Edge of Glory (Friendship, Texas Book 1)

by Magan Vernon

I pushed through the French doors into the office, and started toward the studio when I heard loud grunting. Oh, crap, had Marla hurt her back again? She detested lifting anything over five pounds, but she’d do it. Then let everyone know, if she had to do these things, why was she paying us?

  My southern upbringing too ingrained, I tiptoed toward Marla’s office. If I didn’t see her writhing on the floor, I’d ignore it.

  Oh, Marla writhed alright, but not on the floor. That bitch wriggled and writhed under Miles. She lay flat on her back on top of her desk, and my boyfriend stood at the edge, leaning over her. He pumped her with all he had, and I stood watching. I couldn’t move away from the horror show.

  When Marla arched her back and said, “Oh, Baby, you’re so good,” I gasped. It must have been a loud gasp, because they both turned to look at me.

  “Next time, lock the fucking doors,” I said, then tried to turn gracefully and go, but the heel of my Jimmy Choo stiletto got caught in the carpet and I flew forward, grasping at the looming ficus to keep from eating Berber. Wrong move, I only succeeded in pulling the leafy tree down with me.

  By the time I’d gotten out of the stupid shoes, and back to my feet, you’d think Miles would have been by my side to explain, or help me. Nope! When I looked up, that stick figure’s boney fingers grasped Miles’ ass like a lifeline and she screamed, “Not yet, I’m coming.”

  Miles couldn’t disappoint her, he obliged. Barefooted, I walked out the door. The Jimmy Choo shoes didn’t belong to me anyway, and I hoped she tripped over them on her way out of her office. The clothes I wore didn’t belong to me either, but I figured since I wasn’t coming back to pick up my paycheck, the Donna Karan suit would be payment in kind.

  I ran to the BMW, grabbed my handbag, a Henri Bendel gift from Marla, then sprinted to my Jetta.

  As I drove out of the parking lot, I saw Miles in my rear view mirror. His skinny jeans still around his ankles and his shirt unbuttoned, he looked scrawny and pathetic. I willed the tears not to come.

  The kicker, I’d just sold everything but the clothes on my back and a few necessities to move in with Miles. His apartment being the size of a shoebox, it couldn’t fit all of our stuff, and he had great taste, so I differed to him. Bad move.

  The tires squealed on the Jetta as I turned into the parking lot of Miles’ apartment and my phone rang. Marla. I swiped my screen to ignore it. It rang again, and again. I put the phone on silent and raced inside. I hadn’t begun to think of the apartment as ours yet, but close. I thought I’d found my happily ever after. Now I wondered if there was such a thing.

  Just in case Miles cared enough to chase after me, I moved quickly. It took every ounce of willpower not to trash his tidy little apartment as I screamed through it. I grabbed my suitcase and a stack of pillowcases and stuffed everything I owned in them. By the time I’d gotten to the last drawer of clothes, I looked down at myself. The Donna Karan pencil skirt and jacket rocked, and I looked hot, even with the extra ten to fifteen pounds Marla insisted I lose. But I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t wear it any longer. My skin itched to be rid of it. I stripped down to my bra and underwear, then pulled on yoga pants and a sweatshirt I hadn’t worn since I started dating Miles. He hated “leisure clothes” and insisted I burn them. Good thing I didn’t let any man insist I do anything.

  I left Donna Karan laying on the floor in his bedroom. He could hump her when he got home, because that was the last of me he’d ever of see.

  I shoved all of my belongings in the back seat of my car and pointed my little Volkswagen east.

  My phone sat in the cradle on my dashboard and nearly vibrated off due to the nasty texts blowing it up.

  You’d better be on your way back here to get these clothes to Scarlett’s house.

  Where the fuck are you?

  You thin-skinned little whiner, I should have known better than to hire you.

  Yeah, that’s right, I have put up with her bullshit since my junior year at Academy of Art University in Los Angeles. I’d worked for her for five years. I’d earned my way to being her right hand woman, but I certainly hadn’t earn sharing my boyfriend.

  I didn’t even bother to delete the messages, just let them scroll through the screen. Then a message from Miles.

  Call me, now. Please call me.

  Ha! Right, the only time he’d ever hear my voice again, it’d be my voicemail. And I planned to change my phone number as soon as I arrived home, so he wouldn’t be hearing it for long. If I wasn’t so afraid I’d wreck the car, I’d have blocked him and Marla right then and there.

  I drove. I couldn’t even remember how to get to the I-10. My mind froze. I pulled over at the Mobile station and filled the tank, waited for the tears as I leaned on my dirty car, and looked off into the lights of the evening. I’d gone from thrilled to do my first trunk show alone, to exhausted from anger in less than an hour.

  I thought about calling Miles, giving him a chance to explain, but my parents raised me with more integrity than that. I thought about calling Marla and telling her what I thought of her, but no need to throw gasoline in a burning bridge. She’d make sure I never worked in Los Angeles or So Cal again. She’d been my only reference in the stylist business, since I doubted her clients would vouch for me now.

  The pump clicked. I pulled the receipt, threw it in the back seat with my things, and got in the car to drive home. My real home.

  I’d been on the road for three days, which meant I’d heard every song on my iPod about a hundred times, and I had way too much time to think, cry, scream obscenities at the universe, and contemplate my future. And yet by the time I’d made it to merely blocks from my destina-tion, I still had no idea what the hell I was doing, or going to do next.

  Somehow driving to Los Angeles from Dallas had been much prettier. The sky bluer, the hills, well, let’s face it, just as brown, there’s a drought after all. The route from the City of An-gels back to the “Big D” lacked the same appeal.

  It took me a full day to get the nerve to call my parents and tell them, “I’m coming home.”

  “Great. Are you getting a hotel?” Mom asked.

  “No, Mom, I’m coming home to stay.” The words caught in my throat and I cried.

  “Oh,” she sounded terrified, not sympathetic.

  “Can you tell dad?” I hiccuped through the sobbing. “But don't tell anyone else.”

  She’d called my best friends, because suddenly my phone blew up. I ignored it as much as possible. I refused to respond to the calls, messages, and texts, figuring I’d tell everyone at the same time, so I didn’t have to relive the story over and over.

  By the time I’d hit the Dallas city limits my back ached, my knees throbbed, and my eyes needed toothpicks to hold my lids open, but I had only a few miles left to get to my parents’ place. If I could take both hands off the wheel and still drive, I’d put my hands over my face and scream into them.

  Stopped at a light, just a few miles from home, the reality sank in. I’d left my career over a stupid guy. Three days ago I’d been in the most fake place in the world, and I loved it. This was home, real home, where even though I knew they cringed and prayed I’d only be staying for a few weeks at the longest, my mom and dad would welcome me with open arms, and I dreaded it. I waited for the light to turn green, wondering for the gazillionth time what I was going to do next.

  A horn blared behind me, and I resisted the urge to roll down my window and flip them the bird. I stepped on the gas, and my Jetta died. No problem, this had happened before. It groaned and almost caught life, then nothing.

  Shit.

  I tried again.

  Nothing.

  “No.” I slammed the heels of my hands against the steering wheel.

  More horns blasted a symphony behind me. The urge to flip them off overwhelmed me, but I had a stronger urge to cry. I searched around the steering wheel and dashboard for the hazard light thingy. I’d never had to use it in the decade I’d owned the car. You’d t
hink they put them in the same place on every car. I knew where it was on my mom’s Ford Edge. But no, stupid Volkswagen had to be different.

  My hand trembled as I looked, because now I heard shouting as well as honking. Okay, stop, think. I tried to start it again. I heard a chug, chug, chug sound, but nothing actually happened. I grabbed my phone to call my dad, and as I picked it up, I saw the battery read one percent. By the time I got the number dialed, the phone would be dead. And with my car lifeless, I couldn’t charge my phone. Why the hell hadn’t I plugged it in when I’d started driving earlier that morn-ing?

  Ah, the triangle doodad, that must be the…I pressed the button. Both blinker lights blinked. Good, now maybe everyone would stop honking and hollering. Besides, we’d sat through the green, to another red light. I took a deep breath, then looked out my driver’s side window.

  I screamed, “Holy shit!”

  I kid you not, a Duck Dynasty wannabe stood outside my car. Full brown beard, matching hair falling over his shoulders, and surfer clothes, he may as well have had a sign that read “will work for food.” I shook my head. I needed some sleep. Real sleep, like three full days of uninter-rupted sleep.

  Duck Man knocked on my window.

  Being a single girl, alone in a car, I was reluctant to roll the window down. I then realized my power windows wouldn’t go down with the car off. Shit, I’d have to open the door. Get a grip. We were in traffic in a public place. People would see if he hauled me off. I cracked the door open.

  “Can I help you?” A voice a smooth as Tennessee whisky asked.

  He may not have been as homeless as I first suspected. He had beautiful white teeth. Perfect in fact. Like lots of dollars at the orthodontist perfect.

  “I don’t know. My car died. And I can’t get it started. I may have killed the battery. Or may-be the whole car.” Hell, I knew how to fill the gas tank, and change the oil, but don’t ask me about anything else.

  “Is there someone you can call?” He looked past me to my phone on the dash.

  I pulled it down. “Dead.”

  Duck Man gave me a slight smile, that I could barely see through the hair on his face. “Not your day, is it?”

  I couldn’t bring myself to smile back. “You have no idea.”

  “Look, I can call a tow truck for you, but we need to get your car out of traffic.”

  As he said this, a woman walked up to him. Tall with platinum blond spiral curls and ice blue eyes, she wore a black A-line mini skirt with a peach silk sleeveless shirt that had thin black pip-ing. I wished I could see her shoes. Priorities.

  “Hugo, I have places to be. Everyone else is just going around.” She looked at me and smiled.

  I smiled back, even though I wanted to tell her to fuck off.

  His look shut her up. “Take the car. I’ll call Timmy and have him come and get me. I’m not going to leave her stranded.”

  “Suit yourself.” She turned on her heel without giving me a second glance, and strode away.

  “Sorry about her, she’s a little…never mind.”

  I heard an engine rev, and then a Bentley SUV pulled around the passenger side. I may not know much about how cars work, but I know cars. That was a Bentley Bentayga. When you dress some of the wealthiest women in Hollywood and Southern California, you learn about these things.

  “But that was your ride,” I said.

  He looked up from texting on his phone. “No, that was her ride. It was my car,” he said. Then he looked at his watch. “My driver should be here in a few minutes. Let’s see what we can do to get you out of the intersection.”

  “You mean like push my car?” Did I mention my idea of exercise was lifting piles of clothes and putting them on racks?

  “I’ll push. You turn your key like you’re going to start the car, but not far enough to start, then put it in neutral. I’ll try to block traffic, so we can get you over to the curb.”

  I did as I was told, and waited for Duck Man to tell me when to turn my wheel.

  He walked out in front of my car, looked around, then held up his hands like a traffic cop and everyone stopped. They probably thought he had a bomb. He looked that crazy, with his beard, graphic T-shirt, and board shorts. But it was the camouflage Crocs that put it over the top.

  He ran back to my car and said, “Neutral, put in neutral,” as he went to the back and pushed.

  I felt guilty that no one even tried to help us. Duck Man pushed my car over to the right, across three lanes of traffic. Once I’d maneuvered up near the shoulder of the road, I put my car in park. As soon as the traffic cleared, I opened the door to get out of my car when I remembered another shitty part of my last few days. Or pissy might be more precise.

  Somewhere around the border of Arizona and New Mexico, I got a UTI. I cursed myself for not getting up to pee after the last time Miles and I had sex. Having a urinary tract infection is bad enough when you have time to go to the doctor and get the pills to take care of it, but when you have to stop at Walmart to get the over the counter stuff, just to get you through, it’s a driv-ing nightmare.

  Along with sleeping in my car, I’d been peeing carrot juice, and wearing Depends pads. Any woman who has ever had a UTI understands. I couldn’t exactly drive the ten thousand miles from L.A. to Texas and stop every five minutes to find a bathroom, or pee on the side of the road. I bought the medication, which didn’t work worth a crap, and a package of Depends pads, and pretty much peed in my pants until the medication took effect enough to let me drive without the constant urge to pee. That was about three hours earlier, and I hadn’t stopped because I was so close to home.

  Screw it, even in dirty yoga pants and a Depends pad that could likely be seen through the tight fabric, I still couldn’t look as bad as the Duck Dynasty guy. I lifted my arm to smell my pits. Gag! How had I not smelled that earlier. I reeked, and I didn’t have time to grab my deodo-rant from my handbag and sneak some on without being noticed. It was at least seventy-five de-grees, but I grabbed my oversized sweater from the back seat and pulled it over my head. The added bonus, other than covering my ripe odor, it covered my ass too.

  I adjusted the sweater as I got out of my car and walked to the sidewalk. Duck Man stood a few feet away, talking on his phone. I didn’t want to interrupt, so I kept my distance. This also kept him from getting too close a look at me, or smell me. I’m a freaking personal stylist, and I couldn’t have looked worse. Not a good first impression, no matter if I was meeting a homeless guy. The thing was, he smelled like a very expensive cologne. I couldn’t quite put a name on the fragrance, but I’d smelled it before.

  When he hung up, he said, “Sorry, that was my driver. He’s caught in traffic. He’ll be late.”

  His driver, right. But then, he’d said that Bentley belonged to him. Who was this guy?

  Standing on the side of the road with a complete stranger, who for all I knew was the Dallas Strangler, everything I owned in my car that had likely taken its last breath, wearing a Depends, I started to shake.

  “May I use your phone?” I had to call my parents, or my brother. Someone had to come and get me. And my stupid car.

  He looked at me, hesitated, then handed me the phone. A new iPhone…wait…had this ver-sion even hit the market yet?

  I called my dad.

  Voice mail.

  I called my brother.

  Voice mail.

  Now the tears flowed. It was all too much.

  Through the blubbering, I said, “I need to call for a tow truck, but I haven't lived here in al-most eight years, so I have no idea who to call.” I gripped his phone in my hand.

  Caveman pried it from my fingers and pushed one button. “Bobby, get me a tow truck at State and Main. And find out what’s taking Timmy so damn long.” A pause. “He can’t miss us. We’re standing outside the strip mall by CVS Pharmacy. It’s a white Jetta, looks like the person lives in it.”

  That’s when the reality of the situation kicked in. I looked at my car from
his point of view. I looked like a hoarder. A bit of a giggle slipped in between my tears. A hoarder or a homeless person. Judging a book by its cover. Hadn’t I just done the same? I guess homeless fit me at that moment. Homeless and jobless.

  It all came out in a rush. “I’ve been living in it for the last three days. I’m moving back here from California. I was afraid if I got a hotel, someone would break in and steal my things. And since this is everything I have in the world at the moment, I wasn't willing to let any of it go.” Why was I telling his hairy stranger about my last few days?

  “Moved in a hurry?” Again, I saw his perfect teeth.

  I sobbed. “I walked in on my boyfriend having sex with my boss. I’d just moved in with him, a couple of months ago, and I really thought he was the one. We had so much in common. Ap-parently, more than I knew. I went back to the office to pick up accessories I’d forgotten for a client, and there they were, going at it on my boss’s desk. The sad thing was, I’d been so excited to see his car in the parking lot less than a minute before.”

  He said, “Oh, shit.”

  Blurry through my tears, I couldn’t see his face, but I’ll bet he was thinking, Where’s my driver, so I can get away from this crazy chick.

  I couldn’t stop myself. I kept blubbering. It was the first I’d told anyone. “I turned and walked out without getting what I needed. I went straight to his place and packed up all of my belongings as fast as I could, then got in my car and drove east.”

  I stopped to catch my breath.

  “Did you get out of there before he got home?” he asked.

  “I don’t think he bothered to even come home. I could have taken the time to trash the place if I’d wanted. But that’s not me. I wanted to be that person, but I couldn’t. And for the last three days, I’ve mulled over how I could have done it differently.”

  I took a deep breath. He said nothing.

  “As I was driving away from the apartment I got a text in all caps from my boss. She wanted to know why I hadn’t shown up to the client’s house for the trunk show.”

  “Bitch,” he said.