Chapter Five
Summer
I sit down in front of the laptop and glance at the screen. My mother’s face stares back.
“Hi, Mom!”
I’ve been waiting for this call and the chance to tell my parents what happened on The Morning Show. Although I had to hire a professional agent for the business side of my life, I didn’t anticipate the changes my actions would cause with the two people closest to me.
My heart hurts at the physical and emotional distance between myself and the people I love. Maybe they just forgot my schedule, and that’s why they haven’t called until now to see how my national television performance went.
“We’re home!” My mother smiles, her teeth white against her tan. She looks happy and healthy, and for that, I am glad. “We got back the other day, and I’ve been exhausted. Between jet lag and unpacking, it’s been just crazy.”
“Oh! That’s good. I’m glad you’re back safely. And I’ve been wanting to tell you about my performance on The Morning Show,” I say.
“I want to hear all about it, but first let me tell you about the trip! My favorite stop was the island of Santorini. It’s the site of one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recorded history.
I’ve never seen a more beautiful sight, all the white structures built into the mountainside.
” She sighs and even holds up her phone to show me a picture.
“It’s gorgeous,” I say. I don’t want to seem disinterested or shallow, but I have news of my own. “Mom—”
“It was wonderful. I have to admit I wasn’t sure about overseas travel, but I’m so glad I let your father talk me into it! We even rode donkeys down the side of the mountain.”
“That’s nice. I can’t wait to see pictures … and to see you,” I say, and before I can speak again, my mother goes on to relay more about the history of the places she saw on her trip, totally self-absorbed and failing to mention coming to visit and to ask about my life.
“Molly, we have to go! We have early dinner reservations soon.” My father’s voice sounds in the background.
“Can I talk to Dad?” I ask.
“He just walked out to meet me in the car. We’ll call you soon, dear. Bye!” The picture goes blank, with a double beep for emphasis.
I sit stunned, staring at the disconnected screen.
My parents have obviously not only learned to separate business and family, they’ve decided not to care about my career at all.
No matter how excited they are about their trip, and I understand it was a trip of a lifetime, how could they not acknowledge or ask about the competition?
My singing? My well-being? I swallow over the lump in my throat and lower the laptop screen, clicking it closed.
I love my life. I understand I am working toward a goal, but sometimes, I am just lonely. I press a hand to my eyes and hold back tears.
I jump at the feel of a hand on my back.
“Easy,” Ben says in a gruff voice.
“I forgot I wasn’t alone.” I straighten my shoulders, not wanting him to be a witness to my sadness. I’ll just pull myself together and forge on.
“Are you okay?” he asks, sympathy in his voice. He obviously heard me mention my appearance and my mother’s preoccupation with her trip. My father’s disinterest in talking to me.
I swallow hard. “I’m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.” His hand moves, gliding from my shoulder to the back of my neck, moving my hair aside so he can massage my tight muscles. “Things have changed between you and your folks since the time you were on Star Power. Want to talk about it?”
“What’s the point?” I ask.
“You might feel better.”
I brace my hands on my thighs and try not to focus on how sensuously good his fingers feel pressing into my skin, molding my flesh in an attempt to relax and settle me down.
In one way, he accomplishes his goal. His touch takes me out of my own head and makes me forget about being upset with my parents, but I doubt he intends the physical reactions he inspires.
The awareness now searing along my flesh, my nipples tightening, arousal trickling through my veins.
I close my eyes and imagine those talented hands working their way around to my breasts, cupping my heavy mounds in his hands, and kneading the supple flesh. Plucking and pulling at my already hardened nipples until the desire runs straight to my sex, my clit a hard, pulsing knot of need.
“You’re relaxing,” he says, those fingers working magic and weaving a sensual spell.
If he only knew.
“Now talk to me. What happened between you and your parents?”
I blink, and my apartment’s familiar surroundings come back into focus. My body still buzzes with arousal, but I force myself to concentrate on reality, not fantasies Ben won’t be making come true.
I sigh and begin to explain. “While I was on Star Power, a performance opportunity came up for right after the cross-country tour, and my parents didn’t handle the negotiations professionally.
Because of what they considered my front-runner status—” I say, making air quotes with my hands.
“—they thought they could push harder and make demands.”
“I guess that didn’t go over well?” Ben removes his hands, and I feel the loss. He shifts apart from me on the sofa, meeting my gaze.
I shake my head. “No. They demanded so much the people in charge gave the opportunity to someone else who was easier to deal with. Who had a real agent.” I blow out a long breath.
“You know, the irony, it wasn’t that the particular performance meant so much to me but what the situation made me realize.
The producers on Star Power and the even the musicians who took an interest in the talent on the show encouraged me to hire someone who understood how the business really worked. ”
“So you did.”
“Yes.”
“And it didn’t go over well with Mom and Dad,” he correctly surmises.
“Not at all,” I murmur, not wanting to revisit the painful conversation I had with my mother and father.
“But we’re family, and I made it very clear I wanted them in my life and involved in my career as far as giving opinions to me and seeing performances.
You have to understand they’d been with me since the beginning when I was five and I sang at a local fair. It was always just the three of us.”
Not to mention, I gave up having a normal childhood in order to perform and sing wherever my parents could book me. Friends? I was the odd duck with other kids, not included in get-togethers because I usually had to say no. Eventually the girls stopped asking. So all I really had was my family.
“Did they distance themselves as soon as you told them?” Ben asks.
I curl one leg beneath me and lean against the back of the couch. “No, in the beginning they tried to be there, but they couldn’t seem to draw the line between support and, well, frankly, meddling. They’d call Anna and try to get involved, so I had to ask them to leave my agent to me.”
He winces, clearly understanding that was the last straw.
“After that, they pulled back. They bought a place in South Carolina, but they still knew what I had coming up and when, and they showed some interest in my career, but it was strained. Then they decided to take a long trip to Europe, and I think they lost themselves there. They had a wonderful time, but they also had the time difference, and they didn’t have to think about me or check in on my schedule.
But what it comes down to is they can’t figure out how to just be my parents. ” I shake my head and sigh.
He places his hand over mine. “It sucks when your family isn’t what you want them to be.”
Something in his tone tells me he isn’t just talking about my parents and situation. I glance at him, looking to read his expression, but he does the stoic, shuttered thing too well, and I am too emotionally drained to question him now.
I rise to my feet. “I’m going to lie down for an hour before I have to get the laundry and deal with dinner,” I murmur.
He opens his mouth like he wants to say something …
and then shuts it again, obviously satisfied with letting me be.
For now, that is just fine with me. First he pulled away, then my parents closed me out.
I might have wanted to push Ben on our relationship, but that was before my video chat with my mother.
I am too bruised inside to be rejected yet again.
* * *
Ben
I watch as Summer walks into her room and closes the door behind her. The sound of soft crying reaches me, and I mutter a curse, but there is nothing I can do. I established my boundaries for a reason, but it is hard not to go to her, wrap her in my embrace, and reassure her she isn’t alone.
Her parents were typical stage parents, living through their daughter and liking the control they had over her career.
With that taken away, they seem to have withdrawn their love as well, and I hurt for her.
Just like I wish my family was a cohesive unit, my mother and father in love and raising me, she wishes her parents could give her the support she needs.
But I can’t bring myself to break down those walls and tell her about my parents’ marriage and how my father basically gave up, walking away from a lucrative business and his friends after my mother betrayed him twice.
Or how my dad is a shell of the man he used to be because he hasn’t been able to bounce back after the betrayal.
Or how much my father’s decline imprinted itself on my psyche and how I handle my life.
She ends up sleeping through dinner, so I lock her safely in her apartment and throw her laundry into the dryer, then collect the clothes and bring them back to the apartment.
She thanks me, and she seems brighter and happier the next day.
I don’t think she is fine. Nobody puts pain behind them easily, but she’s moved on, and I am glad she is more like herself again.