“I know it,” I said, shaking my head at myself. “I messed up.”
We toasted to that, and I proceeded to spend the following weeks partying with him in all of his moneyed debauchery. By the time I boarded the plane for home, I was convinced that my impulse to shake things up was nothing more than a chemical reaction to spending the night in a woman’s bed. As long as I didn’t let any more lines blur like that, I’d be fine.
To that end, I’d set up a date with a client for that very night. I was to meet her at a high-class restaurant, get treated to an expensive meal, and show her the magic afterward. I was hitting the ground running, getting right back into that saddle.
In the back of my mind, I knew it was the only way to really get over Carmen. So rather than go home and stew in my depression some more, I hit up the shops. I probably had a suit which would work for the occasion, but that didn’t matter. It was symbolic, a sort of rebirth.
“Classy,” I said to my reflection as I examined myself in the mirror at home later. I’d chosen an expensive suit in royal blue. Always dress to your client’s tastes; it was all part of what it took to get them comfortable in a hurry. Since this woman was a new client, her comfort was the top priority.
I read over her email again as I finished getting ready, pulling the pertinent information out and filing it in the forefront of my brain as I did so.
“Nick, darling,” I read out loud. “Overly familiar. Used to using her sex appeal to her advantage.”
I have a terrible problem. You see, my husband is out of town…again. He leaves every month, for weeks and weeks, leaving little me alone at home, absolutely bored out of my mind.
“Married. Discretion is absolutely necessary…she’ll probably want to go to a hotel or something. Weeks and weeks every month? Okay, she’s a little dramatic. Handle with kid gloves. She’s pampered and bored, insulting her would be disastrous.”
I want to go out. I want to eat and dance the night away, but I can’t possibly do that alone. Would you escort me, darling? I’m simply dying for entertainment.
“Okay, definitely looking for a full date.” It always made me uncomfortable when women wouldn’t specify whether they were looking for an above-board escort in the puritanical sense, or if they were more interested in my particular brand of doctoring; fortunately, she went on.
Of course, should all go well, I am in dire need of some more…intimate entertainment. As I said, my husband abandons me without a single care, leaving me with the household drudgery, and I’m so very bored and lonely and neglected. My body aches to feel something, anything…but especially something magical. I have been told that you are magic incarnate.
“Don’t let it go to your head, boy,” I told myself, but I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. Word of mouth had served me well. Very well, I mused as Carmen’s face flashed through my mind.
I shook the image away and re-read the email again. This is what I do. Making women happy makes me happy—and paid well. I still had my plans, my big dreams. I was going to open my own bar one way or another, and this was the easiest way to get there.
“All right, boy,” I told my reflection. “You’re the O Doctor. Ladies’ man. You ooze charm and confidence. You’ll knock her socks off.”
I rolled the tension out of my shoulders, realizing that I hadn’t had to give myself a pep talk in years. It was the extended vacation, that’s all, I told myself. Just have to get back into the groove, then everything will go back to normal.
She’d asked to meet at Cabana Desejo, the most expensive restaurant in town. My modus operandi was to arrive early, wait for my date in the parking lot, and meet her inside five minutes later. It gave them the feeling of having the upper hand from the start, while also giving me the opportunity to observe them before they observed me.
Jennifer was exactly the way I’d imagined her from her email. She carried her head high—a little too high—so that she was looking down her nose at the people around her, ever so slightly. A subliminal aloofness, not overt. She wiggled in all the right places when she walked; she had clearly practiced the way she moved for a long time.
Her hair, makeup, and clothes were all expertly put together. I could almost see the invisible entourage around her, teasing her blond hair, straightening her red skirt, fixing her deep wine lipstick. The woman clearly had no qualms about being noticed. I suspected an iron-clad prenup in her favor.
As soon as she was seated by a window, I got out of the car. I watched her face as she spoke to the wait staff. She was icily polite, impeccably aloof. She clearly felt herself to be above the people around her. She would expect me to play that same game, I assumed.
I took a step toward the door, then hesitated. It’s not strange, I told myself. It’s not out of the ordinary to play up a particular persona. It’s exactly what this job requires. I’ve done it every single time. No. That wasn’t entirely true.
I never had to change my presentation for Carmen. I’d been so utterly comfortable with her, our dates had been just like hanging out with a friend. Better than that, even, since there was none of the male posturing to deal with. She never challenged me, and she never forced me to behave any particular way; she just accepted everything I gave her and looked at me like she thirsted for more.
But she was gone, I argued silently. This is what I’d chosen. This life. These women. Carmen had no interest in changing my life—I was fairly certain of that. She hadn’t contacted me the whole time that I’d been in California, and I didn’t expect her to. We’d left things on a full stop, and that was how it was going to stay.
Still… Growling in frustration, I made my way back to my car. I couldn’t do it. I resented this wealthy, bored housewife for requiring me to be somebody I wasn’t. I resented myself for playing the game for so long. I was furious that I had burned that bridge so thoroughly, and that I couldn’t figure out how to un-burn it.
I dialed the woman’s number and watched through the window as she answered the phone.
“Nick?” she asked.
“Jennifer. I apologize, but I’m not going to be able to make it tonight. Something came up that I couldn’t get out of. I’ll refund your money immediately and refer you to someone else who I can personally vouch for.”
“Oh really?” The haughtiness in her expression intensified; that much was clear even from a distance. “Are you sure I can’t change your mind, darling?”
“I’m afraid not,” I told her. The disappointment in myself came through in my tone, and her face softened slightly.
“I can’t say that I’m not disappointed, Nick.”
“I know. I am too, truly. As I mentioned, I’ll refer you to one of my friends who is almost as much fun as I am.”
“Almost?” she asked, her lips twisting in a coquettish little smile. She would have been fun, I could tell.
“Well, I am the best, you know.”
“Of course, that’s why I called you first,” she said, purring. “Are you sure you won’t change your mind?”
“It’s out of my hands, I’m afraid. I do apologize.”
“Well, I guess it can’t be helped. Please get in touch once you resolve whatever it is. I never settle for anything less than the best.”
“You are at the very top of my list,” I said. “Have a good night, Jennifer.”
“You as well.” She hung up, and the haughty expression reappeared almost instantly. I watched as she tossed the phone into her purse with far more force than necessary, then called a waiter over. I watched as his stoic expression hardened, then began to crumble as she laid into him over nothing at all.
I didn’t stick around to watch any more. I knew how this would go. She’d throw a tantrum, get comped, and go home feeling dissatisfied if mildly appeased.
It was the same story over and over again with women like her. They seemed like plastic carbon copies of each other. It never bothered me before, but there was no way I was going to be able to do my job while Carmen’s warm,
lively memory still took up space in my mind.
“If I can’t change it, I’ll just wait it out,” I decided out loud as I drove back home. “I can’t be hung up on her forever. The bar pays the bills anyway.” Just barely, but I had my extensive savings to fall back on if I needed to.
It wasn’t a step toward my dreams. If anything, it was a step backward; but there was nothing I could do about it. Carmen had stirred up an uncomfortable, aching need in me. I thought I’d killed it in California. I’d sworn off women and hadn’t had to face this sensation; the sensation that I was somehow cheapening my experience with Carmen by doing the same thing I’d been doing for years.
I deactivated my landing page as soon as I got home. I didn’t want to spend the next month or more fielding inquiries that I would only end up turning down or regretting. As soon as I did so, I got a call from the director.
“Care to explain yourself?” she asked sharply.
“I need a break, Linda.”
“You can get a break without taking your page down. You’re my top-ranked escort, you bring in more business than the next three combined. What happened?”
I couldn’t tell her that I’d gone and caught feelings for a woman. Linda, of all people, wouldn’t understand. The woman had never felt anything about anything but money, I suspected.
“I hit a wall. Couldn’t do it. Call it creative constipation.”
“The esteemed Doctor O couldn’t get a woman to climax?” she asked dubiously.
No, because I never touched her. “I don’t know what to tell you, Linda. I’m worn out. I need time.”
“Fine,” she sighed. “What am I supposed to tell people who ask about you?”
“Tell them I went on vacation.”
“This is a fantasy business, Nick. They don’t want to feel like clients; they want to feel like girlfriends. Telling them you’re on vacation tells them that they’re work.”
“Then tell them that I fell into a coma, and my evil twin is my doctor and trying to keep me under so that he can steal my women for himself,” I said wryly. “I don’t know, make something up.”
She paused for so long that I thought she’d hung up on me. “You know, that might not be a bad idea. Scratch the twin brother, though, unless you’re planning on changing your name when you come back. I can work with this. Get better, Nick. Quickly.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Whatever that is, I thought as I hung up the phone. For right now, I’d stick to working solely at the bar. Just until I could stop tasting Carmen in my dreams and hearing her moans in the wind. Just until the sparkle of the ocean under the moon stopped reminding me of her eyes. Just until she was nothing more than a memory of a good time tucked away deep in the recesses of my memory.
I went to bed alone, wondering how long that would take. The empty bed mocked me. I moved to the couch.
Chapter 14
Carmen
Seven months had passed since I’d decided not to tell Nick about the baby. All of my time outside of work had been spent reading parenting books and talking to my friends. Tyra had been picking my brain, getting the lowdown on the parts of pregnancy that the books glossed over and that Staci had tried to soften. She hadn’t been as jealous as I’d imagined she might be.
As a matter of fact, she’d been an absolute rock for me. She’d helped me navigate the baby books, come with me to every doctor’s appointment, and stayed up all night listening to me while I cried about all kinds of ridiculous things. Still, I felt like I was missing vital information. I didn’t feel like nine months was nearly long enough to learn how to be a mother to an infant.
I was re-reading the one parenting book that everybody and their mother recommended as I sat at Coco Cafe eating my lunch. The book was worn at the edges, dog-eared at certain places, and starting to crack at the spine; nobody could possibly have guessed that I’d bought it new just a few short months before.
“First baby?” a kind-sounding voice asked. I lowered the book with a start, then smiled at the young woman at the neighboring table.
“Yeah,” I said, sounding more anxious than I wanted to.
“I figured,” she said with a knowing smile. “I’m Amanda.” She stuck out her hand, and I shook it.
“Carmen,” I said.
She nodded at the book in my hands. “My book looked just like yours when I was pregnant with my oldest. It helped me a lot. There’s a ton of great information in there.”
“There seems to be,” I agreed, slipping a napkin into the book to mark my place. “How accurate is it?”
“Pretty accurate,” she said, nodding. She paused, then grinned. “You’re worried about the bit at the end, aren’t you?”
“Terrified,” I answered with a laugh.
She waved a hand in a sort of friendly dismissal. “It’s not that bad, not really. I mean, at the time it felt like the world was ending, and for weeks afterwards I thought I’d never be the same down there again—”
I felt a little green around the gills, and I must have gone pale because Amanda stopped talking, placing a comforting hand on my arm instead. “But this isn’t really the time or place for that conversation,” Amanda said in a whisper, smiling at me. “The point is, listen to your body. It knows what it’s doing better than the doctors or any book does.”
“I’ll remember that,” I said gratefully. “Did you have a birth plan with yours? Half the books say you need one, half say you’ll just stress yourself out needlessly and the doctor won’t listen anyway, and all of the blogs seem split down the middle on it.”
“Yeah, I—oh, speak of the devils!” She looked behind me and her face lit up in a brilliant smile.
I turned to see a handsome man maybe five years older than Amanda, carrying a little baby in a portable car seat. Two little girls, one a head taller than the other, held onto his pockets until they were within arm’s reach of their mom, then they cuddled into her arms.
The man joined the group embrace, kissing Amanda with a passion I thought was reserved for the young and the careless. It made my heart hurt. I’d kept myself so busy for the last seven months that I hadn’t given myself time to feel lonely, but seeing her with her whole family sliced through my defenses as if they were no stronger than tissue paper.
“Hi, Danny,” Amanda sighed happily, gazing up at him with stars in her eyes. “How are my favorite people today?”
“Great!” the eldest little girl announced happily. “We went shopping! We got—”
“Hush,” Danny said quickly, laughing. “It’s a surprise, remember?”
“Oh! I forgot. You’re going to love your surprises, Mommy.”
“I bet I will,” Amanda said, nuzzling the girl’s nose with her own. “Carmen, would you like some company? I’d hate to cut our talk short.”
“Sure,” I said, feeling a little lightheaded.
“This is my husband Danny, Danny this is Carmen. We were just chatting about the book—do you remember reading this? Carmen, these are my girls Poppy, Isla, and baby Grace.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said, honestly delighted. The two older girls shook my hand politely, while the baby sucked on her fist.
We settled in, and I got a front-row seat to the happiest family outing I had ever seen. Danny and Amanda worked as a team, settling kids, soothing the baby, giving the girls the freedom to choose between appropriate food options; they were utterly in sync.
“How long do you have?” Amanda asked once everyone had ordered, glancing pointedly at my belly.
“I’m due in four weeks,” I told her. “And honestly, I’m kind of panicking. I really thought nine months would go by more slowly. I feel terribly unprepared.”
“You were asking about a birth plan, right?”
“Yeah. Trying to navigate all the different opinions has been driving me crazy.”
“I don’t blame you,” Amanda said sympathetically. “I was so glad to have Danny with me when Poppy was coming. He helped me come up with
my first birthing plan.” She gave him a look that bordered on worship, and he grinned.
“It was fun,” he told me. “I got to look for music that would match the rhythm of contractions in every stage, then we decided whether we wanted a full medical team or a midwife center. And we practiced with birthing balls. Honestly, it was a lot like training for a marathon, with the amount of prep we put into it.”
My heart sank. I hadn’t done any of that. I was facing a marathon, and I was hopelessly underprepared.
“Hush, Danny, you’re stressing her out,” Amanda said kindly. “The point is, it didn’t end up mattering. Because she came three weeks earlier than I expected her to, we were actually out of town at my mother’s house. I had to go to a hospital I’d never been to, deal with a doctor I’d never met, and all of our music was at home. We’d prepared ourselves for up to twenty hours of labor, but she was out in six.”
“Six hours?” That didn’t sound so bad. Not compared to some of the stories I’d heard, anyway.
“Yep, six hours. She was an impatient kid. Well, with an experience like that, we thought we knew what we were doing when Isla was born. We stuck close to home. We prepared for a short labor and only put together enough music and stuff for twelve hours, and then…” She laughed, making a helpless gesture. “Then she took a solid twenty-five hours to come into the world, my doctor was on vacation, and Danny forgot the music.”
“That’s crazy. So what did you do with Grace?”
“By then we realized that no matter how well we tried to plan, the baby was going to be running the show,” Danny said, bouncing the baby on his knee. “But this time, I downloaded the music to my phone, my laptop, and a flash drive, burned a CD, and made a mixtape. Trust and believe I wasn’t going to forget it that time!”
“Did it help?” I asked Amanda.
“It really did,” she said earnestly. “I don’t know if the beats had a whole lot to do with it, but just having familiar songs to focus on when the pain got bad helped so much.”
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