Ashton Croft Confidential

by Ava Moore

  “It’s perfect and it fits right in with the whole Ashton Croft controversy. Way to follow the trends, Miss Parker. Back to your seat.”

  “What?” I’m shocked. I’m certain Jane is moments away from slamming my jaw shut for me because I’m pretty sure it’s on the ground.

  “Back to your seat, Miss Parker.”

  She liked it? Did she actually like it? Am I hearing this right? Never before, has Jane actually given me the thumbs up on something. I always was under the impression that what I did for her magazine was just mediocre. I feel like I did something right, for the first time in years. Even if it’s just a shitty column in a shitty magazine, it’s my shitty column and no one else’s. I find myself nearly skipping back to my seat on the other side of the room and remind myself, to just keep calm or try to at least. The last thing I need to do in this moment is make a bigger fool of myself, although, stranger things have happened to me. I sit back down in my chair and can’t help but look at my phone. I mean, it’s sitting right there in plain view. Jane pushes the conversation along back to Ashton Croft and I’m caught between the decision of listening in about this man or finding out the information for myself.

  I read the text. “Sushi Yasuda. 8:00pm. I’ll send a car for you. – A”

  Maybe I need someone in the room to pinch me after all.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Holy shit! The guy at the table last night is apparently a movie star!” Cris screams in my ear through my cell as I walk up the steps to my dingy apartment. “Holy shit!”

  “Yeah, I know right? Crazy stuff.” I hate gossip, especially now that the gossip pertains to my date or at least I’m fairly certain it’s a date. I’m trying my best to not get into my own head so much but you know how well that works.

  “I can’t believe it! We saw a celebrity last night and he was making all of these googly eyes at you! How did anyone not notice?”

  I nod and then realize that nodding into the phone does nothing at all. It’s a really bad habit of mine. “Yeah. It’s crazy. The power of the overnight celebrity.”

  “Does everyone at Star Struck know? How did your meeting go? Tell me everything!”

  Shouting into my ear is a huge no-no right now because I’m pretty sure I’m seconds away from my brain exploding in my cranium and oozing out of my ears. “Cris, how are you alive this morning? What time did you girls get in?”

  “I’m pretty sure I’m still drunk but answer my question!”

  I’m reluctant but she’s borderline family. “Yes, they got candid pictures of it last night. Everyone was talking about it this morning.”

  “Did you tell them what you knew? Trish! This could be your chance to make a name for yourself! You had an insider’s perspective last night! Did you spill the beans?”

  “Um, no. I just talked about my column and Jane liked it so I’m good. You know I’m not a part of that sector of the magazine.”

  “But you could be! Can’t you see? This could be your big break!”

  My big break? So what, my big break was going to be exploiting the life of someone that I barely knew? I can’t grasp the concept. I’m going to propel myself to a better income at his expense? I think not. “I don’t know. We will see. I just have to go okay? Can I talk to you later?” I need to get off the phone now before I do lose my patience with her.

  I can sense that my reactions are not the ones that Cris was looking for and that she was hoping I’d hop on the gossip train right next to her and start dishing about the goods but she knew better. She knows that I’m not that kind of girl, at least I thought she did. I like to keep to myself, even though I write a sex column based on real life experiences. I write them with underlying tones of humor though, so they don’t feel too revealing. Openly talking about my love life, now that is too personal. Besides, I am genuinely caught off guard that Cris had her panties in a knot over how this guy acted last night, how disgusted she was with him, and how it all changed so fast. All it took was finding out that he was a celebrity and did her opinion of him ever change and fast. I don’t want to believe that she is capable of falling for the power of fame, but I suppose you can never really know everything about your friends.

  “Okay, well, I hope you have a good day. I might make a trip into the city this week. Do you want to grab coffee?”

  I smile. “That sounds lovely. Talk soon,” I hang up the phone, anything to get her off of the other line. My brain is so jumbled inside of my head, I feel like I’m having a hard enough time remembering my own name. Even if I were in a better state, I’d doubt I would want friend gossip time via phone right now. I walk up the flights of stairs to my level, fiddle with my keys in my bag and finally, I’m back inside the comfort of my apartment. Before I make another move, I need a shower and badly; not only because it’s the right thing to do after not showering for several days but I need it to cleanse me, in a cathartic way. The events of the past twelve hours leave me feeling like I’m in a daze and I need some hot water on my skin to either snap me out of this fantasy world I feel like I’m living in or to make me realize that this is in fact happening to me. I can’t digest it all yet.

  I leave all of my belongings at the front door, which I usually do, lock the three locks on the door before I turn to the bathroom. My apartment might be more than fifty years old, but it gets hot water right away. Maybe it doesn’t always stay hot, but that’s beside the point. I strip out of my meeting clothes, which consists of black pumps, a pencil skirt and a blouse from Macy’s that still has the tags on it and step into the hot water.

  I should do this more often! It feels amazing and I need it. I dive right in for the shampoo, anything to cleanse this mane of mine. My hair is thick and has the texture of rope. I’ve tried everything from olive oil to eggs to avocado and even a mix of the three, but nothing is strong enough to tame the frizz, so I rock it. Big hair for a mostly big girl – I think it fits. I always try to leave the conditioner in my hair for as long as possible, thinking that it is going to do me some good and this allows me time to tame the rest of the gnarly hair on my body. If I’m going on a date tonight, I’m going to have to do something about this.

  Fuck, I should have gotten waxed.

  Shaving will have to suffice. Not without my knees being victims to my dull razor blade, I at least resemble something female from the waist down. I don’t know if I am subconsciously planning on sleeping with Ashton tonight, but I usually don’t go to these lengths for anyone. Maybe that’s why I’m single or maybe that’s why guys can never find my clit.

  I digress. Smelling like a combination of fresh Irish springs and at the very least, body odor free, I have spare time on my hands and this is something I am never really good at. I like structure in my day, even if that structure involves routinely walking to Peeking Garden to get breakfast, lunch and dinner. I throw in a leave-in conditioner in my hair and wrap it in a towel, thinking the heat from the steam will do me some good, at least I think I read that somewhere or Maxi, the girl in hair and makeup at the magazine, probably told me about it.

  I should eat something. I can feel my body weaken with each step. I used to have a high tolerance when it came to alcohol, especially in my college days. Drop shots, beer bongs – you name it. I had mastered the art of opening up my throat early on and that made me have a reputation for two things – chugging alcohol and sucking dick. Okay, I didn’t actually have a reputation for anything. I was a loner throughout college and much larger compared to all of the other girls at NYU. They were all stick thin models with brunette hair. I was the chubby blonde girl from LA that looked nothing like a typical California Barbie. I stuck out like a sore thumb. I met Dan and my life changed. He was Jewish, well mannered and going to school to be a doctor. He was everything I ever wanted and more, until those stick thin brunette models starting coming after him. I was no use anymore. He replaced me with a younger and skinner model, over and over and over again.

  From that point forward, I had sworn to myself tha
t I would only date a good southern gentleman. Okay, he doesn’t have to be southern but all of the romance novels I read depict some southern gentlemen and every girl can dream, right? Plus, I have a thing for accents. I just think they are sexy.

  Creating my eHarmony profile was like becoming a born again Christian woman. I swore that I wouldn’t have sex on the first date and followed Patti Stanger’s advice of being in a monogamous relationship before I gave it up. I even considered waiting until marriage to have sex again, but that lasted a hot two months.

  I like sex; I just haven’t had very good sex. I actually don’t think any man has been able to make me orgasm. I’m sure it’s possible. I mean, I can make myself orgasm and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. Then again, I have to because I’m not getting any play these days. Maybe it’s because I’m too picky and I’m not about to just sleep with some guy because I’m feeling lonely. I’ve gotten close to that feeling but I will never lower my standards again.

  Am I lowering my standards with Ashton? I try not to think about it, but I can’t help it. The idea of being a one off for him doesn’t sit well with me because I’m one for commitment and long-term relationships. I don’t do one-night stands. I don’t see the purpose for them. I like sex with passion behind it. Better yet, I like sex with love behind it. I’m not in love with him so I make up my mind – I’m not going to have sex with him. Great, then I hacked away at cooch for nothing.

  The hours of the day seem to whiz by but then again, I swear my apartment is the Bermuda Triangle and lots of things get lost in it, such as my favorite underwear, favorite pen and my mind. I have found the underwear and the pen, but the latter, I’m still working on it.

  When I have some spare time like this and when I’m not working on Star Struck deadlines or one off jobs I pick up on the side for extra income, I always feel like I should be writing something to propel my writing career. I have hundreds of incomplete drafts on my laptop and in hard copy form that I just can’t find the endings to. I write everything from romance, to horror to comedy. I think if I keep myself open to different genres, I’ll have more of an opportunity at being successful. So far, it hasn’t worked out for me.

  I just haven’t felt inspired lately and it is hard to do much of anything, let alone write, when you feel like your life is boring and dull. Seeing Ashton with that girl last night gave me the biggest spark of inspiration I have had in quite some time, making it incredibly easy to write my column in record time. Without inspiration, I’m forced to live in the past and pull stories from my sexual history, all of which I have archived neatly in my brain, but after four years of working at Star Struck and going through this agonizing dry spell, I’m running out of material.

  Everyone tells me to write what I know and what I know is sex, so this works out well when it comes to my column but when it comes to writing a narrative, I don’t know how I feel about writing something so personal. Writing under a pseudonym never sat well with me. I don’t like hiding behind the façade of someone else. I want to be held accountable for my words and if it takes off, I want to be the one riding the wave of success.

  I have tried writing erotica before and it is something that really interests me, but writing sex scenes all day long becomes so exhausting. It’s like constantly being stimulated for days on end with no release. You don’t want to masturbate because you don’t want to feel like you are masturbating to your own work. I think I’m a good writer, I just don’t think I’m that good.

  Regardless, I find myself opening up a new document draft in Word on my laptop and staring at the blinking cursor. Maybe Cris had a point last night, suggesting I write an erotica. I just don’t know where to begin.

  Then my mantra pops into my head - If you want to be a successful writer, Trish, you are going to need to start somewhere. I just don’t know where to start and I certainly don’t know how to finish. I think maybe the reason I can’t write a happy ending to a story is because I have yet to experience happiness myself.

  After spending the day lost in my thoughts, before I know it, it’s coming up on 6:00 pm and if I’m going to get to Sushi Yasuda looking half decent, I better start now. I’ll be damned if I am going to wear that little black dress one more god damn time so it’s the first thing I try to combust with my eyes. Then again, it did help to catch Ashton’s eye so maybe it wasn’t that bad after all. It did make my tits look fantastic. That’s always a bonus.

  I opt for some lacy lingerie get-up underneath another dress I have, this one red however. Then I catch myself. Dude, what are you doing? You said you weren’t going to sleep with him. You’re right, brain. You are right, but on the contrary, we both know that I am lazy and once I put something on, hell if I’m going to take it off. Besides, what if a taxi hit me? I’d like to look good half dead on the road in my Victoria’s Secret push up bra and cheeky panties than my stained Wal-Mart bra and granny panties so dear brain, fuck you very much.

  I talk to myself, a lot. I don’t think it makes me crazy though. I think it makes me more intelligent. Besides, it’s a good platform for me to practice my jokes before I actually recite them out loud. I am my own worst critic, after all.

  This red dress I got a few months ago for a Star Struck event fits me in all the right places, which again, is hard to do when you are a triple D with a 34” waist and 40” hips but it works and it works well. I take my hair out of the towel and for the most part, it has dried into this sultry Jessica Rabbit-esque wave that perfectly conceals my left eye. Perfect! I don’t have to do makeup on this eye. Talk about a time saver.

  I know I have to do it or else I’m going to have this serious Clockwork Orange thing going on and Lord knows I can’t pull that off. So, I finish up my makeup, throw on some lipstick – not literally of course, and once again, I’m out the door. Not before my entrance mirror pulls me in and forces me to take a good look at myself, something I’m not too fond of. I have done so well all day at distracting myself and trying to cope with what I am getting myself into, but this is the moment where I’m leaving home and embarking on something new and unknown – two things I don’t handle very well. Now I’m starting to get nervous and now I’m starting to have a slight freak out. I’m staring at myself in the mirror, now unhappy with my appearance and second-guessing everything. What am I doing? Why am I doing this? He’s everything I don’t want and more so why am I consciously exploring this territory that I am all too familiar with and have been hurt by before? I try to take in a deep breath and let it all out, staring at the timid girl in the mirror and trying to convince her that it is okay to take chances and it is okay to do this. It’s just an innocent dinner, after all and that’s all I will make it out to be. At least for now.

  I texted Ashton earlier in the day an address to a building that is just a few blocks down from mine, hoping to conceal the fact that I lived in a dingy apartment that I am sure the health and safety department is about to condemn at any moment now. Even though it’s not him who is picking me up directly, which is so Mr. Big of him, I want to impress him and I want him to believe that I have my life together and that I am successful. I figure if I can get inside of the building and make it look like I am exiting out of there, it will be a foolproof plan and I will look oh so smooth. Could I pull it off? Hell no.

  I’m never one for being on time so naturally, as I turn the corner to head down the block to try to execute my master plan, the black Lincoln Navigator that I know is for me, is already parked outside waiting. “Shit! Shit! Shit!” I tuck myself away into an alley to blow off some steam in the form of a kicking and swearing frenzy, before collecting myself and trying to fabricate yet another lie to try to make myself look good. Maybe there is something behind this whole being yourself notion everyone keeps talking about.

  I take a few steps towards the SUV and a petite Italian man comes out of the driver’s side door and around to greet me. “Miss Parker?”

  I nod. “That would be me.”

  “Did I pick you up at
the right location?”

  Busted. “Yes, you did. I just came from the back door.” What a terrible, terrible lie.

  He smiles and opens the rear view passenger door for me, not buying my bullshit for a second and extends a hand to help me into the car. Please buddy. If I was to step on the running board wrong and fall over, guaranteed I’d crush you instantly. I accept the kind gesture though and slide myself into the back.

  The driver, or Jeeves as I have already named him, gets back into his seat and turns around to greet me. “Good evening, Miss Parker. My name is Edwin and I will be driving you to your appointment at Sushi Yasuda with Ashton Croft. Shall we?”

  Appointment? What? Am I his 8 o’clock and then before I know it, another girl is going to come in and finish the job off for me? I don’t know if Edwin got lost in a little translation there or if Ashton told him that word. Maybe it’s a cover up for the public’s sake and even Edwin can’t be trusted? Maybe he is just confused or maybe, Ashton is the conventional asshole I thought he was when I first laid eyes on him? Either way, I’m in too deep, probably over thinking it due to nerves and there is no turning back now, as Edwin shifts the SUV into first and away we go.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The drive to Sushi Yasuda isn’t long but it’s long enough for me to want to press the panic switch to get out of this situation because I’ve psyched myself out. I’m Tricia Parker: lonely sex columnist for a celebrity gossip magazine. I live in a shoebox, am slightly overweight and sometimes, I consider myself a hermit. I don’t shower that often, I don’t make that much money and although I do credit myself to having great eyes, great lips and big hair, I’m certainly far from gorgeous. What does he see in me?

  My confidence, I credit to my mother. She’s a no-holds-barred kind of woman herself. She tells it like it is and she’s brutally honest. If I woke up looking like shit in the morning, she would tell me. If I did something she didn’t like, she would tell me. Her approach hurt sometimes, but when she did compliment me and when she did tell me that she was proud of me, I knew she meant it.