Chapter Twenty-One

Eddie

Callie is scaring me, I expected a break down, I expected a wreck. Maybe that’s the issue, I’d expected her to react like I would. After Beau’s funeral she moved back into her room at my house, she didn’t want her sister looking over her shoulder like she was a fragile little girl. But she’s acting as if nothing ever happened. The first time she wanted to go to a meeting I went because I thought it was more for her, she opened up about her past and it made me realise we’re not so different after all, we both hold the same fears and the daily struggle is okay because I have her. I never mentioned it, and neither did Olivia, that I’d been going to meetings on my own. Before a meeting last week, I told her I’m concerned about her and that maybe she should go to a meeting for herself because I know she’d only been going along with me; that obviously lead to a fight. I totally avoided her for a couple days after that, because the woman is scary when she’s angry and I didn’t want to be me and mess things up. Mickki and the guys have been coming here to work on the new album so we can be free of our contract. We’ve been doing this for almost half our lives, and we can all just walk away; besides Mickki, he’s said he may consider a solo career.

I have an early meeting today with my solicitors, they need some more information. We decided to see what can be done in case Alex does decide to take this public, we need to be a few steps ahead of her. When I get in the car with Marcus, he’s acting strange, he’s been acting weird all morning and I can’t get hold of Damien because he’s picking the girls up from the airport and getting them settled into their new place. This is also so he can spend some alone time with Shan, he won’t admit it, but they hit it off and he’s head over heels for her.

“I need to make a quick stop, there’s a florist on the corner of Eldsons Street.”

“Are you sure, I can call someone to get you flowers,” he says.

“Just take me to the florist, I want to order my girl some flowers so I can stop hiding from her.”

“She isn’t even mad at you,” he says.

“That’s what you think. She told you she wasn’t pissed and she wants you to tell me that. I’ve had Delilah and Jules keep me updated, and she’s still pissed.”

Marcus pulls over to the curb and follows me from the car. As we make our way into the florist, and I’m thinking there’s nothing nicer than the smell of fresh flowers, my phone starts playing. I’d changed my ringtone to the music for the next song I’ve started writing, I like hearing it for inspiration. I see Sasha’s name flashing on the screen and send the call to voice mail, I’ll call her back after my meeting. The shop assistant looks up from her gossip magazine and gasps, as she looks at me and back to the magazine, Marcus tells me to go pick some flowers. Just as I start to move away I realise I don’t know anything about flowers, turning back around I see Marcus whispering with the lady behind the counter. When I see my face on the front of her trashy gossip magazine it hits me, Marcus has been weird today because he’s hiding something from me, and for that matter I haven’t had my phone blowing up from Mickki reminding me what time I had to be at the solicitor’s office. Marcus is the best in his field and it surprises me that he didn’t see me sneak up behind him and snatch the magazine from his hands. He tries to snatch it back and tells me I really shouldn’t look at it, but I need to know. The cover has a picture of me and one of Alex. MANAGER SPEAKS OUT AGAINST SEXUAL HARRASSMENT. Where there’s one headline there’ll be plenty more, I run from the florist and across the road to the newsagency. Every shelf has magazines with my face on them. As I start grabbing them off the shelves, a young shop assistant tries to approach me.

“Sorry sir, you can’t…Oh, um, it’s you,” she says, realising it’s my face on the covers.

“I’ll take them all,” I say and she just nods. Marcus is trying to keep the few people who’ve caught on from taking pictures and videos. As the girl starts scanning and bagging the magazines, I notice the crowd has grown and my security has tripled. Marcus pulls me from the counter and says someone will take care of it for me.

“Call Delilah and make sure she keeps Callie inside the house until I get back!” I shout at Marcus as we try to exit the store.

“Already taken care of Eddie, Jules is paying her a visit.”

“Good, take me to Mickki,” I say hitting the speed dial for his number on my phone.

“Eddie?” Mickki says answering my call.

“Don’t ‘Eddie’ me. Tell me you didn’t know about this, because I’m struggling to grasp how you’ve been on me about this and you said she couldn’t go to the papers and that we had time.”

“Just calm down, please, this isn’t a bad thing,” he says.

“Not a bad thing?” I scoff. “How is my girlfriend, who’s grieving her son, finding out her boyfriend has been accused of sexually harassing his manger a good thing?” I shout and end the call. How could he even think, for one second, that this is a good thing? I’m screwed.

I barely wait for the car to stop before stepping out in front of Brindley, Carlyle and Associates. Storming into the office the receptionist doesn’t get a chance to greet me, I walk my way through to Brindley’s office. “Who’s responsible for this?” I throw the magazine on the table, scattering loose pens and some papers across the table. “Be wise about how you answer, otherwise I’ll be in tomorrow’s paper for a lot worse than sexual harassment.”

“Stop being so overdramatic, go home and explain everything to Callie before she gets to see any of this. She’s a smart woman, so I highly doubt she’ll believe anything she reads,” Mickki says.

“So, what now then?” I ask. “Do you have a plan? Because I sure as shit pay you enough to at least give me something.”

“Actually, we did…” Derek says, but stops abruptly when Mickki looks at him.

“Tell me, for fuck’s sake, I have a right to know.”

“We found an out, but it isn’t a good one,” Derek says.

“An out?” I question.

“You signed an agreement of sorts when you agreed, or reluctantly agreed, to get sober,” Mickki says and I do vaguely remember signing something I didn’t read. “It basically said that if you fucked up one more time the label would have no choice but to drop you. But the sexual harassment wasn’t put to the press until now, and…”

“And if I relapsed I could get out of the contract,” I say, finishing Mickki’s sentence.

“Pretty much, but now this is out in the open we have room to negotiate with Fontaine Records. We have our team going over your contracts again, and Alex’s, and we’ll be meeting with their team of solicitors.”

“So, Eddie that means no doing anything fucking stupid until they meet with Fontaine Records,” Mickki says in his condescending tone, like I’m a child. My phone starts vibrating in my pocket again.

“What?” I snap down the line, not even bothering to see who’s calling.

“Callie’s gone,” Delilah says, sounding panicked.

“She’s gone where?”

“We don’t know. I only went to make her some food and when Jules turned up she was already gone,” she says.

“Maybe she just went to the shops” fuck. She will see all the magazines. “FUCK!”

“There’s something else that Jules told me and it’s not good.”

“You’re scaring me,” I say and the room falls silent, all eyes on me.

“It’s Beau’s birthday today. I didn’t know and Jules has gone to see if she can find her in any of the usual places she goes.”

“Make sure you tell everyone to go look for her, and I mean everyone. If I get back and anyone is there, they’ll be fired.” I end the call and look up at Mickki. “We have to go.” I don’t need to tell him any details, he heard enough to understand. Marcus is already on the phone, maybe we’re overreacting, but I know I can’t take any chances; she’ll hate herself if she relapses.

I make a quick call to Sasha and learn that she was only calling to tell me to keep an eye on Callie today since its Beau’s birthday.

**

Pulling up at Jules’s house I feel useless; we’ve been looking all day and haven’t been able to find her. Everyone is gathered outside, all we can do is wait. Her phone is switched off. I know it isn’t flat because she’s so anal about charging it. I made Jules go inside and lie down, her husband said he’d make sure she rested. I look around in awe at the amount of support Callie has. Olivia, her sponsor, and a few regular NA friends are gathered around a small beat up car; Damien, Shan, and the other girls are talking with Marcus; and Delilah is handing out sandwiches. Dane and his wife pull up at the curb behind my SUV.

“Thanks for coming,” I say, shaking his hand.

“We care about her and want to help. I called Sasha and we’ve put together a list of the places she used to go when she wasn’t sober,” he says, handing me a piece of paper.

I call everyone over and we share out the pubs, clubs, and other addresses. I make Delilah go home in case Callie turns up there. Once we’ve split the list between us, we leave, agreeing to meet back here if we can’t find her. Marcus and I have some small pub on the other side of town. Staring out the car window as we drive through the area, the houses are smaller and the area may not be the best, but I feel jealous of them, I wish I had a normal life. People always say they want fame and fortune, but it really isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. What good is all my money when I can’t find her and help her. Maybe other people don’t wish for it, and it was only me, but if I look back on my life there are very few times I’ve ever been truly happy. One being when we first started the band and we’d rehearse in Benny’s garage, we thought we were so badass and had a blast. The second time was when I met Sasha and Amelia. The third time has been since I met Callie. None of those happy times came from having money. It’s amazing how you start to see things differently when you’re happy. The constant travelling, the shows, the women, the parties…none of it appeals to me anymore, all I want is a happy life with my woman and my close friends. I really just want to find Callie so she knows I love her, and that I’m here for her no matter what. Marcus lets me know we’re here, I look around as I step out of the car. The bar’s only small and all the adjoining shops are closed and the streets seem empty, the sound of a live band comes from inside. Making my way through the doors, I scan the room and she doesn’t seem to be here. As I’m approaching the bar, a lady in her mid-forties with bleached blonde hair, and wearing a really tight white singlet and a leather mini skirt, smiles at me seductively.

“What can I get for you, handsome?” she asks, leaning on the bar, enough so that her breasts hang from her shirt.

“I’m looking for my girlfriend,” I say, pulling out a recent photo of Callie that Jules gave me.

“Oh, you’re Eddie. Cal was here,” she tells me.

“Where did she go?” Marcus asks and she turns her attention towards him.

“She was really drunk and we called her a cab. She mentioned it was her son’s birthday and she wanted to see him.”

“Her son’s dead,” I snap and her face drops, maybe she isn’t as fake as her tits.

“I’m sorry, she didn’t mention anything about him besides it being his birthday.”

“Thanks for your help.” Marcus is already on the phone to the taxi company.

“Eddie, we need to leave, they dropped her close to your house. She made a scene and they kicked her out on the side of the road.”

We race towards the car. When I find out who kicked her out I’ll have them fired, don’t they have a duty of care? Who am I kidding, it’s Callie and she’s damn scary. I get Delilah on the phone and ask if she’s seen Callie yet, she says she checked the house as soon as she got in but she wasn’t there. I ask her to go double check Beau’s room and to call me back if she finds her. Every second of the drive back to my house has felt like an hour, there’s no sign of her where the taxi company said they dropped her. As we pull up to the house, I jump out of the car before Marcus has even parked. Delilah is standing at the door, I’m almost afraid to look at her but as I do I see the sadness in her eyes and she shakes her head; I have to look for myself, maybe she’s hiding.

“Callie!” I yell, running through the kitchen. I make my way to my studio, and out into the pool room. My heart beats faster as I approach her side of the house. I’m nervous…what if she isn’t here? But, what if she is, what mental state will she be in? Am I really ready to do this? Taking a deep breath, I walk through her living room. “Callie?” I say, opening her bedroom door. I walk in and notice a picture of Beau on the floor. Picking it up, I set it back up on her dresser.

Where are you Callie?

“I’ve found Callie!” Marcus calls.

“Where?”

“She’s outside in her old car,” he says.

“Thank god,” I sigh.

“Are you sure you can handle this? She looks like she’s in really bad shape.” I can understand his concern for me, he’s been with us for ten years now.

“Even if I can’t handle it, I have to try. She’s my rock and I love her.” I assure him; he nods and I leave him standing there.

I thought I was nervous before, but as I make out a body sitting in the car, my hands start to sweat and I wipe them on my jeans. She has the radio on and Alanis Morissette is blasting from the speakers. When I open the passenger side door and close it behind me, she looks up at me through her tears; she’s so beautiful, even with mascara running down her face. She’s also wearing that stupid big hat from the day she drove me home in this death trap. She doesn’t say anything to me, she just takes a swig from the bottle of vodka.

“He was the reason I stayed sober,” Callie says, breaking the silence.

“I know he was, and I know you need to numb the pain. I know that listening to music so loud that it drowns out the silence in your brain helps too.”

“I just need to forget, just for a little while, please help me forget.”

“Okay.” I open my door and walk around to her side of the car and help her out; tonight I plan to do whatever it takes to help her forget. Maybe it’s stupid not to take the alcohol and whatever her drug of choice is, and I know she has some on her somewhere, it’s what helps us feel something. But the damage is done and she’ll have to face that, but if I force her right now she could disappear from my life. Walking inside hand in hand, Marcus is standing in the doorway. I tell Callie to go inside and pick some music and I’ll be in soon. I can see the look on his face and I know what he’s about to say.

“You’re in over your head,” he says.

“Just trust that I may know how to handle this. Let everyone know I’ll call them tomorrow. Right now, she needs to forget and can you really blame her. The damage is done, she already hates herself, so in a few hours more, and me watching over her, she’ll have it out of her system and everything will be fine.”

“What if she doesn’t and you get dragged down with her?”

“Are you fucking serious right now? She needs me and if she does drag me back in, as you say, then I don’t care, I don’t want to be without her. I need her and I know her, she’s too strong to let this keep her down, she’ll wake up in the morning and realise it isn’t worth it.”

“You’re being a selfish ass, as usual. When will you act your age, and start thinking about something, or someone, other than yourself?”

“Fuck off, you’re way out of line, it isn’t your place as my employee!” I whisper-yell.

“Employee!” he scoffs. “Here I thought we were actually friends,” he says and walks away mumbling something under his breath. I knew he wouldn’t understand. The only thing that kept me going after Amelia died was drugs, booze, fucking, and music; and I’d only known Amelia for a short time. This was her son, someone she already felt she’d let down. If this is how she wants to deal with her grief on his birthday, then I’ll stand by her side and make sure she’s okay, that she gets through it even if no one else agrees or understands.