Jenna stood up, desperately wanting to pull her little girl into her arms and make the pain go away, but she knew she couldn’t. “One day you’ll understand.” She stood and headed up the stairs, leaving Felicity to sulk on the couch.
Chapter 28
Alex opened groggy eyes, adjusting to the ethereal morning light streaming through the windows. He checked the time: 9:15am. Shit! Shit! He shot up out of bed. The bus was set to leave in fifteen minutes and he hadn’t packed yet. The post-show adrenaline buzz turned Alex into a touring insomniac. Between staying up late after shows and making it to early on-air radio performances, he felt like he’d been run over by a truck.
Conveniently, he’d fallen asleep fully clothed so all he had to do was brush his teeth and hastily chuck clothes in his old suitcase. Jenna tried to buy him a new one before the tour, saying that he needed something more durable for all the traveling. “I’ve had this suitcase forever, and I love it. I don’t need a new one,” he’d said to her.
Struggling with the old zipper caught on a piece of fabric, he thought maybe he’d been too quick with his refusal. Finally, he coerced the cranky zipper to bypass the clothing and stick to the teeth. He sat on the closed bag, pulled out his phone and was about to check his seven messages when he inadvertently answered a call already in progress. Though he didn’t hold it up to his ear right away, he could hear Simon shouting and could picture him, red-faced, chugging espresso, pacing up and down in the lobby.
“Well good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” Simon said. Alex could practically hear the veins bulging in his forehead.
“Yeah, I know. I overslept,” Alex said. He couldn’t force himself to apologize. He didn’t forgive Simon for putting him in this predicament with the label. Seeing him flustered was the best vindication he could hope for at the moment and he’d take what he could get.
“We were about to leave without you.”
“Keep your pants on, mate. I’ll be down when I’m ready,” Alex said.
“Ditch the diva act and get your ass down here. We’ve got a month left and we both know you’re not going to fuck this up. Not unless wifey’s gonna foot the bill. Is that what you want?”
A pompous blowhard Simon may be, but even Alex couldn’t say he was wrong. As he packed up the remaining toiletries and double-checked the room for odds and ends, Alex thought about how different things would be right now if he’d just asked more questions.
He’d known the money was too good to be true. He should have expected strings. There were always strings. He’d been gigging around the greater L.A. area for over a decade without a single legitimate offer, and been screwed by promoters, stage managers, bar owners and other bands countless times. His father-in-law’s label even tried to bribe him with a deal to get Shawn out of retirement.
Alex prided himself on not accepting charity or anything he hadn’t earned. Plenty of musicians thought he was stupid—that he should take any offer, soul be damned. They would. Others whispered he could afford not to care because he mooched off his wife’s trust fund. It was the same with the haters in the blogosphere. That was the hardest part to swallow because Alex couldn’t completely refute it.
The fact of the matter was Jenna’s trust fund paid their bills. How was an eighteen-year old father supposed to support a wife and baby by playing punk music? They needed help and her parents offered. After Shawn and Anya established the trust and bought the house, it was easy to maintain the status quo. In the back of his mind, he knew he’d pay it all back as soon as he made it big. But making it took so much longer than he thought.
He only used the money he earned from music to purchase equipment, fund tours, or pay for miscellaneous costs, though. That was an important distinction in his eyes, one that the gossip-mongers didn’t feel inclined to mention.
Despite his youth, he was a good father. He loved hanging out with Felicity, teaching her to ride her bike, to surf, to play soccer. He was mesmerized by her strength of will and capacity for empathy. She was smart and beautiful with a good head on her shoulders. What more could a father hope for?
And with Jenna, apart from this stupid misunderstanding with Airika, the marriage was great. The last year or so had been crazy with all the traveling and recording, but they had a strong foundation and he went out of his way to do little (and big) things to make sure she felt loved by him—like the anniversary plan.
With everything to lose, why didn’t he ask more questions about this anonymous donor wanting to fund his career? The world was full of what-ifs and he’d go insane entertaining them all, but this one thing—this one decision—if he could take that back … he’d love to know how different it would have been.
That day last spring began innocuously enough—just another sunny, seventy-degree day in Los Angeles. He’d gone to Simon’s office to discuss a possible band deal. Inside the glass and leather conference room, he sat at one end of a too large mahogany conference table.
“Frank, how does it look?” Alex looked to his attorney, Frank Fitzsimmons, sitting across from him.
“Apart from the handful of phrases I’ve flagged, it is quite standard. I think the terms of renegotiation should remain open, but Simon and I disagree on that,” Frank said, sliding a pile of paperwork across to Alex with little red flags poking out of a handful of pages. Alex flipped through the pages but couldn’t understand most of what it meant. He felt like no matter how thorough he tried to be, it didn’t matter—he had to decide whether to roll the dice.
Everything was set. The only detail left was Alex signing on behalf of the band. Simon had raved about the anonymous donor, heavily insinuating that it was a wealthy fan, just interested in tying some of his taxable income into a passion project. It sounded so simple.
The biggest lesson Alex should have learned was that in the music business, nothing was simple. Deals were done, not by men in suits sitting in offices like this, but in bars and after-parties, casually over drinks. Smiles and sweet-talk covered up the cutthroat reality of a say-anything-to-get-ahead business mantra.
In the end, Alex signed his life (and, more importantly, copyrights) over to this new “label.” He and his band headed straight to the studio, their wallets fat with signing bonuses, hope lightening their steps, propelling them to creative genius. The band was elated. At the time he couldn’t have named it—that prickle of doubt—but he couldn’t match their enthusiasm.
Things started out simple enough. They finished recording, with very little creative interference, but just before the album dropped, he got the first call. Simon said the donor had asked that they do him a “favor” by playing a few songs and emceeing a book signing. “Sure,” Alex had said. “No big deal.” It was a memoir by one of those famous-for-being-on-a-reality-show wives. Not his cup of tea, but who cared? He played his part—handing out prize packs of free Botox treatments, silicon add-ons, and other injectables to women who would have been more beautiful without them—then got his check and went on his way.
The second “favor” was an appearance in a foreign commercial. He was promised it would never air in the States. It was for a food company in the Netherlands. This “favor” was going to make him enough money not to think about it. But then he got there and realized the food product was a pair of edible boxers. “I’m not wearing those,” he’d said. The director threw his hands up, shouting French obscenities at his assistant director. He turned on Alex. “Putain! I told them non! Americans—they always too prude. Pain in my ass!”
From there, the relationship between he and his label deteriorated quickly. He felt like a snitch trying to escape the mafia life. The words “family” and “loyalty” were batted around like they’d been pilfered from a Sopranos script. The analogy cropped up in Alex’s mind enough times over the following months that he started to do some research of his own. He never would have believed his findings if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes.
Chapter 29
Jenna, Anya and Shawn sat in the cold meta
l bleachers, watching soccer balls fly back and forth while the two teams warmed up. Felicity might not be speaking to Jenna but she couldn’t stop her cheering her daughter on at the championship game.
Jenna had never been a big sports buff and didn’t know much about the game. Felicity played keeper, making her easy to find on the field. Jenna watched a dozen teenage girls line up, rocketing balls at the goal, toward her daughter, which Felicity easily punched away.
Felicity crouched, hands up, dancing on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce the second the ball left the ground. Jenna marveled at her fearlessness. She leapt through the air, arms outstretched, body parallel to the ground, without the faintest hesitation. Jenna imagined the bruises that must be blossoming beneath her uniform.
An hour and a half after the ref blew the starting whistle, the hard-fought regulation time in its dying seconds, the score nil-nil, everyone seemed to have crept to the very edge of their seats. Jenna could practically hear the crowd holding a single breath, waiting for their girls to score.
On both sides of the field, coaches paced up and down, pointing and shouting things she couldn’t quite make out. Felicity too, barked orders, pointing to gaps between defenders. “Who’s on six? Someone cover her!”
The visiting team arranged themselves into some sort of set play, as a girl raised her arm from the corner, took the kick, and there was a collective intake of breath as the home team’s parents all prayed for the ball not to go in.
“Mine!” Felicity shouted.
The other team’s star forward—the one who had taken shots relentlessly the entire game—jumped up above the defenders and headed the ball toward the lower far post. Jenna thought for sure it was going in and wanted to cover her eyes. Her hands refused to cooperate and she watched in horror as the ball soared through the air with inhuman speed. Felicity too, was airborne, heading straight for the post. Jenna watched, horrorstruck, as her daughter’s body slammed into the hard ground, bouncing slightly before striking the post with the back of her head. Jenna gasped.
Felicity knocked the ball off its trajectory and out of the way of the goal. The ball bounced, making contact with the striker’s hand as she tried to settle it and the ref blew his whistle, signaling the end of the game.
Groans of disapproval issued up from the crowd as both sides shouted about handballs and fouls. Felicity picked herself up off the ground and stooped, hands on thighs, regaining her composure. Jenna stood up, wanting to check on her, but felt a strong arm gently restrain her.
“She’ll be ‘right. Tough as nails,” her father said, eyes sparkling.
Jenna shook her head, depressing every maternal instinct in her body to stay seated. She watched as Felicity stretched and jumped, literally shaking it off. She reset for overtime. The ref blew the whistle and anxiety rippled through the bleachers once again, but this time Jenna wasn’t paying attention.
She couldn’t stop staring at Felicity. She was amazing. For the first time in her life, she saw Felicity as an individual, not just her daughter. There was a lot for her yet to learn, but she was more capable than Jenna gave her credit for.
As the ball soared beyond the other keeper’s reach, the home side erupted in cheers. Jenna jumped up with them, not because they won, but because she knew now what she had to do.
***
Later that afternoon, after the post-game pizza party, the four of them returned home. Shawn headed out to his studio and Anya took her cue, heading upstairs to her office. Jenna made hot tea as a peace offering, handing it to Felicity outside on the deck.
She took it as a good sign that Felicity accepted the tea, and they sat silently watching the sun dip below the watery horizon, illuminating the clouds in shades of citrus and fuchsia.
Jenna broke the silence first. “It’s up to you if you want to come.”
“Is this a trick? Or some kind of warped Freudian reverse psychology thing?”
“No.” Jenna took a sip of tea to hide her smile. She chanced a quick look at Felicity’s stunned face. “It is what it is. You were right.”
“Wha-? Who are you?” Felicity said, swinging her legs around to face her mother. The furrowed brows that were like her father’s crept up her forehead all the way to her golden hairline.
Jenna smiled openly, a full-on goofy grin. She took advantage of the silence to deliver the speech she’d been practicing in her head all afternoon.
“You were right when you said it was about me.” She said, cocking her head to one side. “You were wrong in that I was trying to protect you.” She looked sternly at her daughter. “But I have to realize that you’re not a little girl anymore.” For good measure (and the wide-eyed smile on Felicity’s face), she added, “You’re not quite an adult though, either.” Felicity’s face fell slightly.
“I’m so proud of the person you’re becoming. You carry yourself with confidence and poise. Today I realized I want to take a page out of your book. I want to be the mom you can be proud of. And for me, that means I need to spend some time away.” She watched Felicity carefully, waiting for her to argue, but Felicity stayed quiet.
“You’re probably going to hear a lot of things said about Dad and me at school. But I trust you to decide how to deal with it. So it’s up to you if you stay here or come with me.” She stood up, turning to the sliding glass doors. “I’m going to pack, so let me know what you decide. Okay?”
Jenna went inside, not waiting for a response. She couldn’t help sneaking a peek out the window though. Felicity sat statue-still on the deck. Jenna smiled to herself, realizing she made the first step toward becoming the mom she’d always wanted to be. It only took sixteen years and her entire life crumbling down around her. In this moment, it seemed a small price to pay.
An hour later, the expected knock came at her door. Felicity entered, not waiting for permission. She stood there, her long frame leaning on the doorway, and looked Jenna straight in the eyes.
“I’m staying.” She waited for Jenna to challenge her. “I have responsibilities here I don’t want to shirk.”
Jenna bit her lip to keep from laughing at the wording.
“But I’d like to visit you during my break, if that’s okay?”
“Come here.” Jenna nodded and opened her arms, wrapping Felicity up in a big hug.
Felicity nuzzled into her mother’s chest, noticing it was a bit softer than usual, cozier. Then, like a baby, she cried. It took Jenna by surprise, but she petted her daughter’s hair, kissing the top of her head. Jenna hoped these tears were cathartic—the start of a new relationship between them. But she couldn’t help worrying what the kids at school were going to say. How bad would it get?
Chapter 30
According to Wikipedia, Jackson Jones, nee Alexander Deshevka, was born in Russia and immigrated to Las Vegas with his parents at age sixteen. Lead guitarist in a rock band with dreams of making it big, his life detoured when his father was deported after his employer—a Russian property company—was implicated in a crime ring in the Las Vegas area. Deshevka struggled to take care of his mother and younger brother, Ivan, but found that no one wanted to hire someone with ties to a Russian Bratva (“brotherhood”).
He dropped out of high school, changed his name to Jackson Jones and entered the only industry indiscriminate enough to let him in: porn. His success in the adult film industry allowed him to buy his mother a house and offer his brother a job, securing his family’s future.
He started Flesh, Inc., the first XXX business to successfully transition into the mainstream, albeit through unorthodox channels. Little was known for sure of their exact holdings, though their estimated wealth was in the billions.
Christian conservative groups had been outing them every chance they got, most notably connecting them to a very large donation given to the Haiti relief fund. The charity that took their donation was forced to refund it after receiving thousands of death threats and enduring a smear campaign indicting them as a “destroyer of family values.”<
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Shit. Alex snapped his laptop shut. Pacing up and down the room, he looked out at the Space Needle and the lush Seattle skyline. From the hotel’s tiny balcony—just wide enough to stand on with his feet twisted to one side, he could watch the ferries traverse the Puget Sound carrying tourists and commuters across the grey expanse.
What do I do now? He’d sensed something was off before the European commercial debacle. The creative freedom he’d been given, the generous per diems, the four star hotels on tour. It had been too good to be true. An alarm, like the one that goes off in a parent’s head when their child takes it upon themselves to take out the trash, blared in his head. He’d heard it and ignored it.
When Jenna found out his funding came from a porn mogul with Russian mafia ties, she’d leave him for sure. It would do more than exacerbate the precarious state of their marriage; it would humiliate her. She’d be dragged through a media firestorm—they’d eat up the family-man-turns-to-porn angle. He couldn’t stand the idea of her face when she realized she’d put her faith in a loser. His father had warned him not to be selfish, to put his family first.
He hit his head with the heel of his hands remembering how many times Shawn encouraged him to check the money trail. Why didn’t I hold on to my publishing? From famous to infamous: it would be a scandalous dream come true. Combine fame, porn and stupidity with a side of presumed infidelity? The tabloids would hang them all out to dry. Jenna’s nightmare would become reality.
She supported every creative decision he’d made, telling him to “be true to yourself and you’ll get there.” He thought she was too idealistic, having seen how easy it was for Shawn. He made it big quickly, toured for a few years, then basically retired and got to spend time at home with her. Of course she thought it would all work out; she didn’t know any better.
Alex didn’t get that lucky. It hadn’t been easy. He often wondered if he deluded himself. He hated almost everything he heard on the radio these days and used to think it was because he had better than average taste. Other people were like sheep listening to anything played on the radio. But after all that time of thinking differently, could he be sure it wasn’t just him?
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