Dirty Sexy Games

by Laurelin Paige

  That was code for I needed a few minutes.

  She translated the message perfectly. “Okay. Make sure you leave enough time to give me a proper goodbye. I’ll be in the living room with my feet up. Maybe I’ll get Marie to fill a bowl with warm sudsy water so I can soak my tired hands. Being a celebrity is so much work.” She winked, wiggling her fingers in the air, then she turned and disappeared out the doors and down the hall.

  Chuckling, I plopped down in the big chair and rolled up close to the redwood desk. It was majestic and sturdy, very masculine in its design and ornamentation. It was probably worth a fortune. I was a full-grown adult, and I still felt so small sitting behind it. So overwhelmed.

  Had my father ever felt that way? Had he ever felt tiny in his place? Had his ambition ever scared him the way mine scared me all the time? The way it scared me now?

  There was a lifetime of questions I’d wanted to ask him and never got the chance. An encyclopedia of things I’d never get to tell him. So many words left unsaid.

  On a whim, I opened up the top drawer and found my mother still kept a box of stationery there. Just like in the old days. I’d usually picked something simple with a modern design, but the light lavender floral would do. What I was intending to write wasn’t getting sent anyway.

  I took out a single sheet and picked up the pen my mother had used to sign her checks. Then, without thinking too much about it, I set the tip to the paper and let everything out, the words flowing once I started.

  * * *

  Dear Dad,

  There’s been a hole inside me since the day you moved away.

  Each day we were apart, every year that went by without spending real time with you, that hole grew wider and deeper, leaving a cavernous empty space, so big it left little room for anything else. That was all I was—the shell that you left behind. The little girl you didn’t want.

  For the longest time, I believed the only way to fill that emptiness would be to get you to notice me. Then, when you died, I thought I could fill it by filling your shoes. By taking your place at the head of your kingdom.

  But I’ve learned I was wrong. I don’t need your company to be fixed. I don’t need a man at my side or a marriage certificate. The way to fill the hole was learning my worth.

  I’ve learned my worth, Daddy. I’ve learned my value, something that you couldn’t ever quite see. But I can’t be mad at you anymore because your ignorance and the way you treated me have forged my path as much as your DNA. You made me who I am, with every missed phone call and forgotten birthday. With every canceled vacation. With every stipulation on my inheritance.

  You made me, and I like who I’ve turned out to be.

  Maybe I won’t run the company with the same cut-throat ambition and maybe my mistakes will be obvious and irreparable, but I’m going to be okay because I know who I am. I’m a queen. Not because my father was the King of Media—though that too. Not because I married into royalty.

  I’m a queen because I decided I would be one.

  I love you. I’ve always loved you.

  But I love me now too.

  Your daughter, Elizabeth

  * * *

  When I was done, I dropped the pen and laid my palms flat on the desktop for support. I was out of breath, like I’d just finished an advanced ballet class, and it took several seconds before my heart rate had settled.

  But then I felt…good.

  Really good.

  Like, I really believed what I’d written. That I was going to be okay.

  I mean, I still felt heartbroken and devastated about Weston, but it felt like maybe even that might be okay eventually, somehow. With these words written, the future felt less set in stone. More malleable. And instead of being terrified about that unknown, the vagueness of it made it seem less impossible to figure out how to fit Weston into my happy ending.

  Mostly, it felt like the chill in my bones was beginning to thaw, and that the anger and resentment I’d been holding against my father for so long no longer fit inside of me. I could finally let it go, and I wouldn’t even notice it wasn’t there anymore.

  The cuckoo came out of the clock then, chirping one o’clock. Quickly, I folded the letter in half and then wondered where to put it. My purse? My pocket? I didn’t want to take it with me, though. That didn’t seem quite right.

  Finally I tucked it in the bottom of the stationery box and shut the drawer again.

  Then I ran out to find my mother so I could tell her goodbye. My cab would be here soon to take me to the airport.

  “Oh, and, yes,” I told her first, before we got all emotional, and I forgot to mention it. “I do want the desk.”

  “Good!” she exclaimed. “It suits you.”

  “I know,” I said, because I finally did.

  20

  Weston

  “Bird!” Sebastian squealed, slapping his hands emphatically on the tray of the stroller. The few pigeons scrounging for food in the snow nearby ignored his exclamations, apparently too accustomed to the sounds of city life to be disturbed by an excited toddler.

  “He’s never going to fall asleep,” Callie complained, studying him covertly as she walked next to us.

  “Yes he is,” Dana insisted. She reached over and flicked the canopy down on the stroller, obstructing his view. “Sebastian,” she warned. “Lie down. Close your eyes.”

  “You’re supposed to be ignoring him,” Callie said through gritted teeth.

  “Does this usually work?” I asked, veering the stroller around a slick piece of ice then centering it again on the sidewalk. It was Wednesday, and rather than sit at my desk and dwell on the fact that my wife—soon-to-be never-was wife—was likely boarding a plane and leaving the country at that very moment, I’d texted Callie and asked if I could crash her day.

  Dana’s office was still closed for the holiday, so she also had the day off. We’d planned to take Sebastian to the park to play in the snow, but he was supposed to have napped and been up by the time I got there. Instead, I’d arrived to find two mothers stressed and frenzied from dealing with an overtired two-year-old who refused to nap.

  At her wit’s end, Callie had suggested we take him for a walk, bundling him up in his snowsuit and a quilt on top of that.

  “The motion usually knocks him out,” she said now. “If he’s not too distracted.”

  I wasn’t the one distracting him. I’d hoped he’d be the one distracting me. Pushing the stroller, we couldn’t even see each other. But there were plenty of other things in the park for him to be interested in—the birds, a bunch of older children building an emaciated snowman, the squeak squeak of the stroller tire as it went round and round over the uneven ground.

  Actually, that last one was rather mesmerizing. If someone were pushing me in a giant-sized stroller, maybe it would even help me fall asleep. I hadn’t slept well the night before without Elizabeth, tossing and turning, missing her warmth, my mind replaying every word she’d said, wondering if letting her walk away was the right thing to do. Scared that I was failing a test. Knowing I didn’t have any better answers, even if I was failing.

  Except I hadn’t failed anything. I hadn’t given up yet. I was just on hold for the moment. Until I figured out my next move.

  “Are you looking for apartments yet?” Dana asked, interrupting me from my broody thoughts. “There’s some amazing units in Park Slope over on Union.”

  I hadn’t yet told the women about me and Elizabeth, mostly because once I said it, said that we were over, it meant that I believed it was true. So right now they thought I still needed a place closer to them for my travels back and forth across the pond. I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t want to tell the truth either.

  So I hesitated.

  “Are those two bedrooms over there?” Callie asked while I tried to figure out how to answer.

  “I think so. Maybe not available right now. But Claire and Karen are over there and they have the twins so they can’t all be one bedroom.�
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  “That’s the building with the amazing playroom, isn’t it? And oh my God that roof terrace!”

  “I’d give my left tit for that terrace.”

  Turned out if I just paused, I didn’t have to say much at all with Callie and Dana around.

  A notification from a phone went off, and Callie reached inside her coat pocket to pull hers out. She unlocked her screen and after a few seconds of staring at her phone, she groaned.

  “Is it him again?” Dana asked.

  “It’s not even from him. It’s his secretary,” Callie answered, stuffing her phone back in her coat pocket.

  I slowed the stroller to prevent it from jumping over a bump, then hurried to catch up. “What’s going on?” I asked, because I was nosy. And because I’d rather talk about whatever the unwanted notification was than why I wasn’t looking for an apartment in Brooklyn.

  Callie let out a deep breath, her air forming a cloud as she exhaled. “My father’s been picked for the president’s Cabinet.” She bent down to peer inside the stroller. “He’s asleep by the way.”

  Dana gave a silent golf clap with her gloved hands.

  “Congratulations! On both your father and Sebastian. Do we need to head back now?” I could turn around if we needed to, but I was enjoying the crisp air, enjoying being somewhere other than stuffed inside where my thoughts were stifling.

  “No, we need to keep going for at least thirty minutes to make sure it sticks,” Callie said.

  “And no congrats on her dad,” Dana added. “When we heard he was being considered, we were happy at first—it would get him out of the state, and we wouldn’t have to see him as much.”

  The two exchanged a glance over the stroller that I didn’t have to see to understand. Though I’d recently reconciled with my parents, it had definitely been tough to rebuild that bridge.

  “It’s always a strain when we have to do family events, you know?” Callie offered. “Dana always comes with me, and she’s so, so gracious, even though he ignores her the entire time. Or worse, says things about gays being the abomination of the Earth.”

  “That doesn’t just affect me,” Dana pointed out.

  “I know.” Callie looked away, and even from behind her, I could sense she felt guilty and torn. “I don’t care so much when it affects me. It bothers me that he says it about you. And eventually Sebastian is going to get older and hear all this about both of us. It’s messy. But I don’t want to officially divorce myself from the family, and you don’t tell my father how to act or what to say. That’s not how he rolls.”

  “No,” Dana agreed.

  I thought about that, thought about Sebastian learning how to treat women, how to treat his mother from this terrible role model. It bothered me. My skin pricked, as though I had feathers and they were ruffling, and I debated whether I needed to stomp my foot and make some demands about how much time he spent with his grandfather. Was that even something I could do?

  I wasn’t sure. It was definitely something we were going to have to talk about more.

  “Anyway,” Callie said, deciding for me that we were discussing it now, “the president’s office is asking for a ton of publicity with this Cabinet position. From the entire family. They want me and Sebastian to go to New Year’s parties and campaign events and fundraisers. It’s not even my political party. Like, I voted independent.” She whispered independent, as though some secret government official would hear her and take away her membership to her family. “And since New York is so close to DC, a lot of these events are in town, so we aren’t really getting away from him at all.”

  “It’s ridiculous what they expect of you,” Dana complained.

  “I know. I’m going to have to start telling them no—except that’s just going to break my mother’s heart and cause a whole scene. I don’t know how to avoid upsetting people either way.”

  Dana turned to face me. “I’m not very helpful. I can’t go to any of these. The media thinks Callie is an unwed mother. Be careful, now some of them think you are in the picture, thanks to that article. They may start trying to grab you for these.”

  Callie laughed. “Good thing you have Elizabeth. Tell them you’re married to someone else, and they won’t try to hook us up.” She laughed again, and this time Dana joined her.

  I definitely didn’t laugh. Though, maybe I should have. To someone else, it could be quite a funny situation.

  “What’s wrong, Weston? You don’t find the idea of arranged marriages amusing?” Dana’s eyes sparkled.

  God, if she only knew.

  I cleared my throat, unable to let the truth remain burrowed inside any longer. “Quite amusing, actually. Except, Elizabeth filed for an annulment.”

  There were exactly four seconds of silence before both of them started speaking at once.

  “Oh my God!”

  “What? When?”

  “You two are ridiculous around each other! So obviously in love! You can’t be breaking up!”

  “I think I got knocked up just from being in the same room with you together.”

  Their shock made me feel both better and worse. It validated that Elizabeth and I belonged together, and also made me feel truly shitty for not fighting harder for her.

  And now they were both looking at me for an explanation, an explanation that I felt hard-pressed to give when I barely knew how to explain it to myself.

  “It’s complicated,” I said defensively.

  But that was a lie. “Okay, it’s not. She has her company in France, as you know. I want to be here for Sebastian, and I’m sure you both realized how terrible the idea of going back and forth is—though I was willing to make it work. I really was. She thought it would be too much pressure on our relationship. And on both of you. And on him.”

  The silence that followed said that as much as the mothers of my child believed in my marriage, they also understood why Elizabeth did what she did.

  For several long moments, the only sound was the fall of our steps on the sidewalk, the hypnotizing squeak of the wheel, and the imagined voice in my head yelling for everything to just stop.

  Dana eventually broke the silence. “So why don’t we all move to France?”

  “Don’t joke about that. Please.” I was too depressed to even imagine the scenario anymore.

  “I’m serious,” she said. “Give me a job there, and I’m on board.”

  “Um!” Her wife exclaimed.

  Um! I echoed silently, though I was much more excited about the prospect than Callie sounded. “What do you do exactly? You work for the State Department?”

  “I do. I’m in public relations.”

  She was in fucking PR?

  I’d assumed she was a bureaucrat—but PR? I owned an advertising firm. “I can totally get you a job! A really good job.”

  On the other side of me, I could feel Callie nervously fidgeting. “Dana! Shouldn’t we talk about this?”

  “We’re talking about it right now. You don’t want to move to France?” she asked as though everyone wanted to move to France, which was totally not the way I’d looked at it when I’d first heard the idea.

  “I don’t know,” Callie said, with a tone that said she’d never really thought about it.

  “It would get you off the hook with your parents. Get me out of this job—which we both hate. They legalized same-sex marriage there years before the U.S. did.”

  Callie’s head bobbed back and forth, considering. “Universal healthcare,” she said dreamily.

  “No school shootings.” Dana spoke the words as though they were candy.

  To be honest, that sounded enticing to me, too.

  “I don’t think the education system is that good, I’m sure I read that somewhere.” Callie pulled her phone out of her pocket, and I assumed she was looking this fact up.

  “We’ll do private school. Everyone does private school in Europe. It’s all the rage.”

  “Are you speaking out of your ass or do you know this?
” Callie glared at her spouse.

  “Does it matter?”

  Callie turned to face me. “It’s all good, Weston. The education will be fine. Dana’s right. We’ll do private school.”

  I shrugged. Education was the last thing on my mind. The kid was two. “I’m still so new to this parenting thing, I barely have time to realize I should be worrying about something before you guys are telling me it’s okay.”

  “This one is okay. I’m generally always in a state of worry,” Callie told me.

  “Noted.” I paused for a fraction of a second. “Can we go back to talking about moving to France? Because you guys can’t just yank my chain on this one. I was seriously going to ask if you’d consider it before, but when I realized you were together, and that you had a job, Dana, I didn’t think it would even be an option.” I was getting excited. Too excited for something that we were just bouncing around.

  “You should always ask, Weston,” Dana said seriously. “For no other reason than because I love shooting people down. Especially Callie’s ex-lovers.”

  Callie stifled a giggle.

  I was not laughing about this. “Are you shooting me down right now?” I asked, staring Dana straight in the eyes.

  She stared across the stroller. “Callie?”

  They were taking it seriously. I could feel the brevity of the moment, the weight of this decision pressing down on me, knowing that if they just said yes, every bit of pressure that had been piled onto my shoulders would immediately evaporate.

  “I’d pay for all moving expenses,” I said, desperate. “And help you find a place to live. You could stay with me and Elizabeth until you found your own apartment. I haven’t seen ours yet, but she says it’s humongous, and I’m guessing it’s probably quite nice. Used to be her father’s. I’m sure there’s more than enough room for everyone.”

  Callie made a humming noise like she couldn’t believe she was even thinking about this. “This isn’t something we should be deciding on a whim.”