Page 63 of Margo and the Faux Good Luck Beau
My brow creases because she knows I took one a few hours ago.
“Everyone sings in the shower.” Her smile rises and just as quickly falls.
When I don’t answer, she meets my eyes. Just as I saw the beauty in hers, I imagine she sees the pain in mine.
Margo whispers, “There’s more to the story isn’t there?”
She doesn’t ask me to tell it, but how my mother forced me into the entertainment industry, albeit in Concordia and elsewhere overseas, spills out. “When I was thirteen, my mother, Sukie, entered me into a contest on a talent show like you have here in the States. I won and it went downhill from there.”
In bits and pieces, I talk about the drivers of fame, excess, and signing my life away one song, one show at a time.
“You didn’t want to do it.”
“No, I’d rather have just sung in the shower, at Christmas. Been a kid. Gone to regular school. Done sports. Instead, I was her show pony, her meal ticket. She used me.”
“But you have a talent ...”
I shake my head. “It was less about my voice and more about me filling a role, an end goal—a teenage boy in a boy band to rake in the money.”
Worries about whether things will work out between us now that she knows I sacrificed my integrity for what my mother wanted and demanded of me, rakes through my mind.
My defenses mount and my tone is abrupt when I ask, “Is this going to work?
She sputters, “Are you not so low-key/high-key saying it’s over? We’ve hardly tried.”
“Now that you know that about me ...” I can hardly say the words.
She gasps. “Do I think less of you? Not even a little bit. I want to hear you sing, but no pressure. You stood up to the bullies in your life. You got out of it and you’ve helped me. But I still have to face my mother and Celeste.”
“It’s simple, Margo. Tell them no.”
“I wish it were that easy, Beau. I’m not a relationship expert, but how long did it take you to become a good goalie? No, a great goalie? A Hall of Fame potential goalie. That’s what Juniper says about you. Cara, Meg, and the others were really hyping you up too.”
I shrug, resisting the praise.
“It took a bit, right? So do relationships.”
The tension builds in my shoulders.
“The relationship with myself, with my family. Us. But it’s different than before. We’re on the same team, right?” she asks.
“Yes. Please. Yes.”
She leans her head against mine. “Good. Now, where were we?”
Margo goes back to releasing the tension that returned to my shoulders.
I tell her about how I became my mother’s business commodity. How she, and eventually my stepfather, took the money I’d earned while touring year-round with only a break during the holidays to visit my grandparents.
“What do they think about your hockey career?”
“They don’t. All they saw was PRNZ, aka prince, Number One.”
“They reduced you to a number?”
“We each went by our spot in the lineup. The fans eventually dropped the PRNZ part and just called us by our number.”
“That’s plain wrong.”
