The Rock Star Next Door, a Modern Fairytale (32 page)

“Lex.” Jessie gasped, as the confusing image faded. She sat up in the bed, choking slightly
, feeling as if sh
e’d been jerked quickly out of
another life.

Duncan, her faithful Scottie, nuzzled her with his nose, sensing her distress. She gazed about in the semi-darkness with anxiety, uncertain of her surroundings. As her eyes adjusted to the light, she could mak
e out a few shadows on the wall
and the glow of a light behind the rectangular window shades.

She heard footsteps approach and then a faint murmur. “Jessie?” That familiar verbal caress as he spoke her name confirmed Jessie’s suspicions. She was next door, at Lex’s house. Her mind was still groggy, as if someone had stuffed it with toweling.

The light bes
ide the bed was switched on.
L
ex, the real one, not the medieval dream Lex, stood nearby
weari
ng only a pair of black silk boxing shorts
. He leaned forward to caress her face and cup her cheek as his dark, shadowed features drew near to examine her. “You were dreaming, sweetheart?”

Jessie nodded. She swallowed
in an attempt to moisten her throat. It felt like someone put sand
in her mouth while she slept. Her senses were all fuzzy and de
tached. Must be the
seda
tive. Instantly, she remembered
the ER visit, the doctor’s concern
for her heart, and the sedative
they’d given h
er
. No wonder she felt like crap on
a tostada shell; refried beans
and all.

“We were in a movie together.” She explained, and then winced at the rough sound of her voic
e.
She tried to clear it and reached up as if to soothe the scratchiness from it by her touch.

Lex left her side and went into the small refrigerator next to the TV closet. He opened the door, momentarily filling the room with the golden glow of modern life, the fridge light. He grabbed a bottled water and returned to her side, twisting the cap and then handing it to her as he sank down on one knee on the bed beside her. “A movie, huh?”

Jessie took a sip of the water
and let the moisture soothe her throat before she answered. “Yeah, a m
edieval one. You were
a
singer
and I was a lady’s maid
in an old
castle. I wish I could have heard you sin
g. You were just about to and then
I woke up.”

Lex rele
ased a
long, low sigh. He was frowning
. His fingers drew circles on his thigh, as if he were contemplating her words
carefully
. “That wasn’t a dream.” He said quietly, in a voice that was
fraught with unpleasantness.
“It must have been the drug
they
gave you at the hos
pital. It wasn’t a weird dream
, Jessie
. It was our past life together.”

Jessie gasped. She rubbed one eye with the heel of her hand, and took another long
sip of that cooling water. Crap
. This was getting too intense, again. Too scary and deep.

“You were
a lady’s maid.
I was a court musician
, a troubadour
.” He admitted, now placing an arm about her shoulders, as if he sensed she needed it. “It was during the
court of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I travelled a circuit, singing ballad
s for wealthy patrons. We
fell in love.
I asked you to marry me. You accepted.
We were goin
g to run away to Paris and be married
.
Actually,
I lived in Paris. You were going to run away from
your mistress.
”

Jessie sat up straighter. He was talking about her dream as if he’d been in it, as if it were a sc
ene from an old movie.
Sh
e touched her heart, fearing he
knew the answer to her next question. “And, what was the name of the lady I served.” She prayed silently as she waited for him to answer.
Please, please say you don’t know. Please. . . please let this all be a queer joke, a coincidence, a mind trick!

Lex didn’t answer right away, giving Jessie
a glimmer of hope. He appeared stumped by her
q
uestion.
His arm slipped about her shoulders, and he drew h
er close.  “The name eludes me, but
I’
ll
ever forget that vindictive bitch or
what she did to you.
”

What she did to me?
Jessie cringed. This
was just too
close for comf
ort. T
he
woman
on the dais shrieking at her
looked an awful lot like
Jessie’s mom, back
in her younger
days
.
Lady
Marcella had been thirtyish, with long blonde hair, but
with
the face of a horse, with coarse features and angry gray eyes--yep,
just like mom.

Lex leaned forward and
placed a soft kiss on her bro
w.

Jessie squirmed
, pulling back from him to glance with uncertainty
into his shadowed eyes. “
What did she do to me?”

“She
found out we were planning to run away to Paris
and be married by my uncle,
a Catholic priest.
She
--
”  He
looked away with unease.
“She stopped us.
” 

Chapter Seventeen

The sunlight streamed through vertical blinds, and the constant rolling surf could be heard in the quiet of the room. Du
ncan was no longer lying at Jessie’s
feet. She thought she heard the clattering of his toenails on the Spanish tile flooring beneath the stairs. He must have realized she was awake, as within moments of her first stirring, his I. D. tags jin
gled as he jaunted into the room
with his tail held high.

Jessie patted the bed, and her faithful Scottie bounced up to greet her with excited kisses.
Moments later, Lex entered
bearing a tray of steaming food.

“You didn’t
.
”
The thought of him cooking for he
r
was unsettling. Sh
e didn’t want to be fussed over or treated like an invalid
she just wan
ted everyone to forget the
stupid
incident
at the hospital yesterday
.

“No.
I’m j
ust the delivery boy. I told Inez you love Mexican
so she whipped up some breakfast burritos.” He set the wicker tray across her lap and brushed her cheek with a soft peck. “They’re spicy
.
”

Jessie blushed. After last night she wanted to
fade away into the wallpaper and not hav
e to face Lex or be reminded of their bizarre conversation regarding her dream.

“I have a few things to take care of this
morning. Stay in bed
. Doctor’s orders. Inez will be up in bit to check on you.” Lex placed the television remote on her tray, patted Duncan and then left her to her breakfast.

As Jessie f
inished the incredible burritos
she heard the phon
e ring downstairs. Lex had left
or so she thought. She heard Inez call to him from the hallway, saying it was his mother calling from Phoenix.

His mother
.
 
Marcie
’s threat fresh in her memory, Jessie bolted out of bed in a panic, turning about the room as she searched for her clothing. She had nothing except the silk nightgown and robe the guys had brought over
for her. Last night, groggy from the drugs, it
didn’t matter what she was wearing. One thought seized her;
I have to get out of here
.

Where could she go? W
here could she hide from her psychotic
mother?

Jessie clutched the skimpy silk fabric about her, hugging her shoulders as she concentrated on keeping
calm. Yes, she would just collect her things
and wa
lk out the door, across the driveway
to her
own home. She wasn’t a prisoner here. Jack and Steve
understood about mom. T
hey’d protect her. There was no
need to explain anything to the guys in the band . .
.
and they would never leave her over it.

“Hi Mom.” Lex took the house phone from the housekeeper. “
I was just out the door, a busin
ess meeting.” Lex tossed car keys up in the air as he spoke and then caught them as they dropped by spinning about and cupping them with his hand. “Can I call you back
later?”

“Honey
.
” Emm
a Coltrane’s uneasy voice oozed
into the phone. “I’ve had the most bizar
re phone call from a woman called Marcie
Kelly claiming
to be your
fiancée’
s
mother.” The shock and concern in her voice was punctuated by
another heavy sigh. “Lex, honey,
she said
some pretty
terrible things.
”

Lex looked up the stairs, noting that Jessie’
s door was open above them. He moved swiftly to his office
and closed the door. “What kind of things?”

“Horrible things
. The woman was ranting
on and on about the poor girl, like a crazy person. I told
her she needed psychiatric help
and she hung up on me.”

Lex swallowed. He didn’t know what to say, how to respond to
the questions in his mother’s
voice. He sank down into the overstuffed loveseat, letting the silence hang between them as he quickly went over the
events of the last few days in
his head. 

“Lex
, are you still there?”

“Yeah, Jessie is upstairs. She’s been really sick over this whole thing.”

“Poor dear.
I can’t believ
e she’s as bad as that woman claims
.
No mother would say those things about her own child
.
”

“What
things
?” Lex persisted
.

“She claimed
her daughter’s a whore. And
she said Jessie is
so stupid she became pregnant, and then the woman claimed that the child wasn’t
even yours so
there was no reason for you to
have to marry her at all. She said Jessie
probably didn’t know who the father was, and
I should warn you before it
’s
too late. Lex--that woman sounded like
she’s a whole lotta nuts
.
It’s not true, is it? You aren’t getting m
arried so suddenly because your girlfriend is
pregnant, are you?
”

“
No
.
” Lex snarl
ed into the phone at his mother, incensed as a white hot rage surged through him
.
“Jessie is not pregn
ant, mother.
W
hy would that woman claim that I was being duped into marrying her because of a baby
she was passing off as mine?” 

H
e was
beyond
angry,
he
fighting
-dirty
mad. If the woman didn’t live halfway across the country he’d drive to her house and punch out her lights, just on principle. Jessie hadn’t been with anyone sexually for years before they started dating. For her mother to imply she was immoral, sleeping around and tryi
ng to trap him into marriage--
it just burned all the way down to the soles of his feet.

“I didn’t
mean to upset you, dear. Is Jessie
okay? You said she was ill.”

“
We had to rush her to the hospital yesterday. She’s been getting threatening calls from someone . . .
some fan
who is stalking her.” Lex explained the details to his mother, all the while coming to a better unders
tanding about Jessie’s
reluctance to talk about her family back in Wisconsin
or tell
him who the prank caller really was
.