Susan Andersen - Coming Undone

A tanned hand snaked around her side to remove the phone from her hand. "Hey!" She whirled to glare at Jared, who had his thumb firmly on the disconnect button. "What do you think you're doing?"

"I don't know what your mother did this time, but you're practically hyperventilating. Take a few deep breaths and get yourself in control before you call her."

She wanted to snap at him to mind his own damn business and give her back the phone. But he was right. Her mother could push her buttons and turn her inside out faster than anyone she knew. This time Mama had gone too far, and P.J. was determined to stop Jodeen's attempts to make a buck at her expense. To do that, however, she needed to have her wits about her. Doing as Jared directed, she took several deep, calming breaths. A minute later she exhaled noisily and shook out her hands. "Okay. Gimme back the phone."

He looked at her closely. "You sure?"

"Yes."

"Do you want to talk about it first?"

"There's nothing to talk about. That was Ben on the phone. Mama sold a tell-all book that you can be damn sure is going to be filled with lies about me. She named itUngrateful Child. " She took another deep breath, because more than anything else, that grated, and she knew the hurt that lingered beneath her fury would gnaw her confidence to bits if she didn't guard against it. "I plan to have a little heart-to-heart with her."

"You could save yourself a lot of heartache by having that same discussion with her agent."

It was a perfectly reasonable, logical out, and for a moment the temptation to latch onto it beckoned like an umbrella-garnished drink on a tropical beach. Then she shook her head. "Don't tempt me." Dealing with it herself was the adult thing to do-but before she had time to pat herself on the back for her mature handling of the matter, she exploded.

"Ungrateful child, J?Ungrateful child? I've put up with her shit my entire life, but I'm through taking the high road. She's crossed the line with this one. If I don't put an end to her crap once and for all, she'll just keep coming up with other schemes to get rich quick, and you can be sure they'll all involve trashing me. I'm tired of it."

He handed her the phone.

She hit the redial button, then had to remind herself to keep breathing when the phone began to ring.

The line was picked up at the other end and Jodeen's voice said, "Hello?"

P.J. stood frozen for a microsecond, then said, "Hello, Mama."

"Well, well, well. If it isn't little Miss Bigshot," her mother drawled. "I didn't think you were lowering yourself to talk to me these days. What can I do for you, missy?"

Her tone was the sound of P.J.'s childhood, that you're-too-insignificant-to-waste-my-time-on tenor that never failed to set P.J.'s nerves to jangling. Amazingly however, instead of putting her stomach in more of an uproar than it already was over the upcoming confrontation, the you're-worthless tone put her tension on a more manageable level. "For starters, you can drop the new book contract before you embarrass yourself."

Jodeen's laugh had a harsh you-wish edge to it, and the sound of a lighter clicking and the quick inhale on a cigarette came through the line. "I'm not the one's gonna be embarrassed," she said.

"Well, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to be me.Ungrateful Child, Mama?"

"It seemed fitting."

"Please. You and I both know that when it came to you I never had a damn thing to be grateful for."

The sound of an exhale drifted down the line and P.J. could picture her mother narrowing her heavily mascaraed eyes against the smoke drifting up from her nostrils, then lazily waving it away from her over-processed, dyed ash-blond hair.

Jodeen emitted a little grunt of disgust. "How do you know the title, anyway?"

"My new manager actually looks out for my interests. I suggest you call your shiny new agent and withdraw the book before you find yourself hip deep in a libel suit."

Her mother made a rude noise and P.J.'s spine stiffened further.

"You think because I've let you bad-mouth me to the tabloids recently that I won't make our private problems public now? Guess again. Because truth is a wonderful thing, and a whole lot easier to document than the pack of lies you've no doubt written. For instance, I could call Molly Griffith. Remember her, Mama, the owner of the Buffalo Gals Barbeque in Cortez? Or Sue Redbush from the Cracker Barrel in McFadden or Mike Scraggs from the Red Hot and Blue in Cedar City? Heck, maybe I'll call all three, since all of them thought it was a crying shame that a girl my age had to work so hard in their diners while her mama sat on her butt in her broken-down little trailer. I'm sure they'd just love to testify on my behalf."

"You little bitch."

"You don't know the half of what a bitch I can be. Because I also gave the books you cooked to my manager for safekeeping. And wouldn't all those nice folk who think you're so misused be crushed to hear how you embezzled from the daughter who's supported you since she was a kid? Well, crushed for about five minutes, that is. Then they'll probably be madder than a nest of hornets hit by a stick. Funny how allegiances can turn on a dime. And hey, remember Jared Hamilton? He's standing right here. Say hi to my mama, Jared." She extended the phone toward him.

"Hi, Miz Morgan," he said obligingly from several feet away.

"Jared was there the day I called begging you to let me come home and you hung up on me. Wonder what the people who've been reading that my response to problems is to run away would make of that?"

"Well, let me think-would that be the boy who was wanted for murdering his old man?" Jodeen scoffed. But she didn't sound nearly as confident as she had a few minutes ago.

"Yep, that's him. Except the questioning was dropped even before they caught the person who actually committed the crime. He's a highly respected man from a prominent family. Between the two of you, who doyou think a jury would believe?" She rubbed at the incipient headache brewing in her temples, but kept her voice hard and firm when she said, "Call your agent, Jodeen. Because if I hear one more slanderous word out of your mouth, if I read one more libelous article, not only will you not make another red cent but I'll make it my life's mission to keep you so tied up in court that you'll be old, gray and so deep in debt that you'll have to reach up just to touch ground long before anything's settled."

Her mother cursed long and inventively.

"Goodbye, Mama." She disconnected the call, then let her arm drop to her side, the phone suddenly feeling as though it weighed twenty pounds.

"Way to go, P.J.!" Feeling like cheering, Jared stared at her with a gleeful admiration that was almost savage in its intensity. If he felt a hint of liberation as well that she wasn't nearly as vulnerable as he had feared, well, he'd just keep that to himself. But listening to her deal with Jodeen had been a pure pleasure from start to finish, because he'd never expected her to stand up to her mother like that. "What a tiger."

She burst into tears and threw herself into his arms.

"Heyyyy." Hauling her in, he held her close, tipping his head down to try to see her sad little face as she babbled a lament in which he caught maybe one word in ten.

He heard her loud and clear, however, when she sighed, rubbed a knuckle under her nose and said, "Can we go to bed now, J? I need you to just hold me for a while."

He stilled for a moment. No, no, no, no, no. This wasn't the agenda he'd planned earlier. This was the time he'd intended to talk to her, to make sure that she understood they were just friends:with benefits:and that he was okay with her moving on when his job here was done. Hell, he was more than okay with it-he was a goddamn glacier peak, impregnable and remote, right?

Damn straight. Beyond his family, he had no need for permanent ties.

But instead of saying any of that he blew out a breath, tucked her under his arm and led her to the bedroom, attributing the inexplicable flicker of reprieve he felt to the fact that his sister and Rocket hadn't raised him to be an ass. He was still going to have that talk with her.

But only a complete jerk would kick her when she was down.

"YOU'RE WHISTLING AGAIN." P.J. looked across the room at Nell as they cleared the dressing room of her belongings after the Fort Collins concert. "You've been whistling a lot lately. Is that the tune for your new song?"

"Mmm-hmm." But color rose in her cheeks.

P.J. paused in the midst of removing her tinfoil star from outside the door to stare at her. "Oh my God." She lifted the star off the nail then stepped back into the room and kicked the door shut behind her. "Nell Husner. You hussy. You've been fiddling with my fiddler." She pointed a finger at her friend. "You and Hank have been doing the deed!"

More color flared in Nell's cheeks but she pointed right back at P.J. "And you and Jared haven't?"

P.J. carefully placed the cheesy star Hank had made her to commemorate their first contract into a box atop the other items she used to personalize every dressing room. Then she looked up at her friend. And grinned. "Oh, God, we have been. Doing it anddoing it! And I gotta tell you, it's been so:my God, it's just been so:" She shook her head. "Wow. I don't even have the words. This is probably just plain pitiful to admit at my age, but I had no idea it could be like this." And okay, Jared's insistence on holding himself back to the very last minute might render it not quite perfect. But she had high hopes that he'd start loosening up a little and allowing more reciprocation on her part. And sex with him was still so far above anything she'd ever known with anyone else it wasn't even funny.