We sat for a couple of minutes in silence.
“Jake,” she finally said, “I think you should encourage her to get some counseling. Don’t push it, but support the idea. There’s something eating at her inside. Sometimes I see her react to men like a rape victim would. That’s an incredibly private and crushing thing for a woman. But like I said, she strikes me more as someone who has been dominated and abused over a long period of time.”
I considered that. It fit in both with what I knew and what I had suspected before Cecily told me her story.
“Were you ever raped, Jeri?” I asked.
“Me?” she chuckled. “A guy I dated in college tried to rape me. Dumbass. I beat the shit out of him. I don’t think he’d ever dated a cowgirl before. But I knew girls who were, and I listen to Connie vent sometimes after a few drinks.”
“So you think that a rape victim and an abuse victim are different? In their psychology, I mean.”
“Yeah, they are. In some ways the same,” she said. “But a woman can be pretty stupid when a man convinces her that he loves her. And abuse doesn’t have to be physical. In some ways, psychological abuse can be worse.”
She bit her lip, then drained her beer. “May I have another one, please?”
I pulled her another beer and set it in front of her.
“Jake, other than Connie, I never told anyone about why I got divorced. I was losing myself. He hammered me verbally. All the time. Belittled me until I felt like I wasn’t worth anything. Made me do things and act the way he wanted me to. Finally, I rebelled. Connie helped me to figure out that he didn’t really love me, he loved controlling me.”
What she told me made sense, and gave me a context to understand what Cecily had been through.
I made a resolution that when she came home, I would try to talk to her about getting some professional help.
Cecily called me after each of her concerts. Considering that I didn’t get home from the Roadhouse until three in the morning, five o’clock East Coast time, that meant she was totally exhausted when I saw her in my computer screen. But she insisted that she wanted to see me, to share her triumphs with me.
And they were triumphs. I was able to read all the reviews on the computer, and the critics loved her. She was playing to packed houses and finishing to enthusiastic standing ovations. Marcus made plans to record the final concert of the tour in Vienna, and a CD would be released shortly afterward. Sales of her existing CDs, almost non-existent at the beginning of the tour, had skyrocketed.
She also called me on the telephone every day at ten in the morning Colorado time, but the late night times were what we both looked forward to. At the end of each late night call, she would open her bathrobe and say, “See what you’re missing, Jake? I miss you terribly. I love you.” And then she would sign off.
I was happy for her, glad that she was able to resume her career. In the back of my mind, I was also a little bit afraid. What if she became a big star again and didn’t have room for me in her life? Maybe I should just sell the damn bar and follow her around. At least I’d get to hold her at night.
It was unbelievable how much I missed her. She was all I thought about all day and all night. I had my plane ticket to Vienna, and found myself counting the days.
~~~
Chapter 20
Cecily
London. I had always loved London. Being there as an adult was even better. I had performed my program enough that I was comfortable with only practicing the harp for an hour a day, and we had one rehearsal scheduled with the orchestra I would play with. Myra and I went out clubbing at night, and one day we went to Oxford and Windsor Castle.
The success of my concerts in the States had a downside, however. I now attracted press coverage and paparazzi with cameras.
We had barely checked into our hotel in London when there was a knock on my door. Myra answered it and I heard her talking to someone. Walking into the living room of my suite, I saw a man in a dark suit shove past her into the room.
“Miss Buchanan?” he asked. “I need to ask you a few questions.” He looked back at Myra. “Alone.”
I felt a numbness start to invade my mind, but fought to maintain some kind of clarity.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“I’m from the U.S. Embassy,” he replied, which didn’t answer my question.
“May I see some identification?”
He pulled out a little wallet and flashed something. All I saw were the letters FBI. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, hit Kerrigan’s number on speed dial, and tossed the phone past the FBI agent to Myra. With a startled look on her face, she caught it.
“Tell the man who answers what’s going on,” I said. Looking back at the agent, I told him, “I think you’re out of your jurisdiction. I’d like you to leave.”
“I don’t understand what you have to be afraid of, Miss Buchanan,” he said, stepping closer to me. He towered over me, trying to intimidate me.
“And I don’t understand why you’re here,” I answered. “I don’t know why the FBI would want to interview me in London.”
“It’s a matter of national security,” he said, stepping even closer. “You have information that you’re withholding. Quit playing games, Miss Buchanan. Your attitude isn’t winning you any friends.”
“Here,” Myra said, shoving my phone in front of his face. “Her lawyer wants to talk to you.”
He looked at the phone as though it was a snake, shot me a nasty look, then whirled and walked out, slamming the door behind him. I rushed over and locked it.
“What in the world was that about?” Myra asked.
I put out my hand and she handed me my phone.
“Mr. Kerrigan?”
Nothing. The phone was dead. I looked at Myra. “He didn’t answer,” she said. “I left a message on his voice mail.”
I smiled at her.
“Mind telling me what that was about?” she persisted.
“An old boyfriend,” I said. “The FBI has been trying to get me to talk to them. I just thought it was over.”
When I was in Washington, Kerrigan told me the FBI agent on Eddie’s payroll had been arrested. Three more were under investigation. And to have an agent show up here, it was obvious what he wanted to know about.
Kerrigan called later and I told him of the afternoon’s events. The dreams were bad that night, but different from what I had become used to. I was in Eddie’s apartment, and he sent me back to the bedroom to ‘entertain’ a special guest. I was lying on the bed when my biggest nightmare walked in and dropped his pants. Behind him, a line of men stood, waiting their turns. They all had Alejandro’s face. I woke up screaming.
The following day, Myra and I went shopping. On our way out of the hotel, we tried to detour around a group of photographers who were blocking our way. They were yelling questions at me and asking me to pose. I tried to follow Myra, but a man jumped in my way and pushed a camera in my face.
I stepped to the side to get around him. Suddenly, I flew forward and landed on my hands and knees on the sidewalk. Myra hurried to me and helped me to my feet.
Looking back, I saw my shoe lying on the sidewalk, the broken heel stuck in a metal grate.
“Wonderful,” I said, looking at my skinned palms, torn skirt and bloody knee. “Now I need to buy new shoes, too.”
I limped back into my hotel room, and we applied some first aid. My fingers weren’t damaged, nor were my wrists. I had three days to heal, so I would still be able to play. I changed clothes and we snuck out the hotel’s side door.
That night when we were leaving a club, we again ran into photographers, and I was almost blinded by their flashes.
Two days later, the story of my drunken stumble outside the club hit the scandal rags, with pictures of my fall.
“I hate those people,” Myra said, while Marcus paced and threatened to sue everyone in England.
I thought it was pretty funny. Anyone with eyes and an ounce of sen
se could see that I was wearing different dresses in the pictures of me falling and the pictures of me coming out of the club. Yes, they doctored the club photos to make the dresses the same color, but they weren’t anything the same.
The following evening, London time, I got a call from Jared. “Hey, how are you doing?”
“I’m doing okay. What’s up? Are you Skyping this call?”
“Yes,” he chuckled. “I’m a bit more computer literate than Jake. I saw some pictures of you today at the grocery store.”
“You’re kidding,” I said.
“No, and I looked on line, too. You’re quite the sensation this morning. Look, Cecily, I know I don’t have any right to throw stones, but don’t you think you should cool it a bit?”
I laughed. “Jared, take another look at those photos. I broke a heel outside our hotel and fell in the morning. The dress I was wearing that night at the club was completely different.”
“Oh. Well, still, don’t you think you should keep a lower profile?”
I tried to keep my voice calm, but I was angry. “When you stop drinking and picking up girls in bars, I’ll think about lowering my profile. If Jake has any questions about my behavior, and whether it reflects badly on the Roadhouse, tell him to ask me when we talk.”
“Jake doesn’t know I called. I don’t think he’s heard about this yet.”
“Well, if and when he does, remind him that if he was with me, he wouldn’t have to wonder if I’m behaving myself.”
I hung up. I couldn’t remember being so angry. The stupidity of the tabloids and their readers didn’t anger me, but for someone who knew me to pay attention to that crap was infuriating. I wanted to call Jake, but he would be at work.
When Jake called at our normal time, the first thing he said was, “Are you all right?”
“Yes, why shouldn’t I be?”
“Everybody wants to keep showing me pictures of you falling down, so I was asking if you’re okay. I’m concerned as to whether you were hurt.”
“No, I’m fine,” I said. “You know that drunks are so loose that they don’t get hurt when they fall down.” I couldn’t believe he was asking me about that stupid story. Surely he didn’t believe that garbage.
“Oh, okay,” he said. “Next question. When is the alien baby due?”
“What?”
“Well, I thought I’d check off all the tabloid stories at the beginning so we could get along with our lives. Let’s see, drunk and disorderly, pregnant by an alien, planning on defecting to Communist China, starting a cult that worships cowboy angels ... I think that’s today’s list. Would Miss Buchanan care to confirm or deny any of the above stories?”
I started laughing. “What in the world are you talking about?”
“I figured that if you were getting falling-down drunk, you might also be having an affair with an alien. Equal probability. So I thought we could get all of this week’s stupid stories out of the way up front and we wouldn’t have to talk about them anymore.”
I was laughing like crazy now. I held up my hands. “I scraped my hands a bit, and the scab on my knee looks like I’m twelve years old again, but otherwise I’m fine. I can play, and that’s the important part.”
“What happened? Did you just slip or something?” The expression on his face showed he was genuinely concerned.
“I caught a heel and broke a shoe,” I said.
“If you’d wear your cowboy boots, you wouldn’t have that problem.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. I don’t think they’d have gone with that dress, though.”
He shook his head. Grinning, he said, “Cowboy boots go with anything. Cocktail dresses, tuxedos, swimming suits, you name it. You need to start setting fashion instead of slavishly following it.”
“I miss you so much,” I said, opening my bathrobe. “If you were here, you would have caught me and I wouldn’t have fallen. Don’t you feel guilty?”
He took a long slow breath. “If I were there, you never would have gotten out of bed.”
“See? It’s all your fault,” I said. “Pregnant by an alien?” I started laughing again.
The London concert went well, and Myra and I took the train through the Chunnel to Paris because I decided I wanted to experience it. Mother never would have done it. But considering all the hassle of airports, it didn’t take any longer, and I thought it was more comfortable.
In Paris, I took a day at the Louvre and half a day at Musee d’Orsay. I also talked Myra into taking a boat tour on the Seine.
“I’ve never done this,” she told me about halfway through the tour. “I always considered it a touristy thing.”
“It is,” I said, laughing. “We’re tourists. But isn’t it great?”
“Yes, it is. I rather like it. I take it you’ve done this before?”
“When I was fifteen. I talked my dad into it. Mother felt the same way you did. But I wanted to see if it was as neat as I remembered. I want to take Jake and show him all of this if I can ever talk him out of Colorado.”
From Paris we went to Rome, and I talked the owner of a restaurant there into giving me the family recipes for ravioli and a mixed fish recipe. He asked me to sing an aria from Tosca for him in payment. Not a bad deal. I got the recipes and he didn’t charge us for the wine. I couldn’t wait to make them for Jake, and I hit the markets for the spices and herbs I would need.
What made me really happy was the CD that was waiting for me when we checked into the hotel in Madrid. Jake sent the album I had cut in California almost two months before. I put it in my computer as soon as I reached my room and listened to it three times. Myra hadn’t heard it, and I watched her face as she listened to it.
“That’s wonderful!” she said when it finished, jumping across the room and pulling me into a hug. “Can I come on that tour, too?”
“I don’t know. Are you serious?” I asked. I had truly grown to like her, and having a friend along on tour was a treat I had never known before.
“Sure,” she said. “I don’t know how we would make it work. Do you have the same kind of clauses in your contract with your other agent?”
“Yeah, I do. I don’t know what he has in mind, but he’s going to need someone to do the kind of things you do for Marcus.” I sent Tim, the pop agent, an email that night.
I was talking with Jake one morning when he told me that Kerrigan had called. Three more FBI agents in Baltimore had been indicted, and one of them turned state’s evidence in exchange for a plea deal. Almost forty local cops had been arrested, and the drug networks in the area were falling apart.
I think Jake thought I would be happy. Instead, I was terrified. I emailed Kerrigan and asked what could be done to protect Jake. I knew he wouldn’t take my warnings seriously, and I could easily see a bunch of thugs showing up at his door.
The dreams that night were really bad, maybe the worst ever. Men from Baltimore came and killed Jake, and then they raped me while I lay on his body. I woke up shaking and screaming at three o’clock in the morning and didn’t even want to try to go back to sleep.
Vienna was the last stop on the tour, and the one I looked forward to the most. Partly, of course, because Jake would be joining me there. But the State Opera House was a wonderful place to play and sing, and it held such great memories for me.
We flew in from Madrid, and then waited three hours for Jake’s plane to arrive. Marcus went ahead to the hotel, but I didn’t want to miss a single minute of my sweetie. When he emerged past customs, I flew into his arms.
~~~
Chapter 21
Jake
I came out of customs in Vienna and heard a shriek, “Jake!”
A tiny package of energy ran across the terminal and threw herself into my arms, rocking me back on my heels. Cecily pulled my head down and kissed me as though she wanted to crawl inside me. I really didn’t mind. It felt so good to hold her again.
She was wearing a sheer white sleeveless top with a dark blue
bra, blue jeans and cowboy boots. Her hair was pulled back in a French braid, and she was so achingly beautiful that I couldn’t catch my breath.
In the limo on the way to the hotel, she bubbled over telling me of the plans she’d made. I hadn’t been around someone as excited since Mary was in high school.
“I have tickets to Strauss’s Electra on Tuesday night,” she said, “and tickets to Anna Bolena by Donizetti on Friday. I’ve never seen that one, have you?”
She didn’t give me time to answer.
“I booked a boat tour on the Danube for Wednesday, and Thursday I want to go to the Belvedere Palace,” she continued. “And there’s a place that has the most incredible chocolate pastries. I hope it’s still there. Of course it’s still there. It’s been there forever. And we’ll just wander around and see the sights and have lunch in the little bistros and oh, God, it’s so good to have you here!” She punctuated that statement with another long, deep kiss. I was a little embarrassed, glancing at Myra sitting across from us with an amused smile on her face.
“And the nights we don’t have anything planned, we can go out clubbing with Myra. Okay?” she took up right where she left off before the kiss. “You know, when I was touring in Europe before, I was just a kid. It’s ever so much more fun to be an adult. I like going to the clubs and dancing. There’s so much energy in the air! Do you know how to dance? I mean not-country dancing. Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not hard. You just shake your ass and get into the beat.”
I pulled her to me and silenced her with another kiss, filling my nose with her scent.
At the hotel, Cecily turned to Myra and said, “Will you please find out where we can rent a tuxedo?”
“We don’t need to do that,” I said.
Her brow furrowed. “Jake, there’s a dress code for the opera and my performance.”
“I bought one.”
“You bought a tuxedo?” She looked surprised.
“Yes, I went down to Denver and bought one and had it tailored. I figured I was probably going to be wearing one a lot, and it seems silly to keep renting one.”
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