Unraveled (Jersey Girls Book 1)

by Lisa-Marie Cabrelli

  Tod had taken to sending Sally flowers. Every day, she had been at work, a large bouquet had arrived under the jealous, watchful eyes of the Bitch Clique. It was only two deliveries, but given that he had presented her with flowers every day of their dreamy first weekend together, Claire didn’t imagine it would stop any time soon.

  “Okay,” Claire stood with purpose, “I will think about it. I’m going to go see him in a few minutes.”

  “You do that. In the meantime, call Maureen, cancel your work session, and see if she wants to go Rio shopping with us tonight. It’s about time I got my hands on her ridiculous wardrobe, anyway.”

  18

  Satish

  Satish sat at his desk, smoothing the brown paper of the thick package. When he received it, he had carefully opened the end and slid out the thick folds of heavy silk. It was a beautiful rich, creamy ivory embroidered throughout with milky, coffee-colored vines in long, undulating columns. It was a luxurious fabric—one that, even with a successful business, Claire would struggle to afford.

  Nandita had included a note thanking him for coming to India, and her excitement was visible in her relaxed, loopy handwriting. It stretched so enthusiastically across the paper that she had filled four pages with a four-line message. She said she knew Satish would be able to straighten their father out and everything would be fine. He had balked at giving her the money for the fabric, she had said, but she had told him Satish had promised to bring it to India with him. Father had given it to her, but not without a thirty-minute rant about spending so much money on a frivolous purpose and complaining about what America did to intelligent people’s brains.

  I won’t ask who it is for, Nandita had written, but I am wondering. The impertinence! She would not have been so scandalized if she knew it was not a gift of love, but a gift of thanks and goodbye.

  There was a knock on his door, and he glimpsed Claire through the glass. He quickly pushed the package under his desk and called out, “Come.”

  The door crashed open and Claire flew in, reminding Satish of that funny cartoon character that spun in circles, wreaking havoc as he went—Tasmanian something? She screeched to a halt in front of him and slammed her hands down on his desk, thrusting her face across the wood toward him. Her eyes were flashing.

  “I’m going to Rio!”

  He looked at her, confused. “Rio?”

  “Rio, for the sales kick-off next Tuesday. I heard you were going, too.” At this, her smile widened, and she pushed her hands up in the air. “Rio de Janeiro. It’s like some kind of dream.”

  Satish experienced such a massive dropping sensation in his stomach that, for a moment, he felt a flash of nausea. He imagined it was what a roller-coaster would feel like, but he wasn’t sure, having never been on a roller-coaster. Rio—he had completely forgotten about Rio. He had booked his flight to India for Friday night. He had told Nandita, and he had received an enthusiastic email response from his father, which had been ruined by the ending: “I am pleased you recognized your duty—you should have come sooner.” He could not go to Rio. His brain registered, just barely, that Claire was continuing to speak to him, but he didn’t hear her. He was focused on trying to figure out what he could do to get out of going. This scheduling mess proved how distracting the situation with Nandita—and Claire—had become.

  He had been planning his Rio attendance for months and had an exhausting line-up of meetings with practically every business leader in attendance. It had been a nightmare to coordinate, given that all the attendees wanted to do was party. Satish hated that type of meeting. He spent exhausting days trying to satisfy the urgent needs of stakeholders, and then he spent the nights locked in his room, trying to catch up on his regular work. It piled up in protest of his negligence, only to reveal itself in one hundred and eighty unread emails when he had hoped his day was over. He, of course, would be the only employee in their room. Although the rest of the attendees rarely left the hotel, they certainly left their rooms to party the night away, drinking free, company-sponsored booze.

  With another one hundred foot drop of his stomach—this time in slow-motion—he realized he couldn’t get out of it. He was going to have to cancel going to India. If he canceled that, he would wait to tell Claire. He shouldn’t wait—he should tell her now, before they both got hurt—but the thought of spending days in her presence in Rio after he had hurt her was too much for him to bear. Plus, he wanted to get away to India right after he gave her the news, because he knew it would be the only way they could give each other time to reconcile themselves to the situation. A nervous shakiness in Claire’s voice filtered through into his consciousness, just then.

  “So, I was thinking Thursday night?”

  Thursday night. Would he call her Thursday night? He wasn’t ready to tell her, yet, and a sudden end to their nightly conversation might make her start asking questions. “Sure,” Satish said, “Thursday night.”

  Claire let out a long breath. “Great! I’m so pleased, Satish!”

  Before he could say anything, she turned and sprinted out of his office. Why had she seemed so relieved and happy that he had agreed to call her? Did she sense his withdrawal?

  The view from his hotel balcony in Rio was incredible. He stared out over the beaches, ocean, and lush, vivid, green islands. There was riotous color and noise everywhere he turned. A mountain on his left drew Satish’s attention, and he pulled his eyes from the stretches of the bluest ocean he had ever seen—or ever noticed. The mountain was called Sugarloaf, he knew, because he had been to Rio before, although never up to the top of Sugarloaf. In fact, the last time he was here, he hadn’t left the hotel. As he stood on his tenth-floor balcony in the Hotel Copacabana, he wondered if this city had been as mind-numbingly beautiful the last time he was here. If it had, why hadn’t he noticed?

  The steady crash of the waves against the sand served as an undercurrent to the noise of city life, and the two sounds together created an incongruent symphony. Car horns blared as cyclists swerved and yelled what he assumed were obscenities in Portuguese. Children on the vast expanse of white beach laughed as they fought over the next sip from a huge coconut with a red straw, visible even from this height. Samba music blasted from colorful blankets dotted along the sand, and he watched as teeny bikinis strutted past expensive business suits, laughing when the business men did graceful pirouettes while the bikinis swung onward.

  Was it truly this beautiful and he had never noticed? The thought made him sad. He had traveled all over the world on business and very often never left his hotel room—but only because he never saw anything that drew him out. Had he just been too involved in business to notice how amazing these places were?

  He suddenly realized that just knowing Claire made him notice a lot of things he hadn’t before. On the way here, they had driven past the famous Rio favelas. He had been mortified by the living conditions of the poor in this country and had added a discussion on the subject to his Claire list. He knew for sure that she would have logged that vision in her brain, as well, and would be eager to talk it through with him. Satish wished she was standing next to him on this balcony right now. They would breathe in this steamy heat together and marvel at the differences between this dreamy place and New Jersey. He now understood why he had never tried to discover the beauty and secrets of the places he had traveled to for business: it was sadder to see things alone than not to see them at all.

  Satish went back into his room, his bare feet cool on the air-conditioned tiles, and started to dress. He had arrived an hour ago after an overnight flight, but was due at a meeting that he was about to be late for, if he didn’t stop daydreaming. He had so much on his mind lately that he was having trouble focusing; in fact, he had been late for a meeting last week. His team had been stunned, and Phil, who had mercifully returned from jury duty, had even pulled him aside to ask him if anything was wrong. For some reason, he’d looked quite pleased about that possibility.

  He had rescheduled
his trip to India to leave the day they got back from Rio. Phil wanted to know how they were going to handle having him out of the office for so long, but Satish had assured him that he would ensure, as always, that business would continue as usual in his absence. Nandita had not been happy about the delay and neither had his father, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Satish closed his suitcase and started to hang his suits. It was then that he noticed the red, flashing light on the phone: a message from Claire.

  “I have to go to a meeting, so I haven’t had the chance to go outside, but, oh my God, Satish, have you looked out your window, yet? I was just on my balcony and I can see some super green islands in the middle of the ocean and Sugarloaf, and if I reach really far to the right, I can see those terrible favelas on the hills. Did you know that they are the only buildings up on the hill, because it is technically illegal to build above a certain height?

  “I saw Christ, the Redeemer on the way in, and he was beautiful. I so wish we had time to go do some sightseeing during the day, because you can’t go up there at night. I can see a little drink stand on the beach and am dying to go buy one of those coconuts. I can’t wait until our dinner together on Thursday. Everything is so busy and scheduled to the hilt—is it always like this? Anyway, I’ve gotta go, although I’m not sure how I am going to stay awake for the rest of the day, since I didn’t sleep at all on the plane.”

  Satish hung up the phone, smiling at her enthusiasm and pleasure. He turned to leave the room, but a question stopped him in his tracks.

  Thursday night? What did she mean about their dinner together on Thursday night? He then realized his mistake: he had agreed to go to dinner with her. She hadn’t been talking about their nightly calls in his office last week, but he had been so worried about India that he hadn’t been listening properly. He had agreed to dinner, alone with Claire in Rio on Thursday night.

  She hadn’t mentioned it since, even though they had continued their nightly talks throughout the past week. He felt a flash of irritation, which quickly turned to panic and then to a flush of pleasure at the thought of a whole evening alone with Claire in person and not through the phone. He couldn’t do it. He was supposed to be pulling away from her, and all he was doing was running toward her. He couldn’t go to dinner with her and give her the wrong idea. Oh, like you haven’t given her the wrong idea already, he chided himself.

  He had been persuading himself daily that it was acceptable to continue the phone conversations. It was acceptable, because she couldn’t possibly feel the same way about him that he did about her. She was a vibrant, exciting, beautiful, young girl and he couldn’t imagine anyone more boring than himself. If he convinced himself that he wasn’t leading her on, then he could make that phone call that had become a drug for him. He needed it—it was a physical craving. He would sink into his leather chair with James Taylor playing in the background and lose himself in conversation with… a friend.

  That’s all she is: a friend. He would go to dinner with his friend, and he would bring her the gift, safely tucked away in the bottom of his suitcase, and he would tell her—and they would still be friends.

  19

  Claire

  Claire was getting sick of the inside of this hotel. There was nothing wrong with the hotel in theory—in fact, it was quite luxurious and had attentive staff and great food. In reality, however, it was her prison. Out there was Rio de Janeiro, and over the past day and a half, she had gotten tantalizing glimpses of the vibrant, pulsing city. Out there was a gorgeous, endless stretch of beach, great little restaurants with exotic food, and open-aired bars serving caipirinhas. She had to get out there.

  She had tasted her first caipirinha last night at a mandatory dinner. The restaurant was called Por Cao, or Big Pig, and it had been a fascinating and delicious experience. They’d sat next to a gigantic buffet filled with every kind of food imaginable: salad, seafood, sushi, fruit, cheese, soups, and more. Claire couldn’t believe the diversity, and she had piled high, intending to taste it all. When she’d returned to her seat, she’d found a vast array of side dishes spread across the table and a little red disk in the middle of her plate. A salesman, already a little tipsy from the pre-dinner drink in the hotel, had explained the meaning of the disk. He pointed out tuxedo-attired waiters wandering the room with big, metal stakes of meat.

  “It’s all different kinds of meat,” he had slurred. “They’ll come ‘round and slice it on your plate. When you want more, you flip that little disk to the green side, and when you're finished, turn it over to the red.”

  Big Pig—it was quite an appropriate name, as far as Claire was concerned. Not only could you stuff your face to the point of explosion, but she had also sat next to Nick, the biggest pig in the room, and had witnessed him do exactly that. She’d been glad she had the caipirinha to numb the effects of her revulsion.

  Unfortunately, Nick had been her constant companion since she’d arrived. He had an uncanny psychic ability to know when she was talking about the project, especially when she was speaking to someone important who had gathered the mistaken impression that Claire was responsible for her own work. “Isn’t she a little whiz?” he’d elbowed a regional vice president in the ribs. The look on the man’s face should have told Nick that it wasn’t a great idea, but he was socially clueless. “She took to the work like a duck to water. Of course, she had my wisdom and experience to guide her. I had to clean up her draft, but this little one—I think she’s got a future.”

  It was now Thursday afternoon and Claire was, once again, having the same degrading experience at the cocktail hour Nick had insisted she attend before she could enjoy her free evening. She tried to think of a witty comeback to make it clear that she knew what he was up to and didn’t appreciate it, but she was just too tired. The days had been grueling. Although the salespeople had been impressed with the business requirements, what she had was never enough for them. Claire was starting to worry about meeting even the extended timelines. She’d tried to bring up these concerns to Nick, but he had pooh-poohed her.

  “What are you talking about, doll? They love us right now; we can do no wrong! Just gather the requirements—it’s Satish’s responsibility to deliver them.”

  Satish. Claire couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen him. She had looked for him last night, but he had not attended the dinner. She thought she may have caught a glimpse of him going into an elevator yesterday, which she had run to try to catch, but when she’d gotten there, the elevator had left. Now, she was trembling with anticipation for tonight.

  As much as she was excited to see Rio, she was even more excited to see Satish. She hadn’t been able to get her heart to slow down since lunch. Truthfully, she was still a little shocked that he had agreed to meet her for dinner at all, and she hadn’t mentioned it once since he had agreed for fear that he might change his mind. He was a traditional man, and there were a million reasons he might think a relationship with her would not be a good idea, including his family, the work situation, and her age. Claire was sure that Satish spent enough time on his own worrying about all those things, so she certainly wasn’t going to make him think about them more.

  Tonight, she would tell him how she felt. She had been practicing at home with Sally, who had insisted that the fact that he agreed to dinner meant he knew this was more than just a work relationship. They had practiced the conversation a million times, with Tod providing the male perspective, and Claire felt confident that she was ready. Now, if only she could get out of here.

  Nick swayed into her, and she shoved him upright with her left hip.

  “Isn’t she a whiz?” he was saying for the fifth time that evening—this time, to a female executive who was looking at Claire with a mixture of sympathy and contempt. “I have been spending so much time coaching her, because I knew she had promish. Who knew she would take my coaching so well, though? Like a schponge, she is. She just soaks it all up—all of my experience.”

  “Hmm,�
� said the executive. She was looking around the room and checking her watch simultaneously. “Well, Sarah, I’m sure you will be exceedingly successful. I’m meeting someone for dinner, Nick, so I’m out of here. Maybe you should show your protégé some of the sights of Rio—she shouldn’t go out at night alone.”

  Nick smiled drunkenly at her and Claire in turn. “Sure—of course I know.” He leaned into Claire again and she recoiled from his breath. “We already planned it, didn’t we, Claire? We are going out on the town, proty, proty, prote...”

  The executive gave Claire a long once-over, smirked, and walked away. Claire turned to Nick angrily. Her sudden movement caused him to sway dangerously again, however, and she reached out and grabbed his upper arm. It wasn’t because she didn’t want him to fall, because that would have been great, but because his toppling trajectory was aimed right at her.

  “How can you say that, Nick? You know I have other plans. I am not going out with you.”

  “You can’t go out alone; you heard Gail. You’d better come with me, so I can take care of you.” He picked up a nearby wine bottle and sloshed some into his glass. The wave of incoming wine slapped over the side and rained onto the beige carpet.

  “I’m not going with you. I have plans.”

  Nick had put down his glass and grabbed a huge stack of napkins from the table. Claire looked around, embarrassed, as he got to his knees and started to blot at the pool of red wine. A thickly-accented voice came from behind the bar, “Sir—sir, please, it is not necessary. We will take care of that.”

  Claire took this as her cue and hurried out of the room. She stood, shuffling in front of the elevator banks, and looked at her watch: 6:20 pm. She was supposed to be meeting Satish at 6:30 in front of her room and now she was going to be late, and without time for a shower. She couldn’t believe she had wasted so much time as Nick’s arm candy; she should have stood up for herself and found a way to get out of it. The numbers above the elevators ticked downward at an agonizingly slow speed; the closest elevator was still on the seventh floor.