"Don't even think about going back out there to paint," Fiona said. She was tying her bikini back in place.
He smiled. "Right. Okay."
"Why are you in such a rush about it anyway? Have you got other jobs to go do? Do you paint cottages all summer?" She went to the fridge and opened the door, looking in at her options.
"I told you, I'm not a professional housepainter," he said. "Steve is paying me as though the job will take three days. If it takes more than three days, then I'm kind of wasting time and money. If I take five or six days, then I'm wasting those extra days that I could be using to work on my own paintings."
"Right," she said. She pulled a bottle of vodka and a bottle of orange juice out of the fridge, took them over to the counter, and mixed two tall drinks, light on the vodka, and added lots of ice. She pulled a bag of chips from the cupboard. "Come on," she said. "Hang out for a while. I'll let you paint later."
They sat out on the deck and looked out over the lake. They relaxed and ate chips. Fiona asked him about his life, and got the full story on his career, his marriage, and now his divorce.
He broke it down pretty simply for her: the way he saw it, he'd spent four years going to college studying art. After graduating, he'd picked up a part-time job to pay the bills while he worked on developing his career as a painter. After a few years he was making some sales from his art, but hadn't broken through in a major way. His wife, meanwhile, was getting impatient with what she viewed as a stalled career, and was pressuring him to start looking for a proper job, something that would give him a real career.
"We ended up having the same fight about my career every few weeks for a couple of years," he explained. "Pretty soon the bitterness from those fights just infected everything else, and it all went sour."
"So she was telling you to give up your dreams of being an artist and do what? Work in an office or something?"
"That's a simple version, yeah," he said. "And I can see her side of things. She doesn't want to be poor. And she's working on her own career, but from her point of view, she's got this husband who just sits around all the time working on paintings that don't make money. Not real money."
Fiona held his hand. "She doesn't sound very supportive. Maybe you're better off."
He shrugged. "Well, she made some good points. She kept saying that I didn't care about making money, that all I cared about was art, and that I would be happy being poor my entire life as long as got to paint. And I think she's probably right. I don't need very much. All I really care about is being able to create."
Fiona leaned back in her chair. "I am actually intensely jealous of you," she said. "I mean, you're broke, which must suck or something, but you actually care about what you're doing, and that's awesome. Your situation is the exact opposite of mine. I make a whole bunch of money, but there's absolutely no art in what I do. There's no creativity. That's why I hate it so much."
Fiona's bag of weed was there, and Mike started preparing a joint. "I think it's silly to say this, because I know a lot of people who wish they were in your situation, but can't you quit? Or change what you're doing somehow? Don't you have any control over your situation at all?"
"I don't know," she said. "I feel like I'm an employee in a big corporation. The Fiona Luxe company. But I don't really run it. I do a lot of work, but so do a lot of other people. The Fiona Luxe company pays a lot of people. A lot of people make money off me being Fiona Luxe."
"Do you know what it sounds like to me," he said, pausing to light the joint, "It sounds like you fired your parents as your managers, but you kept the same pattern. Nothing really changed on your end, except that your mom and dad aren't there. But you still work for other people, doing what they tell you. You still have no control. Your management team, or your label, or whatever, is now doing what your parents used to do."
Fiona took the joint from him. "Yeah, that's pretty much true." She took a drag.
"So why not quit?" he said. "You must have some money. You could fire everybody, go underground for a while, and figure out what you want to do. If you want to continue on as a singer, you can do it, but on your own terms."
"Maybe. It wouldn't be that easy. I've got contracts and shit. My record label would probably sue me."
"You can probably get out of it somehow. Or just fulfill your contracts and then get out."
"It's not that simple though," she said, passing the joint back to him. "You get addicted to the income and the lifestyle. I don't even think I really own anything, you know? My place is rented, my car is leased, I've got all this staff and shit. If I stopped getting money from my record company and touring, everything would just get all fucked up. I wouldn't know how to deal with anything. I'm paralyzed by my own wealth and power."
He shrugged. "Time to start downsizing. Time to start learning how to live like a grownup. You live like a grownup here."
"Yeah, maybe. I owe the company another album, but maybe I could just do a Scarlett."
He exhaled a cloud of smoke. "I don't know what that means."
"You know Scarlett Johansson? She made that album, and it was all covers of Tom Waits songs. Someone must have said to her like, Scarlett, we'll let you make an album, but are you sure this is what you want to do? Just Tom Waits? And she must have been like, yeah, just Tom Waits."
"Sorry, I'm not thinking very clearly right now," he said. "Are you saying that you want to do an album of Tom Waits covers?"
"No, I just mean I could do an album of just whatever I want," she said. "The only problem is I have no idea what that would sound like."
"You need to step back."
She squeezed his hand. "I do. I really do."
* *
They ate dinner together at his cottage that night. After dinner Mike produced an acoustic guitar, and they sat singing and playing for a while. Mike played the songs he knew. He tried to get her to sing any of her own songs, but she refused. "I hate them," she said. "I would have to learn new ones if I wanted to sing just for fun. And people will always want me to sing those stupid songs."
"You should do a heavy metal album," he said, and he played some harsh chords on the acoustic. "Fiona," he sang, mocking a metal singer's voice, "Luxe! Raaaaah!"
She laughed. "Yeah, I'll think about that."
They move to his bedroom and undressed. Mike climbed on the bed first, and she made him lie flat on his back. Fiona took him into her mouth and sucked on him until he was hard and moaning, and then she climbed on top, working him inside so she could ride. He watched her as she made love to him: she had her head back, her eyes closed, her mouth slightly open. He put his hands on her, and she took his hands in hers, holding on as she rode him to her own orgasm, and then collapsing on top of him.
They kissed. She climbed off, and grabbing a towel off his night stand, she wiped him off. Then, touching him on the chest to keep him from getting up, she took him in her mouth again, licking and sucking until he came.
"Careful, I'm ready," he warned. She didn't move, and when he came inside her mouth, she swallowed it down.
She slid up next to him, and they wrapped their arms around each other. "That was amazing," he said. "I've never had anyone do that before."
"Not even your wife?"
"No."
"Wow," she said. "It's not that big a deal. I mean, a girl doesn't have to if she doesn't want to. I don't do that for everyone. I didn't even do it for all my boyfriends."
"But you did it for me."
She gave him a squeeze. "You're special to me."
"We just met yesterday."
"I know." Fiona looked Mike in the eye and stroked his cheek. "But you listen to me. You show concern. And you don't want anything from me. I don't know a person in the world who doesn't want something from me. You're just nice to me. And I like that. It means something." With tears glimmering in her eyes, she kissed him on the lips. "If I had every so-called friend in the world lined up to choose from, the only person I would want to be with
right now is you."
*****
Chapter Five
Fiona slept curled up with Mike in his bed. Before they went to sleep they agreed Mike was going to have actual time to work on painting the cottage in the morning. And Fiona was going to let him work and not distract him for huge chunks of the day.
Early morning sunlight flooded the bedroom, waking Fiona. Mike was still asleep. She listened to him breath for a minute, then rolled quietly off the bed. She dressed and slipped out of the cottage, back to her own place, where she showered and put on fresh clothes, before getting in her car and driving to town. When she and Mike went there for groceries, she'd spotted a bakery. Fiona went inside and picked up breakfast sandwiches, cinnamon buns, and coffee for two.
She drove back with the food and coffees on the seat next to her. The conversations from the night before were playing and playing through her mind, and she wondered if maybe Mike was right. Maybe she could disconnect from the massive network that was running her life. Maybe she could get out of her contracts, cancel obligations, stop promoting, and just leave the music industry. She could dismiss her staff, downsize her lifestyle, and she could probably live comfortably for at least a few years on royalties alone. And that would give her some time to figure out what she actually wanted to do with her life.
What were the risks? They were pretty minimal. She could be made a fool of in the media and in the gossip magazines and maybe in the celebrity circles, but she wanted out of that anyway. She'd met some cool people and made a few worthwhile friendships, and those probably wouldn't be affected. The only people that would drop out of her life were the people who were there for her fame or her money, and they would be no loss for her. She would gain by losing them.
Fiona didn't know if there was any future with Mike, but at the moment he was exactly what she needed: a caring person who could be honest with her. And he was cool, and creative, and he was good in bed. That wasn't the most important thing in the world, but she'd been with a few cool, or famous, or gorgeous guys that had no idea what they were doing in bed, so it definitely counted for something. If he didn't mind having her around, she would stay for a while. She had no demands for him, but she liked him and wanted to spend some time with him. And a little time would tell if there was something there between them.
Fiona dropped off the car and walked around the bend to Mike's cottage. There was a second car parked in front of the little green building, a sky blue compact, that hadn't been there before. Juggling the bag of food and tray of coffees, she dug her phone out of her purse and checked the time. It was ten o'clock. She'd been gone for almost an hour and a half.
She'd planned to walk right in with the food, and if he was still sleeping she would wake him up and surprise him with breakfast, but the car made her pause. Instead, she knocked on the door. She could here clicking footsteps, and a woman with glasses and a blonde ponytail opened the door. She looked at Lena, and at the food and coffees she was holding.
"Yes?"
Lena smiled awkwardly. "Hi. Is Mike here?"
The young woman tilted her head slightly and stared at Fiona. "Are you Fiona Luxe?"
Mike came out of the bathroom. The young woman turned and looked at him as he approached. "Fiona Luxe?"
"Yes," he said, as though there was nothing unusual about it. "Fiona Luxe. Come on in, Fiona."
"How do you know Fiona Luxe?" The young woman crossed her arms. She was very pretty. She was in shape, dressed in a tight-fitting blouse and jeans, with brown leather boots that ended just below the knee, and the frames on her glasses were cute. She sure didn't look very happy though.
"Oh," Fiona said, "Mike is painting the cottage where I'm staying."
Mike nodded. He was buttoning his shirt, and folding back the sleeves. "Steve Kerner's place, three doors up. He hired me to paint the outside of his cottage. Fiona's stay in his place right now."
The woman looked at Fiona and back at Mike. "But why is she staying there?"
"Just getting away from it all," Fiona said. "I didn't know it was going to be painted the day after I arrived. Anyway, since Mike was coming back to finish the job today, I thought I would bring over breakfast. I seem to have interrupted something though, so I'll just set these on the table and be on my way."
"No, I'm sorry," Mike said. "We're being very rude. Fiona, this is Mary Ellen. Mary Ellen, this is Fiona."
Fiona smiled and nodded. "Mary Ellen, right. Your wife. Nice to meet you." She reached out a hand. The woman, Mary Ellen, shook it without smiling.
"Fiona, I'm going to be up there in a while. I won't need to get inside or anything, so just do your thing and I'll see you later, okay?"
Fiona played it cool. "Okay Mike. Have fun, you two. I'll see you around." She backed out and closed the door. Tears were welling in her eyes as she turned to walk back up the road. What the hell had she gotten into? He was married, and his bitch wife looked super-pissed. So were they actually divorced, or were they just having problems, or what? Neither of them corrected her when she said wife instead of ex-wife. If they were actually divorced, there's no way they wouldn't state that fact immediately.
She walked back to her place, went inside and located her cigarettes. She put on water and smoked in the kitchen while she waited for it to boil, then made herself a cup of instant coffee. It wasn't good coffee, but she didn't want to wait for the coffee maker to brew a cup. She took the coffee and the smokes out onto the deck, and stood leaning on the rail, looking over the lake. It was a beautiful blue sky day.
What Fiona really wanted to do was get one of those bottles of vodka out and just get straight into it. She was quivering with disappointment and rage, and she wanted to drink so fast and so hard, that she wouldn't be able to feel anything at all. She wanted to drink herself right out, so this day could be over as quickly as it began. But somehow the idea of opening a new bottle of vodka at ten o'clock in the morning without even eating anything first seemed like a bad threshold to cross. Right now she was just "drinking too much." Getting shit-the-bed plastered by yourself at ten in the morning seemed more like alcoholic territory. Instead she sipped bad coffee and smoked.
Fiona let her legs dangle off the side of the deck. What a fucking joke. She'd felt really encouraged for a while there, like she had a chance to really force change in her life, but now the wind was completely out of her sales. She'd gotten her hopes up over a man that lied about being married. She'd thrown herself at him, sucked him off, let him fuck her. It was all selfish on her part, just wanting to get fucked by this convenient man, but she'd put her trust in him and he'd lied to her. Now not only was he gone, but she felt sad about not liking him anymore. And that made her feel very, very alone.
She was still sitting on the deck when she heard their voices. They were on the front deck, at the other end of cottage. He would probably finish painting the deck, then get to work on the cottage itself. And Mary Ellen would be there to keep an eye on him. Fiona didn't want to be sitting out there with tears running down her face if they happened to walk around to the back. She wiped her cheeks and went back inside the cottage.
What was the point of staying here now? It was going to be awkward as hell. Fiona would need to stay inside the cottage while those two hung around outside. But then, why should she stay inside? She should throw the bikini on and lay out all day. Let them deal with her, instead of the other way around.
She went into the kitchen to find herself something to eat, and she could hear their voices. She froze and listened. They were talking about the same stuff Mike had said they always fought about. His career and how they could best organize their lives.
The cottage had creaky floors. Fiona didn't want to accidently let them know she was right there listening to them by moving and making a sound, but she couldn't stay where she was, because if one of them took a few steps to the right, they would see her through the kitchen window. She squatted down, then carefully leaned her back against the fridge. She could still hear
them. The box of vodka was right in front of her. She pulled one out, quietly and patiently removed the plastic wrap off the bottle cap, opened it and had a drink straight from the bottle. Then she sat and quietly listened to them argue.
Mike and Mary Ellen talked, and Fiona drank, for an hour. The bottle was half gone, and she felt absolutely rotten. She still hadn't eaten anything, and she felt like she was going to be sick. Her head was swimming. She thought about trying to get up, but she was pretty sure she'd fall against something. She put the cap on the bottle and crawled on her belly back into the living room and over to the couch. The couch was a bit too high for her to crawl up onto in her drunken condition, so she just lay on the floor until she passed out.
* *
Fiona woke up an hour later. She could hear their voices again, but clearer now, like they were inside the cottage. Then she heard the words, clearly spoken: "Oh my god. Is she passed out?"
All That She Desires: The Stranger Page 5