“Do I even want to know?” Vern asked, which I took as code forTell me, tell me, pretty please, tell me.
“This lady I picked up actually left her baby in the car with me while she ran into the pharmacy. She was like, ‘I’m just gonna leave him a second. You don’t mind, do you?’ And then she was gone.”
“Like I said. Too accommodating.”
“How is this my fault?”
“You have a nice face. You think anyone in their right mind would leave their kid with me?”
No, I supposed even the most neglectful of mothers would think twice about Vern.
“Anyway,” he said. “I wouldn’t give up your second job just yet because you never know what’s going to happen.”
Something in the tone of his voice told me he wasn’t speaking rhetorically.
“What does that mean?”
Vernon’s eyes shifted away, purposefully avoiding my question.
“Vern?”
He refused to look up. “I don’t want no trouble, and technically you are related to management.”
I winced. Technically he was right. Angel Line Tours had once been my birthright… and the promise with which I’d laid my head on the pillow each night as a young girl.
“Someday, Jesse,”my father would whisper into the dimness of the night.“It’ll all be yours.”
“Mine?”I’d replied, wide-eyed with wonder.
“Yes. You and your sister, side by side.”
And I’d believed him, every fantastical word. Hey, I was just a kid. How was I supposed to know his promises were nothing but wishful thinking? See, Angel Line Tours was never his to give. My father ran the operation, but he didn’t own it. That title went to Andrea, who had inherited the company from her grandfather on her maternal side. Our father had been a placeholder until Andrea was old enough to run the company herself.
What no one had factored into the equation was Andrea’s lingering resentment toward our father for the affair that had produced me. Before the smoke had even cleared from the candles on her twenty-first birthday cake, Andrea had kicked him to the curb, leaving him—and me—penniless. We lost everything. The house, the car, the dog… my mother. But what was worse was that my unsuspecting father never saw it coming, nor did he ever manage to recover from Andrea’s heavy-handed betrayal.
“Related in the very broadest of terms,” I said, fighting the emotion that came with remembering my beloved father’s destruction. “Now spill.”
My driver scanned the empty bus for spies before lowering his voice and replying, “There’s been talk that Andrea’s fixin’ to sell.”
I blinked. Then blinked again, trying to make sense of his words. That couldn’t be. Could it? Tension coiled in my muscles as I grabbed a pole for support. Was Andrea planning Operation Jesse’s Destruction 2.0? If she sold the business, I’d have… nothing. No security. No job. Just like before. And if I had nothing, how would I provide for him? No, Andrea wouldn’t do that to us again, would she? Maybe the better question to ask was, why wouldn’t she? My half sister had no loyalty to us. She’d only given me the job with the company after I’d arrived at her doorstep as a desperate teen and literally begged on my hands and knees for mercy.
Perhaps reading my distress, Vern asked, “Is it true?”
Forcing a smile of reassurance, I resorted to the little white lies that got me through my daily tours. “Everything’s fine, Vern. Eat your salami sandwich.”
But as I turned to leave, I pulled up the drive-share app on my phone and signed in for my shift. It was going to be another long day.
3
Quinn: Enemies in High Places
My march off stage was not well received. In fact, not one person appeared to be in favor of my hasty retreat. Some tried to grab hold of me as I passed, while others called my name, but the vast majority of onlookers just stood off to the side, their wide, disbelieving eyes glued to my exit. Maybe I was still too worked up from the performance to fully appreciate the shitstorm I’d just unleashed on myself, but at that moment I was feeling pretty damn good. Free, actually. Free from expectation. Free from judgment. Free from the forces that sought to control me.
Although exactly how I was going to be free and still be relevant in the music business, I had no idea. This might very well be the end of the road for me—professional suicide. So why then wasn’t I more freaked out? Why wasn’t I panicking? Maybe this was what I’d wanted all along—a clean break. No more music. No more comparisons to Jake. No more struggling to be relevant in a world that didn’t want me in it.
I glanced over at Morris, one of the fellow contestants I’d been friendly with during the competition, hoping he might be able to shine some light on my unraveling epiphany, but he couldn’t even meet my eye. Really? What kind of a friend was he? Then it occurred to me; he wasn’t my friend. He was my competition. When it came to push and shove, these situational acquaintances would have no problem pushing and shoving me right off the fucking stage.
Not that I really cared what Morris thought of me, or anyone else I’d been up on that stage with. There was only one person I was in competition with… and it wasn’t myself. No, I’d spent my life competing against the one person I had no chance of ever catching. Jake. And the older I got, the more I realized I couldn’t compete with a superstar. I didn’t have the talent, the bravery, or the tragic backstory. More and more it was looking like my choice was to spend the rest of my life getting kicked around like an unwanted dog or to change courses completely and find something else to do… something that wouldn’t put me in direct competition with any one of my noteworthy brothers.
