He speaks of stardust and miracles while I sigh,
Wondering how it’s so effortless to be together
With someone so different from me, yet the same,
Over laughter and food our friendship is dawning.
Yet strip away the smiling outer shells—what remains?
Two hearts in darkness, filled with unbearable longing.
Pink robes can mask pain as well as spare flesh
Can be used as somewhere to hide.
Each time we meet I’m moved afresh
By his eloquence, his beauty, his pride.
The man in the girly pink robe is like home
The safest and strongest and best that I’ve known.
“I must be getting my period,” I mutter, angrily wiping the tears from my eyes. “This is ridiculous.”
I stand, place my sonnet book back into the top drawer of my desk in my bedroom, and look out the window. It’s snowing. Flakes float sideways past the pane, gathering in white drifts like dustings of sugar on the corners of the sill.
It’s Saturday the twenty-third. The office holiday party starts in three hours.
I’m officially freaking out.
I didn’t sleep at all last night. Or the night before. Or the night before that. Dinner with Cam a few days ago left me raw in ways I didn’t expect and didn’t feel right away. It wasn’t until after he left that night that I got to thinking about what he’d said about having gratitude for my body instead of treating it like a one-night stand.
For some reason that really resonated.
The first time I went on a diet, I was twelve. I hadn’t even gotten my period yet. My mother, on the other hand, had recently turned forty and was inconsolable. Her grief at passing that milestone age was like a black shroud that hung over the house. Everyone spoke in muted tones and tiptoed around for almost a month as if someone had died.
One night at dinner when I reached for a roll from the bread basket in the middle of the table, my mother slapped my hand. “You’ve had enough,” she said tonelessly, looking at my waistline. My sister—beautiful even at nine—snickered.
That was all it took. I remember the moment clearly. It was the last time I put anything into my mouth without feeling guilt.
From then on, every billboard, every commercial, the pages of every glossy magazine declared to me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t look how I should. There were no images of voluptuous women back then, hardly any of women of color. Everyone was blonde, thin, perfect. Homogeneous. If you were a European supermodel, then you were allowed to be brunette, but you couldn’t look too “ethnic,” or forget it.
Making matters worse, I lived at the beach in Southern California. Blonde, thin, perfect women are manufactured in that area of the world like widgets. If you didn’t have straight teeth, you got braces. If you weren’t slender, you starved yourself. If you weren’t blonde, you bleached your hair. If you weren’t tan, you laid in a machine shaped like a coffin that blasted cancer-causing UV rays at your skin until it complied and turned an acceptable shade of golden brown.
Or burned and freckled, like mine did.
No one ever told me it was okay to be me. All my friends were on diets throughout our teenage years. All of us were drowning in self-loathing.
I wish I was as fat now as I thought I was back then. It makes me sad to think of how long and how hard I tried to be something I wasn’t.
The ghost of my reflection gazes back at me from the window. She’s pale, unsmiling, her hair a dark cloud around her head. She looks like she’s seen things she wishes she hadn’t.
Suddenly I’m filled with anger. “You know what? A wise woman once said, ‘Fuck this shit’ and lived happily ever after.”
Ghost me looks impressed. And a little frightened.
With renewed determination, I head into the bathroom to get ready for the party.
Two hours later, my determination has wilted, and I’m wringing my hands in panic inside the closed bedroom door.
“Any day now, lassie. We could be dead by the time you come out!”
Cam and Mrs. Dinwiddle have gathered in the living room for my big reveal. They must’ve made arrangements between themselves, because I never invited them, but here they are. I’m regretting giving Mrs. Dinwiddle that spare key.
I take one last deep breath, smooth my hands down my waist, and open the door. When I step into the living room, Mrs. Dinwiddle leaps to her feet with a theatrical gasp.
“Heavens, Ducky! You’re beautiful!”
I know I should be flattered, but she doesn’t have to sound so dang shocked. “How’s the hair?” I pat it nervously. “I used your hot oil treatment.”
Mrs. Dinwiddle floats over to me, little sounds of astonishment falling from her lips as she ogles me up and down. “Oh, my dear, it’s simply perfect. Perfect! How did you get it up like that? What a lovely, chic twist!”
“YouTube,” I admit sheepishly. “They have really good tutorials.”
Sitting on the sofa with a beer, Cam isn’t saying anything. He’s just looking at me. Really looking at me.
While Mrs. Dinwiddle hovers over me, plucking at nonexistent bits of lint on my dress and sighing in rapture like some hysterical fairy godmother, I let Cam stare until I can’t take it anymore. “Well?”
His voice low and husky, he says, “Let’s just say I’m glad I’m already sittin’ down.”
Pleased, I look down at myself. “I’m taking that as a compliment.”
“Aye. It’s a compliment. But if you knew what I was really thinkin’, lass, you’d run back into that bedroom and bolt the door behind you.”
When I glance back up at him, he isn’t smiling. He lifts his beer in a salute, then guzzles the whole thing in one go. My face flushes with heat.
“But we need to take it in a bit, Ducky. It’s a little loose here!”
Mrs. Dinwiddle is frowning at my waist, pinching an inch of fabric between her fingers.
“You’re right. I’ve lost weight since I bought this. Shoot.”
“No worries, my dear, just take it off for a minute, and I’ll fix it up for you! I’m an expert seamstress, of course. All those years on the stage, I accumulated more than just men, let me tell you. My skills with a needle and thread are legendary. Tut, tut, in you go, take it off, put on a robe, and I’ll bring it right back!”
She waves me off into the bedroom like she’s shooing a flock of pigeons away from her lunch. I remove the dress, careful not to mess my hair or makeup, put on my fluffy white bathrobe, and reemerge into the living room with the dress in my arms.
“Back in a jiff!”
Mrs. Dinwiddle sweeps out of the apartment, leaving me and Cam alone.
“You’re not wearin’ your glasses.”
It sounds like an accusation, so instantly I’m on the defense. “I’ve got my contacts in. I decided to go whole hog with the transformation thing. I want everyone to not recognize me when I walk into the party. I want to slay.”
“Oh, you’ll slay, lass. No doubt about that. But it’s really because pretty boy wanted to see you without them, isn’t it?”
My heartbeat ticks up a notch. I swallow, feeling nervous and uncomfortable, unsure of why I’d feel either. “Is that bad?”
He draws a breath through his nose, a long one, like he’s biting his tongue or trying to cool his temper. Then he stands, leaving his empty beer bottle on the coffee table. He crosses to me and takes my face in his hands.
“No,” he says softly, looking into my eyes. “It’s not bad. You want to please your man—I get it. Just don’t forget who you are. Don’t forget what you are, Joellen. Not for anyone.”
My heartbeat is now the wild, thundering gallop of a pack of stallions flying over the open plains. “What am I?” I whisper, terrified of the answer.
“Perfect.”
He bends his head and kisses me, the softest, sweetest brush of his lips against mine. Then he turns and leaves, closing the door quietly behind
him.
I sink weak-kneed to the sofa and spend the next fifteen minutes hyperventilating, until Mrs. Dinwiddle reappears with my dress.
In the cab on the way to the party, I don’t see the snowy streets passing by. I don’t see the traffic or the lights or hear the Christmas jingle playing on the stereo.
All I see is Cam’s face. All I hear is his voice telling me I’m perfect.
Well, I also hear the critical voice that’s always with me telling me that Cam has obviously ingested a lot of drugs if he thinks I’m anywhere close to perfect, but I force that voice to a dark corner of my mind and allow myself to accept that maybe I don’t have to be perfect. Maybe having one person who thinks I am is enough.
Maybe his belief in me can be the seed that takes root in the stubborn, self-loathing dirt of my mind and grows into a garden of self-acceptance.
Or maybe I’m nuts.
“God, I really need a drink,” I say aloud.
In the driver’s seat, the cabbie holds up a silver flask. “You like bourbon?”
I have to smile. Damn, I love New York. “Not even a little bit.”
Maddox Publishing’s annual holiday party is being held at the Broad Street Ballroom, a former Bank of America headquarters converted into a luxury event space. This year, the theme of the party is Winter Wonderland, because apparently no one on the event committee possesses a kernel of originality.
I step out of the cab into bitter wind and hurry up the stone steps toward the door, pulling my coat up around my ears and hoping my hair doesn’t get too badly damaged. It’s still snowing, and there’s frost on the ground.
I walk inside into warmth and a confusion of scents—hot wax and lilies and women’s perfume. A girl at a desk takes my coat and gives me a ticket, then I make my way down an elegant hallway toward the ballroom, willing my hands to stop shaking. They refuse.
Music and laughter from around a corner. The sound of clinking ice. I pass myself in a mirror but don’t look, knowing that critical voice is too ready to pounce.
I arrive at the large double doors leading into the ballroom. I take one final deep breath, then go inside.
THIRTY
As if I’m having an out-of-body experience, I see everything around me all at once, including myself.
Cocktail tables softly glowing with votive candles. Dinner tables surrounding a large white dance floor. Centerpieces of white branches dripping in strands of faux jewels that catch and reflect the light. A ten-piece band in tuxedos on a riser. People mingling, talking, laughing with drinks in their hands.
Me, standing alone at the door, wearing a drop-dead gorgeous red dress that cost half a month’s pay, a pair of glittery sky-high heels that make my legs look fantastic, and my cheap everyday glasses with the black plastic frames.
Because I’m fucking perfect, that’s why.
On her way toward the bar in the corner, Shasta walks right by me without batting an eye.
“Shasta.”
She turns and looks around, then does a double take that might have caused whiplash. “Joellen? Is that you?”
“It’s not like I’m wearing a disguise.”
She walks nearer, gaping at me. “You might as well be, bitch! You da bomb. Who knew you had those titties stashed away under all those ugly sweaters?”
I can’t help it: I have to laugh. “Let’s get a drink.”
I take her arm, and we make our way to the bar as I note who’s in attendance and who has yet to show. Portia’s deep in conversation with someone from marketing over by a stand of potted palms. Sue Wong is holding court around a cocktail table with a bunch of the junior copy editors who hang on her every word. A group of guys from accounting have commandeered one of the dining tables and are fighting over who’s going to sit with his back to the dance floor.
Michael is nowhere to be seen.
“I’ll have a glass of red wine, please,” I tell the bartender, who looks homeless. When he gives me my drink, I put a twenty into his tip jar even though the drinks are free. He needs it more than I do.
“Vodka rocks,” Shasta tells him. With a little smile for me, he pours her a serving of vodka that could tranquilize a bear.
I watch, alarmed, as she chugs it. “Easy, killer! The night’s young.”
“Broke up with the boyfriend,” she says, taking a breather. “Walked in on the son of a bitch with another girl.”
“Oh, Shasta, I’m so sorry!”
She shrugs. “I knew it wasn’t going to last when we went on vacation to Bermuda over Thanksgiving and he clapped when the plane landed. No self-respecting woman can marry a man like that.”
I hold up my glass of wine. “To being single.”
“To being single,” she echoes. “Next I think I’ll become a lesbian.”
“I’m pretty sure it doesn’t work like that.”
She shrugs again, and we both drink. As I’m swallowing, I spot Michael.
He’s standing across the dance floor with three people. One of them is his father, who retired as CEO a dozen years ago. One of them is the current chief operating officer. The third is his wife.
His tall, beautiful, elegant wife, who has her hand on his arm and is smiling at him.
My stomach clenches to knots. I set my glass of wine on the bar because I know if I don’t, I’ll drop it. Shasta is talking, but all I can hear is a high-pitched noise in my ears, like someone is screaming. I wouldn’t be surprised if that someone is me.
“I have to go to the bathroom.” I don’t wait to see if Shasta has heard me—I simply bolt from the room as fast as I can.
Once outside, I run down the hallway in search of a ladies’ room. Luckily in places like these, they’re always nearby. I fall on the door, panting, and stagger inside. I lock myself into a stall, wrap my arms around myself, and sit on the toilet, staring at the grout between the tiles until the worst of the pain passes and I can breathe again.
“I don’t understand,” I whisper, shaking. “I don’t understand.”
He said he was getting divorced. He said we’d talk tonight, that I could let him know what I’ve decided about us. How can he be here, now, with his wife?
Simple, says the pragmatic voice in my head. He lied.
The door creaks open. Footsteps echo hollowly off the floor. Then a voice says, “Joellen?”
I leap to my feet, scalded with fury. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is the ladies’ room, asshole!”
Michael’s loud exhale seems even louder as it bounces off the tile walls. “You’re angry.”
“And you’re here with your wife. I wonder how the two could possibly be related?”
“Can you please come out? I don’t want to have this conversation through a toilet stall door.”
I’m grateful to whatever guardian angels are helping me be more mad than brokenhearted right now, because anger will help me get through the next few minutes, just long enough to save my dignity until I can shatter into a million pieces in the cab on the way home.
I unlock the door, yank it open, and glare daggers at him from inside the stall.
He looks beautiful, of course. Not a hair out of place. The suit is gorgeous. The shoes are buffed to a mirror shine. I’d like to light his face on fire and put it out with a shovel.
“Please.” He gestures for me to come out of the stall. Then he watches warily as I emerge, breathing flames from my nostrils.
I stand near the sinks and fold my arms over my chest. “You have exactly ten seconds to say your piece, and then I’m going to kick you in the balls. Go.”
A ghost of a smile lifts his lips. “It isn’t what it looks like.”
I throw my hands in the air. “Seriously? You expect me to believe that?”
“Just hear me out. I told you our divorce was amicable—”
“No. No, you did not tell me that. You said she was living in the house and you got a new place while the attorneys were working out the details. That was the extent of your explanation.”
He holds up his hands as if in surrender. “I apologize. I should’ve made it clearer. Our divorce is amicable.”
“Yeah, we’re past that. Get to the important part where you’re attending the company holiday party together, looking all married and happy.”
His expression is pained. “My father thought it would be good for morale. You know, for the staff to see that things are calm and friendly between us. Many times in cases like ours, family companies are broken up in bitter divorces.”
When I stare at him, still unsure if he’s telling the truth but definitely sure I’m unimpressed that he’s taking daddy’s advice about his personal life, he adds wearily, “We don’t have a prenup. If Elizabeth wanted to, she could insist on the sale of the company so the proceeds could be evenly split between us.”
That punches a good-size hole in my outrage. “But the company’s been around for a million years! Way before you two were married!”
Michael nods. “Yes. It has. But since I took over as CEO, we’ve tripled in size, and so have our profits. She could argue in court that those profits are marital assets. I’d fight it, of course, but if I lost, I’d have to buy her out to the tune of more than one hundred million dollars. I don’t have that kind of cash. The only way would be to sell.”
I’m not sure how to react to that. I examine his face, but he seems sincere.
He takes a step closer. “Not to change the subject, but you look incredible.”
I know I should say something. All I come up with is a morose “Thanks.”
“I’m sorry,” he says softly, taking another step closer. “I know it must’ve been a shock, seeing us like that. I honestly didn’t know until late this afternoon that she’d be coming.”
Plenty of time to pick up the phone. I huff out an aggravated breath.
He reaches out and strokes my arm, then takes another step toward me, so now we’re standing close enough that I can smell his cologne. And the bourbon on his breath, which is surprisingly strong.
“You really do look incredible,” he murmurs. “This dress is . . . wow. And your hair. My God, Joellen. You’re stunning.”
Melt for You (Slow Burn Book 2) Page 25
