2. Jake
Chapter 2
Jake
Dear Jake,
Cowbirds aren’t the only parasitic breed, you know. They’re not even the most famous. No, that distinction goes to the cuckoo. In fact, that’s the root of the word “cuckold.” A man is a cuckold if he’s caring for a woman, paying for her clothes and home, and she’s stepping out with another man.
All I’m saying is, watch out.
You may be cared for in that nest, and you may mistakenly come to care for the birds caring for you, but never forget that you’re not the only one who’s pulling on their time and sympathies. Make sure you’re the loudest, the most effective, and the best-fed.
I’m glad to hear that you’re playing your role well. I know because those holier-than-thou foster parents of yours wrote me a letter. The more I read, the prouder I got. They told me what a good boy you are, how kind, how smart, and how talented.
You’ve sure got them fooled.
So just keep on keeping on. I have some big plans for when I get out of here, and trust me. We’ll repay them for what they did to us. Don’t worry—in addition to tricking them into raising my chick, in addition to you taking everything you can from them, I have something even better planned.
Have you ever known me to fail? Not in the long run.
I’m proud of you—just don’t forget you’re not their good boy. Not really. You’re a cowbird, and I won’t be stuck in here forever. That’s a promise.
-Dad
“ S o who’s driving to karaoke later?” Precious Patty actually looks at me, as if I’d let her ride with me.
“Please tell me Regina George is kidding,” the guitarist mutters.
The understated snark makes me smile, but it’s momentary, because Eddy seems to be serious about the vocals. “Obviously you can’t change significant album details now,” I say. “You already signed all the contracts. Patrice is doing the videos, and that’s enough.”
“It’s because I’m just that awesome,” Precious Patty says. “I offered to do it for free, so they don’t need to change anything. I’m doing it out of the goodness of my heart.” She tosses her head. “I’ll do all the work and she’ll still get paid—no breach.”
“But we already recorded most of the songs.” Bea looks like she’s seconds from a full-on explosion.
Before she can say a word, Octavia grabs Bea’s wrist and shakes her head. “Let’s just talk about it later. This isn’t the place.”
Bea’s head snaps sideways. “What?”
“Not here.” Octavia shakes her head tightly, her eyes narrowing.
She doesn’t want to make a big scene here, on set. It’s the grown-up, mature way to handle things, which I respect, but I doubt it’s going to work with Bea.
Only, my sister’s brow furrows, and she sighs. “Fine.”
Fine?
Really?
I’ve never seen my sister stand down like that. It’s as if. . .is Octavia the boss between the two of them? Is she the one who cares less? The one willing to walk away? I didn’t realize that until this moment.
“I can drive, if I need to,” Precious Patty says. “I have my Land Rover. I can even fit. . .” She glances at Octavia. “Whoever.”
“I’ll take Octavia,” I say. Because there’s no way she’s riding with Patty.
“Oh, it’s fine,” Octavia says. “I’m sure I can ride in the van with?—”
“No, you’ll come with me,” I say. “We have some things to discuss.”
“What could you possibly need to talk about?” Precious Patty asks.
“Fine,” Octavia says. “It’s fine.” She walks toward me.
Bea might rip Patty’s head off if they ride together, but it would be far worse for Octavia. She’d sit silently while stupid Patty is awful over and over.
Bea smiles as if she understands. “Yes, you two go together, and we’ll find our way over too. We can all talk once we’re there.” I’m pretty sure she’ll be calling Easton the very second we walk out the door. Her future husband’s as good as anyone I’ve met at manipulating, wheeling, and dealing. I’m sure he can get this worked out.
Only, as we reach my car—I only have one car in California, my white Mercedes—my phone dings. I set my alerts to ping whenever I have any official emails from the network or studio people. This one announces the official change for music on the movie soundtrack from Octavia Rothschild to Patrice Jouveau, and the tone’s excited.
That straight up ticks me off.
“Everything okay?” Octavia asks.
I toss my head to tell her it’s unlocked.
Once we’ve both closed our doors, I shake my head. “Not exactly. It looks like we were the last to find out about this switch. If I had to guess, I’d say they pushed it through without any of us knowing for a reason.”
“Easton would be upset too,” she says. “But you guys shouldn’t worry about this. I’ve been concerned about my involvement and the impact it might have on the project since the start.”
My hands tighten on the steering wheel. “It’s messed up, Octavia. You know it is.”
She shrugs. “It’s not. They’re just being smart. They aren’t sure what the public reaction might be to me, and Patrice is a sure thing.”
I want to tear the steering wheel off and throw it out the window. Or better yet, at the production team, with Eddy standing in the front. He’s met her. He knows her. She’s not a meaningless name on paper to him. “He should have gone to bat for you on this.”
“Who?” Octavia asks. “Eddy?” She blinks. “Or do you mean Easton?”
“I’m sure Easton had no idea.” I sigh. “But Eddy knew. I thought I could trust him, but I guess not.”
“It’s not Eddy you should blame,” she says. “They want this film to be a success, and the soundtrack album is early marketing.” She drops her hand on my arm, and my entire body reacts. Like a live wire spraying sparks.
My head snaps toward her. Until now, she’d been looking out the window, hiding the left—burned—side of her face from me. Now she’s turned toward me. “If people were braver, if they gave us a chance to do the right thing, we might surprise you.”
“Or the production team might lose their shirt.” She squeezes my arm. “After a lifetime of being let down by the American public in virtually every public space, I can tell you that they made the right call. If I’m not upset, you shouldn’t be either.”
Except, I still am.
She can’t just tell me not to be upset and expect that to work. If it was that easy, big pharma would sell a lot fewer anxiety meds, among other things. “I’m sure once you’ve heard Patrice sing a few of our songs, the recorded files for which Eddy assures us are being emailed, you’ll feel better.” She drops her hand back into her lap.
I hate that she’s resigned to this sort of thing, as if people’s stupid reactions to her perfectly lovely face is just her cross to bear.
“There’s nothing wrong with it, you know.” That came out wrong. “Your face, I mean,” I say. “In fact, it’s beautiful.”
“My face. . .is beautiful?” Her lip’s twitching. “Gee, thanks, Dad.”
Being compared to her dad’s not a good sign. “What I meant is that when Patty said your face was ugly. . .” My knuckles have gone white on the steering wheel. “I’ve never hit a woman, but I thought about how that rule really matters today. I thought hard.”
She snorts. “Don’t bother doing anything like that for me. As you said, that sort of comment tells me more about her than it does about me. I have mirrors. I know exactly how I look, and believe me when I say she’s not the first and she won’t be the last to say something similar.”
I hate that. I hate it so much.
As we drive in near-silence to the address for the Seoul Town Karaoke place, I can’t help thinking that she must not know how she looks. If she did, would she simply say it’s the ‘way the world is’?
“What do you know about Van Gogh?” I ask.
Octavia’s eyes narrow. “Is this some kind of test?”
I laugh. “Not at all, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about. Van Gogh died young, and I know he has a bad public image, even now. The man clearly suffered from some mental health issues, depression at the very least. They say he valued himself so little that he always ruined things he made that others praised. But his story. . .” I don’t want to upset her, but I think she’s seeing things all wrong.
“I know his story.” She’s remarkably composed for someone who just got attacked by a movie star on a set in a work environment and then found out she’d been wrongly removed from a contracted job. “He was a minister turned painter, and he was a failure during his lifetime,” she says. “He sold a handful of paintings, all sold by his brother Theo. Though some other artists found his work to be impressive, no one of means seemed to agree with them. He cut off his ear—theories abound as to why—and only after his death did the value of his paintings soar, probably because he was an off-putting personality in real life.”
“That’s mostly true, but you’re missing a few things.” I can’t help my smile. “Van Gogh only painted for six years, dying before he could do more. He painted the things he did with great skill and speed—an unknown speed, really. He could paint something like a sunset in the forty-five minutes it took the sun to actually set. No other painter at the time could accomplish such a feat—actually, I’d guess the number of painters in any time that could do it is small.”
“That’s fascinating,” she admits, a small smile on the edge of her mouth. I like that she’s not turning away.
Sadly, my GPS dings to tell me that the stupid Seoul Town place is right around the corner. “Like someone else I know, he had almost a freak-of-nature level talent.” No time to be subtle. “His skill was undeniable. You remember that he wasn’t famous in his lifetime, but if he’d given the world a chance to recognize his talent, he could have been.”
“Are you suggesting that I don’t cut off my ear as planned?”
“It’s a funny phrase, cutting off your nose to spite your face. Maybe it should be ear.”
“I mean, I don’t think?—”
“I’ve almost made my point.” I glance over to make sure she’s not upset I cut her off. “Vincent was famous just a few years after he died. I don’t think it was because he was off-putting, per se . I think it’s because his style, his bold colors, and his common-man subjects were a change from the usual. He needed to have more faith in humanity, that they would see and appreciate his brilliance.”
Octavia’s smile is actually bright—stunning. “It’s harder to have faith in something that has been consistently disproven, Jake. But there are some people who give me hope, people like you and your sister, so thanks for that.”
“I’m not good at saying things—usually I have brilliant writers who arrange my words—but what I’m trying to say is that you think your face makes you a liability. You think it’s something you should apologize for, and you’re wrong. You have a beautiful face. I could look at it all day.”
She blushes then, and I realize that only the unburned part of her face blushes. The rest of it stays whitish. As if she knows exactly what I’ll see, she ducks her head, shifting so her hair falls across the front of her face.
“I’m not just saying that,” I say. “If you give people a chance, they’ll notice your special beauty, too.”
She quirks an eyebrow. “My special beauty?”
“Okay, so I may not be Mel Gibson in Braveheart , but I’m trying to get you to fight. If Van Gogh had kept fighting, we might have so many more epic paintings that they’d be in every Holiday Inn across America.”
“I’m not about to commit suicide, but I don’t want my songs played in every elevator in the country either.” Her smile’s wry.
“It’s not a perfect analogy.” I hate how wrong this is all coming out. “But what I mean is?—”
“I think I know what you mean, but Jake, this movie soundtrack isn’t an end,” she says. “It’s a beginning. I just started working with Bea, and?—”
“But it’s a big chance,” I say. “It’s the kind of start that can change everything. I know that, because one of Bea’s songs changed my life.”
“I heard that.” She compresses her lips. “Well, I’ll be curious to see if they even care what we think. . .” She looks up at me and meets my eyes. “Please don’t go cutting off your ear to spite, well, anything. You have nice ears, and that would be a true tragedy.”
I’m chuckling as we get out of the car.
“Did you two talk about whatever it was you needed to discuss privately?” Precious Patty’s glaring.
“How did you get here so fast?” Octavia asks. “Jake drives fast , and didn’t you have to change clothes before you left?”
Patty shrugs. “My driver knows LA.”
“Well, we’re both very happy you made it,” I say. “We can’t wait to listen to you sing the songs you’re trying to steal from Octavia.”
Patty frowns. “You know, this wasn’t even my idea.” She tosses her hair. “We can talk about it more inside.” She glances to the left and beams at the people who are pointing and snapping photos of us as we pass.
Once we reach the entrance, a member of the staff’s waiting for us. “We have a private VIP karaoke room this way.” The hostess is smiling, and Patty follows her with her nose up, like she thinks she’s royalty or something.
“I’m going to apologize in advance,” I whisper to Octavia. “But there’s no way I can let this go—especially because of her. If you think she really had nothing to do with this change, you’re wrong. Precious Patty is a complete diva, and--”
“Precious. . .” Octavia laughs. This time, it’s big enough that her entire face changes, and I love it. Yes, her skin is different. Yes, it moves differently than most faces I’ve seen, but it’s also really stunning, like it was sculpted by a master. I wish she could see that. I wish people in the world hadn’t treated her so badly for so long that it skewed her perception of what beauty actually is.
People liking roses isn’t what makes them beautiful.
No matter what anyone thinks, they are beautiful.
And there are an awful lot of lesser-known flowers that are more beautiful.
“Shh,” I mock-shush her as we enter the room. “Can’t let her hear.”
“Who?” Patty looks up from the booklet on the coffee table. The room has a large, u-shaped sofa, and there are several booklets on the massive coffee table in front of it. I’m assuming they have the different song selections that Seoul Town offers.
Luckily, before I have to clarify anything, Bea, Morgan, Q, and Everrett blow into the room like a hurricane. Eddy somehow peeled off, but at least the whole band’s here. “I gave the front desk the music files Eddy sent.” Bea’s eyes are glinting. “But the guys and I were talking.” She glances at Morgan. “Well, the guys, the girl, and I.”
Morgan rolls her eyes. “Just say the guys. Doesn’t hurt my feelings.”
“Anyway,” Bea says. “We think you should let today be an audition.” She folds her arms. “If you can’t sing the songs well, the whole production will suffer. So today, after you sing, we’ll decide if you can take Octavia’s place.”
Patty looks upset. “But you aren’t the ones who make that decision.”
“But you must want what’s best for the movie, and you could surely go back to your agent and beg off.” Bea glares. “Right?”
Patty smiles. “It won’t be necessary. You’ll see.”
“I guess we will,” Bea says. “Because in more than twenty years, I’ve never heard a voice like Octavia’s.”
“This isn’t an opera.” Patty glares.
She starts with the title track, but just before it begins, she turns to Octavia, thrusting the mic in her direction. “You should sing it first—gorgeous monster, right?” She purses her lips. “Once I’ve heard you in person, I’m sure I’ll have a better idea of how to sing it.”
“Sure.” Octavia takes the mic.
Bea restarts the music, since we blew past her opening. “Alright, prepare yourself.”
But nothing can really prepare someone to hear Octavia’s voice. She hasn’t warmed up. She hasn’t prepared, and it doesn’t even matter. It really is opera quality, but richer, warmer, and brighter than what I’m accustomed to thinking of opera as being. The word shrill couldn’t ever be used to describe her.
It’s also clear that Bea wrote this song just for her. When she reaches the transition, my heart flip-flops inside my body. I should be watching Patty to see whether we’re getting through to her, but I can’t tear my eyes away from Octavia.
The world is full of beauty.
The world is full of peace.
The world is full of light and joy,
that almost never cease.
You made me lots of promises.
You made them all come true.
I can hardly imagine living in,
a world devoid of you.
The song has changed, slightly, some of it through the work they’ve done together, and some for the movie, but the impact hasn’t lessened at all. When, at the end, the focus shifts and moves to the listener, to their culpability in the ugly parts of the world we all share, I finally force myself to look at Patty.
She’s glaring, her expression flat.
I shouldn’t have hoped that someone as emotionally tone-deaf as her could possibly understand why she can’t take these songs specifically from Octavia. But when she snatches the mic from Octavia, and begins to sing the same song. . .
It’s blue eye shadow on a baby. It’s a bloodstain on white marble. It’s an actor wearing athletic gear on the red carpet.
It’s just wrong.
Every single person can hear it.
Except Patty, the person who could repair this mess with one text.
The sad part is that her voice isn’t bad. She might actually break out with something like this. I’m sure that’s all she cares about. It’s a stunning song—a stunning list of songs—and someone greedy and self-centered like Patty might willfully refuse to see how she’s all wrong for it.
But every single person in the band knows it.
In her heart, Patty must feel it, too. If she has a heart.
I realize, though, that it’s not going to matter. And all my hopes of getting a video of her sounding like a wounded bird are gone. Precious Patty has clearly had years of voice lessons—she sounds like everyone else on the radio.
Which is probably what the studio wants.
It also means we’re totally screwed.
That’s why I do something stupid after I get back home to my apartment that night, something I probably shouldn’t do. I post on social media account about the change.
On set today—studio made a big mistake, replacing Octavia Rothschild with my talented co-star, Patrice Jouveau. She has a nice voice, but it’s not right for the music for this movie. I hope the studio will reconsider. Once you all hear Octavia, I’m sure you’ll agree.
I tag the movie’s social media account, and I link it to the YouTube clips of Octavia’s contest performance with Bea.
In my entire career, I’ve never spoken out against a studio decision, even when they made terrible ones. I’m smart enough not to bite the hand that puts dollar bills in my savings account, and I’m savvy enough to handle any disagreements in other, more constructive ways.
But this isn’t about me.
It’s for Octavia, someone who will absolutely never defend herself, not over something like this. I could tell in the car—heck, I could tell the moment we met. Before I have time to second-guess myself, I plug my phone in, shut off the lights, and go to sleep.
For once, I don’t have a single nightmare. Maybe that’s my reward for doing the right thing.