Chapter Fifty-Two
Miriam
“Thank you for rescheduling me, Dr. Claffey.” I was in his office several hours later than my original appointment.
“It’s no problem. I was able to fit in a video conference with another patient to fill the slot you left open. Is everything alright?” he asked, studying me closely.
“Yes, it is actually. Better than alright. Remember the relationship I mentioned as being important in our initial session? It took a turn I didn’t see coming. A really good one. We shared our feelings. We made promises to each other. He asked me to commit to him, and I did.”
“That’s wonderful news. You look happy. More settled today.” He regarded me thoughtfully. I knew it was Juaquin. He made me happy. He brought out the best in me. If the Campanella business hadn’t sidetracked us we probably would have already been where we were now.
“I’m in a really good place,” I confirmed. Even with the remaining uncertainties like how I would make a living and where, in Juaquin I had no remaining doubts. With us, if I truly and completely threw away caution and determined to look only forward, I would discover that I already had everything I had needed and more than I could have hoped for.
“Words a therapist loves to hear,” he said. “Have a seat. I’m excited for us to get started.”
“Me, too.” I took a step toward the couch then deliberately chose the chair closest to him instead.
He nodded approvingly and leaned forward as soon as I was seated. “Did you think about any of the things we discussed?”
“Yes, I did. I even talked to my sister about some of them this morning”
“Ah, already opening up with your family. Moving into a committed relationship. You’ve taken a lot of trusting steps forward. Very good. Any other insights you would like to share?”
“You asked me to think about why I liked dancing at Sexxy.” I paused before giving it to him and myself straight. “It was an empowerment thing. Instant validation of my appeal as a woman.”
“It filled a void inside of you after the man you cared about rejected you.” My jaw dropped. He was right. Exactly right. Glancing down, he swiped his hand over the screen of his iPad. I recognized my handwriting and realized he was looking at one of the questionnaires I had filled out. Goals. Background information. A personality profile. I had even signed a release giving him access to all my medical records. “You wrote here that you took an interest in acting in high school.”
“Yes, I did.”
“What about acting appealed to you?”
“I enjoyed pretending to be other people. It was an escape.” I shrugged. Did I need escapes anymore when I had such a strong man beside me, and the firm foundation he provided?
“A coping mechanism. Southside Seattle sounds like a pretty rough place to grow up. With no father around and your mother working two jobs and going to nursing school I’m sure your life was difficult. I’m not surprised you wanted to be someone else.”
“I’d never thought of it that way.”
“Abandonment leaves emotional scars. Verbal abuse does, too. Words are powerful things. They can wound, but they can heal, too.”
“Yes,” I agreed with everything he had said. Fortunately, I’d had my sister and Juaquin to speak positive ones to me. But the topics we were discussing reminded me of another little girl with a background similar to mine. Jasmine. Who did she have right now in her life to speak words of affirmation to her to counteract all the negative ones? In trying to run from my problems, I’d not only done myself a disservice, I had neglected her. I made a mental note to reopen the lines of communication between us. She wasn’t my charge anymore, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t still be her friend. “My dyslexia made the written classroom work frustrating, but I was good at acting.”
“You excelled at it. You received a full scholarship to a prestigious school.”
“Yes, but I lost it.”
“You did. But that doesn’t negate the accomplishment.” He tapped the screen, and I let that sink in so I could examine it. If I hadn’t gotten the scholarship, I might still be back in Southside. “So the acting and dancing served a similar objective making you feel valued.” He glanced up. “Are you buying that?”
“Yes.” I nodded. The strokes of a paintbrush. A canvas no longer bare. A picture emerging.
“Physical appearance matters a lot in those fields.”
“Yes, it does,” I agreed.
“Would you also admit that the things about a person that can’t be seen have a more lasting merit? Like the heart? The soul?”
“Yes, I believe that.” I’d told Juaquin something startlingly similar. My interest in him at the very beginning had been because of the glimpses he had given me of his heart.
Your value as a person is far greater than you think it is. Ann had said the night I’d first risked it all sneaking out late to see Juaquin.
Your true worth to me isn’t your sex appeal, but what you mean to him. Even as twisted as he was, Campanella had gotten that right.
“I’m fortunate to have people in my life right now who love me because of what’s inside my heart. I don’t need the validation I got from stripping anymore. I’m starting to consider other things.”
“Then you were right in your earlier assessment. You’re in a good place. You’re not only here in therapy talking about traumatic events that might have caused you to give up, you’re ready to reorganize your life to move past them.”
Have you given up, Miriam?
No, I hadn’t quit. Not back then in Southside, despite abandonment, verbal abuse and rejection. Not now. Sure, I hadn’t gotten to this point alone. I had a lot to be grateful for, including Mike’s counsel and example as an assault survivor. And Juaquin, always Juaquin. But in the end it had been me, reaching out for what I needed like he had said. I was the one inside this room doing the hard work it took to get better.
“I’m proud of myself and where I am.” I lifted my chin, tears sparkling in my eyes. Juaquin loved me. “Those men who hurt me, they can’t take that away.” I refused to allow them to victimize my spirit anymore, either. My King. He was proud of me. I was his queen. It was time to get off my knees. No more cowering. “I’m going to own my strength and all the rest of my positive attributes.” After all Juaquin and I were a team now. Who I was, how I saw myself and how I acted reflected on both of us.
“You’re incredibly strong, Miriam, independent and resilient, too. You make my job too easy. You’ve made such progress in a very short amount of time. I’m proud of you, too.” He set his iPad aside. “Now how about you tell me something else? Something that isn’t on the paperwork you filled out.”
“Such as?”
“This relationship for starters. It has you practically beaming today. Are you in love with him?”
“Yes.”
“And he with you?”
I nodded. “I’ve been in love with him a long time.”
“Love means many things to different people. Tell me what it means to you.”
I gave that some serious consideration based on the examples I had seen. My brother and Lace. Mike and Alex. Juaquin’s parents. Juaquin and me. “It’s about becoming something better because you’re together. Transforming each other’s weaknesses into strengths. Making something beautiful together.”
“Ah, very eloquently put. Makes sense to me. And in light of that…” He took my hands and squeezed them. “I think you’re going to be very excited about what showed up on your blood work. You have a beautiful beginning inside of you, Miriam. You’re going to have a baby.”
Chapter Fifty-Three
King
Inside the detached garage at Miriam’s mom’s place, we had just finished rehearsing the Tempest songs we were going to play at the engagement party later at Footit’s. I set my sticks down on my stool and moved to take a seat on the couch beside my brother. Bryan was on the other side of Sager. War was pacing back and forth, getting geared u
p to make one of his infamous speeches. Dizzy was flopped sideways in an easy chair, multiple new piercings glinting beneath the bright lights of the retrofitted space. But my bandmates weren’t really what was on my mind. It was her. My gaze drifted yet again toward the door. I wondered what was going on with her, her mom, her sister and all the others who were getting ready inside the main house.
Miriam had been noticeably distracted since her appointment with the psychiatrist. Though she had mentioned that he had told her he was proud of her progress, she hadn’t been willing to divulge the details like she had after the previous session. Not that we’d had a lot of time to talk privately since we had headed to the airport for our flight to Seattle as soon as she had returned to the house. I’d pulled the celebrity card with the airlines and gotten us on the same flight as Mike and Alex. Then we had come straight here. Lots of hugs. Lots of catching up. We had gotten separated. Family and supporters inside. Band out where we often practiced when we were away from the studio facilities at Black Cat Records in Vancouver.
“Yo, King.” Dizzy bumped my shoulder with one of the two beers he held. I waved them off, and he gave one to Sager and kept the other for himself. “What gives with you and Miriam?” He inclined his head toward the door. “You really serious with Bryan’s sister now?”
“Totally.” I nodded.
“That’s cool,” he said. And it was just that easy with him. He had always been the peacemaker in the group. But the acceptance of my relationship with Miriam encountered static when our lead guitarist turned his head our way and tuned into our conversation. Yeah, Bry was a plus minus thing with me and his sister right now. But he would eventually get it. She and I were in it for long haul. He might try to give us more grief, but there was no way he, anybody, or anything else was coming between us ever again.
“Gentlemen.” War pounded two open cans of Rainier together to try to get our attention. Not a good plan. Shaken, the fizz overflowed onto his hands and the many rings he had on his fingers. He set them aside.
“We are gathered here today,” he began, but the guffaws of the rest of us drowned him out.
“Dude, this isn’t a Prince song.” Sager laughed, slapped his knee and almost toppled into my lap. I righted him. He was a few celebratory tequila shots past sober. My fault. We had knocked back some Maestro Dobel toasting our good fortune. Two losers from the wrong side of King County, but somehow we had gotten lucky and done alright. Better than alright relationally. Him with Melinda. Me with Miriam.
“I know, Sage. But truly I’ve got some important stuff to say. You’re a lucky man. Your woman is hot as shit. She’s got attitude like Alanis Morissette. And a set of pipes like fucking Christina Aguilera. You hit the jackpot. We’re all here and happy for you both. We’re ready to play, too. Even though we’ve gone our separate ways since the last tour, we sounded tight as shit just now. We’re gonna blast the roof off Footit’s. Make some cool new memories tonight. Eat the fajitas King’s mom made. Hang. Party. And get laid.”
“Stay out of the bathroom for that last part, Diz.” Bryan gave our rhythm guitarist a look. Dizzy gave him the middle finger in return.
“Wait.” War lifted a metal encircled finger. “I’ve got some more stuff to say.”
Oh shit. More by our longwinded lead singer.
“You might want to hear this hombre.” He focused on me, flipping the tail end of his scarf over his shoulder. “It’s on account of your woman…”
Bry groaned. “My sister has a name, even if Juaquin seems to have forgotten it.”
“Whatever.” War was not a guy brimming with social niceties.
“Word is you got some solo shit already laid down. Yeah?”
“Sí,” I confirmed.
“First off, I want to acknowledge that many of us have considered branching out beyond the group. Doing our own creative stuff outside of the Tempest collective.” He spread his arms wide and lost his balance. Bry steadied him. It was a good thing we all had experience propping one another up as needed. We would still kick ass on stage even if we weren’t completely sober. “That’s totally cool. Tempest is on the rise. We’re gonna continue to rage and blow the minds of our fans the way we always have etc. etc. But to go the distance. To rise above the fray of the lesser groups out there it’s ok and even beneficial to spread our wings creatively.” He gave me a long look. “So tonight I’m proposing a perspective change. Instead of Tempest focusing on proving our critics wrong, we’re gonna turn things on their head and go forward from here on out to prove our supporters right. You guys with me?”
“Hell, yeah,” Bryan said.
“Absofuckinglutely,” Diz confirmed.
“Bueno,” I added, although I wasn’t really sure what the fuck War was really trying to say with that last part.
“For sure.” Sager nodded.
“Great. Set list tonight is three Tempest numbers. The fourth is Juaquin’s ‘Tú eres la única’.”
“Como?” What?
“It’s the song I want you to sing,” Sager said.
“But I don’t have the rights to that shit anymore.” I turned it into La Raza Prima’s label. Jorge wasn’t going to return it. I had already asked.
“Took care of that for you, brother,” War said, surprising the fuck out of me. “I had some naked pics of his sister Leticia from way back when. He didn’t really want those circulating in public if you get my drift. All your songs. All that Latino rapping, even the love song shit, it’s your property again.”
Whoa. “I don’t…”
“A thank you would be sufficient.”
“Gracias.”
He gave me a nod. “De nada.”
“So my idea’s this. Lacey’s gonna do some keyboards on your thing. Bryan’s gonna give you some screech. Diz some guitar. And I’m gonna sit at your kit and do the drums since it’s basic shit on that one. I know your woman will be out there in the audience, and you like to move around a bit. Anything else you might need?”
“Um, no.” I’d never considered Lace. But she would totally kill it. So would the rest of them.
“Then let’s get this party rockin’. My woman’s got her bestie in the fold tonight. I need to separate that shit pronto, or they’ll be up all night talking about me and I won’t have a prayer of getting some action.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
Miriam
“Hey, why aren’t you dressed yet?” Ann poked her head into the spare bedroom where I was standing in front of the mirror in a slip, staring at my bright-eyed reflection and marveling at the fact that I was pregnant with Juaquin’s baby. Our baby.
“Because I…” I swayed, and the room spun.
“Holy shit.” She grabbed my arm and got me safely to the bed where I had laid out my dress. “Are you ok?” Her eyes narrowed. She had her glasses on. She hadn’t put her contacts in yet.
“Ok is not the word I would use.”
“But you and Juaquin. You’re his woman. You’re together.”
“We are.” My lips formed a soft smile. He had told everyone I was his woman. His mom. My mom. His abuelita. His bandmates. His bandmate’s women. He would have told his father, too, only he was at home after the bypass. He wasn’t up to big social events yet.
“Juaquin’s very happy. You’re very happy. Radiant. But…” She trailed off. Her gaze drifted over my features and dipped to note the fact that I had unconsciously placed my hand protectively over my lower abdomen.
“OMG!” she exclaimed, her eyes popping back up to meet mine. “You’re pregnant!”
“I am.” I bobbed my head, not having time to brace before she threw her arms around me.
“This is awesome!”
“Is it?” I queried.
“Aren’t you happy to be?”
“Yes, absolutely. But…”
“Ah,” she said, putting two and two together. “You haven’t told him. Otherwise there would have been more caveman style bragging.” She mimicked his voice. “This is my woma
n. She carries my child, ese.”
A giggle escaped my lips. She was right. He would say something like that. He totally would.
“When did you find out, and why haven’t you already told him?”
“Told him what?” my mom asked from the open doorway my sister had been standing in only a moment before.
“Uh…I…” I trailed off.
My mother put things together even faster than Ann. “You’re pregnant.” How do mothers do that? She crossed to me and dropped down to her knees on the carpet in front of me. “Oh, my.” Tears sparkled in her eyes just like mine now did. “I’m going to be a grandmother.” She placed her hand over mine.
“What’s going on?” Mike suddenly appeared in the doorway my mother had vacated. “Who’s going to be a grandmother?” He took us all in. “You’re pregnant!” He shouted. “My bestie’s pregnant!”
More footsteps rushed down the hall. Alex and Shaina. Lace. April and Melinda. Juaquin’s mom. His abuelita. Same drill. Only many more people. Everyone started talking and filling each other in. I started laughing. We were one big happy family. Ready to be increased by one.
I suddenly couldn’t wait to tell Juaquin.
* * *
One small problem in telling Juaquin. I couldn’t find a moment with him alone. Everyone knew. Everyone but him and the other guys in Tempest since they had already taken the stage when we had all arrived.
Scandalous Beat (The Tempest Rock Star series Book 6) Page 28