Juniper flushed the toilet and came back downstairs as I handed the joint back to Melrose, untouched.
“So, what food are we ordering?” asked Juniper.
*
I opened the bags of recently delivered food on the kitchen counter, my back to Melrose and Juniper. I could hear their mumbled excitement. I felt like I was parenting small children. Why hadn’t I kicked them out before? I could’ve just blamed work.
I got my hip flask out of the fridge and took a few swigs of vodka. Were high people really that annoying when you were sober?
“What’ve we got?” asked Juniper as I went back to the bags of food.
Crack.
What was that noise?
Craaaaaack.
BANG.
Sludge fell from the ceiling, drenching me in foul-smelling liquid and gunge. I looked up to find more brown water dripping through a hole that had formed, right where it had been dripping an hour earlier. Had there been a leak there before and I hadn’t noticed because I’d been away? Shit. Probably.
I could see the pipe above me where it had split. Something must’ve been building up for a while to get that bad. If I’d been at home more, would I have noticed it sooner?
I spat out whatever had just fallen into my mouth. The most putrid taste lingered on my taste buds. Along with the texture of…was that money in my mouth?
I picked up what I’d just spat out, and sure enough, a $20 bill was on the floor. So were many, many more. What the hell?
I looked over at Melrose and Juniper. They were laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“Look at you! You’re a mess!” said Juniper.
“What. The. Fuck?”
Why was I covered in money and shit?!
Juniper was laughing so hard her face was turning redder than Melrose’s hair. “At least now we know what happens,” she said to Melrose, laughing even harder.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
“The other day, when we came to that party here, we flushed some money down the toilet to see what would happen.”
“What?”
They were joking, right?
But what else would explain money falling onto my head covered in shit?
“Whose money is it?” I said, hoping they wouldn’t want it back.
“Yours, silly!” said Juniper.
I looked over at Melrose, my jaw tight. She was the only one who knew where I kept my money stash. Except for Larry, who’d found it while looking for other things. Melrose’s expression was sheepish, as it should’ve been if it was the stash I thought it might be.
“It was the one you keep under your mattress,” said Juniper.
I’d told her about that because I’d trusted her.
“Juniper, could you give Melrose and me a minute, please?”
“Sure!” Her tone suggested she was oblivious to how pissed off I was. It was probably all the weed. She’d smoked more of it than the rest of us.
She picked up the joint from the coffee table and skipped to the front door, then outside.
Melrose stood up and reached out to me, but I stepped away from her. “Jack—”
“How could you?” I said. It sounded lame, but it was all I could think to say. “I kept telling myself that you had my best interests in mind, that you were a good person, but you know what? I was lying to myself. I’ve been lying to myself for months. Years, maybe. You kept telling me Tate was the bad influence, but she wasn’t, was she? It was you. You were the one poisoning me. You got me to start drinking again when I was sober. You got me to start doing drugs again when I was sober. You insisted on throwing parties at my house. And what, you helped with the cleanup out of guilt?”
She lowered her head in admission.
“And you flushed my money down the toilet because?”
She stared at a clean spot on the floor, unable to look at me.
“Well!” I snapped. I’d never raised my voice at her before. I hadn’t really at anyone. But this time, it felt warranted. Actually, I felt I was pretty calm all things considered.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
“You don’t fucking know? Did you flush the whole stash or just a few bills? Cause it looks like the whole fucking stash!”
“It’s not my fault you don’t keep an eye on your secret stashes!” said Melrose, raising her head a little but still not looking at me.
“Because secret stashes shouldn’t need checking up on if nobody knows they’re there!”
“Am I a nobody to you too? Is that it?”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t even play that card right now. Not when you’ve literally just flushed thousands of dollars down the toilet. You know I would’ve given you money for anything if you’d just asked. You bailed me out of one of the worst times in my life. I think that’s why I put up with more of your crap than I should’ve.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means get the fuck out of my house.”
*
She left, leaving me alone with my thoughts and a house full of shit. How the hell was I supposed to clear that up?
I looked around to assess the damage. Most of it had landed on and around me. It had caught the sofa, the tiled floor, and some of the kitchen counter. And the food was…no longer edible. It went in the trash without another thought.
While I knew a lot of builders, I had no idea who I needed to call to fix all that damage. Let alone on a weekend with an inspection in a couple of days. Talk about bad timing. If he knew half the damage that had happened to that place, he wouldn’t let me stay there anymore. I mean, I’d had it all repaired multiple times and he’d never said anything, but there was a difference between a window accidentally being shattered and the ceiling collapsing because a couple of drugged-up partygoers had flushed money down the toilet and blocked the pipe.
I took my phone from my—still wet—pocket to start searching the internet. Except my phone had taken a serious hit from all the dirty water and the screen wouldn’t turn on. Well, wasn’t that just awesome?
Could I even shower with the pipe burst? Were the shower and toilet pipes connected? I didn’t know how those things worked. I was a musician not a plumber. No wonder they charged so much money.
I sat on the floor and began to cry. What the hell was I supposed to do? Could I shower? There was no way I was getting photographed without one. But no taxi would take me anywhere in that state either. I didn’t know my neighbors so it wasn’t like I could ask them.
Still crying, I went to the kitchen sink and turned the tap on. The water was running. Good. It hadn’t affected the pressure of the clean stuff. I just couldn’t go to the toilet. I could hold it for a few hours until I was at the gig, right?
I went into the bathroom and put the shower on, my eyes constantly glancing at the toilet as if the whole thing would collapse. It didn’t. I just hoped that even though the house smelled like crap, I wouldn’t.
*
As part of his nannying me, Larry picked me up in his Mustang to drive me to my next gig. After a few minutes of silence in the car, he sniffed. “Why do you smell like a toilet?”
I ground my teeth. Great. So the smell of the house had rubbed off on me. Just great.
“Do we have time to stop off at a hotel so that I can shower by any chance?”
Larry checked the time on the dashboard. He jumped a couple of lanes and cut someone up, causing them to honk their horn at him. “Come on. I’m taking you to my place to get cleaned up. I’ll never forgive myself if I let you go anywhere smelling like that. Maybe you can borrow some of my son’s clothes.”
I lowered an eyebrow at him.
“What? You’re both gangly. I’m sure he’s got a pair of jeans and a T-shirt you can wear. It’s better than turning up smelling like a toilet.”
Always blunt, that Larry.
“Thank you,” I said, trying to stop myself from crying. I was still overwhelmed by the whole day. I hadn’t even ca
lled someone to look at the pipes or clean the place yet. I didn’t know where to start.
“Do you want to tell me what happened? Based on the crying I’m going to assume it wasn’t something stupid you did, because if it was, you wouldn’t be so emotional.”
“Wow, you really do pay attention to me after all,” I said.
“More than you think,” he said. “So?”
“So a pipe burst and my ceiling fell in.”
“Shit. Have you called your landlord?”
“I can’t. It burst because Melrose and some of her friends flushed my money down the toilet.”
Larry slammed the brakes on at a red light. We jolted forward. “What?”
“That stash you found under my mattress? All gone.”
“Fuck, Jack. There was a lot of money there.”
“Tell me about it. They thought it was funny.”
“You know, I never wanted to tell you that I didn’t like Melrose because she was your friend and she helped you a lot, but there was always something about her right from the minute you signed your contract.”
“What something?” I said as we pulled away.
He paused for a minute, as if in thought. “Jealousy, I’d say. She tried to hide it—I think she knew it was wrong—but she always seemed envious of your success. Maybe the money thing was all that buildup finally coming to life.”
I sunk into the car seat. “Whatever. I’ll never know. I’m never speaking to her again.”
“Good for you,” said Larry as we pulled into his apartment complex’s parking lot. “You’re better off without toxic people like her in your life. People like Tate and her friends are much better influences.”
*
While I felt better after a shower, I couldn’t concentrate during the gig. The whole night I kept thinking about how my landlord was due soon and my ceiling had collapsed. How could I explain that one? No matter how I spun it, it sounded stupid.
I managed to find a plumber Sunday morning, but he couldn’t get one of parts he needed to fix it until Monday morning. Would he have enough time to do everything before my landlord arrived?
No.
My landlord arrived promptly Monday morning, not half an hour after the plumber had returned. Shit.
“Jack, it’s good to see you,” said my landlord.
“Yeah, you too,” I said. I didn’t actually know his name. He’d never offered it to me.
He pushed past me and made his way inside. “What’s that smell?” he asked. Damn. I’d hoped it had lessened because I couldn’t smell it as much. Apparently it was just because I was used to it. Ew.
You could see the damage to the ceiling from the front door. It was impossible to miss. His eyes naturally gravitated to it. “What happened?”
“There was a blocked pipe. But don’t worry, I’m taking care of it.”
“I see. Do you know what caused the blocked pipe?”
Shit, I shouldn’t have said it was blocked. I should’ve just said that it had burst. Maybe then he wouldn’t have questioned it so much. What could I tell him that didn’t sound completely outlandish? Hell, even the real story sounded so outlandish I wasn’t sure he’d believe me.
Before I could come up with an answer, the plumber came downstairs with a wad of money in his hand, laughing. “Hey, do you still want this? It’s what was blocking the pipework.”
Fuck.
“You blocked the pipes with money?” said my landlord.
Realizing what he’d done, the plumber began to back off.
“It wasn’t me, it was people at my party,” I said.
“And that makes it better? These are people you’re choosing to hang out with.”
And that didn’t make me look good, did it?
“I’m sorry. Look, I’m getting it fixed!” I gestured to the plumber, who was pretending to check his phone. He was definitely eavesdropping.
My landlord shook his head. “You’ve shown no respect for this house since you’ve moved in. I turned a blind eye when I saw the headlines about you getting arrested last year after punching someone at a party in this house, but this? This is a blatant disregard for someone else’s property.”
“It wasn’t me, I swear!” I said.
“I want you out by the end of the month,” he said.
The plumber let out a low whistle. So he was listening, then. Who didn’t love watching someone else’s drama unfold?
“Please, no. I’ll be better. I’ll do better,” I begged.
“You should’ve thought about that before you let your friends run riot,” he said. “It states in our contract you’ll respect the property and if you cause damage, I can evict you. You’ve done enough damage to this property. It’s time for you to go.”
“I’m sorry. I’m really, really, and truly sorry.”
“Sorry’s just a word. And alongside your actions? It doesn’t mean a thing.”
*
So, by the end of the month, I was living in a hotel down the road. It was a nice hotel, but that wasn’t the point. I’d lost my house, and because of that, I was pissed.
Melrose tried to call me a few times, but I ignored her. I deleted her voicemails without listening to them. Every time I thought about her, rage boiled inside of me. It wasn’t so much that I was angry at her: I was angry at myself. How hadn’t I seen her jealousy all along if it had been so obvious to Larry for years? Had I really let how much she’d helped me when I’d really needed it cloud my better judgment? I already knew the answer to that. And I didn’t like it.
The worst part was putting my stuff into storage. That was what made my move feel final. I’d loved that house. I’d hoped to stay there for the foreseeable future. I’d ended up lasting just over a year before I’d ruined things.
I slammed the door on the storage facility. Larry patted me on the back. “We’ll find you somewhere else, don’t worry.”
“It won’t be the same though, will it?” I said.
“No,” he agreed, “But see this as a new chapter: you’ll come back from the first leg of your tour and you can start looking for somewhere new. Who knows? Maybe you’ll find somewhere even better.”
“Yeah, I hope so,” I said.
He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked back to the rented moving van. “You will. And remember: none of this was your fault.”
I almost felt like he wanted to add for once onto the end, but controlled himself.
“Wasn’t it?” I said.
“No. You weren’t the one that flushed money down the toilet and caused the pipe to get blocked.”
“No, but I trusted Melrose with the knowledge of where my money was.”
“If I had a dollar for every person I’d put my trust in when I shouldn’t have, I’d make more money from that than I do from talent management,” he said.
“Really?” I said, taking the keys from my pocket and unlocking the van.
“Oh, you have no idea.”
“Can I ask you something?” I said, my hand hovering with the key over the ignition.
Larry put his seat belt on. “Sure. Can’t guarantee I’ll answer. Or if I do, that you’ll like my answer.”
“If you knew Melrose was a bad person the whole time, why didn’t you say something?”
“Would you have listened to me if I had?”
I thought for a moment. Who would I have trusted more? Larry or Melrose? Larry I’d always seen as the one who was trying to control me—trying to dictate what I did with my life. Up until recently I’d seen Melrose as the one who let me be whoever I wanted to be. Oh, how wrong I’d been.
“No, I don’t think I would’ve,” I admitted.
“We believe who we want to believe. Sometimes it takes something like this for us to see what people are really like.”
17
Tate
Could you please give me some time
So that I can clear my mind?
This is all new to me
And I don’t und
erstand what it’s doing to me.
— “Space,” Tate Gardener
After being rejected by my birth mother, I went into hibernation. I curled up in bed and spent as much time in my pajamas as possible. I canceled engagements, citing “exhaustion.”
What would my birth mother think? Would she know I was hiding because of her rejection? Would she care? Would she find it funny? Would she always be a bitter woman that blamed me for her problems? Why did she even agree to let me find out who she was if she hated me so much? Was it for purely selfish reasons? Should I go back to get more answers?
No. That was a stupid idea. She was vile and clearly didn’t want anything to do with me. Why was I wasting my time on her?
Well, because if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t exist.
Ever since getting back from visiting my birth mom, I’d wanted to be alone. The world disagreed with my decision to ignore it. I tried as hard as I could. I had so many texts from Trinity, Camilla, Liam, my parents, and a bunch of other people who’d wanted to know what was wrong. They weren’t used to me being so quiet. But I couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone. Thinking about the way my birth mom had spoken to me still made me want to cry. And as for thinking about the circumstances around my birth…that made me want to vomit.
My skin hadn’t stopped crawling since the day I’d found out. I was repulsed by my very existence. How could I not be? I was the product of one of the worst things one person could do to another. And here I was, making money from my existence. I hated myself for it. But nobody would get it. None of them had been there.
If it wasn’t for my adoptive parents, I wouldn’t even be in that position to begin with. I held a grudge against them for what they’d done even though, logically, I knew it wasn’t their fault they’d chosen me—they hadn’t known the story around my conception when they’d picked me. Would they still have adopted me if they’d known?
Hollywood Parents Page 11
