Smiling at the Twin Towers, Mia looked at the North Tower and thought maybe they should celebrate their opening at Windows on the World. Although she’d had dreams of another celebration there, that probably wasn’t in the cards for her. She and Tom would never get married. He wasn’t the marrying kind and their relationship was like good buddies who had great amazing sex (Mia laughed to herself, “Oh crap — he’s going to want to fuck me in front of these windows, too.” — an ongoing and regular favorite activity of theirs), but it wasn’t love. Or at least not “in love” love.
Feeling the tears well in her eyes (it was rare, but it still happened at the oddest moments), she wondered where he was. Was he on the tennis circuit somewhere? Married? Still living in southern California? It was when she thought about what she didn’t have with Tom that she missed Schooner most — or the memory of what she had felt for him. Yearning for that high, Mia wondered if she would only find it in other places. Places like work.
Mia knew that people thought she had it all or had gotten it too easily and too quickly, but what they didn’t know was what she wanted more than anything seemed so elusive to her that she didn’t even know where or how to begin to find it. The one thing that she would give up everything for was not a fantasy and she knew that. She had tasted it. She had savored it. She had consumed it. She had been consumed by it. And now, even if she had a treasure map leading her to it, she would still be at a loss as to how to find it. Or what to do with it, if she did find it.
Standing in her new office, in the shadow of the Twin Towers, Mia felt like she had it all and like she had nothing. She was bursting with pride and felt like an empty shell. And above all, even though she was in a relationship with a man she was living with and surrounded by a great staff who were more than just colleagues — Mia felt something to which she was no stranger — she felt alone. And she really would not have known that there was any other way to feel. This would not have been a bad thing. Had it not been for him. Damn you, Schooner — why did you show me what I was capable of feeling. She missed the blissful ignorance of not knowing feelings of that depth even existed. Not knowing that she could feel them. Not feeling alone.
“I didn’t know I could feel so addicted to someone. I didn’t know I’d ever want to … ” She had confessed to him.
And now she couldn’t think of anything she wanted more.
Mia scrunched up her nose and made a face at the World Trade Center Towers. Then she stuck her tongue out at them.
Looking down the street, a road whose old cobblestones from a bygone era were exposed where asphalt had worn away, Mia decided that Artie’s Warehouse, with their incredible Lamb Chops and Pasta Primavera, would be the perfect place to celebrate the opening of M. Silver & Associates.
Chapter Twenty-three
The newborn leaves were that wonderful pale lime color that only lasts through the very first days of spring. Mia walked along 21st Street, the warmth of the noon sun beating down on her dark hair. The breeze still held a hint of a northeast winter that did not want to be totally forgotten. Smiling at a clear blue sky, she thought, “too bad I just can’t play hooky the rest of this glorious Friday afternoon and just call it a weekend already.”
Mia was positive the Archetype Software folder must still be sitting on the dining room table as it was not stuffed into her Ghurka bag with the rest of the client folders. It was the last place she remembered seeing the file as she gave it a quick once over while eating her bagel that morning.
The thought of the leftover Eggplant Parmigiana from Stella’s in the refrigerator made her begin to walk even faster. She’d been thinking about the delectable Italian food ever since she realized she would have to go home for the client file. Tom hated eggplant, so she knew he wouldn’t have grabbed it for himself. Sometimes she’d have an urge for her leftover meals only to find his urge had won the footrace to the fridge.
Stopping at the mail slots in the lobby, Mia cleaned out the overstuffed mailbox. Mostly catalogues, a few bills, an invite to something. Emerging from the elevator, she juggled getting the key in the lock while she opened up the invite. Tossing everything on the front hall table, her first thought was annoyance. Tom had left the TV on in the bedroom again. The man had to have some background noise all the time and was constantly forgetting to turn the TV off.
Walking down the hall to the bedroom, she felt her stomach begin to knot before her brain even began to process why. She stood at the threshold to her bedroom watching the back of a skinny blonde, with a raccoon stripe of dark roots, bouncing up and down on her boyfriend’s cock. All she could see of Tom were his legs and his hands on the girl’s hips forcefully bouncing her up and down.
“That’s it. Come on, baby, give it to me. You know you want to. Just give it to me,” his voice almost breathless.
The blonde moaned, her orgasm just beginning and she tossed her head back, eyes opening to the sight of a blank-faced Mia Silver leaning in the doorway, arms crossed over her chest.
The girl screamed, disengaging painfully (based on his loud “Oww”) from Tom’s cock and rolling to her left side, grabbing Mia’s brand new Ralph Lauren Egyptian cotton sheet to cover herself.
“What the fuck … ” Tom had still not seen Mia standing there silently.
“Who are you?” the girl screamed at Mia.
“You are fucking my boyfriend, in my bed, in my brand new fucking sheets that I’m now going to have to burn because they are covered with your skanky body fluids and you are asking me who I am?” Mia’s voice was reaching a dangerous pitch.
“Who is she, Tom?” With saucer blue eyes (also sporting a raccoon look to match her hair), she looked to a stunned Tom Sheehan for answers.
“Yeah Tom, who am I?”
Tom held up a hand, “Mia, I know this is upsetting.”
“Upsetting? You think this is upsetting? What are you, a fucking rocket scientist?”
Mia walked to the closet and pulled out a large black nylon travel duffle and threw it at Tom, smacking him in the face.
“Pack your shit up and get the hell out of here.” Mia hissed through clenched teeth.
“She can’t throw you out of your own apartment.” The skank had no clue as to the wrath she was summoning.
“His apartment? This isn’t his apartment. It’s my apartment. That’s my bed,” and she pivoted to point at Tom, “I have never said that to you.” And she hadn’t. She had always referred to everything as theirs, never hers. That courtesy had just ended.
The enormity of his upcoming life change was dawning on Tom and becoming visible on his face. He was clearly at a loss as to how to deal with a situation he had not anticipated.
“She’s crazy. Can’t you just throw her out of here?” The skank was clearly still not comprehending the dynamic.
“Crazy? Did you just call me crazy?” Mia bent down and picked up the pile of clothes off of the floor. “I’d burn these, except I’d never get the smell of polyester out of my apartment.” And in one swift move, Mia was at the window. She pushed it open from the wood frame and out went the girl’s clothes, floating away like colorful kites on the spring breeze sixteen floors above Manhattan’s street life.
The girl shrieked, threw off the gorgeous Egyptian cotton top sheet and started to lunge at Mia. Mia stood her ground (and the skank had a good four to five inches on Mia) and pointed a finger at her that said “back.” Stopping dead in her tracks, not quite sure what to do, the girl remained in her lunging position, naked and not moving.
“I’d kick you in the pussy, but am afraid I’d lose my shoe up there.”vi Mia was on a tear. Something caught her eye and she bent down and scooped up a pair of Chuka boots. Holding them in front of her, Mia asked, “Are these yours?” She looked at them with disdain from multiple angles and then looked up at their owner. “They’re ugly.” And with a toss of her arm, the shoes sailed out the open window. “And now they are ugly road kill.” Mia smiled, looking very self-satisfied, “The Shoe Gods ar
e thanking me for that.” Her attention now turned to Tom, “Start packing.” Her scream was shattering.
Finger pointed back at the girl, “Get out, skank.” Mia picked up the top sheet and threw it at the shell shocked girl. As the girl caught the sheet, Mia started pushing her out of the bedroom and down the hall toward the front door to the apartment.
“You are a crazy fucking bitch. No wonder why he cheats on you,” her twisted face spewing hatred at Mia.
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” Mia pushed her out the door into the hallway.
Out in the hall were two men. Mia recognized one of them. He had moved in a few months back into the corner apartment two doors down. Mia had smiled and said hello and he had always returned her hello with a wide, friendly smile. His friend was a good-looking dark-haired gym rat with bulging biceps. The men were momentarily shocked by the naked girl in the hall holding the sheet.
“Crazy bitch,” the girl turned back to scream at Mia as she wrapped herself in the sheet and feverishly hit the elevator call button. Mia was not leaving until the girl was in the elevator and gone.
“You’re about to go out in the street naked and barefoot, wearing a sheet. Who do you think looks crazy in this scenario, bitch?” And the elevator door opened. Mia could hear her stabbing at the buttons and finally the door closed.
Mia turned to the two men and gave them a devil smile. “You gotta love New York.” Still shocked, they laughed at the levity Mia had brought to the moment. “Excuse me, gentlemen. One down and one to go.”
Mia walked back in the apartment and Tom was standing behind her, naked.
“Put something on. I don’t want to see your skank diseased dick.” Silently, he left and returned a few minutes later in jeans and a black tee shirt, looking every inch the bad boy brooding gorgeous poet.
Palms up with a shrug, “I’m sorry, Mia.”
“You’re sorry you got caught, Tom.”
Smiling, “That, too.”
“I’m not amused.” Mia’s anger was escalating to a dangerous threshold. She could feel her chest tightening and the bile rising in her throat. Do not cry, she commanded herself.
“I know.”
“In my bed, Tom?”
“Your bed?” His tone was ice.
“Yes, my bed. You don’t live here anymore.”
Running a hand through his unruly, just fucked hair, “So, that’s it? After all these years? Not even a discussion.”
Taking a deep breath to steady herself, “What’s to discuss? You can’t keep your dick in your pants. You brought someone into our home, Tom.” Mia screamed the last part.
“It was wrong. I’m sorry. Fucking her was wrong. Bringing her here to fuck her was just stupid.”
“Whatever. Just get your shit and get out of here.” Mia walked into the kitchen, grabbed a glass from the cabinet and filled it with cold water from the refrigerator door. Leaning against the counter to steady herself, Mia slowly sipped the cold water as she gave herself a pep talk to hold it together just a little while longer.
Tom followed Mia into the kitchen and leaned up against the counter. She met his gaze with a cold glare. “It’s not like you’ve ever said you loved me, Mia.”
Mia’s cold glare turned to steel. “You are not turning this around on me, Tom. I didn’t come in here with another man and fuck him in your bed. And when was the last time you told me that you loved me. Ummm, let me think. That would be, ummm, never.” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.
“Well, you never told me.”
“Told you what?” Her tone was clipped.
He held her gaze and in a very soft voice, “Your secrets.”
Mia just shook her head. “I guess on some level I just didn’t trust you. How prophetic.” Mia looked down, as if contemplating and then looked up at Tom. “Ok, you want my secrets, here you go. The first and second men I had sex with were two scumbags who grabbed me as I was leaving the darkroom on campus late one night at my college in California. They dragged me into the bushes in a park across from school and took turns using me as a punching bag and raping me.” Mia could see the horror on Tom’s face and in his eyes as if so many small pieces of the puzzle were snap clicking into place. Mia continued, “Guy number three who I slept with was a guy I had been seeing, but was no longer seeing, who found me that night after the rapes. I loved him, I thought he loved me. But his girlfriend set me straight. I was a charity case he felt sorry for. He went back to her. And you were number four. Another one with other women.”
“Mia.” Tom started toward her.
She held up her hand, palm out to him, “Tom. Don’t.” Turning and putting her glass in the sink, Mia looked at the wall and said, “I’m going back to work now. I want you gone by the time I get home. Leave your keys on the dining room table. I’m going to have the locks changed tonight, and on my way out, I’ll let the doormen know that you are no longer a resident of this building.”
“Mia, I don’t want to go. I don’t want to leave you. I don’t want us to end.” His voice was pleading.
Mia sighed and turned to face him. “We’ve already ended.”
“Don’t you think there’s something worth saving here? We could do couples therapy.”
Mia just shook her head. “Tom, there’s a reason why we’ve never said I love you to each other. I want to be in love. I want somebody who loves me. Somebody who would never dream of doing to me what you did to me today. I want that and I deserve that.”
Mia brushed past Tom and grabbed the file off the dining room table. The file that had brought her home early on a Friday afternoon. “Let me know where to send your mail.”
As she reached the front door, Tom called out, “Mia,” and she turned. “Is that it?”
She nodded. “That’s it,” and left the apartment as she wrote the finale of another chapter of her life. A finale that both Rob Ryan and Lois Silver had penned with impeccable accuracy at her graduation dinner five years earlier.
It’s shaping up to be another stellar spring, Mia thought wryly, as the elevator began its descent.
Chapter Twenty-four
Mia bounced down St. Mark’s Place in the East Village flanked by two handsome gay men. Seth linking arms with her on the left and his roommate Rory linking arms with her on the right.
“I would have killed to have been a fly on the wall watching you throw that bitch’s clothes out the window.” Rory had been marveling at Mia’s story (which Seth told) for over an hour. “Well, don’t you worry little BBC, tonight you will be surrounded by gorgeous, albeit gay, men who will treat you like the goddess that you are. Secretly Mia, we all want your tits.”
As they rounded the corner to head down Second Avenue, they could already see the huge line blocking the sidewalk and waiting to get picked to get into The Saint to dance. Formerly the Fillmore East, and now renovated as the hottest gay club in New York City, The Saint’s dance floor was legendary. Built under a huge dome that had been designed and constructed by a former NASA engineer, a planetarium quality star machine had been purchased by the club’s land baron owner so that he would always have a place to “dance under the stars whenever his heart desired.”
Nearing the crowd, Seth groaned as it stretched all the way down the block and around the corner. “We must know someone in this line.” He scanned the crowd for a familiar party to join.
At the door, Mia checked out the security team. Three really big guys — all clearly straight — were deciding who was going to gain admittance for a night of dancing and possibly some hot balcony sex. Standing away from their view and watching them for a few minutes, it was clear that the tall handsome one in the suit and tie, at the back, was the head honcho.
Mia approached the red velvet ropes and caught the attention of one of the big goons. The man looked like a professional bodybuilder. Mia crooked her finger, indicating for him to come over. He approached her with an attitude. “Hey, can you go grab him. I need to talk to him.” She pointed to the guy in the suit.<
br />
“What do you need to talk to him about?” The goon was all Brooklyn attitude.
Mia gave the goon an incredulous look, “C’mon, you work with him, so you know he doesn’t like his personal stuff shared. I don’t want him mad at either you or me.”
The bluff was enough to send the goon over to the guy in the suit and deliver Mia’s message. The guy glanced over at Mia and nodded at whatever was being whispered in his ear. He didn’t take his eyes off of Mia.
He approached her slowly. Stonefaced. Mia made motion for him to bend down so that she could talk into his ear instead of trying to scream over the crowd. She put a hand on his shoulder and her lips close to his ear, “Today I left a file folder on my dining room table so I had to go home at lunch to get it. Well, when I got to my apartment, I had quite the surprise. My boyfriend of seven years, who teaches at NYU, was fucking one of his students in our bed. After I threw the skank’s clothes out the window, and I live on the sixteenth floor, I threw her out of my apartment, dressed in a brand new Ralph Lauren Egyptian cotton sheet that I really loved. Then I threw the son of a bitch out. I’m here with my two gay friends because I really need to drink and I need to be coddled tonight by gorgeous gay men who tell me how wonderful I am.” Mia pulled away to look at the man’s face.
“So?” His face was belying nothing.
“So, can we go in?”
“What’s your name?”
“Mia.”
The guy gave Mia a hard look. “Do you think you’re special, Mia?”
Mia stared into his eyes — they were a cool blue. “Tonight, not so much.” She shook her head.
“You really threw her clothes out the window?” He almost smiled.
And Mia hit him with a full devil grin and nodded her head. “I did. I freaking did.”
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