by Meg Cabot
“Of course,” Cooper says gravely and holds his elbow out to her. Tonight he’s her escort because he’s also her bodyguard. “Shall we?”
“Thank you,” Tania says, handing Baby and her clutch off to me. She hangs on to Miss Mexico. “We shall.”
Cooper and Tania start down the long white corridor to the stage door. It’s lined by Tania Trace campers—their chaperones are out in the audience, eagerly awaiting their performances—dressed in their Rockrrr Girl chic, either thigh-high boots and face paint—like Mallory—or crystal-studded evening gowns, like Cassidy. As we pass by, the girls murmur, admiringly, “You look so nice, Ms. Trace,” and, “Oh my God, so pretty.” A couple of them take pictures with their cell-phone cameras.
“Break a leg, girls,” Tania calls back to them when she gets to the stage door. She throws them a kiss. “Remember, I couldn’t be prouder of you!”
Emmanuella makes a heart shape out of her fingers and holds it up. “We love you, Tania!” she shouts.
Lauren, speaking into her headset, says, “Ready? He’s on his way? Great.” She looks at us. “Jordan’ll meet you in the wings, okay? It’s showtime.” Then she pulls open the heavy stage doors.
Chapter 28
Welcome to the First Annual
Tania Trace Rock Camp
Rock Off
Please turn off all mobile devices
so that everyone may enjoy the show
It’s dark—as it always is—backstage. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust enough to the sudden dimness to see that we’re standing in a small space beside numerous levers and pulleys that operate the thick velvet curtains, which are already open to reveal a scrim that bears the projected message: WELCOME TO THE FIRST ANNUAL TANIA TRACE ROCK CAMP ROCK OFF! Behind the scrim is stacked scenery from the various shows that the drama classes are working on . . . chunks of chain-link fence and ancient couches and streetlamps made of plywood. The audience can’t see these, however. Only we can, because we’re standing to stage right of the scrim.
A few feet away and down a narrow flight of stairs is a door marked EXIT. That’s the door the crew uses to get backstage quickly from the main auditorium, which is quite large for a private college.
In the center of the stage is the podium where Tania has to stand when she makes her introductions. It’s lit with some flattering rose-colored gels, and the clear teleprompter screens from which we’re to read are already set up. A professional crew from Cartwright Records Television is running the light and sound board. Grant Cartwright isn’t leaving anything, even the words we’re to speak, to chance tonight.
“Ooooh,” Tania says when she peeks out at the packed house from behind the thick blue velvet curtains. “That’s as many people as I got in that one place in Quebec. Cute.”
I realize then that, to Tania, filling a thousand-seat auditorium is “cute.” To any other performer, it would be “amazing.”
I can’t resist stepping up behind her and taking a peek as well, even though my mother always warned me when I did this, “If you can see them, they can see you.” There are camera operators roving the aisles. These belong to networks other than CRT.
For the first time, I’m starting to feel nervous. Thank God I’m not singing. I always thought I had a good singing voice—definitely better than a lot of so-called pop stars—until I heard Tania’s.
“Oh look,” Tania says. “There’s that boy from your building. The tall one who always gets so dressed up around me. He looks like he’s wearing his father’s suit. How funny.”
“Gavin?” I look where she’s pointing, shocked not just by hearing this odd description of him, but also by learning that he’s in the audience. “How did he get in?”
“I made sure that all the staff of Fischer Hall got invitations,” Tania says casually. “You have to do things like that when you’re in my position, you know. Image.”
When she says the word “image,” she waves her hand like a royal—with no movement of the wrist—to show that she means “image” as in You have to look out for your image.
I raise my eyebrows, impressed. I knew Tania was as PR savvy, in her own way, as Cassidy. But I wasn’t aware until she moved in with us of how kind she was. One of the first things she’d done after she and Jordan took over the top floor of the brownstone was to hire a cleaning service—Magda’s cousin’s—not because she felt guilty about the added burden that their presence might put on us, but because she heard Cooper mention that I’d been meaning to hire them. I’d come home from work Friday afternoon and boom, the house was immaculate—the windows clean, even the curtains in Cooper’s bedroom repaired, Tania grinning from ear to ear at my stupefied expression.
“They’re going to come every Friday,” she said. “Tuesdays too. They have to. It’s the only way they’ll be able to keep up, they say. This place is huge, and you two are filthy.”
“Oh,” she says now, pointing to someone else in the audience. “There’s that girl from your office, the one who wrote that song—”
I see that she’s pointing at Sarah. Surprisingly, Sarah’s sitting with Sebastian. Even more surprisingly, the two of them are conversing with each other in a cordial fashion. Perhaps there’s hope for them yet. Sitting beside them is Lisa with a clean-cut young man, her fiancé, Cory. They both look excited and happy.
“And there are those nice men who helped you save Bridget,” Tania says. “What are their names?”
“Tom,” I say, unable to pick them out from the crowd, since the lights are going down and there seem to be so many men in suits. “And Steven.”
“Yes,” she says. “I like them. And the one who hurt his foot—”
“Pete?”
“Yes. He should be out there somewhere too. I invited him, and his daughters and girlfriend, that nice lady with the hair. But not that ugly and stupid man. I made sure he wasn’t invited.”
Cooper is standing nearby cradling Baby, since the dog’s claws were catching on the sequins of my dress.
“I believe she’s referring to Simon Hague,” he says wryly.
Tania makes a face and straightens up. There’s no use peeking anymore, since now that the auditorium lights have dimmed, we can no longer see the audience.
“Oh yes,” she says. “I made sure he wasn’t on the list.”
I suppress my smile of delight at hearing Simon referred to as “that ugly and stupid man.” Hard as we’ve tried, Tom and I still haven’t been able to find out what sort of disciplinary action—if any—has been taken against Simon for his long weekends in the Hamptons, which we’re fairly sure weren’t departmentally sanctioned. But the fact that he’s been denied entry to the Rock Off—which even the student-run newspaper will be covering—could turn out to be punishment enough.
Lauren opens the door from the hallway to the dressing rooms. “Where’s Jordan?” she demands when she sees he isn’t with us.
“What do you mean?” Cooper asks. I see his dark eyebrows constrict in the slice of white fluorescent light thrown from behind Lauren. “He hasn’t shown up yet?”
“No,” Lauren says. I know she’s trying to hide the concern in her voice. “And Stephanie says he’s not responding to her—”
From behind her, there’s a piercing scream. It’s the scream of a young girl. It’s followed immediately by a second scream, then a third. One of them distinctly shrieks the name, “Cassidy!”
Lauren jerks her head from the open doorway, looking behind her. “Shit—” she says, ripping off her headset and diving back into the hallway. The stage door swings abruptly closed, plunging us once more into darkness.
I can still hear the girls screaming, however. The sound is simply more muted. I know it can’t be heard by the audience, especially as they murmur restlessly, waiting for the show to begin.
“Stay here,” Cooper says, thrusting Tania’s dog at me, then pulling his gun from the holster beneath his tuxedo jacket. “Do you understand?” I can’t see him so well in the gloom, but
I know his gaze is raking my face. “Do not follow me through this door, no matter what you hear.”
I nod mutely as Cooper pulls open the stage door—releasing, as he does, another round of horrified screams—then disappears through it. A second later, Tania and I are alone in the darkness, me clutching Baby to my chest, her holding Miss Mexico.
“W-what do you think is going on back there?” she asks, her gaze glued to the door to the dressing rooms.
“Probably nothing,” I lie. Baby’s skin is so thin, her ribs so fragile, that I can feel her heart thumping against mine, like a tiny bird’s. She smells faintly of Tania’s perfume. “They probably saw a spider or something.”
“Yeah,” Tania says. There are ghostly pink shadows across her face from the gels on the podium onstage. They’ve cast her eyes into sunken hollows. “You’re right. Where do you think Jordan is?”
“He’s probably still talking to his mom,” I say. “Why don’t you try to call him? He wouldn’t answer any of Stephanie’s texts, but I’m sure he’ll answer yours.” Anything to keep her mind off what’s happening outside that door. I’m certain it isn’t a spider.
“That’s a good idea.” Tania kneels to lift her clutch, which I’ve somehow dropped to the ground. “I’ll—”
The other stage door—the one that leads to the auditorium—opens, and we hear the sound of dress shoes—a man’s—skipping lightly up the steps.
“Oh, there he is,” Tania says, laughing in relief. She straightens up as a tall masculine figure comes toward us through the darkness. “Jordan, we were worried. What took you so long?”
It all happens so fast. One second, that’s all it takes. In the blink of an eye, I realize the person striding toward us isn’t Jordan. It’s a man I don’t recognize, a stranger I’ve never seen before.
A second later, my mind reeling, I realize I have seen him before, only in another context . . . a photo on a website. But then he had brown hair and was clean-shaven. The next time, it was on a driver’s license photo, but his hair was red and he had on glasses and wore a goatee . . . and then, most recently, he was blond . . .
Now the hair is brown again. His button-down shirt is neat and clean under a boringly ordinary coat and tie, the coat and tie of . . . a suburban choir teacher or a dad. He could be driving the kids to soccer practice or taking the babysitter home. You wouldn’t notice the bandage on his hand if you weren’t looking for it. You probably wouldn’t notice the revolver he’s holding in that same hand either, if you weren’t looking for it.
But I am. And I do.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” Tania says, looking from the revolver to his face. Her expression is bewildered. “How . . . how did you get in here?”
I don’t blame her for feeling confused. I feel confused too. A minute ago, I’d been sure it was Jordan coming toward us from the darkness. I’d expected it to be Jordan.
Except it’s not Jordan at all, but Gary Hall, dressed as himself, his true self, a forty-six-year-old abusive husband . . . who, it turns out, can look like anyone at all.
“Hello, Tatiana,” he says, smiling. “Do you like this outfit?” He reaches up to straighten the brown knit tie with one hand, keeping the muzzle of the gun pointed straight at us with the other. “I do too. It’s comfortable. I’m Mallory St. Clare’s dad tonight. You know Mallory, don’t you? Of course you do. She’s one of your little protégés. Of course, the truth is, according to Bridget, that Mallory’s dad left the family when she was ten, but tonight he’s making a surprise return. I called ahead and made sure his name got put on the list. The student at the box office was so sympathetic. Most people are when it comes to single dads and their teenage daughters. They want everything to work out.”
Tania doesn’t say anything. I don’t blame her. I feel as if an earthquake is going on, only inside of me instead of beneath my feet. The ground is shifting, shifting, everything moving in slow motion, but only I can feel it.
How could this be happening? Everyone kept telling us we’d be safe. Detective Canavan had laughed when I asked if he thought it was a good idea for Tania to go through with the Rock Off.
“Hall is a thousand miles away by now,” he’d said, the last time we spoke, “getting his ass bit by a million mosquitoes in Saskatchewan.”
The head of Protection Services—what was his name? O’Malley? O’Brian?—had stood there with his shiny buttons and badge and his blue eyes filled with tears and said he’d have everyone—everyone—on duty, watching every door.
But all it takes is one door—one person looking away for one tiny second—and you realize how much everything can change, how fragile life is. This time I really am about to die, like I thought I was going to that night in Fischer Hall when Gavin hit me with the paintball.
Only this is real. This guy is going to kill me. I’ll bet anything that even though Gary Hall gave a phony name at the door and may even have shown a phony ID, that’s not a phony gun in his hand.
“What do you want?” I demand, my voice shaking. That’s because of the fear I’m feeling, dancing and bubbling up and down my spine, like the water in the fountains outside in Washington Square Park. I have no idea how I’m still standing. I long to sit down, give my shaking knees a rest. But I have a feeling I’ll be resting forever soon.
“Tatiana knows what I want,” Gary Hall says, not unpleasantly. “Don’t you, Tatiana?”
“What I want is for you to go, Gary,” Tania says, her voice shaking as much as my knees. “Now. This is an invitation-only event, and you”—her eyes look crazy in the pink glow of the gels shining on the podium—“were not invited.”
I can’t believe what I’m seeing, let alone hearing. Tania is actually standing up to her lunatic husband, and not in song.
“Yeah,” I say to him, setting Baby on the ground, since he’s begun to whine, not liking the fact that his mistress seems upset. Maybe he’ll leap at Gary’s throat, like a dog on TV. But he only wanders over to Tania’s feet and cowers behind her. “Tania’s right. I’m afraid you have to leave, Gary.”
He looks at us both in disbelief. “I don’t think you’re comprehending the situation, girls,” he says. “I am holding a loaded firearm. I’m going to shoot one or both of you. I don’t think you want that to happen. Tatiana, I’ve had enough of this nonsense. You’re coming with me.”
“No, I’m not, Gary,” Tania says, her voice still shaking. But she holds her ground. “It’s over. I told Jordan. He knows everything, and you know what? He says he loves me anyway, and you can tell the stupid story of how we never got divorced to the whole world for all he cares. He’ll marry me again once you and I are divorced, after you’ve gone to jail for what you did to Bear and Jared and Bridget—”
“Then,” Hall says, holding the revolver to the side of my head and pulling back the hammer, “I guess there’s no reason for me not to shoot your friend, is there?”
I freeze. If I’d thought I felt like I was in my own private earthquake before, now I really feel that way, because I’m positive toy guns don’t make that kind of noise when the hammer is pulled back. I know because Cooper, in an effort to familiarize me with firearms so I wouldn’t feel so nervous around one, showed me how his Glock works (although he hasn’t yet had a chance to take me to the firing range, since he’s been busy guarding Tania). And every time a bullet snapped into the chamber, it made a noise similar to the one I just heard.
Now, I realize, I’ll never get a chance to go to the target range with Cooper to learn how to shoot. Because I’m about to die.
“Is this what you want me to do, Tatiana?” Gary Hall demands in a voice hoarse with desperation. He reaches out to wrap a hand around my upper arm and drag me toward him. That’s when I get a whiff of him. He smells of mothballs—the Mr. St. Clare costume has evidently been in storage—and sweat. The gun smells of oil and my imminent death. “Because this is what you’ve driven me to. You’re making me do this. You made me hurt all those people.”
&n
bsp; I can’t believe how clichéd he sounds. Hey, buddy, I want to say to him. You need Stephanie to punch up your dialogue.
But this scene from Jordan Loves Tania hasn’t been pre-scripted. Gary Hall is deeply disturbed.
“If you’d just stayed with me and treated me with the respect I deserved after all the things I did for you,” Gary goes on, “no one would have gotten hurt—”
“I am not responsible for the things you do, Gary,” Tania says. “Only you can be responsible for your actions.”
It occurs to me that Tania might actually have been getting some therapy behind my back. I only wish she’d have saved it for a time when Gary wasn’t pointing a loaded gun at my head.
“You’re making me do this, Tatiana!” he shouts, his fingers sinking into my skin as he jabs the muzzle of the gun into my updo, causing tendrils of it to fall from the many bobby pins that had been used to secure it. “I have nothing left to lose. Whether this woman lives or dies is entirely up to you.”
Tania’s expression changes. Maybe she’s realized what I’ve already figured out—reasoning with Gary isn’t going to work, because he isn’t sane. He’s never going to give up until he gets what he wants, which is Tania.
I watch the fight drain out of her . . . along with all hope. Her slender shoulders sag.
“All right,” she says softly. “All right, Gary. I’ll go with you. Let Heather go first, though.”
He grins, triumphant, then shoves me away.
I’m not sure what makes me do it. I guess it’s true that I don’t want to die. But I know I can’t let anyone else die either.
So as Tania moves past me, I snatch Miss Mexico from her limp fingers. Then I spin around and bury the pointy Spanish comb that’s glued to the doll’s head as hard as I can into the skin just below the bandage on Gary’s hand . . . his gun hand.
