by Giselle Fox
Candy smiled and closed her eyes. “Mmm, that felt nice. Say it again.”
“No one is as good, or as sweet, or as sexy or delicious, or warm-hearted or soft-skinned or as perfect as you, Candice. I don’t know what I did to deserve you but...”
“No one calls me Candice except you, Rochelle. I like it,” she said softly and then curled her fingers through mine.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
“Good morning,” I said to Shep and blew him a kiss through the air.
Shep stared at me with his coffee in hand. “It’s Monday and you just sang the words good morning, do you realize that?”
“Did I?” I said with mock surprise. “I must’ve had a fa-fa-fan-tabulous weekend.”
Shep laughed at me. “Well, I’m very happy to hear that. There were three personal messages for you on the work line this morning.”
“Really?”
“Two of them are from Darcy and one from she-who-shall-not-be-named.” Shep cleared his throat and began to mimic Christa’s monotone voice, “ Hey... it’s me... give me a call when you get this... ciao...”
“She knows my cell number, why the work line?”
“She likes an audience?”
“Probably.” I shook my head. “And Darcy? I just saw her the other night.”
“Well, she wants to know if you want to drop by her place after work. She said some of the other girls will be there.”
“Oh joy,” I said. “That took two messages?”
“No, the second one was a pocket dial. I heard snorting in the background.”
“Snorting?”
Shep shrugged and handed me the slip of paper with her number on it.
I went and sat in my office and texted Darcy back.
Hey what’s up?
Some of the gang are coming over later. Would love to see you.
The gang? I thought to myself. I’d never really been a part of their gang before so I wasn’t exactly sure who she was talking about. Probably the usual suspects, Natalie, Vanessa, and Lee Anne.
Sure, I can come for a bit, I wrote back.
Walk over after work.
That sounded easy enough. There was never any parking near her building and she was only a few blocks away.
Okay, see you then, I typed.
At five o’clock I poked my head into Shep’s office. He was busy working on his triple screen computer. His desk looked like mission control, while mine looked more like Defcon-1.
“I’m off, but I’ll be back. I’m walking over to Darcy’s.”
“Are you leaving Skip?”
“Yeah, just for a bit. An hour at most.”
Shep looked down at him. “Gonna come hang out with me, Bud?”
Skip looked up at me. “I’ll be back soon. You stay here, okay?” I said to him.
Skip went and lay on the bed under Shep’s desk and stared at me as if it was the end of the world.
“You’ll be fine, I won’t be long,” I said.
“Have fun,” Shep called. “I’ll be here for awhile.”
“Oh, there’s a bottle of wine in the kitchen cupboard. Is it yours?”
“Nope. I think it was leftover from the staff party.”
“Okay, I’m taking it.”
***
I buzzed Darcy’s suite and she let me in. I took the stairs up to the second floor and made my way down the hall. Someone was cooking something delicious in one suite. In the next, a TV was playing too loud. When I got to Darcy’s door, I heard voices on the other side, but when I knocked the apartment grew silent. I knocked again.
Christa had always said that Darcy wasn’t the shiniest penny in the pond. But after my split, Darcy had been kind enough to arrange a girls night out to celebrate my new found freedom. It was only a few weeks after Christa had dumped me and by the end of the night, I’d turned into the miserable crying girl that had too much to drink. I ended up sleeping on Darcy’s couch.
“Hey!” I said when she finally opened the door.
“Come in.” She stepped back into the hallway. “It’s great to see you.”
“Yeah you too,” I said and handed her the bottle of wine. When I looked down the hallway I saw Natalie, Vanessa and Lee Anne standing quietly in the kitchen. I smiled, but the other two didn’t.
“Hey, ladies! Good to see you,” I called. They were all dead quiet, but they each gave a little wave.
“Okay,” I said and kicked off my boots at the door.
Darcy held out her hand. “Here, let me take your jacket.”
I stripped it off and handed it to her. “Thanks. So, how have you been? I didn’t really get a chance to talk to you on Saturday.”
“Oh, things are okay, I guess. I’ve had this recurring problem with my sinuses that keeps acting up but…” she sniffed dramatically.
“Ooo,” I said and took a step back. “That doesn’t sound fun at all.”
“No,” she said. She looked down at the bottle of wine and then back at me. “So, were you wanting to drink this now?”
“Sorry?”
“The wine, I just wondered if you’d been drinking again. I thought you’d stopped.”
I shook my head. “Um, yeah, I have pretty much. That’s from the cupboard at work. I have no idea if it’s any good, but go ahead and open it if you want.” Everyone in the kitchen gave me that look again.
“So what’s up you guys? Why so quiet?”
Darcy’s face contorted strangely and then she snorted suddenly. It made me jump.
“Poor you, that seems like… a drag,” I said.
Darcy pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped her nose. “Why don’t we all go sit in the living room.”
I followed her down the hall as the ladies in the kitchen exchanged glances. I heard Vanessa sigh and Lee Anne whisper something to Natalie. Darcy directed me toward an overstuffed armchair with a bizarre geometric print and took a seat on the matching sofa to my left. Lee Anne sat beside her. I noticed then that Natalie and Vanessa had already moved dining room chairs into position. When everyone sat down, I was surrounded by a semi-circle of stony faces.
Oscar, the forty pound tabby, jumped off the top level of his cat condo and waddled his way into the kitchen. No one said a word. I started to snicker but managed to disguise it behind a cough when I realized no one else was laughing.
“Seriously you guys. What is up?”
“We brought you here...” Darcy began.
“Um, no… I walked here,” I interjected. I looked from face to face. All of their hands were folded in their laps. It felt like we were in a church group or…
“Whoa… is this an intervention?!”
They all looked at each other, then Darcy leaned forward and put her hand on mine.
I stared down at it for a moment. “Okay... this is totally awkward,” I said and placed it back on her own lap.
“Rocky, we’ve all known you for a long time,” she said.
I looked around the room. “Not long enough, apparently.”
“We all saw what happened the other night.”
“What happened? Did I miss something?”
“Your little display on the dance floor.”
“The lap dance,” I laughed. “I know right? Isn’t she incredible?” I shook my head and smiled but no one smiled back. “Is... that why I’m here?”
“Christa was in tears. She thinks this girl is taking you for a ride.”
“Oh, she’s been taking me for a ride alright,” I said and slapped my thigh. I glanced from face to face. Nothing. Not even a smirk. “Sorry, couldn’t help myself,” I muttered. “So, Christa is concerned about me, hey? Isn’t that sweet.” I shook my head and folded my arms over my chest. They all stared back at me.
I looked back at Darcy who was perched at the edge of her seat trying to look sympathetic. The only sound in the room was the crunching of cat kibble coming from the kitchen.
“We think Christa may be right,” Darcy said after more deliberation.
I sat back in my seat. “It’s funny how you’re all here to tell me what Christa thinks.”
“Don’t get defensive,” Darcy said. “We’re just worried about you.”
“I’m not defensive,” I said calmly. “I’d love to hear the reasoning behind all this.”
“Well...,” Darcy began and looked at Lee Anne. “You did bring wine tonight.”
“It’s a leftover bottle from my staff party. It was a social gesture. I have to drive tonight.”
“Okay, well I’m relieved to hear that. It’s just that before, when you were depressed, you drank a lot.”
“You’re right, I did. Thank you for being concerned about me, but I don’t drink now and I’m not depressed.”
Darcy looked at me and frowned. “You told me yourself you were in a funk a month ago, right after you got your tattoo.”
“Tattoos are a sure sign of being in a funk, Rocky,” Vanessa added.
“You realize I’ve been getting tattoos since I was in my twenties, right? Have you seen my body?”
Lee Anne raised her hand, “I haven’t.” Vanessa slapped her hand down and told her to be quiet.
“Now it looks like you’re dating a teenager,” Darcy said. “Maybe you’re having a mid-life crisis.”
“Candy is not a teenager and I’m not having a mid-life crisis.”
“Candy? Is that seriously her name?” Vanessa asked.
I turned to face her. “No, it’s Candice. Is my real name Rocky?””
“How long have you been dating?” Darcy asked.
“A… little while,” I said.
“You have to understand what it looks like to us on the outside, Rocky,” Darcy said. “A young girl appears out of nowhere and suddenly you’re back at the club behaving like someone half your age.”
“Because I was dancing and having a good time?” I asked. They all looked at each other and nodded.
“Right, of course. You haven’t seen me have a good time in years.”
“You were waving her around under Christa’s nose,” Darcy said.
“I wasn’t waving her around. And I could care less if Christa got upset about it. Seriously! She dumped me for Sam, remember? What’s her problem?”
“She’s worried about you.”
“No, she’s not! She’d rather see me in perpetual mourning than have a good time with another woman. She left in tears because she could tell I was happy.”
“She thinks you’re imploding. You’re always so angry and bitter whenever she sees you at the shop.”
I held my head in my hands. “Do you guys not remember how everything went down? How she cheated on me for six months and then kept everything we owned? Most people would have the decency to stay away, but she never has. She shows up with Sam at my shop every two weeks like clockwork and acts like it’s normal and like we’re all friends. So yeah, maybe a little part of me wanted to get the tiniest bit even. But you know what? I had a great time and I didn’t think about Christa once.”
“Maybe it’s time to move on from all the anger, Rocky,”
“I have moved on. I’m dating now,” I said calmly. “Did Christa mention to any of you that she and Sam came into my shop last week and invited me to Slick, or that she told me to bring my date?”
Darcy looked from person to person and shook her head.
“No? Of course not, because if she had, you guys wouldn’t be here right now and neither would I. Seriously, if I could pick up my shop and my life, believe me, I would transport it back to San Francisco so I didn’t have to deal with her perpetual drama storm.”
Darcy looked around the room again. “Okay, you know what? Forget Christa. How about this girl? Do you know what you’re doing?”
“Yes, I’m having fun,” I said.
“So it’s a fling?” Vanessa asked.
“No, I actually really like her,” I said.
Darcy looked at me again. “Okay look. It hasn’t been that long since Christa and Sam did what they did and you were in a pretty bad way for a long time. We were all there and we all saw it. This girl is young and obviously a little wild. We’re worried that when she moves on you’ll be back where you were six months ago. That wasn’t a healthy place, Rocky.”
I looked around the room and everyone nodded solemnly. I took a deep breath. “So my girlfriend is sixteen years younger than me. So she’s wild and sexy. That’s not why I like her or why she makes me so incredibly happy that I feel like I’ve been given a second chance. Every single one of her kisses reminds me that I’m a woman that’s worthy of being cared for. I mean, hallelujah, someone younger thinks I’m fuckable. And you know what? I am! I’ve had more sex in the last four days than I have in the last six years. I’ve got nothing against dating a woman my own age, but it was Candy, Candice, that came along and knocked me off my feet.”
Darcy put her hand on mine again. “Rocky, that sounds wonderful. But what happens when she moves on?”
I looked from one concerned face to another and couldn’t answer.
***
Skip greeted me at the door when I got back to the shop. “Hey buddy,” I said and sat down on the floor to hug him. He licked my face and laid across my lap.
“So how’d it go?” Shep called from his office.
“Really weird,” I called back.
I heard him push his chair back from his desk and he walked out into the hall. “Oh?”
“They staged an intervention.”
He sat down in the armchair across from me and looked down at me. “Seriously?”
I nodded.
“An intervention for what?”
I sighed and wrapped my arms around Skip again. “For exhibiting potentially destructive behavior I guess. Let’s see, dancing, smiling, getting more ink, dating Candy.”
“Ahhh, Candy,” Shep nodded.
“They think I’m either rebounding or having a mid-life crisis,” I sighed. “There was some drama at the club the other night. Candy gave me a lap dance in front of Christa and she left crying.”
“Candy cried or Christa cried?”
“Christa.”
“Interesting. I didn’t think her species showed emotion.”
“Only when they want attention,” I said.
“So what did you tell them?”
“Well, you know me. I waved my arms, ranted and then walked out.”
“Okay...”
“Like, I sat there and listened to these women talk about Candy like she was some vapid fixture on my arm. Did they take the time to get to know her? Were they even interested? No. I watched them fall one by one into the same misogynistic and ageist traps that everyone does. I seriously expected more. You think guys would pull that kind of shit on each other? No way Jose!”
“Disappointing,” Shep said simply.
“And they were all looking at me with these patronizing eyes like they know better than me how to live my life. It was just... yuck!”
“Well, let’s be honest, are any of these women still your friends? I mean, I know you say they were there for you when you and Christa split. But really? Aren’t they Christa’s friends?”
“No one is going to give up a good hairdresser at this point in life. They try not to pick sides but...” I exhaled.
“Well, I for one, love seeing you smile again. I admit, I didn’t think it would go this far, but I’m glad it has for both of you. She’s obviously in love with you.”
I looked up. “Really? You think so?”
Shep laughed. “Of course. She practically levitates when she sees you. The chemistry between you two is nuts. Every light in the neighborhood dims.”
“I think I might be in love with her.”
“I think so too.”
“It scares the fuck out of me.”
“And so it should! But she’s not Christa.”
“No, she’s nothing like her.”
“You picked a good one this time.”
“I didn’t pick her. She hunted me down
.”
“Maybe that’s why it’s working.”
I rested my head back against the wall and looked off into space. “She’s perfect.”
“You’re definitely in love. No one is perfect.”
“She’s got a huge heart and tons of patience. She doesn’t snore. She cooks. She has a great sounding laugh. She’s insanely hot. I really think she might be perfect.”
“Well, as long as you think she is, then you’re golden.”
“What am I going to do?”
“Tell her you love her.”
“That sounds crazy.”
“Or you could say nothing and just assume she knows what you’re thinking. Women love having to guess what’s going on in their partner’s minds.”
“You’re being sarcastic, I assume.”
“Well?”
I took a deep breath and exhaled. Shep laughed.
“Do you really think we could be partners? I mean, I’m going to get old soon and she’s still going to be young and hot. She’s not going to want me. Will she?”
“If she loves you, she probably won’t ever think about things like that. And if she does, what can you do? It’s going to happen to all of us.”
“Except you. You’re preserved.”
Shep snorted. “Tell my knees that.”
I lifted my head from the wall. “Really? You should take that glucosamine stuff. My dad says it makes his joints feel like a teenager’s.”
“Hmm. Maybe I’ll try it then,” he said.
“I should take off. I want to take this guy to the park and then get home.”
Skip lifted his head from my lap at the word park. I gave him a chin scratch. “Want to go...” his tale began to whip uncontrollably as I paused, “...to the beach?” He stamped his front feet and gave a little bark that echoed through the shop. “Alright, go find your leash.”
Skip tore off down the hall down to my office. “Want to come?” I said to Shep.
“Where are you going?”
“Down to Crab Park.”
“I’m heading East. I have a date tonight.”
“No way! Is it with that same girl?”
Shep nodded and smiled.
“You like her?”
“Yeah, I really do. She’s super funny and charming. I like talking to her.”