Starfire (Erotic Romance) (Peaches Monroe)

by Strong, Mimi

  After the kiss, we posed for a couple more shots with his arm around me.

  The photographers kept asking about the engagement ring. I held up my hand and apologized. “Getting sized,” I said. “I have fat fingers.”

  They seemed to accept this response, and, after a few more pictures, they ambled away, dispersing in all directions.

  Dalton kept his arm around me and steered me down the street. “You probably shouldn’t have said fat fingers.”

  “Are you worried they’ll make fun of my fat fingers? They’ve said much worse.”

  “Some of them were taking video. I should get you an appointment with a media advisor. It’s fine to say self-deprecating things, but never insult yourself.”

  “Fat is an adjective, not an insult.”

  He was quiet for a moment, then said, “You’re right. I’m sorry. But the world doesn’t see it that way.”

  “Who gives a fuck what the world thinks?” We crossed the street with the light.

  Still with his arm around me, but not looking me in the eyes, Dalton said, “People in the public eye care what the world thinks. They have to.”

  “Oh, right.” I chewed on my lip and thought everything through as we walked up a hill, back to where the scooter was parked. “I may not give a fuck what the world thinks about my fat fingers, but I should make an effort to present myself in a positive way, right? Like, even if I feel down, I should keep smiling so other chubby girls can dream of marrying a handsome, famous actor.”

  “Famous actors who are former porn stars.”

  “Come on, baby. You weren’t a porn star. You were a porn nobody.”

  He stopped walking abruptly and turned to me, his green eyes bright and darting around warily before focusing on me.

  “You truly have a gift for speaking the truth, whether you know it or not. You’re right. I was a porn nobody. I was a total nobody until I was invited to read for Drake Cheshire. I don’t even know how they got a hold of my number.”

  “Fate, I guess. Like when you ran into my bookstore that day.”

  He winced and pretended to be interested in the hand-carved wooden toys in the shop window behind me.

  “Confession time,” he said. “I knew you worked there. I saw you admiring the flowers outside another store the day before, and I asked the guy working there about you.”

  “I don’t understand. You ran in that day because Brooke Summer and her camera crew were chasing you.”

  “Brooke only spotted me because I’d walked up and down that street three times, trying to get up the nerve to go in.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t believe you. Stop fucking around with my reality. I want to trust you, I do, but you’re setting off my bullshit detector.”

  “You don’t believe me that I saw you and fell in love at first sight?”

  I pressed my lips together to stop the “no” from flying out.

  His chest rose with a deep breath, and he gazed off into the distance. “Peaches, if you don’t believe it, the press never will.”

  “What the hell?” I pushed him back, my palms striking his chest hard.

  “What? You can say whatever you want, but I can’t? You’re supposed to be helping my cause, not making a scene over fucking orchids, like some spoiled bitch on a Real Housewives show.”

  “I think I liked you better when you were spouting all the corny lines from your scripts. The things you actually come up with yourself betray your stupidity.”

  His eyebrow quirked up to match the corner of his smirking mouth. “I liked you better when you were on your knees.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him. “Where’s Vern? I want to go home.”

  “Let’s take the scooter back to the hotel.”

  “Fuck the scooter!”

  “I knew you didn’t like the scooter. Why didn’t you just say so back at the hotel instead of being all tight-lipped and saying the scooter was fine?”

  “I didn’t want to be difficult!” I yelled.

  “This truly is a spectacular effort you’re making to not be difficult!”

  “It’s not easy being this easygoing!”

  He started waving his hands excitedly, still yelling, “Thanks a lot for your valiant efforts to be easygoing!”

  “Your shirt is stupid and full of holes! Why do you take so long to get dressed only to pick a stupid shirt with holes?”

  “This shirt cost two hundred dollars! And I’m not stupid!”

  I turned, looking around for something to throw. Another bucket of dog water sat a few steps away.

  Just as I was reaching for the white bucket, Dalton shoulder-checked me. “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, grabbing for the bucket first.

  I tried to take the bucket from him, and succeeded only in dousing myself with the water, soaking my skirt.

  The empty bucket clattered to the sidewalk.

  Dalton slowly backed away. “You did that to yourself,” he said.

  I tried my best to shoot exploding laser beams from my eyes at him, but found myself lacking in superpowers.

  “You take the stupid scooter back,” I spat out. “Call Vern and get him to pick me up here.” I pointed to the coffee shop on the corner.

  Dalton put his hands in his pockets, calmer now and hunching his shoulders. He didn’t say he was sorry, but he did look sorry.

  “You’re sure?” he asked. “We’ve still got a couple hours to sightsee.”

  “I’m sure.” I turned around and started walking to the coffee shop, grumbling about how I wasn’t sure, not about Vern picking me up, not about marrying Dalton, and not about anything.

  I walked to the cafe without looking back.

  My jean skirt had taken the brunt of the aqua assault, so I visited the restroom inside the cafe and slipped it off and into my purse. I removed my belt and smoothed out my blue tunic to cover my butt. Clad in the thin gray leggings, I was showing a little more thigh than usual, but shedding a layer felt liberating.

  I walked out of the bathroom unsure what had happened and what I was going to do next.

  The coffee smelled good.

  I ordered a mocha at the counter, and when I turned around, I realized getting my drink in a mug was a mistake, because every table was taken.

  A dark haired, older man waved to me, catching my eye. He beckoned for me to join him at his table, so I did. He explained, in broken English, that he found the residents of San Francisco so friendly and welcoming.

  “I’m just visiting,” I said. “I’m a tourist myself, from Washington State. That’s north of here.”

  He looked confused, his white-flecked dark eyebrows knitting together. “But you look so… what is word… comforting.”

  “Comfortable.” I nodded, smiling. “I’ve been traveling more lately.”

  Another man with dark hair, much younger—maybe nineteen—joined us.

  “I’m Arturo,” the handsome young man said, reaching out to shake my hand.

  “Chelsea,” I replied, blushing over my lie.

  Arturo turned to the older man. “Dad, I leave you alone for five minutes, and you’ve got the prettiest girl in all of San Francisco to come sit at our table.”

  I fanned my face, trying to be modest, but eating up the compliments.

  Arturo didn’t have a thick accent like his father, but he certainly was Italian. The compliments didn’t stop, and neither did his eyes, scouring my face, my eyes, my jaw, my hair, my collarbone, my breasts, and my hands as I self-consciously reached for my mug.

  The two were investigating a business opportunity for their family business back in Italy. As they told me a little about their home, and life in the Italian countryside, I wondered if my friend and former lover Keith Raven was meeting strangers at that very moment and discussing the same. For a moment, talking to these visitors, I felt a connection with Keith, and a warmth.

  Keith had described our time together in such positive terms. When I left for the airport, he said he could feel me sparkling in
his heart, like a diamond.

  As Arturo and his father playfully competed for my attention, I felt what Keith had described. A brightness.

  Time passed quickly, and soon a familiar-looking man was hovering near the table.

  “This is my friend Vern!” I announced, and introduced him to the Italian men.

  Vern nodded to the door. “We’ll be chasing the light,” he said politely.

  I went to shake the Italian guys’ hands goodbye, but they both stood as I stood, and insisted on kissing me on the cheeks.

  As I exited the cafe with Vern, the cool air and quiet outside made me realize how noisy the cafe had been. A singer with a guitar had started playing on a small stage about thirty minutes earlier, and everyone had carried on at a louder volume.

  The convivial meeting in the cafe was exactly the kind of experience you want to have when you’re traveling, yet not the kind of thing you can ever plan or seek. Isn’t it so beautiful that the best moments in life are this way?

  Not that I didn’t have a good time with Dalton… mixed with some bad times, and let’s not forget the weird.

  “Thanks for coming to get me,” I said to Vern. “We were shopping for flowers, and then—”

  “No explanation needed. I understand how Mr. Deangelo can be.”

  “This disaster might be on me.” I let out a big sigh that morphed into a self-aware laugh. “The funny thing is, when we got here, I was making dire predictions about a disaster, and then it happened.”

  “We reap what we sow.” He held open the back door of the large truck.

  Dalton was not inside the vehicle.

  “Are we picking him up at the hotel?” I asked as I got settled into my seat.

  “No.” Vern closed the door and left me hanging as he walked around to the passenger side.

  I asked, “Is he meeting us at the airport?”

  Vern adjusted the rear view mirror to make eye contact with me. His eyes looked sad, viewed apart from the rest of his face.

  “He’s catching a commercial flight back to LA.”

  “But we didn’t say goodbye.”

  “He asked me to give you this.” Vern handed back an envelope. “I packed your luggage for you and everything’s in the back. We’ll be going straight to the airport from here, and I’ll have you back home in time for a late dinner, unless you’d like to pick something up quickly here?”

  I mumbled that the original plan sounded good, and we started driving.

  I tore open the envelope and pulled out a commercial greeting card with a frog on the front. The frog wore a tie, so clearly it was a boy frog.

  The caption under the boy frog said: I’ve got something to say!

  Inside was a giant RIBBIT in puffy letters.

  Underneath that was a smaller line in red text: In other words, I’m sorry. Can you forgive me?

  The card was hand-signed Dalton, a.k.a. D-Man.

  Dalton’s signature was the only thing that hadn’t been pre-printed on the card.

  “This is terrible,” I said.

  Vern heard me mumble and asked if I need anything or had any questions.

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  I stared down at the card with the frog, in all of its terribleness. It was exactly like something my father would give my mother—that’s how bad it was.

  But the dumb card was better than nothing.

  As we drove, I started to get doubts.

  Did I actually deserve an apology, regardless of how terrible the apology was? The cause of our recent fight didn’t seem obvious, in retrospect. First, I’d insulted his moth-eaten shirt. But he’d sprung some new information on me about stalking me. And I’d called him a liar, which was possibly true, but unsubstantiated. Then he’d tossed dog water on me before I could toss it on him. He did have a point that I should have said something sooner about the scooter, but I honestly had been trying to be easygoing.

  And now I had a RIBBIT card.

  I didn’t know whether to tear the card in half and toss it out the window, or put both card and torn envelope carefully in my purse with my wet jean skirt, to take home and start a scrapbook with.

  CHAPTER 22

  I brought the RIBBIT card with me to work on Monday morning.

  A few times during the day, I’d pull out the card just to look at it. Holding the card in my hands made me feel like a kid at the end of a fantasy movie—the kind of movie where everyone says the events were just a dream, yet the girl unfurls her hand to find a shimmering, magical feather.

  The RIBBIT card was my magical feather, and Dalton was real. The engagement was both fake and real at the same time. Thinking about that made my whole body ache.

  At twelve-fifteen, things were going fine at the store when I got hit with a Lunch Break Returner.

  I wiggled my toes inside my shoes to keep from screaming.

  Lunch Break Returners are all about Getting All The Fucking Things Done, especially on Mondays.

  If you open a retail business yourself some day, take my advice and find a way to not be there between twelve and one o’clock on Mondays. Put a scarecrow behind the counter, leave the door unlocked while you go for coffee, and put a help-yourself bucket of cash next to the cash register—like the honor-system candy buckets some people put out at Halloween.

  Let them serve themselves.

  The woman said, dramatically, “I was shocked and horrified by some of the words in this book.”

  “Yes, I understand.” (She’d already stated the reason for the return, unprompted, several times.)

  Like most Lunch Break Returners, she wore business casual dress and pumps that were a size too small, judging by the way she shifted back and forth on her feet. She probably wore the pumps into the office and kicked them off under her desk for most of the day. As I pondered all of this, I frowned inwardly that my keen insights into the habits of Beaverdale bookstore customers had very little value in the non-bookstore job market.

  I asked, “Would you like the refund on your credit card, or store credit?”

  She huffed, “Store credit, of course. It’s not YOUR fault these publishers allow words like this in books these days.”

  I could tell she really wanted me to ask her about the specific words, but I wasn’t playing the game that day.

  Slipping my hand into my purse, under the counter, I felt the raised lines of the word RIBBIT inside my card. It wasn’t a dream! I really was engaged to a famous actor, with a fabulous non-retail life ahead of me. Unless this was the dream, and Dalton was the dream within the dream.

  “Will this store credit even be valid at the new location?” the woman asked, her voice sharp with suspicion.

  “Nope. And we’re starting the move tomorrow, so you’ll have to use it before six o’clock today.”

  Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. (You should never joke around in retail, especially not where the customer’s money is concerned.)

  “Kidding!” I added quickly. “Of course the credit is good at our fabulous new location, and I hope you’ll come and shop often. We’re putting in a section of audiobooks.”

  She said huffily, “Good. Your new location is more convenient for me, because my hairdresser is on that block. I don’t know why this store is all the way over here. There’s never any parking.”

  I glanced out the window reflexively, then held my lips tightly together as I looked at the unobstructed view of a street with over half the parking spots wide open.

  Honestly, one of the biggest obstacles I’ve had to overcome to be a decent retail employee is to resist the overwhelming urge to state the fucking obvious to people. For example, they’ll walk in as I’m sweating and dusty from organizing shelves and unloading boxes, and they’ll comment on how nice it must be to sit and read books all day.

  Your job as a retail employee is not to tell the truth during small talk.

  Your job is to be friendly and put the money in the register, while only speaking the truth about your fine product
s, which you stand behind one hundred percent. If you happen to sell crap you don’t believe in… good luck with that.

  I gave the woman one of our new postcards with the new location’s address. She left with a smile on her face, which made me feel good. I hadn’t been completely ruined by fame! I still had the retail touch.

  The rest of the day passed quickly.

  Adrian came in at quarter to six and brought the sandwich board inside with him.

  “Let’s close up shop,” he said.

  “But it’s not six yet.” I trotted quickly to the area behind the counter, putting the furniture between us. I’d been meaning to talk to him about my engagement to another man, but hadn’t found the right time, or gotten drunk enough.

  He replied, “Have it your way. I’ll hang out here and we can count down the final minutes, like they do on New Year’s Eve.”

  “Don’t say that. You’re going to make me all nostalgic and weepy.”

  He rested his elbows on the counter and leaned across to kiss me hello. I reached under the counter and quickly tucked my frog card away and zipped up my purse, then pretended to get distracted by the special orders shelf needing adjustment.

  “Did you forget about our date tonight?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” I lied.

  He kept staring at me, his blue eyes darting from my eyes to my lips, as though he might be able to read my weekend activities on my face.

  I crossed my arms and tried to put on a poker face.

  “How’s Cujo?” I asked. “Still wearing the Cone of Shame?”

  Adrian laughed, his smile relaxing his face and making me relax, too.

  “Except for meal time,” he said. “We left the cone on for his first dinner at home, and he scooped all the soft dog food into the cone by accident. Then he could smell the food, but couldn’t reach it with his mouth, so he was like this, trying to get it with his tongue lolling out.” Adrian tilted his head and lolled his own tongue out while whimpering.

  I had to laugh. “Poor little man. I need to see him soon so I can thank him for being my hero.”