Chapter 7 – Surprise Visits and Secrets

One week later – April 3, 2014 – Baltimore, Maryland

“So...who are we picking up again?”

Addy crossed an arm over her chest, looking to her side at Johnny. She saw him smile, but his eyes were fixated to the front.

“You'll see,” he said.

She tapped her foot. The busy Baltimore-Washington International Airport made her nervous. She looked down at her side, ensuring that Liam was still standing next to her, grasping tightly to her hand.

“Relax,” Johnny said, glancing over at her. “It shouldn't be long now.” He smiled, looking down at Liam. “Have you taken your chill pills lately?”

She sighed. She hadn't taken her “chill pills” - what the crew had taken to calling her anxiety medication – but she hadn't told anyone that she had gone off them, except Lance. No one knew they were trying to get pregnant, or of their struggles. She preferred to keep it that way.

“I'm fine without them,” she said. “There's just so many people here.”

“Busy, busy,” Johnny said, glancing around the airport looking at all the people. “Hope she can find us.”

“Haven't we had enough surprises in the past three weeks?” she asked. “I mean, first there was Wade being a complete asshole and me having no choice but to clock him...”

“No choice?” Johnny questioned, a smile on his face.

“He wasn't listening to reason,” she responded, smiling a bit. “Then there was the brand new choreographer coming in and the boys having to get used to her.”

“How's she doing, by the way?”

“You should be asking how the boys are doing,” she said. “She's a walking contradiction – she's gorgeous, but she is an absolute beast. By the time this tour is over, Lance may never walk again.”

“Justin doesn't seem to have a problem with her.”

“Justin spends most of his time drooling over her,” she responded, pausing as he laughed. “It's more like masochistic foreplay for him.”

“Too much information, Addy,” Johnny said. “Too much information.”

“Then there was the bus breakdown...”

“That wasn't so bad, was it?” he asked.

“Oh gee no,” she said sarcastically. “We were only stuck in Montreal in March in negative-five-degree weather for three hours. I'm sick of surprises, Johnny.”

“You'll like this one,” he said with a smile. “I promise.”

She only sighed.

“Sephie!”

Before she could stop him, Liam let go of her hand and took off running towards the front of the airport. She was about to panic when she heard the voice.

“Li-Li!”

She looked up in disbelief, to see Stephanie with her arms outstretched, waiting for Liam to jump into them.

“Oh baby, baby,” Stephanie said with a smile as she picked him up, immediately smothering him in cheek kisses. “Aren't you just a mini-Lance, only so much cuter and sweeter?”

“Stephanie?” Addy said.

Stephanie looked up, holding Liam to her hip, and smiled.

“In the flesh.”

She could feel her jaw fall open.

“What are you doing here?”

“I'm going on tour with you, dummy,” Stephanie said, walking up to her and wrapping her in a hug. “Lance thought it would be good for you and might cheer you up.”

“How long will you be with us?” Addy asked.

“You have to put up with my ass for an entire month,” Stephanie responded, smiling as she saw Johnny and gave him a hug. “Aren't you lucky. Now where the hell are those big hunkin' bodyguards? They can carry my bags.”

“No bodyguards today, they're busy protecting the boys,” Johnny said.

“He means babysitting the boys then,” Stephanie said with a glance to Addy, who smiled and nodded.

“I'll go get the bags,” Johnny said with a chuckle.

They watched him walk away from them, and Stephanie turned to her friend once he walked off.

“You don't look as happy as I'd expected you to be,” she said.

“I'm just...shocked. You're the last person I expected to see today,” Addy said. “I guess I got my hopes up a little that Johnny was going to surprise me with--”

“Mel?”

Addy nodded slightly. “I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, Lance told me what was going on,” she said. “That's one of the reasons he sent me out here. He thought you needed a 'girl' friend, and he just didn't think that Justin was cutting it like he used to.”

Addy giggled. “Oh, it'll be so much fun to hear you and Justin bickering on the tour bus for the next month.”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Stephanie said. “By the time the month passes you may want to leave me on the side of the road and hitch Justin to the hood of the bus.”

“You assume I don't already want to hitch Justin to the hood of the bus,” Addy said with a chuckle.

“Again, a be careful what you wish for situation. You wanted to have kids – congratulations, Addy! You have six of them now.”

“At least five of them are potty-trained,” Addy said.

“Oh, we're absolutely sure about Chris now, are we?”

Addy slightly smiled.

“Is he that bad?” Stephanie asked.

“He's not the same Chris anymore,” Addy responded. “He hasn't played any tricks on anyone on the buses yet. The other day, Justin made a crack and he just ignored it...didn't even have a witty comeback for it. When they pull out the props for the shows, he just walks right past them, doesn't even try to see what trouble he can get into. Even Lance is concerned.”

“Maybe Chris has just...finally matured,” Stephanie said.

Addy raised an eyebrow. “They've all gotten older, but they'll never mature. This is as mature as any of them will ever get.”

“Right, where the hell was my head,” Stephanie said. “Lance is the most mature of the group and even he's a perpetual child around them.”

“Not only around them,” Johnny said to the both of them as he wheeled the small cart of Stephanie's three suitcases up to them.

“Hey, that's my husband, you know,” Addy said to the two of them as they all walked off to the airport exit. “He's not that bad...anymore.”

“I'm still pissed that you ran off to Vegas and I wasn't there to throw rice at Lance's face,” Stephanie said. “Would have been great payback for all those years he made my life miserable as his assistant.”

“Atlantic City,” Addy said with a smile. “We went to Atlantic City, not Vegas.”

“Same shit, different day,” Stephanie responded. “You jacked my maid-of-honor duties away from me.”

“What was I supposed to do? I had like an hour to get ready,” Addy said, taking Liam from her as they approached the car. “Which, by the way, included finding a dress and something that would stand-in for a tuxedo...”

“See, now I coulda done that,” Stephanie said. “Had I been maid-of-honor. But nooooooo. Oh well, I see how it is.”

“If it's any consolation, I only had a witness. I didn't really have a maid-of-honor, or even a bridesmaid,” Addy said.

“Too bad, Joey'd have looked super sexy in a taffeta dress.”

Addy laughed.

“Oh Steph,” she said. “I missed you.”

“I missed ya too, kid,” Stephanie said, throwing her last suitcase in the trunk of the car. “But you have me for the next month. Who knows how long it will take you to get tired of me.”

“With you, Lance, and Justin on the same bus, I'd hazard a guess at 'not too long'.”

“Actually, I'm bunking with JC.”

“JC?” Addy said, stopping in her spot in the parking lot. “Why are you bunking with JC?”

“Why not?” Stephanie responded. “When I told JC I was coming, he suggested I bunk on his bus because yours is full with you and Liam and Lance and Justin. So I talked to Johnny and he approved it.”

“Wait – you talked with JC before you came here?” Addy asked, narrowing her eyes. “Since when are you so close with JC?”

Stephanie shut the trunk of the car with a smile, only giving her friend a nonchalant shrug.

“Stephanie,” Addy said, walking off toward her with Liam on her hip. “Stephanie Dawn, friends don't let friends keep secrets...”

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“Hey there, you.”

The voice was unfamiliar, and Chris looked up from tying his shoe, expecting to see one of the backstage crew members. He was surprised to see Stephanie standing in the doorway of his dressing room.

“Oh, hey Steph,” he said.

“You ready for the next show?” she asked.

“Depends on how you mean,” he said. “Am I dressed and prepared? Yeah. Is my body ready? Hell no.”

“I have a feeling you don't mean your poor, aching knees, you old man.”

He looked up to see her smiling and tried to smile back.

“Part of me wants to say yes I do,” he said. “The other part of me knows I'd be lying.”

“I only met her once, at the party,” she said, walking slowly into the room, “but for what I knew of her, she was a sweet girl. The way Addy talks...I know she meant a lot to you.”

“She did,” he said. “She still does.”

“You know, my opinion might not count for much--”

“You're Stephanie,” he said, a slight grin on his face. “Don't you make it your mission in life to make your opinion be the only one that matters?”

“Well, yeah, usually,” she said. “But I only use force when it's Lance challenging me, 'cause he seems to think he's smarter than me.”

“It's not just you,” he said.

She chuckled. “My opinion might not count for much – at least not with you – but I side with Addy and Lance.”

He raised an eyebrow, and she chuckled again.

“I know, that's a shocker too, me agreeing with Lance,” she said. “But I don't think she left you because she wanted to.”

“Well, that's one answer,” he said. “The next question is, why did she leave?”

“Maybe she had no other choice.”

“What do you mean?” Chris asked, his interest piqued.

“Fear makes people do crazy things, Chris.”

“Like, she was afraid of me?”

“Not you,” she said.

“Then who?” he asked.

“Back in high school, after Addy moved away from Jersey, I was in a relationship with this guy,” she said, coming to sit next to him. “Giovanni. He'd make a good stunt double for one of those guys on Jersey Shore. He was your typical Italian meat head – Jersey Italian, not Joey Italian. You know the kind of guy – muscles bigger than his brain, marinates himself in tanning oil? That kind of thing.”

“Your taste in men is worse than I thought,” he said.

“G was great when I first met him,” she said, her stare turning wistful. “He may have had sausage for brains, but he was romantic, he was manly, he was thoughtful – he was everything you'd want in a man. Seventeen and stupid, I thought he was a dream. I thought I'd graduate high school and marry him. I just didn't know what he was really like underneath all the dreaminess.”

“What was he like?” Chris asked.

“First time he hit me was after prom,” she said. “I was a junior and prom was only for seniors in our school, but G was a senior. I felt like the luckiest girl in the world, because I was only one of two juniors with senior boyfriends who took them to the dance. The theme was 'A Day on the Beach' – typical Jersey.” She chuckled. “As if we didn't get enough beach. Anyway, after eight that night, they dimmed the whole gymnasium and turned on these lights and made it look like the beach at night, with the water reflecting over everything, and there were stars...it was so romantic. I thought I was in Heaven. But that night, he got drunk with his friends. He got fresh, but I said no – and he hit me. And then he raped me.”

“God, Steph,” Chris said.

“If only that was the worst thing he did,” she said. “One thing I learned out of that was to never say no to him again. It went on for another year – not because I was too stupid to leave, but because I was too damn afraid. I knew I had to leave, but where do you go? Where do you go when you're under the control of someone who makes it his business to know your every move, your every footstep, every friend you have, every word you say?”

“How the hell did you get out?” he asked.

“Luck,” she said. “A month after I graduated, the idiot broke into a liquor store with his buddies and tripped an alarm. He got caught and sent to jail. I packed my stuff up and moved to California early – he had no idea that I got a scholarship to USC two months before. That was my escape plan. I took what I could in my dad's old Chevy and told my family that I loved them, but I couldn't risk coming back to Jersey because of what he was doing to me. I didn't go back home for two years.”

“I don't call that luck,” he said.

“I do – I was miserable, but I was safe,” she said. “I didn't go to school with bruises around my eyes, or half a pound of makeup on my face to cover the marks. He didn't know where I was and he couldn't find me. Not a lot of women can say that; not a lot of women can get away and start a new life without fear that they'll be found. I was even luckier that I found Addy, my old friend. Someone I knew I could trust.”

“Does she know about this?” he asked.

“She knows I don't go back to Jersey unless I absolutely have to,” she said. “She doesn't know why; she thinks I left Jersey behind me because I never really fit in there, being Australian, but she's actually terrible at that kind of thing – judging people.”

“I don't understand,” he said. “You're Stephanie Andrews. For the love of God, we're all scared of you, even though we won't admit it. How in the world could you let a guy do that to you? You could kick any one of our asses on your worst day, because you're so tough; you're so strong.”

“And what do you think made me that way, Chris?” she asked. “The first time I started to trust any man since then was when Lance came into my life. We weren't even in a relationship with each other, but he cared what happened to me. Our friendship never came with restrictions, limits, or breaking points. I could test him and push him, but if he ever got mad, he laughed it off. He showed me that not all men were like that. It doesn't matter how tough or strong or smart you are – domestic abuse doesn't discriminate. It doesn't pick the weakest women because they're easy targets. It can happen to anyone because they don't come with signs – 'I'm sweet now, but in three months I'll get mad and hit you.' And not one woman is smart enough to see it coming before it happens – by the time you see it, you're too late. There's no easy way out by then.”

“Does Lance know about any of this?”

“G came to his door once,” she said. “Lance didn't know him, of course. G asked for me; said I was an old friend and he had to talk to me. He was too persistent; Lance felt something was 'off' about it from the beginning, and he told G that he didn't know who I was – he didn't know any Stephanie and he must have the wrong person. G put up a fight, but Lance told him that he was crossing a line and if he didn't leave, he would call the police and have them arrest him for harassment. I think that scared him and he left. Lance asked me the next day if I knew the guy. I could have told him everything – but I told him I didn't know who he was. I put it behind me. If I spent the rest of my life re-dragging myself through Hell, I'm no better out of the relationship than I was in it.”

“Lance and Addy are two of your best friends,” he said. “If you haven't told them about any of this, why are you telling me?”

“I'm not saying that she was abused,” she said. “And I'm not saying she left because she was scared of her abuser. But I am saying that sometimes, you don't know all that you think you know about a person. Maybe it looks like she ran away on her own because it's safer that way – for her, and for you.”

He only looked at her. Sadly, he did know things about Melissa's past. They were things he wished he didn't know.

“His name was Derek,” he said. “He put her in the hospital. I don't know the details. All I know is...it must have been bad. She ran away with almost nothing and refused to go back.”

“It happens to too many women,” she responded. “It could have been Addy, too; look who Marc eventually turned out to be. If she had stayed with him...who knows.”

He nodded; she didn't have to finish the rest of her sentence, or spell out details. Lance hadn't been his old self for months after it had happened, and Addy spent a year back in therapy trying to get over it. If circumstances had been different, and Lance and Addy had never met or gotten married, Marc could have easily changed on his own – and she could be dead.

“Mel is scared,” Stephanie said. “She's stuck in an endless cycle of fear and self-hating. She knows she needs to get out, she knows he'll hurt her or maybe even kill her – but she knows he'll do whatever he can to find her, because he thinks she is his possession. In a way, she is; and he won't let go of her easily. And if he found out about you...that she was in love with you...he might go after you, too. That's probably what scares her the most.”

“So you think that's why she left?” he asked. “Because he found her and he found out about me, and she's too scared for both of us?”

“If G found me--”

They were both startled by a knock on the open door, and looked up to see Addy staring at them both.

“Sorry Chris, I thought you were alone,” she said. “Did I interrupt something?”

“Chris and I were rekindling our secret love affair,” Stephanie said, hooking Chris's arm into hers.

Chris exchanged a look with Stephanie – and for the first time, he saw something beyond the feisty Australian woman that he thought he knew. He saw a deeper pain, an urge to keep parts of her life a secret from her friends, and a woman masking terrifying feelings the only way she knew how to – humor.

“Yeah,” Chris said, slightly nodding. “Flames burning hotter than ever.”

“Right,” Addy said. “Well, five minutes to the show Chris.”

The three of them paused a few moments, exchanging looks with each other before Adeline shook her head.

“I should know better,” she said, backing away from the door. “I knew I never should have asked.”