PLAYER

by Pamela DuMond

  “We should brush it first, I think,” he says, fingering it.

  “Okay,” I say, the pulse in my wrist that I grip with my other hand feeling thin and threadlike.

  He gently pulls the brush through my hair in sections. I grew my hair long after we ran into the Wolfe brothers. It was a small thing I could control because I didn’t have much control over anything else. He pulls a pair of grooming scissors from his leather men’s toiletry bag resting on the countertop and leans into me. “My beautiful, brave Evie. Ready?”

  “No.”

  ‘Don’t you dare let the past control your life,’ Hope says. ‘Take a chance.’

  Fuck indecision. I grit my teeth. “I mean, yes. Do it.”

  He cuts.

  The slice is crisp, precise, surgical, but no one’s administered anesthesia and I shudder. A hunk of thick wetness smacks my shoulder, tumbling awkwardly down my breast. Fire grips my chest at the same time numbness settles around my ribs.

  It is a cold winter day. I am thirteen years old. Mom is manic again, tossing all kinds of crap into our SUV. I am panicking, but I’m not allowed to panic. I have to hold it together for my sister’s sake.

  He cuts.

  Chunks of hair drop chilly and wet onto my thigh. I shiver and peer down.

  I wear mid-calf length galoshes with dangling laces. I focus on the laces. If they can stay attached, I can too.

  “Breathe,” Dylan says, lifting a section of hair, tugging it toward him, angling the scissors.

  He cuts.

  Mom throws the car in drive and we pitch forward. Thick clouds bump across the open skies open, like the heavens unzipped them.

  Nausea rises in small tsunamis inside me and I gag. “Dylan… I don’t know…”

  “You’re in control,” he says, kissing my cheek, the stubble from his chin brushing my face, its gritty scratchiness grounding me. “Just tell me if you want to stop, Lucky Charm. I only took off six inches. We can end this now. Not a big deal. Not a big change.”

  The heavens spill out a sloppy mess of snow. Fat flakes hit the windshield harder. Colder. Meaner.

  I glance down. Broken pieces of hair litter my legs, knees, the floor. Broken like the Wolfe brothers. Broken like Dylan used to be. “Keep going,” I say.

  He cuts.

  A wet hunk of hair slaps my hand and I wince.

  The car pitches forward and I fly back into my seat.

  He cuts.

  A thick piece of hair dives and I flick it away, my fingers trembling. What will my fingers do when I no longer have all this to hide behind?

  Ding-ding-ding the approaching train shrieks. The gates close in front of us.

  He cuts.

  Faster now. Split ends, ragged pieces, flutter around me, cover me, damp, wet. The sounds blur, the cut-cut-cuts coming faster. I close my eyes.

  I am thirteen years old. The disco ball hanging from the gym’s ceiling spins panes of light across the room and I stare up at Wyatt Wolfe’s beautiful, pale face. His mean dad and my crazy mom twist our lives into tangled webs, and yet together, Wyatt and I make it bearable. Our future lives beckon, bright and promising, spinning like the light off that ball. Wyatt bends his head, touching his lips to mine. I always thought that one day I would marry him but I’ll never marry him because we ran him over and I broke him.

  Mom’s latest boyfriend, Kyle, is strange. My lips burn like I brushed them against hot sauce – the kind of hot sauce Kyle liked on his chips on football game day. Kyle scares me. Mom is broken.

  Easton lies – his limbs twisted and tangled – staring up at me with hatred blazing through his eyes. “Fuck you,” he says. Easton is broken.

  Wyatt’s lips turn blue and he slips away from me. The muffled shriek of the ambulance, red lights blinking in contrast to the white against all the snow take him away. Did we break him for good? Did we break him forever?

  “Evie? Evie?” Dylan calls to me.

  “What?” My fingers tremble against my thighs.

  “Evie. I’m here. Where are you?” Dylan brushes his fingers against my face and neck. He takes my hands in his, pumping blood back into them. He pulls me back to present.

  “Here,” I say, clinging to him – boomp-da-boomp – my heart re-starting. “I’m here, Dylan.”

  “Good.” He brushes his lips against mine. He whisks dead hair off my shoulders and it falls, coming to rest on the cold, porcelain tiles. “It’s really good, Lucky Charm. You look amazing. We’ll go to the stylist the concierge recommended tomorrow. He’ll finish the job. But it’s good, I swear.”

  “Really?” I want to be here with him – not in the past – not in the past with boys that I haven’t talked to in over eleven years since that horrible, shitty day. Boys who were forever scarred when a twist of fate met Karma, met a mental breakdown, met a really shitty day. The perfect shitty fucking storm.

  Dylan places his arm around me tenderly. “It’s gorgeous. You’re gorgeous. Do you want to see?” He runs one hand through my new hair.

  I don’t feel like myself. The new me is lighter. I shiver. “Okay.” I lower myself off the counter and stomp my feet on the ground. The solid ground. Three-two-one, I count silently, turn, and face the bathroom mirror.

  My long hair is gone. I have a pixie cut. I’m not sure I recognize me. The new Evie has big eyes and high cheekbones. The new Evie has nothing to hide behind. It’s freeing. It’s exhilarating. It’s terrifying.

  “I love you,” Dylan says and pulls me tight to him.

  I melt against him. I kiss his mouth. I kiss his full lips. “I love you, too.”

  We fuck one last time. I come twice – once with his mouth on my sex, once with his cock buried deep within me as he stimulates my clit with talented fingers. We climax moments apart from each other and collapse against each other, a tangle of sweaty limbs, passion, trust, secrets shared. Respect.

  I bide my time until my beautiful player dozes. I watch him sink into a deeper sleep, waiting until he’s out cold in REM. I force myself out of bed and head to the bathroom. I startle when I see my hair in the mirror. Most of it has been tossed in the wastebasket. A few sad hunks remain on the floor. I run a wet cloth over my body and swipe on blush and mascara. I move quietly to the bedroom and pull on clothes, jot my personal, private number on a pad of paper and leave it on the bureau next to Dylan’s phone. I take one last long look at my beautiful player.

  How can I leave him? How can I do this? What is wrong with me? I don’t know. I just know I can’t stay. Something’s changed. I bow my head and offer up a silent prayer:

  Thank you, God for bringing Dylan McAlister into my life. He’s been redeemed. He’s earned a second chance. He’s no longer broken. Take care of my beautiful man and You and I are good. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

  I wheel my bag toward the door and see my dead hair lying in clumps on the bathroom floor. My throat tightens. I grab tissues from the countertop dispenser, rescue a few pinches, and tuck them in my purse. I carry my bag into the hallway and close the door with barely a sound. I walk away from Dylan McAlister my heart beat-beating in my chest, doing my best not to cry because I hate crying.

  If I’m lucky I’ll make it out of the hotel before I explode into a million pieces.

  Minutes later, I make my way through the lobby. According to the message on my phone my driver will be outside in seven minutes. I spot the obligatory Vegas wedding party and think about what Dylan said about our future. Do we have one? Is getting married ever in the cards for me?

  I check my phone. My driver’s running a few minutes late and I pause to take in the fantasy as Sheryl Crow’s “Leaving Las Vegas” plays in the background.

  Four bridesmaids, a gaggle of twenty-somethings are wearing glittery jewelry and are dressed in fitted raspberry silk dresses. The bride is about my age and has long, shiny blond hair. She’s giggling with her friends. “Going to the chapel and we’re going to get married,” one of her pals sings o
ff tune.

  Behind them are the groomsmen wearing charcoal tuxes, spit-polished black shoes, and white shirts. They’re all handsome. One man walks with a pronounced limp.

  “Dude, this is your last chance to bail,” a ruddy guy says, punching his arm.

  “Fuck you, Peter.” The bride clocks him with her beaded purse and he feigns pain.

  I cover a smile.

  “It’s too late for me,” the man with the limp says. “My beautiful bride’s been training at the gym a lot lately. Save yourself, Peter.” The crowd parts.

  The groom is a little under six feet, thin, lean and athletic. His floppy black hair brushes against his white collar. He laughs and it strikes a familiar chord in me. I notice his shoulders, his jacket, his feet, and for a second I swear I can see galoshes. I shake my head. Not galoshes. Spit-polished black dress shoes.

  “Fuck me. I’m getting married today!” He turns in my direction, and all the air is sucked out my lungs in a mushroom cloud-sized whoosh. Tingles blast down my spine and I break into a sweat. I know this man. I loved this man. I was in the car that ran over this man twelve years ago when he was still a boy.

  This man is Wyatt Wolfe.

  My phone pings. My driver’s arrived. He’ll wait five minutes for me but then he’s leaving. My hands are shaking too hard to message him back. My feet turn to concrete and I can’t move. My low-heeled sandals morph into galoshes. They grow roots, tethering me to this spot in time. To this boy.

  The last time I saw this boy he was bleeding out into the hard, cold snow, my hand on the soft skin on the divet right above the bone in the middle of his chest. The last time I saw this boy I willed my life back into him so hard I went cold because all my life traveled from me into him. And after all the years, after all my anxiety. After love earned and love lost, the storm blows through, and yet again I discover I am still tethered to Wyatt Wolfe.

  Now, he takes the arm of the pretty girl he’s about to marry, leans in, and kisses her. “Love you, darling,” he says. “We’re in this forever.”

  When I was thirteen I dreamed I would marry Wyatt Wolfe. But I am changed. Different. Shorn. I will never be the girl that marries Wyatt Wolfe.

  A firm hand grips my arm, a grip much harder than I’m used to. I turn, expecting Dylan, already trying to figure out the best way to tell him that as much as I want to stay, as much as I love him, I have to go now before anything else bad happens. But the man gripping my arm is not Dylan.

  It’s Wyatt’s older brother. Easton Wolfe.

  “What in the fuck are you doing here?” he hisses.

  “Easton?”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?”

  “What do you mean? What are you talking about?” Shock tingles on the backs of my arms.

  “Dylan McAlister’s welcome to come back and play here anytime. But he’s not allowed to bring you.”

  “I’m not with Dylan anymore. I’m leaving.”

  “Good. He seems like a nice enough guy. He’s welcome here,” Easton says. “But you’re not. You’re not welcome in my hotel, Evie Berlinger. Any of them. You’re not welcome in any club I own.”

  I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to think or feel. I’m not even sure I can feel.

  “You’re not welcome anywhere near anyone with the last name Wolfe,” Easton says. “Not now. Not ever.”

  “Fine. Let me go!”

  He drops his hand from my arm but he’s still seething.

  “Leave.”

  “I’m leaving, Easton. My ride’s here.”

  “And don’t you dare mess with my brother today. It’s his day. Not the day to remember the trailer trash girl who left us broken and bloody and forever fucked up on the side of the road.”

  “Right,” I say.

  He moves away from me and I sway. I try to remember how to walk. I put one foot in front of the other and keep going until I stumble out the hotel door.

  23

  Leaving Las Vegas

  LEAVING LAS VEGAS

  I was late and my driver left without me. I get into the back of a Yellow and Black cab. “Where to?” the chick behind the wheel asks, pulling off into Vegas traffic.

  “Anywhere but here. And preferably no weddings. I don’t have a lot of luck in the wedding department.”

  A half hour later I sit at the retro-styled bar at The Jester’s Court – a drag bar close to the airport – and nurse my drink. My hand shakes a little less with each cocktail. A Gaga impersonator lip-synchs on stage and maybe I’ve completely lost my mind because I think she’s pretty good.

  “Sweet Jesus, your night has been caterwampus,” the husky Jayne Mansfield impersonator says from behind the bar, sliding a cocktail in my direction. “Tell me that part again, honey. The part with all the men.”

  I grimace and take a slug of my drink. “I just walked out on Dylan McAlister, the guy I’m in love with, and I’m standing there in the middle of the lobby and my hair is gone, poof, vanished,” I say, running a hand through my pixie cut.

  “Poof, vanished.” She pats her wig nervously. “Were you growing your hair a long time?”

  “Since I was thirteen years old.” I reach for the basket of chips, shove one in my mouth and chew it half-heartedly. “This has no taste.”

  “They never do, honey. You’ve got to go to the good bars for taste. Not the ones close to the airport.”

  “Fuck me.”

  “I wish I could sugar, but it’s just not my thing. Please don’t be mad. But I do have a sympathetic ear. Tell me more. It’s good to get it off your chest.”

  I take another sip of liquid courage. “I’m standing there watching this wedding about ready to go down and suddenly I realize I’m in the middle of the wedding of the boy I thought I was going to marry someday.”

  Her hand flies dramatically to her mouth. “The same boy you ran over eleven years earlier?”

  I nod.

  “Oh honey, that’s so fucked up,” She reaches over and pats my forearm. “Tell me more about the hot, angry brother.”

  “Easton? He’s angry all right.” I throw back the rest of my drink and a shot of anger courses through me. I pull a fifty from my wallet, throw it on the bar, and stand up. “I never said he was hot. We good?”

  “Yes. Change?” she asks.

  “Keep it.” I look at my watch and pull the handle of my carry on bag up with a snap.

  “Good luck to you, honey,” she says and clears my drink off the bar.

  “Thanks.”

  “Sugar!” she calls after me.

  “What?”

  “You forgot to tell me the rest of the story about the hot, angry brother.”

  “I never said Easton was hot. Besides, I’m sick and fucking tired of people ordering me around. Sick and fucking tired of people thinking they know what’s right for me. Sending me away, cutting my hair, acting like they own me.”

  “They don’t own you,” she says pointing a finger at me.

  “They. Don’t. Own. Me.” I jab a finger back, punctuating each word. “I’m the only person who owns me.”

  “That’s right, sugar.”

  “And in regards to Easton Wolfe? As far as I’m concerned, Easton Wolfe can go fuck himself. Hard.”

  She applauds. “Preach!”

  I walk out the door because I’ve got a red-eye to catch and tonight can’t get any suckier.

  24

  A Covering

  A COVERING

  * * *

  Two years later

  I blink my eyes open. I lie on the chaise lounge in room 4B at Ma Maison. The white envelope resting on my chest contains details about the man who calls to me so strongly the universe picked the playlist with “Leaving Las Vegas”, the song that will always be Dylan McAlister’s song.

  Dylan changed my life. He was my mentor, almost my maker, so-to-speak. We fell in love and yet two years later he still can’t commit. “Some day, Evie,” he says to me every time we meet up for a game or a long w
eekend, or a special event. “Some day I am going to slip a ring on that important finger.’”

  “Right, Dylan,” I say, inhale and puff my cheeks out. “Look. I’m holding my breath.”

  “You doubt me,” he says. “Don’t doubt me, Lucky Charm.” And he kisses me, and I giggle and and breathe. I breathe him in again because it’s so hard to let him go every time I see him.

  I’m not going to push him into something he’s not ready to do. I’m also not going to sit around and wait for him, either. I visit his mom in Texas every few months but I don’t share that with him. My friendship with Rosemary will continue no matter what happens with Dylan and me.

  Being an empath at Ma Maison hasn’t been a picnic but it’s paid a lot of bills and it’s made for an interesting ride, that’s for sure. And at the end of the day, using my empathic ability to help clients heal is my decision. It’s my decision to embrace the thing that has existed in me forever. The thing that I was born into. The thing that was forged in the fire of crazy moms, mean dads, and bloody accidents. It’s a rollercoaster but it’s a life of service I will not refuse.

  I can’t a take vacation right now. Can’t go to the lake house in Wisconsin. But I can’t help but wonder what kind of damaged man am I supposed to help this time? I pull out the packet of information contained in the envelope.

  Ah. Him. The famous actor. Everyone knows him. What screwed him up? What demons lurk in his soul? My string of successes is unbeaten, yet with each positive outcome, tick-tick-tick I am closer to taking a fall. That much closer to encountering the man I cannot heal. The bent, broken, damaged man who is too much for me.

  I slip the papers back in envelope. Stand up, run a hand through my hair, and leave the room. I pass Jay who’s still manning the front desk. I glance up at the clock. It’s been forty minutes. It could have been a week. “Madame Germaine busy?”