We are, as far as I can tell, on a date.
“You miss her,” I say, mostly because it’s written all over her face.
“Yeah. She was always the good one, you know? Like I was still running around partying, and she was at home with my parents, taking care of my kid.”
“Why did you have him?” I ask. I realize too late that’s a more deeply personal question than the others. “You don’t have to answer that,” I add quickly.
“No, it’s fine.” She doesn’t even look surprised that I’ve asked, as if we’re old friends who are reconnecting instead of total strangers who now happen to be in a band. And somehow, I feel the same way. “The short answer is that my parents pressured me into it,” she says. “But really, I wouldn’t have told them if, deep down, I didn’t want to have him. I knew what they’d say, so I told them because I trusted them to get me to do it, even though I was scared.”
That sounds like a pretty messed-up situation, but I don’t know how to say so without sounding like I’m judging her. And I am honestly the last person who should be judging anyone.
“I’m glad, now,” she says, grabbing a piece of yellowtail with her chopsticks, but just staring at it. “But at the time I was a mess. I wasn’t ready to be a mother. My sister, Rachel, she was more of a mother to Ty than I was. He still remembers her. Aunt Rachel. He was inconsolable when she died. He called me Mom, but I’m not even sure he knew what that meant.”
“He knows now,” I say. She looks so sad, and I realize how true it was, what I said about her being lonely. And god, I get it. I know what it’s like not to be able to connect with people—not really—both because of circumstances, and because of things you’ve done.
Jenna smiles. “Yeah. That’s because of Rachel, too. After she died, I could barely function. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I was in the car, too. I was the one driving. And I just didn’t get why she died and I was barely touched. Like, it should have been me, you know?” Her voice cracks a little, and my heart along with it. “And ultimately I decided I had to get my life together. For her.”
There’s a lump in my throat the size of a sushi roll, and I can’t swallow it. I know exactly what that’s like, changing your life because of something terrible, something you can’t change or take back.
Katy had a sister too, I remember.
I want to tell Jenna the story, but I know I can’t. I need this job, for the opportunity, and because even if I can’t be with her, there’s something in me that longs to at least stay close to her. I have to. If I tell her about the drugs before she even knows me, I’m afraid of what will happen. I’ve just promised I can pass a drug test, but I haven’t even been out of rehab three weeks.
But I can’t just let her tell me these things and give her nothing back.
“I understand a little of how that feels,” I say. “The loneliness, and the regret.”
She looks up at me. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. Did I tell you I used to go to Juilliard?”
“No, but it doesn’t surprise me. You’re too good for this band, you know that?”
I laugh. “I don’t know about that. Anyway, I got mixed up with some stuff out in New York. Partying, you know. Bad crowd and all that.”
She nods. “I know how that is.”
I’m not sure she does. “And I left school and came back here and did more or less the same thing. So now here I am, trying to figure my life out again, and I’ve got no one to talk to except my messed-up parents and my sister Gabby. One day I’m playing on the street and the next I’m a band member in this hugely popular rock band.”
“We’re pop. But thanks.”
“I got kicked out of Juilliard,” I say, “but it wasn’t by accident. I wanted out.”
Jenna looks confused. “Why?”
It’s the question I want her to ask, the one I was leading up to. It’s something I haven’t told anyone, not the real answer, because I know how terrible it sounds.
But I want to tell Jenna, and not just because of everything she’s said to me. I get now why she flirted with me, why she agreed to meet me here. She’s starving for something, for someone to talk to, to be with, and deep down, so am I. I’d told Gabby I need to get laid, but the truth is, what I need is for someone to see me, and I can see in her eyes, Jenna needs that, too.
It’s more than just convenience, though, more than just needing someone. I feel like I’ve been missing something, all the while never knowing it was her.
“I messed up at Juilliard,” I say, “because I was bored.”
Jenna looks surprised. “Really.”
“Sounds cocky, right? I’d worked all my life to go to that school. I’d always wanted it. It was the obvious next step. And all my teachers warned me about how it was going to be, small fish, big pond and all that. And I got there, and I wasn’t the best, but I was damn close.” I shrug. “And I found that clawing my way up half a percent to be the best of the best—it didn’t matter to me like I thought it would.”
I look at Jenna, waiting to see the judgment in her eyes. Poor rich kid who has everything but doesn’t appreciate it, and all that. But instead, she’s listening closely, trying to understand. And I desperately want her to.
“It was like I climbed to the top of a mountain and realized there was nothing there,” I say. “Nothing I wanted, anyway. It was supposed to be this exciting experience, but nothing was as good as I imagined it would be. So I distracted myself. I started partying.”
What I can’t bring myself to say is that I started doing heroin, and lasted another eight months at school besides. I take a deep breath before continuing. “I didn’t want to admit—to myself or my family—that I’d done all that work and gotten exactly what I wanted only to find out I didn’t want it at all.”
“But you still want to play,” Jenna says.
“I only want to play. I don’t want to compete for best. I don’t want to play the games of who’s this teacher’s favorite or who plays that concerto a hair better than everyone else. I love the music. I just want to play.” I smile. “So a couple of days ago that meant sitting in the heat down at Johnny’s, and then suddenly this beautiful girl walks up and hands me a salaried position. So I guess you could say I’m feeling pretty good.”
Jenna smiles. “You should be feeling good. You earned it.”
And while I don’t think that’s even a little bit true, I’ll take it. Her knee bumps mine again, and all I want is to talk about what’s going on between us, but I’m afraid to break the spell.
“So ten and a half months, huh?” I say. “There must be at least someone you’re interested in.”
Her eyes narrow slightly. “Mmm, maybe. But I don’t think I’m going to tell you about that.”
“No? Why’s that?”
She tugs her lower lip between her teeth. “It’s personal.”
I laugh. “After everything you’ve said to me, that’s too personal?”
Jenna shrugs again, and something passes between us. I know that she knows that I know and so on and so forth and the air buzzes and I can’t stand it anymore.
“If this were a normal situation,” I say, “this is about the time I’d ask you to dinner.”
She holds my gaze. “If this were a normal situation, this is about the time I’d accept.”
We stare into each other’s eyes, and I can’t look away. There it is. This thing that’s been going on, this half-spoken attraction, laid bare.
“But it isn’t,” she says, and I feel my heart break into a dozen pieces. She pokes at the fish with her chopsticks, her eyes narrowed. “You should have heard Alec after you left. ‘Oh my god, Jenna. What the hell is with you? Jeez, just bang him and get it over with.’” She rolls her eyes. “Thank you, Alec, for your industrious suggestion.”
“He said that?”
“Oh, yes. A
nd then he offered to sleep with me himself, if I was so desperate. Like, as a favor for a friend.”
Her voice is bitter. I want to punch Alec in the face, for her and for me.
“Are you going to?” I ask.
“Which? You or him?”
I rub my forehead. This conversation is getting away from me, and I don’t know what to make of it. “Either.”
Jenna’s leg rubs against mine under the table and my whole body lights on fire.
I want her. God, I want her, in a way I’ve never wanted anyone. I had sex with girlfriends in high school, which was okay, I guess, but not the revelation everyone else seemed to think it was. I figured it was because, you know, high school, but college wasn’t much better, and then there were the drugs, which were their own thing.
I can see in her eyes that she wants me, too, and I can’t help but hope things would be different with her.
“Are we allowed to?” I ask.
I wait for her to tell me she doesn’t want a one-night stand with me. I try to remember I don’t want that with her. But all I can feel is her leg against mine, and damn it, I don’t want to make the smart choice.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she says. “Because I’d want more.”
My heart swells and aches to hear her say that. I put my hand on her knee under the table. She’s right. I would, too. God, I already do. I look up at the ceiling, and her hand rests on top of mine and squeezes.
“Four years, huh?” I say.
Her face shifts in surprise. “Yeah. But don’t think I expect you to wait.”
I’m shocked to find I’m considering it. “If we’re still in the band together, I’m not sure what will have changed.”
She closes her eyes. “And I suppose I won’t be seeing anyone else. But really, a lot will change in four years. You’ll find someone else. You should.”
She sounds almost scared, and I turn my hand and take hers in mine beneath the table. I’m not sure how it is we’re talking like this, but like all the personal stuff, it feels so right.
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” I say. “I haven’t felt like this . . .” I realize too late that there are no more words to follow that. I haven’t felt like this. About anyone. Ever. Jenna’s looking at me, waiting for me to finish.
“That’s it,” I say. “That was the end of the sentence.”
Her eyes widen, and her mouth opens, and I’m sure I’ve lost her. It’s too much, in too short a time, and I know it and I’m sorry, but I can’t help it. I fish around for something to say, anything to soften what I’ve done—
But then her hand squeezes mine, and it doesn’t let go.
I run my other hand through my hair, and groan. “Not to play devil’s advocate, but do you really think being together once will make this any worse?”
She opens her mouth and then shuts it again. Her eyes crinkle. “That’s a really good point.”
I smile at her. “I don’t think that’s what you were supposed to say.”
“Mmm,” she says. “Wasn’t it?”
We both sit there for a moment over our half-eaten fish, our hands linked under the table, the tension tight between us.
“Are we doing this?” Jenna asks.
“I think I’m supposed to say no, but I can’t convince myself why. You?”
She laughs. “Same.”
“We don’t have to if you don’t want to.”
“What I want is a dangerous proposition. We’d have to meet out of town. Drive separately and all that.”
And while having to sneak around with her is the last thing I want, I know if I let her go now, I’m going to regret it.
“If we keep sitting here,” I say, “I’m going to kiss you.”
“The Ramada in Santa Ana,” she says. “One hour.”
“One hour,” I repeat.
And when the waitress comes with the check, we let our hands go under the table.
But her ankle still rubs against mine.
Seven
Jenna
By the time I get to the Ramada, I’m a bundle of nerves and conflicting emotions, and no amount of telling myself “It’s not a big deal. I want this guy and he wants me and it’s okay to go get some” has made it any better.
I do want Felix. Everything in me wants him, and no matter what I tell myself, sleeping with him feels like a very big deal.
It’s not like I haven’t had plenty of sex before, and with guys I’d known for far less time than Felix. And as much as I feel sick at the thought of going back to that life, I doubt one random afternoon in a Ramada would push me into that pit any more than that one night with that Finnish guy last summer about a month after Alec and I broke up—the one and only one-night stand I’ve had since I was nineteen.
The sex had been okay, the guy nice enough, but the morning after, I’d just felt empty. Lost. A reminder of the way things used to be, and painful enough that I hadn’t even considered another one.
Until Felix, that is. But talking with him today felt like talking with someone I’ve known all my life, someone I could tell anything to, but laced with the giddy thrill of discovering this new, fascinating person I want to learn everything about.
Not exactly a prelude to getting this out of my system.
I grab the bobby pins I keep in the glove compartment, and flip down the mirror above the driver’s seat. Then I undo my braid and start pinning the red streaks up, where they can be hidden under a hat. Fortunately, I’m not so famous that people instantly know who I am everywhere I go, especially when I’m not with Alec.
With my hair pinned up, I grab a straw sun hat from the backseat, left there from a beach trip with Ty the day before we met Felix. Three days ago, only. It’s kind of hard to believe.
The hat looks like it would go way better with a flowy bohemian sundress than with the shiny metallic skirt and black shirt I’ve got on now, but whatever. I don’t need fashion approval from the hotel receptionist. Just enough distance from my public persona that even if they think they know me from somewhere, they aren’t likely to connect the dots.
Meeting at the Ramada will help with that. Celebrities having clandestine hotel meetings isn’t exactly uncommon, but from what I’ve heard—and I’ve heard a lot—most still do so at the fancy luxury hotels, like they just can’t imagine a rendezvous that isn’t followed by room service prepared by a Michelin-starred chef. Supposedly the staff is more discreet at places like that, but you can always find someone willing to talk to the paparazzi for the right amount.
Not that I trust the discretion of the staff here any more than anywhere else, but the truth is, no one expects to see a celebrity walking into a budget-friendly hotel chain for a nooner.
Or so my theory goes. I don’t exactly do this often. Or ever.
I already had a fake name, complete with credit card, for times when Alec and I didn’t want to be recognized, so it was easy to call ahead and pre-book the room, and when I check in at the front desk, they have the key card ready for me.
“The other room key has already been picked up,” the receptionist says, giving me a pleasant smile. And no trace of recognition.
My heart speeds up. Felix is here, in the room, waiting for me. And even though we’ve only been separated for an hour, I just want to be with him again. I’m like a moth diving straight for the flame.
God, is that what I’m doing? It took me six months to say yes to dating Alec, after he saw me singing karaoke one night and asked me to join his band. I’d been so afraid of slipping back into my old life, so I hadn’t made a single decision impulsively, or out of passion. I’d waited until I was sure that being with Alec made sense.
Was that the smarter way to handle it, or was it the reason Alec and I turned out to be such a bad idea?
I take the elevator up to the fourth floor. Th
en I head down the hallway and find room 415. I take off my sunhat and pull the bobby pins out so my red streaks join the rest of my hair, which after being in a braid hopefully has a nice wavy quality to it now. I put the pins in my purse and stare at the door.
Then I stand there for a moment, toying with the key card.
Are we really going to do this?
I want to; god, I do. But I can’t help feeling unsettled in a way I didn’t when we were at the sushi restaurant, the connection between us so strong, so tangible, like I could see it if I squint hard enough. I felt comfortable talking about things in my life I rarely talk about with anyone—and never, never so quickly. I’d been friends with Alec, and part of his band, for weeks before I told him about the frat parties and my part in what happened to Rachel. And even then, I think I mainly told him because while Ann Arbor is a big city, it’s not that big. I knew he’d hear rumors eventually. Besides which, I had to give him some sort of reason why I kept turning him down for dates, even though I’d as much as admitted I liked him. Leo, Roxie, Mason—none of them know as much about me as Felix already does.
I slip the card into the door and open it. And there’s Felix, lying on his back on the bed with his hands behind his head. He’s still in his dark-wash jeans and a fitted t-shirt, and his blond hair has that perfect slightly mussed quality to it. He smiles, but there’s something nervous about it.
The door clicks closed behind me, and I set my hat and purse down on a table by the door. The hotel room is predictably nice, in a generic hotel sort of way, with an impressionistic forest painting on one wall and a sizeable TV on the other. On the nightstand, staring right at me, is a brochure with some All-American Family—forgettably attractive parents and two kids, a boy and a girl—splashing around in the Ramada’s Luxury Pool and enjoying the hotel’s “low rates and family-friendly accommodations.”
Not exactly a place that screams secret afternoon sex romp. But probably a hell of a lot more hygienic than the type of place that would, so there’s that.
Everything We Are Page 6
