her. He’d truly done all of this for her. Still listening, she watched dawn’s light creep into the city and wondered what she was going to do.

  She was startled when he touched her shoulder. She pulled the iPod ear buds out of her ears and hid the device under her.

  “Hey,” Jeraine said. He turned on a floor lamp. “What are you doing out here?”

  “Nothing.”

  His finger touched her cheek where a renegade tear lingered. His eyes took in her face.

  “What are you doing out here?”

  “Listening to your music,” Tanesha said.

  “I thought you were never, ever going to listen to that crap ever,” he said.

  “I figured if you were willing to look at my house, I should be willing to listen to your music.”

  “And?”

  “You wrote all of this for me?”

  “I’ve told you over and over again,” he said. “You never believed me.”

  “You screwed a billion women!”

  “I’m an addict!” Jeraine said. “One drop of booze or blow or pot or any mind altering substance and I want all ‘dem bitches. I have a problem! I’m working on my problem! Are you going to work on your problem?”

  “My problem? Oh, since you have a problem, I have to have a problem?”

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED & SEVENTY-NINE

  Perfect

  “No matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, it’s not good enough,” Jeraine said. “No matter how much I love you, you always find a reason to push me away. I screwed up when we were teenagers and you can’t forgive me.”

  “Have you been trustworthy?”

  “I have a problem. I’m working on my addiction. And no, I haven’t been trustworthy. But you…”

  Frustrated, he stopped talking. They stood inches from each other yet each saw only the depth of their own pain and the deep well of the other person’s problem. Desperate to not lose her again, Jeraine asked:

  “Why did you listen to my music this morning?”

  “I don’t really know,” Tanesha said. “Something Jill said, I guess.”

  “And?”

  “You have an incredible talent. Your music is good.”

  “And?”

  “I was wrong for not listening. You’ve been trying to communicate with me this whole time,” she said. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t imagine that you needed me, my help. I just couldn’t fathom it. I still can’t.”

  “You’re everything to me, Miss T,” he said.

  “I hear what you’re saying,” she said. “I can’t believe that it’s the truth because your actions don’t say ‘Tanesha is my everything.’”

  “What do they say?”

  “They say: I’m a playa, I’m a gansta, I’m a rich black man who can have anything and anyone I want,” she said. “That’s not ‘I love my girl more than anything.’”

  For the first time in all the years they’d had this conversation and others like it, Jeraine heard what she was saying. His love for her didn’t come across because his actions spoke another language. The truth of her words hit him like fists. His silent understanding encouraged her to say more.

  “I remember feeling so loved by you,” Tanesha said. He smiled. “I felt like I was dancing on the petals of a sunflower. Our love was the center. I went out into the world and came back to the warmth of our love. Then you…”

  Tanesha’s primal pain welled up so fiercely that she clamped her mouth closed to keep from letting it out into the world.

  “I got drunk and fucked a cheerleader,” he said. “And then another girl. And then I did the same thing the next weekend and the one after that. Finally, I did it on the football bus on the way back from a game so that everyone knew.”

  “And my center was gone,” she said.

  “Do you remember what you told me?”

  “I don’t remember much of that time,” Tanesha said. “You got caught. You took a record contract. You left. I know those facts but memory? Nothing. It’s like a festering sore. I wouldn’t have survived without Jill and Sandy and Heather. Jill filled out my application to Howard. Heather forged my signature and pretended to be me with the admissions people. Sandy paid the fees and worked out my financial aid. I didn’t really wake up until a year or so later. I don’t even remember how I got to colle
ge. I’ll have to ask Heather.”

  Jeraine watched the memory work its way across her face. When she looked up at him, he gave her a soft smile. Their eyes connected. He could say he was sorry again, but he knew words meant almost nothing to her. Instead, he took her hand and gently lifted it to his lips. She nodded as if she’d heard his regret.

  “When everything happened, you told me: ‘You just lost the best thing you will ever have in your life.’ You were right,” he said. “I knew it when you said it and I’ve lived it every single day since then.”

  “You were my everything, my center,” she said. “I didn’t have a mother or a father or a sister. I had you and my girls. And then, I didn’t have you; and worse, I found out I never had you. It was all a lie.”

  He swallowed hard at her pain.

  “It wasn’t a lie,” he said. “You were my center.”

  “How can you say I’m your everything and… and… do all of that?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I destroyed the only thing that ever mattered to me,” Jeraine said. “I could tell you I have an addiction, which is true. I could tell you how hard it is to recover from the addiction, which is also true. But what’s more true is that I could have stopped and I didn’t. I don’t care about alcohol or drugs or any of that. I don’t lust for it. And I don’t want the girls without it. I could have stopped. I didn’t.”

  Tanesha nodded when he admitted one of her main arguments.

  “And I don’t know why I didn’t stop. I can make up stuff about us being so young or whatever, but the truth is that I don’t know,” he said. “Do you?”

  In all these years of knowing him, he’d never asked her the question. As if to shake the words out, she shook her head.

  “You know me better than anyone in this world,” he said. “You have to have some idea.”

  Tanesha closed her eyes to gather her thoughts. She gave a slow nod.

  “What?”

  “Your Dad is an amazing musician,” Tanesha said. “Seth is truly incredible, a one of a kind musical genius that people will still be talking about a hundred years from now. I think it’s hard for you to feel like you’re anything when true greatness is the norm.”

  “You were the only good thing I ever did,” he said.

  “You didn’t ‘do’ me. I…, um, care about you because of something that’s right here.” Tanesha put her hand on his chest. Gaining her courage, she added, “I love you for you. I think you wanted me to see how awful you were so that I wouldn’t care about you.”

  They stood staring at each other for a few moments until he nodded.

  “And now?” Tanesha asked. “Are you going to destroy everything again?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you going to let me?”

  Tanesha’s rage pulsed through her veins. His main point of contention was that she could have stopped the train wreck and she didn’t. Her fists balled and she felt fire shoot from her eyes. They stared at each other for a moment. Then, out of no where, Tanesha heard Jeraine’s mother, Mrs. Wilson say: ‘Are you ready to fight for his soul?’ Her rage slipped away.

  “What can I do to stop you?” Tanesha asked. “It’s your addiction.”

  “You can know that I love you,” Jeraine said. “You can know that if something happens, I didn’t want it to happen; I didn’t make it happen. You can fight this thing with me, on my side, instead of against me.”

  “What would have happened if I’d fought on your side when we were in high school?”

  “Nothing. I wouldn’t have listened to you,” he said. “You had lost so much, experienced so much; you were so much more mature than me. I had to grow up, a lot, experience things, like prison, before I could even come close to experiencing the things you’d experienced by the time we met. I wouldn’t have gotten it then, but I will now.”

  “Why would things be different?”

  “Because I’m different,” he said. “Because I’ve been in treatment; hell, I’m still in treatment. Because I know in my mind, heart, body and soul what I want and that’s you.”

  Tanesha didn’t say anything.

  “It’s a long road, Miss T, but it’s our road,” he said. “When I was putting together the last greatest hits album, I listened to all the songs I’ve written for you and about you. I don’t think I was ready for us when we were kids.”

  “And now?”

  “What did you hear?”

  Tanesha looked away from him.

  “What did you hear?” he repeated. He moved her chin with his hand so she was looking at him.

  “You get what happened,” she said. “What you did to me, to us, and you… want to make it better.”

  Regaining herself, she leaned back.

  “But are you going to do the work?”

  “Yes ma’am,” he said. “Are you?”

  Tanesha nodded. He pulled her into his arms.

  “I love you, Miss T,” he said in her ear. “I always have.”

  Tanesha began to cry.

  “None of that,” he said. “We have to go see some junker of a house.”

  Tanesha socked him in the ribs and he laughed.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Thursday morning – 10:15 A.M.

  “I don’t need to hear anymore,” Valerie said.

  Sitting in a quiet booth in the back of Annie’s Café, Valerie leaned back so the waitress could set down her apple pie. The waitress gave Honey her gingerbread and set down two slices of berry pies down for Jill and Heather.

  “Do you?” Valerie asked Honey.

  “No,” Honey said. “There’s no way I’m going to let them experiment on our baby or your daughter or your boys, Jill. No way.”

  “So we agree,” Jill said.

  “Are you sure?” Heather asked. “I mean, it would mean the world to us, but I…”

  “Blane is my friend,” Honey said. “And a really decent guy. If our baby’s cord blood can save him? I’m in.”

  “I’m in,” Valerie said. “Absolutely.”

  “Here’s what’s going to happen,” Jill said. “Blane will be prepped for surgery when you’re in labor Valerie. When Jackie is born…”

  “Jackie?” Valerie asked.

  “Isn’t that the name you picked out?” Jill asked.

  “Jacquotte,” Valerie said. “Like the pirate. How did you know?”

  “Like I said when Jackie is born,” Jill winked at Valerie. “Mike and I will do our stuff with the cord and send it to Blane’s operating room with Heather. Same with you Honey.”

  “MJ’s working but I get to Skype him tonight,” Honey said.

  “Good,” Jill said.

  “What are you going to do?” Valerie asked Jill.

  “Have the babies at the Castle so no one can take them away for experiments,” Jill said. “My brother Steve is looking into preserving the cord blood.”

  “By that time, we’ll know if Blane’s getting better,” Heather said.

  “The boys’ cord blood should do the trick,” Jill said. “Or that’s what Blane’s doctor believes.”

  Valerie beamed at Jill.

  “What?” Heather asked.

  “It’s like giving birth to twins,” Valerie flushed with passion.

  “Giving life to two people?” Honey asked. “I thought that too.”

  “Very cool,” Jill said.

  “Now I have to convince Blane,” Heather said.

  “Convince me of what?” Blane asked. He set their son, Mack, in the waiting booster seat. He kissed Heather’s cheek and scooted in next to her. “What are we talking about?”

  “I went to see the doctors yesterday,” Jill said.

  “But…” Blane said.

  “Give her a chance to finish,” Valerie said. Sitting across from him, she put her hand over his. “Give her a chance.”

  Jill had heard Valerie had a “gift”, but she’d never seen it. Watching her manage Blane, there was no mistaking that Valerie was Celia’s powerful daughter. Blane nod
ded as if he agreed completely. Surprised, Heather raised an eyebrow. She looked at Blane and Valerie and then back at Blane.

  “I have a rare blood type,” Jill said. “They’re pretty excited to get a chance to explore my genome.”

  “Sounds awful,” Blane said.

  “I thought so too,” Jill said. “I was about to leave when your doctor took me aside and told me about some cord blood studies.”

  “Cord blood is the blood in the umbilical cord,” Heather said. “It contains stem cells and other fabulous things.”

  “I remember we donated Mack’s,” Blane said.

  “This is your gift returned to you,” Jill said. “There are a number of studies, I don’t know how many, which found that putting cord blood into the artery that feeds the liver helps the liver recover.”

  “Really?” Blane asked.

  “Your doctor thinks you’re a good candidate because you don’t drink and you lead a healthy lifestyle,” Jill said.

  “The studies show that people heal from liver disease with help from the cord blood,” Heather said.

  “And the risks?” Blane asked. “I’ve been in this game long enough to know there’s always some horrible risk.”

  “For you? The risk of the surgery,” Jill said. “There’s no risk to us or our babies.”

  “What if your babies need their cord blood?” Blane asked.

  “We have to trust that some other couple will be willing to donate their baby’s cord blood,” Jill said. “We’re willing to take that risk.”

  “We don’t store our own blood; we trust people to donate,” Valerie said. “We’ll do the same for Jackie.”

  “I need to confirm with MJ, but I’m sure we are too,” Honey said.

  “Valerie is due first,” Jill said. “Then Honey. MJ’s traveling so she doesn’t want to commit before talking to him. But she’s going to talk to him tonight. We’ll know then. The boys and I are last.”

  “I’d get all four?” Blane asked.

  “We’d have to see how you do,” Heather said. “I looked up the studies after Jill got back from the doctors. Some people got better after one treatment. So we’ll see.”

  “If you don’t need it, you won’t get it,” Jill blushed. “But your doctor is likely to want you to have ours.”