Size 12 and Ready to Rock (25 page)

“I don’t want to get blood on their furry thing,” she said, tears flowing down her face.

“Don’t worry,” I said, though my heart had begun to race. She’d ripped part of her own toenail off, right in front of me, when I’d asked if Gary ever hit her. “Here, I have a Band-Aid.”

My fingers shaking, I reached for my purse. I had tucked a handful of adhesive bandages into it before leaving home in anticipation of the blisters I was going to get from my high heels . . . although truthfully, I nearly always had a Band-Aid or two with me. It was another symptom of the hypervigilance from which I suffered, working in Death Dorm. Though how a Band-Aid would have helped Jared today, I don’t know. I didn’t know how it was going to help Tania, either. I knew only I had to try.

I peeled the packaging off the Band-Aid and wrapped it gently around Tania’s toe, which she was holding out toward me like an injured child. In many ways, I felt she
was
an injured child . . . an injured child who was carrying a child inside of her in more ways than one.

“There,” I said when I was through. “Does that feel better?”

“Yes, thank you. I’m so stupid,” she murmured through her tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened to Jared. It was all my fault. I shouldn’t have stopped paying Gary, I should have believed him when he said he was going to hurt someone if I didn’t—”

“You were paying him?” I interrupted. “He’s been
blackmailing
you?”

“Not blackmail,” Tania said quickly. “Alimony. Well, sort of alimony. I owe him that much—”

More lyrics from her song pop into my head:

Go ahead, go all the way

Take me to court

It’ll make my day

So sue me

No wonder she sang “So Sue Me” with so much feeling. She’d not only written it herself, she’d
lived
it.

Frankly, I didn’t think she owed him a damned thing, but apparently a New York divorce court disagreed.

“—but mostly I’m sorry for what I did to you, Heather, with Jordan,” she went on. “I knew it was wrong. I knew Jordan was with you, but it was like I couldn’t control myself. Maybe it was because I knew I had to get away from Gary somehow, and I couldn’t do it on my own, and I knew . . . I don’t know. It was like a part of me knew you’d always be okay?” Tears dripped off her pointed chin. “I don’t mean that how it sounds, and I know it’s not a good excuse, but that’s why I did what I did. I’m not like you, I’m not strong. I’m so sorry—”

“Shhh,” I said to her. “It’s okay.” She was starting to sob hysterically. Nothing she said made any sense.

The thing that was getting through to me, though, was that she kept apologizing . . . for picking at her toe until it bled, for not making enough money for Gary, and now for seeking love, one of the basic human needs, from someone else. There was something so wrong with her, so broken, and yet she was one of the most successful women in the music industry . . . at least for the moment. I couldn’t help wonder what her fans—what
anyone
—would think if they knew the truth about Tania Trace.

No wonder she was so desperate to hide it.

“Listen, all of that’s in the past,” I said, desperate to get her to stop crying. “I forgive you. And I’m sure the Cartwrights don’t care about the stupid furry thing.”

“Are you sure?” she asked. Baby had clambered onto her chest and was licking her tears, but Tania paid no attention. “That makes me feel so much better. Plus . . . well, I really do love Jordan. As soon as we started singing together, I knew. Our voices blend. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard his song ‘Triple A,’ but I sing backup on it. I heard that ringing sound in my head right away, as soon as we started singing, just like I used to with my old choir.”

“You mean with Gary,” I said.

“Gary?” She looked confused. “Gary and I never performed together.”

“But,” I said, now unsure of anything I’d heard, “you told me that your choir got a first in State . . . that he led you there.”

“Of course,” she said. “Because Mr. Hall was the conductor. He was the greatest teacher I ever had.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. A horrible feeling had begun to creep over me, sort of like one of the cockroaches Tania had mentioned, only instead of skittering under the refrigerator, it was skittering down my spine. “Tania, was Gary your
high school choir teacher?
”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Did I not mention that?”

Chapter 18

I Don’t Care

I don’t care

About the time you won the race

I don’t care

That you think I have a pretty face

I don’t care

That you wrote a best-seller

Keep your big mouth shut

And you’ll be my kind of fella

Stop talking about the time

You made the vegan dip

The truth is, honey

I couldn’t give a sh*t

I’m only here

To get into your pants

So take my hand and

Come on, boy, let’s dance

“I Don’t Care”

Written by Heather Wells

No sooner has Cooper locked the front door behind us—even before I’ve had a chance to tell him what Tania told me—than he announces, “I have
got
to take this thing off. Don’t freak out. But it’s been killing me all night.”

Then he reaches around and pulls his gun from the holster clipped to his belt at the small of his back, where it’s been hidden beneath his shirt the whole evening.

I don’t freak out. I don’t so much as raise an eyebrow.

Instead, I say, “Don’t you freak out either, but I have got to take
this
thing off too. It may not be a deadly weapon, but it’s killing me just the same.” Then I peel off my Spanx, right there in the foyer, after first kicking off my high heels.

Cooper does raise an eyebrow. “Does this mean what I think it does?” he asks, casting a hopeful look at the floor.

“Ew,” I say. “No.” Why do guys always want to do it on the floor? What’s so wrong with a nice cozy bed? “Sex is the last thing I’ve got on my mind right now, Cooper. I need a drink—a
real
drink—and probably about five movies in which Tyler Perry dressed as Madea goes to jail in order to get over what I just had to hear at your parents’ place.”

He winces. “That bad, huh?”

“The
worst,
” I say, heading up the stairs, Spanx and shoes in hand. “Not to mention the fact that you’ve been lying to me about owning a gun all along. Oh, and did I mention I happened to witness a
murder
earlier this afternoon?”

“Yes,” he says, “I did lie to you, and yes, a man died today. And yes, you did have to hear my sister sing about tasting her own menstrual blood, all of which were, indeed, tragic events. But I think both Jared and my sister would want us to go on enjoying making sweet love toge—”

I throw one of my shoes at him from the top of the stairs.

“Put that gun away,” I yell. “You’ll be lucky if I ever make sweet love with you again. ‘No, I don’t own a gun.’ ” I stride toward my bedroom, imitating him. “ ‘I don’t need a gun, I’m a brown belt in karate.’ ”

“Black belt,” I hear him call from the basement, where I’m not surprised to learn he stores the gun safe. It explains why I never noticed it. I try never to go into the basement. Why would I? It’s where Cooper keeps all his sporting equipment, such as his golf clubs, ten-speed, basketballs, racquetballs, and also, apparently, his gun collection. Plus, it’s where all the spiders are.

When I come back downstairs, having changed into my “relaxing clothes”—oversize sweats and a large T-shirt left over from the Sugar Rush tour—I have to deal with Lucy, who seems to be able to sense how unnerved I am . . . or maybe it’s the steak I consumed at the Cartwrights’ . . . or possibly it’s the lingering scent of Tania’s dog, Baby. In any case, she’s all over me, wanting to crawl into my lap the way Baby had, but Lucy isn’t a Chihuahua, so this isn’t practical. I have to give her a rawhide bone, with which she quickly disappears through her dog door. Lucy always buries her toys . . . for what purpose I’ll have to take a course in doggie psychology to learn.

“Here,” Cooper says, placing a scotch on the rocks in front of my chair at the kitchen table. “It’s not a pink greyhound, but at least it’s not Drambuie, and it’s the best I can do on short notice. Don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you,” I say, sitting down and lifting the drink. “I hate secrets. They always come out, and then they ruin everything.”

“Well,” he says, “you know mine now. Tell me yours.”

The fumes from the whiskey make me feel a little sick. I realize what I want is milk and cookies, because everything I’ve heard tonight makes me long to revert back to my childhood—the one I never actually got to have. I put down the glass.

“My secret seems stupid now,” I say, “compared to Tania’s. She’s got the secret that ended up getting Jared Greenberg killed.”

“I’m sure your secret isn’t stupid,” Cooper says, sitting down across from me. “But tell me what Tania said.”

And so, beneath the large, greenhouse-like windows facing the back of Fischer Hall, in which I can see a few lights blazing, I tell him everything Tania told me, even though she’d made me promise never to repeat a single word . . .

If there’s anything I’ve learned over the past year, it’s that some promises are better off broken. The one I made to Tania is one of them.

“How could Tania Trace have married her high school choir teacher,” Cooper asks in disbelief when I’m through, “and that story isn’t plastered all over the Internet?”

“Well, maybe for one thing,” I say, dunking an Oreo into the glass of two-percent milk in front of me, “because she was paying him ten grand a month to keep his mouth shut about it.”

“Ten grand a month?”
Cooper nearly spits out the sip of coffee he’s just taken. Cooper’s got his laptop in front of him. Midway through my tale, he went to his office to get it so he could double-check facts relating to the story as I related them. “Sorry,” he says, dabbing at the screen with a napkin. “Didn’t mean to be sexist. I’ve got male clients who pay four to five times that much in alimony to their ex-wives. But
ten grand
a month to her high school choir teacher?”

“She can afford it,” I say with a shrug. “She’s got the number-one hit single in the country . . . and unlike me when I was in her shoes, she actually wrote the song. She’ll be earning residuals on it forever. But what judge in his—or her—right mind would award alimony in
any
amount to a creep like Gary Hall?”

“No judge would
want
to,” Cooper says, “if they knew the whole story. But if Tania filed for a no-fault divorce, they’d have to. In New York State, unlike Florida and California, you still have the choice—no-fault or with cause. That’s how I make the bulk of my living—clients who choose to divorce with grounds and need evidence of their spouse’s adultery, or cruel and inhuman treatment, in order to make their case. Clearly, Tania chose not to go that route in court. It sounds like she’s still in pretty deep denial about her marriage.”

“She’s in pretty deep denial about
everything,
” I say bitterly. “She really thought if she paid the creep, he’d keep quiet about the whole thing. And for a long time it worked. Until he found out she was marrying Jordan and having his baby. Then—like any enterprising sleazeball—he decided to up the ante and said he wanted
twenty
thousand a month or he’d go to the press. And that’s when Tania finally got a spine and said no. She even started writing those kiss-off anthems—”

“Kiss-off anthems?” Cooper looks confused.

“Like ‘So Sue Me,’ ” I explain, peeling open an Oreo and scraping the filling out with my finger. “Apparently that’s exactly what she told Gary to do . . . sue her if he wanted more money. He got mad and said she owed him because he was her manager when she was first starting out and he made her what she is today, blah blah blah.”

“Jesus,” Cooper says. “I am really starting to dislike this guy.”

“Welcome to the club,” I say. “He must not think he has much of a case, though, because instead of going to court, he’s been e-mailing her—if she doesn’t pay what she owes him, she’ll get what she deserves, that kind of thing.”

“He’s good,” Cooper says with grudging admiration. “There’s no explicit threat of violence there, so nothing she can take to the police to get a cease and desist or a restraining order—and that would be
if
she wanted to risk letting any of this become public information, which of course she doesn’t. How old is this guy?”

“
Only
forty,” I say. “That’s how Tania put it. At least he was
only forty
when they started going out. But she says Gary—I mean, Mr. Hall—and she never ‘messed around’ until she was eighteen. That’s the age of consent in Florida, where she’s from. She says he was real careful about that.”

“Oh,” Cooper says with a snort, beginning to type on his laptop’s keyboard. “I’m sure he was.
Real
careful. He sounds like a pro.”

I’d been fairly certain at that point in my conversation with Tania that I was going to vomit all the steak and mashed potatoes I’d eaten. But somehow I’d managed to keep them down.