by Renee Fowler
“I’m sorry.”
“Why are you apologizing?”
“Because you’re already getting roped into this craziness, and it’s causing problems with your ex.” I swallow against a sudden tightness in my throat. “It’s not fair that you have to deal with this.”
“You think I give a shit what Leah thinks? She just got under my skin a bit is all.” Gabe pushes the hair back from around my face, and kisses me. He stares down into my eyes for a moment. “So how does this sort of thing work? How did Brent take care of it?”
“Those photographers sell to the highest bidder. Brent paid them the most I guess.”
Gabe nods slowly. “So why didn’t he buy that picture they ran too? I mean, you’re the one paying for it, right? It’s coming out of your pocket, not his. Why let that one slide?”
“I dunno,” I say quickly, although I have a guess. It’s good publicity. It generates buzz. With the lighting and the angle of that shot, the way my hair draped over my shoulders, I appeared fifteen pounds lighter. It was flattering, and it got my name out there again too. “He should’ve ran it by me first. I’m sorry, Gabe.”
“Stop apologizing for him.”
“I don’t see how you can want to be with me. It’s so much bullshit to deal with.”
He leaned down to rub the tip of his nose against mine. “You’re worth all the bullshit in the world, and it’s not like I’m ashamed for people to know we’re together. Half the guys at work already do.”
“They do?”
“Shane’s got a helluva a mouth. He can’t keep a secret to save his life.”
I laugh quietly.
“It’s all gonna come out eventually. I’m just glad the world doesn’t get to see me screwing the daylights out of you. Speaking of Shane, he’s been bugging the crap out of me to drag you out to their place at the lake. His wife wants to meet you.”
“Misty Lake? I dunno. Maybe they can just come here.”
“Trin, I would never let something happen to you.” Gabe slides his palms down my arms. “You’ve got to get out of this house. You can’t hide here forever.”
Ever since that second creepy letter and bouquet of dead flowers, I’ve been sticking close to home where I know I’m safe. “Maybe you’re right.”
“I know I’m right. In fact, I say we start right now. Let’s get out of here. We can go to the movies or something.”
“Okay, but I’m wearing my wig.”
“Good. You can wear those glasses too, and when we get home we’ll play teacher.”
“I’m not sure if I know how to play that one. I never went to real school, remember?”
“Maybe I’ll have to teach you a few thing then.”
But before either of us can make a move to go get ready, my sister Faith calls with a favor to ask. Her friend who was going to watch Hope is sick, and they made plans for their anniversary. I wouldn’t mind watching my niece for the evening would I?
I almost want to make up some excuse, but after all the stuff Faith has done for me, and our mom when she was sick, there’s no way I can say no.
“I hope you don’t mind,” I tell Gabe. “We can go to the movies any night, but it’s their anniversary, and they never really get out.”
“I don’t mind. Do you want me to take off so you two can hang out alone.”
“No!”
Gabe smiles. “Okay?”
“I might need your help.”
“Is she a handful or something?”
“Uh, maybe? I’ve never spent much time alone with her.”
“How old is she?”
“Six.”
Gabe quirks one eyebrow up at me.
“I’m a shitty aunt.” I twist a piece of my hair between my fingers, suddenly finding it difficult to meet his eyes. He’s going to find out eventually. “The truth is, I’m really bad around kids. I don’t know how to deal with them. They’re like miniature people, ya know?”
He starts to crack up.
“I’m being serious. They’re so impressionable. You could say or do one wrong thing, and completely screw up their psyches.”
“What the hell are you planning on doing around her that’s going to do that?” Gabe asks with an amused smile.
“I don’t know! How am I supposed to know how to act around a kid her age? What do they like to do? Maybe I should look online. There has to be a list of appropriate activities or something.”
“You could ask her what she wants to do when she gets here. Maybe we could bake cookies, and watch a movie. That doesn’t sound too psyche damaging to me.”
When Hope arrives, she has no interest in watching a movie, but making cookies suites her just fine. And I’ve been doing so good on my diet the last few days too. Oh, well.
I pull a chair over towards the counter for her to stand on so she can help. Thanks to my mother, I can whip up a batch of sugar cookies from scratch without aid of a recipe, but I go ahead and pull one up on my laptop and have her help me read the ingredients off.
Part of me almost wishes I had sent Gabe off. I feel awkward as fuck around Hope. He’s probably never going to want me anywhere near his daughter when he sees how hopeless I am around kids.
I have her measure out the dry ingredients, and dump them into a huge bowl. She makes a bit of a mess, which she says sorry for, but I only wave my hand. “Baking is supposed to be messy.” While she rolls out the dough under my instruction, I ask her about school. It’s as much curiosity on my part, as it is to fill the empty silence.
Being homeschooled, I’ve always had this bizarre fascination with real school. When I got to a certain age, I begged my mother to let me go. Seeing the yellow bus roll past our house full of other kids, I wanted to be one of them. There wasn’t a TV in the Sinclair household, so I didn’t even have shows or movies to go by. Whatever happened there was a complete mystery to me, and I built it up huge in my mind.
While I was stuck at home learning bible verses, and doing pages out of workbooks with my sisters and brother, everyone else went to a huge, brick building full of other kids, probably doing tons of fun things.
“I don’t have actual cookie cutters, so we’ll have to make due.” We use a plastic cup to punch out round shapes. A less shitty aunt would have heart, star, and animal shape cookie cutters on hand, but I’ve never cared much what the cookies look like. “Are you excited to be a big sister?” I ask.
Holy shit. Faith has told her, right? That would be just like me to let the cat out of the bag too soon.
Hope nods up at me vigorously, and I relax.
“Do you want a brother or sister?”
“Mommy says we have to be happy with whatever god gives us.”
I can barely contain my eye roll. “Maybe so, but you can still wish for whatever you want.”
“I want a sister.”
“Yeah. Sisters are more fun. Your Uncle Joey was an idiot when we were kids. He still is.”
I definitely shouldn’t say shit like that to Hope, but she giggles, and luckily doesn’t inquire further. There’s a bit of cookie dough left that we can’t fit on the baking sheet. Gabe isn’t interested in any, so I roll the remainder into a small ball, and tear off a hunk for my niece.
It’s not until she’s chewing happily on the little clump that I realize I’ve probably just given her salmonella. Great. Why did Faith ever trust me with her child?
Reaching over to brush off a bit of flour clinging to her cheek, an idea forms. “We should go do a makeover, and Gabe can wait for the cookies to bake. We’ll let him handle the boring part.”
Upstairs Hope’s brown eyes get huge at the sight of all those dresses hanging in my closet. “These are too big, but maybe…” I dig through one of the drawers, and find a silky, silver top with thin straps. On her short torso it hangs like a gown. A purple scarf cinched around her waist adds to the effect. “I think I have one sort of like this,” I say, flicking through the row of hangers. Eventually I find what I’m looking for. It’s
a dress I had custom made for an awards ceremony, and wore exactly one time. While Hope is busy pawing through my standing jewelry armoire, I shrug off my jeans and sweater, then step into the garment. It still fits, just a bit more snugly than the last time I wore it. “Now we can match.”
With that done, I lead her into the bathroom, and hoist her up onto a bare spot on the flat, marble vanity so I can do her makeup.
“Mommy doesn’t let me wear makeup.”
“This is just for fun. You can wear it when you see me.”
Gabe comes upstairs to inform us the cookies are done, but still cooling. When I suggest to Hope maybe we can give Gabe a makeover too, she laughs, and he declines quickly with a smile. She spritzes both of us with perfume, then slides down to land on her bare feet.
“So what is this piano teacher teaching you?” I ask, leading her back out of my room and further down the hall.
When we get to the spacious music room, Hope shows me clumsily at my baby grand.
“Doesn’t she teach you how to play any actual songs?”
“Not yet.”
“That sounds boring as fu-... crap. I mean, heck.” I laugh. “It doesn’t sound like much fun.”
I try to show her a few things, but I’m a horrible teacher because I can’t remember learning any of this stuff to begin with. I was younger than Hope is now when I could play piano and a handful of other instruments competently. However my dad taught me, I’m positive it wasn’t by doing scales. It was all by ear I guess. I didn’t learn to read actual music until I was older.
“Do you like playing piano?” I ask.
Hope shrugs.
“Is she teaching you other instruments?”
Hope shakes her head.
“Piano is so bo-ring,” I sing the last word. I probably shouldn’t be saying that. I’m supposed to be encouraging her, right? I dunno. I really am awful at this. “Maybe you just haven’t found your instrument yet. Piano isn’t for everyone.”
I rise from the bench, and stare around the room before strolling over to take a spot behind the drum set. “This is how your Aunt Trin got her start,” I say, then pause. That’s not exactly true though. For the first few weeks when I started with The Redmond Collective, I played violin, and sang backup to Nolan and Faith. They already had a drummer. What the hell was his name? Faith used to jokingly call him boyband because of his stupid, forward hanging shaggy brown hair. I barely knew the guy. Before I got to know him much, Conner tossed him out for showing up late all the time, and being an all around prick, then I took his spot.
It’s probably what Conner would’ve done to me eventually if given the choice.
“You okay?” Gabe asks.
Realizing I’m just staring off, and both Gabe and my niece are watching me, I nod my head and smile a bit. I tap out a quick, fast swing beat. Hope dances around. Gabe winces at the crash of cymbals. What am I thinking? I’m probably going to blow out her eardrums playing this loud.
I stand up and hold the drumsticks in her direction.
“I don’t know how to do it,” she says.
“You don’t have to know how. There’s no right or wrong. You just hit things.”
Hope gives a few tentative, experimental taps against the snare drum, but before long she’s going wild, and grinning from ear to ear. It’s loud, noisey gibberish, but she’s having a blast.
I can’t remember the last time I had that much fun playing music, or singing. At some point it all became a chore. The joy I found in music when I was younger got lost to the business side of things. The rush of performing in front of a live audience grew dull, muted by drugs and alcohol. The dream of being recognized turned into a nightmare when that trickle of recognition became a torrent.
I was sort of like a blank slate the first time I stepped into Brent’s office. Eighteen years old, with a voice and musical ability, but no idea how the real world worked thanks to my upbringing. I wished on a star without pausing for one second to consider what becoming a star would be like.
Chapter 27
Gabe
“I think that went pretty well,” I say, shortly after Trin’s sister came around to retrieve her daughter. “I don’t think you damaged her psyche at all.”
“I gave her raw cookie dough without thinking. She might end up with food poisoning.”
“Trin, she’ll be just fine.”
“And Ryan wasn’t so thrilled when he saw all that makeup she was wearing.”
“It’ll wash off.”
“She really liked the drums though. Maybe I should get her a set.”
“Maybe you should talk to your sister about that first,” I say, laughing. “They may not want to hear her banging on those things all day, especially with another baby on the way.”
“You’re right. See, I don’t think about things like that. I told you I’m no good with kids.”
“You were good with her, Trin. She had fun.”
“I had fun too. Maybe now that I’m not a worthless junky anymore, I can actually get to know her a bit.”
“Don’t say shit like that about yourself. You were never worthless, and you’ve been better for a long time now.”
“Eight months.”
I smack eight kisses on her face, acting kind of goofy just to hear her laugh. I’m still not sure where all this is coming from. Trin did just fine with her niece from where I was standing.
I think she’s being naive as hell about Brent from where I’m standing too. For all either of us knows, he’s the one that hired that photographer in the first place. She told me herself that he’s been bugging her about making some appearances, but I know better than to bring it up to her now.
∞∞∞
“Listen to this,” I say to Shane, peering down at my phone the next day. “The same photographer credited with that photo of Trin and me has also been taking pictures of Kane Burke recently.”
“So?”
“So that means her dickwad manager probably paid someone to take those pictures in the first place. He’s managing both of them now.”
“Or maybe it’s just a photographer that likes to take pictures of musicians?”
I shake my head. “There’s no way. That’s too big of a coincidence.”
“You’ve really got it out for this guy, dontcha?”
“He’s a piece of shit! You’ve met him. He’s slimy as hell, but she doesn’t want to see it for some reason.”
“Calm down there, rookie. Have you talked to her about it?”
“I’ve tried, but he’s got her head all twisted up. Brent kept her hooked on drugs, and somehow convinced her he was helping her. That’s how in her head that guy is, and he’s been messing with her like that since she was eighteen years old. He talked her into doing all kinds of shit she didn’t want to do.”
“You really think it was him that left that letter?” Shane asks.
I nod. “I’d bet money on it.”
“I didn’t think you weren’t a betting man, plus I thought he had an alibi.”
I give him a wary look. “I know it wasn’t him specifically, but he probably paid someone.” I let out a disgusted laugh. “In a roundabout way, I suppose Trin paid whoever broke into her own home.”
“I’ve got a few buddies over at county forensics. Maybe I can have them run back through what they found, double check.”
“I’d appreciate it.”
Shane’s eyes track a familiar, rusted out pickup truck as it rambles past. “Is Stamper seriously out again already?”
“Looks like it. Looks like he’s got his old lady chauffeuring him around too.”
“He must have a helluva a lawyer, that’s all I can say.”
“Maybe if he’d stop getting in trouble, he could take some of the cash he’s using to pay that lawyer, and buy a new ride that isn’t on it’s last leg.”
Shane leans forward to watch the pickup truck break at the stop sign. “Oh, look. His right brake light is out.” He grins at me, and reaches o
ver to flick on the cruiser’s lights. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever written a ticket for a mechanical violation before, but there’s a first time for everything.”
“You’re a dick,” I say, laughing.
“Do you have any idea how much shit I had to wade through when he tried to say I roughed him up? He’s the dick who got his ass beat up at the bar that night and wanted to pin it on me.”
“They have been on us to fill those quotas, haven’t they?”
“That’s right. I’m just doing my job.”
∞∞∞
That evening I think about bringing up my suspicions to Trin, but decide to hold off until after Shane talks to his friend. She probably won’t see Brent for a while. I’ve got time.
Trin wanders out of the bathroom in a pair of snug, black leggings, and a pale blue sweater that makes her eyes pop from behind the glasses. The faux black hair frames her face in sharp angles. “How do I look?”
“Like a whole new woman.”
“I should come up with a fake name. What should I call myself?”
“You’re really getting into this, aren’t you?”
“It’s fun.” Trin crawls onto the bed on all fours, and drapes herself on top of me. “Don’t you ever want to be someone different?”
“Nah.”
She tilts her head to the side gives me a warm smile. “You did always know what you wanted to be, didn’t you?”
“I guess so.”
“I never had a clue.”
“You didn’t want to be a singer?”
She shakes her head, and the chin length black strands swish around her cheeks. “I’m not a very good singer. Faith has a way better voice than me.”
I laugh and scoff at the same time. “You’ve done pretty well for someone who’s not a very good singer, wouldn’t you say? I think you sound beautiful, Trin. I’ve always loved your voice.”
“My range sucks.”
“What does that mean?”
“I can’t sing high, high, high, high,” she trills until her voice cracks. “Or low, low, low, low,” she croones at a gravely pitch. “I have to stay right in the middle or I sound like shit.”