Return to Me (Breaking Free Book 2) Page 11

  By the time my siblings come knocking, I am already perched on a kitchen chair with a cape draped around me. The sharp bite of chemicals hangs in the air and burns my nostrils. The hairstylist weaves in the extensions first, then moves on to the coloring portion of my treatment.

  All of my family have met Brent at one time or another. They like him. I liked him a lot at first too. On the surface, he’s a likable guy.

  “Where is the wake going to be held?” he asks.

  “At my house, I think,” Faith says. Her pale face is splotchy, her eyes red and swollen. “Mom’s place is a little small, and there’s all that medical junk there. I still need to clear it all out.”

  “How many points of entry are there?”

  Faith looks confused. “Are you asking how many doors I have?”

  “Her street is open on both ends.” I shake my head. “This is ridiculous. Maybe I should just skip all this.”

  Brent and Faith say no at the same time.

  “How would that play out if you didn’t attend your own mother’s funeral?” Brent asks.

  “I don’t give a shit! Why should my family be subjected to this nonsense?”

  “Calm down,” he says softly. “I’m going to take care of this. I say we have it here. This is the only house up this way, isn’t it?”

  I nod. I own all the land halfway up the mountain.

  “I’ll contact the local P.D. They can block off the road. No one will get up this way that we don’t want. You may have to deal with a few photographers from the church to the car, maybe the graveyard, but I can probably have that sectioned off too” Brent tsks. “If you had made a public appearance after your time away, this might not be such a big deal, but they’re going to be clamoring to get a photo of you now.”

  I’m suddenly wishing I had taken him up on that offer to make a public statement after my treatment for exhaustion.

  What’s done is done. I can’t change it. I can only go forward.

  Maybe I don’t trust him, but Brent shines at this sort of thing. He has Mia fly in and they handle all the mundane details for me, the security, the catering, wardrobe, a makeup and hairstylist the day of the funeral.

  I can tell my family is a little taken aback by all of it. I guess I’ve grown used to it after my time on the road, but I hate having it here in my home. I’ve always kept a firm line between my private and professional life, but suddenly the two worlds are colliding at the worst possible time.

  The day of her funeral I am wishing like hell I had swallowed my pride and picked up the phone. She has a closed casket, so I get to say goodbye to a mahogany box. I should’ve given her a kiss while I had the chance. I could have at least picked up her hand, but her skin looked so fragile, paper thin, and bruised.

  It’s too late now. I waited too late.

  There was more I could’ve said, if I had more time, but I wasted all that time. So did she. We were both too stubborn just like she said. Maybe we said all we needed to say to one another. We were never going to see eye to eye on most things, but at least we got to say I love you to each other.

  At the graveyard the media is kept back at a respectable distance, but I am wracked with guilt that my family has to deal with this. It could be worse, I remind myself. If Imperfect had been as much of a success as Sinful, there would be twice the number of photographers lined up outside that wrought iron gate. If I’d recently been galavanting around L.A. or New York, like the old days with Kane, there would be even more journalists asking for a word.

  My star is falling. It has been for a while. A few years ago the thought of being forgotten, cast aside, or passed over terrified me. Why did I walk away from the only real thing I ever had if I wasn’t going to be a famous? It felt like I had to make that huge sacrifice worth something.

  Obviously my way of thinking has shifted over time. I’ve gotten older. I’ve grown up a bit. I saw behind the smoke and mirrors. I glimpsed behind the glitter and pomp to find nothing of value or substance. My one and only attempt at creating something substantive got smacked down, which hurt more than I like to admit.

  My mother liked it anyways. That cop’s wife liked it. Imperfect got some decent critical acclaim, but in this business success is measured in dollars, and by that metric it failed miserably.

  She said Broken Oceans was pretty, which was a lot coming from her. It was more than I expected. I’ve spent years telling myself I don’t care what she thinks of me, but I guess some part of me did.

  Faith drove with her husband from the cemetery to my home for the wake. Charity rode with my brother Joey, and Brent drove me. He suggested a limo so we could all ride together, but I declined that offer. It seems so unnecessary, excessive, ridiculous. Who leaves a funeral in a limo?

  He’s stuck by my side through this whole thing, but he’s being paid to be there, I remind myself. He can’t be trusted, but sometimes he makes it hard to remember that. There are times, like now, that I wonder if I’ve judged him too harshly.

  Brent asked me if I wanted to be a star, and I’m the one who said - Yes! He may have suggested the devil horns and fishnets, but I’m the one who put them on. Brent didn’t get me hooked on painkillers. I was out mingling and seeking pain relief all on my own before he ever caught wind. In fact, he’s the one who sent me off to rehab that first time. Drove me there himself too, and he kept it out of the press. He also warned me that I wasn’t at a place in my career for an album like Imperfect. Not unkindly. Not with malice, but he did try to talk some sense into me.

  I guess I really am stubborn. I wanted to have things my way.

  Brent is a realist, and he likes to make money. It’s his job to watch the bottom line, and keep me in line. It’s not fair to blame him for doing his job. Maybe it’s crazy to mistrust him so much for doing what he was hired on to do in the first place.

  That was something we talked about during my time in the loony bin, my tendency towards paranoia. It’s hard to know who to trust in this business, so I simply stopped trusting anyone.

  We also talked about the way I bottle up my emotions, hold everything in until I explode. Is it normal that I’m not crying the day of my mother’s funeral? I did the last and final time I saw her, didn’t I? There are probably plenty of people who might say I am well within my rights to never waste another tear on her as long as I live.

  I’m sad, but not sad enough to cry. Even if I wanted to cry, I can’t. I’m about to face a lot of people from my past, and several from my present all at the same time.

  I stare at the snowy scenery flying past as we drive. We finally got that snow at long last several days after Christmas. “How’s Kane getting on?”

  “You can ask him yourself. He’s coming to the wake.”

  “Ugh.”

  “He wants to pay his respects. He asks me all the time how you’re doing.”

  “You better not be trying to play this up for the media,” I warn.

  Brent scoffs. “I can’t believe you would think that. No one even knows he’s coming. According to the press, he’s holed up in the studio.”

  There is a small cluster of news trucks posted up near the foot of Bluffside, and two police cruisers parked at an angle. One of the men in uniform I don’t recognize, the other I do.

  Even from this distance, Gabe’s eyes are startlingly blue. He stands solidly with his feet planted apart as the breath leaves his lips in plumes of cold. It’s the officer I don’t recognize who ambles over to check that we’re safe to let past.

  That’s one thing I didn’t bring up during my stay at the nut house. I don’t need a trained professional to tell me it’s crazy to pine for a married man who is virtually a stranger to me. Sure, we grew up together, and yes, he’s the only man I’ve ever loved, but that was years ago. I don’t know him anymore. I’m longing for a memory.

  “I hope we’re paying them well to stand out in the cold like that,” I say.

  Brent pats my knee. “Of course.”

  The wak
e turns out to be a jumbled mishmash of my family, my mother’s church friends, and a handful of people from the industry. Chatting with those older woman I haven’t seen for years, I’m overcome with bashfulness I’m not accustomed to. Not only have they probably seen my staged wardrobe malfunction, they are getting a glimpse into the excess and grandeur of my life. This house really is ridiculously big.

  Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

  I can’t remember what verse that is. It’s a miracle I remember any of that stuff. I haven’t cracked open a bible since the day my mother told me to leave and never come back. Before her funeral today, I haven’t stepped foot inside a church for years.

  But she spent all the years prior to that day drilling words just like that into my head. They’re ingrained, and It’s not all bullshit I suppose. This big house didn’t bring me any joy. Neither did those cars, or any of the other crap I bought. I had to learn that lesson for myself the hard way too.

  Kane isn’t the only one from my professional life who swings by to make an appearance. My drummer Ethan shows up with his wife. The whole thing is awkward as fuck since I slept with him once a few years back. I barely remember the encounter, and it was well before he met his wife, but I still have mild difficulty meeting her soft, grey eyes.

  My accountant appears under the pretense of showing his respects, but I know better. I’ve been dodging his calls for more than a month. At the first available opportunity, he pulls me aside to have a chat. “Ms Sinclair-”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  “Trin, what’s gotten into you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re going to go broke inside of three years, maybe two, if you keep this up.”

  “Who’s going to go broke?” Brent inquires, sliding up beside me. He pops a mini croissant sandwich in his mouth, and licks his fingers.

  “Your client. She’s been giving quite generously here as of late. Perhaps a bit too generously.”

  “Is that so?” Brent throws me a sideways glance. “If you planned on making some contributions, you should’ve told me, doll. I could’ve-”

  “It’s not a publicity stunt,” I say. “I made those donations anonymously for a reason, and how I spend my money is no one else’s business.”

  My accountant holds his hands up. “I’m just warning you. I’m only doing my job. At the very least you could wait until the next fiscal year for the tax break.”

  Brent’s hand rests on my shoulder. “There’s nothing wrong with a bit of charity.”

  “But I’m not just talking about a bit.” he says, and opens his mouth to say more, but Charity interrupts.

  “There is nothing wrong with me. I’m completely normal.” She’s holding a plate with several deconstructed mini sandwiches. All the separate parts are arranged in little stacks.

  “We weren’t talking about you, Charity,” I say. “We were discussing charity, as in… a donation.”

  “Like philanthropy,” she adds. While my accountant watches, she licks the mayonnaise from the top layer of sandwich and arranges it just so with the others. “Phi-lan-thro-py. Cha-ri-ty. They don’t have the same number of syllables.”

  I can’t help but laugh. “No they don’t, and if you’re in the mood for mayo, I have a whole jar in the fridge.”

  “I don’t want to be a nuisance.”

  “You’re not,” I assure her, and break away from Brent and my accountant to take her arm.

  In the kitchen I watch Charity swipe mayo onto tiny croissant halves, then promptly lick it back off.

  “Does it taste better like that?” I ask.

  She nods.

  “How are you holding up?”

  Charity stares down at herself.

  “I mean with Mama dying.”

  “Everyone dies,” she says plainly.

  I was never much of a crier, but Charity never cries. “Are you sad?”

  “She told me not to be sad, because she’s in a better place now. She’s with the lord.”

  I nod. Maybe it’s for the best she still believes all that stuff. “What are you going to do?”

  Charity gives me a quizzical look.

  “You could stay here with me, or I could buy you a place if you think you’re ready,” I offer. Charity never left home. All of her peculiarities aside, I think she’s perfectly capable of managing on her own. She works at our dad’s garage, and volunteers at the school she went to. Our mother babied her an awful lot though when we were kids, and even as an adult from what I hear.

  “I like where I live,” she says.

  “I could have someone come and fix it up a bit.”

  She shakes her head. “I like it the way it is.”

  “What are you doing hiding in here?” Kane asks.

  “We’re not hiding, Kane Burke,” Charity informs him, licking away some more mayo.

  He watches her stack the soggy bit of croissant on top of the others. Kane has no idea that Charity is autistic, a fact I never felt like sharing since we were never real. He probably just thinks she’s weird, not that it matters what he thinks. I’m still not sure why he bothered showing up in the first place.

  “How was your stay in the drug treatment facility?” Charity asks.

  “It was... fine. Thanks for asking?”

  “My sister didn’t end up going to a drug treatment facility,” Charity stares at him pointedly. “She was treated for a nervous breakdown.”

  Kane widens his eyes at me, and gives me a little grin. “Ah. That’s what I hear.”

  “Charity, why don’t you go and see what Hope is doing?”

  Her eyes narrow slightly and remain fixed on Kane as she flings a blob of mayo onto her plate. I wait until she meanders out of the kitchen to ask him if he wants to step outside with me.

  Chapter 15

  Trin

  “Didn’t your mom just die of lung cancer?” Kane asks, watching me light a cigarette.

  “I’m quitting tonight.”

  “Gimme one,” he demands. I hand the pack and lighter over. He grimaces on the first puff.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, not hatefully like the day he popped up for my intervention. I’m mostly intrigued.

  One corner of his mouth ticks up. “Do you want the real reason, or what Brent told me to say?”

  I laugh. “Both.”

  “I’m supposed to say I’m worried about you, and I’m here if you need a shoulder to cry on. Which isn’t bullshit. I am here if you need someone to talk to.”

  I roll my eyes. “What’s the real reason?”

  “He wants you back in the studio ASAP.”

  “I should’ve figured that.”

  “He also mentioned this is your last album?”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Why?”

  “You haven’t even finished your first one yet. You’ll figure it out sooner or later.” I lean over the rail to take in the bare trees branches frosted with snow. “Maybe not. You’re probably cut out for it, but I’m not.”

  “You could move to a smaller label, or start your own. Then you could do things your own way.” Kane’s face grows animated. “I could come work for you. I bet you wouldn’t make me wear a cowboy hat.”

  “If you worked for me, I’d make you wear the boots to match.”

  “You probably would, but I guess I deserve it after some of the shit I pulled.”

  “We were both shitty to each other. You keepin’ your nose clean?”

  “So far, but we’ll see how I do when I go out on tour.”

  I grumble under my breath. “I’ve never had much luck being good on the road either, but I’ve got to this time. One more album. One more tour. After that I’ll be free.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Languish in obscurity? Move to Jamaica? I haven’t decided yet.”

  “What did you do before you got picked up
by Arista?”

  “I worked at Mcdonalds for a few months.”

  Kane laughs. “You could start a restaurant. Trin’s Burger Palace.”

  “I don’t know enough about the real world to even run a lemonade stand.” Maybe my accountant has a point. I need to slow down with the charitable acts if this next album will be my last. I’ll need something to get by on unless I want to work the drive thru at a fast food place, the only other thing I’m qualified to do besides music.

  “I bet you’d manage,” Kane says. “You could be a songwriter.”

  “I can’t even write my own songs anymore.”

  “Why not?”

  “I’m… uninspired.”

  Kane flashes me his signature smile. “I’m always available if you’re lookin’ for some inspiration.”

  “You’re a pig, and I thought you were shacking up with that Vegas singer?”

  “Don’t you read the papers? That’s over.”

  “I haven’t been following any of that recently. Is that why Brent wanted you to talk to me? I’m not interested in relaunching Trane.”

  “It wasn’t Trane. It was Krin, and no he didn’t. I’m making the offer purely out of personal interest.”

  “Yeah right. I’m fat now.”

  “Nu uh.”

  I roll my eyes.

  “I’d still hit it.”

  “You really are a pig.”

  Kane flicks his cigarette away. He shoves the tip of his nose up with his finger and oinks.

  “You’re an idiot too.”

  “This piggish idiot is gonna be the next pop country sensation. One day you’re gonna look back, and kick yourself for turning me down.”

  “If that day ever comes, hell will be frozen over.”

  “Pigs will be flyin’,” he adds.

  “So expect a call from me around the twelfth of never.”

  “I’ll mark it on my calendar.” Kane gives me a little wink, then his smile fades. “Did you really have a breakdown, or was that just publicity?”

  “Publicity?” My laugh dies out to a tired sigh. “No, that was very real I’m afraid.”

  “What happened?”

  “I told you I’m not cut out for all this.” My gaze sweeps across the lights from my hometown in the valley below. “I don’t think I was ever supposed to leave this place.”