Face the Music Read online

  “You’re definitely an interesting person, and I think you’re a bit naive.” Victoria smiled and touched her hand briefly. “What are you happy about?”

  Mason raised her eyebrow. That was a word no one had ever used to describe her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “Right this second both of us should let our happiness center around hot chicken.”

  “You’re also a person with odd ideas about happiness, but what the hell. I’ll give the hot chicken a shot.” Victoria picked up her sandwich and took a bite. “This is delicious,” she said around a mouthful.

  “I am, it is, and the rest will eventually work itself out.”

  * * *

  Victoria glanced through the crack in the door. Her mother had her eyes closed, but the way her hands strained to shield her belly meant her stomach was cramping.

  “You need to let me go, you bitch. Can’t you see I’m sick?” She tried sitting up, but the restraints would only give so much. “I need a doctor.”

  The woman watching her glanced at her watch as if she was bored before she came closer and wiped Sophie’s forehead with a cool towel. “What’s the name of your doctor? We’d like to talk to the guy who told you it was okay to swallow a bunch of oxycodone pills at once with a bottle of whiskey chaser. He needs his license taken away.”

  “That’s not your business.” The cramp seemed to twist into a more intense pain, and she screamed as her body bent as far as it could. “Oh my God, that hurts.”

  “You need to get through this part before we can start working on what got you here.”

  “Bitch, you have no idea what got me here or anything else about me.” She laughed, but the pain cut that short. “Get my daughter in here, then. I want to talk to her. She’ll get me out and back home since you don’t seem to understand who the hell you’re dealing with.”

  Victoria dug her nails into her palm when her mother mentioned her.

  “You’re Sophie Roddy, country music legend. Is that what you’re talking about?”

  “You’re goddamned right, and the law will see this as kidnapping and being held against my will. What’s your name?”

  “Cassandra, and you’ve gotten to a point where you can’t make decisions for yourself, so your daughter is acting in your best interest. Legally.” Cassandra put the towel down and injected something into her IV line. “This will help with the cramps and help you sleep. Take some deep breaths and try to relax.”

  “I want to talk to Victoria.” Sophie sounded like a balloon slowly losing air, but whatever was in the syringe sucked all the pain right out of her. “Now,” she said and closed her eyes.

  “Is she okay?” Victoria asked Belle when she finally gave in to her request to visit her mother’s room. “She looks awful.”

  “I like to think of detox as knocking a poorly built structure down right to the foundation. If you want to build something that’ll last and be strong enough to endure the storm, it’s very necessary.” Belle spoke softly and her voice was soothing. “I promise the pain and discomfort she’s in won’t go on much longer, but the craving for whatever she was on will be a lifelong problem. We can teach her how to curb it once we get her clean, but the possibility of her backsliding is a harsh reality. It’s the nature of addiction.”

  “Did she tell you what she was on?” How the hell had they gotten to this point? “There were so many pills, and she didn’t care which ones she put in her mouth. Does it matter what the overdose itself was on?”

  “Let’s let her sleep, and we can talk downstairs.”

  They left Cassandra in the room, and she followed Belle to the kitchen where someone had left everything to make tea on the counter. “Do you think she can beat this?”

  “How about you answer some stuff for me first, and then I’ll answer your questions?” Belle filled the kettle and placed it on the stove. The sun was starting to set, and Victoria briefly wondered where Mason had disappeared to.

  They’d taken another long drive after lunch and stopped at a roadside stand manned by an older guy in a wheelchair and bought two jars of honey. One of them sat on the counter next to the Earl Grey tea bags and cut-up lemon wedges. It was as if Mason had left the small comfort for what was going to be a hard conversation.

  “What do you want to know?” The sad part was that she had no clue why her mother had turned to someone like Weston, when she had her. Granted, her mother had told her about her insecurities and a little about what brought them on, but did that really lead to total self-destruction?

  “We’ll get to that, but let’s talk first.” The kettle went off and Belle filled two mugs with hot water. “This is a scary time for you and Sophie, and you’re probably thinking you’re at least partly to blame for what happened to her. Nagging thoughts, that maybe there was something you missed, something you could’ve done, or someone you should have protected her from, things that allowed the demons that landed her in this position to flourish.”

  “It’s true, though,” she said, holding the honey with both hands while the tea steeped. “Weston kept giving her all that stuff, and I kept looking the other way because it was the easiest thing to do. She trusted me to be her manager as well as her daughter, and I didn’t do anything about it.”

  “Oh, honey.” Belle reached out and took the jar away from her so she could hold her hand. “You need to let that go. Sophie’s up there because Sophie made bad choices, not you.”

  “Didn’t you hear me? I should’ve gotten rid of that guy.”

  “Even if you’d managed that, there was another Weston waiting in the wings. That’s what Sophie needed to survive because she needed that fix, and Weston knew how to fill it.”

  “I let him do this to her.”

  “Tell me who Weston is and what relationship he has with your mom.” Belle listened as she told her what she knew about Weston. “Where’d she meet him?”

  “We were at a show in Biloxi, and she got really mad at rehearsal and took off for about five hours.” She wiped her face when she felt the tears falling on her hands. It didn’t really hit her until then that she’d been numb from that moment on, and it’d spread like a cancer until she didn’t feel anything. “Her rage had started to build over the months, but that day it was like an animal trying to claw its way out.”

  “How was she when she got back, or did you have to go looking for her?” Belle removed the tea bag for her and added honey and lemon. That was what her mom drank before every show, or what she used to drink before every show. She’d replaced the soothing drink with whiskey and more pills.

  “What does that have to do with anything?” She was so tired, and the questions felt too close to the bone.

  “I’m not trying to waste your time, honey, but we need to find the root of this problem. If we do that, there’s a possibility we can help her stay sober.”

  Victoria relented. They were trying to help, and she had to remember that. “She came back, and she got even madder because one of the roadies had quit. It didn’t make any sense to me, because she doesn’t really care about that kind of thing, and she wasn’t exactly on her game that night.” For as much crap that she’d given Mason about social media, she’d read all the comments from that night, about how Sophie should maybe think about riding off into retirement. “We left for Baton Rouge, and that afternoon she introduced me to Weston Cagle and told me to make arrangements for him. He’s been with us—or, should I say, with her—ever since.”

  Belle gazed at her empathetically. “What happened in Baton Rouge?”

  “She and Weston had gone to her room after our introduction, and Bryce and I came to get her for the show.” The memory of her mother crawling on the floor naked because she couldn’t get up was tattooed on her brain. “She was totally out of it and so was he, and I had no choice but to cancel. That didn’t go over well in an arena full of people who’d paid for a concert. There was so much blowback that it’s also affected her ability to contract to record new music and book more shows.”

  “Part of our problem is that her dealer is so accessible. Hell, he lives with her, and that’s something that has to change.”

  “She’ll sever her relationship with me and everyone she knows before she sends Weston away.” The truth hurt like someone hit her with a sledgehammer to the chest, but it was true nonetheless. “All I am, in her opinion, is a pain in her ass.”

  “Listen to me.” Belle moved until she stood beside her. “You’re her daughter, and you love her—that’s plain. What’s not so plain for you to see right now is that Sophie loves you too. On the other hand, Weston is a user, and he’s found the one person who’ll pay and pay to keep him fixed up. When the money dries up, or he kills Sophie, he’ll move on in search of his next fix. Why do you think he called you when she was in real trouble? If the golden goose dies, there’ll be no more drugs and fun.”

  “What can I do?” She knew she’d already lost her relationship with her mother, but maybe this woman had a way of getting her mom back, even if Sophie didn’t want her in her life any longer.

  “The one thing that’s so much harder than what you’ve been doing.” Belle squeezed her shoulders and looked her in the eye. “You need to stop fixing everything, and let go. That’s not your responsibility or job. The most important job you have now is to let Sophie make the choice for Sophie, and you need to accept whatever that choice is. If you don’t, then you’ll both be right back here.”

  “What if she needs me?” Taking care of Sophie Roddy and her image was her identity. What did she have without it?

  “It’s going to be hard, but a pass now from you is the worst thing you can do. What she needs from you is tough love, not coddling.” Belle lifted her mug and handed it to her. “Let’s make a deal, you and me.”

  “You sound like Mason.” The happiness of hot chicken was long ago.

  “I seriously doubt it. I’m way cooler than Mason, and my deal comes a week at a time. My deal is this: let me and my team work week to week, and you find something to fill your days that isn’t worrying about your mom.”

  “Like what?” Then she understood the implication. “Wait, you want me to leave?”

  “If you want to stay because it makes you feel better to be close by, then stay. It’s an obscenely big house, Victoria, and you’ll know our schedule, which will guarantee you don’t communicate with her. All I need from you is to keep clear of your mother until she’s ready to see you again. Until we know she’s ready to see you from a better headspace than the one she’s in now.” Belle held her hand out and waited. “Do we have a deal?”

  “We’ll talk again next week?” She took Belle’s hand and held it.

  “I’m not that antisocial. We’ll talk every afternoon if it’ll make you feel better, but I really need you to find that something to fill your time that in no way involves obsessing about what’s happening upstairs. In that way, it’s probably good if you stay here rather than going home, where you’ll be besieged by Sophie’s work life.” They both stared out the window when they heard barking and saw Mason walking toward the house. “I could give you a few hints as to where to look for inspiration.”

  “Yeah, right. Mason Liner isn’t going to spend her time babysitting me after doing all this.”

  “I was thinking more of you asking her for something to do. You’re the manager of a successful artist, and Mason works for a recording company. I’m sure you have more than a few things in common, and I’m sure she’d appreciate the help.”

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

  “Really? Why?” Belle didn’t concentrate on her as she asked but kept her attention on Mason.

  “This will be hard enough without being indebted to someone.” She exhaled loudly. “More indebted than we already will be.”

  “Get to know her before you start judging too harshly.” Belle picked up her mug and started out of the room.

  “Do you know her? Know her well, I mean?”

  “Mason and I are friends, and my impression of her is that she lives to make dreams come true without expecting anything in return.” The smile Belle gave her made her think she really believed that. “What you need to figure out is what your dreams are.”

  The thought was overwhelming. “But what if I don’t have any?”

  “Then you have a beautiful and inspirational place to find some. That you’ve found someone who thinks you matter is a given. I can’t know for sure, but I don’t think Mason goes out of her way like this for just anyone. Take advantage of that and make a new friend.”

  “Oh, I don’t think that’s a given at all.”

  “That’s a shame, then.” Belle squeezed her shoulder on her way out of the kitchen. “Don’t forget our deal.”

  Victoria stared out at Mason, as she threw a stick for the big Lab who was jumping around her, and thought about their afternoon together. “What’s your game?” She tapped her nail against her cup and watched as she repeated the question she’d voiced earlier. Nothing came without strings. And the fact that Mason liked helping people didn’t mean her help came without a price of some kind. While the idea of solitude and time to think about what she wanted from life was nice, she wasn’t fool enough to believe it would all be fixed by a stay at Mason’s place. Life simply wasn’t that kind.

  “In the end you’ll probably be just like everyone else, demanding your pound of flesh.”

  * * *

  The next morning Victoria heard Mason’s door open again, and she joined her for coffee downstairs. As if by mutual agreement neither of them spoke, not wanting to disturb the quiet that had finally come after another night of her mom’s screaming and complaining.

  “Want to go for a walk?” Mason finally said softly as she placed their cups in the sink.

  Dawn had given way to a gorgeous pink sky, and she did have an urge to get out of this beautiful but depressing place. “Sure, thanks.”

  They headed to the fence line, and Mason handed her pieces of apple to give to the horses who hung their heads over, searching for a treat. It was the first time in her life she’d spent so much time with someone and didn’t have the urge to speak, and it wasn’t uncomfortable.

  “Want to head to the river house for the day?” Mason asked as they headed in that direction.

  “That’d be good.” A morning of silence was okay, but she didn’t know about a whole day of it.

  Mason unlocked the door and let her go in first. “Make yourself at home and I’ll come down for lunch.”

  “Am I keeping you from something?”

  “Not at all.” Mason stepped into the office and waved to the couch as she took the chair. “If I were in your place, I’d want some space and time to process what happened. You don’t need me here if that’s the case, so I’ll work from the house, and come down later. The other option is to tell me I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about.”

  “Lunch sounds nice if you really have the time.”

  “See you then.”

  She watched Mason walk up the hill and allowed herself the chance to cry. Her mother was close but untouchable, and she’d never felt this level of loneliness. No matter what the outcome of all this would be, the one reality was that she was alone.

  The next two hours were spent memorizing every knot on the pine ceiling, but then she got tired of the self-pity and decided to use the piano. Music was not only comforting, but it helped her forget the acid-tinged chaos of life for a little while.

  She’d finished playing and was reading, confident her eyes held no trace of her earlier crying bout, when Mason came back. The faded jeans, navy shirt, and cowboy boots made her stare longer than was probably wise, but shit. Mason and those damn dimples were hard not to stare at.

  “Ready?” Mason asked.

  “Where to?”

  “I think it’s better if you work up some anticipation with your appetite.” It was the only hint Mason gave until they walked into Biscuit Love after a quick, quiet drive.

  The place had a line out the door, but Mason took her hand and walked her to the back, where a cute girl opened the door after Mason knocked. They sat, and Mason ordered for her once she nodded when Mason’d asked if it was okay to do so.

  “Two sweet teas and split a Southern Benny and a Wash Park, please.”

  “How the hell are you in such great shape when you eat like this?” she asked when the food came out.

  “Tomorrow we’ll get a salad, but for today, Miss Roddy, your assignment is to find happiness in that burger with pimento cheese and bacon jam.”

  “What am I supposed to do with the ham, egg, and sausage gravy biscuit taking up the other half of my plate?”

  “I was upping my chances of making you happy.” Mason cut a piece of biscuit and fed it to her. “Was I right?”

  “That’s delicious,” she said with her hand over her mouth.

  “You’d have to be a hardcore case if that didn’t make you smile.”

  They followed the same schedule for the next three weeks, and the more time they spent together, the more the days changed. Their morning walks weren’t silent any longer, but they didn’t delve into any deep subjects, keeping things light and easy, and their lunches were the most fun Victoria had had in forever. Their meals together were a tour of Mason’s favorite places, but they were also a peek into who Mason really was.

  Mason wasn’t demanding or intrusive, and Victoria started looking forward to every minute she gave her. Trusting those good moments could be her biggest mistake, but she wasn’t scared enough to say no whenever there was something on offer.

  “Where the hell will this lead?” she asked the empty room. The answer, unfortunately, ended at Sophie’s door, and that didn’t bring her anything like the same joy as Mason’s daily lunch surprise.

  Chapter Seven