by A. V. Scott
High Heels in New York
High Heels
in
New York
A.V. SCOTT
Copyright © 2012 A.V. SCOTT
All rights reserved.
DEDICATION
To my husband for always loving the New York woman that I am and always will be.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I want to thank my dear friend and graphic artist, Cynthia Peralta, who designed the book covers, (I’ve always loved your work.) The fabulous shoe designer Ile Miranda for letting me use her red shoes for the cover; My husband for believing in me and my daughter Amber for helping me keep to my writing schedule.
1
The splendor of summer in New York City had come and gone. Central park was no longer filled with sunbathers, the pool barge that parked along the east river had seen its last swimmers for the season, and students were preparing to return to school while their parents were getting ready for the craziness of the Winter Holidays that were looming around the corner. The rest of New York settled into its usual routine of work. That was, the rest of New York that wasn’t at Bryant Park preparing for the biggest event of the year, Fashion Week.
And as far as Melissa De La Rosa was concerned, it was the most important event to see and be seen. However, instead of figuring out how she was going to get her hands on a ticket this year, she was curled up in the corner of her bathroom, hyperventilating.
Breathe, she tells herself. She had to calm down. Breathe Mel, this isn’t the end of the world. She thought about the positives in her life, she had her health, good teeth, fabulous hair, the skin of a Goddess, she lives in the best city on earth and not to mention, she’s engaged to the last available and straight bachelor in all of Manhattan.
On a regular day, she would be most pleased and excited with her life.
Today was not that type of day.
For the last hour, she had ignored the fact that she had a million things to do. Instead she devoured an entire jar of Nutella and anxiously waited for the fifth pregnancy test to show something different, something that would make her want to call up her best friends and celebrate with a pitcher of Margarita and a couple of shots of Tequila.
Rubbing her sweaty palms on her New York Yankees pajamas, she struggled with her lack of patience and checked the plastic device every couple of seconds. Having no choice in the matter, she did what she wasn’t accustomed to, wait.
And wait.
Staring so intensely at the plastic device, her eyes began to water.
No. No. No. Shit!
A baby? Now? No freaking way! She ran to the hallway and stood in front of the long mirror, pulling her t-shirt up to expose her flat stomach and imagined it bigger, like a basketball or a hot air balloon.
Your life is over, she thought.
Yeah, technically you don’t really look like a hot air balloon but once, while taking the subway, she saw a lady who she thought was overweight. But when the man standing beside her began rubbing the lady’s’ belly and smiling, Melissa knew that no person in their right mind would let anyone rub their fat in public.
And though she wasn’t exactly where she wanted to be in life, she could finally see the finish line. She was almost married and she had a job that she almost loved. She was still trying to adapt to this life and now there was a little life-sucking creature adapting to its newly claimed environment in her uterus. A uterus, by the way, that didn’t ask if she had any plans for the next nine months.
And she had plans, great plans. In three months she’d be walking down a rose-petaled aisle in the oldest church of Manhattan, dressed in a one-of-a-kind Vera Wang wedding gown toward the man of her dreams, Jonathan Henry, a financial planner at Finch & Howell Investment Corp. Yes, soon he would officially be off the market with the soft declaration of two powerful words. Then off to Seychelles Island for a long honeymoon, drinking, tanning and lots of sex.
But, just as if Mother Nature herself decided to throw another wrench in her life, the thought of pushing a nine-pound baby out of her vagina flashed through her mind and she almost fainted. Seriously, as if women don’t have enough to go through when compared to men. Must they also have to try and push a watermelon out of something the size of a kumquat?
She had no idea how she would tell Jonathan - and her mother! Her mother would want to move in with them and watch her like a hawk to make sure she wasn’t doing anything that would harm the baby. Of course Jonathan would be so elated to finally be a dad. He told Melissa many times that he wanted a house full of kids. Melissa however, kept waiting to want babies, too, but it hadn’t happened. Even now, with the reality of it, she wasn’t too sure she wanted to be pregnant.
Scaring her half to death, her cell phone starts playing Amazed by Lonestar which was the ringtone she’d chosen for Jonathans’ calls. Not knowing whether this was a sign to tell him that she was pregnant or a sign to keep the news to herself, she tried her hardest to sound as if nothing was wrong.
“Hi babe,” she said, sitting down on the wood flooring in her kitchen. If she faints or needs to throw up, at least she won’t have a far distance to go.
“Hun, I’m sorry I’m going to be late again. There’s a big shot client that needs me to redo his portfolio by Monday.” Jonathan said, sounding irritated. He had never needed to go to work during the weekends as much as he had recently. But with him wanting that promotion so desperately, he began going the extra mile. And that extra mile meant Melissa hadn’t had one single weekend with him in almost two months.
“No problem.” Melissa looked up to the ceiling and mouthed the words Thank you.
“Are you sure? I still owe you for last night.” Okay. So he was right. He’s been promising for weeks to take her to see Phantom of the Opera before production finally came to an end and she really wanted to go but she was actually happier that he was stuck at work. She needed this time alone to brainstorm about her predicament.
“No really.” She stood up, using the wall to steady herself, “It’s okay.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. Great.” He hung up before she could tell him she loved him.
At least now she had some time to stew over her dilemma. Nervously twisting her five carat princess-cut engagement ring, she walked over to the coffee machine and refilled her cup. The buzzing from the refrigerator engulfed the silence in the apartment. It was unsettling. Lost in thought she didn’t realize she’d begun to clean the counter again. The reasoning in her head does not stop. She knew that she wasn’t ready for children. And at twenty-nine years old, shouldn’t she be ready?
She just wasn’t in a rush to be knee deep in dirty diapers. What if the damn thing is colic? Or what if it came out sick? She couldn’t handle that. Feeling sick herself, she grabbed her cell phone and dialed her gynecologist.
“Hi, I need to make an appointment as soon as possible,” she said to the receptionist.
“The earliest appointment we have is Twelve o’clock on Thursday.”
“You don’t have anything earlier?” She asked, worried about having to wait. Thursday was four days away and that was too long of a wait.
“No.”
She tried to keep calm. “Well what if someone cancels an appointment, can you call me and bump me up on the list?”
“We don’t do that.”
“So if someone cancels you just leave an empty slot on the schedule?” Melissa couldn’t imagine the doctor making a profit if Miss Bitch left slots open.
“We don’t have cancellations.”
This lady was beginning to irk her. “Well, okay. I’ll take it,” she said, as a gut wrenching pain in her abdomen sidelined her. She grabbed her stomach with her left hand
and hung up the call.
For the want of accepting reality, she truly began to contemplate death. Just the thought of what the next nine months would be for her was unacceptable. Weight gain, ankles swelling, weird food cravings and worse of all, stretch marks! She didn’t spend an hour at the gym three times a week for the last two years so that a blood sucking baby could come along and ruin her body. How anyone would want to get pregnant on purpose was beyond her comprehension.
She’d rather die! Yes, death seemed like a much better option. Then, just as she was about to start cleaning up the mess of the pregnancy tests and empty boxes, her cell phone beckoned her again.
A frantic voice shrieked on the line, “You’re late!”
“Oh shit!” She was late - very late. The afternoon had snuck up on her while she was busy losing her mind.
“I’m sitting here at the restaurant alone, where people could see me sitting a-l-o-n-e!” The familiar life-or-death voice was that of her best friend, Angie. Their monthly lunch date was a promise they had made to each other so that no matter how crazy their lives became, they never got lost in the bullshit. Obviously, Melissa had begun to get lost in hers.
Looking at the pregnancy tests, Melissa struggled with telling her best friend. Just tell her. Just come right out and say it, Melissa thought. But just like Jonathan, Melissa knew that Angie would want her to keep it. She’d start planning every detail of its life before it even developed a heartbeat. She didn’t want to get anyone’s’ hopes up if in the end, she’d end up deciding not to keep it.
“I can’t,” she said instead. “I have so much to do today. I have to pick up Jonathan’s dry cleaning, grab a few things at the grocery and …” She wiped down the kitchen counter for the third time. Cleanliness is next to Godliness; her mother’s voice resonated in her ear.
“Okay, I get it, you’re domesticated. Whoopitie-do. But if you want to be a domesticated woman who’s still alive by supper time you better get your butt over here pronto.”
“I can’t.”
“Seriously Melissa, get over here or I’m going to remove you from my will.”
“Oh no, you mean I don’t get the Da Vinci painting?” Melissa teased, wiping down the counter one more time. Just in case.
“I’m not kidding,” Angie continued.
“As long as I get the sex video of you and that hot actor. I can get top dollar from one of those gossip magazines,” she said, pouring what was left of the coffee down the kitchen sink.
Angie lowered her voice, “You promised never to bring it up.”
Angie was not only Melissa’s best friend but she was also best friends with Hollywood. She’d been a child star since the age of five after appearing in a national cereal commercial and worked steadily for the next twenty years. And thanks to Jonathan, who had invested a big chunk of her money, she hadn’t the need to work ever again.
“You should let me leak it. It’ll go viral and then you can get your own reality show.” Walking into the bathroom, Melissa gathered the evidence of the pregnancy and dumped them into an empty grocery bag that she carefully placed inside her oversized black Prada shoulder bag with the intention of getting rid of it in a garbage receptacle far away, like New Jersey.
“Not funny,” Angie dejected.
“Fine. Order the usual. I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” Melissa said, as she walked into the master bedroom and began to undress. Then she turned on the shower full blast, sending a shiver up her spine that made her nipples harden. The old water pipes rattled inside the walls. It’s a sound she’d accustomed to by choice. Her apartment was a lovely, one of a kind gem; one bedroom loft, in a four story pre-war building, nestled at the top of Grand Street in the Lower East Side in between a 24hr pharmacy and a very popular donut shop. (Which she frequents.) Three huge windows face the street so it gets an abundant amount of light all year round and there is a laundry facility in the basement. (Which she doesn’t frequent.)
The neighborhood was known for its gritty appeal with edgy boutiques, hip bars, art galleries and rent controlled apartments, which made finding vacancies nearly impossible. The realtor who showed her the apartment told her that Marilyn Monroe once lived in the building when it was a single-family house. She rented it right then. In New York, if you didn’t jump on available real estate it’d be gone faster than a Twinkie at a weight watchers meeting.
Catching a glance at herself in the bathroom mirror she froze. She barely recognized the reflection staring back at her; matted hair, sallow skin and circles under her eyes. Everyone warned her that this would happen. They said she was better off hiring a wedding planner and she did, but she wanted to take care of most of the preparations herself which caused her to lose lots of sleep. Thank goodness that as of yesterday she was officially finished with the long pre-wedding to do list.
The hot water on her skin was relaxing. With her eyes closed she lathered up her entire body and then rinsed off quickly. Wishing she had five more minutes to spare, she grumbled, turned off the water and toweled off. It’ll work out. Just like it always does, she tells herself over and over. After tidying up the bedroom, she took her daily peek at the wedding gown in the closet. It’s so white and so beautiful that she had to keep herself from putting it on. Since it’s a Vera Wang, it’s a very difficult thing to do. Suddenly, she pictured herself in the first trimester of the pregnancy trying to fit into it. No one in their right mind alters a Vera Wang.
NO ONE!
She wanted to scream like Janet Leigh’s shower scene in Psycho. Instead, she let out a pathetic groan and took off the gown, trading it for her favorite pink cardigan over a white tank top, a pair of Lucky Brand dark blue skinny jeans, and her favorite tan L.A.M.B heels that she snagged at a sample sale. Once she’s satisfied with her appearance, she heads over to the restaurant.
#
Across town, sitting at a table in the back of the City’s most popular Italian restaurant, Angelina Stevens is recovering from another all night sex romp. The guy was a twenty-two year old personal trainer she met a week ago while attempting to make it through a cycling class. She may have left the fitness class still unsure why everyone was raving about spending an hour sweating in a room with fifteen strangers, while screaming in agony and staring at unappealing, fat and saggy behinds. But completely understood why thirty something women like herself were ending up sweating all night long in the arms of very young men; they were easier to ride and their behinds were quite nice to look at. Plus, having endless hours of blind blowing sex was a more exciting way to burn calories.
Angelina had just broken things off with Andrew, a guy she unwillingly dated for the last six months. He was a movie producer with only three productions under his director’s belt but Angie knew it was only a matter of time before he made it to the big leagues. Unfortunately, six months was all she could put up with. He was too needy for her. And he tried forcing her to be someone she wasn’t. She promised herself a much needed siesta from men and hadn’t planned on being with anyone quite so soon. But when she saw Carlos at the gym, she knew she just had to have him. Not only was he young, which meant he had a lot of stamina to last more than five minutes, which was how long men her age (and older) would last, but he had the body of a Greek God. She first spotted him as she walked past the free weights area. He had on a white tank top that clung nicely to his six-pack abs and gray sweat pants that fit snug enough for her to catch a glimpse of his nicely shaped backside. She imagined running her tongue up and down each crevice of his abs and yearned to be naked with him. She could definitely see him training her privately, if only for a few hours.
And that’s exactly how it went down. When Carlos saw her drooling at the sight of him, he walked right up to her and an hour later, he was at her place training Angie into submission. Both of them just wanted a good time and they both got it. Afterwards, Carlos went on his merry way and Angie planned on using the memory, along with her vibrator, to help her get through the upcoming lonely nights;
except, they ended up having sex two more times that week and twice this morning. When he left her upper west side condo, she promised herself that it was the last time. Luckily, she used the excuse of having to meet up with Melissa to end the pleasure fest.
After she’d hung up the call with Melissa, Angie tried getting a hold of her manager. He had been ignoring her calls all morning after a heated argument they had the day before. Thirty years in the entertainment industry and she didn’t understand why she still had to audition for bit parts. Granted, she hadn’t worked in a few years but she used to have a great reputation as a phenomenal actress and she wasn’t going to taint it with an unnecessary audition, especially for a role she didn’t even want.
“What do you mean I didn’t get the part?” Angie asked Charles, her manager. “You said I was perfect for it.”
“I know. I know,” he argued over the phone. “This is why you need to take these smaller parts.”
“I won’t do it,” Angie screamed, pushing the black Gucci shades further up the bridge of her nose. The last thing she wanted was for someone to recognize her and then over hear the conversation. She knew too well that gossip got around fast in New York. So, you had to wear designer outfits, live in a posh building, never be seen riding the subway and always, be seen in the gym. It was the only way you could lie about getting plastic surgery and get away with it, which was the other reason she was hiding her face. “You find something else for me,” she said, unfolding her napkin and speaking in a much calmer tone, “I don’t care if it’s on a stage on Broadway. That’s why you get fifteen percent. So find me something fast.” She hung up and signaled to the waiter. “I need a glass of whiskey.”
The waiter ran off like the perfect little servant to find her what she desperately needed. She was in total shock that she couldn’t get the one part she wanted in that damn movie. No matter how long she’d been in the business, she still wasn’t used to just how quickly you became yesterdays’ news. All it took was a tiny wrinkle around the eye and producers were replacing her with younger, prettier actresses that would do anything for a lead role and they did. And she wasn’t about to start sleeping around again just to get the part she wanted in a movie even if that movie would catapult her career back into Hollywood royalty status. She had to find a way to get that part before she lost everything she worked so hard for.
