by D. D. Scott
Hell, Zayne hadn’t even known the notes existed until after his dad died. He’d stumbled across the box in his dad’s office. ’til his discovery, he’d always thought his dad kept the seed mixes in his head. Man he was in deep.
Winking at his mom and giving her a quick peck on the cheek, Zayne stepped out the back door, Damian and Cody at his heels, leaving her to get rid of the Baudlins.
Poor bastards.
Chapter Seven
Roxy’s pharmaceutical-induced snore catapulted her out of a deep sleep. Rubbing her eyes, she tried to clear the haze blanketing her vision. But the fog was thick.
Placing her hand over the top of her sofa, she pulled herself up along its padded frame. Stopping midway, she clutched the leather cushions, anchoring her nails into the supple fabric, until her dizziness subsided.
Whoozyville was a rough ride and coming to was no Sunday afternoon cruise. But where exactly had she been? Her ankle, throbbing as if someone were thumping it with a rubber mallet, reminded her of her disastrous fall. But how had she gotten home?
Oh, God. It was all coming back…in the form of Zayne’s rear end.
Had she really commented on the nice nature of his ass? Nice one, Ace. So maybe she deserved the headache bouncing off her skull bones like a bonanza of brain freezes. But no one would blame her for thinking the man had one fine ass. She’d just forgotten in her medicated state that some thoughts should be ponder-only instead of ponder and pronounce.
No wonder she rarely took medicine. The damn pills zapped her mind and body of all humanness, turning her into a dazed, loose-lipped lunatic. From here on, she’d deal with the pain instead of the loss of control.
She tried again to focus her eyes, but the cherry red sofa blinded her. Please God, let there be no sun today. Dreariness and darkness. That’s what she wanted. But the gold-dusted particles streaming through the slats of her Venetian blinds hinted at a different Local on the Eight’s.
Dipstick and Darling wiggled to life at her feet, licking her toes. Toes she swore looked blue sticking outside her surgical boot. But toes too cramped up and stiff to give a damn they were blue.
Letting the dogs out for their morning duties was going to be a real treat. Moving around today period would be a pain in the ass — well, not in her ass.
Her lips were sucked dry by the pain meds. She rubbed them together but moisture refused to surface. Even though dehydration seemed more attractive than fighting for a foothold on the stairs to the kitchen, she had to flush out her drugged-up stupor and attempt to drown the dysfunction swirling through her bloodstream.
She swung her bad leg off the sofa, her booted foot connecting with Dipstick’s head and almost knocking out the poor dog. Dipstick yelped. Roxy winced. Darling went airborne then scampered for the door, evidently realizing her master still had another foot to put to the floor.
“Oh, Dippy, Mommy’s sorry,” Roxy said reaching for the dog, who’d fallen off the sofa during the commotion.
Dipstick shook his head. His eyes rolled in their sockets like a cartoon character sans the chirping birds. Shaking off the trauma almost as fast as it had got him, he trotted across the room like a proud, battle-hardened warrior.
Well, if her dog could conquer a boot so could she. Placing her bad foot on the floor, Roxy added weight, one pound per square inch of pulsating pain. Finding stamina to maneuver her other leg off the sofa, she concentrated on its placement, careful not to get tripped up where the area rug met the hardwood. Feeling her blood rush to keep up with gravity, she stood, leaving one arm on the sofa as a safety.
“Son of a —,” she said, adjusting her weight onto her good leg. “And I gotta be ready to dance by next Wednesday night.”
Darling poked her head around the doorway of the studio, tilting her neck as if to say ‘excuse me?’
“That’s right. You heard me, Darling. This chick will be dancing in three days.” Roxy searched the room for something to brace herself with, cursing her vain refusal to accept the hospital-recommended crutches.
Seeing a broom in the corner, partly hidden by one of her shoe cases, she took a deep breath. Thanks be to God she’d spilled a bag of beads yesterday then left the broom instead of putting it where it belonged post-mess.
She still hadn’t quite gotten the hang of cleaning-up after herself. In Manhattan, everything she’d left out, magically ended up in its original spot by the time her au pair tucked her into bed. Now, every object she touched ended up a semi-permanent fixture in whatever room she last used it in. Working at Raeve all day then designing her buckle line at night, something had to give. And house-cleaning it was.
But worse than the clean-up by far was adapting to nobody being there to make her snug as a bug before bed. Nobody turned down her sheets anymore or fluffed her pillows or basically gave a damn how or if she slept tight. And yes, pathetic as it was, that kind of paid-for care was the only way she’d been used to measuring whether or not she was the least bit thought of or worthy of her family’s concern.
Roxy scoped the distance to the corner then willed herself to move. Dipstick and Darling stayed clear of her path, although they both started panting, as if cheering her to victory.
Using first a floor lamp, then her desk, followed by an over-sized chair and finally a wall for balance, Roxy hopped toward her broom, foregoing poise or grace.
Locking her hand around the broom’s wooden handle, she turned back toward her canine cheerleaders. Seeing that she’d scored, they wagged their tails.
“All right, you two.” She made her way toward them, using the broom, bristles down, in what looked like an awkward version of The Electric Slide. “Mommy will take you outside.”
Leaving Dipstick and Darling to fertilize her backyard, Roxy hobbled back to the foyer. Needing a delay tactic before she climbed the stairs to the kitchen, she decided to grab yesterday’s mail. So far, her ankle hadn’t refused to cooperate with her mind, although it didn’t seem overly amenable. Each point of pressure and the brief pierce of pain following, reminded her she was a well-coutured klutz.
She dropped her broom into the umbrella stand in the front of the foyer and opened her door. Diamond-edged sunlight fired into her eyes, each ray poking and prodding her pharmaceutical nightmare. A gorgeous southern morning she’d normally embrace with gusto, today, only intensified her massive, medicinal migraine.
Leaning against the doorframe for added support, she shielded her eyes with the back of one hand. Shoving her other hand into the mailbox affixed to the façade of her home, she yanked out the mail, failing to catch a letter nestled between two fliers.
“Shit.” She bent down to retrieve the envelope, but her equilibrium refused to equalize whatever it was supposed to, and she nearly took a nosedive into her azaleas.
Slowly righting herself with the letter clutched between her fingers, she recognized her dad’s handwriting. The sharp scratches of his penmanship clawed her ego. With the sun’s glare and without her glasses, she couldn’t make out the foreign postmark.
“Wonder what the hell he’s up to?” she said as she shuffled back inside and closed the door.
Arming herself with her broom, she fixed her eyes on the stairs and wiggled her nose. Maybe the broom, coupled with her best Bewitched-style nose twitch, would turn her stairway into an escalator.
She hummed the theme song from the show — her family chef’s and her favorite show. Duh-Duh. Duh-Duh. Duh, duh, duh, duh, duh-duh. Hearing imaginary bells tinkling in her head, she wiggled her nose again.
Nothing. The damn stairway stayed put. Promising herself she’d invest in a witchcraft manual and get the show added to her Netflix queue, Roxy gave up then stuffed the mail into a pocket on the front of her scrubs. Jabbing her broomstick into the carpet’s plush pile on the bottom step, she attacked the stairs, planning to cuss her way to the top.
She’d whipped three stairs out of nine using her broom and the mouth of a Manhattan cab driver when her phone rang. Like she’d be a
nswering any time soon. She nailed two more steps before her machine picked-up.
“Rox, it’s Mom,” her mother’s oh-so-cheery voice etched into her answering machine’s memory. “Darling, I haven’t talked to you for days. Really. It’s been days, Darling. I’m at Elizabeth Arden between my seaweed wrap and pumpkin facial peel. Then I’m scheduled for the eucalyptus steam shower. I’ll try you again later. Ciao.”
Roxy grunted her way up the last four steps.
Life was so unfair. Her mom was wrapped in seaweed, while she was wrapped in bandages and a surgical boot and relying on a broom for life support.
Or was it unfair? Roxy pondered that question as she and her broom finally landed in the kitchen. She parked the stick between two stools at her breakfast bar then stepped-and-glided her way to the refrigerator. Reaching for a carton of organic orange juice, she searched for something else to soak up the medicine coating her stomach.
Cursing the empty shelves, she slammed the door shut. Where were delivery services when you needed them? In Manhattan. That’s where. So, yes, her life on the surface appeared unfair, but she wasn’t about to trade in her freedom for a grocery service.
Since getting a glass would require making a trip across the kitchen, she drank straight from the carton. The cold juice gave her a cool resilience, shoring up her dampened courage.
Lily Vaughn never drank out of a carton or fetched her own glass. Hell, the fact a carton was a paper product excluded her mother from partaking. If a drinking vessel wasn’t Waterford crystal, it was highly improbable her mother’s bo-toxed lips had touched it.
Roxy swallowed another gulp of juice, struggled onto the seat of a bar stool, and took the mail out of her pocket. She sorted through the items, holding each piece against the end of her nose to read it. Going back downstairs to her office to retrieve her glasses just wasn’t an attractive option.
Taking the envelope with her dad’s scrawled script, she examined the postage. Hmmm. Amalfi Coast. Must be nice. Southern Italian beach towns along that stretch of sea would be beautiful this time of year, perfect for sipping Limoncello at a waterfront restaurant overlooking Capri. Perfect for dreaming about sipping Limoncello, she thought, not a bit of regret dampening her zest for her new life choices.
She slit open the letter with a knife. Removing her father’s custom stationery from its matching envelope, her hands trembled. Pressing her backside firm against the back of her stool, she braced herself before reading how she’d disappointed him — yet again.
Opening the two folds of the note, she smelled the sage and sandalwood of his cologne, not sure if the scent was real or imagined. He’d worn the same designer fragrance since she was a small girl. Once at Christmas, when she’d given him a new brand she’d picked all by herself, he’d told her he’d already discovered perfection then had her au pair exchange the gift the next day.
The same despair that crushed Roxy then, still weighed heavy in her heart. The scent of his letter had the effect of a poison seeping into her new home, a vile toxin from her past.
She may have only been 10-years-old that Christmas, but she’d forged a firm grip on her inability to measure-up to her father’s standards. As positive reinforcement for her inadequacies, her father still reminded her on a regular basis that she’d never meet his lofty standards.
Roxy positioned the note close to her eyes, willing herself to read her dad’s words.
Roxy’s tears splashed onto the paper’s fine grain. Pathetic thing was she didn’t know why she was crying. There certainly wasn’t anything new or cataclysmic about her dad’s latest diss of her life plans. Refusing to let her dad dash her dreams one more second, she wiped away a deluge of buried emotions.
With or without his support, she’d make Raeve a success. She’d never let her happiness hinge upon her family. After thirty-four years, she was fairly immune to his refusal to support her decisions. Except for the occasional crying fits she indulged in just to pamper her pride.
Sniffling, Roxy knew what she needed. She needed to be back in her studio. She’d sketch out her frustration with her next design, gather herself with the materials from her supply closet, and throw her disappointment into her work. There wasn’t any sense losing her resolve by wasting time analyzing her parent’s inadequacies. They were the ones that were messed-up. Not her.
But first, to get into the designing spirit, she’d have to fight the next staircase to find something decent to wear. The nurses had cut off her favorite pair of skinny jeans, replacing them with what they called pants and she called scratchy, cheap cotton Hell. And since having her jacket pop open again didn’t seem prudent, she’d also caved to the nurse’s pressure and worn the matching scrub top, which hung on her like an ill-fitting tunic.
Now that her head wasn’t so groggy, she remembered she’d been instructed not to get the damn boot and bandages wet. She supposed she’d also have to suck it up and take a sponge bath instead of a nice soak in the tub or steamy hot shower.
Although none of this experience registered remotely pleasurable, she was proud to fight it on her own. Spurts of gutsy bravado stiffened her spine, shielding her composure. She didn’t need anyone. No, Sir. No one. If there was one thing this stumble in life confirmed, it was that she didn’t need help. Not that she’d had that luxury since she’d outgrown her last au pair.
The shrill sound of her phone made her head gyrate like a spinning top. She looked daggers at the cordless receiver sitting in the nook across the kitchen, determined to answer it before the machine clicked-on and claimed the call. With the agility and speed of a lumbering elephant, she crossed the floor and lifted the phone from its cradle on the last ring.
“Hello,” she said then took a much-needed extra breath.
“Roxy? Is that you? Oh dear. Did I wake you?” Kat McDonald’s words were sympathetic but her rushed, excitable tone betrayed her.
There was no way this energizer bunny would call back later, letting whatever was on her mind wait. As much as Roxy admired Kat for that, she wasn’t sure she could handle all that adrenaline right now.
“Well, no, Mrs. McDonald, I was just…”
“Oh, dear, please call me Kat. Especially now that we’ll be co-workers.”
Completely irked by the ‘co-workers’ moniker, Roxy hardened her voice. “How about we discuss the details tomorrow at Raeve?”
“Oh, I’d rather discuss them today,” Kat said, adopting the misguided notion she was in charge. “And I’ll be right over anyway. Due to your injury and all, Zayne and I would like to bring you dinner this evening. How about 6:30?”
Roxy was teetering for control like a ticking bomb, fighting to disconnect her innate wiring for independence before she blew. “I’m sure Zayne has better plans.”
Roxy held her breath, hoping on account of her silence and the hesitancy she hoped that quiet moment signified that Kat would follow her lead, pause and reconsider.
“No, Zayne doesn’t have anywhere he’d rather be. So will 6:30 work?”
The woman didn’t quit, a quality Roxy would have admired if it wasn’t being used against her.
Roxy rationalized her surrender. She was starving. She had no groceries. She had a mother who chose eucalyptus steam showers over her only child and a father who chided her from an Italian seaside villa. She had no good reason to hold out. Plus, she now knew exactly who to give her broom to when she was finished. Kat McDonald would so appreciate the perceived power in that stick.
“Fine then. Six thirty it is,” Roxy said inflecting her voice with false enthusiasm primarily to convince herself she was looking forward to Kat and Zayne’s visit.
“I hope you like tomatoes, dear,” Kat said, erupting into a hoot of laughter then hanging up before Roxy could respond.
Better than fried pickles.
Chapter Eight
By five-thirty, Roxy was exhausted. Every bone in her body ached from the horrific angles she used to keep pressure off her ankle. She felt like a pretzel s
tick, twisted into frightening shapes by a delirious baker.
After taking a sponge bath from hell, she scoured her closet, shoving hangers aside, sending her frustration flying down the racks with her clothing. Nothing in her wardrobe accommodated the surgical boot except pajamas. And she’d be dead before she’d entertain Kat McDonald in flannels. Kat may be a farmer’s wife, but even she didn’t wear flannel.
Making a designer’s decision, Roxy had taken her scissors to a pair of brown linen cargo-style trousers, turning them into cargo Capri’s. Not quite satisfied, she’d added embellishments to the pockets including silver beaded patches and art deco silver and rhinestone zipper pulls. Finding a faded, muddy brown camouflaged T-shirt with metallic silver exposed seams, a perfect compliment to the dye lots in her pants, she contorted her lame duck self into the newly improvised duds.
Finally done, she turned in front of the full-length dressing mirror in the corner of her studio. Not bad for improvisation, although she wouldn’t win a challenge on America’s Top Designer.
Not like she cared about industry critiques of her work. As long as her clothes felt like her, looked like her, Roxy was pleased. Even though she’d never been able to pinpoint what that really meant she knew when she saw it.
Awkwardly turning full circle for a third time, she should be feeling the love of her design, but she wasn’t. The glare of her fluorescent white, ankle bandage must be throwing off her fashion sense.
She put her hair up, scrunching and twisting it with a tortoise shell clip, letting only a few loose tendrils trail her neck. Not her favorite look either, but it kept the strands out of her face while she tottered.
With fourteen minutes to spare, and Dipstick and Darling fed, watered and tucked inside their cages for the evening, Roxy plopped herself and her pain into her office chair. She reached for her colored pens to work on her fall Accessible Accessories line.