Fairplay, Denver Cereal Volume 6 (44 page)

“
What will Ivan say?”
Sandy asked.

“
I don’t know,” Sissy
said. “Mrs. Anjelika is mad at Ivan. She doesn’t want me to dance
with him anymore.”

“
She told me,” Sandy said.
“I wanted to ask you about it.”

“
Why me?”

“
Because it’s really up to
you,” Sandy said. “It’s your career, your time, your
dancing.”

“
Oh,” Sissy
said.

“
Why don’t you think about
it while we get your hair washed?” Sandy asked. Sandy nodded to her
assistant. “Can you give her the deep conditioning treatment? Her
hair is pretty dry.”

Sandy’s assistant took Sissy to the back to
wash her hair and Sandy moved over to Charlie.

“
How’s the soak going?”
Sandy asked.

“
Why does my face hurt?”
Charlie asked.

“
Dad was pretty hairy,”
Sandy said. “I don’t know about Patty’s Dad but I bet he was too.
You’re going to have a full beard in a few years.”

“
But why does it
hurt?”

“
Just the hair going
through the skin,” Sandy said. “The heat helps. Shaving helps.
You’ll get through it.”

“
Gives me pimples,”
Charlie said. “I hate that.”

“
You’re doing great,”
Sandy said. “The products we’re using are helping. The treatments
are helping. You can barely tell. What do we want to do with your
hair?”

Charlie didn’t say anything.

“
If you don’t say anything
I’ll cut it all off.” Sandy flipped through his mop of shoulder
length hair. Charlie didn’t say anything. “Ok, but don’t be mad
later.”

Working fast, Sandy trimmed the sides down
to his scalp to expose his rich chestnut hair color. She left the
top front about two inches long and layered it back until it was
close to his head. Looking up, she saw her assistant come back with
Sissy. She nodded her assistant toward the station next to her.

“
Wow,” Sissy said when she
saw Charlie’s hair.

Unwilling to leave Charlie alone, Sandy
pointed her assistant to the blonde highlights left over from
Noelle’s hair. Sandy put the rest of the blonde dye through the top
of Charlie’s head.

“
Five minutes,” she said
to her assistant.

“
Got it,” the woman
smiled.

Sandy squeezed Charlie’s shoulder and
shifted toward Sissy. Charlie grabbed her hand and pointed. His
friend Tink was walking toward the salon.

“
Do you mind?” Charlie
asked. “She’s looking for a job and her hair is like a rat’s nest.
She…”

“
I’m glad she’s here,”
Sandy said. “Noelle?”

Noelle looked up at her with gossip-magazine
numbed eyes.

“
Can you let Tink
in?”

Noelle looked at the door.

“
Now?” Sandy
asked.

“
Oh, sorry, I was thinking
about something.” Noelle got up and jogged over to the door. ”You
know the Valerie Lipson they talk about in this magazine isn’t
anything like Mike’s wife. Do you think they’re the same person? Hi
Tink.”

“
They may as well be two
different people! Those magazines are filled with lies that only
stupid people and little girls believe,” Charlie said. “Hey
Tink.”

“
I’m not a little girl,”
Noelle said. “I don’t believe them.”

“
It’s okay?” Tink
asked.

“
Of course,” Sandy said.
“Do you mind waiting?”

Tink shook her head.

“
You can sit by me,”
Noelle said. “Oooh! I like this song! Turn it up!”

Noelle ran over to turn up the music.

“
I promised you…” Noelle
and Sissy sang together, “I promised you…”

Sandy put her hands on Sissy’s
shoulders.

“
I can’t cut your hair if
you wiggle,” Sandy said. To her assistant, she said, “I need the
same pink for Sissy.”

“
You bet,” her assistant
smiled.

“
Is this too much?” Sandy
asked.

“
I love family day,” her
assistant said.

Smiling, Sandy started cutting Sissy’s hair.
The song Noelle loved permeated the salon. A man crooned about
making all these promises to the woman he loved and breaking every
one of them. Sandy smiled at Noelle and Sissy’s teenage resonance
with the songwriter’s pain. Then she heard:

“
Jer? Whatcha doin’ out
here?” in Tanesha’s voice. Stunned, she stopped cutting.

“
Nothing,” the man said
and the song was over.

Sandy walked over to the stereo and turned
it down.

“
What is that song?” Sandy
asked.

“
It’s a new song from
Jeraine,” Sissy said. “You know Auntie Tanesha’s
boyfriend?”

“
I
know
who he is,” Sandy
said.

“
They’re saying it was
leaked to the radio station,” Charlie said. “But he has a concert
tonight. I heard it wasn’t sold out until they leaked it locally.
It’s just another BS ploy to get attention.”

“
Did you hear him at the
radio station?” Noelle asked. “They asked him about the song and he
said, ‘What new song?’ I don’t think he knew.”

“
Yeah, if I was trying to
pump my fame, I’d say the same thing,” Charlie said.

Angry, Sissy spun her chair toward Charlie
and the argument began. Noelle and Sissy believed in poor Jeraine.
Charlie thought he was a fame whore. Nash and Teddy came from the
back to join in. Hearing her siblings voices, Rachel gave a rousing
scream.

Sandy went to the back of the salon to get
Rachel and her phone. With Rachel crying in one arm, Sandy dialed
Tanesha. Her phone clicked over to voice mail.

“
I know you’re hiding out
today,” Sandy said. “But you’ve got to hear this song. Someone’s
trying to screw you. Love you, T. Call me back.”

Sandy heard the salon door close and the
kids stopped arguing. Peeking out, she saw Aden standing in the
doorway. His presence put a quick end to their argument. She went
out to give him Rachel and a kiss.

“
Ok, Sis,” Sandy said.
“Let’s get this done.”

For the next few hours, Sandy worked on the
kids’ hair. She was just finishing Aden’s shave when she realized
she hadn’t heard back from Tanesha. She checked her phone.
Nothing.

Tanesha was out of touch. Sandy made a quick
call to Heather, who confirmed that Tanesha had turned off her
phone today to avoid Jeraine. Heather agreed to go to Tanesha’s
Gran’s house and to call Jill.

Something was definitely up and her dear
friend Tanesha was smack dab in the middle of it.

~~~~~~~~

Saturday evening—6:15 P.M.

“
Why do you watch that
trash?” Bumpy asked his wife, Dionne.

He stood behind the couch. Dionne looked up
from the evening news.

“
I’m waiting to see
your
son,” Dionne said.
“Don’t be such an ass. You know you want to see him really do this
– clean, sober, saying good-bye to all the toxic in his
life.”

Bumpy scowled at her. She patted the couch
next to her. He gave her a hard look. She patted the couch again
and he came around to sit down.

“
There he is,” Dionne
grabbed the remote control and turned up the volume.

“
He’s high,” Bumpy got up
from the couch. “He’s really high. And look at the women… I can’t
watch this.”

“
Don’t you dare go
anywhere,” Dionne said. “You know what he said.”

“
He’s an addict,” Bumpy
said. “He’s back to the same old bullshit.”

“
Do you really not
remember what happened?” Dionne jumped up to stand in front of him.
A small woman next to his massive frame, she gave no ground. “To
us?”

“
What are you talking
about?” Bumpy’s voice was hard and dismissive.

“
You know exactly what I’m
talking about,” Dionne said.

“
That was different,”
Bumpy said. “I wanted to get out of that life. I wanted to be with
you and create this life. Haven’t I done that?”

“
And what did the record
company want?” Dionne asked.

Bumpy looked down at Dionne.

“
And what
happened?”

“
We lost the baby,” Bumpy
said.

“
Why did I lose our son?”
Dionne asked.

“
Because of them,” Bumpy
said. “I had to finish the last three months of my contract. We
couldn’t afford to get out of it.”

“
And?”

“
I got high and…” Bumpy
said.

“
And?”

Bumpy looked away from her. She tugged on
his shirt and he looked down at her.

“
That was different,”
Bumpy said.

“
Why?” Dionne asked. “They
slipped you hard drugs. They
lied
to me and told me you wanted to see me. And what
happened?”

“
You saw me with a bunch
of women,” Bumpy said. “You got so upset that you lost the
baby.”

“
They blamed me when you
wanted to change your life,” Dionne said. “They did everything to
break us up.”

“
That didn’t happen,”
Bumpy said.

“
It’s happening to your
son right this very instant,” Dionne said. “Your
living
son will lose his
life today, if we don’t do something. The only thing he cares about
is Tanesha. She’s the only thing that keeps him going. He
will
lose
her
today if we don’t
do
something.”

“
Did you hear the song?”
Bumpy asked.

“
What song?” Dionne
asked.

“
Our son wrote a song that
he told
me
and
Seth
was for Tanesha,” Bumpy said. “We worked our butts off
and…”

“
It’s playing on the
radio?” Dionne asked.

“
He must have leaked
it.”

“
Oh grow up,” Dionne said.
“You know exactly what happened. Someone
stole
it and now he’s
high
. Someone did this
to our son specifically to destroy his life with Tanesha. You know
that.”

He gave her a curt nod.

“
What are you going to do
about it?”

~~~~~~~~

Saturday evening—6:35 P.M.

“
I’ve been trying to get
you for hours.” Seth gripped the phone as he limped back and forth
across his living room. Bumpy sat on the couch watching Seth pass
in front of him. Ava tried to get him to sit down, but he was too
angry to stop pacing.

“
Sorry about that,”
Schmidty said. “I turned off my phone when we got to the
airport.”

“
How is Lizzie?” Seth
asked.

“
Tired,” Schmidty said.
“We just got settled at the house. I think she’s relieved to be
here. Thanks for suggesting it and making it available.”

“
I’m glad things are
working out,” Seth said. “Colin and Julie took Connor home right
after you left. They’re in baby bliss.”

“
I’m glad. I’ll tell
Lizzie. She’ll be happy,” Schmidty said. “Listen, you called five
times. I thought I’d call you rather than listen to the
messages.”

“
No problem,” Seth
said.

“
What’s up?” Schmidty
asked.

“
Remember that song Bumpy
and I were helping Jeraine with?”

“
The one for Tanesha?”
Schmidty asked.

“
That one,” Seth said. “It
was leaked it to the radio station.”

“
Oh shit,” Schmidty
said.

“
My buddy at DPD cyber
crime says someone hacked Jeraine’s email box,” Seth said. “Said
they worked on it for almost two days before they got in. They’ve
been able to track the IP address, whatever that is.”

“
Where?”

“
Last management team. You
know the one connected with the record company.”

“
He’s sure?”

“
He’s sure,” Seth said.
“The song’s gone viral. Ava’s found three videos on
YouTube.”

“
Must be a great song,”
Schmidty said.

“
It’s very touching,” Seth
said.

“
I’ll call the
lawyers.”

“
I don’t mean to be an old
fart,” Seth said. “But are you up for this? Should we call your
Dad?”

“
I live for this kind of
thing, Seth,” Schmidty said. “Seriously. Great fun. It’s why I went
to law school. Leave it to me.”

“
You remember the
studio…”

“
Trust me, I haven’t
forgotten that the studio owns everything you work on this month,”
Schmidty said.

“
I used the orchestra,”
Seth said.

“
That’s even
better.”

“
It is?”

“
Leave it to me, Seth,”
Schmidty said. “No one fucks with my artists.”

“
No one fucks with your
artists,” Seth repeated slowly.

“
Don’t worry old man,”
Schmidty chuckled. “Give me a couple hours. What are you going to
do?”