Plain Again (24 page)

She lifted her hands and covered his. “I missed you,” she said softly. “And I’m going with you to Milwaukee. Dali arranged it so that I don’t have to go back to Pennsylvania until Monday.”

A frown crossed his brow, and he pursed his lips. “I’m to fly to LA on Sunday.”

“Nee,”
Amanda said, shaking her head. “Dali arranged for you to fly out Monday after me.”

“Really?” He seemed genuinely surprised and definitely pleased. He leaned over and kissed her. “Remind me to give that
chica
a raise,
sí
?”

Five minutes later, after what Amanda thought must have been the world’s fastest shower, Alejandro had changed into fresh clothes and they were hurrying down the corridor to the car. It would take them to the airport where the private plane was waiting on the tarmac to fly them to Milwaukee.

On Sunday, Dali spent the afternoon with Amanda while Alejandro was busy, first at the gym working out, then meeting with several Hispanic leaders in the city before heading over to the arena. There was talk about opening a new center for the children to provide after-school care in the city, and Alejandro had agreed to help fund the charity.

Amanda hadn’t wanted to accompany him, knowing that they still had a busy night ahead of them. He had, however, insisted that she come with him to visit the hospital and meet the little boy with cancer. “He wanted to meet you, too,” Alejandro had explained.

“What type of cancer?” she had asked.

“The kind you don’t get better from,” was his vague reply.

While he was busy with his other appointments, she had spent some time with Dali, reviewing upcoming events and fund-raisers that had requested Amanda’s presence.

“Will Alejandro attend these with me?”

Dali shook her head. “Doubtful,” she responded. “He has his own schedule, plus his new recordings.”

That
didn’t sit well with Amanda. “Why on earth would they want me, then?” she asked.

Exasperated, Dali removed her reading glasses and stared at Amanda. “I can’t answer that,” she said evenly. “But they do.”

“
Ja vell
, that seems awfully silly,” Amanda commented.

A sigh escaped from Dali’s lips. “Amanda,” she managed to say, remaining calm. “When are you going to realize that you are part of this package?”

“What package?”

“The Viper package!” Dali set her glasses down on the papers spread out on the table between them. “The public adores you, and you are becoming a celebrity in your own right.”

“Oh bother,” she mumbled. “I don’t want to be a celebrity. I just want to be his wife.”

“And with that, my dear, comes the spotlight,” Dali retorted. “It will be no different in South America, trust me.”

It was too complicated for Amanda to comprehend. She barely listened to Dali as the woman rattled off things she had scheduled for Amanda during the week they would be in Miami over Christmas and then back in New York City for New Year’s Eve: a fund-raiser here, a charity auction there. It was too much for Amanda, so she simply shut down and realized that she would have no choice but to follow Dali’s schedule in the near future. After all, she reasoned, that
was
why Alejandro had hired her.

Dali glanced at her watch. “We need to get going,” she said. “The car service will be here in ten minutes to take you to the hospital. Viper’s joining you there to meet the boy, and then we need to get you ready for the concert.”

At the hospital, she noticed a small crowd gathered outside the main entrance. Security guards were waiting for her arrival, the public apparently having caught wind of the visit by Viper and his wife to the children’s cancer center. Both Dali and Amanda emerged from the car and were immediately escorted inside the building by security.

A hospital administrator greeted her, introducing herself as Kathleen Papp, the liaison who would accompany them on their tour of the cancer center prior to meeting Sean, the little boy who had wanted to meet Viper so desperately. Since Alejandro had yet to arrive, Kathleen took advantage of the time to express her gratitude to Amanda.

“It’s a wonderful thing that he’s doing,” Kathleen said, a big smile on her face. From the glow in her eyes, it was clear that Kathleen did not have many special guests who visited the patients at the hospital. “He’s such an amazing young boy,” she continued. “So brave. And all he ever talks about is football and Viper.”

“That’s an interesting combination, isn’t it?” Amanda said, smiling at the pleasant woman.

“He wanted to be a rapper,” Kathleen said, the use of the past tense too obvious. “Meeting Viper is the next best thing, I imagine. He idolizes your husband.”

Amanda heard a cheer from the small crowd outside and knew that Alejandro had arrived. “I look forward to meeting Sean,” she heard herself say before turning her attention toward the door and wondering where Alejandro was. She could see him with the fans. He had stopped and posed for several people to take photographs with him. His bodyguards waited patiently for him to finish with his fans, rather than rush him inside as they had done with Amanda.

“Princesa!” he cried out happily. “You have beat me here!” He kissed her on the cheek before turning to the woman standing next to her. “And you must be Kathleen Papp!
Gracias
for arranging this meeting!”

“No,” she responded, her eyes glowing even more. “Thank you! We know how busy you must be.”

“Never too busy to visit fans like Sean,” he replied.

For the next fifteen minutes, Kathleen took them on a short tour of the children’s cancer center. Amanda trailed behind Alejandro, her eyes taking in the playful decorations on the walls in the hallways and waiting rooms. One of the empty patient rooms, she noticed, was decorated with bright colors and framed paintings of animals. Unlike the bland gray hospital room where her
daed
had stayed, these cheerful rooms were geared specifically for children.

“Some of our young patients have spent more time here than at their own homes,” Kathleen proceeded to tell Alejandro and Amanda. “We want them to feel comfortable, especially the ones like Sean who are terminally ill from the disease.”

Terminally ill? Amanda caught her breath and bit her lip.

Kathleen stopped at a closed door and motioned to the hand sanitizer on the wall. “This is his room,” she said. “Please wash your hands first, and then we can introduce you to Sean.”

He was lying on the hospital bed, a blue cap on his head and tubes connected to his arm from bags hanging on a pole. When the door opened, the boy turned his head and tried to focus on the visitors. When he recognized who entered, his eyes widened and he attempted to sit up.

His mother was at his side and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Easy now,” she said and pressed a button on the side of the bed that helped to raise it into a sitting position. Her attention was focused on her son, not on the two people who had just entered the room.

“Hey there,
chico
!” Alejandro said as he approached the side of the bed, a big smile on his face. “I heard you’re doing some time in here, no?”

“Viper!” The boy grinned and turned to his mother. “Mom! It’s him! It’s him!”

“I see that!” she laughed.

“You have to take a picture! The guys will never believe this!” He turned back to Alejandro. “Can we take a picture so my friends know I’m not making this up?”

Alejandro laughed.
“¡Sí, sí!”

He posed for a few photos with Sean, putting his arm around the boy’s shoulders and smiling into his mother’s camera. At one point, he gestured for Amanda to join them and the boy’s face lit up as he exclaimed, “I’m the luckiest kid in here!”

Then, the photos out of the way, Alejandro asked permission to pull up a chair. For ten minutes, Alejandro sat beside Sean, talking with him as if they were old friends. They discussed football and which team Sean thought would make the playoffs that year.

“I bet you like the Dolphins!” Sean said.

“
Sí
, I do,” Alejandro admitted.

“They’ll never make it! I’d bet on the Green Bay Packers, though. They’re looking good this year!”

Alejandro groaned and shook his head. “Double or nothing, my friend. The next game they play against each other, Green Bay wins and I’ll fly you to the next concert I have in the US!”

“Really?” Sean’s face glowed. “With my mom?”

“
¡Sí, sí!
Mom has to go to keep you in line, I bet!” he laughed, glancing at Sean’s mother, who was smiling down at her son.

“What if the Dolphins win?”

Alejandro made a face as if he was deep in thought, then he snapped his fingers. “Dolphins win, you get better and don’t come back to the hospital! How’s that?”

Amanda watched the exchange, a sorrowful smile on her face and a bittersweet pull at her heart. She had never before witnessed such a touching moment. Alejandro acted as if he had been lifelong friends with this boy who looked to be no more than fourteen years old. According to Kathleen, the chances of him surviving to graduate high school were slim. Late-stage acute myeloid leukemia did not have a high rate of survival, especially not at his age.

And it was at that moment that Amanda knew what charity she wanted to choose as her focus: children’s cancer. If Alejandro’s visit could bring so much happiness into the life of a young boy like Sean, then Amanda knew that she wanted to devote herself to helping other children forget their disease, even if only for one moment, so that they, too, could feel as if they were the luckiest kids in the world.

After the previous evening’s surprise appearance by Amanda at the Viper concert, there was not a seat left for sale at the Milwaukee concert. He had laughed over his morning coffee as he perused the social media, commenting that Amanda was a marketing genius. He had even tried to get her to make the same grand entrance, but she had refused, asking to sit in the audience as she usually did.

It amazed Amanda that, despite having seen so many Viper concerts, she never grew tired of watching him perform. His presence onstage was riveting and made her blood pulse. He was exciting to watch, but so was the response from the audience: they simply adored him and his music.

As she was walked to her seat, some fans reaching out to her and begging for a photograph, Amanda realized that the adoration now included her, as well. The thought struck her as odd for she had not done anything to warrant such attention: she couldn’t sing, didn’t dance, and rarely spoke in public. It dawned on her that simply being loved by Alejandro made her loved by his public.

While she didn’t understand it, she decided to just accept it.

Once the concert started, she found herself lost in the music and in watching Viper perform. Early on, she had realized that each show was different in some way, and she loved to try to find those little changes that he added to the concert. Tonight, however, she knew in advance that the big difference was the display of the recently released music video on the big screen while he sang the song. They had played the video the night before in Kansas City, but she had not been able to see it as she had been onstage instead of in the audience.

It was almost halfway through the concert when the lights dimmed and she heard the introduction to the song. Her eyes shifted to the large screens, eager to see the video. She could remember, too well, having been in the studio for some of the recording.

And then the screen came to life.

It was only a four-minute video, but she felt as though it took three times as long. She was too aware that the people surrounding her were watching it and, at several points, turned to glance at her.

True to form, Amanda maintained no expression on her face, despite feeling the humiliation of seeing herself on the big screen. Someone had recorded her during the video shooting, capturing her discomfort at watching Alejandro holding another woman in his arms and trailing his finger along her lips before kissing her. The videographer had even captured the moment when a tear fell from Amanda’s eye and she had reached up to wipe it away.

Despite her embarrassment and humiliation at such a public display of her private moment of emotion, the audience cheered at the end of the video and Viper’s live performance. It was clear that they had loved the song as well as the video.

Dali’s words came back to her: the Viper package. Amanda suddenly realized what that meant. She no longer had any privacy . . . not really. Her life was on display for the public to see and analyze. Obscure and anonymous nights like they had experienced in New York City when Alejandro had taken her to the opera were the exception, not the rule. In fact, Amanda was quickly realizing that there
were
no rules in her new life.

Withdrawing into herself, Amanda tried to get a handle on what she was feeling. At the top of the list was hurt and disappointment. How could Alejandro have thought that it was appropriate? How could he not have shown the video to her before now? How could he have left her so unprepared?

It wasn’t until they were almost back to the hotel that he finally realized she was extra quiet and not her usual bubbly self. Immediately after the show, he had been surrounded by a crowd of fans that had special backstage access as part of the Hispanic center he was funding. He spent a few minutes posing for photos and signing autographs before being able to finally slip away to his dressing room. He had taken a quick shower before both he and Amanda were rushed to the waiting car in order to leave the arena for the hotel. Too many fans were blocking the exit, so a police escort was called to accommodate them.

“What shall we do tonight, Princesa?” he asked as he fiddled with his phone, quickly scanning his messages. “A movie in the suite, perhaps? Something low-key?”

She stared out the window, uncertain how to respond. She wanted to tell him what she was feeling, to describe how hurt she had been. Yet she didn’t want to ruin their last evening together. The following day, she would return to Pennsylvania and he would return to Los Angeles.