The Rock Star Next Door, a Modern Fairytale (54 page)

The screeching voice in the background was familiar to her. She recognized it.

“
You’re leaving me? You’re running away, after all I did for you? You ungrateful bitch.  You whore  . . .
”

Marcie
--Lady Marcella. She was shouting, accusing, calling Jessie horrible names.
“W
hore. You stole him from me. You bitc
h. You’ll never get to Paris
. He was mine. He w
as brought here for my pleasure; he’s
my troubadour, my
consort. You whore, you stole him from me.
You will not marry him--do you hear me--bitch--you’ll die first.
”

Jessie
was
dying, gasping through the searing agony, struggling for each breath. Jessie’s chest was wet. She could feel the
odd
w
etness seeping through her layers of clothing as the fabric beneath her hand turned crimson in a deadly bloom
.

And he was holding her across his legs, holding her and
weeping. Her troubadour was weeping over her, begging her to hold on, to not leave hi
m. Another man knelt beside him
and pulled the sharp thing from her chest. Oh, the relief, the sear
ing pain eased just a little. Not much
but it was enough, enough to let her breath a little more . . .

“I’ll always love you.”
He
was saying through his tears.
Her Lex
, her troubadour. “I’ll find you, I swear it. I’ll find you. If it takes forever, my soul will find yours.”

His face was fading. She could still feel his arms about her, she could still hear his
sensual
voice, but it was as if from a great distance. His face was hidden behind a dark veil. She could ju
st make out his features beyond it
.

If onl
y someone would remove the heavy black
veil from her face . . .

I
f only . . . she gasped and choked.
Her breathing had become wet, rasping gurgles.
The air was thicker, fluid, like water fillin
g her lungs, drowning her . . .

Her name was Julianna. She gasped
and tried to say his name.

“. . . . G
-gas--
Gaston
. . .” She wheezed
and then darkness surrounded her.

Gaston Devereaux. That was his name; her troubadour. All the ladies loved him. He had a way with the women of the court, a kind of magic that drew women to him
when he sang. And he loved her; Julianna. Handmaiden, Lady-in-Waiting
to the great house of
Laurent
.  The singer could have any woman he wanted, and he wanted Julianna
to be his wife. He wanted her . . .

And the Lady Marcella wanted him.

Chapter Twenty Six

“Gaston?”
Jessie was speaking
to him
in
perfect Frenc
h
. “M’aider, veuillez . . . Gaston . . . Ne me laissez pas.”

Lex
hugged Jessie
as she continued to plead in French. He understood her cries.
Help me, please. Don’t leave me
.

“I’m here, Jessi
e.” He whispered as he stood at the end of the exam table and held her limp body against him. He brushed a kiss across her brow and held her head cradled in his hand
.
His shouts
brought a nurse, who checked her pulse and looked into her eyes and then left the room again to find a doctor. That was several moments ago. Apparently actual doctors were in short supply here at the mental hospital.

Jessie kept speaking
in Fre
nch
.
Lex answered her in kind and she quieted in his arms. She kept
calling him by another name.
Gaston.
A name he remembered from long ago.
It was his
name
in that other life
, the one that had been stolen from them centuries ago
.
He couldn’t remember
Jessie’s name in that past life
or he would use it. He only recalled her face, her lovely face, and the unspeakable horror of her dying in his arms.

She stirred suddenly. It seemed like ages but her odd little collapse had to have been mere moments in real time
. Jessie struggled in his arms
and opened her eyes.

“Gaston.” She murmured in a perfect French accent. Her
lovely green eyes opened, fixed on h
im for several moments
and then she said it. His name. “Lex.”

“
Lex!
” Jessie gasped, her heart soaring as she realized she was still in his arms.
She died in his arms as Julian
n
a and she awakened in
his arms
again
as Jessie.

A physician came in, followed by a nurse. “Ms. Kelly? I was told you had some kind seizure.” He moved in, as if to separate her from Lex as he tried to bodily insert himself between them.

“No. I’m fine.” Jessie replied,
determined not to be manhandled by this stranger, despite his
medical training. “I just had a panic attack. After all, my mother shot my father and when I came to visit her today she tried to stab me.”

The doctor stopped trying to come between her and Lex. He stepped back, as if suddenly remembering she was not one of his inmates
here. He pushed his glasses up
and as
sessed her silently. “Yes.
Ms. Kelly, my apologies for the incident. Your mother was just transferred here from the Eau Claire jail last night. I didn’t realize she was deliberately dangerous. I was told the shooting was an accident.”

“By who?” Jessie asked. She sucked in her breath and gripped Lex by the biceps as she hopped down from the exam table. She could just guess who he would say.

The doctor, honestly
Jessie didn’t care enough to learn his name, stepped back, as if sensing the anger rising in her. “The guards at the jail, for one, and your sister called to talk to me yesterday as well, before the transfer.”

“My sister has an agenda.” Jessie informed him as she headed for the door. “My father covered up my mother’s mental il
lness for the whole of my life
and it cost him his. My sister is doing the same thing. She doesn’t believe psychiatrists are real doctors. Neither did my father. So, go ahead, let her snowball you into believing my mother didn’t mean to hurt my father.
Or you can read the statement I plan to make to the police about this incident.
She tried to kill me. She intended to kill me. It wasn’t an accident.”

“
I realize that
.” The doctor p
ut his hand up in protest. “
Ms. Kelly, we aren’t trying to cover this up, I promise. I just wanted to make certain you aren’
t seriously harmed. Any time a patient physically assaults a member of the staff, another patient, or a visitor we have to make out a
n incident
re
port
. The attendants saw what happened. Your mother has been sedated and she is in restraints.”

Jack chose this moment to enter the small exam room off the nurse’s station. “Hey, Jessie. We need to blow this pop stand if we’re going to make the flight to LAX from St. Paul. It’s an hour and a half drive to St. Paul from here.”

“Young man, we were discussing your mother’s condition.”

“Yeah?” Jack scowled at the doctor. “Well, excuse me if I want to get
my sister away
before she becomes the second family member to be murdered by Mommy Dearest.”

Only
Jessie
could understan
d his callousness. It was a defense mechanism she shared with him, a way to cope with a woman whose love and approval was forever withheld
and lost behind the psychosis that drove her mind. Jessie, too, had learned to harden her heart as a means of survival.

Jack held her gaze for a long, painful moment. Hi
s eyes said it all. He loved Jessie
and he wanted to leave this place before he was forced to face the woman who had rejected the
m long ago for a second time in
one day. “Let’s go.” The agony in Jack’s voice was like sandpaper rubbing against her heart.

“What did she say to you?” Jessie asked, stepping forward to touch her brother’s arm. “When you saw her, what did mother say to you?” Whatever it was, Jessie knew it had hurt him horribly.

Jack swallowed hard. He seemed to have trouble speaking the words that were all too familiar to them. “She said--“ He stopped, choking a little, and then he finished the sentence. “She said, ‘I wish I never had any goddamned kids.’  That’s what she said when I told her I was finished with her and her cruel games.”

“She’s a sick woman.” The doctor told them, parroting words their father might have said, if he were in the room. “She doesn’t mean it.”

She doesn’t mean it. She can’t help it. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing.

All their lives, Jack, Jessie and Michelle had been told that by their well meaning father. When their mother turned on them, shouting threats of suicide or simply telling them
they were unwanted and unloved--
their father mad
e excuses
. It was as if he somehow believed telling eight year olds that their mother didn’t mean all the nasty-wicked things she said to hurt them would
make a difference.

Dad didn’t get it. Neither did this doctor. It didn’t matter if she meant it in her heart or not. The pain
they felt
was the same. A lifetime of pain that they couldn’t ignore or deny; it couldn’t be fixed with a band-aid or a trite, well-meaning phrase.

Yes, their mother was obviously very disturbed in her mind. Hopefully, she was in a place where she could finally get the help
she needed. But the outcome was
out
of their control
. Marcie would e
ither get better with treatment
or she would continue to live in her hate-filled, paranoid, vindictive world. Either way, she would do it without them.

Jessie looped her arm through Jack’s. She held her hand out to Lex, who came to stand at her side as his hand slid over hers, enveloping it.

“Oh, she means it, Doctor.”
Jessie said
firmly
.
“That’s the problem between us, you see. She means it, because she’s been telling us that same thing all of our lives. Now that we’ve just buried our father, we’re finished taking anymore of her abuse. If she comes to her senses and wants to apologize, then we’ll give her the opportunity. Until then, we’re finished here.
”

The limo drive to the St. Paul airport was filled with silence. Jack retreated within, and Steve played a game on his iPod. Jessie sat beside Lex with her head on his shoulder. They had much to discuss, but not here, with Jack and Steve present.

Lex was quiet. He seemed to realize that conversatio
n was not required between them
.

The car ride down Highway 29 to
the Twin C
ities
was somber as the day slumped
into twilight. Jessie thought
about her odd experience and tried
to reconcile the past with Lady Marcella with the present with Marcie Kelly. Same woman
in both worlds
.
Scary
. This time, she wasn’t Je
ssie’s mistress, she was her mother. In both lives the woman
exacted an oppressive power over
Jessie. In the old one it was a legal power, in this one it was a much stronger emotional power
.
And in both times
the woma
n wanted to kill her
.

She snuggled closer to Lex, letting her head nestle just below his chin. “How’s your arm?”

He shrugged his shoulders
and tightened both arms about her. “Hurts. It’ll be fine. I’ll have my doctor check it out when we get back to L.A.”  He sighed. “A toothbrush?”

Jessie lifte
d her head to gaze up at him
. She
could
just barely make out his face in the lowering light.
Her mother almost killed her--
again
. This time, Lex intervened. Her mom
could have killed him
had she been able to pierce his heart. Jessie reached up to cup h
is cheek in her palm.
“I don’t want to go to L.A.” She whispered, stroking his face.

“
Where do you want to go, Sweetheart?”

“To Paris.” Jessie smiled at him. “I want to fly to Paris tonight and be married.”