Snapshot (The Jamieson Collection)

by Angie Stanton

  “Thank you. I’ll return it when we leave. Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “What do you think?” He snapped and walked away.

  Hours later, he walked out of the San Antonio Medical Center with a new cast. The specialist determined that the location of his break would allow for a different type of cast that would provide him enough mobility in his hand and fingers to play guitar. He sighed in relief that he wouldn’t have to deal with the nightmare of not being able to play.

  “May I please have my phone back now?” he asked his mother with as much patience as he could muster.

  She dug through her bag and pulled it out. “Here you go.”

  He snatched it from her hand and looked at it. “Great! The battery’s dead.”

  “And that’s my fault how?” she asked.

  “You didn’t give me a chance to turn it off.”

  “You know, I’m getting tired of that tone. What’s gotten into you? I thought camp would be good for you, but it seems to have been the opposite. You got into trouble, you broke your arm, you’ve turned surly.”

  “What happened is that I finally got the chance to be a teenager. Teenagers are supposed to be surly.” He tried to look tough, but a smile curled at the corner of his mouth.

  His mom grinned. Adam could never stay mad at her.

  * * *

  “Let me get this straight. You expect me to believe that you’re going out with Adam Jamieson?” Kristi asked.

  Marti grinned and nodded. She found it hard to believe too.

  “Shut up! That isn’t possible!” Kristi said from the head of Marti’s bed where she leaned against her pile of pillows.

  “I know!” Marti hugged her yearbooks before putting them in a box with her photo albums. Her room had become a mess with all her stuff being sorted for packing, pitching, or donating.

  “Prove it.” Kristi raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  “Hang on.” Marti grabbed her laptop and brought up her photo gallery. Kristi hovered over her shoulder. First Marti brought up a picture of Adam with the guys in the lake throwing a football. She zoomed in on Adam.

  “Oh. My. God. That’s him! But he cut his hair!”

  “Here’s more.” Marti clicked through picture after picture of her new friends. Kayla had sent her a huge folder of photos she collected from everyone. They’d become a lifeline for Marti. She showed pictures of them hanging in the nature center, sneaking drinks around the campfire and Marti’s favorites, her and Adam at the beach.

  Then she stopped on a close-up of the two of them. Adam took the picture by holding his camera in front of them. They looked so happy, their heads tilted together.

  Kristi reached out and touched Adam’s face on the screen. “You really are going out with Adam Jamieson! I can’t believe it.” Kristi plopped on the bed and kept scanning the pictures. “Is he a good kisser?”

  “Oh yeah.” Marti recalled the magical touch of his lips, soft and yet firm, and he tasted like… like Adam.

  “Are you blushing? Oh my god!” Kristi put the laptop down and focused her attention on Marti. “So what else did you do?”

  Marti tried to bite back her smile, but couldn’t. She pressed her lips together so she wouldn’t spill the news.

  “Okay, that’s it. You’re telling me everything!”

  Marti fell back on the bed, hugging a pillow over her face and squealed.

  Kristi pulled it back. “Did you? You know.” Kristi raised her eyebrows suggestively.

  At first Marti hesitated, but then nodded. “Yes!” She covered her face with the pillow again.

  Kristi leaned against the headboard. “I can’t believe it. My best friend did Adam Jamieson!” She shook her head struggling to come to grips with Marti’s reality.

  Marti rolled over. “But you can’t tell anyone. Swear it!”

  “Who am I going to tell?”

  Marti grabbed her arm. “No, seriously. You can’t tell anyone! No Facebook, or Twitter, or anything! Not even your dog!”

  “Why not? Aren’t you, I don’t know, proud you bagged him?”

  “It’s not like that.” What she and Adam shared was special. Real. She didn’t want to cheapen it by the rest having of the world find out.

  Kristi scooted closer and hugged her knees. “What was it like? You know, when you did it.”

  Marti’s mind transported her back to that night in the woods and the way Adam trailed his fingers over her hip and down her legs, how his breath warmed her skin from the cool night air. He made her crazy.

  “Hello! Earth to Marti!” Kristi shook her.

  Marti smiled and bit her lip. “Well… swear to me you’ll never breathe a word!”

  “I swear,” Kristi said, her eyes glued on Marti.

  “The first time,” Marti began quietly.

  “The first time! You did it more than once?” Kristi’s shocked reaction was so funny, Marti wished she could take a picture.

  “Well, yeah.” Marti dipped her head and smiled.

  “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!” Kristi clapped her hands like a toy monkey. “How many times?”

  Marti thought about it. “Three.” She buried her head in her hands. “Does that make me a slut?” She didn’t feel like a slut, but when she spent time alone with Adam, her body took over and she lost all control.

  “Of course you’re not a slut! I can tell you really like him. But what about him? I hate to be the wet blanket, but he probably sleeps with a ton of girls. Please tell me you used a condom.”

  She did not want to admit her stupidity, but her face told the story.

  Kristi’s face fell. “You didn’t use a condom?”

  “No.” Marti confirmed.

  “Ever? For any of the times?”

  Marti shook her head. Maybe she really was a trashy slut and would end up with STDs.

  “Oh, Marti, what if you’re pregnant?” Kristi’s excitement faded.

  Marti refused to consider that possibility. “No.”

  “You could be. When was your last period?”

  “I don’t know. I never keep track cause I’m so damn irregular.”

  “I can’t believe that Adam Jamieson wouldn’t have the decency to use a condom. If I ever meet him, I’ll give him a piece of my mind… after I get his autograph.”

  “It’s not like we ever planned it. It just… happened.” She fought a sudden urge to vomit. What the hell would she do if she was pregnant?

  “It’s going to be okay. I know it is,” Kristi decided.

  “What if it’s not?”

  “Don’t think like that. You will be fine. Fate wouldn’t be that cruel.”

  “Come on. My grandmother died and left me homeless. I have to go live with my freakazoid dad. Don’t bad things usually happen in threes?”

  “I’ve never heard that. Nope. You’ve got something great coming your way.”

  At that moment, her phone rang. Marti grabbed it off her dresser.

  “Is it him?” Kristi craned her neck to see.

  Marti peeked at the display and grinned in relief. “Yup!” Secretly she’d worried he’d never call again.

  “Oh my god! I can’t believe Adam Jamieson is calling your phone! Can I say hi? No, no. That would be weird.”

  “Calm down.” She laughed and answered the phone. “Hi.”

  “Hey, how are you? I’m sorry I had to cut you off last night.” Adam’s voice sounded relaxed and unhurried. Thank goodness.

  Kristi crowded next to Marti with her ear up against hers. “I’m good. Listen, my friend is here, and she’s a huge fan.”

  Kristi started waving and miming not to mention her and then rolled her eyes as Marti did.

  “If you don’t mind, I’d like to put you on speaker.”

  “Sure, go ahead,” he laughed.

  “Okay, Kristi, this is Adam, Adam, this is Kristi.”

  Kristi perched next to the phone and twisted the edge of her shirt. “Hi,” she said, acting shy, which was totally
not her.

  “Hi, Kristi. How ya doing?” Adam’s super star voice answered and Marti wanted to kiss him for being so nice.

  “Oh my god, it’s really you!”

  “Yup, it’s me.” His laugh sounded like golden sunshine.

  The three talked for a couple minutes and then Kristi, flying high from rubbing elbows with a rock star, said she had to go pick up her little sister from a friend’s house. Marti stayed on the phone as she closed the apartment door after her.

  “Okay, she’s gone.”

  “She seems really nice,” he said, sounding more laid back now that it was the two of them.

  “She’s the best. I don’t know what I’m gonna do without her.” The reality of her new life kept creeping up. It was becoming nearly impossible to ignore.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh Adam, so much has happened. My life is a nightmare.” The thought of teen pregnancy flashed in her mind, and she shook her head to erase it. No reason to freak him out when she was probably fine. “I’m being forced to go live with my dad.”

  “No way! But he’s terrible.”

  “I know,” she breathed, finally able to let her guard down with the one person she trusted more than anyone.

  “Oh Marti, that sucks so bad. I can’t even get my head around it.”

  “Yeah, if someone were to ask me what the worst punishment they could ever give me would be, I’d answer living with my mom or dad. So I guess I must have done something really bad.” Immediately she thought of sex with Adam. She just hopped right in bed with no hesitation.

  “Stop talking like that. None of this is your fault, and you know it. I wish I could fly in there and steal you away.” He quieted. She wished he could too, but they both knew it would never happen. “When do you have to leave?”

  “Tomorrow.” Her heart ached.

  “That’s fast,” he said, his voice somber.

  “No one’s asked me what I want.” She sighed and wiped her hand over her face. The toll of losing Grandma and now her home was catching up with her. “My mom has been ransacking Grandma’s apartment, so I guess it’s probably better that I won’t have to watch that anymore.” Marti had moved all the old pictures and a handful of keepsakes for safekeeping with Ruth. Marti’s mother would never notice they were missing.

  “What’s new with you?” She lay on the couch and stared at the ceiling, pretending they were on his bed at camp.

  “I’ve got a new cast! So now I can play guitar again.”

  “That’s great! I’m so happy for you.”

  “Thanks. We leave for New York in two days. We’re having a bunch of meetings, shooting a video. And… get a load of this: we’re playing on SNL!”

  “Oh my god! That’s insane!” She sat up. “That’s, like, so huge!”

  “I know.” He laughed. “We’re all pretty psyched about it.”

  Marti thought about how amazing it would be to spend a week in New York and appear on one of the biggest shows ever. She realized how busy his life would keep him. She couldn’t keep from asking, “I’m never going to see you again, am I?”

  She stood up and paced the apartment. The future looked bleaker by the minute. It made total sense in the karma of her life that he’d be next to leave. Plus, he lived the life of a musician. Even if he wanted to stay in her life, she knew that would keep him away from her.

  “Yes, of course you’ll see me again. I just don’t know when. Now that you’ll be on the West Coast, maybe it will be easier than a trip to Madison. I’ll figure something out. I promise.”

  She wanted to believe him, but her future looked more bleak all the time. She fought to keep her spirits up, but was losing the battle today. She spied a framed picture of her and Grandma and removed it from its shelf. She stared at it.

  “Adam, I do not want to move in with my dad. Every fiber of my being tells me this is a bad idea.” A huge dreadful fog hung over her ever since Ruth delivered the bad news. She couldn’t shake the eerie feeling.

  “He wouldn’t hurt you, would he?”

  She didn’t want him to worry. “No, I’ve never seen him hurt a fly, at least not physically.” She wandered back to her bedroom with the picture.

  “Good.”

  But good was the last thing this was. She tried to put on a happy face as her life tumbled upside down and inside out, but she ached for all that was lost; Grandma, Kristi and her friends in Madison, and Adam, who said he’d planned to stay a part of her life. What were the odds of that? Long distance relationships were impossible, especially if one of the people involved was a pin-up boy for one of the biggest bands in years.

  She put the framed picture in her suitcase and zipped it shut. “Enough about me; tell me something happy.”

  Chapter 15

  The next night, Marti stepped off the plane at LAX worried she might not recognize her dad. Six years had passed since she left LA, and other than an occasional paparazzi shot in a magazine, she hadn’t seen or spoken to him.

  After waiting an hour for him to arrive, and taking a few cursory loops around Baggage Claim, Marti knew he wasn’t coming. Why did this surprise her? Her parents always left her high and dry when she needed them most.

  When her dad didn’t answer the phone number Ruth provided, Marti had no other choice than to blow a huge chunk of her limited cash on a cab.

  Now she stood before her dad’s Hollywood mansion with a pile of luggage, and a cat carrier imprisoning a very unhappy Kahlua. A dozen cars ranging from shiny sports cars to beat up compacts crowded the large circular drive.

  Marti felt transported back to her ten-year-old self as she looked at the chrome and glass front door. What if her dad didn’t want her? What if Ruth made up the whole story just to get rid of her? Ruth wouldn’t be that cruel, would she? And what a turn of events to want her dad’s attention when she had wanted nothing to do with him for so long.

  Loud music carried to the front of the house. Marti didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to go in, but she couldn’t stand outside all day either. Should she ring the doorbell? This wasn’t her house, but it was now her home. If she did ring, would anyone even hear? Probably not.

  Kahlua meowed in annoyance, and Marti knew the cat needed out. She wrung her hands and scanned the area, wishing for an escape, but there was no escape. This was her new reality.

  She blinked back her worry and readjusted her purse strap. She stepped up to the massive glass door and gazed through the cut glass. A kaleidoscope of color appeared on the other side. She took a deep breath and opened the door.

  The music blared louder. She stepped inside the air-conditioned entryway and scanned the area for occupants. No one. She all but tiptoed to the enormous great room. The cream-colored furniture and glass-topped chrome coffee tables were all new since she’d last been here. They were arranged in cozy clusters for maximum socializing. A giant, flat screen TV anchored one wall and a fireplace, another. One side of the room featured floor to ceiling windows that overlooked a massive pool area, complete with a waterfall and a small army of guests. The mansion perched at the top of a steep hill and overlooked the city and the less fortunate residents below.

  Marti tried to spot her dad in the crowd, but only saw strangers in various modes of dress, from bathing suits, shorts and shirts, to dresses and business suits. She dreaded the idea of going out there to find him, but she didn’t want to move in unannounced either.

  Marti crossed the great room to the open veranda doors. The California sun blasted warmth. In addition to the partygoers outside, she saw a long bar with a bartender and plenty of soft seating areas filled by the many guests. Off to the side, in the shade, a marble table held a buffet of silver chafing dishes. As Marti gawked at the crowd and tried to locate her father, a woman with silky black hair and a tiny fire engine red bikini top and thong approached.

  “You’re late! The caterer is already set up in the kitchen. It’s off through those doors.” The petite woman, with breasts so hu
ge they threatened to bust out of her top, pointed a long, fake fingernail in the direction of the kitchen.

  Marti stared. Was she in the wrong house? Had her dad moved?

  “Hello!” The woman snapped her fingers in Marti’s face, any shred of patience gone. “Are you deaf? It’s that way!”

  “I’m not with the caterer,” Marti mumbled, looking down at her unfashionable jeans and t-shirt.

  “Then why the hell are you here?”

  “I’m here to see my dad. He lives here.” Marti tried to spot him before this lunatic went postal.

  “Your dad lives here?” She looked unconvinced. “Honey, I think you’ve got the wrong house.”

  Marti looked at the room inside and saw one of her dad’s Grammys on the same pillar it had rested on since she left. “No, this is his house. That’s his Grammy over there.” She pointed her chipped fingernail at the award.

  The dark-haired woman narrowed her eyes. “Is that so? Honey, I don’t know who you think you are, but you can pack up your gold digging ass and find the door.”

  “No! He’s expecting me. Where is he?” Marti craned her neck to see if her dad was poolside.

  “If he were expecting you, I’d be the first to know.” She looked Marti up and down her lip curled in a snarl. “Fine, I’ll play your game.” She spun on her stilettos and sauntered away, swinging her tiny, tanned, thong-covered ass.

  Marti raised her eyebrows. Not in Kansas any more. The woman strutted across the pool area to a group seated near the pool. She placed her hands on each arm of a low, padded chair and spoke to someone, her behind thrust deliberately in the air. Marti looked away.

  When Marti glanced back, she saw a man stand and nudge the half-naked woman out of the way. With a bong in one hand and a lighter in the other, he spied Marti and called out.

  “Martini! You’re here!”

  Not much had changed with Dad.

  The woman frowned, creasing her perfectly made up face.

  Steven Hunter pushed the bong into the hands of the guy next to him and ambled over, his smile bright and genuine. A mix of panic, dread, and even a little hope passed through Marti, as her father crossed the terrace. Maybe she wasn’t all alone in this world after all.