Easy Glamour

by Maggie Marr

  “Hey, Babe.”

  The voice that rocked millions of fans purred into my ear.

  “Little early for you, isn’t it Johnny?”

  “You say early, I say late.” His words were slurred a bit and I knew he was still partying hard from the night before. “Looking for our boy. You seen him?”

  A strange feeling, not guilt, but something akin to possessiveness flashed through me. I didn’t want to share my feelings or my relationship with Rhett—whatever the hell our relationship was—with Johnny. Besides, telling Johnny about my involvement with Rhett wouldn’t be good for Rhett. I’d left Johnny. While he had no choice but to accept that our intimate relationship was in the past, I knew that he got some sort of twisted pleasure from believing he had been my final rocker. As though he’d left some sort of stamp on me that could never be undone by another.

  “Did you try his cell?” I asked, avoiding Johnny’s question and trying not to lie.

  “Goes straight to fucking voicemail,” Johnny said. “I got these two pretty little Bettys in from Vancouver. Last time the redhead was here she and Rhett fucked like two furry foxes in a hot wool sack.”

  Jealousy stung my chest. The last time. I rubbed my hand over my forehead. The last time I’d had no claim to Rhett and he’d had no claim to me. But what about the next time? What about when Johnny and Rhett’s tour hit Vancouver after Rhett and I hadn’t seen each other for fourteen or more days? What about—

  “No matter,” Johnny slurred. “More pussy for me.”

  “There can never be too much, right, Johnny?” I walked out of my executive elevator.

  “No, babe, for a real rocker there never can be too much pussy. Plus, babe, it’s just so damn easy. I mean the babes; they’re giving it away. I don’t even have to try.”

  And with his drunken words and slurred speech, Johnny had nailed it. My every fear, my every concern, my every reason for not dating a musician. The pussy was easy and free. What more could any man want? A new willing young girl every night? Often several of them. Line them up and try them out. These days it meant more to the women to say they had fucked rock star X than it did to the rock star. Just a notch in her lipstick case.

  “Babe?”

  “Yeah, Johnny,” I said. The elevator doors opened into the parking garage and I now stood beside my car. I was losing him, he was either passing out from fatigue or booze—or at least I hoped it was one of the two and not an OD.

  “You know I will always love you, right?”

  “Right, Johnny,” I said. “I know.”

  “Would do anything I can for you.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Okay, Babe,” he slurred. “Tell our boy I banged the redhead for him and he owes me one.”

  “Got it,” I said. “I’ll let him know.” I pressed Off on my phone and slid it into my purse. Once upon a time that had been my life, and while I’d thought I was okay for Johnny to have a myriad of sex partners, I’d discovered that I wasn’t into it. My desires ran deeper, or perhaps I was simply more possessive. I needed my man to be mine. All mine. While I knew what Johnny said was true, that he did love me, in the way that only Johnny could, I knew myself well enough to know that the way Johnny loved wasn’t the way I needed to be loved.

  The leather seat was soft as I slid behind the wheel of my car. Was it possible that Rhett could love me the way I needed? I wasn’t certain, but I’d agreed to give him a chance to find out, for both of us. The only thing I asked was that he be honest. That he cut me loose if he couldn’t be monogamous. That he not lie to me or string me along. Johnny and I were still friends because he’d never claimed that he had the ability to be monogamous. He had never even tried to be a one-woman man. I’d been willing to accept him as he was. Johnny didn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t. He didn’t lie. I’d cut myself loose once I known that no matter how deeply Johnny cared for me, and claimed to love me, his love wouldn’t be enough for me to pretend that the parade of women through his bedroom didn’t hurt me. A piece of me died each time he slept with another girl.

  I wasn’t the type of woman who didn’t care. I couldn’t even fake it, or build a wall around certain parts of our life together like some rocker girlfriends and wives. No. I wanted all or none. I wanted to believe I had all of the man who shared my bed. I pulled out of the parking garage. Rhett Legend had some tough mountains to climb and walls to scale to get to my heart. I certainly hoped he was ready for the trek.

  *

  “Aileen, you are so beautiful. Every time I see you I can barely breathe.”

  “Stop, Tash!” Aileen said. She walked up the stairs from her gardens to where I sat on the lanai waiting for her. She was compact, with dark skin and gorgeous long curly black locks. I always felt privileged to see an artist relaxed and human. On stage Aileen was a force of sparkles, and charisma, and tight outfits, and false eyelashes. But here, at her home, she was simply a person I enjoyed in ripped jeans and flip-flops.

  She wrapped me in her arms and gave me a long hug. “So good to see you.” Aileen smelled of fresh air and earth. “I was back in the gardens. We’re planting tomatoes.” She kept her arm wrapped around my waist and steered me to the table. “Thought we’d eat out here. The day”—she threw her head back and her hair fell down her back—“is magnificent.” A broad smile filled her face as her gaze left the perfectly blue sky and returned to me. We both sat.

  “I’ve missed you,” Aileen said. She clasped her hand over mine for a moment. A member of her staff brought out salads and bread. She thanked them.

  “I missed you, too,” I said. There was silence, not a tense silence, but silence. I’d known Aileen since I was a teenager and she just barely twenty. I watched Daddy find her, help her, produce her records, send her on tour, and turn her into one of the world’s great musicians. Her sound was unique, and it’d taken a while for Aileen to find her audience, but Daddy stuck by her and now, finally, Aileen was reaping the success of Left Coast’s loyalty and hard work. She remained quiet. She was reading me and waiting for me to start the conversation. I put down my fork and looked at this beautiful woman, not much older than me. She had so much talent, and I believed she had a career that would last due to her creativity, her great attitude, and her unique sound.

  “I want you to stay with Left Coast,” I said. I want you to stay with me.”

  A sigh passed over Aileen’s lips. She leaned back in her chair away from her lunch. She closed her eyes but a soft smile remained on her face. Finally, after three breaths she opened her gorgeous deep rich brown eyes and looked at me. “You know I loved your daddy as if he was my daddy?”

  I nodded. I did know. Aileen never had a father in her life, and Daddy had often treated Aileen as though he were another daughter.

  “But your uncle?” Aileen’s soft gaze hardened and she pursed her lips as though she had sucked a lemon. “That man? He was the absolute worst. No offense, I mean, I assume I can speak freely since he left you high and dry at Left Coast.”

  My chest tightened. I prayed that Aileen had no idea just how high or how dry Uncle Lewis had left me or my record company. “Yes, you can. Of course.” I met her gaze. “I feel like what happened, with Uncle Lewis, is my fault.”

  “What? Girl, how can you feel that way—?”

  “Daddy groomed me. He expected me to take over Left Coast one day and when he died—”

  “Doll, you get that out of your head. You were barely twenty-two when your daddy passed. How could you even think that you could run Left Coast then? With the grief, and the loss? And here you had that uncle telling you that he would take care of the company? I mean, Tash, you cannot blame yourself in any way for any of this. The blame goes squarely on the shoulders of your uncle, not you.”

  I bit my bottom lip. Part of me wanted to agree with Aileen and be absolved of the deep-seated guilt I felt about letting Uncle Lewis run Left Coast aground. But I couldn’t surrender to that part of my mind. Not yet. Maybe once Left Coa
st’s future was secure? Then maybe I could look at the past and be more objective. Right now, I was still too busy kicking myself in the ass for not jumping sooner into the leadership role at Left Coast. I had heard rumblings of problems from staff, from managers, from artists. But I’d been too damn involved with pretending like nothing was wrong. I’d been in denial about Daddy’s death and I’d used Johnny and his life to fuel that denial. Until the walls crashed down and I remembered who I was, and what I wanted, and who I’d been raised to be.

  “Plus you started running with that Johnny Tucker.” I tried not to flinch with the hint of judgment in Aileen’s voice. “Not my sound, but he’s good at what he does.” Her eyes traveled from searching the horizon to meet mine. “But he was never good for you.”

  I nodded.

  “We all go through it, Doll. I’ve had my fair share of bad boys.” A knowing smile tinged by wickedness crossed her lips. “Even a few hard rockers. They are fun for a while, but definitely not good for the soul.”

  A long breath released from my lungs. What would Aileen say if she knew I was at it again with another rocker who was quite possibly just as bad a boy as Johnny Tucker?

  “I understood that, really I did. Especially after your daddy died. But I was worried there for a while, that maybe you’d lost your heart to that man.”

  “Maybe for a little bit, but we were too different. What we wanted, who we are, the lives we want to live.”

  “Damn straight,” Aileen reached for her water and took a long sip. “Your daddy was a stand-up man. And your mama is pretty good, too. I mean you were raised right, Tasha. Strong, loving family. I always knew that rocker thing was just a phase and you’d come back around.”

  My stomach tightened. No, Aileen would most definitely not approve of my relationship with Rhett. She’d think I’d learned nothing from my time with Johnny. Nothing. Perhaps even that I’d learned nothing in my time away from Left Coast, and that maybe I’d learned nothing at all.

  “One thing about Johnny, he never pretended to be something he wasn’t.”

  “No?” Aileen’s eyebrows pulled tight. “Not even for you? At least the man has some integrity then.”

  I nodded. “He does. We wanted very different things.”

  “Did you love him?”

  I bit my bottom lip. Had I loved Johnny? “I thought I did,” I said. “But looking back, I think I was confused and afraid, and he was fun and I didn’t have to think too hard. Plus, in a way, he was safe.”

  “Safe? The way that man rolls? How in the world could you call him safe?”

  “Because I always knew who he was,” I said. I pulled my fingertips through my hair. “And even when I was in deep with Johnny, with my heart and my head, I always knew who he was and that his life, and the way he wanted to live it, would eventually not be enough for me. I had an out and even unconsciously I knew it.”

  “Damn girl, I think you’re as smart as your father.”

  “I wish,” I said. “Daddy was a genius.”

  “That he was,” Aileen said.

  I met her gaze. “I’m sorry, Aileen.”

  “Tash, don’t be. It’s done. You’re back. Left Coast is in the very best hands it could be in with you.”

  “Thank you, Aileen, but it’s how I feel.” A little knot of anxiety tightened in my chest. “You’re like a sister and I let”—I looked away from Aileen and pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth and willed the tears not to fall—“you down and Left Coast down and Daddy down. I should have stepped in sooner. I should have been watching and helping. Instead I disappeared.”

  Aileen’s hand covered mine again. A warmth flowed from her to me. A gentle kindness. “You’re like family,” Aileen said. “Your daddy always treated me like family.”

  “So you’ll stay? You’ll give me a chance to prove myself?”

  Sadness filled Aileen’s eyes and the corners of her lips pulled down. “Oh, Tasha, I wish it was just that easy.”

  “Aileen, I promise, Uncle Lewis is gone. I will give you every bit of my attention, the same attention Daddy knew you deserved.”

  She paused for a moment. My breath was trapped in my lungs. I needed Aileen not only for Left Coast but also for an inner need. A need to prove to myself that I could save this company. If Aileen believed in me, maybe I could believe in myself.

  “Okay, Tash, let’s give this one more try.”

  Chapter 11

  Rhett

  Tasha was right; I’d never met a woman like her. There was no woman like her. I pressed hard on the accelerator and her convertible took a tight turn on the PCH. We zipped along the coast. Wind whipped the amber locks that had strayed from her ponytail. The sun was bright and the ocean reflected the brilliant blue of the sky. A smile curved over my face. This was the life. This was the life I’d always imagined for myself. A fast car, a hot woman, the wide-open road, an album with a great label. I wanted this.

  My chest tightened. Did I deserve everything I wanted? A fear that was always present when good things happened took hold of my gut. The fear that, when I was most happy, bad things would rain down upon me like a hailstorm. I pushed the thoughts from my head. For just today, for just this time with Tasha, let me enjoy this now, whether I deserved to be happy or not.

  These moments of joy were the type of moments that, as a kid, I’d always envisioned the other Legends having with Dad and their mom—cruising up the coast in a convertible looking like the All-American Family. While my sisters and I remained hidden away in Ventura County. Amanda and Sterling got the prime-time spotlight while Sophia, Ellen, and me subsisted on the scraps of time and attention that Dad provided.

  “I love this road,” Tasha said. “Daddy used to bring us up here when I was little. He’d pile us in the car and we’d just take off for a day. I think it was his way of escaping so he could give Mom and me his attention.”

  “Did you spend much time with him?”

  “Yeah,” Tasha said. “I did. And I never realized how hard that was for him until I started working at Left Coast. His work was all-consuming. He was in charge there and he had a lot of great artists to keep happy, but he still always found time for me.” She turned her face toward me. “He was really smart about hiring good people.”

  “He had his priorities straight.” The bitterness I felt about Dad bled into my voice. Tasha’s eyes flashed. She was putting it all together. Maybe she hadn’t considered what it meant to be the bastard family of Steve Legend.

  “Wasn’t like that for you, was it?”

  “Nope,” I said. I pressed on the accelerator. “Dad was a busy guy, between the movies, his legitimate family, his affairs, and us? We didn’t get a whole lot of quality time. Then layer in the fact that nobody knew about us? Well, we definitely weren’t the ideal American family.”

  “No,” Tasha said. “You wouldn’t have been. How old were you when you figured it out? That you were different? That your family was different?”

  Most people didn’t ask questions about my Dad. My vibe told anyone who asked to steer clear of that topic. With Tasha I didn’t mind. Maybe because her tone implied openness and interest, not a morbid curiosity.

  “I figured out that we were different when I was really young. Around four or five. My friends and my cousins, their dads lived with them. They were around for school conferences; they slept at their houses. And I knew my parents weren’t divorced because my divorced friends had two rooms and switched between their parents every week. But I didn’t actually get it until I was around six or seven.”

  “Get what?”

  “That Dad had another family.”

  “Whoa,” Tasha said. “How did that revelation happen?”

  “It was an accident. I was with Mom and my grandmother and my sisters. We had to go by the house, and by the house I mean where Mom worked.”

  “You mean—”

  “Yeah, where Amanda and Sterling lived. It took me years to piece all this together because I was so litt
le at the time. But one time, we went to the house and we waited in the car while Mom went inside. We’re sitting there and this big black car rolls onto the drive and stops. I’m like totally mesmerized because I’ve never seen a car that big before. It’s long and black and looks like someone really important is supposed to get out. The driver goes around and opens the door and out comes my dad. Of course I start bouncing around thinking that I’m going to see Dad and he’s going to see me, and I even remember yelling it’s Daddy, it’s Daddy! I want to see Daddy! My grandmother got pissed and probably scared.

  “Here we were sitting on Steve Legend’s front drive with his wife and two kids inside and his bastard kid is bouncing around the car yelling Daddy? If anyone had walked out the whole secret would have been up. My grandmother told me to hush and sit down and stop talking, that I would wake my sisters. So I crawled into the front seat and I’m practically glued to the front window, when the front door to the house opens and these two kids, who look so different than me and my family, rush out the front door, yelling Daddy!”

  A giant lump in my throat tightened at reliving the story and the memory and the shock and confusion I’d felt as a kid. I glanced at Tasha. Her eyes reflected back the pain I felt.

  “I was just … I don’t know what. I was … so confused and I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I remember wondering why these kids were calling my dad ‘Daddy’? And why were they all going into this big house? Then here comes my mom and she walks by Dad but they barely acknowledge each other. They always kissed and hugged when he came to our house and there they are, just sort of walking by each other.”

  I hadn’t told another person that story—ever. Why was I telling Tasha?

  Because she made me want to talk to her. My best self came out when I was with her. This fucking vulnerability that I hated about myself didn’t feel like such a fucking liability when I was beside her. Instead, it felt okay to tell her about my life, my pain, knowing she’d never throw them back in my face, or use them to hurt me. I trusted her, and fuck; it was nearly impossible for me to trust anybody. Releasing the pain, sharing it, telling it, while hard and emotional, released something within me. The knot in my chest unraveled. My breath grew easier. Anger fled my body as though a thief unwelcome in a home.