Forgetting Popper (Los Rancheros #3) (2 page)

“I’ve had it with your fucking teasing
bullshit. I’m so sick of you bouncing around on stage in nothing
but tape, then sticking your nose up at us.
Fuck you,
bitch
!”

His spit hits my face, the drugs making them
feel like raindrops splattering my skin. I try to scream, but my
already worn voice won’t cooperate. My foggy brain whispers that
I’m against a fucking door and I should probably find the handle
before I get my ass dead. I know I’m going to be so pissed if I
remember this tomorrow.

I fall out of the car. Maury has to let me go
and I gasp for breath greedily. I see him coming for me again and
kick at him with my stiletto boots as hard as I can. Over and over.
When the car backs up with the door open, I don’t have anywhere to
go since there’s a wall right next to my head. For once, I’m
thankful I don’t have boobs; my stick thin figure grazes the bottom
of the door. I have to turn my head so that my nose doesn’t get
scraped off.

I lay shivering in the snow, my bare
shoulders burning with the cold, but it’s a fading pain. I’m almost
asleep when my butt vibrates. I think about who would be calling,
and know it’s not anyone I would possibly want to talk to. Those
people don’t have my phone number. But then I think, maybe I can
get someone to pick me up. Duh. My head’s not working right.

By the time I get my phone out, I’m not sure
if I’m drooling or it’s snowing. I hold up the phone, the light
streaking inside my eyes. I open one eye and swipe the screen. It
automatically opens to the last text message I received.

Unknown Caller: You have a meeting in my
office at 10 A.M. Monday morning. This is your last warning.
–Brennick

I try to chuckle, but it sounds suspiciously
like a sob. For months, I’ve been avoiding going into the record
label, afraid that they would tell me my voice wasn’t good enough
anymore, that they wanted me to have surgery, or worse, replace me.
I type out my reply slowly.

I quit.

Having woken up in a hospital, you would
think I wouldn’t be in such a rush to get into another one. But my
heart races and my hands shake as I jump out of my car, slamming
the door down on the expensive Mercedes. I have the shakes and cold
sweats bad, side effects they said.

People in the elevator avoid eye contact, subtly
shifting away from me. I swallow back the bile that threatens to
come up. Never, and I mean never has anyone looked at me like that
in this place. I was always normal. One of them. I wasn’t anything
but a girl. My breathing gets faster as I start to panic.

I burst out of the elevators and push off the
wall in front of me painted with friendly looking animals in a
jungle, smiles on their faces. Alyse is at her desk, where she
always is on Sundays. I dig in my purse for my ID.

“Hi. I know I’m late. I have it here . . . um
. . .” I move my hair out of the way as I push things around in the
black hole.

“Sadie?” Alyse asks. The alarm in her voice
brings my head up.

“Yeah?”

She stands up. “Holy shit! Did you get mugged
in the garage?”

“I . . . what? No!” I know I have bruises.
God knows I feel them.

“Honey, you can’t go in there like that. The
kids—”

“I have to. I haven’t missed a day. I have
to.” Thinking about how disappointed they would be if I didn’t show
up, how worried they have to be has had me racing since I woke in
Toronto. I see Alyse picking up a phone. “What are you doing?”

She turns her back and speaks too low for me
to hear, but seconds later, I see a man in a black cape and mask
coming through the automatic doors. I walk toward him instantly.
“Batty.”

“Jesus Christ. Are you okay?” he growls as I
slam into him. I press my face into his hard chest.

“Batty,” I whisper. He squeezes me to him and
I shudder.

“Let’s go.” He turns to Alyse. “Tell the kids
we had a mission.”

We move back to the elevators. “What are you
doing? We have to see the kids. I haven’t missed a day.”

“You’re missing one today. They’ll be
fine.”

In the elevator, I collapse against the wall.
“I tried so hard to get here. I’m sorry I was late.”

“Shut up. Don’t apologize.” I fall silent, my
eyes on his black boots. My heart is broken that I haven’t been
able to do even this right. It had been so good for so long. I
should have known. I blink my eyes, because I don’t cry, but
they’re stinging like they’re going to betray me too.

When we get into his Lotus, the Batmobile if
there ever was one, I close my eyes at the rumble when it comes to
life. That sound. For four months that sound has meant excitement,
adventure, release. Now the usual anticipation is missing. I want
it back.

“Tell me who did this, Sadie.” I look over at
Batty. He’s taken off his mask, revealing his high cheekbones, dark
brown disheveled hair, and little red marks start to appear on his
forehead right next to a vein that pops out only sometimes.

“It doesn’t matter. I made it, but it was all
for nothing.”

“You’ll go next week. They wanted to see
Robin. Do you know what you look like?” I watch his strong hands
change gears.

“A drug addict?”

His eyes flash silver in the street lamps as
we speed by. “Or something.”

We don’t speak on the hour long drive to my
house. My body is tired from the adrenaline letdown, the muscles
stiff so that it takes long enough for me to get out of the car
that Batty grabs an arm gently to help me out.

I watch him unlock the doors, going
immediately to turn off the alarm. I’ve reset it so many times, but
he’s been over enough to learn all of my codes. He takes me to my
bathroom upstairs. We’ve never been in here together before. He
sits me on the lip of the tub, leaning down to unzip my boots.

“What are you doing?” I whisper. He holds up
the heels so that I see the dried blood on them.

“Did you go to the hospital?” he asks in his
brusque way.

“Which one?”

His eyes cut to me, flashing a warning as the
muscles in his jaw clench.

“I don’t know if I went. I woke up there,” I
say quietly.

“You don’t remember?” He’s done with the
other shoe, and reaches for my shirt. I lift my arms for him.

“No.” I’m not wearing a bra, but he doesn’t
seem to notice. He turns me, putting fingertips to my shoulder
blades where they’re scraped.

“What do you remember?”

I shrug off his hands and turn again. “I
remember after the concert I was supposed to be catching a plane. I
would have made it. I’ve always made the planes.”

“Focus,” he says as he reaches for my
pants.

“I wanted to go but Brian made me talk to a
reporter. Do you know Brian?” My brain is foggy, but I know we’ve
never talked about anything but the kids. I keep going. “My throat
hurt, but the bartender thought I drank whiskey, so I did. That’s
all.”

His eyes scan my face. “You’re an addict and
you drank whiskey?”

I scoff and roll my eyes. “Aren’t you the one
that once said I wasn’t an addict?”

He turns to the tub, twisting the knobs
violently. “Yeah. You were the one to offer up your graduation
certificate from rehab, so cut the shit.”

“It’s part of the deal. I did drugs, I drank
too much, I went to rehab. Check, check, check. I could have
stopped if I wanted to,” I admit to the first person in my life.
Figured it would be Batty.

“In you go.” He holds my hand until I’m
sitting down in the half filled tub. I watch under lids that are
half-mast as he empties a vase of fake flowers. He quickly fills it
with water and starts rinsing my long hair.

“Why are you doing this?” His hands still for
a second before they dump the water on my head again.

“Because you don’t have anyone else.”

I feel my face go blank at his words. “You
don’t know me, Batty.” My voice is cold, my shields going up faster
than the water down my back.

He stops to reach for my chin, turning my
eyes to him. “At least I know your fucking name.”

“Get out.” My voice shakes. I feel like I’m
about to unravel. This was our thing. From the second we started .
. . whatever the hell we did, it wasn’t personal. It wasn’t baths
and names. Why was he changing the only good day in the week I had?
“Get out!”

He stands up and throws the vase against the
wall. I don’t even flinch. He turns back to me with his hands in
his hair. It raises his shirt so that I can see the thin trail of
hair that disappears behind his buckle. “I’m trying to be nice to
you. Maybe it’s been too long for you to realize that, but usually
you’re supposed to shut your mouth and let someone be nice.” He
sounds exasperated, and sort of desperate. But why would he feel
desperate?

I look at the water, seeing my hair float
around my chest like spider webs. “I guess it is Sunday,” I mumble.
I hear his rumbling chuckle then he’s next to me again.

“You’re something else, you know that?” I
keep my mouth shut, who knows what would come out. He lathers my
hair then puts conditioner in it without being told. When it’s time
to come out of the tub, he lifts me from under the arms when I
struggle. Batty wraps me in a towel, picking me up and setting me
down next to my dresser.

He leaves me there, so I get dressed in my
usual panties and camisole. I’m finished and standing where he left
me, awkwardly. When he comes back, it’s with a broom I’ve never
seen. I follow him back into the bathroom and watch him clean up
the broken vase then leave again. I sit down on the little chair in
the corner and pick up the brush.

Usually this is my favorite part of the day.
Getting the tangles out, feeling the bristles on my scalp. I love
that feeling. My hair is bleached almost white and falls to below
my waist. It takes forever as I start from the bottom, working all
the knots out, putting in creams to make the process easier. When
I’m done, my arms feel like Jell-O.

Batty hasn’t returned, but I know if he left
he’s set the alarm, so I don’t go check. I get into bed and turn
off the light. Only then do I notice my cell phone, little brown
pills, and glass of water. I take the ibuprofen with relief then
fall asleep.

The ringing starts at an ungodly hour. I
squint at my phone: 8:02 A.M. “Fuck you.” I press ignore and fall
back asleep. At 8:04 A.M. it starts to ring again. I ignore it too,
but by 8:14, I’m spitting mad. I finally accept the call with a,
“Where the fuck do you live? I’m coming to kill you.”

“Hello, Ms. Dinah!” someone chirps in my ear.
I pull the phone away as it drills into my head. “Mr. Brennick has
an appointment with you at ten this morning and wanted to make sure
you were going to attend.”

“No.” I try to find the end call button
without opening my eyes, but in the silent house, I can still hear
her talking.

“He says to tell you that isn’t an acceptable
answer. He wrote here that he would come find you if you didn’t
come to his office today.”

“Fuck off.” I finally open my eyes to see the
red end button. It immediately starts ringing, so I accept the
call. “I’m coming, goddamnit! Now leave me alone!”

I toss the phone and sit up. Groaning, I get
to my feet. I feel sixty years old, instead of my usual fifty. I
stand in front of the mirror that takes up the whole wall above the
countertops. I had avoided looking at myself until now. Meeting the
head of a record label requires makeup though, so it is
unavoidable.

My eyes catch first on my light blue eyes. No
black eyes. There are fading fingerprint size bruises on my neck,
lots of bruises on my arms, and one that fades into my hairline
next to my temple. It could be worse, I remind myself as I dab
concealer over my neck and face. After I’m done with the rest of my
makeup, I turn to my hair, applying products to it so that it looks
greasy, rubbing the strands between my fingers to make it look
unbrushed.

After I brush my teeth, the closet is next. I
leave off the necklaces, no need to draw attention to that
today.

When I stroll into Brennick Records at 10:05,
I’m armed for war. My feet are perfectly balanced in wedge ankle
boots. The wind tickles my legs through the various slits. My upper
body is covered by a shirt that aptly states “Rock and Roll stole
my soul,” covered by a flannel shirt, and for good measure, over
that I have my trusty leather jacket.

By the time I make it to the top floor I’ve
got my face set, telling myself over and over it doesn’t matter if
they don’t want me anymore. As soon as I step off the elevator, I
see two people I was not expecting to be here.

“What are you doing here?” I ask immediately.
Brian stands up and brushes his suit jacket over his potbelly.
Tammy stands more gracefully.

“We were called in this morning when you
actually agreed to come here. It’s an embarrassment the way you’ve
put this off. The next contracts have to be signed before the tour
is over,” Tammy says while trying to look down her nose at me.

“You missed the fucking concert, by the way.
It’s a good thing we could get such a late flight last night or we
wouldn’t even be here,” Brian says, walking closer to me. I force
myself not to back away.

“Why did you get on a plane last night? I
didn’t agree until this morning.”

Tammy shrugs. “Mr. Brennick’s secretary
called late last night to say you would be meeting him, so we
dropped everything. Inconsiderate, as usual.” She purses her lips
for only a second in disapproval before straightening them out
again to make sure she doesn’t get wrinkles.

The chirpy voice is back, and interrupts
whatever comeback I had. “Mr. Brennick will see you now, Ms.
Dinah.” She was a little bitty thing, probably in her forties, but
all smiles that instantly make me tired.