I pull out a card for a divorce attorney and hand it to her, “Here ya go, Margot. She will take excellent care of you. I’m not in private practice these days, but I’ll certainly have you back on the show afterward.”
She waves me off, “No offense, but I don’t think I want any more of my life exploited for the public.”
I smile at her as I try and wipe the blood from my face, “None taken.”
“What the hell were you thinking Laurel? We could be sued for this…you could be charged with assault.”
“What was I supposed to do…just watch her be abused?”
“No, but you could have called for security.” Bob shakes his head, “Dammit Laurel. You could have been hurt again.”
“I’m fine.”
“Well, you won’t be when the producers are done. I’m pretty sure they don’t want a ‘Jerry Springer’ type show. This was supposed to be a…”
“I know what this was supposed to be Bob and I’m sorry.”
“Go home Laurel…go home and pray the show isn’t canceled.”
After the berating I received from my producer, I slink back to my dressing room and sit there feeling sorry for myself. I have an ice pack pressed up against my nose, one against my back and another wrapped around the knuckles of my right hand. I still can’t believe I got into a fist-fight with a girl who was at least six inches taller than me. She sure did pack a wallop. My face is throbbing, and all I want to do is sleep, to forget this day existed, even if just for a little while.
But the person knocking on my door has other plans. I want to yell go away, but before I could speak a word, the door opens, and Sasha Newberry pokes her head in.
Oh shit.
“Hey there, Slugger. Saw the show. Looks like you could use a little pick me up.”
“I had one earlier and now I could just due with a drink and being alone,” I say. I really didn’t want company, especially Bob’s daughter.
She steps into the room despite my request to be alone and shuts the door behind her, “How about a few lines of this?”
I eye the bag of coke she has in her hand. I shake my head as I lift the ice bag from my face. “Um…I don’t think it would work out well since both my nostrils are swollen.”
“Leave that to me,” she says while dumping out the remnants of the white powder onto my makeup table.
Twenty minutes later my nasal passages are clear from the coke she literally blew up my nose. I’m beaming from the high and from her tongue dancing along my clit.
Right now I’m in a whirlwind of senses. Everything on my body was electrified, especially those erogenous zones. It’s the strangest and greatest sensation all at once. But I know coke, and this seems to be different. I can feel everything, I can feel the blood pushing its way through my heart…I feel each hair on my head, and I feel every cell in my lower region.
“Holy shit,” I say. I feel as though I’ve been coming for an hour. “That wasn’t just coke…what else is in there?”
She looks up from between my legs with a wicked grin, “Molly, let’s enjoy the roll.”
I just close my eyes and let her take me away.
Chapter Twenty-One
I t’s been about two months since I was fired, no…let me rephrase that, thrown out of the studio. I still can’t get the scene from playing on a loop in my brain. I guess it was poor timing to allow the producer’s daughter to fuck me in my dressing room after the fist-fight on live TV just hours before. I really don’t know what I was thinking when she walked into the room waving around that little bag filled with white powder and maybe if I’d known she laced it with Ecstacy I would have just said ‘no.’ But I’m still not sure I would have refused. Seems I was in self-destruct mode and pretty much have been since I returned to the City of Angels.
No job…no prospects. My agent told me I was pretty much blackballed. Bob Newberry walked in on me violating his daughter on the sofa in my dressing room. Not a crowning achievement to say the least. It didn’t matter that she rose to my defense, said she was the one who seduced me. What mattered was that I should have known better after I found out who she was. But apparently, I wanted to obliterate my life by fucking the boss’ daughter right under his nose.
Now, my show is canceled, my career is in ruin, and my life is in tatters. I have really fallen from grace, and I think there is no going back…nope, this time I’ve really done it. I want so much to push my tail between my legs, pack up my shit and run home to Maine. But I have way too much pride to just throw in the towel. Sure, my name has been trashed over the internet with the youtube video of me punching out that bitch on my show. And the video is as biased as it gets. The only footage shown is me punching Bailey Mclaughlin in the face five times. ‘Dr. Laurel goes mad.’ I guess the title is semi-fitting…I did go a bit ape-shit on her ass and for a good reason.
“What am I gonna do now?” My head drops into my hands as the video loops in my brain one more time.
I’m still using my cane, but less and less around my house. My therapist says that I should be cane free soon. It’s been so long since I haven’t had to use some device to walk I’m not sure how it will feel to be free of it once and for all. I might jump for joy…literally.
I’m awake again in the wee hours of the morning. It’s usually around 2:00 a.m. when my brain wakes me up to remind me about Sam…to let me know that I still pine for that woman after all this time. I’m standing out on my terrace leaning against the rail looking out over the ocean and into the night wondering if she’s doing the same thing. It’s mid-summer now…and in the coastal town of Maine the nights were like magic. The way the moon would illuminate the water, sometimes so bright you could see into its depths. It was my favorite time of year, but it was always so fleeting. Seems as soon as summer got into its groove, it was gone.
I miss it…all of it. Even the harsh winters and the unsettled fall storms which would remind us all just how small our town was. And now all I can do is think about Sam…I can imagine her eyes, the way the moon would lighten the color in them. The way her hair would blow in the sea-breeze sending its strands to whip across her face. I’m imaging the sexy smile and the coy look in her eyes before she kisses me. I can almost feel her lips on me, the way they caress my skin. I can imagine her breath on my face, her whisper in my ear.
“Fuck,” I yell out into the wind. I can’t take this anymore. It’s been months of me trying to get over her…trying to get on with my life, but all I’ve seem to do is make everything worse. Because here I am again with another glass of booze in my hand and a naked woman asleep in my bed. And yes, her name is Sasha Newberry. I shake my head as I lean my arms against the terrace rails. “I’ll never learn.”
I wake up to an empty bed which is strange because since this chick has dug her claws into me, I awake every morning for the past eight weeks with her wrapped around me like a snake. I really need to let this girl go, twenty-two is way too young for me considering I’ll be thirty-five in less than a month. But I keep her around, mostly because I don’t want to be alone these days.
So I sit on the edge of the bed, rub my palms over my face and wonder what is the next chapter of my life and really, why the hell am I still out in California? I sigh loudly and shake the thoughts of Sam from my head. She has been taking up constant space in my conscious and unconscious brain. I wonder what she’s doing, if she misses me, if she still loves me, or did she give up. Does she have a girlfriend…is she in love? It drives me crazy that I just can’t shake her from my thoughts. At first, I did everything I could to fight it…but now these many months later I just go with it. Guess I’ve just resigned myself into the knowledge that I can’t fight it no matter how hard I try. Even right this very second I can’t stop thinking about the sweet taste of her lips, the depth of her eyes…the way she would touch me. Every memory I banished years ago has resurfaced.
The way our eyes locked the first day we met when I had just turned seventeen and walked into Psychol
ogy 211. I completed my college core classes when I was fifteen and still in high school. My parents wouldn’t let me graduate early and go to college, so I had to take the classes during the school year. I took the first level of Psych classes my senior year. So when I stepped on campus that fall, I had just turned seventeen and was considered a junior.
A seventeen-year-old geek…bookworm. Sheltered, naïve, and a virgin. But when I looked into her eyes…those crystal blue eyes of Samantha Jane Harrison, I was captivated. I guess for her too, because she immediately befriended me. She thought I was a transfer, she never knew I wasn’t even eighteen until the first time I let her seduce me. I never told her I was a virgin, that I have never been touched in such a way, and I think she knew something was up because I was completely clumsy and quiet as a church mouse. I had absolutely no idea what to do. Even kissing was new to me…she would leave me breathless just after one kiss.
I never knew such pleasure existed outside a book. Sure I’ve touched myself on occasion, pretty sure I got myself off; at least I thought I did until Sam introduced me to a real orgasm. She was my first french kiss, lover, best friend, and love. I lived and breathed her, she was my everything. I truly thought we would be together for the rest of our lives. Even when she would argue with me, tell me I needed to sow my oats…that I needed to grow outside of her. Maybe I should have, maybe I should have lived a little in High School. I was too busy studying, and it wasn’t like anyone was knocking on my door anyway. But if I had any experience, perhaps I wouldn’t have been so clingy. Maybe she wouldn’t have dumped me.
I push myself out of bed and cross the threshold into the living room in a huff. I’m sick of all the maybes and what ifs rolling around in my head. I think I’m actually going insane. I need something to do, a project of some kind. I smell coffee and head for the kitchen to get a cup of the fresh brew, then I see a note laying there next to the creamer.
Laurel,
Dad set up a gig for me at the BBC. Heading to London tonight. This was really fun, and I’m glad I got to hang with you. But, you should stop being stupid. Go get her, you know you love her.
Take care,
Sasha
“Well, looks like Bob finally got his daughter away from me,” I say. I told her she should go many times after what happened at the studio that day. But, she kept convincing me that this was her decision…not her father’s. And really after the whole black-balling deal, I was doing everything I could to flaunt my relationship with that little chippy. I smile at the memories where I stuck it to him, knowing his head would be spinning around.
Then I reread the note, “what the hell…guess I’m that transparent?”
I didn’t really pay attention or maybe misread what she said about Sam. I pour myself a cup of coffee and walk outside to sit in the warm sun and smell the sea air. I need to think about this…I guess I mentioned Sam one too many times in this brief relationship. I do remember her saying to me ‘the lady doth protest too much.’
Maybe I should go, what the hell is here for me anyway? No love, no job, and I’m sick of this giant condo. I’m sick of my girl of the month, booze-laden, and now drug taking self. I have failed miserably in my quest to ‘not do love’ because all I’ve wanted since I’ve been back here…well, really since I first saw Sam again, was love.
“Shit, I’ve wasted so much time.” My stomach twists up in that awful regret feeling, and I feel like I’ve blown it all to pieces. I turn on my heel to get my phone from where I left it in my bedroom. “Can’t believe it took an outsider to call me on my bullshit.”
When I pick up my phone, it is already ringing.
A smile comes to my face when I click the ‘answer’ button. “Hey Mom,” I say, so happy to hear someone’s voice other than my own.
“Hi, Laurel, what time is it there? I didn’t wake you did I?”
I roll my eyes and giggle, “No Mom…I’m awake. It’s 9:30 a.m. here. I told you just subtract three hours.”
“Right…I didn’t look at the clock before I called. Anyway, I wanted to call and tell you some good news.”
My eyes open wide and I wonder if it is about Sam. If it was about Sam, I’m hoping it isn’t about her finding someone. My stomach clenches because now that I’ve come to my senses I’m hoping she is still single and doesn’t hate me.
“I could use some good news.”
“Well, your brothers are graduating in two weeks. You’re coming right?”
“Graduating? In the middle of the summer?”
“Yes, sweetie. Florida State University hosts three graduations a year. The school is massive.”
I think for a minute…of course I’m going, I just want to find out who’s all going to be there.
“Um, so I guess we will be going to Florida then? Sure is gonna be hot.” I shake my head at the obtuse comment. I hear her giggle on the other line.
“Yes, of course, it will be hot. It is August and it we’ll be in Florida. But you should be no stranger to the heat.”
“Mom, I live on the beach. Not really hot, hot here.”
“Humph, well sweetie…I wouldn’t know. No one ever invited me out for a visit.”
Was this a jab, an attempt to make me feel guilty? Because if so, it is working. “Um, I’m sorry. Just have had a lot going on since I’ve been back. But you could’ve come out any time ya know.”
“Well, I’ve seen how busy you’ve been.”
“What do you mean?” I swallow the golf ball sized lump in my throat.
“Some news does make its way to Camden, ya know.”
“Yeah, I guess it does. What…”
“Really Laurel? I thought you were going back out for your career? Seems to me that you have been floundering since you got back there and it hasn’t even been a year.”
“I’m sorry mom.”
“Don’t be sorry to me. It’s not my life you’re throwing in the toilet.”
Tears are starting to trickle down my face. “Did you call me to tell me good news or to berate me?”
There is a pause, I know she can hear the whimpering through the phone. She has to know how lost I am…how much I need my mother right now.
With a loud sigh, she says, “Laurel…sweetie. I’m not trying to criticize you. I’m just really worried about you. You can’t tell me this is the life you wanted for yourself? Drugs, Hollywood sex parties, fights….is it?”
I can’t answer her right now, the tears are falling too quickly, and I’m having trouble catching my breath.
“Well, is it? Do you know what the magazines write about you? Do you know what the tabloids are exposing? Do you know I lie awake every night terrified I’ll get another call about you being hurt…or worse, dead?”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Sweetie, I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you to be safe. Please come home. Come home now. Leave that crazy place behind and just come home. If your show is gone what are you staying for anyway?”
“I’ve…um,” I clear my throat trying to speak through the near hyperventilating. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. There really is nothing left for me out here.”
“Well then, pack a bag and get on a plane. The rest can be dealt with from here.”
“I can’t just up and leave. I’ve got some irons in the fire, and I’m waiting on some callbacks.” Yup, just lied to my mother. I have absolutely no prospects.
“Really Laurel. I just read an article about how you’ve been blackballed. How your show’s producer was out to ruin your career after what you did with his daughter.”
I never read the article…but Sasha did, and so did my agent. They both informed me of the content, and my agent confirmed that no one was interested in working with me. I guess I was hoping no one in my hometown read it. But if my mother read it, then Sam certainly did. Oh God, I feel like a loser.
“I can clean up my image. My career isn’t dead.”
“Sweetie, please just cut your losses and come home.”
> “I can’t just come home with my tail between my legs. I’ll be a laughing stock…a pariah. I don’t want people whispering behind my back everywhere I go. Don’t you see mom, at least here I’m among people like me. People that screw up royally, but can get back in. There, I’ll just be a loser…a Hollywood whore.”
“Laurel, stop caring what other’s think. This town was so proud of you…”
“Yeah…well, ‘was’ being the operative word. I’m pretty sure that’s changed.”
“Who cares if it has. I’m still proud of you. So is your father. Will you at least think about it?”
“Even if I do want to come home…there are too many loose ends I need to tie up.”
I hear her actually verbalize ‘Ugh,’ “Laurel, stop giving me these bullshit lame excuses. If there is nothing left in California for you now, then come home. Do what you set out to do after you graduated, open a practice or write another book. But please do it here and get out of that state. It is killing you.”
I’m silent for a moment because I know she’s right. I’ve been thinking about throwing in the towel, and why should I care about what anyone else thinks anyway? Plus, I miss my family and my hometown, but more than anything I miss Sam.
“Let me think about it. Give me the two weeks, and I’ll let you know when I see you in Florida.”
“Okay, sweetie. But please really think hard about coming home. I think you could have an amazing life here.”
I smile at her optimism. I really want to come home. I don’t need to think about it, but my pride won’t let me just relent at this moment. But at least in these two weeks, I can tie up a lot of ends. There is only one question left I need to ask.
“Is Sam coming to the graduation?”
“Of course she is.”
The smile on my face widens as my stomach twists with excitement. Two weeks and I’ll be face to face with the woman, I can finally let myself say it, I love.
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