Rock My World (18 page)

Felicity
crouched, hands up, dancing on the balls of her feet, ready to pounce the
second the ball left the ground. Jenna marveled at her fearlessness. She leapt
through the air, arms outstretched, body parallel to the ground, without the
faintest hesitation. Jenna imagined the bruises that must be blossoming beneath
her uniform.

An hour and
a half after the ref blew the starting whistle, the hard-fought regulation time
in its dying seconds, the score nil-nil, everyone seemed to have crept to the
very edge of their seats. Jenna could practically hear the crowd holding a
single breath, waiting for their girls to score.

On both
sides of the field, coaches paced up and down, pointing and shouting things she
couldn’t quite make out. Felicity too, barked orders, pointing to gaps between
defenders.
 
“Who’s on six? Someone
cover her!”

The visiting
team arranged themselves into some sort of set play, as a girl raised her arm
from the corner, took the kick, and there was a collective intake of breath as
the home team’s parents all prayed for the ball not to go in.

“Mine!”
Felicity shouted.

The other
team’s
star forward—the one who had taken shots
relentlessly the entire game—jumped up above the defenders and headed the
ball toward the lower far post. Jenna thought for sure it was going in and
wanted to cover her eyes. Her hands refused to cooperate and she watched in
horror as the ball soared through the air with inhuman speed. Felicity too, was
airborne, heading straight for the post. Jenna watched, horrorstruck, as her daughter’s
body slammed into the hard ground, bouncing slightly before striking the post
with the back of her head. Jenna gasped.

Felicity knocked the ball off its trajectory and
out of the way of the goal. The ball bounced, making contact with the striker’s
hand as she tried to settle it and the ref blew his whistle, signaling the end
of the game.

Groans of
disapproval issued up from the crowd as both sides shouted about handballs and
fouls. Felicity picked herself up off the ground and stooped, hands on thighs,
regaining her composure. Jenna stood up, wanting to check on her, but felt a
strong arm gently restrain her.

“She’ll be ‘right. Tough as nails,” her father
said, eyes sparkling.

Jenna shook
her head, depressing every maternal instinct in her body to stay seated.
 
She watched as Felicity stretched and
jumped, literally shaking it off. She reset for overtime.
 
The ref blew the whistle and anxiety
rippled through the bleachers once again, but this time Jenna wasn’t paying
attention.

She couldn’t
stop staring at Felicity. She was amazing. For the first time in her life, she
saw Felicity as an individual, not just her daughter. There was a lot for her
yet to learn, but she was more capable than Jenna gave her credit for.

As the ball
soared beyond the other keeper’s reach, the home side erupted in cheers.
 
Jenna jumped up with them, not because
they won, but because she knew now what she had to do.

***

Later that
afternoon, after the post-game pizza party, the four of them returned
home.
 
Shawn headed out to his
studio and Anya took her cue, heading upstairs to her office. Jenna made hot
tea as a peace offering, handing it to Felicity outside on the deck.

She took it
as a good sign that Felicity accepted the tea, and they sat silently watching
the sun dip below the watery horizon, illuminating the clouds in shades of
citrus and fuchsia.

Jenna broke the silence first. “It’s up to you if
you want to come.”

“Is this a trick? Or some kind of warped Freudian
reverse psychology thing?”

“No.” Jenna took a sip of tea to hide her smile.
She chanced a quick look at Felicity’s stunned face. “It is what it is. You
were right.”

“
Wha
-? Who are you?” Felicity said, swinging her legs around
to face her mother. The furrowed brows that were like her father’s crept up her
forehead all the way to her golden hairline.

Jenna smiled
openly, a full-on goofy grin. She took advantage of the silence to deliver the
speech she’d been practicing in her head all afternoon.

“You were
right when you said it was about me.” She said, cocking her head to one side.
“You were wrong in that I
was
trying
to protect you.” She looked sternly at her daughter. “But I have to realize
that you’re not a little girl anymore.” For good measure (and the wide-eyed
smile on Felicity’s face), she added, “You’re not quite an adult though,
either.” Felicity’s face fell slightly.

“I’m so
proud of the person you’re becoming. You carry yourself with confidence and
poise. Today I realized I want to take a page out of your book. I want to be
the mom
you
can be proud of. And for
me, that means I need to spend some time away.” She watched Felicity carefully,
waiting for her to argue, but Felicity stayed quiet.

“You’re probably going to hear a lot of things
said about Dad and me at school. But I trust you to decide how to deal with it.
So it’s up to you if you stay here or come with me.” She stood up, turning to
the sliding glass doors. “I’m going to pack, so let me know what you decide.
Okay?”

Jenna went
inside, not waiting for a response. She couldn’t help sneaking a peek out the
window though. Felicity sat statue-still on the deck. Jenna smiled to herself,
realizing she made the first step toward becoming the mom she’d always wanted
to be. It only took sixteen years and her entire life crumbling down around
her. In this moment, it seemed a small price to pay.

An hour later, the expected knock came at her
door. Felicity entered, not waiting for permission. She stood there, her long
frame leaning on the doorway, and looked Jenna straight in the eyes.
 

“I’m staying.”
She waited for Jenna to challenge her. “I have responsibilities here I don’t
want to shirk.”

Jenna bit her lip to keep from laughing at the
wording.

“But I’d like to visit you during my break, if
that’s okay?”

“Come here.”
Jenna nodded and opened her arms, wrapping Felicity up in a big hug.

Felicity
nuzzled into her mother’s chest, noticing it was a bit softer than usual,
cozier.
 
Then, like a baby, she
cried. It took Jenna by surprise, but she petted her daughter’s hair, kissing
the top of her head. Jenna hoped these tears were cathartic—the start of
a new relationship between them. But she couldn’t help worrying what the kids
at school were going to say. How bad would it get?

Chapter
30

 
According to Wikipedia, Jackson Jones, nee
Alexander
Deshevka
, was born in Russia and immigrated
to Las Vegas with his parents at age sixteen. Lead guitarist in a rock band
with dreams of making it big, his life detoured when his father was deported
after his employer—a Russian property company—was implicated in a
crime ring in the Las Vegas area.
Deshevka
struggled
to take care of his mother and younger brother, Ivan, but found that no one
wanted to hire someone with ties to a Russian
Bratva
(“brotherhood”).

He dropped
out of high school, changed his name to Jackson Jones and entered the only
industry indiscriminate enough to let him in: porn. His success in the adult
film industry allowed him to buy his mother a house and offer his brother a
job, securing his family’s future.

He started Flesh, Inc., the first XXX business to
successfully transition into the mainstream, albeit through unorthodox
channels. Little was known for sure of their exact holdings, though their
estimated wealth was in the billions.

Christian
conservative groups had been outing them every chance they got, most notably
connecting them to a very large donation given to the Haiti relief fund. The
charity that took their donation was forced to refund it after receiving
thousands of death threats and enduring a smear campaign indicting them as a
“destroyer of family values.”

Shit.
Alex snapped his laptop shut.
Pacing up and down the room, he looked out at the Space Needle and the lush
Seattle skyline. From the hotel’s tiny balcony—just wide enough to stand
on with his feet twisted to one side, he could watch the ferries traverse the
Puget Sound carrying tourists and commuters across the grey expanse.

What do I do now?
He’d sensed something
was off before the European commercial debacle. The creative freedom he’d been
given, the generous per diems, the four star hotels on tour. It had been too
good to be true. An alarm, like the one that goes off in a parent’s head when
their child takes it upon themselves to take out the trash, blared in his head.
He’d heard it and ignored it.

When Jenna
found out his funding came from a porn mogul with Russian mafia ties, she’d
leave him for sure. It would do more than exacerbate the precarious state of
their marriage; it would humiliate her. She’d be dragged through a media
firestorm—they’d eat up the family-man-turns-to-porn angle. He couldn’t
stand the idea of her face when she realized she’d put her faith in a loser.
His father had warned him not to be selfish, to put his family first.

He hit his head with the heel of his hands
remembering how many times Shawn encouraged him to check the money trail.
Why didn’t I hold on to my publishing?
From
famous to infamous: it would be a scandalous dream come true. Combine fame,
porn and stupidity with a side of presumed infidelity? The tabloids would hang
them all out to dry.
 
Jenna’s
nightmare would become reality.

She
supported every creative decision he’d made, telling him to “be true to
yourself and you’ll get there.” He thought she was too idealistic, having seen
how easy it was for Shawn. He made it big quickly, toured for a few years, then
basically retired and got to spend time at home with her. Of course she thought
it would all work out; she didn’t know any better.

Alex didn’t
get that lucky. It hadn’t been easy. He often wondered if he deluded
himself.
 
He hated almost everything
he heard on the radio these days and used to think it was because he had better
than average taste. Other people were like sheep listening to anything played
on the radio. But after all that time of thinking differently, could he be sure
it wasn’t just him?

Not everyone “got” his work. But music was
subjective, and he had fans that got him.
 
That meant something—to him, at least. He’d read somewhere that
for every one fan he knew about there were 100 he didn’t.

Maybe, after all this time, all these years of
playing thankless gigs at bars, cafes, bookstores and restaurants, his lack of
success had nothing to do with being “unlucky,” as his father-in-law put it.
Maybe it testified to his complete and utter lack of talent.

His desk at
home was piled high with business cards and numbers scribbled on napkins from
people who’d seen his show and told him to “Call me!” They promised to be just
a step away from realizing his dreams. Over the years, he heard the same
message over and over again. “Shawn
Jax
is your
father-in-law? Why don’t you just go on tour with him?”
 
Then they’d ask for an autograph
(Shawn’s not his), never to be heard from again.

So when a
privately-funded
independent label with major distribution
wanted to sign him, how could he turn them down? If he did, he’d be admitting
he was talentless—his failure earned—and that he let his family
down through nothing but his own ineptitude. He didn’t see a choice. He wanted
vindication for all the dues he’d paid. He wanted to know what the view was
like from the top, as acquainted as he was with the sidelines.

He wouldn’t
let this stop him. He resolved to find a way out of this mess, and to do it
before Shawn’s Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Even if she still refused to
take his calls, he knew he’d see Jenna there. And she would avoid making a
scene, giving him his best shot to talk to her. If there was any hope he could
reclaim his life and save his marriage, he had to extricate himself from
Jackson Jones’ grasp. His puppeteer now named, he boldly took his next step
toward freedom.

Chapter
31

“You’re
back!” Noelle said, leading Jenna up the stairs to her photo studio. Jenna had
come by to thank her for being so understanding about her abrupt departure,
hoping she might still have a job.

“You picked
a good day to come back,” Noelle said. Jenna opened her mouth to say she hadn’t
expected to be back to work so soon and then quickly shut it, drinking in the
most extravagant set she had ever seen.

The entire floor had transformed into a
Lilliputian-sized Parisian café, complete with building façades, umbrellas,
tables, and purse-sized dogs. Off set a barista, brought in to make cappuccinos
and lattes for the army of set-dressers, hair stylists, make-up artists and
models littering every corner of free space, took orders as the espresso machine
frothed and foamed away.