“There’s a motel nearby.”
Eva turned to look at the alarm clock and frowned. “It’s late. You’ve come a long way. The least I can do is get you a room for the night.”
Taylor considered fighting Eva on it but didn’t have the energy. Beyond that, the bed in Eva’s room looked like it would be like sleeping on a cloud when compared to her lumpy mattress back home. One night of decadence couldn’t hurt if Eva truly didn’t mind. Taylor grabbed her bag and they set off for the lobby to make the arrangement. The concierge gave them a funny look as though trying to figure out what had transpired between the two women after seeing both of them experience different levels of duress in the lobby earlier that same night. Taylor swiped a cookie from a plate on the front desk and nibbled on it mindlessly while Eva got out her credit card and signed all the necessary paperwork.
Key card in hand, Eva walked Taylor to her room. It was on the opposite side of the hotel than her own.
“Think someone’s going to mug me before I can get to my door?” Taylor joked, hoping to strip away some of the heaviness that hovered over them.
Eva gave a grim grin. “Not with your sweet boxing moves.”
When they made it to 507, Eva put her hand on Taylor’s arm before she could swipe her key card. “I walked you to your room so that I could do this.” With those words, she pulled Taylor’s face down for a long, deep kiss.
If their first kiss tasted like heaven, this tasted like the promise of something sweet to come. It was tinged with regret but it was more realistic than the angels singing and the skies opening up. It was a kiss that made her think—and hope—there would be more kisses to follow. Some wet with tears and some clumsy with laughter, but kisses abundant regardless. Kisses that would require compromise and hard work, apologies and forgiveness, time and healing.
But damn, could Eva kiss.
“I’ll see you back in Raleigh,” Taylor said. With that, she slipped into her hotel room and shut the door gently behind her. A large screen television with seemingly endless cable channels and a tub worthy of a queen both beckoned, but it was all she could do to fight back sleep long enough to brush her teeth. If she woke up at a reasonable time, she could enjoy the other amenities before checkout in the morning.
The bed was the softest she’d ever slept on.
33
Eva
There were two reasons that Eva generally limited herself to a maximum of two alcoholic beverages. The first was the fact that she hated losing control. The second was that any more than two drinks would guarantee a hellish hangover.
When she woke up to her alarm the next morning, it was with the sickening realization that she had approximately thirty seconds to make it to the bathroom before she had to vomit and that she had made a massive mess of things the night before. Part of her wished she’d killed enough brain cells not to remember the series of bad decisions she’d made.
After showering and cleaning herself up, she called room service. For herself, she ordered dry white toast and a diet ginger ale. There was no way she would be able to keep down anything more involved than that. For Taylor, she ordered a spread: chorizo hash with tomatillo salsa, avocado toast on rustic grains, an acai bowl, and fresh pressed juice made with blood oranges. That way, she’d have options. They’d never talked about money directly, but Eva had been observant enough during their meals together to realize how great Taylor’s appreciation for food was and how little she treated herself. The very least she could do this morning was make sure that Taylor had a hearty and delicious breakfast from the gourmet kitchen before she hit the road back home. Wanting her to sleep in, Eva asked the kitchen to delay Taylor’s order by an hour. Then she snuck to Taylor’s room and quickly slipped a note under her door, spritzed with her perfume. It wasn’t exactly love letter material, but on a time crunch, it would have to do.
Ordered you breakfast. It should be coming around 8:30 this morning. I hope you enjoy. If there’s anything else you’d like, feel free to charge it to the room. Text me to let me know when you get home safe. Will be thinking of you in my sessions today and should get home around dinner time tonight. XO, Eva
Eva hurried back to her room to beat housekeeping there.
Technically, she could have eaten for free. This morning, the conference was having a send-off breakfast so that attendees would have one more chance to mix and mingle, swap business cards over pastries and bagels. Given the other conference meals she’d skipped, it was probably in her best interest to go. She just didn’t much feel like making small talk. Besides, she hadn’t had the mental or emotional bandwidth to pack up her things the night before after walking Taylor to her room. Instead, she’d gone straight to bed with her clothes and makeup still on. Clogged pores and mascara and lipstick on her pillowcase were the leftover evidence of her carelessness. Some time to herself would allow her to double check all of the drawers, get her luggage into her trunk, and check out before it was time for the 9:00 AM session to start. Just as she was settling into her seat, her phone buzzed with a text from Taylor. Breakfast was delish. Dinner on me. I’ll bring food to you. Let’s say 7:30 tonight?
Eva confirmed. Part of her was excited. The other part was still hesitant. Before they could get to the good stuff, they’d have to rip off the Band-Aid. Address the wound underneath. That part was going to hurt.
How quickly she was experiencing all of the major firsts that go along with relationships was enough to give her whiplash. First kiss. First time rolling around beneath the sheets. First time hurting a partner. First near brush with a broken heart. The thing that she still wasn’t ready to admit yet was that this was also the first time she’d been in love. The practical, resolved side of her couldn’t quite manage to wrap itself around that part.
The first conference session was about managing your company’s online presence, something Eva felt she’d already been doing a sufficient job of. She had her social media platforms covered. They were all professionally branded, regularly updated, and had plenty of followers. Hell, she’d even prescheduled a week of posts before leaving town for the conference for fear she’d forget while out of her normal routine and miss a day.
She’d been featured in a regional wedding guide not long after she’d secured her contract with her Alma mater’s wedding chapel, which helped her secure her first three thousand followers or so. Her social media platform had grown exponentially from there. The rich brides she courted had beaucoup followers of their own, which often meant that after every wedding she had a new gaggle of women liking her page and cooing over her table dressings and decorations in the comments section of the posts her company was tagged in.
Halfway through the session, the instructor had the women whip out their electronic device of choice for an activity. Eva took out her iPad as commanded and searched her company’s name. The instructions were to skip past the platforms that were under their control and to go straight to the ones that weren’t: message boards and external review platforms like Yelp. Eva had done the same thing religiously in the early days but had become a little more lax about constantly checking once she was confident her rankings were generally high enough across the board.
Some of what the speaker was saying felt outdated. She’d never heard a single millennial mention the Better Business Bureau, but Eva supposed it was still true that older generations were still the ones footing the bill when it came to the more traditional families—families like those she served.
Eva navigated to the first of the major review websites that showed up in her search results. Her overall rating was 4.5 out of 5 stars, which was more favorable than not. What made her stomach drop was the first review below it, titled Buyer Beware! She clicked on the link to read the expanded review instead of just the first couple of lines, though they by themselves were enough to make her go whiter than the bland conference room walls that seemed to be closing in on her.
My niece recently held her nuptials in Raleigh at the chapel of the wo
men’s college from which she graduated. My sister, having dreamt of her daughter’s wedding day for years, spared no expense to ensure that both the ceremony and reception would live up to expectations. I cannot emphasize enough how much Eva from Eva’s Events over promised and under delivered, much to the chagrin and embarrassment of our family.
If it was just the little things, they could be overlooked. For one, Eva promised memorable and high-quality gifts for wedding guests. What she delivered was cheap crap instead. Simple white candles, lip balm, and other throwaway fair that might as well have come from the dollar store bundled up together in tiny white boxes? There’s no way that should have cost $15.00 per head. The local brewery used for the open bar might as well have been serving dirty tap water. The vendors she referred my niece to for other services—like the DJ and caterer—were merely competent at best. I won’t bore you with all of the details, but I’ll say this: if my niece hadn’t been so over the moon simply to have a ring on her finger, she would have realized how much the nights’ events failed to wow the guests that traveled from out of state to share in her joy.
The final straw was that Eva’s Events had a known felon in their employ. At a wedding, the last thing on anyone’s mind is gripping their clutches to their chests as they dance the night away. If guests had known that a thief convicted of larceny was working the event, I doubt they’d have felt as comfortable leaving their valuables behind at their seats to refresh their drinks or attempt to catch a bouquet.
Seven people had marked the post as being helpful. Seven people might not seem like a lot in some businesses, but if that was seven potential brides, that was thousands of dollars she’d never see. Reading the comments was just as bad. Seeing responses like Thanks for helping me dodge a bullet! I had Eva’s Events on my short list for possible wedding planners... made her begin to feel queasy.
Eva took a deep breath to compose herself and looked around the room. If anyone else was experiencing the same unexpected jolt from unpleasant reviews, their expressions surely didn’t show it. She trudged on dutifully to two more review sites to discover that her fears about Amanda’s aunt’s diligence were correct: the same review had been copied and pasted into other prominent places.
Eva was relieved when the presenter signaled for everyone to bring their attention back to the front. She needed a break from looking at the bad reviews, however short-lived.
“No matter how fastidious you are in your planning, you know that some people will never be pleased with the end result,” the presenter began. Eva saw plenty of heads nodding in the audience, just as many women whipping out their pens when the presenter clicked to the next slide in her PowerPoint: SURVIVING BAD REVIEWS & DEVELOPING A PLAN OF ATTACK.
Thank God , Eva thought, swiping to the Word app on her iPad. While she would never wish her current emotional state on anyone else, she was glad to see she wasn’t the only person ready to feverishly jot down all of the speaker’s thoughts.
She knew that the presenter’s recommendations for an attack plan were not going to include a physical attack, but Eva was pretty sure she’d feel worlds better if she could clobber Joan and wipe that smug look right off of her pinched face.
* * *
Between her hangover and the nausea that accompanied her shock during the first session, Eva was more than ready to take a breather during the mid-morning break. While the scent of the snack food that lined the table in the conference foyer turned her stomach, she was eager to get her hands on a cold can of cola in hopes that it would help to settle her stomach.
When she saw it was Candace handing out the bottled beverages, it was too late to back away without making things more awkward than they already were. “Cola, please. And if it would be okay, I’d also like a word.”
Candace exchanged looks with the volunteer beside her. “Go on,” the other woman said. “I can cover.”
Candace looped around the table and followed Eva into an empty plenary session room.
“Go on with it,” Candace said.
“I owe you an apology—”
“You think?” Candace said, cutting her off.
“Until a few weeks ago, I was in a relationship. My first one with a woman. Technically, my first relationship, period. When things went south, she froze me out and ignored me when I tried to win her back.” Eva knew she was oversimplifying, but she also knew she had limited time to spit words out before Candace stormed away. “When I came here for the conference, I didn’t think I’d ever hear from her again. I never in a million years thought she was going to show up in the lobby. If anything, I was just as surprised by that text as you were.”
She hazarded a glance at Candace who was visibly clenching her jaw, clearly pissed.
“I seriously doubt that, but go on.”
“I didn’t mean to lead you on and I didn’t mean to hurt you. When I met you at the bar, I thought you were sexy. When I spent more time with you the next day, I was bowled over by your talent and your expertise in our field. Outside the conference? You already know how much fun I had with you. You saw how clenched tight I am. You pointed that one out yourself. It’s a huge testament to you that you got me to loosen up and have fun.”
Candace leaned back against the wall and crossed her arms. “But?”
“Last night after I got that text and this morning, those things are still true. You’re a hell of a woman. A woman that I am very sorry got caught in my crossfire while I was trying to figure things out.”
“I’m guessing you went to find her after I left?”
Eva nodded. “We’re going to try to figure things out.”
“Thanks for the apology,” Candace said. “Since you went first, I’m sorry, too.”
“For what?”
Wordlessly, Candace clicked a few times on her phone screen and then handed it over to Eva. On Instagram, she saw her company was tagged in several pictures from the photo shoot the night before. She swiped through six, seven, eight photos and sucked in, hoping she’d never land on the ones where her top was bare.
The ones Candace had posted were tasteful—for that line of photography at least—but definitely still completely out of the realm of anything that would be good for business. Especially when her reputation was already vulnerable.
“Delete them. Deleted them now,” Eva seethed through gritted teeth. She slumped down into a nearby chair and put her head in her hands, trying to fight off the delayed waves of panic that had been coming at her all morning. While Eva hyperventilated, Candace took her phone back and did as she was asked.
Regardless, Eva felt sure it was already too late.
The only thing that gave her any peace of mind was that Taylor didn’t have Instagram. Seeing those pictures would only add insult to injury. She couldn’t bear to think of making Taylor cry again the way she’d seen her cry in her car the night before.
She hated knowing she was the one that caused it.
34
Taylor
Unsure what type of menu a reconciliatory dinner called for, Taylor settled for comfort food from a local hole in the wall joint that slung out cheap Southern food: Eastern Carolina style barbecue with a vinegar base, hush puppies, and a side of green beans so that she could pretend there was at least a little something healthy included in her offerings. A half-gallon of sweet tea came with the meal. The company advertised by saying their food was so good your tongue would slap your brain out. Taylor would be the judge of that.
When Taylor balanced the bundle of food on her hip and rapped on the front door for Eva’s office, she saw Eva nearly jump a mile out of her computer seat.
Tonight, their roles were reversed. Last night, Taylor had been the one convulsing in sobs. Through the glass storefront, Taylor could see Eva scrambling to wipe the tears off her face. In the process, she only further smeared her makeup.
It was the first time she’d seen Eva look anything less than picture perfect.
When Eva opened the door, Taylor blew throug
h, put the bag of boxed food on the floor, and pulled Eva down onto the chaise lounge parked near the front. At closer inspection, Taylor could see that these were not fresh tears only. Eva’s face was the kind of puffy that indicated she must have been crying for hours. Taylor wrapped her arms around Eva and pulled her close, smoothing Eva’s hair down over and over again. It was how Taylor’s grandmother had comforted Taylor when she was a child and had fresh waves of grief hit over being without parents.
“Is this about us?” Taylor asked softly, almost afraid to say anything for fear her words would be the wrong ones. “If it is, whatever’s wrong, I feel sure we can work through it.”
She kept holding Eva, slowly rocking them both back in forth in her embrace.
“No. Yes. No.” Eva said. “I’m not sure.” Eva pulled away from her to grab a tissue from the coffee table and blew loudly in a way that was decidedly un-Eva-like.
“Tell me what’s wrong,” Taylor said. “I can take it. I can try to help.”
“I feel like it’s just going to make the talk we still need to have harder.”
Taylor’s mind immediately went to all of the dark places she tried not to let it go last night, thinking there might be more to the story with the photographer. Taylor had already resolved to herself that she wouldn’t ask about that. If there was, she didn’t need to know. Technically, they hadn’t been together. That gave Eva free license to do whatever she wanted, no matter how much Taylor disliked it. She bit back the wave of anger that threatened to crash over her by forcing herself to remember all those times she’d told Eva not to make assumptions, good or bad. Damn, it was hard to listen to her own advice sometimes.
“Remember when we sat on this couch and I told you everything I didn’t want to tell you about getting arrested, and you listened?” Taylor asked.
Eva nodded, getting another tissue.
Forgetting Chuck Taylor Page 14