by Cora Brent
In the scheme of things though that painful era of gossip and slurs would mean nothing. It would almost seem worthy of a laugh, if the laugh wasn’t so brittle and raw.
All that goddamn self-conscious agony. I had no idea something far worse was coming.
A shiver rolled through me as I unlocked my apartment door and stepped into the air conditioned comfort within. Summer was technically months away but the heat kept playing tricks on my brain. Every year when the summer months loomed I became a little more anxious. Summer had been the season when I’d learned how lives can shatter in one senseless moment.
Emily wasn’t around yet so I peeled my sticky work clothes off en route to my bedroom and walked straight into the shower. By the time I was toweling off I could hear that she was now in the kitchen and belting out a song from the Wicked soundtrack. Emily would be the first to admit that her voice was only mediocre but she sang with such gleeful abandon that technique hardly seemed to matter. At any rate she wouldn’t get any judgment from me. I could barely manage to squeak out a tone deaf version of Jingle Bells at the office holiday party.
I was rummaging through my closet in search of something to wear when my roommate bounced into my room. Emily never just walked anywhere; she bounced. Petite and pretty, with glossy black hair inherited from her Chinese American mother, Emily was also smart and easygoing, friendly without being intrusive. She was the perfect roommate.
“Hey Rozzie.”
“Hey Emmie.”
“You still taking me out tonight?”
“Of course.”
“Fabulous.” Emily yawned. “Let me just repackage this mess and I’ll be ready.”
“No rush. Where do you want to go?”
Emily had already started bouncing down the hall to her own room. She bounced back to my doorway, words spilling out of her mouth in a happy jumble. “Dinner first because I’m so hungry I could eat concrete. Then I was thinking we could case Maloney’s in search of desperate suits looking for company but a better offer has come through. Five minutes ago my friend Tina texted about a party.”
“A party?” I selected a lime green sundress and then rejected it just as quickly, remembering the last time I wore it. Some creep with long sideburns had accosted me and slurred that I looked like a slutty leprechaun. When he got too close and asked if he could touch my pot of gold I threw a drink on his shirt. “Em, we don’t really do parties anymore. College is over.”
She shook her head. “I don’t mean a keg stand kind of crowd. Tina, who used to work in the insurance office across the hall from the bank before she got fired for stealing pens started hooking up with this guy who lives in a historic downtown hotel that’s been converted to apartments or something.”
“And that’s where this party is?”
“Yes. Well, sort of. That building is next to an old restaurant that’s privately owned by a wealthy ASU alumnus who invented this fancy kind of furniture polish. His son has plans to renovate the place but right now it’s big and empty and so he’s throwing a party in honor of spring break.”
I made a face, picturing roving packs of wobbly coeds. “Spring break? I thought you said this wasn’t a kegger with kids. ”
Emily rolled her eyes. “Lighten up, Roslyn. You’re not old. You’re only twenty-three. It’s not like your college days happened two decades ago. Look, if it’s lame we’ll move on, okay? Ooh, you should wear that red dress. No, the other one. Makes your boobs look like enormous ripe apples.”
I did end up wearing the red dress, although I covered much of the boob effect with a short sleeve cardigan and ignored Emily when she chastised me.
Emily was bolder. She wore a skin-hugging short black dress and sharp heels that added three inches to her height. I was glad that her exuberance seemed genuine. She’d suffered a rough couple of months. When I reconnected with her after arriving back in town last year she’d been having an intense affair with a former coworker. Although she’d always laughed about the casual nature of the relationship, she’d been devastated when he abruptly broke things off right after the holidays and moved to Los Angeles. I was glad to see her eager to get out and have a good time. Good times had been in short supply around here for months.
We lingered over dinner for two hours, laughing and just enjoying the freedom of the night. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed so much. Lately life had been about work, books, volunteering, and visiting my father in his empty, impeccable Scottsdale mini mansion.
I was remembering what it felt like now; to shake my hair loose and let go just a little. I even returned a few of the appreciative smiles that came my way from men who watched us from the bar.
Emily argued with me when I insisted on paying but tonight had been my idea, my treat, so I wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’ll get you back,” she giggled, clutching my arm as we walked to the parking garage. “Come Sunday morning you can expect to be tempted by a dozen jelly donuts from Bosa.”
“God, that would be heaven.”
She shot me a pitying look. “Roslyn, if you think a dose of spongy lard and sugar is heaven then you really have been out of play for far too long.”
I held up an imaginary glass in a pretend toast. “You speak a stinging and accurate truth.”
“Which you have the power to change any time you like. Half the men in Maricopa County would lick a bus station toilet if it meant you’d give them the time of day.”
I glanced at my watch. “It’s a quarter to ten,” I announced and then pretended to search around us in mock horror. “No takers, how embarrassing.”
“Hush.” Emily elbowed me. “Let’s go have some fun.”
Actually I wasn’t looking for the kind of fun Emily hinted at with a twinkle in her eye. I hadn’t engaged in spontaneous hookups since my teenage days. Throughout college I had been politely attached to the stoic and dull heir of a tobacco fortune, Caleb Monroe. When I broke up with him and announced that I was moving to the other side of the country he hadn’t seemed particularly distressed. Then again, neither was I. I didn’t belong in the world of greenery and slow southern drawls. I belonged here.
We only had to travel about a mile from the restaurant to the location of the fabled party but the streets were jammed because there was some sort of comic book event going on at the convention center. That must have been the reason a man dressed in gold underpants and angel wings danced across the intersection as we waited at a red light. At least I hoped that was why.
I squinted out the window as Emily pointed out the Hotel San Gabriel. I’d heard of this place, had passed it regularly, and even wondered about it from time to time. It was one of the older buildings downtown and vaguely I remembered seeing a segment about it on one of those ghost hunter shows when I was a kid. The exterior had never been updated or restored and the effect was one of neglect rather than vintage charm. I wondered what it was like on the inside.
In any case I wouldn’t be finding out the answer tonight because our destination was next door. A neighboring parking garage was open and since there were no warning signs about trespassing I hoped no one would get bent out of shape if I pulled my red Acura inside. Several dozen other vehicles were parked on the first floor so I figured that a few other people had come up with the same idea.
Emily hadn’t consumed a drop of alcohol as far as I knew but she was giddy and giggly just the same, seizing my arm and bumping my hip as we made our way out to the street. Her spirit was contagious though and I felt a thrill of anticipation that had been dormant for quite some time. It was good to get out, even if it was just to some silly party full of lurching drunks that we escaped from after an hour.
God, listen to that pessimism.
Maybe tonight would go better than I thought. Somehow I’d become a cynic and I didn’t like it. I rarely thought about meeting someone. This might be the night to change all that.
By the time we stepped through the door to Destry’s Restaurant I was already start
ing to change my mind. The place itself wasn’t too bad, although the faded paneling on the walls told the story of seediness and an extinct decorating scheme. But with all the bodies and the smoke and the noise at first glance it definitely looked more like a frat bash than a classy private party.
The door was opened by a fat-necked fellow with arms that were nearly as thick as my torso. Between the hum of the crowd and the noise of the music blaring from scattered speakers it was pretty loud so Emily leaned toward the man and stood on tiptoe, whispering in his ear. I wondered what she was telling him.
The guy wasn’t interested in what she had to say, waving us right through without explanation. Emily raised an eyebrow and smiled as she pushed me inside. Perhaps whoever was charge here had awarded automatic entry to anyone who was young and female, regardless of invitation.
The best way I could describe the crowd inside the dimly lit old restaurant was uneven. The college demographic was well represented and I could pick them out with ease. However I also spotted a pack of surly looking bikers beside their tough women, plus clean cut, standoffish businessmen and a few rough types that I couldn’t neatly stick into any category. Emily wanted to grab a drink right away so I allowed her to pull me toward the bar as I checked out what else there was to see.
No tables were in sight and the floor had been cleared to create something of a club effect, however the walls were lined with a variety of couches. Classic rock seemed to be on the music menu as Sunshine of Your Love immediately transitioned into Hotel California. It was difficult to estimate the number of guests, however I had to say there were at least eighty people clustered around the bar in the back.
“Emily!” squealed a voice as a brassy blonde materialized with smeared lipstick and an unfocused grin. She wiped at her nose with the back of her hand and then kissed my roommate daintily on the cheek. “So glad to see you, my darling.” Her voice was strange, vaguely British.
“Tina,” said Emily, “I don’t think you’ve ever met my roommate, Roslyn.”
“Good to meet you, Roslyn,” Tina said without ever managing to quite look at me as her wild eyes darted around. I didn’t know if she was intentionally mimicking the cast of Downton Abbey or if she was suffering from some hallucinogenic side effect, but her accent was definitely off the mark.
A dark-haired man with a prominent scar on his left cheek appeared at Tina’s back and slung an arm around her waist.
She bobbled and said his name in an irritated voice, “Eli!” as he brazenly sucked at her neck but then her eyes rolled back and she melted into his broad chest. Eli apparently wasn’t interested in making friends. He pressed Tina more firmly against him and I felt a blush creep over my skin as he casually spread his hand over her belly before reaching underneath her short red skirt. Maybe I gasped or maybe he just sensed my shock but Eli raised his head and grinned at me lewdly before hauling his arm candy to a private corner.
“Whoa,” Emily said, watching them. Then she nudged me. “See, Roslyn? That’s what fun looks like.”
“Temporarily,” I agreed, watching the couple make their unsteady way through the crowd. “Regret will look a little different tomorrow.”
Eli and Tina were heading for a door just behind the bar. A tall, good looking black guy said something to Eli and Eli responded with hoarse laughter. He waved the guy off and then disappeared behind the door. Just before it closed I saw him guiding Tina down to her knees with one hand while the other opened his pants.
“So what do you say to a drink?” Emily said wryly.
I nodded. “Yeah, I could use a coke.”
Emily scowled at me but I’d never been much of a drinker even when I wasn’t planning on getting behind the wheel. The bar was open with a wide selection so it would seem whoever was hosting must have deep pockets.
“Whose party did you say this was?” I asked, sipping my soda through a straw as Emily sucked back a Long Island Iced Tea.
She shrugged. “Son of a wealthy businessman. Hell, maybe we even know him from Sonora Day.”
“Doubt it,” I said but the idea left me feeling a little unsettled as I recalled my high school days in the midst of BMWs, plaid skirts and trust fund babies. I hadn’t been born to money; my father had made some lucky investments at an opportune time. I was originally from a small town called Emblem, sixty miles southeast of Phoenix. Emblem’s sole claim to fame was that it housed the state’s largest prison. Even though we’d left when I was in middle school, I’d never learned how to be totally comfortable among the rich and privileged no matter how many designer accessories I wore.
Emily ordered a second drink and started telling a story about two coworkers who’d been caught fucking in the printer room. I’d heard this one before but Emily was funny and I never minded listening to her stories more than once.
“And so there was Casper with his pants tangled around his knees, cock pointed like a gun muzzle when his super juice erupted and hit poor Kerry in the face while she was frantically trying to cover her bare tits with a yellow legal pad. Nora said he would have just quietly closed the door and walked away but she needed to grab the sales report before the meeting that she was already late for. So she pretended there weren’t tits and cocks in plain view and calmly approached the printer.”
I laughed at my friend. “I thought you told me last time it happened in the supply closet.”
Emily paused, a finger to her lips. “Did I? Oh well, maybe that was it and she needed some staples. Anyway, that’s not the important part of the story. The best part happened when Nora stood up in the conference room to give her power point presentation on the quarterly sales numbers and noticed that a splatter of Casper’s cum had landed on her black blazer.”
I snorted. “What did she do?”
Emily shrugged. “What could she do? She finished her presentation and then afterwards marched over to Kerry’s desk and dropped her blazer there with a flourish. She said something along the lines of ‘Get your husband’s semen dry cleaned please.’”
“Wait, Kerry and Casper are married?”
“Yup, didn’t I mention that? I thought I did. Anyway, the next day management sent out a company-wide email prohibiting workplace intercourse, which you’d think would be a given but apparently there was kind of a question mark when the issue came to married couples.”
I giggled. “You could write a book about that place.”
“Believe me, you don’t know the half of it. I’ve found that people tend to treat the reception desk as either a confessional booth or an invisible black hole. Either way, after only three months there I’ve got dirt on roughly three quarters of the office.”
“Makes my workday sound terribly tame in comparison.”
Emily smiled gently. “I transfer calls and file my nails. You deal with reality.”
“Excuse me, ladies,” said a deep voice and suddenly there was the man who’d briefly spoken to Eli on his way to blow job heaven. His muscles, gold chains and motley neck tattoos screamed danger but there was humor in his eyes as he regarded us and as his gaze settled on Emily I wondered if he’d been listening to our conversation. “Just wanted to introduce myself and see if you’d like some company. Name’s Danziger Jackson but everyone calls me Jackson.”
“Hello,” Emily said and I could tell from the way her eyes flashed that she liked what she saw. “I’m Emily and this is my roommate, Roslyn.”
Jackson glanced at me and I offered a polite nod. I could feel Emily watching and knew what she was thinking. Whenever we went out together I always got the lion’s share of attention, whether I wanted it or not. Though Emily was a good friend and had never shown an ounce of bitterness, sometimes I wondered if it bothered her.
“You know,” I said, leaning toward Emily’s ear. “My feet are killing me. Think I’m going to sit down and relax. By myself.”
She gave me a worried look. “You all right?”
“Fine. ” I wiggled my eyebrows and tilted my head in Jackson’s d
irection, hoping that she’d get the message.
She did. She gave me a mischievous smile.
Once I’d started picking my way through the crowd I glanced back once, noting with satisfaction that Emily was already talking a mile a minute and Jackson was laughing.
Now that I was on my own though I didn’t know where to go. As I squeezed around various bodies a few men checked me out with blunt interest but the power of my own suggestion had gotten to me. I just wanted to sit down and exit the fray for a few minutes. Above the din of a hundred conversations the music was kicked up a notch. I recognized the powerful opening chords of All Along the Watchtower.
“Shit,” I swore, stumbling and spilling my soda when my ankle suddenly rolled.
The back strap of my left sandal had broken. Luckily a black vinyl couch was there for me to tumble into. The seat was warm. Someone else must have occupied it a moment ago. It was darker over here on the far side of the room, less crowded. No one seemed to have noticed my clumsy plunge so I silently cursed cheap footwear and flexed my foot.
All those years of dancing in my youth counted for something now and then. I could be thankful for strong ankles that might have otherwise meant a nasty sprain. This was just a slight twinge that wouldn’t last longer than a few minutes. Still, losing a shoe was never convenient.
I sank back on the sofa with a sigh. That’s when I noticed the seat beside me was taken. I didn’t know when that had happened. I was sure he hadn’t been sitting there when I tripped my way over here.
He stared at me. I stared back, feeling the shock of unexpected recognition.
Of course he recognized me too. It would have been even stranger if he hadn’t.
“You look different,” I said automatically.
The shaggy blonde hair that used to fall into his eyes was clipped close. It was closer to black now. His jaw was covered with careless stubble, like it had been at least a few days since he shaved. His t-shirt and old jeans were unimpressive but I couldn’t help but notice that his muscles were very impressive, as was the colorful tattoo sleeve running the length of his right arm. There was something altogether harsher and more dangerous about him. I had to look closely to see the shadow of the careless, handsome seventeen-year-old boy I remembered.