Around the Bend

by Britney King

  Jess stared at her reflection in the mirror, scarcely recognizing the person staring back at her. Is this what Ms. Mason wanted? OK. Fine, she thought.

  That relentless damned therapist, as Jessica had taken to calling her, had spent the entirety of their last session together badgering Jess about allowing her friends to visit. If this were what it would take to get that woman off her back, then this is exactly what Jessica would do, she finally decided. The woman had assured Jess that it would help in her recovery to have some normalcy returned to her day-to-day life. Support, the therapist had called it.

  Jess would show her all right. She dialed Addison’s cell.

  Addison answered on the first ring.

  Jessica didn’t wait for her to say hello. She spoke breathlessly. “I’m going to need a party planner. The very best you’ve got.”

  Addison sighed, she was none too familiar with her friend’s latest antics. “You need a party planner?”

  “Yep.”

  “Jessica, you have your own staff… you have people you’ve always used. Why are you asking me?”

  “Maybe I don’t want the people I normally use. I mean… this situation is hardly normal. Wouldn’t you say?” The truth was Jess couldn’t recall whom she normally used. Drugs will do that to a person, she thought.

  “OK, well, you got me there. What is it you need exactly?”

  Jess grinned at her reflection in the mirror, suddenly satisfied with herself. “I’m going to host a luncheon like no other… here… in this place.”

  “Oh, good god,” Addison said, exasperated. “You, Clemens… are trouble. And I have to admit—I really, really like it.”

  Chapter Four

  Jessica worked extra hard in the three weeks leading up to the luncheon to ensure that she would no longer have to use ‘the chair.’ Her dedication paid off as two days before the event, which she had so meticulously planned, she found herself able to get around reasonably well by utilizing a walker.

  She poured hours into her therapy each day, and what remained leftover, she devoted to planning the best party possible. Because the Ladies Who Lunch, as they called themselves liked nothing if not a good party. The Ladies Who Lunch was an organization which had formed over fifty something years ago by women in the community who had both excessive amounts of time and money. Her Grandmother had been of the original founding members, then her mother, and now her. Once you were married off it was simply a society you found yourself a part of, if you were of a certain class. As of four weeks ago, there were two hundred and sixty-seven women who qualified and paid their dues (often literally) and these women convened for lunch twice a month. Jess knew exactly how many members the organization contained because she held the title of VP for the organization as well as served as chairperson of the hospitality committee. She was thus in charge of welcoming new members and keeping the existing ones happy. Which as it turns out was less hard than it might seem. You simply stuck them on a committee and kept them busy, which was easy until—as it usually is with any group of women, it wasn’t. But by the time the typical drama began they were under the careful guidance of their own committee chair and for the most part no longer Jess’s problem. It was sufficed to say, the Ladies Who Lunch had a committee for everything.

  Jess had made a sizable donation to the rehabilitation facility in order to reserve the dining room during lunch hour. It was only later that she would realize this might not have been the smartest plan. Having your fellow inmates (as Jess called them) eat in their rooms, certainly didn’t win one any fans. Mostly because when you’re confined to a place that you don’t want to be in, mealtime becomes the highlight of your day and a reason to get ‘out into the world’ even if that world is only as far as the dining room.

  The morning of the luncheon, Jess had her regular girl, the one she used for special occasions, come in and do her hair and makeup. She had someone assist her in making sure her dress was perfectly in place—a dress which she’d had her stylist purchase and then take back to the seamstress, not once but twice, as over the previous few weeks Jess watched the numbers on the scale drop faster than she could keep up with. No doubt, a side effect of the narcotics, which were known to cause a loss of appetite. But this wasn’t to be a problem today as she had decided to skip her meds completely.

  At a quarter till eleven, Jess made her way down to the dining room and was pleased to find that the event planner Addison referred had outdone herself. The room had been transformed from the ridiculous dining hall overfilled with ranch-style themed decor into a beautiful, elegant space. The pleather chairs had been replaced by antique crystal Chiavari chairs and the round tables had been covered in white linen. The fluorescent lighting had been turned off and was substituted with ornate chandeliers that hung over each table. Flowers lined the peripheral of the room as far as the eye could see. The place settings alone were exquisite, and the aroma coming from the kitchen actually made Jess giddy—for it had been a long time since food of any kind had appealed to her.

  As the first few guests arrived, she found herself immersed in the commotion, and it appeared as though nothing at all had changed since the last luncheon she’d attended, a little more than a month ago.

  It was sometime after appetizers, but before announcements, when Jess began to feel light headed. Although she’d consumed a fair amount of hors d'oeuvres, she hadn’t had pain meds in almost twelve hours, and she was beginning to become aware that she might not make it through the three hour-long luncheon without having them. She began to feel anxious and irritable so she found herself a chair and tried to catch her bearings. But it wasn’t long before the cold sweats started, and it only got worse from there. Jess remembered as the room swirled around her that her nemesis if she ever had one, Shannon McCain, called for a nurse. President of the organization for six years running, Shannon had once been a close friend of Jessica’s.

  Now the two barely spoke, and Jess saw her for what she was—a twig of a woman no one dared disagree with and whose upright stance and blonde bob, cut precisely, nary a hair out of place, only served to prove that she was all business. The truth was Shannon had had it out for Jess ever since the two disagreed over what became later known as the ‘Christmas Bazaar Incident.’ It should have been known that the number one rule of the Ladies Who Lunch was never, ever to disagree with Shanon McCain. To do so, and to do so publicly, would mean certain demise. Jessica had not given careful enough consideration to this unspoken rule, and so it had become classic and almost humorous the way Jess’s former friend had so passive-aggressively made her life hell by vetoing and negating every move she’d made since.

  As Jess pondered this predicament, a nurse appeared and asked a series of questions. Once the oversized woman determined that Jess had forgone her evening and morning medication, she simply shook her head and assured the gaggle of women corralled around Jess that this was the cause of the faintness and that she would return with the pills in a few moments. Jess felt relieved, suddenly less anxious, knowing she could soon look forward to the familiar metallic taste of the chalky pills sliding down the back of her throat. She considered that she shouldn’t have been so stupid to skip the only thing that gave her comfort these days, and she realized then that the pills were not the enemy as once believed. As Jess took in the women surrounding her, her mind suddenly transformed their heads into vultures. Vultures waiting to consume their prey, she thought. One of them handed Jess a glass of water, which she downed in three gulps. Jess tried to focus on the hallway, listening for the nurses footsteps, thinking surely it shouldn’t be taking this long to get four little pills, but she couldn’t help noticing how the women eyed her, a mixture of pity, worry, and something else Jess couldn’t place written across their faces. As she searched for something to say, the nurse returned with her medication, thankfully. She chewed the pills instead of swallowing them, desperation taking over as her name was announced. It was time to address the crowd.

  She downed anot
her glass of water and swallowed before carefully standing and making her way to the front of the room. All eyes were on her. Although Jess would scarcely remember the speech she made that day, she would later recall that she did at least two things right. She thanked everyone for coming, and even though she likely slurred, she did manage to make it through every single item on the list of upcoming events and agenda items that someone (presumably Shannon) had handed her.

  The Ladies Who Lunch gave a standing ovation as Jessica slowly, carefully, and painfully made her way to her seat along the side of the room. She took her seat, finally, which was no small feat, but just as soon as she was settled and the servers began serving, Jess felt someone tap her on the shoulder. She turned and saw Shannon flanked by a few members of the board. Jess did her best to keep a straight face as Brenda, Shannon’s Girl Friday, did her bidding. “Is there somewhere around here that we could have a little privacy?”

  Jess smiled and glanced around. She did her best to scoot her chair out to face the group of women. “This seems as good a place as any.”

  Shannon looked nervously at the women seated around the table before clearing her throat. “Yes. How rude of me... I know it must be hard for you to get around.” Shannon glanced at the women by her side and then looked back down at Jess. “Anyway, about that… the ladies and I were talking it over, and we can see that you obviously have a lot going on here.” She paused as she seemed to search for the right words even though Jess was pretty sure that she’d had them planned out for quite some time. “The board and I have decided that it’s best if you step down from your role as VP.”

  Jess smiled. “Well, that’s convenient.”

  “We feel it’s necessary given the circumstances,” Brenda chimed in.

  Shannon continued. “We just think that you need a little reprieve… some time to pull yourself together. I mean… it’s certainly reasonable considering all that’s happened—”

  Jess cut her off. “Don’t tell me what’s reasonable. Look around. I have fulfilled my duties… considering.” She felt her face grow hot as she recalled just how hard she’d worked to make today happen. She eyed each of the women one by one, as it became more and more clear that there would be no argument she could offer up to change their minds. They had already been made up. Jess swallowed hard. “This is bullshit and you all know it.”

  “It’s really for the best Jessica.”

  Jess attempted to swallow the rage she felt building, but it didn’t stay down. Instead, it consumed her. Everything she’d been through since the accident came bubbling up to the surface. She felt the burn in the back of her throat as her voice grew louder. “The hell it is! You want me out, and you’re using my accident as a means to an end. You know, it’s a really convenient way to spin the bullshit that regularly spews from your mouths.” As she stood, her voice grew louder until all eyes in the room were on her.

  “Jessica, this isn’t the time or place,” Shannon whispered in a vain attempt to silence her.

  But this only added fuel to Jess’s fire. She threw up her hands to signify just how wronged she was. “Here you are, ‘oh, poor, pathetic Jessica,’ let’s relieve her of her duties so she can recover. Well, fuck you! I’m not one of your charity cases, Shannon. You think you can hide behind your Manolo Blahnik’s and your fake smile… but you’re crazy if you think you’re kidding anyone, Mrs. McCain.” Jess stepped forward and spoke slowly, making sure her voice lingered over every word she was about to say. “Everyone knows your husband spends more time with his flavor of the month than he does at home.” An audible gasp filled the room, but Jess didn’t let it detour her. She smoothed her dress. “Besides, you can’t do this,” her words slurred as she nearly lost her balance. “It takes a board vote to relieve a member of their duties.”

  Shannon chuckled slightly and stepped back, clearly caught off guard. “Like I said, this is clearly a conversation for another time.”

  While Jess pictured a righteous ‘fuck you’ exiting in her mind, her body, as it had done so frequently as of late, once again betrayed her. Instead, she doubled over and vomited the contents of her stomach all over her former friend’s expensive shoes.

  Needless to say, this would be the last time Jess would see any of the Ladies Who Lunch for quite a while. It’s hard, even for women of their educational and economic stature, to know what to say to a cripple who can’t control not only her body, but also her mouth. To them, it probably seemed just as easy to stay away. And just as Jess had predicted without saying a word in that first session with ‘the relentless dammed therapist,’ they did.

  Chapter Five

  Six Months Later

  Early Spring

  As Myles gathered the few belongings he possessed and carefully placed them in a duffle bag once issued to him by the Navy, he considered how little knowledge he had about his next assignment. Going in blind wasn’t exactly his style. To his credit, he did know a few things. His new employer was some ultra-rich family (that much Google had told him), and the lady of the house had recently suffered some sort of injury, and he was told that her husband had left on an ‘extended business trip.’ He also knew (thanks to Google Maps) that the family owned a twenty-two acre estate that needed managing. Most importantly, he was informed that his most important task was to watch over ‘The Missus’—whatever that meant, he hadn’t a clue. He only surmised and based on his experience, it didn’t sound good.

  But it hardly mattered anyhow. Myles was certain that anything would be better than the current gig he’d held up until a few hours ago overseeing Old Man Thompson. His role over the previous two months had been to serve as a caretaker for the Thompson Estate. Caretaker, in this sense, was code for listen to Mr. Thompson complain, and berate his staff so that his adult children didn’t have to.

  Other than managing the man’s bigotry, his secondary role had been to care for Mr. Thompson’s four poodles, which Myles assessed, according to Thompson’s meticulously well-documented regimen, had more needs than most humans he knew. While Myles wouldn’t exactly say he wasn’t an animal lover—he simply didn’t understand owning something—dog or not, which had greater grooming needs than oneself.

  He wasn’t thrilled with the assignment, but he needed the work. More so, he needed to keep busy. But a few weeks later, his unspoken prayers were answered when out of nowhere, Myles found that he’d been abruptly reassigned.

  He figured that the old man had decided he didn’t show his dogs the appropriate degree of affection, nor did he agree with his dogmatism and perhaps had requested that Myles look elsewhere for employment. It certainly wouldn’t have come as a complete surprise. Reassignment seemed to be the MO for him lately. But the old man seemed generally sad at the news he was leaving which was quite odd given the fact that the man never much liked him to begin with.

  But, nonetheless, Myles found himself with a Greyhound ticket headed south. Three days earlier a woman by the name of Addison Hartman from the agency that had placed him, phoned with an unexpected offer. She’d informed Myles that she had what she called ‘a necessary reassignment’ in mind, and if he passed the initial assessment tests, in addition to the personal interview, he would be guaranteed a forty-five percent increase in his gross pay.

  Myles, not one to argue with fate, passed the initial and then secondary assessment with flying colors. But then again, he always did. And when the interview came, he assumed it would be a breeze as well. But a few minutes into the conversation, he found himself sadly mistaken.

  Myles stared at the woman opposite him on the screen and tried to reconcile the thoughts he had about her. On one hand, he found her insanely attractive—on the other, incredibly intense. In an uncomfortable sort of way. He both liked her and disliked her at the same time, and he wondered how this could be.

  After grilling him for the better part of an hour via Skype, Myles was certain he was about to be turned down when Addison Hartman surprised him by offering him the job.

 
; This was an important assignment, she’d insisted. He had better not mess it up, she’d warned. Something in her voice didn’t sit right with Myles, and he immediately felt there was something personal about this assignment. Which wasn’t altogether bad because Myles, true to form, had decided that should he ever come into contact with Mrs. Hartman, he wouldn’t mind setting her straight, giving her something to be a little less intense about.

  Aside from the above details, all he knew was that the client needed help getting ‘back on her feet.’ She needed someone who would push her without backing down and her agent felt that someone with his disposition would serve her client well. ‘It must have to do with your time in the Navy,’ she’d remarked, ‘because I can clearly see that you’re an Alpha—someone who isn’t afraid to take charge… and to say that is exactly what this situation calls for would be a vast understatement,’ she’d said.

  No matter how many times he assured her he was up for the task she continued quizzing him repeatedly—this way and that way, on whether or not he understood what it was she was asking. And while Myles thought he understood, honestly, all he could think about at the moment was what it would be like to get away from the shithole of a town he’d been stuck in and to get down to Austin—where he’d find exactly what it was he needed. Women.

  The selection around there had been limited to what amounted to a few ‘regulars.’ And if there was one thing Myles wanted less than anything these days, it was any sort of regularity. Especially concerning who was in his bed.

  With that thought, he once again assured Mrs. Hartman that he could more than handle the job. In turn, she immediately sent him a plane ticket headed for Austin, which he then traded in for a bus ticket. Not so much because he needed the money, but because he considered flying indulgent given the bus was an option. And more importantly, because it had been too long and there was a stop he needed to make in a tiny North Texas town.