Size 12 and Ready to Rock (38 page)

But this scene from
Jordan Loves Tania
hasn’t been pre-scripted. Gary Hall is deeply disturbed.

“If you’d just stayed with me and treated me with the respect I deserved after all the things I did for you,” Gary goes on, “no one would have gotten hurt—”

“I am not responsible for the things
you
do, Gary,” Tania says. “Only
you
can be responsible for your actions.”

It occurs to me that Tania might actually have been getting some therapy behind my back. I only wish she’d have saved it for a time when Gary wasn’t pointing a loaded gun at my head.

“You’re making me do this, Tatiana!” he shouts, his fingers sinking into my skin as he jabs the muzzle of the gun into my updo, causing tendrils of it to fall from the many bobby pins that had been used to secure it. “I have nothing left to lose. Whether this woman lives or dies is entirely up to you.”

Tania’s expression changes. Maybe she’s realized what I’ve already figured out—reasoning with Gary isn’t going to work, because he isn’t sane. He’s never going to give up until he gets what he wants, which is Tania.

I watch the fight drain out of her . . . along with all hope. Her slender shoulders sag.

“All right,” she says softly. “All right, Gary. I’ll go with you. Let Heather go first, though.”

He grins, triumphant, then shoves me away.

I’m not sure what makes me do it. I guess it’s true that I don’t want to die. But I know I can’t let anyone else die either.

So as Tania moves past me, I snatch Miss Mexico from her limp fingers. Then I spin around and bury the pointy Spanish comb that’s glued to the doll’s head as hard as I can into the skin just below the bandage on Gary’s hand . . . his gun hand.

Dolls are not meant to be used as weapons. Miss Mexico’s head breaks off—along with the comb—in Gary’s skin.

But Gary is startled enough—and in enough pain—that when he lowers the gun with a cry, he inadvertently pulls the trigger so that the revolver fires.

Fortunately, the bullet goes harmlessly into the auditorium stairwell.

Still, I hear people in the audience begin to murmur. I’m certain the NYPD and campus protection officers posted around the auditorium have heard the gunshot and are on their way backstage. I only hope they won’t be too late.

I snatch Tania’s hand and pull her behind the scrim, forcing her to duck with me beneath a table from one of the Drama Department’s sets before Gary can pull Miss Mexico’s head from the back of his trigger hand with his teeth.

As he’s doing this, the stage door bursts open and Cooper strides out.

The bright white light thrown by the fluorescents behind Cooper temporarily blinds Gary Hall. But it allows Cooper to immediately recognize the man in the coat and tie from his photo on Tania’s high school website. He sees the gun that Gary Hall raises in his direction. And without a word, Cooper shoots him three times in the chest, until Gary Hall drops the revolver, falls forward, and lies still.

Chapter 29

So Sue Me

All those times you said

I’d never make it

All those times you said

I should quit

All those times you said

I’m nothing without you

The sad part is

I believed it too

Then you left and

What do you know

I made it on

My very own

So go ahead and sue me

You heard me

Go ahead and sue me

Now that I’ve made it

You say it’s you I owe

Well, you owe me too

For the heart you stole

If I’ve got one regret

It’s all the time I spent

All the tears I wept

Thinking you were worth the bet

Go ahead, go all the way

Take me to court

It’ll make my day

So sue me

Go ahead and sue me

“So Sue Me”

Performed by Tania Trace

Written by Weinberger/Trace

So Sue Me
album

Cartwright Records

Thirteen consecutive weeks in the Top 10

Billboard Hot 100, current number-one hit

“ ‘Center mass,’ ” Cooper explains much later that evening when I climb into my bed beside him. “I wasn’t aiming for his chest. I was shooting at whatever I was least likely to miss in order to avoid having him shoot back at me. That would be the largest part of him. They call that part ‘center mass.’ That’s how you stay alive in a gunfight.”

“Good to know,” I say, passing him one of the drinks I’ve rustled up from the kitchen downstairs. “Anyway, you got him in the heart. I’d want you on my side in a gunfight anytime.”

He takes a sip of the drink, then makes a face. “What
is
this?”

“Your sister Jessica’s favorite drink, a pink greyhound.”

He passes it back to me. “Never make this for me again, especially after I’ve just shot a man. They might take away my detective’s license.”

I put the drink on my nightstand. “I had a suspicion you were going to say that, so I made you a backup drink, just in case.” I pass him a whiskey on the rocks.

“That’s more like it,” he says.

I lift the pink greyhound and clink the rim of his glass with mine. “
L’chaim.
It means ‘to life.’ I don’t mean to be insensitive that someone is dead. I’m just happy it’s not you or me.”

“Me too,” he says, after a sip. “And I know what
l’chaim
means.”

“Well,” I say, “at least with Gary dead, Tania won’t have to deal with all the negative press if the police had caught him and word had got out that the two of them were still married. Now she and Jordan can quietly remarry somewhere and say it’s a renewal of their vows or whatever.” I wince. “Is
that
an insensitive thing to say?”

Cooper shrugs. “Not as insensitive as some of the things I’ve been thinking about those two. You nearly died tonight because of my idiot brother not telling anyone about that first letter—”

“That’s a little harsh,” I say. “Jordan’s suffered enough, don’t you think?”

“No,” Cooper says flatly.

It had taken a little while for Tania and me to convince the dozens of NYPD and New York College protection officers who rushed backstage that Cooper was not the one who’d attacked us. That had been the man bleeding out on the floor. While all this was going on, Jordan was found unconscious in a stall in the lobby men’s room. It turns out that just moments before Gary Hall let himself backstage, Jordan had encountered him at the urinals, recognized him, and attempted to perform a citizen’s arrest. Sadly, this attempt was unsuccessful. Gary coldcocked him, propped Jordan up on a toilet, then shut the stall door, all as the auditorium lights were going down and everyone else was heading to their seats.

“But I tried, baby,” Jordan said when he and Tania were reunited. “I really tried to get him for you.”

“I know you did,” Tania said, so overwhelmed with relief that Jordan had been found alive that she insisted on riding along to Beth Israel with him in the ambulance to make sure his CAT scans turned out normal. Four hours later, we got the call that the scans had, and that they were sending over Jordan’s assistant to collect their things from our house.

“Thanks so much for everything, you guys,” Jordan said into the phone. “But Tania doesn’t feel like we need to stay with you anymore. She’s ready to come home.”

“Oh really?” I’d said, holding up my hand for Cooper to high-five. “That’s too bad. We’ll miss you both so much.”

Now I stroke Lucy’s head as she curls up on the bed beside us and gaze at Cooper’s new Armani tuxedo, hanging from my closet door.

“You know,” I say, “that paint is supposed to be washable.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Cooper says and reaches into the drawer of the nightstand on his side of the bed for the remote. “What do you say we unwind by watching one of those shows you like, where the people eat weird things?”

“You shouldn’t beat yourself up over it,” I say with a smile. “I thought those girls were being attacked too.”

“They
were
being attacked,” Cooper reminds me.

“Right,” I say. “Good thing you were there with your Glock to put a stop to it—”

He lifts one of the pillows and puts it over my face, pretending to smother me as I laugh and Lucy begins to bark and Owen, over on the dresser, looks away in disdain.

I don’t blame the cat. Cassidy, in her nonstop quest to get as much on-camera time as possible on
Jordan Loves Tania,
had thought it would be highly amusing to pull a paintball gun from where she’d hidden it in the dressing room and ambush the competition as they were lined up in the hallway outside the stage door, waiting for the Rock Off to begin.

That turns out to have been what all the screaming was about right before Gary came upon Tania and me backstage . . . and why, because the paintball attack caused so much hysteria and chaos, it took Cooper a little while to wade through it and get back to us.

“What did I do that was so wrong?” Cassidy kept asking, her eyes widened innocently, when Mallory and the other girls, in tears, accused her of purposefully ruining their outfits. “Anyone can check out paintball stuff from the college sports complex. All you have to do is leave your ID. Don’t be such bad sports, you guys. The show must go on, right?”

Only it turns out that in cases of shootings, the show does
not
go on. The Rock Off was canceled due to the real-life shooting, the film crew turned off their cameras, and the girls were told to go home with their families. Tania Trace Rock Camp was over, for good.

“This is
outrageous,
” I overheard Mrs. Upton raging at Stephanie on the sidewalk outside the auditorium as I accompanied Cooper to Detective Canavan’s car (because it turns out you can’t shoot someone, not even a wanted suspect in multiple crimes, in self-defense and not have to go down to the station house to answer a lot of questions about it). “I demand that my daughter be given the opportunity that she was promised in the contract that she signed to compete for the $50,000 prize and recording contract with—”

“Mrs. Upton.” Stephanie Brewer was leaning against the side of the building. She looked happier than I’d seen her in a while, but I’m pretty sure that was because the camp was officially over. “I’ve been wanting to say this to you for two weeks now. Shut. Up.”

Mrs. Upton looked shocked. “
What
did you say to me?”

“I said, shut up,” Stephanie said again. “Even if we did reschedule the Rock Off, there’s no way your kid would win, because she’s such a little bitch, no one at Cartwright Rec-ords can stand working with her. Okay? So take my advice and get out of here. No, wait . . . get out of show business.”

Mrs. Upton blinked as if Stephanie had slapped her.

“I . . . I . . . I’ll sue Cartwright Records for this!” she cried.

“That’s right,” Cassidy said, backing her mother up. “Cartwright Records and Tania Trace.”

Emmanuella and a few of the other girls, including Mallory St. Clare, happened to be walking by with their parents as this happened.

“
What
did she say?” Emmanuella asked, coming to a halt beside Mrs. Upton.

“She said she’s going to sue me,” Stephanie said, dragging a hand through her hair. “And Tania. Like I care.”

“That’s what I
thought
she said.” Emmanuella looked at the other girls, and then, in pitch-perfect harmony, they began to sing, “ ‘Go ahead, go all the way, take me to court, it’ll make my day!’ ”

Their exuberant voices lifted toward the night sky, causing people as far away as the dog park in Washington Square to turn their heads curiously to listen.

“ ‘If I’ve got one regret,’ ” they sang, giggling in their paintball-streaked clothes, “ ‘it’s all the time I spent, all the tears I wept, thinking you were worth the bet . . . So sue me!’ ”

Christopher Allington walked over to where Stephanie was standing, tears in her eyes, as she watched the girls dance and sing as if they didn’t have a care in the world. He took out his camera phone to record the moment forever, but Stephanie put her hand on his arm and shook her head.

“No,” she said. “Don’t film it. Let’s be in the moment, not view it through a lens.”

Christopher smiled, lowered the camera, and put his arm around her.