“It’s legal,” I said, my blood pressure rising.
“It is,” Tom said, nodding. “And I believe the preferred term is gentleman’s club.”
“Oh!” Marcie exclaimed. Her hand on Tom’s arm again, she leaned into him, her breasts brushing against his bicep. “You are so bad. Listen to you, dropping all the droll little comments.”
Is this bitch for real? Droll? Who the fuck says “droll”?
“Not trying to be funny,” Tom said, shrugging her gently off of his arm. “Just factual.”
“Well, you are,” Marcie said, bobbing her head at him, her tone a little too precious, like she was speaking to a toddler. “You are very factual and very helpful and very cute. All dressed up in your tux.” She pouted at him.
She’s drunk, I thought with a mixture of disgust and relief.
“You’re a gentleman,” she continued. “Just a pretty, pretty English professor. All pretty with your books and your words. As if you’d ever go to a place like that.”
“Like what?” asked Tom.
“The whore place.” She laughed. “The place for all the dirty whores.”
Her hand was on his arm again, and I saw red. I inhaled sharply and Tom’s arm tightened around my waist. Drunk or not, I’m gonna cut a bitch. I hope Cordelia knows how to get blood out of vintage silk.
“Now just a minute, Marcie—” Tom started to correct her.
“W-what do you do?” someone in the circle stuttered loudly, cutting Tom off. I didn’t realize it was directed at me until I felt Tom elbow me, I’d been too busy trying to set Marcie on fire with the power of my mind.
I looked around the group, scanning them, sizing them up. Faces were flushed, ties a bit askew, bellies bloated from an overabundance of food and merriment. Chances were no one would accurately remember much of this conversation in the morning. Why not have a bit of fun?
“I’m one of the dirty whores,” I said, looking Marcie straight in the eye. “I work at Clouds. I’m a stripper.”
“What?” she said dumbly, her mouth falling slack.
I leaned across Tom’s chest, folded my hand over hers and spoke slowly, taking care to annunciate clearly. “I take my clothes off for money. I let strange men look at my naked body, for money.”
There was a lull in the music, and the conversations around us seemed to quiet a little. It wasn’t one of those room-shocking moments, but it sure felt like it in the atmosphere of our small circle. I surveyed the group again, and smirked a little at the damage. Everyone was speechless, brushing invisible lint off their lapels or furiously stirring their cups of punch. Marcie looked as if she might be in danger of sobering up any second. She was definitely eyeing me with extreme displeasure. She snatched her hand out from under mine and stumbled back. At least she wasn’t touching Tom anymore.
“Wait! You’re having us on!” said a portly guy with a bad comb-over. “I just heard you tell Tenley you’re an importer or exporter or something. What was it?” he said, turning to his companion.
“Something about cheese, I thought,” she said.
“No, she’s a baker,” said a lady that was walking by our group, elbowing her way in to proclaim herself. “She bakes muffins.”
There was much discussion at this point. Lots of hand waving and arguing. A group of academics and white collars far above my pay grade spent several frantic moments trying to figure me out. Tom pressed his lips to my ear and kissed me, before whispering, “I’m so glad I brought my own entertainment.”
“Sorry,” I said, smirking at him sheepishly.
“Don’t be, she deserved it.”
“Wait. Wait. Wait,” said Marcie loudly, weaving a little in her high heels. “I don’t understand. Is she a whore or not?”
Well, that shut them up.
The entire circle stared at Marcie, mouths agape. Comb-over’s cup of punch went limp, its contents piddling on the hardwood floor like he’d just peed his pants.
“Marcie!” Julie’s musical voice sounded like the bells of a church. “I’m so glad you could come this evening. Roger told me about the book. I was sorry to hear your publisher decided to pass. Will you have to give back the advance or—”
“Yes, Julie,” Marcie said dryly. “That’s what happens when they don’t publish a book, you don’t get paid.” She grabbed Tom’s arm again for support and I felt him stiffen up, sighing heavily.
“Oh, that is terrible,” said Julie, her tone suggesting it was anything but.
Julie Whitcombe is a goddess, I thought, stifling a laugh.
“Julie, since you’re here,” said comb-over, “settle something for us.”
“And what’s that?”
“Tom’s date here, um…”
“Jane,” Tom and I answered in unison.
“What’s the scoop? I heard she’s an importer. Tenley says she’s a baker. And Marcie here says she’s a whore, or uh, excuse me, a stripper or, what have you. One of those women that dances at those clubs.”
“I didn’t say she was a whore.” ,” Marcie interjected. “She called herself that. Who am I to argue?”
“Madam.” Tom shot her a look full of disgust, and released me to pry her hand up off his arm. He lifted it by one finger, dropping it in the air like a piece of garbage. He moved away from her, walking behind me, wrapped both arms around my waist and pulled me against his chest, leaning down to whisper in my ear.
“I’m so sorry. Let’s move on.”
“No,” I said, watching Julie’s face closely. “I’m fine.” Julie had something interesting to say. I was sure of it. And there was no way I was going to miss it.
“Well,” Julie said, her eyes twinkling. “Looks like I missed an exciting conversation.” Her eyes met mine and I did my best to hold her gaze steadily. It was my turn to be sized up, and for some reason, I really wanted to win Julie Whitcombe’s seal of approval.
“I suggest if you want to know about Ms. Claremont, that you ask her yourself.”
“We have,” said comb-over with exasperation. “She’s having us on, playing a guessing game or something.”
“Well, I’ve only just met Jane this evening,” said Julie. Crossing her arms over her chest, she smiled at me. “But if it’s a game, then I’ll do my best. Let’s see…” She squinted at me. Tilting her head to the side, she studied me for a long moment and then spoke again. “She’s witty, stylish, has excellent taste in parties…” I laughed at the comment, and smiled at her. “She strikes me as accomplished and independent,” she continued. “A woman who knows what she wants,” her gaze flitted up over my head, to Tom, “and seems to have gotten it. I’d say she’s spectacular.”
“No, Julie, that’s not the game,” comb-over whined. “You were supposed to guess—”
“She’s also my guest,” Julie insisted, shutting him down. “And she and Tom are needed elsewhere.” She beckoned us to her, lifting her skirt, to weave through the circle. “Come along, Tom. Roger’s been nagging me to find you for twenty minutes.”
Tom cupped my waist and guided me through the throng. I made one last attempt to set Marcie on fire via pyrokinesis. It failed, but I was pleased to see her trip over the edge of a rug and stumble into a potted plant.
Aw, bless her heart.
* * *
We followed Julie up a massive staircase of marble and scrolling iron handrails to a suite of rooms that was just as crowded as those downstairs. But the crowd up here was decidedly more fun, buzzing with a relaxed joviality that said this was the real party, and downstairs was just for show. Roger hooted loudly, hailing Tom from across a room of men, winning his attention by holding aloft a bottle of Jameson and a box of cigars.
“Darling?” He looked at me, his gaze imploring.
“Go,” I said, laughing. “Have fun.”
“I’ll take good care of her,” Julie said, pulling my arm through hers and ushering me out the door.
“Roger looks like he’s having fun,” I said as I followed Julie into a small
er room down the hall.
“Oh god, yes, that man is a different person during a party.” She shut the door behind us and walked to a window at the far wall, throwing up the sash and collapsing on the window seat in front of it. “Damn that feels good.” She beckoned me over. “Come sit, you must be boiling.”
“Whoo that is brisk,” I said, sitting beside her. “Oh god, it does feel good.”
We sat for a few minutes in silence, just the two of us, fanning ourselves, draped over the window sill, gazing at the snow-covered lawn.
“So what’s the real story?” Julie asked. Her gaze was motherly, and I suddenly thought to myself that this fantastic lady would probably become BFFs with my mom in a heartbeat if they ever met.
“The real story is I do work at Clouds. And I do take my clothes off for money.”
Julie whistled. “Well. That’s something we have in common, then.”
“What?” My mouthed dropped open.
“No, first things first. You and Tom. Where did you meet?”
Shit! Do I answer this or not?
“The club, huh?” she said, catching my eye and misunderstanding my discomfort completely.
“No, that’s not—”
“I’m not judging either of you. He’s been having such a hard time lately. You put a smile on his face that I haven’t seen in a long while.”
“No, Julie, that’s not where we met. We met at school, actually.”
“You’re a student at Wagner?”
“No.” I shook my head, anxious to get this straightened out before she got the wrong impression entirely. “I graduated early—just Friday, actually. I met Tom at the school pool early one morning. He had no idea I was a student, I had no idea he was a teacher. Once we figured it out, we kept our distance. We didn’t date or hook-up or anything like that until I graduated.”
She smiled at me, laughter dancing in her eyes. “That was just a little too pat, that explanation. You two have worked on it.”
“Really,” I protested.
“No, I believe you, Jane. I’ve known Tom for years. He’s a good man. But I also know hearts, and human behavior. You two have been nurturing this romance for a while. Even if you did wait till Friday to, shall we say, consummate it.”
“Oh god,” I said, panic knotting in my gut. “Did I just get him fired?”
“What? God no. Good Lord, if Roger fired every teacher that ever shtupped a student we’d be out half the staff.”
“We didn’t shtup till after,” I muttered under my breath.
“Hell, he’d have to fire himself.”
What the fuck?
“It’s true. I told you we had something in common. Looks like several things.” She leaned in close to me and lowered her voice, as if she were afraid to be overhead. “When I met Roger, I was dancing at a little hole in the wall in upstate New York and paying my way through community college.”
“You?” I said, incredulous.
“There're not a lot of options for high paying jobs for women trying to pay for college, then or now,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Roger was my history professor. He was so goofy. So awkward, with this great mane of auburn hair and these scruffy sideburns.”
I blinked and tried to picture the white-haired Roger Whitcombe with red hair and sideburns. It wasn’t a pretty picture.
“He had these enormous coke-bottle lenses in his glasses. Oh, he was just too adorable to resist.”
“I know the feeling.”
“What is it about brainy men?” she said.
“I know, right?” I agreed, grinning at her.
“So,” she said, patting my arm. “Your secret is safe with me. But consider,” her gaze caught mine, “if Tom is safe with your secret?”
“What do you mean?”
“Small minds will always try to destroy the things they fear, or don’t understand. Jealousy, ambition, greed. Those are usually at the root of it. Although of course they’ll drape their arguments in the flag of moral purity.”
“Like Marcie.”
“Oh, worse than Marcie,” she said, shaking her head. “Just be careful. I was lucky. There was no internet in my day. Once we moved and married, and my name was different than it had been, people forgot their outrage, and all about us. Still, it came up again, twenty years ago if you can believe it. A former bartender at the club I worked at, had a grainy Polaroid he threatened to show the press if we didn’t pay him off. Roger was up for Dean at the time.”
“What did you do?”
“We called his bluff, said the photo was a fake and he couldn’t prove otherwise, so he went away. It wasn’t, of course, and god I wish I had a copy,” she said, laughing. “I looked hot.”
“I bet you did. You still do.”
“You’re sweet. And you’re so good for Tom. He’s shining. You did that.”
“Well,” I said, blushing, “I think we do that for each other.”
“Good. Just be careful, honey. I don’t mean to mother you. But, just think hard; are you up for it? Because being an academics partner is complicated, especially if he has ambitions. It gets political. And I can guarantee, your past will come up. You’ll need to be strong when it does, because it’ll be bad, for both of you. Not a lot of relationships can withstand that kind of pressure.”
“Yeah,” I said, smiling softly at her. “I see what you mean.”
I didn’t want to admit it, but Julie’s words were seeping into me. We’d been living in this dream, Tom and I. A stasis, holding reality at bay while we played house and went to parties where we toyed with social conventions. God, what had I done? I’d completely outed myself to those people downstairs with no concern of what it meant for Tom. I’d thought the only reputation at stake was my own, and I hadn’t given a damn about that in years. But what about Tom? He didn’t deserve to have his reputation—possibly his career—destroyed because of my big mouth.
“Jane?” I heard Tom’s voice shout from the hallway. “Are you down here?”
“In here,” Julie called, rising as Tom opened the door.
“Can I have my date back, Julie?” he said playfully as he crossed to us. “I think it’s time we were on the road. We have a long drive ahead of us.”
“Oh, where are you going?” Julie asked.
“To my mother’s house,” I said, standing up from the window seat. “We’re, uh, going to spend the week up there, and the holiday.
“Good, have fun. But you can’t leave yet.”
“And why’s that?” Tom said, arching an eyebrow at her.
“Because you promised you’d dance. And your lady looks too lovely for you to let her down.”
* * *
The crowd was thinner when Tom led me to the dance floor. The conversation was low and easy-going, just a few dozen people milling around, drinking eggnog and lingering at the buffet table. Even fewer on the dance floor itself. The band had moved on from the Christmas tunes and started playing original songs and some covers. Nothing too upbeat I was glad to note, because I really didn’t have the energy for complicated dance steps.
“You look pensive,” said Tom. Taking my waist in his hands, he twirled me onto the hardwood. “What’s up?’
“Nothing, just tired,” I said.
“And?”
“And kind of kicking myself over getting into it with Marcie earlier. I can’t believe I said all that.”
“I thought it was great.”
“Yeah, well, it wasn’t exactly smart.”
“It was brilliant,” he said, frowning at me. “She’s a horrible, judgmental snob and you put her right in her place.”
“Yeah, and she’s a colleague of yours. What if she—”
“What if she what?”
“What if she tells people?” I whispered, glancing around the dance floor nervously. “What if it affects your career, or keeps you from getting promotions or something? That would be awful.”
“Jane, I don’t even teach here full time. Marcie isn�
��t really a colleague; Wagner is an ocean away from Northbrook. I don’t think it’s likely that anything that happens here is going to affect my life there. And besides—”
My blood ran cold. There it is. His life is there. That’s the truth of it, isn’t it? Good job, Jane, you just fell in love with a guy that’s—
“Hey,” he said, tipping my chin up, trying to catch my gaze. I closed my eyes, unable to look at him right then, hot tears pricking at the backs of my eyes. “Fuck,” he cursed. “What did I just say? That’s not what I meant, Jane.” He draped my arms over his shoulders, wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into him, dancing in slow swaying circles in time to the music. “I’m a complete ass,” he whispered in my ear. “Forgive me. That did not come out right at all.”
“I can’t even think of you leaving,” I whispered back. “I can’t even imagine that. I don’t know what to do, because I don’t want any of this to change. I just want to be with you, to keep floating on this feeling. Forever. But I know we can’t.” And here come the waterworks. Fuck. Fat drops were plopping from my eyes onto his suit jacket. I hoped like hell my mascara wasn’t running. Raccoons don’t look good in couture.
“Who says we can’t?” he said, pulling back to look at me. He plucked the lavender square from his pocket and dabbed at my eyes. “We can if we want to. We’ve just got some minor details to work out.”
“Yeah, right. Minor,” I said sarcastically. “Can I remind you of the ocean you just mentioned?”
“Injurious distance shall not stop our way.”
“Really? With the Shakespeare? Now?” I said, laughing in spite of the dark cloud of doom that was currently swirling over my head.
“It’s romantic.”
“You can’t just say, ‘It’s cool, babe, I’ve got loads of frequent flier miles’?”
“Good Lord, no,” he said, raising his eyebrows in mock horror. “Where’s the romance in that?”
I sighed at him and opened my mouth to speak, but he put a finger to my lips, silencing me.
Storms and Dreams (Becoming Jane Book 3) Page 11
