by Toby Neal
That’s why I love this room, which is much too pink everywhere else.
Something terrible happened yesterday. That’s why I feel like I’ve been twisted and squeezed through an old fashioned washing machine. My throat is scratchy and sore, and my nose is stuffy. I’m sick, I realize, and I’m sick at heart, too, because I finally remember that Magnus broke up with me and has gone somewhere. I can’t even contact him for two years.
Two years is an eternity. Two years ago, I was an innocent sixteen-year-old who’d hardly been kissed. Now? I don’t even want to try to define what I am. And I have no idea who I will be, where I will be, or even what I will be doing, in two more years.
Where could he have gone? Some sort of military duty? He just doesn’t seem the military type, with that long hair, all those earrings in one ear, all that leather. A spy? He seems too... rule breaking, rebellious, rough-edged. But maybe he’s like James Bond. Going undercover in a foreign country, living among the natives.
I indulge in a brief fantasy of Magnus in the robes of a desert sheikh, with nothing on underneath. Or perhaps in South America, wearing nothing but tribal markings and a loincloth. Maybe he’s in the jungles of Colombia, carrying a machine gun and wearing fatigues. He could pull off any of those looks easily and blend with the population.
But it doesn’t matter what I imagine he’s doing. He hasn’t told me, and I can’t keep in touch. Do I really want to try to wait two years for a man who told me that we weren’t right for each other?
The answer’s yes. An unequivocal yes. I’ve never felt about anyone like I have for Magnus. Call me crazy, because I hardly know the guy. He made sure I hardly knew him. But there’s something about him I’ll never, ever forget, even if I never see him again.
But do I have the willpower? I’ve never shown much willpower before. I’ve been someone who bounced from temptation to temptation. Someone who hasn’t taken my sobriety seriously, or even been willing to admit I really had a problem.
But I get it now. And I’ve been given marching orders from Melissa. Break up with Brandon, and no men.
Focus on work.
That should be easy with Magnus gone, and maybe it will be enough to keep me on the straight and narrow for two years.
Two. Years.
I’m crying again.
The breakup with Brandon is two-stage. First, a phone call telling him there’s someone else and I can’t see him anymore, sniffling and sneezing through the really terrible cold I’ve picked up on my travels. I do this with convincing acting ability and even some tears, because there IS someone else... Just not someone I can be with, either.
As I suspected he would, Brandon shows up at the house the next day. With flowers. I meet him in my robe and slippers, with a pocketful of tissues. I look as horrific as I ever have.
“Oh Brandon, no.” I wave away his attempt to hug me. “I’m germy. Listen, I’ve fallen for someone. Like I told you. And I need to focus on work.”
His golden-hazel eyes are fixed on my face, intent, but not angry. “Who?”
His eyes remind me unnervingly of Melissa, and that she’s going to fire me and cut me off from any work in the industry if he doesn’t believe what I say. And as challenging as it is, I already love modeling.
“You don’t know him. It got started before I met you.” Well, it did—I spotted Hot Motorcycle Guy in the twelve-step meeting the first time I went, and that preceded the mugging at the park that brought Brandon to my rescue, and into my life.
“We can take a break. I could tell you were iffy about going out with me in Italy.” Brandon ignores my comments and takes my hand. We sit on the bottom step of the sweeping staircase.
“I mean it. Really. I can’t see you anymore.” My nose and eyes start running. “I have to go.” I yank my hand away and run up the stairs and back to bed.
I hear the murmur of voices as Mrs. Knightly lets him back out. I don’t know if that’s the last I’m going to see of him, but it’s a start.
Here goes the rest of my man-free life.
I cry myself to sleep again.
Chapter 21
Ruby wakes me up much later with a tray loaded with soup and tea. She sits on the end of the bed, and doesn’t leave after I sit up and start slurping.
She loops her arms around her knees. Her little pregnancy belly is still small enough that she can get away with that, and she leans her chin on her knees as she watches me eat.
“What’s going on, Pearl? Spill. It’s time for us to get caught up.”
Ruby and I used to be close. Well, as close as you could be with a four-year age gap. And even though I knew it was what she had to do, truth was I never really forgave her for leaving me on Saint Thomas, going away to college, and getting married after her freshman year.
Things might have turned out a whole lot different for me if Ruby hadn’t left.
Even so, I know it’s not fair to blame her. Ruby always had a dream for herself—to live somewhere far away and different from sleepy Saint Thomas, and to be a lawyer. And she made it happen, and along the way, snagged one of the most amazing men on the planet.
I wish I could hate her for it, but she’s shared everything she has, up to and including her home. I’m not a planner like she is. I take things as they come. I seem to have been lucky to fall into modeling and be good at it, and I like it. It’s a good thing because I can’t see myself getting all passionate about school and doing a career that takes years and years to build.
“Italy was good,” I say, sipping my tea, deciding how much to tell.
“More is going on than Italy.” Ruby’s green eyes drill at me. She uses them to get her clients to tell all their illegal secrets, and I can feel them working.
“I have man problems.”
“This is news?”
We both erupt in snorts of laughter. She crawls over and takes the tray off my lap, snuggles beside me, stroking my hair off my forehead. “You’re crying more than I’ve ever seen you cry. Even when Dad died.”
I can’t tell her what really happened when Dad died. Ruby adored Dad and was his favorite daughter. She’d never forgive me if she knew, and I feel my belly tighten at the mere idea of her finding out. But I can tell part of the truth. Connor told me once, “If you lie, mix it with truth and keep the story simple. Tell your version and don’t budge from it. The part that’s truth helps you believe it, and if you believe it, others will.”
Connor, with his wide streak of darkness, was right.
“Now that I’m sober and taking my program more seriously I’m able to really grieve for Dad,” I say. “I didn’t let myself feel it, before. And having man problems seems to have brought it all up. I’ve really fallen for Magnus, and he’s gone somewhere for two years. I can’t even keep in touch. And I have to break up with Brandon. Melissa’s orders.”
I tell her the details, and the thought of not seeing Magnus makes me cry again. “Two years. It might as well be an eternity.”
“Aw, Pearl. You just aren’t used to delayed gratification.” Ruby keeps stroking me, and it reminds me of Mom. I miss her, and I regret what a bitch I was to her when we parted ways in Saint Thomas after I refused to go with her to Eureka. I haven’t even talked with her on the phone in three months.
I’m a bad daughter. Bad in a whole lot of ways. “I need to call Mom and apologize. I’ve been awful to her and she never deserved it.”
Ruby’s stroking hand pauses on my brow. “Now I know you’re sick.”
We both giggle a little.
“Do you like Brandon? Is it worth getting fired to keep seeing him?”
“I do really like him. But not enough to get fired for it.”
“What about Magnus?”
A pause. I sigh. “I wish I felt about Brandon the way I do about Magnus. Then there wouldn’t be a question.”
Ruby sighs too. “So you’re going on a man vacation. I did that too, and it was an important time in my life.” She tells me the story of the situat
ion she briefly described before, about how she ended up in a relationship with three guys at the same time. How she had to put them all on hold and sort it out.
“It was worth it in the end. I made the right choice.”
“Rafe was definitely the right choice for you,” I say. “But two years? Even if I thought I was capable of that, it still might not work out. Magnus could reject me like he already has.”
“But you’ll be more mature. More ready for a real relationship. Solid in your sobriety. Established in your career, whether that turns out to be modeling or something else. A two-year man vacation is just what the doctor ordered. After all, I was a virgin until Rafe and I got married so I didn’t get into too much trouble with it all, though it was awful at the time. You, on the other hand...”
I grab a handful of her hair and give a yank. “How much harder to give up sex, knowing what I’m missing!” I groan. “But unless I want to give up working with the Melissa Agency, I don’t have much of a choice.”
“You always have a choice,” Ruby says. “Being trapped is an illusion.”
“You’re better than Dr. Rosenfeld. Ever considered hanging out a shingle as a counselor?”
“That’s what they call us lawyers,” Ruby grins. “Counselor.”
“So, any idea how to get over Magnus?”
“Work. Lots of work. Going to the gym. Staying busy. And masturbation.”
“Ew! You didn’t just say that.” I feel my cheeks flame. I’m already learning a bit more about that than I ever imagined.
“I did, and I stand by it. Tomorrow, back to work and your meetings. I also set up an appointment with Dr. Rosenfeld. You can hash all this out with her.”
When the cold eventually runs its course, I get on with my man vacation.
I check in with Melissa each day. Go on shoots, attend sobriety meetings. Fend off Brandon until he seems to give up. Go to workouts to keep my new, leaner figure nicely honed and toned. Spend time with Valley exploring my triggers to use drugs, which we identify as rejection, abandonment, and feeling like I failed.
I recap all that to Dr. Rosenfeld, and eventually graduate from going to her.
I never tell anyone but Magnus about what happened to Dad. There are just some things too terrible to ever be told again.
I finally get my first paycheck after three months. Even after Melissa takes her cut, it’s enormous. Rafe and Ruby want me to put it in investments, or to save for college “after your career” which is a nice way of saying when I’m too old and ugly for modeling.
I decide to buy my own motorcycle instead.
Valley takes me to the Harley dealer, where I get to try riding the bike on a stanchion and get a brief lesson in gearing and driving. It only takes five minutes for me to determine that this is definitely how I want to get around. Well, maybe not in the dead of winter, which it is right now.
I pay cash for the bike, but I don’t know how to ride yet and the snow is swirling down. Valley talks me into renting a storage unit to park the snazzy blue Superlow in until spring, and in the meantime she’ll take me out when she has time, and teach me to ride.
I hug the delicious secret to myself as I work on my high school correspondence courses, go to shoots and meetings. I know Rafe and Ruby will shit a brick when they find out; better to keep it secret until I know how to ride and am ready and able to use the bike for my transportation.
Spring rolls around, and by then I’ve begun international travel again. Amsterdam. The Bahamas. Even, memorably, Paris, where I’m part of a new runway show that’s lingerie only.
We’re all dressed as fairies, with different kinds of wings. I wear a tiny hot pink demi-bra and thong panties, and it’s so outrageous and so little coverage there’s nothing to do but work it hard.
I’ve been practicing my runway prance, a sort of combination of cha-cha hip swing with an arrogant stomp, and I go into that faraway mental place where I’m not me, I’m the idea of me: all Rapunzel hair, hourglass curves and long legs, striding that runway like the otherworldly creature they’ve made me.
I meet real supermodels there: Kate, Naomi, Linda, Christy and Claudia are all there, and I can’t believe that I, the hick from Saint Thomas, am in such company. It’s terrifying and heady and intimidating, and I deal with it by pretending I’m just the idea of me, and it doesn’t matter.
Because, in some weird way, it doesn’t matter. This bizarre career happened as a twist of fate, and it can be over just as easily. In a way it has nothing to do with me. I’m not responsible for the genes that made me tall and what others have decided is beautiful.
The part that does matter is the discipline I’m learning. Keeping regular sleeping hours. Taking care of my skin and hair. Working out. Staying clean and sober. No parties, no men, and only a few friends: Megan, Kayla, Valley, and my sister Ruby.
After the big show in Paris, they give us gauzy robes to wear and we mingle with all the bigwigs who came to the show in an afterparty. Rafe and Ruby have taken the private jet to Paris to support me. Looking amazing in tux and evening gown, they attend and both give me congratulations.
My hair is woven with tiny, battery-operated silver lights that pulse randomly, and I’m covered with so much body glitter every movement sparkles, but at least I got the wings off so I could cover up with the robe.
“We brought you a present,” Ruby says. “It’s a birthday present from us and Mom. Happy nineteen, Pearl.” My birthday happened today, but we were too busy with the show to even sing happy birthday.
Standing next to the champagne fountain I open the small gold box.
I open the box, feeling terrible that I still haven’t so much as called Mom. The more time goes by, the harder it is to break down the distance between us. Inside the box is a glowing baroque pearl the size of the pad of my thumb, on a lengthy snake chain.
“Oh, how beautiful.” I put it on, touching it as it dangles between my breasts, feeling sadness in the midst of gratitude. My life is so strange, now, and yet I wouldn’t have it any other way—except that Magnus would be in it. “Thank you.”
“It’s time for a whole family visit to Eureka,” Ruby says. She and Rafe have brought my tiny nephew, baby Peter, with them in the jet. “Mom and Jade need to meet Peter. We got time off for you, a whole week, and we’re all going to California after this.”
“You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to get you that time off.” Rafe flexes his jaw, blue eyes hard. “Melissa thinks she owns you.”
“She kind of does,” I murmur. “But a visit sounds good. I need to see Mom.”
And then Naomi shimmies up to me, a graceful Amazon in ridiculous gold platforms. “I hear there’s a birthday girl in the house!” She drags me off onto the dance floor.
Chapter 22
The plane might be a jet, but it still takes extensive time to get from France to Eureka, California. We pass the time playing cards while Peter is sleeping (which is often) and taking naps ourselves. Baby Peter is adorable, a soft bundle with dark hair and blue eyes, and he sleeps a lot, which Ruby assures me is what month-old babies do. She’s taken to motherhood like a pro, but then there isn’t anything I’ve come across that Ruby can’t do well.
I realize, waking up from my second nap, that it’s already almost been six months since Magnus disappeared, and the time’s actually going pretty fast. Ruby’s in the living room area of the jet with its padded seating area nursing baby Peter, so I pull my brother-in law aside.
“Rafe, I want to find someone. I can pay.”
He lowers his brows. They’re very dark, and his eyes very blue, so it’s somehow a scary effect. “What for?”
I blow out a breath. “Remember Magnus? The motorcycle guy?”
“Who could forget that little chapter in the misadventures of Pearl Michaels?”
“Hey. He was a good guy, and now... he’s disappeared. I’m worried about him.” I don’t want to tell Rafe that Magnus dumped me like yesterday’s garbage. “He introduced me t
o Valley and got her hooked up as my sponsor, and then just—dropped out of circulation. I want to make sure he’s okay.”
Rafe stares at me. I can tell he’s not buying it.
I sigh again.
“Okay. Magnus left for some reason. He said he was going to be gone for two years and that I couldn’t keep in touch. I want to find out where he went.”
“Shouldn’t you take the hint?” Rafe says, no longer scary. Gentle, now. “He’s not into you.”
I shake my head. “No. Yes. It’s complicated. He’s into me, he just thinks he’s too old for me, and then he had this mysterious thing to do for two years. Didn’t want me to wait for him.”
Another penetrating stare from Rafe. “When a guy says goodbye, it’s usually over, Pearl. I know you’re not used to having that experience, but I’m starting to like Magnus now that you told me he said he’s too old for you. I agree.”
“You’re eight years older than Ruby, and look how well that turned out. Just because I’m young doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” I’m hissing now, because Rafe’s a hypocrite and he knows it. “Never mind. Forget I asked you for help. I’ll find him myself.”
“You can do that. But it won’t make two years go by any faster,” Rafe says. He sits back, rubs his hands together, looks at them a moment, glances at me. “So you’re serious about this guy?”
“Yes. I. . .” It’s hard to put into words the effect Magnus has on me. How he’s got under my skin. I’m not sure, because it’s never happened before, but only one word I know describes how I feel. “I think I might love him.”
Saying it feels surprisingly good.
“What do you know about him?”
