It’s as if I slapped her. She raises her hands in the air, gesturing wildly as her tirade comes tumbling down.
“How could you do this to me? After everything I’ve gone through. After the way your father left me. After all I’ve done to expose this kind of horridness. There are girls all over the world who are forced, coerced, raped, and brutalized to become prostitutes.” Her crispness falls away, and her voice begins to break. But the tears that start flowing are tears of her own self-righteousness. Because I have made a hypocrite of the great Barb Coleman. “And I have fought and searched and investigated and done everything I could to expose these kinds of crimes. And to learn you willingly walked into it? You chose this life. You enjoyed it. You wanted it. You rolled around in it like a pig in shit.”
With that, she might as well have slammed a fist inside me, I am so ashamed.
The pain spills through every corner of my body. I am punched, beaten, and torn into a million pieces at her terrible words. I am shaking and sobbing as tears rain down my cheeks, and I cover my face with my hands in an effort to keep her from seeing me.
But I feel her hand on me, angrily peeling my fingers away from my face. She is so much stronger than me. She always has been.
“You have no right to cry,” she tells me, practically smearing the words on me through her own sanctimonious, superior tears. “What you did was disgusting.” She grips my chin, forcing me to look at her. “And I don’t know how I’ll ever forgive you.”
Another blow to my chest.
“Forgive me? You have to forgive me? I did it for you!” I shout.
“Oh, don’t even go there. I’ve heard every backpedaling cover-up there ever was. There’s nothing you can tell me that will make what you did okay. I’d be damn curious, though, how you got caught. Which one of your clients had something on you?”
“That’s what you think happened?”
She crosses her arms over her chest and nods, her eyes narrowed to slits. I can feel the fury building inside her, and the storm clouds are growing darker, swirling closer. “That’s always how it happens.” Then with a hiss, she adds, “Layla.”
As if it burns her tongue.
Oh, fine. She wants to play it like this, then I will roll up my pig-in-shit sleeves and fight back. “You want to know?” I spit back at her. “You really want to know?”
“Sure. Try me.”
“Here’s your tip, Cleaner,” I say, holding my hands out wide, taunting her. “Miranda is my editor too. That make things a bit clearer?”
She raises her eyebrows. She’s not putting two and two together yet. “Miranda? My editor? How is that even possible?”
“Yes, Mom. Your editor. Miranda. And what else do you share with Miranda?” I toss out, wagging my fingers in a come and get it gesture. “It’s not that difficult. See if you can connect the dots.”
She clasps her hand over her mouth, starting to deflate. “No,” she croaks. “Please tell me this has nothing to do with Phil.”
I nod, clenching my teeth. Then the tables are turned, and I deliver the punishing blow. “It has everything to do with her husband, Phil. The man you had an affair with. The affair you told me every dirty, sordid detail of, like you thought I wanted to know how he liked it with you. That he liked to take you rough. That he’d bend you over the kitchen table. That he pulled your hair. You screwed your editor’s husband, and you thought you were smarter than her. You thought she’d never know because you were in love with him and because you knew how to cover your tracks. But guess what? She found out. And I saved your ass from her.”
My mom’s affair with Phil began last summer. I pegged it instantly.
Phil and Miranda were over for dinner, along with a big group of publishing types—my mom’s agent, her agent’s assistant, publicists from the house, and on and on.
The living room was abuzz with music, and so much wine was in the air you could practically smell the grapes. Drained bottles of reds and whites lined the dining room table and kitchen counter. Miranda was drunk already. Her eyelids fluttered as she struggled to keep them open, slumping down in a chair at the dining room table.
As I checked to see if I had any texts from Cam about a job, my mother sailed into the kitchen to open another bottle.
“Let me help you, Barb,” Phil said. He stood up from the table and joined her, reaching for the bottle, placing both his hands on top of my mother’s.
“Why, thank you, Phil,” she purred, and they locked eyes.
She leaned in close to him, her shoulder brushing up against his as he opened the Syrah. “You have such strong hands,” she said.
I watched as he raised an eyebrow. No one else was paying attention. They were all too drunk. Then he said, “I can do a lot with these hands.”
“I bet you can.”
A few weeks later, she told me she’d fallen for him. She grabbed my hands at dinner, like she had something incredibly important to say, and admitted she was in love with her editor’s husband. “I feel terrible. So terrible. But he’s the first man I’ve truly fallen in love with since your father.”
“That’s great, Barb. But he’s married, you know. So maybe you want to look elsewhere?”
She didn’t look elsewhere, and their affair continued into the fall. Every time I saw her, she’d drop a new detail. The necklace he bought for her in Soho, the dirty text message he sent the night before, the multiple orgasms he gave her while pounding her on the table. You know, the usual details any mom would share with her daughter.
As they became more entwined, they grew increasingly careless, and soon Miranda started to become suspicious.
One morning while my mom was still fast asleep, I dropped by to grab a book I’d left at the house. I heard Phil pad out of the bedroom to make a call. He rarely spent the night, but Miranda was in London for business, so he was free to come and go. Or so he thought.
“Hi, darling,” he said quietly into the phone.
Pause.
“Oh, I’m just getting up and making some coffee.”
Pause.
“I didn’t hear the phone ring.”
Pause.
“Five times? You called five times. I took a really long shower.”
Pause.
“Sometimes I shower before I make coffee. You know that’s true, darling. Anyway, how are you? How is London? I miss you so very much,” he said.
Idiot, I thought.
He was trying to nip it in the bud, allay her fears. But women are smart, and Miranda is one of the smartest of all. Her hackles were raised, and she wasn’t going to lower them on account of a shower-before-coffee cover-up from her philandering husband.
I tried to warn my mom. I tried to let her know she might want to cool it with him. But she would hear none of it. She was madly in love, and nothing was going to stop her. Not even the private detective I spotted outside her building the next morning, leaning ever so casually against the building across the street. He held a blue cardboard coffee cup from the bodega around the corner and the Daily News, which he pretended to read. He had a mustache, naturally. I even nodded at him. He pretended not to notice and looked away.
As I walked to the subway that November morning, crunching on the last fallen leaves of the season, I counted off the things I knew for sure about the situation.
I knew my mom was going to get caught.
I also knew I didn’t want her to get caught. She depended on Miranda. She needed Miranda. She revered Miranda. As much as my mom made me crazy, she was still my mom and I would take a bullet for her.
And I knew I could prevent her from getting caught.
So I stayed at her house the next night, rose early, dressed in my sexiest schoolgirl costume, and timed my exit from the house to line up with his morning escape.
I walked out with Phil, chatted with him, linked my arm through his, and smiled flirtatiously at him. He probably thought it odd that his lover’s teenage daughter was being so overly friendly. When we r
eached the corner of Central Park West, out of view of my mom, I grabbed him by the lapels and pulled him in for a long, hungry kiss.
I was going for broke. I had no clue if he’d push me away. All I knew was that cameras were snapping our picture, so I hoped to hell he’d like the way I kissed.
He did.
He liked it a lot. He kissed me back hard, twining his hands in my hair like I was his new lover.
I detested every single nanosecond of that kiss with Phil. I loathed everything about him. The way he turned on Miranda. The way he turned on my mom.
But I didn’t let on. I knew how to pretend. I pressed a finger to his lips. “Don’t tell her. We’ll do this again tomorrow,” I said.
“Come to my office later today. I can’t wait that long.”
“Of course,” I said, figuring more cold, hard evidence would only help. The private detectives followed me that afternoon as I walked into his building, rode up in the elevator, and visited him for a make-out session that then necessitated the longest shower I ever took in my life. I needed to wash off his sleaziness.
But I sucked it up. I took one for the team. I led him into the trap he didn’t know was being set.
What I didn’t bargain on was that Miranda would have her guys keep following me. That’s how she learned about all the other men Layla had lined up. And it would all come back to haunt me.
My mom shakes her head in denial, shock taking over. Her eyes are wide and glassy, and she can’t speak at first.
Then the smoke detector buzzes, a sharp bleeping directly above us. The risotto has charred. I grab a pot holder, remove it from the heat, and turn off the stove.
“Miranda was on to you. She knew Phil was having an affair, and she had private detectives outside the house. She was going to bust you. And I didn’t want you to get caught. So I took him from you. That’s why he stopped seeing you, Barb. Because he was busted. Because I walked into her trap. On purpose. I got caught for you. I did it so she would never know you were the one screwing her husband,” I say as I toss the pot holder on the counter.
She parts her lips to speak, but no words come out.
“That’s why I’m writing the book. Because she kept following me. Because she figured out that I was a working girl, and then she blackmailed me into writing the memoirs, and she told me if I didn’t do it, she’d tell you everything. So now you know everything. You know I’m a whore and a liar and I kissed Phil, and even made out with him to make sure the evidence pointed to me, not you. And you also know I saved your ass and she has no clue you were involved. That the great Barb Coleman who sends scumbags to jail could turn around and do something shady herself. And she never has to know. Because I’m the pig in shit. Right, Mom?”
She gasps, then sinks down to the kitchen tiles, hanging in a low crouch before she flops right onto the floor. This is her rock bottom, right? This is when she’ll say she’s sorry. When she’ll thank me in some weird way for saving her.
But that’s not what she does.
“I can’t believe you kissed my Phil,” she moans. “I can’t believe you’re a whore. How could you do this to me?”
I blink twice, shocked that this is the part that bothers her most. That I supposedly did this to her.
But I don’t have a chance to answer, because someone knocks on the door. My mom doesn’t make a move to get it.
“Do you want me to answer it?”
She waves a hand in the air like she can’t handle the question. The decision is up to me. I walk to the door and look through the peephole.
“It’s Neil.”
She snaps her head up. “Don’t go near him. Don’t you even think about going near him,” she says, and stands.
Well, I guess that settles that. I am officially the Coleman slut and I can’t be trusted with her boyfriends.
“He’s all yours, Mother.” I grab the handle and yank open the door, rushing past Neil.
I run to the park nearby, sink down onto the first bench I see, grab my notebook from my purse, and turn to the next blank page after the story of the dogs in the snowy moonlight.
I write words that are more awful than any I wrote for Miranda.
I am twenty years old, I have kissed twenty-four guys, and my mother thinks I’m a whore.
15
Trey
I scan her block again.
There’s a hunched-over lady carrying bags of groceries in each hand, and a dude rocking out to unheard music blasting through his oversized earphones. A young mom pushes a red stroller and dangles some kind of toy in front of her baby.
My heart hurts seeing them, so I look the other way, hunting for Harley.
Where the hell is she? She said she’d be back by now. That she’d meet me at her place at five after I finished working and she saw her mom. It’s now five fifteen, and I haven’t heard from her, except for one text a few hours ago with the words: It was awful.
That’s all. And now all I want to do is see my girl and hold her and let her know that no matter how awful her mom is, I’ll be there for her. I want to wrap my arms around her and let her cry on my chest if she needs to. I want to be her rock when everything around her is restless in the wind. I want her to know that I love her for who she is, not who anyone tries to make her.
I nearly stumble into a tree when I hear that word in my head. Love.
Holy fuck.
Do I love Harley? Is that what this crazy feeling is in my chest, in my heart, in my head? I’ve never been in love before, never had a clue what it’s like. But maybe this is it. Maybe it’s more than feeling high; maybe it’s feeling hope too. Because that’s what Harley is to me. Hope for a better future. Hope that the next part of my life won’t feel so dark or dangerous.
I grab my phone to try her again, when I see a short text from her. Running late. See you soon.
Then my phone rings. I don’t know the number, but I answer it anyway.
“You can wait upstairs.”
It’s Kristen. She’s so no-nonsense it cracks me up. Craning my neck skyward, I see her in the fifth-floor window, waving down. “I have beer, and Jordan is here.”
“Cool. Buzz me in.”
I save her number in my phone, then head up the steps and press hard on the door when the buzzer sounds. I wait for the second buzzer and open another door into the tiny hallway. It seems even smaller because it’s lined with boxes that have been delivered. I notice a bag from Bloomingdale’s among the boxes, and then a name on the bag written in black Sharpie.
For my Layla. 5E.
The hair on my neck stands on end, and I stop in my tracks.
A wave of jealousy rolls through me. I push a hand through my hair, count to ten, and walk to the end of the mailboxes, reminding myself that this bag from Bloomingdale’s doesn’t change things. That it doesn’t mean anything. Harley was with me this morning, and she told me how she felt, and I told her too. She carries my heart and I can do the same for her. I don’t need to look in the bag. I don’t need to see if Cam sent her something.
I trust her.
I trust her.
I trust her.
I repeat those three words as I walk back down the hall, focusing on the gray walls, the stairs in the corner, anything but the bag that seems to be ticking like a bomb, a goddamn bomb that’s about to blow.
Screw mantras.
I have to defuse the fucking thing.
I pounce on it. Then I tell my frantic, jealous, angry snake of a self to calm down. I need to at least open it carefully so no one will know I snooped. I undo the staple that clips both sides of the bag together under the handles. Then I open it and peer inside. There’s a box, the kind that probably holds a long dress. I wince and send a prayer somewhere to someone not listening, because no one listens that this box is not what I think it is.
When I pull out the box, there’s a notecard taped on the front.
I want to rip it open and tear it to shreds. Instead, I undo the tape and open the card. I f
eel sick when I read the words.
For my baby doll tomorrow night. Mr. Stewart likes his girlfriend to dress in a subtle classy style. This dress should do the biz, and maybe even net you a nice, fat extra chunk of tips. He’s that kind of man. My favorite kind—big-ass tipper for a job well done.
Who takes care of you? I do. Always.
I fall to my knees. No way. No fucking way. She’s going back to him. She’s working again. I can’t believe she duped me. I can’t believe I thought she’d changed.
“Trey?”
I raise my eyes, and there she is, looking like she’s been battered in a hurricane, but I don’t care because she’s a liar.
“Are you okay?”
I clench my teeth. I can’t speak. I can’t breathe out a word. If I do, I will say something awful. Instead, I grip the note tighter, and soon I realize I’ve crumpled it up in my fist.
I open my fist. “I guess we should cancel our plans to see a movie with Jordan and Kristen tomorrow night. I see you have a prior engagement.”
I toss the note at her. She doesn’t even try to catch it. It hits her chest with a thud and falls to the ground.
“What are you talking about? Because I have had literally the worst day of my life. All I want is to see you and try to forget the things my mom said to me.”
“You’ll probably have an easier time when you’re Mr. Stewart’s girlfriend tomorrow night. That might help you forget your mom and me. Oh wait, you’ve already forgotten me, seeing as you’re going back to Cam.”
I point at the bag, the gleaming, beating body of evidence before our very eyes.
Irrefutable.
She bends down, opens the balled-up note, and reads it quietly.
I push both hands roughly through my hair, then pull on it in exasperation. “You told me you ended it with him.”
“I did end it! This is a mistake. I texted him the other night on the subway. I’ll show you. I swear.”
She grabs her phone from her back pocket and scrolls through her messages. She finds it quickly and thrusts the device at me, showing me the note saying she’s done working. I tap on the screen to open it.
The Thrill of It (No Regrets Book 2) Page 8