Away From the Spotlight

by Tamara Carlisle

  I looked up, smiled, and kissed him, letting him know my answer.

  Eventually, we got out of bed, he showered, and he drove me back to my place so that I could shower and change. We left my car at his house, planning on returning later in the day.

  I lived in a large apartment complex with a ground-floor garage. I had Will park in my space. As I entered my apartment, I was thankful that it was clean. My sister and I had really had at it the weekend before.

  When Will walked into the living room, he looked over at me in confusion. “This doesn’t look much like the apartment of a starving student.”

  My apartment was well-decorated and didn’t reflect the students that lived there. To the left of the front door was a fully-stocked kitchen. There was a nice oak dining table and matching chairs in the dinette area. On the other side of that, I had a red velvet sofa with a framed hunting print hanging over it, matching chair and ottoman, formal end tables with elegant lamps on them, a 32-inch LCD TV hanging over a formal buffet, and a large clock hanging on the wall over the fake fireplace.

  “It’s what happens when your parents move from Orange County into a smaller place in the Bay Area. My sister and I inherited some of the furniture.”

  My sister was in the Bay Area for the weekend, visiting her boyfriend and making arrangements to move up there. She wouldn’t be back until the evening. I left Will at the dining table with my iPod. After our various conversations about music, I figured he would want to see what I had on it.

  I entered my bedroom, which was crowded with all the furniture in it. I had a small low poster bed on the wall to the right of the door with a highboy dresser on the far side of it and a lowboy dresser on the near side of it. On the wall across from the door near the window was my desk with a computer on it. The dressing area and sink were part of the room across from the bed, with a walk-in closet to the left and the toilet and shower in a separate room on the right. I had prints of Paris all over the walls of my room. Although they had been cheap prints that I had bought in Paris on a summer trip when I was in college, my mother had framed them nicely with Wedgwood blue mats. My bedding was also Wedgwood blue as was the shade on the lamp next to the bed.

  I quickly showered with the door to my room closed. I dried off and managed to put on my underwear, jeans and a bra before I heard a knock at the door.

  “May I come in?” Will asked.

  “I’m not dressed yet,” I replied.

  “Good,” he said as he walked into the room toward me, eyes smoldering. He backed me onto my bed and said, “We’ve christened my bedroom already. It’s time we christen yours.”

  By the time we finally made it out of my apartment, it was late afternoon and I was starving. I had definitely had a work out today. I knew that I would be saddle-sore the next day.

  “Where are we going, may I ask? And please tell me there is food involved,” I said when we got in the car.

  “I wouldn’t want you to waste away. I like your curves. I am open to your suggestion.”

  We ended up at a well-known Mexican restaurant, a USC hangout, not far from where I lived. At this time of day, it wasn’t very crowded and we managed to get a booth in the back. Will sat facing away from the entrance. It wasn’t green corn tamale season yet, which was a disappointment, but the restaurant was known for having the best margaritas in town.

  I think Will had been hanging around with too many Brits because he said, “Despite the fact that I’ve spent a bit of time here in L.A., I haven’t had a whole lot of Mexican food,” Will said after we were seated in the booth.

  “I’m surprised. There’s another one of these restaurants in Santa Monica. They have the best margaritas in the world.”

  We ordered a pitcher of margaritas on the rocks and I helped him order something that I thought he might like, considering he was a novice at Mexican food. I worried that he wouldn’t like it, but when the food came, I saw his surprise in realizing that it was good. I don’t know whether I had completely sold Will on Mexican food yet, but he definitely enjoyed the margaritas.

  “Be careful,” I said. “I have a hollow leg and these manage to floor me.” I paused to sip my margarita and continued with a little embarrassment, “You know, despite the fact that I have now slept with you, I realize that I don’t even know your last name.”

  Will stared into my eyes as he answered hesitantly, “MacKenzie.” He seemed to like whatever he saw in them and smiled.

  “Will MacKenzie. Mine is Sutherland.” I felt a little better as if I had slept with less of a stranger, knowing his last name.

  “Nice to know you, Shannon Sutherland.” He smiled brightly as he said this and I almost swooned. He had used the phrase “nice to know you” rather than “nice to meet you” as if he understood my discomfort and was trying to make us seem better acquainted than we actually were.

  When dinner was finished, we headed out to Santa Monica to Callaghan’s on Main Street. The plan was to meet Stephen, Colin and their girlfriends there to see the usual Irish band that played on Sunday nights.

  We parked around the corner from the pub and, when we arrived at its entrance, there was no line to get inside. Despite that fact, it was crowded inside and Stephen met us at the door. Stephen put his arm around my shoulder and escorted me past the long bar to the right and line of tables and booths to the left. We walked all the way to the back of the pub to the last booth against the back wall that faced to the side of the band that was playing loudly.

  Will followed and I could see intermittent stares as we passed by women interspersed throughout the pub. I certainly could understand how Will’s good looks would attract a lot of attention, but this seemed a bit much.

  Stephen climbed into the crescent-shaped booth and I scooted in after him. Will sat down on the end next to me, facing the back wall of the pub.

  Gemma had made it home from England and I was introduced. There was no way any of us could hear a thing over the music coming from about twenty feet away from us. Colin therefore was speaking into her ear. Gemma smiled brightly and waved pleasantly.

  From what I could see behind the table in the booth, Gemma was a very petite girl with pale medium-length hair and blue eyes. Colin could not take his eyes off of her, so obviously happy was he to have her back in L.A. All I could think of was that she must be exhausted after such a long trip. Nevertheless, she didn’t appear so.

  As the music played wildly, Will stroked the inside of my right thigh over my jeans with the fingers of his left hand. I crossed my right hand under his and started to do the same to his left thigh. He abruptly grabbed my hand and squeezed it tight.

  “If you continue to do that,” he said in my ear in a very husky voice, “I will not be able to get up from this table for a while.”

  “You started it,” I replied, giggling a little. “Besides, if you continue, I don’t know that my reaction will be any less obvious.”

  “Considering your reaction earlier today, I guess I can believe that.” He gave me an evil smile and winked.

  Feeling a little flushed after that exchange, I got up to go to the bathroom. As Will got up to let me out, he continued to face the wall.

  There was the typical line to get in the ladies’ room and I had to stand there for quite a while. Since the music was loud even in here, I could hear only pieces of various conversations around me. “Did you see who’s here tonight?” “Oh my God, he is so gorgeous!” “Do you think he’ll walk by us again?” I wondered who they were talking about briefly, but then decided that I didn’t care. I was quite happy with my date.

  We left Callaghan’s before the music stopped. Gemma grabbed my hand and led me through the crowd. Will followed to the rear of all of us. Again, there were intermittent stares behind me as our group wound its way out of the pub. When we got outside, it was pretty empty as it was fairly late. We walked back to the cars, both parked in the same general area.

  On the way to Will’s house and my car, Will grabbed my hand and p
leaded, “Don’t go home tonight. Stay with me.”

  Not that I didn’t want to with every fiber of my being, but I said, notwithstanding, “I have early classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays so I can work in the afternoons on those days. I don’t think I should.”

  Will was silent for the rest of the short duration of the trip back to the house, likely trying to figure out a way to change my mind. I didn’t require too much convincing. When we got out of the car and entered his room to get my things, he kissed me passionately and I caved in quickly.

  Chapter Five

  I set the alarm on my cell phone on low volume for 5:45 a.m. I awoke with a start when it went off after only a few hours of sleep. The alarm didn’t seem to disturb Will. I crept quietly out of the house and was on the road toward my side of town before the worst of morning traffic. Nonetheless, I barely managed to get home, shower quickly, and get to class just before the lecture commenced. I had Constitutional Law II from 8-to-9:30 a.m. and Criminal Procedure from 10:30-to-Noon on Mondays and Wednesdays.

  I found it difficult to concentrate in my first class as I was exhausted and daydreaming about the weekend’s events. Luckily, my Constitutional Law professor made it very easy to catch the key elements of his lecture since his practice was to repeat those elements at least three times and write them on the board at the front of the class.

  Between classes, I nodded off on one of the sofas at the back of the Law Center briefly, but awoke when I heard a beep on my cell phone, indicating I had a text message.

  It was from Will. “I didn’t like waking up w/out u here. Miss u already.”

  I replied, “Me 2. 2nite?”

  The horribly disappointing message came back quickly, “I have nite mtgs Mon-Wed. Thurs? My place? 7?”

  I was so upset, my response was brief. “K.”

  Despite the fact that I was pretty agitated, I managed to pay attention in Criminal Procedure. My professor was hilarious, cracking jokes about “perps” throughout the lecture and telling stories about his time working with the FBI.

  After class, I went through my normal routine of grabbing a salad and an iced tea from the Campus Center on my way to my car to drive the few miles up the road to my office in Downtown L.A.

  As a law clerk, I didn’t have parking in the building and had to park in a lot a few blocks down the street. I was looking forward to being an official attorney in the firm and being able to park in the building although, when that came to pass, my car was definitely in need of an upgrade. It would look sad next to all the Mercedes, BMWs, and expensive sports cars in that garage.

  I arrived at the office and barely managed to turn on my computer before I was confronted by the two associates who teased me before I left the office on Friday night.

  “So?” Max asked suggestively.

  John was silent, but it was clear that he wanted to hear my answer.

  Had he been single, John was the one I would have been interested in as he was the tall, dark and Irish type, though nowhere near as good-looking as Will. His shy and brooding nature had always peaked my interest.

  “When do you ever give me details about your dates?” I asked defiantly.

  “Ours aren’t new and exciting like yours. We’ve both been with our girlfriends for years.” Max replied. “Besides, we’re just watching out for you. We know how bad men can be,” he added with a mischievous smile.

  “I’m not saying a word to the two of you.”

  I sat at my computer and pretended to start to get to work. Seeing that they weren’t going to get anything juicy, the two of them returned to their offices a few doors down from mine. The day dragged on and on.

  I got home from work to find my sister back from the Bay Area. The only similarities between the two of us were the color of our eyes and the fact that we both had Irish first names. Kelly was tall, dark-haired, and tan. She wasn’t as intelligent and intense as I was and I wasn’t as extroverted as she was. At this moment, however, Kelly didn’t say much other than “hello” as she was excitedly trying to get a head start on packing for her move after graduation. She was anxious to lose the long-distance part of her relationship with her boyfriend, Matt.

  I flopped down on my bed with my Real Estate Transactions textbook and attempted to read. It was impossible. I kept thinking about how I was going to make it to Thursday.

  At about nine o’clock, I heard a beep on my phone. The message from Will read, “Still @ work. Missing u. Get some rest & get ur strength back – for Thurs ;-).”

  I don’t know how he expected me to get any sleep anticipating that.

  My response back was, “Miss u2. Promise I’ll b ready 4 u Thurs.” Let him think about what I mean by “ready.”

  Tuesdays and Thursdays were much shorter days for me. I had the lecture portion of Trial Advocacy from 11-to-Noon and Real Estate Transactions from 1:30-to-3 p.m. I didn’t work on those days and was grateful that I could dress more casually and comfortably.

  At three on Tuesdays, I met with Nell, my Trial Advocacy Partner, to prepare for our Friday performance class. This week, we were practicing closing arguments for our “real-world” case involving a car hitting a pedestrian, who may or may not have been in a crosswalk at the time. We were on the defense side, arguing that the pedestrian suddenly had darted out in the street and had not been in the crosswalk when she was struck by the car.

  Nell was a very quiet Asian woman a few years older than me. She was very intelligent, but insecure about her public speaking ability. I spent a good part of the time convincing her that she was doing a good job on her mock closing argument. We both practiced in front of each other and tweaked our arguments as we found good things the other had included in her argument.

  I was home by five-thirty and was not in the mood to study. I decided to distract myself by calling my friend Pam to discuss our trip to Europe after my Bar Exam.

  Pam was one of my best friends from college. She and I were of the same relative gene pool. Pam was of Irish and Welsh descent whereas I was of Scottish and English descent. We both had red hair and freckles, but her hair was more of an orange-red and her skin more peachy-brown colored as opposed to my auburn hair and pinkish skin tone. She also was very slim with more of a dancer’s body. I was fairly slender, but had more of an hourglass shape. The two of us already had turned heads in Europe on a previous trip after graduating from college. There was something about two redheads together that caught people’s attention.

  Pam was graduating from the Master’s Program at USC and I was graduating from the Law School. Since neither of us had yet entered the workforce formally, unlike most of our friends, we were able to travel for several weeks.

  As with the last trip, I acted as the planner. I loved to research and study potential places to visit. Despite all the planning and effort, our last trip did not feel overly scheduled and I hoped that this trip would feel the same way.

  “Are you getting excited about the trip? We’ve got less than four months to get it together,” I told Pam on the phone, making it sound like it was a very short period of time.

  “I’ve called Jane and she says that we can stay with her in London on the front and back ends of our trip. And, of course, we can stay with Alex’s brother in Athens.”

  Alex was Pam’s Greek boyfriend, also a student in the Master’s Program at USC. Part of his family lived in the U.S. and part in Greece.

  “It sounds like I just need to plan what’s in between then. Any preferences?”

  “Not really. Oh wait! Ireland would be fun! We haven’t been there. I just don’t want to be on trains all the time if we can help it.”

  “I’ll see what I can map out.” England to Ireland to Greece and back with a Eurail Pass for three of the six weeks we would be there. It was going to take all my planning ability to get that accomplished.

  After a long talk about various possibilities, I was tired enough to try to sleep. Just as I was about to crawl into bed, I received another text
message from Will.

  “Just wanted 2 say good nite. Wish I could b there w/u.”

  My reply was immediate. “Me 2. Hope ur mtgs r going well. C u Thurs. Good nite.”

  Rachael and I initially had tentative plans to go out on Thursday, but since I had plans to see Will that night, she agreed to move it back to Wednesday.

  The Royalist was less crowded on a Wednesday night than it was Thursday-through-Sunday, but there still was a good-sized crowd. Rachael and I headed to our favorite spot at the high table near the pub’s entrance. It was Rachael’s turn to buy the round of drinks for the night.

  Since I was now together with Will, or at least I assumed so, I really had no interest in meeting anyone. Despite this fact and maybe because of it, I seemed to be more popular than normal. Rachael was usually the one who drew a crowd around us on any given night. Tonight, it seemed to be me. There was no effort on my part whatsoever. I was dressed down, wearing black jeans and a simple black top, and did not take a lot of care with my appearance. I made no attempt to flirt with anyone and, in fact, did not go out of my way to talk to anyone. It reminded me of how a cat always manages to rub up against the one person in a room who either doesn’t like cats or is allergic. Tonight, I was the allergic person in a room full of cats. I had no interest in meeting anyone so, of course, I was like a magnet. Where were they all a week ago?

  “What is the deal?” I leaned over and asked Rachael at one point.

  “I don’t know. You seem different tonight. Happier, maybe. A little more lively than normal. You kind of glow. You sure you weren’t with Will today?”

  “I haven’t seen him since I left him sleeping Monday morning to get to class.” I probably sounded glum as I said this.

  “Well, whatever it is, don’t lose it. This is fun. The quality of our entourage seems to have improved tonight.”

  Although I did notice this, I responded, “Like I care.”

  “You may not, but I do. Besides, you should stay open to it. You’ve only known Will less than a week. A weekend together does not a relationship make. I ought to know.”