by Ava Moore
ASHTON CROFT CONFIDENTIAL
A NOVEL
By
AVA MOORE
First Kindle Original Edition, July 2013
Copyright © 2013 by Ava Moore
This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is entirely coincidental. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and situations either are the product of the author's imagination or are used factiously.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written consent from the author.
Cover Design by Ava Moore
Photography by CuraPhotography, BigStock.com
Ava Moore, Author
www.facebook.com/authoravamoore
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Dedication
To my mother; who is my biggest fan and fellow dirty word curator and to
my father; whose own version of the English language
taught to me made writing this book all the more challenging.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
CHAPTER ONE
“Perfect! See you at 9 o’clock!”
I hang up the phone. Great. Another expensive and rather unnecessary night out with the ladies. It’s not that I don’t want to spend time with my friends. I love my friends. I love my friends a lot actually. With my mother practically on the other side of the country, my father deceased, and being an only child, my friends are really the only form of face-to-face human interaction I still have left in my life. I just love being a hermit inside of my borderline four hundred square foot shoebox apartment, a lot more. I often pretend that if I look past the fact that my south-facing window backs onto the alley of a Chinese food restaurant, that just above the cusp of the financial building in the distance, I can see the statue of liberty. I know that it’s not possible but with my precocious imagination, I believe anything is possible.
My apartment is cozy. It’s home. It’s me. To the naked eye, I guess it doesn’t look like much; my bedroom is my living room, my kitchen isn’t fully functioning equip with appliances from a different era and my bathroom reeks like rotting sewage when my kitchen sink is draining. Despite those technical and electrical flaws, the building is rich in character and hardwood floors from a different generation are strewn throughout my shoebox. Rich oak frames every window I have and gold leaf plated radiators control the building’s heat. It’s beautiful and cheap; two big reasons why I chose this as my home. I don’t have a lot to my name but what I do have, I’m proud of. It’s mine and no one can take that away from me, unless someone comes in and takes it, but trust me, it wouldn’t be worth the effort.
I like staying in and being by myself. Going out to some overpriced cocktail lounge only to be wearing a dress that is certainly too tight, because everything in my closet is too tight and drinking embellished vodka and cranberry juice that is coined a martini is something I can do without. Now, call me up and tell me you want to take me out for artery clogging pizza and to wash that potential heart attack down with half price pints and I’m there, as fast as the NYC subway system will allow.
These girls’ night outs are something we do at least once a month, when the girls have time away from their husbands, kids and all around busy lives, of course. I always pretend like I don’t have the time, like I’m busy doing something worthwhile with my life but I know that my friends know better. For them, it’s an escape. For me, it’s a reminder; a reminder of how far I haven’t come in my twenty-five years on this planet and how I am stuck in this vicious cycle of a rut that encapsulates basically every aspect of my god damn life. These nights aren’t enjoyable for me; at least that’s how I feel during them. My girls always bitch and moan about life in New Jersey – how their kids aren’t living up to their expectations, how they can’t master their backhand in tennis, or how their new yoga teacher is awful and how they want the Antonio Banderas doppelganger to come back from vacation. To me, it sounds pretty easy, but I guess even though we are friends, I’m sure they aren’t sharing every specific detail of their lives. Meanwhile, all I can complain about to them is how Peeking Garden upped their price of lemon chicken and how even though it gives me such bad gas that I could rival the greatest nuclear disaster, it is way better than anything I could ever cook, even if I did have a functioning stove.
But almost always when I get home from these girls’ nights out, I feel better, even if it’s only temporary and for an hour. Maybe these nights out are an escape for me too. Maybe I’m just that drunk. I’m probably just that drunk.
When we do go out, the girls want to do it the right way, which I have come to painfully realize consists of getting way too drunk at some budget busting bar, flirting with the bartender for free drinks, someone losing their top and us all dancing our faces off until we feel like we are going to puke. It’s like we are twenty-one all over again; a year I would personally like to forget.
All of my friends are well off, so they always want to go to the hippest and sexiest joint in town, constantly referring to me where to go like I am social or whatever that word is called. Yes, I live in the city and they live in the suburbs. However, little do they know that my idea of a hot Friday night involves me stuffing my face with lemon chicken and wiping the sweat between my tits because my apartment is hotter than hell and I sweat more than a whore in church. A sweaty, gassy, hot mess – Hi, I’m Trish Parker. Want to fuck? Maybe that should be my new eHarmony tagline.
I have no idea what a hot spot is in this town, which says a lot for a New Yorker. I’m supposed to know every little nook and cranny of midtown, but in order to do that I would have to leave my apartment. I was never one for the nightlife. To me, all bars are the same. You have your quintessential douchebag bros looking to get play, your Barbied up babes wanting the douchebag bros but never admitting to it and the people like me, sitting in the corner sipping some sort of overpriced boozy concoction that is eating away at our wallets and preventing us from paying rent that month.
Thankfully, I’m a Google wizard and can pull up a browser window in no time at all, lock down a search term in seconds and make it look like I’m some kind of NYC bar scene aficionado. I suggested a new bar called, “Blush”, even though the name made me want to cry, laugh and vomit all at the same time. Don’t try to make a bar sound pretty, because let’s be honest – once 3 a.m. hits, ain’t no one looking pretty when they come out of a bar.
On nights like these, the girls will pretend like they are going to drop a serious wad of cash and drink everything from Grey Goose to Dom Pérignon, but deep down, they know better. They know that a troupe of women like themselves, all adorned in black and nearly shredded due to a life of daily yoga, tennis and carb crunching, that they are not going to spend a dime. Men fall for them, hard, never seeming to realize that they all have wedding rings on and trust me, you cannot miss the wedding rings on my friends. I swear that they are massive, rivaling the biggest diamonds the world has to offer, but then again, maybe those rings are just what I notice the most about my friends and the fact that my ring finger looks rather naked and alone compared to theirs.
They always get hit on. I mean, my friends are beautiful and not to mention, independently successful and intelligent women. In today’s society, or rather, the society that the media perpet
uates, that is akin to having perfect teeth, long legs and plump bosoms. It’s almost guaranteed that some chump will see us hanging out at the bar and feel the need to come over, like we are drawing him in. I don’t know why most men feel like a woman’s cleavage is out for him and that it is lassoing him in, rendering him inept of basic motor functions or the ability to construct a grammatically correct sentence that isn’t some pick up line he Googled earlier that day but still can’t quite execute it properly.
For one, I am not going to allow some guy to buy me a drink. I’ll take free drinks from the bartender all day long, don’t get me wrong, but some guy just coming up to me and buying me a drink? Hell to the no. To me, that’s not being chivalrous. You want to be a gentleman and you want to be chivalrous? Try opening a car door for a woman, or opening the door to the establishment for her from the start and not after the fact when you are inside. Try giving a woman your suit jacket when it’s raining out so she doesn’t get her hair wet or better yet, bring your Mercedes or Beamer or whatever, over and pick her up without making her walk in those Louboutins that never look the same when the sole gets ruined. When we women say that chivalry is dead, it is because it is and it is unfortunately result of us lowering our standards and men getting away with it. Buy me a drink? No, that’s not chivalrous. That’s just some petty excuse to pretend that you are a gentleman when everyone in the club within seeing distance knows that you are just some sleaze ball looking to get his dick wet.
Wow. I sound bitter.
Am I on my period? When I get into these moods like this I almost always assume that I am on my period, or maybe that’s just a failsafe for actually revealing my true emotions and feelings. If I just fall back on the fact that no, this isn’t me and it is just my hormones kicking the shit out of my heart, I won’t have to talk about it and I like that. Either that or I am just bitter at men due to my last breakup.
Bingo! Tell her what she’s won, Johnny!
Maybe some chocolate will help. That is also a failsafe I resort to when I’m feeling moody. Nothing like a creamy smooth texture in the mouth especially when not much else has been going into my mouth lately anyways, save for copious amounts of food, of course. My waistline certainly doesn’t need the chocolate and if it could talk, it would probably cuss me out for the amount of shit I stuff into it on the daily. Luckily, my hips don’t lie or talk but the mirrors can though; I avoid them most of the time anyways. All I really have to use a mirror for is to check my makeup, hair and cleavage. Everything from my tits down I can’t be bothered with. It isn’t like anyone is going to be rummaging around in my lower half anytime soon so if my thighs start to rub together more frequently, I just think of it as nature’s way of creating friction in my body for when the mercury started to drop again.
I’m resourceful. What can I say? Not to mention, optimistic.
I have to figure out something to wear and something that isn’t the same thing that I usually default to for these ladies nights. I’m not one for caring what others think but I can’t swallow the fact that I might end up wearing the same dress that I’ve worn to these things for the past two months. I always end up in this predicament, repeating to myself to try something new for once, to go back into the depths of my closet or maybe that pile on the floor and put something sexier on, but I never do. I swear tonight will be different, so I toss my one and only little black dress to the side just as my cell phone starts summoning me again. I figure it is one of the girls, so I answer the call without looking and just by memory on my touch phone. “Hello?”
“Tricia, Jane needs that column done by 9:00 am tomorrow.”
Shit, it’s my work.
Way to ruin my Saturday night, Jane. She never calls me directly, because I’m sure her time is better spent than dialling me at inconvenient times, but her receptionist on the other hand, she always has impeccable timing with her calls. For example, that one time I finally landed the epitome of the cute guy at the corner Starbucks and he and I were just about to start getting freaky when my phone rang. Trust me, hearing Jane’s receptionist ream me out on the other line is no form of foreplay for anyone, no matter how sadistic you may be. Then again, I probably shouldn’t have answered my phone. Maybe I wasn’t into him that much after all.
My stomach sinks. I barely started the column. Writer’s block has set in, as it usually does and I just can’t shake it. It usually wins, but I’m an easy win because when it comes to my work and doing absolutely anything else, the latter usually takes the cake. “Hi, hello. I’m so sorry but can I have an extension? I just need…”
“An extension? This is our September issue and Jane…”
Here we go. I brace myself like I would for anticipating getting smacked in the face, for the verbal lashing I know is about to happen. The receptionist, on behalf of Jane, is about to go on another one of her huge rants about how I am so privileged to be working there, writing there. She is going to remind me that girls all over the world would kill for the position that I’m in but I am not going to be the one to tell her that I’m pretty sure girls in Africa aren’t daydreaming about writing for Star Struck. Yes, the fall is a big time for our magazine, as women all over North America are starting to get settled in again to a routine with waking up, getting the kids to school, going to work, cooking dinner, having mediocre sex and doing it all over again. Our magazine is the time of the day that gives them their escape, which is hard to fathom for me. Escape is the last word I’d choose to describe it. I’d opt for the bottomless depths of hell with Snooki as Satan, Gangnam Style is on repeat and Honey Boo Boo’s flatulence is the only smell you’ll ever breathe again. Then again, I’m not one for celebrity gossip, which reminds me why the hell am I working there in the first place?
“She needs it done. No exceptions or you will be replaced.”
I miss the whole conversation as I’m playing around in my head again. Maybe that’s why writing is so difficult for me lately. I can’t think about just one thing for longer than a few seconds. You start talking to me about how the weather is changing and seconds later, I’m trying to remember when I had my last bowel movement. People said that having a bold imagination is a good thing; it’s going to help me be a better writer. I don’t buy it. I have writer’s block mixed in with ADHD and a serious helping of procrastination. It sucks. Big time.
I have been writing for Star Struck for years now. Thankfully, I don’t write about the celebrity gossip garbage or what is hot or what is not because truthfully, I’m pretty sure everything in my life is a not. However, doing that does rack in the coin and that is something that I am always all about; I just don’t know if I could stoop to that level. I write about sex. In the back of the magazine, behind all of the horoscopes, sex toy ads, dating site information, and one more perfume ad, you will find my column, The Trish Dish. I don’t even know if my column is featured on the website, but being published was enough for me and what made it even more special, was hearing my mom’s reaction to seeing my column for the first time. “You’re in the paper! You’re name is in the paper! Wait! Why are you writing about blow jobs?”
I always find it humorous when I get threatening calls from Jane’s receptionist, telling me that if I don’t get my act together, I’m out of there. How can she replace me? There’s only one Trish Parker in this town, let me tell you. At least, to me that is the case. Maybe the census has a different story.
My columns get some notoriety, but more often than not, I’m the laughing stock of the magazine. Let’s be honest; women aren’t buying Star Struck to read about a lonely columnist’s take on sex. They are reading it to find out who has had the latest sex tape scandal, a wardrobe malfunction or how so-and-so is able to keep their shape after eight kids.
I want to be a novelist and writing for Star Struck just pays the bills, even though it doesn’t really. I mean, the magazine is quite popular but I truly feel like I’m writing for the National Enquirer and I might as well be writing about eighty pound newborns fr
om space. At least, to me anyways, I feel like my column is the saving grace of the magazine, the only thing that is actually tangible and I don’t know if women even end up that far back in the magazine but if they do, I think they appreciate my work.
Whatever. It’s a job and a decent job. I should be happy, right?
I am – for the most part.
Here I go again, on another one of my infamous and never ending tangents. I look at the time on my phone, pressing the home button to bring the screen to life.
8 o’clock.
Fuck. I have a hot twenty minutes to get ready before I’m publically displaying my sad attempt at running to catch the subway and try to get to midtown before 9:00 pm. I grab the nearest article of clothing, which of course, you guessed it, is that damn little black dress, the bane of my female existence, slip into it as fast as I can before realizing, Trish, when was the last time you showered?
I can’t remember. I’m not privileged to work in the Star Struck offices, so working from home with the same routine makes it feel like the days start blending together. The only way I can tell it’s the weekend is when I get a call from the girls about going out or when it’s Bride Night on TLC.
That’s how I know it’s Friday night.
I can’t shower. I don’t have the time. My hair literally could be spiked into a Mohawk just from the natural grease and I’m pretty sure my entire body is coated with a layer of filth but I’m going to be late. So I opt for my secret shower technique, which basically consists of a baby wipe and a speedy hand, throw on the dress, spritz on enough perfume to cover up my scent but not too much and I’m out the door, heels in hand because hell if I’m walking down seven flights of stairs in heels. I figure the subway ride should take me at least ten minutes, enough time to put on some mascara, eyeliner and whatever else I can find in my makeup bag and to roll this blonde mane of mine into a bun on the top of my head. That way, at least I look done up and truthfully, no one needs to be the wiser – ever.
