Four Reasons to Come

by Sarah J. Brooks

  My thoughts whirled through my mind as I tried to make sense of it. Sure, Cassandra could be a little dramatic, but she knew the dancers at her studio, and she would be the one who would know what Jenna did there.

  “But, I saw her dancing at the benefit,” I said in Jenna’s defense. “She was in the front of the group of dancers at my table.”

  “That was supposed to be Elaina,” Cassandra said angrily. “Are you telling me Elaina didn’t show up to the event and Jenna took her spot?”

  “I don’t know what’s going on,” I said still trying to figure out what had happened.

  “Well, Jenna isn’t a dancer. She has never even tried out to be a dancer. She works for the dance company as our lowest level employee. Literally, she gets my dry cleaning. I’m so sorry she lied to you like that. It doesn’t surprise me, though,” Cassandra said as she looked over at Bruce, the security guard who was still trying to call the rehearsal room for Jenna. “Why don’t you just go get her,” Cassandra ordered him.

  Bruce reluctantly got up from his post and made his way down the hallway. With him out of her way, Cassandra leaned in closer as if she had a huge secret she needed to tell me.

  “I’m sorry, I should probably get going. Can you just give her this invitation?” I said as I handed Cassandra the envelope.

  “She’s done this before, Kevin. I’m sorry you got mixed up with such a troublemaker. I’ll give her the invitation, and if she doesn’t want to come, would it be alright if I came?”

  “Sure, whatever,” I said as I turned to leave. “Tell her I tried calling the number she gave, and it didn’t work.”

  “Oh, man. She gave you a fake number? That’s horrible,” Cassandra said as I stood at the door ready to leave. “She likes to play with men like you, Kevin. She finds nice guys who have money, and she manipulates them. Don’t worry; it’s not your fault,” she said with a laugh as I left.

  I couldn’t stay there another moment and burst through the doors and out into the parking lot. Cassandra’s laugh echoed in my ears as I walked quickly to my vehicle and drove off. I had to get out of there. I had to get as far away from that place as I possibly could.

  My blood pressure was through the roof as I pulled into my driveway and dialed up Ed. This was the secret Jenna had been keeping from me? Why even pretend? Why try to trick me into liking her? She had to have been playing some sort of game with me. Maybe trying to see if I would fall for her, or playing with me to get me to buy her things? It didn’t make sense, but it was the only explanation I had for her secrets.

  “How did it go?” Ed asked as he answered my call.

  “Shitty. It went shitty. Apparently, she’s not even a dancer at all. I can’t believe this. I’ve never had a woman pull this sort of thing on me. Or at least never figured it out before. I actually cared about this girl, and it was all lies. Complete and utter lies!”

  “Calm down there, big guy. There is always a second side to everything. What did she have to say? Did you hear this from her?”

  “I talked to her boss. Jenna isn’t a dancer there. She’s some kind of assistant or janitor or something. It was all a lie.”

  Ed was quiet for a minute, and I took a few deep breaths as I tried to calm myself down. I hadn’t been this worked up over a woman in a really long time. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever being this angry with a woman I’d been seeing. Jenna and I had what I thought was a real connection, and to learn that she’d been lying, and she’d been playing me for a fool. It hurt.

  There was no denying that the reason it hurt so bad was because of the feelings I’d started to have for Jenna. I’d let myself get sucked into this attraction, and how I felt around her, and I’d pushed away all the warning signs that something wasn’t right.

  “I think you need to cool off, and we can talk about this later. Did you give her the invitation?” Ed asked.

  “I gave it to her boss to give to her. After hearing the lies she’s been telling me, I didn’t feel like sticking around to talk to her. I would have just blown up, and that’s not the sort of person I want to be.”

  “So she’s coming to the charity event?”

  “I’m not sure. She probably won’t bother since apparently, she was playing me and now I’ve found out. I guess the game is over, and she’s moving on to someone else.”

  “Kevin. You need to cool down. Bring one of your model friends and have fun at the event. This is supposed to be a fun night. Whatever is going on with this girl can be figured out later.”

  “I’m not bringing anyone else. I can’t even think straight right now. I’ll just go alone. Thanks for the talk. I need to get a run in and try and calm down. This has really thrown me for a loop.”

  “I’ll talk to you more about this later,” Ed said as he hung up.

  There wasn’t much to talk about. Jenna clearly had been lying to me. For whatever reason, I didn’t really care. Any person who was willing to start off a relationship with such a lie had to be out to do something not good. I couldn’t even think of a good reason why she would have lied to me.

  I didn’t even care if she was a dancer or an assistant or whatever it was that she did for the dance company. But to straight up lie right to my face like she had been doing, I couldn’t understand that. If Jenna really did this to other guys, wow, it was pretty crappy. I felt played, used, and cheated out of what I thought I had developed for Jenna.

  I laced up my tennis shoes and jetted out of my house and down toward the water for a run. My adrenaline was boosted from all the anger and excitement of the morning. A good workout was just what I needed to clear my head.

  With my charity event coming up over the weekend, I couldn’t be this distracted. This was a huge weekend for me, and no girl was going to ruin it for me. No matter what had happened with Jenna, no matter what feelings I still had for her, I had to concentrate on my charity event and bringing in some big money so I could assist the organizations I wanted to help.

  My feelings for Jenna would just have to wait. I’d deal with them after the event. I’d hurt for what she did to me when my charity was up and running. I’d process the deceit and anger I was having when it was all over.

  As I ran faster and faster down the sidewalk, I felt my body zoning out and starting to relax. I cared about Jenna. Even hearing what Cassandra had to say didn’t take those feelings away from me, and when this was all over, I still had to talk to her. I had to hear her side of the story so I could bring this whole thing to a close.

  Chapter 13

  Jenna

  “Was somebody out here for me?” I asked as I followed Bruce up to the front and saw Cassandra standing at the front desk.

  “You little liar!” she yelled at me. “You danced in Elaina’s spot at the charity event? Don’t worry. I told Kevin Fox all about your lies. I told him what you really do here, and he never wants to see you again.” She laughed as she walked toward the elevator. “It’s sad that you don’t even know what a guy like him needs. By the way, send Elaina up when you see her. I think she and I need to have a talk about her lying too.”

  “Stay here,” Bruce said under his breath as we both waited for the elevator to close. “She was downright nasty to the man. He brought an invitation for you to his charity event.”

  I was so close to tears, I could hardly breathe. Cassandra had told Kevin who I really was. He must hate me terribly. I’d lied to him, and by now he had to know that the number I gave him was fake. But I didn’t want him to know the truth. I couldn’t bear the idea of him knowing I’d lied to him; that was the whole reason I couldn’t see him.

  Now I couldn’t see him, and he knew I was a liar. This was absolutely terrible. If it was possible to mess up this whole thing even more than I’d already done, it was to have Cassandra involved at all.

  “What did she say?”

  “I didn’t hear all of it. But basically she made it seem like you were the janitor and that you lied and tricked men like him all the time.”


  “What? Really? That’s not true.”

  “I know; it didn’t sound like you. She has an invitation for you to the charity event.”

  “She’s definitely not giving that to me. I bet she tears it up and doesn’t even tell me about it. I can’t believe she even got involved. She’s the most unhappy person I’ve ever met. How does she even live with herself?”

  Bruce didn’t really have a response for me. He’d been working at our office long enough to know what Cassandra was capable of. She didn’t even try to hide what a horrible person she was when she was around all of us.

  “What’s going on?” Elaina and Stacy said as they came out of practice. “You’re taking forever.”

  “Apparently, Kevin showed up to give me some sort of invitation to his charity event.”

  “Oh, wow, that’s awesome. Even after you gave him the fake phone number?” Stacy asked.

  “No, it’s not awesome. Cassandra ran into him and told him I was tricking him and that I lied all the time to guys.”

  “What the heck!” Elaina added.

  “It also came out that I danced for you. Somehow, I don’t know how. But now she wants to talk to you upstairs.”

  “Shit, she’s going to fire me.”

  It was entirely possible that Cassandra was going to fire both of us. She could be up in her office plotting how to get us both out of there by the end of the day. There was one thing I was one hundred percent sure of, Cassandra wasn’t going to let me move up in the dance company ever. Only when she was gone would I ever actually have a chance to choreograph or participate as a dancer.

  “So are you going to the charity event?” Stacy asked as if that was even an option.

  “No. He thinks I’m a liar.”

  “You are a liar.”

  “Well, yeah, but I didn’t mean to let it go on for so long. I definitely wasn’t trying to get to his money or trick him. It just got out of control. I really like him. He’s a wonderful man,” I said as my eyes started to tear up. “I mean even after I gave him a fake number, he still brought an invitation for me to his charity event. That’s one hell of a guy.”

  “So you are going?” Stacy asked with a confused expression.

  “No, but he is a really good guy.”

  “I don’t get it. Why not go to the event and talk to him? The truth has got to be better than whatever Cassandra told him. At this point, what do you have to lose? He basically thinks you’re a horrible person who tried to trick him. Maybe you can explain that you were just in love with him and didn’t want to lose him,” Stacy said as she smiled widely.

  “Wow, that was deep,” Elaina added. “Stacy is right. You have nothing to lose now. He knows. There’s nothing left to hide. You need to go to that damn charity event.”

  These two were talking nonsense. Kevin had to totally hate me by this point. Whatever lies Cassandra had told him were still partial truths. I had lied to him. I had tricked him. Maybe not for the same reasons as he thought, but I did still lie.

  I couldn’t imagine any circumstance that would make him want to talk to me at all. Certainly, he didn’t really want me to come to the event after he had heard everything that Cassandra said I’d done.

  “Bruce, did he give the invitation to Cassandra before or after she told him all that horrible stuff?”

  “I think before,” he said as he tried to remember. “But he did ask her to give it to you before he left. So even after hearing what she said, he still wanted you to go. Do you want me to call her and get the invitation back for you? I’ll do it.”

  “No, it’s okay, she’s probably ripped it into pieces and thrown it away by now,” I said as I tried to think of what we could do. “Well, without an invitation, I won’t be able to get in. The event is seriously going to be huge. Lots of celebrities and things like that.”

  “Let’s worry about that later,” Elaina said as she grabbed the front desk phone.

  “What is she doing?” I asked Stacy as if she had any idea.

  We both stood there watching as Elaina hung up and dialed a different number. This time, someone answered.

  “Hey Kendal, are you going to the charity event for Kevin Fox? When is it?” she asked the person and then waited. “This weekend. Oh, yeah, what time?” she said as she smiled in my direction. “Thanks so much. Have a great time.”

  She hung up and smiled at me as if she’d just figured out something super secret. I loved how excited she got about silly things like this.

  “What did they say?”

  “It’s Saturday at seven o’clock at Kevin’s house. Bam, and that’s how you find out super secret celebrity information.”

  “Yep, Saturday at seven o’clock,” Bruce said as he held up an article in the newspaper.

  Stacy, Bruce, and I all burst out laughing. Bruce was trying to keep a straight face, but he just couldn’t do it. It was so funny how full of herself Elaina was and how the story was literally sitting on the top of Bruce’s newspaper.

  “Oh, shut up,” Elaina grumbled. “I’m going up to talk to the witch, and hopefully, keep my job. How about we plan on shopping for a dress Friday after work, and then Stacy and I will help with hair and makeup on Saturday?”

  “Who said I was going?” I said through my laughter.

  “Oh, you’re going. There’s no question about that. I’ve got a gift card for that new boutique with the fancy dresses. You can use it. I’ve got no need for that stuff.”

  “Elaina, that’s so sweet of you. But I’m sure I can find something in my closet.”

  “Absolutely not!” Stacy yelled at me as she was scanning the newspaper article. “It’s a black tie affair. We have to get you an amazing dress. Something that will literally make his jaw drop to the ground. He’ll be so distracted by your beauty that he will have no other option but to listen to your explanation of the events that took place when you met.”

  I liked the idea of dressing up in an amazing outfit. It would be so exciting to show up at the event looking like a million bucks. That way, even if Kevin and I didn’t work out, I’d still know that I knocked his socks off with my look.

  The problem I had was I didn’t have enough money for one of those expensive boutique dresses. Even with some sort of discount or gift card from Elaina, I couldn’t afford something like that.

  “It’s too expensive to go to one of these things. I don’t have any money,” I protested.

  “Stop it. We are making this happen, aren’t we Stacy?”

  “Damn right! We are doing this for you girl. Don’t even try to stop us. Someday when you’re rich and famous, you can pay us back.”

  The look in both of their eyes told me that there was going to be no arguing with them. I knew better than to even try. They had their minds set on getting me all dolled up for this event, and I was just going to have to go along for the ride.

  “Okay, but I’m going to pay you both back.”

  “Deal,” Elaina said as she walked toward the elevator. “Now say a little prayer that I don’t get fired.”

  “She’s not going to fire anyone,” I said with all the fake confidence I could muster.

  As Elaina went into the elevator, Stacy and I both looked at each other with wide eyes. It was entirely possible Elaina was about to get fired. With Cassandra, there was no way to know what she might do. Even when I thought she couldn’t get more evil than she already was, Cassandra always topped herself.

  Even if Cassandra didn’t fire me, I probably wouldn’t be able to stick around for much longer. There was no way Cassandra would give me a real chance now that she’d gotten involved in my personal life like she had.

  I still didn’t understand why she would say what she did. Unless she liked Kevin and wanted to try and go after him herself. There was no other logical reason for her totally making up lies about me and trying to make him hate me like she had done.

  “Should we get back to practice?” I said to Stacy as we turned toward the hallway where the r
ehearsal room was. “Might as well finish the choreography for this dance before I get canned,” I joked.

  “Yeah, let’s get this done. I can’t just stand here waiting for Elaina. This whole thing is so stressful. I’m so glad I have Camden and don’t have to deal with all this crazy boy drama.”

  “You are lucky, that’s for sure.”

  ***

  By Saturday morning, I was all hyped up and excited for the dance. Despite my ongoing fears that Kevin wouldn’t even let me into the event when I showed up, there was a small part of me that thought he’d at least let me tell him my side of things.

  The dress we picked out was insane. It was white and had this elaborate decoration all over that was a combination of hand-sewn beading and rhinestones. The skirt fit tight around my waist but then flared out with a flowing material that made me feel like a princess when I put it on. Amazingly, it fit me perfectly. There wasn’t a single detail I would change on it. Even though it was a little lower cut than I was used to, I still felt so beautiful in it that I didn’t mind, and I couldn’t wait to walk into the event and have that wow moment I’d always dreamed of.

  “I’ve got the perfect makeup style planned, and your hair is going to be amazing!” Stacy said as I walked through the front door to her apartment.

  We had already decided that getting dressed and ready at her place was going to be best. My apartment wasn’t exactly the sort of place you wanted to be with an expensive dress, and I definitely didn’t want to try and get all the way into town from my house once I was all ready. Stacy lived closer to town, and I could easily get a cab or Uber once I was ready.

  “I’m glad you know what you want to do because I literally have no idea.”

  “Did you shower today? Please tell me you haven’t showered already,” Elaina asked as if it was a huge crime if I had actually decided to get in the shower.

  “No, I wasn’t going to bother. I showered when I got home last night. Why? Is it that big a deal?”