Epic (Fierce) Page 22

  According to sources at PING, the pair was seen arguing later at their hotel bar. Video recorded from a smart phone soon filled in the rest of the tale, as an anonymous source snapped the two men engaged in a passionate embrace. According to these images, which are NSFW, the younger man was seen cupping Coy Goddard’s genitals under the table as the couple kissed passionately.

  Representatives from the Goddard campaign have not yet commented on these unfolding events, but sources close to the candidate have indicated that Coy Goddard’s ambition to govern in Washington has officially come to an end.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Los Angeles, CA

  August 22, 2012

  You probably could have knocked me over with a feather as I read the breaking news alert. I must have waivered because Jace’s hand braced against my back to keep me steady. “You okay?” he said softly.

  I nodded, and then I shook my head. I was confused as I turned to Jace. “What?” was all I could say.

  He just shrugged. “I guess there are no depths Eddie Nix isn’t willing to stoop to,” he dismissed. “He’s an opportunist, Jordi. Tried and true.”

  “But Coy Goddard…”

  Jace chortled derisively. “He’s a politician, babe. The opportunism is implied.”

  I still couldn’t wrap my mind around it. This seemed a little extreme, even for him. He had hated Corey, and really any effeminate man, to the point he never wanted to be around them. And now he was cuddling up to one? For what purpose? He already had claimed Shelby, securing his spot in their family.

  The Nuevo Coreys tried to explain it to me later that night when they called me, absolutely giddy by this new turn of events. They were used to people using homophobia to mask latent homosexual feelings, especially politicians that would fight so hard against what they dubbed, “the homosexual agenda.” “It’s self-loathing, Jay,” Corey told me.

  “But Eddie had sex with girls. With me,” I insisted, as though that was still some kind of magical feat for a heterosexual man. “How is that possible?”

  “I’ve had sex with girls,” Jacob confessed. “The right combination of friction and alcohol, and anything can happen.”

  We laughed at his joke, but I still didn’t buy it.

  It took a seaside conversation with the enigmatic Griffin Slade to enlighten me. We sat on the sand about fifty yards from my mother’s patio, where she swung on her swing, watching the waves crash against the shore.

  “He is he gay or is he a liar?” I asked Griffin, as sat cross legged on the blanket next to me.

  “Who says he can’t be both?” Griffin pondered. “Let’s run down what we know about him. He’s a jock, right?” I nodded. “So he has always been around those with this hyper-machismo mentality that boys are tough and girls are inferior. ‘You hit/run/throw like a girl,’ right?” I shrugged. I supposed he had a point. “It’s Misogyny 101. From how he treated you, we already know he hates women. So femininity threatens him. That means homosexuals threaten him, too, but females are the lesser of the two evils. And we already know he has no problem using girls for his own personal gain. In high school, I bet he dated a bunch of girls… probably the prettiest and most popular… to fortify his heterosexuality. Sometimes that’s the biggest tell of all. No one questions your masculinity if you have a pretty girl on your arm. But ten or twenty? Suddenly you’re trying to overcompensate. People have whispered about my sexuality for years thanks to my long list of girlfriends. They were either too pretty or they looked like transvestites. But I have been accused on more than one occasion of hiding who I really was. Little do they know,” he grinned.

  “Indeed,” I grinned. He really was good at this smoke and mirrors celebrity game.

  “Unlike Eddie, however, I actually like women. I’d bet money he needed alcohol to sleep with any of them.”

  “He needed alcohol to sleep with me,” I confessed. “But I thought that was because I was… well… me.”

  Griffin turned to me. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m not like all those other girls,” I pointed out as I gestured to my full figure.

  Griffin chuckled softly. “You kill me, Jordi. You really do.”

  “What?”

  He looked me straight in the eye. “Why do you buy into the bullshit? What’s it going to take to show you that you don’t have to be anyone or anything else than what you are?”

  “I know that,” I tried to explain. “It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “It’s really hard to keep that positive self-image in a society that thrives on telling me how inferior I am. And I know you’re going to tell me that I don’t have to agree with them. That’s what everyone tells me. But the fact is people do treat me differently because of my size. No perception-shift is going to change that.”

  “I don’t think you give people enough credit,” he said softly as he dug in the soft, wet sand. “You have whole relationships with people before you ever even meet. Look at us, for example. You thought I didn’t want to work with you because of your size, and so everything I did you fit into that pre-judgment, whether it belonged there or not.”

  “What was I supposed to think, Griffin? You talk about Eddie needing a pretty girl on his arm, look at your dance card. No girls you’ve ever been publicized dating looks like me. How was I supposed to know that your reluctance to get close didn’t have everything to do with that?”

  “So you’re saying that because someone might not have found you physically attractive, they can’t recognize your value as a person?”

  I shook my head. “No, of course not.”

  “When did your dad die, Jordi?”

  I looked away. “When I was six.”

  Griffin ambled to his feet and held out his hands to me. “Come here.” I pulled to my feet until I stood facing him. He pulled me into his arms for a head-to-toe hug that lingered. “You lost your dad, and then the first man you loved and trusted after that used you for sex. You’ve been hardwired to believe that your value is your sexuality. That’s not what society tells you, that’s what you decided for yourself a long time ago, so you see it everywhere. Maybe it got decided for you,” he suggested, and my eyes squeezed shut as I thought of Shane and everything he had done to me when I was just a little kid. “But you are the one who repeats the message. And it’s wrong, Jordi. You are so much more than that, just like every other woman, fat or thin. Anyone who could discredit you or any female based on the sole criteria of sexual attraction can’t truly value any woman at all. And as your friend, I’m not going to let anyone treat you with such disregard. Even,” he said as he pulled away to look down at me, “if that person is you.”

  He was right. As much as I thought I was fighting this message, I inevitably reinforced it every single time I invalidated myself. Every negative thing I said about myself, every negative judgment I leveled at anyone else… all of it was merely a mirror of how I felt about myself. I ceased being a person when Shane violated me. I became a thing. In that way, I became my own lifelong abuser. And it took a man who wanted nothing at all from me to bring that message home. “Thanks, Griffin,” I said sincerely.

  “Norville,” he quipped with a playful smirk.

  “What?”

  “Norville Tutweiller,” he said happily. “I told you I’ve been playing this game for a long time.”

  I delivered a playful slap before we walked arm in arm up to the apartment.

  One lesson that Coy Goddard and Eddie Nix were about to learn about “The Game,” was that there was no such thing as loyalty among vultures. PING turned on the duo with a vengeance, posting every “inside story” and secret video they could unearth on the scandalous affair. Suddenly there were much bigger fish to fry than a couple of reality TV stars. They had broken open a game-changing political scandal, which landed their gossip page on every national news site from California to New York, and cracked them into the International markets as well.

  Unlike
my insistence to tour and work, Coy Goddard disappeared from the public eye after a tense press conference where he withdrew his bid for senate. Sherry Goddard, Coy’s wife and Shelby’s mother, was nowhere to be found as her shamed husband begged for his supporters to pray for him during this confusing time.

  In fact, there were precious few supporters in the Goddard camp these days. Most politicians distanced themselves from the scandal. His only true friend was a fire-breathing evangelical who believed homosexuality was a scourge on the United States. He had hundreds of sound bites citing homosexuality as the direct cause of every single national disaster that struck America’s shores. He felt sure that gays could cure themselves if they just tried hard enough, and he used Coy’s downfall to put that theory to the test.

  SHAMED POLITICIAN KICKED FROM HOME, TAKEN IN BY HOMOPHOBIC PASTOR!

  “Coy Goddard flew to Louisiana this morning, tail firmly set between his legs, so that Pastor Louis Thibodeau could guide him back to his more conventional roots. However, sources say Goddard may not have had a choice. Rumor has it that Sherry Goddard kicked her philandering husband out of their home in the wake of these unexpected revelations. The Goddards’ two daughters, including Fierce star Shelby, have moved back in to the family home as a unified front to ride this storm out together.”

  I didn’t have to wait long for Eddie to face his own PING karma, either. Within a week, the security video that we had taped in Vegas “leaked” to PING, showing Eddie for the abusive opportunist he was.

  FIERCE DIVA’S PAINFUL STRUGGLE FINALLY REVEALED!

  “Jordi Hemphill, who has taken her fair share of lumps this year thanks to a failed marriage, an unexpected affair and piecing together a missing family, had been harboring a shameful secret as a battered wife during her run on Fierce. An anonymous source provided video proof that her ex, Eddie Nix, had long planned to go after Shelby Goddard and her family for his own financial gain. As Jordi fiercely tried to stand up for her costar, this disturbing video shows Eddie threaten her and physically assault her during the tour stop in Vegas earlier this year.

  It appears that Eddie Nix himself had the much publicized sex tape featuring Jordi and her Fierce costar Jace Riga. This was months before it was released to the public. Inside sources with Goddard’s campaign have contacted PING to describe how this tape was at the cornerstone of a major smear campaign against the maligned reality star, released to divert attention from Shelby Goddard’s ongoing health crisis. The young songstress has battled an eating disorder since her teens, something fiercely protected by Coy Goddard, whose campaign centered on the importance of family. These new developments explain her two near-fatal heart attacks by the tender age of 22.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I knew that Shelby had to release that security tape, but that she did so publicly admitting to her eating disorder was completely unexpected. Maybe now she was free, too. She wasn’t Coy Goddard’s dirty little secret anymore.

  I prayed that meant she could finally turn a corner before her disorder killed her. There was nothing braver than being flawed and imperfect in a business, and a world, that derided both. I sent her a text that said as much.

  She only sent one message back. “I learned from the bravest.”

  I cried as I held my phone to my chest. I had my friend back.

  This ushered in a very positive upswing for the end of 2012. Both my song, “I’m Not Sorry,” and my B!tches’ song, “A-Hole,” tore up the charts as summer petered into fall. I had offers coming in by the sack-full to tell my painful but triumphant story. Now that Eddie had been “outed,” public opinion about me began to shift. Tempestuous wanted me back, but I declined. Instead Kamaria took my place, as Tempestuous embraced the “Unapologetic” branding with gusto. The mom’s group still attacked them, but they refused to make the same mistake again.

  As a result, my B!tches were able to relocate permanently to Los Angeles, where they were welcomed with open arms by Baxter Mega-Worldwide Media Corporation. We planned a cross-country tour that would coincide with Jace’s sold-out tour, both of which were set to begin in November.

  We decided to have our holidays early, since we’d be road dogs throughout much of the holiday season. We hosted HalloThanksChristmasNewYear on October 13th at my mom’s beach house. There were more people than there was space, but nobody cared. Graham offered to cater, but Maggie and I wanted to prepare the meal. A very pregnant Andy joined us in the kitchen, along with Renata, who wanted to contribute even though she was only fifteen months old. She would hand off spatulas and spoons as she sat on the counter, chattering away in simple sentences as she showed us how smart she was.

  Andy offered to write my biography, and I agreed before she finished speaking. Never again would I let the media craft my image or establish my brand. That was my job alone, and I had many resources to draw upon to make it as positive as positive. Andy would tell my story in a way that would lift others up rather than tear anyone down. There really could be no other person who could do it as well as my sister by choice, Andy Carnevale.

  With each new person who walked through the door, Maya’s house was full of laughter and love. My B!tches were there, along with Griffin and his new girlfriend, model Autumn Jorgenson. Even Diego had a girlfriend, a sixteen-year-old girl who lived in a neighboring house down the beach. Hannah was bleached blonde and tanned, virtually the opposite of my brooding brother. I personally thought they were adorable, especially the way she treated Diego like he was a superstar.

  In fact, the only person missing from our crew was Sonny. He found a job in Los Angeles at a local casino in South Bay, so he moved in with my mother even despite my misgivings. I knew Maya was lonely, and despite how much better her life worked without him, she felt like she owed him a good life after all the misery they shared.

  Now that her condition had worsened to the point she needed live-in care, I felt it a calculated risk to allow him to move back in. Diego escaped whenever he could, often staying with Jace and I in the extra bedroom he had pretty much claimed as his own.

  I didn’t want to deal with Sonny either, so I accommodated him however I could.

  Needless to say, neither of us was too brokenhearted he couldn’t join us for our early holiday extravaganza.

  Graham sat with Maya while we cooked dinner. He knew how to turn on the charm and make her feel like the lovely hostess she was. And none of my B!tches allowed her to lift one finger. They waited on her hand and foot, which essentially made her the honored guest at her own party.

  We set up long tables to facilitate all the food. There was every option available, both for vegetarians and vegans like Yael and Felix, and carnivores like Griffin and Diego. We made a ham, a turkey, roast beef and tofurkey. There were mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and a sweet corn casserole. We roasted winter vegetables, including zucchini and acorn squash. The B!tches and I had stayed up the night before making pumpkin and pecan pies. Maggie brought a strawberry rhubarb pie with her.

  Everything was served by three in the afternoon, and we picked at our feast until midnight. We interspersed a multi-holiday movie marathon with music. Griffin, Diego and Yael all strummed their guitars to provide entertainment, while all the singers took turns singing their favorite holiday songs.

  We exchanged gifts by ten o’clock. I gave Maya a new dress, and she gave me a microphone she had studded herself. “It’s beautiful,” I said as I leaned over to kiss her cheek. “I’ll use it every night on tour.”

  She touched my face with her hand. “Take me outside, Jordana.”

  I nodded and rolled her out onto her patio, which had been decorated with festive blue lights. She pulled me down to sit on the chair next to her wheelchair. “I wanted to thank you,” she said. “You gave me the greatest gift today. You’ve given me a family. I spent my whole life not knowing where I belong. I’m so glad that same curse didn’t fall on you.”

  I took her hand in mine. “I have a family,” I said. “I have you. Mama,” I added wi
th tears in my eyes.

  She welled up, too. “I was an orphan. I never wanted that for you or for Diego. I saw what it did to Joey and to me.”

  I held my breath. Was she finally ready to talk about my dad?

  “He was an orphan, too,” she confessed. “His mother was from Iowa. A runaway. She moved to New York to make it big on Broadway. According to your dad, she could sing like a bird. But she made some wrong turns and ended up destitute. She had to turn to undesirable ways to make money. I don’t even think she knew who Joey’s father was.”

  I gulped hard. More skeletons in the Hemphill family closet. Super.

  “Things were hard for her. And she wasn’t strong like you. She got lost.” Maya took a long breath. “She began to idolize those things she left behind. Joey was raised to believe that small-town Americana was the ideal, so much so that he had adopted all her cherished memories of Iowa as his own. When she died, he was only twelve. He was so young and so innocent and so confused. That’s when I met him. I watched him use that dream to get him through those long, lonely days when we belonged to no one but each other.”

  She smiled. “It was a lovely dream. And it sounded better than anything I had ever experienced. So we planned for the day we could break free and find whoever was left of his family in Iowa. It took us years. By the time we hit Iowa, Joey was incapable of seeing it as anything other than everything he wanted it to be. Aunt Verna took us in, but we worked harder there on that farm than we ever did on the road. She was obligated to help us, because he was the last remaining blood relative she had. But there were standards and I knew I couldn’t meet them. Not like Marianne.”

  I made a face. “You shouldn’t compare yourself to her, Mama. There’s a lot you don’t know.”

  She chuckled, but with effort. “You mean that pig, Shane?” she asked. “I knew she had been with him. And Joey would have known had he been able to let go of that childhood dream.”