by Meg Cabot
But I knew I had to get the whole story first. Besides, no one knew better than I did that violence doesn’t solve anything. Most of the time.
“Oh,” Tania said with a shrug, still picking at her toe, “stupid things, like I was never going to make it because I wasn’t talented enough and maybe I should quit.”
The lyrics from her hit song “So Sue Me,” the one that was so different from her others, popped into my head.
All those times you said
I’d never make it
All those times you said
I should quit
“But that didn’t make any sense, because if I quit, then we’d have no money,” Tania said. I noticed her eyes were filled with tears. “And then when I did get work,” she went on, “he’d get so mad, because of course the jobs were never through his contacts. I’d have to pretend they were, you know, make things up, like that someone he’d called had hired me instead of someone I knew. Otherwise, the things he’d say . . . they were even worse.”
“Like what?” I asked carefully.
All those times you said
I’m nothing without you
The sad part is
I believed it too
“I don’t know,” she said, her shoulders hunched defensively. “Just . . . things.”
Then I left and
What do you know
I made it on
My very own
“Tania,” I said, still keeping my voice neutral, “did Gary hit you?”
“Oh,” Tania said, in dismay. “Oh no. Not again.”
I looked down and saw that blood was welling from her toe. She’d peeled off the nail polish and in doing so had ripped part of the nail. Her face crumpled.
“I don’t want to get blood on their furry thing,” she said, tears flowing down her face.
“Don’t worry,” I said, though my heart had begun to race. She’d ripped part of her own toenail off, right in front of me, when I’d asked if Gary ever hit her. “Here, I have a Band-Aid.”
My fingers shaking, I reached for my purse. I had tucked a handful of adhesive bandages into it before leaving home in anticipation of the blisters I was going to get from my high heels . . . although truthfully, I nearly always had a Band-Aid or two with me. It was another symptom of the hypervigilance from which I suffered, working in Death Dorm. Though how a Band-Aid would have helped Jared today, I don’t know. I didn’t know how it was going to help Tania, either. I knew only I had to try.
I peeled the packaging off the Band-Aid and wrapped it gently around Tania’s toe, which she was holding out toward me like an injured child. In many ways, I felt she was an injured child . . . an injured child who was carrying a child inside of her in more ways than one.
“There,” I said when I was through. “Does that feel better?”
“Yes, thank you. I’m so stupid,” she murmured through her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to Jared. It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have stopped paying Gary, I should have believed him when he said he was going to hurt someone if I didn’t—”
“You were paying him?” I interrupted. “He’s been blackmailing you?”
“Not blackmail,” Tania said quickly. “Alimony. Well, sort of alimony. I owe him that much—”
More lyrics from her song pop into my head:
Go ahead, go all the way
Take me to court
It’ll make my day
So sue me
No wonder she sang “So Sue Me” with so much feeling. She’d not only written it herself, she’d lived it.
Frankly, I didn’t think she owed him a damned thing, but apparently a New York divorce court disagreed.
“—but mostly I’m sorry for what I did to you, Heather, with Jordan,” she went on. “I knew it was wrong. I knew Jordan was with you, but it was like I couldn’t control myself. Maybe it was because I knew I had to get away from Gary somehow, and I couldn’t do it on my own, and I knew . . . I don’t know. It was like a part of me knew you’d always be okay?” Tears dripped off her pointed chin. “I don’t mean that how it sounds, and I know it’s not a good excuse, but that’s why I did what I did. I’m not like you, I’m not strong. I’m so sorry—”
“Shhh,” I said to her. “It’s okay.” She was starting to sob hysterically. Nothing she said made any sense.
The thing that was getting through to me, though, was that she kept apologizing . . . for picking at her toe until it bled, for not making enough money for Gary, and now for seeking love, one of the basic human needs, from someone else. There was something so wrong with her, so broken, and yet she was one of the most successful women in the music industry . . . at least for the moment. I couldn’t help wonder what her fans—what anyone—would think if they knew the truth about Tania Trace.
No wonder she was so desperate to hide it.
“Listen, all of that’s in the past,” I said, desperate to get her to stop crying. “I forgive you. And I’m sure the Cartwrights don’t care about the stupid furry thing.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. Baby had clambered onto her chest and was licking her tears, but Tania paid no attention. “That makes me feel so much better. Plus . . . well, I really do love Jordan. As soon as we started singing together, I knew. Our voices blend. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard his song ‘Triple A,’ but I sing backup on it. I heard that ringing sound in my head right away, as soon as we started singing, just like I used to with my old choir.”
“You mean with Gary,” I said.
“Gary?” She looked confused. “Gary and I never performed together.”
“But,” I said, now unsure of anything I’d heard, “you told me that your choir got a first in State . . . that he led you there.”
“Of course,” she said. “Because Mr. Hall was the conductor. He was the greatest teacher I ever had.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. A horrible feeling had begun to creep over me, sort of like one of the cockroaches Tania had mentioned, only instead of skittering under the refrigerator, it was skittering down my spine. “Tania, was Gary your high school choir teacher?”
She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Did I not mention that?”
Chapter 18
I Don’t Care
I don’t care
About the time you won the race
I don’t care
That you think I have a pretty face
I don’t care
That you wrote a best-seller
Keep your big mouth shut
And you’ll be my kind of fella
Stop talking about the time
You made the vegan dip
The truth is, honey
I couldn’t give a sh*t
I’m only here
To get into your pants
So take my hand and
Come on, boy, let’s dance
“I Don’t Care”
Written by Heather Wells
No sooner has Cooper locked the front door behind us—even before I’ve had a chance to tell him what Tania told me—than he announces, “I have got to take this thing off. Don’t freak out. But it’s been killing me all night.”
Then he reaches around and pulls his gun from the holster clipped to his belt at the small of his back, where it’s been hidden beneath his shirt the whole evening.
I don’t freak out. I don’t so much as raise an eyebrow.
Instead, I say, “Don’t you freak out either, but I have got to take this thing off too. It may not be a deadly weapon, but it’s killing me just the same.” Then I peel off my Spanx, right there in the foyer, after first kicking off my high heels.
Cooper does raise an eyebrow. “Does this mean what I think it does?” he asks, casting a hopeful look at the floor.
“Ew,” I say. “No.” Why do guys always want to do it on the floor? What’s so wrong with a nice cozy bed? “Sex is the last thing I’ve got on my mind right now, Cooper. I need a drink—a real drink—and probably abo
ut five movies in which Tyler Perry dressed as Madea goes to jail in order to get over what I just had to hear at your parents’ place.”
He winces. “That bad, huh?”
“The worst,” I say, heading up the stairs, Spanx and shoes in hand. “Not to mention the fact that you’ve been lying to me about owning a gun all along. Oh, and did I mention I happened to witness a murder earlier this afternoon?”
“Yes,” he says, “I did lie to you, and yes, a man died today. And yes, you did have to hear my sister sing about tasting her own menstrual blood, all of which were, indeed, tragic events. But I think both Jared and my sister would want us to go on enjoying making sweet love toge—”
I throw one of my shoes at him from the top of the stairs.
“Put that gun away,” I yell. “You’ll be lucky if I ever make sweet love with you again. ‘No, I don’t own a gun.’ ” I stride toward my bedroom, imitating him. “ ‘I don’t need a gun, I’m a brown belt in karate.’ ”
“Black belt,” I hear him call from the basement, where I’m not surprised to learn he stores the gun safe. It explains why I never noticed it. I try never to go into the basement. Why would I? It’s where Cooper keeps all his sporting equipment, such as his golf clubs, ten-speed, basketballs, racquetballs, and also, apparently, his gun collection. Plus, it’s where all the spiders are.
When I come back downstairs, having changed into my “relaxing clothes”—oversize sweats and a large T-shirt left over from the Sugar Rush tour—I have to deal with Lucy, who seems to be able to sense how unnerved I am . . . or maybe it’s the steak I consumed at the Cartwrights’ . . . or possibly it’s the lingering scent of Tania’s dog, Baby. In any case, she’s all over me, wanting to crawl into my lap the way Baby had, but Lucy isn’t a Chihuahua, so this isn’t practical. I have to give her a rawhide bone, with which she quickly disappears through her dog door. Lucy always buries her toys . . . for what purpose I’ll have to take a course in doggie psychology to learn.
“Here,” Cooper says, placing a scotch on the rocks in front of my chair at the kitchen table. “It’s not a pink greyhound, but at least it’s not Drambuie, and it’s the best I can do on short notice. Don’t hate me.”
“I don’t hate you,” I say, sitting down and lifting the drink. “I hate secrets. They always come out, and then they ruin everything.”
“Well,” he says, “you know mine now. Tell me yours.”
The fumes from the whiskey make me feel a little sick. I realize what I want is milk and cookies, because everything I’ve heard tonight makes me long to revert back to my childhood—the one I never actually got to have. I put down the glass.
“My secret seems stupid now,” I say, “compared to Tania’s. She’s got the secret that ended up getting Jared Greenberg killed.”
“I’m sure your secret isn’t stupid,” Cooper says, sitting down across from me. “But tell me what Tania said.”
And so, beneath the large, greenhouse-like windows facing the back of Fischer Hall, in which I can see a few lights blazing, I tell him everything Tania told me, even though she’d made me promise never to repeat a single word . . .
If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that some promises are better off broken. The one I made to Tania is one of them.
“How could Tania Trace have married her high school choir teacher,” Cooper asks in disbelief when I’m through, “and that story isn’t plastered all over the Internet?”
“Well, maybe for one thing,” I say, dunking an Oreo into the glass of two-percent milk in front of me, “because she was paying him ten grand a month to keep his mouth shut about it.”
“Ten grand a month?” Cooper nearly spits out the sip of coffee he’s just taken. Cooper’s got his laptop in front of him. Midway through my tale, he went to his office to get it so he could double-check facts relating to the story as I related them. “Sorry,” he says, dabbing at the screen with a napkin. “Didn’t mean to be sexist. I’ve got male clients who pay four to five times that much in alimony to their ex-wives. But ten grand a month to her high school choir teacher?”
“She can afford it,” I say with a shrug. “She’s got the number-one hit single in the country . . . and unlike me when I was in her shoes, she actually wrote the song. She’ll be earning residuals on it forever. But what judge in his—or her—right mind would award alimony in any amount to a creep like Gary Hall?”
“No judge would want to,” Cooper says, “if they knew the whole story. But if Tania filed for a no-fault divorce, they’d have to. In New York State, unlike Florida and California, you still have the choice—no-fault or with cause. That’s how I make the bulk of my living—clients who choose to divorce with grounds and need evidence of their spouse’s adultery, or cruel and inhuman treatment, in order to make their case. Clearly, Tania chose not to go that route in court. It sounds like she’s still in pretty deep denial about her marriage.”
“She’s in pretty deep denial about everything,” I say bitterly. “She really thought if she paid the creep, he’d keep quiet about the whole thing. And for a long time it worked. Until he found out she was marrying Jordan and having his baby. Then—like any enterprising sleazeball—he decided to up the ante and said he wanted twenty thousand a month or he’d go to the press. And that’s when Tania finally got a spine and said no. She even started writing those kiss-off anthems—”
“Kiss-off anthems?” Cooper looks confused.
“Like ‘So Sue Me,’ ” I explain, peeling open an Oreo and scraping the filling out with my finger. “Apparently that’s exactly what she told Gary to do . . . sue her if he wanted more money. He got mad and said she owed him because he was her manager when she was first starting out and he made her what she is today, blah blah blah.”
“Jesus,” Cooper says. “I am really starting to dislike this guy.”
“Welcome to the club,” I say. “He must not think he has much of a case, though, because instead of going to court, he’s been e-mailing her—if she doesn’t pay what she owes him, she’ll get what she deserves, that kind of thing.”
“He’s good,” Cooper says with grudging admiration. “There’s no explicit threat of violence there, so nothing she can take to the police to get a cease and desist or a restraining order—and that would be if she wanted to risk letting any of this become public information, which of course she doesn’t. How old is this guy?”
“Only forty,” I say. “That’s how Tania put it. At least he was only forty when they started going out. But she says Gary—I mean, Mr. Hall—and she never ‘messed around’ until she was eighteen. That’s the age of consent in Florida, where she’s from. She says he was real careful about that.”
“Oh,” Cooper says with a snort, beginning to type on his laptop’s keyboard. “I’m sure he was. Real careful. He sounds like a pro.”
I’d been fairly certain at that point in my conversation with Tania that I was going to vomit all the steak and mashed potatoes I’d eaten. But somehow I’d managed to keep them down.
“I know a twenty-two-year age difference can work,” I say to Cooper, laying aside the cookie part of my Oreo after eating the filling. “There’ve been some very happy, long-lasting marriages in which the age gap has been even more vast. I think Mr. Rochester was that much older than Jane Eyre, or close to it, and that book is considered one of the greatest romances of all time.”
“Sure,” Cooper says. “And there’ve been some teacher-student relationships that have worked too. But I’m not aware of any in which murder and blackmail have been factored into the mix. Anyway, according to Wikipedia, Tania’s twenty-four now, making our pal Gary forty-six.” He taps some more on his laptop. “So we’re looking for guys named Gary Hall—although I highly doubt that’s his real name—who were born approximately forty-six years ago and have lived in Florida. I take it she doesn’t know his social security number, current address, anything like that?”
“God no,” I say. “She said she’s b
een having her accountant wire ten thousand dollars into a bank account in his name every month. Her accountant is under the impression—because Tania said she told him as much—that the money is for her ailing grandfather. Since Tania’s also supporting her mother and brothers”—the marriage to the new stepdad had not worked out—“this arrangement has never been questioned by anyone.”
“Of course not,” Cooper says, still typing. “And because Tania is supporting her, the mother has never sold the story about the injudicious first marriage to the press either, even though she could probably make a pretty bundle off it. She’s a real little UN, our Tania, supporting so many in need.”
I think back to the conversation I’d had with Tania in her in-laws’ media room. I’d urged her—no, begged her—to go to the police with me, right there, right then, with everything she knew about her ex. She’d refused.
“You don’t understand,” she’d said. “I went to the police. I did, Heather, I swear, the first time he . . . the first time. It took everything I had, but I showed them what he did to me. There were bruises and everything. And do you know what they said? They said I could file a report, and they’d arrest him, but most likely all it would do is make him madder, and he’d be out of jail in a few days—maybe even a few hours—and then he’d come home and hit me harder, even if I got an order of protection against him. What I needed to do, they said, was find a safe place to go that he didn’t know about and go stay there, and then if I still wanted to file the report, they’d arrest him. But I didn’t have anywhere like that to go—”
“That’s why there are women’s shelters, Tania,” I’d explained to her. “They’re for women who are being battered. Didn’t the police tell you about them?”