I feel the tears building, but I don’t want them to come out. Not in front of her. I would not let her take my tears along with everything else.
I clench my teeth and hold back the volatile emotions threatening to break out of me. But even though I won’t lose it, I cling to that anger—my old friend, familiar to me. “Why do you hate me? Why take the only love I’ve ever had? Why, Mother?”
She scowls for a moment. “You think I don’t love you because I don’t say it? I’ve tried to prepare you for real life. He was the son of a convicted drug trafficker. Do you want that for your daughter? Would that make you happy?”
I will not cry in front of her. I will cry alone, in my room, but not in front of her!
“I didn’t know you were pregnant when I waited for him outside your window. Did you think I didn’t know he was stealing into your bedroom? Please, Pandora. The devil knows more from being old than it does from being a devil. I wanted to protect you. Men never change. Men grow up to be who they are taught to be, and he was not good enough for you.”
“Men grow up to be who they’re taught to be, huh? Just like you taught me to grow up bitter, untrusting, and hateful? He was different, Mother. He cared for me. All he wanted was to be good enough for me, but he never felt that he was, because I never had the guts to tell you we were dating. He thought he was no good for me, and you sure as hell convinced him of that.”
She sighs drearily as she reaches out to squeeze my shoulders. “I can’t undo what I did. I just hope you understand.”
I shrug off her touch and step back. “I understand. I just wish that you’d taught me forgiveness, so that right now, Mother, I could not only understand but I could forgive you too. But you didn’t, did you? You taught me to hate my dad. To hate Kenna for leaving, even though it was you who chased him away. I can never forgive myself for giving up my daughter. We all fucked up, Mother. And one of those fuckups was you not teaching me how to forgive. Because now . . . I don’t know how.”
“Pan?” I hear a little voice, followed by the creak of the door behind me.
My mother’s expression softens when she looks at Magnolia. I can see—and have seen through the years—that she’s also suffered guilt over giving up the baby. The way that she sometimes looks at Magnolia as if wondering about the granddaughter she’ll never have by her side, the one she’ll never see. She tries her best with Magnolia, as if that will absolve her. And so do I—as if that will absolve me.
“Hey, Mag,” I say, swallowing back my sadness as I kneel and open my arms.
She hits me like a cannonball and squishes me tight while she gives me a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Then she pulls back and tells me, “I made a list, come see.”
“Okay, let’s go,” I say, faking excitement.
“Pandora?” My mother’s voice stops us at the door. She looks as miserable as ever. “I can’t undo what I did,” she repeats again in a whisper.
“Neither can I,” I whisper back.
“Come!” Magnolia says, tugging and tugging.
“Pandora!” my mother calls again. I stop, close my eyes, and turn one last time. Something awful is gripping my stomach, and there’s no way of stopping it. I feel my ring on the hand Magnolia is grabbing.
Come because you want to, not because they’re paying you to.
“I’m sorry.”
Two little words. Important words, but they won’t give me back my guy, my baby, my choice, my past. “So am I,” I say sadly, then I hug Magnolia to my legs and absorb her happy little energy before she drags me over to her room.
“What is this?” I ask when she hands over a paper marked with neat red letters.
“Things I want to do when I grow up,” she says with a huge grin. “You said to make a list! It’s a long one.” She turns it over, and I see more letters.
Wear pink in my hair like Pandora.
Bake a cake with one hundred lollipop candles.
Go on a safari.
Have a pet giraffe (from the safari).
I read all her tiny little wishes, feeling her enthusiasm by my side, and I remember that once, I was just like her. Dreamy and hopeful and alive. “You know, I used to have one of these,” I confess. “When I made lists.”
“What did it say?”
“It said . . .” It hits me. Suddenly I remember what Mackenna and I did on our recent road trip, and I’m shocked.
You sneaky bastard, you remembered my stupid lists, didn’t you?
“One of them said, ‘Ride on the back of a motorcycle.’ Another: ‘Go on a road trip.’ And I also wanted to kiss a rockstar . . .”
I can’t go on. Impossible to. I stop and plant a smile on my face while my heart swells like helium has just been pumped into my chest.
“OOOH!!! Is it true? Is it true? Did you go on a road trip, Pan? Did you go on a road trip, and ride on a motorcycle, and kiss a rockstar?”
I nod, feeling dangerously emotional—but isn’t that what Mackenna and Magnolia do? Bring out the gooey stuffing in me that nobody else can see? With infinite tenderness, I kiss her temple. “Yes, I did. I fell in love with him. And before he was even a real rockstar, he was my rockstar.”
“You’re my rockstar,” she says, grinning.
“And you’re my Magnificent.”
TWENTY-ONE
ROCKSTAR IN WAITING
Mackenna
I’m in makeup. Sitting in a stupid chair, playing with a lighter while Clarissa, my makeup and hair artist, draws kohl under my eyes.
“Let’s go with a streaked white-and-silver wig today, to match your eyes,” she says. “It’ll make the black leather jacket and pants pop more.”
“Not wearing a wig today.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, don’t feel like role-playing today.” I ease the wig off my head and curl a hand around my skull. With my eyes kohl-darkened, the silver of my irises is brilliant in the mirror. My diamond earring glints. I feel like kicking ass, but I also feel like there’s a girl out there in this world kicking my ass.
And I still don’t know if she’s coming.
She looked away when she said she would. A sure sign she’s lying.
But fuck, I can’t think about that now.
On the outside, she’s a bluffer—she always has been. But I know the girl within. I fucking know what she hides. A heart big as an ocean.
A heart that says, Mackenna. Fucking. Jones.
“So, Leo said you asked him to get in touch with her?” Lex asks from his seat, getting his makeup done as well.
“She’s not answering her phone.” I flick the lighter and watch the flame, then let it die before flicking it on again.
“Think she’ll be here? Kind of boring without her now.”
“She’ll be here,” I lie. At least I have to pretend she will be, because when I go out there tonight to sing my new song, it’s her I want to be listening. Please just come to my damn concert, Pink, and then we’ll figure out what to do with you and me . . .
I swear, this girl has done a number on me my whole life. When I was sure she loved me, she ditched me. When I was sure she wanted nothing to do with me, she comes to my concert and sends a bunch of tomatoes flying at me.
I sure as fuck don’t know what to expect of her, but I know I’m not a seventeen-year-old without a future anymore. I’m Mackenna fucking Jones, and I’m going to damn well have her if I want her.
And I want her, all right.
I’m restless, tired, wired, but most of all, I’m craving the taste of her. The feel of her. I need to get her in my bed, where she protests less, and keep her dazed. Dazed from her orgasms. I need to strip her of her clothes and her bravado until she’s trembling in my arms. Until she forgets to curse and tease me because she’s so busy moaning for me to fuck her harder.
I can’t deny she’s the best sex I’ve ever had.
But it’s not just because she’s a fucking goddess, because she is. A dark Medusa, I’m under her spell, and all I want is to
be in her. And I love being in her because I love her.
The way she smells.
The way she smiles like she doesn’t want to but can’t help it.
The way she kisses with all that angry passion inside her.
The way she goes to pudding in my arms, but as soon as we’re done puts up her bitch act just to bring out my asshole, and force him to give her bitch another tumble . . .
She’s been giving herself physically, but that’s not enough for me anymore. I can grind against her, force her to take every inch of my dick. I can grasp her arms by the wrists, keep her pinned, and make her cunt devour me.
And still it won’t be enough.
I think about it happening. How the scene will play out. What I’ll do to her. What she’ll do to me . . .
“Kenna,” she’ll moan. And she won’t be any hotter than she is, because she can’t be. Because she’s perfect.
And still, I’ll want to hear the words.
I won’t be gentle with her, but I don’t think she’ll want me to be. I’ll suck, lick, feel her twist with desire, the ripples of her body around mine.
She’ll tremble as I suck her tit, trembling still as I spread her thighs apart. She’ll thrash under me, rocking up to my body the way she does—greedy, hungry, like she’ll fall apart if she doesn’t get me in her. Like my dick is all that holds her together. Her nipples will grow red and puckered from my kisses, and I’ll give them a rest and go to her mouth, until she’s flushed and gasping too. Saying it.
Saying what I have been dying, for years, to hear.
I will watch her lips form the words.
Three. Only three.
Because I’ll still want them.
Her lovely face, pure white in the dark. Those rounded shoulders, plump breasts, her perfect ass, and hot, wet, delicious pussy lips. All of that, mine for the taking as she says,
“I love you . . .”
And when that happens, I’ll hold her in place. She’ll toss her head as I hold her immobile, and there’s no way she won’t know who’s taking who. Her nails will rake into my back as I dive into her heat, telling her again and again that I feel the same way. That she’s the only one for me. Showing her with my hands, my lips, my body, she’s the one for me.
“What are you doing if she comes?” Lex presses, snapping me back to the dressing room. I toss the lighter aside and rise to my feet as I slide my bare arms into my leather jacket.
“I’ll be waiting.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“Then I’ll be hunting her down.”
TWENTY-TWO
MY FRIEND MELANIE SAYS NOT TO WAIT FOR PRINCE CHARMING—HE COULD BE STUCK AT A CONCERT
Pandora
So I heed her advice.
The flight triples my anxiety, but I’m starting to become a pro at this. Once on board, I pop my clonazepam and apologize to the guy in the seat next to mine, saying, “If you need to use the toilet, just wiggle past me, ’cause I sleep like the dead,” and he laughs and says, “No need.”
Next thing I know I’m being shaken—rather violently—by the flight attendant, letting me know we’ve arrived in New York.
New York.
Madison Square Garden.
And Mackenna Fucking I-love-you-you-delicious-motherfucker Jones.
I hail a cab at the airport, lugging my roll-on suitcase behind me. I packed enough for a week, but I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t really know anything except that he didn’t walk away. That he came back for me.
The minutes stretch as we head toward the concert. I drum my fingers on my thighs, fidget with my fingers, my hair, peer restlessly out the windows. We’ve barely moved three feet in the last half hour.
“Oh my god, this traffic,” I tell the cabdriver, my legs aching with some first-time impulse to run. Just run to him, get him back, talk to him. Come clean at long last . . .
“There’s a concert happening . . . hard to get close.”
“I’ll walk from here,” I tell the driver, slipping him a couple of bills and then, regretfully, hauling out my luggage and looking toward the entrance to Madison Square Garden.
The stage is set up and lit with warm light. I spot one of the roadies and rush forward. “I need to get in,” I say, breathless. He instantly recognizes me—I can tell by the twinkle in his eye as he pulls open the rope and ushers me inside. “Head to the back. I’ll take care of this for you,” he says, gesturing at my suitcase.
“Thank you.”
“Opening act’s about to be done,” he says.
That very instant, the wild music playing in the background shuts off, the lights shut down, and I shuffle to the lower side of the stage, holding my breath as I hear a violin playing in the dark. My flesh pebbles as a soft, haunting tune begins, and when the lights turn on, my eyes fixate on the exact figure they illuminate.
Gah, I love him so much my heart aches in my chest.
He’s down on one knee, a headset with mic curled around his jawline, his head down, and as the rest of the orchestra begins to follow the tune of that haunting, slow violin, Mackenna starts singing.
Like a sleepwalker, I take a step closer to the stage, not close enough to be seen, for he’s in the opposite corner, lost in his own world as he starts a slow and mournful verse.
You flick the candy cotton pink strand in your hair
And I pray to the gods that you’ll be there
In my dreams, fantasies, and nightmares
I’m so scared I’ll never see you again
His words start building with the music, now sounding hopeful.
And you can try hiding behind your anger
And I can try running away
But at night as I sleep, you come crashing in on me
And I’m scared, ’cos you’re the only girl for me
And a big instrumental climax joins in as he sings, louder this time.
You’re my girl
You’re my girl
Pandora, you’re my girl
I can’t ignore ya
I’ve always adored ya
Pandora
I implore ya
You’re the only girl for me
It’s written, it’s meant to be
You’re my girl
You’re my girl
Pandora, you’re my girl
Sky high, thigh-high leather, in all kinds of weather
Tonight, now, then and forever
Come on over, my girl, sink your claws into me
I’m not scared, ’cos you’re the one and it’s meant to be
You’re my girl
You’re my girl
Pandora, you’re my girl
I can’t ignore ya
I’ve always adored ya
Pandora
I implore ya
You’re the only girl for me
It’s written, it’s meant to be
You’re my girl
You’re my girl
Pandora, you’re my girl
The rest sounds almost improvised, chaotic even, as the sound comes to an end.
I should never have dissed ya
Lied about how much I missed ya
I need your sexy fire in my life
No one else can hold a match
To the candle that’s you, you’re a catch
You make me mad
You drive me nuts
You fill my heart
And kick my guts
There’s nowhere I’d rather be
My vampire queen
Yelling, touching, kissing, fucking
Pandora, you’re my girl
When the song ends, there’s a beautiful silence while thousands and thousands of lighters shine in the darkness, the last verse echoing throughout the stadium.
Emotions tighten my windpipe to the point where it’s hard to breathe. This is why he wanted me here.
You think I’ll show up, you’ll sing to me, and we’ll live happily ever after?
That’s what I’m going for . . .
Happiness and love curl like partners in my tummy. I could be seventeen right now. I’m chronologically older and outwardly bitter, but inside, I’m still his girl.
The one who thought one day he’d come back to me.
The one who hoped that one day he’d realize it was a mistake to leave me.
I thought he didn’t want me, but he does. And now I fear this will all go away when he realizes what I did . . .
My throat is raw with unsaid words, my body heavy and warm. For a long moment, I feel as if I’m floating and in a trance, and as I watch Mackenna scan the crowd for me, my reaction is instant.
I shove through to one of the roadies. Without a word, he lets me in, and I run as fast as I can, hearing Lex’s shout up onstage, “All right, people, you heard the man,” the shout stirring the public into a roar. Breathing heavily, I stop at the side of the stage, and my guy—my guy—seems to be struggling to get back into himself. He just spilled his guts out in front of thousands of people, and I can see him still looking for me among the crowd.
I’m so frantic for him to see me. If I had a tomato, I’d send it crashing onto his face. His gorgeous, famous face I want to kiss.
I take a step forward onto the stage, when Lionel stops me. “He’s the worst kind of mess. Can you explain to me what the fuck is going on?”
“Let me pass. Please. Please.”
“You going to kiss him?” he angrily demands.
“YES!”
A new song starts. A flicker of apprehension hits me when I see all the thousands of people out there, but it only fuels my determination.
Every light is shining on Mackenna as his vocals tear through the speakers. A dozen dancers start crowding him.
“Leo, move over!” I plead.
When Leo steps aside, I storm onto the stage. I don’t care how much I didn’t want to be here—now nothing will keep me from him. Not this stage, not Leo, not the lights or the fans or my mother or his father or me.
I feel the cameras follow my every step as I move forward, the lights from above suddenly shifting in my direction as I cross the stage. Mackenna’s legs are spread apart, his muscles bulging and thick, his ass tight in leather. He’s facing his fans, his vocals holding them in their grip when I press behind him. The moment my body makes contact with his, I feel his skin tighten as if he recognizes me. A hot knot builds in the middle of my throat. Tit’s and Liv’s hands trail sensually up his side, but when the girls see me, they pull their hands away and move to dance a few feet over.