Tyler & Stella (Tattoo Thief)

by Tretheway, Heidi Joy

Unknown: Believe it or not, making amends. You’ve been on your own for four years now, haven’t you?

  Stella: Four and a half. Why? Have you been watching me?

  Unknown: I saw you switched schools and majors. I see your byline sometimes now. The point is, you’ve been flying solo.

  A bit of pride lifts my chin. I have. She flies with her own wings. That’s the English version of my home state’s motto and maybe it should be my personal motto, too.

  Even though it’s been a turbulent ride, I’ve flown solo while most people my age are still taking handouts from Daddy and Mommy while their diplomas gather dust.

  Stella: I’m fine.

  Unknown: I hope you will be. But if the shit hits the fan, you can’t count on Tyler to take care of you. That’s why I wanted to remind you to reread the settlement your parents made me sign.

  Stella: What good will that do me?

  Unknown: Just read it, Stella. And I meant what I said. It’s a tough town, so watch your back.

  I blink into the light from the phone screen but no other messages appear. I count to a hundred, trying to quiet my pounding heartbeat.

  Finally, I slither from between the sheets where Tyler’s still sleeping and pad downstairs to my room.

  I have to know. Although I showed Beryl the first page of the settlement document, which detailed the lump sum Dixon Ross had to pay into a trust, I dig through a small box of papers to find the rest of it.

  I earn two paper cuts for my haste but finally unearth the creased sheaf, double-spaced and maybe twenty pages long. I shift the lamp on my shelf closer. Why have I never read this document thoroughly?

  Because I was a minor. I didn’t initiate the suit or settlement.

  Because I didn’t want this. I wanted Dixon.

  Because I was heartbroken.

  Because it’s not supposed to matter for another two-plus years.

  The clauses and stipulations run for interminable paragraphs and my eyelids sag until I hit page sixteen. Disbursements. In other words, how do I get the money?

  I thought I knew the answer to that.

  Beneficiary may demand full payment or make a partial withdrawal from the trust at any time after Beneficiary’s twenty-fifth birthday, and must complete withdrawals or forfeit the remainder on Beneficiary’s twenty-ninth birthday.

  Yeah. Like I’d freaking wait. But that’s just option A. Option B arrests me:

  After Beneficiary ceases to be the legal dependent of Claimants in this contract, Beneficiary may petition Fiduciary for full or partial withdrawal of funds at any time four years after legal dependency is terminated.

  Holy. Shit.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “Stella. A word.” Heath leans out of his office and jerks his head to summon me.

  It’s not a request. It’s a command. I haven’t even turned on my computer yet and dread pools in my stomach as I feel what’s coming.

  Good instincts, Stella, but not good enough. I should run, but instead I walk on heavy legs to his office.

  Heath’s puffy eyes stare me down, waiting for me to break the silence. I clamp my lips shut against this interview tactic, my brain in overdrive to still every nervous tic or poker tell.

  Heath holds all the cards and he knows it.

  “You had an interesting night last night,” he begins, his voice low but threatening. I just nod. “Looks like you were pretty cozy with Tattoo Thief.”

  He pushes a copy of the New York Post across his desk, open to a page with a photo of Tyler and me. Tyler’s head is bent, his lips graze my ear, and my smile is wide and convincing. I remember he was whispering courage to me, but from this picture and its suggestive caption, it looks like we’re on the verge of getting a room.

  Heath waits for me to say something, so I start with a pale shade of the truth. “I, ah, have gotten to know the band better.”

  “Bullshit!” Heath pounds his fist on the desk and I jump in fear and surprise. “You know what this picture tells me? It says you’ve had the kind of access any normal reporter would kill for, and you threw it away on a fling with the bassist.”

  “I used that access,” I counter. “I gave you three stories on the band.”

  “Two. One was crap. And what are you, their PR gal? If you’re spreading your legs for someone in the band and missing a story this big, you can’t be trusted. Especially not now that we’ve been scooped on the Kim Archer angle.”

  I open my mouth to respond, reeling from “the Kim Archer angle.” I have no idea what came out in the media last night while Tyler and I were cocooned in his loft.

  “Your last piece was fluff—a real reporter would have brought me that.” Heath stabs his finger on a photo of Kim Archer and her baby, both clad in ethereal white. They’re a stark counterpoint to the image of me in a glittering black dress with Tyler. I look like the evil other woman.

  Heath narrows his eyes. “Or didn’t you know?”

  I shake my head. I did know, but barely. Tyler didn’t tell me enough to write a real story, and even if he had, he confided in me, not a reporter.

  “You could have filed a story last night,” Heath huffs. “You were there in the middle of the action.”

  I quake. Heath’s right—I dropped the ball completely. When Kim released details to the media, I was so entwined with Tyler, so caught up in protecting him, that it never occurred to me to report the story. It would be like hanging my boyfriend’s dirty laundry out in public view.

  Boyfriend? No. All I have are weak assurances of “not a fling.” He wants to know my secrets, yet he never trusted me with his until they went live on TMZ. I burn from the admission.

  “What do you want me to do?” I whisper, fearing the answer. There’s no way I can offer Tyler’s story up like a sacrifice to appease Heath. Besides, the news cycle is already running with it. I’d be last in line.

  “Nothing.” Heath’s face is pinched. “There are a thousand young writers who’d love an insider’s view of the New York music scene. HR is probably done packing up your desk by now. You’re fired.”

  Heath swivels his chair and turns back to his computer monitor, dismissing me. I stand on shaky legs and walk to my desk where a banker’s box holds a few of my favorite coffee mugs, silly desk toys, and a bunch of press badges on lanyards from past events. My Indie Voice-issued laptop is gone.

  This is all I have to show for this job? A couple hundred bylines, a brown box of worthless crap, and no thanks for the ridiculous hours I’ve put in over the past year? The gravity of what I’ve chosen—Tyler over my career—sinks in.

  All I wanted to do was write a story that mattered. Not a story full of speculation and lies. I wanted to write about art, not gossip. But that’s what I would’ve had to trade to keep working here.

  I want to believe I made the right choice. The only choice. I don’t want to turn into a slimy user like Heath.

  Fuck it. I’m glad he fired me. I look around the newsroom and the rest of the reporters are hushed, heads down and just a few keystrokes filtering through the silence. Normally it’s louder than a cocktail party in here, everyone on the phone or shouting edits or razzing each other. But nobody cares enough about me to offer a word of condolence or a farewell.

  Anger shoots through my veins and I reach in the banker’s box and pull out a fat black mug with I heart NY printed on the side. I pull back my arm and fling it as hard as I can at the wall outside Heath’s door.

  “Fuck you!” I scream as the mug explodes and shards fly. “Fuck your fucking gossip rag!”

  I grab another mug printed with a Mike Wallace quote: If there is anything that is important to a reporter, it is integrity. It’s credibility.

  What a joke.

  Heath appears in his doorway and I hurl the mug. It shatters on the wall inches from his head. He rears back from the doorframe with a yelp, his eyes wide.

  “Fuck your stories that don’t matter! Fuck stealing secrets! This is not what I signed up for!”

  “S
tella! Get out of here!” Neil hisses, then ducks behind a cubicle partition in case I turn on him, too.

  But I’m all out of mad. I leave the banker’s box with the rest of my mugs and badges, grab my purse from its hook, and storm out of the newsroom. I jab my finger on the elevator button and pray I can escape the building before security gets its act together.

  I’m in luck. I push through the revolving door and the morning heat nearly flattens me on the sidewalk. I want to cry, I want to call Tyler and beg him to make it all better, but I can’t do that to him again. I get into one disaster after another and he keeps rescuing me.

  A thick slice of pride makes me want to nurse my wounds and hide for a while. So I go to a bar.

  Comforting. I order two shots of vodka and then a beer, just to have a drink to babysit while I’m thinking. It’s early and the bar is fairly empty except for a handful of solitary drinkers and a group of men I assume are just off the night shift.

  I scroll through news articles on my phone and the horror of what’s happening to Tyler finally sinks in. Dirty details of his life are laid bare in an exclusive, tell-all piece featuring Kim Archer in Us Weekly, with the rest of the gossip and entertainment media parroting the juiciest bits of that interview.

  Right about the same time I moved to New York a year ago, Tyler had an affair with Kim, an ex-model turned real estate agent. He was twenty-four. She was twenty-eight. In the interview, she describes in excruciating detail how close they were. She claims Tyler pursued her, romanced her, charmed her. She says she couldn’t help but fall for him.

  It didn’t last long—they were only photographed together at two public appearances, but quotes from her back then appeared in a few gossip sources where she claimed they were “made for each other” and hinted that things were “getting serious fast.”

  My gut burns with jealousy but I’m relieved that Tyler didn’t make similar statements to the press.

  I order another shot and read the rest of the story—their fallout, in which Kim says Tyler suddenly disappeared, and then her realization that she was pregnant.

  I zoom in on the photos of Kim Archer’s three-month-old daughter Isla. The baby girl is breathtaking, with fine strands of dark hair like Tyler’s and bright, blue-gray eyes. Kim clutches her proudly, and the caption is sickening: “All I want is for Tyler Walsh to take responsibility for our baby girl.”

  Kim is dressed in a thin white blouse, her big blonde hair and long lashes looking wholesome and gorgeous and believable. Is it possible she’s telling the truth? Or is she just trying to shake Tyler down for money?

  Deep in the article Kim reveals that she went to the media after repeated attempts to “make things right” with Tyler, which I think might be code for the behind-the-scenes legal wrangling to extract money from him.

  I stow my phone and order another shot. My brain is cloudy with vodka, replacing the adrenaline that spurted through my veins during my coffee mug attack on Heath. Throwing stuff at Heath is even starting to seem kind of reasonable. The bastard got less than he deserved.

  A morning show is on the TV over the bar and I see a woman’s picture in a box over the presenter’s shoulder. Fuck. Kim Archer is following me. The anchor throws it to tape and Tyler and I are on screen, smiling plastic smiles at the premiere, pretending like everything’s OK.

  I call for another shot and the bartender hesitates but then pours it for me. When I slam it down, he ventures, “You look pretty upset. You want someone to talk to?”

  “No.” My answer is too harsh and he shrugs and turns back to unloading glasses from a tray. It’s a lie. I want desperately for someone to talk to who can make it all better.

  I scroll through my phone contacts and try to focus on the too-bright display in this dark bar, wishing I could call Beryl. But I don’t want her to see me like this. I’m afraid she’d tell Gavin. I’m afraid he’d tell Tyler.

  I keep scrolling. The shots have my head spinning and I’m sure Tyler will be angry that I reneged on my promise to stop drinking, so I bypass his name.

  Violet. Her name is nearly last in my contacts and I touch the letters before I overthink it. She answers on the third ring, her voice soft and timid.

  “Stella?”

  I fucking hate caller ID. “Yeah. Hi. You want to come get wasted with me?”

  Violet giggles nervously. “It’s ten-thirty in the morning.”

  “It’s five o’clock somewhere.” I hiccup loudly and tell her the name of the bar and my words slur when I give her the address. “Get over here an’ cheer me up, m’kay? It’s been a shitty day.”

  Violet tells me to sit tight and she hangs up. I arrange my face in a pretty-please smile, bat my lashes at the bartender and earn another I-can-handle-my-liquor shot that disappears down my throat immediately. The beer I first ordered remains untouched.

  I turn off my phone, unwilling to let Violet call me back and change her mind. And I don’t want a call from The Indie Voice’s HR department or whoever’s going to give me shit about throwing mugs at Heath.

  I didn’t throw them at him, exactly. Just at the wall. Near his head.

  I shred my bar coaster and when the bartender won’t serve me more vodka, I sip my beer as the squishy feeling of booze softens my limbs and pollutes my brain. Compared to the sharp, high-definition feelings from last night with Tyler, this state is soft-focus and fuzzy, but I don’t want too clear a view on what I’m doing right now.

  I’m going nowhere fast. Sitting in a bar with a bunch of strangers. Having a pity party. Getting fucked up. Chalk up another low for Stella.

  I feel like a failure.

  A pale hand touches my shoulder and I nearly fall off the barstool as I turn to see Violet, her flame-red hair and round cheekbones looking angelic in the dim funk of the bar.

  “Wanna drink?” I hold up my glass in a cheers-like salute and slosh beer down my forearm. I lick it off my arm and grin at her. “Whadda ya wan?”

  My tongue is thick in my mouth and I don’t seem to be pronouncing words quite right. Consonants are complicated.

  Say that ten times fast.

  Violet forces a smile and leans close to me. “Food, Stella. I’m starving. Haven’t had breakfast yet. Come with me. I’ll buy you pancakes.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Violet beckons the bartender and settles my bill, a process I watch with fascination. The green paper isn’t paper at all, you know. It’s cloth. But it feels like paper. So confusing.

  I follow Violet out of the bar, holding her hand like a lost child. She coaches me over curbs and other wicked obstacles that are all over the place in New York.

  My alcoholic haze clears slightly by the time we reach the diner and I dump myself into a padded booth, resting my head in my arms on the table. This feels good. I don’t think anyone would notice if I napped here for a while.

  “Coffee. Lots of it.” I hear Violet’s voice float above me, but she doesn’t prod me to sit up straight. And it’s a good thing, because booze makes my brain feel so much heavier than the rest of my body. It’s amazing that anyone can stand up straight.

  The scent of strong brew hits my nose and Violet pats my hair, rousing me. “Have some coffee, Stella, and tell me what’s wrong.” I straighten up and narrow my eyes at her. How did she guess something’s wrong? Is she psychic?

  “Oh, everything’s peachy,” I say. “Perfect. Groovy. Fan-frickin-tastic. Turns out I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.” I drink from the steaming mug and sputter, the coffee burning my mouth in a bitter assault.

  Doesn’t Violet know I like my coffee sweet and light, like Tyler does?

  Tyler. Mr. Double Standard, when it comes to secrets.

  I push the thought of him aside and blow on my mug, taking a careful sip. This mug is hefty enough that it might not break if I pitched it at the window. But this café never did anything to me. Not like Heath.

  “You don’t have to go to work? Like a vacation day?” Violet’s voice is hopeful.
r />   “Yeah. Just like that. Except it’s lots and lots of vacation. Like, forevevever.” My lips get tangled around that last word.

  Violet sips her own coffee and taps on her phone. When the waitress comes to take our orders I ask for chocolate chip pancakes, something I haven’t eaten since I was a kid, and a side of sausage. And bacon.

  “Poor Wilbur will never know what hit him,” I say, and giggles break from my chest as if I’ve told the world’s funniest joke. “Here, piggy, piggy. Come to my fork, piggy!”

  Violet shushes me and her phone pings. She reads a text and her eyebrows shoot up, then she pockets her phone. The jig’s up.

  “Neil?” I ask.

  “Yeah. He said you—you kind of lost it.” Her eyes are soft with sympathy.

  “Yup. Lost my job. But I didn’t lose my fucking self-respect. I didn’t throw my boyfriend under the bus to write a story about him. My non-boyfriend, anyway.”

  “Tyler?”

  “Yeah. I got fired because I didn’t report on the Kim Archer fiasco.”

  Violet arches a brow in question and it’s clear she missed the news this morning. That’s fine. I have no interest in filling her in, and anyway, I don’t want her pity that I’m sort-of dating some guy who’s getting shaken down by his alleged baby mama.

  The pancakes arrive and I tear into them while Violet picks at her poached eggs and toast. She must not really be starving like she said. I offer her a piece of bacon and she takes it, I think, to get me to quit my piggy noises. But they’re hilarious.

  “So what are you going to do next, Stella?”

  “Sleep it off. Whatever.” I truly don’t know the next thing I should do after I finish my breakfast and I’m scared. I had to reinvent my future once before when I fled my family and Manser Academy, but somehow starting over seems even harder this time.

  Unless the settlement thing I read last night is true. I haven’t called the lawyer yet to find out.

  “How about we walk it off?” Violet asks. “It will make you feel a million times better. And I could use an extra pair of eyes.” Violet pats her square nylon camera gear bag.