I'll Sing for my Dinner (21 page)

“No one else ever cared about me,” I said. “Except Jake. None of the other girls I’ve ever known wanted to be friends with me.” I should have understood the warning in Myra’s eyes, but I blurted it out anyway. “Is it because I’m paying you?”

I didn’t see it coming. Myra jumped up from the couch and spun away from me.

“How dare you?” she said, tears in her eyes. “How fucking dare you?” She was furious, an expression with which I was all too familiar from growing up with my mother.

Terrie jumped up and stood in front of her. “Because she doesn’t know any better. Don’t you understand? Did you have any friends when you were modeling? Did you trust any of them?”

Whirling back to face me, Terrie said, “I know what you put up with at Peabody. I had to deal with the same kind of jealous bitches at the Conservatory. But just like Jake isn’t like Eddie, Myra and I aren’t like those cunts. Don’t lump all women together.”

“Oh, God. I’m sorry, Myra. I’m so sorry.” It hit me how cruel I had been. “I didn’t mean it that way. I ... I just don’t know why anyone likes me. I’m such a fucking mess. I understand that I make people money, but Jake’s the only person who has ever treated me nice without wanting something.”

The expression on Myra’s face softened. “You really don’t, do you? Cecily, why do you think Jake likes you?”

For the first time, I really considered that question. I had always sort of shied away from thinking about it. “I don’t know. I mean, not really. I know he likes the sex, and I make him laugh and he likes that, and he likes music. I do everything I can to try and please him.”

“And why do you like him?” Myra asked, cocking her head to the side and furrowing her brow.

“Because he’s kind, and he’s gentle. He listens to me, and he teaches me things. He makes me laugh, and he makes me feel important. Not just because I have talent, but important just being me. He makes me feel safe. He cared for me even when he didn’t know who I was. He saved my life just because I asked him to. He didn’t even know me. No one ever cared about me before, only what I could do for them.”

I took a deep breath. “I know that it won’t last, not the way it is now. He could have a lot of women, ones who are beautiful and don’t have all my problems. But I’m going to enjoy it while I have him.”

Terrie shrugged. “Well, I know why you got along with that Eddie guy. You aren’t very bright either. I have to hand it to you, though—you put on a pretty good front most of the time.”

“Jesus,” Myra breathed. She stepped forward and grabbed me by the shoulders.

“Do you really think that Jake likes you because you screw him?” Myra asked. “That’s like you saying that you like him because he screws you. Are you telling me that you think Jake is a liar? Do you think that he says he loves you just to get in your pants?”

“Don’t you talk about Jake like that!” I said, twisting out of her grasp. All of a sudden, I was mad as hell. “You don’t know him. Jake would never do that.”

The corners of her mouth crooked into a slight smile. “I don’t think he would, either. I give him more credit than that. You should give yourself more credit than that. ”

“Don’t act stupid, Cecily,” Terrie said. “It doesn’t become you.”

~~~

Chapter 25

Jake

After Cecily called me, I called her agent, Tim Cummings. I felt as though a huge hole had opened underneath me. The thought of losing Cecily made my mind go blank. I couldn’t imagine a life without her.

“What the hell is going on?” I asked, trying to keep my fear and anger under control.

“I’m not sure,” Tim answered. “I was hoping you could tell me. All I know is that Myra called this afternoon demanding a security team and limo for Cecily. She said some guy they ran into on the street threatened her.”

“What kind of threat?” I asked. “Did you or any of your people see this guy?”

“No,” he said. “By the time I got to them, none of them were talking.”

“None of who?”

“Cecily, Myra and Terrie went to lunch and to do some shopping,” Tim said. “They were walking to the concert hall when whatever happened, happened. They ducked into a crowded coffee shop, Myra called me, and I called a security firm I’d used before.”

I could hear the frustration in his voice.

“Jake, what the hell is going on?”

I took a deep breath. “Tim, I assume you know about Cecily’s hiatus from performing.”

“Of course,” he said. “I researched her thoroughly before I signed her. Jake, there are a lot of flakes in the music business. I’ve been burned before by talented people who couldn’t stay sober enough to get on stage.”

“Well,” I said, “that break she took was because she fell in with the wrong crowd. She had a boyfriend who was into the drug scene. A dealer. She wasn’t ever hooked, but definitely a bad crowd. He’s dead now, but she’s scared to death of his old cronies. She told me that one of them showed up yesterday.”

Tim thanked me for filling him in on the reasons behind the girls’ freak out, and after discussing the security arrangements he had made, promised to keep me informed. After we hung up, I called Kerrigan and we discussed the problem.

“Jake, I don’t blame her for being scared,” Kerrigan said. “The situation in Baltimore is pretty chaotic right now. The drug trade there has always been pretty violent, but with the crackdown that’s going on, the violence has escalated. Anyone who is vaguely suspected of being an informant stands a good chance of getting shot every time they stick their head out the door. In addition, the arrests are creating power vacuums, and the various gangs are fighting for territory. The murder rate is running almost double the slaughter from a year ago.”

“Maybe she should cancel the tour,” I said.

“Jake, I know the firm Cummings hired. You couldn’t protect her any better in Colorado. I do think that she’s correct, though. I would be concerned about security once she comes home.”

“I don’t think someone from Baltimore is going to show up in Greeley,” I said. “They’d stick out like a sore thumb. Besides, they may think they’re tough, but I can take care of myself, and I can take care of Cecily.”

“I’m sure your commanders said the same type of thing about a bunch of ragged jihadis in Afghanistan,” Kerrigan said. “Don’t make the mistake of thinking the drug pushers aren’t dangerous just because they’re crazy and they’re not trained.”

I lay awake that night thinking about what Kerrigan said. The following day, I swung by the county sheriff’s office on my way to work. Ted Yost had been a close friend of my father’s, and I went to high school with two of his sons. The older one joined the Marines and hadn’t come back from Iraq. Ted and I had a chat, and he promised to alert his men. Any big-city-looking Latinos in rented cars would get extra scrutiny from his deputies.

Then I called Dave Thomas and asked him to meet Cecily in Boston and take over directing her security.

~~~

Chapter 26

Cecily

There weren’t any more incidents as we moved from New York to Boston, to Chicago and then out to the West Coast. When I was a child star, I always had security when I performed, so it wasn’t difficult for me to adjust to my new restrictions.

Myra chafed at having a bodyguard follow her around when she went out in the evenings. After Chicago, she stopped hitting the clubs unless Terrie and I went with her. Since I wasn’t looking for hookups, the security team didn’t bother me, but I think the situation put a damper on Myra’s enjoyment.

It did get better after Dave showed up. At first I was irked that Jake sent Dave without consulting me, but once I settled down, I was glad he did it. With Dave organizing things, the security personnel seemed to fade into the background instead of being at my elbow every time I turned around.

By the time we hit Los Angeles, I was tired. I just wanted the tour to be over so I could go home and be with Jake. It helped that he flew in the afternoon after we did.

Other than my time in the recording studio earlier that year, I hadn’t been in Los Angeles since I was twelve years old. Jake laughed when I told him that.

“We might have been here at the same time,” he said.

“I’m glad we didn’t meet then,” I answered. “I had enough problems dragging you into my bed without memories of me as a little girl.”

I wanted to go to Disneyland, but everyone talked me out of it. Terrie looked up the attendance figures online. The day before, the population of Disneyland was almost as large as the whole city of Greeley.

“Do you really want to go there and stand in line all day?” she asked.

We did go to the Getty Museum, and out to Catalina Island. And I went shopping with Myra and Terrie on Rodeo Drive. Jake didn’t go on that trip with us.

The Hollywood Bowl is a natural amphitheater, though greatly enhanced with an acoustic shell around the stage and a world-class sound system. Tim planned to record the whole show and try to sell it to public television. It was definitely the largest venue I had ever played, with a seating capacity of almost eighteen thousand, and the show sold out.

We started with the twelve songs off my current album, then launched into
Dance All Night
and the songs we planned to record for the next album. After two months playing together, the band was tight, and the huge audience fed us so much energy. We were excited and gave a solid performance that had the place rocking. At the end, we were still riding such an adrenaline high that we did five encores.

We flew back to Colorado the following day. It was two months before the country tour with Jared’s band, and I told Myra that I didn’t want any interviews, appearances, or anything else. I just wanted to go back to playing at the Roadhouse and sleeping with Jake every night. 

That night, after a long shower together, we fell into bed and just held each other. I thought about the time I spent on the road and then coming back to the hominess of being in Greeley. I suddenly realized that the storybook dream I had been living for the past year was my reality. I couldn’t have been happier.

~~~

Chapter 27

Jake

While Cecily was on tour, I kept her up to date on the progress of the recording studio. I couldn’t claim much in the way of credit. Jared had never used his degree, but having a structural engineer oversee the construction was a blessing. Since the engineer was also a musician who planned to use the studio, I didn’t worry about whether things were done correctly.

The last of the equipment and electronics were installed the week before Cecily’s final performance in Hollywood. The morning after we arrived home, Jared and I took her out to inspect the studio. The look of delighted wonder that filled her face when Jared turned on the lights caused both of us to smile like a couple of fools. She and Jared spent that entire day recording songs and playing with the equipment.

Myra rented an apartment in Denver, but came up to Greeley a couple of days a week to work with Cecily. Terrie had gone back to San Francisco, but was making plans to move to Colorado. Marcus set up an audition for her with the Colorado Symphony in Denver, and she won a position as third-chair violinist. The rest of the band scattered, but all of them signed up to play on Cecily’s next album. 

My father had expanded the old ranch house built by my grandfather. The upstairs had six bedrooms and four baths, so we had plenty of room for Myra and Terrie when they came to visit. Cecily told me that she’d never had girlfriends before, and she still wasn’t sure how to act with them. I thought it was rather odd that she kept asking me for advice. I knew as much as most men do about women and relationships between women. Practically nothing.

It was so good to have her home. I wanted to touch her all the time. The house came alive when she was in it. I felt like one of the dogs. They followed her everywhere, and so did I.

One Saturday morning, Cecily woke me up wanting to make love and was rather insistent about it. Of course, I did my best not to disappoint her.

“Jake,” she said afterward, “I was talking to Jeri at the bar last night, and she offered to take Myra and Terrie and me for a drive up to Granby tomorrow. Sort of a girls’ day out. Would you mind? It would give you a quiet day instead of having a houseful of gossipy women.”