by Ward, Susan
The metal doors open, I step in and hit the rooftop button. When the doors open again, sunshine and music crash into my already overly agitated nerve-tips. Fuck, it’s packed. I pick my way through the laughing, drinking throng of sun-worshiping humanity, trying to ignore the not so sly heated stares of more than a few men.
I adjust my bikini bottom. More stares. Fuck you, I’m taken. Only I’m not, not in the true context. And in two days, not even in my context. I shake my head. Stop thinking, Linda, and find a lounge chair.
“Linda! Over here! Linda.”
I hear my name called in an irritatingly familiar voice and turn. I rapidly scan people. Oh Crap, Candy Sierra. The Deborah Harry clone. Yep, that’s her; string bikini, top too small, tits too large and platinum blond hair. Groupie from hell. Fuck, what’s she doing here?
I force a smile. “Hey, Candy. It’s been a while hasn’t it?”
“Forever. Trish and I were just talking about you. And then pouf. There you are. Isn’t that amazing?”
I smile. I like her roommate Trish, though Candy is a limit dose only type of acquaintance. “So how’s Trish? Is she here?”
“Everyone is here,” Candy says in an ecstatic way. “The party has been going on three days.”
My eyes round. Everyone? Icy pricks of alarm shoot through my veins.
“Who’s booked here at the hotel, Candy?”
She stares. Surprised. “All of them. Jackson Parker was at The Forum Friday night. They’re all booked here. Band. Road crew. Like, everyone. Every girl we know is in this building somewhere. Who are you staying here with?”
I flush. She’s so blunt. And she also has the biggest mouth in Southern California. The lie flows effortlessly from my lips, “No one. I’m just pool hopping.”
The man lying next to her in the lounger opens his eyes. “What’s pool hopping? Sounds fun. If it’s a game why don’t you show me?”
His suggestive tone and the way his eyes scan my body leaves little room to misinterpret his meaning. I have to forcibly restrain myself from a making a face at him.
Candy makes a face for me. “God, you are such a pervert, Mike. It’s not a sex game. It’s crashing a pool at a hotel so you can get a tan. Just ignore him, Linda. He’s nobody. Now get up, you asshole. Let Linda sit down.”
I make a motion with my hand for Mike not to move. “No. It’s all right. I’m just going to leave. It’s too crowded here.”
Shit. With everything going on in Jack’s life, now was not the time for him to put us in a room in a hotel with the rest of the tour entourage. What if someone had seen us together? In spite of what Jack says, I’d be target rich dirt for Walter to use in court. It’s a small miracle that no one has seen us. Not his people, or the tabloids, or even one of my fucked up friends from the old days, like Candy.
Before I can get away, Candy has my arm and is pulling me down beside her.
“Oh no you don’t,” Candy says. “I want to know what’s up with you. No one has seen you for months.”
I shrug. “I’ve just been finishing school and trying to find a job.”
“Boy, everyone misses you, Linda. I saw Rob last week. He asked about you.”
Oh great. Now it’s time for ex-boyfriend chatter.
“How’s he doing?” I ask.
“Fine I guess. Still living in Venice Beach. Still doing nothing. Still has his band. Still Rob.”
She laughs. Still Rob isn’t funny to me.
“I saw JD Taylor backstage at The Forum, Friday. He asked about you.”
I feel sick, like I’m going to vomit.
Candy’s eyes brighten. “He’s two floors down. Staying here if you want to find him. I’m pretty sure he’d rather have you than what he has got going on now.”
She laughs, stretching with the feline grace of a predator who knows how to attract prey. I stare at her. Was I ever like her? I must have been. We lived the same lifestyle before I met Jack. Moved in the same circles. But it doesn’t seem possible that I was ever like her. It’s not something that feels real or a part of me. I know it was, but it wasn’t me.
My emotions clog in my throat, nearly strangling me. I stand up. “I’ve got to run, Candy.”
She sits up. “Why are you cutting out? It’s early. Hang for a while.”
“I can’t. I’ve got to go.”
I’m hyperventilating by the time I reach the elevator. I push the button and wait anxiously for the doors to open. I just spent ten minutes chatting with a bleached-blond version of my former self and I didn’t fucking like it. Not one bit.
~~~
After an unspectacular dinner alone in the room, I click on the TV and curl on the couch to wait for Jack. Even though my favorite nighttime drama is working very hard to claim my focus, I can’t stop thinking. The last three days have been intense: flash arguments; laughter; fierce fucking; tender lovemaking; personal highpoints; and separate low points. There are times we are together it feels like the entire universe speeds up so we can sandwich into our precious hours more living than other couples do in a lifetime. We love. We fight. We laugh. We fuck. Jack is my best friend, the one person I can always count on, the one person willing to be only a friend in those times when I only need a friend. I never expected to have this kind of a relationship with a man. To have him be both my lover and my friend.
I switch off the TV. I am suddenly consumed by anxiousness and doubt. I start to pace the room. What is the smart play? Who would have thought suddenly having good possibilities would make life so tough? I’ve always been a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants girl, living life as it came, no worries, no fear, keeping free of emotional entanglements and not letting anyone get entangled over me. I am completely out of my element.
I stare at the door to the hallway. It was fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants Linda who walked through that door three days ago. Today, I have so many decisions and tough choices to make, and it’s harder than I ever anticipated.
My eyes fix on the desk phone, and I am startled that the strongest impulse inside me is to call Sandy Harris and pass on taking the job. It doesn’t seem right to run off to the UK when Jack is going through a personal crisis and so much shit. But I don’t think me staying for him would be a good thing. I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought there were even a slight possibility it would be good for him.
I go to the window and stare down at the street below. I call up the entire list of issues and force myself to look at them honestly. The job with Sandy Harris. Who would have ever thought I’d land that one? It’s too good of an opportunity to pass on. The graduate program. I never expected to be accepted into the program, any more than I expected to figure out a way to pay for it. And then, there is the problem with Walter. It is not going to go away by pretending it doesn’t exist. Jack needs to focus on his daughter and making that situation right. You’re only going to be an added complication there, Linda. Not a help. Step out now and be kind to you both. Today, more so than it was eight months ago, it is not just better to be the girl who walks away, it is also the better thing to do.
Be smart, Linda. Do what’s right for Jack. Do what’s right for you.
The door opens and I whirl to find Jack entering the suite.
“Hi beautiful. Did you manage to have a good rest of the day without me?”
The image he makes wrings my heart. He looks ragged and exhausted.
“No. I hated every minute of it,” I reply. Then, “How did it go? How was Chrissie?”
He gazes at me as if he can’t quite figure out what to say. After a long pause, he says, “It was stressful.”
My brows hitch up. Stressful? What could have possibly happen in a six hour outing with his daughter to cause him to return looking like this?
He sinks down on the couch and I settle on my knees beside him. It hasn’t escaped me that he hasn’t so much as touched me since his return. He is completely overwhelmed right now.
I stay beside him an
d say nothing.
Jack finally looks at me. “It’s only ten. Do you want to go out tonight?”
I arch a brow. “No. I want to hear what happened with your daughter.”
“Nothing happened. Nothing. Watched her lesson. We had dinner. I took her back to Walter’s.”
I frown. “Sounds like a lovely day. So what went wrong?”
He runs a hand through his hair as if frustrated with himself. “Nothing was wrong. It was all the same as always.” He sighs. “But you are right, Linda. Walter is not being vindictive. There is an issue and somehow I have not seen it.”
For once the strangeness of discussing Chrissie, a little girl I’ve never met, doesn’t consume me.
I cover his hand with mine. “Little girls are complicated. Sometimes it is hard to see what’s going on with them.”
His blue eyes settle on me. “She hardly talked to me, Linda. Nothing new. But tonight I saw something in her eyes I’ve never seen before and I don’t know when it happened or why it is there, but it scared the hell out of me.”
My heart stops. “It can’t be that bad, Jack. Whatever it is it will be OK. Little girls are emotional. They are also resilient.”
“She is angry. She is very sad.” A long pause. “She hates me, Linda. I could see it so clearly in her eyes tonight. My daughter hates me.”
“No, Jack. She does not hate you. I can guarantee that is not the case.”
His eyes are drenched with agonized emotion. “You did not see the way she stared at me.”
“I don’t have to,” I say firmly. “Angry perhaps. Hate you? Never. You are a good man and a good father. She doesn’t hate you.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I’m always right,” I counter.
Jack laughs, his tired body looking like a loose jelly mold.
I kiss his hands.
“Come to bed, Jack. It’s been a long day,” I whisper, staring up at him.
He nods. We go into the bedroom. In silence we undress. I climb into bed first and he follows, lying near me but not touching.
I turn off the light. I roll over in bed, into him, and hold him close. His arms tighten around me and his body melts into me.
“It will be all right, Jack.”
A ragged sigh. “How could things get so wrong without me seeing it? Maybe Walter is right. Maybe you’re right. I don’t see a fucking thing.”
I think of who I used to be. The girl I was at the beach the night we met, and who I am now after having loved Jack. “You saw me.”
Jack smiles. He brushes my cheek with his thumb. We lay quietly together. I start to lightly run my fingers through his golden hair. A few minutes later he’s asleep, his cheek resting near my breasts, his body still molded into me.
Jack is right. Sometimes it is good, very good, just to lay and hold each other.
Nine
I wake alone in the bed. I slowly stretch, push the curls from my face, and climb from the warm sheets. I go to my suitcase and pull out the little black nightie set. I want to look pretty this morning. Yesterday was rough for Jack. Today is our last day together. I want nothing but happy moments for the both of us.
After making a fast stop in the bathroom and doing a quick preening, I go to the suite’s living room. I smile. No surprise here.
Jack is sitting in a chair, wearing only those hideous boxers I hate, curtains drawn, feet propped on the window ledge, coffee in hand and staring at the sky.
I hang back and just watch him for a few minutes. He looks better this morning. Like himself. Peaceful.
“Well, there you are. Again,” I announce with mock heaviness. “What kind of man slips out of bed at daybreak, every day, even on the days he has me in his bed?”
His head swivels and he smiles at me. The look in his eyes makes me flush. “A stupid man, to be sure. Why are you with him?”
“Because I am in love with him even though he is very weird at times.”
His humor fades. “I needed some time to think, Linda. Get clear headed again. This is how I do my best thinking.”
“Hopefully, you’ve come up with a good thought or two.”
“Definitely good since you stepped out wearing that.”
I stop next to his chair and he eases up to give me a kiss. I take the coffee from his hand, climb onto his lap and settle back against his chest.
“How much time is it going to take you to pack up what you need from your place?” he asks.
My heart jumps. “It takes me five minutes to pack, Jack. I don’t have much,” I reply, truthfully but non-responsively. I don’t want to start anything now.
Jack brushes the hair back from my face. His blue eyes fix on mine. “You need to tell me how much money you’ll need to cover your expenses this summer.”
My eyebrows raise. “I don’t need any money. I got a job, remember?”
His blue eyes intensify in their hold on me, but not in an alarming way. “Don’t be stubborn. Let me do this, Linda. I don’t want you stressed out and worrying the next two months about something I can fix.”
There is a lot in his words and I don’t miss a single nuisance. I stare at him and the emotion rushing through my veins is nearly leveling.
I nod. “Let me give it some thought.”
He smiles, clearly pleased that I didn’t argue with him over this. He’s such an easy man to please. I settle more closely against him.
“Can I ask you something?” I whisper.
Jack laughs. “Why do you always ask if you can ask? You can ask me anything, baby. No limits. No boundaries.”
I lift my head from his chest. “OK. I want the truth.”
“Yes? You’ll get the truth.”
I frown. “What’s up with the sunrise thing?”
He laughs.
“Don’t laugh at me. This has been driving me crazy. Musicians are nocturnal. If you were obsessed with the sun setting, I could get that. But who the heck wants to wake up every morning after working all night to watch the sunrise?”
Jack frowns. “Really? That is the question you needed to ask me if you could ask?”
“It seems some sort of personal thing you do. I didn’t want to invade.”
“It’s impossible for you to invade my life. You are my life.” His arms tighten around me. “The answer is going to disappoint you, Linda.”
“What? Does it have something to do with a past love? Someone you haven’t told me about?”
His hand lightly caresses my back. “No. I’ve told you about everyone.”
“Then what gives.”
His hand comes to my chin and he turns my face so I have to look at him. Slowly, succinctly, he says, “The sunset marks the end of something. The end of the day. The sunrise is the start of something. A new day. Clean slate. Infinite possibilities. I like to see sunrise to remind me that every day is a new day.”
I feel my eyes heat and grow misty. Even the simplest things Jack says mean so much more than the words he speaks.
“I love you,” I whisper.
He smiles, amused. “What’s gotten into you this morning? I expected an argument about the money and a wisecrack about my thing for watching the sunrise.”
“I just love you, Jack.” I kiss his neck.
We sit for a long time.
I don’t know why this seems important to me, but it suddenly does. I peek up at him. “Why did you put us in a hotel with everyone else this hop?”
“What?” He stares down at me, clearly not comprehending. “I don’t know what you’re asking me.”
“We are in the same hotel as everyone else,” I explain. “The band. The crew. They’re all here. We are usually somewhere else, away from everyone. Alone. This is the first time you haven’t made special arrangements when I’ve joined you. Why this time?”
He stares. “Linda, I don’t know what you are talking about. We have always been with everyone. We are always just where the
y put me.”
What? “But the hotels are always so quite. No one bothers us. I thought…”
The look in his eyes makes me break off.
“Is that what you thought? Christ, why would you think I’d do that? I can’t even imagine why you’d be here if that’s what you thought.”
I flush. I’ve insulted him. “I wasn’t being critical. It just seemed the way it was. Like we were in our own space away from everyone.”
His arms tighten around me. “We are always alone because everyone knows I’m on do-not-disturb when I’m with you. Anything else you want to know? Get it out now.” I make my face a mime of contriteness. He sighs again. “I should be pissed. I can’t you believe you thought I’d do something like that.”
I’m so happy I feel like my heart is going to explode. I give him a long, thorough kiss. When I pull back Jack is anything but pissed. “Just shut up and make love to me. Now.”
~~~
I break free from Jack’s kiss, my flesh feverish, my body urgent. “I thought you were going to make love to me. You’ve spent the last hour doing everything to my body but screwing me. Get on with it. I can’t take any more. I’m about to climb out of my skin.”
He gives me the look. He hates it when I call what we do screwing almost as much as he hates when I call it fucking. Then he laughs. “This is my last bet. I don’t want to waste it.”
I am breathless and more than a little physically in need. “Trust me you won’t be wasting it. You’ll be bringing it to a spectacular conclusion.”
His mouth takes mine in a lingering, tongue dancing, nerve popping way. He slowly takes his body from me until he is laying casually reclined on his side staring at me. He nips my shoulder, then beneath my ear. He breathes, “I’m letting you collect this bet, Linda. Our last one. Do with me what you want.”
Oh my—I didn’t think it possible for the heat in my body, the desire and the electricity, to turn up any higher. His lips part as he gazes at me, waiting.
