Grace Unplugged: A Novel (22 page)

G
race wondered if it was considered a real date when the guy didn’t come to your place to pick you up. Or maybe she was just hopelessly old-fashioned—not to mention inexperienced. Even so, she assured herself as she drove through Hollywood on her way to Jay’s favorite restaurant, having her own wheels guaranteed her independence—she wouldn’t have to beg Jay to take her home. Plus it gave her a legitimate excuse not to drink tonight.

She hadn’t actually spoken to Jay. But, after he’d gotten her slightly desperate message yesterday, he called while she was shooting the video and left her a message. Then, by the time she returned his call that evening, she got his voicemail again too. Busy people with busy schedules . . . so Hollywood.

She pulled in front of the restaurant and waited as a parking valet, not two, slowly made his way to her car. Okay, she knew it wasn’t an impressive car like Jay’s, but what about customer service?

“Oh, Miss Trey,” he said as she got out of the car. “I didn’t know that was you.”

She forced a smile as she handed him the keys. “That’s okay.”

“Jay’s already here,” he told her. “I mean . . . I assume you’re meeting him.” He looked uncomfortable, like he’d just stepped over some invisible line.

“Thanks.” She held her head high and walked toward the door. As she went inside, she reminded herself that this was more than just a date—this was a mission. She’d been running Renae’s strange words through her head—about Jay, the roses, Sally’s blog. . . . It hadn’t really made sense at the time, but today it seemed to fall into place. Renae was suggesting that Jay was not being completely honest with Grace. As she entered the private lounge, spotting Jay at his favorite table with his glass half full and his eyes on his phone, she was determined to get to the bottom of it.

She smiled confidently as she went over to join him. He wasn’t the only one who knew how to act.

“My day just got brighter,” he said, standing to kiss her on the cheek.

“Hey,” she smiled as he pulled a chair out for her.

“So how’s the video queen?” He sat across from her and smiled warmly.

“Great. How’s the TV star?”

“Hungry.”

She was slightly relieved that he was thinking of food instead of alcohol but at the same time suspicious. “You’ll never guess who came by the shoot.”

“Who’s that?”

“Renae Taylor.”

“Your hero.” He nodded. “Cool. How’s she doing?”

“Great. It was incredible meeting her. I’m still blown away. She’s thinking about me opening for her.”

“Right on!”

“Yeah, I mean she’s looking at other people too, but . . .”

“You’d totally rock it.”

“Yeah, it would be insane.” Now she remembered her real mission. “You know, Renae said something else. It was kind of weird—”

Just then his phone rang, and he checked the number.

“Anyway,” she continued awkwardly, “I can’t stop thinking about—”

“Sorry.” He held up his phone. “Gotta take this. My manager.” He got up and walked away from the table, but as she watched him, she felt uncomfortably curious. She wasn’t even sure why, but something about him did not feel right. She got even more suspicious as he went behind the wall near the restrooms.

Now she decided to pay a trip to the restroom herself, but instead of going around the corner and into the ladies room, she paused behind the partition, pretending she was answering her own phone. But really she was listening to the conversation just around the corner.

“I can’t tonight,” Jay was telling someone. “Yeah, I’m with her now.” He chuckled. “She thinks I’m talking to my manager.”

Her ears perked up even more as he paused. She wished she could hear who was on the other end.

“I already told you, man, her manger set it up. Scotty owed him a favor or something. He asked me to hook up with her for publicity shots, and I’m, like, whatever. And why not? I mean
she’s hot
.”

Grace felt her cheeks flushing—not from embarrassment but from anger. Still, she remained in place, acting like she was listening to her own phone.

“No, man. Not yet.” Jay sounded pretty full of himself. “I was about to last time. But then she got all weepy about her dad, and I was like, whatever, no thanks.” He laughed. “But no worries, I’ll close. Tonight I’m sealing the deal.”

Her anger was quickly boiling over to rage now, but she didn’t move.

“All right, man,” he said as if winding the conversation down. “I gotta bail. Call you after . . . with details. I might even send you a picture.”

With the sound of his smug laughter echoing in her head, she made a dash for the exit, making it out before he returned to their table. Fighting back infuriated tears, she handed the valet her ticket, standing in the shadows while she waited for her car. Sure, she could’ve stuck around for the showdown. But what if she’d fallen apart on him? How humiliating would that be? Better to let him sit there and wonder.

As she drove home, she wasn’t sure who she was more enraged at—Jay or Mossy. And to think she had trusted them both. How stupid and naïve could she be? Then as she went into her apartment, she wondered if Kendra wasn’t involved in it as well. Those comments about what guys wanted—the skanky underwear, insinuations about Jay. And then there was Sally—according to Renae’s insinuations, she was in on this too. Seriously, was there anyone in Hollywood she could trust?

As soon as she was in her apartment, she found the phone number of the apartment manager and called. “This is Gracie Trey.” She tried to steady her voice. “In unit 207. I want my locks changed, please.” When the woman asked why, she told her that she’d found her door open one day. “And it just makes me uneasy to think someone walked around in here. What if they come back?”

“Okay,” the woman said. “I’ll let my husband know.”

“Thank you!” Grace hung up, then paced around the apartment, feeling like she wanted to break something or just scream. Finally she went over to the detestable roses and, grabbing them out of the vase, she carried them over to the trash can beneath the sink and crammed them into it. With tears streaming down her cheeks, she opened the refrigerator and pulled out the bottle of Cîroc vodka she kept on hand for Kendra, and mixing a generous martini, she took a small sip. And then she took a big one.

The next morning, after she used Kendra’s remedy for hangovers, Grace put in a call to Mossy’s office and, keeping her voice calm and even, asked if she could come in to talk to him.

“Sure, Gracie. I’ll be in my office until one. Can you make it in by then?”

“Oh, yeah,” she assured him. “I’ll be there.”

She cleaned herself up and dressed carefully, rehearsing what she planned to say, except that she never could get it quite right. Okay, she told herself as she got into her car, maybe she would have to wing it. Mostly she just planned to make herself heard.

As she passed through security and marched through the glitzy lobby and past the big screens and posters—some that were of her—she kept her eyes straight forward. As she rode up the elevator, her sense of betrayal seemed to rise with each floor number. And when she walked into Mossy’s office, she was so full of righteous indignation that she felt like she was going to burst.

“We need to talk!” she declared.

He hopped up from his desk, closing the door behind her. “What’s up?”

“What’s up?”
she demanded. “That’s what I want to know.”

“You sound upset.” He pointed to a chair. “Want to sit down and discuss whatever it is calmly? Like grown-ups.”

“Grown-ups?” she shouted. “Is that what you are? Because for a minute there I thought I was dealing with children—like middle school kids who play their stupid games, lying, cheating, betraying—”

“What are you talking about?” He sat down in his chair and, folding his hands on his desk, calmly gazed at her.

“I’m talking about you setting me up with Jay!”

He gave her a slightly exasperated look. “Is that all?”

“Is that all?”

“Look, it was a publicity stunt. Surely, you knew that it—”

“So you admit it! You did set it up. Even the flowers!”

“Who cares? Yeah, sure I did. But it’s no secret that in this industry you gotta play—”

“This is not about
this industry
!” she yelled. “This is about me—
my life
! You set me up with Jay, and then he decides that his reward for returning somebody’s favor for you is taking me to bed—”

“That wasn’t part of the deal.” He held up his hands with a nonchalant expression. “But, really, what did you expect?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, you liked him. He seemed to like you. What did you think—that he was going to put a ring on your finger?”

“No!” She glared at him. “I don’t know what I expected, but not—”

“Well, I know what I expected.” He slammed his fist on his desk. “Because of Jay I got WideSpin, and because of WideSpin, we got a
29 percent bump in downloads
! Not only that, but I got Renae Taylor’s people thinking you should open for her! What more do you want?” He shook his head grimly, looking at her as if she was a spoiled brat throwing a hissy fit.

Even so, she was not going to let him derail her. “I want you to stay out of my personal life,” she declared hotly.

“Personal life?”
He leaned forward and glared at her. “Don’t you get it? There is no more personal life! You have a radio tour coming up
and
a second single to record before you leave, which none of us have even heard!”

Grace slumped into the chair now. It felt like the foundation of anger she’d laid on the way over here had just been blasted out from under her.

“Look,” Mossy said a bit more quietly, but with just as much firmness. “I’m sorry you’re heartbroken over some pipe dream you were entertaining over Jay Grayson. That’s the way things break. But now you have
one week
to deliver an original song. So maybe it’s just as well that Jay baby is out of the way. Now you can focus on the real reason you’re here.”

Focus
. . . . Grace thought numbly as she rode the elevator down.
Focus
on the real reason she was here—to play music, to write music, and to look hot. Wasn’t that what everyone had been telling her? And for the most part she got it. She could play music, and thanks to her stylists, she could look hot. But when it came to writing that next song, she was hopeless. As she got into her car, she wished she’d just been honest about it. Why hadn’t she just told Mossy the truth? In the heat of the conversation, she could’ve simply blurted it out,
I can’t write a song to save my life, so fire me!

Before she went home, she stopped by the grocery store. She told herself she was going in to get some fresh fruits and vegetables, but what she’d come home with was sugary cookies and salty chips, as well as a big bottle of vodka and another bottle of sweet vermouth. All thanks to the fake ID Kendra had provided weeks ago. As Grace unpacked her bag, she realized she’d forgotten the olives. Not that she needed them for what she had planned.

The next few days passed in a fuzzy, intoxicated blur. Each day started out the same, with her swearing to herself that she would put all her energy into writing a song and that she wouldn’t touch a drop of alcohol. But by midafternoon the promise would be broken. A pile of wadded up pages of really bad lyrics would be littering the floor, and she would be hitting the bottle. Sometimes she didn’t even bother to use a glass.

To say she hated herself would’ve been an understatement. Not only was she a crappy songwriter; she was on her way to becoming an alcoholic—and there didn’t seem to be any way to stop it.

On Sunday morning she woke up with a throbbing headache and nausea that drove her to the bathroom where she emptied her stomach. Kneeling by the toilet, she used toilet paper to wipe off her mouth and the tears running down her cheeks. She felt gross and nasty and sick, and she hated herself for being so weak.

Longing for fresh air—or maybe just a fresh start—she shuffled over to the bedroom window and pulled back the drapes. She pushed open the window and inhaled the outside air. Sure, it was tinged with exhaust fumes and nothing like the fresh air back home, but it was better than her foul-smelling apartment, which had been closed up for days.

Feeling empty and spent and useless, she stared blankly down at the street. Church must’ve been over because the people, dressed neatly in their church clothes, were all congregating outside. They seemed to be visiting happily with one another, enjoying the sunshine, probably making plans for the day, having a good life. Meanwhile she was trapped up here in the prison of her own making.

Chapter 19