Cadence

by J. M. Nevins

  Kit sighed. “Well I hope you’re better at getting through to him than I’ve been.”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Pat is a stubborn shit. This I know all too well. But, when he wants to make something right and he’s determined, nothing will stop him. That gives me hope. I think once he’s off this tour, he’ll get it figured out and he’ll go back to being the cool Pat I know and love, not egomaniac, cokehead asshole, Sully Foxx. At least I hope so.”

  She then met Kit’s eyes. “Listen, Kit, I will do everything in my power to help you two out if you want my help. It’s killing me to see Pat using like this and seeing him hurting without you. He told me everything that happened. It was completely unacceptable. If I were in your shoes, I’d probably be doing the same thing. I also know how much he loves you and yes, he fucked up big time.”

  She continued. “I know we’re just getting to know each other, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. You’re exactly how he described you and it’s so great to see you live and in the flesh. I know you’re branching out into new areas right now and you’re not sure how Pat will figure into the mix. I get it. I’ve been there. I went through something similar with my partner when I came out of rehab years ago. Take your time to do you. That’s the best way for you to figure out what’s coming next.” She nodded and offered a kind grin.

  Kit let out a sigh of relief. “Thank you for that, Keni. You hit the nail right on the head. Right now is the time for me to do me. That’s precisely what I’ll be doing. Hopefully that will give me the clarity I need. I have no idea what will happen, but I’m open to the adventure.”

  Kendalle chuckled. “And that’s all you need right now, honey.”

  Two weeks had passed in a whirlwind. It felt more like two years to Kit. Her single dropped on schedule. As Lew predicted, she was tracking rapidly toward gold status.

  Using grief to her advantage, she pushed through and shot the video the day after Lew passed away. Her guest VJ stint went off without a hitch for her on MTV where she took over an hour for Duff who welcomed her with a glowing introduction.

  Now back in L.A. she had been in the studio everyday over the last two weeks, having recorded half of the album and working on several other songs. She had eight down, four more to go, but she could feel her energy and drive waning. She was desperate for more down time.

  The board meeting was scheduled to take place that morning and she could feel heavy anxiety creeping up as it approached. Jonathan assured her that she had nothing to worry about, but the butterflies in her stomach told her otherwise. She couldn’t shake her concerns. Now that Lew was gone, she doubted the motives Chris had for the label and the future of Diamond Entertainment as a whole.

  Her new assistant, Candice, had hired movers to come in and start packing up Kit’s belongings, leaving the boxes open so she could rummage through them in her spare moments, deciding what she wanted to keep and toss.

  She embraced the process to stay busy, yet she found it to be more heart wrenching than she had anticipated. She was bombarded with memories of her relationship with Sully and Gypsy Tango. Framed photographs were everywhere and she had to make the decision to either keep them boxed up, in storage for posterity, or to toss them altogether.

  While in her front room looking through the personal items from her office that Candice had personally packed up, she came across a framed photograph from her office bookcase. She took one look at it and burst into tears. It was a photo of her and Lew taken when she won her first Grammys for songwriting and producing.

  She held the framed photo to her chest for a moment before wrapping it carefully and clearly marking the contents so she could display it wherever she ended up. At the moment, she had no idea where that would be.

  Henri and his camp were due to move into the estate in a few weeks. She was getting a jump on the sorting. With the results from the board meeting coming up and carving out time for writing and recording songs, her time was limited.

  She contemplated taking that vacation, just as Lew suggested, but decided to wait until after the board meeting. It seemed that time was passing slower than it ever had. She glanced at the clock. It was a quarter past ten. The board meeting was taking place now.

  A knock at the door grabbed her attention and she made her way toward the front of the house where Ariana was answering the door.

  Kit thanked Ariana as she took the sealed manila envelope from her. She wondered if Sully had finally come to his senses and agreed to the terms of their separation. She opened the envelope and pulled out the documents.

  She sank into a chair in the front room and her eyes widened as she started reading. She was being terminated from her position as Chief Creative Officer at Diamond Records effective immediately.

  She sat back, dumbfounded. It definitely explained a lot. She wasn’t able to access the Diamond mainframe or her reports that morning and figured they locked her out because she was technically still on medical leave. Candice’s calls into Jonathan’s assistant had been ignored nor was Jonathan picking up. She closed her eyes and felt the sting of tears as she shook her head. She didn’t understand what was going on.

  Her eyes fluttered opened, she wiped her tears and reminded herself to calm down. Her emotions had been up in arms over the last two weeks and she reminded herself to breathe through it.

  She then thought about it and realized that maybe this was a standard procedure for her moving into the CEO spot. She knew deep down inside, though, that it wasn’t. Something was very wrong.

  The doorbell rang and she scrambled to the door, beating Ariana to it. She flung it open and stared at the burly man that stood before her, a large flat-bed truck sat idling in the background behind him.

  He looked annoyed. “You Kathryn McKenna?”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  He surveyed her. “I’ll need your keys. I’m here to repossess your car.” He glanced at his clipboard. “1993 Mercedes-Benz 500SL, silver, hardtop convertible. License Plate ‘DMNDGRL.’” He struggled to pronounce it.

  Kit shook her head and let out a frustrated sigh. “Diamond Girl. There must be a mistake. That car was gifted to me.”

  He showed her the papers. “No mistake here, lady. Plain as day. Surrender your keys please or I call the cops.”

  She seized his clipboard and examined the documents more closely. She noticed who had initiated this. She stared at the signature on the legal documents, ‘C. Diamond.’ The conditions for the repossession were an after effect of her recent termination.

  She huffed and shook her head. She handed back the clipboard and knew she would have to get to the bottom of it later. The last thing she wanted was a legal tussle with Chris Diamond over a car. “Hang on. Let me grab my keys. I’ll meet you out by the garages.”

  Five minutes later, Kit stood there, arms folded in front of her watching as the burly man drove down her driveway and out past the gates, her beautiful car sitting atop the flatbed and out of her life forever.

  She shook her head and was about to head back in, when she noticed a car race past the gates. She was about to rush in and call her security service, when she recognized the sporty, blue Jaguar XJS. It was Jonathan. She remained outside until he parked.

  As he got out of the car she approached, unable to mask her anger. “What that fuck, Jon? They just took my car. Why the fuck did you fire me? I don’t get it. I thought we were family. I thought we were in this together.”

  He looked distraught and disheveled as he approached. “We are. Chris fired me too. He repossessed my Mercedes too. He’s going through with the merger, Kit. He appointed Andy Millikan as CEO.”

  Kit let out a defeated sigh and dropped her guard, realizing Jonathan was just as incensed as she was. “Andy Millikan? That guy is a slimeball.”

  Jonathan nodded. “He’s helping lead the charge with Chris as they work on the merger. I’m out of the game. Not only did they fire me from Diamond Records, they’re not moving me over to Diamond Pictures. A
ll I have left are my shares and Chris doesn’t have enough power to buy me out on that unless he borrows from someone. Chris won’t do that. It’s against his principles. He didn’t take away your shares when he terminated you, did he?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Honestly, I dunno. I was pretty stunned when I received the paperwork. I didn’t take the time to examine it. I thought something was up when I tried to login to the Diamond server this morning and I was kicked out. Candice tried calling your assistant and couldn’t get her. I was pretty pissed off at you. I thought you had locked me out.”

  He chuckled. “Not so. Looks like we got fired at the same time. Are you ready for the kicker?”

  She raised her eyebrows. “There’s more? Oh shit, I dunno know if I can handle it.” She chuckled. “Lay it on me.”

  He shook his head, still angry from the accusation. “Chris tried to sell the board on a dirty laundry story that you and I were having an affair. He told them that said affair led to our marriages going south which led to Flat 5 failing and me moving over to Pictures. Good one, huh?”

  Kit burst out laughing. “Omigod Chris is an asshole! Wow! And I assume the board bought it?”

  Jonathan tilted his head to the side. “We both got fired, so I’m guessing that yeah they did. I hope he isn’t spreading that shit to gossip rags out there.”

  Kit motioned for Jonathan to come inside as they started heading toward the house. “I’d guess that he didn’t. There’s no real angle there. He wanted to discredit us in front of the board so he could move his agenda forward. No doubt Lew is turning over in his grave right about now.”

  Jonathan let out a long sigh. “You know it. I guess it’s time to start figuring out my new life.” He chuckled. “And I guess it’s time for you to focus on being an artist. Maybe this worked out for the best after all.” He donned an optimistic smile.

  She grinned. “Maybe it did. First things first, I gotta buy a fucking car!” They both laughed loudly.

  She continued. “I haven’t had a car since Diamond made me an exec. It’s always been a company car.” She tilted her head to the side. “Jonathan, what are you going to do now?”

  They entered her entertainment room and took seats across from each other. He thought about it for a moment and met her eyes. “I think I’m gonna start a production company. I have the capital from the inheritance. Granted, that’s tied up in probate for a while, but I’m sure Mom will cut me a check. I have my trust fund too—Beth can’t touch that, so I can use that as seed money if I need to.”

  Kit’s green eyes twinkled. “I know a bunch of investors too, Jon. I can do some intros for you. It’s not wise for me to personally invest in anything right now because of the separation, but I can hopefully help with additional connections.”

  He nodded. “Yeah. I’d like that. Thanks. I’m going to stay on the film side. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed running Diamond Records. I think I’m better suited as a production studio head. Maybe delving a little bit into development. Exercise that creativity muscle a bit.”

  She offered him a friendly smile. “I get it.”

  He sat back. “It’s time to put some feelers out. Time to start a whole new chapter.”

  She nodded and winked. “I’m with you on that.”

  After Jonathan left, the reality set in that Kit would never again set foot in her corner office at Diamond Records, nor would she take a seat at the boardroom table for a meeting with her team. Anxiety seized her and she felt herself starting to unravel.

  Diamond Records had been her safety net for years. Even though she was excited about embarking on her career as an artist, the abrupt removal of Diamond from her life so closely after Lew’s death felt like a massive earthquake that left her life in rubble.

  It felt like everything was collapsing. She’d be leaving her home in two weeks, a home that had been in her family for decades. She was no longer employed with Diamond as their Chief Creative Officer and her beloved car was gone, leaving her with an empty garage save Sully’s black Ferrari Testarossa, a car she had no desire to drive. Then there was the looming separation from Sully that hung in complete uncertainty. He had been disturbingly silent lately. No phone calls, no protesting. Nothing.

  The cadence of her life was changing at a rapid pace and she reminded herself to go with it, just like she consistently instructed all the artists she had worked with before. She could hear her own advice ringing out in her head. “Let the music move through you, the words, the timing, the rhythm. Let it build its own momentum and flow with that. Welcome the process. When you go against the flow is when you lose the groove.”

  The last thing she wanted was to lose the groove, but right now she didn’t know how to find it. She felt like that hermit crab Lew had told her about several weeks ago. She realized that rather than resist the process, welcoming it in would be a more favorable choice in the long run.

  She sadly realized that there was no point in staying in the house even though she still had two weeks to get things together. Too many ghosts, too many memories.

  She called Candice and set the gears in motion to move immediately. She sighed as she concluded the call, knowing it was best to pull the bandage off. It was time to begin again.

  CHAPTER 18

  Sully roused and rolled into the middle of the bed. He slowly opened his eyes, squinting as he focused, his head throbbing. He groaned as he held his hand to his head. He sniffled and sat up slowly, sighing. He threw his legs over the side of the bed and got up, padding across the room to grab his white robe.

  Clad only in his robe, he headed into the living room of his suite and growled seeing there were still two girls passed out—leftovers from the after party the night before. He vaguely remembered seeing them hanging on Tony the night before. He then shook his head, annoyed that Tony had left them behind for him to deal with.

  The suite was in complete disarray littered with beer bottles and abandoned plastic party cups. Flying high on too much cocaine the night before, he had invited everyone back to his suite for an after party.

  He shook his head again as regret washed over him. It suddenly became clear to him that this was his life and he felt disgusted by it. He headed over to one of the girls, who was clad only in a pair of skimpy panties.

  He nudged her gently and spoke sternly. “Hey, get up. It’s time to go.”

  When she groaned and ignored him, he grew frustrated and headed over to the windows, throwing open the curtains and flooding the entire room with bright sunlight.

  The other girl roused and squinted, exclaiming, “What the fuck!”

  He looked at her and shook his head, annoyed. “Hey, you and your friend need to leave.”

  She glared at him and got up slowly, looking for her clothes. She found them, managed to wake up her friend and they left. Sully slumped down on the sofa hearing the door click as they departed.

  He shook his head and glanced at the mirror on the coffee table. There was one leftover line from the night before. He leaned forward and stared at it, debating his next move.

  He wanted to resist and put it behind him completely, but found that his body was physically drawn to it with such a force he wasn’t able to hold it off. He was about to snort the line of cocaine before him when he heard a faint sound that was audible enough to arouse his curiosity.

  He stood up and approached the door, noticing that an envelope had been slipped under it. He frowned, picking up the large brown envelope. Realizing what the contents were intuitively, he let out a defeated sigh. The summons was back again. The legal separation was not going away as much as he willed it in his mind. He knew he couldn’t ignore it anymore.

  He closed the envelope once again and listlessly threw the envelope on the dining room table. He let out a long breath as he ran his hands through his tousled sun kissed dark blonde mane. He rubbed his eyes and shook his head, surveying the envelope from a distance, viewing it as a threatening adversary to the life he wanted.

&nbs
p; Curious, he picked it up again and opened it, pulling out the contents. He pulled out a chair and read through each page carefully this time. No big surprise. The terms hadn’t changed. The requests hadn’t changed. They were all the same. The only difference this time was his reaction.

  Instead of ripping them up and throwing them away as he had done twice before, he set them down gently and walked away. He returned to the living room, hastily did the last line of cocaine on the coffee table and headed into the bathroom to take a quick shower.

  As he was toweling off after his shower, he noticed a drop of blood that had fallen onto the pristine white bathroom tile on the floor, then another. He frowned and rushed to the fogged up mirror. Grabbing a hand towel to wipe it, desperate to clarify his reflection, he noticed that those drops of blood were now in the sink.

  He stared up at his reflection and realized the blood was coming from his nose. He closed his eyes for a moment and shook his head, silently chastising himself. “Shit!” He yelled loudly as his eyes fluttered open and he reached for a tissue.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was able to get the bleeding to stop. He picked up the phone and called Sean requesting that a doctor come by his suite later that day.

  He then hastily got dressed, put the papers back into the envelope and headed out with them tucked under his arm, a cup of strong espresso from room service in hand.

  He took a deep breath to calm himself. He headed down to the fifth floor where the rest of the band and management were staying. He knocked on the door to room 512.

  Sean opened the door and stared at him. “This is a surprise. A phone call and now a visit? It’s eleven a.m. Sully. What are you doing up so early? Or did you never go to sleep last night?”