Reluctantly he handed it to me as I caught it before it had gone to voicemail.
“Leese,” came Don’s panicked voice, “you were supposed to be back in L.A. last night. We’ve got-”
“I can’t-I can’t get back for the special Wednesday. I’ve-”
“Can’t! We’re talking the finale, here! What do you mean can’t?!”
“I was in a-a-car accident,” I began. The line was silent so I continued, “I’m really banged up and I can’t go on stage looking like this. I can barely stand up for that matter.”
“I’m sorry, Leese, I didn’t know. What happened? Was anyone else hurt?”
“No-no-it was a deer in the road,” I lied. “It went right through the windshield. I’ve got cuts and bruises everywhere.”
“Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll either get the network to run a Christmas special or Remake reruns. I’ll let you know as soon as I work it out.”
The next day, he was standing at my bedside, “Geez, a deer did this? It looks more like a grizzly. Are those bite marks?” he said looking at my shoulder.
I pulled the blanket up to cover the mark, “No, just lots of glass.”
“Well, you’re lucky it didn’t take your head off. That little Aero must be tougher than it looks.”
“It was a rental car,” I stated quickly. My Aero was in the garage without a scratch on it.
“I just wanted you to know you’ve got two weeks to recoup. The network is doing a Christmas special and then the next week they’re doing a top 100 music count down. I tell you if our show hadn’t been so popular they would have cut our throats for-”
“Don, I‘ve got to know something about Remake. Is there anyway someone could have tampered with the voting results?”
He looked confused and a little upset at the question, “No-we have an independent accounting firm that takes care of the tallies. We aren’t allowed to have anything to do with that part.”
“Good,” I sighed.
“Why? Did you think we were cheating?”
“I just wanted to be sure that I earned my spot and it wasn’t the result of-of ownership.”
“Absolutely not. The owner doesn’t-”
“Micah Gavarreen,” I stated. I could see it shocked him that I knew who owned the show. “He’s my ex-husband and I had no idea-”
“Ah, shit! You’re kidding, right? But, you’re a Winslett.”
“You honestly didn’t know who he was to her?” Ryan asked, butting into the conversation.
“Is that why I didn’t have to audition like the other contestants?”
“He insisted you were going to have a slot, without an audition, but I didn’t know he was… If the press gets wind of this we’re sunk. We can kiss next year goodbye.”
“Well, there are only five people that know and three of us are in this room. The other two are Micah and Ryan’s girlfriend.”
“I thought you were Ryan’s girlfriend.”
“No, that was a ruse. We’re only friends.”
“Good grief, are there any other secrets I should know about, like you’re secretly a man or something?”
I laughed in spite of the pain. It was the only humor I’d felt in days.
“Where is he, by the way?” Ryan asked.
“He’s at the studio. I mean he has spent most of his days and evening in his office, but just in the last two days he’s actually started walking around the studio and meeting the crew.”
“So he is in L.A.?” Ryan continued to press.
“Yeah, he practically lives in studio. Why?”
“Just curious.”
When Don left, I told Ryan to call Candace and go home. Micah wasn’t going to show back up at my house. I was able to move around and I didn’t need him to be my mother-hen. We argued for another hour and he finally relented and called Candace and told her he was coming home.
Christmas Eve and Christmas passed quietly. Ryan and Candace visited for a while both nights, but we had sworn off of gift giving. I tended to go overboard and they said they couldn’t compete, so we skipped it. Mom called and said she and Kimmy would like to come out for Christmas, but I turned her down with the excuse that the show was keeping me busy-even if they did move the finale.
I was healing on the outside slowly, but mentally I was crumbling. The more I considered what he had done, the more I thought about endings, the deeper and darker my mood became. I was refusing Ryan’s assistance at every available opportunity, telling him I was sleeping fine and I needed private time to get my life back together. He couldn’t make out the dark circles under my eyes for the bruises that were already in place.
I was like a hermit now. All I wanted was nothingness. I sat in my bed most of the time just weeping and wishing something I’d never wished in my life; I wished I’d never met Micah. I was still in love with him, but what he had called my ‘innocence’ that had drawn him hopelessly to me had been completely destroyed. It was like everyday my soul was being stripped down to reveal a vacant person inside me, and I didn’t like that person.
I kept thinking about the fact that I had been so determined to finish the last show on Remake, but now I was dreading every minute it came closer. Micah would surely show himself this time and I couldn’t face him. I was starting to seriously doubt my sanity as I sat in the bed and discussed my life with myself. I wanted to fall in to a deep chasm where none of this existed and I could find some peace. I had made it to the one week mark; one week since I had been brutalized by someone I had sacrificed my hopes, my dreams, and my life for.
I cried out to God and asked Him why? I had tried my whole life to honor Him and to do what was right in His eyes. How could He have allowed it to come to this point? I’d always believed in Divine purpose, but now it felt as if that hope had also been stripped away from me. I sat there weeping and yearning for the rest that wouldn’t come.
I’d been awake for almost forty-eight hours since my last brief attempt at sleep and I knew if I didn’t sleep soon, my sanity wouldn’t matter because it would be gone. I dug in the medicine cabinet for my Unisom; the box was empty. Ryan’s tee-shirt didn’t comfort me anymore, and I was starting to think about jumping into my ice cold pool and just letting myself sink to the bottom, but it wasn’t the way I wanted to leave the world.
I was leaning back on my pillows when I remembered what I had tucked away inside my nightstand. There was something that could transport me to the void I was yearning to find. I pulled out the unlabeled bottle and opened it, pouring the blue capsules into my hand. One capsule and I would sleep for a day. Two capsules and I’d sleep for perhaps two days. Three capsules and I’d most likely sleep forever.
“Hey,” came a voice from my doorway. It frightened me so badly that I spilt the pills onto my bed.
I looked up to see Ryan standing there with a puzzled expression, “I didn’t mean to scare you-I thought you heard me come in. I called out your name, but…” He looked at my face and then he looked at the capsules on the bed. “What are you doing?” he asked with clear suspicion.
I began gathering them up as he approached me. “Nothing, I was just going to take something to help me sleep,” I breathed out unsteadily.
“What are these?” he asked as he picked one up and studied it. He took the bottle from my hand, “Where did you get these? There’s no label on the bottle.”
“I-a guy from-I… I don’t have to explain everything to you,” I snapped.
“Who gave these to you-and don’t duck the question.”
“A stage hand from Remake; he said they’d help me sleep.”
“Have you been taking these?” A look of deep concern crossed his face, “Answer me, Annalisa.”
He rarely used my full name.
“I-I-took one a couple months ago and then he sold me this bottle.”
“Were you able to sleep?” his questions were becoming gentle, but he was still very suspicious as to why I had them out now.
“Yeah,” I choked, “twenty-five hours worth.”
The eyes went huge and round. “What did you pay for these?” he asked as he removed them from my hand. “Answer me, damn it! What did this cost you?”
“Fiv-five hundred dollars,” I whispered.
“Shit! Leese, you bought dope! What is wrong with you?!”
