Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (45 page)

“
I’m not sure,” Seth
said.

“
I have a couple messages
from Bumpy,” Schmidty said. “Maybe you should talk to
him.”

“
He’s here,” Seth
said.

“
Any idea where Jeraine is
now?”

“
He’s having dinner with
the record execs,” Seth said. “He’s due at the club in a couple
hours. And Schmidty?”

“
Yeah?”

“
He’s high,” Seth said.
“He told me this thing when he was in prison. I thought it was just
an excuse, you know, an addict’s lie.”

“
Anything we can
use?”

“
He told me that he’d
tried to get clean a few times,” Seth said. “He’d clean up, stop
using, stop the women, then
bam
, as soon as he was touring again
it would start again. I said something about being an addict or
whatever. He said it wasn’t like that. He never remembered drinking
or getting high. That’s what he said happened the night the girl
died. He was black out high and had no memory of getting that
way.”

“
Yeah but if he was on a
black out…”

“
Trust me, Schmidty, when
you wind up in a black out, you know the road you took to get
there. You remember the starting the party,” Seth said. “He had no
idea how he got so high. He said it happened a lot. He’d just
suddenly be high. When he’s high, he wants women. That’s how he
decided to get rid of his entourage. This stuff only happened when
they were around.”

“
And he’s high
now?”

“
He looks high,” Seth
said.

“
He’s high,” Bumpy yelled
in the background.

“
Any ideas how that
happened?” Schmidty asked.

“
A few.”

“
Well, don’t do anything
crazy,” Schmidty said. “I’ll be in touch.”

Schmidty clicked off the telephone call.

“
So?” Bumpy
asked.

“
He says he’s going to
take care of it,” Seth said.

“
He’s a child,” Bumpy
said.

“
Let’s give him a chance,”
Seth said. “Doesn’t Regis still own the Church?”

“
Far as I know,” Bumpy
said. “I’ll call him.”

“
Schmidty said we
shouldn’t do anything crazy,” Seth said.

“
When has a Schmidty
stopped us from being crazy?”

Seth laughed.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday evening—6:35 P.M.

“
Yeah, Heather came by,”
Tanesha said as she closed her Gran’s front door. “She and Blane
are going to be at dinner.”

“
You okay?” Tres Sierra
asked.

“
No,” Tanesha walked out
to the street. “Did you see him on TV?”

“
Yeah,” Tres
said.

“
He’s high,” Tanesha said.
“God, Tres, he’s high! And the women clinging on him…
I…”

“
You want to meet at the
Squire for a drink before we go to the Castle?”

“
I think a drink will send
me right over the edge,” Tanesha opened her car door and sat
down.

“
Okay, I’ll meet you at
the Castle,” Tres said. “But we can get out anytime.”

“
See you
there.”

Tanesha clicked off the call and closed her
car door. She had the desire to run back inside and hide under her
covers like she had for most of the day. Sighing, she started the
car. The radio blared. She drove down her street toward
Twenty-Third.

“
Here it is,” the
announcer said. “The song you’ve been lighting up our lines to
hear. ‘I promised you,’ by our own Jeraine.”

Tanesha looked at the radio. Jeraine might
be a drug addict, womanizer and a liar, but he was an amazing
business man. He’d agreed not to release any music until his
recording contract was complete. Tanesha was there when he and
Jammy went over his contract. She saw Jeraine’s head nodding to
Schmidty telling him to take a year off. He wanted the year
off.

So what the hell was this song?

The song began with a sorrowful violin. The
moaning was joined by a standup base beat and an orchestra picked
up the beat.

“
How can I make a promise
to you?” Jeraine said. “When I’ve promised you the world and failed
every time.”

For the next few minutes, Tanesha felt
outside of time as she listened to Jeraine detail every promise
he’d made and broken. Stopping at the light on Broadway and
Seventeenth, she glanced at the car next to her. A woman was crying
her eyes out. Feeling Tanesha’s eyes, she turned to look. The
woman’s passenger window went down

“
Jeraine?” the woman
yelled.

Tanesha nodded.

“
Breaks your heart,” she
said.

The light changed and the woman raised a
hand in a wave.

“
Jer? Whatcha doin’ out
here?”

Tanesha heard her own voice come from the
radio.

“
Nothing,” he
said.

Her mind transported to the moment he’d
recorded. She saw herself leaning against the doorframe of the den
in the Penthouse. She’d been watching him for a while. He wore
expensive headphones and was working on a song. She could see the
music move on his mixing program. Humming this tune, he was looking
at a picture his Mom had taken of them on his eighteenth birthday.
When she’d asked her question, he closed his laptop and they’d gone
to bed.

Tanesha blinked.

“
That was the new song
from our own Jeraine,” the radio announcer said. “We’re not saying
who, but someone leaked the song exclusively to…”

Tanesha turned off the radio.

“
You can fight this thing
with me, on my side, instead of against me.” Jeraine’s words echoed
in her mind.

“
Are you willing to fight
for his soul?” his mother’s words followed Jeraine’s.

Turning onto Race Street from Colfax, she
saw her girls waiting for her in the driveway. She pulled in and
parked behind Tres’s car.

“
How are you?” Heather
hugged Tanesha tight.

“
I just heard the song,”
Tanesha said. “My song. The one he wrote for me. As a present; just
for me. My private apology is all over the world for strangers to
hear.”

“
Oh honey, I’m so sorry,”
Sandy hugged her.

“
No, they’re the one’s
who’re going to be sorry,” Tanesha said.

Sandy stepped back to look at her.

“
Those jerks messed with
the wrong girl,” Tanesha said. “Will you help me?”

“
Anything,” Jill
said.

“
It’s time to get even,”
Tanesha said. “And get my man back.”

“
We’re in,” Heather said.
“What do we do?”

“
I know just the thing,”
Tanesha said.

CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED and EIGHTY-FOUR

Escape

Saturday evening—7:45 P.M.

“
Tanesha?” Jeraine called
from the door to the Penthouse.

He walked into the Penthouse.

“
Tanesha?”

He was having dinner with the record
executives when the restaurant had played the song, his song for
Tanesha. The song was his present and his one hope to make up for
everything that happened. The executives cheered each other and him
for his “brilliant move” of leaking the song.

But he didn’t leak the song.

His eyes had shifted across the faces of the
men he had thought were his friends, until they’d settled on his
ex-agent. The man’s face was a mask of arrogance and anger. This
song automatically renewed Jeraine’s contract with the record
company. The agent had made at least a hundred thousand by hacking
his email.

And Jeraine was his slave again.

Jeraine excused himself from the table and
slipped into the bathroom. He’d tried to call Tanesha. He’d tried
to call Schmidty. He got only voicemail. When a crowd of men came
in the bathroom, he slipped out and took a taxi home.

“
Tanesha?”

Everywhere he looked, he saw signs that
she’d moved out. He rubbed his forehead. Tanesha had left him.
Again!

He couldn’t blame her. He’d leave him
too.

He felt high. No, he felt really high. It
was all he could do to keep from losing himself in the dozen or
more half naked woman pressed upon him. But he hadn’t done a thing.
“This too shall pass.” His Dad told him to repeat it in his head.
And it worked. He hadn’t strayed even a little bit.

Not a kiss.

Not a feel, a rub, a squeeze…

And certainly not…

“
Tanesha?”

Feeling dizzy, he stopped at the kitchen for
a glass of water. Her tea was still here. That meant she was at her
Gran’s house. Her Gran and Miss T drank the same tea. If Miss T
left without her tea, she was at her Gran’s. He’d go there.

Smiling, he poured a glass of water and his
head began to spin. The glass slipped from his hand and shattered
in the sink. The palms of his hands caught on the edge of the
stainless sink to keep him from falling face first into the jagged
glass.

He remembered this feeling. His eyes
blurred. His head felt woozy. Hearing footsteps, he tried to turn,
slipped, and crumpled to the ground.

“
Tanesha?”

“
Not quite.”

As Jeraine’s eyes sagged, he saw a pair of
blue jean clad legs walk toward him.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday night—7:45 P.M.

“
I guess I don’t really
understand it,” Tanesha said. “There are a billion and one people
who would do anything to be famous.”

Setting her wine glass down, Tanesha looked
around the dinner table. Her girls, Jill, Heather and Sandy were
sitting with their men, Jacob, Blane and Aden. Valerie sat on
Tanesha’s right with Mike on her other side. Jill’s grandfather,
Otis, sat between Mike and Angelika. Sam sat at the head of the
table with Delphie at his right. The kids had already lost patience
with the adults’ extended dinner and went upstairs to play video
games in Sandy and Aden’s apartment. Ava, Seth and Bumpy came in
late so they squeezed in on the end across from her.

“
True,” Bumpy said. “They
can easily replace Jeraine with a younger model.”

“
Why go through all of
this?” Tanesha asked.

“
It’s confusing,” Valerie
said. “When I think of just me… I mean, I worked on the soap opera
for a long time and even did a few movies, but I’m not anywhere
near as famous as Jeraine. No I don’t mean famous, well I’m not as
famous as Jeraine, but I mean…”

“
Bankable,” Seth said.
“Put in a small amount of money and get a lot of money
back.”

“
Right,” Otis, Jill’s
grandfather, said. “Backing talent? Artists? Even painters? It’s
like gambling. You have to spend money on a thousand to hit it big
with one. And once one person hits big? You want to get every
possible dime from that person to make up for the other thousand
you lost money on.”

“
I’m not anywhere near
that level,“ Valerie held her hand out to Seth and Bumpy. “But
these guys? Jeraine? They’re bankable.”

“
Most people work until
both the fans and the record company are done with them,” Bumpy
said. “To leave in the middle? Doesn’t happen.”

“
Jeraine was set to take a
step up in his career,” Seth said. “But he decided to clean up his
act. He was ready to walk away when he was set up for his fan’s
suicide. After a couple of years in prison, he could have come out
on top. Would have happened, but I came along.”

“
It’s hard to understand,”
Valerie said. “Confusing. But he gave it all up to be with you,
Tanesha.”

“
And himself,” Seth said.
“That time in solitary reminded him of who he was.”

“
Even as a young child,
Jer never wanted a big life,” Bumpy said. “All the boy cared about
was his Momma, his sister, me, and eventually Tanesha. La Tonya?
She wanted fancy clothes, a big car, and a nicer house. But Jeraine
was happy where he was planted. I mean, he went a little nuts when
he was a teenager…”

“
Called himself Jermaine,”
Delphie said.

“
Jermaine,” Bumpy shook
his head. “Like he was some Jackson. Now that’s crazy.”

“
Everyone goes a little
nuts when they’re a teenager,” Sam said.

“
I didn’t,” Tanesha
said.

“
How could you?” Sandy
asked. “You just had you.”

“
And us,” Heather
said.

Tanesha took Heather and Jill’s offered
hands. Her eyes caught Sandy’s. She had her girls. Tanesha’s phone
rang.

“
Hey, I’ve got him,” Tres
Sierra said. “He’s completely out. Passed out in the kitchen. His
Mom’s here taking blood so they’ll have it. Isn’t his Dad a
doctor?”

“
He’s right here,” Tanesha
said.

“
You should have him come
over,” Tres said. “I don’t like the way he looks.”

Tanesha nodded to Bumpy.

“
You know,” Tres said. “I
think Jill was right. I don’t think he screwed those
women.”

“
Why?”

“
He doesn’t smell like
women,” Tres said. “You know what I mean.”

“
Hrmpf,” Tanesha said.
“We’ll see.”

“
I thought you should
know,” Tres said. “Anyway, I’ll be in touch. You’ll send his
Dad?”