by S. Ann Cole
Alina: This is Los Angeles…
Lion T’mar: Going. Me & T just heading out.
Alina: Wanna b part of ur entourage 2nite.
Lion T’mar: No.
Alina: Seriously?!
Lion T’mar: You only wanna go to see Davi. NO.
Alina: Puh-leeeeze. Have moved on 2 bigger & better things. Davi who?
Lion T’mar: ??????
Alina: Am hooking up with Xavier Xander.
Lion T’mar: So why you ain’t going with him instead of me?
Alina: Was supposed 2. But we had a tiff. He’s sulking. Rock stars. Full of theatrics.
Five minutes passed without a response and I knew he was contacting someone, somewhere, to verify my story, because that was Lion. He did not tolerate being bullshitted.
At same time Mel braked up outside Beach Rock, Lion replied: Meet me outside SiTo in fifteen.
The club was packed.
The look Lion gave me when we met up outside told me we would be having words whenever we had less of audience.
We joined the celebration over an hour ago, but everyone was grooving and having a blast except me.
Nope, I was skulking in the depths of the top level VIP section, nursing a non-alcoholic beverage and spying in the VIP section on the bottom level, where Ninety Miles and Ice Steam were.
SiTo was a two-level night club with urbane aesthetics and the capacity to hold a couple thousand bodies easily with no elbows brushing. Each floor had two capacious VIP sections, and Lion and his entourage claimed the one upstairs, while Ninety Miles and Ice Steam claimed the section downstairs. Therefore, I had direct view of the bottom VIP from upstairs.
Jake was wasted, jumping around with Leo, Mark and Zach, their arms thrown around each other’s shoulders, doing something akin to square dancing to Imagine Dragon’s Radioactive, in true drunken fashion. Had to admit, it was unheard of how well both bands got along.
It was rare for a successful band to gladly shift over and make room for another band to dabble in their spotlight, but Ninety Miles did. And it was obvious they weren’t merely being tolerable because they were signed to the same label. They genuinely liked Ice Steam.
Tex and Davian were sitting side by side, slouched forward, talking, Tex with wild hand gestures, while Davian seemed a little distracted. He kept glancing up to the top floor VIP section.
Although I could see all of them without hindrance from our section, I knew it wasn’t same for those downstairs. One, we were higher up, and two, being on the top floor meant railings, and in SiTo’s case, mesh railings.
Unless I walked to railings and peered over, it was impossible for them to see me.
Also, I doubted either band knew I was in the club. When Lion partied, he partied with a large entourage, and when we entered the SiTo I was in the middle of that mix, plus the party was already in full swing. So I couldn’t ascertain Davian’s distraction and constant eying of the VIP was on account of me.
I wanted to go to him. We needed to have words. But there was no way to do that without Lion giving me shit about it.
Xavier was lying supine on one of the seats in the booth, one foot cast off to the ground, the other bent up on the seating, cellphone in his hand casting a glow of light down on his face as he furiously tapped away on the touch screen.
Taking no part in Jake’s celebration, it seemed like just another shiftless afternoon on the couch for him.
Xavier was big on texting, I knew this; he could shut out the world and text for hours. He told me it had been his coping mechanism in rehab. But seeing as he wasn’t texting me anymore, he had to have found a new flame to start texting it up with, because Alina O’Hara was a liar.
Rock stars. That effortless for them, wasn’t it? At just the snap of a finger, a new girl on the scene. Replaced.
I admit I felt something minuscule at the thought of him replacing me in a matter of hours. A prick. A tiny prick of pain. Like a needle to the tip of the finger. Then it was gone.
Three of Lion’s artists tried to chat me up on separate occasions in the last hour since I’d been there, but after a few minutes of terse dialog, they got the gist that I was a barren land and there’d be no harvesting on my property, so they gassed up and skipped town.
I sat up straight when I saw Xavier got up and stretched his arms over his head as if he was just waking up from a long night’s sleep, then strode from the VIP section. He was bigger, taller, moodier and more striking than everyone else, man and woman, in the club, as he burned through the crowd like a ball of fire making a flaming path through a straw field.
It wasn’t a small prick that I felt this time as I watched him, but a deep puncture. Something, somewhere inside me, was punctured. It was leaking. Drip. Drip. Drip. And I knew in that moment as I watched him disappear under the railing, that this wasn’t the end of us. Not while I was still punctured and dripping. The end would come when I was leaked dry.
Xavier Xander, guitarist of world-class rock band, Ninety Miles, was going to drain me.
Shifting my gaze back to the booth, I caught Davian staring up at our section again, and I briefly wondered if his fiancée was there. I could see Xena making the rounds through the crowd, chatting up each and every person she came in contact with. But I saw no sign of the southern sweetheart, Jessica Stucco.
My phone buzzed, and I hurriedly picked it up, hoping it was Xavier texting me to meet him in a back alley or a grimy bathroom or…anything. Anything.
But it was Saskia on Whatsapp.
Saskia Day: Just spent d last 30mins whatsapping with Xavi…he’s off kilter.
Alina: How r u allowed 2 whatsapp with Xavi? Where’s JK?
Saskia Day: Am watching him on my TV right now, he’s hosting a live event. And ur little man’s keeping me up. He keeps yanking on my bloody hair, screaming “Assy! Assy! Dada eeho Assy!” So now am not Sassy, but Assy. Gawd I hope I don’t stink like that name.
Alina: LOL. Kiss him 4 me & let him know his mommy loves him.
Saskia Day: I already do that everyday. Wut did u do 2 Xavi?
Alina: He broke up with me.
Saskia Day: Yeah, he told me that, but y?
Alina: He got nosy…
Saskia Day: Not ready 2 tell him?
Alina: I tried 2. But I botched it. Twice. So he told me he couldn’t be with a liar.
Saskia Day: He said he still wanted 2 go 2 d party with u, but u were “assing”. Then u show up at the club with Dustin Latimore hanging all over u.
Alina: Oh plz! Rock stars r SO dramatic! I came with Lion, Dustin was trying 2 find out who this “dove in white” was, I brushed him off, full stop. I didn’t even know Xavi saw when I came, 2b honest. Was in the mix of Lion’s entourage.
Saskia Day: Well I think he’s hurt, Ally. He’s been inundating me with very ‘colorful’ words about how much he really thought u were diff, but u r fake & a liar “just like the rest of them”. How he invested a lot of time in u & u just made it seem like nothing…
Alina: So what, he’s complaining 2 u like u r my mother who can lash me & tell me 2 behave?
Saskia Day: I think he’s just looking 4 someone 2 encourage him 2 rethink his decision & give him assurance that u r worth it.
Alina: Did u?
Saskia Day: No. I think he’s better off without u.
Alina: Gee, thanx.
Saskia Day: U might not like my honesty but am sorry. Am relieved it ended. U went there 4 Davi, not him. The guy is clearly balls deep into u, u hurt him, he impulsively broke up with u out of anger, & all u did was pack ur stuff & leave? U r an emotion phobe, Ally. The only person u feel anything 4 is Davi. So stay there & chase Davi. Leave Xavi out of it. That’s all am saying.
Alina: Oh, how righteous u r now that you have JK, hypocrite? I’d rather take advice from sum1 who didn’t stalk a man 4 5 years, flopped back & forth between him & his best friend, settled 4 second place 2 his ‘sister’, then s
ucked off her ex while still engaged. Y didn’t u leave Tex out of it when u knew the only person u would ever love is JK? Maybe I do need help with my “emotion phobia”, but not from U!!
Saskia didn’t respond. And straightaway I felt like a bitch for blowing up on her. But I was tired of everyone always telling me how broken and emotionless I was.
Not because I didn’t wear my heart on my sleeve did not mean I didn’t care. I cared about the people in my life. I loved my son to the moon and back. I loved Saskia almost as much as I loved my mom. I said it out loud sometimes when I felt it deserved to be heard, but because I didn’t go around dishing out hugs and giving instantaneous reactions to certain situations, it didn’t mean I was inanimate.
First it was JK letting me know he couldn’t trust me with his wife at home, now it was Saskia defending some longtime friend over me. How can they continue to criticize me all the time and not expect me to snap at some point?
Moodier now than before I came to the club, I stared down at my phone-screen, bouncing my knees, waiting for a response from Saskia.
When a full ten minutes passed and I realized she wasn’t going to reply, I got up and stormed out of the VIP, ignoring Lion’s call after me. I didn’t smoke, but in this moment I wished I did.
Seeing nothing or no one but blankness, I parted through the crowd and navigated to the restrooms, locked myself into one of the stalls, closed down the lid on the toilet, took out cell and checked again. Still no reply from Saskia.
I’m sorry, I messaged her.
Five minutes later, still nothing.
I heard a group of girls enter the bathroom, giggling about what band mate of either band they wanted to go home with. I wish I was the kind of girl who cared to listen. Sometimes I envied women like those, who cared about naught but fashion and rock stars. Who was easy to please. Whose only sorrow was that the star from the night before never called her back.
Me, my belly was full, bursting, like the whale who ate Jonah. I had so many things backed up in there like a hard drive, one could pitch a tent inside me and survive for a decade. Sometimes I just wanted to open my mouth wide and hurl, cough it all up, empty my belly, have my insides vacuumed and polished. Because I was running out of storage, running out of crooks and crevices to hide shit, and it was messing with my ability to function properly, overwhelming me, overheating my brain.
A knock sounded on the stall door, then it rattled. “Xavi! Sorry for interrupting, but we need to talk.”
Xena. The girl was everywhere, like sounds.
After checking my phone screen one last time, I placed it in my clutch and stood. I slid the latch on the stall door and pushed it open.
Xena stood there, arms folded across her chest. I raised a brow, and she craned her neck to peer into the stall. “Where is he?”
“Last I checked this was the ladies room,” I said, brushing past her. “You thought about checking the men’s?”
Moving to wash my hands at a sink, I watched in the mirror as she stomped into the stall and looked around as though she expected to find a lock her brother’s blond hair peeking out from the toilet tank or something.
She spun, finding my stare in the mirror. “He’s missing. I saw you come in here. I figured you two were meeting up.”
“Meeting up with the lying bitch he dumped hours ago?” I reeled off a piece of paper-towel to dry my hands. “Your brother’s a rock star, Xena, he’s probably off getting a blow-job in a hallway or something.”
The gaggle of girls who’d been yapping over each other about who screwed who in whose Bugatti, all stopped gossiping at once and trained their wide gazes on me.
“You were dating Xavier Xander?” one of them asked, eyes bugging out of her head, the others giving me approving nods.
“He’s not that man anymore,” Xena told to me.
Scoffing, I dumped the paper-towel, picked up my clutch, then turned and started out of the bathroom.
But, of course, Xena skipped across the room and intercepted, pressing a firm palm to my chest, fuming. “You know what, I actually liked you. But you’re a bitch. And to think he did a complete 180 for you. What were you in for, his money? Or were you just using him to get ahead with your bullshit modeling career?”
Looking me up and down, she sneered, “Did he buy you this outfit, dressed you up in Versace to make you feel like you’re somebody? Or did you borrow it from Saskia’s closet? Considering you’ve been throwing her name around to be noticed, when you’re probably nothing but some poor white trash she felt sorry for and gave a hot meal and a warm bed and you’ve been leeching off her ever since. Using her name to get ahead.”
By the time her harangue was complete, the girls’ looks of approval had morphed into looks of revulsion.
Ignoring their contemptuous glares, I gave Xena a benign smile and a single nod. “Yes. You’re right. You hit the nail right on the head. But I do not apologize for any of it.”
Sidestepping her, I made to leave again, but she grabbed arm, pulling me back. “I’m not done wi—”
I snapped.
I wheeled on her, wiped my hand through the air and printed all five of my fingers on her face. Quiescence rained over the room, the audience she was entertaining now gaping, hands gripping each other in shock.
Mouth hanging open like a puppet that got disconnected from its string, Xena brought her hand to touch her reddening cheek.
Walking up to her, I told her in a very controlled manner, “I am not one of Tex’s sluts. So you’d do best to have a little respect, Xena. You don’t know me. You know nothing about me. If you need an outlet to let off steam, sexual frustration, and anger from Tex’s rejections, then go get a sledge hammer, stand on a block, and smash your toes one by one.” I smiled. “I hear it works perfectly.”
When I turned to walk out this time, no one tried to stop me.
My palm was stinging, but it was therapeutic in altering my disposition for the better when I left the bathroom. Like Xena, maybe I needed to let off some steam. I made a mental note to add kick-boxing to my workout routines to help with the tension.
SiTo was bouncing with energy, flashing psychedelic lights, bobbing heads and gyrating bodies, Kings of Leon’s Sex on Fire pumping through the speakers.
I’d shopped, showered and gotten dressed earlier with the intention of having as much fun as these patrons, but one thoughtful gift had ruined everything. Walking around alone and miserable was not how I’d envision my night.
I tried wading through the crowd to get back upstairs, but the sweaty bodies and noise and constant movements was closing in on me, I felt tired, like I was swimming through sand, and Lion’s VIP all of a sudden seemed miles away.
Off to the right side of the smallest of the three bars in the club, was an alcove with a table and two stools. Miraculously, no one was occupying the nook so I pushed past a couple who were voraciously sucking faces at a glow column next to the alcove and slid in, hiking up on one of the bar stools.
I checked my phone again for a response from Saskia and sighed when I saw none, then pulled up Lion’s chat.
Alina: Leaving. Not feeling it. Shouldn’t have come.
Sliding half off the bar stool, I twisted from the alcove and craned my neck to look upstairs for Lion. He had his queen backed up against the railing, kissing and nuzzling and feeling each other up like new loves, so he wouldn’t be seeing my message anytime soon.
Twisting back into the nook, I texted Mel: Ready to split. Meet me out front.
I picked up my clutch to leave and froze.
Davian.
Sitting across from me. He’d somehow managed to slip into the alcove without alerting me.
The night was dark, the club was dark, his attire was dark, but his eyes, those blue wonders, like the sky on an exceptionally good day, when God’s in an exceptionally good mood, that blue, the blue that makes you believe there’s no end to life, the blue that makes everything
seem brighter, the blue bright enough to grin without the sun, those blue eyes, they shone through all the noise and darkness and pinned me to the stool.
I’ve dreamed of this moment for two agonizingly long years, to be able to see heaven in those blue depths again. To see my beginning and my ending. To see the sun rise and set. To see the world rotate and our beauty fade. To see our hair turn gray and our love on rewind…
All that, and more, was what I used to see when I looked into this man’s eyes.
Now, I noticed with great despair, it was all smeared and scratched and unidentifiable.
I stared deeper, waiting to see our life play out on the stage of those sapphire irises like it used to. But what I saw was happiness that didn’t include me, interspersed with sadness and pain and remorse.
My blissful future was no longer in his eyes. All I could see was him screwing his fiancée against a floor-to-ceiling window, him getting on his knees on top of the Empire State building and asking another woman to share his life with him.
“Why him?” he asked at the same I said, “Leave her.”
At that straightforward request, he broke our gazes and looked down at his hands on the table, his index finger moving back and forth over his thumb, a familiar gesture of his that translated anxiety.
Leaning forward, I placed my hands on the small table and moved them closer to his. “I’m still yours, Davi.” I touched his hands to pause his anxious jitter. “Tell me. Tell me you’re still mine.”
Head still down, several heartbeats pounded by before he told our hands, “I love her.”
I was drowning.
Davian Hamilton had lured me out to the edge of a cliff with the promise of a kiss, then tied a cement block to my ankles and shoved me off into the deepest, bluest part of the sea.
I was left drowning.
My lungs were clogging up. The club was too small. Too many people. I needed air. I needed air.
Removing my hand from his, I almost sprained my ankle trying to sprint from the alcove.
“Ally, wait!” he called after me as I shoved through the crowd, wanting to get away from him, needing air.
