Lady of Way

by Rosemarie McCants

  Cynthia pushed her way into the cafe. She was out of breath when she sat down across from her friend.

  Danielle looked up from her phone and smiled. “You must have a ton of last minute preparations to make before your trip. Are you sure ready for such a big move?”

  Cynthia sat down and placed her brown saddlebag on her lap. She wasn’t sure whether she was ready to travel halfway across the country to record her first album. But she knew that in order to really go to a deeper place with her work, to make her songs more personal and emotional, she would have to get out of her comfort zone. Life in New York had simply become too comfortable and routine for her. She was bored and in need of a change. She could feel her creativity being sucked out of her.

  “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready. But if this is what Billy wants, and he thinks it’s the best thing for my career than I should probably listen to him.”

  “Why did he choose Denver, of all places? There are so many places to record here in the city. That just doesn’t make sense to me.”

  Cynthia had tried to explain the need for artistic inspiration a lot of times to Danielle. But for Danielle, all that talk about inspiration just seemed a bit too wishy washy. She needed things to be logical and rational.

  “He has a ranch out there. And there's a studio in the house,” Cynthia answered. “And he’s always told me that he thinks he does his best work outside of the city. I’m hoping some of that rubs off on me.”

  “You guys aren’t a couple, are you?” Danielle asked.

  The question seemed so ridiculous to Cynthia. She covered her mouth to keep from laughing.

  “What’ so funny?” Danielle said. “You have been working together as artist and producer for the past five years. And now you’re going across the country to spend three months together on some five-acre ranch to record your first album. It would only be natural if something developed between you two.”

  “Please, stop. I’m going to laugh myself silly,” Cynthia said. “I think my relationship as an artist to Billy is perfectly fine. I have no interest in seeing it change in any way. This is a big moment in both of our careers.”

  “I know you think it’s perfectly fine. But how do you know that he feels the same way?”

  “That’s just not something that I want to worry about right now, sis. The last thing I need in my life is my producer catching feelings for me.”

  “Okay, girl. But you better watch out. All those nights in the studio alone. Something might just happen.”

  That’s definitely not what Cynthia wanted to think about. But now that Danielle had mentioned it, she started to wonder whether or not Billy had any ulterior motives for taking her all the way across the country. He was ten years older than her and he had been quite the player in his day. But over the last few years, she had definitely noted a change in him. He seemed more mature and more focused on really making a name for himself in the music industry.

  “What do you have going on for the rest of the day?” Cynthia asked with a big smile on her face.

  She had a sudden urge to do something different. She wouldn’t go to the studio and sit there hunched over a notepad for hours trying to come up with lyrics to the song that she hoped would finally put her name on the map. She wanted her name to spread all across the globe. She wanted to be an international best-selling artist. A worldwide diva. But at this point in her life, New York City was beginning to feel so suffocating. It seemed like everyone in the city was pretending to be someone they were not. That got really draining after a while. Cynthia hoped that life on the ranch would help center her and put her feet back on the ground. She hoped that getting out of New York would help her focus more on her music and less on how famous she was destined to become.

  “I haven’t seen that look on your face in a long time,” Danielle said. “You must have some naughty thoughts going through your head.”

  Cynthia smiled but shook her head. “I just need to let my hair down a little, that’s all. What do you say we head over to that sushi place a few blocks down the way? I’ve been dying for California rolls and Spider rolls for the last few weeks. And a little bit of Saki would be good for me as well.

  “Now, that’s what I like to hear,” Danielle said. “I don’t have any more cases today and I haven’t had good sushi in a couple of weeks.”

  The two women smiled brightly. They were both in need of a break from their demanding careers. Good food and drinks were sure to put them in the right frame of mind.

  Chapter 2

  Mathew Waterston dug his cowboy boots in the dirt and stared at the six-acre ranch that stretched before him. He had lived here all his life. But lately loneliness had begun to eat away at him and he had begun to feel that he was trapped. He enjoyed putting on his cowboy boots, wrangler jeans, black t-shirts and ten-gallon hats. He enjoyed spending most of his time out in the sun. But he knew that there had to be more to life, more to the world than what he experienced on his parent’s ranch. He wanted to see the world. He wanted to meet interesting people and really start living. He was tired of feeling so confined. He wanted his freedom.

  The sound of a pickup truck coming up his long dirt driveway, snapped him back to the present. He recognized the white truck and he couldn't help smiling. It was his good friend Carson. They had been friends since childhood, almost thirty years now.

  After kicking up a whole lot of dust the truck came to a stop. Carson was short and stocky and he always wore a big smile on his face. That made for quite the contrast with Mathew who was tall, lean, and muscular. He also had a pair of beautiful blue eyes that appeared either serious or melancholy.

  “Howdy!” Carson bellowed. “How’s the most eligible bachelor in the whole state of Colorado?”

  Mathew couldn’t help smiling when Carson said things like that.

  “Me and Sally were talking last night,” Carson said. “And she got to telling me about some TV show called The Bachelor. Some rich guy says he needs to find a wife and all these beautiful women do their best to convince him that they would be the best match for him. You ever thought about doing something like that?”

  Mathew looked off into the distance. He loved the way the sky over his ranch stretched on and on for miles. “Don’t you think it’s kind of strange that you’re more worried about my love life than I am?”

  “Oh, don’t get me wrong,” Carson said, smiling with his eyes. “It’s not your love life that I’m concerned about. I want you to get your inheritance. And in order to do that you’re just going to have to find you a little lady to shack up with.”

  Mathew grit his teeth and spit in the dirt. He didn’t like to be reminded of the conditions that stood between him and his multi-million-dollar inheritance. Why had his father made things so difficult for him?

  “Yeah, thanks for bringing that up,” he said. “You know it’s my favorite subject. Thanks.”

  “Getting upset with me is not going to do you a bit of good. I think your father made a really good decision putting that little stipulation into his will. It’s not like he doesn’t want you to inherit all the land and money. But he wanted to make sure that you’d gotten all of that wild bachelor energy out you before you did.”

  Mathew sighed and kicked the dirt. The condition was that he would have to get married before he received any of the money. What he loved about living on this ranch was the freedom it afforded him. He didn’t have to answer to anybody and he wanted it to stay that way. What could a wife possibly add to his life? It would be someone for him to answer to, someone to nag him and tell him what to do. No, that was the last thing that he wanted at this point in his life.

  Chapter 3

  “I think this Saki is starting to go to my head,” Cynthia said. “I can’t believe it’s the middle of the afternoon and I’m actually having some fun.”

  “Maybe this what you should be doing to get some more inspiration for this album you’re putting together,” Danielle said.

  The two w
omen had been chatting and joking and really letting their hair down for the past hour. This was something that both of them rarely got a chance to do.

  “If I did this every day, I wouldn’t be in any condition to write or record songs. And Billy would surely drop me for other artists.”

  “Don’t you think it’s sort of ironic that you write R&B love songs?” Danielle asked with a sly smile on her face.

  Cynthia was a bit confused. She had never thought about her singing or song writing as ironic. She was very sensitive about her work and for a moment she was afraid that Danielle was insulting her. She would not have been able to deal with that, not from her best friend. Panic and anxiety gripped her stomach. After all this time, was her best friend finally telling her that she didn’t take her artistic ambitions all that seriously?

  “I’m not sure what you mean by that. My songs are definitely not ironic. I try to be very sincere. I really put everything I have into them.”

  “I know you do. And I can see that you might have misinterpreted my words. Trust me, I meant no harm by them. What I’m saying is that you write and sing about falling in love and romance, but you have none of that in your life. Doesn’t that strike you as a bit odd?”

  Cynthia had never thought about the contrast between how passionate she could be when singing about love and how much she ran from any sort of romantic entanglements in her personal life.

  “It is kind of weird. But this is just where I'm at right now. Once my career really starts to take off, I’m sure that I will have time for love and romance. At the moment the time just isn’t right.”

  Danielle shook her head from side to side and gave her friend a tight-lipped smile. “But that’s not how this whole love and romance thing works, I’m afraid. So many women say exactly what you’re saying and then they wonder how they’re still single when they turn forty. And then they wonder where all the good, successful men have gone. You’re in the prime of your life right now. This is when you have the best chance of finding a man. But you’ve got to open your eyes. And your heart.”

  Cynthia wasn’t used to hearing her friend talk this. Danielle was usually closed off when it came to the subject of love. She wondered where all this concern with her love life was coming from. “Is there a new man in your life or something? You really seem to have love and romance of the brain today. Or maybe you’ve been reading harlequin romances during your daily commute.”

  Danielle blushed and covered her mouth. She took another sip of the Saki before she responded to the question. “No, unfortunately there’s no new love interest in my life. And there hasn’t been in a long time. Maybe not as long as it has been for you. But it's still been too long. And maybe I’ve been reading a few too many romance stories lately. But I can’t help it. I love all the passion and drama. I love when the power of a man’s love just completely overpowers a woman and forces her to submit.”

  “Submit? You enjoy reading about strong women submitting to the men in their lives? I would never have figured that.”

  “Of course, I do,” Danielle, said. “It’s so damn erotic. I spend all day being in charge and telling people what to do. When I come home at the end of the day, there’s nothing I would like more than to submit to a strong man. There’s nothing I would like more than to come home to someone who was willing to take charge and allow me to play a more passive feminine role.”

  If she didn’t know any better, Cynthia would have thought that her friend was just leading her on but it was clear from the look in her eye that she was quite serious. That forced her to consider her own real desires when it came to male female relationships.

  “Where do you find that kind of guy?” Cynthia asked.

  Danielle sighed deeply and looked away. Her eyes drifted towards the window that looked out onto the street.

  “You would think that you would be able to find one out there. Or somewhere in this damn city. There are so many eligible men. So many successful eligible men. But it’s still so hard to find one that can really make you feel like a woman. Maybe you have to go to another part of the country to find men who are capable of making women feel that way.”

  “Another part of the country?” Cynthia said. At this point she was really talking out loud as opposed to responding to her friend’s question. She had never really thought about it like that. Maybe moving to another part of the country for a few months would be just what she needed to rekindle her love life. But something about that thought seemed too good to be true.

  “You’re not going to ask me if you can come to Denver with me are you?” Cynthia asked, teasing her friend.

  “I wish I had that sort of opportunity. But my career demands that I stay right here in this city. I just feel like I could find someone who was realer or more authentic if I headed out to a more rural place. Remember those summers that we spent down south in North Carolina?”

  Cynthia nodded. She still had very fond memories of those few months of the year when the girls would spend time with various family members.

  “There was something about that slow country life that I miss,” Danielle said. “And there was something so simple and so honest about that people. I know that Colorado isn’t North Carolina. But I still have the feeling that you’re going to experience something very special. And I want you to be open to whatever happens. Whether it’s with Billy or another guy.”

  Cynthia rolled her eyes at the mention of Billy’s name. He was her producer. And that’s how things would stay.

  “Definitely another guy,” Cynthia said. “Let’s toast to that.”

  Chapter 4

  Matthew didn't know what he was going to do with the rest of his life. He was a cowboy now. Or at least, that's he liked to tell himself. But what he really was, what he would always be, was a football player.

  Ever since he was a little kid, he'd given almost every day of his life to the game. That was over now. His career cut short by a series of concussions. He might've been able to keep going. But it didn't make sense people used to tell him.

  You're not like those other guys who desperately need the money who end up wasting so much of their money on foolish things. You're not like them at all," people would tell him. He was sick of hearing it.

  Absolutely sick.

  Almost all of his close friends and his doctors had urged him to retire, even though playing football was the only thing in the world that he truly loved. It was the only thing in the world that made him spring out of bed in the morning full of enthusiasm and energy. Those days were gone.

  All of that vitality seemed to have been sucked from him. These days he would bang on the snooze bar several times, tossing and turning under the sheets, wondering: What was the point of getting out of bed?

  Every few months he would visit a team of neurologists to check and make sure everything was A-OK. Every now and then he felt dizzy, and he would fear that maybe it was all catching up with him, all those hard hits he'd laid on wide receivers and running backs. It was payback time. But so far he hadn't received any really bad news. Actually, he was on the mend.

  What he needed to focus on now was finding a wife and getting his inheritance. He wanted to see the world beyond Denver. Traveling, moving from one city to another each week, was one of his favorite parts about football. But that was over now. It had been so long since he'd traveled. He felt like he was hiding out on his ranch, afraid of the world, afraid of what people would think of him.

  Years later he was still haunted by the looks of disappointment in his teammates eyes when he'd announced his retirement. He was only twenty-seven years old. It was like he was throwing away something incredibly valuable, insulting how hard the men in that locker room worked, how brave and courageous and tough they had to be to remain giants of the gridiron, modern day gladiators.

  Matthew wasn't one to sit around feeling sorry for himself. That's not how his daddy had raised him. His father, a billionaire oilman, who had passed away several years ago from a massiv
e heart attack, would've been very disappointed to see his son wallowing and wasting away his days feeling sorry for himself.

  Matthew clenched his fists, raised his arms above his head, and yelled. It was a lion's roar. An alpha male’s roar.

  He already felt better. When he got into these weird moods, his favorite thing to do was to hop into his pickup truck and drive on the open road.

  But today he figured he needed a little something different in his life. He needed a bit of conversation. He called up Billy and they made plans to meet downtown.

  Several hours later, Matthew and Billy sat down in a booth at the Rhino Bar. The place was loud and raucous. It was only a block away from the Colorado Rockies Stadium. They were playing that night. The Dodgers. Smiley-faced guys and gals were throwing back two-for-one specials on the Amber brew, tongues wagging, voices elevating.

  "Seems like you a little bit better," Billy said. "Anything you want to tell me?"

  Matthew leaned his head back and took a sip from his beer. He smiled with satisfaction as the cold liquid rolled down his throat, tickling his brain. Yes, he felt better. There was no question about that.

  "Figured it was time that I stopped feeling sorry for myself," Matthew said, taking another sip on the beer. "There was only so long that I was going to be able to do that."

  "Yeah think you're right," Billy said. "You must have really good friends. You know, people you can trust to give you good advice."

  Billy smiled and sipped his beer.

  "Two steaks tonight," Matthew said. "On me. What do you think?"