Scheming and Dreaming in Los Angeles

by Donna Del Oro

  “To Mac, not you, face to face? What did he say?”

  “Just a guy thing, Tess. Leave it alone.”

  “Dammit, Aaron, I want to know.”

  His sigh was more a gush of vexation. “He told Mac to let me know if I didn’t get out of your life, he’d have my fingers broken.”

  “Wh-what? He said that? Was he joking?”

  “Mac didn’t think so. He said to stay away, so I did.”

  “But you asked me to go on this cruise anyway? Knowing how Porter felt—how jealous he was?”

  “Stupid, huh? I needed a singer and I wanted you. So sue me.” The silence that fell between them fairly crackled with what was left unspoken.

  Then the unspoken spilled over. “I love you, Aaron, and I need you in my life if I’m going to…well, go ahead with this marriage. Y’know, tolerate it.”

  His arms around her slackened and he leaned back, away from her. As though physical contact with her was too painful. “You love me, huh? You don’t, Tess, not really. You’re so hung up on money, you can’t see straight. You think it’s going to give you everything you didn’t have as a child. You don’t know what you want or how you feel about anything.”

  Her insides ached with anguish, the hollow feeling gnawing at her. Aaron was right. She thought money was going to make up for her deprived childhood. But what about emotional deprivation? How could she live without love? Real love?

  “I don’t know… Maybe I need money more than anything else. I don’t know…”

  “Now, that’s honesty, Tess. Your offer—us? Friends with benefits thing?” He snorted softly into her hair. “God, I can’t believe I’m saying this but here goes. I’m turning you down. You see, Tess, the great thing about a fantasy is the possibility it might some day come true. You’ve been my fantasy girl for a long, long time. I’m so tempted, you have no idea.” He almost growled those last words. “No, where you’re concerned, sweetheart, it’s all or nothing. All or nothing. Take it or leave it.”

  Tess closed her eyes and felt the tears seep out of the corners and trickle down her cheeks. Leave it to Aaron to always dream the impossible. Always uncompromising. He’d have sex with a girl who meant nothing to him but her, Tess, practically begging him? Un-freakin’-compromising.

  She sniffed back the tears. “All or nothing? Take it or leave it? You call me hard? You’re the hardhearted one.”

  “No, baby-doll. It’s all my soft heart can take. I won’t have you stomping on it. Not again. The last time, it took me years to recover.” He kissed her cheek, then wiped her tears away with his thumb.

  “Me, stomping on your heart? You left me and went away to school. I moved on. I had to show you that I could make something of myself, too. I had to prove myself, that I wasn’t like my parents. That I wasn’t some cokehead’s pathetic slut of a daughter. I know your family saw me that way. That’s why Mac broke us up. He knew how your family felt and he didn’t want to lose you or them. He worshipped all of you.”

  “No, baby, you’ve got it all wrong. They felt—Mac, too—we were too young. You wouldn’t write to me in college and when I came back, you had a boyfriend and-and this show business crowd of friends. My parents, Mac—we were all proud of you and what you’d accomplished. All on your own, too, which is amazing. But you kept me at arm’s length.”

  Her tears flowed and her throat burned raw, but she couldn’t help it. Aaron’s validation of her filled her bank of emotions. What he said was basically true. She’d kept him at bay with a parade of boyfriends. Why? To pay him back for leaving her? Both he and Mac left her alone. She shuddered as his fingers wiped and caressed her cheeks.

  “For a long time, I hated you. You and Mac. I loved you both so much and you both left me.”

  “We had to, Tess. We had to leave to grow up. C’mon, baby. We’re exhausted, in a damned strange mood,” he said, a catch in his voice, “let’s call it a night.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Puntarenas, Costa Rica.” Tess pronounced the name with a Spanish accent. She scanned the palm trees surrounding the Terminal Building. Beyond the dock and nearby town, there were hills covered in jungle foliage and a mountain range beyond the hills. The climate was hot and extremely humid, so much so that even Tess’ straight locks developed a wave.

  “C’mon, Aaron, Tess. Everyone, board that coach over there.” Sherry, the Entertainment Director’s assistant, was escorting a group of entertainers and crew members, including Tess and Aaron, on a cave tubing excursion.

  Wearing shorts and tees over their swimsuits, sporting sneakers on their feet, they were prepared for a short trek through the jungle to a flowing river. Aaron had told Tess that the river would take them, floating on large inner tubes, through a series of caves. It sounded fun to Aaron and creepy to Tess, but now hit by the steam-bath environment of Puntarenas, she was beginning to welcome the prospect of a cool river.

  As they clomped their way down one of the gangways, Tess spied the brunette and her companion standing in line to board another coach, one scheduled for a town tour and dolphin encounter. Good, Porter’s PIs wouldn’t be breathing down their necks for the entire day. Well and good!

  “Ten o’clock, Aaron,” she said, nudging his arm.

  His gaze raked over the lines of passengers, rested briefly on one and kept moving to his far left. Smoothly done, she thought. As smoothly as he’d handled this morning.

  Again, the male PI was in the hallway near their cabin. They’d slept until nine—in their respective beds—and since their coffee was already cold, Aaron had gone upstairs to the breakfast buffet. Luring the guy away, he’d filled a tray and taken a seat by the window. Ten minutes later, Tess joined him, acting a little surprised to encounter him at the same time. In the de-boarding line, they’d spotted the brunette, waiting by herself. Evidently, they’d divided up and hadn’t yet figured out the location of Tess’ cabin. That night, she and Aaron would have to be careful and ditch the couple’s surveillance before returning to their cabin. It was becoming a game of cat and mouse, and Tess, for one, was already sick of it.

  Meanwhile, Aaron’s revelation the night before lingered in Tess’ mind like a haunting refrain. That he fantasized about making love to her, that he was in love with her—that’s certainly what he’d implied—had left her speechless.

  Typically for Tess, anything that touched her deeply also left her confused and adrift. It took her a long while to sort through her feelings, for she’d built such thick, defensive walls over the years. Her first reaction was fear. It frightened her that Aaron now loved her in a different way than the way she’d grown accustomed to and accepted. And that his conditions of “all or nothing” came at such a terrible time. Why couldn’t he have revealed his feelings sooner, before she became engaged? Of course, if she fell in love with him and acted upon it, she’d jeopardize—no, destroy her own plans for financial security, especially now that Porter had eyes on her behavior while aboard the ship.

  In all fairness to Aaron, would his hints or even open declarations of love have made any difference? She’d already set upon her gold-digging plan of finding a rich man to marry. Ten months ago, when she’d first met Porter, could Aaron have persuaded her to ditch the plan and settle for something far less? She had no answer to that. By then, Porter was in campaign-to-conquer mode, giving her an impossible-to-pass-up two-year contract to headline his show at the club, dazzling her by buying her expensive jewelry, taking her to the best restaurants and clubs, introducing her to the power brokers of the SoCal entertainment industry. He’d swept Tess off her feet and filled her mind with champagne bubbles and caviar dreams.

  All she had to do was make Porter happy. She knew that she could play that role. The young, adoring arm-candy that Porter could show off to all his middle-aged pals.

  Now, she wasn’t so sure.

  Her mind in turmoil, all Tess could do was what she normally did. She buried her emotions and stuck to her plan. For Aaron’s part, he behaved as though ev
erything was normal, as though he’d never revealed his innermost feelings for her. Clearly, he’d said his piece. It was Tess’ move now.

  Their motorcoach traveled north of the town on an inland route for about thirty minutes. It stopped in a graveled parking lot, where an open-air shed stood to one side. They stripped down to their swim suits, left their clothes on one long table and strapped miners’ lamps, attached to stretch bands around their heads.

  In a single file, each carried a large inner tube and, with Sherry in the lead with the local Costa Rican guide, they walked almost two miles into the jungle. Their dirt path was serpentine but cleared of debris, bracken and rocks. Colorful birds twittered and cawed about them on all sides, serenading them during their trek. The guide told them to halt and huddle together if the birds should ever stop singing. That’d be a sign a panther was close by. When she heard that, Tess spun around and shot Aaron an alarmed look. Panthers? L.A. was a jungle filled with two-legged cats she knew how to handle. But wild black panthers?

  At one point, the guide, Jose, pointed to a bright bluish-green snake coiling along one branch of a tree and told them to pass by quickly. Muy pelegroso. She translated for Aaron while she and everyone else crept along the left side of the trail. By the time they arrived at the riverbank, Aaron’s chest and back were dripping sweat. His hair was plastered wet to his skull and he kept wiping his forehead and eyes with his arms. His maroon swim trunks were almost black with sweat down the cleft in his butt and down the front. When he caught her staring at his body, she turned away and studied the fast-flowing river.

  She was just as drenched from sweat. The tendrils of hair along her temples and neck clung to her damp skin. The top of her navy-blue bikini was as wet as if she’d just washed it and put it back on. Even the tiny diamond stud in her navel glistened with a bead of perspiration. She felt dizzy from the heat and humidity. So when Aaron told her to stand still while he cupped some water and splashed her with it, she didn’t object. After a few more cupfuls, her mind began to clear.

  The cool river, flowing toward a series of caves, looked so inviting, Tess wanted to dive in. However, following the guide’s and Sherry’s examples, she waded in and then climbed into her inner tube. When Aaron held out his hand for a push off, she took it. One by one, the group let the river’s flow glide them along toward the first of the caves.

  She’d let go of Aaron’s hand as the river swept her along, but as they entered the first huge, high-ceilinged cave, plunging them eventually into total darkness, Tess sought him out. Their miners’ lamps flickered on, the dim light revealing Aaron’s tube next to Sherry’s. Tess called to him and used her hands to paddle over to him. Seeing her, he stretched out his arm and drew her alongside of his tube.

  “Isn’t this amazing?” he asked. His voice echoed in the cave, but was soon drowned out by exclamations all around them. Still floating along at the river’s whim, their hands broke loose as she swept ahead of him. Not wanting to lose his touch, she rolled to her side and tried to stop her tube’s progress. One side of the tube rose precariously out of the water, unbalancing her and threatening to spill her out.

  “Tess, watch out!” Aaron kicked out his legs, propelling himself toward her. His hand snatched up hers just in time, so that she could sit back and steady herself.

  The very touch of Aaron’s hand steadied her mentally and emotionally. When Jose called upon everyone to turn off their lamps, she squeezed Aaron’s hand but didn’t hesitate to turn off her lamp. The total, velvet blackness she now experienced did not frighten her, for she focused on the warmth, texture and strength of Aaron’s hand in hers. They drifted for several minutes in a total blackout. People grew quiet as the sensation of disorientation overcame everyone. You couldn’t see your hand just inches in front of your face. It was the most bizarre sensation she’d ever felt. Probably much like weightlessness, she figured. Still, Aaron’s hand in hers gave her a solid point of focus.

  One by one, people chickened out and turned their miners’ lamps back on. Aaron was smiling broadly, his head thrown back, his mouth open Jose pointed at the bat holes in the rock ceiling above their heads. People exclaimed and a few of the women squealed. In Tess’ view, giant bats could’ve flown down and sucked their blood. She would’ve regarded the calamity as a fair trade for the cool air inside the cave. She said as much to Aaron.

  “Nature’s AC,” he quipped.

  “Thanks for letting me hold onto you,” she said.

  “I couldn’t let you fall in. The river snakes are drawn to splashes.”

  Her mouth dropped open. “S-snakes? In the river?” She was suddenly aware that her rump poked in the water along with her feet.

  He nodded grimly. “So sit still, Red. Don’t provoke them.”

  She grew still and clung tightly to his hand. It wasn’t until they emerged from the caves and the river that she discovered the truth. In her halting Spanish, she asked Jose about the river snakes.

  “No hay, senorita. No hay serpientes en el rio.” There are no snakes in the river.

  Rather than translate what Jose said, Tess pretended to believe Aaron’s joke. Back at the shed, while the others were putting their swimsuit covers back on, she drew him aside.

  “Aaron, thank you so-o much. If you hadn’t grabbed my hand, I would’ve overturned and gone into the river. All those snakes…”

  She feigned fright and a shudder of disgust, all the while slipping her arms around his neck. The press of her wet body in a skimpy bikini against his hard, wet muscles shocked her as much as it did him. His blue eyes widened in surprise. A second later, she parted her mouth and kissed him. His lips were softer than she remembered, the taste saltier. But his tongue more expertly played with hers for a long, pleasurable moment before she pulled back. One of his hands slid down to the top of her bikini bottom, slid further and patted her rump. The other wouldn’t let go of her waist. His head dipped back to hers and there was a challenge in his eyes.

  “Nice try, Tess. You don’t need the excuse of saving you from snakes to do this again.”

  “It’d be fun…” She wasn’t just referring to the river experience.

  Still, the cave tubing experience had been incredible! Something that Porter would never have done with her. “Thanks for talking me into this! It was wonderful! I’ll never forget today!”

  They broke apart and smiled ruefully at each other after a few of the dancers whistled and flung catcalls at them. A flush of heat spread from her groin up to her breasts. She fanned her face while putting several feet between them. Shrugging on her shirt and shorts, she mentally kicked herself.

  She might not be a rocket scientist, but she was certainly smart enough to know not to play with fire. And fire it was, inside her belly and inside her head.

  * * * *

  With just enough time to run through their “Best of Broadway” set once before grabbing dinner and dressing for their show, Tess had no other opportunity to play with fire. Thank goodness! Again, while Aaron played piano and Tess sang, the PI couple showed up at the bar. During their first fifteen-minute break, when Tess pointed out the spies at the bar, he’d frowned. A minute later, Aaron came up with an idea, which they put to the test at the beginning of their show’s third hour.

  Tess had just finished “I Like to Be in America” from West Side Story and ended the song with a flourish on her tambourine, added to the latino percussion beat provided by Aaron’s synthesizer. Their audience, swelling in size with each successive night, audibly groaned as Aaron announced their break and stood.

  “We’ll give you a chance to refill your drinks during our short breather.” He stood next to Tess while they both bowed to thunderous applause. Then, taking her hand, he escorted her off their stage.

  They walked in the direction of the public restrooms by the Empress Theater, on the same deck but closer to midships. Tess watched the corridor from which they’d come, expecting to spot the brunette or her partner any moment.

  “Take
off, Tess. If one of them follows you, go down to the Infirmary and hang out there for a while. Fourth deck. Near the gangway. I’ll do the last set.”

  “Oh, I hate this!” Her eyes met Aaron’s. It wasn’t fair that he should have to carry the entire third hour by himself. “I’m sorry, Aaron. I’ll make it up to you. I promise.”

  “No problem. I’ll tell them you ate something that made you sick. I’ve practiced some old Sinatra and Robert Goulet favorites. This crowd’ll know them. And I’ll add Billy Joel, some Elton John, Josh Groban. I’ll flirt with the ladies…y’know, the usual shtick. Go on, Tess. Off with you, girl.” He tapped her arm, urging her away. “Oh, and put your cell phone on vibrate. In case they go to the cabin and call your number. If they hear it inside the cabin…”

  Tess covered her mouth with a manicured hand. “My God, it never occurred to me.” In gratitude, she raised the long skirts of her gown to leave, halted and spun around to buss him on the mouth. “You’re a prince. Most guys would be trying to sabotage me—”

  “Not my style,” he said, shooing her off with both hands this time. When it looked like she was considering another kiss, he took a couple of steps back. “You’re killing me, Tess. Now go!”

  This time, she did, striding as fast as her stilettos could carry her, holding her long, silky gown above her shoes up four decks and then down a long corridor. As soon as she entered the cabin, she grabbed her cell phone and programmed it to vibrate instead of ring.

  Then she undressed and hung up her sexy, red-silk number, took off her rhinestone jewelry and scrubbed off her makeup. Brushed her hair and teeth. When Aaron returned, she’d be ready for a seduction scene, the likes of which he’d never before seen. Choosing a black, silk nightgown with spaghetti straps and a lacy, see-through bodice, Tess slipped it on even while she refused to think about what she was about to do.

  The memory of last night and the day’s jungle experience spun around in her brain and warmed her insides: snuggled together on the chaise lounge under the starry sky, his gentle caresses and soft kisses on her temple, the way the sweat dripped down his finely chiseled body, her need to squeeze his hand in the blackout of the bat caves, the sheen of his smile as he gazed in wonder at the cave’s ceiling, his hard, wet kiss afterwards and his challenging look. If ever there was a right time to make it happen between them, it was tonight. The day had been magical. Why not make the night just as magical?