77 - Den of Narcisissm

While Delaney said goodbye to their overnight guests, Jon took the opportunity to check in with Jake.  The boy’s prom wasn’t hangover-inducing like Dad’s, but he’d pulled an all-nighter that had him incoherently answering the phone at noon.  He didn’t give much more than a grunted affirmation to any of Jon’s questions, who gave up and told the kid to call after getting some more sleep. 

“Everybody gone?” he asked when Delaney joined him in the office.  With all the furniture still stripped from the living room, it was the only comfortable place to sit downstairs.

“Yeah.  With instructions to thank you again.”  She sank next to him on the stuffed sofa and leaned in for a kiss.  “Which I need to do for myself.  Last night was… amazing, in all respects.  I can’t believe you went to that much trouble for something so frivolous, but God was it fun.”

“I had fun, too, so it was worth the trouble.  I’ll put our prom picture on the desk over there, when Pearl gives it to me.” 

Her line of sight touched on the big wooden desk before sweeping over to the baby grand, the mantle with its clusterfuck of trophies, the director chairs and the other mess of nostalgia on the coffee table in front of them. 

“I like this room.  What I picked out for your apartment is a lot like it.  Unpretentious.” 

“Are you fucking kidding me?”  Jon scoffed incredulously.  “This is unpretentious?  It’s a den of narcissism with all the awards and crap.”

Gray eyes twinkled as if he was joking.  He wasn’t fucking joking.  His ego lived and thrived in this room, and he wasn’t even a little bit embarrassed about it.  More than once, these inanimate objects had kicked him in the ass with a reminder of what he was still capable of.

“I was talking about the furniture.” A hand gestured to the two orangey leather chairs and the sandy velour sofa.   “Not the garage sale display of your achievements.  Ever consider a bookcase or curio?  So you can actually see and appreciate the fruits of your labor?”

Oh.  Well, the furniture was pretty low-key. 

That was true enough, and as for a display case, he’d only had a few items for the mantle when they moved into this house.  All those magazine awards and plaques from the early days were bubble-wrapped down in the basement.  As he accrued one new bauble after the other, it was too much trouble to schlep them downstairs, so they were all crammed together on flat surfaces – credenza, tables, desk, piano and even the floor.  

Some of them should probably go in storage, but a select few would always stay here.  His Grammy and Songwriters’ Hall of Fame for sure, along with the latest addition from the Rock Hall of Fame.  Those were the core pieces of the ego pit.  They would stay visible so that he couldn’t forget a single drop of the blood, sweat and tears they represented. 

“There were only a few when I started putting them in here, and I never got around to something more formal.  It’s a good idea, though.  Add it to the list of shit you’re buying for the apartment.”

“You realize I have a job, right?” she drawled, curling up next to him.  “And that you’re putting your assistant out of one?”

Jon respect her job but snorted at the naiveté.  He had enough going on to keep two assistants busy, without touching his home life.  “Kathleen’s got plenty to do.  I just figured since you were looking at furniture, anyway…”

Delaney’s little sigh of concession was cute and exactly what he’d anticipated.  She was as wrapped around his little finger as he was hers but didn’t acquiesce in silence.

“In case you aren’t familiar with June, it’s high season for weddings and florists, but I’ll see what I can find.  Has Avery called you about a possession date yet?  Deliveries need scheduled.”

“She did, but I was in the middle of something and don’t remember.  Wednesday, maybe.  Can you text her to be sure?”

That got him a perturbed stink-eye, which he warded off with a raised hand.  “Sorry.  Leftover tequila talking.  You’re busy.  I got it.  I’ll have Kathleen call her and let you know.”

“Thank you.”

There was a lull as she silently took in photographs on the end tables and memorabilia on the piano, but it was all shit he’d seen a hundred times over.  The thing he was most interested in seeing she still hadn’t decided on as of last night.

“Mou?  You gonna watch that video?”

Glancing in his direction, she tightened one corner of her mouth and took a breath through her nose before turning wandering eyes back to the room at large.  “Every time the angel on my left shoulder tells me not to, the devil on my right says I’m going to be thinking about it anyway.  Might as well put myself out of misery, even if it hurts.”

Jon personally thought that was a good decision.  The pain from not knowing would linger on forever.  This…

Could be gruesome enough to linger forever, too, jackass.

Surely to God the guy wouldn’t have given it to her if it was going to cause nightmares.  If it turned out to be that bad, Jon would hunt the fucker down and kick his ass.  If he ended up with a screaming and sobbing woman on his hands….

You’ll sit right here and fucking deal with it.

“I’d like to watch it with you.”

This time when her gaze flicked to him, it stuck, and his fearless Mou admitted, “I was hoping you might.  I can do it alone; I just don’t want to.”

Then she wouldn’t.  It was just that simple.  Whether he wanted to or not was no longer relevant.  Jon was going to sit right next to her and do it. 

“Works out good, then.”  He leaned up to plant a kiss onto her forehead. “Where’s the flash drive?”

A dip of fingers in her back pocket produced the innocent looking piece of black plastic.  “Right here.”

Taking it from her, Jon rose and went to get the spare Macbook he kept on the desk.  It only took a minute before his butt hit the couch next to hers again, and the screen flickered to signify that it was booting.

“Any idea what’s on here?”

“Not really.  Just a party and… Violet making poor choices.  That’s all I know.”

Delaney’s little body was fraught with tension and anticipation.  She sat rigidly as Jon skated a fingertip over the touch pad to navigate the drive contents.  There were two files, as expected – one was titled “May 27” and the other “May 27 – edited”. 

“Edited?”

Pursing her lips and blowing a breath, she nodded. 

There would have to be a pretty damn compelling reason for him to click the other one.  In his opinion, seeing Violet draw her final breath wouldn’t serve any good purpose, and he planned to do everything in his power to discourage it.

No point in saying that now, however, and Jon tapped on the edited file.  The program to play it loaded as he situated the computer half on his left leg and half on her right. 

Please, God.  Let this serve a something positive and not just a source of pain.

The footage started to roll and prominently displayed both date and time at the bottom:  May 27, 2013 8:35 PM. 

There wasn’t a lot of clarity to the video, as it gave a wide-angle view of the basement.  It was in color, though, and depicted a couple of couches occupied by teenagers as well as a pool table with more gathered around.  Outdoor lighting enabled them to see others going in and out a sliding glass door at the edge of the frame. 

He presumed it led to a pool area, because quite a few guests were attired in swimwear.  There were only a few exceptions – including two young women that Jon recognized in the same instant Delaney sucked a breath that she didn't immediately exhale.

Engaged in heated conversation, Poppy and Violet stood next to an end table, and when Delaney reached out to touch a fingertip to Violet’s image, Jon asked, “Are you sure you wanna see this, Mou?”

Her cheeks were ashen, and she looked to be about two seconds away from retching violently.  He wouldn’t have thought any less of her for backing out, but no.  Not his fighter.  There was zero hesitation or uncertainty in her definitive nod. 

“I’m sure.  Is there sound?”

Jon pushed the correct button while she withdrew the searching hand to her lap, but the volume was already at maximum level.  “No.”

This time, the motion of her head was barely perceptible in its gesture acknowledgement.  Spellbound eyes were glued to the half of the screen where two girls were visibly arguing.  It was impossible to tell what about but, knowing why they’d gone to this party in the first place, Jon supposed it had something to do with Delaney and Aardvark’s divorce. 

A younger version of the woman he met last week appeared to be the aggressor.  She had a firm grip on her sister’s forearm, but Violet wasn’t the shrinking variety of her floral namesake.  The shorter twin was in a stance that Jon recognized as the same one her mother had used that first day in his dressing room.  Diminutive feet were planted a shoulder-width apart and her eyes were casting familiar lightning bolts. 

“They always fought like that,” Delaney murmured as a towering Poppy bent to her sister’s level and snarled something.  “Like vicious wolves.  You'd think they hated each other, but it always blew over in minutes.”

He had nothing to compare it to, so Jon simply laced his fingers into hers and continued to watch. 

Poppy was pushing something into her sister’s hand as Violet tried to break free – while everyone around gave the twins a wide berth without really looking at them.  The grip of the taller girl was a fierce one, though, and she refused to relinquish it.  Instead, she persistently forced the object into Violet’s palm and made her enfold it inside a fist. 

This time, whatever she spat made an impact.  Violet’s eyes dropped to the hand clasped over hers as lightning bolts diminished to sparks.  The jaw that was so much like her mother’s clenched tight, and there was a terse nod that was also familiar.  It was a show of concession but not defeat, and Poppy relinquished her hold.

Violet was spun and pushed toward a spot outside the camera’s eye, where they both disappeared to as the remaining seconds of the video ticked away.    

“What just happened there?”

Glancing down at a confused Delaney, Jon prayed like hell it wasn’t what he thought.  That the condom-sized packet wasn’t what his instinct identified it as. 

He prayed that Poppy hadn’t just browbeaten her sister into taking heroin.