Parker's mother had opted out of teaching summer school and come along to work Parker's table at each venue, selling her CDs.
Though Serene had offered Parker the chance to ride in her elaborate tour bus, there wasn't room for her whole family. Even though she would have liked the chance to get to know Daniel better, she could hardly allow herself to be treated like a diva when her brothers and parents were rattling along behind them. So she chose to ride in the van.
The first stop was Atlanta, just a few hours south of Nashville. After they checked into their motel, Parker went with the guys to set up at Phillips Arena, one of Jeff Standard's additions to the tour. As they assembled Serene's elaborate stage set, Parker walked around the concourse. Tables were set up for sales of CDs, Serene T-shirts, and all sorts of paraphernalia related to her songs. Tomorrow the people who worked the tables would be swamped with business. She hoped her own table, stuck in an obscure place with no flow-through traffic, would garner even a fraction of Serene's business. The home of the Atlanta Hawks basketball team, the arena had recently hosted Bon Jovi.
Though Serene's concert wasn't sold out, twelve thousand tickets had already been sold, and more could be sold by tomorrow. Tomorrow when Parker sang, it would be to thousands of Serene's fans who'd never even heard of Parker.
The astonishing opportunity overwhelmed her. She dropped into a seat and tried to see where she'd be on the platform. The grand piano she'd play had not been placed on stage yet. The people working looked so small from this vantage point, but the JumboTron screens would magnify her face, her fingers on the keys ...
She should have had her nails done, as Serene always did. She should have had a facial and gotten hair extensions and hired a makeup artist. What was she thinking, to play in arenas like this without being ready? She must be crazy!
Then a thrill shivered from her neck down her backbone, reminding her that it wasn't about her. God had been preparing her for this all her life. She was ready.
Tears overtook her at the magnitude of it all. "Look how gracious you've been to me, Lord. Tomorrow my biggest dream's comingtrue."
She prayed for the men and women and teens who would fill this place tomorrow night. There would surely be people in the audience who needed Christ. Would her songs--either the ones sung by Serene or the ones she performed herself--have any effect on their eternal lives?
"Lord, let me do that for you," she whispered. "Give me the talent and skill to reach those people for you. Please, Lord, that's all I ask."
Parker's emotions were raw, hovering wet in her eyes, as they left the coliseum when her brothers were finished. Cleansed from the tears and the prayers, she was just walking into her motel room when her phone rang. She saw that it was Butch.
She clicked on the phone. "Hey, Butch. What's up?"
She heard a siren in the background. "Parker, we've got a problem," Butch yelled into the phone. "Serene just collapsed. We've got an ambulance taking her to the hospital."
Parker sucked in a breath. "What do you mean, collapsed?"
"Passed out cold. The paramedics revived her, but I don't know what's wrong with her. She's asking for you. Can you come?"
Lynn came out of the bathroom with a mud mask on her face. "What's going on?" she asked.
Parker put her hand over the phone and quickly told her. "What hospital is she in?" Parker asked Butch.
"Emory."
"I'll be right there."
Parker got the van keys from her dad. She had no idea how to get to Emory University Hospital, but she used the GPS on her iPhone to get directions. She almost wrecked, trying to read the small screen while driving, but finally found the hospital and its emergency entrance, and pulled into a parking place reserved for doctors. She'd move the van later.
Her mind raced with possibilities. Serene could be dead. She could have had a heart attack, like those anorexics who starve their organs so badly that they just shut down. Had it finally come to that?
She fought tears as she made her way in. No one was at the desk, but a security guy sat in a booth near the door. "Can you help me?" Parker asked. "My friend was brought here in an ambulance. Can you tell me where she is?"
"What's the name?"
"Stevens," she said. "Serene Stevens."
The guard stood and yelled back to a nurse in another room, who poked her head out the door. "Take this lady to Serene Stevens," the guard said.
Parker wanted to ask him to hush. If this was about Serene's eating disorder, the quieter they kept it, the better.
"Sure, honey," the nurse said. "Are you family?"
"I'm about the closest she's got." Worried that they might not let her in, she added, "She had someone call me."
The nurse had a star-struck smile as she led Parker halfway down the hallway, then pointed to the room. "We're big fans of hers. We're all very excited that she's here."
"Then she's okay?"
"She'll be all right."
Serene was lying on a bed, dark shadows around her eyes, her face white as kindergarten paste. Technicians and nurses buzzed around her, setting up monitoring equipment.
"Serene!"
Serene saw her and started to sit up. "Oh, Parker. Thank goodness you're here." She reached for Parker's hand, then winced when her IV pulled.
"What did they say? What's wrong?"
Serene sank back. "I don't know. I just started feeling real sick and got chills. My chest was hurting. I thought I was having a heart attack, and then I just fainted." She burst into tears and pulled Parker into a hug.
"But it's not a heart attack," Serene went on. "It's just exhaustion, I guess."
That made Parker angry. "Serene, it's not exhaustion. It's malnutrition, and you know it."
Serene waved her off. "I'm not malnourished. Just a little dehydrated. Right, doctor?"
The doctor gave Parker a knowing look. "We're going to start putting some liquids into her system. Hopefully she'll feel better in a few hours." He touched Serene's arm, patted her. "Listen to your friend, dear. We're sending a meal in. I hope you'll eat it."
That was all the confirmation Parker needed.
When he and the nurses had left the room, Parker said, "Is there anything I can get you?"
"No. I don't want to eat before the concert."
"The concert's not until tomorrow night, Serene. You've got to eat."
"But I'll look fat. Once I finish the drip I'll be fine. I was just dehydrated because of all the stuff leading up to leaving on the tour. I haven't been drinking enough water."
Parker suspected that Serene had been throwing up so much that her electrolytes were down to nothing. "Serene, there isn't going to be a tour if you don't eat. Don't you understand? Your anorexia is going to kill you."
Serene looked like she could slap her. "I don't have anorexia."
"You go for days without eating and then you eat six peanuts or three bites of cantaloupe, and throw that up. Do you know what that does to your organs? Do you have any idea what it's doing to your teeth? You can't keep funneling stomach acid through your esophagus and think it's not going to affect your voice. You're a big star. You have everything going for you, but you're going to ruin it."
Serene looked so small lying on that bed. She covered her face and closed her eyes. "You don't understand, Parker."
"Understand what?"
"None of this would be happening if I were thirty pounds heavier! Fame has its price. You might as well get that through your head."
"Is it worth your death?"
"I'm not dying."
"You will if you keep this up. Haven't you ever heard of Karen Carpenter? She died of this very thing!" Parker didn't know how to get through to her. "So you're telling me that I won't make it unless I lose thirty pounds?"
Serene couldn't meet her eyes. "No, you look fine."
"No, I don't. You think I look fat."
"I never said that!"
"You say it every day by living your life as if breaking a hund
red pounds is the end of the world."
"It's not, for you. It just is for me. Jeff Standard won't see me as a gold mine if I don't look thin and sexy."
"Then Jeff Standard has a problem."
"We all have problems, Parker. All but you."
Parker couldn't believe Serene would say that. Where had she been? "Okay, now you're starting to tick me off. I've had nothing but problems lately and you know it."
Serene's face twisted as tears worked at her eyes. Parker never could stand up to Serene's tears. This wasn't the time to yell at her. This was the time to be a friend. "I love you, Serene. I want you to be okay."
"I will be," she whispered. "Soon as I get some liquids in me."
"And food. You're going to eat, Serene, if I have to put it in your mouth and move your jaws myself."
Serene laughed and wiped her face. "Okay, maybe a few bites, if you'll get off my back."
Serene reached for another hug, and Parker sat down on the bed and clung to her. Serene wasn't the big, thriving star right now. She was the motherless child of a cruel father. A girl who couldn't control anything but her weight. Her God-gifted talent had been her vehicle out of her earthly hell.
"I'm glad you're here with me," Serene said. "Will you stay until they let me go?"
"Of course," Parker said. "I have to make sure you're all right, don't I? Somebody has to watch over you so you don't sabotage your own tour."
They brought Serene a ham sandwich. She ate the meat but refused to eat the bread. Thankfully, she didn't fight to go to the bathroom and throw it up.
Parker sat quietly beside her bed, praying silent prayers for healing for her friend as Serene drifted into sleep.
At one a.m., someone knocked on the door. "Come in," Parker called softly.
Nigel Hughes stopped in, camera in hand. "Parker, my love, I might have known you'd be here. So good to see you again. I'd love to get a picture of our friend here."
As Serene rose up, the camera flashed. "Who are you?"
"I told you to leave her alone!" Parker launched across the room and tried to get the camera, but he was taller than she and held it out of reach.
He looked at Serene. "I'd love a statement about your eating disorder, my dear lady. Have you been diagnosed?"
Serene crossed her hands over her gown. "I'm not making a statement. Get out of my room!"
"Just a few words, Miss Stevens, before my column is published."
A nurse pushed into the room. "What is it?"
"Please call security and get this man out of here," Parker cried. "And no more reporters!"
"Reporters? How did you get in here?"
Nigel smiled. "It's not exactly a secret when ambulances are involved, now is it? And I've made some rather good friends here tonight."
The nurse grabbed his sleeve and tried to muscle him out.
"Do you intend to go for treatment?"
"Exhaustion," Serene said. "I'm here for dehydration and exhaustion. That's all!"
Two security guards rushed in and dragged Nigel out.
"That's it." Serene got out of bed and reached for her clothes. "I'm leaving."
"No, you're not ready. Wait until the bag of fluids is empty."
Parker made her lie back down. Serene lay there, stiff, staring at the ceiling. "Who does he write for?"
"New York Times."
She closed her eyes. "And he's writing about my weight?"
Parker didn't want to tell Serene, but she needed to know. "He's been snooping around asking about you. I think he's just feeling his way to see if there really is a story here. Your job is to prove there's not. All you have to do is start eating."
Tears came to Serene's eyes. "It's not that simple."
Now they were getting somewhere. "Then you admit you have a problem?"
Serene seemed to catch herself. "A problem with my weight."
Parker wanted to slap her. "Serene, you're skeletal. Don't you see it? Your ribs poke out. Your knees are getting bony. You're starting your tour tomorrow. Do you want that to be what people remember about you?"
"Stop it or I'm leaving, Parker!"
Parker didn't want Serene to leave before those life-sustaining fluids were in her, so she gave it up.
They didn't release Serene until three in the morning. Butch took her back to her hotel, rehydrated and looking healthier, but still weak. Parker feared that the chest pains Serene had been having didn't bode well for her heart. If she lost any more weight, her heart might give out. Parker told Butch to make sure she ate and not to let her purge, but she doubted he would heed her warning. Despite his complaints about her disorder, he liked the thin, lean Serene Stevens as much as Jeff Standard did.
Skin and bones was worth a lot more than a few pounds of flesh.
CHAPTER
FORTY-FOUR
Despite everything, Serene was brilliant on stage the next night. From backstage, Parker watched her friend perform. Serene had been as weak as a sick kitten just last night. Now she danced and shouted and had the energy of a star as she brought the house down.
Parker waited backstage, jittering like she had the DTs. After two more songs, Serene would do Parker's introduction, then change costumes while Parker performed her three songs. Her armpits were perspiring, but it didn't show through her outfit. She wiped the bubbles of sweat from her top lip with the back of her sleeve, then realized she'd wiped makeup onto her shirt. Panic spilled through her, and she turned around, searching for something, anything, to get it off. Maybe someone had one of those sticks that erased careless marks. Why had she done that? She needed to erase herself. She was so stupid.
She saw Serene's makeup lady standing in the hallway, waiting for Serene to come off. She almost tackled her. "I'm sorry to bother you, but do you have anything that'll get this off?"
The woman smiled. "Sure, hon. I have everything." She ran back up the hall, and Parker followed.
"Hurry, please. I'm about to go on. The camera's going to show my hands on the JumboTron as I play piano. My sleeve will show."
"Calm down, baby." The woman popped her gum as she got out one of those Tide sticks and began rubbing the tip on her sleeve. "It might look a little wet, but the spot'll be gone."
Relieved, she saw that the stick worked. Parker heard Serene transition to the next song--"Trying."
The woman whose name she didn't know grabbed her hands. "Honey, you're shaking and you're all out of breath. You've got to relax. You can't play piano like this."
How true. But Parker had no time to get a massage or do yoga.
Parker thanked her and headed back to the darkness of the backstage area. Her father and brothers were there now, decked out in jeans and shirts that looked unintentionally showy. She glanced at her father to see if he looked drunk. Her brothers had promised to keep him away from alcohol tonight.
He looked fine.
Thank you, Lord.
All three turned to her as she came back to the curtains. "Ready, Parker?" LesPaul asked.
Parker's lungs felt like a tightly shut cage. "No. I'm gonna faint."
Her father set down his guitar and came to her. Taking her hands, he said, "Look at me."
She did, nodding. The chorus of "Trying" rose and fell. The music faded, and she heard Serene's clear voice asking the audience to sing with her. She heard the sheer number of people who would see her perform tonight, their voices filling the place.
Thousands and thousands, more than she'd ever sung for at any other time in her life.
Pete bent down to her face. "Breathe, sweetheart," he whispered. "I don't have time to breathe."
"In, long breath, hold it.... out, long breath ... Come on, do it with me."
It wasn't working. She grabbed her brothers' hands. "We have to pray. Hurry!" They formed a circle, eyes closed, as Serene resumed singing the chorus, and the band started back in.
"Father, help us. You've brought us this far. Calm me down, steady my hands. All I ask is that I do my best." She had
n't expected tears. Now what would she do? She opened her eyes, dabbing the corners, and tried to breathe again.
Gibson took over the prayer. "Lord, remind Parker that you gave her these songs. You're letting her deliver them. Fill her up. Calm her down."
They waited, listening, as Serene sang the fourth and most passionate verse of "Trying."
"Listen, baby," her dad whispered against her ear. "That's your song they're singing."
She felt the warmth of answered prayer wash over her, steadying her hands.
"You're ready for this," LesPaul said. "You've been preparing your whole life."
She banished the fear that they wouldn't like her sound. If she sang like Serene, she wouldn't have this chance. It was precisely because of her unique sound that Serene was bringing her along.
She stepped to the side curtain, looked in and saw her best friend, in all her skinny glory, lit up and moving across the stage, the long, filmy pieces of her top blowing like her hair in the air flooding the stage ...
Serene was born for the stage. Parker stood there for a moment, forgetting her own nerves and smiling at the mastery of her friend. That motherless little girl who had sat alone in the lunchroom had become a phenom.
Look what God can do.
The thought came like a whispered encouragement into her heart. He could do it with Parker, too. There was no limit to what he could do.
The song was winding to an end. "Let's go, guys," LesPaul said, and as the lights fell to darkness, illuminating only Serene, her father and brothers took the stage, transitioning with Serene's musicians. Parker waited to be introduced. She looked down at her hands. They were steady.
After a moment of all the musicians playing together--Serene's and Parker's--Serene's musicians moved off the stage. Not a note was missed. Daniel Walker came off, his guitar in his hand. He smiled as he spotted her standing there, and he leaned close. "Break a leg, Parker," he said. "We got them all warmed up for you."
She couldn't speak. He stood there with her, his hand on her back, waiting as Serene made the introduction that would bring Parker out.
"And now, I have a special surprise. I want you to meet my best friend, the girl who writes all my songs. The force behind 'Trying' and 'Ambient,' and all of the other songs I've recorded." The crowd burst into applause. "She's not only a fabulous songwriter, she's also a gifted performer. I think you're going to love her. Please welcome my friend ... Parker James."