Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) (17 page)

A bitterness rose in me at the realization that this was the first sunrise I had watched since lying on a deserted beach with Livia, months and months ago. It felt like another lifetime now. She had left me too. Probably never looked for me. Everyone I knew and loved left me. I was worthless to everyone, except the studios, and to them, I was a face on the screen.

As I waited for Roger, I did some coke that I found still stashed in my pocket and began chain-smoking for the stash of cigarettes he kept in his desk. I waited, no longer crying, but mad. There was a hole in me that would never be filled. I was working myself up into a rage when at seven, Roger came through the door, coffee in one hand, paper in the other. I stood a bloody, wet mess. My face and chest was caked with dried tissue and blood. Roger took one look at me and dropped the coffee and the paper.

Walking toward me fast, he searched my face, and said in an emotionless whisper, “Molly?”

Without changing expressions, I told him about the last twenty-four hours, the binge she was on, the filthy, skinny mess she was. I held nothing back. Roger just looked out of the window as I told him everything. When I had finished, I sat and waited for questions like, “Why did you let this happen? You know it’s your fault, right?”

But Roger spoke in a hoarse, controlled voice.

“Take a shower, Ryan. You were never there. Understand?”

I began to question what he said, but then he turned his manic brown eyes on me.

“Molly destroyed her life.” He hit the top of his desk with his fist, hard. “I’ll be goddamned if she takes you down with her!”

I was scared of Roger then. I took in his crazed eyes and didn’t even think of protesting. A hurt expression crossed his face, but only for a second, and then it was all back to business.

“Ryan, please. Allow me to handle this. I loved my daughter, but she was a grown-up. She left a mess for you and me to clean up. Please shower. I will have clean clothes waiting for you when you finish.”

He pointed toward the bathroom behind us. I walked toward it, numb and dead inside. I couldn’t think of the brain tissue or bone fragments that covered my upper body as I entered the shower. I washed as hard as I could, wishing I had ammonia to scrub the images out of my head.

When I emerged from the shower, my ruined jeans and shirt were gone. In their place were a shirt and jeans I would have likely picked out for myself. Black Nikes sat on the floor. A new razor and toothbrush were on the sink. I absently did as I was expected to do, only stopping once to throw up. When I was shiny again, on the outside at least, I walked back to Roger’s office.

I found him in front of the window, looking out over the city, lost in thought. His face was unreadable. I stood beside him, looking out as well, not looking at him. We grieved for Molly, before the world knew of the tragedy that awaited them. Neither of us could absorb it all, and it would be a long time before we were ever normal again.
Whatever normal is
, as Molly would say. Would have said.

“The jet is on standby. You’re going to Malibu. Wait in the house until I call. Speak to no one. Do nothing. Josh is on leave, but we should be able to avoid exposure right now,” Roger said softly.

He hugged me for a long moment, Roger comforting me instead of the other way around. I couldn’t stop it from coming and sobbed on his shoulder like a child.

“I couldn’t stop her. She just—”

But my mind caught up with my words. No one knew how many days she had binged, how long her self-destruction had been going on.

“I’m sorry, Ryan. I’m sorry, and glad it was you with her in the end. She loved you very much,” Roger said, his voice muffled by my shoulder.

I wanted to say, then why did she leave me? Like everyone else? But I didn’t. Roger turned back to the window, placing his hands in his pockets. If he shed a tear, I didn’t see it. I was dismissed for now. I was to wait for further instructions.

I placed a hand on his shoulder for a moment, sorry for him, and then turned to leave him in peace to mourn the loss of his wild child. Molly would leave a hole in both of us. I was both furious and confused, but every few minutes the image of Molly’s blood splattering the wall shocked me to the core.

…

I boarded the jet twenty minutes later. Viola sat, for once not moving. She was looking out the window and barely glanced my way when I came through the door. I sat opposite her, and stayed quiet.

After we were in the air, I slept. Restless, I fought waking more than once. When we were somewhere over the Midwest, the news broke. A maid, staged by I assumed Roger, found Molly’s body in the apartment. They had no idea where I was, but stated that I had left around ten that night, as stated by my representative, heading to my next location. I would not hear details, or be bothered by anyone for the next three days.

I had my drugs delivered to me by FedEx. I sat poolside day and night, as Viola worked out of the office of Roger’s Malibu house. I slept for hours and hours, wishing I would drift away and never return. At random I would fly into rages, screaming and cussing the world. Viola never once interrupted my fury.

Eight days later, I returned to New York for the memorial service. I spoke with Josh and Nathan. Sheldon stayed at my side, protective of me. I was grateful, but I also knew he was there to keep me calm. I thought I caught a glimpse of Livia in the crowd, but when I started toward her, she was lost in the sea of black.

For a split second, I forgot where I was, and all that mattered was reaching the woman who haunted my thoughts daily. When I realized I must have imagined her there, I came crashing back down to earth, and the dead.

I sat with Roger, and both of us stayed quiet as we listened to the minister talk about heaven and Jesus. He said Molly was at rest now, and we should take comfort in that. I stood in the middle of his speech, angry at Molly for doing this. I stormed out of the church, and was greeted by a sea of cameras. I headed to my hotel, ripping buttons from my shirt, trying to get out of the suit that was suddenly strangling me. As soon as I reached the hotel room I wasted no time and began to drink, and I stayed drunk for days. Stoned to the max. I would not answer the phone. I would not answer the door.

Everyone knew where I was, and I only acknowledged Josh’s presence after he threatened to kick the door in. I asked to be left alone. I told him to tell the others I was not suicidal, but just needed to be by myself. If I was not out of my room in a few days, they had my permission to come in and get me.

Everything in life be damned. I tossed socks and shirts over any clock I could see. I had food, drugs, booze, and cigarettes delivered to my room. I slept, and smoked the days away. I eventually emerged shrouded in a hoodie and took a cab to the cemetery. I drank for hours, picking at the ground, pining for my closest friend.

“Are you at peace?” I shouted at the concrete. “I’m not, you bitch!” I screamed like a crazy person. “Look what you have done! Look what you did!” I threw my half-drunk bottle of Jack, breaking it against the words, “Beloved daughter and friend.”

I fell to my knees, and wailed out my agony to the sky. When nothing was left but my dry sobs I was picked up off my feet. I was half-carried to a car by huge arms.

“Put me down. I wish to die.”

No reply.

“I said, put me down, goddamn it!”

No response. My head wobbled on my neck. I looked at Josh’s face. He wasn’t even breathing heavy from carrying me.

“Asshole,” I said.

He chuckled at this, “You ain’t dying today, Ryan, not on my watch.”

He proceeded to the car, and tossed me like a sack of potatoes into the back seat. This would be the beginning of my downward spiral.

chapter twenty-one

Over the next ten years, I would film sixteen movies. I would visit countless locations, win dozens of awards, sleep with hundreds of women, yet none with a face or a name I cared to remember. I would drink many gallons of vodka, Jack, and straight whiskey.

I began using heroin when the coke no longer gave me what I wanted. Yes, the very drug that swept Molly away from me, I grew to love it. The needles I so feared no longer bothered me. The pain just meant I was still breathing, even though I’d been dead inside for years. I was hollowed out by my pointless existence.

Dozens of women called, saying they were my mother. I never answered them. My father died quietly and alone in his bed. He was as yellow as a filter from a smoked cigarette from liver damage. This had no effect on me. I buried him and flew to Paris to film the same day. I was honored at many different awards ceremonies. Sheldon came and went from me, not understanding why I was so different or why I could not snap out of the misery.

Nathan knew. He had used for years, but now seemed a different man. Nathan won an Oscar for his music. He was not a rich man, but he had priceless things. He was always talking about home, and his niece. I tuned him out when he did this. The less I connected with anyone, the less it would hurt once they were gone, and because they would all leave me.

Neither Hollywood nor the world knew my habits. They were transfixed by my “art,” not knowing the misery and the anger I had on screen was the real deal. The acting I did was my everyday life. Viola went on to be big time. Roger gave up most of his clients, with the exception of me, Sheldon, and Nathan. We were his focus, when he had one. His once black, shiny hair grew dull and grey. The outside of him was a reflection of the inside of me.

He tried to talk to me about what I was doing, but I’d shut him down. I would stop talking to him for weeks, when he tried to talk to me. I knew this hurt him, but I had to keep him at a distance so I would not die from the pain of it all.

Out of nowhere my chronic lifestyle finally came to a screeching and sudden stop. I took some time off. It wasn’t a long time. Just a couple of months, but I was talked into it by Sheldon and Nathan, who promised a big concert Halloween night.

“Drinking, girls, the clean air of the mountains. It’ll be a blast,” Sheldon promised me.

I was going in October to Nathan’s family home in the sticks of Tennessee. Maybe it was curiosity that got the best of me, to finally see the place I’d heard so much about.

Either way I was going. Before I left New York, I arranged for my FedEx deliveries to Nathan’s country home. I followed Josh through the airport, and headed to Cosby.

chapter twenty-two

Piper ~

I was a bundle of nerves. I didn’t know what I had been thinking, going off with a stranger in the middle of the night to a deserted beach, and then skinny-dipping with him! And not to mention the sex. Oh, man, the sex!

I nearly ran back to Lana’s apartment. Would she be able to tell anything was different? Would Jean-Paul? Lord, help me, Jesus, I would be a dead woman. He didn’t even know I was gone, and hopefully never would. If Papaw had not absolutely insisted on me taking a Greyhound bus down to Louisiana, I’d be at home, and would have never met Ryan.

Ryan Knox. The name would be a permanent tattoo in my head. I came by bus and would ride back home with Nathan on Monday. Jean-Paul would be none the wiser. I wasn’t sure what Papaw’s motive was behind wanting me out of the house, but I jumped at the chance to get away.

I was in a miserable situation with my marriage. I hid as much as I could from Papaw, but he was smart and knew me well enough to know I was not blissfully in love with my husband. I would have settled for just liking him.

We waited for our honeymoon until after Nana died. We got a chateau in Gatlinburg, high on the mountainside. It was nice. I accepted I would never love anyone as I had loved Matthew, but I would try to be a good wife.

Jean-Paul was different in many ways. He was not a warm person. He was polite, like he knew all the right things to say, but there was no emotion behind his words or actions. He was strong, and I had my arm squeezed till it was black if I mouthed off to him, or gritted teeth in my face if I did not agree with something he said. The extent of what he could do was hid from me until the honeymoon.

Away from Papaw’s protection, Jean-Paul revealed the beast that slept within. After making love on that first night, I prepared sandwiches for us to share in front of the fire. I had stupidly forgotten Jean-Paul hated mayo. After the first bite, he spit the food at me, disgusted.

“What kind of a wife are you, if you can’t even remember what your husband eats?”

I reached to quickly take the sandwich away, but I made my second mistake.

“I understand, but you don’t have to get nasty about it. Here, I’ll make another.”

Jean-Paul’s big hand slapped me hard across my mouth. I lost my balance and fell to the floor.

“Are you crazy?” I shouted back at him.

I should have shut up, but I just had to say it. I wore no clothes and had been wrapped in my blanket. Jean-Paul picked me up by the hair, and slammed me on my belly in front of the fireplace. I was pinned, with his foot in the middle of my back. I kicked and tried to get free, but his weight was crushing me into the tile floor.

“I’m sorry, okay?” I said just to get up at least.

Jean-Paul moved his foot closer to my neck, holding me in place, paralyzed.

“You’re going to learn to shut that smart mouth of yours. Didn’t your dead daddy ever teach you respect?”

His voice was unrecognizable dripping with hate filled venom. I was terrified and my mind raced with images of Daniel. I would not go back to live in a dog collar. I tried not to beg, but my pride left me as self-preservation kicked in. I knew Jean-Paul was going to snap my neck if he pushed any harder into me. I saw from the corner of my eyes a white-hot poker, fresh from the fire.

I screamed, but as soon as it touched my flesh, all sound ceased from the shock and pain of it. Jean-Paul laid the poker down my left shoulder blade. It was a sensation I’d never felt before and a pain I thought I would die from. The breath came back to me, and I sucked in raggedly.

“Stop, please!” I screamed.

I heard the poker being tossed back in the fire. Jean-Paul grabbed my hair, and pulled my head back so he could hiss directly in my face.

“Best you learn now, bitch, I will not tolerate disrespect. That’s just a taste. Next time it will be your face. If that doesn’t work, I’ll gladly remove your tongue.” he let go shoving my face against the floor, only to kick me between the legs.

He left, slamming the door behind him. I lay where he had tossed me, for a long time in shock. The words that Daniel said to me came back so clearly reminding me I would never be loved.

I wept, only allowing myself a moment for that release. Nana’s care of me the last few years gave me some strength to carry on. When I got myself to a mirror, I was horrified at my disfigurement. The burn was deep and jagged I was surprised the bone was not seen. I thought of the searing I’d seen done to cattle and horses, before owners had switched to tags. I was now branded like an animal. I should have gotten out of there. I should have run, but in that moment, I only thought, well, at least no one would see it. I cleaned it the best I could.

I put on a T-shirt and lounge pants, and cleaned up the mess. I placed the poker back in its holder. I made fresh sandwiches and waited on the couch, numb all over.

I began to go over everything in my mind, never knowing I was sick there. I thought of our family land, and the house. Jean-Paul was the only way I would be able to keep it up and afford it. I had to make sure Papaw was taken care of. I could bear this cross. It wasn’t so bad. I would just make sure I was good, and knew exactly how to make the sandwiches Jean-Paul expected me to, and most importantly, watch my mouth. I was dirty and ruined. Jean-Paul was the best I was going to get. The only love I ever would have was cold and dead in the ground. This was what I deserved.

When Jean-Paul returned after midnight, drunk, I was still in the same spot on the couch. I stood and began apologizing immediately, promising to be better and kinder. He kissed me. And I willed myself not to recoil.

“Don’t make me hurt you. I don’t want to hurt you, Piper.”

I promised again to be a good wife. I tried being what he wanted as a wife.

I only “made him” hurt me a few times if you don’t count the hair pulling and shoves. The weeks that followed our honeymoon, I become a master at hiding things. Papaw tolerated Jean-Paul, but he wasn’t crazy about him. When he found a bruise I’d failed to cover up on my collarbone, Papaw was furious. I tried to convince him it was not from Jean-Paul.

“Papaw, I’m serious. I ran into a branch. That’s all, I swear.” I lied easily. He narrowed his aging eyes at me.

“I’ll be goddamned and cold in my grave before I let some son of bitch Cajun put his hands on you, Piper. I’ll kill him. Where’s my shotgun?” Cane and all, he began marching from the kitchen.

It took me twenty minutes to convince him it was not Jean-Paul. We didn’t speak of it again, but Papaw was up to something. I found him in deep conversations on the phone. Then a few days after Jean-Paul left for work the following summer, Papaw came to me and demanded I board a bus the next morning.

“Why?” I asked. “What’s going on with you?”

Papaw sat at the table sipping his morning coffee.

“Nothing,” he shrugged. “You need to see your friends. Get out of the house. If Jean-Paul calls, I will cover for you,” he said winking.

“I can’t leave you alone, Papaw. Who will look after you? Who will help with your medicine? Feed you?”

He shook his head.

“I’m not senile yet. It’s only for a few days. Go see your brother. I’ll not take no for an answer.”

The battle was lost. I would do as he wished, not only because he wished it, but also because I was dying to get away from Jean-Paul controlling what I wore, what I said, what I ate. A few days of freedom sounded like heaven to me.

Then Papaw told me in passing, “Roger is coming to visit, so I won’t be alone, and there’s no need to check on me. Go. Have a good time. Be young,” he said sternly. Then smiling, he added, “There ain’t nothing going to happen that me and the Lord can’t handle.”

In spite of my mixed emotions about leaving him, I was excited to see someplace different. I hugged him twice and kissed his rough whiskered face. I rode the Greyhound bus through east Tennessee, across the state of Alabama, and finally reached New Orleans twelve and a half hours later.

Nathan picked me up and took me to dinner. He looked bad, but was in high spirits. I would stay with him and Lana in her apartment. Getting to see my brother and best friend felt like someone had lifted a huge weight off of me.

I was enjoying my stay and dreaded going back home. My only complaint was the constant partying. It just wasn’t for me, and I longed to see the beach before I went home.

The sudden urge to see the sunrise led to a day full of passion and great sex with a stranger. I guess I’d done exactly as Jean-Paul thought I would if I were out of his sight, but I didn’t regret it in the least.

Right now my head was buzzing from Ryan’s cologne. I knew in the darkness, walking back to Lana’s apartment, I was blushing and grinning like an idiot, thinking of his touch on me. His lips on mine, on my neck, all over me. I never knew making love could be this great. Matthew was kind and gentle. I loved him still, but we were kids, inexperienced at love-making.

The near twenty-four hours with Ryan was almost animal-like behavior, and the word “ravish,” took on a whole new meaning. I laughed out loud as I began to climb the steps. I would do it again tonight, and then I would have to explain that I was actually Piper, and that I was married and only after the sex. My face split into a wide grin. I was totally unashamed of myself. This would be my secret.

I began to worry a little. Would anyone notice a difference in my appearance? If Lana did, no big deal, but if Jean-Paul did then I was dead. Literally dead. Then who would take care of Papaw?

As he had warned me hundreds of times, Jean-Paul would cut my face off or burn me beyond recognition. The image left me cold inside. Yes, I had done a very bad thing with Ryan. I spent my time making love to a gorgeous man on a beach, but damn it, I was alive inside for the first time in forever.

And I made plans to do it again that evening! I was on fire inside. I had lived two years with a man who criticized my every move. Who had burned me with a poker on our honeymoon. I was slapped in the mouth for having a different opinion, shoved and punched for not responding quickly enough. And all I could think about was Ryan’s hands on me would be worth the death penalty.

I crept up the stairs to the apartment, wondering why I had given Ryan my first name, and not my real name. I guess I’d wanted to be someone different, if only for a day. I hadn’t planned on anything happening with him, but he said the very thing I needed to hear, nearly identical to words Nana would say, and I couldn’t resist. Plus, he was gorgeous. His blue eyes, his shadow of scuff on his handsome God-like face and his toned long body. I shivered just thinking about it.

I got to the landing of the apartment, and noticed the door was cracked open a couple of inches. I thought,
odd
, for a split second, and walked in, unprepared for what was inside. My brother was laying half in the hallway and half in the living room, as if he had crawled there.

I walked into the dimly lit room and said, in a teasing voice I often used with him, “Nathan, what are you doing on the floor?” Then I noticed he was naked, and covered in blood.

I screamed, loud and long. Falling to my knees beside him I began to shake him, screaming for a response.

“Nathan!”

I put my face to his nose and mouth. Soft, hot breath hit me.

“Thank you, God! Hold on, Nathan.” I ran to the kitchen and jammed a bloody finger on 9-1-1. I have no idea what the operator said. I gave the operator the address and apartment number.

“Please hurry!”

Slamming the phone down, I turned down the hall, screaming for Lana, never considering someone was in the apartment still.

“Lana!”

No answer.

I flipped the light on in her bedroom. Things were scattered everywhere, and blood covered the bed, but no Lana. I ran from room to room, checking on Nathan in between. I ran back to the bedroom and took in the room again, as I heard the ambulance approaching in the distance. I looked over the bed carefully. Willing myself to think, I followed with my eyes the trail of blood. I walked around the bed where there was a small gap between it and the wall.

She was there on the floor. Her eyes stared wide. She, like Nathan, was naked. Blood covered her entire body. One of her hands was on her neck. I knew as I fell to the floor on my knees, she was dead.

Under the hand holding her neck was a gaping hole. The congealed blood around it told me she’d been there a while. I shut her eyes, and brushed her jet-black hair from her beautiful face.

An officer had to carry me screaming from the room. My best friend had lain there alone and died. I hoped she’d said a prayer. I hoped Jesus came and took her.

Lana, who was so understanding of my screwed up life, in many ways saved me from myself. Never judging, never failing me. Always there to cheer me on regardless of her circumstances. She was dead. Dead like my baby. Dead like Nana. Was I as good a friend to her? How could I be? I left her, and while I was on a beach with a man, she was dying.

Did she call for me, and I didn’t answer? The thought tore at my insides like claws. I heaved and sobbed until I was throwing up. Eventually I was sedated. I fought the paramedics and the police. I had to be restrained. Absently I noticed Sheldon was there. He tried to calm me. He promised he would follow in Nathan’s car. I clawed at my face and pulled my hair until the drugs took over. I was a zombie when a doctor talked to me about my brother’s condition.