by Karen Gordon
Days one and two were spent at JFK, mostly sitting on the floor, frantically tracking open flights on her Blackberry. Day three she got a late flight to Atlanta, where they told here there was a much better possibility of getting to St. Louis. Day four she was still in Atlanta, but she had tired of sleeping on airport floors, so she got a hotel room for a few hours. Day five she made a standby list for St. Louis. She may or may not have pushed past an old man in line to get to the ticket counter to get the last spot on that flight.
Late on day five, she made it to Steve. He was waiting for her at the front of the crowd toed up to the new red security line drawn on the floor. He couldn’t cross it without a ticket, so he waited on the front edge. She knew they must have looked like a parody of a sappy chick flick, but she couldn’t help herself. She abandoned her carry-on and ran to him to jump up in his arms. She had worked too damn hard to get here to pretend she was any less elated than that.
It was below zero in St. Louis, so Steve had to borrow the truck from work to pick her up. Normally, Bryce would never allow a truck to be parked in front of his place, but he made an exception since it said Kauffman Interiors on it, so it looked like he was getting a furniture delivery, again.
Steve had warned MG that Bryce would probably give her a third degree that could put any doting father to shame, and he didn’t disappoint. He did everything short of questioning her intentions for their future before backing off. Between the moony way she looked at Steve and their inability to keep their hands off each other, he begrudgingly approved. Besides, he knew Steve had been a monk for the past two months, so he got out of their way and let them have free reign of the condo--as long as they didn’t stain or break anything.
♪ ☺ ♥
When they had talked on the phone about this visit their conversation always veered toward sex. It was their default setting and both were hanging on to a lot of saved up sexual energy. But now that she was here and exhausted and hungry and wearing clothes that had been dragged across the floor of several major airports the mood between them felt different.
As soon as they were in the truck on the way to the condo, they had started talking, which they did on the phone every day, so you would think that they would be talked out and ready for nonstop screwing. They only had eight hours together before she had to be back at the airport, but the rush to fuck just wasn’t there.
While she told him about all her waiting and flights in her MG way that made him laugh, he ran her a bath. He found a big box of leftover catered stuff in the fridge from Bryce’s last party that he brought into the bathroom. He popped a mini sandwich in her mouth then grabbed one for himself.
He set the box where she could reach it and opened two Fitz’s root beers (her St. Louis favorite) as he caught her up on gossip updates that had happened in the past few days–Bryce’s latest conquest, Casey still not talking to Pat, Carrie and her twins and Nick. Then he stripped and slid into the tub with her.
The physical contact felt fantastic and added to the slowly building burn between them, but it was still secondary to their need to connect. Talking in person with gestures, touching and eye contact came first. They were reconnecting slowly, enjoying the change in their relationship that had started when he was in New York. Fuck buddies had been replaced by a deep connection that defined their relationship now.
This is what she really came to St. Louis for--this little slice of heaven that she could only get with him. He was the one man in her life who had ever fought to stay with her, even after she left him. He was permanence, even if neither had any idea where they were going. She wasn’t lost alone.
She lay with her head against his chest, resting her hands on his thighs, between rounds of grabbing little sandwiches and swigs of root beer. He started talking about general stuff going on at work then told her about working on the accounts. His voice was more hesitant, as if he wasn’t sure he was ready to share this with her.
“I started a couple weeks ago with the invoices. I don’t know. I always thought that stuff would be so hard, but … it’s all pretty logical and just creates a paper trail.”
“Yeah, well that paper trail was the highway to hell for me. I only passed accounting because I talked the professor into letting me do a paper to make up for my shitty test grades.”
“Accounting was hard for you?” He couldn’t hide his shock that he got something that she didn’t. He’d always considered himself the bottom of the barrel at school.
“I hated accounting. Never want to see that shit again.”
“Maybe it’s the way Robert explains it.” She felt him shrug. “It all makes sense to me.”
From the way he talked about Robert, MG knew Steve really admired the guy. He thought he was a really smart businessman.
When the water got too cold, they moved to his bed and had the most un-Steve-and-MG-like conversation about sheets. Bryce’s felt just like Alex’s. They both agreed that great sheets were one benefit of being rich they could get into.
Then they wrapped themselves up in those sheets and made love, slowly, taking time to stroke and caress and explore all the parts each missed on the other. Their pace was a confirmation to each other that they didn’t need to grasp at something that might disappear.
At seven-thirty a.m., Steve woke MG from a brief nap so she could have a cup of coffee and get dressed to go back to the airport. The snowstorm on the East Coast was over, but its effect, along with the Christmas holiday, was still rippling through the airline schedules. She had a nine a.m. flight to New York, through Dallas. She wouldn’t be home until around five p.m.
It was worth it. She would be willing to spend days sitting in airports fighting other passengers and gate agents again to get another eight hours with him. She was floating in a calm, happy place that only he could take her to. She left him at security with a quick kiss and an “I love you” that she felt all the way through her soul.
Chapter 26
In Manhattan she only had time to switch suitcases then board the late train north to Poughkeepsie. She was one week in to living on catnaps and Starbucks, but she had to make it to school to get a few hours of sleep before her morning class.
Randy was there to drive her from the station to school, and she would have slept through the drive had he not woke her up with some great news–Daniel had a recording contract. At Randy’s suggestion, he had gone back and talked the agent into signing him as a solo act. He would be recording his first songs sometime in the next month at a studio in Manhattan. Randy said the guy was completely sold on Daniel’s style. His slow ballads didn’t go over well with the Moreland college crowd, but they might be his ticket to fame and fortune.
Randy also hired Daniel to work on the same tour as MG this summer. It would be awhile before money started to come in from his music, so he figured the guy could use the road experience and the funds. He didn’t say it, but MG suspected that Daniel was also going to act as her bodyguard so Randy could make sure she stayed clear of the wild side of the road.
But his final bombshell of the ride negated that idea. He had her and Daniel working with some of his best buddies on the Legends of Rock tour (her friends called it geriatric rockers on the road)--four classic rock bands who had their heyday sometime around the year MG was born. She and Daniel would be hard pressed to find the wild side of that tour.
Still, she was going to Europe for two months and working behind the scenes on the tour, where she wanted to be. It really didn’t matter who was on the stage.
♪ ☺ ♥
Alex was back. MG lost her bed at the sorority house and had to go through formal rush to get one back. As much as she loved to party with the girls, she considered saying no, because it would mean giving up her private dorm room--her quiet sanctuary when she needed one.
Once Alex assured her she could still keep her dorm room and crash at the house when she wanted to, MG was set for rush, or so she thought. If she hadn’t already known the girls and wanted to hang
out with them, there was no way she would have endured it.
It started with parties that could only be described as speed dating interviews. Since it was formal rush, she was required to attend one at each of the six sororities on campus. It was one hour at each of plastered-on fake smiles and too brief answers, mostly about her family background and where she liked to shop. She knew she was going Alpha Chi, so she had a little fun with bullshit answers at the other houses. The look on their faces when she said her brother Stony was in prison for dealing was priceless.
Round two was similar, but she was only required to go to the houses she was invited back to. Alpha Chi was the only invite she got in round two, but some of the girls she didn’t know well were not happy with the Stony story going around sorority row. The final party was formal. She borrowed one of Amber’s dresses with promises of returning it promptly, unharmed.
Which should have been easy, it was an afternoon party with no alcohol, but unfortunately with lots of sappy music, deep thoughts and crying (not MG). One of the stuffier senior girls, Ellen Wainwright, had taken it upon herself to stick with MG and make sure she understood the solemn and dignified nature of the event. She droned on and on about the chapter’s distinguished alumni, exemplary scholastic record and dedication to helping those less fortunate. The closing ceremony was almost too much. They all gathered in a broiling room full of candles, as some poem was read about youthful days passing by and the beauty of life. MG wasn’t entirely sure what was said, because Ellen started sobbing on her shoulder, clinging to her and possibly dribbling mascara down the shoulder of her mom’s precious Dior original. Alex saw MG attempting to scoot away from the flow of snot and mascara and must have thought she was headed for the door. With a most somber expression on her face, she casually moved in behind MG and pinched her on the ass, forcing her to choke and shake as she suppressed a fit of giggles. Tessa must have seen Alex, because she snuck by and pinched her next, then Viv and Becks. MG was squirming away from them and fighting the giggles. She thought about telling Ellen that she was being hazed, but she figured she was on thin ice already.
Amazingly, MG wasn’t blackballed by the serious girls and was formally asked to join the Alpha Chi’s. The invitation came with her fun friends carrying a bottle of champagne and another envelope detailing all the costs involved and when each was due. She knew Randy could handle them, but she still almost choked at the numbers. If both Randy and her mom hadn’t pushed her to do this and get more involved with school, she definitely would have bailed when she saw the price of partying with the in crowd.
♪ ☺ ♥
The first sorority meeting she attended did nothing to convince her that she had made the right move. Greek Week was still a month and a half away, but the serious and contentious subject of Greek Week tee shirts had to be addressed. It started with a formal motion that a color be chosen for the shirts. That had to be seconded, then the debate started. You would have thought they were picking the color they would be buried in for all the passion and anger that went into this decision. Ellen insisted that they had to be cyan because that’s what she wanted for the past two years, and this was her senior year and last chance to get that color, and she was sick of wearing colors that washed her out. Viv pointed out that she had been in two issues of Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar, so she had fashion authority and she wanted them to be French rose, which, she insisted worked with every skin tone.
And so it went … for over an hour. Viv won out. They would wear French rose tee shirts. Then someone motioned that they choose a design for the shirts. When another girl seconded the motion, MG thought she was going to cry. She just wanted to go back to her quiet dorm room, put on Steve’s Lynyrd Skynyrd tee shirt, crawl in bed, and hide from these looney bitches.
The parties were better … most of them. She soon learned that any invite that said “appropriate attire” at the bottom was not for her. She still loved hanging out with Alex and the rest of the troublemakers. They were her kind of girls because, like her, they knew how to make their own fun. She often skipped organized parties and stayed in her room and studied so she could retain her membership in the Tuesday night drinking club. Making grades was still a huge struggle for her, and adding the sorority social schedule to the mix only made it harder.
She still had no direction and was going to have to declare a major soon. There was nothing she was particularly good at, except talking her way into better grades and coming up with great entertainment ideas for her and her friends. Both Randy and her mom wanted her to stick it out and get a degree in something. She cried to Steve about it more than once on the phone.
“I’m just wasting his money.”
“But he doesn’t see it that way. I can’t imagine that a degree would be a bad thing to have.”
“I should give it to you, so you could major in accounting.”
He laughed, and it bothered her that he never took the idea of him getting a degree seriously. Not that she wanted him to have one, but she wanted him to believe that he could. He still saw college as some pie-in-the-sky idea for those smarter and richer than him. From the inside, MG could tell him that that definitely wasn’t true. He was so much smarter and hard-working and motivated than some of the boxes of rocks she met at school. The only thing they had that he didn’t was money and parents who told them they could do it.
Chapter 27
On the plane ride to London, it became clear that this tour would not be the same for MG, as it would be for Daniel. He was one of many roadies, hired to move and tune guitars, and she was Randy’s daughter, practically family to the band members, even if she had never met them before. He rode in coach. She flew first class.
She tried to lessen the injustice by sharing her larger, plusher blanket and some of the mountain of food they kept bringing to her, but Daniel didn’t really seem bothered by the inequity. He was just happy to be there.
In London he bonded with the other roadies, a group of music-loving guys who liked to discuss the quality of one type of guitar sting versus another and sound check issues for each venue. As part of the traveling front office, MG had only one constant companion, the producer, Leticia. She was nice enough, but at least thirty years older than MG and all business. Her surprising source of fun (sort of) was the band members. They were all at least twenty years older than her and most of that time had been spent on the road. They were jaded, and normally hated the road, but having her along, someone who had never been much of anywhere, made it all fun again. Every day they had her flying in one of their jets ahead of the others, so she could see a sight or go to a restaurant or tour a winery. It was all fantastic, and she wished Daniel could share some of her lucky star bounty.
If Leticia was irritated by MG’s sporadic work schedule, she didn’t show it. She reminded MG of Greg, her boss last summer, in that way. Nothing ruffled their feathers, and they both knew how to formulate a plan B, C, and D on the fly. Above all, that impressed MG the most. That’s what she wanted to be like if or when she had their job someday.
She couldn’t use her phone much, so she sent Steve an email every other day with lots of pictures. He loved them, but noted they would all be better if she wasn’t wearing clothes. She was tempted, but she knew he was reading his mail on the computer at work.
In Iceland the guys took her for an afternoon in the Blue Lagoon, a huge, hot, geothermal pool that you could swim in. It was fun being with them, but she wanted Daniel to see more than just the back of the bus, the back of the trucks, and backstage on this tour. She begged the road crew chief to let him off early so she could take him there for a swim. They arrived late, when the summer sun was just starting its short departure and the crowd was gone; it was absolutely magical. The water glowed blue. Daniel noticed, but was too preoccupied to enjoy it.
“So, you’re sitting in a glowing blue geothermal pool in Iceland but you are a million miles away. What gives?”
He smiled at how perceptive she was. “I’ve only got
ten bits and pieces of news from my mom and some friends, but …” He hesitated, and she splashed him to make him go on. “I don’t want to seem ungrateful to your dad, so I’m not sure I should even talk to you about this …”
“What?!” He was driving her nuts and ruining her chillax with his cryptic replies.
“The songs I cut before leaving are starting to play on the radio.”
MG didn’t try to hide her happy shock. “Damn, that fast. Oh my god, Daniel! That’s fantastic!”
He looked anything but happy.
“What? How can that be a bad thing?”
“They’re also putting pictures from this photo shoot I did everywhere.”
“Oookaaay. What, were you naked or something?”
“No.” He half-chuckled, at least he had some sense of humor. “It’s like they are pushing me as the solo version of a boy band. My friend Keith said he saw my pictures in some teeny bopper magazine.”
“He reads them?”
He laughed again. She was getting him to relax a little. “No, he works at Walgreens, and the little sister of one of our friends brought the magazine to him and asked if it was really me.”
“Is it that bad?”
He shrugged. “Maybe I’m making too much out of this. I don’t know.”
“Well, there’s really nothing you can do right now, from here, so come on, lay back, relax. Will ya?” She pulled his hand as she lay back in the warm, glowing water.
He lay back too but looked as stiff as a board. Poor guy just didn’t really do relaxed.
Two weeks later, Daniel left the tour to fly home. His first single was in the top ten, and they wanted him out in front of the press, at events, promoting his music (or, more accurately, showing how good-looking he was.)