“Make her understand, or I will,” Athena said with no answering smile. “Unless she treats me with respect, I have no problem kicking her to the curb. It won’t be hard to find you another piece of ass to keep you occupied, and I’ll do it.”
Robin’s smile widened. “I’ll bet you would, too. Don’t worry; I’ll talk to her.”
“Good deal.” Athena nodded. “Make sure you pack all your stuff on time, or I’ll kick your ass.”
Laughing, Robin closed the door, and Simon slung an arm around Athena’s shoulders.
“Excellent, love. I knew you were the right one for the job.”
Before they reached the next room, the door opened and Ian and a girl emerged, murmuring goodbyes. They parted, and the girl passed them on the way to the elevator without a backward glance. Ian’s eyes lit up when he spied Athena with Simon.
“Athena!” He pulled her into a warm hug, and kissed her forehead. “I’m so glad you’re coming along with us.”
“Don’t make me sorry I agreed to this,” she said, and gave him a squeeze. “I’m almost afraid I’ve gotten in over my head.”
“Nah, we’ll go easy on you.” Ian gave her braid a gentle yank. “We like you, you know.”
“Remember that.” Athena grinned. “Had breakfast yet?”
“Just called room service. Don’t worry; I’ll be on time.”
As Ian went back into his room, Simon beckoned her to the next closed door.
“You ready for this?” he questioned.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
She steeled herself as Simon rapped on the door with one hand while fishing a key from his pocket with the other.
“Don’t know why I bother knocking,” he muttered. “He sleeps like he’s in coma.”
“I remember.” Athena swallowed past the lump in her throat.
“Thought you might.” With no further conversation, Simon used the key to open the door to a darkened room. He stepped in and nodded toward the bed which was just visible from the light spilling in from the hallway. “Go ahead, love. Wake him up.”
Straightening her back, Athena marched toward the bed. Her knees went weak with relief when she saw there was only one occupant. Though she knew she was more than likely going to find Derek in bed with a succession of girls, she was glad to be spared the sight on her first day.
She switched on the bedside lamp, and noted he was lying on his side facing away from her, the covers pulled up over his shoulders. All she could see was a tousle of dark hair, and when she saw the way it still curled against the back of his neck, a rush of emotion so strong it made her want to weep flooded her very being. She could still remember the feel of those curls against the palm of her hand when she kissed him, and the way she’d threaded her fingers through them when he made love to her. For a moment she stood frozen, shocked by the stab of desire in her belly. If it hadn’t been for Simon standing near the door she might have crawled under the covers with Derek and let the chips fall where they may.
Simon’s presence steadied her, and she took a deep breath before bending over the figure in the bed.
“Derek,” she called in the vicinity of his ear, already knowing it wouldn’t do any good. “Derek, wake up.”
Of course, he didn’t move. He’d always been the soundest sleeper she’d ever encountered. Biting her lip, she put her hand on his shoulder, the warmth of his body radiating through the bedclothes to her skin. She gave him a gentle shake, but he still didn’t move. Okay, then. She remembered how it was done, and with a firm grip she flipped him over onto his back.
Encouraged by a soft moan, she shook him again. “Derek, you have to wake up now.”
Eyes still screwed shut, he turned his head away from the lamp. “M’ awake,” he muttered.
“No, you’re not,” she contradicted. She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on his shoulders. “Come on now. Sit up and talk to me.”
Groaning like a creaky floor, he sat up, the covers falling to his lap revealing broad shoulders and the most tempting bare chest ever created. Athena licked her lips before she could stop herself, and a flash of heat washed up into her face. Damn it.
“Wake up, Derek,” she urged. “Come on. Wake up and talk to me.”
He scrubbed his hands over his face and yawned. “I’m awake.” Lowering his hands, he looked at her for the first time and froze. His blue eyes were filled with surprise, but as Athena watched, another expression emerged, one of yearning and need.
Though her gasp was slight, it seemed to bring Derek back to an awareness of where he was, and his eyes became cool and distant. He leaned back against the headboard, still watching her like a hawk.
“Well,” he murmured, his voice roughened with sleep. “This will take some getting used to.”
“I’ll say,” she whispered.
“All right then.” Simon stepped into the hallway. “I’ll leave you to it. Athena, I’ll be in my room when you’re ready.”
Caught by Derek’s gaze, she didn’t even turn to watch Simon leave. She and Derek continued to stare at each other, and the silence grew more uncomfortable with each passing second. Unable to bear it any longer, Athena ran her hands over her face and pushed back the curls from her forehead. Her eyes dropped briefly, but it was long enough to notice that Derek was afflicted with a condition common to most men upon waking. Boy scouts could have camped under the tent in the bedclothes, and her eyes stuttered back to his face to find him watching her impassively.
“Want to help me take care of that?” His voice was soft, but she heard a hint of strain. “After all, you were hired to attend to my needs.” His lips curved into a half-smile at her shocked expression, and a hint of mischief made his eyes sparkle. “No?”
Though her brain was insisting she not only tell him ‘no’ but ‘hell, no,’ her lips refused to form the words. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to throw back the covers, lower her head to his lap, and make short work of his morning wood.
As the moments passed without a word, Derek’s smile faded. The silence between them was charged, electric and snapping. Still holding her gaze, he pushed away from the headboard and leaned toward her, his eyes seeming to grow wider and deeper. Athena held her breath, unable to move.
Before he reached her, Derek closed his eyes and took a deep breath. He leaned back, releasing a long sigh.
“I’m awake now,” he said, his voice taut with strain. “You can go and…do whatever it is Simon has for you to do.”
Feeling almost drugged, she nodded. “Okay.” She rose from the bed, but knew her trembling legs wouldn’t tolerate walking just yet. “Do you want me to make your tea?” she asked to give herself a little time to get it together.
“No, thanks. I’ll make it myself.”
“All right.” She took a tentative step, and found out her legs decided to support her weight after all as long as she didn’t try to run any marathons. As she made her slow way to the door, she heard the snap of his lighter and smelled the sharp scent of smoke as he lit his first cigarette of the day. Her fingers just brushed the doorknob when his soft voice halted her.
“Athena.”
She closed her eyes at the sound of her name on his lips. When he’d said it on Saturday it had been uttered with anger and disgust, but now it was soft and caressing and too, too familiar. She beat down the resultant flood of emotions and turned to him, wiping her face clean of all feeling. “Yeah?”
The tip of his cigarette glowed red as he inhaled, watching her closely. He blew out a cloud of smoke that hung suspended in the air.
“This isn’t going to work.”
The quiet certainty of his words was like a bucket of ice water to her emotions, and she straightened with a jerk. If he thought he could play her and then run her off, he was dead wrong. She was there for Elizabeth, and nothing he did would make her leave.
“Really?” she bit out. “We’ll see.”
She yanked open the door and fled the room.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Memphis, October 1967
Mother Nature was a cruel bitch. If she had any decency at all, it would be dark and stormy, and there might even be a tornado warning or two. That was the kind of weather that matched Athena’s turbulent emotions. But, no; it was a gorgeous Indian Summer day with soft sunshine illuminating a riot of color as the leaves on the Memphis State campus began to change from green to vibrant reds and golds. Oh, and don’t forget the stupid sky. Devoid of clouds, it was the same clear, knock-your-socks-off blue of Derek’s eyes. No, Mother Nature wasn’t cooperating at all.
Athena’s own eyes were swollen and red-rimmed, and no amount of cold washcloths supplied by Andi was going to remedy that. Constant crying interspersed with bouts of hurling into the toilet kept them in a perpetual state of ugly. Not that she cared. The appearance of her eyes was the last thing she worried about; her heart and her belly demanded all her attention.
“That son of a bitch,” Andi snarled, and placed a fresh cloth just out of the freezer of her tiny dorm refrigerator over Athena’s eyes. “You need to sue him for everything he’s got.”
“He doesn’t have anything.”
“Well, then sue him for what he might get some day.”
Athena hiccupped and pressed the cold cloth tight to her closed eyes. “And just what am I supposed to sue him for? It’s not like he waved a magic wand and put his baby in me. I was an active participant, you know.”
“I don’t know then. Breach of promise. He did ask you to marry him, right? And then the second you leave the country he’s off making plans to marry someone else. That’s got to count as breach of promise.”
Athena let out a muffled wail as a knife twisted in her heart, and fresh tears soaked the washcloth. She could still hear the girl’s cold, clipped voice, as clear as if she was still holding the phone to her ear: “Look, I don’t know who you are, but Derek is my fiancé, and I don’t appreciate strange girls ringing our flat.”
How could he do this to her? It hadn’t even been two months since she left England. How could he forget her so fast and get engaged to someone else?
“I’m sorry, Theenie.” Andi’s soft hand stroked her sister’s forehead. “Don’t cry.”
“What am I going to do?” Athena howled. “Mom’s already driving me crazy with lectures about wasting my life because I’m not getting a higher education, and Dad just gives me these looks that scream how disappointed he is in me. When they find out I’m going to have a baby, they’re going to freak out. And now I can’t even get a job as a stewardess because I’m pregnant. I can’t go back to England now, so even when I tell Derek about the baby he won’t be able to help me. And now I don’t think he’ll even care.” A new thought struck her, deepening her despair. “Plus, I used all the money I had left to make that one phone call. I can’t even call him back now.”
A fresh torrent of weeping overtook her, making further speech impossible. Andi made soft, comforting sounds, and leaned over the narrow bed where Athena reclined to wrap her in a hug. After the tears slowed to a trickle, Andi took the cloth and waved it around to cool it before refolding and putting it back on Athena’s eyes.
“Listen to me.” Andi’s voice was stern. “I don’t think you need to tell him about the baby.”
The cloth tumbled to her lap as Athena sat up in shock. “But it’s his baby, too!”
“So what? Any guy who acts the way he did would be a terrible father, anyway. And do you really want to have that kind of person part of your child’s life? God, Athena! The way he treated you is beyond contemptible. He’s just…he’s morally bankrupt, that’s what he is.”
“Morally bankrupt? Where’d you come up with that? Some old movie?”
“It’s what he is,” Andi insisted. “He obviously just jumps from girl to girl, popping off marriage proposals. How much you bet he manages to get out of marrying this new one, too?” Lips pressed into a thin line, she shook her head. “You can’t trust him, Theenie. What if he tries to take the baby?”
Panic fluttered in Athena’s chest. “He wouldn’t do that. Would he? Besides, he couldn’t, right?”
“Don’t count on it. Your baby is half British, and he’ll be calling on the same bureaucrats who wouldn’t allow you to marry him. Which, in hindsight, is a blessing. But I bet they’d just love to take the baby and give it to their precious subject of the crown to raise.”
Maternal instinct reared up and lit a fire in Athena’s head. Her hands crossed over her belly, and her eyes narrowed. “That won’t happen.”
“It won’t if you keep your mouth shut and don’t tell that lying prick about the baby.” Andi leaned close and looked her sister right in the eye. “I’m serious about this. Don’t tell him.”
*****
Beads of condensation rolled down the can of Pepsi and pooled on the dull laminate surface of the cafeteria table. An uneaten plate of something purporting to be Chicken Divan was pushed as far away from Athena as she could reach. Staying in Andi’s dorm room kept her parents from the suspicion that anything was wrong, but taking her meals in the cafeteria was torture.
She glanced at the clock above the doorway. She had another half-hour before she had to flee the cafeteria to avoid her parents’ and her brother’s lunch period, and high-tail it to the library or back to Andi’s room.
It had been a week since she’d found out about Derek, and she still had no idea what she was going to do. Andi was right – she couldn’t tell him about the baby. A man who would do what he did didn’t deserve to know, and besides, she wanted no further contact with him. Just thinking about him was enough to bring her to her knees; if she had to see him again she would probably lose what little mind she had left.
She was going to have to do something soon, but any course of action she thought of seemed too daunting to undertake. It was much easier to give in to the inertia that overtook her, and just depend on Andi to make all her decisions. And since Andi was at that moment in a Statistics class, the easiest thing Athena found to do was watch the can of Pepsi weep in front of her.
“Y’know, those things taste better if you actually drink them.”
Startled, she looked up as a guy about her own age slid into the seat across the table. He gestured toward her untouched plate.
“You going to eat that?”
“What? No. You want it?” At his affirmative nod, she slid the disgusting mess to him, careful not to let the food come into contact with her fingers. “Are you a student here?”
He sure didn’t look like the average Memphis State undergrad. His long, tangled hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, and his full beard was in serious need of a trim. He was attired in what could only be described as a caftan, a paisley garment with full sleeves that dragged through the Chicken Divan as he ate with the appetite of a pack of hungry hyenas.
“In theory,” he mumbled through a mouthful of food. “That’s my grandparents’ plan, anyway. They’re the ones who sent me here. Do you want that Pepsi?”
“Yeah.” She pulled the can closer and took a sip to demonstrate. “I don’t understand. Are you a student or aren’t you?”
“For the moment. But I’m about to bug out, man. This kind of shit just isn’t my bag, dig? I’m going to drop out, get back the tuition money, and then blow this town.”
‘Blowing this town’ was one of the many options that flitted through Athena’s head the past week, and she sat up a little straighter. “Where would you go?”
“New Mexico.” He ran a finger around the plate, and licked the sauce from it. “My cousin told me about this commune out there between Santa Fe and Taos. Everyone just lives the way they want, man. They all work together, and everyone shares everything. No judgmental shit or government crap. Just people living life. You wanna come?”
The minute her belly began to swell with Derek’s baby, the jig would be up. She would become the pariah of her family, the shame of her parents, and a never-ending source of M
emphis gossip. Judged as The Whore of Babylon. For the rest of her life. And she had to go somewhere, right?
Her common sense roared to the surface and screamed like a banshee. She couldn’t be giving this serious consideration, could she? How stupid could she be? She didn’t even know this guy’s name!
“What’s your name?” she asked.
“Steve. You?”
“Athena.”
“Cool. So?”
Her hesitation was so brief it didn’t count. “I’m in.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
On the way to Baton Rouge, April 1975
Though she’d feared her first week as the band’s personal assistant would be hard, she was pleasantly surprised at how easy it turned out to be. It only took her a couple of days to get into a routine, and after that things ran with smooth efficiency.
Of course, there were a few hiccups along the way, most of them having to do with Robin and Cindy. Athena’s morning sweep of the hotel rooms wasn’t a huge chore; Paul and Veronica’s room was always pristine, Ian’s only bad habit was leaving his razor on the bathroom sink, and Derek was still as neat as she’d always known him to be. Either that, or he didn’t want Athena poking through his belongings, and she assumed that was why his room was always so tidy rather than a desire for excessive neatness. But the first morning she’d entered Robin’s room she’d come to an abrupt halt, appalled.
Discarded clothing, toiletries and trash blended together to form a second carpet on the room’s floor. Athena knew they had suitcases; she’d counted them before allowing the drivers to take them downstairs. But looking at the state of the bedroom had her doubting they held clothes.
A slow burn of anger began to build when she realized she was expected to sort the clothing and belongings from the trash, and pack them up in something. Instead, she called the desk clerk and requested a heavy duty trash bag and pair of work gloves. Then she crammed everything not red hot or nailed down into the bag and dropped it in the garbage before joining the band to board the vans to the airport. It only took two days of that before she trained Robin to pick up his own shit, and Cindy’s, too.
Athena's Daughter Page 9