Size 12 and Ready to Rock (35 page)

Little Girl Rap

My little girl

Any boy pursues her

Ever tries to woo her

I will knock him dead

Boy, don’t mess with me

When she comes

Won’t be with no bums

Or end up in the slums

She’ll only ever come

Home to me

She got to be dressed

Only in the best

Never need to guess

Who her dad might be

Don’t know how I’m gonna make it

Beg, borrow, steal, or fake it

But I swear I’m gonna make her

Proud of me

“Little Girl Rap”

Performed by Jordan Cartwright

Written by Jordan Cartwright,

with thanks to Rodgers and Hammerstein

Goin’ Solo
album

“What makes you ask that, Jordan?”

I’m trying to keep my outward demeanor calm so that Jordan doesn’t suspect that inside I’m cursing to myself. How has he found out? Was he eavesdropping? But I could have sworn that Tania and I never once used the word “husband” or even “marriage.” How had Jordan guessed?

“A long time ago—well, maybe not that long—he sent me a letter,” Jordan says, pulling a folded piece of paper from the pocket of his robe. “I got it a few days before Tania and I were married.”

I take the paper from him. “Okay,” I say. “Go on.”

“Anyway, I didn’t think much of it. I get so much mail—not to brag or anything. I’m just stating a fact. My assistant, she only passes on what she thinks is important. Then I put it in one of three files—the Dad File, the Friends File, or the Crazy File. If it seems like it’s something that might come back to bite me on the ass, I send it to Dad to take care of. If it’s a girl who sends me a picture of her with her”—he glances at me—“well, then I usually forward it to all my friends. You know. Everything else goes in the Crazy File, which means I ignore it. Most crazy people are harmless, right? All they want is to let off a little steam, let their freak flag fly. And if I’m the target of their freak, well, okay, whatever. That’s cool. Long as they don’t hurt anyone.”

I unfold the letter. “Keep going.”

Cooper, wearing shorts and a T-shirt, a damp towel around his neck, appears in the kitchen. “What’s going on?” he asks curiously, seeing us sitting together.

“Jordan says he got a letter from Gary Hall a few days before he and Tania were married,” I say, numbly scanning the page in front of me. “If you don’t . . .” and “a million dollars . . .” and “I will . . .” jump out at me.

“You did?” His hand on the door handle of the refrigerator, Cooper is about to go for what he’s been calling lately one of his “midnight snacks,” a ridiculously large, insanely good sandwich that involves a great deal of mustard, mayonnaise, pickles, cheese, and lunch meat. Normally nothing can tear him away from one. Me either.

Until now.

“Yeah,” Jordan says. “I thought it was a joke. If Tania was married, people would know about it, right? TMZ and Dad and stuff. So it couldn’t be true. It seemed crazy. So I put it in the Crazy File and ignored it.” He gives Cooper a worried smile. “Guess maybe I should have sent it to Dad, huh, bro?”

Cooper drops his hand away from the refrigerator door handle.

“What does the letter say?” he asks carefully.

I gaze at the neatly typewritten script.

“It says that unless Jordan pays Gary Hall a million dollars, Gary will go public with the information that he and Tania were once married,” I say, feeling a strange tightness in my throat, “and that they never divorced. He’ll also cause Tania ‘a world of hurt.’ ”

“Oh God,” Jordan says, burying his head in his hands. “Oh God, oh God. I knew I should have told you guys about this that night Bear got shot, when we saw you at those people’s apartment. I
knew
it. Then Jared never would have died, right? And this little girl today would never have been hurt. This is all my fault for not paying him. Oh
God.
”

Cooper walks over to the kitchen table, pulls out a chair, and sits down in it. “
When
did you get this letter?” he asks, taking the towel from around his neck.

“About a week before Tania and I got married,” Jordan says. “I’m telling you, I thought this guy was just another crazy fan! Tania’s never been married.” He laughs, but nervously. “She’d have told me, right? How could she not have told me?”

“My guess? Because she’s never been divorced,” Cooper says.

“Cooper—” I look worriedly at Jordan.

“He’s a grown man, Heather,” Cooper says. “Even if he doesn’t look like one in that bathrobe.”

“It’s a genuine samurai warrior—” Jordan begins to ex-plain.

“Shut up,” Cooper says. “I couldn’t find any record of Tania being divorced from this guy, but she’s been paying him ten grand a month. If I had to guess? It’s not alimony. She’s been paying straight-up blackmail to this guy for him to keep his mouth shut so
you
wouldn’t find out she’s still married to him. That’s how much she loves you.”

I glare at Cooper, wondering what’s happened to his code of ethics. It’s not like him to betray the privacy of a client.

On the other hand, this isn’t just any client. Tania is family.

“I’m not surprised either,” Cooper says. “What else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could turn to you, her loving husband, for support. You’d simply put it in the Crazy File.”

“Cooper,” I say again. I don’t approve of the way Jordan’s handled the situation, but I can’t help feeling a little sorry for him. He’s led a privileged life, allowing his parents to do everything for him, and has never had to deal with anything like this before. “Come on. He didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know that someone threatened to cause his pregnant wife ‘a world of hurt’?” Cooper snaps, his eyes flashing. “Yes, he did, Heather. And if someone did that to you, I would not put it in my Crazy File. I would
go
crazy on that person.”

“What are you guys talking about?” Jordan asks, looking from one to the other of us. His expression is queasy. “Are you two—?”

“Hate to give you all the bad news in one night,
bro
,” Cooper says, leaning over to clap a hand to his brother’s shoulder. “But the answer is yes.”

Jordan lets out an expletive, then stares unseeingly at Owen, who has strolled into the kitchen and is stretching luxuriously in the middle of the floor. “So you two are together. And I’m . . . what? A polygamist? Like that guy on TV?”

“The correct term, when it’s a woman with more than one husband, is polyandrist, not polygamist,” Cooper says. “And no, you’re not. Tania is. You’re just an idiot.”

Jordan’s face disappears into his hands once more—only this time it stays there. I see his shoulders begin to shake. He’s weeping.

I send Cooper a look of disbelief.
Really? You had to make your brother cry?

Cooper shakes his head at me and leans back in his chair, his arms folded, refusing to utter a single word of sympathy.

“It isn’t entirely your fault, Jordan,” I get up and say, going to Jordan’s side and laying my hands on his shoulders. “Nor is it Tania’s. Gary Hall has been terrorizing her. She was probably too traumatized to file for a divorce.”

This only seems to make him weep harder. Cooper, unimpressed, reaches down to stroke Owen under the chin.

“And I think she might not entirely trust authority figures,” I add desperately, “and she might not have been in the best state of mind when the two of you decided to get married to make the right judgment calls. There was a lot of pressure on you both—”

Jordan finally lifts his head.

“Cooper’s right,” he says. “I
am
an idiot.”

“Finally,” Cooper says with a nod. “The first step is admitting it. The second step is deciding what you’re going to do about it.”

Jordan wipes his face with the wide sleeve of his robe. “A samurai,” he says after some consideration, “would find this guy and kill him.”

Cooper suppresses a smile. “You’re headed in the right direction,” he says. “But ‘Turn him over to the authorities’ is the correct answer.”

“Jordan?”

The voice is sweetly soft and comes from the kitchen doorway. We all turn toward it, startled. None of us heard Tania approach, and no wonder, considering she’s in her bare feet, wearing only one of my many Sugar Rush T-shirts. Though both Baby and Lucy followed her, we even failed to hear the click of the dogs’ claws on the hardwood floors.

“Tania,” Jordan says, standing up. His jaw has gone slack. “I . . . I . . .” He appears at a loss for words.

Tania’s gaze darts toward me, her eyes filling with tears. “You
told
him?” she cries, so hurt you’d have thought I’d stabbed her in the heart.

I shake my head. “No,” I say. “I swear, Tania, he figured it out all on his—”

“Christ, Jordan,” Cooper says angrily. “Tell her the truth.”

“Tania.” Jordan staggers out from behind the table, the sleeves of his samurai robe falling over his hands as he holds them out in supplication to his wife. “Baby. It’s all my fault. He wrote to me too—”

Tania’s voice breaks. “He
did?
”

Jordan nods. “He did, baby. But I didn’t do the right thing. I know that now. I should have been there for you. You never should have had to go through this alone.”

“I thought you’d hate me,” Tania says with a sob.

“Tania,” Jordan says with a sob of his own, “how could you ever think such a thing? You’re my angel.”

Tania takes two staggering steps forward and ends up being enveloped in Jordan’s arms, disappearing into the multicolored silks of his robe. Jordan buries his face in her tousled curls, and the two of them stand together weeping beneath the kitchen greenhouse windows, the lights of Fischer Hall twinkling in the distance. The Hallmark moment is only somewhat ruined when Baby finds Lucy’s dog bowl and begins to crunch noisily on its contents.

“It’s all right, girl,” I say, scratching Lucy’s ears. “You’ve been a very good hostess.”

She seems placated by this.

“Well, we’re going to bed,” Cooper announces after some moments pass and Jordan and Tania show no sign of breaking their embrace.

“All right,” Jordan says, his voice muffled in Tania’s hair. “See you in the morning.”

Cooper looks at me, his expression comically perplexed. “Okay,” he says. “Don’t try to open any of the windows or go out—even onto any of the balconies—without waking one of us up first to enter the alarm code, because if you do, it will automatically make a sound that will wake the entire neighborhood, plus notify the alarm company
and
the NYPD that there is an intruder, and they’ll be here in two to three minutes. But before they get here, I will already have shot you.”

“All right,” Jordan says, still speaking into Tania’s hair.

“We won’t try to go out,” Tania says, her own voice muffled against Jordan’s chest and the folds of his samurai robe. “We’re going to stay in Heather’s room with Miss Mexico.”

Cooper looks at me questioningly. I shake my head. “Don’t ask,” I say.

Chapter 27

For Immediate Release

Tania Trace Rock Camp

and Cartwright Records Television

present the first-ever

ROCK OFF

Thirty-six of the most talented teen girls in America will compete Saturday night at the Tania Trace Rock Camp for the title of Girl Rockrrr of the Year. The camp—which has been held for the past two weeks at New York College—helps to provide young women with opportunities they might not otherwise have had through music education.

“The purpose of this camp was to empower young women through songwriting and performing,” says Tania Trace, winner of four Grammy Awards and a mother-to-be. “Instead, these girls have empowered me with their strength and courage in the face of adversity.”

The winner of the Rock Off will receive $50,000 and a recording deal with Cartwright Records.

I’m staring at my reflection in the dressing room mirror. I look nothing like my usual self. That’s because I’ve been covered from head to toe—that is, on all the parts of my skin that are showing outside the neckline, sleeves, and sparkly hem of the dress I’m wearing—in airbrush foundation, my blond hair has been piled onto the top of my head with about a million bobby pins, my lips have been slathered in tawny lipstick, and false eyelashes have been stuck onto my lids.