by Julia London
By the time they rolled into town, it was about four-thirty in the morning, and Redhill was absolutely dead. The two lights on the main street through town blinked yellow, and the only car they passed was a cop, who eyed them very suspiciously. A Cadillac in this town could only mean a couple of things: drugs or a funeral procession.
She directed Jack to the outskirts of town, where a hospital had been built in the eighties. Apparently, someone had believed there would be great growth in and around Redhill, because the hospital sat on a huge plot of land with plenty of room for expansion.
They parked in a vast and empty parking lot. Dread began to fill Audrey. There was never a pleasant homecoming, but this one really worried her. She’d tried several times yesterday to get hold of Mom. Before last night’s show started, when everything was arranged, she had tried again to get Mom on the phone. There was no answer. And again after the show, but still there was no answer at the house. And of course Mom didn’t have a cell phone.
“Why on earth would I want one of those?” she’d complained when Audrey tried to give her one.
“I don’t know, Mom. So you can be in touch with the world?”
“Well, as you are the only one out in the world, Audrey, I don’t think it’s necessary. The rest of us here on Planet Earth seem to do just fine with the old-fashioned telephones.”
God, if her mother could only see that, from the viewpoint of the rest of the world, Redhill was more like Mars.
Jack smiled reassuringly. “Chin up, sweet cheeks. Someone would have called if it was really bad.”
How odd, Audrey thought, as they strode side by side toward the hospital entrance, that Jack could read her so well after such a short acquaintance.
When they walked through the hospital doors, they were assaulted by the smell of antiseptic. There wasn’t a soul about but a chunky, fifty-ish woman behind the desk. She wore thick round glasses and a shampoo set that Audrey was fairly certain she’d received at Dot’s Hair Shop.
As she approached the desk, the woman looked up and smiled warmly. “May I help you?”
Before Audrey could speak, another woman appeared from absolutely nowhere and shrieked, “Oh my God. OH MY GOD!” Jack instantly stepped in front of Audrey, as if he expected her to be attacked. But the woman—more of a girl, really—ran into the little half-moon area behind the reception desk and threw a stack of medical files on the counter. “You’re Audrey LaRue!”
“For heaven’s sake, Melissa!” the other woman exclaimed as she straightened her glasses, which somehow, Melissa had managed to knock askew in her eagerness to get in front of Audrey. Melissa ignored her—she was beaming at Audrey.
The other woman rolled to one side in her chair and heaved to her feet. “Can we help you, miss?” she asked again.
“Can I have your autograph?” Melissa squealed.
“Ah . . . yeah, sure,” Audrey said, and looked around for a piece of paper. Melissa pushed a folder in front of her. “Are you sure you want to do that?” Audrey asked, pointing to Steve Helgenstien’s medical file.
The older woman calmly removed the medical file and placed a notepad in front of Audrey. Audrey gave her a quick smile of gratitude and signed the notepad.
Melissa snatched it up and stared at it, wide-eyed. “Oh my GOD,” she said again, and whirled around, picked up the phone, and punched the key pad.
“Now then. Can we help you?” the woman asked wearily.
“Yes,” Audrey said, trying to ignore Melissa, who was now looking curiously at Jack. “I’m looking for my brother. I think he’s a patient here.”
“Where is Lucas Bonner?” Melissa asked.
“He’s not here,” Audrey answered quickly and looked at the other woman.
“A patient, you said?”
“Yes, ma’am. Allen LaRue.”
“Allen LaRue. Let me just look in our records,” she said and carefully took her rolling seat again, seemingly oblivious to Melissa’s whispered phone conversation.
“Hurry,” Melissa said frantically before clicking off. She immediately dialed another number.
“Oh, this thing is so slow,” the woman said with a sheepish shake of her head at the computer. “Give me just a minute.”
“Great,” Jack muttered. Audrey glanced around. People dressed in colorful hospital scrubs had started to move into the lobby. In took only moments before they were arriving in twos and threes, all of them looking at her like she was an exotic animal in a zoo.
“Please hurry,” Audrey said to the woman.
“Excuse me, is Audrey signing autographs?” some woman asked Jack.
“I, ah . . . we’ll see,” he said.
“And who might you be?” another woman asked him, smiling brightly.
“Jack,” he said, and smiled right back.
Honestly, it never seemed to matter how often this happened, Audrey could never get used to it. The dozen pairs of eyes studying her sandals, her shorts, and the curls that had cost three hundred and fifty dollars to perfect made her feel terribly self-conscious. She could feel their scrutiny of the rings on her fingers, the dangling diamond earrings, and her Prada bag.
But what was even more remarkable was that while the horde was closing in around her—or rather, around Jack—the woman in front of her at the computer did not seem to notice them at all. Her face was screwed up in a frown of concentration as she peered at the computer screen.
“Allen LaRue, you said?” she asked again.
“Right.” The reception area was quickly turning claustrophobic. “He came in yesterday.” It suddenly occurred to her that they might have taken him to Dallas. If only she could have reached her mother on the phone! If they had taken him to Dallas, it could not be good. “Maybe he was transferred to Dallas?” she offered, dreading the answer.
“Hey, Audrey,” someone behind her called out. “My brother went to high school with you. Greg Baker. Do you remember him?”
“Ah . . .” Audrey turned and smiled at what were now a dozen people. What did they all do here in the middle of the night? Patients could be having seizures while they stood up here gaping at her. “Sure,” she said, looking down at the little munchkin of a woman. “He was in band, right?”
“No. Shop. He said you were in his history class.”
“Oh,” Audrey said, nodding thoughtfully. “Of course.” She had no idea who Greg Baker was. “Oh yeah, I remember Greg. Tell him I said hi, will you?”
“Did you go to high school here?” the woman asked Jack.
He smiled that knee-bending smile of his and shook his head. “Midland.”
“Midland?” another woman cried out. “I went to Midland! What year were you there?”
“Way too long ago to remember anymore,” he said. “You would have been in grade school.”
Several of the women tittered.
“Any luck?” Audrey asked the woman at the computer.
“No, hon, I can’t seem to find him.”
“That’s because he was discharged today, Delores!” someone shouted from the back.
“Well, it doesn’t say so here,” Delores said, punching some more keys. “Are you sure?”
“Audrey, did you write that song ‘Going Home’ about Redhill?”
“Umm, I think that’s a Kelly Clarkson song,” Audrey said.
“Are you sure? I could have sworn you sang it.”
“I’m . . . really sure,” she said.
“If you’re looking for your brother, they sent him home to your mom,” the only male in the room, an orderly, said. “You need a ride over?”
“No, thanks,” Jack interjected. “We’ve got it covered.”
“Well, it doesn’t say here that he was discharged,” Delores said sternly. “All this technology they are making us use isn’t worth a flip if it doesn’t work right.”
“Will you sign an autograph?” another woman asked.
“Where’s Lucas?” someone shouted at her.
“Audrey, please do
n’t leave until I get your autograph. My Allison would kill me if I saw you and didn’t get your autograph,” a nurse said, digging in her purse as another woman passed a prescription pad around.
“I can’t even find a record that he was ever even here,” Delores insisted.
“Delores, for God’s sake, he went home!” Melissa snapped at her before turning another wide grin at Audrey. “I love your new album. You know, I’ve heard a lot about you around town, and I told my husband, I said, ‘You know, that’s just jealousy talking. I think she’s probably real nice.’ And look, you are!” she said, clasping her hands together gleefully. “You’re just so nice and pretty and I think you’re really talented.”
“Thanks,” Audrey said weakly and took the church bulletin someone thrust at her and signed the back of it.
“Is he your boyfriend?” Melissa asked, eyes narrowed.
“No,” Jack said.
“You want to be mine?” a female doctor asked to the delight of the others.
A half hour later, they’d escaped, and Audrey pulled the Cadillac into the circular drive in front of her mom’s house. She turned the car off and looked at Jack. “Sorry about the hospital. But I think it is only fair to warn you it was probably pretty tame compared to this leg of the journey,” she said, pointing to her mom’s house.
He smiled and touched her cheek. “It’s okay. I knew you were popular before I flew you down here.”
Audrey laughed.
He glanced at the house. “Now what?”
“Now? We go inside and wait for everyone to get up.”
“Okay. Let’s go,” he said.
They approached the front door like they were approaching enemy lines. Audrey motioned for Jack to stop once they reached the porch, and then very carefully moved a small gnome from his guard post at the door and picked up the key upon which he’d sat. She replaced the gnome and let them into the house.
The front room, done up in lace curtains and blue carpet, smelled of Ben-gay, tomato sauce, and cigarettes. There was not a sound or light in the house, so Audrey put her bag down near the same blue plaid couch Mom had owned since the beginning of time—it reeked of cigarette smoke—and looked at Jack.
He glanced around the room, nodded to the blue La-Z-Boy recliner that was in front of the plasma TV. Audrey nodded; she sat down on the couch and watched as Jack moved to the recliner. Once he was settled, he looked at Audrey in the light of the gas lamp outside and winked.
“Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s the best I can do.”
He grinned, folded his arms across his belly, and closed his eyes.
Audrey lay down on the couch, wrinkling her nose at the smell of smoke, and tried to sleep.
Nineteen
She must have slept, for she was rudely awakened by a shriek so loud and so piercing that she had to peel herself off the ceiling. It was her nephew, Logan, in his Bob the Builder pajama bottoms, screaming and pointing at her. “Grandma! GRANDMA! Aunt Audrey is dead on the couch! And there is a MAN in here!”
“I’m not dead, Logan!” Audrey said, trying to gather the kid in her arms. But Logan wriggled away and raced down the hall to the kitchen. “Jesus,” Audrey said, pressing a hand over her pounding heart, and looked at Jack.
Logan had awoken him, too. He was standing and looked as if he could have used a few more hours of sleep, but ran his hands through his hair just as Audrey’s mother thundered into the living room.
“Hi, Mom,” Audrey said. “Sorry—”
“What the hell, Audrey?” Mom exclaimed, clutching six-year-old Logan’s hand and staring hard at Jack. “Can’t you ring the doorbell like everyone else?”
“It was almost five in the morning when we got here. I didn’t think you’d appreciate me waking you up at that hour.”
“You could have called and let me know you were coming instead of giving me a heart attack,” she said, eyeing Jack suspiciously as she clutched at the worn, thin cotton robe and put Logan in front of her. “I certainly would have liked to have known you were bringing a guest.”
“I tried to call, I really did,” Audrey said, fully aware that Mom wasn’t really listening. “I tried a dozen times yesterday to tell you I was coming, but you never answered the phone.”
“Well, how could I answer the phone?” Mom snapped, jerking her gaze to Audrey again. She put a hand to her short haircut, as if to smooth it. “I was at the hospital all day with your brother!”
“Right,” Audrey said. “I’m sorry.” She moved to put her arms around her mother, but could feel her stiffen and dropped her arms. “This is Jack Price. He’s . . . he’s—”
“I’m her bodyguard,” Jack said, extending his hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Mrs. LaRue.”
“A bodyguard!” Mom scoffed. “What do you need a bodyguard for?”
“It’s a long story,” Audrey said wearily. “We went by the hospital this morning when I got into town and they said Allen came home with you.”
Mom softened a little and nodded. “He’s upstairs sleeping it off like a drunk,” she said with some disgust. “Maybe you can talk to him, Audie. I sure can’t.”
“I will,” she said earnestly, and noticed that Jack was holding his bag. “There is a bathroom just up the hall there,” she said, pointing toward the back end of the house. “Logan, will you show him the bathroom?”
“Okay,” Logan said, his terror apparently forgotten.
When Jack and Logan had left the room, Audrey smiled at her mother. “Are you okay, Mom?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“This business with Allen surely has been hard on you.”
Mom pursed her thin lips as if she had to think about it and shrugged. “You do what you got to do. I’ll put some coffee on.”
“Can I use a bathroom upstairs?” Audrey asked, picking up her bag.
“You can use whatever you want, Audrey. This is your house.”
Oh dear God, how many times would they have this conversation? “No, Mom, it’s yours. You know that.”
But Mom had already headed back to the linoleum cave of a kitchen.
That was it, all Audrey was going to get at this stage of the game. No how are you, or thanks for coming. Nothing but a wave of resentment that would build until Audrey couldn’t stand it another moment. And with only a couple of hours’ sleep, Audrey was hardly in the mood for it. She headed for the bathroom upstairs.
Once inside, she locked herself in and looked around. White tile floors, pink tub and toilet, and for some strange reason, a yellow sink. She had tried very hard to get her mother to accept the help of a design team, but her mother wouldn’t have it. “I always liked this house the way it was. I don’t need to do all that California-type stuff to it. And I don’t need any advice,” she’d said, clearly insulted by the offer.
Lucas’s theory was that Mom was jealous of Audrey’s success. But Audrey wondered what sort of mother was jealous of her daughter’s success? Audrey knew it was more than that—Mom had seemed to dislike her way back before she even knew she could sing. In fact, Mom was the primary reason Audrey had left Redhill at the age of seventeen. It wasn’t her parents’ constant fighting, or the dead-end town, or the desire to sing. It was her mother.
Oh yeah, she’d wanted to pursue a singing career more than she wanted to breathe, but the truth was that singing was the only escape from Mom and Redhill that she could think of. What irritated her was that she had made her escape, and yet she still sought Mom’s approval. In eleven years, nothing had changed.
Except that she had become famous. Unbelievably famous. Honestly, who would have thought one song, “Breakdown,” would get the airtime it did, then spread by word of mouth, and then, by some freaking miracle, ride up the charts and stay there for weeks? Who could have predicted that her first album would go platinum? It was luck. A little talent, okay, but a lot of luck and being in the right place at the right time.
Of course, Lucas thought it was clever planning on his part�
�after all, he did get the radio stations in Austin to play the tune. But the rest of it? Even he couldn’t claim credit for her rocket-rise to the top of the charts.
Funny, but Mom’s dislike of Audrey had grown in direct proportion to the rise in her fame. Now the chasm seemed so impossibly deep and wide, she couldn’t imagine a way to cross it. She’d been in her mother’s house a total of three hours, and already she felt like shit.
Audrey washed her face, brushed her teeth, and brushed her hair, which, she couldn’t help notice, reverted to its usual frizz without the constant attention of high-paid stylists.
A pounding at the door shook her out of her thoughts. “What?” she shouted, unconsciously reverting to her sixteen-year-old self.
“Give someone else a chance!” Allen shouted from the other side of the door.
With a gasp, Audrey vaulted over her bag, yanked the door open, and threw her arms around her baby brother.
“Hey, Audrey,” he said, and lifted her up, twirled her around, and set her down again, letting her go with a pat on the back as he stepped around her into the bathroom. “You didn’t need to come all the way out here.”
“Of course I did—you scared us all to death, Allen! What were you doing in the hospital?”
“Nothing,” he said with a shrug as he leaned up to the mirror above the sink and examined his beard.
“You don’t go to the hospital for nothing,” she said with a punch to his shoulder. What happened? Mom said she didn’t know if you’d make it, and—”
“God, she’s such a drama queen,” Allen said with a roll of his blue eyes. In junior high, Audrey’s best friend, Mary Alice Turner, used to drool over Allen’s beautiful blue eyes. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“It was a big deal, Allen,” Audrey insisted, folding her arms implacably. “So what happened?”
He tried to look away, but Audrey caught his face with her hand and forced him to look at her.
“Come on, Audie. I have to pee.”
“What happened?”
“I just overdid it, that’s all.” He tried to smile. “I smoked a little weed, and then I took a couple of pills, and the combo didn’t work out.”