I feel something else, too. Pressing against the underside of my thigh. I look back at Judd. His mouth quirks up. I want to die.
While the guys talk around me, I take a drag off the cigarette and focus on the martini glass. They don’t include me in the conversation. In fact, the only part of Judd that seems aware I’m around is the part I’m sitting on.
White granules ring the martini glass rim. I touch them, bring my finger to my lips. Sugar. Lifting the glass, I drink half of the contents in two big gulps. It’s good, both tart and sweet. Just like a lemon drop. Just like Judd.
I take a sip. One more. Two.
After a while, Judd pulls me closer against him. His arm’s around me, just above my waist. He nuzzles the side of my neck. “You’re thirsty tonight. How about another?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
When the waitress comes over, he orders then continues talking with his friends while I scan the club for any sight of Suzanna. The colored lights around the dance cages seem brighter than before; the music sounds better.
My martini arrives; it’s yummier than the first. I don’t just hear the music now, it pulses inside me. I move my shoulders to the beat, feel the press of Judd’s forearm against my rib cage, cradling what’s above. His thumb strokes lightly back and forth across the space between my armpit and my breast.
One of the guys at our table nudges the other. They sneak glances at my chest and grin at Judd like he won the lottery. That might have bothered me fifteen minutes ago, but now it seems funny. Hilarious. They think they’re so smart, and I’m a total dumb ass. Too bad, they’ve got it backward. I want to find Suz so we can have a good laugh.
“Excuse me.” I stand and smile down at Judd. “I’m going to the restroom. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll have another drink waiting for you.” He’s trying not to laugh at me, I can tell. I don’t know why, since the joke’s on him, not me.
On my way through the club, I get caught in the tangle of people by the bar. The blond guy from English class stands among them. Just like all the other guys, he checks me out. But his expression shifts to surprise when he reaches my eyes. His brows pull together, like he thinks he might recognize me, but he’s not sure. I turn away and push through the crowd.
Inside the restroom, it’s quieter. I go into a stall, put the toilet lid down and sit. I dig through my purse, looking for my phone. I’ll just call Suz and ask where she is. The phone’s vibrating when I finally find it. The display tells me it’s her. I push the talk button. “Where are you?”
“Erin! Finally! I’ve been trying to call you all night. Mom and I had a fight. She took my car keys. I’m sorry. Are you okay?”
My head feels disconnected from my body. My stomach’s woozy. Leaning forward, I hug my knees and giggle. “He has a stiffy,” I whisper into the phone.
“What?”
“Judd.” I snort. “You know. He has—”
“Ohmi—Erin! You are messed up! What have you been drinking?”
“Martinis. Only two so far. Judd’s ordering me another one.”
“Two martinis? Those are strong. And expensive!”
“Judd’s paying.” I lower my voice. “He got me a fake ID.”
“I am not believing this guy. He’s just trying to get you drunk! Ohmigod, you are so naive. I knew you shouldn’t go there with him. You hardly know him, Erin. Call a cab and get out of there.”
“That’s stupid. Nothing’s going to happen. I’m okay. We haven’t even danced yet.”
“Last night when you hadn’t been drinking you weren’t sure you could say ‘no’ to him.”
She’s right. “Okay…a couple of dances. Then I’ll tell him to take me home. I’ll say I’m sick or something.” I do feel sort of sick. The toilet’s spinning like a merry-go-round.
“No more drinks,” Suz adds. “And don’t let him kiss you. Promise?”
“I promise.” And I mean it, too. About the drink part, anyway.
“I’m calling you in thirty minutes. If you’re not out of there, I’m stealing the car keys and coming after you. Mom will just have to get over it.”
When I leave the restroom, Judd’s waiting outside the door. “Did you fall in?”
“I shouldn’t have downed those drinks so fast.”
He laughs. “You wanna dance? Cade and Sean will watch your purse.”
“Sure.” He takes my hand, gives me that sleepy-eyed smile I can’t resist. Suz couldn’t be more wrong about him. Away from his friends, Judd’s different. As sweet as he was when we talked through the window earlier this week. As nice to me as he was last night.
The first dance is fast. I move with the music, feeling more free than I ever have, less self-conscious, like the girl in the cage above my head. Maybe it’s still the martinis, or maybe it’s because of the way Judd looks at me, I don’t know. What I do know is, I like the feeling.
A slow dance plays next. I love the feel of Judd’s arms around my waist. I close my eyes, my head against his shoulder. He kisses the side of my neck. His hands slide down, press against my butt, skim up my sides. North to the Tetons.
I open my eyes. Woozy again. Unsure. I’m starting to think his hands are metal and these boobs I’m wearing are magnets.
I lift my head, see the guy from English class, staring at us.
“Don’t.” I look up at Judd, pull away some. “Don’t touch me like that. People are watching.”
“So, what?” He pulls me to him again, lowers his mouth to kiss me. “Nobody cares.”
I turn away. “I care. Take me home. I feel sick.”
Irritation flickers in Judd’s eyes. “It’s just because you drank too fast. It’ll wear off.”
“I’m serious. I want to leave.”
His arms drop away from me. He steps back. “Fine then. Go. I’m staying.” He walks off, leaving me alone on the dance floor.
I feel like I’m lost in a foreign country, surrounded by people I don’t know. The table where I left my purse seems miles away. Since I don’t want to face the guy from English class, I weave through dancers to exit the dance floor at the side. Judd’s not at the table. Nobody is. My purse sits on the floor by a chair, available for anyone to steal. How stupid could I be? As if a couple of guys are really going to baby-sit my stuff.
Grabbing it, I bolt for the door. I don’t know how I’ll get home. Right now, I don’t care. I just want out of here.
The second I’m outside, I burst into tears. I take deep breaths of cool, clean air, hoping it will clear out my head, my lungs, this dirty feeling inside me. In the parking lot, I find a car beneath a streetlight and lean against it. I’ll call Suz. She’ll tell me what to do. Not that her bright ideas didn’t help get me into this mess in the first place. I open my purse and dig through all the clutter for my phone.
“Erin.”
I glance up. Judd walks toward me. He doesn’t look mad anymore, just bummed, like I’ve been nothing but a pain, not the good time he expected. Poor him.
Returning my attention to my purse, I keep on digging.
“Come back inside. I’m sorry I yelled at you.” He stops in front of me. “You drank too much, too fast. I figured you could handle it or I wouldn’t have kept buying them for you.”
As if. He really does think I’m stupid. My fingers push aside a pack of gum, my sunglasses. Where is that phone?
Judd touches my chin. My eyes stay on the purse. “I said I’m sorry.”
Is he? He sounds sincere. I meet his gaze. And I’m confused all over again. One second I think he’s the biggest, scheming jerk on the planet, the next second I want him to kiss me.
Which he does.
His lips whisper across the sides of my closed mouth, whisking away my doubts. My purse slides to the pavement as I wrap my arms around his neck and start kissing him back.
That’s when everything changes.
Judd backs me against the car, and his mouth presses harder against mine, bruising my lips. I try to tur
n my head, but he moves with me. “Stop,” I mumble against his lips. The word sounds muffled, but I know he hears.
Just like last night, his hand slips beneath my shirt.
I manage to wedge my palms between us, to push against his chest. “No.” He doesn’t budge. “Don’t!”
Keeping me trapped against the car, Judd leans back. “Now what?” His face is hard and impatient.
Panic shoots through me. Then my temper kicks in. I push him again, and he steps away. “Now nothing, that’s what. I asked you not to touch me like that.”
“As if you’re some sweet little virgin.” He barks a laugh. “You wanted it. You’ve given me every signal.”
“That’s not true!”
Or is it? Nothing’s clear to me anymore. I just wish he’d leave so I can puke. Or maybe I should just puke on him. “Is that the only reason you asked me out? So you could get your hands on these?” I point at my chest. “Well here, I’ll make it easy for you.” Reaching into my shirt, I grab a jellyfish and sling it at him. It smacks his forehead.
Judd flinches, stares at me a second, then stoops and picks up the silicone blob. “You’ve gotta be shittin’ me!”
“Have a great time!” I yell at him, then pull out the other one and throw it at him, too. He ducks and it lands on his foot. “Enjoy yourself. That’s what you wanted. They’re all yours.”
I’ll buy Katie another pair.
Judd picks up the other one. “What did you expect, wearing these?” He tosses them back at me. “And look at the way you dress. You’re nothing but a tease.”
I will not cry. I won’t. Not in front of him. What did I expect? Maybe I am a tease. Maybe that’s what I’ve turned into.
Judd laughs under his breath then jerks his head to the side. “Come on. I’ll take you home.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
He stares at me a minute before turning and starting toward the building. “Whatever.” His laughter trails behind him as he walks away.
I pick up the inserts and my purse then sit on the car’s hood. Let the owner come gripe me out and call me names. Who cares? I’m used to it. I mean, supposedly I’m a naive, teenaged hooker tease. What could be any worse?
When I finally find my phone, I’m crying so hard I can’t see to punch in Suz’s number.
“Hey.”
I look up. The guy from my last year’s English class stands in front of the car, holding my jacket. “You forgot this.”
Wiping my face with the back of my hand, I take it from him. “Thanks.”
“You okay?”
“No.” I’m sobbing again, sobbing and totally humiliating myself. As if I haven’t already. “How long have you been out here?”
“A while. I know that guy. I thought you might need some backup.”
I squeeze one of the jellyfish in my lap and wish for a quick death. Right here, right now. “I guess you saw the whole thing, then. You probably think I’m a tease, too.”
He shakes his head. “What you did…you were amazing. So was the look on his face.” He grins. “You didn’t need me or anyone.” Offering his hand, he helps me down off the car. “I’m Noah Sherwood.”
My nose runs. I sniff. “I’m—
“Erin. I know. We had senior English together last year.”
I blink at him, surprised he even noticed me, much less knew my name.
“You were just a junior, though, right?” he asks.
“Yeah.” He knew that, too? I put the blobs in my jacket pocket then slip it on. “I took the class a year early.”
“Must be nice to be so smart.”
“I’m not so smart, really. Just motivated. By my mom, mostly.”
He has a great laugh, the kind that makes me want to laugh with him.
Noah nods at the building. “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Not half as surprised as I am to be here.”
The tears start again. Noah must think I’m a total geek. “I don’t know why I came here with him,” I sob. Which isn’t completely true. I just wanted to have some fun. To have a guy notice me for once and want to be with me. “I’m not even sure who I am anymore…or what I want.”
“I know what you mean.” He pulls a wadded up napkin from his pocket and gives it to me. “Sometimes I feel that way, too.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.”
I’m not sure about the napkin. It’s stuck together in the center.
“It’s clean,” Noah says. “Other than the dried up chewing gum, I mean.”
I laugh. He does, too. I blow my nose then cry some more.
“Hey, if you don’t stop that, they’ll have to put flood warnings out on the area lakes.”
He’s funny. And cute. He doesn’t look the least bit dangerous. Which is okay with me. I’ve had enough danger to last me a while.
“You need a lift?”
Before I can answer, my phone buzzes inside my pocket. When I answer it, Suz says, “Are you on your way home?”
“Not yet.”
“I’ll come get you.”
“That’s okay.” I smile through watery eyes at Noah. “I have a ride.”
CHAPTER 8
From The Desk of
Belle Lamont
Dear Harry,
So much has happened since my last letter.
I fired my baby-sitter. Cecilia was fit to be tied, and we had words, I’m sorry to say. I held my ground, Harry. That woman (the sitter, not CiCi) refused to stay out of my kitchen. I swear, you’d think I’m ten years old the way she hovered over me whenever I cooked. Yes, my vision’s bad, but I can whip up a meal with my eyes closed, and I told her so. I’ve convinced CiCi to give me a two-week trial run at home by myself. If I don’t burn down the house, maybe her mind will be eased.
In happier news, twelve new people called to order a book for Wednesday’s meeting. Twelve! Can you imagine? And four of them men. You know how I abhor rumors, Harry, but one is circulating that Doris Quinn delivered homemade cookies to the Parkview pool hall, made a few suggestive comments about the book, batted an eyelash or two, and that was that. Mind you, Doris isn’t a floozy like Jane Binkley. Just a hopeless romantic and a brazen flirt. Or that’s what I’ve always thought. When I told The Frans about the pool hall, though, they said they’ve heard stories about Doris’s past that would make a sailor blush. You never can tell about a person, can you?
Enough about Doris. It’s Cecilia who concerns me. I hope this less highbrow book is a sign she’s going to stop being so serious about everything. Since Bert left, the only time I’ve seen her let down her hair, so to speak, is when her girlfriends, whom I’ve come to think of as the Margarita Martyrs, came to dinner Friday night. But that was little more than a man-bashing session that started with my shrimp nacho appetizers, iced tea and commiseration, and ended with sopapillas, margaritas and dirty jokes.
At least the get-together took Cecilia’s mind off Erin for a while. That is, until the girl came home as tipsy as her mother. And on a motorcycle driven by a different young man than the one with whom she left the house. That’s right, our Erin had a date. And of course, Cecilia didn’t approve, primarily because the boy’s an old geezer of twenty. I’m not making light of Cecilia’s concerns. I simply wish our daughter didn’t jump to conclusions so fast. Shouldn’t Erin have a chance to explain herself before CiCi passes judgment? Of course she should.
After a tense yelling session—threats and punishment issued by CiCi, tears and door-slamming from Erin—the two have hardly spoken to one another. Erin hasn’t ventured from her room this weekend except to have lunch and a tense, quiet drive with us to Cleburne yesterday.
Cecilia is on a painting frenzy. Her beige bedroom’s fast becoming Grape Nehi purple. Tacky beyond words, but I’m taking a cue from Maxwell and keeping my mouth shut.
Oh, Harry. I’m twisted up inside. All this conflict takes me back to CiCi’s senior year in high school. I lost my way for a while back then. You didn’
t know that, did you? I lost my way, my self, and didn’t come back until months after she’d left for college.
Jack was already a senior at the university and hundreds of miles from home. CiCi was so busy with school and friends that we rarely saw her, remember? When we did, it seemed we were always at odds over something. Cecilia felt she didn’t need us anymore. You handled it better than me. I knew it was normal for her to pull away, but I couldn’t stand that she didn’t want to spend time with me. Oh, I was proud of our kids, proud of us for raising them to be self-sufficient and independent and ready to take on the world. But I often felt like a penny in a parking lot. Forgotten and worthless.
I wanted to tell you what I was going through, but I couldn’t bring myself to. My emotions seemed so self-indulgent, too silly for me to mention. So I kept them to myself until the day we left Cecilia at school.
Do you remember how I cried for weeks after? How the tears would start at the oddest moments? The first time, you cried, too, though you tried to hide it. Well, you didn’t fool me, Harry. Not for a second. I can still see us driving away from her dormitory, pulling over when we were out of sight of it, holding each other while the traffic sped past.
When we dried our eyes and took off again, you moved on in other ways, too. But I couldn’t. Not for months. I’d see your smile and hear it in your voice when I’d burst into tears. You thought I only missed Cecilia and Jack. I did, but more than that churned inside me.
Sometimes I’d jerk awake in the middle of the night with a feeling of such urgency, such helplessness and worry, with an ache as heavy and full as my breasts once felt when the children were babies and would cry in the night to be fed and held. But there was no release for this ache. No sense of being needed. Only need. Mine.
For more than twenty years I’d poured every ounce of myself into a task so important, so all-consuming, and it was over. I had given all I had and was drained dry of everything except a love so full it seeped from my pores. I wondered sometimes if it would just evaporate, go to waste somewhere up there in the atmosphere, or could Jack and Cecilia feel it across the miles? Did it drift from me to them, wrap around them in an invisible embrace when they needed reassurance?
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