Stevie asked if he could take us to dinner. We immediately said yes. After the dress rehearsal we ate together at a nearby restaurant. We three all hit it off so well that we promised to keep in touch. Stevie gave both of us his business card.
Cyndie and I had to hurry through dinner to make it in time to the dressing room. The show was anticlimactic for all of us. Afterwards, we went our separate ways. Whatever we did later that night was soon-to-be-forgotten, but Cyndie and I didn’t forget Mr. Stephen Garrett.
Thank God, Cyndie made the effort to stay in touch with Stevie. It paid off for her a few years later. Stevie loves Cyndie and I’ve never fully understood why she didn’t marry him. Stevie wanted to do it.
My path crossed with Stevie's a precious few times over the next twelve years. But, if not for Cyndie, I would never have had my second chance with that incredible man.
my colorado adventure
It was a 100% clear, cool, sunny day when I landed in Denver around 1 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time. It had rained hard the night before, over an inch, and all surfaces glimmered in the sunlight. The temperature was in the low 60s, but was expected to go up to 75 degrees in the afternoon.
Denver has a big and beautiful modern airport. I've heard it was designed to look like mountain tops, but it always reminded me of a circus big top tent. Airport management had finally figured out their computerized baggage handling system and my bag was spinning around the carousel when I arrived on the lower level. I stopped at the red rental car company, rented a black Ford SUV and picked up a map to Fort Collins.
I was directed onto one of their courtesy buses. The bus took me to a distant parking lot next to a wide-open section of prairie.
An hour after touching down in Denver, I pulled out onto Interstate 25 and headed north to Fort Collins. It was a quiet ride as the early afternoon traffic was light. My destination was over sixty miles away so I relaxed. I slipped Badly Drawn Boy's CD, The Hour of Bewilderbeast, into the stereo. I turned up my favorite music of the 21st century, and let the miles pass by. About 75 minutes later I exited onto Harmony Road. I drove to the side of the road and checked the map for the quickest route to the hotel.
The map indicated Fort Collins is home to Colorado State University. As I neared town, I saw a big white 'A' painted on the side of the mountain nearest to the college campus. I wondered what that meant and if it was an omen about Andi. The town was fairly quiet. School was out for summer and only a few people were hanging on in early June.
My reservations were at the Holiday Inn on Prospect Avenue. It was directly across the street from the CSU campus. I pulled in around 3:45 p.m., parked in back, and walked around to the front entrance.
This was an amazing hotel. It had an atrium lobby with nine stories rising above in a rectangular pattern. A restaurant sat in the middle of the lobby surrounded by a small grove of tropical trees and plants and flowers. I found out that I accidentally arranged for a suite on the top floor. I would rest in style, a style I didn't usually enjoy on a business trip.
The suite was very comfortable as there were two main rooms, a bedroom and a living/kitchen area. When I had unpacked and rearranged some things to my liking, I called Cyn. I passed on my room and phone numbers.
Cyn had met with Jimmie in the morning and passed on directions to the Grayson’s Delaware home. She gave him a photo of Robert Grayson and answered Jimmie’s questions. Plus, after they finished their coffee, Cyn walked Jimmie to the office parking garage and showed him Robert’s Jaguar in his special parking spot. Jimmie said he would begin tailing Robert that night.
After I unpacked, I returned to the lobby and asked to speak to the manager on duty. A forty-something overweight man with silver hair appeared. He had a red face and a friendly smile glued to his face. I introduced myself to Vince Mello, the front desk manager. He had heard of me and expected me. Mello directed me to the storage room, down a rear hall to the left. Inside were eight other suitcases and travel bags. Mello lifted a white suitcase. It was the middle-sized one of the matching pieces back on the penthouse’s bed in Philly.
“Here it is, Mr. Garrett.”
He placed it on top of the long metal table in the middle of the room.
“Please feel free to take it with you after you’re done.”
Mello turned and left me alone in the windowless room.
The case was unlocked and opened easily. Pretty and casual clothes were inside. Besides clothes and toiletries, I found a black journal. Inside were mostly blank sheets, except for the front. It had writings, diary entries, ranging over the last year. I pulled Andi’s journals out of my shoulder bag and opened a page in the white journal to compare. The handwriting matched, although the script in the black journal was sloppier. No entry was dated after a week ago. Looking close, I got a chill. Someone had torn out at least two sheets from the journal; I could see the edges at the spine.
I closed up the suitcase, put the black journal in my bag and walked out of the room. I headed to the elevator and put Andi’s suitcase inside my room, and then returned to the lobby. I purchased a Fort Collins map in the gift shop and then ate a late lunch in the lobby restaurant, 'The Park.’ I saw that my hotel was in the south central part of Fort Collins, just west of College Avenue, the main north to south route.
After lunch and over a second iced tea, I pulled out the black journal and started reading. Within minutes I realized this was Andi's secret diary. The pink and white journals were sanitized, written as if they could be a future memoir. The black journal painted a different picture. In these pages Andi Grayson was a distraught woman, one whose life got turned upside down three months earlier. Certain things were clear. She wanted to be divorced and hated Robert for being arrogant, uncaring and a cad. She loved Cyn, but that love turned to deep friendship and gratitude after Valentine's Day. Cyn was Andi's only close friend. The night at the Kimmel Center freaked Andi out and she cooled it on girl sex afterwards.
Andi wrote that after her divorce and with her big cash pay-off, she would start a new life. She planned to open her own business, an interior decorating business. Andi hoped Cyn would join her as her partner. She'd get her own place in the suburbs and get away from the crazy modeling world. This spring, Andi was taking her last class in an interior decorating certificate program.
I felt like a voyeur at some of the entries. Before Valentines' Day she planned her future, her dream that would follow her divorce from Robert. Andi had a crush on a guy but that guy had shown only tentative signs of interest. Apparently, he had a relationship of sorts with a girlfriend of hers, a friend who loved the guy but was coy about their future. It frustrated Andi as she wanted to pounce on this opportunity but wouldn't do it until she spoke to her friend. She needed to know her friends intentions with her dream boy.
No names were provided, but I knew she wrote about me and Cyn. I made a note to ask Cyn about this later.
Andi's diary continued on about the blackmail and the divorce. Andi was baffled, like Cyn. She did think that her husband, Robert, was behind it, somehow, someway, but the diary didn't document anything, any proof.
After Robert filed the divorce papers and Andi lived in the penthouse, she became alienated from all others in the agency, except Cyn. Robert's daughter, who worked at the agency, stopped talking to her. Red Sable quit the modeling agency and got a job in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, working for the newspaper; that was news to me. I made another note about it on my list for Cyn. Others, with names like Amy, Peter and Fran didn't stay in contact with her either. Andi's former staff employees were sympathetic but stopped calling as they got a new boss and went on with life.
Finally, Andi got a job at the bookstore next to the agency just to keep busy. She also kept attending her classes, working toward her interior decorating certificate.
None of these early entries really provided any clues. The real theme of this black journal was that Andi was pissed, outraged, hurt and confused as she wanted to dump Robert, and have her
wonderful future. But, she had done something big-time stupid with Cyndie and her dream went crashing.
However, Andi's visit to see Red Sable intrigued me. Andi wrote that Red felt bad for her and invited her down to talk. An entry ended mid-sentence, at the bottom of a page. The next two sheets were torn from the journal.
The diary had no mention of Colorado or anything about anyone from Colorado. There was nothing written of why Andi turned-in her rental car but didn’t check out of the hotel in Fort Collins. Looking very closely, the bound journal had three more pages missing after some unrelated musings following the Florida trip.
All and all, it wasn't much to go on.
I checked my watch and noted it was just after 5 p.m. I walked over to the front desk and talked to the manager again, and to the clerk and the concierge. I showed them photos of Andi. They all remembered her, but didn't know what she was up to in Fort Collins. They remembered her being intense, focused on what she was doing, but she didn't tell them what that was.
They wanted to know if they could process Andi's hotel bill on her credit card. I agreed, but got them to cut the bill to a five-day stay, two days less than the time her stuff was in the room. I asked if the bill would show local phone calls. The clerk said it would, including the phone numbers. They printed Andi's bill and gave it to me. I went back up to my room to take a close look at it.
The hotel bill had four local phone numbers. The bill showed the time Andi dialed the calls, but didn’t show the length of the conversations.
The first call happened the Friday night Andi arrived. She called a local Italian restaurant, Bisetti’s. I called Bisetti’s too and quickly explained my purpose to Heather, the hostess. Within a minute, she confirmed that a Miss Grayson did have a reservation ten days earlier. I described Andi and she remembered her. Heather did not recall seeing Miss Grayson speaking to anyone else.
The second local call happened on Saturday morning at 10:38. I called the number and it rang four times before a tape began with what-sounded-like an old woman with a sweet voice. She repeated the phone number and welcomed me to leave a message. I did. I gave her my name, cellphone number and a one-sentence reason for calling.
Andi made the third call about ten minutes later. I dialed the number and a man answered, “Jack’s.” It was a hardware store on College Avenue, only a few blocks north of the hotel. The man answering was Felix, the assistant manager, and he didn’t remember Andi’s phone call. I then described Andi, and he said, “No, I didn’t see her, but, from your description of her, I wish I had.”
The last call led to an interesting event. Around noon that Saturday, Andi called and made a reservation at a day spa, named Delilah’s. The spa was across the street and one block west of the hotel. I called Delilah’s and the lady that answered, named Marissa, was very pleasant. She certainly remembered Miss Grayson. Andi's appointment had been in the afternoon that Saturday. Marissa explained that Miss Grayson ordered a body and facial message. Anthony was her masseuse. I asked if Anthony was on duty and Marissa said he was, but they were closing in twenty minutes at 6 p.m. and Anthony was finishing a client right now. I asked if I could stop by the spa at 5:55 and speak to him for a few minutes. Marissa said she was sure it would be okay with Anthony, who was her husband.
I put my shoes back on, grabbed my room and car keys and hustled out of my room. In less than five minutes I pulled into Delilah’s private alley drive, off Prospect Avenue. I got out of the SUV and passed a middle-aged, plump lady on the sidewalk, coming out of the spa. As I stepped inside, a soothing atmosphere surrounded me. Cool, quiet, new age music flowed from hidden speakers, vanilla candles burned from several furniture pieces, incense or some other perfume wafted in the air.
Marissa greeted me. She looked Nordic, with natural white-blonde hair, blue eyes and a lean, fit body. She wore a white polo shirt and a tight, short black skirt. Her breasts defied gravity; they were large, firm and not supported by a bra. I kept eye contact, mostly. I introduced myself and she welcomed me to the spa. I showed her a photo of Andi. Marissa immediately recognized her. After a few moments of conversational banter, Marissa directed me back to the massage room.
Anthony was a strong-looking six footer, in the same white polo shirt, black jeans and black athletic shoes. He had a trimmed beard and a Mediterranean complexion. He was effeminate in his manners and language, but I soon found he was not gay. Anthony’s eyes lit up as soon as I mentioned Andi’s name. One glance at Andi’s photo was all he needed. Yes, that was Ms. Grayson. Clearly, he didn’t see her likes too often in this small town. Anthony understood my concern and wished to help in anyway he could.
First, I had him describe the massage he gave Andi. Andi ordered “The Ultimate.” This was an hour and a half massage. His description was a pure commercial. It rolled off his tongue. He said that he blended different massage modalities in this longer service. I held back a smile when he said that he placed extra rolled towels above and below Andi’s breasts. He whispered to me that he guessed correctly that Andi’s breasts were enhanced, and breast implants don’t yield easily to a long, face down massage.
“Frankly,” he said, “my wife has told me that implants can hurt after a few minutes and one of the first things I determine, discreetly, is the true nature of my client’s breasts as they remove their robe.”
I bet he does.
Anthony said the extra padding helped Andi relax. He felt her body responded nicely to his touch and believed she reached maximum relaxation. I couldn’t hold back, I smiled fully at that comment, as I was sure some part of Anthony's body reached its maximum too.
Anthony said Andi was very comfortable with her body and freely discussed her other body enhancements. Andi was very tense and wired when she arrived and wanted a massage to relieve stress and some spasms she had in her back. I asked and Mr. Anthony confirmed that he was alone in the massage room with Andi. I’m sure he was happy about that.
I asked Anthony what they spoke about. Again, he said, he guessed correctly, Andi was not a Fort Collins resident, so he asked what brought her to the north end of the Front Range cities. She told him that she was tracking down an old acquaintance, and had dinner planned with him that night. No, Anthony volunteered, she didn’t offer the gentleman’s name, and he didn’t ask. But, she did say their dinner would be at Nico’s Catacombs, an upscale restaurant on College Avenue. Yes, Anthony continued, dinner was that night, a week ago Saturday. The only other thing he could remember was that Andi planned to wear a white mini dress.
I thanked Anthony and Marissa and they followed me out the door, and closed the spa for the night. I got back into the SUV and wondered about Andi’s dinner companion. Then, I drove to Nico’s, a few blocks north on College Avenue.
I parked on this main street and walked down the front steps to the below ground restaurant. Nico's Catacombs was a dark cave of red carpeting and curtains, rich dark woods, brass fixtures and railings, and brick walls. It was a comfortable, warm atmosphere and when the doors closed, the world was left behind; quite an impressive way to start dinner.
The dinner crowd was gearing up. I said yes to the hostess, Eileen, that I was a party of one, but asked her if she could help me as I was looking for someone, a patron of the restaurant, who ate here nine days ago on a Saturday night. I pulled out the two photos of Andi and the hostess looked carefully, but didn’t recognize her. Eileen then remembered she didn’t work that night.
She studied her reservations book for that night and it did show a Grayson party of three for 7 o’clock. “Three,” I thought, “that’s interesting.”
Eileen thought a moment and pointed to the number 5 next to Andi’s reservation. “See, this number indicates the table they sat at. That’s normally Wanda’s section. But, she’s off for two days. She doesn’t work again until Wednesday.”
Man! Bad luck.
“Thanks, Eileen.” I handed her my business card and jotted my cell phone number on back. “Please have Wanda call me wh
en she gets to work on Wednesday.”
Eileen promised she would. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. So, I asked to be seated and another waitress, Lucille, introduced herself.
I ordered prime rib, and the restaurant's special dessert, a variation of Baked Alaska. During dinner I broke out my notebook and wrote down as much as I could remember of the conversations from the last two hours, especially the last two. I did a lot of writing; I was in the restaurant nearly two hours.
I walked out of there a stuffed pig. It must have been the nervous energy. I'd need to work that off tomorrow.
***
By the time I got back to the hotel it was close to ten o'clock, and I realized it was nearly midnight East Coast time. I was wiped out and talked out. I wanted to speak to Cyn and Jimmie but just couldn't do it. I guess the altitude, the big dinner, the long day and the recent busy times had taken their toll. I took out my contacts and rested my eyes for a minute.
After putting on my glasses, I labored to review and edit my notes from my meetings with the hotel staff, Anthony the masseuse, and Eileen the Nico's hostess. I didn't want to forget anything as I would review these with Cyndie on Tuesday. I planned to go to that hardware store to see if someone there may have seen Andi. I finished that in ten minutes, and within another ten minutes I was in bed asleep.
a bleu day
I woke at 6 a.m. after seven hours of deep, dreamless sleep. I reached around in the still dark room and found the light switch. Once my eyes adjusted, I decided to order room service; grapefruit juice, a small pot of coffee with cream, a western omelet, toast and a banana. The friendly lady at the other end of the line said my food should be up in twenty minutes. Perfect!
I got up and looked out the door and found a complimentary copy of the Coloradoan, the Fort Collins newspaper, on my door step. I picked it up, shut the door again, flipped the paper on the desk and headed to the shower.
Sexy Girls Page 7