Stereo (24 page)

“Can I read it?”

“No.  It’s private.”

“How will you know if it’s any good?”

“The same way you knew the song you wrote in Sydney was good without showing it to me.”

Adam was silent on the other line.  “Fine, you don’t have to let me read it…. But you have to come out with me tonight to make up for it.”

“I can’t go out with you.  I have plans.”

“With who?”

“A friend.”

“Who’s your friend?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“You said you weren’t seeing anyone.”

“Did I say that?” she asked, standing from her desk and walking to the kitchen.  Shaun only had plans to go and visit her parents for a quick second, but she didn’t want to bring them up to Adam.  Now he was clearly assuming that she was seeing some guy.  She felt bad, but it was better this way. She could hear ruckus and voices coming from the background of wherever Adam was.

“We’re just going ice skating.  Totally harmless.  Something that couples do.  We are a couple, aren’t we?”

“I’ve never been ice skating in my life.”

“You haven’t done a lot of things in your life,” he said, his voice laced with something devious.

“No, I guess I haven’t.”

“Come out with us. It’s just me, my sister and my buddy Jon.”

A light bulb went on in Shaun’s head. “Oh yeah, the one I met on your video set that day—the guitarist!  God that feels like it was ages ago, but it’s only been a couple of weeks. Why wasn’t he in Sydney?”

“He got sick, but he’s better now and he wants to meet you.  So does my sister.”

“Adam we’ve talked about this.  The rules…”

“Fuck those rules, Shaun.  I thought we already agreed they were stupid.”

“They’re not
stupid
,” she cried.  “Besides, I couldn’t go even if I wanted to.  I’m having dinner tonight with my parents.”

“They can come, too.”

“Goodbye Adam.”

“If you’re going to bang some guy you can just tell me, I can take it.”

“I’m going to bang some guy.”

A long silence followed on Adam’s end.  “That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little funny,” she said.  “Goodbye.”

As soon as she hung up, her phone was blaring to life again.  It was Janelle.

“Hello Janelle.”

Janelle didn’t waste any time.  “Who represents you?”

Shaun’s mind spun.  “I’m sorry?”

“Do you need an agent?”

“I… uh… wait, what?”

“
I’m
your agent.  Nobody in this town will take care of you the way I will.  Nobody else will understand your situation the way I can.  It’s only natural that I be the one to represent you.”

Shaun tried to speak, but her mind was spinning.

“Shaun, you and Adam made miracles happen during those two days in Sydney and now everybody wants you… bad.  Do you have any idea how much work I have lined up for you? I have you
set
for the rest of the
year
.  We will make a lot of money together, you and me.  I already have the first photo shoot set up for tomorrow at Cosmopolitan Magazine.”

Sputters bobbed from between her lips as Shaun attempted a sentence.  She couldn’t.

“Hello? Are you still there?”

Perhaps a visit to the magazine wouldn’t be so bad.  While she was there maybe she could find a way to tell Jackson that she couldn’t write the article anymore.

Shaun’s heart hammered into her chest.  She couldn’t recall having hired Janelle to begin with but the woman already had a years’ worth of work lined up for her?  The plan all along had been for Shaun to drop the modeling farce like it was on fire, but it was becoming more and more apparent that this  was a problem that was not going to die easy.

“Janelle listen I—“

“I’ll talk to you about it more when you and Adam meet me for lunch tomorrow.”

“Me and Adam are meeting you for lunch tomorrow?”

“I told him to tell you.  Mario’s.  12:30. Gotta run.  Talk soon.”

Before Shaun could say another word, Janelle hung up.

--

That evening, Shaun sat wordlessly at her parent’s dinner table and had been quietly allowing them to ream her for the better part of the hour.  She’d arrived at her family home a few hours ago and the dinner had started off cordial, but quickly escalated into something ugly.  Being her parent’s only child had been both a blessing and a curse growing up.  A blessing because she was always the favorite, getting what she wanted ninety percent of the time, and always having her own space.  Sometimes, it felt like a curse because her parents had nothing better to do than obsess about her life and her choices.  They had a knack for only focusing on the things she did wrong and never what she did right.

“So you’re a model now?” her mother, Sheila Green, asked scratching softly at the black bob wig she had on.  Since she was a child Shaun was sure her mother had spent enough money on wigs to support six more children.  “What happened to writing?”

“I’m still writing… but…” Shaun continued to stare down into her untouched dinner plate. “Until that becomes lucrative I have to do other things to make money.  I could make a lot of money in modeling.”

Her father, Michael Green, spoke up, the honey colored eyes that she’d always wished she’d inherited from him jumping from his dark brown skin and burning into her. “Writing is a tough career.  It takes one hundred and ten-percent dedication.  Any small distraction and it will shatter everything you’ve worked for.  You’re too talented to throw it all away.”

“I’m not throwing anything away.”

Her mother chimed in. “Well, I’m just going to say what’s on my mind…”

“When have you ever bitten your tongue?”

“I don’t know but you damn sure better bite yours, young lady.”

Shaun turned to gaze out of the window, tears pricking her eyes.  Once again, she felt like her parents were calling her a failure—like they were attacking her.  It wasn’t as if she was homeless on the street and only attending this dinner to shake them down for a few more dollars.  She actually had a job, and was well on her way to a journalism degree.  Why couldn’t they just say they were proud of her, just once?

“I feel like you’re losing yourself,” her mother chided.

“I’m not,” Shaun said sharply.

Her parents went off, throwing critiques at her like they were each in a one sided tennis match, barely allowing her a moment to speak.

“When did you start dating rock stars?” 

“Do you have any idea the vile things that boy has said?”

“It’s all over the television.”

“He clearly has no respect for you, or any woman!”

“How could you be seen with him?”

“No respectable woman would!”

Shaun’s heart hammered. “You don’t even know him.”

“You defend him?!” her father cried.  "Do you really have so little respect for yourself that you would publicly give that boy the time of day? If you're lying with him at night--"

"Dad!"  Shaun instantly blushed. "No, it's not... he's not like that.  We're... taking it slow."

"For now.  God forbid you ever had a child with him.  Do you actually think he would be equipped to raise your black children into confident, healthy adults?"

"Who said anything about children? We just started seeing each other, Dad."

"He will never respect you, sweetie. I'd rather it be me telling you now than him when he says something else disgusting... and probably right to your face the next time."

Shaun felt herself on the verge.  She felt like she should defend Adam but, at the same, time she could see where her parents were coming from.  Still, she hated hearing them tell her all of the things she was doing wrong and nothing about the things she was doing right.  It was only reminding her of why she never visited outside of Christmas’ and Thanksgiving’s.  They would never be happy with her no matter how well she did in her life.  Never.

When she felt tears pricking her eyes all she could think was that the very man they were tearing down would die before he did anything that would cause the tears she was feeling in her eyes right then.  He already believed in her ten times more than they ever had.  She’d be damned if she sat there and let them trash him, but she didn’t have the courage to fight them.  She never had.

“Look, I have a lot of work to do so, I’m sorry, but I have to go.”

“You’ve got to get a little more heart, Shaun.  That’s all we’re saying.  You can’t keep running away from your problems—“

Shaun held a hand up to silence him, “You know what?  That’s enough, okay? I have to go.”

Without another word she left the dinner table and headed towards the door.

--

Still upset about the painful truths that her parents had reamed her with at dinner, Shaun went out of her way to avoid Adam for the rest of the night, and most of the next morning.  As she made her way into the offices of Cosmopolitan Magazine in downtown Los Angeles, she had an anxious rumbling in her stomach.

She had a baseball cap pulled low on her head with her curls tucked away, and a hoodie on top of that.  She couldn’t risk being recognized in the office.  Even though back when she was a lowly intern ninety percent of that office didn’t even know she existed, it still wasn’t a risk she was willing to take.

Jackson was aware of the photo shoot that Janelle had set up for Shaun and had, in turn, given Shaun a quicker, quieter route that would lead to the rooftop of the building where the shoot would be taking place.

Once she made it to the rooftop, she was happy to pull off her hoodie and baseball cap, shaking her curls free as she did.  Her breath caught in the back of her throat when, upon opening her eyes, she saw Adam standing right in front of her.

“Holy shit, what are you doing here?” she asked. Her eyes narrowed around the rooftop where a few dozen workers were milling around setting up cameras, getting the lighting right and all around appearing busy and important.

“If I was crazy I’d think you were avoiding me,” Adam said, coming up to her with a smile.  He wrapped her in a hug and pulled away.  “I’ve been trying to call you.  Janelle wants to have lunch with us today.”

“Yeah, she told me.” 

“Ride up there with me.  We’ll do something after.”

“Something?  Like what?”

“I don’t know.  Anything.”

Her eyes searched his face carefully.  He really meant that.  Anything.  He was willing to do absolutely anything as long as she was willing to do it beside him.  How had this happened?  How had she let this all get so completely out of hand?

She gritted her teeth.  “Uh…”

“I saw the bikini they’re putting you in and…” Adam blew a whistle.  “I hope you’ll let me stay and watch.”

“A bikini?” Shaun asked, dryly.

“A tiny one.  Tiiiiiny, babe.”

She felt like she might throw up.

Adam stepped closer to her.  “Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“You’re doing that thing.  That thing you do. The thing where you don’t believe you’re a fucking rock star, but you are.”

“I think you’re confused Adam.  You are the fucking rock star.  Literally.” 

When he leaned in, her body yearned to accept him, so she did.  His lips felt plush and warm against hers.  It was a soft, sweet kiss, lingering just long enough for her stomach to turn inside out.  When he pulled away and searched her eyes, the world around her seemed to cave in at her feet.  The moment he leaned in for more, her parents popped into her mind and she gave him her cheek regrettably.

Adam pulled away.

“There um…”  She finally looked at him.  “There aren’t any paparazzi here, so…”

He shrugged.  “So?”

“So I don’t see why we should kiss right now.”

“All right.”

She couldn’t see his eyes past his Ray Bans and for that she was thankful.  “Okay.  And I don’t need a ride later, either.  I’ll just catch a cab.”  She went to move past him and was surprised when he placed a hand on her stomach, stopping her.

“Actually it’s not all right.”  He spoke in a calm tone, but there was something extra that lied underneath.  Something that Shaun had been afraid of for the few short weeks they’d known each other.

“It’s not?” she asked.

“No, it’s not. Come here,” he said, walking past her and towards the lone door on the roof.  He circled the brick wall surrounding it, giving them a little privacy.  Shaun came to a stop behind him and when he turned to face her Adam was suddenly overcome.  “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Can’t do
what?”
Shaun was still overwhelmed at the fact that she was at odds with her parents, apparently an up and coming model who was going to have to put on a
bikini
soon, and had an article to finish writing in under two weeks.  She didn’t think she could handle Adam angry at her on top of everything else and it was clear, at that moment, he was feeling a lot of things.