Hitting the Right Note (17 page)

JJ let out a breath she didn't know she had been holding as the vehicle pulled away from the curb. She closed her eyes and wondered how her amazing night had turned into this. This man who had been a career icon, an open door to her future, a mentor even, was now lying drunk beside her, drooling down one cheek, without a friend in the world to help him. What would America think if they saw this? She shook her head.
Indeed, all that glitters is not gold.

They took a back entrance to the hotel. JJ had to fight her anxiety and accompany Deacon up the private elevator to his suite. Miles's friend, the driver, who remained unnamed, seemed to know exactly where he was going. JJ began to wonder what they would do when they got to Deacon's room, but her worry was unfounded. Before they could even knock, the door to the suite opened and Miles was standing on the other side.

“We'll take it from here, JJ,” Miles said. “You've already done more than anyone could ask.”

JJ shrugged. “Just wanted to make sure he was okay.”

Miles nodded and helped Deacon inside. “It's appreciated.”

JJ nodded. She glanced at them one more time before turning and heading back to the elevator, the only access off the floor. It was only when she was back in her own room that the exhaustion of the night hit her full force. As she changed out of her clothes into sleepwear, the questions that she had been probing all night floated to the surface again. What had Miles meant about things not being what they seemed? What was the hold Sabrina seemed to have over all of them? What was with everyone's indifference? But the biggest one was the question she had for herself: Was this what her life would be like in this industry? Is this what fame looked like? And if so, was she willing to accept that?

JJ was still pondering that question as she closed her eyes, but instead of answers, all she got was unsettled, troubled sleep.

“H
e did
what
?”

“He sang my song onstage,” JJ said, grinning even as she relayed the story to her sister. “He played it too, kinda Stevie Wonder style. I did backup on the guitar and harmony on the vocals for a few spots.”

“Wow, JJ, that's amazing,” Sydney said, her excitement palpable across the distance. “I can't believe this. Deacon Hill sang your song! Dang, I wish I had been there. I would have screamed through the whole thing.”

JJ laughed, enjoying her sister's enthusiasm as she sat poolside enjoying an early breakfast. Despite the exhaustion from the night before, she hadn't been able to sleep past seven. And with nothing else to do until it was time to head out on the road with the tour team, she had changed into a swimsuit and come down to the hotel pool to do a few laps and have breakfast. The bright sunshine lighting up the clear sky had energized her and motivated her to catch up with her calls while enjoying the last of her meal. Sydney had been first on her list.

“That must have been the best night of the tour so far,” Sydney said.

“Yeah, it was,” JJ said.

JJ bit her tongue and decided to hold back the less pleasant details of the night. Although they hadn't spoken for almost two weeks, as soon as Sydney answered JJ's call it had been like nothing had ever happened between them. She had been nothing but happy to hear from JJ. They were having such a good conversation thus far, JJ didn't want to do anything or bring up any subjects that might spoil it.

“Anyway, how are things with you?” JJ asked, plowing ahead. “You pick a date for the wedding yet?”

JJ knew she had hit a subject of interest to Sydney when her sister immediately started gabbing about all the preparations she and Hayden had started making for the wedding.

“We are thinking six months or so from now,” Sydney said. “You know, give Sheree time to settle in with the baby and be recovered enough to go out. Hayden wants her to be a part of the wedding. He wants her to feel a part of our new family.”

“And you?” JJ asked. “How do you feel about that?”

Sydney paused. “I think it would be good. Sheree seems a lot different from before. I visited her a few times in the hospital and I can tell that she's really trying. There's a lot of water under the bridge between us, but we both love Hayden, so we have to try and make it work.”

“She's not a bad person,” JJ said. “I think she's just not used to having people care about her. I don't know the details, she hasn't told me much, but I think things were pretty unstable for her growing up, and she had to look out for herself. Having your guard up like that can make you hurt others when you're only trying to protect yourself.”

“Speaking of hurting others, you will never guess who came to visit Sheree,” Sydney said.

“Dean?”

She heard Sydney gasp. “Yes! How did you guess?”

JJ smiled. “I had a feeling. He wants to know about that baby. As much as he's hurting over what Sheree did, he doesn't want to miss out on the chance to be a part of that kid's life—you know, like how Dad did after the divorce? We almost never saw him, remember?”

“Yeah, I remember,” Sydney said. “That actually makes sense.”

“He just needed time to get over the initial pain of seeing her again,” JJ said. “He'll come around, as long as we don't push him.”

“Listen to you, all deep and perceptive,” Sydney said. “This is the JJ that I remember. I miss you, girl.”

JJ sighed. “Yeah. I miss me too.”

The sisters chatted a few minutes more about work and family goings-on. It was the best conversation JJ had had with her sister in months. Maybe what they needed was some space to be able to appreciate each other more.

In the middle of a story about Lissandra's latest adventure, a call came in on the other line. When JJ saw who it was she switched over to put her new caller on hold.

“I gotta go, Syd,” JJ said, when she switched back over to her sister.

“The Deacon Hill machine ready to suck you back in, eh?”

JJ paused. “Uh, no.”

“Who then?” Sydney asked.

Another pause. “It's Simon.”

“Simon?”

“Dr. Massri.”

“Oh, so he's Simon now?” Sydney asked, her voice laced with amusement.

“Syd, don't even go there.”

“So you're ready to kick me, your flesh and blood, off the phone so you can talk to Simon.”

“I've been talking to you for over an hour!”

“So is this a regular thing for you now?” Sydney asked, her curiosity piqued. “Is this like your daily call from Simon?”

JJ rolled her eyes at the way her sister kept saying his name. “No, he just calls me to keep me updated on how Sheree is doing.”

“He doesn't call me!”

“Sydney!”

But it was too late, her sister was already dying with laughter on the other end.

“He's still there. I have to go,” JJ said.

Sydney could barely contain her laughter. “Tell Simon I said hello!”

JJ let out a breath as she clicked over.

“Hey, Simon,” JJ said. After hearing Sydney do it so many times, she had to stop herself from saying his name in the same tone as her sister.

“Hey, yourself,” he said, a smile in his voice. “How are you?”

JJ grinned. “Good. Great, actually.”

Especially now that she was talking to him, she thought.

“You sound great,” Simon said. “Definitely not as stressed as you did two days ago.”

That had been Friday evening between rehearsals and sound check. After a hectic week of traveling and suffering Sabrina's mood swings, JJ had been more than a little on edge.

“Yeah, I just got done talking to my sister. It was the best conversation we've had in ages. On top of that, we had a great show last night,” she said, settling back into her chair. “Deacon sang one of my songs.”

Why had she told him that? She hadn't planned to. It just sort of slipped out.

“One of your songs?” Simon asked, pleasant surprise tipping into his voice. “You mean something you wrote yourself?”

“Yes,” JJ said with a laugh. “The song from my audition, actually. He said he loved it and wanted to sing it on the show. We had been jamming out—singing hymns, of all things—when he just started playing my song and told me he wanted to do it. We barely had time to rehearse. But the performance was amazing.”

“That's incredible,” Simon said.

“I know,” JJ responded, enjoying the way enthusiasm was slipping through his normally calm demeanor.

“Judith Isaacs, look at you,” he said with admiration. “Guess you've adjusted, not feeling as lost as before.”

JJ let out a sigh. “For those moments on the stage, yes. But everything else is so insane. Sometimes I wonder if I am cut out for this life.”

“What do you mean?” Simon asked. She could almost see his brows furrowing in concern.

Instead of filtering like she had with her sister, she told Simon everything, from the coke snorting at the club to Deacon storming out drunk, to her odd conversation with Miles on the phone. After all, he had already seen her at her worst, hopped up on caffeine pills and energy drinks. There was little left to hide from him.

“Sometimes I feel like I've stepped into this alternate universe,” she said. “All this crazy stuff is going on around me and no one seems to care. To everyone else it seems okay.”

Simon was silent on the other end, as if giving JJ space to think through everything she had just shared with him.

“You think you could live with that?” he asked after a few moments, voicing the exact same question she had been asking herself the night before.

“I don't know.” JJ closed her eyes and rested her head back. “Guess my confusion is back.”

She heard him pause on the other end. “Have you been praying about it?”

“I have, actually,” JJ said.

“And?”

“And I still don't know,” she said in defeat. “A lot of things have happened to make me think, make me question. But the truth is, I just don't know, Simon.”

“You will,” he said. “In time, you will.”

There was a pause on the line and JJ remembered their last moments together in the airport. Since then, the calls had started going not just from Simon to JJ but just as often from JJ to Simon. Furthermore, neither of them had bothered to pretend that the calls were just about Sheree anymore. There were times when they spoke and Sheree wasn't mentioned at all. But as to what they were doing with their new friendship and the unspoken tension that crackled between them—there had been no talk about that.

“When will I see you again?” Simon asked suddenly.

“We get a weeklong break after Atlanta,” JJ said without hesitating. “I should be back in a little over a week.”

“Good,” he said.

“Good?” JJ asked.

She heard him chuckle. “Yes, good.”

“Why good?” she ventured hopefully.

“Because I need to see how my patient is doing, whether she's been following doctor's orders,” he said.

JJ bit her lip. “Oh. Is that all?”

“Well, Judith, that's a lot,” he said, his already deep voice dropping an octave. “It might require a long drive out of town, or a dinner or two.”

JJ smiled. “Is that so? Is this some new kind of medical service, Doctor?”

He laughed. “More like experimental. As in, it's never been used before now.”

“Sounds interesting,” JJ mused.

“Think it's something you might try out?” Simon asked.

Before JJ could answer, a newspaper fell right on top of her plate, jostling her coffee cup. She looked up to see Sabrina standing over her, wearing oversized sunglasses and a scowl.

“Uh, let me call you back.” JJ ended the call with Simon without waiting for his response.

“Something wrong?” she asked, looking up at her unwelcome guest.

“I don't know,” Sabrina snapped. “Who were you just talking to?”

JJ's brow crinkled. “My sister-in-law's doctor?”

“Smiling like that?” Sabrina folded her arms. “Sure you were.”

“Okay, Sabrina,” JJ said, trying to stave off the annoyance that came from having newspaper in your eggs. “You want to tell me what's going on, or am I going to have to guess?”

“Maybe you should,” Sabrina said. “I am sure your guesses would be better than mine. For one, could you guess why there's a picture of you hugged up on Deacon in the
Enquirer
?”

Before JJ could respond, Sabrina reached down and flipped open the tabloid to the second page, where there was indeed a picture of her and Deacon together.

JJ groaned. “Sabrina, this is not what it looks like. This was from last night after Deacon left G Lounge drunk. I was just helping him into the vehicle that took him back to the hotel.”

“And took you too, right?” Sabrina asked accusingly.

“Yes, but—”

“And did you help him to his room too?” Sabrina asked. “And help him out of his clothes and into bed?”

JJ's eyes widened. “You can't think . . .”

From the look on Sabrina's face and the way her pale skin was turning red, that was exactly what she was thinking.

“Sabrina, nothing happened with me and Deacon,” JJ said. “I never even went into his hotel room. I helped him to the door and that was it!”

“You expect me to believe that, with a picture like this?” she said, waving the newspaper in JJ's face. “Nothing is going on with you and Deacon? So why all of a sudden is he giving you solos onstage and hanging out with you one-on-one?”

So that's what this was about. JJ was starting to get the full picture. She pushed back her chair and stood up so she was face-to-face with Sabrina. At this level she could see something beyond the anger in the woman's eyes: fear.

“Nothing's going on with me and Deacon,” JJ said calmly. “Sure, he sang the song from my audition onstage last night, but I had nothing to do with making that happen. And everything else? Like I said, it was just an odd night. If you don't believe me, ask him yourself.”

JJ could almost see Sabrina deliberate as she wavered between believing and not believing. Finally she slammed the paper on the table and stepped right into JJ's space.

“I'm watching you, JJ Isaacs.”

Then before JJ could respond, she stormed away from the table and through the doors that led back to the hotel. JJ felt the eyes of those in the pool and on the patio watching her, but she ignored them, sinking back into the chair she had just vacated. She looked down at the crumpled paper in front of her. There it was, the photo of her and Deacon in the
Enquirer
. And seeing the photo of Deacon with his arm draped across her shoulder, her hand on his chest, she could understand how people might make assumptions. When had they even been photographed anyway? At that time of the morning, who would have known they were there? Had the waiter at the almost closed restaurant tipped someone off? Or had it been a random passerby with a camera phone?

She was about to crumple the paper and toss it when another shot caught her eye. She grabbed the paper and held it closer to make sure she was seeing right. She felt heat rush to her face when she did. On the next page was the picture of a well-known hip-hop artist in a strip club receiving a lap dance from a very scantily clad woman. Next to it was a smaller photo of said celebrity's wife. But that was not the image that had her seeing red. It was who was sitting beside the hip-hop artist, receiving a lap dance of his own. Rayshawn, her manager slash boyfriend, who was very much on his way to becoming her ex-boyfriend. JJ crushed the paper and tossed it into the garbage by the door as she headed inside to her room. This was exactly why she didn't read tabloids.