Athena's Daughter (13 page)

As the vans drove through the airport gates
in St. Louis, she cast a withering glare out the window at the
Learjet parked on the tarmac. Simon hadn’t been lying when he said
it was comfortable, but she didn’t believe for a minute it was
safe. Each time she was incarcerated in that flying metal pillbox
she swore she had a slight cardiac arrest. As for catching up on
her sleep in that thing? Forget it. Although, come to think of it,
it might be better to be asleep when she plummeted to her death.
That way, at least, she wouldn’t even know it was happening.

The moment the vans came to a stop, everyone
piled out and boarded, carry-on bags slung over shoulders. Athena
found herself seated next to Simon, and across from Paul and
Veronica. Though she’d never have believed it, she and Veronica had
become friends, and it helped to alleviate some of Athena’s
homesickness.

Veronica buckled her seatbelt before fixing
Athena with a bright gaze. “Did you get to talk to your daughter
this morning?”

“Yeah, for a minute before she left for
school.” She sighed. “I sure miss that little munchkin.”

“You’ll see her in a couple of weeks,”
Veronica assured her. “Can I see that picture of her now?”

“Oh, sure.” Athena had been putting Veronica
off when she asked to see a picture. One look at Elizabeth’s face
and everyone would know Derek Marshall was her father. But Athena
went through the small photo album Elizabeth put together for her
to take along while they were apart, and saw that the little girl
included her school picture. Athena had been disappointed in that
photo when she first saw it. Elizabeth had lost her first tooth the
week before, and just before the photo was snapped she tilted her
head back and grinned like a maniac, the better to show off the gap
in her teeth. The angle of her head obscured the lines of her face,
and reduced those incredible blue eyes to mere slits. It looked
nothing like Elizabeth. Therefore it was the perfect picture to
show to anyone who knew Derek.

The night before, she’d taken the photo from
the little album and put it in the side pocket of her purse. She
pulled it out and handed it to Veronica.

“It’s a terrible picture,” she warned. “Looks
nothing like her, really. But she was trying to show off that she
lost her first tooth.”

“Oh, she’s so cute,” Veronica gushed. “Look
at that sweet girl!”

Paul leaned over to see, and laughed. “She
looks like she’s a right handful, Athena.”

“No, she’s really a very laid-back kid.”
Athena couldn’t stop the swell of pride at finally being able to
show Elizabeth off. Even if they couldn’t really see her.

“She doesn’t have your coloring,” Veronica
observed.

“Yeah, she got that dark hair from her dad.”
Though she knew she was venturing into dangerous territory, she
couldn’t help adding, “Actually, she looks just like him.”

“Well, she’s a cutie.” Paul looked across the
small aisle, eyebrows raised. “Do you want to see the picture, or
are you just waving at me because you find me attractive?”

Derek gave him a wry look. “Definitely the
picture.”

Paul laughed and handed it over before
turning back to Veronica.

Small beads of perspiration broke out at
Athena’s hairline, and she held her breath as she watched Derek see
his daughter for the first time. Her chest grew tight as she waited
for him to see the resemblance, to turn to her with accusation and
hurt. But all he did was smile and chuckle under his breath.

“She is a sweetie.” He looked up and met her
eyes. “What’s her name?”

The tension drained from her shoulders, and
she was surprised at the rush of disappointment that accompanied
it. “Elizabeth.”

“Huh.” He looked back at the photo. “Me mum’s
name is Elizabeth.”

Though his comment scared the bejeezus out of
her, she repressed a smile at his slip that allowed his Liverpool
upbringing to come out. He tried hard to keep it out of his speech,
but every now and again he said something without realizing it.

“Really?” She tried to look nonchalant. “Oh,
yeah; I think I remember you telling me that once.”’

“Probably did.” Derek smiled at the picture
again, and handed it back to Athena. “She’s a cute little girl.
You’re really lucky to have her.”

“Yeah, I am. Thanks.” She took the photo and
leaned down to put it in her purse, glad of the chance to hide her
face. His innocent statement shattered her. Because of her colossal
mistakes, he was missing out on the joy of having Elizabeth, too.
And he didn’t even know it.

She leaned back in her seat and closed her
eyes, hoping everyone would think she was trying to sleep and leave
her alone. If she tried to make conversation with anyone just then
she’d burst into tears. Now that Derek had seen Elizabeth’s
picture, Athena was even more determined to tell him the truth
about her. But doing it was going to be harder than she’d
thought.

Though she’d scoffed at Andi’s optimism that
Derek would want to be friends again, she nursed the hope that they
might cultivate enough of a civil relationship to where they would
at least be able to converse. None of that seemed to be on Derek’s
agenda, though. The short exchange they’d just had about Elizabeth
was the first actual conversation they’d had since her first day on
the job. Except for Derek’s morning “I’m awake now. You can go,” he
ignored Athena’s existence, even when she was right under his nose.
As a consequence, she tried to avoid him as much as possible. She
couldn’t even bring herself to say ‘hi’ to him when they passed in
the hall; how was she supposed to tell him he had a daughter?

Across the aisle, he laughed at something Ian
said, and Athena’s heart squeezed with pain. Every fiber of her
being ached for him to laugh like that with her. Those looks he
gave her every morning before he fully awakened stayed with her all
day, calling up memories of the way things were the summer
Elizabeth was conceived. It came as a huge shock to her to realize
how much she still wanted him, and she couldn’t help but wish he
still wanted her, too. But he obviously didn’t. Even though he’d
been civil enough when looking at Elizabeth’s photo, he’d still
treated her with a cool indifference that he would a total
stranger, not a girl he’d once rushed with to the Register Office
so they could get married.

A spark of anger kindled in her belly. Damn
it, he loved her once, loved her enough to try to make her his
wife, and he knew that she had loved him, too. Yes, she messed up
in a huge way afterward, but nothing she’d done warranted the way
he was treating her. She was the first one to admit he had every
right to say the things he did at the record store. She’d been
wrong to believe that Tina person, wrong to think the worst of
Derek. But she’d been young and scared and confused, and by God,
she’d apologized to him for it. It was a huge misunderstanding, but
it happened seven years ago and he needed to stop treating her like
a pariah because of it. As her anger at him mounted higher, she
blew out a breath of pure irritation.

“Still can’t sleep?” Veronica questioned.

Athena’s eyes popped open. “No,” she sighed.
“I can’t relax enough on this plane.” She cast a glance at Paul.
“It would help if I could sleep in my bed, but certain people feel
the need to call on me at all hours of the night for stupid things
that could wait until morning.”

“Hey.” Paul held up his hands in protest. “I
very rarely bother you during the night.”

“Paul, running out of Dr. Pepper at 4 a.m. is
not the end of the world, you know.” Athena knew it was unfair to
take out her anger at Derek on Paul, but she didn’t care. “For
God’s sake, just drink some damn water and go to bed.”

Ian chose the wrong moment to laugh under his
breath, and she rounded on him with fire in her eye. “Find it
funny, do you? Well, you’re the worst of the lot, Ian.”

He drew back looking astonished. “I’ve tried
to be very considerate.”

“You call me three times a night! You want a
bottle of Jim Beam. Or you want mescaline. Or you want a
prostitute.”

Ian’s eyes narrowed. “Well, that’s what
you’re being paid to do, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“What I’m not being paid to do,” Athena spit
out, “is to be awakened at three o’clock in the morning because
you’ve just realized you ran out of deodorant. Stuff like that can
wait until daylight, Ian. It’s not like I can run out and find you
a can of Right Guard in the middle of the night.” She was wound up
and ticking, and decided to just speak her mind. “What would be
really nice if is you all treated me like Derek here. If he’s not
ignoring my very existence, he treats me like some annoying
stranger instead of someone he used to…”

“Excuse me, then,” Derek interrupted,
glaring. “I wasn’t aware my actions bothered you so much. But you
can bloody well forget about me treating you like someone I used to
do anything with.”

“Not a surprise,” she retorted. “I wouldn’t
expect anything else from someone so immature and emotionally
stunted that they can’t get over a mistake made seven fucking years
ago.”

“The fact that you can refer to that as ‘a
mistake’ shows just who’s emotionally stunted.” An alarming shade
of red crept into Derek’s cheeks. “You want me to treat you like
the others do? Fine. You got it, babe.”

“Don’t call me babe,” Athena told him. “It
might indicate you once had some sort of feelings for me, and we
wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea, would we?”

Simon waded into the fray. “That’s enough,”
he declared. “I’d hoped you two had gotten past this, but I can see
I was wrong. In any case, fighting about it when we’re all
exhausted and irritable is the wrong way to go about it. So
everyone belt up, got it?” He glared around the cabin until he’d
received mumbled assents from all present. “Good. We’ll be landing
in Baton Rouge shortly, and I want silence until then.”

It was a tense group that deplaned at the
Baton Rouge airport. A strained silence prevailed in the vans on
the way to the hotel, and Athena rushed through her room
inspections, not really caring if everything was in order. For the
first time since she’d joined the tour, she declined to attend the
show that night and stayed at the hotel, hidden in her room.

She was ashamed of herself for jumping on the
guys the way she did, and she was mortified at airing her and
Derek’s dirty laundry in public. Yes, she was exhausted, but that
was no excuse. By letting her frustration and emotions get the best
of her, she’d made everyone uncomfortable, and made them think she
didn’t want to do the job she was hired to do. On top of everything
else, it made the situation with Derek even worse. Man, when she
wanted to shoot herself in the foot she sure used a bazooka.

Using hotel stationery, she penned notes of
apology to Simon, Ian, Paul and Robin, and slipped them under their
respective doors. Derek didn’t get one. Sorry as she was about
going public with their fight, she was still mad as hell at him,
and thought she’d apologized enough.

When she heard the ruckus of the band
returning to the hotel, she got off her bed with a sigh. If nothing
else came of the day’s events, they’d probably leave her alone for
at least one night, and she might as well try to take advantage of
the time to catch up on her sleep. She pulled the T-shirt and
shorts she slept in from her suitcase, and tossed them on the bed
before stripping off her clothes. She threw her shirt and jeans
into a pile on the floor, and her bra had just joined them when the
door to her room burst open. Frozen in shock, she could only stare
as Derek stumbled in, his arm around the neck of a bemused looking
girl.

“Oops, sorry.” Derek’s eyes ran up and down
her body. “Wrong room.”

Belatedly, Athena crossed her arms over her
breasts. “No kidding.”

He waved an arm at her. “Carry on, then.”
Snickering, he pulled the girl from the room with him, and let the
door swing shut behind him.

It was the last straw. All the hurt and anger
and yearning and despair rose up, threatening to choke her. She
managed to don her sleepwear before the flood of tears overcame
her. Climbing into bed, she curled up in a tight ball and let the
sobs shake her until she fell asleep.

It was with great dread that Athena entered
Derek’s room the next morning to wake him. After the little
performance the night before, she was sure she’d find the girl
still in his bed. But as always, he was alone. Part of her felt
relief; the part that was still mad at him sent out uncharitable
thoughts about what a shit he was for sleeping with girls and then
kicking them out in the middle of the night.

Instead of the careful, slow process she
usually used to wake him up, she was brusque and more than a little
rough. She rolled him over onto his back, and began shaking him
with the same vigor she’d use to mix a martini.

“Get up get up get up get up!” Her shout was
aimed directly into his ear, and combined with the shaking it
roused him quicker than usual.

Seeing his eyes start to flutter open, Athena
gripped his shoulders and yanked him to a sitting position. The
moment he was upright, she jumped to her feet.

“Derek! You up?”

“Jesus Christ, Athena,” he growled, scrubbing
his hands over his face.

“I’ll take that as a ‘yes.’” She whirled on
her heel and left the room, letting the door slam behind her.

Shit. She’d forgotten to get his laundry.
That meant she was going to have to go back in there and face his
displeasure at the way she’d performed her morning duty. Oh well,
she was going to have to hear it sometime; might as well get it
over with.

As she passed Ian’s room on her way to
collect her laundry bag, the door opened and a girl emerged. Since
this wasn’t an unusual occurrence, Athena didn’t slow. But when she
got a look at the girl’s face, she stopped dead in her tracks with
a startled, “Hi.” No wonder Derek had been alone; his companion of
the night before appeared to have spent the night with Ian.