Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6

by Claudia Hall Christian

  “I’m not a little girl,” Noelle said. “I don’t believe them.”

  “It’s okay?” Tink asked.

  “Of course,” Sandy said. “Do you mind waiting?”

  Tink shook her head.

  “You can sit by me,” Noelle said. “Oooh! I like this song! Turn it up!”

  Noelle ran over to turn up the music.

  “I promised you…” Noelle and Sissy sang together, “I promised you…”

  Sandy put her hands on Sissy’s shoulders.

  “I can’t cut your hair if you wiggle,” Sandy said. To her assistant, she said, “I need the same pink for Sissy.”

  “You bet,” her assistant smiled.

  “Is this too much?” Sandy asked.

  “I love family day,” her assistant said.

  Smiling, Sandy started cutting Sissy’s hair. The song Noelle loved permeated the salon. A man crooned about making all these promises to the woman he loved and breaking every one of them. Sandy smiled at Noelle and Sissy’s teenage resonance with the songwriter’s pain. Then she heard:

  “Jer? Whatcha doin’ out here?” in Tanesha’s voice. Stunned, she stopped cutting.

  “Nothing,” the man said and the song was over.

  Sandy walked over to the stereo and turned it down.

  “What is that song?” Sandy asked.

  “It’s a new song from Jeraine,” Sissy said. “You know Auntie Tanesha’s boyfriend?”

  “I know who he is,” Sandy said.

  “They’re saying it was leaked to the radio station,” Charlie said. “But he has a concert tonight. I heard it wasn’t sold out until they leaked it locally. It’s just another BS ploy to get attention.”

  “Did you hear him at the radio station?” Noelle asked. “They asked him about the song and he said, ‘What new song?’ I don’t think he knew.”

  “Yeah, if I was trying to pump my fame, I’d say the same thing,” Charlie said.

  Angry, Sissy spun her chair toward Charlie and the argument began. Noelle and Sissy believed in poor Jeraine. Charlie thought he was a fame whore. Nash and Teddy came from the back to join in. Hearing her siblings voices, Rachel gave a rousing scream.

  Sandy went to the back of the salon to get Rachel and her phone. With Rachel crying in one arm, Sandy dialed Tanesha. Her phone clicked over to voice mail.

  “I know you’re hiding out today,” Sandy said. “But you’ve got to hear this song. Someone’s trying to screw you. Love you, T. Call me back.”

  Sandy heard the salon door close and the kids stopped arguing. Peeking out, she saw Aden standing in the doorway. His presence put a quick end to their argument. She went out to give him Rachel and a kiss.

  “Ok, Sis,” Sandy said. “Let’s get this done.”

  For the next few hours, Sandy worked on the kids’ hair. She was just finishing Aden’s shave when she realized she hadn’t heard back from Tanesha. She checked her phone. Nothing.

  Tanesha was out of touch. Sandy made a quick call to Heather, who confirmed that Tanesha had turned off her phone today to avoid Jeraine. Heather agreed to go to Tanesha’s Gran’s house and to call Jill.

  Something was definitely up and her dear friend Tanesha was smack dab in the middle of it.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Saturday evening—6:15 P.M.

  “Why do you watch that trash?” Bumpy asked his wife, Dionne.

  He stood behind the couch. Dionne looked up from the evening news.

  “I’m waiting to see your son,” Dionne said. “Don’t be such an ass. You know you want to see him really do this – clean, sober, saying good-bye to all the toxic in his life.”

  Bumpy scowled at her. She patted the couch next to her. He gave her a hard look. She patted the couch again and he came around to sit down.

  “There he is,” Dionne grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume.

  “He’s high,” Bumpy got up from the couch. “He’s really high. And look at the women… I can’t watch this.”

  “Don’t you dare go anywhere,” Dionne said. “You know what he said.”

  “He’s an addict,” Bumpy said. “He’s back to the same old bullshit.”

  “Do you really not remember what happened?” Dionne jumped up to stand in front of him. A small woman next to his massive frame, she gave no ground. “To us?”

  “What are you talking about?” Bumpy’s voice was hard and dismissive.

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about,” Dionne said.

  “That was different,” Bumpy said. “I wanted to get out of that life. I wanted to be with you and create this life. Haven’t I done that?”

  “And what did the record company want?” Dionne asked.

  Bumpy looked down at Dionne.

  “And what happened?”

  “We lost the baby,” Bumpy said.

  “Why did I lose our son?” Dionne asked.

  “Because of them,” Bumpy said. “I had to finish the last three months of my contract. We couldn’t afford to get out of it.”

  “And?”

  “I got high and…” Bumpy said.

  “And?”

  Bumpy looked away from her. She tugged on his shirt and he looked down at her.

  “That was different,” Bumpy said.

  “Why?” Dionne asked. “They slipped you hard drugs. They lied to me and told me you wanted to see me. And what happened?”

  “You saw me with a bunch of women,” Bumpy said. “You got so upset that you lost the baby.”

  “They blamed me when you wanted to change your life,” Dionne said. “They did everything to break us up.”

  “That didn’t happen,” Bumpy said.

  “It’s happening to your son right this very instant,” Dionne said. “Your living son will lose his life today, if we don’t do something. The only thing he cares about is Tanesha. She’s the only thing that keeps him going. He will lose her today if we don’t do something.”

  “Did you hear the song?” Bumpy asked.

  “What song?” Dionne asked.

  “Our son wrote a song that he told me and Seth was for Tanesha,” Bumpy said. “We worked our butts off and…”

  “It’s playing on the radio?” Dionne asked.

  “He must have leaked it.”

  “Oh grow up,” Dionne said. “You know exactly what happened. Someone stole it and now he’s high. Someone did this to our son specifically to destroy his life with Tanesha. You know that.”

  He gave her a curt nod.

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  ~~~~~~~~

  Saturday evening—6:35 P.M.

  “I’ve been trying to get you for hours.” Seth gripped the phone as he limped back and forth across his living room. Bumpy sat on the couch watching Seth pass in front of him. Ava tried to get him to sit down, but he was too angry to stop pacing.

  “Sorry about that,” Schmidty said. “I turned off my phone when we got to the airport.”

  “How is Lizzie?” Seth asked.

  “Tired,” Schmidty said. “We just got settled at the house. I think she’s relieved to be here. Thanks for suggesting it and making it available.”

  “I’m glad things are working out,” Seth said. “Colin and Julie took Connor home right after you left. They’re in baby bliss.”

  “I’m glad. I’ll tell Lizzie. She’ll be happy,” Schmidty said. “Listen, you called five times. I thought I’d call you rather than listen to the messages.”

  “No problem,” Seth said.

  “What’s up?” Schmidty asked.

  “Remember that song Bumpy and I were helping Jeraine with?”

  “The one for Tanesha?” Schmidty asked.

  “That one,” Seth said. “It was leaked it to the radio station.”

  “Oh shit,” Schmidty said.

  “My buddy at DPD cyber crime says someone hacked Jeraine’s email box,” Seth said. “Said they worked on it for almost two days before they got in. They’ve been able to track th
e IP address, whatever that is.”

  “Where?”

  “Last management team. You know the one connected with the record company.”

  “He’s sure?”

  “He’s sure,” Seth said. “The song’s gone viral. Ava’s found three videos on YouTube.”

  “Must be a great song,” Schmidty said.

  “It’s very touching,” Seth said.

  “I’ll call the lawyers.”

  “I don’t mean to be an old fart,” Seth said. “But are you up for this? Should we call your Dad?”

  “I live for this kind of thing, Seth,” Schmidty said. “Seriously. Great fun. It’s why I went to law school. Leave it to me.”

  “You remember the studio…”

  “Trust me, I haven’t forgotten that the studio owns everything you work on this month,” Schmidty said.

  “I used the orchestra,” Seth said.

  “That’s even better.”

  “It is?”

  “Leave it to me, Seth,” Schmidty said. “No one fucks with my artists.”

  “No one fucks with your artists,” Seth repeated slowly.

  “Don’t worry old man,” Schmidty chuckled. “Give me a couple hours. What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure,” Seth said.

  “I have a couple messages from Bumpy,” Schmidty said. “Maybe you should talk to him.”

  “He’s here,” Seth said.

  “Any idea where Jeraine is now?”

  “He’s having dinner with the record execs,” Seth said. “He’s due at the club in a couple hours. And Schmidty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “He’s high,” Seth said. “He told me this thing when he was in prison. I thought it was just an excuse, you know, an addict’s lie.”

  “Anything we can use?”

  “He told me that he’d tried to get clean a few times,” Seth said. “He’d clean up, stop using, stop the women, then bam, as soon as he was touring again it would start again. I said something about being an addict or whatever. He said it wasn’t like that. He never remembered drinking or getting high. That’s what he said happened the night the girl died. He was black out high and had no memory of getting that way.”

  “Yeah but if he was on a black out…”

  “Trust me, Schmidty, when you wind up in a black out, you know the road you took to get there. You remember the starting the party,” Seth said. “He had no idea how he got so high. He said it happened a lot. He’d just suddenly be high. When he’s high, he wants women. That’s how he decided to get rid of his entourage. This stuff only happened when they were around.”

  “And he’s high now?”

  “He looks high,” Seth said.

  “He’s high,” Bumpy yelled in the background.

  “Any ideas how that happened?” Schmidty asked.

  “A few.”

  “Well, don’t do anything crazy,” Schmidty said. “I’ll be in touch.”

  Schmidty clicked off the telephone call.

  “So?” Bumpy asked.

  “He says he’s going to take care of it,” Seth said.

  “He’s a child,” Bumpy said.

  “Let’s give him a chance,” Seth said. “Doesn’t Regis still own the Church?”

  “Far as I know,” Bumpy said. “I’ll call him.”

  “Schmidty said we shouldn’t do anything crazy,” Seth said.

  “When has a Schmidty stopped us from being crazy?”

  Seth laughed.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Saturday evening—6:35 P.M.

  “Yeah, Heather came by,” Tanesha said as she closed her Gran’s front door. “She and Blane are going to be at dinner.”

  “You okay?” Tres Sierra asked.

  “No,” Tanesha walked out to the street. “Did you see him on TV?”

  “Yeah,” Tres said.

  “He’s high,” Tanesha said. “God, Tres, he’s high! And the women clinging on him… I…”

  “You want to meet at the Squire for a drink before we go to the Castle?”

  “I think a drink will send me right over the edge,” Tanesha opened her car door and sat down.

  “Okay, I’ll meet you at the Castle,” Tres said. “But we can get out anytime.”

  “See you there.”

  Tanesha clicked off the call and closed her car door. She had the desire to run back inside and hide under her covers like she had for most of the day. Sighing, she started the car. The radio blared. She drove down her street toward Twenty-Third.

  “Here it is,” the announcer said. “The song you’ve been lighting up our lines to hear. ‘I promised you,’ by our own Jeraine.”

  Tanesha looked at the radio. Jeraine might be a drug addict, womanizer and a liar, but he was an amazing business man. He’d agreed not to release any music until his recording contract was complete. Tanesha was there when he and Jammy went over his contract. She saw Jeraine’s head nodding to Schmidty telling him to take a year off. He wanted the year off.

  So what the hell was this song?

  The song began with a sorrowful violin. The moaning was joined by a standup base beat and an orchestra picked up the beat.

  “How can I make a promise to you?” Jeraine said. “When I’ve promised you the world and failed every time.”

  For the next few minutes, Tanesha felt outside of time as she listened to Jeraine detail every promise he’d made and broken. Stopping at the light on Broadway and Seventeenth, she glanced at the car next to her. A woman was crying her eyes out. Feeling Tanesha’s eyes, she turned to look. The woman’s passenger window went down

  “Jeraine?” the woman yelled.

  Tanesha nodded.

  “Breaks your heart,” she said.

  The light changed and the woman raised a hand in a wave.

  “Jer? Whatcha doin’ out here?”

  Tanesha heard her own voice come from the radio.

  “Nothing,” he said.

  Her mind transported to the moment he’d recorded. She saw herself leaning against the doorframe of the den in the Penthouse. She’d been watching him for a while. He wore expensive headphones and was working on a song. She could see the music move on his mixing program. Humming this tune, he was looking at a picture his Mom had taken of them on his eighteenth birthday. When she’d asked her question, he closed his laptop and they’d gone to bed.

  Tanesha blinked.

  “That was the new song from our own Jeraine,” the radio announcer said. “We’re not saying who, but someone leaked the song exclusively to…”

  Tanesha turned off the radio.

  “You can fight this thing with me, on my side, instead of against me.” Jeraine’s words echoed in her mind.

  “Are you willing to fight for his soul?” his mother’s words followed Jeraine’s.

  Turning onto Race Street from Colfax, she saw her girls waiting for her in the driveway. She pulled in and parked behind Tres’s car.

  “How are you?” Heather hugged Tanesha tight.

  “I just heard the song,” Tanesha said. “My song. The one he wrote for me. As a present; just for me. My private apology is all over the world for strangers to hear.”

  “Oh honey, I’m so sorry,” Sandy hugged her.

  “No, they’re the one’s who’re going to be sorry,” Tanesha said.

  Sandy stepped back to look at her.

  “Those jerks messed with the wrong girl,” Tanesha said. “Will you help me?”

  “Anything,” Jill said.

  “It’s time to get even,” Tanesha said. “And get my man back.”

  “We’re in,” Heather said. “What do we do?”

  “I know just the thing,” Tanesha said.

  CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED and EIGHTY-FOUR

  Escape

  Saturday evening—7:45 P.M.

  “Tanesha?” Jeraine called from the door to the Penthouse.

  He walked into the Penthouse.

  “Tanesha?”

  He was having dinner wi
th the record executives when the restaurant had played the song, his song for Tanesha. The song was his present and his one hope to make up for everything that happened. The executives cheered each other and him for his “brilliant move” of leaking the song.

  But he didn’t leak the song.

  His eyes had shifted across the faces of the men he had thought were his friends, until they’d settled on his ex-agent. The man’s face was a mask of arrogance and anger. This song automatically renewed Jeraine’s contract with the record company. The agent had made at least a hundred thousand by hacking his email.

  And Jeraine was his slave again.

  Jeraine excused himself from the table and slipped into the bathroom. He’d tried to call Tanesha. He’d tried to call Schmidty. He got only voicemail. When a crowd of men came in the bathroom, he slipped out and took a taxi home.

  “Tanesha?”

  Everywhere he looked, he saw signs that she’d moved out. He rubbed his forehead. Tanesha had left him. Again!

  He couldn’t blame her. He’d leave him too.

  He felt high. No, he felt really high. It was all he could do to keep from losing himself in the dozen or more half naked woman pressed upon him. But he hadn’t done a thing. “This too shall pass.” His Dad told him to repeat it in his head. And it worked. He hadn’t strayed even a little bit.

  Not a kiss.

  Not a feel, a rub, a squeeze…

  And certainly not…

  “Tanesha?”

  Feeling dizzy, he stopped at the kitchen for a glass of water. Her tea was still here. That meant she was at her Gran’s house. Her Gran and Miss T drank the same tea. If Miss T left without her tea, she was at her Gran’s. He’d go there.

  Smiling, he poured a glass of water and his head began to spin. The glass slipped from his hand and shattered in the sink. The palms of his hands caught on the edge of the stainless sink to keep him from falling face first into the jagged glass.

  He remembered this feeling. His eyes blurred. His head felt woozy. Hearing footsteps, he tried to turn, slipped, and crumpled to the ground.

  “Tanesha?”

  “Not quite.”