Henri clenched his teeth, biting back an angry retort asking why his father hadn’t been to visit him since he’d woken up disoriented in a hospital emergency room. Instead, he growled, “And what about the $8,000 for my kid sister’s boob job?”
“Sheisan aspiring model, and she….”
“She just turned seventeen. She doesn’t need a damned boob job.” Sweet little Jenni, hair in pigtails at age ten. He shuddered. “You’re planning to push her like you did me, aren’t you? You’re gonna dress her in skimpy clothes and show her body in magazines to make a buck.”
“She’s a model, not a prostitute. And she won’t have the surgery until after her birthday.”
Only because Margo couldn’t find someone to operate on a seventeen-year-old, most likely. Henri wanted to wipe the smirk off the woman’s face. “Yeah, but does she want to be a model? Last I heard she wanted to study medicine and believed magazine ads exploited women. I don’t mind paying for college. Or did you even consider what she, or I, wanted?” Bad enough he’d given up his late teen years to tour the country and support his family. They weren’t poor anymore. Jenni deserved to be a teenager before being catapulted headfirst into adulthood.
“Henri, I….”
“It’s Henry, dammit! I’m named after my great-great-uncle, and while you may now be ashamed of him, I’m not! Finding out he was a riverboat gambler and not a captain was the coolest thing ever.” Oh how Margo had hung her head in shame the day a tabloid went digging and discovered the originalHenryLafontaine’s true vocation of card shark instead of riverboat captain. He’d died by noose on the banks of the Mississippi for his sins. All her hard promoting of the namesake turned to dust in her hands. She’d changed Henry’s name to “Henri” and herself to “Marguerite,” promoting ties to prominent Cajun ancestors who’d probably turn them away if they showed up on the doorstep.
The truth of his Creole ancestry showed in Henri’s wavy dark hair, nearly black eyes, and bronze skin. He’d spent his whole life being called black by promoters who wanted him to rap and white by promoters who couldn’t accept a dark-skinned lead singer for an otherwise all-white band. Stuck in the middle somewhere.
However, in Henri’s opinion, being named after the family prodigal only endeared him to his teen and twentysomething fan base. “As of today, if you want money from me, you have to ask. And I’m going to talk to Jenni. If she still wants med school, I’ll pay for that, but I won’t pay for you to force her into a life she doesn’t want.”
“Your father…,” Margo began.
“My father can damned well pay for his own boob job, if he wants one! Not a cent, not one more cent, is going to a man who can’t be bothered to talk to me once in a while. If he wants family privileges, he’d better damned well start acting like family.” What was the use? Nobody cared. No one even saw Henri as a person anymore. He’d become a commodity, a moneymaker. Nothing more.
Voice honed to the low threatening purr designed to back Henri down, she who’d controlled his life for far too damned long declared, “You forget who you’re talking to.”
Henri trumped her hostility and raised the stakes. “No, I haven’t… Mom!”
* * *
There’d beena time when Henri had gone to school and then come home to nibble grilled cheese sandwiches while doing his homework. Mom had rushed home every afternoon to be there when the wheels of his skateboard sounded a scratch and a whir in the driveway, the scent of coffee and pancake syrup clinging to her clothing as she gave him a hug.
The woman standing in his hotel room bore little resemblance to the mother of his memories. And though he’d inherited her long nose and pointed chin, he bore little other resemblance to the tall bleach-blonde who’d become a stranger. He’d lost her, though she still lived, vastly distorted from the memory in his heart.
From the first time she’d cheered him on at a local talent competition to now, she’d changed with each new triumph. She’d been a working mother before, she and Henri’s father struggling to make ends meet. A tailor-made suit hugged a figure enhanced by a personal trainer—a bit out of style, but tailor-made all the same. What Henri wouldn’t give to return to a kinder, simpler time, when he’d had a family, albeit an imperfect one. Only a business deal remained, hardly a decent tradeoff.
“What did you tell the press about why you had to cancel concerts?” She wasn’t exactly the best with public relations, as his stage name proved. What kind of mother lets her son perform with a band called “Hookers and Cocaine”?
“That you have the flu.”
Now to test the limits of her resolve. “And if I need time to recover? Say, a month or more?” Tired, so tired. And being on the road with a bunch of backstabbers, constantly on guard, didn’t allow much time to recover from his last few days in Hell.
Horror shone from eyes tinted by green contact lenses. “I’ll say you’re in rehab. Again.”
“Why can’t you tell the truth? I’ve had enough bullshit for one lifetime. I screwed up and nearly won a starring role in my own obituary. You can use it as a public service message.” Besides, every time they lied someone always called them out anyway.
The bristling businesswoman softened somewhat, and a flash of something close to maternal affection crossed her face, gone in a heartbeat, dammit. “Because while you wallow in ‘poor little me,’ thinking only of yourself, I’m concerned with your career and the family, not to mention everyone counting on you for a livelihood. You’ve let us all down. Your fans can accept partying too hard—they expect it, even—better than your being a batshit crazy selfish little brat with no thought for anyone except himself.”
Ouch! “Yes, they will, thanks to an asshole bassist who sold us out to a tabloid, calling us a bunch of drugged-out losers.” And then Henri had to go and prove him right.
“He told you about his tabloid deal?” Margo snapped to attention.
“No. I found out anyway. He’s not too good at being sneaky.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
“What?” Henri faked stunned disbelief, adding a gasp for good measure. Maybe he should have been an actor instead of a singer. “You mean something’s gone on with the band you didn’t plan?” Served her right for firing anyone not pretty enough because she wanted more eye candy onstage. Eye candy usually came equipped with massive egos.
Henri’s band once consisted of friends, until Margo interfered, preferring Henri to surround himself with newsworthy but shallow celebrity hanger-ons who reported his every move. Anyone close enough to influence Margo’s own personal goldmine had to go. And now she planned to sink her claws into Jenni. Over Henri’s dead body. Shit. If he’d died, what would have happened to his sister?
If he checked out now, the tragedy would spur headlines, lining Margo’s pockets even more. He peered at the woman who’d birthed him. Did any love for him still linger in her heart, or had every ounce been driven out by greed? It’d happened gradually, his turning over his life; well, actually, it’d never been his. He’d passed into adulthood two years after gaining the public’s notice on a televised competition. He hadn’t won, but he’d earned enough fans to launch a career—his mother giving up her day job to act as manager. The day he’d waited in line for ten hours for a ten-second audition, Margo’s hand on his shoulder had kept him from running. Back then she’d been merely supportive, if a bit aggressive. Now? Now she demanded.
