by Keri Hudson
“I don't care,” she said, a stubborn whine in her voice. “Just stay away from me, Cy, I mean it!”
Lorelei said, “Layla, honey.”
Layla swiped the phone and turned, rolling her eyes as soon as they landed on her mother and the sweaty little concert promoter Stewart Mathers. “What, Mother?”
“I have someone I want you to meet.” She held a hand out to Jack, as if presenting him as a present to her little princess. “This is Jack Billings, he’ll be looking out for you this week.”
Layla looked at Jack, her eyes combing him up and down before she shook her head. “I told you I don’t want security, I don’t need it.”
“Yes, you do, honey.”
“Actually,” Stewart said, “the insurance company insists on it.”
“Your insurance company doesn’t care about my safety,” Layla said. “You just want to make sure I show up for the concert. He’s not security, he’s a babysitter.” Jack didn’t like anything about her tone or manner, but her insight impressed him, and her pluck.
And she was right, as far as Jack could tell.
“In any case,” Lorelei said, “just be a good girl, it’s only a week.”
Jack asked Layla, “Who was on that call?”
She looked at him, silent for a moment, eyes wide with a flaring anger. “Fuck do you care?”
“Layla, he's here for your security,” Lorelei said. “That was Cy, right?” She turned to Jack and explained, “Her ex.” She said nothing more, as if nothing more needed to be said.
But Stewart already knew more about Jack than either of the Schaffer women did, though they’d soon come to find out. Stewart said, “Cy Davenport, the actor? Australian, plays a lotta tough guy roles, keeps getting arrested for bar fights and all that. But he’s in Italy right now, shooting something with Ron Howard, so I wouldn’t worry about him.”
“Italy’s just a plane ride away,” Jack said. “What about these death threats?”
Layla rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Nothing, it’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid,” Lorelei said with an authoritative tone.
Jack turned to Layla, who explained, “Internet trolls leaving messages on my videos on YouTube—”
“And the phone calls,” Lorelei said to Jack. “We have to get a new number every week.”
“It’s just the modern version of heavy breathers,” Layla said with remarkable maturity compared to her overall manner.
Jack asked, “Not this Australian?”
Layla shook her head. “I’d recognize his voice. And we’ve done plenty of heavy breathing in person, believe me.”
Lorelei shook her head, pressing her hand to her forehead. “Oh, hon…”
Jack held out his hand. Layla looked at his empty hand. “What?”
“The phone.”
“I’m not giving you my phone!”
Jack just stared at Layla, his open hand unwavering. Lorelei said, “Just give it to him, Layla, we’ll get you another one.”
Jack added, “And your mystery caller will have occasion to learn you’re in new company.”
Layla sighed and handed Jack her phone.
Stewart said, “Okay, well, now that the introductions have been taken care of, I gotta go make sure Stevie Nicks’ cockatoos have arrived safely.”
Stewart disappeared into the crowd, leaving Layla to turn to Jack. “Okay, so here’s the thing. You’re not my daddy and you’re not my boyfriend, so just stay out of my way and keep your mouth shut. Yes?”
“No.”
“I—what?”
“Here’s… the thing,” Jack repeated with deliberate disdain. “You’re going to do what I say, exactly as I say to do it, and precisely when I tell you to do it. If you can manage that, you’ll have free run of this shit show. Give me the least bit of trouble, you’ll spend the next four days handcuffed to a radiator. Yes?”
Layla stared up at Jack and he down at her, a snarl he’d perfected over years in battle clearly backing her down.
“Fine, just… whatever.”
Lorelei said, “Well, um, Layla, you’ve got a rehearsal in thirty minutes. Where’s that girl I hired to take care of these things?”
“Upstairs blowing Justin Bieber, I think.”
Lorelei shook her head. “Fine. Your band’s in the Microsoft Theater, you know where that is?”
“I’m not stupid, Mom.”
“Of course you’re not, darling! But we really do need somebody to get you from point A to point B, that’s all. A star of your stature needs a personal assistant, not a… a whore.”
Jack asked her, “Then why’d you hire a whore?”
Lorelei stood there, clearly unaccustomed to being challenged in that way. But she also had already shared that she knew that neither she nor Layla nor anybody in their camp could afford to lose Layla for the week, and that meant they couldn’t afford to go against Jack.
Few enough people ever did in any case.
“Fine,” Lorelei said, “I’ve got better things to do. You two get to the theater and I’ll catch up with you both later.” She turned and walked briskly away and out of the room. Jack and Layla shared a glance, and Jack could already sense the rebellion stirring inside her.
He knew also that they weren’t the only stirrings going on in that supple young body, a dancer’s body.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jack walked with Layla across the complex courtyard to the Microsoft Theater, walking past a variety of armed guards, fans cordoned off and gathered thirty yards away. Around them, staff members carried walkie-talkies, carts of amplifiers, and crates of other equipment in every direction.
Jack looked around, wincing in the glare. Layla said, “Out of your depth?”
This drew Jack’s ire, a cold sneer on his face. “Plenty of security,” he said, thinking out loud. “Could still be an inside job.”
Layla sighed. “What, that? Nobody’s trying to kill me, Mr.… what was it?”
“Jack Billings.”
“Mind if I just call you Jack?” Jack didn’t bother to answer, hoping his cold silence would be response enough. When she said, “Well, Jack,” he knew that it wasn’t. “I get it, okay? People think I’m hot. I want them to think that, that’s my job.”
Jack took a moment to think about it. “This person is threatening your life.”
“Well, I don’t think so. Internet trolls? Some stupid phone stalker?”
“That’s a bigger deal than you think,” Jack said. “But if he turns up here, well, the problem will be solved.”
This clearly drew Layla’s attention. “How? You gonna kill anybody who looks at me sideways?”
“I’ll kill anybody I need to kill.” A long silence passed as Layla led him into the theater.
She walked ahead of him, musicians and other gaudy show-biz types gathering around her. Some of them glared at Jack, but with a flip of her hand he knew Layla was explaining his presence. It was all the rationale they’d get as far as he was concerned.
It didn’t take long for the crew to get to work once Layla arrived, and Jack was impressed to see it. He’d taken her for some party girl, but with a few claps and a stroll onto the theater stage, she effortlessly commanded her troops to follow. Men took up their instruments, other men and women in leotards stretching their tawny arms and legs and taking their positions.
Layla led the band through the first song, a high-energy dance tune with a chorus that had a slightly rock edge, the guitarist laying into a lick that Eric Clapton might have played twenty years before.
Layla rehearsed as if she was performing, exuding energy and confidence as if she knew it would fuel her band and dancers to better performances. And it seemed to. As one song led into the next, the rehearsal was impressive and professional in every way. And that, Jack knew, belonged to Layla.
An army follows its leader, Jack knew. And she is a leader, there’s no doubt.
And she was a lot more than that. Layla had real grace a
s a dancer, her steps matching the lines of professionals on the sides of the stage. Even without the costumes and lights, Jack could tell how genuinely stirring such a show would be to a variety of audience members. The dancers were sexy, the beats and the chords and the lyrics all designed to focus the audience’s attention on one thing: Layla. And on one thing more: Layla’s sexuality.
And she had a ton of it. Those long legs tapered up beautifully to her hips, round and full but still tight to her torso, not a speck of fat anywhere on her. Her breasts were full and firm, high and proud with her youthfulness despite her recent and rowdy behavior.
And, of course, the moves, the words, hips thrusting to the rhythm, grinding with the beat, her hands tracing over her own tight flesh; it was meant to turn a man on and there was no way that Jack could deny its effectiveness.
But Jack was on the job, and he felt it not only necessary but prudent to survey the rest of the theater, lest he be distracted. There were a few men moping around the theater, carrying walkie-talkies and wearing headsets and shoving crates on wheeled carts. Roadies, Jack reasoned, tech guys.
But it could be an inside job, and any one of these guys could be that caller, maybe one of the trolls… hardly seems likely; possible, though.
Jack’s attention returned to the stage, and by then Layla seemed to be looking right at him. There was no doubt, and Jack took a step closer, his eyes locked on hers. Layla sang her lyrics, voice sexy and breathy, hands reached up from her hips to her breasts, a slow and sensual journey.
“Take me and love me,” she sang to the bouncy dance beat, “you’d be heaven above me / I’m yours and you know it / baby, let me show it…” Layla cocked her hips and rolled one shoulder near her smooth cheek and pouting lips. “Do me good, do me right, do me there in the middle of the night…”
Jack cracked a little smile.
She’s trying to seduce me with this little charade? Does she think I’ll be that easily hoodwinked, distracted like some lovesick high school punk?
We’ll see.
She went on, seeming to try harder to secure a lock on Jack’s attention. Once the song ended, however, she turned to the musicians and started a conversation Jack could vaguely hear, even at that distance.
“Yeah, John, what’s with the lick on the bridge? It’s an E flat, no?”
The guy behind the keyboard nodded. “Wasn’t I playing it flat?”
“F flat maybe.” Layla turned her attention to the dancers. “Fiona, what about those steps during the vamp? When we swing down and around, you could go lower; let that hair fall almost to the stage, okay? It looks like you’re holding back.”
The dancer nodded, accepting the guidance.
It went on for several minutes, Layla calmly dolling out creative notes to her dancers and background singers, eventually running them through their parts a cappella to isolate the faulty pitch in one of the six voices.
Jack was impressed with the depth of her understanding and the height of her professionalism. He had to admit that he’d underestimated her at first glance. Even his second glance deserved another look, as far as Jack was concerned.
CHAPTER SIX
Rehearsal was just breaking up, Layla lingering to discuss details with the musicians, glancing up at the lights, pointing out certain show details Jack didn’t care to hear. But he was interested when somebody called Layla’s name from behind him.
“Layla!”
Jack turned to see yet another pretty young woman, of which there seemed to be an endless supply. This one had red hair cut in a short pixie hairdo, her face cherubic and pale—a little Irish wood fairy come to life. Layla turned to see the redhead approaching, but Layla wasn’t smiling.
“Yvonne,” Layla said, “get your Bieber kneepads?”
Redheaded Yvonne’s smile and happy air seemed to melt away. “Um, I knew you had a rehearsal, so I thought I’d come by, see if you needed anything.”
“Oh, how generous of you to share some of your time with me, time I’m already paying for.”
Jack stood silent as the tension grew thicker around the two women. Yvonne said, “Lay?”
“If you knew I had rehearsal, you should have been around to bring me here.”
“Well, I… I didn’t think you needed to be led around like some kid, right? I mean, I’m not your mom!”
“No,” Layla said, “she’s my manager, so this is as much her fault as yours.” Yvonne stood there in a stammering silence as Layla went on, “But I’ll take my part of the blame too. And I’ll remedy it. Yvonne, you’re fired.”
“I’m… I’m what?”
Layla said to Jack, “This is Yvonne Fitzgerald, and once she’s ejected from the premises, she should be considered a threat.”
Jack said nothing, letting his dead-eyed gaze turn to Yvonne, a few slow blinks as proactively intimidating as he needed to be.
Yvonne said to Layla, “But… you said I could!”
“You shouldn’t have asked,” Layla said. “I can hardly believe even now that you did ask, much less that you actually went up there!”
Yvonne stood stunned, glancing around, mouth open but feeble. She finally said, “This… this isn’t fair!”
“Get out of my sight,” was all Layla said. After another moment of tense silence, Yvonne huffed and turned to storm off across the compound.
Jack gave it a little thought, then didn’t hesitate to ask, “You think she might have been right? About it being fair, I mean.”
“I worked hard,” Layla said, “for a long time, and I’m still working. I had skills I developed, I have an image which has value to society. I don’t make those rules—”
“But you do profit by them.”
“And why shouldn’t I? I have a right to a secure future, to earn as much as my talent and my other attributes allow, every bit as much as any man would make in the same job, I can tell you that. It’s not like working in the office, Jack. On that stage, there’s some real equality.”
“Yeah?”
“Sure. I sell a lot more records than Springsteen. And my percentage is even better. I’m young and sexy and talented, Jack, that has value. And with that value comes some power; not as much as everybody may think, not as much as I thought, that’s for sure. Sometimes I can’t even leave the house, I feel like I’ve got a thousand lawyers and agents and executives living my life for me, but… where I can, I have to live it for myself. That means protecting myself, because nobody’s going to protect me… present company excluded, I mean.”
Jack gave her a little nod and they stepped toward the exit.
“On stage is one thing,” Layla went on. “But off stage, things for women are miserable. I’ve been hit on by every dick with a business card since I was twelve years old, for Christ’s sake. Some of the people in this business, I guess it’s not such a secret anymore, but… it’s really awful. So I had to get through all that with my soul intact, and do all the work to get to where I am. I’m sorry, but it is absolutely fair if I fire a personal assistant, for whatever reason! In this case, she was unprofessional.”
Jack nodded. “But… did you say she could go? And really, wasn’t it more a matter of being embarrassed in front of your mother? Maybe firing this girl has more to do with your mother than with her, on the whole. I mean, no doubt you resent your mother keeping you on such a tight rein. But there’s nothing you can do about that, so you turn on your underlings, exercise what little sense of control over your life which you think you have. But in truth, that’s just an illusion and you know it.”
A long pause followed, Layla clearly digesting the hard truths Jack had so casually laid down.
“Or am I wrong?”
“You most certainly are! I’ve earned what little control over my life I’ve got, and I won’t have it abused or confiscated by the likes of her or you or anybody!”
Layla turned to storm off, but Jack followed. “Where you goin’?”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Jack and Layla st
epped out into the glare of the Los Angeles late afternoon. But a disturbance nearby grabbed Jack’s attention. His instincts lit up, hairs standing on the back of his neck. At the barricades, the crowd had swollen, and a cluster of signs were raised up, casually waving their slogans, too far away from Jack to make out.
Layla asked, “What’s all that, do you think?”
“Dunno.” They stood for a moment, and Jack knew Layla was as keenly interested as he was, especially as a distinct sound rose up above the general din.
“Whores go home! Whores go home!”
Layla asked Jack, “Are they chanting ‘Whores’? This, I gotta see.”
Jack reached out and grabbed her arm, but Layla tried to pull her arm free. “Get your hands off me, you fucking ape!”
“It may not be safe.”
Layla finally pulled her arm free. “So keep up.” She walked on, leaving Jack no alternative but to follow closely.
They approached the barricades and the signs became clearer, reading, Sick Sluts Suck! and God Hates Whores!
Layla walked faster as they approached, Jack knowing there was no way of holding her back, and no time. He noticed the nearby news crews, but they were the least of his worries.
“There she is!” one person called out, a clamor of jeers following their declaration. Jack noticed that all of them were white, many of them middle-aged women.
“You whore,” somebody else called out, “you’re turning my teenage daughter into a slut!”
“No,” Layla said, “you are! I don’t parent your kids, you do!”
“They look up to you,” somebody else called out, “you waggle your crotch around like a whore!”
“This is the United States of America, lady! I have First Amendment rights! This is art!”
“It’s pornography!”
“That’s your opinion!”
