Page 47 of Embracing the Beat
“The woman in the video with Tucker is me.”
A jumble of voices and questions.
“Tucker says the woman with him is Mia Maddox. You’re saying he was wrong?”
I can’t turn away, can’t turn off this train wreck of a video, even though the urge to throw up is nearly overpowering. Watching her take on the bloodthirsty reporters, watching the light in her eyes dim the longer she listens to the comments from the crowd, it fucking sucks.
“Not only is he wr-wrong, but he, uh, he knows he was. Sh-shortly after the video came out and he released his statement, I reached out to him. W-when I first saw the video, I knew when it was and where it was and who it was.”
“Where?”
“When?”
Michaela’s head jumps as her attention is captured by different voices.
“I-I-I went out on a date with Tucker about six months ago. At the time, I understood that he and Mia were broken up—”
“Did Tucker indicate the two were planning to get back together?”
How the fuck would she have known that? I lock my jaw at the asinine question, ready to deck the asshole who asked it.
“He didn’t.” This time her smile is sad, her eyes filled with regret. “During our date, he never once brought up Mia. We went to dinner at a restaurant in Virginia where he was filming. We—I—he—we had some good conversation, and at the end of the date, he kissed me in the lobby of the hotel we were both staying at.”
“Did you knowingly book a room at the same hotel as Tucker?”
Who the fuck asks questions like this?
“I didn’t book my room. My label did. I-I’m not sure if it was on purpose or not.” She turns to the side of the room—searching for help?—before turning back to the crowd of reporters again. “O-one thing led to a-another and you know what happened. It’s on the video.”
“Did you and Tucker create the sex tape in hopes of making Mia jealous?”
“I-I-I didn’t know T-Tucker was recording the v-v-v”—She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath—“the video.”
Why is she alone facing these assholes? Is this why she’s unhappy with Reverb?
“If you didn’t know, why should we believe it was you? The video could have been recorded anywhere. How do we know this isn’t you trying to get your fifteen minutes of fame?”
She takes another deep breath, letting it out, but she’s still wearing her anxiety like another piece of clothing. “In the video, a tattoo is clearly visible.”
“A compass,” a reporter shouts.
“With a quote,” another adds.
She nods.
“On her right shoulder,” she confirms. “The quote is one I heard a friend of mine say once—‘not all who wander are lost.’”
Tolkien. When The Hobbit movies had come out, I became obsessed. I read all of Tolkien’s books, studied him. Learned that quote. Shared it with Sawyer when I was at the King house for dinner one night.
In the video, Michaela scrapes her hair over her left shoulder and turns before gently tugging on the sleeve of her dress to reveal a beautifully etched compass with words too small to read on the screen—words I memorized years ago.
The noise level grows deafening, lights flashing as picture after picture is taken. The tension in Michaela’s shoulders and neck is visible over several moments until she pulls the shoulder of her dress back up and slowly turns forward again.
“Thank you all for coming today.”
The video stops, leaving a blurred image of her standing as her announcement ends. I pass her phone back to her.
“You didn’t know?” I ask.
