Love is Hard! Chapter 1

Love Is Hard!

By Bethia Mae MacAllister


“The reality of love is that it’s hard to do . . . as a species we’ve convinced ourselves that love should be fun, that it tastes good and should make our lives easier. Love is hard!”—Val E. Kilmer

To my own Vance Thomas, and to dreams coming true.

Chapter One

Eddie Bishop shook his head. This was one part of signing Vance Thomas that he always regretted. Vance liked women, and he didn’t like to spend a night alone. It wouldn’t be so bad if he would take women that did that sort of thing for a living, but he was very specific in his taste: young and naïve. “Vance, why go through this every week? Why not just hire someone?”

Vance rolled his eyes. “I’ve told you before, I don’t want to be liked for my fame or my money, but for myself.”

“Then why not just marry one of these girls?”

“This life is too hectic for that. Besides, I prefer to play the field. I’m not the loyalty type. Why are you being so difficult today?”

“I just don’t think it’s fair to all these girls. None of them have had any idea of what they were getting themselves into. They were almost all pure, and you don’t have any intention of being serious about any of them. That’s not the kind of women they are. They all trusted you.”

“Why did I end up with the only honest manager in show business? Look, they don’t get hurt. They slowly forget about me and go on with their lives. I give them some good memories to look back on, and a few extra trinkets to remember me by. Everyone wins. Besides, I’m not asking for them to be delivered to my bedroom. I’m only asking you for a name and number of two. It’s ultimately their decision. I’ve never forced any of them, and I’ve never known one who regretted it the next morning.”

I’ll bet there were plenty who regretted it the next month, Eddie groaned inwardly. Out loud, he responded, “but you overwhelm them. These are small town girls, who are usually on the poor side of the scale. You shower them with gifts and attention, and tell them what guys around here don’t know how to say. You are a very convincing person, and you hold a certain power over these girls that I can’t understand.”

“Its called sex appeal, you dunce. Look, forget it. I’ll find someone myself. You just find an opening act.” Vance motioned him out.

One of these days, one of these girls is going to get to you. And when she does, I hope she puts you through hell. Shaking his head, he went to check the stage.

He hated this part of his job with a vengeance. In six hours, the concert went on, and he had no opening act. His opening had canceled. Suing them for breach of contract would make him feel better, but it wouldn’t occupy the stage in six hours. Damn, this couldn’t happen in New York, where I could fill it in a second. This had to happen in goddamn Maine! He couldn’t exactly blame the group for canceling. A sibling group, and their father had suffered a massive coronary. If it had been him, he probably would have canceled too. But it wasn’t him, and he was busy being pissed off. He couldn’t get hold of his backup, and who exactly was he supposed to call in Maine? Were there even people in Maine? There must be, because they were there, and someone was paying for the tickets to this concert, but he doubted that any of them could fill his spot. Damn! Time to play American Idol. Find something, some human body to shove on that stage!

* * *

“He’s here!”

Jessi Roberts was headed for the auditorium when she was nearly trampled by two other teenage girls. “Who’s here?”

“Who do you think? Only the most amazing guy in the whole world!” Jen, the perky sophomore redhead swooned. This really wasn’t very enlightening, as Jen described every good looking guy this way.

“Only the guy that you have been mooning over for the last month!” Barb added, tall and blonde and mature. She was trying to pretend that she didn’t get what these “kids,” years younger than her mature eighteen years, were moaning about, and succeeding, somewhat.

Jessi swallowed, and braced herself. “And?” she finally managed to get out, only about three tones higher than her normal voice, which was an improvement. “What do you expect me to do about it?”

Jen groaned, and even Barb rolled her eyes. “Go over and introduce yourself, of course!”

“You guys are nuts! Vance Thomas has no interest in meeting me. I’ll lose my job!”

“Who CARES?! What does this little nothing job matter, when compared with meeting Vance THOMAS?!” Jen moaned.

“To you it’s a nothing job. Your father owns the town! Me, I’ve got two whole weeks to endure, and then it’s over, and I go to college, and I never see this place again. I need to get those two weeks pay.” Inside, she was quaking. Vance Thomas, actor, singer, GOD, was the only reason she’d taken this job. She couldn’t afford to go to his concerts, so she had managed to get an ushers job and get into the concerts the back way. But she did need the money, and she couldn’t afford to blow it, especially, not until after she’d at least seen the concerts. Not to mention that her mother would slaughter her for losing her job. It would be nice to meet Vance, ok, more than nice, more like, ‘now I can die happy,’ but it just wasn’t completely worth it. Not until Saturday night, anyway.

“So . . . you could take something down to him, you know, compliments of the theater?” Barb grinned.

“Everything he needs for a concert is already provided,” Jessi pointed out sensibly.

“I know, you could go down to take care of something else, and accidentally slip and fall in front of his dressing room!”

“Never let it be said that Jen isn’t a master of subtlety.”

“Hey, it got Tommy, didn’t it?” Tommy Avery, Jen’s boyfriend, was the most popular kid in school, and she was very proud of it.

“How to put this bluntly,” Barb mused. “Tommy is cute, but he couldn’t light up a nightlight. I would hope that Grammy award winner, Oscar nominated Vance Thomas, could.”

“Then again, neither could Jen,” Jessi laughed. “Ok, ladies. I’ve got to take care of the stage, and then we can do lunch. Why don’t you go grab something from the diner, and I’ll consent to eating it in front of the cast exit, just in case.”

“I’ll pick up an instant camera too, just in case,” Jen grinned, hopping up and down, like the perky cheerleader that she was.

“Go for it. See you guys outside in fifteen?”

Barb nodded, and Jessi left her to control the fifteen-year-old jack in the box.

As she opened the auditorium door, she stopped for a moment to watch the girls walk, and bounce, away, looking as apart from, and superior to, her friends as she had ever done. Not that they were even her friends. That was a liberal expression. Jessi Roberts didn’t have friends. She had enemies, she had acquaintances, and she had dreams. Jen and Barb, like most of the other residents of Bridgeport, Maine, kind of knew that she existed, and acknowledged it when she happened to be in their line of vision, but never seemed to miss her much when she wasn’t. No one had even noticed that she hadn’t been at the prom, because no one had ever thought about her enough to invite her to the prom. She was . . . different, and in “speck on a state map” Bridgeport, different was bad.

She didn’t even look like the other girls. In a town populated with blonde bimbos, Jessi had to be Jewish. Her long, dark, curly hair stood out so in the class pictures. Her entire life, she’d been first in the class line. She despised being short, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She’d done everything she could. Alcohol, cigarettes, coffee, everything that was said to stunt growth, she’d avoided them all with a passion. She ate right, exercised, got the right amount of sleep every day . . . nothing changed fact that she was five foot even, and never would be anything else. For so long, she’d longed to be thin and tall and willowy, like Barb, and every girl in her class, but she wasn’t. No matter how much she worked out, she was short, and round, and, and, and . . . her. Oh, well. Can’t blame a girl for dreaming.

Of course, the prom king had once called her “round in all the right places,” but that still hadn’t gotten her a date. That still hadn’t changed the fact that she didn’t figure at all in the school yearbook. Not the most popular girl, not the homecoming queen, not even the class clown. Nothing. The only contest she could have won was “most likely to die a virgin.” Fifty able-bodied guys in her class, and she had never even been asked out by the nerdy, pimply boy. Never been kissed. Seventeen-years-old and never been kissed. Life wasn’t over at seventeen, and there was still plenty of time, but she felt that she’d permanently failed in life all the same.

At least she had her dreams. Maybe nobody had kissed her, but she could still imagine that they had. There was Vance Thomas. So what if he didn’t even know she was alive, and never would. He was sexy, and he was talented, and he was . . . just like her dad. Ok, that didn’t come out right! But he was. Jessi was the child of a very unequal marriage, and she’d spent the four years since his death listening to her mother detail all the things that had been wrong with her father. At least, when her father was alive, there had been someone to protect her. Someone to tell her mother that she wasn’t completely the biggest failure ever. No, to her mother, he was the biggest failure ever.

Richard Roberts was a graduate of Julliard, but luck hadn’t gone his way at all. In his short life, everything had gone wrong. Jessi was the only thing he’d ever done right. She would become the star that he didn’t have the chance to be himself. And he seemed to be right. His daughter had inherited even more than his talent, twice the drive, and a little more touch of reality. Where Richard had been a dreamer, always figuring that things would go right tomorrow, Jessi was a realist, knowing that she had to make them right herself. Unfortunately, her mother refused to give her a chance. Richard had been a failure in Anne Roberts’ eyes, and she wasn’t going to let her only child “waste her life on such nonsense too.” So Jessi lived in obscurity in the middle of nowhere, forbidden to take music lessons, forbidden to even consider a career where her talent lay, and forbidden to ever mention her father. The obsession with Vance was looked upon with trepidation, but there didn’t seem to be much she could do to stop it. Jessi had a will of her own. A will which had led her to take lessons behind her mother’s back, to make her own set of plans, and to count the hours until she was legally free to pursue her own life. Her teachers said she had talent, a lot of it. She’d already earned her own money, selling the music she wrote. Six more months until she was eighteen, then she would head to Nashville and give it her all.

Everything seemed in order, but the piano needed dusted, so she pulled out a dust rag and hurriedly swept the film away. That piano always needed dusted. It was beautiful, the rich, shining black, but it showed even the tiniest speck of dust. In her haste, one beautifully resonant note sounded out. She looked around nervously, and then glanced at her watch. Surely, she had a few minutes before the girls would be back. Telling herself so, she started to play and sing, softly, almost inaudibly. As she lost herself in the music, her voice rose, as did her playing, till at the end both were echoing through the hall. She was in another world, the magical enchanted kingdom that her music always took her to.

A tap on her shoulder brought her back to earth with a jolt. She turned immediately, redder than a Christmas banner, her eyes intent on two black dress shoes. “I’m sooo sorry. I knew it was wrong, and I don’t have any good excuse. I promise I’ll never do it again,” she pleaded.

A chuckle. A deep, masculine laugh. “I’m not your boss, and I won’t tell,” he grinned, tipping her chin up to face him.

“Thank you, mister . . .” she struggled for a name. He didn’t look even remotely familiar.

“Eddie Bishop.” The girl’s face was as beautiful as her voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t introduce myself. Vance Thomas’ manager. I know this is rather sudden, but I’m in a tight spot, and I was wondering if you would like to do the opening tonight.”

Jessi, who had turned white at the mention of Vance Thomas, fainted dead away.

Eddie just stared. “Well, I’ve offered a lot of jobs in my life, and gotten a lot of different answers, but this has got to be a first.”

* * *

Vance Thomas stepped out of his dressing room, only to see his manager coming down the hall, with a young girl in his arms. “What the hell?”

Eddie groaned. “Don’t ask. Just help me get her on the couch.”

Vance tried to hide his smile, and turned back into his dressing room, collecting pillows for her head. Once she was settled comfortably, still unconscious, he turned to his manager again. “Do you mind explaining this?”

“I’m not sure I understand it myself. I went to check the stage, and she was playing the piano, and singing. She was good, really good, some song I’ve never heard before. Like you said, we’re desperate, so I offered her the job. She passed out.”

Vance laughed. “Eddie, you’ve always had such a way with women.

* * *

Jessi regained conscious slowly; still hazy as to what exactly had happened. Wherever she was, it was warm, and soft. She nuzzled down deeper into the pillows, trying to figure out what was going on. She was at work, and she was playing the piano, and Vance Thomas’ manager had offered her a job. Obviously, she’d never woken up that morning, just thought she had. It was a dream. But what a nice dream! Oh, that it were true. Maybe she should just go back to sleep. Maybe the dream would continue. That happened sometimes. No, only in nightmares. The good dreams all go away when you wake up. Still, it’s worth a shot. She sighed softly, and stretched out again. There was a soft, definitely human touch on her face. Mom, she thought ruefully. Oh, well. There goes that dream. Might as well face reality. Her eyes drifted open slowly.

When they focused, she was staring into the gorgeous, sexy, gray-green eyes of Vance Thomas. The world went black again.

* * *

Vance blinked, rubbing his eyes. He could have sworn that she’d opened her eyes, looked right at him, but she was still unconscious. “Eddie, I’m going for a walk. When she comes to, hire her.”

“Don’t you want to hear her first?” This was a first. Vance was a very controlling client.

“I trust your judgment.” Another first. “Besides, we’ve really got no other options. Tell her to wear jeans and a black shirt. I’ll want to hear her in two hours.”

The last, tacked on sentence put Eddie’s mind at ease. He was still Vance after all.

“Poor kid’s got enough to deal with right now,” he explained, giving the soft white face and dark brown curls one last glance.

He passed two giggling girls on his way out. They’d said something to him, he was sure, but he hadn’t heard what. They weren’t his type. This tour must be getting to him, he thought nervously, lighting a cigarette. He always thought better with a cigarette. The stress was messing with his mind. He was seeing things. That wasn’t like him. For over ten years, he’d handled these tours perfectly. Still, he was getting older, almost thirty-five, he wasn’t a kid anymore. Now, he was edgy to get back home to his own life. All these one-horse towns made his skin crawl after a while. The only saving grace was the innocent little girls they always produced.

This one may be worth the trip. She was a beauty, probably the most beautiful he’d seen on this trip. Stupid Eddie, he’d done better than ever without even trying. She was perfect, definitely worth the effort. Absolutely stunning, delightfully young, innocent enough to faint at the very thought of a gig. What better opportunity could a man ask for?

It’s like taking candy from a baby.

* * *

“Ok, where is she?” Barb demanded. Jessi should have gone to lunch fifteen minutes ago, but there was no sign of her. They’d checked her timecard, but she hadn’t punched out. He’d walked past them five minutes ago, but she wasn’t there to capitalize on it. What was going on?

“Maybe she was kidnapped by gypsies?” Of course, as far as Jen knew, there had never been any gypsies in Maine, but with Jessi Roberts, anything was possible.

“A likely story. Maybe she went home?”

“Without punching out?” Jen was just as skeptical.

“I didn’t say it was any more likely, just throwing ideas out there.” She paced some more. “There he is! He’s just outside the door, and she’s not here! I mean, how can she be passing up an opportunity like this? She could have met him a dozen times already!” More pacing. “Now I don’t pretend to understand Jessi. I don’t think anyone understands Jessi. But if I went around worshipping a guy for four years, and then he was only a few feet away from me, I wouldn’t be off daydreaming. Which is where she is, I guarantee you.”

“Can’t be. I checked all the pianos on my way back,” Jen offered. When Jessi was off daydreaming, she was usually playing, and lost track of reality. “I’m going to call dad.”

“Don’t call the mayor, stupid. She didn’t do anything wrong . . . No, call my dad. He’s the owner of this place. He should be able to find her.”

“Let’s go!” The two raced off down the hall to the owner’s office.

Just as the sound of their footsteps had disappeared, a very dazed, very confused, very happy Jessi, walked out of Vance Thomas’ dressing room. “I really have no idea how to thank you, Mr. Bishop.”

“I told you, just Eddie. Come on, I’ll give you a lift home. I don’t think you can walk that far,” he teased, placing a steadying hand on her shoulder. “Two faints in ten minutes are too many.”

“Ok,” she relented, still a bit light-headed, and glad of the ride. It was a long walk home, and back, and she only had two hours to reacquaint herself with reality. Not to mention collect her music, figure out what to wear, take a shower, do her makeup, and a hundred other little things. Funny, she’d always imagined exactly how she’d be discovered, and fainting played no part in it, much less fainting twice.

“Will you be alright getting back?”

Jessi realized too late that he was speaking to her, and tried to make out what he’d said, to no avail. “Sorry?”

Eddie grinned. If nothing else, Jessi was cute. Too cute. He’d been suffering from anxiety from the moment she’d woken up, her every word proving how cute, young, and innocent she was. This was not a good idea. He’d given Vance just what he wanted, again, and he’d been so determined not to this time. Several times, he’d tried to figure out a way to tactfully ask how old she was, try to warn her, but the opportunity never came up, and he knew Vance would deck him for trying. Oh, WHY does he have to put me in the middle of these things all the time? “Will you be alright getting back?” he prompted gently.

“Sure, thanks. The walk will do me good, fresh air for my flushed cheeks, and all that. I’ll be back at three sharp.” She smiled shyly and got out of they car. Eddie was cute. Not sexy like Vance, but cute. A little man, probably no more than five seven, he still towered over Jessi’s five-foot frame, very white against his black hair and eyes. She would have noticed this, if her mind hadn’t been totally engrossed in other possibilities of this night, and the next. Vance Thomas would know that she existed after all. She didn’t expect him to do anything about it, but he would know, and that was more than one step closer to her dreams than she’d ever expected to be. “See you later.”

Eddie sat there for a moment, after she’d gone into the house. He prayed that her mother would talk some sense into her, before she got into trouble with those wide brown eyes and all-too-innocent smiles. After all, wasn’t that what mothers were for?

* * *

Jessi grinned at her reflection in the mirror. Her music was stuffed into her backpack, along with everything else she thought she would need. The only shirt she owned that seemed to meet the criteria was her old black bodysuit, and she’d tried it on with much trepidation. When was the last time she’d worn it, anyway? Did it even still fit? Thankfully, it did, a lot better than she remembered it ever fitting before. Apparently, sometime between the last use, probably around her freshman year in high school, and now, she’d developed into a woman.

There on the mirror was a photo of her and her dad, right before he’d gotten sick. Five years ago, only five years, and she was a totally different girl now. The girl in the photo was even shorter than her present petite stature, with a very flat chest, braces, pimples, oh god, she remembered that year. She’d been a late bloomer, and hadn’t bloomed very much when she’d gotten around to it, either. Her father had never seen the grown-up girl. Wouldn’t see her until she was an angel, and she guessed that appearance wouldn’t matter then. She hoped that, had he seen her, he would have been satisfied with her, more satisfied than her mother, anyway. She wasn’t much, but the shirt definitely seemed to help.

“You’re little girl’s a star, daddy, just like you wanted,” she whispered, kissing the image. At least that night, she knew he would be proud of her. That was one of only two things that she was entirely, certainly happy about. The other was that her mother was away for the weekend.

The walk from her house back to the theater was nearly a mile, but Jessi danced the whole way. Her heart was singing. She had a job doing what she wanted to do, a chance to prove to her mother that she was good enough, and if fate wanted to make that chance happen right next to Vance Thomas, well, she wasn’t about to complain.

Her bodysuit and jeans were buried in the bottom of her backpack. It was just too hot to wear them until the sun had at least gone down. Instead, she was dressed in a pair of denim very-short shorts, and her t-shirt was covered with base and treble clefs, music staffs, and notes, all going crazy. She felt like that right now. She was singing inside, to the sheer insanity of it all, but she was not going to question any of it. If it was a dream, she was going to milk every last drop out of it before she woke up.

It wasn’t quite three, she was a little early, and she started singing to herself, to calm her nerves, before ringing the bell. As usual, she got lost in her song, and completely lost track of the world around her, until a hand of applause startled her back to earth. Turning, she came face to face with Vance Thomas!