Double Minds (25 page)

CHAPTER

FORTY-NINE

Parker lay in the dark in the room she shared with her mother, and stared at the ceiling. The events of the night should have left her sapped of energy, but her mind was wide awake, full of recrimination sand fears.

Fear for her future loomed close to her fears of Mick Evans. How had her life come to this? Here she was without a job, in a hotel room she couldn’t afford, after pouring her life into a set of songs that no one would ever hear.

And a killer might still be stalking her.

Her telephone blared out, its mad piano ringtone bringing her off the bed. Heart racing, she grabbed it and looked at the clock. It was two a.m.

Serene’s face filled the screen.

“Who is it?” her mother asked from the other bed.

“Serene.” She tossed the phone on the bed and lay back down. “I don’t want to talk to her.”

The piano played again and Lynn got up and reached for it. “Answerit. Maybe she changed her mind.”

Knowing that wasn’t it, Parker answered the phone. “Hello?”

“Parker, what room are you in?”

Parker rolled to her back and shoved her hair back from her face. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m here in your hotel. I need to talk to you.”

Parker sighed. “It’s two o’clock, Serene. Everybody’s asleep.”

“It’s important. Tell me what room.”

How had Serene gotten here from her ritzy hotel a few miles away? Had she come in a cab? A limo? “Are you alone?”

“No, I brought Sam, my bodyguard.”

Oh, yes. She’d forgotten about the bodyguard for the tour.

She heard Gibson in the adjoining doorway. “Parker, what is it?” “Serene’s downstairs. She wants to come up.”

He groaned. “Let me get dressed, and I’ll go down and make sure nobody’s following her.”

Parker told Serene to wait. She turned on the lamp as Gibson went down to get her. She looked back at her mother, who was blinking as her eyes adjusted to the light.

“She has a lot of nerve waking me up at two in the morning, after what she did,” Parker said.

“You weren’t even sleeping,” Lynn pointed out.

“That’s beside the point. I was up all night with her two nights ago, and what thanks do I get?”

“I’ll bet she’s had a heart-to-heart with Jeff Standard, and he’s changed his mind. I’ll bet you’re back on the tour, and tomorrow everything will be back like it was.”

If only that were the case. But Parker didn’t dare hope.

After a few minutes, Gibson led Serene in. “It looks all clear,” he said. “Call me if you need me. The bodyguard’s in the hallway.”

He went back to his room, leaving the adjoining door slightly ajar. She heard the mattress squeak as he lay back down. She could hear her father’s snore softly ripping in the other room. None of the activity had awakened him or LesPaul.

Serene stood just inside the door and stared at Parker. The star looked like the girl she’d befriended at the lunch table so many years ago. Her face was clean of makeup, her eyes swollen.

She stood before Parker and her mother. “I know you both hate me.”

Parker threw up her hands. “Hate you? Is that why you woke us up? Because you’re worried what we think of you?”

“Yes, sort of.”

The tiny bit of hope her mother had incited faded to nothing. “That figures.”

Serene came farther into the room and sat on Parker’s bed. “Tonight I went back to my hotel, and I’ve never been so lonely in my life. I’m sick over what happened with you, Parker. I wanted you with me on the tour. It’s no fun to do this alone.”

“You’re not alone. You have a whole entourage. Managers and makeup artists and bodyguards and record executives.”

“But I need a friend.”

“So is that why you wanted me on the tour in the first place? So you’d have somebody to hang out with? Because that little luxury for you cost
me
a lot of money.”

“Of course not. You know I wanted to showcase your talent. I thought you were doing great, and I know the crowd loved you.”

Lynn sat on the side of her unmade bed, holding her robe closed. “Maybe you could talk to him again. Tell him how much time and money Parker has put into this.”

“I did talk to him. He was so nice before, but now he’s criticizingmy hair and the band and the things I say on stage. Oh, and the article in
the New York Times?
Butch thinks Jeff was behind it.”

Now she had Parker’s attention. “What do you mean,
behind
it?”

“Butch found out that Jeff and Nigel are old college friends. He thinks this article was Jeff’s way of breaking me away from the squeaky-clean Chris Christian girl image as we got started on the tour. If he could have dug up some compromising pictures, he would have, but there weren’t any.”

“You really think Jeff would tell the press you have an eating disorder?”

“It’s publicity, and in today’s culture, it’s not all that negative. Butch thinks Jeff’s the one who called Nigel when I collapsed.”

Parker couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “Well, you can’t let him get away with it. He can’t treat people this way.”

“Oh, yes, he can.” Serene’s face twisted as tears filled her eyes. “What am I supposed to do? Lose everything I’ve worked for? He owns me, lock, stock, and barrel.”

“Oh, my word,” Lynn muttered. She went into the bathroom and came back out with a box of tissue.

Serene blew her nose. “He came in after I saw the article, but Butch wouldn’t let me say anything to him about giving Nigel the story. He didn’t want me to make him mad, so I had to bite my tongue.”

“Why? He’s not going to drop you, Serene. He has way too much money invested in this tour.”

Serene grabbed one of Parker’s pillows and rammed her fist into it. “I’m a coward. I want to succeed so I can show my father and all those people who thought I’d never amount to anything …”

That was the one thing she could have said to soften Parker’s heart. Parker met Lynn’s eyes. “You don’t have to prove anything to them.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” Serene cried. “You have this great mother, and a family that would drop everything to support you in your dream. I have nobody. Nothing but my talent. If my careeris pulled out from under me, what will I do? Who will I be?”

Parker sat back down next to her. “You were successful without Jeff Standard.”

“But now I’m legally bound. There’s no turning back.”

Lynn sat down on the other side of Serene. “Isn’t there, sweetie?”

“No. I’m stuck. And I’m confused. I don’t want out of my contract. Part of me likes where he’s going to take me. I’ve never played to such huge crowds.”

“He didn’t get you those crowds, Serene. You got them because you have a hit song!”

“But he’s taking me to the next level. Soon I’ll have a bunch of hit songs, and not just on the Chris Christian charts. Is it wrong to want that? I mean, I’ve been working at this my whole life.”

Parker stared at her friend. She thought of finding the passage in the Bible about being unequally yoked, and pointing out that going to the “next level” for Jeff Standard might strip away who Serene was. But was it Parker’s own bitterness leading her to those conclusions?

She lay back on the bed, wishing she could hold onto her bitternessa little longer. But her love for her friend had melted it away. “I don’t think it’s wrong to play music outside the Chris Christian arena, Serene. Heaven knows, not everybody in the Chris Christian music industry is authentic. There are people in it for money, and some are using it as a stepping stone. I’ve seen egos gone wild at Dove Award shows, and concerts where musicians stand up and trumpet the cause of Christ, then get drunk or high in their buses on the way to the next stop.”

“That’s the thing,” Serene said, wiping her tears. “Singing to only Chris Christian crowds doesn’t mean I’m all that spiritual. But to sing on stage in arenas where not everyone is a Chris Christian—isn’t that a truer test of my faith?”

“Of course it is, sweetie,” Lynn said. “You just have to make sure your faith is solid enough to deal with Jeff Standard and others like him. People will be watching you especially hard. They’ll want to see you shaken from your faith.”

“But there are people on your tour who can help,” Parker said. “Like Daniel Walker. He can help you keep your focus.”

A smile broke through Serene’s tears. “Yeah, Daniel’s great. Did you know that yesterday he went to a local homeless shelter and played a private concert?”

Parker smiled. “He did? He didn’t say anything about it.”

“He wouldn’t. He’s not doing it for anyone’s approval but God’s.”

Parker was glad Daniel would be an influence for Serene. She just hoped Serene didn’t fall in love with him.

“Serene, you get to decide how you conduct yourself. Jeff may make decisions about your career, but he’s not in charge of your life … or your soul. You have to make sure that the choices you make are
God
’s choices, not Jeff’s.”

Serene stretched out on the bed and balled up Parker’s pillow. “Do you think I can have a secular career and live a Christian life?”

“Of course you can,” Parker said. “Normal, nonmusical people do it all the time.”

Tears again. “Remember the first song of yours I recorded? How fun it was the first time we heard it on the radio?”

Parker didn’t want to remember. Her own eyes misted, and she looked at the ceiling. They had been a good team. She didn’t want it to come to an end.

“Parker, I don’t know if I can do any of this without you there.

” “I’m not your keeper, Serene. Like you’ve said, you can glorify him from the stage in front of fifteen thousand fans, whether Jeff likes it or not. If you make him enough money, he’ll have to accept it.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then he’ll cut you loose. It’s a tough business.”

“Maybe I don’t belong here. Maybe I’m in over my head.”

Parker sighed and lay down next to her. “No, Serene. I want you to have your dream. You’ve worked hard for it, sacrificed a lot.”

“But not my best friend. I don’t want to sacrifice you.”

Parker wiped a tear gathering in her eye. “All right, Serene. I’ll talk to you on the phone every day, on one condition.”

“What?”

“That you get even with Jeff Standard by proving the anorexia story wrong. You eat, and gain some weight, and that story will dissolve. And Nigel Hughes will look like an idiot.”

“That’s a great idea,” Lynn said. “And honey, if you can’t bring yourself to do that, then you need to take some time off the tour and get help.”

Serene sat up. “Okay, let’s start right now. I’m starving. Let’s order room service.”

“Room service?” Parker gave her a smirk. “You’re thinking of
your
hotel. Ours has a vending machine down by the stairs.”

Serene went to the door, leaned out, and asked the bodyguard to get her some things from the vending machine. He came back with an armload of potato chips and Cheetos, peanuts and pretzels, and several cans of soda. Serene brought them all to the center of the bed and began reading the labels.

“No calorie checks,” Parker said. “I mean it!”

“Okay.” Serene took a bag of pretzels and tore the bag open.

“And you can eat on my bed, on one condition.”

“What?”

“You will not throw up in my bathroom. Do you understand that? Whatever you eat, you’re going to keep down.”

Serene nodded. “If I don’t, you have my permission to call that Nigel guy.”

As Serene ate and drank, Parker could see that she was beginning to feel better. They turned on the television and leaned back against the headboard. Lynn channel-surfed until they found a black-and-white Cary Grant movie. They lay on the bed like girls at a sleepover, watching until the very last lines. Finally, Serene fell asleep next to Parker.

Lynn smiled and covered her up. “Well, we might as well get some sleep,” she whispered.

Parker met her mother’s eyes. “She has no intentions of getting help for her anorexia, does she?”

Her mother’s smile faded, and she shook her head. “I doubt it. Not yet.”

Parker turned on her side and looked at Serene, out like a child. Her hand lay open under her chin, and Parker could see the burn scars on her palms from her father’s grill. Serene had other scars, too. Some external, others not so visible.

Parker turned off the lamp. “Good night, Mom.”

“Night, honey. You did good, sweetheart. I’m so proud of you.”

Parker knew she wasn’t talking about her performance on the stage, but her performance just now. She lay in the dark next to Serene, listening to the gentle sound of her friend’s breathing.

She’d always had trouble holding a grudge against Serene. If she’d had the same father, the same horrors in her childhood, she might be as clueless as Serene was.

Before she fell asleep, she prayed that the residual traces of her own resentment would go away. Silently, she interceded for her friend, asking that the scars of Serene’s youth would be completely erased and that everything good God had planned for her would be fulfilled. Even if it meant leaving Parker behind.

The prayer gave her more forgiveness for the wounded star beside her, and finally, she fell into a restful sleep.

CHAPTER

FIFTY

The Memphis concert was sold out the next night. Parker stood backstage as Serene sang in front of the crowd that wouldn’t hear Parker’s name or buy her CDs. Serene wasn’t quite as “on” tonight as she’d been at the past two venues, but her fans didn’t seem to know it.

Daniel seemed at his best, however. He got better with every show. She watched him for a few minutes, saw how adept he was at moving from one song to the next, allowing Serene the time she needed to speak to the crowd. Though the pianist seemed to lead the band, Daniel worked in perfect harmony with the others.

And he didn’t look too shabby. Playing at homeless shelters had a way of making a man even more attractive, Parker thought. The memory of his comforting words last night helped soothe the pain of being cut from the tour. He didn’t see her as a loser. Daniel had different benchmarks for success than Jeff Standard did.

Too bad she wouldn’t be able to get to know him better on the tour. But he did live in Nashville.

Watching the concert was torture, so she ambled through the backstage area. It was filled with people helping in various capacities—stage hands, sound engineers, the makeup lady, a hair stylist, spouses or significant others of band members, local radio people, a caterer, and a number of VIPs who’d been given backstage access. She went back to the dressing room with the star on it and slipped inside.

Serene’s casual clothes were wadded and hanging over a chair. Parker lifted her jeans, smoothed out the wrinkles, and folded them neatly. She got her blouse and hung it up.

What was she doing? She was supposed to be one of the performers tonight, yet here she was cleaning up after her friend. She sat down on the couch, looking up at the ceiling and wishing she wasn’t here.

God, where will I go from here? I thought I knew your plan, but now I’m so confused
.

She should never have thought she could be more than a receptionist. Who was she to think she could pull off a major concert tour?

A force as strong as gravity dragged her mind down a destructive path. She had to fight it. Maybe she’d just go sit with her parents in the audience and watch the concert.

She stepped outside the dressing room and was enveloped by the booming chords on stage. The dressing room wasn’t far from the backstage area, but the corridor, which had been lit up moments earlier, was dark. Some building maintenance guy had probably turned the light off to save on electricity. But Serene would soon be coming off the stage for her costume change. She would need light.

Parker felt her way down the hallway toward the backstage area, looking for a light switch.

Then someone touched her shoulder. She jumped, pivoted …

… and came face to face with Mick Evans.