Page 47 of Nanny for the Rockstars

“It will give us more privacy too, so we don’t have to deal with any unexpected guests,” Terry adds.

“Terry!”

Caleb and I both speak at the same time, and he puts his hands up.

“What?” he asks. “I didn’t say anyone in particular.”

“Wait, what?” Jeanette asks, catching on to the fact that we’re trying to get Terry to shut up.

“Is there something you guys aren’t telling me?” she asks. “Like, someone specific you don’t want to find me?”

“Us. Don’t want to find us,” Caleb clarifies. “Not just you. We don’t want her to harass any of us.”

“Who?” she demands.

Of course, we’ve come too far at this point to be able to hide it from her any longer.

“Way to go, Terry,” I say.

“I wasn’t going to bring up anyone specific. You two are the ones who blew it by yelling at me,” he retorts. “If you had just kept your mouths shut, we wouldn’t have to tell her.”

“I think you better tell me now, or I’m going to get pissed off,” Jeanette says, putting her hands on her hips. “Because if I find out you guys are hiding something from me, we’re going to have issues.”

“Clarissa was at the show last night,” Caleb says. “She got front row tickets somehow, and she was making a fool of herself in the crowd.”

“How so?” Jeanette asks.

“Just stupid shit,” I say. “She was yelling shit out when the room was quiet so I could speak, and she screamed out that the song we wrote about you was about her. It was really ridiculous.”

“Not to mention the outfit she wore was barely street legal,” Terry says. “Her shirt was so sheer I would hardly have considered her to be wearing one.”

Jeanette looks sick. I want to slap Terry and tell him to shut the fuck up about all this. He clearly doesn’t know how much he should be keeping to himself, and that’s pissing me off. We didn’t want to tell Jeanette about Clarissa at all because we didn’t want to upset her, but now that it’s out, he’s not helping the situation.

“Did she come backstage?” Jeanette asks.

“No,” Caleb says. “I made sure Mags knew she was there and that she wasn’t to come anywhere near what we were doing. I’m glad you weren’t at the show yourself. I didn’t want you to have to deal with any of her shit. Or Hendrix, either, for that matter.”

“I hate this,” Jeanette says. “I hate that she’s here, and I wish she would just go away. Or tell us what she wants.”

“We’re going to deal with that when the time comes. But for now, we figured it would be a good idea for you to be able to enjoy yourself up here. With us. It’s not like we’re going to stick you up here and go hang out at the tour bus,” Terry assures her.

“Still,” Jeanette says. “I just don’t like the way she’s like, following the tour now. It’s like she’s keeping an eye on things without being overly active, and that’s creepy, in my opinion. I wish she would just make it clear what she wants, and we could figure it out from there.”

“Don’t worry, the day’s coming I’m sure,” Caleb says. “For now, I don’t mind the quiet before the storm. It’s nice not to have court and shit like that hanging over our heads while we’re in the middle of the tour. I mean, it was hard enough having a kid dumped on us, I don’t want to have to start showing up for court dates and all that shit on top of it.”

Jeanette says nothing, and I try to make it better.

“You don’t need to stress out about her, Jeanie, you know that. We already told you we want to be with you, and we all mean it,” I say. “Why do you think we brought you up here? Because we don’t want you to have to deal with this woman who’s acting psycho about shit.”

“I know,” she sighs. “But after what happened before, my brain doesn’t want to believe that it’s for real. I know you gave me a tattoo and I’ve been treated well and like I’m your girlfriend and everything, but I still worry that with her being the baby’s mom, it gives her something on me that I can’t compete with. It scares me, to be honest.”

“Of course, and it’s okay to have those feelings of uncertainty, but I don’t think any of us want you to drive yourself crazy with wondering what’s going to happen. We all know she’s around, and none of us want to be with her,” Terry says. “We made our choice, and that choice is you.”

Jeanette forces a small smile. “Do you think we should send for Hendrix? If she knows that everyone is here, what’s going to keep her from going over and bothering Mags and Hendrix when she thinks she can get away with it?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that.” Caleb shakes his head. “She seems to be kind of scared of Mags, if you ask me.”

“I got that impression too,” I laugh. “And I say that’s good. I would rather she was scared of Mags and left us the fuck alone. If only we could have Mags standing guard everywhere.”

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