Maddie
ran to the edge of the porch and was violently sick. There was nothing in her
stomach, so all that resulted were dry heaves. After what seemed like an
eternity, her stomach stopped rebelling. She had to fight against the urge to
stare at the ghastly sight. She couldn't stop herself from taking a quick peek.
Nausea threatened to claim her once again. Hot tears stung the backs of her
eyes.
She recognized that short nubbin of a tail. It had been torn in a
confrontation with a dog that had left the dog in worse shape than the cat. His
name was Nick, St. Nicholas to be exact, and he belonged to the family three
houses down, the Tates.
Nick had been a better guard than any dog could
ever hope to be. Forever on the prowl, he considered the entire neighborhood his
own private domain. As the only pet in the area, it was. There were many times a
resident would come home to find that Nick had somehow slithered his way into
their house. No one had ever minded. And now he was-
"Maddie, what are
you-Oh my God!"
"Go get my dad. Tell him to call the police."
More than an hour later, a squad car with the familiar blue and white
markings of the Houston Police Department slowly rounded the corner and
approached the house. Maddie sat hand-in-hand with Abigail Tate. Nicole sat on
her other side, arm over her shoulders. At five months pregnant, this was stress
and drama Abby didn't need. The three silently watched as the police officers, a
tall, black woman and a stout, portly white man got out of the car. Ron got up
to meet them. From her position on the swing, Maddie couldn't see them but the
conversation was clearly heard.
"Hello, sir. What seems to be the
problem?"
"I don't know what to call this. Vandalism, destruction of
private property, cruelty to animals, I don't know." Ron led the officers up the
stairs.
Maddie watched the officers as they inspected the scene. Not one
flicker of emotion from either of them. She understood that they saw so much
carnage and destruction day after day in their line of work that they became
inured to it, but it seemed inhuman to her, the detached way the viewed to
corpse.
The man turned to Ron. "So, what happened?"
"You tell
us," Paul muttered under his breath.
Ron sighed. "My daughter came out
here to get the paper about an hour ago and she found this."
"Did the
animal belong to you, sir?" The woman, whose badge identified her as Jenkins
pulled out a small black notebook and began to take notes.
"He was
mine," Abby said quietly, eyes downcast.
"Your name, ma'am?"
"Abigail Tate. I live three down in 7580."
The man,
Stanislowszki, spoke again. "From the looks of it, this animal has been here for
a while. At least five or six hours. Who was the last one to enter the house
last night?"
"I think I was," Kendra spoke up. She, Travis, Paul,
Crystal and Kristina were sitting on the railing of the porch, near the swing.
"I got here around two-thirty."
"No, I was," Maddie corrected, causing
everyone to look at surprise. "I don't know what time it was, but the sun was
just starting to rise."
"You went out last night?" Mike asked.
"To the Waterwall."
"Oh." They all knew Maddie went there to
think and clear her head.
"And neither of you saw anything?"
Both girls shook their heads.
"I came in through the backdoor,"
Kendra said.
From Maddie: "I came in through the garage."
"And
you all have no idea who did this? Any fights recently? Fire anyone at work,
things like that?"
"Nope, no one," Ron shook his head.
"Well,"
Wendy began, "there is that one guy…"
"What gu-Oh, him."
Maddie
shook her head. "Guys, he's harmless. It wasn't him."
"Ma'am?"
Stanislowszki looked at her inquisitively.
"Well, there's this guy. He
likes to park here and look at the house. But I've talked to him, he's harmless.
He's just a little…special."
"Maddie, I didn't know you had spoken to
him," Ron said, frowning.
"Did he tell you his name? Or why he comes
here?"
"His name is Rory and he comes here whenever he's sad. He said
that listening to my music makes him happy so he just sits and watches the house
and listens to my CD til he feels better."
"What kind of car does he
drive?" Jenkins asked.
"I'm not really sure. It's a black Honda, I
think."
"No, it's a Toyota Camry LE. '97," Travis, a car buff,
corrected.
They watched as Jenkins wrote this down.
"Oh my God!"
"What?"
Nicole looked at Maddie, eyes wide. "Someone kept
prank-knocking last night!"
"Prank-knocking?" Jenkins asked.
"Ringing the doorbell, then running away," Paul explained.
"Do
you know what time this started?" Stanislowszki asked Nic.
"No, but I
know the last time was around 1:45 cause JC wouldn't answer the door."
"Which one of you is JC?" Jenkins looked at the guys.
"JC's not
here anymore, they left this morning."
Jenkins wrote a few more things
down as Stanislowszki said, "OK, we're going to go question the neighbors, see
if they saw anything. I'm going to call the crime lab. They'll come, possibly
dust for fingerprints, call the proper people to get the body taken care of. Is
there anything else y'all can think of to tell us?"
"We had a party last
night," Mike said.
The officers exchanged looks.
"It wasn't very
big. Pretty much everyone stayed the night."
"By everyone, you mean all
of you here?"
"No, everybody else left already."
Jenkins sighed.
"Ok, we're going to need to get the names of everyone who was here last night
and then-"
"Why?" Maddie stood, thoroughly irritated and full to
bursting with pent-up grief, confusion and some other emotions she couldn't
identify. "You think one of us did it? That we got drunk and thought it'd be
funny to skin the neighborhood cat? Some funny joke, ha ha!" She stormed past
the officers, and down the stairs, onto the lawn. Wendy and Nicole immediately
got up to follow her.
Jenkins turned to Ron. "There was alcohol, sir?"
Ron nodded.
"And minors?"
He nodded again.
"You
do realize, sir, that you could be fined for that and spend a minimum of-"
"Fine, OK, fine me, do whatever, just find out who did this!"
(Two days later)
(Somewhere on I-10)
"Yes, Mom…I know,
Mom…I will, Mom…he does, too much…I love you, too. Bye."
Justin hung up
his cell phone and sank back in his seat. "I swear, the older I get, the more
she worries."
"Dude, she's your mom, she's allowed to be
overprotective," Mike said as he watched Lance and Joey battle on the Dreamcast.
They were all relaxing in the back lounge of the tour bus, traveling to Georgia
for shows in Atlanta and Savannah.
"Yeah, but she just asked me if I had
condoms," Justin said, still shocked over the nonchalant way his mother had
posed the question.
"For real?" Joey laughed.
"That's cause she
knows you're just one big ole walkin', talkin' hormone and there are like a
billion girls wanting to jump your bones," Chris spoke up from his spot on the
corner of the L-shaped sofa. He had been quiet all day. Heather, a graduate
student at UW Madison, had gone back to school to talk to her advisor on the
progress of her dissertation. She was undecided as to what she wanted to do with
her life so she had gone for a master's degree in political science. She
frequently thought about law school, but something always held her back.
Perhaps, it was the stigma that lawyers everywhere were afflicted by, namely
everyone thinking that all lawyers were scumbags and not worth the paper their
degree was printed on. She had been gone for less than a day, but already he
missed her.
"Man! That's it," Joey said as Lance beat him yet again. "I
give up. You da man."
Lance smiled, "That's right, bitch."
He
turned the game off, then scrambled to snag the remote control before Joey could
get it. From habit, he tuned in to MTV.
Dave Holmes smiling face filled
the screen. "That was Christina Aguilera at number four with 'I Turn To You.'
Standing to my left…John Norris, ladies and gentlemen." The camera panned out to
show both men. "What's going on, John?"
"Not a whole lot. I got good
news and some rather disgusting news, all of it concerning Madison Morse. She
went into production again yesterday for the video for 'Uninvited', the first
single off her debut album, 'Just Maddie'. The video had already been shot but a
small fire at The Werks, an editing and enhancement company, destroyed some of
the films and they had to be reshot."
"Was that the good news?" Dave
asked sarcastically.
"No, the good news is that Maddie has promised to
hand deliver the video herself sometime late next week for an MTV World
Premiere."
"It's kinda shocking, isn't it, that there's all this hoopla
surrounding her and her first video's not even out yet," Dave remarked.
"Yeah, that in part, I think, is due to the Internet campaign that first
got word to the fans about her and I think a lot of this has to do with all the
*NSYNC and Justin Timberlake fans wanting to know more about the girl who caught
Justin's eye."
"Dude, they don't want to know her, they want to BE her,"
Dave kidded.
"Yeah, really," John laughed. "And speaking of *NSYNC, and
this is the disgusting part, following a party thrown at Madison's Houston home
a few days ago, which the *NSYNC boys attended, the skinned carcass of a dead
cat was found stapled to the front door of her house."
"Say what?"
Dave's voice and his eyebrows raised in surprise.
"Yeah, yeah," John
nodded his head. "Police reports say that Maddie found the body of the animal, a
neighborhood pet, when she went out the next morning to get the paper. Police
think that the animal was killed, skinned alive, sometime between three and six
AM. There are no suspects as of yet and sources say that this case will likely
never be solved."
"Man! How sick is that?"
"I know. It's a sick,
sad world."
"And the *NSYNC guys were at her party?" Dave asked.
"Yup."
"Well, there ya go. Some crazy *NSYNC fan saw that Justin
was with Maddie, went into a fit of rage and bye bye kitty. Geez, what is the
world coming to when even the pussy cats aren't safe?"
John laughed.
"And I'm supposed to go into the number three video after that? How the
hell do I go from skinned cats to the Backstreet Boys?"
"Dude, that's
sick," Joey spoke up.
"You gonna call her?" Lance asked Justin.
"No."
"No?"
"Well, first of all, it's all on her. I left
her my cell phone number. She needs to take the next step or I'll be chasing her
forever. If I call her to talk about the cat, I know I'd end up asking her how
she feels or some shit like that and she needs to decide if she wants to be with
me without any pressure from me."
"Wow. That's very mature, Justin, I'm
proud of you," Chris remarked. He paused. "Now, what's the real reason?"
Justin grinned. "I don't have her phone number."
(The same day)
(Houston, TX)
"Is it on? Is it on?"
"It's on."
"You sure? I don't see a red light or anything."
"Geez, Mads, I think the guy knows how to work his own equipment."
This between Maddie, Wendy and Craig, the camera man. He was part of the
crew sent out to film Maddie for an episode of MTV's Celebrity Diary. They were
all cramped into the Morse living room. Maddie's house was pretty big but it
seemed tiny with all the people and equipment everywhere.
"We're
rolling," Craig told her. "Ready whenever you are."
Maddie looked into
the camera, a smirk on her face. "Hello all you people in MTV Land. Allow myself
to introduce…myself. Hey guys, what's up, I'm Maddie Morse. Today, you're gonna
found out what a day in my life is like. Trust me, it ain't all sunshine and
Oreo cookies. I have a pretty full schedule today: dance rehearsals, meetings,
and my little brother had a baseball game today. It's a conference game so I
can't miss that."
She paused and looked to the director who was standing
off to the side. "Was that OK?"
"That was great," Steven told her. "Now
Raul is going to ask you some questions, just try to answer em as best you can,
OK?"
Maddie wet her lips with her tongue and nodded her head.
"Try to look into the camera," Raul said, then consulted his clipboard
for his list of questions. "How do you feel about the success you're having
right now?"
"I hate it," Maddie deadpanned. "It totally sucks! No, um,
it all just seems surreal to me right now. Like at any moment, someone's gonna
wake me up and I'll see that this was all just a dream. But I tell you what, I'm
milking the hell outta this!"
The crew all chuckled. Raul had to collect
himself before asking his next question. "What do you think makes you stand out
from out from other teen acts today?"
"Oh, I though you knew. I'm just a
carbon copy," Maddie grinned.
"Of who?" Steven asked.
Maddie
shot him a look. "Don't go there. No, I think the thing that makes me stand out
is that I'm not looking to make this a career. I'm not thinking 'Oh, this album
has gotta sell at least a million' or anything like that. Hell, I was happy it
sold a hundred copies," she laughed. "I'm just gonna give it to you straight, ya
know? I've already been through two media consultants and I'm on my second PR
agent. They don't like to work with me cause I don't know how to play the game.
Well, it's not that I don't know how to play, I just won't."
"And what
game is that?"
"Oh, the
'let's-do-whatever-the-fans-want-so-they'll-buy-your-CD game'."
"Did you
dream of being a singing star when you were a little girl?"
"You know
what, I never did. I wanted to be a dancer. Still do. Singing was just this
thing on the side, ya know? I just love the rush you get from being on stage and
honest to God, I think I'd be just as happy doing musical theatre for some
community playhouse as I would be performing at concerts."
"Speaking of
concerts, do you have any plans for touring any time soon?"
"We're
actually in negotiations for that right now. It's looking like I'll be opening
for a couple of weeks for one of the bigger acts and then will go out on my own
and play the smaller arenas."
The interview went on in very much the
same way for about twenty minutes. Then Steven decided they needed a change of
pace so the moved everything to the backyard. Craig got a great shot of Maddie
laughing at the mid-air aerobics of a trio of birds.
"How does it feel
to be seen as a role model?" was Raul's first question after she was seated in a
lawn chair in front of Maggie's greenhouse.
"It's flattering." She
thought for a moment. "It's also a little intimidating. But mostly, I think it's
undeserved."
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, cause I don't think
I'm the one kids should be looking up to. I don't remember ever admiring a
celebrity as much as I admired my parents, or my teachers, or my brothers. Those
are the people who should be your role models, people you see every day
struggling to make, to live a good life, to do the right thing…those are the
ones you should look up to. Not me. I have a short temper, I cuss a lot when I
get mad. I could be a real bitch once the cameras are off."
"OK, this
next question, I would totally understand if you didn't want to answer it, but I
hope you will."
Maddie looked over at Wendy, reclining in the shade of
the latticed porch. She had tried to get her to put money on whether or not this
question would be asked, but Wendy was no fool. Raul did not fail them.
"What's going on with you and Justin Timberlake?"
"You know
what, I really don't know and that's the God's honest truth. It's hard enough to
have a relationship these days but we have so much more on top of that. Not
saying that we have a relationship, not saying that we don't. I don't know what
I'm saying," she laughed. "Let me just put it this way. The attraction is
there…the desire to act on that attraction is there…is anything going to come
out of it?" She shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows?"
"So if the
attraction is on both sides, why wouldn't it work?"
"Well, scheduling
problems, we might not be compatible. He's damned easy to look at but we've
never had the chance to really talk…you know, one of those deep, philosophical
conversations. And then there's so many people harping in our ears about this,"
she ticked them off on her fingers, "media consultants, PR people, people from
Jive have been calling me about this. And some of Justin's fans are extremely
and utterly pissed at me right now. And you can't really let all those
extraneous people matter but at some point, you're just kind of sitting there
wondering when what you thought ceased to matter."
"So, you're not
together now, but can you say that you might be in the future?"
Maddie
frowned. "Yeah, I can say that. I can also say that one day we'll have cars that
fly and an end to world hunger and that there will be peace on earth. I can SAY
a lot of things, don't mean it's gonna come true."
Steven, sensing that
things could take a bad turn, intervened. "We don't normally do this, Maddie,
but since you're relatively new, we'd like to get someone else's thoughts about
you on camera, is that cool?"
Maddie shrugged, still a little peeved at
being asked the same question, "It's whatever."
"Great. Wendy, would you
mind?"
She gaped at him. "Are you serious? Yeah!"
"Maddie,
sometime today, I'd also like to get some input from your family." Steve turned
to his crew. "All right, people, let's break it down, we're relocating to the
bedroom." He threw a questioning glance at Maddie over his shoulder. She nodded
and he motioned for the crew to proceed.
Maddie joined Wendy on the
porch as the crew transferred the equipment.
"You call him yet?"
Maddie reached over and smacked Wendy on the arm.
"Ow!"
Reflexively, Wendy grabbed the injured spot.
Maddie wagged her finger at
her, "Don't ask me that no more!"
"What?" Wendy laughed. "I haven't
asked you that in at least an hour."
Maddie sighed. "Imma call him. I
just gotta figure out what I'm gonna say."
"How bout, 'Hey Justin, I was
a fool but I'm better now, let's fuck'?"
Maddie rolled her eyes, and got
up and walked away. "I'm not even going to respond to that asinine comment."
"What?" Wendy called to her retreating back. "I think he'd like it!"
Ten minutes later, the girls were reclining on Maddie's bed, waiting for
the sound guys to finish setting up. They were lying stomachs, weight resting on
their elbows. Of the two, Maddie possessed the more exotic looks. Her dark hair
and skin were perfect counterpoint to Wendy's fair, all-American good looks.
Wendy had left her shoulder length hair down and it trailed along her back in
soft wisps as she turned her head to look at her best friend. They grinned at
each other as if to say 'Can you believe this?' Maddie had interwoven yellow and
blue ribbons into the two braids that framed her face. Wendy reached out and
tugged on her pigtail.
"Girl," Maddie said the warning evident in her
voice, "don't play with me."
Wendy just smiled. She looked at Craig, who
was getting into position and then down at her chest. "Dude, are y'all getting a
cleavage shot here?"
Maddie laughed and nudged her with her shoulder.
"What cleavage?"
"Yeah really," Wendy smiled.
"OK, so, Maddie,
just give me a little intro, welcome to my room, blah blah blah, this is my
friend, Wendy, blah blah blah and I'll take it from there."
"OK." She
looked into the camera. "You ready?"
Craig held up his hand and did a
countdown on his fingers.
"Hey guys, we're here, chilling in my room and
before you ask, no, I did not redecorate for Justin," she waved her hand to
encompass the baby blue, purple and turquoise room, "it's been like this for
about four years now. This woman next to me is my best friend of four, going on
five, years, Wendy."
Wendy waved to the camera. "Hey."
"So,
Wendy, what would you say Maddie's best and worst qualities are?"
"Oh, I
can hit that with that one shot. It's the same thing."
"Maddie, you're
smiling like you already know what she's gonna say," Steven remarked.
"I
do, I've only heard it about a hundred billion times in my life."
"Whatever. Maddie's best and worst quality is that she's forever
curious. You know that little girl in that cartoon where she always asks 'why?'
That's Maddie."
"So, why is it both good and bad?"
"It's good
because it makes her able to talk to all kinds of people. She's one of those
people that, when she asks how you're doing, she really wants to know. She can
talk to all kinds of people; she just starts asking them questions. And it's
made her a better listener. A lot of times, people don't listen, they just wait
to talk. She doesn't do that. It's made her a lot smarter, too."
"How
so?"
"Cause for every question you answer, she'll have a hundred more
til you're like 'Damn, girl, just shut the hell up!' That's when it gets bad,
when she doesn't realize that she's being annoying or that she's pushing too
far. The really bad part is when she asks you a question and you don't know the
answer or won't tell her, she'll go try to figure it out herself."
"How
is that bad?" Raul asked.
Maddie laughed. "Well, when the question is
something like 'Will Superglue make your tongue stick to the roof of your
mouth?', things can get pretty outta hand. But I'm not that bad anymore. I just
like to know things."
"Psshh, she just likes to know EVERYTHING."
Still smiling, Steven asked. "So, what are some other things you think
people should know about Maddie?"
"Mmm, nine times outta ten, she's
gonna say exactly what's on her mind, especially if she's pissed. She's one of
the most considerate people I've ever met. She always puts other people ahead of
herself and she's always thinking of ways to make others happy." Wendy paused to
run a critical eye over her friend. "She talks tough but she's really a big
sap."
Maddie nodded her head, "True, true. I can be very sentimental,
and I cry at the drop of a hat."
"Oh my Lord, yes, she does. We can't
let her watch those late night infomercials about the starving and sick children
in Asia and Africa cause she'd be so gone."
They all laughed.
"No, but she doesn't take people for granted, ya know? She doesn't
automatically assume that you know how she feels or that you'll be here tomorrow
so she can tell you. She's very open with people she knows and is comfortable
with. Um, what else? Don't cross her. Don't mess with her family. You could do
or say just about anything to her and she'll just turn the other cheek…and do it
in a way that makes you look the ass. But don't mess with the family. When it
comes to the people she cares about, she can be a real Bitch with a capital B.
She's loyal to a fault and has a very long memory."
