by Stella Blaze
She turned and grabbed two remotes from the coffee table I’d bought them for their wedding gift—I cringed as I saw the scratches and dings already inflicted on the Hooker Brookhaven wood topped table.
She pointed the dual remotes at the large flat-screen TV mounted on the wall, and then pocketed the remotes in her wrinkled and stained polka-dot robe.
The fifty-inch screen blazed to life, and I was suddenly bombarded by a dancing snowman singing about the joys of summer.
I looked at baby Sara—she had suddenly stopped crying, and was now smiling, cooing as the snowman danced.
I looked around and found myself alone in the room with the baby.
“Susan…” I called. “Are you there?”
No answer.
I looked to the baby and then to the snowman and sighed.
And now I was going to pay.
An eternity later—technically about ten minutes—Susan emerged from the back of the apartment with a baby bottle in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other.
Oh yes, that was what I needed.
Caffeine.
I reached out my hand… and Susan handed me the baby bottle.
I frowned and watched as my one time best friend sat in a chair off to the left and sipped at her probably delicious cup of coffee.
She sighed, closing her eyes, leaning back into the cushions of the chair—even curling her toes.
Then she smiled and opened her eyes to regard me.
“So why is my best friend pounding on my door in the middle of the night?”
I looked over to the clock on the wall. “It’s eight o’clock.”
“Not when you have a three month old.” She shot me a hard, level look. “Then it’s the middle of the night.”
“Maybe I should go.” I’d obviously wrecked her night, and now that I was thinking about it, the appearance of an ex-boyfriend might not seem all that important to a new mother.
Susan shook her head slowly, a cruel smile on her usually sweet face.
“You’re not going anywhere until you’ve fed Sara her bottle, and then rocked her to sleep again.” She took another sip of her coffee and sighed again, looking far too happy.
“What the hell’s in that coffee?”
“Nothing illegal or alcoholic,” Susan said, “but it’s nice to be able to drink it like a regular human being.”
“Regular human being?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Try drinking a cup of hot coffee when you’re juggling a baby. It’s harder than you’d think.”
I looked down at baby Sara and felt a pang of pity. As cute as she was, just holding her was precluding all other activities.
I dutifully brought the bottle to her mouth and she took hold of the nipple with a happy sound and started to feed.
“Now,” Susan said, “Tell me what’s the problem.”
“It’s nothing, really.”
She gave me the Don’t be stupid look.
I bit my lip, took a deep breath and told her.
“I saw Jackson Burk tonight.”
At first there was no reaction from her. And then her eyes widened and she sat up and put her coffee cup down.
“Jackson, as in the Jackson Burk that didn’t take your virginity?”
Okay, so there it was.
That night flickered through my mind: we’d been out in the snow, building a snowman, and then stopped for hot chocolate and waffles at Chester’s. From there we went back to my dorm room, and we started making out. One thing led to another and I felt it was time.
I’d wanted Jackson to be my first. All the other guys I’d dated had been so immature, and impossible to talk to.
But Jackson had been different. He’d tried to act like a big brother at first, but I put a stop to that the first week. I’d kissed him in the stacks at the library. We’d been there to research a paper for the class we both were taking. But I did everything I could to make sure we had to stay late getting the actual researching done.
So I took his hand and placed it on my breast. It’s how I’d seen girls in movies let the boy know that they wanted to go “all the way.”
His breathing quickened immediately, our kiss deepening.
Before I knew it we had pulled each other’s shirts off, and he’d peeled my jeans off over my hips, kissing his way down to my bare feet as he did it. All I had on were my bra and panties.
I leaned up and unhooked my bra, slowly letting the satin and lace fall from my shoulders, exposing me to him.
Jackson gulped and then pulled me to him.
We kissed and kissed and kissed, as he caressed my breasts and kept pulling me closer to him.
When his hand slid down over my stomach, his thick fingers inching down into the waistband of my panties, I started getting nervous.
It was my first time, and besides a bare bones “talk” my father tried to give me when I was sixteen, and the mountains of erotica I’d read over the last couple of years, I had no real-world experience or knowledge base.
I grabbed his hand with my own and said what so many have said before me.
“This is my first time.”
Jackson smiled and laughed, which didn’t make much sense, but then his expression sobered, and he asked, “You’ve never done this before?”
I shook my head and kissed his lips.
“I want you to be my first.”
His eyes were looking off into the distance, and then suddenly he looked back to me—the look on his face was as if he had never seen me before.
Jackson pulled away from me in the darkened room and grabbed his shirt from the floor, pulling it on as he stood. Then he grabbed his shoes and crammed them on his feet.
“What’s wrong?” I pulled the bed sheet up to cover myself and sat up, watching him as he pulled his clothes on in a rush.
“Umm, nothing.” He shook his head and pulled on his coat. I saw his red scarf flutter to the floor. “I just…” He stopped and stared at me, but there was no emotion in his eyes.
“I have to go.”
He turned and walked out of my dorm room. He didn’t look back.
I cried myself to sleep that night. Crying for maybe the third time in my entire life… and maybe the last time that I can remember.
He didn’t call. He didn’t even look at me when we had class the next day.
I dropped that class that day and never went anywhere near the man again.
“So what happened?” Susan’s words drew me out of my Jackson induced reverie and back to the present.
I blinked and tried to think straight.
“I was having dinner with Lance and Churchill at La Pampillon.”
Susan’s eyes flashed. “I heard their bread is to die for.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I said, “I never fill up on the bread.”
“What did you get?”
I glared at her. “The menu isn’t important.”
Susan looked a little disappointed, but then snapped to. “So what happened?”
I felt my breath catch in my throat. “He sent me a margarita.”
It’s what we drank on that first date, two days after we’d kissed all night at the library. He cooked enchiladas and Spanish rice in his dorm room, and made us a pitcher of margaritas.
He could only find a couple of martini glasses, but he had the salt.
No, no, no… I was not going to keep doing this.
I am not a flashback kind of girl!
“Then I saw him, threw the drink in his face, and stormed off.”
“No way!” Susan was on the edge of her seat. “You didn’t say anything?”
Oh yeah…
“I leaned in, rubbed my finger across his jaw and tasted it.” I could still taste the tequila. “I think I said, ‘I forgot how good these were’, or something.”
Susan’s mouth fell open and she put her hands over her heart.
“What happened next?”
I cleared my throat and felt baby Sara move in my arms.
<
br /> What had happened next?
I know I was pretty damn excited, I’d wanted to do something to the bastard for the longest time, but for some reason hadn’t—which was so unlike me.
I was more of a let it out kind of woman, and yet all this pent up hostility toward Jackson Burk had gone un-avenged.
“I left the restaurant,” I said. “Jackson caught up with me outside, and that’s when Lance…”—Oh, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to repay him for what he did. I enjoyed it so completely.—“Well, Lance cleaned the sidewalk with Jackson.”
Susan blinked, gave her head a tiny shake, and then smiled. “You’re kidding, right?”
I shrugged. “Lance did say on his résumé that he’d won a national medal in Aikido. I really just thought he was kidding. But Jackson didn’t lay a hand on him. Before I knew it Lance had him on the ground, his arm pinned behind his back, and Lance’s knee grinding into his vertebrae.”
Susan still looked like she didn’t believe me.
“Stylish, ever so polite Lance?” She definitely didn’t sound convinced. “What is he, five foot nine? And the last time I saw Jackson he was the six-three quarterback for the Dartmouth Big Green.”
I smiled, remembering how quickly it had all happened.
Lance was wondrous.
“Six two, actually, and I guess they don’t train you for hand to hand when you’re on the football team.”
Susan blinked a few times. “Did Lance hurt him?”
A strange pang hit my heart. So small and silent, but utterly disturbing.
“No, he just held him there for a while, and then let him up when I asked him to.”
Susan stood up and then sat down right beside me. “You asked him to let him go?”
The look on her face was overly excited to the extreme, like a geeky Goth girl meeting Robert Pattinson for the first time.
I scooched over away from her. “You really don’t get out much, do you?”
She shrugged, her gaze dogged as she waited for me to answer.
“I couldn’t let Lance hurt him. What would I do if he were in jail? My gallery would fall to pieces without him.”
Susan’s stare turned into a hard glare. “Yeah, right. As if big, tough Jackson Burk would admit to having his ass handed to him by your assistant.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. I wasn’t about to tell her the truth. It was just so… confusing.
As if she could read my mind Susan said, “I bet you just couldn’t stand seeing Jackson getting hurt.”
“Okay, that’s just… creepy.”
Susan looked victorious as she took the now empty bottle from Sara’s lips, the towel from my shoulder and then lifted Sara from my arms.
The sudden feeling of having my arms empty made my chest hurt, but only for a moment.
Get a grip!
“So that was the end of it?” Susan deftly lifted one eyebrow. She’d been practicing.
I lifted mine right back at her.
“He… he… oh hell! He would only leave me alone if I promised to have lunch with him tomorrow at Chester’s.”
Susan had Sara draped over her shoulder, lightly patting her back. “Isn’t that where you guys were… you know, right before you two… well, right before you two didn’t sleep together?”
“Yes.” The word came out with so much chill I was surprised it didn’t fall like ice from my lips.
Susan looked up, thinking. “But isn’t Chester’s in Hanover?”
“They’re a franchise, and there’s one on the corner of Wolfram and Hart. I looked it up on the way over here.”
“What are you going to order?”
I blinked. “What am I going to order?” I stood up and stared down at my best friend. “Is that all you think about now, food?”
Susan got this hurt look on her pretty, blemish free face. “I only leave this apartment to take Sara for a walk, or to go grocery shopping.” Her eyes welled up with tears. “I haven’t been out to a restaurant in three months, Liz.”
She started crying, silent, heart wrenching tears.
I rummaged through my purse and found a pocket sized sleeve of Kleenex. I pulled two out and handed them to Susan.
She held a now sleeping Sara in her arms as she wiped the tears from her eyes with her free hand.
“Kevin’s always out of town. He’s heading up a project in New York.” She deftly blew her nose with the tissues.
I guess motherhood makes you good at doing things with just one hand.
“He tries to come home every weekend, but… but this is so important for him. He’s never headed up a skyscraper before.”
I remembered that he was the architectural renaissance kind of guy, and Susan was the steel and glass type.
And now Susah was sidelined with a baby and a long distance husband.
“Have you thought of hiring a nanny?”
Susan’s eyes shot to me and she all but hissed, “I am not paying some stranger to raise my child!”
Okay, note to self: never inquire about child care again. Sooner or later, she’ll want to go back to work, and will have to decide upon that then. But I guess she just wasn’t ready to hear that yet.
I nodded my head in agreement. “Of course not. No strangers.”
Susan’s expression changed: the glare turning sunny, and her mouth transforming from a hard line to a lovely smile.
“Yes, no strangers.”
What was she looking at me like that for?
She stuffed the tissues into her robe pocket and then transferred baby Sara to her other arm. “So, you said you were going to lunch tomorrow with Jackson?”
“God no!” I slumped back against the couch. “I just said that to get him to leave me alone.”
Susan giggled. “So what happens when you don’t show up at Chester’s and he comes to your gallery looking for you?”
“He’ll get the hint. I want nothing to do with him ever again. And anyways, how will he even find my gallery?”
“He has a college education,” Susan said, “You don’t think he knows how to use Google?”
I smiled deviously. “He has a college education, Susan. I think he’ll know when he’s being blown off.”
The modern style clock on the wall chimed as if it were church bells twenty miles away, a most restful sound. And as if on cue Susan yawned.
It was now nine o’clock. I needed to let Susan go back to sleep.
“Forgive me for waking you guys up. I’m so sorry.” I kissed Susan on the cheek and started toward the door. “I’ll call you later this week for lunch. We’ll go somewhere amazing.”
“And then you can watch Sara for me while I get my hair and nails done.”
I almost choked when she said that, thinking that she was joking—but the look on her face said it all. She was deadly serious.
“But Susan…”
“Like you said,” her voice was like a lullaby, “no strangers.”
Oh… my… god…
“I’ll make the reservations and the appointment, and call you tomorrow.” She stood up and gingerly walked back toward the bedrooms. “Lock the door when you go. Night.”
Chapter 6
I walked for a few blocks to clear my head. Downtown Chicago was still awake, and the streets were littered with people of every demographic imaginable.
I stopped and sat on a bench located right beside a cotton candy vendor. I plucked a five dollar bill out of my purse and waved it in the vendor’s direction. He took the hint and brought me over a stick covered with pink spun sugar.
“Keep the change,” I told him as I leaned my elbows on my knees and tore off hunks of the sweet treat.
I watched taxis, cars and buses stream by. Lovers walked by arm in arm. Nuns waltzed by with ice cream cones.
And there I was, sitting alone, dressed to pay a visit on the freaking Queen of England, eating cotton candy on a stick.
I was pathetic…
Chapter 7
When I fi
nally got home Doris Day was waiting for me. Not the 1960s blonde bombshell movie star, but my three year old long haired miniature dachshund.
Empress Dory (Dory for short.)
A friend of mine had asked me to take care of her while she went on a business trip to Paris, France. My friend met a French man she couldn’t say no to—I think if you’re going to go to a foreign country you should learn the basics of the language. Suffice it to say she’s still there, probably trying to pronounce the French words for “harder” and “faster” while her French man fucks the crème brûlée out of her.
Meanwhile, Dory and I bonded over our love of steak and getting mani-pedis. She’s the perfect dog. She loves staying in, lying on my lap and watching old movies, and sleeping in my luxurious California king bed.
She’s puppy pad trained, so there are never any accidents on my thousand thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.
And she heads for her day bed in the bathroom when I have male company over for the night.
Not that she’s had to do that for a while now, but it’s good that she naturally knows when I need some alone time with a thick slice of man-meat.
I kicked off my heels and padded barefoot to the kitchen, Dory in hot pursuit. I pulled out a pre-cooked filet mignon and started to cut it into tiny bites. I usually ordered a second slab of meat any time I ate out, so I’d have Dory’s meal ready to go.
She enjoyed the usual doggy treats and Rachel Ray’s Nutrish dry dog food, but my girl always got a little extra.
I gave her half the steak, knowing it would fill her up and make her want to go to sleep.
Truthfully, I was exhausted.
Who knew not getting laid and then running into the man who rejected your virginity in college could be so tiring?
I leaned against the granite countertop of my kitchen and watched as Dory inhaled her dinner, her cute little furry behind swinging along as she wagged her tail. But it was her jaws that always gave me pause. Gators and sharks had more self-control when sinking their dentition into their food.
I think for a moment or two I nodded off standing there in the kitchen. I guess Dory had had enough of me just standing there and stood on my feet, her paws up on my shins, growling like a cute little beastie.
