Fly Girl | [Novel] (Wattpad Version)

Interlude #2 | A Review With Ava

May 2004 :

Andrea sat quietly as she waited patiently for Ava. A solemn look on her face, Ava finally exhaled and cleared her throat, wiping away the tears that fell. "Six years, and it still hurts so much. Sometimes, I find myself wishing that God had listened to Sean."

"What do you mean?"

"When he told me he hoped I'd die; waking up and realizing what'd happened, and knowing that it was because of me and my immaturity, my foolishness... I caused that. Sean did it, but I caused it. That's a guilt like nothing else, Andrea. A lot went on within Fly Girl, a lot of pettiness and bullshit, but nothing will ever hurt more than knowing you're responsible for your child dying before they even get to live." Ava looked down at her hand, smiling at the tattoo of her son's name. "I wish they'd saved my baby instead of me. Life might have been a bit rough for him in the beginning, but I feel like he would have been a little fighter."

"How'd everyone react to what happened that night?"

Ava sat up straighter. "Who is everyone?"

"The girls, Chauncey, those you were close to within the Fly Girl camp."

She nodded, sighing heavily. "They didn't know I was going to bring up and ask for a divorce, didn't even know I was going to be with Sean. But, they knew he beat me, and they assumed he beat me because he didn't want me to go. And I let them think that, he never said otherwise either. Me being pregnant and losing the baby, they just assumed it was Sean's and wondered how he could do that to me and his child. Leann, she made some stupid comment talking about she wanted to feel bad for me, but couldn't. I was hurt, but I just chalked that up to the fact that she'd started using drugs with Valen and she just wasn't herself the day I finally saw her. Todd, he was so distraught, but he couldn't express his feelings like he wanted to, 'cause, he and I were still a secret at that point. And Sean, he'd come out of his drunken stupor the next day, realizing what he'd done when he woke up on his best friend's couch, but by then it was too late. They had him arrested, and I guess he's still in jail, I don't know."

Andrea nodded. "Brandy and Chauncey, their reactions to what was going on?"

Ava burst out laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because what she was about to say had actually happened. "Chauncey jumped for joy." Andrea's jaw dropped. "Not because it'd happened or because I was in the hospital, but because he finally had something... something to have me kicked out and shipped back to Arizona, and to pull Troy and Torii out and force them to go solo. Oh, he walked around for weeks with his chest puffed out singing ding dong, the bitch is gone... which ol' bitch ... the beat up bitch. Brandy, she was always a nurturer. Even though she liked to show that she was tough and not to be played with, her motherly instinct kicked in immediately. She knew I'd get it from nowhere and no one else. She took care of me, prayed for me, kept Chauncey and the label off my case."

"And MCA? What were the executives thinking and trying to do?"

"They were trying to spin a story to soften the fact that they had someone on their roster stirring up trouble. Up until that point, there'd only been petty articles about Fly Girl. You know, we were too Bubble Gum Pop for our age, or we were doing too much or not enough. Comparing us to our peers, whom we were friends with. The occasional misprints and spinning of our words to create fake drama. That type of stuff. But, when I ended up in the hospital, Wendy Williams and a few other big and semi-big radio DJ's went to work. Then the tabloids and entertainment magazines joined in. My marriage and the fact that I was underage at the time was dug up, the issues with my parents... and of course, my parents used the drama to their advantage. Suddenly I was their daughter, but it was because they'd gotten sympathy for having a daughter going through so much. My mother called herself trying to move in with me, but I sent her on her way. I wasn't in the mood to deal with her ways, while trying to grieve and come to terms with what I'd brought on myself."

"Were your contracts terminated at any point, and then, you know, you were brought back in?"

Ava shook her head. "Nope, because of what happened at the 1998 Grammys. They still wanted to ride that Fly Girl wave because there was no slowing it down. The drama also helped to boost our sales, not that we had trouble with that to begin with."

"You were all still sitting at number one during all of this?"

"Bouncing back and forth throughout the top ten, but we sat at number one most often. And it was all the fans. Troy has always said this, in regards to people asking in a rude manner when will she drop the rest of us; there will always be a Fly Girl as long as the fans want us." Ava shrugged her shoulders. "They still wanted us and MCA couldn't do anything but adhere to that because they were making money, and lots of it. They were tired and wanted to basically abandon us, but they weren't stupid enough to do it. We had albums, tours, merchandise that included dolls and a clothing line modeled after some of our stage attire, and more. We were money makers. Chauncey suggested I be dropped, he suggested that Torii and Troy get solo deals, and he suggested Leann get sent to another label altogether. It didn't happen because, as a group, we brought in the money they were always seeking to make back, and then some."

"Why was that his suggestion, and how did he feel when MCA rejected all of that?"

"He was livid. He cursed out the CEO and a few other executives for not listening to him, though they were basically over him. It was his suggestion because the entire time he was talking to us separately, playing the you're my favorite game, he was drawing up deals. Essentially, he told us that it would be best to keep him as a manager because others could easily come in and take advantage and drag us down. We're naïve, we just know that whatever he's doing, in spite of his attitude and tactics, it's working. We trust him as much as you can trust a manager; he's doing what he's being paid to do." Andrea nodded. "But, the whole time he was doing that and going back and forth in our ears, he was stealing from us."

"Who figured that out?"

Ava chuckled. "Torii. That girl, it takes her forever to trust you and once she does, she's all in. But make her suspicious, or lose that trust altogether and it's over with. I don't know what was said, or what went on between her and Chauncey, or if it was that early mistreatment of Troy that set her off... but she was on it. Silently, of course, still going with the flow. But she was talking to a lawyer she wanted to take on, and another accountant and they went through all of her stuff and money was missing. She told us to do the same, and ... oh, he was getting us really good. Him trying so hard to break the group, it was because with any of us, he could get a higher percentage off of a solo artist rather than a group. We didn't know that, but Torii knew."

"I have one last question before we move on."

"Alright."

"Why were secrets so huge amongst the four of you?"

Ava sat quietly for a few minutes, thinking carefully before she answered. "For me; I couldn't have cared less who knew that I was dating Todd. Aside from Sean, obviously. But, that relationship was a secret for the simple fact that it would always be, and has always been assumed that I was fucking him for the leads that were supposed to go on the third album. By the way, remember the third album?"

Andrea nodded. "My favorite from you all."

"How many songs did I lead on?"

"Three, if I recall right."

"Two, and a co-lead with Leann on a skit. But, supposedly, I fucked for leads on all eighteen tracks. That's why Todd and I were a secret. I loved him, still love him to this day. And I'm just learning that Leann knew the whole time, she could have told. It would have made no difference to me. I wasn't ashamed of what I'd done, just how I went about it. I wasn't sorry for loving him, I was sorry for the timing. I was sorry for not clearing up the shit at home. I was sorry for how Sean found out, and I was sorry for putting myself in that position to eventually lose the greatest thing that came out of that entire period of my life." Ava cleared her throat. "They LOVE to discuss what I was doing, but I wasn't the only one doing dirt and hiding things."