FAME and GLORY (33 page)

Jake walked through the parking lot and went in the hotel's lobby door.  He greeted the desk clerk and wanted to whistle as he headed down the hall, but refrained from doing so.  He didn't want to wake the whole first floor; he just wanted to wake Brandee if she was already asleep.

She probably is,
Jake thought. 
Poor kid.

Jake took the electronic door key from his shirt pocket and slid it neatly into the card slot.  He heard the slight buzz and saw the green light that indicated that the door had recognized the key.  He opened the door to Room 116.

Jake later remembered his walk down the hall.  He remembered thinking that this was the beginning of something new in his life and the life of his family.  As it turned out, he was right.

Jake's ears were assaulted by the sound of a high-pitched howl.  His first thought was that Brandee was crying.  He walked through the abbreviated entryway and was confronted by a sight that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his days.  He saw his wife lying prone on the bed.  He saw that her face was buried between Janelle Kelly's thighs.

For a moment, neither Janelle nor Brandee knew that Jake was in the room.  Brandee had her back to her husband and was busy.  Janelle's eyes were closed as she arched her back, pushing herself into Brandee.  The sound that Jake had thought was crying when he heard it at the door was Janelle moaning her pleasure.

Janelle's right eye opened slightly and she saw Jake standing in the room.  She pulled herself into an upright position and put her hand on Brandee's head, pushing her away.  She pulled a sheet over herself, but otherwise sat seemingly unperturbed.

Brandee sensed that something was wrong.  She turned around, looked over her left shoulder, and saw her husband standing in the hotel room.

Brandee sighed. “Oh, shit.” she said.

Jake was paralyzed, but only for a moment.  He looked at the betrayal before him with a face devoid of all emotion.  He glanced at Janelle, then back to Brandee.  Without a word, he turned on his heel and left the room.

He left the hotel and marched across the parking lot, retracing the steps that he had taken with such a joyous heart a few short minutes before.  He never heard Brandee's voice as she called “Jake, stop!” from the window of the room.

Jake headed for downtown Crescent City.  The deserted little town's dark streets matched the feeling in his heart.  He walked aimlessly.  He didn't know where to go.

***

Brandee quickly looked for some clothes to wear.  Janelle asked her what she was going to do.

“I'm going to follow him, of course.” Brandee said.

“Do you want me to come, too?” Janelle asked.

“I don't think that would be a very good idea.  Why don't you just go back to your room?  If he comes back while I'm gone, you shouldn't be here.”

Janelle put her clothes back on.  Before she headed for the door, she kissed Brandee.  The singer returned the kiss absentmindedly.

“Call me later, please,” Janelle said.

“I will.”

Brandee left The Northwoods Inn and randomly chose to go toward the harbor.  She was moving quickly and might have caught up to Jake if she had chosen to head for town.  As it was, she was hurrying west while Jake was wandering north.  She found the shoreline of the harbor to be deserted.

***

Jake was cold.  He wondered briefly why it suddenly had gotten so chilly.  What he didn't know was that the air temperature had actually increased by a degree since he had gone into the hotel.  The shock that he had suffered was chilling him from the inside.  He thrust his hands deeper into his pockets and continued to walk the streets of Crescent City, CA.

***

Brandee followed the shoreline as it curved southwest, forming the crescent that gave the city its name.  She was looking for Jake, certainly, but she was also thinking about what she would say when she found him.

I never wanted to hurt him
, she said to herself over and over.
 I'm so sorry that I did.

Finally, after about three hours of fruitless searching, Brandee went back to the hotel.  Surely, he would have shown up by now.

***

Jake didn't come back to the hotel.  At about 4:00 in the morning, he sat down on a bench at an outdoor bus stop.  His legs were weary from the walk.  He stared ahead of him with eyes that didn't see.  After about 20 minutes, he fell into dreamless sleep.

He awoke with the sun, which rose a scant hour after he had drifted off.  His body involuntarily shuddered as he remembered the sight that had greeted him in the hotel room.  Made nauseous by the memory of her betrayal, he turned and vomited on the ground beside the bench.  When he was finished, he turned his head and saw Ray's Groceries behind him.

“I need some water,” he said aloud to himself.

He got up from the bench and walked toward the grocery store, which was just opening its doors for the business day.

***

Brandee hadn't slept.  When Janelle knocked on her door the next morning, the singer realized that she had forgotten her promise to call her upon arriving back in the room.  She opened the door.

“Hi Janelle, I’m sorry I didn't call--”

That's all she got out before Janelle threw her arms around her neck.

“It's okay.  I fell asleep, but I woke up so worried about you.  Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.  I didn't get back until really late.”

“Did you find him?”

Brandee shook her head.  “No sign of him.  He'll probably leave with the others and not talk to me.”

Janelle said, “That wouldn't be real mature, would it?”

Brandee looked at the younger girl and spoke sternly.  “Whatever happens from here on out, this isn't Jake's fault.  It's my fault.  If you and I were going to get together, I should have been honest with Jake about what I wanted to do.  Have a little compassion for him.”

Janelle looked down at the ground, speaking quietly.  “I know.  I just don't like you to be sad.”

“I'm more worried than I am sad.  I don't know where he is or what he's going to do next.”

There was a knock on the hotel room door.  Brandee went to the door, expecting to see Jake when she opened it.  Instead, she saw Bruce.  The keyboard artist looked quizzically at her.

“Where's Jake?  We don't want to be late tonight of all nights.”

Brandee briefly wondered why “tonight of all nights”, but she left that discussion for a later time.  “Come in,” she said to Bruce.

Bruce came into the room and looked around, expecting to see Jake tying his shoelaces or something.  When he saw that the room was Jake-less, he looked back at the girls.

“What's going on?” he said simply.

“Jake and I had a fight last night.  He left and he hasn't come back.”

Bruce couldn't believe his ears.  “Last night!?  Last night you fought!?  Why would you fight last night?”

“It's just something that he and I have to work out.  It'll be okay.  Anyway, he isn't here.  I thought he might be with you guys already”

“We're loaded and ready to head for Oregon.  Do you want me to look for him?”

Brandee checked the clock.  “No, go ahead.  He was pretty mad.  He might decide to catch a bus to Eugene.  He knows where the next show is going to be.”

This didn't make any sense to Bruce.  “Why wouldn't he ride with us if he's mad at you?  I don't understand.”

Brandee knew that there were holes in her story.  Of course, if she and Jake had just had a garden-variety marital spat, it would make sense that he would commiserate with Diane, Suzi, and Bruce.  They hadn't just had a marital spat, though.  He had walked in on his wife performing cunnilingus on Janelle.  That ratcheted up the situation just a bit.

“Just let us work it out, Bruce.  You guys need to go!” she said as she took Bruce's arm and steered him toward the door.

Bruce went to the Nissan and fired it up, telling the others of the curious conversation he had just had with Brandee.

***

Jake bought a bottle of orange juice at Ray's.  He stepped back outside and returned to the bench on which he had slept, carefully sitting on the opposite end of the bench, away from the evidence of his upset stomach.  He opened the juice and sipped it a couple of times before throwing it away.  He couldn't put anything on his stomach this morning.

Just then, an Amtrak Thruways bus pulled up beside him.  The driver opened the door and said, “You going with us, sir?”

Jake answered, “Where are you going?”

“Seattle, eventually, but lots of stops in between.  We gotta go, though.  Are you going?

Jake suddenly wanted to be anywhere but where he was.  He stepped on the bottom step of the red and white bus.

“Why not?  Can you sell me a ticket?”

“I can give you a voucher that you can exchange for a ticket in one of the larger cities.  Welcome aboard.”

The driver released the air brakes and the bus headed up the street.  Jake found an unoccupied seat toward the back of the bus.  He sat down, looked out the window, and started to cry.

“I don't understand it!  Was it about having children again?” Suzi asked.

Bruce raised his hands, palms up.  “All I know is what she said.  They had a fight.  He left.  She doesn't know where he is.”

“I hope he's okay.” Diane said with a worried look as she steered the Nissan through the curves of California's Smith River Highway.  “Whatever it is has to have hit him awfully hard for him to just leave and not tell anyone.”

“That's what I thought when I was in the room.” Bruce said.  “Remember how excited he was to tell Brandee about Tom Ferrari?  He couldn't wait to get back to the hotel.  Then poof, he's gone.”

“Suzi looked at Bruce.  “honey, was Janelle with Brandee?”

“Yes.”

Suzi nodded slowly.  “I don't know what happened, but I'll bet Janelle's in the middle of it somehow.”

“In my experience, some people are followed around by trouble.  I don't like to think of Janelle like that, but I kind of do,” Diane said.

“We can't jump to conclusions based on what we know now,” Bruce cautioned.  “And we don't really know anything.”

“Bruce is right,” Diane answered,” Maybe Jake will be waiting for us in Eugene and everything will blow over.”

“I hope so,” Suzi said.  “He's as much a part of this group as any of us.  He makes the arrangements for... well, pretty much everything.  He does it all with a smile, too.

Diane and Bruce nodded their agreement.  Jake had been a good traveling partner and a better friend.  Now that it looked like the group was really going to take off, they were looking forward to sharing that with Jake.

Brandee and Janelle waited at the Northwoods Inn for as long as they felt like they could before heading for Oregon.  Even after they delayed at the hotel, Brandee drove around Crescent City for a bit, hoping that Jake would suddenly appear in her view .  Once, she thought she saw him on Front Street, but it turned out to be someone else.  Finally, early in the afternoon, Brandee pointed the nose of the Sprinter to the northeast and left the California coastline.

“Where do you think he would go?” Janelle asked Brandee as they connected with Hwy. 199.

“I don't have any idea.  I'm thinking he will meet us in Eugene tonight.”

“That will be about awkward, won't it?” Janelle said.

Brandee nodded.  “It will, but we have to work this out.  However it goes down, we have to talk about it.”

The girls rode without speaking for a number of minutes, each of them lost in thought.  Finally, Janelle broke the silence.

“Do we need to talk?”

Brandee smiled ruefully.  “I think we probably do.”

Janelle spoke quietly, but with a good deal of emotion behind her question.

“Are you sorry about us?”

The silence that followed seemed like an eternity to Janelle.  Finally Brandee answered.

“No, I'm not.  You opened up something in me that had been dark and empty.  You brought me in touch with my spiritual side.  That's very important to me now.  You're very important to me now.”

Janelle started to say something, but Brandee stopped her with a touch on her arm.

“Wait, let me finish.  Like I said, Jake and I have a lot to talk about, but maybe I need to get it all straight in my mind before we do.  Maybe his leaving was a gift from the Creator Spirit, because this isn't the time to talk.  That could be, I guess.

“I need you in my life,” Janelle said simply.

“I think I need you too.  I'm a little jumbled right now, though.  You have shown me something that I never had before.  I'm so grateful to you for that.  Jake is my husband.  He's meant so much to me, too.  What do I do with all of this?”

Janelle stroked Brandee's cheek with the index finger of her left hand.  Brandee's velvet skin gave way under Janelle's gentle touch. Brandee looked at her passenger out of the corner of her eye and smiled.

Janelle tilted the passenger seat of the Sprinter back about halfway and leaned back to enjoy the scenery.  Brandee had told her what she wanted to hear.  Before Janelle realized it, she was asleep.

***

Brandee heard Janelle's gentle snoring and looked over at her young lover.  Part of her was glad that Janelle was asleep.  It would give her time to think without Janelle asking, “What are you thinking?” every five minutes.

Brandee regretted what she had just said to Janelle.  At least, she regretted it a little.  Brandee had told Janelle what she had wanted to hear, which wasn't usually Brandee's style.  The fact was, Brandee was terribly confused and quite frightened.

The relationship that had begun with Janelle was exciting and exotic and foreign.  Brandee had never been with a woman before, and Janelle's young body was vibrant and alive.  It felt different, smelled different, and reacted differently than Brandee's husband's body.  Jake was an excellent lover, but they had been married for over three years now.  Brandee knew Jake's moves in bed; she could anticipate him when they made love.  However, Janelle was a writhing wildcat, and it made Brandee moist to think about it.

What Brandee had said about Janelle showing her a spiritual path was true, too.  Brandee loved that she was learning to meditate at a moment's notice.  She was comforted by the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there was a meaning to life beyond herself.

That left Jake.  Brandee's love for Jake had nothing to do with what had happened in the last few days.  She had meant it when she had shouted for Jake to stop when he was crossing the parking lot of the hotel.  They had always been able to talk through their differences in the past, and, truth be told, she had missed the conversations that she hadn't been having with him on the road since Janelle had shown up.

Granted, this “difference” was a hell of a lot bigger than the differences that she and Jake had suffered before, and she didn't know if there was a conversation bridge that could connect them this time.  She knew that she wasn't ready to toss him overboard, but she also knew that, from a relationship standpoint, he may have jumped overboard on his own.  That made her sad, but it was an emotion that she didn't think she could share with Janelle.  Jake would probably be at the show in Eugene tonight, though.  They could talk for hours after that, if he wanted to.

***

Jake wasn't in Eugene.  The members of
Brandee
had the concert stage to themselves and did their sound and light checks without extraneous conversation.  Afterward, they checked into The Greentree Inn on Franklin Blvd and gathered en masse in Brandee's room.

“We need to be let in on what's going on!” Suzi insisted, looking at Brandee.  The guitarist had her hands balled into fists and placed against her hips as she spoke sternly to the singer.

“It's like I told Bruce,” Brandee said calmly.  “We had a fight.  Jake walked out of the room and left the hotel.”

”Did you and Jake talk at all about what happened last night?” Bruce asked.

“No.  What about last night?”

The performing members of the group looked at one another in astonishment.  Suzi was the first to find her voice.

“A guy from a record label talked to us.  He's going to talk to us tonight too, because he wanted to talk to you.  His company wants to sign us to a contract!”

Brandee's mouth dropped open.  She closed it and swallowed.  Then it dropped open again.  Finally, she swallowed again so she could speak.

“What label?”

“Arista Entertainment,” Diane said.

“He talked to you guys after I left?” Brandee asked.

Suzi shook her head in exasperation.  Sometimes Brandee could be so dim.  “Yes, after you went back to the hotel!”

“Why didn't somebody come get me?”

Bruce responded, “Jake wanted to, but Tom told us that he would talk to us again tonight after you had rested.  He was really nice about it.  We told him that you had gotten hurt and had been in the hospital.”

Diane had given the name of the record company to Brandee, but other than that, she had been quiet.  Something was starting to add up in her mind.  Jake and Brandee hadn't talked about Tom Ferrari at all.  That meant that something had happened when Jake first got back to the hotel.  Or, she thought, Jake had walked into something and left the hotel before he had a chance to tell Brandee the big news.  The drummer looked at Janelle, who was seated beside Brandee on the bed.  Janelle's face was blank.

Janelle didn't notice Diane's examining look.  She was taking in the news about Tom Ferrari, and trying to figure out what it meant for her.  Did it make it more likely or less likely that Brandee would leave Jake for her?  Jake didn't perform, and if the group had a label backing them, Jake's semi-managerial leadership wouldn't be so necessary.  She decided that the news was a net positive for her, and hugged Brandee from the side.

“That's great news, Brandee!  I'm so proud of you!”

Brandee absentmindedly leaned away from Janelle's hug. As much as she had hoped in the car that Jake would show up and be waiting for her in Eugene, that hope was even greater now.  This was going to be her big break, and she suddenly realized that she wanted to share it with Jake.

Brandee spoke to the group.  “Maybe he'll be at the fairgrounds tonight.  I hope so!  If he's not, we can talk about what to do then.”

Diane, Bruce, and Suzi then left the room.  There was much about which they wanted to question Brandee, but tonight would be soon enough. Maybe she was right.  Perhaps Jake would show up backstage at the fairgrounds tonight.

It wasn't lost on Janelle that Brandee had said that she hoped Jake would be there tonight.  After the musicians had left, she thought that she and Brandee should talk about that, but she didn't get the chance to broach the subject.

“Janelle, why don't you head for your own room for now?  I'm pretty tired, and this is when I take a power nap and drink sparkling water to get ready for the show.  I'll come down and get you when it's time to go.”

Janelle nodded silently.  She leaned over and kissed Brandee before heading down the hall.  Brandee returned the kiss, but not as enthusiastically as Janelle would have liked.

***

Tom Ferrari introduced himself to Brandee before the beginning of the show that night.  True to form, he wore a pair of Italian loafers,  a dress shirt, and a tie, making him stand out in the County Fair crowd.  Brandee guessed who he was before he held out his hand.

“The pleasure is mine, Mr. Ferrari.”

He laughed.  “You people are unfailingly polite, aren't you?  It's kind of refreshing after some of the groups that I work with.  Call me Tom, and I'll call you Brandee.  Deal?”

“Deal,” Brandee answered, flashing him the smile that had launched a thousand fantasies when she used it onstage.  This man was the key to her success.

“Break a leg out there, and we'll talk later. Where's your husband?”

Brandee waved vaguely in the direction of the crowd milling around the fairgrounds.  “I can't keep track of him.”

Tom left her alone in her dressing area, and Brandee's face lost its smile.  Where, indeed, was her husband?

Brandee
was the consummate professional group that night.  They opened with “Your Ass is Mine”, and followed it up with “Brazen”.  Both songs lit a fire under the appreciative county fair crowd.  They slowed the pace down with “Violet Eyes”, a ballad that Brandee sang almost a cappella, with only the soft sound of Diane's brushes accompanying her.

While Brandee was crooning “Violet Eyes”, Diane wondered just whose eyes Brandee was imagining, or if she was imagining anyone at all except for herself.

The group had decided that afternoon to use the wind machine on “Kneel Before You”, and skip “I Will Always Love You”.  Brandee writhed under the wind machine in the first song after Suzi's guitar solo.  Under half closed lids, she found Tom Ferrari about a third of the way back on her left, and undulated for him throughout the sexy song.

“She's a pro,”
Bruce thought. 
“I'll give her that
.”

After the show in Eugene, Brandee and the rest of the group met with Tom Ferrari.  He reiterated to Brandee what he had said to the rest of the group the night before.  Brandee took some notes and thanked him for his time.  She said that the group would talk about it and get back to him in just a few days.  After handshakes all around, Tom left, wondering about the subdued nature of the group.  It was quite a contrast to how they had acted in Crescent City.