Epic (28 page)

Angus had been very coy about his plans going forward with “Pieces of Me.” I did what I thought was the noble thing, offering to withdraw and even suggesting Kamaria to replace me, but neither Griffin nor Angus wanted to act too hastily. Despite the scandal, the digital single with the symphony had topped the charts as best-selling download since the sold out performance in New York.

This was our one bit of good news as we boarded Graham’s private jet back to the west coast.  Like
Black-Eyed Pete
, Tempestuous terminated my contract under the pressure of a parental group. Because they catered to a young adult audience, they couldn’t afford to risk their brand on something as controversial as a sex tape scandal for their main celebrity endorsement.

This limited my income in a very significant way. Roxy moved back the video, and Graham had moved back the album release, to give us a little distance from the scandal. So I had no idea what this wave of negative press would mean for my record sales.

Until I knew that, I had to be careful with what funds I had managed to save. I would take care of Maya of course, but Jace calmly suggested that Sonny stay in Las Vegas until he had secured employment in the City of Angels, which went over like a lead balloon. He didn’t challenge Jace, though. Apparently he only bullied women and young kids.

Maya was as happy as I had ever seen her when we rolled her onto the patio that overlooked the ocean
from her new apartment in Hermosa Beach. I paid for six months in advance for the furnished apartment in the security building, praying that my career would enjoy an upswing by the time the bills came due again.

In the meantime, I had a plan. I called Kamaria from New York, telling her that I wanted to invest in her band, Unapologetic B!tches. I had listened to her CD and loved her defiant message on the many shades of femininity. And unlike so many others, whose reputation relied on me towing the line of social acceptance, she was fighting the forces of conformity every single time she opened her mouth.

Within a day of landing in L.A., I marched to Graham’s office with their CD in hand.

He greeted me with a big bear hug. “Jordi,” he said as he lifted me right off the floor. “It’s so good to see you.”

I hugged him back, just as strong. Graham Baxter had long been a father figure to me, and I needed one now more than ever. “I can’t even tell you how good it is to see you.”

He set me back onto the floor, before walking me to the chair opposite his desk, his arm wrapped around me like a warm security blanket. “I can’t imagine what this must be like for you.”

“Living in denial helps,” I quipped as I sat. He laughed as he took a seat in his own chair. “Jace won’t let me see a lot of the damage.”

“He’s a good man,” Graham agreed. “There comes a time in this business when every single artist has to realize that the opinion of others is really none of his or her business.”

“Easy to say, impossible to feel,” I said softly.

“I understand,” he said with a compassionate look on his face. I could tell he hated that I was going through this, but just like everyone else in my life… there was precious little any of us could do until the peanut gallery had some other subject to skewer. “To turn our attention to more positive news, Roxy has decided to release the new video. I thought we’d debut it on
Fierce
.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? Do you really want to associate
Fierce
more with this scandal?”

“Like we can stop it,” he pointed out. “So why not go with it? I mean, let’s face it. You can’t call a show
Fierce
and then make it a habit of playing safe.”

“I’m so glad that you feel that way,” I said as I withdrew the CD and handed it to him.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a band I heard while I was in Vegas. They’re called Unapologetic B!tches.”

He laughed. “It’s a name that gets your attention, isn’t it?” he asked as he flipped over the CD and assessed the band’s image on the back.

“They grab you by the balls,” I agreed.

He walked over to the sound system on his far wall. “Sounds painful,” he said with a playful smirk. “I think I like it.”

I laughed as he cued up the first single, “
Lose My Number.” It was the story of a one-night-stand that lingered one night too long, and it was full of attitude and humor and attitude. He didn’t say anything as he listened to the first song in its entirety. The next track was called “A-Hole,” which made Graham laugh at loud at the fun call and response added into the live recording.

By the time he made it back to his desk, he was treated to the third track, “L!mp D!ck,” which basically derided any man who needed a size-0 girlfriend to do the deed.

God, I loved Kamaria.

There were tears in his eyes from how hard he laughed as he listened. He turned off the CD. “You certainly have my attention,” he said. “What’s your plan?”

“I want to produce them. I want to bring them into the mainstream. They’re a festival band for now but I think you can agree that their music is solid. And I know in my gut there’s an audience for them. They just need the exposure.”

“And they’re in Vegas?”

“They were. I flew them in last night.”

He laughed. “You learned well, Grasshopper.” He opened his calendar. “Think they could be ready to perform on TV by, oh… I don’t know… the third week in August?”

“They’re ready to perform now,” I responded instantly. But then I pounced all over the time frame. “Why August?”

He grinned. “
Well, I was thinking… if you’re not busy… I’d like to book you to perform ‘I’m Not Sorry’ live on Fierce on August 22.”

“You sneak. When were you going to tell me?”

“I already told you, Jordi. You’re family. And we want to celebrate your birthday with the biggest fucking party on network TV. Invite your friends. In fact, invite your family. I’ve been hearing a lot of good things about your brother. I may want to snatch him up before anyone else gets a chance to.”

I didn’t know what to say. “Graham…”

He walked around his desk and pulled me to my feet. “We’re going to get through this, Jordi. If nothing else, believe that.”

He spent the entire afternoon with me as we developed a plan of action to salvage my career.
It seemed ridiculous that, in less than two years, my career had essentially bottomed out courtesy of the PING/Coy Goddard smear campaign.

By contrast, Jace, whose career
clearly wasn’t as negatively impacted as mine, managed to sell out several venues when pre-sales for his concert tour became available in early August. He assured me that he would support us through the rest of the crisis, but that wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to steer my own life raft, rather than cling behind someone else’s speedboat. This was why I had to find a way to do something simply for myself, rather than depend solely on
The Journey Home
single.

I was even more empowered when “
I’m Not Sorry,” enjoyed more success than I had ever dreamed possible the minute Roxy released the video. Though it didn’t match the success of Jace’s singles, which rose once again on the charts thanks to his constant publicity with the scandal, I was surprised that my meager offering had garnered as much positive press as it did. Feminist journalists especially responded well to the message we were trying to sell, even despite the challenges we faced.

It was a message that said a
ny woman could be sexy without apology. It was way more empowering than PING’s message: that I was a fat cow who deserved to land on my face in the gutter. They wrung every single drop of publicity they could out of sex tape by finding any and all reasons to trash me on social media. This included the hurtful #howtoknowyouhadsexwithjordi hashtag, which was so disgusting I couldn’t even get past the first comment. Jace took my computer away and blocked every single hurtful update that had been sent directly to me.

Likewise Graham was undaunted by all the critics. In keeping with our “unapologetic”
mentality, he clanged every bell about my upcoming performance with my Unapologetic B!tches on
Fierce
in time for my 20
th
birthday. By no coincidence, it would air the same day as my national interview with Dixie, the undisputed Queen of Daytime Talk Shows.

Fierce
producer Shannon McKenna worked for Dixie way back in the day, so she promised to walk me through the process. They would close the set and advise the audience to be respectful, especially in light of the fact that Maya could not physically attend the taping due to her poor health. She had been on oxygen from the moment we moved her back to Los Angeles, fighting off yet another lung infection from all the air travel.

Dixie was sympathetic to her condition, and would easily switch from Maya, on videotape, to Diego or me, onstage, if she became too winded to speak. Dixie was also vehement about keeping the topic of conversation centered on my quest for my family. I had already been schooled by Iris and Gwen on how to answer these questions in truthful and diplomatic ways, even if any subject danced too close to the scandal PING refused to drop, even a month later.

They had to. Shelby was still hospitalized for a “mental collapse” that Coy, Inc. wanted to pin directly on me. He and Eddie traveled from coast to coast to feed the flames of my scandal, because it kept the questions about Shelby’s health – and her future – at bay.

It didn’t help that he could pick up more supporters from the coveted One Percent, who bought into his ultra-
conservative campaign promises. “Sexual perversion will be the undoing of our country,” he prophesized to any audience that would pay to hear him speak. Unfortunately for everyone, this included every other ultra-conservative (and some fringe) candidate who wanted to ride their conservative wave into Washington.

He marketed his message heavily to evangelical conservatives, pulling Biblical verses out of his ass with little to no provocation. My favorite episode of Coy hypocrisy? When he appeared at a church service with his gun on his hip.

I hadn’t read the Bible in a long time, but I certainly didn’t recall any of the disciples packing heat.

Sadly
it was a message that resonated, which meant I was able to watch his political star rise at the same rate my celebrity star plummeted. On my weaker days it would drive me to distraction. Jace would rub my shoulders and remind me that the Universe was just. Eventually Coy Goddard would have to face his own karma. All I had to do was get out of Destiny’s way. “Live well,” he said as he would hold me at night. “That’s the only revenge that matters.”

That was my mantra all the way up until my birthday. I managed a p
icture-perfect smile as I greeted Dixie when I walked out on stage. As much as I expected the audience to politely receive the object of their disdain, the audience of mostly average- and plus-sized women hopped to their feet to cheer for me as I walked to the plush peach-colored chair next to lush hostess with bright red hair.

She enveloped me in a big bear hug. “It’s so good to see you again,” she said as I sat.

“Thank you for having me,” I said with a wide smile. “And thank you again for all your support with
Fierce
.”

She waved her hand to dismiss the compliment. “Honey, please. We just gave you the microphone. You were the one that had to sing.”

The audience laughed along with us. Dixie grew serious as she turned to me. “This has been some kind of journey for you, hasn’t it, Jordi?”

“You could say that!” I chuckled.

“So tell us. What prompted you to figure out your ancestry in the middle of a stressful tour and even more stressful divorce?”

“I had no idea that I was conceived via a surrogate until I went back to Iowa in April. After that, it was like my whole upbringing made sense, how I never felt like I fit in. I knew I had to find my birth mom or else I’d never truly know who I was. That could wreck every relationship and every decision that would follow. I just couldn’t risk that.”

“And did you find what you were looking for?”

“I found more,” I answered honestly. “At first, I felt extremely guilty that I had an easier life than my birth mom. She had suffered so much. I mean, you read the news. Her history is no secret. So I wanted to help her have a better life, especially since she’s so sick. But there, beneath the humble surroundings, I found something that I had never really known outside of my relationship with
my
Fierce
family. I found someone who believed in me unconditionally. This has helped me get through everything else.”

“Let’s talk about that,” Dixie said. We had agreed to tackle the scandal at the onset, just to get it out of the way. “I can only imagine how upsetting it has been for you, having such
intimate matters spread through the media.”

“It hasn’t been fun,” I admitted with as much good humor as I could muster. “But I’m not ashamed of my relationship with Jace. I’m just sad that we live in a world where a personal moment between two people in the privacy of their own home could be taped and distributed without our consent.”

“So you didn’t know that you were being taped at the time?”