Chapter 5
Alex got back to her office, still carrying her notebook, and saw Annie typing away from the computer.
“Ms. Wilson, how was your lunch meeting?” she asked. “Mr. Parker said that it was a very important meeting.”
Alex was trying to figure out what to say, “Yes. It was. I had an old friend come into town that I hadn’t seen in years and want to go have lunch, and how could I say no with Mike right there.” Alex smiled, and then remembered, “Annie, I got invited to go to a show tomorrow night with my friend, and wants the whole day open. Is there any way to redo my appointments, or anyone can do them for me?”
“Sure,” she smiled and went to look on her planner. “Oh, it looks like Mr. Parker has already done that for you.”
“Oh, really?” she asked going around the desk to see. “That’s strange. I wonder why he would do that.” Then she thought, “Is there any way that Mr. Parker can have the evening off too. My friend got two extra tickets to the show, and said that Mr. Parker is welcome to tag along.”
“Sure, I’ll get it put in. What time?” Annie asked typing in the appointment.
Alex opened the envelope to look inside and saw the time on the tickets said eight. “Make it six. Gives him a few hours before the show to get cleaned up and to get over there.”
“Okay, it’s done.”
Alex loved Annie when she knew that anything that the staff needed done, it would be worked out. Very few of the clients understood about family time, or another client got tickets to a game or a show as a payment, or a meeting.
“What show are you going to?” Annie asked.
“Oh,” Alex smiled, “some concert of a boy-band is going to be here tomorrow night.”
“Oh, I sure hope that you’ll have fun. Do you know which one?”
Alex didn’t want to go too far, even though they both love the Jonas Brothers. “He told me, and I can’t remember. I’ll have to get back with you on it.” Alex went to her office. “I’m going to be in my office, and then go home. Would you please tell Mr. Parker that I’m back, and headed home?”
“Sure will.”
Alex went into her office, cleaned up, grabbed her briefcase, and put the notebook inside it along with the tickets. She shut her computer down, closed the blinds, and then left her office locking it.
“Mr. Parker is in his office with your father talking about something. He said that he’d be over when he’s done.”
“Okay, thank you. Good night.”
“Good night.”
Alex then went back to the elevator, and went home.
~*~*~*~
Alex got a cab to drop her off at the Trump World Tower, and went inside.
“Evening Ms. Wilson,” the guards said smiling at her.
“Good evening,” she smiled, “Mr. Parker will be coming in an hour or two, so he can come up.”
“Yes Ms. Wilson.”
She got onto the elevator, put in her key, pushed her floor number, the elevator went up and up and up. She soon got to her floor, took her key out once the doors opened, and headed toward her door to her apartment. She unlocked her door, and went inside and shut the door. “Home sweet home,” she said leaning back against the door and sighed.
She put her coat in the closet, took off her shoes, and carried her briefcase to the couch, and went to the window to look out at her view. She was thankful for this suite. When she needed to clear her mind, all she had to do was come here, and look outside.
She then smiled, turned back around, went over to turn on her CD player, playing her brother’s CD’s that she had in there already, went to the kitchen, and find her something to drink since she just ate with her brothers an hour ago. She then grabbed her wine glass, pours a bottle of water inside it, and then takes a drink. She never drank in her life but water and milk; no wine or hard drinks for her, not even pop or juice.
She looks around her home. It was really cute the way she set it up. She got a hold of some connections knowing personally whom she wanted, and surprisingly one of her clients knew someone, which got Alex the number and email to Nate Burkus, the famous designer from the Oprah Show.
She remembered Nate coming in and was excited because he told her that he loved to start with a fresh canvas, so it was going to be fun. They worked with a budget, and getting what she loved and wanted, in a few weeks later, her place was beautiful. Blues and purples everywhere in almost every room. She even laughed remember that over the mantle of her fireplace, she wanted a picture hung there, which took Nate by surprise when she told him what she wanted, and he made it work. Nate pulled some tight strings, and got a huge picture of her brothers together. It was a picture from a magazine photo shoot that they did, and Alex loved it. Of course their looks changed over the years, but she didn’t want to change it. When she can come home every night, she would look at it, and pray that they were okay that night, and some day they would meet. Which was now a month ago.
She poured more water into her glass, carried it over to the couch, sat down putting her glass on the coffee table, turned to open up her briefcase, and pulled out the notebook that she just got a few hours ago from her brothers.
She studied the ‘Journal’ tab that Joe was talking to her about and it was bugging her on what he had to say. She opened it up, and saw that Joe was the first one to start it.
This is stupid. Mom said that we have to do this for you. So here it goes. I hate you. Why do you have to come into our lives now? I still think you want our money, even though mom says you’re not. It has always been us boys, no girls in this family, until Kevin found Danielle. I love Danielle; she’s a great sister-in-law. But you. You come here yesterday to my brother’s wedding, and ruin it for him and Danielle. I know, mom said that she was the one that really planned it, not you. But I still think you’re a part of it some how. I hate you. I was being nice this morning when you left. I didn’t want to be rude in front of my family. I can’t believe that you have the nerve to call my parent’s mom and dad when they’re not even your true parents. My parents raised us, not you. Why did you have to come here? ~Joe~
Alex jaw dropped. Joe really did hate her. She understood. She felt like her heart was ripped into two, and started to tear up, but she calmed down remembering that this was last month after the wedding, and Joe said at lunch that he was sorry for what he said.
Alex closed the book. She didn’t want to read all of it tonight. She got up, went to lock up her apartment, grabbed her glass, the notebook, carried them both to her bedroom, and decided to get ready for bed, so she called Mike.
“Hey this is Mr. Parker, I’m away from my phone. Leave your name, number, and a message, and I’ll get back to you.”
Beep. “Mike, it’s Alex. Don’t worry about coming over tonight. I am tired, and need some sleep since I’m going to be pretty much spending the day tomorrow with my brothers. They gave me tickets to the show and VIP backstage passes. They gave me an extra VIP pass and ticket for you to join me. They would like to see you again. I better get going. Talk to you tomorrow. I love you, bye.” She hung up.
She went to take a shower, and left her phone by her bed, missing a phone call.
~*~*~*~
“Well?”
“She didn’t answer.”
The Jonas Brothers were sitting in their hotel while their parents went to a show, and made them stay with Frankie.
They decided that Kevin should call Alex and see if she wanted to come over or they went to her place to visit more.
“No. I’m sure that she’s busy or in a meeting and couldn’t take the call,” Kevin told them.
Joe sat down, “She is a busy woman.”
Nick was on his laptop and was looking up some information. “I just looked up Alex’s information.”
“And?” they all asked.
“Her dad is the owner and Mike’s dad is the co-owner of the business that they run. They’ve all been on TV, newspapers, and magazines.” Nick clicked on a link and showed them. “That was done before we met her at Kevin’s wedding.”
“It was done a week before,” Kevin said reading the date.
They saw a picture of Alex with her hair down with curls and around her shoulders, with this big smile and looking into the camera.
As they were reading about the company that Alex saved from a big mess of calculation in the paperwork, Frankie looked at Alex’s picture. “Hey, wait a minute?” he said and pointed.
“What?” Joe asked as he got down reading.
“Look what Alex is wearing,” Frankie said smiling and pointing at what was around Alex’s neck.
Nick’s jaw dropped, “I don’t believe it.”
Kevin and Joe smiled and looked at each other excited, “It’s the ‘dog-tag’.”
Alex was wearing the ‘dog-tag’ that Nick and the company Bayer designed and the money went to the research of diabetes. Each brother has one and the fans could wear one too if they did have diabetes or not at all, but to support Nick’s fundraiser.
Kevin sighed and sat down, “So, one thing we have to talk about as a group and with Alex is… do we tell the fans about her?” he asked.
“No,” Joe said flipping around quickly. “We never tell them anything about her.”
“Why not?” Nick asked while reading another article.
“I don’t want to spring this up on the fans. We do this interview, and then we say, ‘Oh, by the way, we have a long lost sister who happens to be older then Kevin’,” Joe answered.
“And what about Alex?” Frankie asked. “Does she want the fans to know that she is our sister?”
“You know that someone is going to take a picture of us with her, and it’s going to be announced either way,” Nick said and then he sees a picture, and his moans, “too late.”
“What?” Joe asked going over to look at the laptop.
There on the screen was a picture with 3 different pictures with this girl hugging each Jonas brother. Kevin reads the title. “Mystery Girl… Who is she?”
Nick then reads out loud, “Another heart break for the Jonas Brothers Fans out there. They already lost Kevin and now is it Joe or Nick? The girl has never been seen before, but the guys seem to know who she is. They were just leaving the Da Nico restaurant, and hugs and kisses were going around as the limo and Rob pulled up. She didn’t even get in the car, and walked off as the limo pulled off. This reporter tried to catch her, but she was to quick that I lost her in the crowd, but I do know that something is up because rumors has it that inside they were very friendly and they gave her this thick notebook, tickets, and VIP passes to the concert tomorrow night. I’ll be going to the concert and so I’m sure that I’ll get more information by tomorrow night.”
“How can they do that?” Kevin asked. “We were very private.”
“Not unless this reporter paid for some information, and you can see that these were taken across the street by these pictures,” Joe said.
“We’ll have to tell Alex,” Frankie told his oldest brothers.
They were quiet and looked at each other.
“When, tomorrow? Tonight?” Kevin asked.
“Call her again,” Joe told him.
Kevin called back, but no answer. “She’s not answering?”
“Duh, leave her a message,” Nick told him.
“Right,” Kevin smiled.
“Hi, this is Alex Wilson. I’m unable to take your call at this time, but please leave your name, number, and a brief message and I’ll get back to you as soon as I can. Have a wonderful day.”
Beep. “Alex, it’s Kevin. Mom gave us your number. I hope that is okay, and sorry to be calling you so late. Call me back please, the number is…” he leaves his number.
~*~*~*~
After a long hot bath, Alex got out, got into her warm purple fuzzy pajamas and slippers, slips her robe on, went to her bed, saw her cell phone, and picked it up to see that she has missed some phone calls, and had 3 messages.
“Odd, I didn’t hear the phone,” she checked and left, “Gee, no wonder the sound was off.”
She takes her phone into the front room and listens to her voicemail while she turns down her stereo still playing her brother’s CDs.
The first message was Mike, “Alex its Mike. I’m so sorry that I missed your phone call. I was in a meeting with our dads still. I hope that you had fun with your brothers. I love you, sweet dreams, and I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Alex was puzzled because he didn’t talk to her about the tickets unless he didn’t listen to his messages and went straight into calling her back. He normally did that.
She was surprised to hear Kevin had called, “Alex, this is Kevin. Mom gave us your number. I hope that is okay, and sorry to be calling you so late. Call me back please, the number is…” he leaves his number. She wrote it down before going to the next message.
This time was Joe, “Alex, this is Joe. Kevin forgot to tell you to also if you could when you call us back get onto your computer or laptop, whatever you use. We have something very important to show you that I think you need to know about. Again the number is…”
Alex decided to call Mike first since he was the first person to call.
“This is Mike,” he said after the first ring.
“Hey,” Alex smiled.
“Alex baby hi. How was your date?” he asked.
“My date?”
“Ya, with your brothers.”
Alex laughed, “A date is with you, and if the guys had girls with them, but it was not a date. However, it went very well. We visited, they gave me some gifts, I answered their questions, and the table got turned around that I got to ask them questions.”
“Did they ask about me?”
“Yes they did, and about work.”
“What gifts did you get?”
“A notebook that I told them to write inside anything that they wanted to know or me to know about, or their feelings. Like Joe was really upset that first night that he wrote it down, he almost called me every name in the book, but he said that he was sorry about it before I even read it. He really wasn’t happy about me at all.”
“I got your message about tickets and VIP passes.”
“Yeah, they gave me an extra set that they thought that you’d like to come along.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow night. They wanted me to tag along and spend the day with them, so you can come with me or meet me there after work. It’s up to you.”
“Wow, you’re moving up in the world.”
“Stop,” she laughed. “You know that I don’t want to be famous and popular.”
“Sure you are. Look at our biggest client.”
“That’s not my point.”
“They are your brothers; you’ll have to be in the spotlight with them some day. You know that the fans will find out about you.”
She sighed, “I guess you’re right.”
“Well, I’ll have to come after work. You go have fun with them, and I’ll just see you tomorrow night.”
“Okay.” She was a little upset, but she understood and knew that work came first for Michael. “Maybe this could be our date since it’s been awhile since we had one.”
“When was the last one?” he asked.
She was very quiet, he forgot? “Kevin’s wedding.”
Mike was quiet, and swore, “Oh my god! Alex, I am so sorry baby. We’ve been so busy with the last month…”
“I know,” she cut him off. “I mean it is our busiest year. Our client’s are trying to finish up December’s paperwork. I mean I didn’t even call, write, or email Denise and the boys.”
“You didn’t? I thought that you were always on top of that.”
“Michael,” she sighed, “Don’t you remember Christmas?”
“No.”
“That’s because we didn’t have one.”
Michael was really quiet, “Wow, it was our second Christmas together…”
“And we didn’t get each other anything. Daddy was so busy with Mr. Trumps papers, we just sat around a table working on his papers,” she told him.
Mike sighed, “Alex I really am sorry. I’ll make it up to you some how. Right now I just have to go to bed, so I’ll call you tomorrow okay?”
She nodded, “Okay.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
Alex pushed the ‘end’ phone on her phone, and looked at the number that Kevin and Joe had left for her, and went to turn on her computer.
“Hello?” she heard.
“Is Kevin or Joe there?” she asked.
“This is Kevin… who is this?”
“It’s Alex,” she smiled.
“Hey,” he said excited, “um, Nick was looking on the Internet on his laptop and came across an article with a picture and we wondered if you had seen it yet.”
“No, what are you talking about? What picture?” she asked logging onto the Internet.
“We saw this picture and article about us. All four of us.”
“What? How?”
She noticed that she was put on speakerphone when she heard Nick, “Someone was at the restaurant and took a few pictures of us hugging and kissing your cheek after the limo pulled up when we were leaving.”
Alex then saw it. There in black and white was an article and a picture with Kevin hugging her, then Joe kissing her cheek, and then Nick kissing her cheek. “Great. Now what?”
“Well, we are going to tell people if they ask that it was a common hug and kiss. We were in town visiting an old friend that we haven’t seen in a long time, and took you out to lunch, plain and simple,” Joe told her.
“Yeah, what are your fans going to think about all this? They are going to say that Joe has a girlfriend now, or Nick has a girlfriend, cheating on the other brother. Well believe it or not, this girlfriend is one, three, and six years older then all of you. There is a problem.”
“Alex, we don’t care. We’re going to keep you on the down low for a little bit, and then we’ll spring it on them,” Nick told her.
“Guys, don’t hide me from the world. Yes, I would love to not be in the spotlight, but that’s my job, I’m in the spotlight too, you might as well put the two spotlights together.”
“Great metaphor,” they said at once.
She laughed, “Thanks.”
“It does make sense,” Joe said.
“Does Denise or Paul know?” Alex asked trying to be careful not to say mom and dad yet.
“No, they went out to a show and had us watch Frankie. We were going to tell them when they got home,” Kevin answered.
“I hope that Denise won’t be mad.”
“We’re used to this kind of thing,” Nick said.
Alex was quiet, “You guys, I am so sorry, I wish I knew that there was a camera out there.”
“Hey, you didn’t know, don’t cut yourself short,” Joe told her.
“I am short, five foot there. I’m shorter then all three of you,” she told them with a smirk.
They laugh.
“So, are you going tomorrow?” Kevin asked.
“Yep, I’m going. My day is open so that I can spend it with you guys.”
“Great, we’ll come and get you at 9 after Good Morning America, and then we’ll go to Madison Square Garden for the rest of the day,” Nick told her.
“Wow, all those fans are going to be so jealous of me,” Alex giggled. “I better write it all down in my book when I get home.”
“Speaking of books, did you read any of it?” Joe asked with a worried sound in his voice.
“Yes I did. I did read your entry,” she smiled with a pause.
“Joe is pacing you better reply back,” Kevin said.
“Oh, I didn’t know I was supposed to reply back so quickly. Um, I was taken back on what he said. However, I told you before that I understand everything that you say to me, or ask. I’m glad that you’re telling me how you feel, and I’m hoping that everything turning out better in the end.”
“There is one entry that you don’t want to read yet,” Nick quickly said.
“Date, time, page?” Alex asked.
“It’s the next one,” Nick sighed.
“Nick I thought that you approved this?”
“I did, but something hit me really hard.”
“Oh.”
“I brought it to mom’s attention, she took care of it, but I thought that you’d like to know, so I wrote it down.”
“Okay, before I go to bed I’ll read it.”
“Okay.”
“So what do you think about your first public picture with your brothers?” Kevin asked.
“Kevin…” Joe and Nick said at once.
“What? I’m being serious.”
“It’s interesting on how they caught us. I mean it was so busy out there, how in the heck did the camera get us is what I want to know. I mean Rob was outside with us with the limo in front of us, and there were so many people out there, who would’ve known that I was with you guys. I can understand someone following the Jonas Brothers and maybe a fan could be in the crowd somewhere and saw you that they had to take our picture. Or a fan was in the restaurant and Tweet or Facebook a message saying that you were at De Nico, come see for yourself. They have a girl with them, and it’s not Danielle.”
“Do you feel comfortable with this?” Nick asked.
“Yes and no. Yes because I’m use to this, but no because I’m with you for the first time in public, but it’s a different message and meaning…”
“A picture says a thousand words,” Joe chimed in.
“Yes,” Alex agreed.
“I think that’s why we’re going to talk with dad, and maybe talk about it on GMA in the morning about it. I’m sure that they’ll ask us about it,” Nick told her.
Alex sighed, “See what he says first. Then take one step at a time, and let me know what happens.”
“We will,” Kevin said. “Mom just text me saying that they are on their way home so we have to get ready for bed.”
“Okay, so I’ll see you guys in the morning?”
“Call mom or Rob and they’ll take care of the rest,” Nick told her.
“Okay, good night…” she smiled.
“Good night,” they said. “We love you.”
She was surprised, but before she could reply back, “I love you too,” her phone went dead.
After Alex turned stuff off in her apartment, double checked everything was locked up, she went back to her bedroom, finished getting ready for bed, and crawled under her covers. After ten long years, she started to cry after hearing ‘we love you’ for the first time from her own brothers. She was starting to feel like being a part of that family, and it was pulling her a part.
After she calmed down, she saw the notebook still on her bed. She remembered what Nick told her, that she went ahead, and opened it up.
Alex,
After you left a few days ago, and everyone headed back inside, I didn’t get the heart to tell you three little words. I had went to talk to mom about it because I was scared that I might have said it at the wrong time, and tell you now since we only met a few days ago.
“We love you.” It really felt wrong to say it, but I thought that it was a good way of breaking the ice. I accepted you as did Frankie, but would you say “I love you too” back, but would it have been as a fan “I love you” or a “I love you family feeling”? I sure hope this makes sense. Kevin and Joe found out and were very upset with me, but luckily mom and dad were there to help me explain it.
I do hope that you love us, and that we do get to know you more and see you again.
~Nick~
Alex started to cry, “I do love you Nick. I love all of you, and you have no idea how much that love is.”