MISTAKEN - The Complete First Season (27 page)

M
y decision to
go to the airport to pick up Melissa caused a little bit of a freak out with my security people. I was able to convince them that it would be fine for me to actually enter the airport only about five minutes before Mel’s plane was due to land. I had no idea that airports were such a high security risk for me. Having to vet every place I wanted to go with a security chief was still such a foreign concept to me.

It seemed like forever before Melissa made her way down to the ticketing area, where she’d asked me to meet her. I saw her blonde curls first, not bouncing as much as they usually did. I hoped that she was just disheveled from the plane and not from anything more nefarious.

I waved at her, and she made her way toward me. She was wearing a neon pink t-shirt with “PDX” emblazoned across the chest and shorts that were just this side of being too short.

She walked closer and I could see what had made her so upset. Her nose was swollen to about double its normal size. She had purple streaks under both eyes, worse on the right than on the left. Her right eye also had a cut above her eyebrow and a scabbed over scrape just below it. She looked like someone had beaten the hell out of her.

Melissa threw her arms around me without a word. She didn’t need to say anything. I knew what had happened without her needing to tell me.

I put my arms around her and tried to hold back the tears that were threatening to spill down my cheeks.

She sobbed into my shoulder and we just stood there, stuck in our embrace, for what seemed like forever.

She finally pulled away from me, wiping the tears from her cheeks with the back of her hand. “You have clothes?”

I nodded. “Lots. My mom went a little nuts before I left, remember?”

She sniffled and stifled a little laugh. “Yeah. Thank God.”

“Yeah. That might be the first time anyone has thanked God for my mother in a long time.” I swiped at the tears that had formed at the corners of my eyes. “Mel…”

“Not. A. Word. Not one word. I mean it.” The look on her face became stern, almost threatening. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“Okay.” I nodded in agreement. “We should at least get you to a hospital to get checked out.”

“No. I’m fine. Just get me somewhere with a shower so I can get these fucking clothes off.” She looked down at her shirt. “I had to get this at the airport in Portland. My other shirt…” Her gaze fell to the floor. “I had to get a new one.”

“Okay.” I felt like a broken record just repeating the same thing over and over. The cut over her eye looked pretty nasty and I was pretty sure she needed some stitches. “Mel, I know you don’t want to talk about it, but your eye…”

“Jenna, don’t. I’m serious.”

I nodded again. “I know. But I think you need some stitches.”

She shook her head, her gaze now somewhere over my shoulder. “We can stop for some super glue or something. I’m not having anyone tell me I need to call the police or any bullshit like that.” She finally met my gaze. “Can we just get out of here?”

I nodded and motioned at my security guard. We all walked out to the car that was parked just outside the sliding doors. Melissa and I slid into the back seat and the guard took his seat in the front.

She turned to me. “You deal with this shit every day?” She motioned with her head toward the guard in the passenger seat. “They go everywhere with you?”

“Pretty much.” I leaned back into the seat, resting my head against the back of it. “At least I’m never lonely.”

She snorted. “I don’t think I could deal with that.” She leaned herself back, too. She was clearly feeling some stiffness from whatever it was she had been through. She worked on her shoulder with her opposite hand and then rested her head against the back seat. “I’m so fucking sore.”

I winced, almost feeling her pain myself. “Melissa, you can tell me. Whatever it is, you can tell me.” I looked over at her.

She still had her eyes closed. She took in a deep breath. “I don’t want you judging me, Jenna.”

“I would never judge you. You can tell me anything.”

She nodded a little, her eyes still closed. “Let’s just say I’m done with men for a while.”

“Did you…” I bit my lip, considering how I could ask her without pissing her off. “Did you call the police?”

Her eyes jolted open and snapped toward me. “No, I didn’t, Jenna. I already told you I didn’t want to hear that I needed to, okay? I called you and I bought a plane ticket to Iowa. That’s how I dealt with it, okay? I beat myself up enough about it on the flights I had to take to get here. Don’t think I don’t know what everyone thinks when they see a woman with black eyes and a bloody nose. But no, I didn’t call anyone but you. I just wanted to get the fuck out of there so he didn’t do it again, okay?”

My voice dropped to a whisper. “Okay.” My heart bled for her. I wished there was a magic wand to help me to help her. I didn’t know what to do other than be there for her.

“Good. Now tell me about the hotel. Fancy digs?”

I forced a smile to my face and a chuckle to my lips. “No, not so much. Just your standard hotel room. A couple of beds and a desk, pretty much.”

Her head dropped against the back of the seat again before she closed her eyes. “It sounds perfect. Just perfect.”

I took a deep breath before I said anything else. “Mel, if you change your mind and want to talk…”

“I’ll let you know, Jenna. I just…” She broke off and opened her eyes to meet my gaze, her head still resting against the back seat of the car. “I don’t want you to judge me.”

I nodded. “I’d never judge you. I’m just worried about you. And your eye…”

“Battle scar. It’ll remind me to never do this again.”

I bit at my bottom lip. “Okay. If you’re sure…”

She nodded and closed her eyes again, exhausted. “I’m sure.” I could hear her snoring a little and I knew she’d dropped off to sleep.

I grabbed her hand and held it in mine for the rest of the way to the hotel and watched her as she slept. My heart ached for her with what she had been through and I felt desperate to help her in any way I could. Even if it meant doing nothing.

T
he next morning
, Mel tried to cover her bruises with several layers of makeup. She turned to me. “What do you think?”

It looked terrible, the makeup doing not much more than accentuating the deep purple scrapes and only barely covering the now dark blue bruising beneath her eyes. I gave her a little shrug and pulled some powder from my bag. I put a little under her eyes, which really did nothing.

She turned back to the mirror. “I look like hell.” She turned back to face me. “Don’t I?”

I gave her a thin lipped smile and a slight nod. “Yeah. I’m sure it’ll be better in a few days.”

She turned back to the mirror, shaking her head. “Fuck.”

“Yeah.” I met her gaze through the mirror. “What do you want to do today? Everything Des Moines has to offer is at your feet.” I raised an expectant eyebrow at her.

She smiled and made a sound that almost sounded like a snort through her nose. “Anything Des Moines has to offer, huh?” She tilted her head. “Do they have a zoo?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” I grabbed my phone from the desk and did a quick search. “Yep, looks like it.” I looked up at her. “You really want to go to the zoo?”

She grinned. “You know how I feel about giraffes, Jenna. They’re the only thing that will make me feel better today.”

“Yeah, I know how you feel about giraffes,” I mumbled. “I don’t know
why
you feel that way about giraffes, but I know.”

She clapped her hands together like a six year old and bounced up and down, almost the same Mel that she always was. “Yay! Let’s do this!”

I called for a car and we were taken across the city to the zoo. Thank God they had giraffes—I wasn’t even sure if it was going to be a real zoo. It turned out to be a pretty great zoo, though, complete with all of the animals one would expect to find there. Not that it mattered. As soon as we bought our tickets and went through the gate, Melissa pulled me in the direction of the giraffes. I didn’t know how she even knew where they were—she just
knew.

I bought a bag of popcorn from a cart before we found our way to the giraffe habitat. Melissa pulled me onto the “perfect” bench to sit and watch the animals eat the leaves that had been artificially put high onto poles around their area. We sat there in silence for a long time, crunching on the popcorn and watching the graceful giants chew their leaves before Melissa finally spoke to me.

“It was my fault, you know.”

I turned to look at her and saw she was still admiring her favorite animals. “What was your fault?”

She made a motion with her hand around her eyes. “This. I really did ask for it.”

I shook my head. “Bullshit, Mel. No one asks for that.”

We sat in silence for a few more minutes before she answered. “I was looking at another guy. I really was. I wasn’t trying to start another fight or anything, but I was looking. I’d been drinking and I was looking.”

“Oh, Mel.” I grabbed her hand and tried to catch her gaze. “You’re allowed to look at other guys. Unless you hit him first, there is nothing you could have done to deserve that.”

She shook her head, still staring straight ahead into the habitat. “I don’t know what it is about me. Why I attract those kinds of guys.” She nodded to herself. “I need to take responsibility for my actions, you know? I have to accept my part in what happened. That this was at least half my fault.”

I shook my head and tried to see which giraffe had her attention. I had to think of the right thing to say. “I don’t care what you did, Mel. There is never…” I cleared my throat and looked over at her. “There is
never
any reason for another human being to do what he did. Never. Like, not ever.”

I saw her nod her head, and hoped she could at least hear my words, even if she didn’t agree right now. She took a deep breath and blew it out before speaking again. “I think I should go home, you know? Back to San Francisco. I shouldn’t have gotten you involved in this. You’re knee deep in your own shit.” She turned to me and I could see she was barely holding it together. “I’m a total fuck up, Jenna.”

Tears stung at my eyes. I pulled her into an embrace and she buried her head into my shoulder, sobbing again, just like she had at the airport the day before. We sat there like that, crying together in front of the giraffes in the zoo in the middle of Des Moines for a long time.

We broke our embrace when we heard Mel’s phone ring. She sniffled and pulled it out of her bag. “Oh great. My father.”

She answered the call and I tried not to eavesdrop, but still heard her end of the conversation.

“Hey, dad… Yeah, I know… I tried to explain that to you before… No, I know…” She was silent for a long moment, presumably because her father was doing the talking. “Okay. I’ll try, dad. And I’m sorry.” There was another moment of silence. She sniffled a few times before speaking again. “I will. I love you, too.” She turned to me and narrowed her eyes, almost looking angry.

My eyes widened. “What?”

“You talked to him. Don’t tell me you didn’t. I know you did.” She sniffled a few times. “I don’t need you fighting my battles, Jenna.”

I shook my head. “I’m not fighting your battles, Mel.”

“I know you talked to him. Don’t lie about it.”

“I’m not lying. I didn’t call him, though. I emailed. Mel…” I shook my head and swiped at my eyes with the back of my hand. “I was responsible for you losing your job in San Francisco. That was on me. You didn’t do anything, and I needed to make it right.”

She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have mattered, though, don’t you see? I would have left to go with that jackass to Portland, so it was only a few days difference. I would have quit again, disappointed him again. I’ve done nothing but be a huge disappointment to him. That whole thing with Japan…” She shook her head. “It wouldn’t have mattered.”

“Well, it mattered to me. He’s giving you another chance, then?”

She shrugged. “Sounds like it. I’m to report back on Wednesday. Who knows how long until I fuck it up again? Probably not long.”

“Mel, don’t think like that. You can look at it like a new beginning…”

“Oh, can the bullshit, Jenna. I don’t care about being a stupid secretary. I’ll never be anything else there because I didn’t finish my degree. He’ll never see me as anything other than a failure. I don’t give a shit about my dad’s company. It’s just a crap job making copies and answering the phone. I’m sick of the highlight of my day being taking lunch orders from the staff.”

“I’m sorry.” I knew I wasn’t going to win this one. I knew it wasn’t my battle to win.

She just shook her head. “It isn’t your fault. I’m going back, though. I need to get back to my real life.

I nodded. “I’ll probably come back next month when the straw poll business is over. I’ll try to get a job teaching piano lessons or something.”

She nudged me with her shoulder. “That is so exactly what you need to be doing, Jenna. Maybe you can get a job playing in a hotel lobby or something.”

“Yeah. That’d be awesome.” My dreams of being a soloist never included playing in any lobbies or bars, exactly. I supposed it would be better than campaigning or managing some lame marketing department. At least it would be doing something I halfway enjoyed.

We turned back to watch the giraffes again. They were still munching at their leaves and I guessed that was probably all they did all day long. I wasn’t sure I’d be able to be a giraffe if that was all there was to existence.

I heard my phone ring in my bag and I pulled it out to see who was calling. It was a San Francisco area code, but a number I didn’t recognize. I showed the screen to Melissa. “Your dad?”

She shook her head. “No. I don’t know who that is.”

I gave her a slight shrug and answered.

Jenna Davis, please.

“This is she.”

Oh, hello Miss Davis. This is Marie St. Claire, dean of admissions at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. How are you today?

“Um, fine. How are you?”

I’m very well, thank you for asking. Miss Davis, we were in receipt of your request to be reconsidered for admissions to this year’s graduate study program in piano. I’m pleased to offer you the chance to audition for a spot in this fall’s class if you are still interested. We were most impressed with your last application and were quite disappointed when you reconsidered our offer.

“Hold on, you’re offering me a chance to audition? Now?”

Yes, Miss Davis, as I said, you scored quite high on our admissions criteria when you originally applied. We understand that there were extenuating circumstances surrounding your withdrawal. We would love to have you audition for consideration for this fall’s class.

“Oh.” I was silent for a beat too long.

Miss Davis, you were still interested in being considered for admission, were you not? We were under the impression, from your recent communications, that this was the case…

“No, of course. Of course I’m interested. I just didn’t expect…”

Splendid! As luck would have it, our next audition is this Wednesday. I realize this is short notice, but we would love to hear you play and consider you again for admission.

“And how many people? I mean, how many will be competing for the open spot? Spots?”

We have two positions available in the class. We have invited twenty, no, twenty-one applicants have been invited to audition.

“I see.” I paused for a moment to think about her offer. “Sure, why not? I’ll be there.”

Wonderful! Please arrive at the auditorium at ten. There will be a short introduction, then candidates will be randomly called to perform before the admissions board. Please have a piece or an excerpt of no more than ten minutes prepared.

“Okay.”

Very good. Miss Davis, I want to tell you how delighted we were to hear that you had reconsidered and wanted to pursue your musical education once again.

“Okay. Thanks.” I hung up and turned to Melissa.

“What was that?”

I shook my head. “Um… I guess I’m going back to San Francisco with you?”

Her brows knitted together; she looked almost as confused as I felt.

“Someone asked the Conservatory to reconsider my previous application.”

“Who?”

I shrugged. Only Brandon came to mind, but I wasn’t sure why he’d do it.

“Your knight in shining armor?” She must have read my mind. She cocked an eyebrow in my direction.

I shrugged again. “He’s probably the only one who cares enough.”

Melissa made a sound that was pretty close to a snort through her nose. “You need to start rescuing yourself, girl.”

We both turned back to watch the giraffes without another word between us.