American Diva (20 page)

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Authors: Julia London

BOOK: American Diva
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He was there, leaning up against a blue car, one leg crossed over the other at the ankle, his arms folded across his chest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and his dark hair looked as if he’d run his fingers through it. He grinned when he saw her and straightened up.
“Okay,” she said breathlessly, feeling strangely giddy. “I just have to hit the gift shop.”
He didn’t ask, but with his hand on the small of her back, he directed her to a row of shops inside the Taj Mahal. Audrey flew into the first one, picked out a stuffed bear, a T-shirt, and a pair of flip-flops. “This isn’t exactly what I wanted to take, but it will do,” she said as she signed the slip the woman behind the counter handed her.
With her sack of cheesy gifts, Audrey allowed Jack to lead her out to the car. She noticed as they strode up to it that it was the sort of car she would have driven pre-smash hit days.
Jack opened the front passenger door. Audrey peered at it. “This is the car?” she asked, hearing the disbelief in her voice.
“Yep. I thought we’d go with something small and unremarkable.”
He’d just hit another home run, then. “But . . . who is driving?” she asked, eyeing the car suspiciously.
“I am. How long has it been since you were in a Ford Taurus?”
She laughed. “At least one hundred years,” she said, and climbed into the plain car, tossing her bag onto the backseat.
It almost felt like they were Bonnie and Clyde, making a grand getaway. “She knows we’re coming?” Audrey asked, trying to make her unruly curls look presentable in the visor mirror.
“Yep. Katie Parmer’s mother is waiting for her daughter’s idol to show up.”
“How did you know it was Katie?” Audrey asked.
“I sweet-talked Courtney into making a couple of phone calls,” he said with a wink.
“Oh my God. You
did?
Did you have to sleep with her?”
He laughed. “No . . . but she didn’t let me off cheap. She called your foundation and they figured out who it was and called Katie’s mom. I understand this is supposed to be a surprise for Katie and twenty of her closest friends.”
“I can’t believe you did this,” Audrey said, her smile broadening, her heart and skin warming with delight.
He shrugged. “I thought it would mean a lot to the girl, and you, well . . . you looked like you really wanted to meet her.”
“You have no idea how much I do! Jack . . . this is so . . .
nice
.”
He laughed. “Don’t look so surprised. I can be a nice guy when I want to be.”
“But this is above and beyond nice. And I intend to enjoy every last moment of it because Lucas is going to kill me when I get back. I left him a note and told him he was on his own with the radio.”
Jack kept his gaze on the road before them, but she saw the muscle in his jaw flinch. “That can’t be too big a deal, right?” he asked evenly. “He’s promoting his new CD, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” she said, and sighed. “You don’t know Lucas. He can get really insecure about his talent and he just feels better if I’m there, you know? It’s a support thing.”
Jack looked at her, his blue eyes full of something she couldn’t quite read. “I think he’ll live.”
“I don’t know,” she said, dreading the scene when she came back.
“Who knows? Maybe he’ll finally figure out that he has to learn to stand on his own two feet,” he said. “You don’t owe him a career—you’ve got your own to build.”
“But you don’t know what all he has done for me,” she said, feeling a little defensive of him. “It’s okay,” she said quickly before Jack could argue. “I really want to meet the scholarship girls. And if I don’t take this opportunity, when will I have another one?”
Jack said nothing.
Audrey’s cell phone rang. She fished it out of her bag and winced. Lucas. She put the phone back in her bag, unanswered. But she felt another nail in a coffin she hadn’t even realized she was building—or really, even thought of building—until perhaps that very moment.
The phone continued to ring. Audrey smiled a little at Jack. “Thanks,” she said, meaning it. “This means so much to me.”
His jaw relaxed a little, and he smiled. “Don’t thank me. It’s a good thing you’re doing.”
Audrey grinned. Jack did, too.
He couldn’t help himself. When the girl smiled, she could melt the polar ice cap.
The drive to Katie Parmer’s house was short—too short, really—but well worth the trip. He’d never seen a child’s face light up like Katie’s did when she saw Audrey walking up the sidewalk to her door. The girl’s face turned up to the sun like a daisy, her smile as brilliant as a handful of stars. Her wide blue eyes never left Audrey, and when Audrey sat cross-legged on the floor and asked Katie to sing for her, Katie filled her lungs and sang like she was auditioning for
American Idol
—which, if she kept this up, she would be one day.
Several young girls gathered around as Audrey showed them some basic chords on Katie’s guitar. When Katie’s mother—also glowing with delight, Jack noted—invited them to enjoy a cake she’d made, she seemed overwhelmed when Audrey hopped up and insisted on helping her. She got the paper plates and plastic forks, arranged the paper napkins in a fan on the kitchen table, and helped serve Kool-Aid punch to the kids.
With ten other girls and several admiring parents looking on, Audrey ate cake and asked the girls questions about themselves. Did they like music? Did they mind their parents? Did they have boyfriends?
Then it was their turn to ask Audrey questions.
Did she have to take music lessons? Did she get in trouble with her mom for dancing? What was her favorite song? And then came the inevitable question from Katie. “Is he your boyfriend?” she asked, pointing to Jack as a chorus of giggles filled the room.
Audrey smiled at Jack. “No,” she said. “He’s . . .” She seemed to have trouble explaining him. “He’s my—”
“Bodyguard,” Jack said.
Audrey laughed. “Well
I
was going to say friend,” she said, “but okay, bodyguard.” And with another laugh, she leaned down, still looking at Jack, and whispered something into Katie’s ear. Katie was instantly giggling and turned to tell the girl sitting next to her.
“Great,” Jack drawled to the woman standing next to him. “Even at the age of eight, females have the ability to make me squirm.”
They stayed for three hours; Jack had to force Audrey to come away. He was loath to do it, but they were running out of time. She hugged all the girls good-bye, thanked their parents again, and finally, with Jack’s hand on her arm, walked outside—and right into the arms of Lucas and the media coverage.
“Lucas!” she exclaimed as two television reporters put mics in her face.
“Your generosity needs to be seen by the world, baby,” he said, and kissed her on the mouth.
“Miss LaRue! Can we speak to you about your foundation?”
“Ah . . . sure,” she said, glancing nervously back at the blue-trimmed bungalow from which they had just emerged.
“It’s okay,” Lucas said, and gripped her hand tightly. “I cleared it with Katie’s dad.” And with that, he turned around, so that he and Audrey were facing the cameras together.
It wasn’t long before the house had emptied and all the girls were swirling around, trying to be in the camera shot with Audrey. As Jack watched Lucas bundle Audrey into the town car he’d arrived in a few minutes earlier, leaving Jack to the Taurus, he figured that Lucas, in a snit, had figured out a way to get some of that much-needed Audrey LaRue fairy dust today after all.
He had to hand it to Bonner—he’d even managed to sneak in a reference to his own CD, which would debut next week. To the world at large, it looked as if Audrey LaRue and Lucas Bonner had set up the Songbird Foundation to help girls get into music.
How magnanimous of the pair. What a lovely couple they made.
He drove back to Atlantic City alone, fuming.
Jack didn’t get a chance to talk to Audrey again that day, but he did speak to Lucas. Or rather, Lucas spoke to him.
“You pull a stunt like that again, and I’ll kill you,” Lucas said heatedly in the corridors around the stage.
Jack grinned and looked Lucas up and down. “If you think you can, big shot, bring it on.”
Of course, Lucas backed off, but not without telling Jack what he thought of him, which went in one ear and out the other.
It wasn’t until the rush before the show—they were late getting started because of a lighting malfunction—that Jack saw Audrey across a large, crowded reception room. She was dressed in black leggings, heels, and a studded leather bra, and had her hair piled high on her head. She caught his eye and smiled, and mouthed the words
Thank you
.
Funny how those two little words and that smile calmed the fury in him.
For the time being.
AUDREY PAYS A SURPRISE VISIT
(
Celebrity Insider Magazine
) Audrey LaRue is determined that young girls with talent and who are interested in learning music will have access to music education and lessons. She has set up the Songbird Foundation, which awards scholarships to girls with promise and desire but without the resources necessary to improve their talents. On Friday, boyfriend Lucas Bonner (
Speeding to Hell
,
August
) surprised Audrey with a visit to one of her scholarship students, Katie Parmer. They enjoyed a morning of music, games, and cake. As a result of her surprise visit, and the reports that followed, the foundation reports applications for funding are up thirty percent. Insiders say Audrey can sing, but she is a loser when it comes to playing LocoRoco with a group of 8-10-year-old girls. Rock on, Audrey!
Audrey Late for Tour Date!
(
Famous Lifestyles
) Insiders are rumbling about what’s going on with Audrey LaRue’s
Frantic
tour after Audrey showed up late to a performance in Atlantic City recently. Handlers say Audrey is exhausted from the grueling tour schedules, but a personal friend tells
Famous Lifestyles
that Audrey was late returning from a party in a nearby town. “Audrey can’t handle the pressure of touring,” the friend says. “She tends to drink when she is stressed, and lately, she’s been stressed a lot.” The source reports that Lucas Bonner, an aspiring rock artist and Audrey’s longtime boyfriend, is concerned about her and is monitoring the situation closely. (Reps for LaRue and Bonner deny the story.)
Fifteen
The
Audrey LaRue entourage was in high spirits when they moved on to Baltimore and Washington, D.C., after two very successful shows in Atlantic City. With the changes to the set list, everyone was happy, the show was really streamlined, and Lucas’s CD had opened to a decent start.
Everyone was happy except Audrey, who had received a lot of “
We’re on it
” responses from law enforcement about the letters. But even more stressing was getting news about trouble at home.
Granted, there was
always
trouble at home, but Audrey was usually spared the daily drama because of her job and notoriety. Her family called when they needed money, and even then, they usually put Gail up to it. Allen, her brother, the freckle-faced tagalong who had grown into a man with a horrendous substance abuse problem, called every once in a while to assure her he was doing great.
Audrey had no doubt in those instances on the phone he
was
great—but it never lasted. Gail would call a few days later and tell her that Allen had screwed up again.
The grip of his addiction was impossible to break—even monthlong stints Audrey had put him through in some of the best treatment facilities in the United States couldn’t seem to break him of the desire to abuse his body and spirit. She worried that Allen just didn’t have the strength of character to stop.
He promised her he did. He promised her each time that he was done with drugs, that he was going to stay clean. And just like he always did, Allen relapsed at the worst possible moment. He’d gone missing right when she’d started out on the tour, but he’d surfaced a few days later—again, like he always did—a little beat up but relatively unscathed. His probation officer, Farrah Jakes, told Allen and the family in no uncertain terms that if he pulled a stunt like that again, she would throw him in jail for violating the terms of his probation.
So once again, Allen had tried to walk the straight and narrow and had almost succeeded.
Until recently.
Until just about the time they hit Atlantic City, which was when Gail and Mom started calling, telling Audrey she needed to do something, that Allen was out of control.
“What can I do?” Audrey demanded of her sister. “I’m in
Atlantic City
. I am on a nationwide tour. I have a huge responsibility to a lot of people, so I am not sure what I can do to help him now.”
“Great,” Gail said curtly. “Thanks a lot. Leave all the family shit to me.”

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