by Anna Jeffrey
I tiptoed back into the bedroom where I shrugged into my blazer and stuffed my stockings into my pocket. I found a hotel notepad and pen. He didn’t stir. I returned to the bathroom and wrote a quick note.
After reading it, I didn’t like it. I strained my tired brain for something witty and sexy and wrote a second note. I tore it up, too. God, he had fucked me senseless. “Damn,” I whispered. “Get your wits about you, Miranda.”
I shook my head to clear it and wrote a third note:
Have to get home and get ready for this afternoon’s open house. You were wonderful last night. Not quite a dozen, but the one long one made up for the shortfall.
I ended it with a smiley face.
From my purse, I dug out a business card that had my cell number and my home office number. If he called me at either number, if I didn’t answer, he would get my voice mail where he could leave a message. I laid my note and my card on top of his toiletries bag.
Then, rather than flush the toilet again, I gathered the pieces of the torn-up notes and stuffed them into my blazer pocket, too. Carrying my purse and shoes, I eased through the doorway and pulled the heavy door closed behind me. In the hallway, I slipped on my shoes without stockings and made my way to the elevators. My feet and ankles were so sore from yesterday, I was almost limping.
While I had never awakened in a hotel room with a strange man, at least I wasn’t in a totally strange place. I knew how to get home. On a Sunday morning at 5:30, freeway traffic was light, giving my mind an opportunity to sort all that had happened in the past twenty-four hours.
I’d had moments in which I pondered how life could change in the blink of an eye. I had experienced a dozen of those moments the past day. This time yesterday morning, I’d had no idea I would meet a man good-looking beyond description and rich to boot or that he would be so skilled, so in tune with my body and my desires that he would take me to an ecstasy I hadn’t known existed.
I also was aware of something about myself that was new. Yesterday, I knew I was naïve about sex. Today, I realized just how naïve. I had chattered with various girlfriends about men and sex uncountable times. Girl talk about men was what single girls did. We, or I should say, they joked about BJs, G-spots and a dozen other sex-related topics. One thing stood out in my memory. They talked about how hard it was to find a guy good at mind-blowing sex and how after they had found one, they were reluctant to let him go, even if he was far from perfect or even abusive
My girlfriends could have talked all day and never imparted what I had learned with Tack overnight. The emotion, the physical feeling—both were indescribable. I felt like a deflowered virgin all over again. I doubted sex would ever be the same with anyone.
Tack’s words echoed through my memory....I love your hair…. I love how you smell…. I love how you taste…. It’s better to engage on more than one level….
Had I been engaged on more than one level? Had he? It had felt as if we both were.
My thoughts did a one-eighty and Donald and his ineptness in bed barged into my mind. I was twenty-five years old the first time I had slept with him and he was five years older. Until then, I’d had sex with exactly four people and no one of them had come close to what I’d read about in books. In the beginning, Donald, or I should say ‘we,’ had been clumsy. I hadn’t known what his previous experience had been. Still didn’t. Looking back on it, at thirty years old, it seemed that he should have known more about pleasing a partner than he did.
Over time, he, or we, had become adequate in bed, but on Donald’s best days he hadn’t compared to Tack Tackett. Part of it, without question, was emotional. Simply put, I had never been in love with Donald. I had stumbled into a physically committed relationship with him, but I had never seen him as my dream man, something I couldn’t say about Tack Tackett.
My inner voice berated me. Dream man? You are so dumb! You cannot let yourself get emotionally invested in a man you’ll never see again.
“But I will see him,” I said to the air around me. “I left him my phone number. He’ll call.”
Phone calls. Crap. Lisa’s call of yesterday morning took over my musing. I couldn’t rely on her to see that Mom got back on that medication. I stepped back into reality and started to think about the trip I had to make to West Texas.
Mom. I sighed, as I always did when it came to her. My eyes misted. My love for her was more like mother and child than daughter and mother. I couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been a burden, either directly in front of my face or indirectly lurking in the back of my mind. Even when I was a little kid, more often than not, I had been forced to be the adult in the room. To this day, I felt guilty for leaving her and for leaving Lisa.
When I was sixteen, Mom married, Husband #3, Richard Garland, an overbearing brute of a man I had both feared and hated. Richard had moved Mom and Lisa to Abilene, but I stayed in Roundup with my grandmother. At that point, Grandma had started pushing me to save myself.
Mom’s marriage to Richard hadn’t lasted long. A year later, she and Lisa were back, bringing the chaos that always accompanied my mother.
The year that followed that was a fateful year. My grandmother passed from a sudden heart attack, leaving everything she owned in a trust for my mother’s benefit. Her estate hadn’t been large—a little bit of cash in the bank, her house, an aging Cadillac and a few acres of farmland leased for cotton. I graduated from high school that year and left Roundup the day after graduation. A few months later, Mom married Darrel Jones, an old high school friend who had become a second-rate lawyer. It had taken him and Mom no time to break my grandmother’s trust and take ownership of her assets.
By the time her marriage to Darrel ended, all Mom had left was Grandma’s old house and an aged Cadillac.
Indeed, I might have left her and Lisa, but I hadn’t escaped. For the ten years I had been gone, I had still dealt by long distance with Mom and her problems—her highs and lows, a new marriage to Husband #4, then said husband divorcing her. As for Husband #5, no one even knew she had married him until after she had already done it.
Would I ever be able to escape? I had asked myself the question a thousand times. Where Mom and indirectly, Lisa, were concerned, I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel. At the same time I had those thoughts, I also recognized that I enabled them both, and even Arnie. But I didn’t know how to stop. They needed me.
Their needs frequently had come between Donald and me. The mess that was the relationship I tried to have with him finally became as much my fault as his. Had he cheated because he sought relief from the pressure that my family brought to my doorstep? Was someone less encumbered than I was easier for him to be with?
So if the answers to those questions was “yes,” he hadn’t really loved me and it was just as well that he was out of my life.
Could any man have the tolerance to put up with me and my family? Though an answer to the question had never come, I had learned one thing from the experience with Donald. I could never again allow a man I cared about to get involved with my family.
My thoughts veered back to Tack Tackett and a long string of “even ifs.” Even if Tack were a guy who could care about me...even if Lisa got a job or found a husband…yada, yada, yada. Then there was Mom’s illness itself. Bipolar disorder had a genetic component. Even if I didn’t suffer from it myself, my kids, if I ever had any, could. How selfish would I be to risk that?
Meaningless sex. One-night stands. Dead-end hookups. Was that all there was out there for me?
Mental groan. All of it was depressing and confusing, a conversation not good for much except passing the time as I drove up the freeway.
When I reached my condo, Miss Kitty was waiting for me by the front door. “Hi, pretty girl,” I said to her, gingerly squatting to rub her head. “Have you missed me?”
She gave me a long-suffering meow.
“I know I’ve been bad, baby. I didn’t give you supper last night, did I?”
I loved this scruffy orange and white cat. I loved her so much I had captured her a few months ago, stuffed her into a cat carrier and hauled her to a vet to be spayed and I routinely bought her an expensive collar so she wouldn’t become flea infested and suffer from one of those flea-borne illnesses. I even bought her the most expensive cat food that was supposed to be healthier. I wished I could make a pet of her. Sometimes I had been able to coax her into the house. She walked in, sniffed or brushed against everything and explored, then wanted to go back outside.
“It was chilly last night,” I said as I unlocked my front door. “Where did you sleep, baby? You see, if you’d come live with me, you’d always have a warm place to sleep.”
The cat purred and brushed against my legs. I carried cat food out of the utility room, filled her bowl and gave her fresh water. I tried to persuade her to come in, but with her belly full, she wasn’t interested.
Finally, worn out, I made my way to the bedroom where I shed my clothes, placed my phone on the lamp table beside my bed and crawled between the covers. A shower could wait.
Three hours later, I awoke, feeling refreshed. I had slept the sleep of the dead. I grabbed the phone and checked the call log. Miscellaneous missed phone calls and voice messages, but none from Tack. Crap! Had he already checked out and left town? Should I call the hotel and ask?
Bad idea, my inner voice told me.
After soaking in the tub and doing my hair, I felt human again. I was starving. I went to the kitchen, but before I set out to cook breakfast, I checked the call log on my phone again. Nothing.
A blue funk took root within me. If Tack was going to call me, he should have already. I had believed I would hear from him, but he would be his way home by now. I didn’t even know if he had piloted his own plane or if someone else had flown him, but he was surely gone.
I watched the news on a small TV in my kitchen while I cooked and ate an egg white omelet. Then I dressed in a tailored black skirt and a royal blue satin blouse, pulled one side of my long hair back behind my ear and secured it with a blingy clippie. I added gold hoop earrings and a gold chain around my neck. I wanted to look my best. Maybe he hadn’t already left town. Maybe he would stop by the open house today.
I made one concession to comfort over vanity. Today, I opted for more sensible shoes. Another full day of those gorgeous pumps I wore yesterday could cripple me.
At Skyline, three Realtors from Lockhart Concepts were there and ready to go to work, so it appeared my day would be light. That suited me fine. I might try to sneak away before six o’clock. Standing all day held no appeal and might take more effort than I could muster.
Through the day, in slow moments, I called up Tack’s name on Google. His whole name was Harvey Owen Tackett. His initials were HOT, just like the monogram on his handkerchief. That still struck me as funny and I couldn’t keep from grinning. He was thirty-four years old. He had founded and owned a development company, Tackett Energy Corporation. He drilled for oil all over the world. Hm. Well-traveled. I hadn’t been out of Texas more than half a dozen times in my entire life.
I checked my phone a dozen times. A few calls, but none from him.
Mid-afternoon, Drake and his beautiful wife came by. I made a point to ask, “So did you sell Mr. Tackett a condo?”
“Not yet. He’s a tough customer.” He grinned impishly. “But I know him. I’ll hear from him. He was impressed with the penthouse unit.”
“Yes, he seemed to be,” I said carefully, lest I reveal something I didn’t want Drake to know. Twelve million dollars. I couldn’t believe it. Would I ever know if he actually bought it?
Dusk crept in and finally, I accepted, truly accepted, that Harvey Tackett and I had not engaged on more than one level after all. I would never see him again. Even so, I couldn’t label what went on between us as casual sex. And I couldn’t forget the dozen times he had told me he loved this or that about me. Not the same as the big three words, but still…I didn’t want to believe he was a liar.
The common sense part of me argued with me. What did you expect? Get over it. What would you do with him if you had him?
***
Early Monday morning, even before I opened my eyes and got out of bed, I started thinking about my trip to West Texas. I had no firm time to be anywhere until four-thirty when I had to show up for work at Smoky Joe’s. I called Joe and explained I had to leave town.
After a glass of juice and a protein bar, I put food out for Miss Kitty. Then I started the day by dragging out the jar where I kept my tip money and counting it. I had over $8oo in cash. Not bad for four weekday shifts. Several of my high-roller type customers had been into Smoky Joe’s through the week.
Next, I called the two college students who conducted most of the children’s parties Gala took on and made sure they were good to go for Wednesday and Thursday.
Ashley, my hairdresser, was next on my list. It was she who kept my long tresses soft, shiny and flowing. I could not afford to have hair that looked like a thatch. Ashley took only friends and special patrons on Mondays. “Come in at two,” she told me. “I’ll be the only one here.”
Last, on deep breath, I called my sister. “What’s the latest on Mom and her pills?”
“Nothing new. I already called the doctor, but I had to leave a message.”
“You couldn’t get her an appointment?”
“Was I supposed to?”
My patience snapped. “Lisa, forgodsake—”
“What?” she barked back.
“Never mind. Did Arnie come back yet?”
“He tried to. He showed up drunk as a lord and sick. Mom and I didn’t have the money to go buy him beer to sober up on.” Big sigh from Lisa. “Anyway, Mom kicked him out. Told him not to come back.”
My jaw tightened. Though I worked in an environment where alcohol flowed freely, I had no patience with drunks. “I’m coming out there,” I said. “I’ve got to see my hairdresser this afternoon, but I’ll leave afterward. I should be there by eight or so.”
“Well, by all means, don’t miss a trip to the beauty shop.”
I made no apologies to anyone for being a high-maintenance woman. The way I looked had gotten me where I was. “My appearance is the face of my business, Lisa. You know that, so just stop with the BS. Tell Mom I’m coming.”
I disconnected, squeezed into my Lycra workout clothes and drove to the gym. All the while I worked out on the machines, I thought about Tack scantily clad in a “home gym.” And I pictured him astride a horse cowboying.
As I stepped off the elliptical machine, I ran into a friend and trainer who worked with me when he had time. Chad Streicher used to be my hairdresser until he gave up the beauty business to become a body builder and personal trainer. In a way, he really hadn’t given up the beauty business. He had just changed his focus.
He challenged me to a session of kickboxing. I was tired, but aggression was the perfect outlet for the mood I was in.
After he trounced me, he said, “What happened to the days when you could kick my ass?”
“I already wore myself out on the elliptical machine.”
He laughed. “Excuses, excuses. You could use an energy drink.”
He dragged me off to the juice bar and ordered me some kind of super energy concoction. Served in a tall clear glass, it was a vivid green. Loaded with caffeine and sugar, no doubt. “What is this?” I asked.
“My specialty. Kale and apple with green tea and a large scoop of vanilla protein powder.”
I wiped perspiration off my face with a towel and sipped. “Hm. Tastes better than it looks. This is your recipe?”
“Sure is. Good, huh? I push it to all of my victims. So, whatcha been doing?”
Hah. If you only knew. I rarely discussed my personal life with anyone except Ashley. “Same old, same old. What’s new with you?”
He smiled and gave me a shy look. “Um, met a new friend.”
For him, a new friend was a boyfriend. “Real
ly? How did that happen?”
“I got introduced to him at a party Saturday night. We really hit it off. He invited me home with him. It was a one-time-deal, but…” He shrugged and grimaced.
“That wasn’t a good idea?” I sipped more. I was feeling better.
He gave a huge sigh. “Is a one-night-stand ever a good idea?”
Ouch. Today, that question hurt.
“I really like him and I think he likes me,” Chad went on. “I want him to respect me, but since I went home with him when I’d just met him, I’m afraid he’ll think I just fuck everybody.”
Crap! I stared into my glass, the green liquid suddenly looking less than fortifying. “That’s a common problem, no matter which gender you like.”
“Oh, my God, Miranda. Why did you say that? Did you fall off the wagon?”
I had forgotten that Chad was almost psychic and besides that, he knew me well. I shook my head and looked away, swallowing back the burn behind my eyes.
“You’re too hard on yourself, Miranda. You need to cut yourself some slack.”
“I don’t know what I need. But something I don’t need is to spend the night with someone if it’s going to make me feel like this.”
“Stop beating yourself up, babygirl. Everyone needs a human touch now and then.”
I nodded. “You can’t un-spill milk, right?”
“So who was the lucky dude?”
“Business associate. From out of town, thank God. I’ll never see him again. You wouldn’t know him.”
Chad’s brows climbed up his forehead. “Uh-oh. Hope he isn’t married.”
Me, too. Tack had said he had no wife, but did I believe him? “I don’t think so. But who knows?”
“Chin up, babygirl. It’s his loss….You still doing that infomercial this week?”
My agent had gotten me a gig for my face to be used to promote a new skin care product a Dallas dermatologist wanted to market. A first for me. When he had approached me, wary of having products with which I was unfamiliar slathered all over my face, I said no. But in the end, I had succumbed to the money.
