by L A Tavares
“So I found this picture once.” Her voice becomes quiet and unsteady. She reaches into her purse, digs around for a minute and hands me an old, torn photo. In it a woman in a hospital bed holds a tiny pink bundled child while a man in a suit has his hand on her shoulder. The most noticeable thing is that he doesn’t look like fathers usually look in these instances. His hand isn’t placed on her shoulder in support or excitement. The way his fingers grip the new mother’s shoulders and his gaze falls over the two of them is like he’s claiming them—like he owns them.
“Anyway, I kept it. I had a stepmother. She got tired of my father’s shit and had the good sense to leave him, but I knew she wasn’t my mother. My father always said my birth mother took off and never came back. I looked at this picture and I wondered about her. For years, I wondered. Until the other day I was at the penthouse and she came in with him. I knew instantly she was the woman in this picture.”
I didn’t realize it before. The color of our hair and eyes, the curve of our nose. The three of us share so many features that I missed until Stasia handed me this photo.
“So that’s her then?” she asks. “That’s our mother?”
“That’s her.” I feel sorry in this moment because I have nothing good to say. I would love to tell Stasia that her mother fought for her, that she missed her and wondered about her—that it was an accident, even, or that her mother spent years searching for her without success.
But it would be a lie.
“I’m sorry.” I reach out and put my hand on her forearm. “I’m sorry that finding out who your real family is isn’t what you probably had envisioned. I wish you could have gotten something wonderful out of all this.”
“I did.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. I raise an eyebrow at her. “You’re not going to make me say it, are you?”
A smile grows across my mouth as I finally understand where she’s going with this.
“I did get something wonderful. I got you.”
In that second, I feel a bit more whole, more complete than I have in a long time.
“So, what’s your next play? You going back to Consistently Inconsistent?” She takes another sip of her coffee and raises an eyebrow over the cup.
“I’ll go back if you will,” I challenge her, trying to get her to see all her options.
“I can’t go back. I signed a contract. You’ve made it perfectly clear that you disagree. At the time I thought I was doing what was right.”
The indifference is evident in her voice. The love of music she once had is gone, and the light behind her eyes had dimmed.
“At the time?” I ask. “So, it’s not the right move now?”
“Let me tell you a little something about our loving father.” Her eyes narrow into a twisted glare. “For years he told me I would never make it. He said I just didn’t have what it takes to make it big.”
“You have the most raw talent of anyone I’ve ever worked with.” My voice cuts through hers in a pointed interruption. “None of that is true.”
“That’s the point, Blake. He filled my head with that stuff so I couldn’t see past MLA. He made it so that I thought my only real chance was getting on his label, that I didn’t have a shot to explore other options. He put me in a box my entire life.”
She takes another sip of coffee then taps her fingers on the tabletop.
“You remember the music video I showed you?”
“Yes, of course. It was incredible.”
“It was.” Confidence oozes out of her. “It was the best I had ever felt—about myself, about my music. I could have truly done something. That video, that single could have launched a very successful career for me. It was a small label, but they believed in me. They poured all of their resources into making sure I was seen.”
“So what happened? You never told me why you didn’t stay with them.” I remember the video well. The whole production was unreal. She looked and sounded like a seasoned professional rather than a debut artist. Other than her showing me the video, though, I had never seen it. It doesn’t seem like it made the splash it had the potential to.
“My father bought the label. He made them an offer they couldn’t refuse and purchased the label then absorbed all its artists into MLA. The other artists on the label, of course, were thrilled. They thought they had just hit the lottery, while their best day ever was easily my worst.”
“How did you get out of that?” I scratch my head and wonder how she got around her contract.
“I got lucky on that one. I was kind of…seeing a lawyer at the time, and he went through my contract word by word all the way down to the punctuation. He found a clause in the wording that said the artist’s contracts were nontransferable with the sale of the company. They said we couldn’t be transferred as a group. The way our contracts were written was that if the label was to fold or sell, we would have the opportunity to leave or re-sign with the new label.”
“And you walked.” I couldn’t be prouder of her. This is a tough business. Many people would let the sure thing be their final decision. She had always stayed true to herself and never settled.
“I was the only one. Every other artist signed and allowed MLA to take over their contracts.”
It’s an odd feeling, realizing that as the parentless boy, I was the luckier one.
“The thing of it all is,” she says, her voice fading into a distant curiosity, “with the availability of technology, accessible outlets and social media to build your own platforms the bigger labels are fading. It’s part of the reason I didn’t want to sign there. I’ve seen the numbers. I thought for sure that the label would be done by now. I have no idea how he’s still in that penthouse and throwing all that money around.”
She shrugs and the gears in my head work overtime.
“Maybe there’s something in that, Stasia. That money has to be coming from somewhere.” I repeatedly place the information together but fail to come up with a whole picture.
“So,” she says, “if I were to agree to following your lead on getting out of this contract, what’s the master plan?”
“You’d have to ask our mother.”
She smiles but hesitantly, torn between excitement and disdain.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The rain falls hard, the drops hitting the roof of the porch in a perfectly rhythmic percussion that matches the tempo of the song I strum on my guitar. This weather tends to be my favorite. It’s not something I can explain, but for years I’ve found myself outside on my porch anytime the sky opens up.
My guitar rests across my lap, my fingers positioned at the neck over the frets while the other strums an inconsistent pattern. The sound of tires over asphalt in the distance holds my attention for a moment, and as I listen, the sound seems to be getting closer. Kelly pulls her SUV into my driveway. Surprising, considering I didn’t even know she was back in town. She pulls into her usual spot, her tires disturbing the forming puddles. She slams the door behind her as she exits. Running through the pouring rain, she comes toward me, holding her jacket wrapped tightly around her.
“Kel?” I say as she takes the stairs to the porch. “Everything okay?”
“No.” Her hair is soaked and her clothing sticks to her. “Everything is not okay.” Her voice is sharp yet broken. “I want to know something, Blake.”
My mind reels, trying to figure out what I did now.
“This break…this ‘taking space’ thing… Are you doing this for me or for you?” She looks up at me. The tracks running down her cheeks are a mix of both rain and teardrops. “Because if it’s for me, I don’t want it. I don’t accept it.”
Damn it, Xander.
“Kelly”—I place both my hands at her upper arms and look into her eyes—“I just wanted what’s best for you.”
“No, you didn’t. You are what’s best for me. I love you, Blake. I loved you when we were kids and I love you now. I love who you were, and I love who you are going to be. I was recently reminde
d of who you and I used to be, Blake Mathews—who we were then and who we are now. I want to know who we are going to be. I refuse to believe this is where our story ends.”
I swallow hard, unsure what to say. I didn’t plan for this moment. In my lifetime, I’ve been used to ending up alone. I’m more accustomed to people leaving me behind than people coming back.
“I have something for you.” She pulls her hand out of her coat to reveal a maroon leather-bound-type book.
Our yearbook.
“I know you said you needed to find who you used to be. Maybe this is a good place to start.”
“Is this yours?” I run my finger across the emblazoned cover.
“No.” Her eyes find the ground for a moment, then her gaze flickers back to me. “It’s yours.”
“I…I thought I didn’t order one or mine got lost or something.”
“That’s what I wanted you to think.” She smiles a light grin. “But that wasn’t true. I stole it. All those years ago, Blake, I felt the same way you did. I put it all in that book and then I hid it away because I was scared. I hid how I truly felt about you and hid from myself every single day for all these years…until today.”
It’s all here in these pages. Our whole story. The biggest parts of my life documented. And there’s pictures—so many pictures. There was me playing guitar in front of the school with Xander when he was still Alexander and my name didn’t matter. And later, the talent show—pictures of our nameless band, like none of the other acts even performed. Following that are photos from the guys sitting in the bleachers watching Julian’s football games, us at prom, during our biography projects. Enough evidence that all the time I was noticing her, she had noticed me too.
I pull back the binding to the final page and her large, curvy handwriting covers the paper.
Blake,
I can’t believe it’s finally over and yet, in some ways, just beginning.
You told me that someday you’d be what I needed, but the truth is that I don’t want to wait for someday. You’ve been what I’ve needed all along.
My own insecurities have gotten in the way of four years of somedays, but, better late than never, right?
I’ve known every side of you. I knew who you were before the band started to pick up, and I know who you are after. I’ve known you at your worst and at your best, and I’ve been swept away by both. You are two different sides to the same coin and I love them equally—two completely different versions of yourself at any given moment and both sides of you know me better than I know myself.
Someday is here. Someday is now.
Kelly
I look up over the binding of the book that has her heart pressed permanently into its faded pages.
“You really believe that?” My voice struggles under the weight of the pressure. “You really believe I can be what you need?”
“You’ve always been what I need. I believe that. But you need to believe it too.”
I step toward her. Our bodies are so close that our hearts find each other and beat at the same pace, the same time. I rest my palms against her cheeks, wiping away the tears under her eyes with my thumbs. She pushes to her tiptoes and presses her lips to mine. The rain pours down around us, pounding against the roof above our heads—and yet it’s the brightest day I’ve seen in weeks.
The answers aren’t something I’ve always had, but today more and more of them are surfacing. Julian had said that, for him, losing everything wasn’t enough but gaining everything pushed him to fix the parts of him that were broken.
But here with her in my arms, knowing that she’s all in and there’s no turning back, I understand what he means. Everything I’ve ever wanted has been within reach, as far back as I can remember. Gaining everything made it so that I had something meaningful to lose, but I know better than to take any chances this time.
The road ahead isn’t going to be easy. There is work to be done and obstacles to shatter, but they’ll be faced with support in my corner that I didn’t know I had—in love, in family and in music.
For the first time in my life, I can have all three.
As we stand together weathering the storm, a second SUV pulls up. We turn to see one door open then the other and two bodies exit the back.
“Who’s that Stasia is with?” Kelly whispers as they approach us with the hired car still idling at the sidewalk.
“Our mother.” I look down at her as the hundreds of questions she has swirl behind her eyes. I nod my head in agreement with her astonished expression. “It’s a long story.”
“You must be Kelly,” my mother says. “I’ve heard a ton about you.” Kelly places her hand into my mother’s outstretched palm.
“What’s going on?” I hold Kelly as close to me as she will allow.
“Come with us,” Stasia says as her normal, chipper self starts to resurface through all the pain and confusion of the last few days.
“Where are we going?” I say, looking at my mother for answers.
“Shut up and get in the car, Mathews!” Stasia skips through the rain back toward the hired vehicle. “You too, Kelly. It’s going to be fun!”
We do as we’re told and follow suit, throwing caution to the wind as we climb into the SUV set for a mystery destination led by one ally and one nemesis but hopeful for a good outcome. Or, as Stasia says, some fun. The tone of her words and mischief in her eyes say less fun, more revenge. I’m oddly comfortable with either outcome.
When the car pulls up to the building where Victor’s penthouse is, I freeze to my seat. Going back in there is not an option for me. Kelly squeezes my hand tight and nods in an attempt to encourage me to trust the family I barely know.
We make it to the penthouse door and knock. Isabella opens the door. Her perfectly gleaming smile morphs to a mix of surprise and annoyance.
“Victor isn’t here,” she says, before we even ask.
“You’re a liar—and you’re bad at it.” Stasia pushes past her.
“Isabella, darling.” My mother’s tone is intimidating and unwavering. “You’re going to want to get as far away from this penthouse and that man as possible. Things are about to get a little complicated here, and you are not going to want to be associated with Victor Marquette when they do.”
“You don’t know anything about me.” Isabella keeps her composure.
“Oh, sweetie, I used to be you. I was the original you. The difference is you’re being given the option to walk out right now and never look back.”
Isabella looks as if she will counter or strike back but comes to her senses and nods. She grabs a few belongings off the table and scurries away like prey narrowly escaping the hunter’s reach.
“Isabella, where’s that drink?” Victor’s voice bellows from the other room as his harsh footsteps get closer. He appears in the room we’re standing in and fixes his cufflinks as he walks. When he looks up to find us, his expressions match the ones Isabella wore, only his surprise turns to a third emotion…anger.
“Isn’t this great, Daddy?” Stasia’s voice is a dramatic mix of sarcasm and feigned excitement. “It’s a family reunion!”
Victor lifts his lip in a snarl. “What have you done?” he snaps at my mother. She doesn’t flinch.
“I didn’t do anything, Victor. Our daughter is smart—more so than you know. She figured it out on her own. She figured all this out on her own.”
“Well, Blake helped.” Stasia wraps her arm in mine at the elbow. “Intelligence runs in the family.”
“Right up there with music and gambling. Am I right, Dad?” I try to play into the script, though no one has clued me in on what we’re actually doing.
His aggressive gaze flickers from me to my mother and back again. In that second, I find myself worrying about her. I said I didn’t want him to know for my own protection, but in many ways, it was for her protection too.
“What is it that you people want?” Victor sits on one of the arms of the couch, folding his hands in h
is lap. “I can have security remove you in a matter of minutes.” He spins a large gold ring around one finger.
“Oh, you wouldn’t do that to me, would you?” Stasia lays the angelic act on thick. “Your little girl. Your pride and joy. Your…what was it you called me? Your solution.”
Sweat beads on Victor’s brow. He’s nervous. For the first time since I’d met him, he’s unable to hide behind his practiced poker face.
“Yes, that was it,” she says. “You said I had what it takes to sell a record that would recoup some of MLA’s losses. I thought you meant in general—less business coming in, less artists going toward traditional production on a label. But that’s not what you meant, was it?”
He opens his mouth to speak but the doors burst open. Men and women in dark suits enter the penthouse and surround him.
“Victor Marquette,” one of the suits says in a commanding tone. Everything happens in a blur from there. One FBI officer recites Victor’s rights. Handcuffs are placed at his wrists. It almost doesn’t seem real.
Words like ‘criminal’ and ‘illegal’ are thrown around, but I only catch bits and pieces as they run down the list of charges until they get to one.
Embezzlement.
We follow outside and watch as they place a resentful Victor into the back of the police cruiser. Red and blue lights flash into the sky like fireworks set off at the end of a beautiful victory.
I wrap one arm around Kelly’s waist and the other around Stasia’s shoulder. She, admittedly, seems torn. He was terrible to her for her whole life, but he was the only parent she ever had. I’m too familiar with what it’s like to be left without both—and now she has a taste too.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cooper sits in a chair with his feet up on the desk between us. Coming here, apologizing, asking for my spot back and promising change has left me feeling so small that I can barely see over the desk—but at the same time, I feel lighter, like I’ve unloaded some of the burden I have been carrying around. Painful seconds have ticked by since I strung together enough words to ask to be back in the band. My best attempt to take it all back came in mumbled apologies and long pauses as I fought myself over what to say next.