He spotted me slinking toward his desk, where I deposited his mail. Tony grabbed a towel before he turned off the machine. He disconnected his call with, “Give me a buzz when you want to get serious.” He wiped the sweat from his brow as he approached. “Fucking studios. They’ll spend billions on some reboot of a stupid piece of shit from ten years ago, but won’t open up their purse strings for a Pulitzer-prize-winning author. Explain that to me.”
“I can’t,” I offered with a helpless shrug as I handed him his coffee and his muffin.
“See? And that’s what makes you too good for this industry, Roni,” he said as he rounded his desk to sit. “If I had any sense at all, I’d fire you so you don’t end up a soulless automaton like the rest of us.”
I had to suppress a smile. It was a threat he repeated at least once a week. But both of us knew that he couldn’t have functioned without me. He was the one to give me a job after my divorce nine years ago, when he was still working at one of the Big Five agencies. Within the first two years he decided to finally branch out on his own. I was the one who helped him transition, and he rewarded me with a rather impressive salary that was smaller than when I worked at one of the Big Five, but big enough to keep me shopping around for another job. Why would I? It was comfortable. It was safe. And it allowed me to squirrel away a modest savings for the future, as well as purchase a condo and do my part to keep Meghan in the newest designer clothes.
Unlike my meager childhood, Meghan had never worn handmade hand-me-downs. Two reasons: One, I knew what kind of social death came with such a thing. Two, it was the 21st century. Who had time to sew?
My solid, middle-class salary came with an undefined job description. I was a receptionist-secretary-accountant-PR agent-gopher-therapist-personal buyer-bouncer. Whatever job Tony didn’t want to or couldn’t do usually fell to me. I guess you could say I was a professional juggler, only instead of flaming swords or chainsaws I juggled the careers of key players in Hollywood.
On some days I think I would have rather had the chainsaws.
By 2003, I had to hire my own assistant. I gave her a nod as I headed to my office, to tackle my tasks for the day, which for the end of the month meant a whole week of accounting.
I gulped down the caffeine and sugar that masqueraded as my coffee order while my computer switched on. Within minutes, I was immersed in a jumble of numbers I had to enter into our database, processing payments and bills. I was going cross-eyed by the time someone knocked on the door around noon. I glanced up in time to see Dylan poke his head through the door.
He was just as flawless in 2007 as he had been in 1985, or 1982, or 1979 or 1976, when I first met him. His smile was still whiter than white, his skin still unblemished, the sharp angle of his chin could still cut glass. His wavy dark hair brushed his shoulders and his dark brown eyes were endless.
And he was still my friend.
Sorta.
“Hey,” he greeted happily. “Can you break for lunch?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve math, I can break for anything. Am I too young for a colonoscopy?”
He laughed as he entered my office. “Tell me how someone who had to cheat off my math homework now does accounting for a major entertainment agency?”
“I never cheated,” I informed him with the proper amount of indignation. “Not from you, anyway. You sucked just as bad as I did. Bryan, now that’s a different story.”
He plopped down on the chair facing my desk. “Ah, yes. Bryan. I guess we’ll be seeing him again at the reunion.”
My brow furrowed. “What reunion?”
“Didn’t you get the email?” he asked.
I indicated the gargantuan stack of paperwork on my desk. “I haven’t exactly had a chance to look.”
“Spoiler warning, there’s going to be a 20-year reunion for the Fighting Jaguars of Hermosa Vista High, Class of ’88.”
I rolled my eyes. “Count me out.”
“What? Why?”
I gave him a pointed stare. “I didn’t like most of those assholes in twelfth grade. You think my opinion has changed?”
“You went to the last one,” he pointed out.
I rolled my eyes again. “That’s even more reason not to go.”
“Come on,” he cajoled with a smile. “I’ll sneak you wine coolers, just like senior year. It’ll be fun.”
“I’d rather have the colonoscopy,” I muttered as I looked back at my computer screen.
He shrugged. “Suit yourself. I’ve got nearly a year to change your mind. And don’t think I won’t,” he shot over his shoulder as he strode confidently toward the door.
I’d never tell him as much, but Dylan Fenn was the primary reason I’d never attend another reunion again.
3: Together Again
June 26, 1998
Our car pulled in behind four other cars in the valet line at a hotel in Newport Beach. “Late again,” Wade sighed from the driver’s seat. “As usual.”
My hand shook as I smoothed my newly cropped hair. It was way shorter than I’d ever worn it, and I wasn’t entirely convinced I liked it. But there was no turning back now. I thought about checking my reflection in the passenger’s visor mirror, but I knew I’d never hear the end of it if I did. “I’ve already apologized twenty times, Wade.”
“And yet that doesn’t make us any earlier,” he pointed out without looking in my direction.
“What difference does it make anyway? You don’t care about impressing these people.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
“So it’s just one more reason to snip at me all night. Got it.”
“Can we try to make it through just one night, Roni?” he asked as he watched my former classmates walk toward the entrance of the hotel. I couldn’t help but notice how his gaze lingered on those of the female persuasion, especially those twenty-somethings that showed the most cleavage or the most leg. “Would that be impossible to ask?” he murmured without sparing me a glance.
I glared at him. “I don’t know. Is it?”
My stomach growled in answer. I hadn’t eaten anything other than lettuce, cucumber and celery for a week solid just to fit into my dress. It was a size eight, the smallest I had ever worn. My skin was clear, my teeth were straight and I now wore contacts that accentuated my green eyes. I was a different Roni coming to my ten-year reunion, and I couldn’t wait for everyone – and I do mean everyone – to see.
Yet as many changes as I had made, and as much weight as I had lost since my daughter Meghan was born just six years before, Wade couldn’t be bothered with paying me a compliment. I wasn’t where he thought I should be yet, so he decided to use tough love as enforcement to get me to my goals. If I lost two pounds, he wanted to know why I hadn’t lost three. If I shaved 300 calories off of my diet, he wanted to know why I didn’t cut 500. And when we made love, if we ever made love, he was quick to point out how my body wouldn’t sag or show so many stretch marks if I just exercised properly and worked on muscle tone.
Within the last few months, his tough love campaign involved ogling other women right in front of me as extra ‘incentive.’ Sometimes he would even flirt, and he made no apology for that, either.
He didn’t know it, but that was why I decided to come to my ten year reunion. I was a strong, confident woman now, who could hold my head up as I passed by all the old classmates who used to make fun of me for being fat or socially awkward. If I could turn any man’s head – and by any man I mean one very important man – then it wouldn’t hurt so bad that I could no longer turn my husband’s.
I needed a boost to my ego. I could only pray Dylan Fenn would finally prove to be just that.
I was out of the car by the time Wade handed off the keys to the valet attendant. He fell into step behind me as I entered the double glass doors to the hotel lobby. I followed the stream of former classmates toward the elevator, which would take us up to the ballroom on the top floor with a 180-degree ocean view. Signs guided o
ur paths, proudly welcoming the Class of ’88.
Ten years, I thought. How much had changed. I left Hermosa Vista a shy, awkward girl. Now I was a woman. Better yet I was accomplished by most standards. After busting my ass in college for a business degree, I had a successful career as a manager for a consulting firm in Costa Mesa. I had married the CFO of said firm and even produced a child, thus meeting all my obligations as a woman of the 1990s ‘having it all.’
In fact, I was in such a hurry to check these things off my list I settled for the first husband that came my way much like I accepted the first job opportunity that landed in my lap.
I was always taught beggars couldn’t be choosers.
I was simply along for the ride when I met Wade in 1989, while interning at Sherman, Waxler and Cohen during my sophomore year of college. He immediately took me under his wing to transform me from the pudgy, dull office assistant into a fully realized woman. I was Eliza Doolittle to his Henry Higgins. Our dates centered around physical activity, which helped me drop twenty pounds over the course of six months. He rewarded me by taking me as his lover, and he pulled out all the stops to show me what kind of life I could expect now that I was inching ever closer to perfection. It was a whirlwind romance and I was married by the age of 21. Meghan came along when I was 22, and ironically that became my downfall.
I gained back those twenty pounds with the pregnancy, plus ten more for good measure. Wade was aghast by my backsliding. He tried to get me back on track, but pregnancy wasn’t the warm and fuzzy experience I expected it to be. Instead I was either hunched over the toilet or unable to get out of bed as my offspring grew within me like a creature from Alien. I ceased making carefully planned dinners, or even caring what I ate. And I found myself much too tired to fulfill his many expectations. Soon he spent more nights at the office than he did at home. Gone were the spontaneous trips and the late night dates with wine and roses. Instead I got slapped on the ass to assess how many inches had accumulated there just by the jiggle.
And lovemaking? Fuggetaboutit. By the time Meghan was born, Wade hadn’t touched me in months. The alienation continued throughout her first year, when I was struggling to meet the various demands of my career and motherhood, which was every bit as challenging as the pregnancy had been.
To the outside world, however, I had it all. My husband was handsome and successful, and our child was beautiful and sharp as a whip. I lived in a large, four-bedroom home in Costa Mesa and drove a brand new car I could pay for myself with my six-figure salary. So what if my marriage had virtually collapsed within its first two years? I still had the two-carat diamond on my finger, so as far as the world was concerned, I was ‘living the dream.’
I was one of the normal people now.
I decided to use this to my advantage when I got the notice about the ten-year reunion. All I had left was the mask I wore, and I had spent quite a bit of time honing it to perfection.
So why were my hands shaking when I walked into that ballroom?
Oh, right. Because it was all a big, fat lie and I was nothing but a fraud.
You’d think I’d be used to that by now.
I affixed my name tag with the smile of bravado I had perfected over the last six years and headed toward the bar.
As usual, Bryan Dixon was the first schoolmate I recognized. My heart soared to see his beautiful face. No longer gangly or nerdy, he had transformed into the elegant man I had always predicted he would be.
Most of this he had to do without me, since Wade never approved of my having a close male friend. And Bryan was as close as any person could be without actually having the intimacy of sex. His being gay had been strike two for Wade, as he didn’t want to expose our child to a “deviant lifestyle.” It was a lifestyle that took Bryan away from conservative Orange County the minute he was able to flee. He moved to Los Angeles and started a career in film, using his computer nerd cred to work in the emerging digital technology taking place there. The lucky sonofabitch got to play for a living. That was the last nail in the coffin as far as Wade was concerned.
So I saw Bryan less and less over the years, and inwardly this fueled my resentment for my husband. If there was anything good in my life, anything that made me truly happy outside of our daughter, he was determined to crush it underfoot. It was ongoing punishment for having betrayed him, by turning my back on the person he had created me to be.
As a result, I honestly didn’t give a shit what Wade thought about it as I flung my arms around Bryan. We weren’t here for Wade, for once, so I was going to do what made me happy.
No matter what that meant.
“Oh my God! Look at you!” Bryan exclaimed as he practically lifted me up off of the ground with a massive bear hug.
“Look at you!” I shot back. I could feel the solid muscle underneath his expensive clothes. His blond hair now had sunny highlights, and framed the angular face no longer obscured by glasses. He’d corrected his vision courtesy of laser eye surgery and, after years in braces, his teeth were white, straight and perfect.
Wade cleared his throat behind me. “You remember my husband, Wade,” I said.
“Of course,” Bryan responded cheerfully as he stuck out a hand. Wade glared at it for a moment before he accepted it, and I was sure he was counting the seconds until he could escape to the men’s room to wash off the gay.
Bryan hooked his arm in mine to lead me away from my dour husband, who opted to wait at the bar for his Old Fashioned. “Wait until you see everyone. Tiffany McGill? Fat. Bobby Dillard? So gay. And of course… there’s Dylan.”
Even though I hadn’t seen him since my junior year in college, my heart still leapt when I heard his name. “He’s here?” I whispered breathlessly.
Bryan pointed to a handsome man in a dark suit, standing in a group of almost familiar faces near the window facing the ocean.
There was a time I thought Bryan could really give Dylan a run for his money once he blossomed into the beautiful man I always saw peeking out from the unrefined edges. But I had been wrong. So very, very wrong.
Dylan was even more muscular than he had been playing ball in high school. His shoulders were broad, and the suit he wore could barely contain those thighs and that fabulous ass. His dark hair was long, dusting the back of his neck, and it was so thick it screamed for hungry fingers to grab a handful. His face was still smooth and that smile was still killer… but those dark eyes remained the most lethal weapon in his arsenal. I knew it with all certainty when his head turned slightly and they locked with mine. Immediately his face brightened and he abandoned his present company to make a beeline for Bryan and me.
“Roni?” he said, almost disbelievingly. His eyes traveled over my face and my single-digit-size figure with warm appreciation. He took me into an immediate hug that was so strong it took my breath away. “God, you look fantastic! Marriage really agrees with you.”
It was all I could do not to scoff directly into his face.
It was no surprise that he knew I was married. Our moms were still great friends, though they no longer shared a house together. After their kids had moved out, they expanded their social lives and both found new romances of their own. My mother married again, Bonnie did not. Instead she was enjoying her Blanche Devereaux era with gusto, a page taken, no doubt, from her son’s own playbook. Shared holidays had scattered to the wind, especially since Wade had definite ideas on what holidays should look like. Hanging out with Bonnie’s beau de jour didn’t exactly fit into his “traditional” family values.
Neither did my upbringing, really. We attempted only one shared holiday with the Moms the first year we were dating and it was awkward as hell. After that, Wade insisted on traveling back east to spend major holidays with his own traditional (read: boring) family, to teach me what normal life was supposed to look like, since clearly I didn’t know.
That normal life did not include Dylan, whom Wade found immature, superficial and flaky. “An actor of all things. Seriously, Ro
ni. Do you really want your daughter to grow up with that kind of male role model?” he had questioned.
I thought back to my unrequited crush over the years and conceded no, I probably didn’t.
But the danger wasn’t to my daughter. The minute Dylan took me in his arms, my body came alive in a way it hadn’t for a very long time. I tingled from my head to my toes as he held me close, and I could feel every muscle and contour pressed against me.
He kept an arm around me as he greeted Bryan. It did not escape my notice that from his vantage point, Dylan could see right down the generous cleavage of my dress. It was a dress that had earned Wade’s stern disapproval, which was one of the main reasons I bought it.
“Where is your husband anyway?” Dylan asked, his dark eyes sparkling as he looked down at me.
I nodded in the direction of the bar, where Wade had struck up a conversation with a beautiful redhead who waited there for a drink. Even from twenty feet away, we could all tell he was flirting shamelessly with her as he leaned close and even touched her hand with an unapologetic smirk.
“Ah, Prince Charming,” Dylan smirked. “Fuck him. Come on.”
He pulled me by the hand toward the dance floor, where only a few couples had mustered the courage to dance. Dylan didn’t care. He wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me so close to his body I could feel how he stirred against me. My reaction fit the lyrics to the Berlin song they were playing with almost laughable accuracy.
“What are you doing?” I asked breathlessly.
“Dancing with a beautiful woman,” he murmured against my ear. “Is that allowed?”
“Sure,” I answered. “You should go find one.”
“I found one a long time ago,” he assured with that cockeyed grin. “I branded her with a kiss when we were nine.”
I chuckled. “You’re so full of it, Fenn.”
His eyes were dark as he stared down at me. “I wouldn’t say it if it wasn’t true,” he whispered. His eyes traveled across my face and down toward my chest. “You look amazing, Roni. Really.”
The Leftover Club Page 3
