by Kailin Gow
“No…that can’t be,” I say. “It just can’t be. I saw her. She was here. She hugged me. I felt her skin. I felt her so close. I smelled her perfume. And she showed me…this.”
I hold out the paper folded in the shape of the origami swan that Rita had shown me.
“This was her room before it was mine,” I say. “I’d never realized that before. And now I understand. I understand her secrets. She had a hidden compartment in the headboard. She showed me where it was…”
Terrence looks dubious. “Maybe you found it – and that’s why you dreamt of her? Maybe it was a trick of your mind?”
“It wasn’t!” I insist. But I’m no longer sure. Was I crazy? Had I invented Rita coming in like this, holding me so close, showing me the hidden drawer? Had I found this paper and somehow imagined how it might have come to be sitting in the palm of my hand?
“I feel like I’m going crazy…” I whisper. “Unless…”
But that’s crazier still. I don’t believe in spirits or in ghosts. But what I saw: Rita, telling me she was okay, telling me she was safe, that she had to “move on” – I know that’s what I saw. I know I’m not crazy or a kook. Whatever I saw…it was real.
And if I saw a ghost, well, then, I guess ghosts are real too.
Terrence takes the paper from me. He unfolds it, furrowing his brow and frowning. “I guess we should open it together,” he says. “No, no, you open it.” He hands it to me. “You were Rita’s best friend,” he says. “It’s only right that you be the one to find out what truly happened to her. Find out her real story. “
“Maybe…” My voice falters. “Ask Xander. Maybe he had the records falsified for some reason. Maybe he had the clinic lie about her death…”
“I already called Xander,” says Terrence. “I’m sorry. I wanted to be sure before coming to you with any upsetting information like that. I wanted to be absolutely sure. But now I am. And I’m so sorry…” His voice trails off. “Xander said you two hadn’t talked in a while.”
“I needed some space,” I admit. “From both of you.”
I miss Xander. My body misses him. But somehow the parting has been easier than I expected. With Xander away in Tokyo, it almost feels like I’ve woken up from a dream. Like maybe Xander never existed at all: like our whole life together was just a fantasy we shared, and now that he’s gone, I’m back to the real world again.
“Go ahead,” Terrence says. His voice cracks. He doesn’t look at me. “Read the letter. Out loud.”
I read the words with a faltering voice. My hands shake.
Note to self:
I am Rita Malone.
Also known as Suzi Milton, Suzanne Corners, Colleen van der Mill, Erika Sawyer, Virginia Winters, Miley Lourdes, and a whole host of other identities. But none of them is the real me. None of them is the name I know in my heart to be true.
My name is Skye Porter. Or, at least, it was when I was born. Trust my hippie mother to name me Skye. She liked kooky names, names she thought “fit” her conception of nature. I didn’t know how well my name fit until later – much better. I was raised by a single mother in Vegas. My mother was named Rain. Strange names ran in the family.
At least: my mother’s family.
My father’s family, though, that was a different story. The story I got when I was a kid was the adapted one: my mom had a one-night stand with a folk guitarist she met touring on the road. Got knocked up by him, but they’d long since gone their separate ways. Mom remarried to a cop, whom I thought was my real father for years. It was only once I became a PI that I started turning my investigative skills onto my own background. Learned the truth. My real father “Larry” was actually Clarence Blue: the patriarch of the Blue clan. And he and my mother were more than just a one night stand – though they’d long since broken up by the time I came along.
That’s why I’m staying so long, undercover at the Blue Room, despite the danger. Now that I know that my father is Clarence Blue, I want to know everything about him. Who he is? What he’s like. But he’s in a coma, now, and I’ll never get a look into what kind of man he is. People tell me terrible stories about him: how he’s cold and cruel and ruthless. But my mother painted a rosier picture. What’s the truth?
I look to his other relatives for the answer. To the boy I have started to love like my flesh – Terrence Blue – another illegitimate child, another Blue bastard like me, my half-brother. Danny, my other half-brother. Xander, my young uncle, a much younger half-brother of Clarence, young enough for Danny and Terrence to mistake as a cousin since he was just an year older than Danny Blue.
They are good men. Beneath the facade of money and power and corruption, they are upstanding men trying to do the right thing. Maybe we all are. Maybe Clarence was like that too, once. Before he married Roni. I don’t know.
Despite his pet project, the Blue Room, Clarence seemed to have a brilliant mind for business and had built an empire in hospitality and entertainment. All his other businesses were upstanding, as was the Blue Room until…Veronica Taylor started sitting on the board. Then when Clarence suddenly went into a coma, things really turned interesting…
Especially with all the Blue Boys around – Danny, Terrence, Xander…and Clarence.
So, like so many women before me, I guess I really did stay at the Blue Room for a man. For my father. And I was a true Blue Girl.
Skye Blue.
Crazy name, right? But that was my mother for you. She liked names that fit.
Beneath the words, there is another line, written in a different colored ink, by the same hand, written as though just moments ago.
I just didn’t know that the truth would cost me my life.
I get goosebumps on my arms. The wind suddenly seems to blow cold in the room: a sudden, frozen blast.
“Rita was…” I can’t believe it. “Was Rita…here?” That last sentence looked like it had just been added to the note. Rita’s handwriting. She was here. And she was dead.
The realization hit me so hard that I felt a chill crawl up and down my spine.
Terrence sighs. “I don’t know, Staci. Only you know that.” He smiles softly, slowly. “But I’d like to believe that was true.” He exhales sharply. “So Rita was my real sister…all along. My sister…and she didn’t make it. At the clinic, that was the last time I saw her, and I thought she was recovering, but I guess the internal wounds were too much.”
He’s crying boatloads, now, and so am I. Our tears meld together, his and mine.
“She was the half-sister Roni was looking for. My real sister. Her wish was for her to be yours too. Make her yours, too,” he says – suddenly, impulsive.
“What are you talking about, Terrence?”
His voice is wild, crazy, desperate. But it’s never anything less than sincere. “Staci, she brought you back to this room. I had a hunch to meet you here at your Blue Room. Rita’s Blue Room. It’s what she would have wanted…for us to be brought close together. Staci, this sounds crazy, but I’ve never felt this way about anyone else before. I haven’t been able to sleep properly, to eat well without knowing you are safe and well. Since meeting you, I’ve never cared for anyone else other than myself. I never wanted to protect anyone as much as I wanted to protect you. When I first laid eyes on you, I felt as though I knew you or we had met before…just something familiar as though we were meant to meet. And no matter what, I can’t stop wanting you, despite how hard I’ve tried.” He got up and went down on his knees. “Staci, please I’ve never wanted anything more than this. Marry me!”
I look at him in shock. Can he be serious? Terrence Blue, playboy extraordinaire just asked me to marry him.
“What?”
“Marry me, Staci. Become a Blue. Become Rita’s real-life sister. Staci – you and I – what we’ve shared, what we have. We’ve loved the same person. We’ve lost the same person. It’s more than a fantasy with us. It’s reality. It’s not the Blue Room. It’s real life. I’ve made love to you over and
over again because I wanted to, because I loved you as a man who loves his woman. Not as the Blue Room owner with a Blue Girl. I know you love me too. You can’t deny it. You can’t fake the kind of passion and light in your eyes that I’ve seen when I see you looking at me. When I make you come. When you melt into my arms. It’s real. All those emotions come for real with people who love each other. Staci, it’s meant to be – say yes…”
It’s happening so fast. But I’m so overwhelmed by so many feelings: anger, mourning, grief, loss, love. And right now all I want is someone to love me the way Rita once did. Someone who understands how much I loved her.
All the feelings I’ve felt with Terrence. Safety, euphoria, excitement, tenderness, sympathy, anger, sadness, frustration, happiness…and love comes rushing at me all at once. It’s always been Terrence who was there providing me with support, protecting me from bad patrons like Mr. S, making sure I was treated well by the other Blues staff as best he could, making sure I could visit my mother when I had an emergency, teaching me what felt good and right about my body, about how much pleasure I could get from a man who truly cares and love a woman, even stepping back and away from me when I didn’t want anything to do with the Blue Room, even encouraging me to leave the Blue Room despite his original plans for me there…Terrence had always been there for me. He had always been real for me. Cared for and loved me as me. Staci Atussi. Not as a Blue Girl. Not as a fantasy.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, yes, yes!”
Terrence kisses me. And it’s the greatest kiss I’ve ever experienced in my life. My mind goes blank with joy.
“I know…Xander…” his voice trails off.
“That was a fantasy,” I say. “I realize that now. The two of us. We were in love. But it wasn’t us. It was Mr. X. and the Blue Girl. This…this is different.” I know as I say it that it is true. “I know this is real…”
“This is the realest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Terrence says.
He leads me up, to the door.
“Are you ready to leave the Blue Room forever?” he asks me.
“Wait a second,” I say. I go back inside the room.
“I love you, Rita,” I whisper, to the wind.
And I do not know if it is my imagination or not, but I think I feel a soft kiss on my cheeks, and I think I hear a whisper.
I love you too, sister.
Epilogue
Xander Blue
My life is empty now. Well, that’s a lie. It’s not empty, not exactly. I’ve got a hell of a lot of work to occupy me, day in and day out. Every day is work. And it might as well be, at this point. Better than facing the alternative. Better than facing a life without her.
She called me up. Told me on the phone.
“I’m marrying Terrence Blue,” she said. “Xander, I’m sorry.”
My heart broke that second, as it had never broken before.
“What are you talking about?” I was shocked. I knew she needed space – but she’d said nothing about a breakup, nothing about deciding. And now, out of the blue – to make a terrible pun – she’d made her choice? Terrence wasn’t supposed to be patronizing with her anyways. I should be angry, but I wasn’t. All I feel is numb. She made me feel alive again. She made me care for someone again…to love. How can I get over her? I must or this pain, this void will consume me as it did when I first lost my love.
“It’s complicated,” she said. “I want something real, Xander. I want more than a fantasy. I want more than cliffsides and romance. I want someone I can be myself. And I’m scared that, with us, it would never be more than just a replaying of those same beautiful days.” She sounds pained over the phone. “We’d never be able to just be real people: just you and me. We’d always just be some sort of dream. And I realized that’s not what I want anymore.”
She went silent, then.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“Staci,” I said, “What we have, it wasn’t just a fantasy for me. All that we did, all that we talked about…they were real for me. I’m just so sorry about being part of Gloria’s plans in getting rid of the Tennenbaum heir. I’m so sorry about that, and if that was the reason you won’t be with me, that you won’t marry me instead, then I would understand it. I don’t know if I can ever forgive myself for that, Staci.”
“Xander…” Staci’s voice was shaky. “You and I…you were so charming, so sexy, so incredible; how could I not fall for you; but you were also Mr. X when I fell for you; and when I found out about your connections to Gloria, I do admit, it made me lose a bit of my trust in you. But when you saved me, when you took me to see my father to show me that you were protecting him…that proved to me that you could be trusted, Xander. That you were no longer influenced by Gloria’s hateful schemes. But sweet sweet Xander, despite also loving you, it’s Terrence I’m marrying. I can’t explain it, but there has always been this spark between us from the start…a connection, and now, I know it’s meant to be. Thank you for everything, Xander, but I’m sorry.”
And that I’m sorry has echoed through my skull ever since.
I try to throw myself into business, into fixing the Blue Room…something to make me forget her, to make me turn things around. I’m like a man, driven. Roni’s in jail, now – turns out shooting someone at point-blank range has consequences, even if you are a Blue – but there’s more for me to do. I still haven’t uncovered Roz’s killer. And I still haven’t put the books, let alone the Blue Room to right.
The place seems so empty without Staci in it. She was my heaven in this mess. I feel so lonely, walking the halls. All the Blue Girls eye me like they will gladly take the place of Staci, but I can’t even think about that now. I want her. Everyone treats me well, of course. Accords me the respect owed to a powerful man in my position. But it all feels so soulless, now, so empty. Without her.
I try to tell myself: don’t get hung up on a girl. I try to tell myself: it was only ever a fantasy, you’re crazy to feel this way about a woman, when have you ever felt this way about a woman?
Not since…
But that was a long time ago. My first love, my wife, that I was very briefly married to…dead. No wonder why I became the ruthless business-oriented man that I am…which helped me get to become the billionaire I became without the Blue’s inheritance.
I sit down one night to go over the books for what seems like the hundredth time. There’s so many pieces of paper, so many records – nobody seems to know how to use an excel spreadsheet in this whole damn place – there’s so much for me to deal with. It’s pretty damn exhausting. But it’s all part of the process of getting this place back to something resembling a legitimate business.
Tonight’s going to be a long one, I think, staring at the stack of files ahead of me. I’d better get some coffee.
I start looking through the files, flipping through them, blowing away dust and cobwebs. Appointment books, confidential “client write-ups” by the girls, status reports. Somehow the Blue Room has managed to combined the worst of both anarchy and bureaucracy.
And then I open one folder.
And I see something I never thought I would see.
My heart skips a beat.
Oh, shit.
Immediately I pull out my phone. I text Danny and Terrence at once.
More problems at the Blue Room, boys. Looks like we have something bigger than we thought.
*****
This is it for The Blue Room Serial (told from Staci Atussi’s Point-of-View).
Join Xander, Danny, and Terrence Blue in
Blue Room Confidentials
*****
Well, that’s yet for Staci’s Story in the Blue Room…
Thank you for reading
The Blue Room Vol. 8.
I sincerely hoped you enjoy The Blue Room and would like to read more later this year with a new series based on Xander Blue and the other Blues brothers.
The mystery continues in Blue Room Confidentials with Xander, Terrence, and
Danny Blue, coming this Summer 2015.
The best way to not miss any of my new releases announcement, news (like possible release schedule changes, etc. and more) as soon as the next parts are released, please join the Kailin Gow Mailing List by registering at http://www.kailinromance.wordpress.com.
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Did you like this book and series? Please leave a review without spoilers. It helps authors continue writing and providing you the stories you love.
*****
Also, The Blue Room Series features some characters from The Never Knights Trilogy
The first book, Never Say Never,
is now Free on Amazon
At: http://tinyurl.com/nm3hqbx
A quick read, all three books in The Never Knights Trilogy is available here:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Say-Knights-Series-ebook/dp/B008X2NCT8
The Blue Room is also featured in another of Kailin Gow’s Book Series:
FREE FALL
From Award-winning author Kailin Gow, comes FREE FALL…
http://www.amazon.com/Free-Fall-Vol-Loving-Summer-ebook/dp/B00S59K6H0
