Vengeance

“Where’s Hannah now?” Marcella asked about an hour into the discussion.

A single tear began to cascade down my cheek when I replied, “Hannah’s dead.”

Chapter Ten

Saturday, June 11, 2005

10:47 a.m.

Paris, France

I’ll never forget the day Hannah died. It all started out so perfectly. There was no way in the world that I could have suspected that June 11, 2005, would be the day I lost my only friend. She was fifty-four and I realize that a lot of people do not even make it that far. But she still died far too young. I needed her for another twenty or thirty years. I needed her to be here for me and since her death, and up until I met you, Marcella, I’d only had Daddy.

We were in Paris. I had a concert later that evening at La Flèche d’Or. The first show had sold out in less than ten minutes after the tickets went on sale, so a second show had been added the following evening. I was excited. I had never performed in Paris before.

“I’m kind of nervous but extremely excited at the same time.”

We were seated on the balcony at Hôtel Fouquet’s Barrière on Avenue George V. We had arrived a few days earlier on my private plane and had been chilling in the presidential suite most of the time. That’s the thing about being recognizable—another ugly price of fame—unless I wear some kind of disguise, it is damn near impossible to do a lot of touring. At least not in the traditional sense. People are not as overbearing overseas, but I still was not in the mood to be bombarded with a lot of the public.

We did sneak out one day to go see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre. The night before, we had taken a gondola ride down Canal Saint-Martin. It was breathtaking. This was before KAD was hired, so part of my father’s security detail were with us. Big difference, because they were all older, with beards and big bellies, but any one of them could shoot a penny off a rooftop. Most were former military and weren’t scared of shit.

“Why are you so nervous?” Hannah asked as she took a bite into a croissant. “You know you’ve got this.”

“It’s different when you’re in another country. People are not the same. My show might bore them.”

“Yeah, right. Your fan base is thick here, or there wouldn’t be a second show. Judy said you could probably have sold out a third.”

Judy was my tour manager, and she was bat-shit crazy if she thought I wouldn’t pass out from exhaustion doing shows three nights in a row. As always, I vocalized my thoughts. “Judy must be bat-shit crazy. I’m not hurting myself like that. I’m getting old.”

“Thirty-three is far from old, Ladonna.”

“For regular people with regular careers, maybe. But there isn’t a damn thing normal about my life. One week is like one year for most people.”

Hannah nodded. “You have a point. But imagine how I feel then. I’m in my fifties and time is moving like a TGV train.” She was referring to the high-speed train system in France that went up to more than two hundred miles per hour. “Life is passing me by.”

I started giggling.

“What’s so funny?” Hannah asked.

“I was just remembering the old days. How your place looked when you first brought me there. Hanging out with you and your squad.”

Hannah laughed as well. “I was pretty eccentric. Richard wasn’t having any of that loud lace and flowery shit once we moved in with him.”

“Hell to the no, he wasn’t.”

Shayne still owned her spa and Crispin had moved away to the West Coast but still kept in touch with us.

“What ever happened to Nigel and that fool Sebastian?”

Hannah sucked her teeth. “Nigel’s still around and in love with some dude he met online, some dating site. He said Sebastian’s taking a dirt nap.”

“For real?” I am stunned. “Drugs?”

“No. Actually, he was in one of the Twin Towers when they came down. He was working for some marketing firm.”

“I’m so sorry to hear that.”

Hannah shrugged. “We all have to go sometime.” She sighed. “You never know when life is going to throw you for a loop. Like they say, you don’t beat the grim reaper by living longer. You beat the grim reaper by living better.”